The Scarred God Read online

  ‘It would be my honour,’ said Akyar.

  ‘Fine,’ said Vedic. ‘We need to rest before we go anywhere. We’ve been travelling for days.’

  ‘One night,’ said Hogarth. ‘You leave at sunrise.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The god returned with wolves at his side.

  Montu was asleep in his tent when the god re-entered the camp. The noise of the god’s arrival was like a clap of thunder overhead, and there were shouts from the guards. Montu started out of bed with his sword drawn. The woman next to him stirred briefly, but she was so full of wine that all she could manage was to pull the blanket back down over her. His heart pounding, it took him a moment to realise he wasn’t actually under attack. He pulled his soft leather trousers on and walked to the tent entrance. He pushed his head out into the cold.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Lord Cernubus,’ replied the guard.

  Montu felt his fear return. The god was impossible to control; he came and went as he pleased, and that made him wonder about how far Cernubus would go to hold up his end of the bargain. He wished his men had returned from the coast with any kind of insight into how to kill this creature. A simple assassination after he had the clan lands would be easier than this tightrope he was now forced to walk.

  ‘I’ll be out now,’ he said. ‘My wife?’

  The guard did not show any emotion at this question – he knew full well there was another woman in the king’s tent. ‘She is a day’s ride away, according to the last scout to come in.’

  The king nodded. ‘After I have left, please get rid of the woman in here.’

  ‘Sire?’

  The king waved him away as he turned to go back into the tent. ‘Kill her if you have to. I just don’t want her in the camp or running away to her Shaanti brethren and giving away our position,’ he replied. ‘I want no Shaanti bastards running around, mounting insurrection in the decades to come. Besides, my wife already wants me dead.’

  Back inside the tent, he pulled on his tunic and his boots before strapping his sword to his belt. He cast one admiring look at the soft curves of the pale redhead in his bed and threw the thought that she was a waste over to one side. He stepped back out into the camp, feeling ready to march all the way across the continent. He would bring the god to heel with the force of his will and the mages that were even now working on a binding spell. He forced the thought from his mind lest the god fish it out and discover his betrayal. It was Cernubus’s own fault. He was too dangerous.

  ‘Hello, Montu,’ said Cernubus.

  The god stood facing the tent with a wolf either side of him and a surround of guards training their weapons on him. A few Kurah lay dead or unconscious at his feet. The wolves were well trained, with neither trying to take a bite of the fallen. They were huge, yellow-eyed creatures with jaws that dripped onto the grass below.

  ‘Why have you brought overgrown dogs into my camp?’

  Cernubus raised the side of his mouth in a sardonic grin, but his eyes never moved from tracking the king. He’s angry, thought Montu, but why would he be angry at me? The wolves both growled.

  ‘Do they understand our tongue?’

  Cernubus touched their heads and they settled.

  ‘They are not the kind of wolves you find in Kurah, Montu,’ he said, stepping towards the king. The wolves stayed where they were.

  Montu frowned. ‘Safer, I hope.’

  Cernubus laughed. It was not a nice sound. ‘You hope? I told you that hope left a long time ago. You could search every town from here to the coast, and hope would not appear. I will replace hope, of course, but only once our little joint venture has been completed. Speaking of which, walk with me.’

  He knows about the mages, thought Montu, following the god. No, he can’t. I am breathing. They were staring at the construction of the gantries and the pyre on the western side of the camp, looking out towards the edge of the forest, the plains that lay beyond, and Vikrain.

  ‘You appear to be dallying on the construction of our bonfire.’

  Montu didn’t mind the barb at the fires, as long as that was all Cernubus was referring to. ‘You’ll have your sacrifice, Cernubus. We’ll be ready for the alignment of the sentinels. Of course, if you don’t keep your side of the bargain and get me the thain and her army … well, you won’t have your witnesses … your future believers.’

  ‘You will have your war,’ replied Cernubus. ‘As long as I have my sacrifice. All will worship me, and I shall keep this world safe in the long, dark winter of the universe. Only my will can keep the light.’

  He’s mad, thought Montu. ‘What about that light show last night?’

  Cernubus shook his head as if coming out of a dream.

  Montu clarified. ‘In the forest?’

  Cernubus folded his arms behind his back. The ink etched onto his skin seemed to flow and change into a series of hieroglyphs showing a mighty battle between two figures, one of whom was the god.

  ‘You saw some of it? That’s good. A little extra belief is like a fine wine after a long march. That was nothing but me keeping my promise to keep the forest free of your enemies.’

  ‘And is the wood free?’

  Cernubus hesitated but only for a second. ‘Of course. Nothing within can harm you.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Cernubus clutched his chest with one hand. ‘Ah, Montu, you wound me,’ he said. He placed a giant arm around the king. ‘You know me better than that. I never forget a friend – or an enemy. Why, there is one of my foes in my captivity now that I have hunted for a thousand years. Imagine what I would do to enemies easily within my reach?’

  They were back at Montu’s tent now. The god had led him round in a wide, looping circle, through the maze of tents and back to where they had started. He could see the tent’s entrance being shoved and distorted as he approached. The guard who had stood outside his tent for the last three weeks fell backwards out of the entrance, a sword in his chest, and stopped moving. The woman from his bed stood in the torn tent’s entrance, her clothes soaked with the man’s blood and her lip broken. She saw the king and the god, and her eyes widened. She leapt for the sword in the guard and pulled the blade free. She adopted a position that suggested she had at least seen her own kind’s warriors train if not been trained herself.

  Montu drew his sword. ‘Shaanti women are so much trouble. Always trying to escape. There’s a reason we don’t take prisoners.’

  Cernubus put his hand on Montu’s shoulder.

  ‘I will deal with this,’ he said.

  Montu watched as the god stepped forward, waving away the wolves, which were looking at the woman with hungry eyes.

  ‘Do you know me, child?’

  As he walked forward, the god was letting his antlers show. They were so large up close, as if he had part of the forest growing from his head. The woman’s steel waivered in her grip.

  She nodded. ‘Hunter … god.’ She spoke in the Shaanti tongue.

  Cernubus smiled. ‘That was my title, but what is my name?’

  The woman took a step back. ‘I … I don’t remember …’

  Cernubus was face to face with her – he could reach out and touch her or be stabbed by her. His smile had faded.

  ‘Drop the sword,’ he commanded.

  The woman dropped the weapon. She looked, wide-eyed, at what she had done.

  ‘Look at me,’ said the god. The woman’s head snapped back to him. ‘I know your name, Seren. Just as I know we have no stars any more, just sentinels.’

  The woman whimpered. Montu was surprised to see a line of wetness appear down the woman’s skirt as she lost control of her bladder. The god approached Seren like a python approaching a petrified rabbit. The almost-warrior who had killed his guard had gone.

  ‘You are impure,’ said the god, stepping around the woman, speaking into her ears. ‘Not because you lie with the Kurah but because you have forgotten the lore of your own people. You have forgotten y
our one true god who kept you warm in the long nights when we first came here. You must be punished. Cleansed.’

  The god lifted his right hand, and the woman lifted into the air. The woman’s whimpers had become a sound close to low-level choking.

  ‘First, you must be laid bare,’ Cernubus continued, closing his right hand.

  The woman’s clothes and skin disappeared. Montu flinched. A few of the men around him started vomiting.

  ‘Now cleansed by fire,’ said Cernubus, opening his hand to reveal a flame. He blew at his palm. The woman caught fire and was burned to ash in two blinks of an eye.

  The god stood for a moment, looking at the pile of ash. He closed his eyes. The glowing embers of the woman’s ashes cast the god in a strange ur-light. Montu thought the hunter looked slightly taller for an instant. A slightly younger Cernubus looked at him.

  ‘Your secret will be safe from the little woman for a while longer,’ he said, leaning over so only Montu could hear. Louder, to his audience, he spoke: ‘Do not attempt any more magic to bind me. If you drag me back again to put an end to your childlike attempts at betrayal, you will wish you were that pretty little thing.’

  This was a clever ploy. Montu could almost admire him for it. Cernubus had framed the execution in terms the Kurah would understand and respect. She had been armed. She had been trying to fight. He had given her a warrior’s death of sorts and close enough to what he had planned for the others. He showed mercy to Montu but had warned him in front of his men not to try to bind him as the king had tried with the mages a few hours before. He demonstrated his power over Montu.

  The mages are dead, thought Montu. It was an instinctive feeling.

  Is this my first mistake? thought Montu. He knew that they would begin to happen. He had known ever since he had taken that knife from his father and slipped it into the old man’s ribs, watching the life go out of his eyes. Necessity had caused him to bring the man’s end sooner than nature intended. He had loved his father in his own way, but the man was destroying the empire his grandfather had built. He had been weak. The nations across the water were paying attention and eyeing up their lands like vultures on a battlefield. Absolute power corrupts completely. You have to strive to be objective. He knew his art of war well.

  ‘You could thank me,’ said Cernubus, leading the king back into his tent.

  ‘I think that was more about helping you,’ said Montu, too tired to be diplomatic. ‘Did your fight in the forest deplete you?’

  A flash of anger crossed Cernubus’s face and was gone in an instant. Ah, thought Montu, I touched close to home with that barb. Already men were stitching up the torn entrance. He waved them away for the time being.

  Montu sat on the chair that passed for his throne when he was on campaign, his sword placed on his lap and his irritation showing on his face. Cernubus looked at him as a parent might an errant child.

  ‘When will the clan forces make their way to fight us?’

  Cernubus shook his head. ‘We should be laying siege to their castle. I could break the walls in a day.’

  Montu shook his head. ‘I understand how belief fuels you, hunter. My power base is not dissimilar. This must be my victory, where my grandfather failed, and not yours.’

  ‘I do believe you don’t trust me, Montu, king of the Kurah. And yet it is you who has tried to alter the terms of our agreement.’

  Montu did not look away from the god. ‘Would you do anything different in my place?’

  ‘Touché,’ he replied. ‘The thain will make her way to fight you. Falkirk has already upped the ante and was unaware your prisoner had escaped. Meanwhile, I am sure your agents are doing everything they can to provoke the thain into action. It is a matter of timing. If they arrive too soon, what will we do?’

  ‘Who did you kill in the forest? The girl?’

  The god looked surprised. ‘I killed no one.’

  Montu pointed his sword at the god. ‘You and I have a deal – no surprises from the forest.’

  The god laughed. ‘Your pointy stick does not impress me, young prince, any more than your pathetic attempts to uncover any lore that can control me.’

  Montu felt fear slide over him like a wraith.

  The god stepped close to him, pushing the blade to one side with two fingers, and whispered in his ear. ‘I was a god, but now I am my own creation. My ears are still everywhere, and my eyes are not tied to this form. You should remember that. I can see your camp. I can see my prisoners in the forest. I can see my allies, and I can see our escaped prisoner in the trees with the natives. And I can see your wife outside this tent.’

  ‘What is going on?’

  The queen stood in the entrance to the tent. She was not yet six months pregnant, but the swell of her belly was visible beneath her riding gown. She was wrapped up with a scarf and gloves against the cold. Montu moved away from the god and embraced his wife, spinning her round so that she could not see the state of his bedding.

  ‘You are here!’

  ‘I am here,’ she said, her voice cold. ‘Why is the god here?’

  Cernubus looked at the bedding. There was a flash, and the bed was made, the sheets clean and crisp. Montu lost his trail of thought. What had his wife said?

  ‘Why is he here instead of keeping the gods busy in the forest?’

  ‘Well,’ said Cernubus. ‘I was in the process of telling your husband a tiny white lie that I hadn’t killed anyone, to make my control of the forest more impressive.’

  Montu let go of his wife now and stared at the god. ‘How many?’

  Cernubus folded his arms. ‘All but three gods are gone. The forest is mine.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Somewhere I want them to be,’ said Cernubus.

  ‘What of the Tream?’

  ‘Taken care of.’

  ‘You should finish it,’ said the queen. ‘All the gods. All the Tream.’

  Cernubus did not even acknowledge that she had spoken. He walked up to the king and patted him on the cheek. ‘I’ll be leaving my wolves as a warning. No more attempts to control me, or our deal will be modified.’

  The god left.

  A guard ran into the tent, his face panicked and his clothes covered in blood. ‘Sire!’

  Montu looked at his queen. ‘The mages?’

  ‘D-dead, sire …’ replied the guard.

  ‘Show us.’

  The guard led the king and his queen to where the tent that housed the mages had stood. All that was left now was torn sections of fabric, soaked in blood and flapping in the wind. There was the faint odour of sulphur from whatever cant the god had used, and the limbs and torsos of the mages littered the ground. Only one mage still stood, shaking, covered in blood, in the middle of the carnage.

  ‘Why did he live?’

  The guard shook his head. ‘We do not know. The god was here and with you. We don’t know how.’

  ‘Why did you make a pact with that demon?’ asked his queen, looking at the remains of the Delgasian mages. They had only switched sides after the invasion. The king imagined some of the mages might have been the queen’s friends.

  Montu stared at the remains. ‘It seems I may not have learned all the lessons my grandfather had to teach me.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The vizier Akyar rolled the stem of his wine glass between finger and thumb.

  ‘So, I made my counsel known to the king, who ignored it.’

  He took a long sup of wine.

  Anya and Vedic were in the Tream’s house, high amongst the Tream city. The room and the house were formed from a tree, hollowed out from sections that were no longer of use, while the living wood continued to grow up around it. The furniture, the table and chairs, were also part of the tree, seeming to flow up from the rest of the wood. The remains of their meal lay scattered around them as they talked.

  Vedic took his pipe from where he had left it drying near the fire and packed the bowl with leaf from Akyar’s table. He f
ound that the smoke helped him think more clearly, and he was in need of time in his own head. The woodsman did not entirely trust this feeling; he had spent many decades trying to spend as little time in his head as possible. The thought of Danu, caged, floated in the centre, like the suns, orbited by idea after idea how to get them to the glade as fast as possible. He dismissed each thought in turn as too dangerous to succeed. He glanced over at Anya.

  The girl leant back in her seat. She seemed so very young as she played with her hair absent-mindedly, listening to Akyar talking. The Tream never seemed to shut up. Vedic wondered how Pan put up with it. After all, the god liked the sound of his own voice as well. He mused, Perhaps they just talk over each other. Can you imagine? He almost laughed at this. Akyar was looking at him. He’d missed what the vizier had said. Vedic grunted.

  ‘Do you think we can do it?’ Akyar repeated. ‘Do you think we can find Meyr?’

  The woodsman shrugged, an ambiguous gesture that was meant to hide the fact he had been thinking about how to get himself and Anya free of their obligation to find Meyr. He had no idea how to rescue the boy.

  Akyar’s smile faded. He looked old in the flickering light.

  ‘You did not tell me about Pan,’ said Akyar.

  Vedic flushed. He did not like the fact Anya had let their meeting with Pan slip, and in front of the king at that. Pan’s fate had been their only piece of leverage over Akyar, and it had been spent cheaply in Hogarth’s throne room.

  ‘You know Pan well?’ asked Anya.

  Vedic grinned in spite of himself. ‘They do.’

  The girl was wearing that confused look again. He wondered how on earth she had survived as long as she had, and caught himself before his thoughts went further. Of course she had survived: she was a clan warrior, granddaughter of the clan warrior. The resemblance to her was quite strong now he knew who her grandmother was. She had Thrace’s eyes, but the rest was all Gobaith.

  ‘Pan and I are old friends,’ said Akyar. ‘He is very dear to me.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ said Vedic, surprising himself, ‘that you found out that way.’