Peter Brett - The Core

‘Everam grant me such fortune.’ Abban clambered painfully atop the beast, where he strapped himself into the saddle. As Hasik promised, the riding was easier on his crotch than he remembered.

‘Small blessings,’ he breathed as they moved south, the light-footed chargers quickly leaving the caravan behind. Late in the day they caught up to one of Orman’s returning scouts.

‘It is everything the kai told you, and more,’ the Bajin said, nodding at Jesan. Hasik kept his former ajin’pal close – as he did Abban – as if daring the man to attempt vengeance.

‘The monastery is under renewed assault, even now,’ the Bajin said. ‘The chin have laid siege to the main gate, even as their ships crowd the harbour. If they do not take the city today, it will surely fall tomorrow.’

‘Nie’s black heart,’ Hasik growled. ‘Signal the men. We ride hard.’

Abban was thankful for his lack of balls by the time Hasik called a halt. The horses were lathered in sweat, but they had a high vantage, giving clear view of the monastery in the distance.

With the sun setting, battle had ended, the chin retreating to their tents and ward circles.

They could afford to wait. Thousands of men choked the narrow road that climbed the great bluff, the only means by which a land force could make the gate. At the base of the hill they made camp, one prepared to remain as long as necessary.

‘They know the defenders are weak,’ Orman said.

‘And that help from Everam’s Reservoir is not forthcoming,’ Hasik agreed. ‘Their rear defences are pitiful.’

Jesan nodded. ‘We can take them at dawn.’

‘Dawn?’ Hasik asked.

‘The sun is setting,’ Jesan said. ‘We cannot attack men in the night.’

‘I have no master,’ Hasik said. ‘None to tell me what I cannot do. It is no less than the fish men did to us at Waning.’

‘We need not fall into all the infidel ways of the chin ,’ Jesan said.

‘There are no infidel ways any more. We are free.’ Hasik turned to Orman. ‘Give the men an hour to rest their mounts, then we move in.’

In the dark of night, with the chin all in their tents or huddled around fires for warmth, unarmed and unarmoured, five hundred of Hasik’s best men struck.

The enemy camp was destroyed in the slaughter that followed, but Hasik was wiser than Prince Jayan had been, keeping the fires and carnage away from the enemy stores.

They cut a swathe through the fish men, never slowing as they broke through their lines and ascended the hill. The chin had built progressive fortifications, but all were aimed at an assault from the monastery walls, not one from behind. Soon the Eunuchs controlled the road fully, guarding Hasik’s back as he, Jesan, Orman, and Abban rode up to the gate.

Hasik drew a breath, but it was unnecessary. With a great clatter of chain and counterweight, the portcullis was raised to admit Hasik’s forces.

Dama Khevat and Kai Icha were waiting in the courtyard. Both were bloodied, the dama ’s white robes stained red. If the old cleric had been drawn into the fighting, things were dire, indeed.

Khevat gave the shallow, superior bow of a dama to a Sharum. ‘Everam sent you in our darkest hour, son of Reklan …’

Hasik ignored him, turning to Orman and pointing. ‘Put a hundred fresh men on the walls. Another fifty to secure the courtyard.’

‘I need men in the basements, as well,’ Icha said. ‘There are chin gathered in the caverns below, forcing at the door …’

‘Another fifty to the basement,’ Hasik told Orman, not sparing him a glance. ‘Ready the rest to ride out again now that we control the gate.’

Icha clenched a fist. ‘We will crush them at dawn.’

Hasik deigned to look at him. ‘No, boy, we will crush them now, while they are scattered and bloody. Now, before they can flee with their supply, or dig in and hinder our rear guard.’

‘It is night …’ Khevat began.

Abban rolled his eyes. ‘Dama, please. You’ve already lost this argument once.’

Khevat’s eyes flicked to Abban, quivering with rage. ‘Why is this piece of offal still alive? I would have expected you to kill him long ago.’

‘You have always been low in your expectations,’ Hasik said.

‘He cut off your cock,’ Khevat growled.

‘And I ate his,’ Hasik agreed. ‘And then I cut the cocks from all my men, that none might think himself my better.’

Khevat paled. ‘That is an abomination …’

Hasik smiled, drawing his curved knife. ‘Pray to Everam you get used to it, Dama.’

‘The blood, Damajah.’

Inevera took the uncorked vial Ashia offered, decanting a few precious drops onto the dice in her palm. She closed her fingers, rolling the smooth, polished bones with practised skill to coat them evenly.

Kept sealed and cold, away from sunlight, the thick fluid still held a touch of magic, a fragrance of the owner’s soul. Enough to focus her dice and perhaps pry a few secrets from Everam, helping put order to the swirling chaos of futures before her.

It was a ritual Inevera performed daily, in the full dark before sunrise. Some futures were unknowable, too many convergences and divergences for her to glean a sense of likelihood. Others cut off abruptly, signifying her own death.

‘May I ask a question, Damajah?’ Ashia asked.

Inevera’s eyes flicked to the girl in annoyance. Ashia had changed in the weeks since Prince Asome’s coup – the Night of Hora. Having her own brother try to strangle her while her husband watched was enough to change any woman’s perspective on the world.

Even standing guard in her mistress’ pillow chamber, the Sharum’ting Ka wore her infant son, Kaji, slung across her belly. She would not be parted from the child for any reason, even in her sacred duty.

It was no great hindrance to performance, Inevera had learned. The bodies Ashia left in her wake during the coup attested to that. Like his mother, Kaji could be preternaturally silent when he wished. Inevera had looked into his aura and seen how the slowing of his mother’s heart affected his own. He would be a great Watcher one day.

At times of his choosing, though, Kaji could make his voice known throughout the Damajah’s chambers. His laughter made feet laden with duty step lighter, and his screams could jar even Inevera from her centre.

But even as he took on some of his mother’s traits, she was taking on his. Ashia would never have dared interrupt Inevera’s casting ritual before.

‘Ask,’ Inevera said. Ashia had risked everything in bringing Kaji and his grandmother Kajivah to her on the Night of Hora. Inevera’s eunuchs and spear sisters were perhaps the only people in Krasia she trusted completely, and Ashia knew it. With her child’s fate tied to her own, it was not surprising she had begun to assert a voice in it.

‘Why do you waste time seeking the khaffit when enemies mount in this very palace?’ Ashia asked.

Because my husband is dead, Inevera thought, but didn’t say. Nie had piled many stones atop her, but all of them came from the foundation broken by Ahmann’s fall. The Par’chin’s unforeseen challenge had created such a divergence as to throw decades of careful planning to the dogs. Inevera had tied her fate too closely to Ahmann, certain that he was the Deliverer. Certain that, in the end, he could not fail. Together, their power had been absolute.