But you came back, the young man said. You destroyed one of our tribes, and you came back, you coward!
On another day, Jeva would have killed him for that, but the truth was that the mewling of an idiot didnt matter, not compared to everything else that was going on. She moved to step around him again.
Jeva paused as he drew a knife.
You dont want to do this, boy, she said.
Dont tell me what I want! he screamed, and lunged at her.
Jeva reacted on instinct, swaying out of the way of the blow, while she lashed out with her bladed chains. One wrapped around his neck, wrenching as she moved with the speed of long practice. Blood sprayed as the young man clutched at the wound, collapsing to his knees.
Damn you, Jeva said softly. Why did you make me do it, you idiot?
There was no answer, of course. There was never any answer. Jeva whispered the words of a prayer for the dead over the young man and then stood, lifting him. Other villagers followed her as she continued on her way, and Jeva could feel the tension there now where there had been jokes before. They followed her close as an honor guard, or the escort of a prisoner to her execution.
When she reached the House of the Dead, the elders of the village were already waiting for her. Jeva padded in on bare feet, kneeling before the endlessly burning pyre and tumbling her attackers body into it. She stood there as it started to burn, looking around at the people she had come to convince.
You come here with blood on your hands, a Speaker of the Dead said, stepping forward with his robes swirling. The dead told us that someone would come, but not that it would happen like this.
Jeva looked at him, wondering if it was true. There had been a time when she wouldnt have questioned it.
He struck at me, Jeva said. He was not as fast as he thought.
The others there nodded. Such things could happen, in these harshest parts of the world. Jeva let none of the guilt she felt show on her face.
You have come to ask us something, the Speaker said.
Jeva nodded. I have.
Then ask.
Jeva stood there, collecting her thoughts. I ask for aid for the island of Haylon. A great fleet attacks it, on the orders of the First Stone. I believe that our people can make a difference.
Voices called out then, speaking at once. There were questions and demands, accusations and opinions, all seeming to blur together.
She wants us to go to die for her.
Weve heard this before!
Why fight for people we dont know?
Jeva stood there, letting all of it wash over her. If this went wrong, there was every chance that she wouldnt be walking out of this room. Given who she was, she should have felt a sense of peace at that, but she also found herself thinking about Thanos, who had saved her at risk to himself, and about all the people who were stuck on Haylon. They needed her to succeed.
We should give her to the dead for all shes done! one called.
The Speaker of the Dead stepped next to Jeva then, holding up his hands for quiet.
We know what our sister is asking, the Speaker said. Now is not the time for talking. We are just the living. Now is the time to listen to the dead.
He reached down to his belt, pulling out a pouch of the sacred powders mixed with the ashes of the ancestors. He threw it onto the pyre, and the flames leapt up.
Breathe, sister, the Speaker said. Breathe and see.
Jeva breathed in the smoke, taking it deep into her lungs. The flames danced in the pit below her, and for the first time in years, Jeva saw the dead.
It started with the spirit of the man shed killed. It stood from his burning corpse, walking through the flames to her.
You killed me, he said in something like shock. You killed me!
He struck her then, and though the dead shouldnt have been able to touch the living, Jeva still felt it as surely as if hed slapped her while he was alive. He struck her, and then he stepped back, looking on expectantly.
The rest of the dead came to Jeva then, and they were no kinder than the young man shed slain. They were all there: the people shed killed by her own hand, the ones shed led to their deaths on Haylon. They came to her one by one, and one by one, they struck out at Jeva, in blows that left her reeling, knocked her flat, reduced her to something holding herself on the ground.
It seemed to take forever before they stepped away from her, and Jeva was able to look up again. She found herself looking at Haylon, the island surrounded by ships, the battle raging.
She saw the ships of the Bone Folk slam into those attackers, punching a hole through, their warriors spilling out onto the shore. She saw them fighting, and killing, and dying. Jeva saw them dying in numbers that she had only seen once before, in Delos.
If you take them to Haylon, they will die, a voice said, and that voice sounded as though it was composed of the voices of a thousand ancestors at once. They will die as we died.
Will they win? Jeva asked.
There was a brief pause before the voice answered that. It is possible that the island might be saved.
So it wouldnt be an empty gesture. It wouldnt be the same as on Delos.
It will be the end for our people, the voice said. Some will survive, but our tribes will not. Our ways will not. There will be so many more joining us, waiting for you in death.
That brought a flash of fear to Jeva. Shed felt the anger of those who had died, felt their blows. Was it worth it? Could she do it to her whole people?
And you would die, the voice continued. Announce this to our people, and you will die for it.
Slowly, she started to come back to herself, finding herself on the floor before the pyre. Jeva put a hand to her face and it came away bloody, although she didnt know if that was the strain of the vision or the violence of the dead. She forced herself to stand, looking out over the assembled crowd.
Tell us what you saw, sister, the Speaker of the Dead said.
Jeva stood there, looking at him, trying to gauge how much, if anything, hed seen. Could she lie in this moment? Could she tell the assembled crowd that the dead were all in favor of the plan?
Jeva knew that she couldnt lie like that, even for Thanos.
I saw death, she said. Your death, my death. The death of our whole people if we do this.
A murmur went around the room. Her people had no fear of death, but the destruction of their whole way of life was something else.
You have asked me to speak for the dead, Jeva said, and they have said that in Haylon, victory would be bought with our peoples lives. She took a breath, thinking about what Thanos would have done. I dont want to speak for the dead. I want to speak for the living.
The murmurs changed tone, becoming more confused. Becoming angrier in some spaces too.
I know what you think, Jeva said. You think I am speaking sacrilege. But there is a whole island of people out there that needs our help. I saw the dead, and they cursed me for their deaths. Do you know what that tells me? That life matters! That the lives of all those who will die if we dont help matter. If we do not help, we allow evil to stand. We allow those who would live in peace to be slaughtered. I will stand against that, not because the dead require it, but because the living do!
There was uproar then in the hall. The Speaker of the Dead looked at it all, then at Jeva. He pushed her toward the door.
There was uproar then in the hall. The Speaker of the Dead looked at it all, then at Jeva. He pushed her toward the door.
You should go, he said. Go before they kill you for blasphemy.
Jeva didnt go, though. The dead had already told her that she would die for doing this. If that was the price of gaining help, she would pay it. She stood there as a point of silence in the middle of the arguments in the room. When a man ran at her, she kicked him back and kept standing. It was all she could do right then. She waited for the moment when one of them would finally kill her.
Jeva was quite confused when they didnt. Instead, the noise in the room died down, and the people there stood in front of her, looking her way. One by one, they fell to their knees, and the Speaker of the Dead stepped forward.
It seems that we will go with you to Haylon, sister.
Jeva blinked. I dont understand.
She should have been dead then. The dead had told her that it was the sacrifice they wanted.
Have you forgotten our ways so completely? the priest said. You have offered us a death worth having. Who are we to argue?
Jeva fell to her knees with the others then. She didnt know what to say. Shed been expecting death, and had life instead. Now, she just had to make it count for something.
Were coming, Thanos, she promised.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Irrien ignored the pain of his wounds as he rode south along tracks already turned to mud by the passage of his army. He forced himself to stay tall in the saddle, not letting any of the agony he felt show. He didnt slow or stop, in spite of the many cuts, the bandages and the stitches. The things that lay at the end of this journey were too important to delay.
His men journeyed with him, making the ride back to Delos even faster than they had pursued their assault on the North. Some of them were moving slower, shepherding lines of slaves or wagons of looted goods, but most rode with their lord, ready for the battles that were still to come.
You had better be right about this, Irrien snapped across to Ncho.
The assassin rode beside him with the seemingly infinite calm that he always projected, as if the rush of a horde of Irriens finest warriors behind him was nothing.
When we reach Delos, you will see, First Stone.
Reaching Delos did not take long, although by the time they did it, Irriens horse was breathing hard, its flanks lathered with sweat. He followed as Ncho led the way away from the road, into a space filled with ruins and gravestones. When he finally stopped, Irrien looked around, unimpressed.
This is it? he demanded.
This is it, Ncho assured him. A space where the world is weak enough to summon other things. Things that might kill an Ancient One.
Irrien dismounted. He should have been able to do it with grace and ease, but the pain of his wounds meant that he hit the ground heavy-footed. It was a reminder of what the assassin and his colleagues had done to him, and one that Ncho would pay for if he couldnt deliver on his promise.
It looks like a simple graveyard, Irrien snapped.
It has been a place of death since the time of the Ancient Ones, Ncho answered. There has been so much death here that it has left the way on the cusp of opening. It merely requires the right words, the right symbols. And of course, the right sacrifices.
Irrien should have guessed that part from a man who dressed like one of the death priests. Still, if this one could give him the means to kill the Ancient Ones child, it would be worth it.
Slaves will be brought, he promised. But if you fail in this, you will join them in death.
The scariest part of it was that the assassin didnt react to that. He kept his equanimity while he paced to a spot that looked as though it had been the site of a mass grave, while he took out powders and potions from his robes, while he started to make markings on the ground.
Irrien waited and watched, sitting in the shade of one of the tombs there and trying to disguise how much his body hurt after the long ride. He would have liked to have ridden into Delos then, to bathe and dress his wounds, perhaps to rest a little. But then his men would ask questions about why he wasnt here, watching all that happened. It wouldnt look strong.
So he sent men instead to fetch sacrifices, and a list of other things that Ncho said he required. It took more than an hour for anything to come back from the city, and even then, it was a stranger collection than anything hed demanded. A dozen death priests came along with the slaves and the unguents, the candles and the braziers.
Irrien saw Ncho smile at their presence, with a confidence that told Irrien that this was no trick.
They want to see how this is done, he said. They want to see if it is even possible. They believe, but they dont believe.
I will believe when I see some results, Irrien said.
Then you will have them, my lord, the assassin replied.
He went back to the space hed marked with the symbols of his craft, setting up candles and lighting them. He gestured for slaves to be brought forward, and one by one he tied them in place, affixing them to stakes around the rim of the circle hed drawn, anointing them with oils that made them squirm and beg.
It was nothing compared to their screams as the assassin set them alight. Irrien could hear some of his men gasping at the casual brutality of it all, or complaining about the waste. Irrien just stood there. If this did not work, there would be more than enough time to kill Ncho later.
It did work, though, and in a way that Irrien couldnt have predicted.
He saw Ncho step back from the circle, chanting. As he chanted, the ground within the circle seemed to crumble, giving way similar to how a sinkhole might have opened up in the dust wastes Irrien was used to. The screaming, flaming sacrifices tumbled into it, and still Ncho kept chanting.
Irrien heard the creaking and the cracks as the tombs started to break open. A grave near the spot where Irrien was standing tore apart with a sound of ripping earth, and Irrien saw bones being pulled from it as if by a whirlpool, sucked in toward the hole in the ground and disappearing without a trace.
More followed, pouring in as if drawn to the space, hammering toward it with the speed of thrown javelins. Irrien saw one man impaled by a thigh bone, then carried forward into the pit. He shrieked as he fell, and then it was quiet.
For several seconds, everything was still. Ncho gestured for the death priests to come forward. They came, joining him, obviously wanting to see whatever he was doing. Irrien thought they were fools for it, putting their desire for power in front of everything else, even their survival.
Irrien guessed what was coming, even before a great, clawed hand reached out of the cavern that had opened up and snatched at one of them. The claws punched through the priest, then started to drag him down into the hole while he begged for mercy.
Ncho was there while the creature clawed at the dying man, wrapping a light silver chain around the creatures limb as easily as if he were hobbling a horse. He handed the chain to a group of soldiers, who held onto it gingerly, as if expecting to be the next victims.
Pull, he ordered. Pull for your lives.
The men looked over at Irrien, and Irrien nodded. If this cost a few lives, it would be worth it. He watched the men pull, straining the way they might while raising a heavy sail. They didnt drag the beast from its cave, but they seemed to be able to persuade it to move.