The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  “Stay where you are, Arwa,” Mehr said. “Just lift the lamp higher.”

  Mehr walked toward it—slowly, so as not to startle it from its perch. The daiva’s eyes followed her with the constancy of prayer flames.

  Three floors above the ground, behind heavily guarded walls, nothing should have been able to reach Arwa’s chambers. But daiva didn’t obey the rules of human courtesy, and there were no walls in Jah Irinah that could keep them out of a place they wanted to be. Still, Mehr’s gut told her this daiva was not dangerous. Curious, perhaps. But not dangerous.

  Just to be sure, she held her hands in front of her, arms crossed, her fingers curled in a sigil to ward against evil. The daiva didn’t so much as flinch. Good.

  “What are you doing?” whispered Arwa.

  “Speaking,” said Mehr. “Hush now.”

  She drew her hands close together, thumbs interlocked, fanning out her fingers in the old sigil for bird. The daiva rustled its wings in recognition. It knew its name when it saw it.

  “Ah,” breathed Mehr. Her heart was beating fast in her chest. “You can move now, love. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “It still looks like it wants to bite me,” Arwa said warily.

  “It’s a bird-spirit,” Mehr said. “That’s what birds do. But there’s nothing evil inside it. It’s a simple creature. It won’t hurt you.”

  She took another step closer. The daiva cocked its head.

  She could smell the air around it, all humid sweetness like incense mingled with water. She sucked in a deep breath and resisted the urge to set her fingers against the soft shadows of its skin.

  She held one palm out. Go.

  But there was no compulsion behind the movement, and the daiva did not look at all inclined to move. It watched her expectantly. Its nostrils, tucked in the shadows of its face, flared wide. It knew what she was. It was waiting.

  Mehr drew the dagger from her sash. Arwa gave a squeak, and behind them the guardswoman startled into life, drawing the first inch of her sword out with a hiss of steel.

  “Calm, calm,” said Mehr soothingly. “I’m just giving it what it wants.”

  She pressed the sharp edge of her dagger to her left thumb. The skin gave way easily, a bead of blood rising to the surface. She held her thumb up for the daiva.

  The daiva lowered its head, smelling her blood.

  For a long moment it held still, its eyes never leaving hers. Then the shadows of its flesh broke apart, thin wisps escaping through the lattice. She saw it coalesce back into life beyond the window, dark wings sweeping through the cloudless, brightening air.

  Mehr let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. There was no fear in her. Just the racing, aching joy of a small adventure. She pressed her thumb carefully against the window lattice, leaving her mark behind.

  “All gone,” she said.

  “Is it really?” Arwa asked.

  “Yes.” Mehr wiped the remaining blood from the dagger with her sash. She tucked the blade away again. “If I’m not here and a daiva comes, Arwa, you must offer it a little of your own blood. Then it will leave you alone.”

  “Why would it want my blood?” Arwa asked, frightened. Her eyes were wide. “Mehr?”

  Mehr felt a pang. There was so much Arwa didn’t know about her heritage, so much that Mehr was forbidden from teaching her.

  To Arwa, daiva were simply monsters, and Irinah’s desert was just endless sand stretching off into the horizon, as distant and commonplace as sky or soil. She had never stared out at it, yearning, as Mehr had. She had never known that there was anything to yearn for. She knew nothing of sigils or rites, or the rich inheritance that lived within their shared blood. She only knew what it meant to be an Ambhan nobleman’s daughter. She knew what her stepmother wanted her to know, and no more.

  Mehr knew it would be foolish to answer her. She bit her lip, lightly, and tasted the faint shadow of iron on her tongue. The pain grounded her, and reminded her of the risks of speaking too freely. There were consequences to disobedience. Mehr knew that. She did not want to face her stepmother’s displeasure. She did not want isolation, or pain, or the reminder of her own powerlessness.

  But Arwa was looking up at her with soft, fearful eyes, and Mehr did not have the strength to turn away from her yet. One more transgression, she decided; she would defy her stepmother one more time, and then she would go.

  “Because you have a little bit of them in your blood,” Mehr told her. When Arwa wrinkled her nose, Mehr said, “No, Arwa, it’s not an insult.”

  “I’m not a daiva,” Arwa protested.

  “A little part of you is,” Mehr told her. “You see, when the Gods first went to their long sleep, they left their children the daiva behind upon the earth. The daiva were much stronger then. They weren’t simply small animal-spirits. Instead they walked the world like men. They had children with humans, and those children were the first Amrithi, our mother’s people.” She recited the tale from memory, words that weren’t her own tripping off her tongue more smoothly than they had any right to. It had been many years since she’d last had Amrithi tales told to her. “Before the daiva weakened, when they were still truly the strong and terrifying sons and daughters of Gods, they made a vow to protect their descendants, and to never willingly harm them.” She showed Arwa the thin mark on her thumb, no longer bleeding. “When we give them a piece of our flesh, we’re reminding them of their vow. And, little sister, a daiva’s vow is unbreakable.”

  Arwa took hold of her hand, holding it near the glow of the lantern so she could give it a thorough, grave inspection.

  “That sounds like a children’s story,” she said finally, her tone faintly accusing, as if she were sure Mehr was telling her one of the soft lies people told their young.

  “It is a children’s story,” said Mehr. “Our mother told it to me when I was a child myself, and I’ve never forgotten it. But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “I don’t know if my blood will work like yours,” Arwa said doubtfully. She pressed her thumb gently against Mehr’s. Where Mehr’s skin was dark like earth after rain, Arwa’s skin was a bare shade warmer than desert sand. “I don’t look like you, do I?”

  “Our blood is just the same,” Mehr said quietly. “I promise.” She squeezed Arwa’s hand in hers, once, tightly. Then she stepped back.

  “Tell Nahira it’s safe to return,” she said to the guardswoman. “I’m going back to my chambers.”

  The guardswoman edged back in fear. She trembled slightly.

  If Mehr had been in a more generous mood, she would, perhaps, have told the guardswoman that Irinah was not like the other provinces of the Empire. Perhaps she would have told the guardswoman that what she so derisively called Irin superstition was in truth Irin practicality. In Irinah, the daiva had not faded into myth and history, as they had elsewhere. Weakened though they were, the daiva were holy beings, and it was wise to treat them with both wariness and reverence when one came upon them on Irin soil.

  But Mehr was not in a generous mood. She was tired, and the look on the guardswoman’s face had left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  “Never mind,” said Mehr. “I’ll go.”

  “Daiva aren’t real,” the guardswoman said blankly, as Mehr swept past her. “They’re a barbarian superstition.”

  Mehr didn’t even deign to answer her. She walked out into the hallway, Arwa scampering after her, the lamp swinging wildly in her grip. As they left the nursery, Nahira swept Arwa up into her arms and one of the maids plucked the lamp deftly away. Mehr kept on walking until Arwa called out her name, holding out her arms again in a way that made Mehr’s traitorous heart twist inside her chest and her legs go leaden beneath her.

  It would be best, she told herself, to keep walking. It would be best not to look back. She did not want to be punished. She did not want Arwa to be punished.

  “Don’t go,” Arwa said in a small voice. “Can’t you stay just one time?”<
br />
  Mehr stopped. If she turned back—if she stayed—Maryam would ensure that she would not be allowed to visit Arwa again for a long, long time.

  Mehr took a deep breath, turned, and walked back to her sister regardless. She closed her eyes and pressed one firm kiss to Arwa’s forehead. Her skin was soft; her hair smelled like rosewater.

  “Get some sleep,” she said to her. “Everything will be better when you wake up.”

  “Go,” Nahira said. “I’ll take care of her, my lady.” A pause, as Arwa struggled and Mehr hesitated, her feet frozen in place by a compulsion she couldn’t name. “Lady Maryam will be awake soon,” Nahira said, and that, at last, broke the spell. Mehr turned and walked swiftly back toward her room. She could hear Arwa crying behind her, but as she had told the maidservant Sara, children were often distressed. The hurt would pass. Soon Arwa would forget she had ever been sad at all.

  if you enjoyed

  THE HOD KING

  look out for

  THE GUTTER PRAYER

  The Black Iron Legacy

  by

  Gareth Hanrahan

  Enter a city of saints and thieves …

  The city of Guerdon stands eternal, a refuge from the war that rages beyond its borders. But in the ancient tunnels deep beneath its streets, a malevolent power has begun to stir.

  The fate of the city rests in the hands of three thieves. They alone stand against the coming darkness. As conspiracies unfold and secrets are revealed, their friendship will be tested to the limit. If they fail, all will be lost and the streets of Guerdon will run with blood.

  Set in a world of dark gods and dangerous magic, The Gutter Prayer is an epic tale of sorcerers and thieves, treachery and revenge, from a remarkable new voice in fantasy.

  Chapter One

  Carillon crouches in the shadow, eyes fixed on the door. Her knife is in her hand, a gesture of bravado to herself more than a deadly weapon. She’s fought before, cut people with it, but never killed with it. Cut and run, that’s her way.

  In this crowded city, that’s not necessarily an option.

  If one guard comes through the door, she’ll wait until he goes past her hiding place, then creep after him and cut his throat. She tries to envisage herself doing it, but can’t manage it. Maybe she can get away with just scaring him, or shanking him in the leg so he can’t chase them.

  If it’s two, then she’ll wait until they’re about to find the others, hiss a warning and leap on one of them. Surely, between herself, Spar and Rat, they’ll be able to take out two guards without giving themselves away.

  Surely.

  If it’s three, same plan, only riskier.

  She doesn’t let her mind dwell on the other possibility—that it won’t be humans like her who can be cut with her little knife, but something worse like the Tallowmen or Gullheads. The city has bred horrors all its own.

  Every instinct in her tells her to run, to flee with her friends, to risk Heinreil’s wrath for returning empty-handed. Better yet, to not return at all, but take the Dowager Gate or the River Gate out of the city tonight, be a dozen miles away before dawn.

  Six. The door opens and it’s six guards, all human, one two three big men, in padded leathers, maces in hand, and three more with pistols. She freezes for an instant in terror, unable to act, unable to run, caught against the cold stone of the old walls.

  And then—she feels the shock through the wall before she hears the roar, the crash. She feels the whole House of Law shatter. She was in Severast when there was an earth tremor once, but it’s not like that—it’s more like a lightning strike and thunderclap right on top of her. She springs forward without thinking, as if the explosion had physically struck her, too, jumping through the scattered confusion of the guards.

  One of them fires his pistol, point blank, so close she feels the sparks, the rush of air past her head, hot splinters of metal or stone showering down across her back, but the pain doesn’t blossom and she knows she’s not hit even as she runs.

  Follow me, she prays as she runs blindly down the passageway, ducking into one random room and another, bouncing off locked doors. From the shouts behind her, she knows that some of them are after her. It’s like stealing fruit in the market—one of you makes a big show of running, distracts the fruitseller, and the others grab an apple each and one more for the runner. Only, if she gets caught, she won’t be let off with a thrashing. Still, she’s got a better chance of escaping than Spar has.

  She runs up a short stairway and sees an orange glow beneath the door. Tallowmen, she thinks, imagining their blazing wicks on the far side, before she realises that the whole north wing of the square House is ablaze. The guards are close behind her, so she opens the door anyway, ducking low to avoid the thick black smoke that pours through.

  She skirts along the edge of the burning room. It is a library, with long rows of shelves packed with rows of cloth-bound books, journals of civic institutions, proceedings of parliament. At least, half of it is a library; the other half was a library. Old books burn quickly. She clings to the wall, finding her way through the smoke by touch, trailing her right hand along the stone blocks while groping ahead with her left.

  One of the guards has the courage to follow her in, but, from the sound of his shouts, she guesses he went straight forward, thinking she’d run towards the fires. There’s a creak, and a crash, and a shower of sparks as one of the burning bookcases topples. The guard’s shouts to his fellows become a scream of pain, but she can do nothing for him. She can’t see, can scarcely breathe. She fights down panic and keeps going until she comes to the side wall.

  The House of Law is a quadrangle of buildings around a central green. They hang thieves there, and hanging seems like a better fate than burning right now. But there was a row of windows, wasn’t there? On the inside face of the building, looking out onto that green. She’s sure there is, there must be, because the fires have closed in behind her and there’s no turning back.

  The outstretched fingers of her left hand touch warm stone. The side wall. She scrabbles and sweeps her fingers over it, looking for the windows. They’re higher than she remembers, and she can barely reach the sill even when stretching, standing on tiptoes. The windows are thick, leaded glass, and, while the fires have blown some of them out, this one is intact. She grabs a book off a shelf and flings it at the glass, to no avail. It bounces back. There’s nothing she can do to break the glass from down here.

  On this side, the sill’s less than an inch wide, but if she can get up there, maybe she can lever one of the panes out, make an opening. She takes a step back to make a running jump up, and a hand closes around her ankle.

  “Help me!”

  It’s the guard who followed her in. The burning bookcase must have fallen on him. He’s crawling, dragging a limp and twisted leg, and he’s horribly burnt down his left side. Weeping white-red blisters and blackened flesh on his face.

  “I can’t.”

  He’s still clutching his pistol, and he tries to aim it at her while still grabbing her ankle, but she’s faster. She grabs his arm and lifts it, pulls the trigger for him. The report, that close to her ear, is deafening, but the shot smashes part of the window behind her. More panes and panels fall, leaving a gap in the stained glass large enough to crawl through if she can climb up to it.

  A face appears in the gap. Yellow eyes, brown teeth, pitted flesh—a grin of wickedly sharp teeth. Rat extends his rag-wrapped hand through the window. Cari’s heart leaps. She’s going to live. In that moment, her friend’s monstrous, misshapen face seems as beautiful as the flawless features of a saint she once knew. She runs towards Rat—and stops.

  Burning’s a terrible way to die. She’s never thought so before, but now that it’s a distinct possibility it seems worse than anything. Her head feels weird, and she knows she’s not thinking straight, but between the smoke and the heat and terror, weird seems wholly reasonable. She kneels down, slips an arm beneath the guard’s shoulders, hel
ps him stand on his good leg, to limp towards Rat.

  “What are you doing?” hisses the ghoul, but he doesn’t hesitate either. He grabs the guard by the shoulders when the wounded man is within reach of the window, and pulls him through the gap. Then he comes back for her, pulling her up, too. Rat’s sinewy limbs aren’t as tough or as strong as Spar’s stone-cursed muscles, but he’s more than strong enough to lift Carillon out of the burning building with one hand and pull her through into the blessed coolness of the open courtyard.

  The guard moans and crawls away across the grass. They’ve done enough for him, Carillon decides; a half-act of mercy is all they can afford.

  “Did you do this?” Rat asks in horror and wonder, flinching as part of the burning buildings collapses in on itself. The flames twine around the base of the huge bell tower that looms over the north side of the quadrangle.

  Carillon shakes her head. “No, there was some sort of … boom. Where’s Spar?”

  “This way.” Rat scurries off, and she runs after him. South, along the edge of the garden, past the empty old gibbets, away from the fire, towards the courts. There’s no way now to get what they came for, even if the documents that Heinreil wants still exist and aren’t falling around her as a blizzard of white ash, but maybe they can get away if they can get out onto the streets again. They just need to find Spar, find that big slow limping lump of rock, and get out.

  She could leave him behind, just like Rat could abandon her. The ghoul could make it over the wall in a flash; ghouls are prodigous climbers. But they’re friends—the first true friends she’s had in a long time. Rat found her on the streets after she was stranded in this city, and he introduced her to Spar, who gave her a place to sleep safely.

  The two also introduced her to Heinreil, but that wasn’t their fault—Guerdon’s underworld is dominated by the thieves’ brotherhood, just like its trade and industry is run by the guild cartels. If they’re caught, it’s Heinreil’s fault. Another reason to hate him.