5. Two

I severed the human's spine at the neck with a decisive strike. Old blood clung to my armor and matted my braids, drawing biting flies. I swatted them away and pulled my sword free.

The sun rose red through the stained-glass windows, and with it the silence of victory. It settled over the temple like a heavy shroud.

Footsteps echoed through the chamber behind me, and I turned to greet my brother.

"Father is looking for you," reported Katyr. He turned his head, eying the dead, his earrings making a tinkling sound. The morning sun caught briefly on the surface of one of his many taps, shining like a beacon. Each one held enough magic to kill a hundred men, perhaps more, when they were fully charged.

Father wanted to discuss our next moves, no doubt. Summer was long behind us, and with it, the end of the raiding season. We had already overstayed our welcome in the human lands by many weeks to collect more slaves, more treasure, more everything to take back to D'thallanar. It was high time we headed for the longboats.

I grunted and wiped my blade clean. "It's about time he decided we should leave this place."

Flies buzzed, feeding on blood. Kat shook his head and swatted away the flies, sending his golden curls flying. "Are you ready for what's to come, then?"

I surveyed the aftermath of our most recent raid. Blood smeared the marble feet of one of the faceless statues, the graven image of whatever god this human temple was dedicated to. The humans only had eight gods, but I could never keep them straight. The polished temple floor was slick with blood and there were bodies scattered everywhere. Some of them had even been armed this time. That was a nice surprise. Usually, temple raids were merciless slaughter.

I lifted my eyes to the blank stone face of the statue. Whoever he was, he held a book in one hand and a scythe in the other. A death god, perhaps? Or a god of knowledge?

"The Reaper," Katyr whispered behind me. "One of their gods of death." He was a scholar of such things, fascinated by humans and their ways.

I frowned. "Only eight gods and they have more than one for death?"

"Well, he's not just the god of death. He's also associated with the harvest and autumn in general. He collects only the souls of those who appear in his ledger, and only at the appropriate time. That's the book he's holding. The Book of Souls."

I grunted and stepped away from the statue. "Only humans would have a scribe for a death god. A god of death should be terrifying like Shulda or fierce like Vathar. Not some feeble old man with a book and a farming tool."

Katyr chuckled. "Well, to be fair, I think most humans are terrified of the Reaper." He swatted away another fly. "Come, Ruith. You know how Father gets when you keep him waiting."

I sighed and sheathed my sword. "Fine. Let's go."

Our footsteps echoed through the mostly empty temple. It was a strange place, built for beauty and not to withstand an attack. As we walked, we passed elves working to pry gold from where it was inlaid in the wall as part of a mural. Someone rolled a cask of wine past while another group smashed open more statues. The humans liked to hide their valuables inside sometimes.

Further down the long hallway, our men were dragging the dead humans through a door into a courtyard where they'd be sorted. The mercenaries would be stripped and burned while the priests would have their heads cut off and buried first out of respect.

"What happened to your face?" Katyr drew my attention away from the activity in the courtyard.

My hand went instinctively to my lip to feel the bloody line drawn there. It'd happened in the fight the night before, a glancing blow. "Nothing."

Katyr shifted his attention forward with a frown. No injuries on him. Not on Katyr, whose magic was too valuable to risk on the front lines. I couldn't fault him for it, though. The further back I could keep him from the fighting, the safer he would be. Kat wasn't built like the rest of us. It got to him, all the killing. At heart, he had always wanted to be a creator, not a killer, but that sort of magic wasn't useful to Tarathiel and the warband.

A handkerchief appeared in front of my face, and I blinked, realizing a moment later that Kat was offering it to me for my face.

"Never let your enemies see you bleed," my brother said gently, reciting one of the many adages Father made us memorize.

I scowled and pressed the handkerchief to my lip. What did it say about us that we considered our own father among our enemies?

We found our way to the abbot's chambers where Father had set up his command. The place had been stripped already, anything useful torn down and carried away as soon as we arrived. Curtains hung from the walls, torn apart, and several ornate chairs had been hacked up to be tossed into the fireplace as kindling. The rest were being carried away for the same.

A human slave boy, barefooted and collared in iron, ran up with a bucket and a sponge on a stick. We paused to let him clean the worst of the blood from our armor, pointedly avoiding looking at him. There were hundreds of human slaves back in the palace in D'thallanar, and all of them were the same. The same slumped shoulders, bowed heads, collared necks, and simple clothes. They never spoke. For a long time, I believed Ieduin when they said humans were born without tongues.

Until I heard the women keening and the weeping over their dead and saw the men lighting themselves on fire in the street to protest. Until the day Tarathiel ordered a decimation for all slaves in the city and one in ten slaves fell beneath their master's blades, a warning to the other nine.

The slave boy finished his work and stepped back, head bowed. I pushed aside a curtain and stepped into the inner chamber. The area might've been cleared of anything useful, but the abbot was still alive. He sat, stone faced, in the lone chair, hands bound, glaring at my father like he was evil incarnate. I supposed, to them, we were. Still, the old man's stare held such malice even I was impressed Father didn't burst into flame.

The sanctuary smelled of dust, wood oil, and blood. As for my father, he stood at the abbot's table, scanning the words on a scroll. His silver hair hung long, pulled into dozens of tight braids, each one a hard-won victory. For all his faults as a father, Tarathiel was a brilliant tactician. The best. I could not have asked for a better teacher.

Tarathiel did not look up as he said roughly, "When I call, you will come. Immediately."

I bowed my head. "Yes, Father."

Katyr frowned, glancing between us. He opened his mouth and made to step forward, but I caught his hand and gave a subtle shake of my head. It would do no good to tell Tarathiel that I'd come as quickly as possible. Even if Katyr knew some spell to teleport me there in an instant, which I was fairly sure he did not, it wouldn't have been fast enough for him.

Kat glared at me and yanked his hand away. He wanted me to stand up to him, but now wasn't the time. Not yet.

"And when I order you to take the wall," Tarathiel continued, "you go. Without question. Without hesitation."

"We would have lost too many men," Kat interjected before I could say anything.

Tarathiel finally lowered the scroll and turned. Slate-gray eyes scraped over Katyr, twitching narrower. "We will lose as many men as it takes."

"Those men have families," Kat shot back.

"And there is no greater honor than for a warrior to die in battle. Would you deny them that honor?"

A muscle feathered in Kat's jaw. He lowered his head, saying nothing.

Tarathiel sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Go and charge your taps, Katyr."

"But—"

Tarathiel's gaze cut through Kat sharper than any sword. "You will do as you are told, or I will send you back to your grandmother. I'm sure she'd be happy to set you straight."

Kat flinched, eyes going wide and distant. His jaw trembled briefly before he spun on his heel and stormed out of the tent without another word.

"You shouldn't threaten him like that." I leveled a hard look at my father that he returned.

"It wasn't a threat. I didn't give him his own command so he could shirk his duties. If he can't do the work, I will find someone who can."

"You know full well what Katyr is capable of when he isn't pushed so hard." I stepped up to the table. "Too much pressure will shatter him."

"And too little will weaken us." Tarathiel rolled up the scroll. "It's an offer from the king of Ostovan. Goods, slaves…and perhaps something of even more value."

I frowned as he put down the scroll. An offer of goods and slaves wasn't unheard of, but for them to offer more unprompted certainly was. "Do you think it's a trap?"

"What I think matters little. Only the facts matter." He turned back to the abbot and barked in the rough-edged human tongue, "What do you know of Ostovan's army?"

The abbot clenched his jaw. For a moment, I thought he'd choose death over answering, but he was wiser than he looked. "Ostovan has no army. None of the Free Cities have a standing army. That's why you choose to slaughter our people, steal our goods, and rape our women. But mark me, by the Eight Divines, a reckoning is coming."

Father backhanded the abbot, sending him sprawling out of his chair.

The abbot landed on his hands and knees, immediately launching into a prayer to his gods.

I clenched my jaw. There was no honor in abusing the defeated.

"By all means, call upon your false gods," Father sneered. "They cannot save you. We slaughter your people, steal your goods, and make slaves of you because you are weak. Your gods are weak." He gripped the abbot by the hair and dragged him back into the chair. "Now, tell me why you have this letter addressed to me."

"It was…brought by messenger yesterday!" The abbot winced as father yanked on his hair. "That's all I know!"

Tarathiel released him and turned back to the scroll, scanning it again.

I stepped forward. "With all due respect—" I bit off my next words when Tarathiel turned, taking a step toward me.

"You have never shown me due respect, Ruith. Not once. There's too much of your mother in you for that."

I lifted my chin. It was an honor to have that dragged out of the dark at every opportunity. My mother was twice the warrior he'd ever be, even if she'd never been to war. She'd endured him, after all.

I stood up straighter. "If we go to Ostovan, the frost will be upon us, and we will miss our window to cross the sea."

It was exactly why we had chosen not to raid Ostovan this season. It was too far inland, and would take too long. Once the first frost hit, the sea voyage became considerably more dangerous and the weather unpredictable. We didn't have the resources to take the entire army to Ostovan to collect a few pigs and slaves. That Ostovan had so eagerly offered tribute when we weren't headed that way was even more suspicious.

Tarathiel looked at the abbot, who was now bleeding from his nose. He drew his dagger. The abbot's eyes widened and he tried to get up, but he didn't make it far before Father grabbed him and opened his throat. He threw the dying man to the floor, watching the pool of crimson spread out beneath him.

"You will ride to Ostovan with a command of one third of the army to accept their tribute," Tarathiel said to me. "I'll escort the bulk of the force to make the crossing. You and your contingent will escort the tribute from Ostovan to D'thallanar before the first frost."

I frowned. There were wounded among the men. We needed time to recover, and then to sail straight for the homeland. Even if we set a grueling pace, the chances that we would make it all the way to Ostovan and then to the shore before the weather changed were slim to none. Tarathiel was asking the impossible, but since when had he ever asked for anything less?

Arguing with him was a pointless endeavor that would only end with us coming to blows. He would still get his way. So, I pressed a fist to my chest, made a deep bow and said exactly what was expected of me. "Yes, Father."