Lord Hugh departed, but as the men spread out to explore the courtyard, the handsome man appeared at the gate. Anna had figured out that the man was Blessing’s great-great-uncle. Like Prince Sanglant, he was restless, even impatient. His gaze roved, and he spotted Blessing. He called out, “Come!”
Anna knew that word well enough! “What does he want?” she asked Blessing.
The girl considered her uncle with an eagle’s brooding gaze. She bit her lip. She grasped Anna’s wrist and tugged her closer to the gate. He scared Anna. He was fierce and he looked unkind, but Blessing walked right up to him and spoke in the language of the Ashioi. He laughed, and it was obvious even to Anna that these fluent words did not surprise him; he had guessed all along. When he spoke, replying, Blessing gasped out loud. She yelped with joy. She released Anna’s arm and hopped in a circle.
“He says he’ll take me, he’ll train me in arms to be a mask warrior, like the others. Right now! So I can kill bad people. He won’t make me wait, not like my daddy did.”
“You can’t go with them, Your Highness!”
“Why not? I can go! I hate it here. He’s given me a new name, and I like it better!”
“What name?” she asked, as her voice was throttled by fear. The uncle did not even look at her, because she didn’t matter to him. He only looked at Blessing, with a cruel smile.
“He calls me ‘Little Beast.’ I like that name!” She danced over to his side, and he was so delighted that he tousled her dark hair as if with affection.
“You’re too young!” cried Anna.
The girl took her uncle’s hand and, without a backward glance, walked through the gate.
“Then let me come with you!”
But Blessing was already gone, and the masked warriors pushed Anna back into her prison and shut the gate.
8
“WE have waited long enough,” said the blood knives. “We marched out here into the wilderness, Feather Cloak. We are exposed, we might be attacked, we risked contagion through contact with the corpses of the Pale Dogs. Now we have waited six nights and a day. Those who crossed through the loom have not returned.”
Feather Cloak was drawing with a stick in the dirt, as she had been for the last six days, trying to understand the threads and angles by which the Pale Sun Dog had woven a gateway through the standing stones. The blood knives drew off to one side and began muttering together.
Secha dropped into a crouch beside Feather Cloak. “The sky counters are displeased with you, Feather Cloak.”
“What do you think?” The other woman paused with the stick hovering above the earth. “Is the angle there sharp enough?”
Secha had already drawn the pattern; she had seen its measure at once, watching the sorcerer draw the bright threads down off the stars. It amused her that Feather Cloak struggled even though she had proved herself strong in the deep magic known to those who walked the spheres. Feather Cloak could reach into a thing and draw its qualities out of it, twist them and turn them. She could cause fog to rise out of the ground, or earth to crack, or vines to curl around the limbs of her enemy. When they had lived in exile, she had called the burning stone out of the aether and walked through it onto Earth. But angles and numbers defeated her. She looked very annoyed.
“What are you come here for?” she demanded, when Secha made no answer.
“To tell you that the work crew has cleared the bodies out of the village and cleansed them. The pit where the dead flesh is buried is ringed with death stones. Their spirits can’t walk, to haunt us.”
They had set up camp on level ground outside the ditch that ringed the deserted human village. It was a bare landscape that reminded her of exile, pale grass, brittle shrubs, and the long sweep of hills. On the seven days’ march here they had seen no sign of human life, but birds flocked in great numbers out of the south where they had taken refuge in the Ashioi country. Small animals abounded, and they feasted on the little spitted creatures every night.
She rose. The grave site lay almost out of the site to the west, just off the trail that led onward into the enemy’s lands. A few mask warriors were still piling stones on the mound, but it was well sealed according to the old custom.
“I think the stones are unnecessary,” Secha commented.
Feather Cloak stood. She was not, in fact, wearing the feathered cloak; on the march out here she had set it aside as too cumbersome, despite the sky counters’ protest. “Let them have their ceremonies,” she said dismissively.
“If you do not show them respect, they will come to hate you.”
Feather Cloak looked sidelong at her, and that intense gaze sharpened. She had a way of tightening her jaw that made her look very threatening. “Why this concern, Secha? You’ve never liked me. Not even when we were children together.”
“You do not know me very well.”
“That is your answer, then. The blood knives do not know me very well.” She ran a dusty foot over the dirt to erase the crooked hatch work she had drawn.
“The priests told me that the soles of the feet must never touch the ground, lest the sacred energy coiled within be released into the earth.”
“My power is greater than the priests’ ignorance. They know that, so they do not challenge me.”
“Not yet.”
“If you cannot help, then leave me alone.”
“As you command, Feather Cloak.”
She walked down the path to the village, crossed the bridge of logs laid across the ditch, and passed through the open gate. A third of the company was resting in camp, a third was on guard, and the rest were roaming through the abandoned houses and sheds, looking for anything valuable. The biggest crowd had gathered around one long stone building set a little ways away from the others, with a monstrous stone hearth at the back. Here she found her daughters, one carried by her son and the other by their father.
Her son saw her immediately, and he ran over to her. He was such a good-looking boy, and although he was short and slender because of the years of deprivation, he was clever, and he was eating a lot these days and putting on weight.
The baby was awake. She reached for her mother as soon as she came close. Secha took her and settled her on her hip as the youth circled, unable to stand still.
“The mask warriors are saying that according to the old custom, I’m old enough to be shield carrier now.”
“That’s what you want?” she asked him, although she already knew his answer, and he only grinned, knowing she knew. “It’s important to choose carefully who you bind yourself to as an apprentice,” she added. “You want the best training, and a chance to prove yourself when you’re ready, but not before.”
But he was already dashing off, no doubt to spill the good news to that young mask warrior he had been following around. Well. She would make sure that he wasn’t put in that unit. He would need a trustworthy mentor, someone steady and experienced.
The warriors parted respectfully to let her through into the stone building. It had a stone floor, and a tile roof that had collapsed in one corner. All the windows had lost their shutters. The stones were blackened along one wall, heavy roof beams scorched. Charcoal and other debris littered the floor. It looked as though the place had burned. On the side opposite the massive hearth, shelves had collapsed, and broken pottery made the footing tricky. A pair of mask warriors were picking through the debris by the shelves, although she had no idea what they hoped to find.
Rain had the other baby slung on his back. He was scavenging through the tools near the stone hearth, which was built rather like a little house, open on one side. In some cases these metal implements were merely rims of metal whose bodies of wood had burned away. But there was a massive hammerhead with a hole for a haft, a pair of black iron spears no longer than his arm, tongs and rings, and a spray of spear points and ax and adze heads scattered on the stone floor beside heaps of slag and crumbling charcoal dust.
Seeing her, he smiled.
“This w
as a forge,” he said, displaying a lump of melted bronze on his palm. He set it back down and picked up three wedges in turn, each one bigger than the one before. “Look at the strength of this metal. This must be iron! My master always said iron was impossible to work, yet here it’s been done. There’s a quarry a short walk from here, and I think they were mining up in the hills. We could make an outpost here, start a mining operation of our own. There’s trees enough for charcoal. If we only had the smithing magic.” He hefted the massive hammerhead in both hands. “To be able to forge iron like this … well, they say the raiding parties in the east are looking for blacksmiths.”
She settled down cross-legged and in those ruins nursed the babies as he babbled on, showing her each tool and speculating on its purpose, and in this manner fell into a reminiscence about the man he had apprenticed to when he was very young. He’d learned a few things, enough to appreciate the craft and the sorcery, but the old smith had died too early and the knowledge had been lost. That was when Rain had turned to flint-knapping and gained respect for skills honed over many years of practice.
So many had died.
But the days in exile were over, although the taste of dust was still fresh in her mouth. The suck of life is powerful. The babies were strong and sturdy, dark and fat. They were beautiful, and so was this world with its sere hills and secret winds, its changeable sky and restless sea. Even the breath of ancient burning had brought new life to this small corner, where bugs scurried in the cracks and a dusky green vine had grown in through the open window and announced its presence with a pair of perfect white flowers.
Every window is a gateway onto another place. She thought of the doorway woven by the Pale Sun Dog, and she wept a little, remembering the beauty of those glittering threads.
“It’ll be dusk soon,” he said, interrupting himself. “You’ll want to go back to the stones.” He took the sleeping babies from her and let her go.
Dawn and dusk were gateways, a passage between night and day. So was each footstep, which brought you farther from the place you started but closer to the place you hoped to reach.
The youngest of the blood knives was lurking by the village gate, and she fell in beside Secha, looking around with all the furtive nonsensicalness of a child playing at hide-and-seek. She was not much older than Secha’s own son, but she was a sleek and fine young woman who seemed years older, honed to a cutting edge that made young men stare. She was not at all the kind of woman Secha had any wish for a sweet lad like her own dear son to fall into lust with, but otherwise she liked her far better than any of the older blood knives.
“They’re sour and bitter,” said the girl with a smirk, as if she had tasted Secha’s thoughts. “They want to go back to the temples and lick blood off their tongues. But I know you understood the magic of weaving, didn’t you?”
“No. But I could. If someone taught me its secrets.”
They crossed the ditch in silence except for the creak of planks beneath their feet.
“In the house of youth I was best in my cohort at calculating numbers,” the girl confessed without humility. “It was a great honor to my household when the sky counters brought a serpent skirt to the chief of our village. They tied the sash of apprenticeship over my shoulder and sent me out to serve with the army. But now I see something I want more.”
Secha nodded, and the girl looked at her and nodded, and that was all that needed to be said.
A pair of brawny mask warriors walked past, going toward the village, and the young woman tilted her chin and canted her shoulders and twitched a hip so that they flushed dark and pulled on their ears and hurried on, too intimidated to look back after her.
“Why do you do that?” Secha asked.
“Because I can.” Then she started, like a young hare. “Best they not see me with you,” she murmured, and shied off into the camp as swiftly as she could without running and drawing more attention to herself.
The blood knives were preparing to depart the camp in the company of Feather Cloak and a number of mask warriors, so Secha fell in at the end of the procession, unnoticed and undisturbed. Just beyond the encampment a path split off from the main road and curled up over a slope. Within a cradle of shallow hills stood the eleven stones that marked this circle. Ten stood as though newly raised while the eleventh had fallen off to one side where the hillside had caved in under it. The brambles and vines that had covered it had been cleared away in the last few days.
They waited somewhat back from the circle, since no one wanted to get too close. No one knew quite what to expect, even though the dawns and dusks of the last six days had passed uneventfully. The young serpent skirt sidled out of the gathering shadows to join the other sky counters. She did not look once at Secha; her gaze was fixed on the dark stones.
The wind died. Twilight settled. Out here beyond the White Road, they rarely saw the sun, and tonight the entire sky was covered with a mantle of pale cloud. It was chilly. A pair of warriors breathed into their hands. Feather Cloak was tapping her foot, looking irritated and impatient. She had brought Little Beast with her—the rest of the hostages had been left behind in a pen—and her granddaughter stood perfectly still. The contrast was almost amusing. She was waiting. They all were waiting. Each in their own way.
It was entirely quiet. Distant sounds drifted on the wind: a goat’s complaint, chiming laughter, a snatch of song.
A faint melody ringing as out of the heavens tingled through her, seeping into flesh and bone. She gasped.
The crown flowered into a blossom of brilliant light, threads weaving and crossing, caught in the warp of the unseen stars and wefted through the stones. Led by Fox Mask, the mask warriors burst out of the gateway. They were laughing and howling and chattering and singing, burdened with tools and sacks and an iron kettle and a pair of cows and four horses and a herd of terrified sheep and one interested dog that everyone seemed to ignore although the animal was busily keeping the sheep in a tight group.
The blood knives cried out a brief poem, a song of praise, because there were six prisoners as well, bound and under close guard, one woman in long robes and five men, all struggling against the ropes that restrained them.
Last came Zuangua. He held an iron sword drawn behind the Pale Sun Dog, whose face was pale with weariness. Threads dissolved into a shower of sparks. These flares died, and suddenly it was dark.
“Silence!” cried Feather Cloak.
“Success!” barked Fox Mask in answer, and in reply they heard the weeping and curses of the prisoners.
Sparks bit, and oil lamps and reed tapers were lit. Light and shadow wove through the assembly.
Zuangua said, “Where is my Little Beast?”
Little Beast sprang forward and barreled into him. He patted her on the head as he might a favored dog. “Can I go with you next time, Uncle?” she demanded. “I’m old enough to be a shield bearer.”
Her speech was fluid and fluent, shockingly so, but they had gotten used to it; everyone agreed it was some gift of the blood or the taint of sorcery, inherited from her mother. Maybe she had been bitten by snakes.
“Old enough,” he agreed carelessly, and he looked at the blood knives as if daring them to try to wrest her from him.
But the priests stared avidly at the prisoners. The woman in long robes had begun chanting in a singsong voice that reminded Secha of the sky counters’ praying. It seemed she had power, because the other prisoners calmed and steadied, although by their flaring eyes and gritted teeth they were still as terrified as the bleating sheep. There was a short man with thick arms and massive shoulders; there was a youth little older than her own son; there was a man with blood on his tunic and another who limped from a wound, and the last was white-faced with shock although he was the tallest and plumpest among them.
“You can’t have all of them,” said Zuangua to the priests. “Those two—” He indicated the burly man and the youth. “—we took from their forging house. They’re blacksmiths.”
The priest-woman in her long robes looked toward the stone circle. The Pale Dog was leaning against one of the stones as though exhausted, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. His mouth was parted, and his chin and jaw and lips moved ever so slightly, as if he were talking to himself in an undertone. Everything was pale in him, fair hair, fair skin, undyed linen tunic pallid against the night, and a gold circle hung on a necklace at his fair throat. The dark stone framed him, highlighting his beauty and his cunning power, his strength and his shine.
The priest-woman cursed him. You didn’t need to understand the words to hear the power of her speech.
But if he heard her, he gave no sign. His eyes remained closed. He might have been sleeping, mumbling as dreamers do, except for the twitching of one little finger.
Zuangua had a mask after all, one tipped up on his head: he wore the visage of a dragon, proud and golden, just as he was.
“I have something to say,” he began, and Feather Cloak raised a hand to allow him to continue.
“He is a very evil man,” observed Zuangua as his warriors waved their hands in agreement. “He has lost even the love and loyalty for kinfolk that every person ought to have! He betrayed them all, without mercy.”
“Thus will humankind fall,” said Feather Cloak. “They are faithless each to the other.”
Secha spoke up. “Not all of them are. Liathano kept faith with your son, Sanglant.”
At the mention of those names, the Pale Dog’s jaw tightened, but he did not open his eyes. He had very good hearing.
“Your son kept faith with his father,” said Zuangua to Feather Cloak, “which I saw with my own eyes.” He grinned wickedly. “Even this ‘little beast’ who stands at my side seems to love me.”
The girl glanced at him, surprised at his words, then grinned. “You’ll teach me to fight!” she exclaimed.
“Beware the beast does not bite you in your time,” said Feather Cloak.