Rojak spoke in his mind. ‘
Cautious in your freedom, my queen?’
Venn saw movement off to his left and turned as the Wither Queen rose from the tall bracken and closed on him. She was eying the former Harlequin with naked suspicion. She came close enough to reach out and touch him, but there she stopped, looking all around while her tongue, serpent-like, flicked her lips. Her skin had the pallor of the dead. It was stretched tight over her bones, and looked fragile, as if it might tear at the slighted touch. Matted hair partly obscured her face and strands stuck to a weeping scab on her jaw.
‘There is no charity in your heart, spirit,’ she replied, peering at him as though she could see Rojak’s soul through Venn’s eyes, ‘so cautious I remain.’
From the undergrowth wisps of black fog pulsed and shifted with restless energy, and he could see shapes resembling rats moving along the ground. They surrounded the former Aspect of Death, forming a cordon that Venn believed to be more substantial than it looked.
He looked at the nearest of the rats and saw it watching him, its spectral jaw hanging slack. Venn suppressed the urge to draw one of his swords and looked away, putting the spirit’s hungry eyes from his mind.
‘
As you wish
,’ Rojak replied, unperturbed. ‘
I come to claim that which you promised.’
‘Then ask your boon and be gone.’
Rojak laughed his strange, girlish laugh, but the Wither Queen made no sign of whether she’d heard it. ‘
It is only this - that you listen to me a while longer.’
‘The Harlequins prove a dull audience for your prattling?’
‘
They have heard all my stories,
’ Rojak agreed, ‘
but what I ask of you is something different. I have a proposal-I wish you to listen and make no decision until I have finished.’
‘What trickery is this?’ she asked angrily, and half a dozen more insubstantial spirits appeared in the air between the Wither Queen and Venn.
‘
No trickery,
’ Rojak assured her, ‘
but you will need persuading before you agree to my suggestion.
’
Two of the pulsing black spirits raced away suddenly, darting through the trees like startled sparrows to scout the nearby forest more properly. Venn saw the Wither Queen mouth silent words as she turned to watch them go.
‘Speak your piece,’ she commanded once they had gone. The Goddess tasted the air again, but this time it was a predatory action. The stink of her presence became a cloying force in Venn’s nose and throat. It was all he could do not to gag as Rojak cheerfully continued, apparently enjoying the sense of corruption all around him.
‘These forests are not only your hunting ground; they are also your refuge.’
Venn saw the Wither Queen’s eyes narrow, but she kept to the bargain they had made and did not speak.
‘
You have grown stronger away from Death’s presence, but not so strong that you can prevent Him from leashing you once more. To do that you need more than brute strength, you need stature - in the divine sense.’
There was a note of enjoyment in Rojak’s voice that Venn recognised all too well. The minstrel had always loved to lecture, to present truths to others and let them walk the dark paths he revealed. To do so with a God would be a pleasure worth savouring.
‘
We have the means to bring this about, to secure for you a place in the Pantheon that Death himself will not wish to disrupt.’
‘How?’ The Wither Queen asked, her expression turning from suspicious to one of burning hunger.
‘
A king is measured by his subjects, a God by its followers. Death must respect a position within the Pantheon because He is the epitome of rank, of authority - but spirits of the forest do not convey the worship a God needs to be called a God.
’
‘My mortal followers are few and reluctant; their prayers full of bitter tears.’
‘
And there you are a God most rare,
’ Rojak said, as softly as if he were whispering to a lover.
The Wither Queen stared, waiting for him to continue.
Rojak chuckled, enjoying the moment. ‘
Others of the Pantheon, however, are more fortunate and it pains me to see such beauty lack the majesty it deserves. My suggestion is this - permit us to help you achieve this position and ally with us in our endeavours. In return, when the time is right and our need is pressing, lend my master your power when it is requested.’
‘Your master wishes to bind me as Death would? What good is it to exchange one lord for another?’
‘
It would be a loan, to last no longer than a moon - it is not domination over you my master seeks, merely assistance to ensure a similar freedom as that we offer you.’
The Wither Queen was silent for a time; even the spirits surrounding her stilled and the darkening forest itself became hushed.
Venn realised every muscle in his body had gone taut with anticipation.
‘A term of service, when asked for, to last until the moon is new,’ she said at last. Venn felt the tension drain from his body. ‘In return for providing me with the power to resist Death’s call. Prove you have the power to do such a thing and there shall be a covenant.’
‘
It would be a pleasure,
’ Rojak purred. ‘
If you are ready to take what is deservedly yours?’
Venn heard a second voice in his head as Jackdaw started murmuring; he could not make it out at first - then he froze, recognising the form easily enough that the words did not matter. Jackdaw was praying. Once he had been a prior at a monastery to Vellern, until Jackdaw had renounced his vows and become sundered from his God. Needless to say, the Gods disapproved of such behaviour - using prayer to summon one was like poking an already-angry bear. The God of Birds might well be diminished after Zhia Vukotic killed an Aspect and high priest of his in Scree, but feeble he was not.
Venn smiled; Vellern wouldn’t even think twice before incarnating. A greasy sensation slithered down the former Harlequin’s spine as Jackdaw drew on the Crystal Skull he carried. The forest went completely silent and even the breeze drifting through the leaves vanished as the dusk birdsong faded to nothing. Venn felt a prickle of excitement and his heart began to beat faster as the Jackdaw’s incantation grew louder.
The Wither Queen was busy herself, her eyes firmly closed, her arms held outstretched as she performed her own summoning. Pinpricks of pale light began to appear all around her - five, ten, twenty - forming sickly constellations above her head. A handful sank to the ground and wriggled like diseased mice before abruptly spasming and splitting open for new rat-like wisps to emerge. More rats scampered from the undergrowth with unnatural speed to gather and fawn at the tattered hem of her skirt.
Jackdaw’s intonation broke off suddenly and Venn looked around. The forest was empty, but there was a sudden sense of weight in the air like the heaviness before a storm.
‘
He comes,
’ Jackdaw whispered from the recesses of Venn’s mind. He sounded terrified. The taste of magic appeared thick in his mouth, eclipsing the Wither Queen’s putrefaction. Venn gripped the Crystal Skull firmly with one hand and reached for a sword with the other. He didn’t know whether it would do any good, but if this all went wrong he didn’t want to die empty-handed.
A dark shadow descended over them all. For a moment Venn thought it was Vellern, swooping from on high, but then he felt the familiar touch of Azaer on his mind and relaxed.
The moment didn’t last long; in the next instant there was a swirl of air a few yards away that seemed to fold in upon itself and Venn blinked and found himself staring at the stern, hairless face of Vellern. Standing eight feet tall, with a mantle of peacock feathers that reached all the way to the ground, the God of Birds glared around, searching for Jackdaw.
The God carried a long jet-black javelin in his taloned hands. He levelled the weapon at Venn, who took a step back, his hand tightening on his sword. Vellern advanced a step, half-turning his back on the Wither Queen in his fury.
‘You elude me no longer, traitor,’ Vellern said, his voice sharp and quick like an eagle’s cry.
Jackdaw was busy and Venn didn’t reply, but he drew his sword, which enraged the God further. Venn took another step back and Vellern followed, raising the javelin high, ready to stab down at him.
The blow never came. As one the spectral rats leaped, and the swirling spirits darted at Vellern’s face. He ignored the rats entirely and slapped away the first spirit to reach him. Its smoky form dissipated entirely as Vellern’s hand passed through it without resistance. The second fared no better, casually destroyed without regard, and though the rats tore and raged at Vellern’s legs their efforts were too insignificant to warrant attention.
But they were just distraction, and a fat arc of raw, spitting energy raced from Venn’s sword tip and struck Vellern hard enough to make the God reel. It was followed by another, then another, each one driving Vellern a pace back as it hit home. The Wither Queen stepped forward now, a long stiletto in each hand.
Jackdaw changed his attack and threw a writhing coil of white energy that blew apart Vellern’s javelin, while the Wither Queen stabbed her knives into the God. Vellern parried the blows with his hands and kicked out at her, raking talons down her chest and causing her to screech in pain.
Jackdaw renewed his efforts, lashing out and tearing great rents in his peacock mantle. Venn felt a shudder run from deep inside him and he howled with pain as Jackdaw punched forward, knocking Vellern from his feet.
The Wither Queen and her rats pounced, a swirling mass that swarmed over the supine figure.
Venn’s every sense was spinning and he was struggling to move as he saw the rats tearing at Vellern’s white speckled tunic, trying to rend the flesh beneath. The Wither Queen had greater success, stabbing one stiletto into Vellern’s shoulder and pinning him to the ground.
Venn felt a burning sensation on his fingers as though they were aflame. When he looked down he saw his fingers were blackened trying to control a crackling ball of energy. In his mind Jackdaw gibbered with drunken delight.
‘Yield to me,’ the Wither Queen screeched triumphantly, ‘yield and submit - accept me as your God, or you die now.’
Venn saw the horror in Vellern’s eyes. The God looked past the Wither Queen and directly at him, fearing the surging ball of magic in his hand. Venn raised his hand and his intent was obvious. The rats continued to attack and now the God could feel them, writhing under their assault as he lay there with one shoulder pinned to the ground. With a gesture the Wither Queen halted the rats and underlined her demand by putting the other stiletto to Vellern’s throat.
‘I yield,’ the God cried at last. ‘In your service I will live.’
The last words were said in a resigned pant, but the Wither Queen was not yet satisfied. The glee plain on her face, she slammed her free hand into Vellern’s chest and drove her broken fingernails through the flesh. Vellern howled, but the Wither Queen ignored him and pushed down to where a mortal’s heart would be.
The Goddess found what she was looking for and wrenched her hand out again, this time closed around something. She held her prize up and laughed, the noise like a person choking their last few breaths. She raised her hand to her mouth and opened it, and Venn caught a glimpse of a golden wisp of light before it was devoured.
The Wither Queen licked the dripping ichor from her palm and crouched to allow the rats their share. At last she was satisfied. and looked down at Vellern. She placed her hand on the injured God’s chest and he vanished, leaving only an indentation in the earth and a few last spots of divine blood that the rats fought to lap up.
‘Tell your master,’ she croaked, looking up at Venn with the smile of a sated glutton, ‘I agree to his bargain.’
CHAPTER 23
The sweet scent of azaleas drifted in the breeze as Major Amber eased his leg up onto a stool and hooked an arm over the rail of the balcony so he could better look down at the tables below. It was early evening, but the terrace was full, every chair in use. He took another sip of wine before catching the eye of a woman with a yellow sash tied across her solid body. Amber raised his goblet and she nodded, moving swiftly to fetch him more wine.
This tavern dominated the northern edge of the Stepped Gardens, the three-tiered heart of Byora’s Breakale district. The tables below, which had long since spilled over onto the hedge-bordered grass of the middle tier, catered for a general clientele, but the upper room was for more exclusive guests.
This early in the evening his only companions in the room were a trio of Litse, two merchants, and the wife of the elder. All three were typical of their tribe: fine-boned and very pale-skinned, and Amber guessed them to be as wealthy as anyone in Breakale; no doubt voluminous sleeves and oversized collars were the height of fashion among the people of Byora, no matter how ridiculous they looked.
The younger, a man of some twenty summers, couldn’t hide his distaste at sharing a room with a Menin soldier, but Amber was determined to enjoy himself. Though his injuries had healed, he still felt fragile, and the last thing he wanted was start a barroom brawl, no matter he’d easily win.