Elves: Once Walked With Gods (16 page)

Takaar sobbed hard, taking in shuddering breaths and dripping snot from his nose. He knew it was true. And he knew he was helpless to do anything about it.

Run. Run. It is all you have left.

Takaar stared into the forest, tempted to do exactly what his tormentor suggested.

‘Shouldn’t I just kill myself, as you desire?’

No point now. Too late.

Takaar caught his reflection in a pool of water sitting in a shallow dip in a rock. He laughed and recalled the reflection in his beloved mirror. How could an elf become two such different people? A beard crudely hacked but still long and black, full of lice and insects, dead leaves and pieces of food. Hair he dealt with similarly but that defied his attempts to tame it. It sprang from his head so fast he felt the gods pulling it themselves, just to taunt him. A mass of tangled knots, thick and hot around his skull.

Takaar frowned. He had never thought to try and shave it. He looked at his hands. They shook like they always had on and off since he had arrived here ten years ago. Ah, yes.

‘Is that me?’

Yes. Shameful, isn’t it?

And it was. Takaar tore his eyes away from his reflection. Still the pain was in his heart but the heat had lessened, giving him some small relief. He stood up and stared away along the glory of the Verendii Tual, where the delta flowed into the ocean.

He had knives that needed sharpening.

Aryndeneth was quiet but for the uncomfortable sounds of men readying for departure. Their smiles of relief did not disguise the ugly promises of violence they uttered. Sildaan had closed the temple doors on the blood that still stained the stone before the statue and pool and on the memory of the expression on Auum’s face.

Sildaan walked around to the rear of the temple, ignoring the men stowing the last of their gear into backpacks, sharpening swords and inevitably scratching at their heads and bodies. None of them looked healthy despite the poultices, infusions and balms she had given them.

She carried on into the forest and knelt to pray to Yniss at the Hallows of Reclamation, blessed ground where the dead were laid out to be retaken by the forest. In front of her, already partially hidden by the voracious vegetation and feasted on by Tual’s denizens, were her faithful priests and her dear friend Leeth. Nearby lay nine TaiGethen. Flesh blackened by the sick force of human magic and lying on a carpet of bones picked clean and washed white.

‘Yniss, hear me. Shorth, hear me. Protect the souls of these recent dead and use them to further your work, your glory. Make them see as I pray you make the living see. Your armies must stand with me. Elves cannot live as one. The threads cannot be compromised, cannot be muddied or mixed. Order must be restored. Order under your glory.

‘The lineage of the gods must be reflected in your people. We Ynissul, merciful and kind, will rule the elves again. Peace will be ours. Forgive my actions. I live only to do your work and to see your people flourish in your land. The blood that is spilled will feed the prosperity of the future.

‘Your temple will be cleansed. All trace of man will be expunged. All that I do, every choice that I make, I make for you. Bless my hands, bless my eyes and guide me. My soul is yours to take. Hear me.’

Sildaan stayed kneeling for a while, one hand in the earth, the other upturned to the sky. The buzzing of flies around the bodies and the crawling of the undergrowth comforted her. Renewal, revitalisation, reclamation. She bowed her head to the Ynissul dead and rose smoothly to her feet.

Garan was waiting for her and she fell into step beside him as he walked back into the temple village.

‘I need to tell you something about your erstwhile TaiGethen friend and his priest. They are travelling in separate and interesting directions.’

Sildaan raised her eyebrows. ‘We don’t need them muddying our plans any more than they have already. Track them. Kill them if you can. Your men up to that task?’

‘I have men particularly expert in that field.’

‘Good.’ Sildaan cast an eye over her shoulder, back to the recent dead at the Hallows. ‘Good.’

‘Guilt getting the better of you, is it?’ he asked.

‘I have no guilt. Only regret that these fine elves could not open their eyes and see the truth.’

‘And you call men brutal.’ Garan paused in the centre of the clearing. To the right, near the temple’s rear doors, stood the group of twenty-five warriors and mages. Garan gestured left. ‘And what about these? Wouldn’t death be kinder for them?’

Sildaan sighed. A handful of terrified temple workers and three priests who tended them. Priests who believed in Sildaan’s way and had not had the misfortune to encounter Sikaant.

‘They have committed no crime. They are Yniss’s people. There is no suffering and my priests will see to their welfare.’

Garan shook his head. ‘Your choice but if it’s any help—’

‘It isn’t. These are my people. Am I not paying you enough to keep your opinions on my business to yourself?’

Garan chuckled. ‘You could never pay us enough to fight with you in this hellhole. But that is our negotiation mistake, not yours, eh? Just don’t be late with the wages.’

‘Oh yes. Alone I may be, but without me you aren’t just lost in the rainforest, you’re lost and unpaid. Fight well, Garan. Earn your pay. Reassure me we will meet the balance of your force where and when we must?’

Garan began walking towards his men. Their muttering ceased and they looked to him, expectant.

‘Shoulder up. We’re leaving. I hear Ysundeneth and the coast are blessed with cooler breezes and a glorious lack of biting insects and leeches. Just three days from here too. Are you with me?’

His men cheered, laughed and shrugged packs onto their shoulders, secured weapons belts and tied shoelaces. A few dabbed at sores, blisters and boils.

‘You may only have birds, runners and boats to get your messages through this ridiculous country; we have magic. My mages can speak to our ships as if they were standing on deck themselves. Communion we call it, and you will find it a keystone in your precious victory.’

Sildaan raised her eyebrows. ‘You can really do this?’

‘Care for a demonstration?’

Sildaan stared into Garan’s face. There was no hint of malice in his eyes. No hint of a lie. For the first time in days, she felt able to relax a little.

‘It will be demonstration enough if your sails are in the harbour when we arrive in the city.’

‘Why thank you for your faith in me.’

‘Do I have much choice?’

‘Not really. But that is no reason for us to feud. One thing, though: while I can guarantee my force’s timely arrival, can you assure me your people in the city will have done your bidding?’

Sildaan shrugged. ‘You know there can be no certainty. But I have powerful allies in Ysundeneth. What we have set in motion can only have one outcome. Trust me as I must trust you. I know the elven mind.’

‘And the TaiGethen?’

‘They are your biggest threat. Your mages must be ready for them because your warriors can never be.’

‘I see your faith only extends so far.’

Now it was Sildaan’s turn to chuckle.

‘Faith will not stop a TaiGethen cell. Magic just might.’

And they were so stupid that they did not realise what was coming at them. They stood and bayed their hate and waved their cudgels, fists, torches and swords. The TaiGethen, already painted for combat, dropped their heads in brief prayer and swept from the apron down the steps and into the crowd.

‘Clear this place,’ shouted Katyett. ‘Desecrators. Heretics.’

The face of the ula in front of her cleared at the last moment and sick realisation slackened his jaw. Katyett knocked the torch from his hand to go sailing back into the mob. She whipped one blade up to sever an ear and chopped the second left to right across his neck. The ula clamped his hands to his wound and tried to scream.

Another ula fell across Katyett’s path, intestines steaming and spilling through his desperate grasp. Katyett took off, glancing right to see Grafyrre bring his bloodied blade to ready. Katyett flicked out a kick into the face of an iad carrying a slender blade, landed on the same foot and drove her sword into the elf’s unprotected chest.

A torch was pushed towards her face. Katyett snapped up her left leg, blocking the flaming wood and pitch. She kept her foot there, against the
ula
’s wrist, her thigh touching her cheek. She pivoted around with both blades, sweeping them parallel across the elf’s midriff.

Katyett bent her left leg at the knee and struck out, clattering her foot into the temple of another rioter, knocking him sideways. She paced forward. Hands and fingers flailed at her. Behind them a face twisted with rage. The mouth lunged, teeth clacking at her face. Katyett swayed beyond the fingers, ducked the teeth. The iad screamed and rushed forward. Katyett stabbed straight out. Her victim shrieked.

Katyett paused. There was space around her. With those Grafyrre and Merrat had found, fifteen TaiGethen faced the multiple thousands packed into the piazza. Dozens of bodies littered the ground. The flames of the temple of Yniss cast a hideous glare onto the faces of elves and the bloodied stone.

Pakiir worked with a brother Tai cell. He was deep in the crowd, extracting his vengeance for those murdered behind him in the temple and, no doubt, the burning of Olmaat. Faleen’s Tai savaged into a knot of unarmed ulas fighting with nails and teeth. A jaqrui chopped deep into the forehead of one rioter. A second lost a leg to a switch sweep of two blades and a third had her neck snapped by a kick to the underside of the chin.

At last, panic began to take hold. The ringleaders had lost the crowd. A certain return to reality melted through the blind spitting fury of the mob. Elves were beginning to run.

‘Keep them going back to their filthy hovels!’ called Katyett.

She flew back into the action. Her open palm thudded into the chest of an iad standing firm, spitting in the direction of the temple. The elf went over backwards. Katyett dropped both knees on her ribs, crushing cage, heart and lungs. Blood flew from her mouth, spattering across Katyett’s face.

‘Spit your last,
efra
.’

Katyett surged to her feet. The crowd was bunching back. The many fleeing in the face of the few but the unutterably deadly. She brought her blades to ready and advanced. There was a screaming behind her. Screaming her name. Katyett spun round.

Pelyn was coming down the steps, limping heavily. Blood welled from wounds on her face and stained her shirt at the neck. But there was enough strength within her to move and to yell her own rage.

‘What are you doing? Stop. Stop!’

Katyett glanced over a shoulder and watched her brothers and sisters moving still, cutting down any that dared stand against them. She turned her gaze back to Pelyn and felt cold.

‘I am doing the work of Yniss,’ she said.

Pelyn walked right up to her, the pair of them standing a pace apart in the midst of a blood-slick arena of stone strewn with bodies and washed with the flickering glare of the burning temple. The din of the retreating mob echoed against the walls of other temples, which stood in mute judgement over the acts of elves.

‘You’ve done exactly what you told me not to do,’ shouted Pelyn, barely able to contain herself.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘What is it you said to me?’ Pelyn’s spittle flew in Katyett’s face. ‘ “Don’t let them goad you,” wasn’t it? “Don’t give them a martyr.” What by Shorth’s teeth do you think you’ve done?’

‘I have carried out sentence on murderers.’

‘You’ve killed those wholly unable to defend themselves against your skills. This is a slaughter.’

Katyett grabbed Pelyn’s shoulder and dragged her round to look at the fiery remnants of the temple.

‘And what was this, Pelyn? Hundreds of my people, burned in a place they thought sanctuary. I will not leave such a crime unpunished. ’

Pelyn pulled herself from Katyett’s grasp. ‘I was here. I was here trying to defend them. The most obvious target in the city. I was here. Where were you? Whose people were you defending on top of the playhouse?’

Katyett paused a moment, trying in vain to calm down. ‘We are not the police of this city. That is your job. Are you seriously telling me you really thought a mob might actually torch the temple of
Yniss
?’

‘You didn’t feel the hate,’ said Pelyn. ‘I did. They would have cast me on too and I guess I have to thank you they did not. They’d have done it because I dared defend the Ynissul. Me, a Tuali. Never mind the temple, it was those inside they wanted.’

‘What’s done is done,’ said Katyett, looking out at the piazza. Fifty bodies lay there. Perhaps more. ‘But those who committed this atrocity know they cannot act with impunity.’

Pelyn sighed. ‘No, Katyett. For you, it’s always so simple, isn’t it? And so naive sometimes. Too much time in the rainforest. What it’s taught them is that Yniss’s elite warriors have no control. That they mete out their version of justice on helpless elves.’

‘They have murdered my brothers and sisters by the hundred. They have burned my temple. They have put themselves in front of the TaiGethen blades. I am bound to respond and I am not merely going to shepherd them from the site of their crime.’