Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  ‘You carry the seed of the Godblind? The deicide?’ he snarled into her upturned face. ‘You, the sister of our king, lowered yourself to rut like a fucking animal with the madman?’

  ‘Aye,’ Rillirin spat back, though she was trembling, ‘and I enjoyed it!’

  Lanta clapped somewhere out of sight, her pealing laughter echoing through the temple. ‘He put spirit in you as well as a child,’ she said. ‘I look forward to breaking it. Again.’

  ‘You can try,’ Rillirin snarled, her eyes rolling. ‘He’s coming for me, the calestar, you can bet on that, and we’ll kill you all. Best lock up Gosfath while you’re at it; you wouldn’t want to lose another god, would you?’

  Valan dragged on her hair again, the skin of his face tightening until it was pressed against the bones of his skull. Death was in that face and, despite her conviction, Rillirin felt a new surge of fear.

  ‘Do not dare to threaten your betters, slave, or the Red Father,’ Lanta snarled. ‘I don’t care if you are Corvus’s sister – I can and will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine should you test me.’

  Valan’s knife slid from her chin, clanked over the metal collar, and swept down to press against her stomach. Rillirin’s gasp was loud in the still air as the point dug in. Her brain knew they wouldn’t, but her body knew no such thing and she writhed with animal instinct to get away.

  ‘No, please, please, honoured. Please, Lan— Blessed One. I’m sorry, it was just talk.’

  ‘Then maybe you shouldn’t talk, eh, Rill?’ Lanta said. ‘Because we have options that won’t harm the child. The water barrel. The branding iron. Some of the men.’

  Do your worst, bitch. Go on, do it. But the words were stubborn, refusing to leave Rillirin’s mouth, cowering behind her teeth. Her bound hands were shoving at Valan’s fist; she felt a hot sting as the knife edge cut the side of her palm.

  ‘Now, Valan,’ Lanta said in gentle admonishment, ‘please remove the knife. Our guest must be healthy and whole to deliver her daughter.’

  He did as he was told and Rillirin straightened up, grunting at the flare of pain in her back. She shifted her weight to ease it and Valan’s hand found her upper arm again. He squeezed, adding another layer of bruises.

  Lanta cupped Rillirin’s face in her palm. ‘Do you even know who this babe is, Rill? Do you know her destiny? She will belong to the whole world, and she will walk in glory all her days. In glory and in Blood.’

  ‘We are children of Light,’ Rillirin croaked. ‘My child will never be yours, never. And it could be a boy.’

  ‘Hush now, girl,’ Lanta said, her voice tender and even more frightening because of it. ‘Let’s get you fed and rested.’ Her nose wrinkled. ‘And bathed. There is much to do to prepare for the birth. So much. Valan, that slave of yours – bring her.’

  ‘Your will, Blessed One.’

  Rillirin raised her chin, refusing to echo the words. Lanta’s smile was indulgent, as at a precocious child’s antics. ‘Valan will look after you for now, Rill. But we will talk soon, you and I and Gull and Holy Gosfath. Talk of the resurrection of the Dark Lady – and your role within it.’

  The Blessed One’s fingers trailed across Rillirin’s belly again and she went cold. She didn’t know exactly what was planned, but she knew enough. She lunged with her bound hands for the woman’s throat; Valan hauled her back. ‘Don’t you touch my baby,’ she screeched, kicking out. ‘You won’t have it, you won’t. We are children of Light and nothing you do will change that. Keep your bloody hands away from us!’

  Lanta dismissed them with a small, cruel smile and Valan began dragging her back towards the exit.

  ‘See you soon, Rill,’ the Blessed One called as they burst into fresh air.

  Tears tangled in her throat, shortening her breath, though she refused to let them brighten her eyes. ‘My name,’ she growled, ‘is Rillirin.’

  DOM

  Ninth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

  Watcher village, southern Wolf Lands, Rilporian border

  Wolf scouts challenged them five miles from the village. Not civilians, but actual Wolves. His people. Their presence unnerved him.

  Ash let out a happy yell and dashed forward, calling out names as he recognised war-kin and friends he hadn’t seen for months. Crys was soon absorbed into their number, and introductions were made to the Warlord and war leader, while familiar faces glanced at Dom and then away. The rumours had spread, then.

  Dom stayed on his horse, grim-faced, and paced the Krikites advancing into the village. At least he’d recovered enough to ride now, to not have the humiliation of the litter added to the rest. His home had been overrun with hundreds – thousands – of civilians. Bursts of voices shattered the peace beneath the trees and pathways that had been little more than trampled grass were now mud-slick roads, wide and slippery, meandering among houses full of strangers, and more houses, and lean-tos and shelters and tents in between the permanent structures. The sounds of chopping wood and sawing and hammering, the creak of ropes and timbers hauled into position echoed among the trees.

  His home was no longer his.

  Dom dismounted near the Krikites; the new villagers were watching them, not daring to approach, while the Wolves – his kin – were gathering a hundred strides away in the main clearing that had served as training ground and celebration ground both. Scores of them. They must be those warriors who’d taken the Sky Path and the bloody road of vengeance, back after Watchtown burnt. Maybe some of the injured from Yew Cove that Ash had told him about, who’d been left behind to recuperate. They’d come home, even if he couldn’t.

  ‘Hello,’ said a little voice. ‘Are you new?’

  Dom looked over his shoulder at the two small figures standing hand in hand. ‘Hello there,’ he said with an effort, frowning at the harsh Mireces accent. ‘No, I’m not new. Well, I mean I grew up here, but I haven’t been back in a while. It’s changed.’

  The little girl’s eyes were round; the even littler one had backed behind her sister and was clutching the back of her dress, peeking under her arm. ‘What’s your name?’

  Dom crouched and cradled his stump in his other hand; it was suddenly very important that he didn’t scare them. ‘My name’s Dom,’ he said quietly. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Can I stroke your horse?’ the smallest girl said and Dom managed a smile. He was all too familiar with that sort of conversational evasion.

  ‘We can do better than that,’ he said, standing again. ‘You can both ride him if you want. Would you like that?’

  ‘Auntie Gilda says we mustn’t bother the warriors,’ the taller one said and Dom’s stomach cramped with sudden tension. Auntie Gilda?

  He showed his missing hand. ‘Well, as you can see, I’m not a warrior, so it’s no bother at all. Would you like to?’ They both nodded, their eyes now even bigger. The youngest kept looking around them, as if half wishing someone would come and take them away. ‘Up you get then,’ he said and reached for the biggest, hoisted her up in his right arm and draped her legs either side of the saddle.

  She sat and he placed both her hands on the pommel. ‘Don’t move,’ he said sternly. ‘Let me get your … sister, is it?’ The girl nodded and sat still, barely breathing, while Dom scooped up the littlest and placed her in front of her sister. Both of them began to grin.

  ‘We’re so high,’ piped the youngest. ‘We can see everything.’ Dom felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He had a vague memory of his birth father putting him on the back of their old carthorse, how scared and exhilarated he’d been.

  The horse shifted and both girls squeaked and then giggled as Dom calmed the animal, stump against its chest to still it, hand hovering just above their legs, ready to grab if they began to slide.

  ‘I’m Kit,’ the older girl said suddenly. ‘I’m five. This is my sister, Ede.’ Kit pointed dismissively to the little girl clutching handfuls of mane. ‘She’s only three.’

  Dom swallowed a
nother smile. ‘It’s a very great pleasure to meet you, Kit who is five and Ede who is three.’

  ‘Do you know Auntie Gilda?’ Kit asked.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ Dom said, working hard to maintain his breezy tone.

  ‘Good,’ she said, ‘so you won’t let us get in trouble?’

  ‘Trouble?’ he asked and then he felt it, the glare blistering the skin of his back. Slowly he turned his head and there she was, arms folded, on the path to the clearing.

  ‘She’s very old,’ Ede piped up, a little hand making a grab for Dom’s long hair, plaited behind his head. Kit pulled her back and they both rocked in the saddle until he steadied them.

  ‘She is,’ he said around the constriction in his throat. ‘And if you want to grow up and have children and learn to fight and hunt and weave and cook and live to be a very, very old woman like her, you best do as you’re told, hadn’t you?’

  Dom swept Ede out of the saddle and on to the ground so fast she whooped in a breath and wrapped her arms around his head. He did the same to Kit, who tried hard not to squeak.

  When they were both down, Dom made a claw out of his hand and pulled a monstrous face; Kit pulled Ede back, both of them squealing with laughter. ‘Because if you don’t, Auntie Gilda will eat you all up!’

  ‘No!’ Ede shrieked and they ran away laughing, looking back multiple times, half in fear, half in the hopes Dom would chase them. He very much wanted to, watching their sturdy little forms vanish into a house. Past lives already a fading memory, past horrors a fading dream. ‘Kit and Ede, five and three,’ he muttered. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Turns out vengeance for our dead’s not so clean-cut when it’s infants and bairns you’ve to put your knife into,’ Gilda said from behind him. Dom smoothed his shirt before he faced her.

  He saw the moment when she spotted his missing hand and the merest flicker of sadness crossed her face, but then it was gone and her eyes were hard in their nests of wrinkles. She was thinner than he’d ever seen her, bruises under her eyes and her mouth a thin slash in a face crafted for laughing.

  ‘With me, lad. You and I’ve things to discuss.’

  He expected Gilda to lead him to Cam’s old house and was bracing himself for the flood of memories that would accompany stepping beneath that lintel, but instead she took him to one of the newly built structures on what had been the outskirts of the village and now appeared to be nearer to its centre.

  It was little more than a shack, a roof and walls, a blanket for a doorway, packed dirt for the floor, but it had a bracken bed and some pots and bowls stacked in a corner, and a ring of stones containing a cookfire outside. Gilda gestured him in and he preceded her, his heart in his throat. When she let the blanket fall behind her, the single room descended into guttering darkness.

  By the time she’d lit a few candles, Dom had his back pressed to the far wall, blinking at the shadows as if they were alive. His left leg began to shake, threatening to dump him unceremoniously on the dirt.

  He gestured deliberately with the stump of his arm. ‘I love what you’ve done with the place.’

  ‘Sit down before you fall down, boy,’ Gilda snapped and lowered herself with a grunt on to the bracken and then rootled around until she was comfortable. ‘Well? Are you going to stand there all day?’

  There was nowhere else to sit except the floor. Carefully, as if she were a wild bear, Dom approached and sat at the far end of the heap of bracken, almost wedged into the corner. The silence stretched until he wanted to scream.

  ‘Village is full,’ he said when he couldn’t take it any more.

  Gilda licked her teeth and then sighed, as if to say she knew he was stalling. ‘The Wolves who took the Sky Path didn’t slaughter everyone; they freed the slaves and brought back as many children as they could, those young enough to forget the evil they were raised in, those who could embrace the Light. The youngsters will be raised as Wolves, perhaps, or by the former slaves. Either way they’ll live, and live in the Light. Our villages may never be what they were, but the Wolf Lands are still a hive of free folk, living clean and happy beneath the trees. That counts for something. For a lot in these times.’

  ‘Rillirin’s not here, is she?’ he asked, though he wasn’t sure how she’d react to the question. Did he even have a right to ask? But Gilda just shook her head.

  ‘No. Her group never made it here from the South Forts, none of them did, and—’

  ‘Then Lanta has her. She’ll use our daughter to restore the Dark Lady.’

  Gilda’s nostrils flared. ‘So how do we get her back?’

  Dom shrugged. ‘We don’t. She’s on her own.’

  Gilda turned to stone at the pronouncement. Gimlet eyes watched him. Silent. Patient. All priestess, all mother. Demanding better. Demanding an answer that wasn’t his to give, a promise he couldn’t make. A life he couldn’t save.

  ‘What?’ he snapped when he couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘What do you want me to say? I don’t know how we can save her and that’s the truth. If I did I’d tell you. I’d go and rescue her myself if I knew how, if it was possible. But I can’t, and she’s carrying my child and there’s nothing I can do to help her, nothing any of us can do. I wish there was.’

  ‘Do you wish there was’ – Dom’s breath whooped into his chest – ‘Darksoul?’ – and back out with a strangled croak. There were no words to refute her implication. Dom had no words.

  Gilda steepled her hands before her chin. ‘How about some fucking honesty, boy? You know, for old times’ sake.’

  The stump of his arm throbbed with anger and the need for violence. He could taste blood on his tongue – his, hers, it didn’t matter. He wanted to rend and scream and kill. He wanted to make them understand.

  ‘You want to know if I’m sorry? Well, I am. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I told Corvus how to breach the city and I’m sorry I tried to kill you and I’m sorry for all of it, all right? I wasn’t exactly myself at the time and if I hadn’t done what I did, the Blessed One would’ve had me killed instead. Then you. We’d both be dead now.’

  I wish we fucking were. I wish I was.

  ‘The Blessed One? Her name is Lanta; try and use it. There’s nothing blessed about that woman.’ Gilda put her head on one side and glared. ‘And that’s your excuse for attempting to murder me and all the other despicable betrayals you’ve committed, is it? That you weren’t yourself?’

  Dom waved his left arm in the air. ‘You did all right at defending yourself, if I remember. And anyway, as you can see I’ve been heartily punished for my myriad crimes. I’ve spent the last half-year living with two men who loathe me and not long ago I was poisoned by the Seer-Mother and forced into the knowing more times than I can remember until I had a stroke. The Fox God saved me though I begged Him to kill me. I still don’t know exactly what I told her, but I suspect it was everything. So yes, I’ve damned us all for a second time. And I’m sorry about that, too, but I can’t change it and I couldn’t help it.’

  He stabbed the stump into the wall, relishing the spike of pain. ‘I’ve been crippled, physically and with shame, since we last saw each other, and I killed the Dark Lady and in so doing I destroyed myself in this life and the next. There’s nowhere for me to go when I die; there’s no one who’ll have me except maybe, maybe, Rillirin, and she’s lost to me as well. Is that enough for you or should I get on my knees and beg?’

  His chest heaved as he gulped air, but the only change in Gilda’s expression was a slight narrowing of the eyes. The fury was building now that he had to defend his actions. Now that his words seemed to bounce off her as though he wasn’t even speaking the same language.

  Everybody knows what I went through, but nobody really understands it. Nobody can find it in themselves to forgive me. I had my fucking mind broken by fucking gods and they still judge me for it!

  He plunged on, the dam of his anger bursting and sweeping all before it. ‘I won’t live to see the outcome of this war s
o, you know, you only have to put up with me for a few more months and then you can just move on, you and everyone—’

  Gilda lunged forward and slapped Dom across the face so hard his ears rang and he fell back into the corner, skull clonking against the wall. He lay there for a few seconds and then sat up slowly, stump pressed to his cheek, tasting blood again, and he stared hatefully at the woman who’d raised him – and now damned him.

  ‘Grow the fuck up, boy,’ the priestess snarled, on her feet and shaking with rage equal to his. ‘You did your damnedest to destroy this world and you failed. Now you’ll work just as hard to save it, or so help me, I will kill you myself and make you wish it was a god doing it – They’d have more mercy.’

  She shook the sting from her hand and rubbed at her shoulder; the one he’d stabbed. ‘You think you’re the only one who’s suffered, the only one who’s hurting? You are the only one of my family still alive, and believe me, there have been days when I wish it had been otherwise, but there it is. You live while Cam and Lim and Sarilla do not. You live while kings and princes die, while good soldiers breathe their last, while officers and warriors and even gods die. And all you can do with the gift that is life is wallow in self-pity?’

  She tutted and shook her head slowly. ‘You’ve been many things in your life, Dom Templeson. This is the first time I’ve realised that you’re a coward.’

  Dom’s heart stopped and a flood of outrage rushed through him, followed just as quickly with humiliation. He lurched to his feet. ‘I’ve done things—’ he tried and Gilda waved him to silence.

  ‘We’ve all bastard done things, Calestar,’ she growled, sounding so much like Lim for a second that Dom’s throat constricted. ‘I stood and witnessed Watchtown’s death. I stood and listened to the screams of our people. I watched them run, human torches, out of the gates: my kin. I watched them fall burning from the walls and throw their children from the allure in a desperate attempt to save them from the flames, knowing they’d be butchered by the Mireces and counting that the lesser evil.’