In her head she heard the man’s dogs howling.
The god wants it. The god wants it. Close your eyes, Hekat, you obey the god.
When her body was breached she scarcely felt it. The god was in her, filling her with fire. The scorpion amulet was burning through her, her bones were melting, Raklion was nothing. All that mattered was the god.
The howling dogs weren’t dogs at all, they were Et-Raklion’s warriors. But they howled like dogs, they howled to see the warlord plow her, fuck her, make her the son the god had promised.
The pain in her cut hand vanished, then was reborn. She felt it in her belly, in that untouched place between her legs. Her legs were spread, she was split in two pieces, Raklion labored and panted above her, inside her. His blade was not puny and her field was fertile. He plowed without mercy, she thought of the god.
The god sees me. It sees me. I do this for the god.
With a shout of triumph Raklion spilled himself into her. Dazed, head spinning, she felt herself free of him, felt him pull her upwards to her feet. Her loincloth was discarded, her tunic torn, her bruised breasts kissed by sunlight but not by him.
He traced a finger over her scars. “Beautiful Hekat, mother of my warlord son. Mine, all mine, until death defeats us.”
She was Hekat, chosen by the god. She belonged to no man. But if Raklion wished to think otherwise, he could. He could think and think and never change the truth.
Nagarak took their cut hands and inspected them closely. The wounds were gone, their palms smooth and unscarred. Her blood was in Raklion, his was in her. She was no longer virgin. His seed was planted in her belly.
Let it grow, god. Let it grow. Let it grow into my son.
The watching warriors had not stopped howling. They waved their swords and snakeblades in the air, they drummed their spear-butts into the ground, they leapt and shook so their godbells rang out. Hekat thought the sleeping godmoon and his wife would wake and hear them, in their bed below the horizon.
“What now, warlord?” she asked Raklion as he laughed and punched his fists in the air, drinking down his warhost’s acclaim.
“Now?” he echoed, smiling at her. “Now we retire to the palace.”
The palace. “I will live there, warlord?”
“Where else would you live?” he asked, puzzled. “You are chosen for me, to bear my son. Do you think I should live with you here in the barracks?”
As Nagarak muttered something beneath his breath, she shook her head. “No, warlord.”
Raklion’s hand cupped her scarred cheek, briefly. “You will miss the barracks? You have shell-mates in your heart?”
Only the god was in her heart. “No, warlord.”
“Yet you do not wish to leave them. Why?”
Was he angry, or only confused? She blotted out the rest of the world, glaring Nagarak and staring Hanochek and all the shouting, celebrating warriors. “Warlord, Hekat is a knife-dancer. Hekat knife-dances for the god. For the god, and for the warlord. Can Hekat knife-dance in the palace?”
He smiled. “Hekat will always knife-dance for the god and for her warlord. She will knife-dance where she pleases. Hekat is beautiful when she dances with her snakeblade. Of course you can knife-dance in the palace.”
She nodded, relieved. Without her knife-dancing she would not be Hekat. “Then I will go with you and live in that place.”
Raklion laughed, and called for a horse. The warleader Hanochek brought one with his own hands, his own horse, a blue-striped stallion with a long mane full of godbells. He brought a light linen wrap also, and gave it to Hekat.
Raklion thanked him and vaulted into the saddle. Her nakedness covered in the linen wrap, Hekat vaulted behind him, clasped her arms around his waist and pressed her face into his muscled, linen-covered back. He smelled of sweat and dirt and of her as well. His long, fine godbraids tickled her nose.
The warriors cheered and howled so loudly the striped stallion reared and lashed out its hooves. She and Raklion sat it easily. They were warriors of Et-Raklion and did not flinch from horseflesh.
Raklion’s head turned over his shoulder. “It was a rough taking, Hekat. I am sorry for it.”
She shrugged. “It was nothing, warlord. Hekat is a warrior.”
A small sigh escaped him. “Hekat is much more than that.”
As the warhost shouted, they galloped away.
She knife-danced for him in his private palace chamber, all her hotas for him and the god, and after that he fucked her again. It meant no more the second time than it had the first. He sweated and grunted, he stroked her and pressed her, seeming eager that she find pleasure in the act. She had not thought there was pleasure in fucking, the woman in the village never spoke of pleasure, just rutting men and the pain they caused. Not even the man had enjoyed it, or so it had seemed to that nameless child she had been. Despite Raklion’s strivings she felt no pleasure, fucking was a thing to be lived through, not enjoyed.
Raklion enjoyed it. He kissed her fingers, he kissed her toes, he praised her breasts and called her the empress of his heart.
He was a strange man.
In a damp, sweaty knotting of limbs they lay upon his chamber bed, caressed by a breeze from the open doors. Slaves waited outside, she did not care for them. Playing with her godbraids Raklion said, “Truly the god has favored me.”
She stared at the ceiling, painted with pictures of warlords in battle. Knives. Blood. Vanquished enemies. “Did Et-Nogolor’s Daughter sleep here with you, warlord?”
“No,” he said curtly. “She is dead, Hekat. Never speak of her again.”
“Wherever she slept, I will not sleep,” she said, and rolled over on her elbow to look into his face. “I will sleep here. Your bed is my bed. I am no soft woman-thing. I am a warrior, Bajadek’s doom.”
His fingertips traced her silver scars. “You are the doom of more men than Bajadek. Tell me what happened, the night you killed the Traders for me.”
“I did not kill them,” she said. A finger strayed across her lips. She took it in her teeth and bit until she felt the bone, then spat it out and smiled at his wincing. “They did not die for you. The god sent them to hell for thwarting its desires.”
His gaze shifted to the scorpion round her neck. “I have never seen you without that amulet. Is it so precious? Where did you get it?”
He was jealous. Afraid some man, some boy, had given her a gift. “It came to me by the god’s design. I must always wear it, that is the god’s desire.”
“Who were you before you came here?” he asked, cupping his hand beneath her breast. “Tell me of your life beyond my lands of Et-Raklion.”
“I was nothing. I was no-one. I was a seed waiting for the god to give me life.”
The smile in his eyes faded, his look was intent. “I think you frighten me a little, Hekat. I have never known a woman like you.”
“There has never been a woman like me, warlord.” She covered his cupping hand with her own. “Fuck me again, if that is your wanting. Then we will bathe and dress and talk of Mijak.”
“Fuck again?” he said, and laughed. “Later, Hekat. I am no young bull to rut and rut without rest.”
“Then talk to me, warlord. Tell me of the warlords Banotaj and Jokriel, of Zyden, Takona, Mamiklia and Nogolor. Tell me all you know of them, that we may decide how best to tame them.”
“ We ?” Raklion sat up. “Not we . Wars and warlords are the warlord’s business. He talks of these things with his warleader and his high godspeaker, not—”
She rested her palm on his back and let the god’s heat fill her hand. “Nagarak resists the god in me. I knew before he did what it desired. I told you on the scorpion wheel. Did Nagarak know? Did he see me there? Did he sense my presence in the godhouse?”
Troubled, Raklion shook his head, and shifted so her hand fell from his back. “No. He did not.”
“Then do not think so much of him.”
“Three times has the god kept Nagarak safe in
the scorpion pit. You cannot dismiss him like a slave, Hekat.”
“I do not dismiss him. He is in the god’s eye. I am in the god’s eye also, warlord. Nagarak would see that if he was not blind. You say I am no usual woman and you are right. I am godtouched and godchosen, I am the warrior whose son will follow you as the warlord of Mijak. What is Nagarak, next to that?”
Raklion looked at her. “A man of power, Hekat.”
“ Tcha !” she said, and slapped him lightly. “You are the warlord. You have the power. You are in the god’s eye so deep there is no room for Nagarak there. I am Hekat. I do not lie.”
He turned and lowered his mouth to hers. “You are Hekat,” he murmured against her lips. “Precious and beautiful, the god’s gift to me. I will gift it with bull-calves, I will drown it in lambs’ blood, I will soak the stones of the godhouse with proof of my love.”
She clutched at his buttocks. “Fuck me first, warlord. There must be a son, or the blood will mean nothing.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Within a godmoon of her first taking, Hekat was planted with the warlord’s seed. There were wild celebrations in the streets of Et-Raklion, the godspeakers sacrificed for twelve highsuns unceasing. With her belly protesting the sight and scent of blood she knelt with Raklion before the godhouse’s largest altar as Nagarak gave beast after beast to the god. She did not see Vortka, she did not seek him out.
He is still angry with me. I do not care. Do I need him? I think I do not.
Five godmoons after Nagarak pronounced her pregnant she miscarried of a female child.
Raklion was away from the palace when it happened, training with Hanochek and twenty-five shells of warriors along the border with Et-Nogolor. Nogolor watlord was ageing swiftly, failing. Word came he was deeply grieved by the Daughter’s death, and the slaughter of her child. Word also said his son Tebek was enraged by it. Raklion wished to remind Tebek of the might that would ride against him if he was so foolish as to discard the treaty with Et-Raklion.
Hekat had wanted to ride out with the warhost, she wanted the warriors to see her by Raklion’s side and know she was Hekat knife-dancer, precious and beautiful. Raklion forbade it.
“You carry my son,” he said, impatient. “Are you brain-fevered to think you might skirmish on the border?”
Aieee, the child. How unsettling not to be alone inside her own skin. To be sharing blood and bone with some growing faceless creature, planted in her by a rutting man. She wondered if she would love the baby, she could not imagine it. She thought she hated it already, for keeping her from battle.
She tried to argue. “But Raklion, I am your fiercest warrior. If you wish to strike fear in Tehek’s heart I should—”
“ No !” he shouted, and banged his fist on the table between them, making the wine in their goblets splash. “While I am gone you will not set foot beyond the palace, Hekat. That is my word, it will be obeyed.”
She could not dissuade him. He rode away with Hanochek and his warriors and left her behind, fretting and prisoned, no better than the Hekat kept below stairs in Abajai’s villa or that nameless she-brat cowering in a mud-hut kitchen.
I am Hekat knife-dancer , she told herself in her palace mirror. With an empty belly or with a full one I will knife-dance for the god. Who is Raklion, to say I will not?
The first newsun after Raklion’s riding out and every newsun after that she sent to the barracks for a handful of warriors, she met with them in her private palace garden and they danced their hotas side by side. Different warriors each time, she wanted them to see her dancing, to take tales of her power and unchanged prowess back to their shells, to the warhost’s skill-leaders, that they might remember her as Hekat the warrior, Bajadek’s doom. They must forget her powerless and fucked on the warhost field.
Because Raklion will not live forever. And if he dies before my son is a man . . .
Then must she be seen first as a warrior. The warhost must know her with a snakeblade in her hand. When Raklion died her son would be the warlord. And if Mijak’s other warlords still had not been tamed . . .
Then I will tame them, they will kneel at my feet. Mijak will know Hekat as godtouched and chosen, beloved of the god. The warhost will follow me, Hanochek forgotten. Am I not Bajadek’s doom? I will be the doom of any man who thwarts me.
And so she knife-danced, though her growing belly was a hindrance.
At every highsun while Raklion was away, a godspeaker sacrificed in the palace godroom. She was sick to vomiting of sacred blood but she had no choice, she must drink so the godspeaker would tell Nagarak she was chaste, she was obedient, she bowed her head before the god. She would give Raklion’s high godspeaker no chance to find fault with her.
He did not. She had no need to see him to know of his disappointment, she could feel it in the breeze, taste it on the wind. Thinking of it made her laugh. Nagarak would never defeat her, she was chosen by the god.
Or so she thought.
The first pain struck her two fingers past newsun, in her private garden, soon after Raklion’s warriors had returned to the barracks. She danced for herself and the god alone. Sweat slicked her warm skin, her heart drummed in her chest, this was how she honored the god. Any slave could drink a cup of blood but only she could cut the sunlight with her blade.
It was like a sandcat’s ripping claws, that first pain, tearing through her belly and up her spine, leaving her mouth in an agonized scream. Her snakeblade dropped from her slackened fingers, she dropped beside it onto the grass.
Slaves came running. They kept out of her sight, she beat them if they hovered, but still they were never far away. That was Raklion’s want, and he would not beat them, he would kill them if they disobeyed. Her displeasure was nothing beside his wrath.
A second pain raked through her, snapping her knees against her round belly. She could barely breathe, her arms tightly clutching, her mind a windstorm of disbelief. She had seen babies birthed before their time, she knew what this was, but it could not be happening. Not to her.
How have I failed you, god? Am I not Hekat, precious and chosen? Why do you do this? How have I failed?
She heard Vortka’s voice, felt his hands on her shoulders. “Be still, Hekat. Do not struggle.”
“The sin is not mine, it is not mine,” she whispered, forcing open her eyes, looking into his face. He was not angry, there were tears in his eyes. “Do not tell Nagarak I have sinned.”
“Hush, Hekat,” he told her. “A healer is coming.”
But the child was born before the healer reached her. Stripped naked by slaves upon the grass, she felt her body spit it out, felt herself empty in a groaning spasm as a giant fist closed itself around her womb and squeezed her like a fig.
“Don’t look, Hekat, close your eyes,” said Vortka, but she was no coward, she sat up and looked at the twisted, misshapen lump of bloody flesh on the ground between her bent legs.
“Aieee, the god see us, she’s birthed a demon!” cried one of the slaves. Her snakeblade took him through the throat, he was dead before his next breath, before she realized she had found and thrown the knife.
“It is no demon!” cried Vortka, glaring at the wide-eyed slaves. “Anyone who says so will be struck down by the god!”
Cowed to silence they huddled together as Hekat stared at the thing on the grass. No, not a demon, but almost as bad. A stunted she-brat that had no hope of life. A worthless lump of woman-meat. Not a son. Not the son she had promised Raklion.
Not the son the god had promised her.
Why? Why? How has this happened?
“Do not weep, Hekat,” whispered Vortka. “There is a reason, the god will tell us in its time.”
Two of the slaves fetched a litter from the palace, they carried her inside and the healer came. He purged her and dosed her with elixirs and potions, he burned her blood free of poisons with his godstone.
“She can breed again,” she heard him tell Vortka. “Once her strength returns. Come
with me now, we must see the high godspeaker.”
No, no , she wanted to shout. Nagarak will blame me, he will say to Raklion I fuck with demons, Vortka, no, do not leave me, please. Do not let Nagarak tell his lies.
But the frantic words stayed inside her head, the healer’s elixirs had sewn shut her lips and deadened her tongue. Vortka left her surrounded by slaves, she was alone, abandoned, she had no son.
Darkness took her, and the god was not there.
Raklion was honing his snakeblade when Hanochek brought him the news. It was dusk, lowsun sacrifice had been made, and the settling warhost camp was hazed with cook-fire smoke, its rustic pungency overlaid with the sweetness of fresh meat roasting over hot coals. He was weary, but not exhausted. Proud of his warriors, who danced so splendidly along Et-Nogolor’s border. Et-Nogolor Eyes watched them from a stretch of nearby Et-Nogolor woodland. They had watched for six highsuns now, it would not be long before Nogolor, or Tebek, arrived at the border to admire his warhost and swear protestations of friendship.
I will nod at that swearing, I will tell Nogolor, or Tebek, that their friendship is all. I will not let them see the god in my eyes, or read its purpose for me in the lines on my face. That time will come, but it is not yet.
Nagarak had cautioned him against rising too soon against the other warlords. For himself, he did not disagree. Let them fight each other first, let them plunder each other and winnow their warhosts. As they fought and plundered he would increase his own warhost until it was immense.
Ten thousand warriors? Tcha. He would have twenty. Thirty. Fifty thousand at his back. Every child of Et-Raklion would carry a knife. Then who would dare stand against him?
Not the warlords of Mijak, seared in their brown lands, forsaken by the god.
He looked up, smiling, as his warleader pushed the tent-flap aside and entered. “Aieee, Hano,” he said, cheerful. “Does the warhost not please you? It pleases me, I think—” What he thought, he did not say. Hano’s face was stricken, there were tears in his eyes.
“A godspeaker has ridden hard from Et-Raklion, warlord,” he said, his voice choked. “He has told me a message from Nagarak, I must give it to you. Forgive me, Raklion. I would rather die.”