The Godspeaker Trilogy (24 page)

Then she heard the healer shout, “I see the head, warlord! Nagarak high godspeaker, the child is coming!”

With one last strangled groan she felt her son slide into the world. Nagarak caught him, he used his sacrifice knife to cut the pulsing cord still binding them together. As the healer moved in to do things with his godstone, she heard an indignant, wailing cry.

“He is perfect! He is beautiful!” cried Raklion, weeping. “See my son, Hanochek! See my glorious, godgiven son!”

Hanochek was weeping too, they both wept like babies. “I see him, Raklion. You are right, he is perfect.” He had his arm around Raklion, to keep him strong on his feet.

“Give him to me, Nagarak,” Raklion demanded. “I will hold my perfect son.”

“Not until he is bathed in the god’s blood, warlord,” said Nagarak. “Not until he is judged free of taint.”

Exhausted, nearly fainting, Hekat tried to speak. He is not tainted, you fool, he is my son. Give him to me. Did you birth him? I think you did not!

The words would not leave her, she had no breath to speak. She grunted as another pain rippled through her, as her body expelled the unwanted afterbirth. She struggled to see past the busy healer, she wanted to know what Nagarak was doing. There was a large golden bowl on the altar now, the godspeakers were filling it with fresh hot blood.

Her son wailed again, she heard Raklion shout. She saw Nagarak lower her child into the bowl, hold him there for a moment, then lift him out, high over his head. He said, “I am Nagarak high godspeaker, the god’s voice in Et-Raklion. I say this boy is demon-free. Take him, warlord. He is your untainted son in the god’s judging eye.”

Raklion held out his arms, taking her son from Nagarak. He turned around and at last looked at her. “See him, Hekat. See his perfection!”

The baby was dripping with sacrificial scarlet, he howled in protest, he had strong healthy lungs. The healer was finished between her legs, she pushed herself upright and shoved him away.

“I see him, warlord. Give him to me!”

Raklion came to her, the wailing infant held close to his chest. Tears washed his face in a waterfall of joy.

“ Zandakar ,” he whispered. “That is my son’s name. The world will know him as Zandakar .”

“It is a good name, Raklion!” said Hanochek, too close beside him. Too eager to be part of this, it was not his business. He should go away, now.

But it was a good name, she could not say it wasn’t. Raklion placed her son in her outstretched, eager arms.

“Zandakar,” she agreed, her throat so sore and tired from groaning. He was small, he was warm, his small legs kicked, his small arms pumped, the thickening blood on him smeared her skin. She did not care, she was holding her son.

Zandakar opened his eyes and stared into her face. She stared back at him . . . and fell headlong into love.

A
ieeeee !” screamed Raklion, and plunged his snakeblade through the throat of a faltering enemy warrior. Fighting at his back, Hanochek killed two more warriors of Et-Banotaj, then turned and caught him by the elbow as he slipped in the muddy stew of blood and entrails underfoot.

“The god see you, warlord!” Hanochek gasped. “I think they are finished here. Does that mean it is over?”

Raklion coughed, his throat was raw with screaming, with urging his warriors to slaughter and death. He bent double, bloodied arms braced against his thighs, and sucked in drafts of stinking air. His head was swimming, he could hardly see for the blood in his eyes.

“I think it must be,” said Hanochek, answering himself. His voice was tight with pain, and strain. “We have killed the last of them.”

That was true. Antobar’s Ravine was choked with corpses, most of them warriors of Et-Banotaj and Et-Tebek. Some were dead warriors of Et-Raklion, he would weep for them later. Raklion straightened, groaning. There was not a muscle in his body that did not protest, not a sinew that did not cry for mercy.

I am growing too old for bloody mayhem. If I do not break these warlords’ hearts soon they will break mine and that will be that.

Around them, Et-Raklion’s surviving warriors stood and waited, dazed and exhausted as he was dazed and exhausted. The ravine’s hot close air thrummed with that strange after-battle silence made up of panting warriors, sliding stones, faint moans of the dying and an absence of blade clashing blade, knife slicing flesh, screaming as godsparks fled to hell, or the god.

A thudding of hoofbeats staggered him about, snakeblade lifted, a new scream rising in his throat. Kill them kill them kill them kill them ! He choked it down, seeing it was Iriklia Spear-leader on his horse, his wide face split wider in a smile. His godbraids were bloodsoaked, his dull brown horse turned a wet bright red.

“Warlord, they are routed! The warriors of Et-Banotaj and Et-Tebek fly from Et-Raklion! We have the victory, victory is ours!”

“The god sees us,” Raklion murmured, as the last of his strength drained from his limbs. He felt his snakeblade drop from his weak grasp as Hano’s arm slid round his shoulders, keeping him from the ground. “Iriklia, fetch the godspeakers here,” he commanded. Iriklia cantered away.

“Hano . . .”

“Warlord,” said Hano, still holding him.

“Gather our living warhost beyond this ravine, up on the flatland where the battle began. Praise them in my name, I will go to them soon. I desire a moment’s solitude with the god.”

“Raklion—”

“Obey me, warleader! Our enemy is dead or running, I am in no danger. I am in the god’s eye.”

Hanochek did not want to leave him, behind the blood his face was anxious. But he was the warleader, the warlord’s word was his word. “Raklion,” he said, unhappily.

Raklion nodded at a nearby boulder. “I will sit there.”

Hanochek helped him to the boulder, then retrieved his dropped snakeblade and handed it to him. “Do not keep your warhost waiting, warlord,” he said softly. “They need you in this time of strife.”

Raklion nodded, and waved the knife. It was too bloody to glint in the sunshine. “Go, Hanochek. I have said I will follow, and I will follow in my time.”

Hanochek and those warriors able to walk departed the bloodsoaked ravine. As they passed him sitting on his boulder, most wounded, some limping, they pressed their fists against their hearts and grinned at him through their masks of blood, grime and sweat. He tried to grin back, though feared it was more a grimace.

The god see you always, my beautiful, brave warriors. The god see you dancing in its eye.

Alone at last, he braced his elbows on his knees and let his head drop into his hands. His godbraids swung round his face in a curtain, shielding the world from the sight of his tears. As he wept he heard the first crows gather for their feasting, eager cawings and the flapping of black wings.

You test me, god. How you test me. I am naked before you, see me naked in your eye. When will you tell Nagarak I must unite this nation? The warlords have stolen all they can from each other, they dare now to challenge me. My warhost has grown from ten thousand to twenty but still they challenge. Their fear makes them desperate. My fat green lands taunt them, they cannot help but attack. With Nogolor dead I am truly alone. Tebek and Banotaj eat their meat at one table, I cannot hold my borders against them forever. I cannot be sure to defeat two treatied warlords, I will never defeat six if they stand shoulder to shoulder.

If I am to be the warlord of Mijak, god, it must be soon. Am I a young man, with a long road before me? I think I am not. I think you forget that.

He held his breath then, expecting the god to smite him for his thoughts. He was not smitten, all he heard was the crows, stripping flesh. All he felt was the sun on his skin.

Aieee, he missed Hekat. He wished she was with him, dancing with her snakeblade beside him in battle. Holding him in the night-time, easing his body, soothing his mind. When doubt assailed him she was always there, her strength had no limits, she was strong in the god.

I am Hekat knife-dancer, Bajadek’s doom, mother of Zandakar, seen by the god. You will be the warlord. The god has said it.

So said Hekat, whenever he fretted. It would ease his heart to hear her say so now but she was far away, she led three thousand warriors in a dance along the furthest end of the Et-Tebek border. His warriors loved her, she led them bravely with blood in her eye. He longed to see her, and Zandakar his perfect son.

Let me go home now, god. Let me ride to Et-Raklion. The warlords are chastened, let me go home.

Smudging the tears across his face he stood and stretched his aching back. The bold crows did not cease their gobbling, he bent again and picked up stones to chase them from the corpses of his own people. He threw the stones, the crows swore at him and would not leave.

They are bold, as warlords are bold. They seize what they want and do not let go.

Like the crows and the warlords he must seize his own heart’s desire or see it slip through his fingers. If the godspeaker’s omen said he could take his warhost home he would ride to the doors of Nagarak’s godhouse and demand the high godspeaker make sacrifice for war. The god had told him after the scorpion wheel that he would be Mijak’s warlord. Let that be his omen. He would not seek another.

Resolute and sorrowful he moved among his fallen warriors, kissing those who could not be saved and killing them with his gentle snakeblade. Then he climbed out of the ravine as his warhost’s godspeakers appeared at its lip, ready to give aid to the living and gather the dead for their last dance on the pyre.

I have waited long enough, god. I will be Mijak’s one true warlord. I will make of Mijak a gift for my son.

“Yuma! Yuma! See me, Yuma!”

The sound of that beloved voice, shrill with excitement, turned Hekat’s head as she led her warhost through the wide open gates and into Et-Raklion’s vastly expanded barracks. All her weariness fell away, her body’s aches deserted her. She forgot her knife-cuts and her strained muscles. Here was Zandakar, her heart in the world, trotting towards her on his blue-striped pony. Warriors and slaves stepped hastily aside, smiling, laughing, calling his name. Head high, shoulders wide, he rode between the smithies and the armorers’ booths and the leatherworkers’ tents and past the pedlars’ stands as though they were his, as though he owned them.

And so he does, my son, my little warlord.

“Take the warhost to the stables, Arakun,” she ordered the warrior who once had ordered her. “I will join you on the warhost field for sacrifice in a small time.” She tossed him a coin-purse. “This is for the godbowl.”

Arakun caught the purse and pressed his fist to his breast. Unlike Tajria, who was dead now for disobeying Hekat’s want, Arakun never complained that she was above him. He led the warhost on to the stables, she slid from her saddle and waited for Zandakar to reach her.

“Yuma!” he shouted, and threw himself into her outstretched arms. “The god told me you were coming, it told me you were safe.”

His godbraids printed patterns in her cheek, she held him so hard his godbells were silenced. “Did it, my son?” she murmured. Aieee, how she loved him. He owned her heart, let him eat it like cornmush. “The god sees us both, we are safe in its eye.” Releasing him, she stepped back. “Let me look at you!”

Past four seasons old, he was growing so tall. His godbraids brushed his shoulders, his horsehide leggings were almost too tight. She’d been gone to the border one godmoon, twelve highsuns, not long. Yet he seemed changed in her eyes, he looked more like a man. His eyes were blue, like hers, his cheekbones high, his nose narrow and straight. His lips were beautiful, curved always in a smile. He was a child still but his body had muscles, he would be strong as a sandcat when he was truly a man.

“Yuma, Yuma, did you smite the wicked warriors?” he asked, then giggled as his pony lipped at his neck. He loved the stupid creature, he did not get that from her.

She pulled a fierce face at him, to make him giggle louder. “Yes, I smote them! Am I not Hekat, the god’s knife-dancer? Did I not slay Bajadek, who dared defy the god? Were you my good son while I was away, Zandakar? Did you study your hotas , did you practice with your bow?”

He nodded vigorously, now his godbells sang. “I did, I did, Yuma. I am your good son.”

“And did you do your duty to the god?”

He lowered his eyelids, his lashes brushed his cheeks. “Yes, Yuma,” he murmured. “I prayed with Nagarak.”

He did not like Nagarak, she could not blame him, but he also disliked sacrifice and that she would not excuse. His heart was too soft when it was a question of creatures, he was sorry to see the lambs’ throats cut. He did not like to drink their sacrificed blood but she had only needed to punish him once for betraying that. He drank the blood now, he knew better than to cry.

“Then you are my good son,” she praised him. “Ride with me to the warhost field, I must attend sacrifice for our successful smiting. You can show the god what a good boy you are.”

He leapt on his pony, she mounted her horse, side by side they rode through the barracks to the warhost field. Every busy warrior and slave stopped to watch them, called out a greeting, asked the god to see them always. They loved her son, they loved her because of him, for herself alone she frightened them. She did not care. They were obedient, they died at her word. That was important, the rest was nothing.

As she rode she gazed upon her son. He chuckled and waved, called to warriors by name. Aieee, she was his mother. It still amazed her. If she closed her eyes she could see him a baby, gnawing on his snake-rattle, plump and naked on the grass in her private palace garden, playing with his wooden chariot and horse, reaching for her snakeblade, laughing in the sun. The time had flown swiftly, blink twice more he would be a man grown, the warlord of Mijak, with Raklion dead, a memory in the sand.

When she looked at Zandakar she could see Vortka in him, the angle of his jaw, the tilt of his eyes. It was a good thing, then, that Vortka served beyond the city. So long since she had seen him, perhaps in making Zandakar his service to the god was done. Perhaps once he was tested and proven a godspeaker in the bone Nagarak would send him away forever, to serve in some village and never come back. She would not see him again, then, and neither would Zandakar come to know him.

That would not be a bad thing. Raklion did not question Zandakar was his, he was besotted, he was good to the boy. That suited her purpose. Vortka and Zandakar together in the world’s eye, that did not suit her purpose. It must be avoided.

“Zandakar,” she said, as the warhost field came in sight, overlaid with shadows as the sun slid down the sky. “Is the warlord returned to Et-Raklion?”

“No, Yuma,” he said, jogging neatly on his pony. “Nagarak says he will return soon, he says the omens say it.”

Aieee, but did the omens also say he must be warlord of Mijak? It was time they said it, she had waited long enough. For Zandakar to be Mijak’s warlord first Raklion must lay claim to that name. He was an old man, growing older. Every battle might be his last. All very well to pray to the god to protect him, demons sought to thwart the god. If they could kill Raklion before Mijak was made obedient her son would be threatened. It had come time to act.

Around her neck the scorpion amulet throbbed with power. The god agreed with her. It would see she got her way.

She rode with Zandakar onto the warhost field where her three thousand warriors and the godspeakers waited, ready for sacrifice.

“ Hekat !” the warhost shouted as they saw her riding. “ Hekat the knife-dancer, Bajadek’s doom !”

In their border skirmishing they had killed eight hundred of Tebek’s inferior knives. It was a good slaughter, the new warriors she trained had not disgraced her or the god. She laid her fist above her heart, acknowledging their greeting.

“ Zandakar, the warlord’s son !” they shouted next. There was love in their faces, he was their own son, their little brother, the child of their hearts.

“See the warhost, Zandakar,” she told him. “It is your warhost, you will lead it one day.”

It was the same thing she always told him, from his days in the cradle she made sure he knew who he was.

Zandakar’s fist against his heart was small, but steady. It would be a big fist when he was a man. He would grasp the whole warhost in it, Et-Raklion’s warriors would sleep in his palm.

Hekat smiled and smiled as she rode with her son.

One finger before newsun Vortka woke in his small, solitary chamber to the tolling of the godhouse bell and a hand on his shoulder.

“It is time, novice,” said Brikin novice-master. Salakij was two seasons dead, Brikin had been chosen his successor. Vortka hardly knew him, the last two seasons of his novitiate had been spent away from Et-Raklion and the godhouse. It was strange to be back within its stark stone walls after so long worshipping under the sun. Strange to think that not far away, his son was sleeping.