“There was . . . not singing exactly. A sort of music and words, but not singing.”
Stryke and Jup exchanged glances. Jup raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
“This sound, whatever it was . . .” He gave up. “I don’t know. Only other thing I remember was being sick. I felt bad.”
“That’s something you never let on about,” Jup said, his tone accusing.
At one time Haskeer would have lashed out at the dwarf for a comment like that, for less, but now he just stared at him.
“Alfray thought you’d picked up a human disease from that orc encampment we torched,” Stryke told him. “But I don’t think that was enough in itself to explain your behaviour.”
“
What
behaviour, Stryke? You still haven’t told me what I’m supposed to have done.”
“We were at Scratch. You attacked Reafdaw and Coilla, and made off with these.” He reached into the sack taken from Hobrow and showed him the pair of stars.
Haskeer glazed over at the sight of them. He whispered, “Take them away, Stryke.” Then yelled,
“Take ’em away!”
Puzzled, Stryke put them in his belt pouch, where he already had the star from Scratch.
“Take it easy,” Jup told Haskeer, near gently.
There was a sheen of sweat on Haskeer’s forehead. He was breathing heavily.
“Coilla took off after you,” Stryke continued. “We don’t know where she is. Do you know what happened to her?”
“I told you, I don’t know anything.” He put his face in his hands.
Just before he did, Stryke thought he looked frightened.
He and Jup moved away from him. Stryke nodded to a couple of the grunts. They went to keep an eye on Haskeer.
“What do you think, chief?”
“I don’t know. He seems to be saying he had some kind of blackout. Maybe he’s telling the truth, maybe not.”
“I reckon he is.”
“Why?”
“Nobody knows better than me what a bastard Haskeer is. But he isn’t a deserter and, I don’t know, call it my sixth sense, but something tells me that what happened was . . . beyond his control.”
“Given the history you two have, I’m surprised to hear you say that.”
“It’s what I think. Not giving him the benefit of the doubt’s answering injustice with injustice far as I can see.”
“Even if what you say is true, and he was under the influence of the fever or whatever, how do we know it won’t happen again? How can we trust him?”
“Think on this, Stryke. If you decide he can’t be trusted, where does that leave us? What do we do? Abandon him? Cut his throat? Is that the way you want to run this band?”
“I need to think on it. And I have to decide what to do about Coilla.”
“Don’t delay, Captain. You know how short time is.” He pulled his jerkin closer against a wind that had grown piercing. “The weather doesn’t seem of a mind to be helpful either.”
As he spoke, a scattering of snowflakes mixed with the wind.
“Snow,” Stryke said. “In this season. The world’s broken, Jup.”
“Ah, and it might be beyond fixing, Captain.”
Jennesta spelt it out. “I’m offering you an alliance, Adpar. Help me find the artifacts and I’ll share their power with you.”
The face on the surface of the congealed blood was impassive.
“It’s only a matter of time before Sanara butts in on this,” Jennesta added impatiently. “So will you
say
something?”
“
She doesn’t always. Or doesn’t choose to take part. Anyway, to hell with Sanara; I don’t mind saying this in front of her
. No.”
“Why?”
“I have more than enough to deal with here. And unlike you, my dear, I have no ambitions to build a bigger empire.”
“The
biggest
, Adpar! Big enough for both of us! Power enough for both!”
“I have a feeling that sharing, even with your beloved sister, would prove something you couldn’t manage for long.”
“Then what about the gods?”
“What about them?”
“Plumbing the mysteries of the instrumentalities could restore our gods, the true gods, and see off this absurd lone deity the humans have brought.”
“The gods are real enough here; they need no restoring.”
“Fool! The taint will reach even you sooner or later, if it hasn’t already.”
“
Frankly, Jennesta, the notion just doesn’t appeal. I don’t trust you. Anyway, are you
capable
of
. . .
‘plumbing the mysteries’?
” It was meant insultingly.
“So you’re going for them yourself, is that it?”
“Don’t judge everybody by your own standards.”
“You don’t know what you’re turning your snooty nose up at!”
“At least it’s
my
nose, and not indentured to anybody else.”
Jennesta fought to keep her temper in check. “All right. If you’re not interested in joining me and you say you make no claim on the instrumentalities for yourself, why not trade me the one you have? I’d pay substantially for it.”
“I don’t
have
one! How many more times? It’s gone!”
“You let somebody take something from you? I find that hard to believe.”
“The thief was punished. He was lucky to escape with his life.”
“You didn’t even kill this convenient robber?” Jennesta mocked. “You’re going soft, sister.”
“Your stupidity I’m used to, Jennesta. What I can’t stand is how boring you can be.”
“If you ignore my offer you’ll regret it.”
“Will I? And who’s going to make me? You? You could never best me when we were youngsters, Jennesta, and you can’t do it now.”
Jennesta seethed. “This is your last chance, Adpar. I won’t ask again.”
“If you want me so much you must need me. I take pleasure from that. But I don’t take kindly to ultimatums, whoever issues them. I’ll do nothing to hinder you, and nothing to help either. Now leave me alone.”
This time it was Adpar who terminated the conversation.
Jennesta sat in deep thought for several minutes. She came out of it with resolve.
Dragging aside a heavy, ornate chair and pulling back several rugs, she revealed the flagstone floor. From a cabinet in a darkened corner she selected a particular grimoire, and on her way back to the cleared space plucked a curved dagger from the altar. These she deposited on the chair.
Having lit more candles, Jennesta skimmed handfuls of clotted gore from the tub. On hands and knees, she used it to mark out a large mullet on the floor, carefully ensuring that there were no breaks in the circle or its five-pointed star. That done, she took up the book and knife, and moved to the circle’s centre.
She peeled back the sleeve of her gown and with a swift, deep slash of the blade cut into her arm. Her lighter blood dripped and mingled with the darker red of the pentagram. It intensified the link with her sibling.
Then she turned to the book and began something she should have done long ago.
Adpar enjoyed thwarting her sister. It was one of life’s more sublime pleasures. But now she had a routine chore to attend to, though in its way it was no less gratifying.
She left the slime-encrusted viewing pool and waded from her private retreat to the larger chamber beyond. A lieutenant awaited her, along with a guard detail and two disgraced members of her swarm.
“The prisoners, Majesty,” the lieutenant hissed in peculiarly nyadd fashion.
She looked over the accused. They hung their scaly heads.
Without preamble, Adpar outlined the charge. “You two have brought shame on the imperial swarm. That means shame on
me
. You were lax in carrying out your orders in the recent raid, and were seen by a superior officer to let several merz escape with their lives. Do you have anything to say in your defence?”
They didn’t.
“Very well,” she went on, “I take your silence as admission of dereliction. It should be well known that I’ll not have weaklings in the ranks. We are fighting to keep our place in this world, and that leaves no room for idlers or cowards. Therefore the only possible verdict is guilty.” A believer in the power of theatrics, she paused for effect. “And the penalty is death.”
She beckoned the lieutenant. He came forward holding a basin-sized brown and white shell containing two coral daggers. A pair of guards followed him carrying deep, wide-mouthed earthenware pots.
“In accordance with tradition, and as a courtesy to your martial status, you are allowed a choice,” Adpar told the condemned. She pointed to the knives. “Carry out the sentence with your own hand and you will die with a measure of honour.” Her gaze flicked to the containers. “Or you have the right to place your fate in the hands of the gods. If they will it, you could keep your life.”
Turning to the first prisoner, she commanded, “Choose.”
The nyadd tensely weighed his options. Finally he uttered, “The gods, Majesty.”
“So be it.”
At her signal, several more guards moved in and held him firm. One of the pots was brought to her. She stared into it, one hand poised completely still above the opening. She stood that way for what seemed an eternity. Then suddenly her hand darted into the jar and she pulled something from the water.
It was a fish. She held it by the tail between two fingers and her thumb as it writhed and struggled in the air. The fish was about as long as a nyadd’s hand and its girth equal to three arrows bound together. Its scales and stubby fins were silvery blue. Whiskers grew from either side of its mouth.
Handling it with care, Adpar tapped the fish’s side and quickly withdrew her finger. Dozens of tiny quivering spikes shot out from its body.
“I envy the dowelfish,” she stated. “It has no predators. Its spikes are not only sharp, they pump a lethal venom that kills with excruciating pain. The fish gives its own life but always takes its enemy’s.” She dipped the animal back into the pot, immersing it in water but keeping hold of it. “Prepare him,” she ordered.
The guards forced the prisoner to his knees. A length of thread was passed to Adpar and she looped it around the dowelfish’s back fin. Using the thread, she slowly pulled the fish from its pot again. Calmed by the water, it had retracted its spikes.
“Offer yourself to the gods’ mercy,” Adpar told the prisoner. “If they favour you three times, you’ll be spared.”
The accused’s head was roughly pushed upwards and his mouth prised open to its fullest extent. He was held in position. Adpar approached, holding out the dangling fish. Very slowly, she lowered it into the nyadd’s gaping mouth. He stayed absolutely motionless. The scene was not unlike the displays put on by sword-swallowers in marketplaces all over Maras-Dantia. Except that was a trick.
Everybody watched in silence as the fish disappeared from sight. Adpar paused for a second before continuing to play out the thread, guiding its load down the nyadd’s gullet. At length she stopped. Then the process was reversed and she began winding the thread around a finger as she reeled the fish up. It emerged from the nyadd’s mouth wriggling feebly.
The prisoner let out a shuddering breath.
“It seems the gods have smiled on you once,” Adpar declared.
The fish was immersed in its jar once more and brought back for the second time. Again it was lowered at a leisurely pace, again she paused before its journey down the throat, again she wound the thread. In due course the dowelfish came out of the mouth without causing harm.
Shaking and gasping, the accused looked near collapse.
“Our gods are benign today,” Adpar said. “So far.”
A last return to the water and the apparently pacified fish was ready for the third trial. Adpar went through exactly the same routine. The point was reached where she stayed her hand before lowering the fish into the nyadd’s craw. She began unwinding the twine.
The thread trembled. A shudder ran through the prisoner. Eyes wide, he took to retching, and struggled against the guards. The thread snapped. Adpar stood back and motioned for the guards to release him. They let go and involuntarily his mouth snapped shut.
Then he started screaming.
Hands clawing at his throat and chest, he rolled and contorted. Spasms racked his body, green bile erupted from his mouth. He shrieked and contorted.
The death throes lasted an unconscionable amount of time. They were terrible to witness.
When silence returned and the prisoner was still, Adpar spoke. “The gods’ will has been done. They have called him to them. It is fitting.”
She turned to the second quaking prisoner. The other pot and the knives were offered. Without a word he took a knife. The carapace at his throat meant the jagged blade had to be forcefully applied several times. At length a crimson spray marked his success.
At a wave of Adpar’s hand the guard detail set to removing the bodies.
“We are fortunate that our culture is ruled by divine justice and compassion,” she proclaimed. “Other realms are less benevolently governed. Why, I myself have a sister who would have
gloated
over a scene like this.”
The snowfall was heavier, the sky black.
Much as he wanted to push on, Stryke had to concede that travel was impossible. He ordered the column to halt. There being no natural shelter, the band built a fire, which fought the snow and wind to burn. They huddled round it miserably, swathed in horse blankets.
Jup had used some of Alfray’s salves to treat Haskeer’s wounds. Now Haskeer sat in silence, staring at the meagre flames. Nobody else felt much like talking either.
The hours passed and the blizzard was constant. Despite the weather, some of the band managed to drowse.
Then something loomed out of the snow.
It was a tall figure mounted on a handsome white horse. As it drew closer they saw the figure was human.
The band leapt up and went for their weapons.
Now they could make out that the human male was wrapped in a dark blue cloak. He had shoulder-length hair and was bearded. His age was hard to reckon.
“There might be more of them!” Stryke yelled. “Stand ready!”
“I’m alone and unarmed,” the human called out, his voice calm. “And with your leave I’ll dismount.”