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.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
On 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 godt
ouched. 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.”
The thought of Hekat’s death stopped his breathing. “She will survive, Hano,” he said roughly. “I tell you she is godtouched and sent to me by the god.”
“For what purpose, Raklion? She is an urchin, a ragged child. She is pretty with a snakeblade, that I won’t deny. But—”
Raklion raised his hand. “Peace, Hano. It is Bajadek I wish to battle, not my warleader. I say Hekat is no danger. I am the warlord, my word is my word.”
Defeated, Hano dipped his head. “Warlord.”
There could be no coolness between them, not before a day of bloodshed. Raklion slung an arm round Hano’s shoulders and they walked together to his private camp. “I need your counsel, Hano. What thoughts do you have on matters of tactics?”
Seated cross-legged before his camp fire they talked of strikes and counter-strikes against Bajadek’s warhost, how best they could use the open plain to their advantage. As they talked, two of the Eyes returned sweat-slicked and triumphant. Bajadek’s warhost was found, some four thousand strong and camped five fingers’ distance. Three of Bajadek’s Eyes were discovered sneaking up to Raklion’s warhost. They were dead now, staring blindly at the sky. Raklion praised his Eyes and released them to leisure.