Crys found himself laughing, then apologising for laughing. He helped Vaunt to stand, canted over to one side to take the pressure off his new wound. ‘All right, you stay here and anchor the line, you’re not going to be moving at speed with that … injury. I’ll be back soon with more men and we’ll fill this breach with soldiers. Just hold, you hear me?’ He stared into Vaunt’s eyes and could almost see a tiny glint of yellow that might have been his own, reflected in Vaunt’s. ‘Hold.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Vaunt said and practically saluted him.
‘I’ll find some linen,’ Crys called back over his shoulder as he turned, ‘though how you bandage an arse, I do not know.’ Vaunt advised him to do something unmentionable to himself, and Crys grinned and jogged away over the breach, picking his way among the fallen slabs of stone to Mace’s position. It was easier if he didn’t really think about anything, and the thing seemed content to let him.
‘General, we’re going to—’ Colonel Dorcas squawked and thrust a pike at him; Crys slipped it and jerked it out of his hands.
‘Major Tailorson of the West, or maybe Palace, I don’t really know,’ Crys said hurriedly. He frowned. ‘Didn’t you see me coming?’
‘What do you want?’ Mace snarled and Crys knew he was a long way from being forgiven for Durdil still being dead. Lim and now Mace hate me. Perfect.
‘Sir, we’re forming a line to hold the breach. Kill those who come up in front of us, get civilians if possible building fortifications behind us. A wall within the breach. Then we can fall back over it – probably quite literally – and defend from relative safety. The line only extends halfway so far and I’ve seen Raiders slipping between it and your position. Vaunt’s anchoring my end. I need men – these men – to fill the breach and stand firm.’
Mace squinted across the breach. ‘A line? Where?’
Crys turned and pointed to the line of men he could plainly see. ‘There, sir, right there.’ Part of his brain was asking why he was the only one able to see them, but it was such a tiny question in the sea of mysteries he let it be. The thing inside stretched, self-satisfied and gleeful.
Are you coming out? he asked it as Mace conferred with Dorcas.
There is no ‘you’ and ‘I’, remember? There’s only us. And we’re doing beautifully.
‘I say.’ Dorcas tapped him on the arm while Mace spoke to a runner. ‘Did you know your eyes are glowing? Bright yellow, like an animal’s. Really quite remarkable.’
‘Down,’ Crys roared instead of answering him, throwing himself on top of Mace, one flailing hand catching Dorcas and pulling him off-balance. Mace hit hard, and Crys hit Mace even harder, the two of them practically bouncing on the slope as the lone arrow arced overhead and clattered among the stones.
Crys eeled down the other side of the breach looking for the archer. There were so many corpses down here that it wouldn’t be too hard for an enterprising assassin to conceal himself among them. And if the others really were as blind as they seemed …
There was a twitch of movement and Crys pulled his knife, rose on to fingers and toes, and launched himself at the not-corpse. Twang of a bowstring and an arrow whipping past so close the tail feathers burnt his ear, and he was on him, thrashing through the rubble, vambrace jammed against his windpipe, knife hand clutched in the Mireces’ straining fist.
The thing inside filled him, full to bursting with clarity, with energy and sight and hearing, all his senses exploding into life, the shock of it nearly his undoing. He saw the Raider’s face clear as a bright spring morning, saw the hate twisting his mouth and the desperation in his eyes. Crys leant harder on his forearm, pressing the man’s neck into the stone, cutting off his air. He twisted his right hand free and stabbed into the armpit, three short, fast blows that stole his strength. The man fell still and Crys opened his throat to finish him, then crouched on top of him and stared at the slope of stone, saw the hundreds of Mireces and Easterners climbing stealthily, slowly, inch by inch, up the rubble. Protected by the dark.
Not from us, you’re not.
He turned his back on them and stared up. Mace and Dorcas were calling for him. ‘Finish that godsdamn front,’ he roared at them, heard Mace repeat the order and the scuffle of boots picking their way towards Vaunt and the shaky line of flesh and steel that was all that stood between the enemy and the city.
Crys looked again across the slope, chose his target and began to move, placing his feet with the surety of a mountain goat, his vision clear in the night. He couldn’t get them all, but he could pick off enough to slow the advance.
Rippling with energy, the Fox God slid among the enemy and began to kill.
THE BLESSED ONE
Beltane, night, day forty-two of the siege
Mireces encampment, outside Rilporin, Wheat Lands
Lanta paced the tent in a swirl of blue skirts, Dom unconscious and yet raving on her own cot, arms flailing, legs twitching as though he’d been poisoned.
‘Shut up!’ she shrieked when she could bear it no longer. The physician, Barra, leapt in the air, and then leant hurriedly back over his charge. Lanta had insisted he tend the Godblind, though there appeared little that could be done for him.
She was here, in our world, Her feet in Gilgoras once more. Her glory blinding. And Holy Gosfath, our Red Father. She was here and She spoke to me and it was sweet. So sweet.
It had been more than Lanta could have possibly imagined, more than she had dared to dream. And it was the Godblind who stood at Their side.
Yes. And now it is the Godblind who lies there shattered, a broken prophet, a slave. It is the Lady’s will and my feet are on the Path.
‘How is he?’ she snapped when another interminable hour had crawled by and the ravings had lessened to breathy mutterings.
Barra flinched. ‘He lives, Blessed One. The blood has stopped leaking from his ear now, and he sleeps peacefully. His other wounds are treated.’ He pointed a trembling finger at the slit in the man’s trousers, where Rivil’s knife had entered his thigh, then the face. Wounds the Dark Lady Herself had burnt shut, black and scabby now, but sealed.
‘Then disturb him no further. Get out.’ Barra snatched up his things, sketched a bow and ran for the exit. Lanta watched him go with a curl to her lip.
Fatigue clawed at her. The gods’ visit had drained her, the endlessness of the siege and the interminable screaming of the wounded a constant grate against her nerves. She longed for sleep, but her people needed her – and the Godblind had her fucking bed.
‘Godblind, wake up.’ She slapped his face. ‘What have you seen? Tell me everything.’
As her hand came back for another slap he awoke, his gaze bloodshot and sunken and burning with mania. ‘She was here, wasn’t She, Blessed One? Wasn’t She here?’
Lanta’s mouth curved. ‘She was, Godblind. You stood by Her side and She granted you much, pain and pleasure both. She stood in Gilgoras with Her Brother-Lover and stamped Her claim once more upon its fields and forests.’
He seized her hand, his own weak and palsied, clammy. Lanta grimaced but didn’t pull away. ‘She was here, and She is here too.’ He put his free hand on Lanta’s chest and then his own. ‘Always.’ He moaned, his right eyelid flickering.
‘What did you see?’ she asked again.
‘The hidden thing wakes,’ he said. ‘The hidden thing makes itself known. It moves, and it begins to guide its allies.’
‘What is it?’
The Godblind pouted. ‘She’s not the only god moving in Gilgoras,’ he said. He pushed himself up on to one elbow, facing Lanta, and she leant back from the brush of his sour breath. ‘The Fox God enters the great game, hidden in a man, but beginning to emerge.’ He circled a finger in the air. ‘Kill Him, and none will ever stand before you.’
‘And do you know this man? Who is he? How can we recognise him?’ Lanta demanded, excitement buzzing through her fingertips. She stroked his cheek, unmindful of his old sweat now, the lingering taint of blood and t
he beginnings of rot.
The Godblind giggled, crazed and fever-bright. ‘You met him once, when you sacrificed his prince to the Red Gods.’ He tapped his cheeks below his eyes. ‘One blue. One brown. Splitsoul. Godlight. The hope of all children of Light.’
Lanta looked away from those maddening brown pools, vortexes into a world of torment she could not begin to imagine. She remembered the man. The gallant captain. So gallant he knelt and watched it happen, did nothing. Still, I must find him. I will.
‘Where is he now? Right now?’ she asked. The Godblind mewled and shrank back from her, palms pressed to either side of his head. ‘Hush, I know. But this is your purpose. It is who and what you are. A tool left unused rusts. We must keep you sharp. Seek him.’
‘You give me no chance to rust, honoured,’ he mumbled in a dying show of futile defiance. The pupil of his right eye was blown wide. The better to see into the realm of the gods?
‘Where is the Fox God?’
His breath hitched and warbled, fingers curling into claws as he rolled on to his side, drawing his knees up to his chest. ‘Rilporin,’ he said after a pause. ‘He’s on the breach, on the curtain wall.’
Lanta slapped her fist into her palm and rose to her feet, stalking the tent. ‘Of course. And if we’d known this earlier, we could have told Corvus before he left for the city. He would’ve made it a priority to find and kill him. The East Rank is on the breach. They can kill him. Can’t they?’
The man moaned again, head rolling on the blanket, denying her. ‘Please don’t,’ he whispered, jagged. ‘Please no more. Let me rest. Rust.’
‘Tell me whether the East Rank can kill the Fox God, and then you can sleep,’ she said, her tone softer than any Mireces had ever heard it.
‘They will fail; even now He slaughters them, a thief of life stalking the black. Take the city, as you have already planned to do, despite the losses He and the defenders will inflict.’ The Godblind paused, coughed, his skin grey and his eyes sunken. ‘He’ll be in the city somewhere, fighting, doing something … tricksy. Take Him and win.’
Lanta nodded and wiped her palms on her skirts. ‘Take the city,’ she murmured. She left him on her bed and exited the tent, staring at the orange-lit city across the stinking camp. The Fox God had clothed Himself in mortal flesh to aid the Rilporians and the whore Rillirin was carrying the Godblind’s child. A child that could mend or end the world and all their hopes.
The war was being fought on more fronts than any common warrior could hope to comprehend. Its planes and edges stretched even Lanta’s limits. The future was changing faster than they could blink, written like sunlight on shattered water, shifting, twisting, there and then gone. What purpose to a babe not even born? How could clothing Himself as a man accomplish a god’s desires?
Lanta knelt in the grass outside her tent and drew her knife. Pulling back her sleeve she slashed through the thick, myriad lines of old scars to the red meat, let the blood flow, let the tears spring to her eyes.
‘Dark Lady, beautiful goddess of death and glory, accept this small token as proof of my just devotion and my obedience.’ She cut again. ‘Holy Gosfath, God of Blood, I honour and worship you. Victory draws nearer. Our enemies’ deepest secrets are laid bare before us by your hands, and all will be used to your advantage. Soon, my gods, soon we will have crushed the unbelievers and taken their fairest city. The grip of the Gods of Light will weaken, their followers wither. Red Gods, with my blood, my flesh, my breath, my soul, I honour you.’
There was a whisper of a smile on the cool night breeze, the teasing of fingertips across the back of her neck. Lanta shivered. Lanta hoped.
Lanta believed.
TARA
Beltane, night, day forty-two of the siege
Guest wing, the palace, Rilporin, Wheat Lands
Tara stretched and groaned. Even her eyelids ached. The restrictions of bandages made themselves felt as she tried to squeeze the stiffness out of her limbs. The injuries from Blood Pass and Yew Cove were healing well, but she had more than enough new ones, including a clean slice to her inner thigh that chafed with every step until she wanted to scream.
She rolled on to her side and managed to sit upright on the edge of the bed, her head hanging, trying to work out if the nausea was pain or hunger. Need to eat, girl. Get some energy in you or you’re going to drop.
She checked the expensive sand-clock, and it confirmed she’d woken just before she needed to, the lesson drilled into her over endless night watches in the West Rank forts. Don’t be late. Tara groaned her way to her feet and into her linens and filthy breast band, stained with old sweat and older blood. Funny how you couldn’t find decent women’s underwear in the palace. The hair on one side of her head had been singed to the scalp, so she didn’t think it was worth brushing out the rest of it.
Someone had left a tray of pork stew and greens outside the door, along with a heel of bread, some cheese and a pitcher of goat’s milk. A smile cracked her face and she took it all back inside, thanking her mysterious benefactor in the instant before she tore into the food. A Beltane feast, and the closest I’ll get to a celebration tonight.
The stew was cold and thick with a rime of grease, which she smeared on to the bread with a spoon and licked from her fingers. Yet another groan made its way from her throat, this one of ecstasy as her taste buds woke up and began clamouring for more.
Tara didn’t stop until she could feel her belly begin to press against her belt. She looked at the shattered remains with intense regret, but knew she’d only throw up if she ate any more. Instead, she stuffed the rest of the cheese into a pouch on her belt, swigged the last of the milk, struggled into her armour and made her way out of her quarters. She was due at North One half an hour before her troops to get the handover from the officer on duty, so she moved quietly through the corridors and left them sleeping just a little longer.
The palace was silent as she made her way towards the main exit and the gate into Fourth Circle, her boot heels clicking softly on the marble and her stomach gurgling its pleasure at the meal. She patted it, grinning, wishing every pleasure in life was so easily satisfied, and then paused at the sound of voices. Not unusual, but there was a secretive timbre she didn’t like, one that put her hackles up on instinct. Tara faded into the shadows between two giant marble columns.
Torchlight and many footsteps, sibilant mutterings and the unmistakeably round tones of the nobility. Tara frowned. They weren’t heading for the war room for the day’s debrief. She peeked out as the party passed and managed to identify Lorca, Silais and half a dozen others. With them were dozens of servants carrying boxes and richly dressed women and children.
Tara bit her tongue, looked towards the exit and her post, and then in the direction the group had disappeared. ‘Mace is going to kill me,’ she muttered, and crept after them. She was pretty sure she knew where they were going, but there was no time for her to summon guards. She’d have to do this herself.
The group exited into a small courtyard and Tara followed them out, the nobles at the front so intent on their destination that they didn’t notice her, and the servants blinded by the loads they struggled beneath. It was no big feat to slip into the shadows and get in front of them. Get between them and the barred gate that led into the tunnel and down, all the way under the Circle walls to East Tower. To the King Gate, the bridge, and a way out of the city. The royal family’s not-so-secret escape route.
‘Of course, my lord, everything proceeds as planned. Your guards await you below East Tower, a full complement, and the war council has been told you are delayed by an hour; by the time they realise you’re not coming, you’ll be long gone.’
Tara’s eyes narrowed. Well, this has been well thought out, hasn’t it, you fucking cowards?
‘And it will be safe, will it, Chamberlain?’ Lorca asked. His eyes darted around the courtyard, stared straight at Tara and didn’t see her. Most people don’t see what’s in front of them when they’re n
ervous, and this man was very, very nervous.
‘Absolutely safe, my lord. East Tower is manned by some of the city’s finest. Once you are through the gate they will have no choice but to ensure your safe escape. It would be dishonourable to do otherwise. We—’ The chamberlain’s voice choked off in a squeak of alarm and he threw his hands up in front of him. ‘No, no, don’t hurt me!’
Tara hadn’t even drawn her sword as she stalked forward. She grabbed him by his fur collar, jerked him close so his face was a hair’s breadth from hers. His breath stank. The nobles and their servants and families had drawn back in squeaking, protesting alarm, huddling together.
‘What is happening here?’ Tara demanded. ‘Commander Koridam gave explicit orders that no one was to exit the city.’
The man processed the register of her voice and straightened up, lowering his hands and assuming a supercilious air that made Tara want to punch his nose into the back of his head. Her patience died a little death. ‘Young woman, I have no idea who you think you are, but you are impeding me in my duty. Lord Lorca—’
‘My name is Major Tara Carter of the West Rank, you snivelling little weasel, and the King Gate stays shut. Commander’s orders.’
‘Commander Koridam is dead—’
‘Commander Mace Koridam’s orders,’ Tara snarled.
Lorca forced his way out of the protection of his servants and gave her a condescending smile. Tara’s patience rolled in its grave. ‘Rastoth died mad and with his only heir hundreds of miles away in Listre. It is my duty to inform Tresh he is now our monarch. Thusly, I am leaving this city and—’
Tara let go of the chamberlain’s sticky collar and wiped her hand on her trousers before balling it into a fist, stepping past him and burying it in Lorca’s gut. The man doubled over with a most satisfying wheeze. The nobles, including Lorca’s own heir, drew back into a tighter huddle.
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