Godblind Page 3

  ‘Where is Marisa, Durdil? Where is my queen?’ Rastoth asked, his voice plaintive. ‘I was just talking with her. She was right here.’ He gestured vaguely and creases appeared between his brows. ‘But that’s not right, is it?’ he whispered. His fingers smoothed the coverlet over and over, the material thin and cold in the freezing room. No fire burning, no tapestries on the walls any more. No rugs.

  Durdil walked towards him. ‘No, Sire, it’s not right,’ he said, his voice low. ‘Marisa’s gone, my old friend. Your queen’s dead. Almost a year now.’

  Rastoth mewed like a seagull from deep in his chest. He collapsed on to the bed and hid his face in palsied hands too weak to support the rings on each finger. ‘No, that can’t be. That can’t be.’

  He straightened suddenly, eyes bright with pain and coherence. ‘Murdered. Disfigured. Defiled here in this very room,’ he said, his voice harsh and broken and filling with rage. ‘My queen. My wife. And her killers still at large. Are they not, Commander? Despite your promises. Despite your every promise?’ He spat the words.

  Durdil inhaled through flared nostrils and knelt before Rastoth, his knee protesting at the cold stone. No rugs because they’d been covered in blood. No tapestries because they’d been torn from the walls, covering the queen as her killers hacked through the material into her body. As though even the murderers couldn’t bear to look on what they’d done before they killed her, the destruction they’d wrought on her body and face.

  No shattered door bolt, remember? Marisa opened the door to her murderers, let them in. Her guards dead on the threshold, dead facing into the room, not out of it. It ran like a litany through Durdil’s head. The queen knew her killers. Her guards knew them, hadn’t stopped them from entering, only engaged them when they were on their way out, the deed done.

  Durdil swallowed the thoughts. ‘Yes, Sire. I have failed to find the killers of your queen. I have failed you.’ He chanced a look up. ‘But I have not stopped looking, my liege. I will never stop looking. I will find them. And we will bring them to justice.’

  But Rastoth wasn’t listening. ‘Why, there she is. My little sparrow, hiding behind her loom.’ He scrambled to his feet, tripping on the edge of his cloak and his knee catching Durdil’s shoulder. He wobbled past and Durdil heaved himself to his feet, each of his fifty-six years an anvil on his back.

  Rastoth had ducked behind the loom by the window. ‘Where are you hiding now, my pretty?’ he called. ‘Marisa? Marisa, my love.’

  Durdil winced. ‘Your Majesty, we must return to your chambers. The hour grows late. Let us leave the queen to her rest. It has been a long day.’

  Rastoth straightened and stared at Durdil through the strings of the loom, Marisa’s half-completed tapestry collecting dust on its frame. He’d tried this before and Rastoth had flown into a fury. Durdil had no idea which way it would play this time.

  ‘You’re right, of course, Durdil. She’s tired. I’m tired.’ He glanced fondly at the bed. ‘Sleep well, my beauty,’ he said, and tiptoed to the door, hissing at Durdil to do the same when the heels of his boots rang on the flagstones.

  Durdil grimaced and rose on to his toes and together they crept to the door of the empty room and squeezed through it. Weaverson didn’t so much as glance in their direction, but Durdil stopped in surprise when he saw Prince Rivil.

  ‘We must let her rest, Commander,’ Rastoth murmured as he pulled shut the door. ‘Perhaps tomorrow my wife will be well enough to be seen by the court again, do you think?’

  Rivil stepped forward and Durdil relinquished his place at the king’s side. ‘I’m sure Mother will be well again soon,’ he said, taking Rastoth’s arm. ‘For now it’s you I’m worried about. You shouldn’t be wandering around in the cold at this time of night.’

  Durdil glanced at Weaverson and then followed his king and prince, listening to Rivil’s careful voice, watching his hand firm on his father’s elbow. ‘Come, Father, you should be abed,’ Rivil said with a nod to Durdil. Durdil nodded back and forced a smile for the prince.

  Rastoth’s fits were getting worse and there was nothing Durdil could do about it. His friend and king was losing his grip on reality; he was slowly becoming a laughing-stock. Durdil wasn’t sure that even finding Marisa’s killers could end Rastoth’s illness now. Not that he had a single lead anyway. He knuckled his eyes hard and glanced again at Weaverson. Then he followed in the wake of his king.

  DOM

  Eleventh moon, seventeenth year of the reign of King Rastoth

  Watcher village, Wolf Lands, Rilporian border

  ‘I’ve got you this time, you old bugger,’ Dom muttered. He was knee-deep in a stream that began high up in the Gilgoras Mountains and widened into the Gil, mightiest river of Rilpor. His bare feet were numb and the air smelt of snow, but the pike was cornered. Dom felt forward with his toes, the fishing spear up by his jaw.

  The pike flicked its tail and Dom grinned as he edged closer. He’d laid the net behind him just in case, but this was becoming personal. A flicker again, and Dom lunged, stabbing down into the gloom.

  The pike flashed past him, twisting out of the spear’s path, and Dom spun, slipped on a rock and went to one knee. He gasped at the cold but the pike wasn’t in the net, so he lunged back on to his feet and examined the pool.

  ‘Come out, come out, little fishy,’ he sang, ‘I want you in my belly.’

  Instead the sun came out and reflected off the water, blinding him, and Dom blinked. The brightness stayed in his vision, like an ember bursting into life, racing into a conflagration.

  Dom groaned as the image of fire grew. He dropped the spear and splashed for the bank, panting. ‘No,’ he grunted through a thick tongue, ‘no no no,’ but it was too late. He was a stride away from land when the knowing came, and he hurled himself desperately towards dry ground before the images took him.

  He felt his chest hit the mud as his surroundings vanished and then all that was left was the message from the Gods of Light, filling his mind with fire and pain and truth.

  ‘You really are a shit fisherman, Templeson,’ Sarilla laughed when he staggered back into camp at dusk. She pointed her bow at him. ‘Why don’t you just – ah, fuck. Lim! Lim, it’s Dom.’

  Sarilla slung Dom’s arm over her shoulders and took his weight; she led him to the nearest fire and sat him so close the heat stung his face. He turned away, unwilling to look into the flames, and Sarilla chafed his hands between hers, and then dragged his jerkin off and threw her coat around his shoulders.

  Lim arrived at a run and Dom held up a hand before he could speak. ‘Just get me warm first,’ he croaked. ‘I’ve been belly up in that fucking stream all afternoon.’ It might not be what I think it is. Fox God, I hope it’s not what I think it is.

  They stripped him, wrapped him in blankets and made him drink warm mead until the colour came back into his face and he finally stopped shivering. Feltith, their healer, pronounced him hale and an idiot. Dom didn’t have the energy or inclination to disagree. He couldn’t look at the fire, but he met the eyes of the others one by one.

  ‘I have to go to the scout camp, and I have to go alone.’ He waited out their protests, gaze turned inward as he fought to unravel the Dancer’s meaning. His hand gestured vaguely west. ‘It’s coming from the mountains. I have to fetch it. Fetch the key. Message. Herald?’

  Dom’s face twitched and he spoke over Lim’s fresh complaints. ‘Don’t know. Not yet. It’s like – it’s like a storm’s brewing up there. There’ll be a warning before it breaks, but only if I can get to it in time.’ He grunted in frustration. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Midsummer.’

  ‘Midsummer? What about the message?’ Sarilla said.

  ‘That too. Shit, why is it so hard?’ Dom grunted, knuckling at the vicious pain behind his right eye. Sarilla slapped his hand away. ‘If the Dancer and the Fox God want me to know something, why don’t They just tell me?’

  ‘They are. We just don’t have the capacit
y to understand,’ Sarilla said, and for once her tone held no mockery. ‘They’re gods, Dom. You can’t expect Them to be like us.’

  ‘Sarilla’s right, the knowings rarely make sense at first,’ Lim soothed him. ‘But midsummer? We’re not even at Yule. We’ve got time, Dom. Don’t push it; it’ll come. There’s no immediate threat?’ he clarified.

  ‘It’s nearly a thousand years since the veil was cast,’ Dom said suddenly. He had no idea where the words came from, but years of knowings had taught him to relax and let his voice tell him what he didn’t yet understand. ‘Now it weakens. The Red Gods wax and the Light wanes. Blood rises. Find the herald; staunch the flow.’

  Dom focused on the mud between his boots, loamy and rich, his chest heaving as though he’d run down a deer. He swallowed bile. The pain crescendoed and then settled to a steady agony that made his vision pulse with colours around the edges. This is it. I think it’s starting. After all these years, it’s coming.

  I need more time.

  Lim, Sarilla and Feltith were silent, waiting for more. Dom squeezed his hands into his armpits to hide their trembling. No point scaring them before he had to. Why not? I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified. But he was the calestar, for good or ill, and with the knowings came duty. Duty? Sacrifice, more like. My sacrifice. Duty, he told himself sternly, silencing the inner voice.

  ‘Everything’s in flux, but there’s always a threat,’ he said, finally answering Lim’s question. ‘I’m going up there tonight.’

  Lim didn’t argue further. ‘Rest a while longer and I’ll pack provisions.’

  ‘I have to go alone,’ Dom insisted.

  ‘You can’t go alone,’ Sarilla said quietly. ‘If you have another knowing up there, in the Mireces’ own territory, you’ll be helpless. Even I don’t want you frozen to death or eaten by bears. Or taken by Mireces.’

  Lim glanced at Sarilla. ‘Send a messenger to Watchtown and another to the West Rank. You know how much truth to tell to each. We don’t know what we’re preparing for yet, so let’s not panic.’ He pointed west, the way Dom had. ‘But nothing good has ever come out of those mountains. Be alert.’

  THE BLESSED ONE

  Eleventh moon, year 994 since the Exile of the Red Gods

  Longhouse, Eagle Height, Gilgoras Mountains

  Lanta dealt regularly in blood and death in her exaltation of the gods, but what had been done to Liris … it was messy, wild. A frenzied, senseless attack, lacking in control, lacking in style.

  Edwin had done a headcount and reported one missing slave as well as the various men out on business for the king or Lanta herself; then he’d taken a war band and hounds out in pursuit of the killer. The room stank of blood and fear, a scent easy enough for the dogs to follow in the clear mountain air.

  Lanta’s thoughts returned to her predicament. One missing slave was easy enough to replace. A killer easy enough to track down. One pliable king, however, would need careful consideration. Of the war chiefs, Mata would be—

  She stopped halfway down the longhouse, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. ‘What is this?’

  Corvus, seated on the throne, looked up from inspecting his boots. They were bloody, as were his hands. ‘This, Blessed One, is a succession. I thought our people should have the smoothest transition after Liris’s untimely death.’ Corvus spared her a brief smile and picked drying blood from beneath a thumbnail.

  He hasn’t. He wouldn’t, not without my approval. Her eyes flicked to the corpses at the base of the dais. And yet he has. She replayed his words as she fought for serenity. ‘Our people?’ She arched a brow. ‘May I remind you, Corvus of Crow Crag, that not too many years ago you were taken as slave from Rilpor? You were Madoc of Dancer’s Lake then, born and raised a heathen. So these are my people, and I decide what is best for them.’

  Corvus glared at her. ‘Am I not a good son of the Dark Lady? I pay my blood debts, I raid in Her name, I worship Her and Her Brother, Holy Gosfath, God of Blood. I am Mireces, dedicated in blood and fire, war chief of Crow Crag and now King of the Mireces. That is all of my lineage you need to know.’

  So quickly he challenges me. So quickly he eliminates any who would oppose him. And of course, there is Rillirin, who Liris dragged to his chamber after Bana’s holy sacrifice. And Rillirin … interests me.

  ‘Such a hurried transition, Corvus,’ Lanta said in a low voice as she stalked through the silent audience, picking her way through the tangle of corpses below the dais. Slaves were wide-eyed with panic, huddled at the back of the longhouse like a flock of chickens before the wolf. ‘On whose authority do you claim the throne? I was not consulted.’

  Corvus steepled his fingers before his lips. ‘My own. But you can consult the other war chiefs if you’d prefer. Not sure how much talk you’ll get out of them, though.’

  Lanta paused in her stride and then continued, stately, predatory. So the challenge comes now, before his arse has even warmed the throne. Then let the gods decide.

  ‘As for authority, I claim it by right of conquest, as Liris did.’ Corvus had pitched his voice to reach the end of the longhouse, drawing warriors to him. They crowded at Lanta’s back.

  ‘I stand beside the throne, my voice is second to the—’ Lanta began as she stepped on to the dais. Corvus leapt from his seat and, firm but courteous, pushed her back down the wooden steps. Lanta wobbled, rigid and red with fury now, down on the floor with the rabble.

  ‘I didn’t invite you to approach,’ Corvus said, his voice pitched loud. ‘When I do, a seat will be made available for you behind me and I will ask for the Dark Lady’s’ – he stressed the honorific – ‘counsel as and when I need it.’

  ‘The Red Gods will not suffer me to be abused,’ Lanta screeched, her fury a lightning bolt from a clear sky. Insolent, arrogant child! He thinks stabbing men in the back gives him authority over the gods? Over me?

  Men shrank away from her anger, but Corvus’s smile mocked. He returned to his throne before answering, stretching the moment long, forcing Lanta and the rest to wait.

  ‘Where is your obeisance, Blessed One?’

  Lanta gaped, disbelief etched across her face. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.

  ‘Liris was weak – you took advantage of that to seize more power than your station demanded. I’m restoring the balance. You may not have authorised a new king, but the Dark Lady did. So kneel. Or die. I don’t much care either way.’

  ‘I know the Lady’s will,’ Lanta shouted. ‘I am the Blessed One. She talks to me, not you.’ Her fists were clenched, face hot with outrage and anger. A challenge directed not just at her power, but that of the gods? I’ll see him writhing beneath my knife for this outrage.

  Corvus spread his red hands. ‘Then you’ll know it was Her will that I defeated my rivals. If She didn’t want me on the throne, they would’ve killed me.’

  There were murmurs and Lanta felt the shift in the room. He was right and everyone knew it; godsdamnit but she knew it. A change in tactic, then. ‘King Corvus,’ she said and he grinned, ‘now is not the time for a change in administration. Perhaps—’

  ‘Well, unless you can bring a man back from the dead, you’re fucked,’ he replied and there was muted laughter, quickly stilled.

  Lanta bared her teeth. It had been years since anyone’d dared interrupt her. She remembered now how little she liked it. ‘I simply meant, perhaps our people would prefer a united front until you settle into your new role. There are many things I can advise on. If you would allow it?’

  ‘No.’

  Lanta could feel her cheeks burning. The air fizzed between them as Corvus looked into her eyes, all cool detachment and deep amusement, daring her to look away.

  She smiled. There were many ways to play this game and she had far more experience than he did. Still, he’d riled her. ‘Perhaps men will be sent to Crow Crag for your consort,’ she hissed, and heard the collective intake of breath. Had she really just threatened the king? Corvus flicked his finger
s in dismissal, his face disinterested. As though she hadn’t even spoken. Lanta inhaled hard.

  ‘Perhaps you should focus on finding Liris’s killer instead,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that,’ she said. ‘They’ll be found and dragged before you for judgement. I wonder what sort of a king you’ll be then, when you have before you the one who really granted you the throne.’

  Lanta was never reckless; the gods had too many plans and she was too important to all of them. Yet that easy smile, those infuriating blue eyes, made her desperate to hurt him, but instead of her barbs finding his flesh, everything she said simply glanced off him, as though he was wearing that ridiculous Rilporian plate armour.

  ‘Tread lightly, Blessed One,’ Corvus said, his voice low with menace. ‘You have no idea who you’re dealing with.’ He paused and smiled, friendly, open. ‘But I can show you, if you ever threaten me or mine again.’

  Perhaps that had been over-hasty, she conceded as she stared at Corvus and his bloody hands, his bloody boots. His strawberry-blond hair was wild and sweaty from the fight, and she dropped her gaze from his to examine the bodies. Wounds in the back. She snorted faintly. He hadn’t even had the balls to do it properly.

  But done it was. While she’d been examining the torn and bloody corpse of Liris in the room next door, she’d lost everything. The gods’ desires subordinated to the desires and whims of a man. No, she vowed into the silence of her skull, not during my lifetime. Not when I still have some power.

  ‘It is a comfort to hear you will not let Liris’s killer escape. By all means conduct your own investigation; I shall entreat the Dark Lady’s advice. Liris had taken a whore into his bedchamber before he was killed; she escaped during the confusion but I’ve already sent men after her. The chances are good she saw the killer and we can use her to identify the man,’ Lanta said, deliberately keeping Rillirin’s identity to herself. She needed every scrap of leverage she could find.