3: WITCH HUNT

Thurvishar paused, looking over the account, then set it aside. “I’m not sure where I want to start next.”

“What about Senera?” Kihrin asked, grinning.

“I’m sorry?” Thurvishar narrowed his eyes and didn’t seem amused.

“Senera. You know … white skin, black heart? I don’t see the appeal personally, but…” Kihrin leaned over the table toward Thurvishar. “You like the color black a lot more than I do.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Thurvishar said stiffly. “Anyway, I don’t have an account from Senera for how her part in this began.”

Kihrin laughed and sang out, “I don’t belieeeve you.”

“It’s true.” Thurvishar waited for a moment under Kihrin’s intense scrutiny, then sighed and reached for a different sheaf of papers. “To have a complete version, we must start with Talea.”

(Talea’s story)

The ground began to shake rhythmically.

Talea pulled a spear from the Forgurogh clan soldier who had been foolish enough to think running at her screaming obscenities would somehow make him impervious to damage. She stepped over his body and locked stares with Bikeinoh, another Spurned. The Yoran woman looked every bit as confused as Talea.

“What is that?” Talea asked.

The older woman shrugged.

The meeting had gone wrong almost from the start, turning into an ambush. Xivan Kaen, Duchess of Yor, had been trying to deal with the Yoran clans declaring independence after her husband’s disappearance and presumed death, but there were problems. Three problems, specifically. One, the clans hated the fact that Xivan Kaen wasn’t a native Yoran. Two, Xivan was a woman, and Yoran men were apparently delicate snow flowers who didn’t know how to handle being given orders by a woman. And lastly, Xivan Kaen was dead.

Under normal circumstances, none of these issues were insurmountable.¹

But the Forgurogh clan had been sheltering the god-queen Suless. Xivan had hoped they might parlay and convince the clan to give Suless up. In hindsight, they should have expected the ambush.²

The ground continued to shake. A head peeked out from behind the snow-covered rocks of the icy pass where they had arranged the meeting. That blue-white, bearded head was roughly the size of an entire polar bear. The body attached to that head scaled proportionately. And he wielded a whole pine tree torn up by the roots.

“Ice giant!” Bikeinoh called out. “Gods, I didn’t think were any still left alive.”

Talea noted the creature’s dried flesh and desiccated eyes, the cheekbones and skull fragments visible under rotted flesh. “I’m pretty sure there still aren’t. Run!”

The giant moved in slow, ponderous strides, but it also made the ground jump with each step. When it swung that tree, it didn’t have to be accurate. Even the Forgurogh ran before the indiscriminate attack. It made zero attempt to sort friend from foe, or more likely, to an animated ice giant corpse, everyone qualified as foe.

Spurned arrows sank into its chest to no effect.

“Save your arrows!” Talea screamed. Something had to be done. But what? Trip it?

That didn’t seem completely ridiculous. Cutting the tendons on its feet might slow it down, depending on how it had been enchanted or possessed by a demon. There was only one way to find out.

Just then, a figure emerged from the southern cliffs flanking the pass: Xivan. The woman made a running leap at the ice giant. She sailed through the air in a perfect arc before landing on the giant’s back, just behind his neck. Xivan held a long black sword in one hand, which she raised to the side and swung in a slashing motion. Although the sword hadn’t started out long enough to decapitate the ice giant in a single pass, by the time Xivan finished, the blade had more than doubled in length. It cut through the giant’s dead flesh and bone as if the creature were made from goose feathers and children’s rhymes.

Xivan rode the giant’s body down to the ground, jumping off just before the fall made the entire pass shake. The black sword—Godslayer, Urthaenriel, whatever one called the cursed thing—returned to an acceptable length as Xivan sheathed it.

The Yoran duchess brushed an imaginary snowflake from her cloak and walked in Talea’s direction.

She always took Talea’s breath away. Of course, most people wouldn’t have agreed. Xivan’s appearance varied widely. Her dark Khorveshan skin either looked as dried as old leather or like that of a young maiden spending just a little too long out in the snow—sweetly red-cheeked—depending on how recently she’d fed. She wore her dark curls matted into locks held back by silver clasps. Her eyes were white. That last bit was the only part of her appearance that looked Yoran, if for all the wrong reasons.

“Report,” Xivan said to Talea as she walked past her lieutenant to the meeting site, now littered with bodies.

“Casualties still to be determined,” Talea said, “but we did capture Chief Mazagra.³ We brought him here for you to question.”

“Any sign of the Bitch Queen?”

Xivan meant the god-queen Suless. She almost never called the goddess her real name. To be fair, “Bitch Queen” was one of Suless’s actual titles, but Xivan meant it with a lot less respect than the average Yoran devotee.

Talea shook her head. “No, none, but I’d be surprised if she wasn’t watching.”

They’d been forced to take a keen interest in all the old stories, god-king tales, and fables about Suless. They’d learned to take those stories at face value. Yes, Suless could enchant minds. Yes, Suless could steal souls. Yes, Suless could use wild animals—the crows and the snow hyenas, the white foxes and ice bears—as her spies. They couldn’t afford to underestimate the goddess.

“I would also be surprised,” Xivan admitted, casually making a rude gesture to the tree line for emphasis. She paused before the tent where the meeting would have occurred if the other side had played the situation honorably. Arrows riddled the fur-covered oilcloth canvas, which was also on fire. Xivan walked past that raging inferno until she reached a woman holding down a screaming man dressed in furs and hardened leather armor. Other women raised shields over him to protect him from arrow fire.

The Spurned had assumed Mazagra’s own men would be perfectly willing to kill their leader to keep him from falling into enemy hands.

“Stop struggling,” Xivan ordered, “or I’ll tell Nezessa to break your arms. She wouldn’t have to try hard.”

True enough. Nezessa was their strongest member.

The Forgurogh clan chief looked at Xivan with disgust and spat to the side. “I have nothing to say to you, whore.”

“Oh, that’s not true,” Xivan said. “For example, you will tell me where Suless went.” She crouched next to the chieftain, settling back on her heels. “Let me be clear, Mazagra—I don’t need you to tell me. I’ll find out on my own. All we’re deciding here is whether or not I exterminate your entire clan as an object lesson to the others.”

His eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“What stories has Suless told you?” Xivan laughed. “Did she say I was weak? Did she tell you I was soft? That I would go easy on you because my soldiers are women?”

Talea laughed at that one. So did all the Spurned nearby.

“My husband, Azhen, destroyed an entire clan once,” Xivan continued, “and I can’t help but remember how effective that tactic proved. People took him much more seriously afterward. Are you volunteering to be that example? People will be whispering about what happened to the Forgurogh clan for years.”

He flinched. Talea noticed and knew he would break long before Xivan lost her nerve. And she knew Xivan had noticed as well.

“You don’t know what she’ll do!” Mazagra said. “She’s our goddess. You can’t defy a goddess!”

“Watch me.” Xivan stood up again and walked off to the side.

Talea followed. “What do you want to do with the clan?”

Xivan scowled. “Azhen had such plans for these people. He wanted to show them a better way than all this senseless violence, this belief only the strong can rule the weak. He wanted Yorans to become better than the barbarians the rest of Quur thinks they are. And for that, they hated him.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” Talea had her own opinions about the duke, but she kept them to herself. Maybe Azhen Kaen had been different once, before Suless had gotten her claws into him. Xivan remembered some younger, more vibrant Azhen Kaen when she reminisced about her husband, but Talea had never known that duke.

But maybe she wasn’t giving him a fair chance. Talea didn’t always understand the nuances of Yoran culture. On the other hand, she didn’t think the Yorans more barbaric than the Quuros.

Rather, she thought the Yorans were amateurs at the game by comparison.

Xivan noted Talea’s expression. “I’m whining again, aren’t I?”

Talea grinned. “Not at all, Your Grace.” Her expression sobered. “But the clan?”

Xivan sighed. “Oh, I suppose we have to prove the Yorans right. Rule is only for the strong and only through fear.” She waved a hand contemptuously. “Kill all the men. Let the women and children go with a warning we’ll do the same to any clan who shelters the Bitch Queen. Let the word spread.”⁴

Talea’s stomach clenched. She’d known from the start this would be the answer, but she didn’t like it. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I know you don’t approve. I don’t approve either. But maybe if we kill a few more now, fewer will have to die later.”

Talea said nothing.

Xivan stared at her. “Out with it.”

“I just wish we were better than this. Better than what the Quuros Empire would do. I hate we’re doing the exact same thing—solving our problems with a sword’s edge.”

Xivan’s flat, unwavering stare made Talea lift her chin defensively. “I didn’t mean to imply you’re not doing a good job, Your Grace.”

“You don’t need to imply it. Go right ahead and say it. It happens to be true. I wish I knew a better way.” Xivan unbuckled her sword belt and passed it, sword included, to Talea. “Hold this for me. The fight made me hungry.”

Wordlessly, Talea buckled Urthaenriel around her waist. She hated the damn thing, but she also appreciated the honor of being entrusted to carry it when Xivan could not. For example, Xivan couldn’t carry Godslayer and feed at the same time. She couldn’t even be near Urthaenriel and feed at the same time. Using magic near the sword was impossible, and Xivan’s vampiric soul-devouring qualified.

Xivan started to turn back toward the clan chief, undoubtedly first on the menu, but then paused. “Oh. And, Talea? Find Relos Var. I need him.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Right away.” Talea hurried off, grateful Xivan had provided an excuse to leave before the slaughter began.