Anna Stephens - Godblind

Corpses littered the ground, most in the greens and browns of the Wolves, but there were scores in blue as well and his jaw tightened. Treacherous, heathen bastards.

‘Valan, Fost,’ he called. He swept his uninjured arm across the village. ‘Burn it down. Every last fucking hovel.’ He stared around in frustration and then let out a roar of pure disbelief. Rillirin? How?

Lanta prowled out of the darkness, predatory as she stared at the carnage, her hands extended in offering – the dead belonged to the gods now. Corvus grabbed her arm and squeezed, dragging her forwards and breaking off the prayer, ignoring the shocked mutters from his men. The wound in his forearm blazed and the pain made him squeeze harder. Her lips compressed but she made no sound and the triumph in her eyes made him want to beat her to death.

He shook her. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ he demanded, hoarse. ‘How long have you known it was my sister we were hunting?’

Men and women trickled into the glade in the birch forest, the third of their many assembly points in the event of attack. Healer Feltith was already there, busy with those who’d arrived before Dom and the girl. Wolves huddled in tents, under shelters and around tiny fires.

Dom managed a smile when he saw Ash approaching. ‘Thank the gods you saw them up at the Final Falls. That advance warning saved—’

‘Where the fuck is she?’ Ash snarled, grabbing Dom’s shoulder and hurling him out of the way of the tent. He pushed through the flap and grabbed the girl by the hair, dragging her into the night. ‘Who are you?’ he roared into her face. ‘What are you?’

‘Ash, what the fuck are you doing? What—’ Dom started; then he noticed the glow up in the foothills. They were burning the village.

Ash grabbed his arm with his other hand and hauled them both towards a fire. Lim sat with Sarilla, her hand swaddled in a piece of shirt, face grey. Ash shoved them to a halt. ‘They’re fucking dead, Dom. Fucking scores of us, slaughtered. Because of her. I told you she was trouble, I told you we should’ve killed her. Did you even find out like Lim asked you to?’ he added as Dom fought a riot of nausea. ‘Who she is, why they want her? What have you learnt?’

‘I haven’t – It wasn’t …’ Dom started, but there was nothing to say. Ash’s eyes burnt with the need to hurt and Dom swayed back from the violence. The girl was shaking at his side and Sarilla was staring at her with black hatred.

‘Enough.’ Lim stepped forward, limping badly but putting himself between the two men.

‘Enough?’ Ash gasped. ‘Tansy’s dead, so’s Ross. Dalli nearly got herself raped and your wife’s crippled.’ He glared past Lim at Dom, pointing at Sarilla. ‘She’ll never use a bow again; fucking Raider cut off three of her fingers.’ Ash spat. ‘Because of you. Because of her.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ Lim snarled, and Ash subsided a little. Lim rounded on the girl. ‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘Enough of your silence. My people died for you this night. More will die if we don’t know why they seek you.’

She whimpered, shook her head.

‘Tell me,’ Lim bellowed in her face and Dom flinched, reaching for him; Lim shook him off, not even glancing his way.

‘I killed Liris,’ she sobbed, hands up in a gesture of futile defence. ‘I killed Liris, I’m sorry, I killed him.’

The clearing descended into stunned silence, and even Feltith paused in the act of bandaging Sarilla’s hand to look at her.

Dom was staring at her; they were all staring at her. ‘You killed the King of the Mireces and didn’t think to tell us?’ he managed, but she was too scared, crying too hard, to hear him.

Ash moved first, shoved a sack and a folded tent into Dom’s slack arms. ‘You could have told us that, not her. You could have known days ago. But you didn’t and this’ – he waved his arm – ‘this is on you. So get the fuck out of here, Calestar ,’ he hissed, ‘and take your Mireces whore with you.’

Dom looked from Lim to Sarilla to Ash, his mind a whirl of incomprehension, shame and simmering anger. ‘Sarilla, I—’

‘Get her away from me before I slit the little cunt’s throat,’ Sarilla growled and Lim helped him on his way with a shove hard enough that he stumbled. He heard the girl squeal and looked over in time to see Ash grab her throat and spit in her face, before pushing her towards him.

‘Lim,’ Dom tried, but his adopted brother wouldn’t meet his eyes.

‘Go to the temple and talk to Mother. You could use her wisdom.’ And they closed in around the wounded, their backs an impenetrable wall and Dom on the wrong side. Even Cam, the man who’d raised him like a son, the man who’d never once pushed him to use his gift despite what it might tell them, couldn’t meet his eyes. They blamed him, every one of them.

Dom’s breath hitched in his throat and he backed away, unable to turn from the sight of them ranged against him. They were his people that had been killed, his friends and neighbours. Theirs were the bodies littering the burning village he called home. But they were right, weren’t they? This was on him. He could’ve stopped it if only he’d pushed her. If only he’d used his gift, regardless of the cost.

He didn’t look away until he was inside the first line of trees, and then only because the girl touched his shoulder. He felt a tingle of understanding, a flicker from the knowing, and pushed it away. It was too late now. He didn’t care if she was important, didn’t care that such a momentary touch could ignite his gift. There wasn’t anything worth learning from her now and no one to tell it to even if he did.

Too late for Sarilla, for the other wounded. Too fucking late for the dead.

‘Go where you like, I won’t stop you. I’ve lost family because of you, friends, lovers. Their deaths are my shame, do you understand?’ Dom demanded, turning on her. He dropped the tent, grabbed her shoulders and shook, and then backhanded her so she fell into the mud. ‘Maybe Ash is right. Maybe you are a fucking spy. You couldn’t have done more damage if you’d fucking planned it.’

She rolled on to her back and wiped blood from her mouth and nose. ‘You expect me to trust you, to tell you everything I know when I’m as much a prisoner here as I ever was in Eagle Height?’ She stood up, shaky but tall. ‘I spent nine years slaving for the Mireces. Nine years you will never begin to understand. And for nine years I listened to their stories about the Wolves. How could I possibly trust you? All I know is what they told me.’

Dom laughed, a wheezing giggle tinged with madness. ‘What the fuck does it matter if you trust us? My people are dead because I didn’t want to scare you. Because I trusted that if you had something to tell us about the Mireces you would, that you had some touch of being Rilporian left inside. That if you’d killed their fucking king you’d have let us know.’ He bit off any more words. What was the point? Slumping, he picked up the tent again. ‘Just go. Go on, go.’

‘Go where?’

‘Fuck do I care? To hell, maybe, to the Afterworld. You deserve it.’ He hauled the tent on to his back and began walking southeast. She shifted from foot to foot, uncertain. Then she followed.

Mace Koridam, general of the West Rank, rested back in his chair and stretched his shoulders when Captain Tara Carter entered. ‘Report?’