Bloodchild. Anna Stephens

own lives. All the panic and vicious ignorance from Rilporin will be repeated. And I don’t blame them at all. If I were one of them, I wouldn’t want to face open country again. Not ever.

      He gave himself a little mental shake. One problem at a time, Mace. Clear the area around the forts so they can get out undetected, and then pray to the Dancer they make it all the way to safety.

      Dalli had done the scouting when the campfires were spotted and Mace had nearly managed not to panic at the length of time she was gone. The sky was a riot of stars that did little to hide any of them, and still somehow she slid in close enough to count their weapons and piss in their stew without anyone noticing.

      Mace and Jarl huddled around her so their voices wouldn’t carry on the breeze. ‘About three hundred, maybe more if we assume four to a fire and forty on watch,’ she breathed.

      It was more men than Mace had, but fewer than he’d feared. ‘All right, we’ve got the night and the element of surprise, and they’ll have shit night vision from standing around the fires. Split up and approach from north, east and west. If they’re fleeing anywhere, I want it to be straight towards the forts so our close patrols can pick them off. Pass the word for quiet. I’ll draw their attention: try and get in amongst them before the alarm sounds so it looks like we’re everywhere.’

      Jarl showed his teeth and Dalli’s face shifted into a feral mask. They faded into the night, Rankers following. Mace took a breath and felt the adrenaline mix with the fear, drew his sword and advanced, moving steadily so his gear made as little sound as possible. At his back crept sixty Rankers, silent, disciplined.

      ‘Who goes there?’ came a Mireces voice from out of the blinding light of a handheld torch, flames flickering on Mace’s plate and the chainmail of the men who followed.

      ‘For Rilpor!’ Mace roared and broke into a sprint. His men followed, screaming, the other two wings holding back in silence until all attention was firmly on Mace. They ploughed into the light and into the line of Mireces scrambling to their feet, fumbling for weapons and screaming questions and alarms and, soon enough, pain.

      Mace ducked a hasty swing and carried on past, flicking his sword backwards into the Mireces’ exposed hamstring. He went down howling and Mace left him to be picked off by those following. A knot of Mireces charged him and he tightened the grip on his shield, took an axe blow high on its face and smashed the boss in his attacker’s chest, pushing him back a step, parried a sword with his own and insinuated his blade past the man’s guard and into the side of his neck, a raking slice that put him out of the fight and possibly out of life. Another sword battered into his pauldron and he grunted, stepped back and spun, lashing out with sword and shield, blocking low and cutting high, high, low and then thrusting.

      Another axe blow on to his shield was almost enough to break his wrist and he bellowed, kicked the man wielding it in the knee and rammed him off his feet, bringing the shield rim down into his face and hearing the snap of bone and teeth. Screaming filled the night.

      ‘’Ware!’ shrieked a voice and he dived, rolling over his shield and into clear space, up between two Mireces just turning to face him, stabbed one and missed, the chainmail turning the point, flicked the blade down and opened the man’s thigh instead, kicking into the open wound; he took the blow from the second Raider on the edge of his shield, chips of wood spraying his face and the blade skittering off and squealing down his breastplate.

      Spun side on and forced the man back with the shield, herding him until he tripped over a corpse, lashing out with a blow more a bludgeon and staving in helmet and skull. Sucking in lungfuls of air and letting all the rage of Rilporin surge up his throat and out of his mouth in a scream of pure violence, spinning to defend his back when his spine prickled warning, tucked in behind his shield so the attack was a glancing blow off the metal boss and his upward diagonal sweep made it below the chainmail and into groin and belly. Stink of entrails and the scream of a dead man, glimpse of Dalli darting like a fish from the darkness, spear red along a third of its length, twirling and ducking and dealing death.

      Another presence behind him and he twisted again, sword already cutting, and Jarl threw up his shield to deflect it. ‘About a dozen slipped through south if you want them, Commander,’ he panted when he saw the need for more violence, for release, in Mace’s expression, indicating a score of soldiers arrayed behind him with torches and bloodstained faces, ready to run.

      Mace took another deep lungful, adrenaline crystal-bright and singing in his veins. ‘Mop up here,’ he snarled, bloodlust thickening his voice. ‘I’ve got the runners.’

       THE BLESSED ONE

       Seventh moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

       Red Gods’ temple, temple district, First Circle, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

      Lanta, Blessed One and Voice of the Gods, and High Priest Gull crouched in the dark of the temple.

      They had the beginnings of a plan now, an outline that they were filling in through ritual, through communion and intuition and invention. The godblood Lanta had ingested and which even now stained her skin had lent her wisdom and understanding she’d never before experienced. She understood the gods; knew Them, in ways no other mortal could or ever had.

      The secret lay in learning how the Fox God had entered the mortal man Crys Tailorson. If they could understand that, they’d know better how to bring back the Dark Lady.

      Lanta had already offered her own flesh as host, but the connection had failed. They needed a focus, something for the Dark Lady to sense from wherever She was imprisoned, something big enough, bright enough, to draw Her back past the veil and into Gilgoras. And then into Her new body, mortal and divine mingling into a living goddess to tread the earth among Her children forever. Between them, the Blessed One and Gull were beginning to understand what that beacon might be.

       Holy Gosfath. God of Blood and Lord of War.

      The sheer audacity, the magnitude, of what they were attempting frightened her, but the alternative – a world without the Dark Lady, the endless agony of abandonment – terrified her far more. And Lanta did not deal in fear of this type.

      If they could … anchor Gosfath here in the temple, when the time came for the ritual, the Dark Lady would find Her way to Him through the channel of Lanta’s soul and the souls of sacrifices, the promise and whisper of blood spilt in Her name, and from there they could direct Her into the Bloodchild – the holy vessel – and restore Her to life and the world. For that, they needed to be able to bring the god to them. They needed to offer Him something. Tempt Him.

      Lanta took a deliberate breath of the rank air, the heat and smoke, tasting her fear and embracing it, and then she focused. The knife was sharp, but not so sharp she didn’t feel it slice into her arm; what would be the point in not feeling the pain?

      ‘I swear in Holy Gosfath’s name that I will not rest until I have brought the Dark Lady out of death and into Her glorious vengeance.’

      She cut again.

      ‘I swear in the Dark Lady’s memory that I will fly past what remains of the veil and search the Waystations and the Afterworld itself to find Her.’

      Another cut. The temple was thick with tension and the stink of old blood and new, sweat and death and fierce, brittle defiance.

      ‘I swear by my blood and my hope of meeting the gods in death that I will not cease until we have resurrected our Bloody Mother.’

      She cut once more, the pain lancing through her and making her stronger, more determined. A blood oath, carved in flesh and bone and will, new scars on top of old: a promise to the gods, to the Dark Lady wherever She was; and a promise to Lanta herself.

       This is faith. This is determination. This is how we win.

      Lanta gave the