be a warning before it breaks, but only if I can get to it in time.’ He grunted in frustration. ‘I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Midsummer.’
‘Midsummer? What about the message?’ Sarilla said.
‘That too. Shit, why is it so hard?’ Dom grunted, knuckling at the vicious pain behind his right eye. Sarilla slapped his hand away. ‘If the Dancer and the Fox God want me to know something, why don’t They just tell me?’
‘They are. We just don’t have the capacity to understand,’ Sarilla said, and for once her tone held no mockery. ‘They’re gods, Dom. You can’t expect Them to be like us.’
‘Sarilla’s right, the knowings rarely make sense at first,’ Lim soothed him. ‘But midsummer? We’re not even at Yule. We’ve got time, Dom. Don’t push it; it’ll come. There’s no immediate threat?’ he clarified.
‘It’s nearly a thousand years since the veil was cast,’ Dom said suddenly. He had no idea where the words came from, but years of knowings had taught him to relax and let his voice tell him what he didn’t yet understand. ‘Now it weakens. The Red Gods wax and the Light wanes. Blood rises. Find the herald; staunch the flow.’
Dom focused on the mud between his boots, loamy and rich, his chest heaving as though he’d run down a deer. He swallowed bile. The pain crescendoed and then settled to a steady agony that made his vision pulse with colours around the edges. This is it. I think it’s starting. After all these years, it’s coming.
I need more time.
Lim, Sarilla and Feltith were silent, waiting for more. Dom squeezed his hands into his armpits to hide their trembling. No point scaring them before he had to. Why not? I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified. But he was the calestar, for good or ill, and with the knowings came duty. Duty? Sacrifice, more like. My sacrifice. Duty, he told himself sternly, silencing the inner voice.
‘Everything’s in flux, but there’s always a threat,’ he said, finally answering Lim’s question. ‘I’m going up there tonight.’
Lim didn’t argue further. ‘Rest a while longer and I’ll pack provisions.’
‘I have to go alone,’ Dom insisted.
‘You can’t go alone,’ Sarilla said quietly. ‘If you have another knowing up there, in the Mireces’ own territory, you’ll be helpless. Even I don’t want you frozen to death or eaten by bears. Or taken by Mireces.’
Lim glanced at Sarilla. ‘Send a messenger to Watchtown and another to the West Rank. You know how much truth to tell to each. We don’t know what we’re preparing for yet, so let’s not panic.’ He pointed west, the way Dom had. ‘But nothing good has ever come out of those mountains. Be alert.’
Eleventh moon, year 994 since the Exile of the Red Gods
Longhouse, Eagle Height, Gilgoras Mountains
Lanta dealt regularly in blood and death in her exaltation of the gods, but what had been done to Liris … it was messy, wild. A frenzied, senseless attack, lacking in control, lacking in style.
Edwin had done a headcount and reported one missing slave as well as the various men out on business for the king or Lanta herself; then he’d taken a war band and hounds out in pursuit of the killer. The room stank of blood and fear, a scent easy enough for the dogs to follow in the clear mountain air.
Lanta’s thoughts returned to her predicament. One missing slave was easy enough to replace. A killer easy enough to track down. One pliable king, however, would need careful consideration. Of the war chiefs, Mata would be—
She stopped halfway down the longhouse, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. ‘What is this?’
Corvus, seated on the throne, looked up from inspecting his boots. They were bloody, as were his hands. ‘This, Blessed One, is a succession. I thought our people should have the smoothest transition after Liris’s untimely death.’ Corvus spared her a brief smile and picked drying blood from beneath a thumbnail.
He hasn’t. He wouldn’t, not without my approval. Her eyes flicked to the corpses at the base of the dais. And yet he has. She replayed his words as she fought for serenity. ‘Our people?’ She arched a brow. ‘May I remind you, Corvus of Crow Crag, that not too many years ago you were taken as slave from Rilpor? You were Madoc of Dancer’s Lake then, born and raised a heathen. So these are my people, and I decide what is best for them.’
Corvus glared at her. ‘Am I not a good son of the Dark Lady? I pay my blood debts, I raid in Her name, I worship Her and Her Brother, Holy Gosfath, God of Blood. I am Mireces, dedicated in blood and fire, war chief of Crow Crag and now King of the Mireces. That is all of my lineage you need to know.’
So quickly he challenges me. So quickly he eliminates any who would oppose him. And of course, there is Rillirin, who Liris dragged to his chamber after Bana’s holy sacrifice. And Rillirin … interests me.
‘Such a hurried transition, Corvus,’ Lanta said in a low voice as she stalked through the silent audience, picking her way through the tangle of corpses below the dais. Slaves were wide-eyed with panic, huddled at the back of the longhouse like a flock of chickens before the wolf. ‘On whose authority do you claim the throne? I was not consulted.’
Corvus steepled his fingers before his lips. ‘My own. But you can consult the other war chiefs if you’d prefer. Not sure how much talk you’ll get out of them, though.’
Lanta paused in her stride and then continued, stately, predatory. So the challenge comes now, before his arse has even warmed the throne. Then let the gods decide.
‘As for authority, I claim it by right of conquest, as Liris did.’ Corvus had pitched his voice to reach the end of the longhouse, drawing warriors to him. They crowded at Lanta’s back.
‘I stand beside the throne, my voice is second to the—’ Lanta began as she stepped on to the dais. Corvus leapt from his seat and, firm but courteous, pushed her back down the wooden steps. Lanta wobbled, rigid and red with fury now, down on the floor with the rabble.
‘I didn’t invite you to approach,’ Corvus said, his voice pitched loud. ‘When I do, a seat will be made available for you behind me and I will ask for the Dark Lady’s’ – he stressed the honorific – ‘counsel as and when I need it.’
‘The Red Gods will not suffer me to be abused,’ Lanta screeched, her fury a lightning bolt from a clear sky. Insolent, arrogant child! He thinks stabbing men in the back gives him authority over the gods? Over me?
Men shrank away from her anger, but Corvus’s smile mocked. He returned to his throne before answering, stretching the moment long, forcing Lanta and the rest to wait.
‘Where is your obeisance, Blessed One?’
Lanta gaped, disbelief etched across her face. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered.
‘Liris was weak – you took advantage of that to seize more power than your station demanded. I’m restoring the balance. You may not have authorised a new king, but the Dark Lady did. So kneel. Or die. I don’t much care either way.’
‘I know the Lady’s will,’ Lanta shouted. ‘I am the Blessed One. She talks to me, not you.’ Her fists were clenched, face hot with outrage and anger. A challenge directed not just at her power, but that of the gods? I’ll see him writhing beneath my knife for this outrage.
Corvus spread his red hands. ‘Then you’ll know it was Her will that I defeated my rivals. If She didn’t want me on the throne, they would’ve killed me.’
There