“The Moon is a dark force,” said Rask, “and She would send deceivers.”
That’s right. The druid appeared gentle, and that was his weapon. Skyre had wanted to believe him; believe the lies poured forth from those sinful lips. Even now, he could remember the way they looked, wrapped around his voice. Skyre hated them. Wished he could bite into them and make them bleed.
“Weakness.” It wasn’t Othrik’s eerie chant, but Rask’s rasp that drove his feet into the ground. “Men are like beasts. They can smell blood on the air.”
The old warrior walked over to the fallen cudgel. Picking it up and spinning it straight, he lodged it deep into the sand like a war banner. “A thousand stabs would end a war, but only a nick need start it. My father was there the night that borne the Black Revolt. The night a king was caught in another man’s bed.”
Few knew that truth, but in his teachings, Rask had only ever given Skyre honesty, even when the fire dared him not.
Rhon preceded Lach’Dun as divine laird of Cullach. A Vaich that nearly led the kingdom to ruin. In that time—like this one—the south had grown hungry, and with one selfish misstep, Rhon had been drawn into a vicious war.
These days, if you asked the men of the peasantry, they would say Rhon was a fierce king who beat the rabble down. Few realized he was also the flame that brought them to boil.
He’d been bold and made advances on a Lady from Goin Dugh, who told him she was the wife of the laird there. When he heard she was wedded to that no-good chump, Rhon pursued her violently. What recourse didsuch a woman have against a king? She told her husband, who bellowed it from every rooftop in the tír.
When word reached the ears of the An’Atherin, their recourse was swift. They polluted the people with stories of false treason, giving them reason to act against the laird in virtue. And they did—razing Goin Dugh like a plague colony. With a blood-slicked thong against the back and a sword at the throat, the sect vanquished any idea that their king had acted in the wrong. But Dunn Kennigh, lying in wait for the feast, had pounced through the opening torn in the fence. They rose up in revolt, and five years of death followed.
Rask scowled. “Every man shall stand against a storm, but victors are not uprooted by its winds. Indecision is as much a sin as wanton lust and brazen hunger, Skyre. That is why…” He pulled up the cudgel, tossing it to the Vaich, who caught it across his palms.
A single nod towards the target and Skyre took a ready stance again.
“That is why you mustbe flame,” Rask said. “You mustbe fury. And with patience…” Skyre gripped tight. “Perception…” He stepped forwards. “Andpowerwill you guard yourself.”
Skyre drove the cudgel forwards, and with athud!the grain sack plunged from its hang, spilling the sand with tawny kernels. Rask nodded with muted approval.
“There are many wars to fight,” said his mentor. “Will you break against your very first?”
A smile teased Skyre’s lips, but seeped away before taking shape. “You have always taught me how to fight against man. Shall now I fight against God?”
“There is only one true god,” said Rask, bracing a hand against his shoulder. “And he choseyouas his vessel. Now, go and wash up. We ought prepare for our ride.”
“We go to a funeral,” Skyre muttered.
“Then let the Vaich learn early how to break bread over graves. Come, the wind will sober you up.”
Perhaps that was all he needed. The wind and the run to knock the havoc out of him.
By noon, they had set out from Rhyd-hal on the road to the north. The Augeri and the Luin Cáronach awaited. Skyre left that gate as executioner, and rode, deep into the night, to fell the axe once and for all.
Chapter twenty-two
Luin Cáronach
It felt like dying.
Long before his feet touched the water, the druid’s body had already been purged. On the first day he was bedridden, unable to tame the waves of pain that rolled through him. The fever made him delusional, his mind filled with shifting shadows, and when he had emptied all his stomach, the blood followed.
Hirí stayed with him. He knew not how much time had passed until the second evening when awoken by the burning of incense beneath his nose. The pain had lessened to a dull ache, but his bones felt like stone.
“You are valiant,” Hirí told him. “By now, most would already be dead.”
He watched her beneath heavy lids. “This ritual…”
She smiled. “Indeed, the victors are terribly few. The Moon keeps only the true.”
“Then… the mere…?”
“Oh, no! It is rare anyone makes it so far. Not to worry. The worst is yet to come.”
