Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (10 page)

“No one knows that for certain. It is nothing but a rumor.”

“Are you questioning me, girl?” He turned in the saddle, waiting, daring her.

“No. No, Father.”

“They take what they want, the Daath, they always have, but not my girl, by God.” He turned again to the forest. “You hear me!” he shouted. “Not my girl!”

Lamachus then turned and studied her carefully. “Worthless. He is worthless whoever he is. He has no grit—gutless—hides in the trees. Someone were to issue me that challenge, we would by God engage—hand to hand.”

Adrea half-closed her eyes. “Father, this is nonsense.”

“Let us make certain of that, shall we?” He leaned forward and wrenched the reins out of her hands. Adrea had to grab the mane of her horse as they bolted into a gallop. She had no idea where he was taking her, but she guessed it would not be pleasant. When Lamachus's temper broke, he was capable of anything.

Camilla was outside the cabin when they reached it, glancing up as they passed, she gave Adrea a look of concern. However, to Adrea's surprise, Lamachus did not stop at the cottage; he rode on, full gallop, his horse grunting under his weight, the reins of Adrea's horse tight in his fat fist. He had not even glanced at Camilla. She followed them to the fence line with growing anxiety.

Eventually they wound their way through the village streets, hooves echoing against the stone. Lamachus was barely giving people time to step clear of his horse, and this was market season, the streets crowded. One vendor knocked over his cart in panic. Some of the shopkeepers, those who knew Adrea and her father, looked up with unease. They likely guessed what was happening, and even Adrea guessed, as well. They were heading for the shrine of Baal.

It was a small shrine of gypsum imported from Galaglea stone by stone when the Galagleans where relocated by force at the end of the gathering war. The shrine was maintained by the village's two priests and their gathering of women attendants.

The tribes of the goddess Dannu were united by the blood of their mothering star, but the Galaglean still paid worship to their ancestral god. He was no Elyon; rather an empty, hollow idol that graced the top of the shrine named Baal.

Adrea had never been able to pass the shrine without a shudder. When she was only four, her father had brought her to witness a sacrifice. Rains had come scarce that year, so the priests had slaughtered a young bull. Adrea would always remember the blood gutters running. They had given her endless nightmares.

Lamachus rode up, dropped from his winded horse, looped his reins over a hitching post, and walked up the gypsum stairway. He pounded a heavy fist on the oaken doors. The stone lintels looked rusted, stained from blood offerings. A priest appeared, his head shaved, his long robes black and unadorned. Lamachus spoke low, almost a whisper, indicating Adrea. The priest looked up sharply. He laid a hand on Lamachus's shoulder.

Adrea had the impulse to pull on the reins and launch her horse into a gallop. The gray would easily outrun Lamachus's heavy warhorse, but Lamachus would have pursued relentlessly, never giving up. He would end up pushing the warhorse so hard it would probably die of exhaustion. But Adrea was too old for this, and she was reaching the point where Lamachus was no longer going to force her to do anything.

When the priest reached her, he took her by one wrist, pulled her from the saddle, and hoisted her over his back. He strode up the steps, past Lamachus. There were people from the village watching and Adrea shuddered with embarrassment.

It was shadowy within. Only thin streamers of light managed to break through the triangular windows of the vaulted ceiling. Braziers on crow-legged tripods left everything in a reddish glow.

The women who pulled her onto the cold altar stone were old and wore hooded, black gowns, their faces hidden. They held her down, four of them, and two pulled her legs apart sharply. Adrea knew there was nothing to do but endure. She closed her eyes, willed her consciousness elsewhere as the priest knelt before her and lifted an oil lamp. His hand was cold and brutal as it probed. Adrea was then released. The priest escorted her to the doorway, pulled her into the sun, and there he looked to Lamachus and nodded.

She jerked away from the priest's grip, then quickly walked to her horse and mounted, taking up the reins. She watched Lamachus pull himself into the saddle. His beard was tangled, his eyes dark with their leathery wrinkles at the edges. When he turned to her, she slapped him sharply across the cheek. She had never slapped anyone before and did not know what to expect, but Lamachus only narrowed his brow with a sneer.

“You saw the hags, girl?”

She stared back defiantly, not answering.

“You betray this marriage, and by your mother's own blood, you will live life shaven and bitter as a servant before Baal.”

Adrea said nothing. She hated him so in that moment. She'd never felt such hate, and tears fell across her cheek as she put the stallion into a gallop.

Aeson was in the east field, riding down a stray heifer. The heifer belonged to a Daath, the baron who lived in a palace east of the village, near the sea. Whisperings were that once he carried a war hammer and killed many in the gathering wars. Now he was old, had lost his hair, and had gotten fat—rare for a Daath. On the other hand, Lamachus, equal the baron's age, was still a warrior. Lamachus's cabled muscles still held their tone, and once Aeson had seen his father bring down a maddened bull barehanded with a double-fisted blow to its head. Lamachus could carve up the Daathan baron like a hind of boar for the spit if it came to that. Still, even though Lamachus had his own herd, for pay he also worked the baron's lands. Aeson worked them, as well, and Lamachus had always said the baron's cattle were to be treated as their own. That is how Lamachus had taught him, that if a job was to be done, it was to be done well or not at all.

Aeson ran the baron's heifer back through the fence, over the same broken top post she had gotten through twice before. Aeson had repaired it both times, but the cow had gotten the idea that its purpose in life was to knock this piece of fence apart. Cows lacked for brains, but they had incredible determination.

Aeson dismounted and pulled the top post back in place. This time he brought along braided leather thongs to make the lashings and pieces of pine to strengthen the center break. Next week, he would take an axe and ride the half-day journey to the high country to cut another top post. The forest of the East of the Land was, of course, much closer, but to cut a limb or a tree from the sacred trees was a sentence of death by law of the Daath, and Aeson had no doubt they carried out their laws without mercy. Besides, he respected Adrea's feelings for the forest, her reverence for it. He would have ridden the half-day journey with or without the Daathans' law.

He finished the last tie, then took the reins and mounted. As he turned his horse, he drew up with a gasp. Directly before him, mounted on a roan stallion, with veils and silvered hair, was a starkly beautiful woman. She had rich, blue eyes and painted lids and pale skin with a slight tint of blue as if she were cast in moonlight. It was a Daath! The bodice of her tunic was unlaced at the front. He had never before seen a woman so beautiful, and it sucked all the breath out of him and left him dizzy. All he could do was to stare as if frozen. Briefly, he wondered how she had gotten so close, without his hearing anything. It was said the Daath could do that, move without sound.

“You are the boy—Aeson?” she asked. She spoke an educated Daathan, her voice practiced and liquid clear. Aeson merely nodded. He watched in amazement as she reached delicate fingers with painted nails into her bodice and withdrew a small, silver cylinder. “This is for your sister, the red-hair. It is for her alone.”

She leaned in her gilded saddle and folded the cylinder into his hand. Her hair brushed his bare shoulder, and the touch of her fingers over his sent a shiver down his back and a strange arousal that left his throat dry. She smiled, warmly, then turned the roan and set it at a gallop. Her silver hair streamed in flight and he watched as long as he could, until she vanished over a far hillock, back toward Terith-Aire.

Aeson looked down at the cylinder in wonder. It was pure silver, molded in images of laurel leaf. It bore an oak-wood stopper sealed on the edge in wax with the imprint of the eagle. Without thinking, his fingers started to break open the seal, but then he remembered—for the red-hair alone. With difficulty, he stowed the cylinder in his belt pouch. He had too many chores he needed to finish. There was no time ride back to the cottage and find Adrea, and he knew curiosity would curse him the whole day.

Aeson's last duty was pulling out a calf that had lodged in its mother's birth canal. The calf was dead, but so would be the mother if it was not pulled loose soon.

Lamachus tied a line of hemp about the forequarters of the dead calf, and Aeson tied the other end about the horn of Lamachus's saddle. Aeson would have used his own horse, but Lamachus had yet to give him a saddle, telling him he would become a better rider the more he rode bareback. Maybe he was right.

Near the ailing cow, Lamachus took stance. He shook out his huge arms, gripped the cow by its head, and wrestled it down. It moaned, struggling, but Lamachus was strong and the mother too weak to fight. Lamachus soon had the head pinned against his thigh, twisted to the side, all his weight against it. He shouted to Aeson, “Now, boy!”

Aeson spurred Lamachus's horse and the calf came out, hit the dirt, leaving a bloodied swath before Aeson pulled the horse to a halt. Aeson dropped out of the saddle and unlashed the rope, then turned and stared aghast.

The calf had two heads and it was lying in the dirt almost torn in half amid its blood and afterbirth, steaming in the cool air. Aeson couldn't move, almost couldn't breathe because the two misshapen heads were human. They were hairless, with dead, human eyes, foreheads that had sloped, wrinkled brows, and wide, thick noses. It made him want to heave but his panic bit deeper than the nausea. He also noticed their teeth—sharp teeth, not the kind of teeth you would find on a calf—teeth for shearing flesh.

Lamachus let loose the cow. It staggered off a ways to hang its head, breathing heavily. Lamachus cut the birth cord with his big knife and wiped the blade on the mother's coat. He then walked over to stand above the monster, shoving the blade through his belt.

“Good Lord,” Lamachus muttered, “at least we can be thankful this thing did not survive its birth.”

“That … is … it is a Failure, Father.”

“Damned sure something failed, being as it has a second head growing out its ass.”

Lamachus looked up, noticing the stark fear on his son's face. “What,” demanded Lamachus. “You have never seen a stillbirth before?” “Father, look at the faces, they are human. Do you know what that means?” “That they're damned ugly?”

“No, no, it means that … it means this is one of them.” “Them? What kind of
them?”
“A Failure.”

“Well, one would hardly think it's going to make a good milking cow.” “No, no, I mean it is born of a giant, a wanderer. They say some have been seen in these parts.”

“Did you say a giant?”

“It has to be. How else could the faces be human?”

“You are telling me some Etlantian monster has journeyed all the way from the mother city just to fornicate with one of my cows?”

“Yes!”

“I have heard some odd things come out of you, boy, but this one is simply too strange for comment.”

“But look at it! The teeth! Look at the teeth! You do know the curse of Enoch?”

“You listen to me, boy, this here, this is god-awful. It is a poor bastard breech two-headed calf, but nothing more, and there is no name for it other than pitiful. Now gather some kindling and burn it.”

“What?”

“I said to burn it. Have you lost your hearing as well as your mind?”