“I started back with some of the men,” Sludig said, “leading back such cattle as we had found. My foreman, my wife, and several of our men stayed behind, searching for stragglers.” He nodded to his wife. “Now you speak, Alva.”
Sludig’s squire re-entered the chamber, but stood patiently waiting while his master and mistress continued their story. Simon could see the young man was carrying a bundle of cloth, handling it with the exaggerated diffidence of someone tasked to bear something foul-smelling or foul-feeling.
“It does not matter who tells the tale—the end is the same,” said Lady Alva. “We could ill afford to lose so many cattle, so we searched long after we should have gone back. As twilight fell, we came upon a group of strangers at the far eastern edge of our lands. It was snowing and hard to see well, but at first it seemed as though they were all sleeping—an odd thing to be doing in a snowstorm, you will agree. But when we got closer we saw that they were all dead, several of them besmeared in blood. More surprisingly, though, they were not men.”
“Norns?” asked Simon. “Were they White Foxes?”
“Yes, but not all of them. Some of the dead were equally strange in face and form, but golden-skinned.”
“Golden?” Simon looked at Miri, then at Binabik. “You mean they were Sithi?”
“Perhaps, but I cannot say it certainly, since I had never seen any of the Fair Ones before,” Lady Alva told him.
“But your husband has—he most definitely has!” said Simon. “What were they, Sludig?”
“I never saw the bodies, Majesty. My wife and the men hurried back to fetch me, but when we went back to where they had found the dead, they were all gone.”
“Gone?”
“Someone had come while we went to fetch the rest of the men,” explained Lady Alva. “They had carried away all the bodies and brushed away most of the tracks. But they had not had time to remove all traces—blood could still be seen in the snow. And something else as well, half covered in the drifts.” She turned to Sludig. “You show them, husband,” Alva said. “I cannot bear to hold it, myself.”
Sludig took the bundle from his squire and unfolded the thick cloth. “This is what we found.” What he held out was a dagger of strange design, with a faint coppery sheen, its hilt made from a single piece of polished stone. At the top, just below the pommel, was a thin ring of what Simon at first thought was another kind of stone, shiny and gray. Then he saw that the gray stone had a grain. “God’s Bloody Tree,” he swore, pointing at the gray stuff with a trembling finger. “Is that . . . witchwood?”
“A bronze Nakkiga dagger, that is being,” said Binabik, peering at it. “And, yes, the decoration is witchwood.”
The Aedonites all made the sign of the Tree. Sisqi touched her hand to her heart, as did her husband.
“I know what that marking on the witchwood signifies,” said Tiamak. “Do you see it carved there?” He was obviously reluctant to touch the dagger, and only pointed at the ring of gray stone below the pommel and the tiny spiral rune carved there. “I have seen it in old books. It identifies the Order of Song—the Norn Queen’s chief sorcerers.”
Simon stared at the knife. It was such a small, simple thing, but he felt cold and heavy in his chest, as if a stone hung there instead of a warm, beating heart. He had not felt an apprehension like this since John Josua’s death. He turned to Miriamele, but his wife had gone very pale. “So not just Norn warriors, but Norn wizards, too?” Simon said. “And fighting against the Sithi? Are the White Foxes going to war with their kin again? If so, all the immortals seem to be keeping it secret from us. But fear not, friends—if our enemies are up to something again, we will remind them of what happened last time.”
He spoke with a certainty that he was nowhere close to feeling. He had hoped that a few of his companions might chime in with similar boasts, or at least a few brave, reassuring words, but the room had gone silent but for the crackling of the fire.
14
Ghosts of the Garden
“Nezeru, come and kneel before me.”
It was the first time Makho had spoken to her since the Hringleit’s captain had returned them to the mainland shore, then hurriedly cast off again, clearly happy to have survived with ship and crew intact.
She walked across the rough camp the Queen’s Talons had made on the bluff above the ocean. For once, Saomeji did not even look up to see her pass, too fascinated by the sacred bones in his care, which he had been examining for hours like a jeweler who had found a cache of gems from the Lost Garden.
Nezeru stopped and stood before Makho but did not meet his eye.
“I said kneel.” The hand chieftain reached out and shoved her down. She hung her head and waited for what would come next, trying not to imagine. Useless speculation gives power to fear, her father had always said, and although Viyeki might not know much about her life as a Sacrifice, the magister understood the need to confront power with a clear head. But although Nezeru knew her father’s advice was good, she could not stop her heart from speeding or her skin from prickling. The Order of Sacrifice was no stranger to battlefield executions and her crime had been one of the most terrible.
“Sacrifice Nezeru Seyt-Enduya, after being given a clear order, you failed the Mother of All,” said Makho. “Because of that, the members of this hand were forced to fight for their lives. Our mission for the queen might have been compromised or even defeated. Useful Hikeda’ya warriors might have been killed through your fault. Do you deny it?”
How could she? “No, Hand Chieftain. My crime is great.”
“Do you have any explanation?”
That she had decided at the last moment she could not kill a defenseless mortal child? How could that be an explanation? She might as well say she had simply gone mad. “No, Master.”
“The sacred ghosts of the Garden hear you. It is they who judge you, not me. Now look up.” Makho waited until she lifted her eyes. “Do you know what I am holding?”
All other activity in the camp, even Saomeji’s study of the sacred bones, had stopped. Nezeru felt a chill all over her body. “That is your sword Cold Root.” So it was to be death. She would do her best to take it bravely, as befitted one of the Queen’s Sacrifices, but she grieved at what it would do to her father’s pride and position, let alone to her mother Tzoja, who would be devastated. Nezeru did not weep, though: Sacrifices did not shed tears from pain or fear. No matter her crimes, she would go to her end still loyal in that way, at least.
Makho turned the heavy sword over. A bone grip protruded from the leather on the back of the scabbard, just beneath the hilt. He pulled on it and a long, thin branch of witchwood slid free of its own small sheath. Makho held it close to her face. “And do you know what this is?”
Nezeru shuddered. She had been ready for death, or at least as ready as she could be, consoling herself with the idea that it would at least be swift. “That is the hebi-kei, Hand Chieftain Makho. The serpent.”
Makho waved the long, flexible branch in the air, watched it dance against a gray sky of almost the same color. “Yes, the serpent. And for your crime, you are sentenced to feel its bite. Kemme! Come here and strip this Sacrifice.”
Kemme was beside her in an instant. He yanked at her jerkin, barely bothering to undo the straps; within a few moments Nezeru was naked to the waist. At Makho’s nod, Kemme grabbed her arms and dragged her swiftly to a pine tree at the edge of the campsite clearing. He set her face against it, then grabbed her arms and held them from the other side so that she could not move. The rough bark scraped her breasts and cheek. She could not see Makho, but she could hear him walking back and forth behind her. Kemme was carefully keeping his face empty of any expression, but she could tell by how tightly he held her wrists that some part of him relished this duty.
“I could take your life,” Makho said. “But apparently your gifts are unusual, and both the queen and the High Magister of Sacrifice gave permission for you to join our hand, so I will spare you for the judgment of my superiors. But you have endangered our most sacred mission and that cannot go unpunished. The snake shall strike twenty times.”
Twenty times! Nezeru’s legs became shamefully weak and her knees suddenly could not hold her. Had it not been for Kemme’s powerful grip she would have slumped to the ground. Even a dozen strokes of the hebi-kei could kill.
“If you are truly of the blood that makes a Queen’s Sacrifice, you will walk beside us tomorrow morning when we ride out for Nakkiga,” Makho said. “If not, we will leave you to die. The bones of great Hakatri are far more important than any one of us. Is she held tightly, Kemme?”
“Aye.”