The Scarred God Read online

  Anya’s guard, a male Tream of indeterminate age, let her move closer to his kin as they communicated with the trees but followed close by.

  ‘What are they saying?’ asked Anya, recalling just before she tried to raise her hands that they were tied.

  The guard smiled. ‘They are asking the trees what they have seen and heard.’

  Anya frowned. ‘You’re either as mad as the woodsman or teasing me. Tream humour is not much spoken of in my people’s history.’

  ‘Nor human wisdom in mine,’ retorted the guard, his smile growing wider.

  ‘The trees listen and see,’ said Vedic, rising. ‘I don’t fully understand how, but as I said before, it’s similar to how the gods use them.’

  ‘It is amongst the oldest of our secrets,’ said the guard. ‘I doubt the gods know it.’

  Vedic smiled this time. ‘Ah, lad, I’m sorry to break it to you, but the gods have known this for a while. Sometimes the trees even talk to an old bastard like me. Perhaps the wood is not as trustworthy as you believe.’

  The guard blinked. He considered arguing the point with the woodsman, but Anya could see the moment the Tream dismissed the words as the bluster of a prisoner. He moved on to the task at hand. The Tream in communion with the trees stepped clear and nodded to the one who had first spoken to them. Their guard prodded them on after the now-advancing group.

  ‘What is the name of your king?’ asked Anya.

  ‘Hogarth,’ said the Tream that had spoken to Vedic.

  ‘And what is your name?’

  ‘You’re full of questions for someone tied up and under armed guard,’ said the Tream.

  ‘His name is Akyar,’ said Vedic, listlessly.

  Anya did not answer. She had heard Pan mention Hogarth. She was trying to remember any clues as to why. She did not speak when they returned to the ground. Not a word left her lips as a female Tream roped her waist and carried her down like a child. And no sound was made when they were led into the darkness within one of the larger, more gnarled, time-worn trees that looked as old as the world.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Vedic did not cry out when the fist smashed into his stomach.

  He made a sound that was almost a word as the air rushed out of his lungs and his giant frame folded to his knees. The Tream with the circlet, the king, continued his attack on Vedic. A kick caught the woodsman on the side of his head and dropped the forestal to the throne room floor.

  Anya strained at her bindings. She hadn’t felt this helpless since the camp. Vedic lay prone, panting in pain as even their captor, Akyar, looked shocked at the level of violence.

  ‘Your nerve in showing your face here,’ said the king, stepping back to his throne, ‘is breathtaking.’

  Vedic spat blood out onto the wooden floor. ‘It’s not like I had a choice. We tried to avoid your territory.’

  ‘So you say,’ replied the king. ‘How would I know whether you …’ His voice broke. ‘You had better not be involved in this.’

  ‘Involved in what?’ hissed Vedic, the pain clear on his face.

  The king sat on his throne. Anya tried to move closer to Vedic, but he glared at her and so she stopped.

  They were inside a tree. A giant oak, bigger than any Anya had ever seen before in her life – the tree might have been as old as the world to grow so large. The inside had been hollowed out; there was no crystal left, and she could only assume the tree was dead. The small hall that had been carved from its carcass was covered in intricate carvings of Tream in various scenes from what was either their mythology or their history, or both. The place was lit with phosphor lamps that gave everything a strange glow as the light bounced off the polished wood. The area behind Anya and Vedic was filled with Tream who stared at them as if they were wraiths come to walk amongst them.

  Akyar was near Anya, looking towards the king.

  The Tream king, Hogarth, sat at the other end of the hall, facing them, on a throne that was in turn set on a dais. The queen was sat on a smaller throne next to Hogarth and was conspicuous in a large cloak and hood that hid her face. She was the most clothed of any of these creatures.

  ‘Vedic is telling the truth,’ said Anya. ‘We attempted to take the path through the Corden, and it was a disaster. We lost our packs, our boots and our guide.’

  Akyar looked at her with unblinking eyes.

  ‘Who was your guide?’ asked Hogarth, his eyes never leaving Vedic.

  ‘Pan,’ blurted Anya. Vedic’s warning stare came too late, and he just shook his head.

  Akyar seemed to flinch, and he put his hand out to steady himself against the wall. His reaction was a micro-movement the rest of the Tream might have missed, but Anya saw it. A moment later he straightened, and his face was a mask that was unreadable.

  ‘The forest is at risk,’ said Anya.

  Hogarth turned to look at her. His skin was an ever-shifting miasma of green, brown and yellow. Unlike Akyar’s, his eyes were a split of colour – one green and one yellow. He did not wear a robe; he was fully naked save for the small circlet of wood sitting on his brow that kept his silver hair off his shoulders. Hogarth shook his head and pushed himself out of his chair.

  ‘The forest is at risk if your kind continues to breed like the sickness it is,’ said Hogarth, walking round Anya.

  Anya heard Hogarth draw his blade. Her heart was a piece of ice in her chest, and she could feel the cold steel on her skin. Anya felt the metal should be warm. She almost laughed at such a ridiculous thought.

  ‘Perhaps I should kill this one,’ said Hogarth. ‘One less breeder.’

  ‘Sire,’ said Akyar, his voice giving only the slightest hint that he was concerned the king would go too far. ‘They do not know the boy was taken.’

  The king moved the blade away slowly as if weighing up Akyar’s words versus actually decapitating her.

  ‘What boy?’ asked Anya. She felt dizzy. Her memory of the Shaanti children she had left behind as prisoners was like a festering wound. Why would a Tream child have been taken? What would Cernubus want with it?

  ‘Your goddess Danu,’ said Hogarth, ‘she has taken my son.’

  Anya forced herself to look at Hogarth. ‘Why do you believe it was Danu?’

  Hogarth paced, his fury simmering and palpable as, catlike, he circled them. His fists balled and unfurled repeatedly. The grief was heavy, slowing everything down, like a blanket across the whole court. When Hogarth stopped and looked at them, it seemed as if a decision had been made in his head. The king strode back to the throne.

  ‘You have not met my wife, Jiana, have you?’ he asked Vedic.

  The woodsman shook his head. He spat more blood onto the wood.

  Jiana, the queen, rose from her throne with the care of the recently injured, frail as if she were afraid she was made of glass. The king embraced his wife with a kiss to her forehead, his eyes glassy with emotions that Anya could not even begin to name. Anya’s sense of wrongness increased as she noted Jiana’s eyes looked different, devoid of emotion, dead.

  Anya couldn’t look away as the queen pushed back her hood to reveal a swathe of silken bandages. The Tream queen unwound her dressing, refusing to make eye contact with Anya as she revealed her face.

  Anya gasped. Jiana was about the same age as Akyar, younger than Hogarth, and she had been beautiful. The smooth skin of her cheeks now bore knotted and gnarled scars that ran to her jaw. Her ears had notches where none should be, and part of her nose had been cut away.

  ‘This is how I know Danu broke the truce,’ said Hogarth, holding his wife to him. ‘She took my boy and tortured my wife.’

  ‘Why does the queen not speak?’ asked Vedic, his voice hoarse.

  ‘Show them,’ said Hogarth.

  Jiana opened her mouth to show a dark void where her tongue had been.

  It was Anya’s turn to put her hand out to steady herself. The violence that had been done to the queen left her feeling sick. What could possibly be the reason for doing th
at? What hate would someone have to feel?

  Hogarth’s eyes flashed with fury.

  Anya stepped back, afraid of Hogarth, a creature that could pass for a shadow or a demon, and spoke one minute with the fine tongue of a king, and the next with a rage that threatened to spill into violence. He paced across the dais like a caged panther.

  ‘It could not have been Danu,’ said Vedic, calm. ‘She is being held captive by the god you know as the hunter.’

  Hogarth clenched his hands. ‘Do you call the queen a liar?’

  ‘I know enough of the queen from Lord Akyar,’ said Vedic, ‘not to call her a liar, but she may be mistaken. The gods’ forms are such that it’s hard sometimes to be sure who you are seeing. I think I know who did this.’

  Anya thought she could see one of Vedic’s hands working at his bindings.

  ‘Who?’ asked Hogarth, his eyebrow arched.

  ‘The Morrigan.’

  Anya’s head snapped round at Vedic. She remembered the sound in Vedic’s voice when he thought the wraith they had seen in the Corden was the Morrigan. Terror had sounded strange on him. But she looked nothing like Danu.

  Vedic smiled at her. It was not a nice look. ‘Yes, Anya, she is as real as Pan and Danu, and twice as dangerous.’

  Anya felt her jaw clench to hold back her retort.

  ‘What is the Morrigan?’ asked Akyar, stepping forward. ‘I have never heard of this god.’

  ‘There are three sisters amongst the oldest gods,’ said Anya, reciting her grandfather’s words. ‘First came the earth and life: this is Danu. Then came the death that gives life meaning: this is Anu – the Morrigan – goddess of the darkness, and of the last sister, we do not speak, for she is gone from the world.’

  ‘Anu I have heard of,’ said Akyar, confused. ‘But she is the ancient hag that haunts forbidden paths. Jiana saw a young woman, as fair of body as she was as foul of mind. How can this be?’

  Vedic closed his eyes briefly as if what he said pained him. ‘The Morrigan appears most often as young. The hag is an Shaanti name, because they view seeing her as bad luck. Did the woman you saw have a crescent-moon-shaped birthmark on her neck here?’ Vedic pointed to the right side of the nape of his neck.

  Akyar flinched again at this. Hogarth put a hand on his vizier’s shoulder to reassure him. About what, Anya could not tell.

  Jiana nodded.

  Anya turned to the king. ‘It is the Morrigan. Danu carries the birthmark for the sun, and Anu – the Morrigan – that for the moon.’

  Vedic’s hands broke free.

  The woodsman rolled onto his back and nipped up.

  Anya was pushed back by Akyar as the king and Jiana were forced back onto the dais by their guards. The Tream circled the bloodied and grinning Vedic. The forestal looked like a demon himself as he gestured for the Tream to try and get him. Anya saw Hogarth draw his sword again.

  The woodsman dodged a strike and pulled the blade from the unfortunate Tream, who was sent crunching into the other wall, shattering a display cabinet. Anya saw a glint behind the broken wood. Vedic’s blade parried another strike from one of the guards, and he took the poor man’s sword-arm in a swift strike that sent green blood arcing into the roof of the hall. Akyar stepped forward with his own sword drawn and shattered Vedic’s blade with one violent strike.

  The woodsman looked down at his broken weapon and up at the vizier.

  ‘Do you really want to do this?’ asked the woodsman.

  Akyar was pointing his blade at the forestal.

  ‘Stop now.’

  Vedic shook his head and dived for the broken cabinet. He pulled the wooden doors apart to reach for whatever was in there. Anya couldn’t see past his bulk. He stopped, closing what was left of the doors as if stung. He stepped back, ignoring the Tream who immediately twisted his arms behind his back and forced him to the floor.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ hissed Vedic, oblivious to his restraint.

  Akyar was staunching the wounded arm of his fallen comrade. ‘That’s not important.’

  ‘Why keep it?’ replied the woodsman, his voice sounding hollow as if the broken cabinet had stolen his soul.

  ‘As a reminder,’ said Hogarth, stepping forward from his guards, ‘of what monsters lie outside the forest.’

  Vedic did not answer.

  ‘You see how dangerous he is,’ said Hogarth to Akyar. He swung his blade round and lined the weapon up with Vedic’s neck.

  Akyar shook his head in disgust.

  Jiana placed her hand on her husband’s arm, stopping Hogarth from drawing back and striking. The king looked at her. Anya could see some kind of communication passing between them in spite of the queen’s injury.

  ‘But look at what he has done,’ Anya heard the king reply.

  The queen shook her head once more and this time physically removed the sword from Hogarth’s hand. She took him away by his arm and called Akyar over with a nod. Anya could make little else out of their conference save that the exchange was brief and spirited, ending only when Jiana put a hand on each of their arms and held them in her gaze in turn. Whatever she was communicating, she’d bound the other two with its power.

  Hogarth nodded at Anya’s guard. She was cut free.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anya, rubbing her wrists.

  ‘Do not thank me,’ said Hogarth, looking at his wife. ‘You are not free. I have merely decided to make use of your companion’s singular talents.’

  ‘You need wood chopping?’ asked Anya. She was too weary to watch her tongue.

  ‘That would be the human notion of humour?’ asked Hogarth, unimpressed. He bent down over the restrained and broken Vedic. ‘What would you do to save your Danu?’

  Vedic did not answer, though his knotting and unknotting jaw spoke for him.

  ‘I will let you leave here,’ said Hogarth, standing. ‘If you both agree to free my son first. This one,’ he continued, kicking Vedic, ‘is the only person here with any idea how to kill a god.’

  ‘There’s no need for threats,’ said Anya. ‘We’d help you anyway.’

  Vedic stared at her from the floor as if she had lost her mind. Anya enjoyed it.

  ‘It is not you I am concerned about,’ said Hogarth, almost sympathetic. ‘Forgive me, Lady Anya, but Vedic is not to be trusted – he is not a nice man; you should remember that. This is the only language he understands.’

  ‘Please continue,’ said Vedic, still prone, spitting once more. ‘Pretend I’m not here.’

  ‘What do you say, woodsman?’ asked Hogarth, bending over him again. ‘Will you help me?’

  Vedic replied, ‘I have a choice? Always true to your law, eh, Hogarth? Even if it is a token gesture.’

  Hogarth kicked him again. ‘Your answer?’

  ‘Yes, I will rescue your son, but I make no promises on killing the Morrigan. I doubt that’s possible.’

  ‘Bring Meyr back alive and we’ll talk,’ conceded Hogarth, standing. He nodded for the guards to release the woodsman. ‘Akyar goes with you.’

  Vedic rolled to his back and sat up with obvious pain.

  ‘No,’ said the forestal, pointing at Anya. She flushed. ‘I already have one person slowing me down.’

  Anya stared at him, her hands reaching for a sword that wasn’t there as she struggled to contain her retort.

  ‘It was not a request, Vedic,’ said Hogarth, his fingers tapping on his thigh like he had a tune he couldn’t get out of his head.

  Akyar whispered in Hogarth’s ear once more.

  ‘You may take our wall ornament,’ said Hogarth, gesturing at the cabinet that had taken the fight from Vedic. ‘Your own weapons are hardly adequate to take on a god.’

  All colour drained from the woodsman, and he bent one knee as if contemplating running again. Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. Anya had never seen him look like this, not even when the wolves were so close they could smell them. He was terrified to his core. What is in there? thought Anya.

&
nbsp; ‘I cannot accept,’ said Vedic, his voice broken.

  It cost him to say those words, thought Anya, bemused.

  ‘But you cannot mean to go against the Morrigan with a bow and a hatchet?’ said Hogarth.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Vedic, looking away. ‘But this I will not, cannot, accept, nor, I fear, would this bring me luck. Take it, destroy it; the weapon is an abomination.’

  ‘Vedic,’ said Akyar, stepping forward. ‘Listen to reason. You are to all practical purposes unarmed.’

  ‘I cannot take that. You do not want me to take that – believe me,’ said Vedic, getting to his feet.

  Anya turned her eyes from the woodsman to Hogarth. ‘I’ll take a weapon. I lost my last blade.’

  ‘No,’ said Vedic, his eyes flicking to Anya. ‘She’s lost her nerve as well as her steel; she’d be an even bigger liability. If you are willing, I will take a Tream sword.’

  Hogarth unbuckled his own weapon and handed it to Vedic. This drew murmurs from the court. Vedic drew the steel in a swift arc that moved into a couple of sweeps to test the weight. He returned the blade to its scabbard.

  ‘It’ll do.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  Jiana made a noise in her throat as she stepped down to Anya, withdrawing a smaller sword from the folds of her robes. She handed her blade in its lacquered sheath to Anya, who took it with a smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anya, bowing.

  Jiana nodded but did not return the smile.

  ‘Foolish,’ said Vedic, frowning.

  ‘My wife’s gifts are her own to give, Vedic,’ said Hogarth. ‘She is wise beyond your understanding. I have found it best to trust her judgement. You will do the same.’

  Jiana pointed from Akyar to Anya to the sword and back again.