Anna Spark - The House of Sacrifice

‘Stop it,’ Marith almost screamed at him. All the voices, so many, his own: no don’t do this please please no please. ‘No no no no no. Marith, no,’ Valim screamed.

Alleen said, ‘You cannot possibly have thought Arunmen would be able to defeat us.’

‘You were the one who brought the Arunmenese ringleader in to judgement,’ said Osen. ‘Gods, you snake.’

‘No,’ Valim whispered. ‘No.’ He stared at Marith, pleading. Stared at the knife. His body slumped. ‘I followed you, I loved you, I … You are my king, Marith … My son died for you … Marith!’ His voice rose again screaming. ‘It wasn’t me! You cannot believe this! You are my king! Always! Always!’ Scrabbled towards Marith, chains rattling stupidly. Dead body on a gibbet. ‘Always!’

Marith took up the knife again. Blue fire blue jewel. Fine bronze blade. A good weapon, well-balanced. It felt good in his hand. Could imagine it, very easily, sinking in. Now he knew it was poisoned, he could see a slight sheen to the killing edge. A slight scent, even, sweetish, dirty, reminding him of childhood sickness, over the cold smell of the bronze. His finger ached, where he had pricked himself with the knife. Wondered if this really could have harmed him.

‘Curse you! Curse you!’ A pause, a sudden look on Valim’s face like a cruel sly child: ‘I wish now that I had done these things.’ Then Valim said nothing more. Silent, hate in his eyes, as Marith killed him. The man Kalth screamed and shrieked, tried to break away, ended up on his belly wriggling, pleading, mass of snot and tears, clawing at the ground. Tal and Brychan killed him.

The wounds on Valim’s corpse blackened. Smoked and crumbled away. Black slugs, crawling over the knife wounds.

‘Bury it. Bury the knife, too.’ The first man to touch the corpse leapt back screaming. His fingers turned black. They had to wrap the body in raw hides, bloody and dripping, before they could carry it off. They threw Kalth’s body on top, shovelled the earth fast over it. Marked it with a pile of white stones: this place is cursed, keep away.

There was a sense of relief, afterwards. Marith felt a kind of lightness in him. Purged. Younger, brighter men than Valim around him. It must have been Valim. It must. Don’t speak more of it. Ignore it. His skin crawled running crawling with lice sand in his throat. Never speak of it.

‘He was never part of it, not like we are,’ Osen said, ‘he was thick with your father, gods know how long he has been plotting it.’

‘Filth,’ said Alleen. ‘You heard him at the end, confess it. “I had done these things”. I’ve been through the men who fought under him,’ Alleen said. ‘Had a good think and killed a couple of them.’

Thalia frowned, looked troubled, agreed it was for the best. ‘Are you sure, Marith? That it was Valim Erith?’

‘Yes.’

‘It just seems … I don’t know …’

Too neat, is I think what you may be saying, Thalia my wife. But blink it and drink it away. If it was more complicated than that, well. It’s done You did it, I think, or Osen, or someone all of you my dead children my unborn son. Valim Erith probably deserved it for something. Sand crunched in his mouth. So don’t think of it, don’t talk of it. Close your eyes, point at the map, give an order, march on.

The Army of Amrath left Arunmen behind it. Marched south through the wheat fields of Tarn Brathal, following the course of the sacred river Alph. The river ran cold through frosted landscapes. The earth was fresh and hard, the horses pushed on eagerly, the men marched singing, their voices crisp in the cold, puffing out their breath as they went. ‘Marith! Marith Altrersyr, Ansikanderakesis Amrakane ! Death! Death! Death!’ Tereen, he besieged and destroyed, despite it having sworn allegiance to him as king. They had been lying. They would have betrayed him eventually, as Arunmen had. Risen up, cast off his rule, cursed him. Thus better to get it over with. The city fell and he went through the streets killing anything in his path, and he felt triumph and shame and relief. Filth. Rot. Corruption. They all loathe you, King Ruin. Want to see you dead. They deserve this, he thought. They would have come to this in the end.

Samarnath, he loosed his dragons on. A champion came out, dressed in black armour, a mage blade running with blue fire in his hand. ‘Fight me, Marith Altrersyr! Amrath! Fight me, I will destroy you! I have sworn it! Fight!’ They fought together, Marith and the challenger, wrestled and hacked at each other while all the living men and the dead looked on. He is invulnerable. He is death and ruin. He ached and stumbled and sweated and his mouth tasted of dust and blood and vomit, and he killed the fool in his black armour and sent him crashing down to the earth where his teeth stirred up the dust.

On again, still southwards, leaving the river Alph behind them. At its mouth was a great delta, a thousand miles of marshland, reeds and waterfowl, the people there lived on islands made of reeds, in huts raised up on poles above the water, in houseboats that rocked on the tide. They lived by hunting and fishing, prowled the wetlands on stilts looking like the wading birds they sought. Some of the marsh dwellers, it was said, had never set foot on firm hard ground. Stone to them was a marvel, more precious than bronze or iron: and what use was iron, indeed, when it rusted away in the constant damp? They worshipped the mud and the waterbirds, believed that the world was hatched from the egg of a giant black-winged crane. It might have been pleasant, Marith thought, to visit there, go hunting in the marshes, it was the season when the cranes would be gathering there to breed, from Theme, Cen Elora and Mar and all of Irlast. The sky would be dark with them; their wingbeats were said to make a sound like heavy rain. It was almost Sunreturn: back home on the White Isles it would be icy cold, dark even at midday, but here they were moving south, the air was warmer, the air had a different feel on the face, a new taste in the mouth.

The marshes were dying. Scouts brought the news in, proud and delighted to be the first to tell him. The waters of the Alph brought down rotting bodies, blood, disease, banefire, ash. The marshes choked on the poisoned waters, the reeds withered, the birds and the fish floated on the surface of the water bloated and green. Children sickened, their lives dribbling out of their mouths. Babies were stillborn. The old and the weak died of hunger. The strong died of grief.

So not much point going there, then, to hunt and boat. The cranes, the scouts said, were dying in such numbers that the channels of the river were choked with their bodies and their unhatched eggs.

The river is cursed. From being sacred, it is a river of death. It is punishing you, King Marith, by destroying itself. It worships you, you see? They marched instead for the Forest of Calchas, fragrant cedar wood, wild pears, walnut trees. Burned it. The dragons swept over it, belched fire, and the smell of the burning was sweet, as it always was. The flames, like the water, worshipping Marith the king.

Another feast, by the light of the forest burning. Osen had found a troop of acrobats who could jump and tumble higher than should be possible, they wore bells sewn over their costumes, mirrors on their costumes and on masks covering their faces and their hair. The air was warm, they could sit beneath the open sky. A great wall of flame and smoke to the west. The flames must be visible in Issykol, even on the shores of the Small Sea.

A cheer rose up in the distance. The whole camp was celebrating, the army enjoying itself. Singing and music. It would be lovely, Marith thought, to wander down there, join them, dance and drink with them as a man among them.