Until he led the tall grey into the hold of Glafanr, Bueralan had long considered the transportation of animals an act of cruelty, one that he tried to avoid. Over the years, he had stood on decks of vessels both large and small, and watched as horses were lowered into stalls not large enough for them to lie down in. It was a mercenary’s joke that, no matter how poorly you were housed on a ship, your horse had it worse. Packed tightly against each other, the animals spent the voyage in a canvas sling for support. At its end, they were lifted out and dropped into the black water to swim to shore. Bueralan could still remember watching the horses of Sky, the first mercenary unit he served in, swimming frantically after such an event, and the horror he felt when fatigued horses sank and did not rise. In the years that followed, he had taken to selling his horse at the market on the shore and buying a new one when he landed. It was a choice that he did not have as he rode into Dyanos, and one that he doubted, anyway, he could have acted upon given all that he had shared with the tall grey.
‘You still have not named him.’ Aela Ren had stood beside Bueralan as the sling was fitted to the beast before he was lowered through the hold’s entrance. They had still been in Ooila, then. ‘I would tell you that you should, that all things should be named, but we have had that conversation.’
‘We have,’ he had replied, watching the tall grey sink into the ship.
After a moment, the Innocent said, ‘Kaze will take good care of him. You need not worry for his fate on this voyage.’
After he had returned from the wreck of Mercy, Bueralan had climbed down the ladder that led to the bowels of Glafanr. Kaze sat, as she often did, at the end of the space that ran between the stalls in the hold, the booths laid out on either side of her, big enough for horses to both stand and lie down in. With her back to Bueralan, she revealed a long, narrow, dark-skinned body. She was not as dark as Bueralan, and her hair was tightly curled and verging on a ruddy red. Her long life had left her with little accent – like many of Aela Ren’s soldiers – and the saboteur did not know where she had originally been born. For her part, Kaze did not offer the information: she, like all of the soldiers on Glafanr, identified herself as the servant of a god that no longer existed. That was their birthplace and their nationality. For Kaze, that was Linae, the Goddess of Fertility, the first of the gods that had died.
‘He has been fed already.’ Kaze spoke as he drew closer, not turning from the table. ‘He has been brushed and walked, as well.’
‘Maybe I came down to thank you.’
At that, the woman turned to him, her hazel eyes peering through a pair of thin wire frames. ‘Because we are so social, yes?’
‘Social creatures.’
Above them, in the rafters of the hold, a hammock had been slung. More than once, Bueralan had found Kaze lying in it and reading, having preferred the company of horses to that of her fellow immortals. ‘Yes,’ she said, blandly. ‘You came to ask about Taela?’
He wasn’t surprised. ‘She is showing—’
‘Much more than she should,’ she finished. ‘I know.’
‘What does it mean?’ Bueralan stopped before the tall grey and rubbed his hand along the horse’s head. ‘For Taela, that is.’
‘You should convince her to let me see her.’ Kaze rose from her seat. On the table she left the old bridle and bit she had been working on. ‘I know only so much from a distance. Linae made it easier for me to help a child into the world, but I cannot work miracles.’
It still surprised Bueralan to hear the god-touched talk about their gods, to hear them speak about the gods as if they were still their servants and their servitude had never ended. He had, at first, thought of them as individuals similar to those who were ‘cursed’, a belief helped by Aela Ren and the soldier Joqan. Bueralan had seen Ren’s strength and speed, but it had been the way that the latter coaxed the lava out beneath Ooila that had assured him of it. If the servant of Sil, the God of the Earth, could do that, then surely all the god-touched echoed the god that they served. But at sea, a different awareness had come to define itself. Joqan rode the waves poorly and was often seen on the deck of Glafanr with a faintly ill expression. He could not create fire, or cause the earth to rise up out of the black water, and it was not long before Bueralan realized that here lay the biggest difference between the god-touched and the men and women who were ‘cursed’ with a god’s power. The god-touched had been chosen, and had been given strength and immortality, but their masters had kept everything but the faintest part of their divine dominion from their servants. It meant that the god-touched did not fear it. They knew it, they could even touch it and draw from it. But they could not to control and master it in the way that the ‘cursed’ could.
‘But you know something, don’t you?’ he said.
‘It isn’t for you to hear. It is for her.’
‘She doesn’t want your help.’
‘Of course not.’ After Cynama, after Taela had failed to abort the child within her, Se’Saera had sent Kaze to examine her. ‘But I have never lost a mother,’ the god-touched woman said. She stopped before the grey and held out a slice of apple for the horse. ‘You should tell her that.’
‘What about a child?’
‘No child, either.’ She scratched the grey’s nose after he finished the slice. ‘But sometimes they are lost well before they are born.’
‘Do you think that likely here?’
‘You are like a father,’ she said. ‘Has anyone told you that?’
He let the barb slide past. ‘Just tell me,’ he said. ‘She won’t talk to you, anyway.’
Kaze was silent. She scratched the grey again. Then she said, ‘A god’s child is never lost. And it is never normal.’
‘Have there been many?’ Bueralan asked. ‘Many children of gods?’
‘The name is common, but no. It is rare. There was a very famous prophecy when I was a little girl that said that twins would be born, one to lead, one to fear. The two began a war that lasted a generation and, afterwards, women who were thought to be pregnant with twins were drowned. Baar did that. The God of War. His two children were said to be able to talk to him, and often claimed to be part of his own awareness. That is why they went to war.’
She spoke mildly, as if the details were benign, and not something awful. Bueralan saw again Se’Saera’s hand thrust into Taela. Saw her push Zean’s soul down her throat. He did not ask how a child could be made from such an action, but rather what kind of child. Would it be a representation of Se’Saera, a part of her, like the twins Kaze had just spoken of? And if those two had been a part of the God of War, what would Se’Saera’s child reveal about her?
Would any of Zean be there?
‘On the topic of the God of War, I see you met General Zilt,’ Kaze said. She gave the grey one last scratch, and turned from it, to the other horses. ‘He was one of Baar’s favourites.’
‘He’s god-touched?’ Bueralan asked, surprised. The God of War had the distinction of being one of only three gods whose servants were not onboard Glafanr.
‘No, he is not like us.’ She laughed, as if the thought had humour in it, as if the leader of soldiers who allowed themselves to become monsters was funny. ‘No, Baar had soldiers that he watched. He was said to enjoy the way they fought. He would find a second when he found a first, for he was a god very much about balance. Hence the twin children. Zilt and his soldiers were the last of them. The very first tribesmen on the Plateau were the other side of that equation.’
‘Maybe Zilt should return the Plateau, then. He did not win any favours when he explained what happened in Yeflam after our new god left.’
‘I heard some of it. He said that he was driven away by a storm.’
Zilt had knelt before Se’Saera when he explained what had happened, a chastised servant, a man admitting a wrong. ‘The Keepers washed him and his soldiers away, apparently,’ Bueralan said. ‘But that was not the part that struck me. It was after that. He said that the Keepers were in Leera, waiting for us. Waiting for her, waiting to pledge their loyalty.’
‘We’re all friends, are we?’ Kaze shook her head. ‘What did Aela say?’
‘He didn’t say anything.’