Karen Miller - Godspeaker 01 by Empress

Author:Empress [Empress]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-22T12:28:00+00:00

Around her neck the scorpion amulet throbbed with power. The god agreed with her. It would see she got her way.

She rode with Zandakar onto the warhost field where her three thousand warriors and the godspeakers waited, ready for sacrifice.

“Hekat!” the warhost shouted as they saw her riding. “Hekat the knife-dancer, Bajadek’s doom!”

In their border skirmishing they had killed eight hundred of Tebek’s inferior knives. It was a good slaughter, the new warriors she trained had not disgraced her or the god. She laid her fist above her heart, acknowledging their greeting.

“Zandakar, the warlord’s son!” they shouted next. There was love in their faces, he was their own son, their little brother, the child of their hearts.

“See the warhost, Zandakar,” she told him. “It is your warhost, you will lead it one day.”

It was the same thing she always told him, from his days in the cradle she made sure he knew who he was.

Zandakar’s fist against his heart was small, but steady. It would be a big fist when he was a man. He would grasp the whole warhost in it, Et-Raklion’s warriors would sleep in his palm.

Hekat smiled and smiled as she rode with her son.

One finger before newsun Vortka woke in his small, solitary chamber to the tolling of the godhouse bell and a hand on his shoulder.

“It is time, novice,” said Brikin novice-master. Salakij was two seasons dead, Brikin had been chosen his successor. Vortka hardly knew him, the last two seasons of his novitiate had been spent away from Et-Raklion and the godhouse. It was strange to be back within its stark stone walls after so long worshipping under the sun. Strange to think that not far away, his son was sleeping.

Don’t think of Zandakar. He is not your son, Vortka. Best to think of him as dead.

Except that was impossible. The previous highsun, toiling up the Pinnacle Road to the godhouse, threading his way between the other travelers, as he passed the palace he felt his heart tug him sideways, urge him to leave the road, abandon duty and obedience, make up a reason to visit Hekat and their child.

He had resisted. He was a novice at the testing time, what hope for him if he could not resist this temptation?

Then, in the godhouse, he had seen his small son Zandakar, giggling, chattering, lit up with excitement because Hekat would soon be home from war. His wayward heart had nearly stopped altogether, seeing that small boy, hearing Nagarak speak his name. Aieee, how tall and strong he was, how much he looked like his mother. A handful of times had he seen the child since his birth, each greedy glance pain and pleasure combined. And with every glance a vivid memory, how Zandakar was made, that plunging ecstasy, that exquisite throbbing of the flesh. Hekat hot upon him, her eyes filled with the god. He missed her too, though he tried hard to forget.

In the end it was a relief to be sent away for service.

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