The Bloodstained God (Book 2) (8 page)

“The wolf has gone, Salis Petraya,” she replied. She stepped aside, allowing Narak and the fat man to face each other. “This is my lord, Narak, prince of the great forest. My lord, this is Salis Petraya, a great and powerful merchant from the southern Isles.”

“Prince of a forest? I have never met a prince of a forest. Tell me, Narak, who do you rule over? Trees?”

“Mostly,” Narak replied. Salis laughed, his whole body shaking with it beneath the silk, and his retinue smiled among themselves and exchanged glances.

“Well, we don’t have many trees here, not like your slow northern trees. They are good for many purposes. Perhaps we can do business?”

“Alas I am not here to trade,” Narak replied.

“No, of course not. Nobody comes to Isan Panyerasna to trade, but it is a shame to allow an opportunity for profit to pass you by, no? Perhaps I can tempt you with food. Will you join my party for the evening meal? My cook is an artist.”

“That I can believe,” Narak said, and the fat man laughed again. He glanced at Narala and saw her nod. “I would be pleased to accept.”

“And you must bring Narala,” the merchant went on. “She is a considerable adornment, as well as telling the most amazing stories.”

“I shall.”

The merchant bowed, a polite bow from the neck only that multiplied his chins, and led his retinue away, puffing and sweating.

“He is a dangerous man,” Narala said when he was out of earshot. “He is cousin to one of the Sei, and trades on it heavily.”

“A useful ally?”

“Perhaps, but he is not famous for his loyalty.”

“He knows you by name. You have spoken before?”

“He sought me out when he heard that I was here on behalf of a northern lord. He thinks there may be some advantage to it. I dare not speak of your true nature, Deus, because they fear magic here. They kill those who practice it.”

“So you have explained. I learned that lesson, Narala. I will not risk their enmity.”

They walked in silence for half a minute, and they were nearly back to their guest residence when Narala spoke again.

“The herald, Deus, why did you choose that one?”

“It was the boatmen. Of all the boatmen his were the most disciplined, showed the most respect.”

“He was poorly dressed, Deus. He looked like a beggar.”

“As do I; certainly when compared to the likes of your merchant. I tried to look at the man, Narala. He looked a serious and honest individual.”

“And the copper coin? It seemed an insult, but he took it well.”

“He was not eager for the commission. I assumed that he did not need the money, even that he might see gold as an offence to his dignity.”

Narala nodded, but he did not think she saw things as he did. The herald had been more than a herald, of that he was certain. He had been a man of consequence, but not proud. How that was, or whether it had been a good idea to select such a man to carry his message he could not have said for certain, but it seemed so.

Cain sat at a desk in his apartments above the Seventh Friend, pen in hand, ink bottle open, and tried to force ideas from his head. He had drawn a map, a map of the White Road, on a sheet of parchment, but it served little purpose. It was a simple enough plan, and already quite comfortably in his head. He stared at it. There were two necks in the pass, the scree slopes, the brushwood and stunted trees that littered the floor, the curve of the pass that hid one end from the other. It was so simple that he could see no advantage, no plan that could make it defensible.

Sheyani had sat by him for a while, playing her pipes, and their magic had made it seem possible, but after a few hours she had asked him to stop, to take a break.

“It has been eight days, Sheyani,” he had replied. “In six I must give Narak his answer, tell him how to defend the White Road.”

“You are a clever man, Sheshay,” she had replied. “I know it. But cleverness is like a night star. It burns brighter for not being looked upon.”

Cain had ignored her. In a way he knew that she was right, but her Durander way of always having an apposite pithy saying irritated him ever so slightly, and he stared at the useless map ever more fiercely.

She had been gone ten minutes when he gave up. It was never going to come; not like this. And he preferred her company to that of a sheet of parchment and his own desperation. He pulled himself up out of his chair and scratched the stump of his right hand, which had taken to itching annoyingly when he was in the least agitated. Over the months since he had lost his right he had become quite proficient with the left, and only occasionally made the error of trying to use the vanished fingers of his right to seize a cup or pen.

Sheyani was downstairs in the bar, helping the barmen clean the glasses and tables. She smiled when she saw him, and came to him at once.

“You must come with me,” she said, “and I forbid you to think for the rest of the day.”

“You forbid me?” Cain smiled in spite of himself.

“I do. Now come.” She tucked her arm around his and led him out of the Seventh Friend into the street, turning right, following the road that led towards the commercial heart of the low city, the King’s Loyal Market. It was the largest by far of several that sprang up like weeds in any open space in the city. It bore the name of a tavern, the King’s Loyal Servant, that had burned down at least fifty years ago and not been rebuilt. The charred timbers and broken slates had been cleared away and stalls had begun to sprout as if from the ground almost as soon as there was room. The council permitted it, or at least did nothing to close it down.

The old tavern had been big, and now the market was equally impressive. The houses around it had adapted to the situation, and most of them were fronted with rickety stalls. It was a Market that sold everything; food, cloth, oil, candles, lamps, clothes, pots and pans, nails, parchment, wine, jewellery – some of it quite expensive; there were cook’s carts, too, selling a dozen different foods ready to eat, and entertainers in the aisles, jugglers, singers, and even a man who promised to paint your picture in ten minutes flat.

Sheyani pulled him along the rows, stopping every now and then to admire a bolt of silk or a pretty scarf. She was enjoying herself. She bought a length of green silk that she said would make a shawl to cover her head, taking great pleasure in the sport of haggling the seller down. Cain knew that she overpaid anyway, but he didn’t say anything. He could afford it. They were rich. He was a lord.

They stopped at a stall selling sticks of spiced beef cooked on an open flame, and he ate two. Sheyani shook her head at him, mock frowned. She would still eat no meat, but he would not adopt her ways. In truth she did not seem to mind. They took a cup of wine from a stall two down from the meat seller. The vendor swore it was Telan, but it would have been a poor vintage if it was. He enjoyed it anyway. There was something about the day that would have made the roughest country wine taste good.

A couple of men greeted him. They were soldiers. The whole city was full of soldiers, and they saluted and bowed. He smiled at them, shook their hands, which startled them both, and wished them well. Cain could feel himself unwinding, a spring gradually letting out its tension. He was having fun, and he was not thinking.

It was a pig that did it. One end of the market was devoted to livestock. Chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, even dogs and cats were sold here. They were walking past a nut seller, a man doing a brisk trade. Nuts were popular and cheap, and the man had stacks of empty and full baskets.

A great commotion came from up ahead, from where the animals were sold, and they heard the pig before they saw it. A loud squeal, men shouting, laughing, women shrieking with laughter. A good sized pig, white with pink ears, came barrelling down the aisle, making a last run at freedom before it ended up as pork.

Cain swung Sheyani to the side of the aisle, but in doing so could not avoid the animal himself, and tripped over its back as it drove past with all the determination of a Berashi cavalry charge. He twisted as he fell and struck the nut seller’s baskets, the full ones, with his shoulder, and it was like hitting a brick wall.

Then the pig was gone, its noise rapidly distant, and Sheyani was leaning over him, a small worry on her face, a question in her eyes. He rubbed his shoulder.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.” He got back to his feet.

She laughed. “I didn’t think to see you dancing with a pig,” she said.

“It was a fine animal,” he quipped back. “Strong, and what lovely ears!” He kicked lightly at the baskets with a boot. Solid as a rock. The seller had stacked them three quarters full, five deep, three wide. He kicked them harder.

“Do you mind, sir?” the seller demanded. “Those baskets cost money.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. But he continued to stand there, staring at the baskets. There was an idea in his head, but it was no good. He’d thought of palisades, lines of tree trunks buried a third in the ground, sharpened at the top, but it was no good, Wood burned. Baskets would burn, too, but there was another idea trying to force its way to the front of his mind, pushing like the desperate pig past a host of other idlers.

He shook his head.

“Sheshay?”

He held up his hand, tried to let the idea come. It was like trying to go to sleep. Trying did no good at all.

“Something,” he said. “I nearly had something.” Then it came, and he smiled. It was simple, stupidly simple, and he had no idea if it would work. “Where’s the nearest blacksmith?” he asked.

He dreamed. Again he knew that he dreamed, and this time it was as though he did not dream at all. He was alert, expecting something, willing to learn.

It was dark, but not dark. He stood in a chamber filled with lich-light.
It was a long, low cave; long enough that he could have mistaken it for a passageway had he not stood close to the entrance, had he not
known
.

It was the same sensation in the previous dream. He knew things that he should not. They were just present in his mind, as though they had always been there. In the same way he knew what filled the room.

The darkness glittered. Rank upon rank of Bren Morain stood still and silent, waiting for a command. The room was filled with the threat of unthinking slaughter. He began to count them, but quickly gave up. Beyond the first twenty or so they merged into a seam of gleaming black. There was simply not enough light to make them out.

The body through whose eyes he saw turned and walked from the room. The corridor was no brighter, cut from the same reddish stone, lit by the same luminous lichen, but it seemed brighter. Just smaller, he supposed.

It turned into another room, and he saw the same as before. Rank upon rank, Lines that vanished into the distance. He counted the columns this time. There were fifteen. He tried to estimate the size of the cavern. Half a mile? More? The Bren Moraine stood close to each other, but not that close. Two yards each, perhaps, so four hundred in each column, which meant six thousand in each cavern.

He left the cavern, walked again in the corridor, entered a third, and saw the same thing. Six thousand Bren Morain. It was a guess, but could not be so far from the truth, so eighteen thousand in the three caverns.

He was being shown this. There was something deliberate in the way that he stood in each cavern long enough to be certain what it was he saw, and then moved on to another.

His eyes walked to a fourth cavern, then a fifth. Thirty thousand Bren Morain, all waiting, all gathered. It was already an army that the kingdoms would have to fear. Yet it was more than a year until the Bren had said they would act, twelve months and more before they had claimed they would be ready.

The show did not stop. There were more caverns full of Morain, but Narak was beginning to be distracted again. Already this army was large enough to sweep Seth Yarra from Terras; easily large enough. Acting in conjunction with the men of the kingdoms it would be a one sided affair. Now he was becoming aware of shadows again, and this time he glimpsed some detail. He saw a single Bren Warrior standing before a stone, a map, he heard the unmistakeable sound of the tunnelers moving rock, the pick fingers, the great arms tearing the stone, and there was a shadow of a cave, barely lit, but a cave bigger than anything he had ever imagined, bigger, higher wider, and a shape, a shadow of a shape, moving out of sight.

He tried to turn his head; tried to will the eyes to move. It was important that he should see what was there, because he did not
know
, and he must. The knowledge was behind the eyes, but he could not touch it.

“Wolves should not chase what they might not wish to catch.”

It was the same voice; the rolling song of polished stone, the great, godlike voice that he had heard before, and suddenly he was awake again, and again in his full aspect, and bathed in sweat.

Eighty thousand Bren. Eighty thousand warriors, and it was not enough. What did the Bren plan to do with so many? What did it mean? He glanced across the small room. Narala was there, sleeping soundly, breathing the air of the faithful.

Narak had never felt so alone.