Anna Smith Spark - The House of Sacrifice

‘ Denakt, ’ he shouted at it, as though it was another dragon . Go. Leave. It stared at him. Padded off, disappeared into the snow. He rode on, in a while came across the body it had been feeding on, a man, torn apart lying there. Someone who didn’t want to be a soldier, he’d guess. Tried to escape his men. The face was untouched. Mouth open. Eyes open. The snow slowly covering it.

Envoys came to Arunmen from Chathe and Immish and every city of his empire, brought him gifts from every corner of the world. Treasures and jewels, objects of great beauty and wealth. White horses. Silver cloth as light as sea foam. A thousand ingots each of iron and copper and lead and tin. The emissaries from Chathe came to kneel before him, swear their loyalty. He smiled at them, raised them up, promised them his faith back in return as long as they remained loyal to him. Ryn Mathen nodded, eyes bright with happiness. On a whim, Marith ordered the emissaries to be given a hundred chests of gold and silver, to bring back to King Heldan as an honour gift. The lords of Marith’s empire knelt and crowned him with wreaths of flowers. He held races and dances and feasts. The soldiers paraded for him, dressed in their finery, polished bronze, red plumes nodding on their helmets, red cloaks, gleaming, marching and wheeling in the snow. The music of the bronze: they danced the sword dance, clashed their spears, shouted for joy. So many of them, uncountable, like the trees in a forest. They roared out his name with triumph, he who had given them mastery of the world, made them lords of life and death. Their love burned off them, warm and joyous; Marith gasped as he watched them, his face radiant, breathless, still, after everything, half unbelieving, all this, all this, for him. The emissaries departed, leaving more allied troops in his army’s ranks. The Army of Amrath prepared to march out. The forges rang with the clash of hammers, the glowing fire of liquid metal, burning day and night. More swords! More spears! More helms! More armour! Grain carts rumbled in beneath the ruins of the gateways. Provisions for a long hard march. A new levy of troops marched in from Illyr, young men who had not yet seen the glory of his conquests, staring wide-eyed and hungry at the ruins of the city, the tents piled with plunder, the campfires of his army numberless as the stars. They marched in between towers of white newly slain bones, white skulls grinning, the shriek of carrion birds. He saw in their eyes the wonder, the longing to be part of this. They saw him, and he felt their love rise like mountains. A marvel, a gift unparalleled, that they could look upon him, fight for him, swear to him their swords and their spears and the strength in their body and all the length of their lives, to kill and to die at his will.

Onwards. Ever onwards. New lands to conquer. The road goes on and on. Issykol. Khotan, with its sunless forests. The lawless peoples of the Mountains of Pain. Turain, with its wheat fields and its silver river. Mar. Maun. Allene.

The Sekemleth Empire of the Golden City of Sorlost.

Gods, he sees it, so clear in his mind. Yellow dust, yellow sand, yellow light. Magnolia trees and lilac trees and jasmine, all in flower; women in silk dresses, bells tinkling at their wrists and ankles; in the warm dusk the poets sing of fading beauty and the women dance with grief on their crimson lips. The golden dome of the Summer Palace. A boy falling backwards through a window, lit by a thousand glittering shards of mage glass. In Sorlost I saw her face for the first time, radiant, and when I saw her I knew. My hands wallowing for the first time in innocent blood there. In Sorlost I killed a baby, I looked down and I ran my sword through it because I could. Sickness filled him. Fear. He thought: don’t think of it. There are so many places to conquer before I have to go back there.

At night he lay with Thalia in the bedroom with the green glass windows, beneath the mage-glass stars. Thalia naked and glowing, bathed in light. He rested his head on her stomach, imagined he could hear the child’s heart beating. In the dark inside her body it swam and dreamed. Absurd and impossible.

‘I can feel it move,’ she said. ‘Fluttering inside me. Like a bird. Like a butterfly landing on my hand.’ My child! he thought. My child!

He said, ‘This time it will live.’

The shadow flickered across his mind. He who had killed his own family. The fear, that it would live.

Alleen Durith held a celebration dinner the last evening before they marched. A private thing, Marith, Thalia, Osen, Kiana Sabryya, Dansa Arual, Ryn Mathen. Alleen’s chambers were decked with silk flowers. Marith was noisy, happy, laughing, the lights were very bright, the air smelled fresh and good. Thalia glittered in his vision, silver and bronze, silk and water, summer rain.

‘Do you remember the morning it rained,’ he said to her, ‘in the desert, and the flowers came out pink, and the stream came rushing down?’

Thalia said in surprise, ‘No. I … I don’t remember.’

‘I remember it so clearly. The way the desert came alive. How can you not—?’ Or …? ‘No, that was before, wasn’t it? You didn’t see that. We saw the stream with the willows, and that first stream, where we threw pebbles, and I told you who I was. It didn’t rain in the desert when you were there with me. But you’d never seen running water, until I showed you the stream, and you bathed your hands and feet in it …’

‘No,’ Thalia said, confused. ‘No. I hadn’t. I—’ She smiled then: ‘It was beautiful, Marith, when we saw the stream. I remember that. I’ll never forget that. Like seeing the hawk – was that on the same day?’

The hawk? What about the hawk? ‘We’ll go back there soon,’ he almost said.

‘Drink up, everyone,’ Osen shouted. Bustling around, refilling cups. ‘Tastes like goat’s piss, but we can all manage another cup.’ A good and clever man, Osen Fiolt. A good friend.

‘Goat’s piss? Goat’s piss?’ Alleen raised his cup. ‘I looted this stuff personally, Osen, you barbarian. Horse’s piss, at least.’

Kiana threw a flower at Osen. ‘War horse’s piss. I helped him choose it.’

‘Did that woman ever send a bottle of her good wine?’ asked Thalia.

‘I don’t know.’ Looked at Osen and Alleen. ‘Did she?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Marith.’ Osen chucked Kiana’s flower at him and shoved over a plate of sweets.

‘I found a girl in Arunmen who can sing like a skylark,’ said Alleen, ‘if anyone’s interested in hearing her sing?’

‘“Sing like a skylark”?’ said Kiana. ‘Cousin, really.’

Thalia yawned. ‘I will go to bed, I think, Marith. I’m tired.’ She was very tired, suddenly, the last few days, slept and ate a lot. But she looked well, her face was shining, it would be well, this time, surely, the doctors said that it was good that she was tired, because it showed that the baby was strong. It will live, it must live … he felt sickened, thinking of it, gulped down his drink, found himself looking away from her. My child. My child. I who killed my mother and my father and all of them, what will my child be if it lives?

‘Stay a bit longer, Marith,’ said Osen. ‘This girl of Alleen’s can sing The Deed of the New King and The Revenge of the King Against Illyr like a skylark. The proper songs and the dirty versions.’

‘Her dirty version of The Revenge is … dirty,’ said Alleen. ‘You have no idea.’

Osen began to sing, ‘ His big big sword thrusts hard and wide. ’

‘I will certainly go to bed,’ said Thalia.

‘I fear you may be wise, Thalia my queen,’ said Osen. ‘ Whole cities call him to thrust inside. ’