Three days, they wait. The enemy is a coward who does not dare to engage them. A west wind blows, smelling of cut grass. A rich country, this, warm earth and tall trees and a fair sky. Good growing land. He wants it. Wants the orchards and the vineyards and the white-gold ripples of the wheat. Some to feed His armies, His cities, the march of His will across the world. The rest to burn and trample and sow with salt.
On the fourth day, they burn three villages, strip every leaf from the fruit trees and hang the inhabitants’ bodies from the bare branches. On the fifth day, they dump the fly-blown bodies into the sacred River Alph, whose waters run clear as the evening sky. The water churns and boils and distant voices beneath the surface cry out in pain. Poison flows downriver, towards the rich towns and cities of the plains. Samarnath, city of towers. Tereen, city of the wise. The wheat fields of Tarn Brathal. Bloated bodies bringing disease.
On the eighth day, the enemy is forced to confront them. And so they march out in silence, heads held high, filled with pride. The drums beat slow and steady. Loud. The tips of their spears glitter in the sun. A light breeze blows the plumes of their helms, sets the horse hair nodding.
A blare of trumpets, bright and sparkling. He rides up and down the battle front, inspecting them, checking their lines, raising love and fearlessness in their hearts. They shift and tighten their grip on their weapons, hunger rising. They look over into the south and see the enemy waiting. They sing the paean. The enemy beat their sword blades on the bosses of their shields.
It is beginning to get hot. Sweat drips down their faces, runs inside their tunics and their bronze armour. Sticky on their foreheads beneath their helms. The two lines shift and stare at one another. They sing the paean again. The drums beat louder. A heartbeat. The first and last sound of a human life.
A trumpet sounds. They lower their sarriss and begin to move forward. A slow careful walk. The gap between the armies closes. Arrows shower down on them, clattering on their armour with a sound like rain. The enemy begins to march, coming towards them, a wall of spears. They put their weight behind their sarriss and grit their teeth.
The gap closes. The two lines meet.
The dust rises. The enemy line is broken. The enemy is surrounded and shattered and killed and destroyed. They are the army of Amrath. They will conquer the world. They were born for this. As indeed all men are.
Death! Death! Death!
Chapter Eight
The candle was still burning at the Low Altar that night, though it had melted down to a pool of golden wax. The Great Chamber still blazed and shone with light. A few worshippers still knelt in prayer, whispering praise and desperation, clinging on to the promise of hope or of a kind death.
In her bedroom high above, the High Priestess of Great Tanis the Lord of Living and Dying leaned out of her window, looking down at the gardens, her girl’s face tired and drawn. Another priestess, also young, also tired-faced, sat cross-legged on her floor. They were drinking smoky-scented tea and eating small cakes flavoured with cimma fruit: the High Priestess always craved sweet things after her long days of fasting. The room smelled of fresh mint and lavender oil.
‘I really should go to bed,’ the other priestess said. She munched on a cake and gave no sign of moving.
‘Yes …’ The High Priestess gave no sign of moving either. ‘It went well, this evening, I think. The child cried a bit, at the end, but I think it went well enough.’
‘It went well. It always goes well. You should go to bed, Thalia. You must be exhausted.’
The High Priestess, Thalia, came away from the window and sat down beside her friend. She was indeed exhausted, so tired her legs ached. Three days’ fasting, a night and a day kneeling on the stone floor before the High Altar in the blazing light of the Great Chamber, and then the Small Chamber and the child and the knife. Her left arm was heavily bandaged: she had cut herself deeply, this evening, her hand had shaken a little on the handle of the blade as she raised it to her own skin. But she could never sleep, after. She felt wide awake, filled with a dizzy feeling that was part joy, part horror, part excitement, part shame. It took a long time to recover from it, to be able to think about sleeping and being alone.
‘Yes.’ She frowned at the other girl. ‘You really think it went well? The child was … was so little.’
‘Of course it did. You worry too much. You looked so beautiful, kneeling before the altar. Like you always do.’ The other priestess, Helase, looked at her companion in envious admiration. ‘It’s no wonder there are so many poems about you.’
‘They’re not really about me,’ said Thalia. ‘I keep telling you that. I don’t suppose some of the poets who say all those things have ever even seen me.’
Helase picked up a book from a pile on the table and flipped through it.
‘Beautiful as the dawn,
A willow tree beside clear water,
A flower in desert flood.
Her face blinds me,
Light too bright to bear.
I will dedicate myself tomorrow,
That I might see her close,
Hear her breathing, feel her skin,
My blood mingling with her bleeding,
Dying under her hand.
No one’s ever likely to write anything like that about me.’
Thalia laughed. ‘It’s hardly The Song of the Red Year, is it? And I haven’t actually seen the poets queuing up to offer themselves. Even the Red Year: do you think Maran Gyste was really so madly in love with Manora he’d have cut off his manhood if she’d asked him to?’
Helase yawned. ‘Some very great people came to the Temple today. Lord Emmereth and his wife. She was horribly sad, she must have had the scab worse than anyone I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t dare show even the tips of my fingernails, if I looked like that. I think I’d rather be dead. But she didn’t seem to care. Her dress was gorgeous, all yellow silk and embroidery like peacock tails. Her skin was whiter than doves’ feathers. They were celebrating the fact she was pregnant. The candle lit so brightly. It was lovely.’
‘That’s nice,’ Thalia said.
Helase said earnestly: ‘Because of you, Thalia. Because you keep life and death balanced. Those who need death dying, those who need life being born.’
‘You really think that?’ Thalia frowned. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’
Helase yawned again. ‘Ah, I am tired. I will go to bed, now.’ She got up. ‘Good night, Thalia. It went well. Be pleased.’
‘Good night, Helase.’
The door swung shut. Thalia went back to the window and gazed out again. A flock of ferfews darted past, wings shimmering in the light of her lamp. They called as they flew, sweet and low. Ghost birds, she’d heard one of the Temple servants call them. Dead souls. Superstitious nonsense, for which the woman should have been whipped. The dead had no souls. Still, the thought made her shiver.