The Godspeaker Trilogy (14 page)

“That name is dead to me!” she said, and pressed his throat harder with her knife. “My life outside these barracks is dead to me! Remember that if you wish to live.”

Still his eyes were unafraid. “You look and sound so different, Hekat,” he said, his voice gentle. “Won’t you tell me how you came here?”

“It is my business. Mine, and the god’s.”

“I will keep your words secret. The god smite me if that is not so.”

She could smell no stink of treachery on him. The god did not smite him. His word was his word. Slowly she lowered her blade from his throat. “Why do you care?”

He smiled again. “You gave me food when I was hungry.”

From her own bowl, after his was stolen. She remembered. “Tcha!” she said, and looked away. “Stale dry bread, I did not want it.”

“I watched you after the Traders bought me in Todorok village,” he said. “Every day as I walked in my chains, I watched you riding Abajai’s white camel. You thought you were not one of us, you wore no chains, you ate and slept and talked with the Traders. I knew different. I was sorry for you.”

Sorry ? Stung, she raised a fist to him. “Hekat needs no godspeaker pity!”

He covered her fist with his fingers, and held her. “Not now. But I was sorry then, Hekat. If the god took you from them and put you in this place and if you are happy here, then I am happy for you.”

She should pull free of his fingers, she should strike him for touching her. She said, “You are truly a godspeaker? The godspeaker in Et-Nogolor did not lie?”

“Godspeakers cannot lie, Hekat.”

“Tcha,” she said, and did pull free. “You are stupid, Vortka. Grakilon lied. He said the god wanted the Daughter for Bajadek but that was not true. He was high godspeaker and he told lies.”

“Grakilon was a man, corrupted by demons. He turned his shoulder to the god, that is not the same thing.”

His beautiful face was calm, his voice was calm, the god was in him, she could feel it. “So you are a godspeaker.”

He nodded. “I will be. One day. When I’m done with training and have suffered the testing.”

Across the shadowed knife-dance field floated sounds of laughter, of music, as Raklion’s warriors amused themselves around their nightly bonfires. The flickering light warmed the gathering darkness. Sometimes she sat with the knife-dancers before the flames and listened to the laughter, the stories, the songs that told of battles past. She was a warrior, and that was how warriors sometimes spent their nights. When she was not dancing or practicing her reading and writing, that was how she spent her nights.

“What is the testing?”

“A godspeaker secret.”

She bared her teeth at him. “Now I see you, Vortka novice. You know my secret but keep yours in your heart. You are a man, like men you cheat, you lie, you would put chains on me if I was stupid, if I let you fool me.” She turned her shoulder to him and walked away.

He followed. “Hekat! Wait!”

Aieee, she should kill him, if she did not slit his throat he would name her a runaway slave, see her nailed to a godpost with her entrails at her feet. Her fingers on the snakeblade tightened, her drumming heart drummed hard and loud, she tensed her body to leap upon him, sandcat striking. She spun on one foot, snakeblade rising . . .

Vortka was on the ground before her, on his knees before her, his throat was bare, like a lamb for sacrifice it was soft and waiting.

She pulled back her blade and stumbled to stillness.

“The god sees you, Hekat, it sees you in its eye,” he said, without fear. “I see you. Your secret is my secret, it sits in my heart. The testing is for novice godspeakers, they go alone into a desolate place. The god stings them with tribulations, it beats them low, and if they are true they lift themselves into its eye.”

“And if they are false? What does the god do if they are false?”

“It breathes upon them and they die.”

She pressed her blade-tip into the softness under his jaw. “If you are false, Vortka, I will breathe on you and you will die.”

His fingers closed around her wrist. He laid the snakeblade against his lips and kissed it. “I know.”

She dropped to the dirt before him. “What else do you know, Vortka?”

Now his warm palm cupped her cheek. “I am a novice, I know hardly anything. Except I think we are meant to be friends. And I think you have a purpose.”

His touch burned her, gentle against her scars. “What purpose? Does the god tell you?”

He shook his head. “No. Does it tell you?”

She did not want to answer that, but if she said nothing he would guess anyway. “No,” she told him, grudging. “Not yet. Vortka, why are you here ?”

He knelt in silence, his gaze turned inwards. “To find you, Hekat,” he said at last, looking outwards. “We know each other for a reason. I think I am meant to help you in your purpose for the god, whatever it is.”

“ Tcha !” She gathered her muscles and sprang to her feet. Her scars were cold without his hand upon them. She melted her body into a hota , flowing like water, lizard waiting on a rock . “I am Hekat, warrior of Et-Raklion. I read, I write, I dance with my snakeblade. Do I need help from a godspeaker novice?”

“I think the god thinks you do,” said Vortka, and stood. “Would you have me defy it, earn its smiting wrath? What have I done to you that you would do that to me?”

Aieee, he was a twisty one. “Nothing,” she said, and kept on dancing. “Let the god show me I need you, and perhaps I will not send you away. Let it show me—”

She missed her timing in a complicated cartwheel, her foot slipped, she fell hard to the ground. All the hot air whooshed out of her lungs. Shocked, offended, she lay gasping on her back and watched Vortka bend low to help her onto her feet.

“Was that the god?” he said, his dark eyes laughing. “I think it was. I think you do need me, Hekat, though you wish you did not.”

She shook his hand free of her and tossed her head. “Tcha. I think you think too much, Vortka novice. Go away, your silly face distracts me.”

He retreated three paces, he did not leave. Ignoring him, she began dancing again. After watching for a while, he did go away. She let him go, she did not stop him. He was a novice, he was no-one. She was knife-dancing with the god.

She saw him again six highsuns later.

Every tenth highsun Raklion’s warriors were given a day of freedom from training. Hekat spent that time mending torn training tunics and reading. With their copper coin warrior’s portion her shell-mates bought sweetmeats and godbones, amulets and fancy leatherwork from the city pedlars selling their wares in the barracks. She did not care for those things. She cared for stories, and bought them when she could.

This free-day, she sat alone in the sunshine on the far side of the empty knife-dance field, mending a tunic, duty before pleasure, when a shadow fell across her face. She looked up, annoyed. It was Vortka again.

“Tcha! I am stitching, are you blind not to see that?”

He smiled, so beautiful, and sat beside her. “I see you stitching. You can stitch and talk, I think.”

Mending tunics was a tedious business, she longed for a slave. “Of course I can. But do I want to? I do not think so.”

He pulled his knees against his chest. “I have kept your secret, Hekat knife-dancer. Can you not give me a little of your time?”

He had kept her secret, did that mean he owned her? “Why?”

“I am freed from duties in the godhouse until highsun. I thought to sit a while with a friend.”

“ Friend ?” She busied herself with the needle so he would not see her face. “What is friend ? It is a word. What is a word? A puff of air, it weighs nothing, it means less.”

“Not to me, Hekat,” said Vortka, sighing. “Before Abajai bought me I had many friends in my village. I have none in the godhouse, friends distract from the god. I am not supposed to miss them but I do. I suppose you do not need another friend, you are a warrior now. You have your shell-mates.”

Her hand jerked, the needle stabbed. Bright red blood-drops stained her mended tunic.

“You’ve hurt your finger,” said Vortka. “I have my godstone. Shall I heal it for you?”

“There is nothing wrong with my finger,” she snapped, and sucked the blood-drop from its tip.

Vortka laughed. “You are a funny one. Hekat. You make me smile.”

She did not make her shell-mates smile, or Hanochek warleader when he watched her dance. She was one of them, but also apart. She made them uneasy, they knew she was different.

I am Hekat, godtouched and precious. What do I care for the friendship of men?

“Why are you here, Vortka? If you are found being friendly won’t you be punished? Godspeakers are strict, even warriors know that much.”

Vortka shrugged. “I am a novice, I sin daily. I am punished daily whether I sit with you or not.”

Curious, she looked at him. “How do they punish you?”

“That is godspeaker business, I am forbidden to say.” Then he sighed. “There are taskmasters. Pain in the flesh is our contrition.”

She wasn’t certain what that meant, but his eyes were sad. She felt a stir of pity. “It does not please you, to serve the god?”

“Serving the god is my greatest joy!” he said, stung to anger. But it swiftly faded and he was sad again. “It is the whipping I could live without.”

“Then do not sin and they will not whip you.”

“Tcha!” he said, pulling a face. “I have come to believe that to breathe is to sin. At least that’s what Salakij novice-master believes.” He sighed again. “There was not so much whipping in Et-Nogolor.”

“You cannot go back there?”

“Not unless Nagarak sends me. He won’t. The god desires me here, I am here for you.”

Did that mean it was her fault the taskmasters whipped him? She threw down the tunic and leapt to her feet. “I did not ask the god for you, Vortka! You could go back to Et-Nogolor, I would not care!”

Now he smiled, it melted his sorrow. “I would. Aieee, it is not so bad, Hekat. Pay no attention. This is what friends do, they complain to each other, they pout and pull faces. I will not be a novice forever. I will survive this. I serve the god.”

Did he mean that? She stared at him sitting on the ground. She thought he meant it, but before she could ask him a godbell’s tolling broke the warm silence. On the other side of the knife-dance field she saw warriors stirring, heard excited voices raised in clamor.

Vortka stood. “There is the other reason I came to find you,” he said, as the godbell continued to toll. “I heard the news as I left the godhouse. Et-Nogolor’s Daughter is planted with a son and Nagarak high godspeaker has read omens of war. That means the warhost will ride upon Bajadek, doesn’t it? I thought it was something you would want to know.”

Yes, it was something. She gave him a wide smile, snatched up her half-mended tunic and ran across the knife-dance field to rejoin her shell-mates as though ravenous dogs snapped at her heels.

O
n the eve of battle a warlord bathed his body in blood.

Naked and alone, for this was a private ritual, Raklion trod the stone steps into the godhouse godpool, to sink his face in scarlet and show the god he was ready for war. The air was heavy with the smell of death. The blood was warm, it covered his feet, his ankles, his calves. It rose up his thighs, it lapped at his genitals like a woman’s tongue, it sighed across his belly and drowned his scarred chest. Rank warm blood flowed over his lips, his eyes, it stopped his breathing. He swam in blood.

Beneath the red surface he heard his heart pound, the lack of air in his lungs was a fist squeezing tight. He opened his eyes.

I am here, god. I bathe in the sacred sacrificed blood. My son is planted, I have seen your omens. Nagarak says I am bound to war. I will smite Bajadek, I will lay him low. Yet I fear that will bring no end to trouble. I fear my trouble is only beginning. Et-Raklion stays fat as the rest of Mijak grows thin. I know my brother warlords, god, it will turn them against me. They will try to destroy me. How can I stop them? What must I do?

He waited and waited but the god did not answer. Disappointed, disturbed, pricked with his own answer, one too terrible to contemplate, he walked from the godpool to the cleansing room to be renewed in milk and water.

“Warlord, you are burdened with unquiet thoughts,” said Nagarak softly, his strict hands bathing him, washing him clean. “Unburden yourself, my purpose is to listen.”

Nagarak was high godspeaker, he always knew. “Yes, I am burdened,” Raklion admitted. How could he not be? He was the warlord, every life in Et-Raklion lived in his hand. But he could not tell Nagarak what churned in his mind. Nagarak would smite him to his knees if he did that.

Should the browning of Mijak continue the nation will be torn to pieces, seven warlords at each other’s throats, ripping and shredding till nothing remains. But if Mijak had a single warlord . . .

Aieee, what a sinning thought that was! A single warlord was against the god’s law, written in blood at the dawn of their age. He suffocated temptation in his heart and asked Nagarak a question that would not wake his wrath.

“I am tasked to chastise Bajadek. Does the god desire his death?”

Nagarak anointed him with fragrant snake oil, his eyes, his lips, his heart, his hips. “The god desires Bajadek to acknowledge his sinning. It desires that he stay in his city and not stir trouble between the warlords.”

Raklion looked at his hands. Blunt, square, and trained to kill. “And if he does not?”

“It is a mistake to defy the god.”

Nagarak put aside the glass bottle of oil, he unstopped a clay jar of sacred ointment. Raklion sucked air through his clenched teeth, the ointment stung, it burned his skin. “Nagarak, I ride to war. Will I ride home again? Will I survive?”

Astonished, Nagarak took a step backwards. “What is this, warlord? Where do these fears spring from? The god sends you to war, to chastise sinning Bajadek. You go with its omen, anointed with its desire. Why do you think you will die in this battle?”

Because I am filled with sinful thoughts, I am no better than Bajadek warlord. I think of Raklion, warlord of Mijak.

“I am a man, Nagarak,” he said, in anguish. “Like Bajadek warlord, I have sinned. If I were perfect I would have a son.”

“Raklion, you have a son, he ripens in the Daughter’s belly. You will live to see him grow to be a man.”

Nagarak’s words loosened some tight knot within him. “I have lost so many sons,” he whispered. “I am afraid to lose another.”

Nagarak touched him, over his heart. “You are the warlord, the god cloaks you in strength. Go now, Raklion. Kneel your time before your palace godpost and leave your offerings in its bowl. Then lead your warhost to the lands of Et-Bajadek and show the world how the god is obeyed.”

Raklion led six thousand warriors to the lands of Bajadek warlord. They did not travel by the Traders Road, the traditional path from Et-Raklion to Et-Bajadek. That was the peaceful way of entering the lands of Bajadek warlord.

Raklion’s warhost did not ride in peace.

He led his warriors the quiet way, the purposeful way, through Et-Raklion’s pastures and crops, past its godfarms and villages whose inhabitants waved and cheered and exhorted the god to see him in its eye. He waved back and thanked them for their godspeed. His people loved him, and he loved his people.

They were nearing the end of Mijak’s long hot season, they traveled for all the time there was light, as the burning sun climbed the vaulting sky and slid down again to the distant horizon. The cultivated country gave way to wilder terrain, to marshes crowded with frog and heron and watersnake, and from there to a harsh dry landscape cluttered with rocks and pocked with caves and crevices. Strange echoes woke, unsettling the horses. The chariots’ wheels boomed hollow on the bare ground.

With steady traveling they left that strange place and came to Et-Raklion’s open grasslands. The warriors sang their songs of war, Hanochek sang, and Raklion sang too, though his voice was cracked and lost the tune more often than found it.

Twenty-seven highsuns after leaving his city, Raklion and his warhost reached the border with Et-Bajadek. There was no godpost, just a boulder-sized chunk of pale grey crystal, a borderstone set by Bajadek’s high godspeaker so he would know who entered the warlord’s lands. If a traveler’s intentions were not declared to the borderstone the god would smite him. He would wither and die.

Declarations of war were the warlord’s business. Godspeakers rode with Raklion’s warhost, but this was not a task for them. They gave him a black lamb and a sacred godhouse blade and returned to their wagon. With the blade Raklion sacrificed the lamb and bathed the borderstone in its blood. The lamb’s limp body melted as the last drop left it, vanished into sulphur smoke. The borderstone drank the sacred blood, turned blood red and glowed under the sun. Raklion took a deep breath and pressed his hand into it. As warlord he must break the crystal, force his will upon the lands of Et-Bajadek.

Resistance poured against him like a waterfall of air. Bajadek’s borderstone was set against him, there was no treaty, he was not welcome here. His bones cried out against the power, he shouted at the blazing pain. He heard his warhost shouting with him. Hanochek shouted loudest of all. When Bajadek’s borderstone was emptied of power Raklion turned to his warhost and raised the godhouse blade above his head.

“Behold Bajadek’s borderstone, broken by my hand and the god’s desire! Now our warhost rides into Et-Bajadek, to sweep like fire through the unrepentant grass!”

As his warriors hailed him, as they drummed their knife-hilts and sword-hilts and spears to show him the fury of their love, he returned to Hanochek who was holding his stallion.

“We must ride hard, Hano,” he said, his voice low. “Knowing we ride on him Bajadek will lead his warhost to meet us. He is a foolish, proud man, he is deaf to the god.”

“His deafness will be his undoing, warlord,” said Hano, handing him the reins. “The god itself sends us to Et-Bajadek. We ride at its will, we smite at its desiring.”

Raklion wiped the godhouse blade on the dry grass, returned it to a waiting godspeaker, then swung himself into his saddle. Heavy with purpose, he led his warhost into Et-Bajadek.

They traveled two highsuns and saw no sign of Bajadek warlord. A finger before lowsun on the third day past the borderstone they made camp beside a network of sluggish waterholes. As soon as they were halted, Raklion sent his four best Eyes running ahead to locate Bajadek’s warhost. It must be close now, the open country was nearing its end. The other warriors washed the sweat from their skins, their cheerful laughter easing his heart. Body slaves fetched water for him, he bathed in cold and solitary splendor. After sacrifice was made, and rations were eaten, his warhost settled to watchful rest and Raklion walked among them. This was the time he loved the best. He did not love the bloody battles, the pain and the loss and the waste of death.

I am a warlord, bred from a long line of fearsome warlords. Death and knives are in my blood, yet I do not love them.

He wondered sometimes if it was this failing which summoned to him so much disappointment. A weakness in his seed that weakened his sons in their mothers’ wombs, weakened them in the world beyond that if they were born at all they died so young and sickly.

With a grunt he strangled that line of thought. Whatever his failings in the past, they were in the past. The Daughter ripened with his son, the god was appeased, it was pleased, it saw him in its eye. Soon now he would ride into battle, the god would ride with him, this bloodshed was righteous and he would prevail. His son would cut teeth on tales of this victory over proud and godless Bajadek.

The sounds and smells of his war camp swirled around him. Murmured voices, random shouts and laughter, the squeals of warhorses squabbling, sharp acid urine from man and beast, the stinging sulphur smoke of sacrifice that would drift about them all night long, a pungency of grease as chariot wheels were oiled by dour loving charioteers and horsemen cleaned their charm-heavy bridles.

Six thousand numbered his warriors only, it did not count the godspeakers and slaves who traveled with the warhost. All his people, sworn to live and die for him. They were why he walked the camp site, why he delayed the respite of sleep. Why should they die for him if he did not walk among them, to show them his confidence and call them by name?

One by one he visited their separate encampments, for within their barracks and without, his warriors lived like families with each skill-leader as father or mother. It fostered bonds of blood between them and a healthy rivalry between the disciplines.

Warmed by their welcomes he spoke with his archers, his slingshotters, his spear-carriers, his charioteers and his knife-dancers. Every warrior promised him their life; he promised them victory from the god.

As he left the knife-dancers’ camp, eager for bed, he saw at its edge a warrior, dancing. He knew who it was without seeing a face or asking for a name. Hekat . She danced beneath the night’s black ceiling, the godmoon’s light glittering the length of her blade. All knife-dancers were beautiful, it was the nature of their gift, but Hekat was glorious. In the starshine her scars were hidden, she was slender bones and uncoiling muscle, she was small breasts and long limbs and a promise of death in a breath, in a heartbeat. Aieee, god, she made him burn.

“Warlord,” she said, her blue gaze sliding sideways as she flowed through her hotas like water over rocks.

“Hekat,” he replied. “Why are you dancing?”

Her teeth gleamed, she was smiling. He had never seen her smile. He was enchanted. “Why does the sun rise, warlord?” she said. “Why do birds fly and dogs stand on three legs to pish? It is the nature of things.”

“You should be in your camp and sleeping. There will be dancing enough come the newsun. Blood and screaming and dying men’s entrails spread on the ground, a banquet for the crows.”

He knew she was young, and yet she seemed ancient. “That is for the newsun,” she told him, serene. Her once-short godbraids were longer, heavy with beads they caressed her shoulders. “Now is the time I dance for the god.”

Silence cloaked them as she danced with her snakeblade, folding the darkness around its sharp edge. The desire to join her stabbed his heart but he could not dance with her, he was the warlord. He danced with all his knife-dancers or none of them, the night before war.

“Where are your friends, Hekat?” he whispered. “The other knife-dancers sit quietly together, they talk, they remember, they dream of the newsun after battle. Why do you not dream with them?”

For the longest time she did not answer. She wore a scorpion round her slender neck, truly she knife-danced with the god.

“Warlord,” she said, as her last hota sighed to stillness. “I have the god. I need no friends. I am Hekat, I dance alone.”

So cold, so proud. He could warm her, he could make her beg. “I am Raklion. I dance alone also. Perhaps one day we could dance alone together.”

Her head tipped to one side. “Alone. You are the warlord, at your back ride six thousand warriors.”

He ached, he was throbbing. “And yet, Hekat knife-dancer, I am alone.”

“Then you are in the darkness talking to yourself, and that is not a good thing, warlord,” said Hanochek’s voice, approaching.

Raklion turned. Hanochek’s shadow resolved, became flesh. “You come hunting me, warleader? Are you Bajadek or his Eyes now, creeping silently in the night?”

Hanochek’s hand clasped him briefly. “Your body slaves grew anxious when you did not return. They wouldn’t settle unless I came to find you.”

“And here I am found,” said Raklion. “And in no danger. I was talking to—” He turned, but the girl was gone, slipped away in the dark.

“To Hekat?” said Hano, and sighed. “Raklion, she is a strange one. All the leaders tell me of her, they shake their heads. Even Zapotar, though he says she is the finest knife-dancer he ever trained. There is something inhuman about her, they say. I have watched her. I think they are right.”

“She wears a scorpion round her neck,” said Raklion. “When I saw it I thought of Nagarak’s pectoral. Its shadow covered her, Hanochek. Like an omen. I think she is godtouched. So young, so brilliant. How can she otherwise be explained?”

Hano snorted. “You should find out where she comes from, Raklion. She tells a story, yes, but who is there to say that story’s true? She could be anyone. She could be from anywhere.”

“She is from the god, Hano,” he said, and smiled at his warleader’s loyal suspicion. “The rest of her story is unimportant.”

“So you say,” said Hano. Even in moonlight his disgruntled expression was clear to read. “You watch her closely, Raklion. I see her in your eye. You should beware. Not only the godtouched are young and brilliant.”

“You think her demonstruck ?”

Hano shrugged. “I think her strange. If she survives Bajadek’s smiting I think Nagarak should bleed this Hekat and sniff her blood for omens. If she is demonstruck he will smell her out.”