The Silver Lake (22 page)

“Is he mad?” he asked after a time.

Kursk shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Is he human?”

Kursk watched as dozen spirits swirled around the tent flap. “Yes.”

With a grin, he clapped his kardos on the back. “He’s a wyrdin—a prophet,” he said. “Our prophet. One day
we’ll
flow over the walls
of Anavatan
and the spirits will flow with us,” he added in Graize’s strange, singsong accent.

Ozan’s face brightened. “Did he say that, truly?”

“Yes, truly. Apparently we’ll attack Yildiz-Koy this season while the Warriors of Estavia wait for a threat to the south which will never materialize.”

“Will we, truly?”

“Perhaps. We have to weigh the possibilities and speak with Timur. Whatever the child may turn out to be, Timur’s still our most senior wyrdin, not me. It will ultimately be her decision.”

Ozan nodded. “And I imagine Danjel will have a thing or two to say about it as well.”

“No doubt.” Kursk laughed suddenly. “Still, why not? Yildiz-Koy’s as good a place as any to mount a raid against, is it not?”

“It is.” Ozan showed his teeth in eager anticipation. “I’ll tell the others. They’ll be pleased.”

Kursk nodded. “Yes, they will.” As the last slip of sunlight faded from the sky, the Yuruk leader turned his gaze to the storm clouds gathering to the southwest through the boy’s drops of fire and gold and nodded grimly to himself.

“They’ll be very pleased.”

Late that night, in one of the temple’s huge guest wing apartments, Brax lay back against a pile of overly soft cushions and stared into the darkness, the words of the Battle God’s command council echoing in his head. Beside him, Spar slept with his arms around the man Kemal’s big red dog, too full of food and drink and too exhausted to care about the future. But Brax cared. They’d faced death, hunger, priests, life-sucking spirits, and halberd-wielding sentinels, indentured themselves to a God of warfare and bloodshed, and walked all day long at Her order to get here, and here was where they were going to stay. Standing in the center of the huge, vaulted, and windowless command chamber that looked more like a prison cell for rich merchants than a military council room, he’d spelled out the God’s plans for the two of them, but even after Kemal had added his voice in support, the council had remained stubbornly unconvinced.

 

 

He snorted. Kaptin Omal of Indigo Infantry Company had been pretty adamant about that, as if it mattered. The Battle God had sent them to Estavia-Sarayi, so that was where they were meant to be. The dog had understood that right away—he hadn’t left their side since they’d woken up. Kemal had taken a bit more convincing, but eventually he, too, had understood.

 

 

He’d had been dreaming of wind and rain beating down on a silver mist-covered plain surrounded by lights when a small noise had jerked him awake to find a tall bearded man in a dark blue tunic watching them from the doorway. Cursing himself for letting his guard down so completely, he’d leaped up, thrust Spar behind him, and drawn his knife. His vehement denial of wrongdoing had been the first thing out of his mouth.

The man had reacted with a smile.

 

 

 

“I’m sure you didn’t steal anything, Delin. No one steals from the temple of Estavia. But ... what are you doing here?”

“I told you, She brought us here.” Tucking his knife into his belt, Brax straightened with a scowl. “We’re to be warriors, both of us. She said so.”

The man grinned openly at that. “She did, did She? And did She also specify what company you were to join?”

Brax glared back at him. “No, but She would if I asked Her to. Should I?” His tone was challenging, but the man just chuckled.

“No need, Delin”

Brax bridled at the second diminutive. “It’s Brax,” he said stiffly.

“My apologies. Brax.” The man turned to Spar, who edged a step farther behind the older boy as Jaq began to sniff at him cautiously. “And you are?”

“He’s called Spar.”

“Can’t he answer for himself?”

“He can, he just doesn’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because he doesn’t know you.”

“Fair enough. My name is Kemal. That’s Jaq. He seems to like you, Spar,” he added, as the younger boy began to hesitantly scratch the great, red head that had stuffed itself under his hand.

Brax narrowed his eyes. “You’re a warrior?” he asked suspiciously, refusing to be lulled by the man’s gentle tone.

“And a priest.”

“A priest?”

Kemal smiled at his suspicious tone. “All Estavia’s warriors are priests. Why, don’t you like priests?”

“No. They’re ...” Brax hesitated, searching for a word that was accurate enough without being too insulting and settled on, “pushy and they think they know everything.”

“Well, this priest doesn’t.” Kemal’s expression grew sober. “What happened to your face, Brax?”

The softly asked question was as unexpected as the concern in the man’s voice. Suddenly noticing the red welts and scratches on Kemal’s own face and hands, Brax shrugged with studied indifference.

“Nothing really. Why, what happened to yours?”

“I took some injuries last night conducting a ritual to manifest the God of Battles.”

“That’s when we got ours, too.”

Kemal’s face twisted in distress. Coming forward, he knelt down and, taking Brax’s hand in his, studied the wide red marks across the back of his knuckles, then up to the ugly red wound on his cheek. “Then I’m responsible for your injuries, for both of yours,” he said.

Brax blinked. “Why? Did you call the spirits up, too?”

“Spirits?”

Brax exchanged a glance with Spar. “You know,
the spirits that attack the unsworn on Havo’s Dance?”

Kemal stiffened. “The unsworn? You’re unsworn, both of you?”

“We were until last night. We got caught out on the streets and the spirits attacked us. If Estavia hadn’t shown up and destroyed them all, they’d have sucked the life right out of us, like they did to Gr ... to two others.”

“And this happens frequently?”

“What’s that?”

“A lot?”

“Sure. You know, that’s why nobody goes out on Havo’s
Dance.”
At Kemal’s mystified expression, he continued. “The spirits used to just suck the life out of things like spiders and mice, sometimes a sick rat, but last year they started on the feral dogs and cats. That made them strong enough to go after people, but they can only get to the unsworn, so we keep under cover when they’re out hunting.” He frowned. “You really didn’t know all this?”

Kemal sighed. “Delin, until yesterday I didn’t even know there were unsworn, never mind that the spirits of the wild lands could enter Anavatan to prey on them.”

Brax gave him an incredulous look but didn’t reply as Kemal sat back on his heel.

“Clearly, there’s a lot I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “All right. Tell me exactly what happened last night.”

Brax had barely finished when Kemal’s arkados, Yashar, had shown up with the head of the temple, Marshal Brayazi. After making Brax go over the events of last night for the second time, she immediately called a full command council. By the third explanation he was getting a little tired of talking. The council hadn’t helped.

“How many of these unsworn reside within the city walls?” Kaptin Liel of Sable Company asked bluntly, leaning forward to fix Brax with a seer’s intense stare.

“I dunno. Lots.”

Kaptin Omal gave a snort of disbelief. “In the City of the Gods? Impossible.”

“Why? Not everyone wants some God telling them what to do every moment of every day,” Brax shot back, fed up with trying to explain something that seemed to him to be an unimportant detail.

The kaptin bridled at both his words and his tone, but the old woman, Elif, raised one wizened hand to forestall an outburst.

“The youngster has lived in a different world, Omalin-Delin. Let it go. He’s here now, sworn, as we are, to Estavia, and come to warn us that ethereal creatures of mist and unquenchable hunger—which we now know to be the spirits of the wild lands—have breached the walls of Anavatan during Havo’s Dance. As, I might add, we have long feared they might do with the capital situated, as it is, so far from Gol-Beyaz. He’s told us that the spirits draw strength from the unsworn and that the unsworn are numerous, so this leads us to one question, not how is this possible, but rather, how do we combat it?”

“So, how do we combat it, Elif-Sayin? How do we fight ethereal creatures of mist and hunger?” Omal demanded in as respectful a tone as he could muster. “In battle it is Estavia who combats the spirits of the wild lands, not Her warriors.”

“Really?” she replied in a tone of steely sarcasm, “I’m so glad you reminded me of this fact; I was afraid my memory might have gone the way of my eyesight.”

As the marshal laid a gently restraining hand on Elif’s sleeve, Kaptin Nateen of Turquoise Archery Company leaned back. “As obvious as his words might have been, it’s just as Kaptin Omal says, Sayin,” she observed. “We do not traditionally bring these creatures to bear at all, so it’s highly unlikely that we’re being asked to do so now. The God commanded an Invocation that She might do battle against these creatures Herself last night. Therefore, lending our strength to Hers in the future may be our only expected course of action.”

“Highly unlikely,” Kaptin Liel responded. “The God was very specific in commanding that Ghazi-Priest
Kemal
lead Her Invocation ...”

Standing behind Brax and Spar, Kemal started at the sound of his name and Brax smirked. He guessed he wasn’t the only person growing bored with the entire argument. Beside him, Spar stifled a yawn.

“... and then She led him directly to these delon. Yet he’s no seer; he’s not even a battle-seer, he’s a ghazi. That suggests Her ghazis have a part to play in this.”

“And what part might that be?” Kaptin Nateen asked stiffly.

“That remains unclear. We must petition the God.”

“And the delon, what part do they play?”

“Again, we’ll have to petition the God.”

“Ask a seer the time and you’ll get the weather,” Kaptin Alesar of Azure Infantry Company observed dryly to Kaptin Iyril of Verdant Archery Company, “You can never get a straight answer from any of them.”

Elif chuckled. “That’s because where the Gods are concerned there are no straight answers, Alesarin-Delin, only a multitude of spiraling questions. However, in this case, I believe that together these individual elements may provide us with some clue, especially in light of the First Oracle’s earlier vision. Remember, something momentous was to be born last night during Havo’s Dance; something which would draw strength from the unsworn. Estavia has risen to do battle with creatures that attack the unsworn, and here we have two of their number brought to our temple by the God Herself to verify these events. The coincidences are piling up at a very suspicious rate. I suggest that we do indeed petition Estavia for a clarified answer while also preparing for the necessity of physical conflict”