Tenth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus
Field hospital, the hill, edge of Deep Forest, Wheat Lands
There were shouts and screams, the clash of weapons and the thud of metal hitting flesh, of flesh hitting mud, at the front of the hospital tents, and the sudden bloom of fire and stink of pitch.
Dom lay still, listening, fighting the grasping-tearing-raping clutches of the Blood Lady, but the sounds were getting closer. He didn’t know where Hallos and Gilda were. There was a pause in the assault on his mind and soul and a cool flicker of Light replaced it, just a flash, a moment, and inside it, seedlike, the blossoming instruction to move. That it was time.
He’d hoped the internal battle was his last, but it seemed not. He could ignore the instruction and lie here and wait to be slaughtered by whoever was out there, or burn to death, or have a heart attack brought on by the Blood Lady’s ravaging. It wasn’t much of a bastard choice, really. Go and die. Stay and die.
The Light dimmed and he reached for it on instinct, hauling himself up out of the cot on to a left leg that couldn’t support him, a left arm that swung useless, a left eye that couldn’t see. Gilda had left her walking staff nearby and he offered her a silent apology as he stole it, using it to drag and shuffle to the rear of the tent and out through the flap. No burning to death today. Dom chose the Light.
It was getting darker, the rain heavier, colder. He could see his breath pluming with each shuddery exhalation. The wool of his trousers and the jerkin and shirt beneath soaked up the rain until they were cold and clinging to his flesh. As though even the elements wanted him to stop.
Dom’s lopsided smile was grim. ‘Have to try harder than that,’ he slurred, barely recognising his own voice. Thunder rumbled in response and his humour leaked away. An image of his hand, melted to a knife thrust into the Dark Lady’s chest, flashed through his mind like the lightning that had done it. He squinted up at the clouds. ‘Keep your bolts, please. It’d be far too embarrassing to die with both my hands missing – and it’d make using this staff a lot harder, too.’
He knew he was talking to himself, and he could feel the vague unravelling of parts of his mind as the Blood Lady’s presence grew like a canker in the godspace. She was getting closer and the urges She sent him were getting stronger and harder to resist as he shuffle-dragged away from the hospital and into the expanse of the Wheat Lands, following the call of the Light, the call of the Blood.
Soon She’d fill the world, the battlefield, drive Her followers mad with violence and fill Her enemies with dread. He was building mud walls against a flood.
‘No. I’m going to stop you. I am.’
Someone shouted his name, but he couldn’t tell which direction it had come from and besides, he was running out of time. They were all running out of time. Even the Dancer. The last of Her strength was in the air, steeling the hearts and wills of Her people even if they didn’t know it. But She was waning, and if She faded before the Blood Lady was defeated, She’d never come back.
‘And then we’ll have no gods. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.’
‘It’s not,’ said Rillirin, pacing at his side. Dom didn’t look at her. She wasn’t really there. The Blood Lady had sent her, and no doubt she’d be bloody and torn open, his sweet Rillirin, and he didn’t need to see that, not now, not ever. Another thread of Dom peeled away, drifted free on the wind, gone.
‘We will always need the gods,’ she added. He paused, gasping in air and rain. Cold, so cold. ‘And there’s still time for you, Calestar, to choose which you will serve. The Dancer will lead you to death. The Dark Lady, once restored to Her proper form, will raise you up as Her consort and give you immortality.’
‘A new Gosfath? No thanks. I wouldn’t suit the horns.’
Rillirin stopped him, a hand on his arm he could actually feel, and he had no choice now but to look at her. The rain didn’t touch her and she was clean and fresh and beautiful. There was no child, no rounded belly housing the life they’d made together. Her eyes glittered with avarice and lust and with more life than he’d ever seen sparking in their grey depths.
‘She can take this form, if it would please you,’ Rillirin added, her hand sliding up his arm to cup his cheek. She leant forward, lips parted, and Dom leant back, maintaining the distance between them.
‘No. Go away. You’re not her. Rillirin never looked like that. She certainly never talked like that. Piss off.’
He started off again, a slow limp, not waiting to see if the apparition had taken his advice. ‘You’re going to lose,’ the Rillirin-thing called after him. He didn’t look back. He needed to get away from the battle, draw the Blood Lady to him away from the others, and he was running out of time.
‘Brother.’
‘Brother,’ Dom acknowledged and then caught himself, a sharp pain like a blow to the chest. He hadn’t seen Lim since the West Rank forts, the same night he’d loved and left Rillirin. Lim was dead.
Lim was the same: strong and dour, silver at his temples, face marked with strength and too much introspection. But his eyes, too, dark like Dom’s own despite not sharing his blood, couldn’t conceal the greed and arrogance in their depths. The soul lived in the eyes, and those eyes weren’t his.
‘You’re going to lose. The battle, the war. Your soul. You know who it belongs to, and She’ll still have it, if you give it to Her. Not like the Dancer. That one will throw you away like spoilt food, not even fit for the pigs.’
‘I’m not doing this for the Dancer,’ Dom said.
‘Then why?’ Lim asked, such genuine confusion in his tone that Dom winced at the likeness to the brother he’d known, his throat tightening. His hand slipped on the staff and he stumbled, leg shaking as he recovered. Lim laughed at him and the resemblance was gone.
‘Because I’ve finally learnt what it’s all about,’ he said and staggered on.
‘And what is it all about?’ Lim asked with mocking amusement.
‘It’s all about where you choose to make your home. My home’s Rillirin and our daughter, and I might never see them again but I can make sure they live. I can give them the world and make it a good one. I choose Rillirin, not the gods, though They all seemed to choose me.’ He snorted. ‘Who’d have guessed I’d be so popular? No, all I want now is to put an end to this and if that means ending the gods – all of them – then that’s what I’ll do. For her.’
‘The Afterworld—’ Lim began.
‘No.’
Lim skipped ahead into his path; Dom’s laboured walk came to a halt once more. ‘But you don’t have to die. The Dark Lady needs a consort.’ Lim leered. ‘All those delights and pleasures you but kissed the surface of can be yours. She can be yours. Forever. The Dark Lady forgives you, Calestar, and She will take you into Her embrace and raise you up higher than you have ever been. Hale and whole and in Her arms.’
Dom could see it now, the images overlaying Lim’s face and the grey day. The Dark Lady in a mortal’s skin walking at his side as they ruled the land together, governed wisely, justly, and were worshipped for it. They would sit side by side on gold thrones at the heart of a unified Gilgoras and there would be peace. Happy children of Blood. Contented slaves.
Dom’s mouth soured and he cleared his throat, spat. ‘No,’ he said again.
Lim’s face hardened. ‘You are running out of chances,’ he warned. ‘No one refuses the Dark Lady.’
Dom shrugged. ‘Then if She wants me, She should come herself.’ He leant forward, right in Lim’s face. ‘In all Her hideous deformity.’ Grunting, he stepped around Lim and left him behind. The sounds of fighting were fading. He didn’t look back.
‘If you’re going to go through the list of the dead or the loved, it’ll take you some time,’ he said as he struggled on. ‘Or you could just come and talk to me yourself. I tire of your games, and I have no interest in your promises. So just come and let’s get this over with.’
The clouds darkened still further, thunder rumbling over the hiss of the rain.
Careful what you wish for, Dom thought a little unsteadily. He laughed, the sound mad and cackling as the urges rose up in him again, higher than the storm clouds, fiercer than the wind that blew his beloved Rillirin’s image far away. And he brought his left arm up to his mouth and bit.