The Eternal Kingdom (The Children Trilogy Book 3)

by Ben Peek

  Heast could not understand it. ‘A god is not like us,’ he said. ‘Surely that has become evident to you?’

  ‘She – yeah, yeah. It . . . the things we did. The things she asked us to do.’ He fell silent and closed his eyes. His chest still moved, however. ‘He was a teacher,’ Dural said, finally. ‘The General. Waalstan. He was a teacher in Ranan. He taught children language. How to write. He had never been a soldier. I don’t know if he was a good teacher. I never had kids, but he – she made him different. When she began to speak to us. All of us. When the first priests began to come out. When they started to speak against the old king. She awoke something in him. I thought it was a gift, at first, but now I think maybe she awoke a madness in him. He would do what she said, but he would forget things. He would wake in the morning and you would think he might be horrified by what he had done. But he never – he never questioned her. He was always loyal. Even when she told him to order everyone to douse themselves in oil. To set themselves alight. A lot of us didn’t want to do that. We – I mean, it wasn’t disloyalty. It was fear. It was – who sets themselves alight, Captain?’

  ‘You didn’t,’ Heast said gently. ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘My faith was not . . . not that strong.’ Dural closed his eyes. ‘Waalstan told us to be strong, but not even he could convince all of us. We would fight for him, but – but to set yourself on fire? Some of them died – the screams.’ His hand spasmed again. ‘I thought she loved us, Captain. Until then, I thought our god preferred us over everyone. I felt her love inside me. It was guiding, but – but when she told us to set ourselves on fire, how can that be love? You burn a man if you hate him. That’s what you do. You burn a man because you hate him.’ His breath expelled so loudly that Heast half expected it to be filled with smoke. ‘What kind of god does that?’

  ‘One we don’t need.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You get some rest, Dural,’ Heast said. ‘You think of anything else, you tell it to me, or to anyone else. Don’t hold it in.’

  ‘She keeps the dead,’ he muttered. ‘She’ll find me. She’ll . . .’

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, the soldier stared up into the night sky, into the stars and moon and darkness, where whatever thought he had extended itself beyond the ears of those who stood around him, carried by lips that moved silently.

  6.

  The water from the Black Lake stung, but Ayae used a handful of it to wash her face, regardless. It was better than feeling as if she was wearing a mask of mud.

  She hurt, but not as much as she should, really. Her hands were cut, her shirt torn and soggy where her armour didn’t run, and there was scarring over the leather where it did, but the worst was her back. It felt as if one long single bruise ran along her spine but, considering what she had just been through, Ayae was thankful that it was no more than that. She was not alone in how she had fared: with the exception of Jae’le, the others moved just as stiffly as she did. Jae’le, however, was completely unharmed, and Ayae’s first memory after she landed was of him, lifting her out of the shallow water she lay in. He carried her as if she were a child. She remembered seeing Tinh Tu on the shore, first. The old woman stripped off her muddy robe and stood naked in the fading afternoon’s light, her body a patchwork of wrinkles and cuts and muscle. Eidan sat not far from her on a broken stump, his clothes a mix of dirt and cuts, and his face a map of scars, mud and matted hair.

  It had been he who asked how she was.

  ‘Exhausted,’ Jae’le had said. He had knelt and laid her down on a dry patch of ground. ‘She has fewer injuries than either of you.’

  ‘We are only alive because of her,’ Tinh Tu said.

  ‘Or because of the gods,’ Eidan murmured. ‘Remember the painting in the cave.’

  ‘It does not diminish what Ayae did.’ Jae’le rose, a dark shape above her. ‘But yes, what we saw did suggest we would survive,’ he said. ‘But we are not without our own power to shape what happens next.’

  ‘Are we to be gods again, then?’ Tinh Tu asked.

  ‘No, I speak instead of the relationship between the gods and the mortals. It is one in which one creates and one decides.’ Jae’le moved and revealed to Ayae the seething mass of the Mountains of Ger, the earth and debris of their collapse rising high into the night air, unformed but signalling destruction. ‘It is entirely possible that the gods meant for us to die. I can imagine dozens of fates where we are crushed beneath the mountain. And just as many where one, or more of us, do not escape. But those fates are no more. We have survived that. Our actions have made those fates non-existent.’

  ‘Unless there is only one fate,’ Eidan said. ‘If that is so, it’s a fate none of us will survive.’

  Ayae had faded into an exhausted sleep and the sound of their voices, of their discussion, was one that worked its way into her dreams.

  When she had awoken, she walked down to the lake. The midday’s sun was high in the sky, but it struggled to reveal the entirety of the mountainous ruins across the lake from her. Close to her, Ayae could see broken slabs of stone scattered along the shore and in the water of the Black Lake. Pieces of the Spine of Ger lay in the middle, the smooth stone of the bridge looking like the bones of a mountain, broken and splintered. Beyond the lake, the dust hung heavily, and Ayae could not be sure just how bad the damage was, how much the mountain peaks had collapsed into themselves.

  But she knew Mireea was gone.

  She could not imagine any series of events where the damaged city had survived. She could envision the holes throughout the city widening, the broken cobbled road coming apart as the mountain sought to devour everything it had not already destroyed, from the half-submerged hotels to the broken barracks and unharmed houses. Her house. She could see it lying in a crevasse, broken like an egg, its contents spilled across the ground around it.

  ‘I owe you a debt. The three of us do.’ Eidan had come up behind her silently. ‘We would not have been able to escape without you.’

  ‘I didn’t hold the mountain, light our way, or ensure that you were not left behind.’

  ‘Still. I thank you.’ He nodded to the mountain. ‘It can be repaired. Your home, that is.’

  Could it? ‘Maybe it should be left,’ she said. ‘Maybe a new history should be allowed to take hold in its place.’

  ‘You cannot make a new world at the expense of another. I know that well.’ He turned to the small camp that they had made. ‘We have visitors.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Come and see.’

  She did not expect to find Miat Dvir and the Saan but, at the sight of them, a heavy sadness rose within her. She could tell they had seen battle, for many of the soldiers were bandaged around their arms, chests and heads. The Lord of the Saan was no different: his right arm was strapped to his chest, clearly broken. Yet, as Ayae drew closer, she saw that not all of the soldiers were from the Saan. Yeflam and Mireean soldiers lingered on the edges of the group, but there was no sense of order in them, of being part of a force. She knew, just by the sight of them, that Xrie was dead.

  ‘He was killed by the Innocent.’ It was Vyla Dvir who spoke. She did so in a heavy voice, her eyes haunted. ‘My husband saw him fall. He claims that he had never seen a swordsman so quick and so deadly as Aela Ren. The Blade Prince did not even have time to draw his sword.’ Beside her, Miat Dvir nodded stiffly and, closer now, Ayae saw the heavy, dark bruising around his jaw. ‘But it was not just the Innocent who killed. His soldiers did as well and they are also terrifying figures. We had a larger force, a well-armed force, and yet to them, our soldiers were nothing. They allowed swords to pierce their bodies, would break blades in their hands, before they crushed the bones of their enemies.’

  ‘You should not have fought them,’ Tinh Tu said, sitting before Vyla. Jae’le stood behind his sister, unsurprised by anything said. ‘The Innocent’s soldiers are like him. They cannot die.’

  ‘The cartographer, Samuel Orlan, t
old us the same,’ she said, startling Ayae. ‘He was sent to issue a duel, but he urged us to turn around, to ride away. The mercenary captain agreed with him, but my husband and the other captains thought it was cowardice. He accused the mercenary of wanting more gold to be a soldier.’

  ‘Did Samuel die?’ Ayae asked.

  She shook her head. ‘He returned to the Innocent’s soldiers. He said that he was a prisoner, but he would not elaborate as to why he was given the task of delivering this message.’

  ‘How much of your force did you lose?’ Tinh Tu asked.

  ‘Nearly half,’ Vyla said, turning back to her.

  ‘We cannot win.’ Miat Dvir’s voice was a painful mumble, yet he persisted. ‘Not how we are. Not now.’

  ‘You could never win.’

  ‘We appeal to you.’ He looked not at Tinh Tu, but Jae’le. ‘You were once a great general. We of the Saan know this.’

  ‘I no longer lead armies,’ he said.

  A loud squawk startled those nearest and, from high up in the sky, a large white raven began to descend. ‘I lead our armies,’ Tinh Tu said. The bird settled on a grey branch above her. ‘If you wish to petition any of us, you must do so to me.’

  ‘You are no general,’ Miat said in his painful mumble. ‘You are an old woman. You cannot strike fear into an enemy. You cannot lead us to our victory, to our honour.’

  ‘Kneel.’

  The Lord of the Saan appeared, briefly, as if he were confused, for Tinh Tu’s voice had been soft, but the command was undeniable. The word kneel echoed in the minds of everyone who was in hearing distance, the word containing not a simple command, but a power, an urge, a need that had to be responded to. Unable to resist, Miat Dvir stumbled awkwardly from where he sat, and lowered himself to his knee. He began to speak, but Tinh Tu, with a shake of her head, said, ‘No.’

  Her second command resulted in a look of horror on Dvir. He could not speak and as he realized that, the warriors close to him rose. They drew their swords, but Tinh Tu, who saw them advance, was unconcerned. In her quiet voice, she said, ‘You will kneel.’ As each of them did, she looked beyond them, out to the Saan, the Mireean and the Yeflam soldiers. ‘You will all kneel,’ she said, her voice an awful force that the soldiers were unable to deny.

  7.

  The dust followed Bueralan and the god-touched to Ranan.

  It had not been easy to convince Essa to search for Heast. The sight of his wound, mending cleanly despite the dirt that clung to everything, helped what he said, but Essa was a career soldier. He gathered his fallen. He retreated in organized parts. He said to Bueralan, ‘You couldn’t convince Heast to abandon that, either.’

  ‘Choices matter.’ He waved into the dust, towards the Mountains of Ger. ‘They just aren’t your choices. Trust me. Our new god makes her world, and the old gods make theirs. You die here, you aren’t there for the final battle.’ His breath caught, but not with earth or debris. ‘You won’t be in Ranan with Heast.’

  ‘Choices don’t matter, except the choice I make right here?’ Essa spat onto the ground. ‘You cursed?’

  ‘Not in any way you mean.’

  In the end, Bueralan was not sure what convinced the Captain of the Brotherhood to give the order to mount up. It had not been his mention of Refuge. Essa had not blinked at that. He did grunt when Bueralan mentioned Onaedo, but he was not convinced it was that, either. It was not until he had gone, until Bueralan had walked back into the dust towards the road and began to find bodies, that he understood. He bent down to the dirt-choked wounds, to the slit throats, the emptied stomachs and the opened eyes. There was no one alive. The Innocent and his soldiers had left only the dead.

  Between the waddling dust-stained swamp crows, there were tracks of soldiers who had fled to the south, away from Essa’s escape, but Bueralan did not pursue them. He continued through the dead and followed the road back to the camp of the night before. The swamp crows skittered and flapped out of his way but did not rise into the air, as they had done earlier.

  After a while, he turned and gazed at the broken shape of the Mountains of Ger. Dust left it hazy, but even through that unclear filter, he could see that the familiar line of peaks was gone, collapsed into a mountain range that resembled a broken spine. Bueralan had heard it said, a long time ago, that the Spine of Ger, the great stone wall that ran through the mountains, had followed the actual spine of the dead god. He had always considered it a detail of poetics, a detail not at all true, but which, when said, added an undefined quality to the mountain range. But now, gazing at it through the dirt, recognizing how the lost ridges appeared to follow the stone wall, he believed it. The spine of Ger had finally broken, the bone rotting until it could no longer support the god’s body and his cairn.

  Aela Ren and his soldiers were at the camp, grimy and bloody but unharmed. Orlan sat on a log in front of the two greys and Bueralan began to walk towards him. He was stopped, however, by the sight of the hulking pierced creature that Se’Saera had sent from Gtara. It, like the rest of them, was covered in dirt, but the black-eyed boy the god had sent with it was relatively clean. Startled by that, it took Bueralan a moment to realize that, on the ground before the two was the body of a red-haired, charm-laced man.

  Zaifyr.

  ‘He is not dead,’ Aela Ren said, approaching him. ‘He does, however, sail on the River of the Dead. Or thereabouts.’

  ‘How did they find him?’

  ‘They were given him, in the mountains. The child has said that an old man gave him to them. The old man said he knew me but refused to give his name.’

  ‘It is entirely possible that he doesn’t know his name.’ Orlan had left the two horses. ‘We met him in Dirtwater,’ he said to Bueralan.

  The same old man who had waited for him when he stumbled out of the Mountains of Ger, who had waited with mounts, boots and a sword.

  ‘He always claimed that Taane had given him a set of tasks,’ the Innocent said. ‘From the end of the war, he said that. But he was mad, and I could never tell if it was true or not.’

  ‘He hates Se’Saera.’ The cartographer’s use of the god’s name did not go unnoticed by either of the men near him. ‘Why would he do this?’

  ‘He was never a complete man. In many ways, being Taane’s servant left him a collection of parts. In one breath, he would be terribly lucid, and in another, he would want only to harm himself. It is not impossible to imagine that he reaches out to us, even as he pushes us away.’ Ren turned away from the lifeless, but healthy body of Zaifyr. ‘You will take him back to Ranan,’ he said. ‘Take him to Se’Saera.’

  As if the dust and dirt had settled into his mind, slowing him, Bueralan did not immediately realize that he was being given an order. ‘Where will you be?’

  ‘I am to retrieve General Waalstan’s body,’ Ren said. ‘Se’Saera has given me the location of his final battle. It was in a town called Celp, to the north-east.’ A strange note entered his voice. ‘He was killed by a group of mercenaries who go by the name of Refuge.’

  A chill ran through Bueralan. He thought of Essa, of the Brotherhood, riding out of the dust and into Faaisha, shadowing Aela Ren’s path.

  ‘I see both of you have heard of it before,’ the Innocent said. ‘It was a name that we knew in Sooia, as well.’

  ‘There has not been a Refuge for a long time,’ Samuel Orlan said, carefully. ‘I doubt that it is led by anyone who can claim the name honestly.’

  Ren shrugged. ‘We will see.’

  ‘I can go with you,’ Bueralan began, but Ren shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You can make no argument that will convince me, either. Both of you will be needed in Ranan, especially now. Taela’s time draws close.’

  Bueralan caught his next words, swallowed dirt instead. He would not leave Taela, not now, not as she gave birth. He would be there, to apologize, to admit that he had been unable to discover a way out of Se’Saera’s grasp, a way for her to be free. He would hold her h
and. He would do what he had to do, after she had given birth.

  The thought, like the dust, accompanied him to Ranan, a second skin of dirt and grit, one that he would never be able to scrub clean.

  8.

  Eilona sat on the deck of The Frozen Shackle beside Caeli and wished she had a bottle of laq with her. Just one bottle. A glass would not even be necessary.

  Her return to the ship had been swift. After Faje had shown her the poor tortured ‘cursed’, he had led her down the flights of stairs, past the dark, snaking form of the press, and out into the street where Nymar Alahn and the Faithful waited. Not one of them said a word. They simply formed an escort around her and returned her to Nymar’s carriage. From there, she was taken to the Spires of Alati. At the midpoint of the bridge, Eilona’s hands began to shake, and she folded them in her lap, hiding her weakness from Nymar. He had said nothing to her since Rje, but sat across from her with a new confidence she found repelling. Before the carriage entered the estate, she decided that, when it stopped, she would demand Caeli be brought to her. But, as the gate opened and the carriage drew up to the house, the other woman was already waiting outside. Beside her stood two guards, one of whom held her sword. Wordlessly, Nymar’s guards marched her to the carriage. One handed Caeli’s sword to Nymar, who laid it across his lap and sat comfortably across from the two women as the carriage left the estate. No one in the carriage spoke until they were in Burata, until the long stone docks that ran out like limbs into Leviathan’s Blood presented themselves. There, Nymar gave her a letter for his father, returned Caeli’s sword to her and bid the pair of them farewell.