Gamos

Night had fresh fallen over the turrets and walls of Ivriskap by the hour our story begins. As if a cluster of thin fungal flutes had risen from a corpse, the fortress’ turrets rose from an undergrowth of crenellations, turrets, courtyards and gatehouses, and too few torches shone from within its smatter of dark arches and shattered windows. For the first time in many moons, no snow fell, and the fighting pits around the foot of the fortress had thawed the days before. There were only a few men on watch, huddled behind the parapet and wrapped tightly in their furs and leathers, necks craned and torch arms raised, the better to sight their elusive enemy.

‘No sign of them.’ The figure held his torch out over the wall, but revealed only a stretch of stone, down into the shadows where the walls met the earth. Others drew alongside.

'They are gone, then? Is this the breaking of the siege?'

'Or they’ve miscounted their days, and Spring has come early to them. It’s often so in the Pale Country. Go, tell the warriors.'

A runner shuffled from their post and made for the tower. Inside they hung up their hides and stowed away their bow and satchel of rocks, but kept their torch aloft; it had been two winters since the incident on the stairs, and all the garrison knew the old, cracked halls of Ivriskap were dark and treacherous if not respected.

The torchlight flicked and spat in the draughts as the runner made for the banquet hall, following the sound of the rumbling bonfire and raised, merry voices. The warriors of Ivriskap were well-fed and fulfilled besides, and the break of their winter’s rationing had become cause for celebration in the years they head endured the siege..   

'Master Eibad!' The runner called out from the archway into the fire-lit expanse of the banquet hall.

'Come! Sit by the fire! Tell us what you’ve seen!' Eibad raised his voice over the clamoring warriors as they traded horns and shanks of meat, and the runner came to sit on the low benches of shorn logs that sat by their low, laden tables.

'We saw nothing, master. There’s no sign of them, not even an encampment remains.'

‘Eat.” Eibad passed him a handful of folded breads, ‘the wind still bites?”

‘It does, thought ground is now clear,’ the runner accepted the food and took a grateful bite, ‘will the siege break soon? If it has not already.’

‘Perhaps,’ Eibad’s eyes wandered to the shadows that still clung to the vaulted ceilings, ‘things are rarely so easy. Were the Quarter-men present?’

‘No, master,” the runner contented with a full mouth, ‘it is desolate out there, and the sky is dark. The landscape is like a bone scraped clean.’

Eibad rose, having eaten his fill.

‘Send for the rest of the watchers. Broken or not, we’ll take this chance to have you fed, watered and warmed.’

The watcher bowed in gratitude as they gathered up armfuls of food and scurried off to their fellows. Eibad, meanwhile, bid farewell to the warriors and marched beside the bonfire to his lord’s table.

Gemmel Daienbough II, called Gemmel the Good by his warriors, was a wide, tall man with deeply cracked skin and a beard that swept forward like a ploughsare and forked into two points. His dark, sunken eyes glittered as he turned them to Eibad.

‘The watchers have seen nothing,’ he told his master. Gemmel bowed his head in thought.

‘Are the men ready to fight?” He asked.

‘I should think so. If the barbarians were to challenge us again we could certainly fight. I fear though, this quiet may disturb them. When occupied by combat they pull together, it’s been enough fighting seasons for us to learn that, and the weak have been long ago winnowed away, but facing uncertainty may be more dangerous than any opponent.”

Gemmel didn’t answer the unspoken question right away. Instead, his eyes wandered to the mural that hung above the wall, hitched to the two hanging candelabras of snarled antlers. It was a map of the Pale Country, in all its ancient forms and details, with Ivriskap a tiny point in a constellation of forts, ruins and temples.

It had been four winters already, and Gemmel had made little progress, but to march forward now and look for a better position with his garrison much reduced by war risked everything.

‘What would you do, Eibad?’

‘I would send scouts, sire, provided the weather holds.’

‘Yes, the weather. We will talk in the morning,’ Gemmel nodded. ‘Take the lay of the land with the watchers. We’ll see what progress can be made.’

‘We will all be among the Prytany yet, sire.”

The two men worked to share a performative grin. No fatigue could show in front of the warriors.

Eibad had made camp in Ivriskap’s tallest turret that night, and set his sack of furs between two crenelations, each one with different engravings, in different styles, from different ages. It had always been the way in the Pale Country, and as Eibad looked out over the landscape, even in the dark, he could pick out the old vanities that dotted the flattened, crater-scarred landscape. Warriors, kings and realms came here to die, all so that the Gods might witness their ends. Or so it seemed to him.

Eibad watched until morning. The caps of the mountains and pools of ice shone in the fresh sun, and as the light crept over the land and the wind died down, Eibad could fully rise and take in a deep breath of the frigid air.

He was a tall man, as befits a warrior, but not broad, and his dark skin clashed with the gray in his closely cropped hair. As a portrait, he read as experienced and hard-eyed with a narrow squint. The intricate braids of his beard betrayed his warriors oath more than the brand of fealty burned beneath his tunic.

In the sun, the earth had cracked and widened; free from the snow and ice, deadly fumes had begun to unfurl across the soil and already lapped against the fortress walls. Some of the watchers, glad to have company, brought him a morning meal, and they broke bread in the high tower, and the vigil lasted for some hours.

‘It is well you are here with us,’ one of the watchers said, ‘some nights we fear the fighters look down on us.’

‘Yes, we fear-that is to say, we hope, that this coming season some of us might be taken on.”

Eiban looked away from the wasteland to size them up; watchers were chosen for their dedication and senses, not size, strength or speed, and although some of them might be high-blooded and already learned in the fighting arts, the arms and legs of a Danod sun-warrior were quite different from those of a private tutor.

‘You do yourselves credit in the asking,’ Eibad nodded, keen to respect their thankless work, ‘but we fought well last season, and if the siege really has broken we will be on the pilgrim’s path again.’

‘Of course, of course,’ the watchers murmured, as none wanted to seem ungrateful or desperate for the honor.

‘We will leave Ivriskap, then?’

‘It had started to seem a home to us!’

Eibad said nothing as they passed the conversation amongst themselves, and squeezed himself between the two crenelations to better defeat the reflections of snow and ice and see through the miasmic twists of underground vapor.

Something had caught his eye.

‘Quiet,’ he commanded.

No banners flew or torches burned, but Eibad could not mistake the thin lines of marching bodies in the fog. “They are coming.”

The barracks was hung with the Vengel banner of two snarled together crowns and the standard of House Daienbough with its burning tree, and the hall echoed with the clamor and scraping of wood and ivory as the figures within donned their armor. Some were eager, other quietly confident, and a few, the less experienced or capable, kept their fears to themselves.

Eibad, the most experienced among them, had already donned his fighting leathers, surcoat and tabard, drawn tightly together with claps of sharpened bone, and his squires, Tars Anandes, Anandes the younger, among them, fastened his armor of woven reeds and, finally, bowed as he handed the warrior his helmet of twinned pheasant feathers and mighty, studded club.

Assembled, they made the picture of a fighting throng of Vengel.

‘Who will take the standard?” Eibad asked, his practiced voice rang out in the hopes their morale wouldn’t require a speech.

‘I will take it!’    

‘Waters,’ Eibad acknowledged her as he handed the wooden shaft to her. As they stood closer, he lowered his voice, ‘where is your helmet?’

‘Lost it, master,’ she admitted with her customary sharp-toothed grin.

‘Lost it?’

‘Off the edge of the wall, under the snow. Some time last winter,’ she shrugged her wide shoulders, ‘should still be out there.’

They had traded excuses and admonitions before, and Eibad hadn’t the patience for it.

‘Are you ready?” He asked his pupil.

‘Worried our reputation is going to suffer? It’s a new year, after all. There’s no telling what those savages will field.’

‘Lord Gemmel assembles his host in the courtyard!’ A runner burst in through the heavy oaken doors, ‘he is calling for you, warriors of Daienbough!’

Eibad turned to his youngest brother, and in his wordless haste, all he could think to do was pat his low, sandy-haired head before the warriors arrayed at a half-march.

‘Be safe, Tars. Watch with the servants if you like, but don’t leave the fortress.’

‘Yes, brother.’

Eibad stopped each of his warriors for a breath to check their fang-clasps were done tightly and then followed their column through the dim halls.

Lord Gemmel had just finished giving a rasping speech from horseback to his footmen, and crescendoed at Eibar’s approach. His footmen hailed the warriors.

‘We sally forth at high sun,’ their lord told them. ‘The watchers says it’s a great host, Eibad! Plenty of glory to be found for everyone!’

‘As you say, sire,” Eibad raised his voice, the better for all to hear, and then stepped back into the throng of his pupils. ‘We will practice the “arms passing over arms,” Waters, you will be my partner.’

Eibad’s words pulled Anar Waters from the boasting and oath-swearing she had begun with the small group of other fighting-women.

‘This isn’t my first battle season,’ she reminded him, and almost passed a closed fist over Eibar’s arm.

‘I know,’ he lowered his voice, ‘I suspect our lord grows weary. He will push us harder this year.’

Waters’ eyes passed over the other warriors, ‘do you think we can do it?’

‘I have concerns.’

‘Oh, the concerns of a storied warrior? Share them,’ she dropped almost to a knee, but failed to punch into his gut. Her first slid under his elbow and went wide.

‘We will not win with numbers,’ Eibad sighed at Water’s grin as she focused on overcoming his defense. ‘I am concerned that you will not show the proper respect.’

‘Me? Not respectful?’ She kicked at him, and his foot rose to cut hers off before it could rise high enough to strike.

‘This is not a foot drill,’ he told her. His eyes never left her face. ‘And I am very serious. We will not, cannot win with numbers. If we’re to gain ground, it must be through ritual. Respect, do you understand?”

‘I’m not about to mouth-off to a Quarter-man,’ she rolled her wrist. The wide-strike had bruised her under the lamellar gauntlet. Eibad stepped closer, his voice even lower.

‘I know that, Anar, and I remained committed to your potential. One day, soon, I think, you will be my best student, but wars aren’t won by warriors-‘

‘They’re won by ritual,’ she rolled her pale blue eyes, ‘I know.’

The hall echoed with the shriek of wood; the gate had been forced shut by ice and snow for many months, but the heavy wooden doors ground open under the efforts of massed footmen, and the irregular stones and carpets of abandoned standards in all different signs and shapes was flooded with cold light and a dusting of snow.

‘Forward, warriors of Daienbough!’ Lord Gemmel cried ‘for the Gods!’

As I said before, The fighting pits in the eastern stretch of slope at the foot of Ivriskap had been uncovered by the thaw. The arenas were little more than wide holes, dug in the hottest, brightest days of middle-summer, when the ground was at its softest. The pits themselves were lined with cut wood, so that no fighter might pull a rock or shower of dirt from the earth, and the warriors of house Daienbough had taken great care to cut plentiful wood on their journey and made some sport out of engraving their work with messages of alternating encouragement and mockery. What deficiency there had been, they made up for in looted timber from inside the fortress, since the need had been greater than they expected.

Yes, in the first year, challengers had been plentiful, and throngs of Quarter-men, who rode through these lands all the time, had come to oversee the contests. The holes had been dug out of necessity, to prevent the clash between the dancing sun-warriors of Danod and the fighting men of Vengel from descending into a brawl; the pits were just deep enough to contain the fighters, and so that the Quarter-men could easily see into them from horseback and confirm that a challenger yielded or died.

In normal times the challenges would be levied on the first day of the new year, as they had for the previous two. Today, the host of house Daienbough followed their lord onto the Carter-scape, half-hidden beneath pale fumes, to find only two emissaries form Danod.

‘Hold!’ Lord Gemmel called, and dismounted, his boots raking the chalky earth that echoed through the quiet. Eibad stood back.

‘Where are the Quarter-men?’ Potol, the portly cleric, clasped and un-clasped his calloused, spade-shaped hands. ‘Was this what you saw from the tower?’

‘No,’ Eibad told him, ‘I saw many more men.’

‘They are hiding in the fog,’ Potol growled, and his wolf-fur brows knitted together with suspicion, ‘this is not of the rituals. Be ready for treachery.’

Eibad rested the head of his club on the ground and tightened his grip on its length as his answer.

‘Can there be a battle without consonation?’

‘No.’ Potol met his eyes. ‘Perhaps they are capitulating, and hope to do it beyond the sight of the Gods,’ he scoffed, ‘as if they could in this land.’

Gemmel’s voice rose, and the emissaries, mostly viewed under dark-green robes, retreated into the fog.

‘This is a disgrace! It is blasphemy!’ Gemmel thundered as he leapt onto his horse and cantered over, the beast snort and whinnying in time with its master.

‘Lord?’ Potol was first off the mark to soothe his master’s temper.

‘Their barbarian prince says he’s lost favor with the Quarters, and that he’s content to take us by force! Coward!” He called back after the emissaries, who had passed into the writhing fog, ‘desperation, that’s what it is! Cowards!’

For a moment, Eibad thought they might have been cajoled into fighting by his master’s choler; figures began to emerge, and lights danced through the fumes. Eibad stepped forward, club held over his shoulder and ready to swing, and the rest of his fighters stepped in time, wordlessly disciplined and ready to face their enemy.

They staggered and stumbled. There were no battle cries or standards. Indeed, these were not sun-warriors at all, totally bereft of their energy or their mantles of firey feathers. The once-men struggled forward. Eibad stepped back as he saw enough of the closest one’s face; it was slack and bloodlessly pale, contorted with effort and cut with deflated remains of pale boils and sores.

Eibad met the first with the head of his club, and it crumpled, silent, to the snowy ground, and three more stepped over it. He swung again, turning his torso fully into the blow, and sent another Danod warrior sprawling. No challenges were shouted, and before Eibad recovered his form, another footman had a hand on him, so he raised his elbow and forced it back with the trunk of his club and swung across its legs.

‘Back!’ He shouted over his shoulder, ‘back to the fort!’ Eibad led the retreat, Anar and the rest of his pupils by his side as, inch by inch, the surrendered the sloped ground, the fumes, the fighting pits, and the stretch outside the gate.

At the close of combat, when Eibad struck the last blow between the massive oaken doors, he stopped to catch his breath and watch as their enemy out-strechted their arms, only for the gates to crush them.

‘Does it close?’

‘Bar the door!’ Footmen raced past and forced a log into the bar.

Eibad leant on his club and pulled off his helmet. Some of his fighters laughed with relief, but most were quiet. The gate began to rumble with soft impacts and scratches.

‘And you were worried about our reputation,’ Anar planted a mock blow into his back.

‘This is heterodoxy of the highest order!’ Potol found his courage, and made his official declaration, ‘if the Quarters hear of this-’     

‘They won’t.’ Eibad wrung out his hands, numbed by cold and impacts, and then took a deep inhalation of the close, smoky air inside the fortress. ‘If Danod thought we stood a chance of warning them they wouldn’t dare to field their own revenants.’

The following days were spent taking a quiet estimation of their situation. Rations and supplies were counted, ice was cut and boiled from the higher extremities of the fortress and at the highest sun of each day, warriors would do their best to sally forth with their longest pikes, but no holes were cleared in the horde, which watchers said had them well surrounded in every direction. Their attacks only allowed entry for the monsters, which required the frightened warriors to club them into immobile gristle and throw them over the walls.

Efforts were made to build burial-fires in the courtyards and gardens, but scarcity of wood and the fierce wind prevented them from catching, and it was such miserable work that the footmen and servants began to complain. Desperation set in when Potol and his choir appeared from inside their chapel and admitted their prayer for Evcharya, which might dissolve the revenants, had not been answered.

On arriving, those four years ago, one of Gemmel’s first decisions had been converting the library into a council chamber. The books had been burned to keep fires going some time ago, and now that no-one could venture out of the fortress to search for the weak, twisted lumber of the Pale Country, most of the hearths were burning low.

As a meeting place, the council chamber was cold, drafty and conspicuously empty, as if the absence of books and shelves could be felt in the imprints they had left on the stone. The tables had been scraped together into the center of the room, and marrow-fat candles burned from the antler candelabras. By the time Eibad arrived from drilling his warriors in the proper form to be used against a dead opponent, Potol had just finished giving some long thesis to his master.

‘Eibad!’ Gemmel hailed him, ‘sit! We have much to discuss.’ Potol turned ups his aquiline nose and folded his arms in his robe. ‘What have you seen from the watchers?’

‘Ivriskap is completely surrounded,’ he told them as he lowered himself into the freezing seat. ‘This miasma is particularly strong, but even the secret exits are blocked by Danod’s revenants. I have more bad news, sire.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. Speak.’ Gemmel folded his arms and laid his head between them.

‘Some of my warriors have fallen ill,’ the old warrior explained, ‘I believed that some time during the winter, Danod’s forces were seized by a plauge.’

‘As divine punishment for their wickedness, no doubt,’ Potol added.

‘Perhaps. Contact with them has passed the disease.’

‘It is in the fortress?” Gemmel asked from between his heavy arms.

‘I have ordered those affected to isolate,’ Eibad told him, thinking of the brave faces of his warriors, exiled to the guardhouses of the outer wall through no fault of their own, ‘they show symptoms. Fever, sores and boils, but they are strong. They remain in good humor.’

‘Prince Paksa is a ferocious opponent indeed, if he still lives,’ Gemmel growled, ‘he has turned his disaster into an opportunity, even if he has sacrificed the goodwill of the Gods.’ Gemmel bowed his head and considered again what Potol had told him before Eibad arrived. ‘If we were to sally forth and somehow break the horde…’

‘Their plague would likely claim us before we found a better foothold on the Pale Country,’ Eibad confirmed to him what he already knew. ‘If we cannot build a burial fire-’   

‘Enough! Enough bad news.” Gemmel ran a hand through his thinned, gray mane. ‘What would my old master say? My opponent has extended himself, I contract. My energy is defensive, but how are we to outlast this? Could we wait for them all to fall? Or perhaps draw them away?’

The council remained silent, Potol especially. It seemed to Eibad to be the type of quiet that comes after persuasion. Eibad and Potol’s eyes met. What had they been discussing, Eibad wondered?

‘Our prayers go unheard,’ Eibad said, to break the heavy silence. ‘It is not my place to wonder at why, but without more wood for the fires or hunting we may-’

To lose favor, despite this heterodoxy. I must have offended them. Yes, that must be it,’ Gemmel rumbled as he counted the possibilities, ‘Potol is right.’

The same look passed between Potol and Eibad.

‘It must be Gamos.’

At the word, Potol dropped his eyes.

‘It may be the only way, sire. As I have said.’

Eibad could read the severity in each of their faces, but he was far from a holy or even pious man, and had never learned much ritual beyond what was needed for soldiering.

“If we are to make it beyond this accursed valley and raise my family’s banner on one of the holy ridges…yes, perhaps it must be so. You have someone in mind?’

‘I have cast some bones.’ The cleric told Lord Gemmel, ‘and besides that, I believe it would be best to chose one who does not fight. We’ll need every strong arm, after all.’

It was then that Eibad began to guess at their meaning and why they had chosen their words she carefully, and most of all, why they had hushed when he entered.   

‘Master?’ He turned to Gemmel, ‘what is “Gamos?”’

‘Potol will explain,’ Gemmel rose from his seat, ‘see it done. The dream of Daienbough will not die today.’ He seized up a girandole tipped with burning wax to light his way and was gone. Potol waited until the boom of the door, and then he and Eibad were alone.

Potol cleared his throat.

‘Its a very ancient ritual, from long before the current age. It remains quite common for its power, and I am privileged to be learned in its performance and endowed with the necessary tools, rare as they are.’ Potol waited, but Eibad, being a patient man, stayed quiet and waited for the reason for his and Gemmel’s secrecy. ‘It pertains to…betrothal, a domain which of course is given to the twinned horse Eumoi. Lord Gemmel has charged me to regain our favor with the Gods by selecting a suitable candidate for this betrothing ceremony. Someone not able to fight, and not, perhaps of noble blood, but with some esteem by relation.’

Eibad’s brows began to furrow.

‘Enough words, speak plain.’

‘Tars, your youngest brother,’ Potol admitted, ‘he is the ideal candidate. He represents an esteemed offering, but does not fight.’

A quit stretched between them as Eibad tested his feelings.

‘If successful, what will happen to him?’ Eibad asked.

‘He will be taken to live with the Gods. It’s a great honor,’ Potol told him, ‘and I appreciate this is sudden, but for the Gods to allow revenants to be fielded against us, indeed, to trap us in place so we may not even fight, is proof we are in dire need to prove our-’

‘I fight. My warriors fight. You do not,’ Eibad told him, and pulled himself to his fullest height. ‘If I refuse this ritual?’

‘I pray you do not, but it is our master’s command,’ Potol bowed his head, perhaps so he need not meet Eibar’s angered eye, ‘at least ask the boy. It must be soon.’

Hours passed by at a crawl. Although he was not a verbose or forthcoming man, Eibad’s pupils always knew how to read his mood, and when he stormed down the stone steps into their training grounds, all knew to stay away.

The old sallyport had been hung with reed matts for striking and filled with sacks of hard soil to harden the skin, and of course, the tenets of Nine Weapons took pride of place, the ancient words carved into an ivory plaque branch the icon of their patron Eigrath, the Turning Horse.

For hours, Eibad traced the footwork and strikes of Nine Weapons, silent and slow, again and again, he dropped and raised his stance, wheeled his arms and traded the place of his hands; he practiced the eighth weapon of the nine, the hands and feet.

he former dungeon made the perfect, cold and sterile place for practice, and the old warrior showed no sign of fatigue as the last few of his pupils left to go abed.

Eibad checked over his shoulder. Of course, only Waters and some of her simple friends remain, across from them, but even they seemed to be on the verge of exhaustion from their ragged breath; they had been sparring for hours.

There were no true weapon racks, all their clubs and poles lay against the wall save for Eibad’s which rested in a wooden case. He withdrew it, and found some reassurance in testing its weight.

‘Master?’ Of course, Waters couldn’t leave well enough alone.

‘Speak.’

‘We’ve heard all about the Gamos,’ she told him, ‘some of us were thinking we might get together and pray.’

At that, Eibad paused in admiring his club and met her eyes.

‘You’ve never prayed a day in your life,’ he told his pupil.

‘No, master,’ she couldn’t help but smile for a moment at the admitted irreverence, ‘but this is important, and besides, it’s out of our hands.’ Although not an emotive or especially kind, Anar Waters held her master in high regards and stretched out a hand; her best effort to comfort him.

‘Is it already decided?’ He asked her. ‘I haven’t spoken to Tars. He’s still working one of his murals.’ At that moment, he was forced to imagine Tars’ knit-work as the last mural to ever hang over the training places of his students, and his resolve began to crumble. By instinct, he turned away from Anar to save face.

‘I will for a while,’ Eibad told her, ‘and I will talk to him. I may join you.’

‘It would be our honor, master,’ Anar told him, ‘I’ll summon the others.’

Eibad went unseen for some hours as he stalked the dark corridors, striding up and down, everywhere but his own chambers, where Tars, by this hour, was likely asleep. Only lone sentries and footmen saw him peek over the walls and up into the night, and none saw him take stock of the ports and tunnels in the lowest levels, where the fog clung to the flagstones and frost gathered in the cobwebs.

By the time he returned to his pupils. No-one could account for where he had been.

‘Master!’ His students welcomed him, and now candle-light filled their gymnasium, and as one, they all rose to salute him.

‘I have nothing to say except this,’ he told them, ‘as warriors, our highest virtue is loyalty. When it is understood that loyalty is strength, no opponent can defeat you. They may only kill you.’

As he hung his head and lowered both knees to the floor to pray, his rows of students applauded him and cheered his name. His honor, of course, steeped more on them and their school.

In his lap, Eibad clenched his club tightly and counted the knots in the stingray hide binding. His hand ran over the guard and ivory studs and felt the texture of the wrapping under the wood.

Anar knelt beside him, and they both wordlessly gazed into the eyes of the icon that dominated the murals that had leant some color and history to the anonymous chamber; it was Eigrath, called the Turning Horse. His stern gaze was preserved on a background of scared orange paint, and his face was marked with age and shadows.

‘They say it will be tomorrow, as soon as their preparations will allow,’ Anar whispered to him. ‘Tars must be very brave.’

‘He never wanted to come,’ Eibad whispered to her, ‘did you know that?’

‘It’s not what you told me.Why come, if not for glory?’

‘It was under the advice of my late father. I taught Tars for many years, before he abandoned all thoughts of being a warrior,’ Eibad explained, still gazing up at Eigrath, ‘a lesser man might have named him a disappointment. Even disowned him. You recall the killing of the royal housevarg?”

‘I do. It’s part of why I started this journey. Most warriors from Vengel would tell you the same,’ Anar said, ‘surely your family had no fear of the vengeful king.’

  ‘We all did, in those days. I, who had learned to fight well, was content to stay and cultivate Nine Weapons in secret, but my father had just retied from the warrior’s life, and he feared that if Tars was seen to practice the style he would not be able to defend himself.’ At the end of his story, and again to save face, Eibad bowed his head. Of course, there was no way for Anar or his pupils to know, but he had prayed for a particular kind of strength; the strength to accept what was to come.

His prayer had not been answered. Eibad remained for many hours, praying and accepting honors from his students, but the absence of grace did not change, and as he looked up at the icon of his father, now surely dead, his warrior’s instinct reached for the one thing that had defined his life: obligation. It was not one to God or lord, but family, that drove him through the dark corridors and forced him to linger by the parapets as dawn suggested itself to the night.

Eibad did not knock on the door. No, what would the cause be? It was his own chambers, after all. Pride of place in the western fortress and still decorated. The fire had burned low and Tars lay slumped across the bed, his latest tapestry spread out on the stone floor.

‘Tars,’ Eibad whispered to wake him, ‘Tars.’ The boy woke with a terrible frown and tried his best to grind the sleep form his eyes. ‘A new commandment has come down from Lord Gemmel. We are away.’

‘At this hour? With the siege?’

‘There’s no time, this is a matter of moments, we are to take the lord’s own horse! Quickly!’

Tars, taking his brother’s urgency for the truth, hurried about gathering his things, and the two of them stole out into the hall of Ivriskap, and then down, through the gardens.

Despite the season, a flurry of snow hand landed across the stony grounds, where walls rose up on all sides. Eibad pushed Tars up onto a horse and equipped him with a cloak and many weeks of supplies hung from the stallion’s saddlebags.

‘To where should I ride?’

‘South,’ Eibad told him as he leapt up onto his own horse, and swung both of their bardings free from the improvised stables under the arches that held up the inner walls. ‘We are to take a crucial message back.’

‘To Vengel?’

‘As far as we may,’ Eibad told him, taking both sets of reins in his hand, ‘I will go first and draw away the revenants and then join you.’

They cantered through the abandoned grounds, brazen under the gaze of the exhausted sentries.

Of course, Eibad had brought the fullness of his weapons and armor, so that the forked plume of pheasant feathers would be visible and no ordinary watchman would dare to stop him until it was too late. In truth, his plan was the product of a few rebellious moments and without much prospect of long-term success; he could open the gates, sally forth and draw away the revenants, perhaps trample a fair few, but even if he were to break free and reunite with Tars, he would do it as a traitor to his lord’s word.

It was this failure he contemplated at the southern gate. Eibad’s boots meet the cracked flagstones, and looked through the wooden portcullis into the crowd of quiet, empty-eyed soldiers. That was when his already fragile plan failed.

‘Master Eibad! And is that Tars with you?’ One of the watchmen called out from a wall high above them.

Yes, Eibad struggled to open the gate, but by the time he had labored to raise it even a little with the levers and stones, the battlement above had filled with men, and they all called out for him. Eibad, back in the saddle, refused to look back and admit defeat, not while he still enjoyed the illusion he had a chance. It lasted but a moment; the voices above began to rise and cry out ‘stop!’

Eibad’s horse, disturbed by the clamoring and the dead men outside, began to whine and walk him around in a circle, forcing him to confront the men-at-arms that ran down the courtyard.

He leapt down again, and pulled his club from the side of his saddle.

‘Tars,’ he told his brother, ‘if the gate is to open, ride, just as we discussed.’

‘Why is this happening? Are thing not as you said?”

The crowd shuffled and disgorged a handful of Eibad’s warriors and some of Potol’s clerics, too, with the portly man not far behind, still fastening his threadbare habit.

‘Tars! Tars, my lad!” He called out, ‘come down!’

‘No!’ Eibad, eyes fixed on his opponents by instinct, tried to force Tars back onto his horse.

‘Brother, what’s happening?” The boy’s frightened eyes jump from his brother, who had known all his life, to the cleric and the warriors, who also knew and trusted well.

‘Stay back,’ Eibad hefted his club.

‘There’s no need for this,’ Potol advanced, empty hands raised to show he meant no harm. ‘I went to talk the boy through things, and we found your chamber empty.’

Anar had pulled free from the crowd, and so had Eibad’s other pupils, weapons and armor ready, thinking to respond to some enemy attack.

  Although Eibad and Potol were very different men, they were of similar age and experience, and although neither of them truly knew the other, they had suffered similar deprivations and hardships. Because they lived similar lives of dedication and disciplined passions, Potol recognized, without Eibad’s confession, the shifting of loyalties that both had always been vigilant against.

‘You dishonor yourself, Eibad.’ It was Potol’s simplest, most damning insight.

‘Brother-’

‘Quiet!’ Eibad had almost reached a panic, ‘they mean to-remember what we discussed-’ he turned his head, only for a moment, to see how frightened his little brother had become, and in that moment, the warriors advanced.

‘Young man! I come on behalf of Lord Gemmel to enact a ritual that may save us!’ Potol raised his voice so that it would carry across the courtyard to Tars, ‘I came to seek you out, before your brother stole you away.’

The time when Eibad might have avoided frightening his brother had passed, and so he admitted the truth.

‘They mean to sacrifice you, Tars.’

‘That is not true! It is not!’ Potol protested, ‘the Gods have turned their eyes from us, Eibad! This treachery endangers us all! I say this is a betrayal of your oath of loyalty to Lord Gemmel and an offense against the divine!’

Eibad tasted the words as he tested the weight of his club. Treachery. Blasphemy. In the moment, words did nothing to dull his resolve.

‘Brother, please,’ Tars pleaded, ‘I want to help if I can!’ Eibad held him back with his free arm.

‘Open the gate, Tars, ride out!’

‘No!’ Tars leapt down from his horse, ‘I may not be a warrior, but I swore an oath to Lord Gemmel too! And he was gracious enough to allow me to forego the branding! Let me do my part! Don’t make me a traitor! If House Daienbough can join the Prytany, all of Vengel will be uplifted!’

Eibad turned, considering, for the first time, Tars’ position. His younger brother stood with wet eyes and balled fists, his sickly frame barely rising to the height of Eibad’s chest.

‘I call for a champion! Who will defeat this traitor and deliver us what we need for the Gamos!’ Potol called out, and his shout echoed off the stony walls of Ivriskap and up into the ice-blue sky.

The warriors stepped back. Uneasy gazes passed between the footmen.

‘Let it be me!’

Of course, Anar Waters stepped forward with her club raised. Potol accepted her as champion, and said a blessing over her weapon. Anar stepped forward. Potol, the others, even Tars, stepped back as the two combatants came together.

She narrowed her pale eyes.

‘Why the speech?’ She asked him, ‘trying to persuade yourself?’

‘Gods are such fickle creatures.’ Eibad replied, and his pupil was so unused to him speaking of inexact, philosophical concepts that, for a moment, she dropped her ready stance. ‘This “Gamos” is a betrothal. He will be taken to the High Realm, and they’ll do as they please with him. Are we to accept that, so long as this bargain relieves the siege? Is Gemmel’s dream worth that?”

‘We don’t get to choose. We’re warriors. You taught me that.’ Anar’s eyes strung with betrayal, and her shocked hand rose to catch a tear from her face. ‘Why pray?’

‘For the strength to accept it. To continue being a warrior, as I taught you,’ Eibad gritted his teeth, and now both hands fastened around his club, counting the knots by instinct.

‘We can forget this. No-one will begrudge you your familial loyalties. If it’s true that there’s no other way out of this, you only steep more honor on your name,’ she almost sobbed, then, in the angst that all fighters feel before battle, ‘even Tars, see, even Tars!’ She jabbed a finger at him where he stood, trapped behind Eibad, ‘let him do his part! We can forget this!’

Eibad tested the idea; surrender to the ritual? Surrender his brother? Pretend as if this had never happened. It was not for the first time that some terror or tragedy had visited him and he had found himself desperate for the ability to step back in time. Only a few hours, perhaps a day, for things to return to the way they were.

‘Honor demands honor.’ Eibad made his decision a half-moment after he spoke, ‘don’t insult me. I do what I think is right. Defeat me, if you think you can.’

He stepped forward and allowed for no retort. Eibad crossed his wrists, and then turned them over to cross them again. It was the Sign of the Chains, an ancient ritual known to all warriors, born from the Age of Transgression. A commitment and request for fair treatment.

To her credit, Anar did not hesitate, she returned the Sign and then hefted her club.

In all of Domaen, the world that warriors make for themselves over all borders, very few could be said to have fought as Eibad Anandes and Anar Waters did. Yes, both were learned in the Nine Weapons, the style of principled soldiery. Indeed, they shared the same forms as they had been related to Eibad as a young man by his father, Eigrath, a mercenary who had fought well enough to be awarded small lands, and this form incorporated the heavier weapons of the Nine, with a particular focus on the club over pikes, poles and stakes. This more advanced style, though, was suited to warring against foreigners, especially in battering aside woven shields, or else shredding defenses made of wood. What had been done very rarely by practitioners of this esoteric style was to fight amongst themselves in earnest. In short, Eigrath’s teachings were not suited for such a contest.

If Eibad was committed to victory, and if he saw some other path to safety for Tars, he might have marched forward with conviction and struck with his full strength. Anar, having never experienced it, might have fallen back in shock. No. Instead, they both swung their clubs with the same timing and in the same stance and their blows, being swung by warriors of similar size and power, collided and united in their force.

The result was a sudden crack as both clubs connected and exploded, scattering their ivory studs and shards of wood across the courtyard to the astonished gasps of the onlookers.

Both combatants fell back. Eibad weighed his options while Anar, who had never experienced such a thing, caught her breath.

Unarmed, greater experience prompted Eibad to make the first move, and indeed, a small seed of hope was germinating in his warrior’s heart; if the duel was won, perhaps the demands of honor would see to it that the ritual might be called off, and Tars could be saved. With that in mind, his approaching steps became a ferocious charge, and Anar, who had only just discarded the stump of her club and wrung out her strained hands, was caught off-guard.

Eibad’s first blow was at the end of a leap, his arm fully extended, and although he had taught his pupil to simply step back from such attacks he knew her instinct wouldn’t allow her; Anar absorbed the blow and almost stumbled, but both were well practiced, the hands and feet being the eighth of the Nine Weapons, after all, and they soon fell into a drill-like routine of exchanged blows. They passed arms, gripped wrists, and all the most severe blows that escaped their practiced defenses were absorbed by their armor. Both stepped back at the same pace and both exchanged intercepting kicks before coming together again to grapple, and that was when their gulf of experience began to turn the tide.

Eibad had long studied Anar’s fighting habits, as befits a teacher, and knew well how eager she was to prove her strength. He matched her grip for only a moment, until he felt hers tighten in kind, and then swept to the side, her hardened stance was slow to react; Eibad struck her chest, once, twice, enough to wind her. He pulled at her armor, and the clasps, which he knew she had always neglected, came free, and then, as instinct forced her to step back, Eibad filled the space with a mighty kick. He had prepared for her to fall back, but not for her cry of shock and pain, and that moment of sympathy held him back from a knock-down blow that might have decided the fight.

Anar recovered quickly. Instead of rising, she aimed a decidedly un-orthodox kick across Eibad’s shins, and both fighters toppled to the floor. Anar, already being stable, took the initiative and pounced on Eibad before he could find his footing, and indeed, the old warrior had cracked his head severely, as the stones somehow found a stretch of unprotected forehead just beneath his helmet.

Anar’s fist found Eibar’s face, and she struck just as she was taught, with her arm drawn back and the full swing of her torso. Lesser opponents would have buckled, but Eibad beat her off, and they both struggled to their feet; Eibad blocked another great punch, kicked down Anar’s rising leg, and then returned her punch in kind.

Again, the sight of her bloodied gave him pause, and during their tussle they had come close to the inner wall, giving Anar no space to retreat. In the heat of battle and tasting blood, Eibad was not cowed, He kicked at Anar, then struck her on the helmet, which contrived to block her vision. In pulling off her helmet, Anar gave Eibad an opening, and stepped forward to prevent her taking a defensive stance and set about pummeling her across the chest, and after a countless number of blows that curled upwards through her gut, Eibad paused to catch his breath. It was his intent to ask her to yield. He still held to the hope that Potol might be persuaded to abandon his ritual, but he had underestimated his pupil, who was now well into her second wind and feeling the first flush of battle-fury.

Anar stepped forward, fully bloodied and furious; her very first blow landed before Eibad could raise his guard and his neck snapped back. A step back. Anar followed him with another flurry of blows, and although Eibad did his best, he blocked, he ducked, he struck back, blood from his head had run down into his eyes. Anar struck him again and again.

In her youthful fury, Anar had forgotten the sudden call to arms, the cold air, the doubt and the fear in facing to her master and his betrayal, and all that remained was the contest. It wasn’t a purposeful blow that laid Eibad low, but a simple striker on of many, that forced him back and threw him to the ground.

Eibad looked up at his pupil, face reddened. Both gasped for air.

‘Waters has triumphed! The ritual is decided!’

Both warriors looked over in fear and alarm as Potol declared an end to their contest, and before anything could be said between the two combatants, footmen rushed him to seize Eibad, and carry him upright.

To Anar, the victor, a washing bowl and a gourd of water was given, and the other warriors busied themselves attending to her wounds as tradition dictated.

‘Honor is satisfied.’ Potol came to pat Anar on the back, and the contact forced her to flinch from her stupor. Eibad remained silent, his head hung.

‘What-what are we to do now?’ She asked, halting.

‘You fought very well, Anar,’ Tars told her, and took her hand. ‘Please don’t let them hurt my brother, I wish he’d told me, and I-it’s not as if an arranged marriage is unusual, is it? Our family’s already been driven from one homeland. If I can help us reach another, I’m happy to do my part.’

Anar had no insight into Tars’ word, whether he spoke out of ignorance or courage. Neither did she know why it was that Eibad had fought so desperately and betrayed his oath. A simple promise, though, she could understand and see kept.

‘He’s not to be harmed!’ Anar pointed at the footmen, who supported the silent, exhausted Eibad. ‘See him to a healer.’

‘Summon Lord Gemmel! Tell him what’s happened! And Waters is to be honored! Potol cried out as he pulled his robed acolytes from the crowd that had grown and grown since the fight began, ‘prepare the Gamos!’

At the true closing of the duel, as Eibad was lead away at a stagger, Potol approached Anar, whose wounds had been daubed. She was still shocked into silence. Tars released her hand, which she had no idea he had held, and left with the rest of the congregation.

Then, only Eibad’s warriors remained, all to a man too afraid to confront the image of their master, bloodied and defeated by one of their own.

Tars was taken by the congregation. Coals were heaped and tortured, and then heated a tub where Tars was washed clean. For the hour or so he was scrubbed and scented, he could almost pretend he was alone in the steam, with the harsh stone walls obscured. The perfumes and warm water were a relief, and even a reminder of his home in the humble but verdant Anandes lands along the southern border of Vengel.

After that, he was made to stand straight and Potol oversaw the application of herbs; he was gently struck with sheaves by his acolytes as they read an incantation over him. Of course, Potol and his acolytes had a deadly serious, solemn look on their face, the same as it was for all Clerics who were busy recalling some passage or other, but Tars, perhaps lightheaded from the fumes, found the idea of this momentous ceremony taking place in such a cramped, plain room somehow silly.

It was when Tars was dressed in a pure white robe and brought to see Lord Gemmel that some fear suggested itself to him. Gemmel was bent over, as usual, with deliberations, but on Potol’s announcement, the lord rose to greet him.

‘You are a very brave young man,’ his lord told him, ‘sit. Eat, it is my honor.’

Tars saw that the lord’s table was furnished for a banquet. ‘You may have as much as you wish.’ He had never been a needy boy, and although he had never admitted it to himself, he took pride in his willingness to endure, stay quiet, and not ask for the things he wanted.

‘Thank you, my lord.’ His response was pure instinct.

‘Sire,’ Potol bowed out, ‘I must prepare the eastern chamber.’

Tars hesitated to pick at the herbs and meat, and in fact, he realized that a growing anxiety had settled in his stomach, and his outstretched hand trembled. His fingers closed around only a few grains of rice.

‘Eat. You may need your strength,’ Gemmel told him between mouthfuls, ‘although, I’truth, I’ve no idea what you’re in for, boy. Potol’s never steered me wrong.’

Lord Gemmel was a well-educated man, brave, strong and ambitious, but you may already suspect his great weakness; a lack of insight into others. He paid no heed to to Tars’ trembling hands or ragged breath. No, he had no idea that doubts invaded his mind and forced him to ask himself if he had betrayed his brother.

‘W-what will you do?’ Tars stammered as he reached out for some future to hold onto, ‘once we break the siege, where will you march?’

‘The next ridge. A few weeks of trek through the tundra. I have charts of the route,’ Gemmel told him, eyes turned down to remember the maps he had spent so much blood and time to acquire. ‘I will send word. If we hold for another winter after this, we can secure a route through the Pale Land.’

‘Do you t-think we might find a home in Vengel again?’

‘Well, that’s in the God’s hands,’ Gemmel told him, ‘but our name is known, still, of that I’m sure. If we trade favors as I’ve planned, and we are accepted into the Prytany, the king will have to sit up and take notice,’ he spat a mouthful of gristle into his bowl. “And we’ll have the ear of Solon, just a step away from the Gods themselves. A parallel to the king, you understand. I must admit, you’re quite learned in the ways of the world for your age.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

Tars had no true appetite, but remembered Gemmel’s words and did his best to eat heartily, and long after the meager conversation had died away, Potol’s opened the doors to Gemmel’s chamber and asked for Tars.

‘Good luck, boy,’ Gemmel said by way of a farewell, ‘we’re all counting on you. And don’t worry overmuch about your brother. I treat my most able servants well.’

Tars was gently lead away by acolytes with a gentle grips on each hand and shoulder, quiet reverence in their murmured chant and hooded faces. He knew that the eastern chamber, which overhung the outer wall and looked out across the wasteland, had been the site of a great under-taking, with many footmen ready and working fast, but they did not linger in it.

Tars met with Potol in the small rooms behind the altar he would use for his services.

‘Take this,’ Potol unwrapped a small bundle of cloth with a sweep of his hand, and rose from behind his desk. It was a small ball of ground herbs, dark green, speckled with yellow and shiny with a sticky texture. ‘It will taste quite bad. Better if you swallow it all at once.’

Tars had fought with fear quite often for someone of noble brith, especially at his young age, and knew it was better not to draw these things out. He looked out through the narrow slit of stone, where light streamed in over Potol’s shoulder, and then took the ball in both hands and swallowed it all at once.

‘Good. He has taken it!” The cleric called for his acolytes, and every door opened into a precession, each one robed and hooded. Tars’ robe was checked for stains and cleaned, he was daubed on the forehead and behind the ears, and a headband was fastened around his head with two sprigs of herbs, so that he looked as if he had two high, pointed ears.

By the time Potol had begun to guide his aides on inscribing Tars’ body with ink, he was quite insensible, eyes glazed over and wide; he saw only prismatic blurs.

Potol, called Potol Quarter-landed for his long stay in the Quarterlands, had been fastidious in his preparations. First, the waxes. He had overseen the raiding of the fortress’ stores and moulded them himself, even depriving lord Gemml of some of the light in his chambers. He wasn’t to know. Next, of course, were the cloths, mostly for ceremony, yes, but of course it wouldn’t do to summon forth one of the Eumoi, a being with direct lineage to the Godhead, into a dirty chamber of empty stone. No, Potol’s improvised chapel and been carpeted, the altar decorated, and the pew, rough half-logs like the warriors had cut for their dining hall, had been hidden away.

Now, Potol caught his breath to take final stock of the ritual site; wrappings stained red with sacred oils hung from the beams of the ceiling, and the chamber’s windows were shrouded, the better to block out the sight of the Danod revenants as they pawed at the walls outside. The room was lit by the desperately hoarded candles, each roughly impaled on candelabras of dead wood headed with horns, teeth and antlers. What icons they could fashion had been placed around the altar, while the few wooden ones they had brought with them sat open on the floor, surrounded by candles.

The ritual’s path had been blocked out by wooden planks, and now all that remained was the incanting and the precession.

‘Summon Lord Gemmel,” Potol called out to those who were still laboring in the hall, ‘it is almost time. We must have witnesses.’

Lord Gemmel lead the precession into the hall. The chamber rumbled with chanting and flickered with reed-thin candle flames. The shadows of acolytes and celebrants danced across the walls as they stretched and contorted, the angles of the dim light suggesting more participants than the mere humans that filed in to fill the hall.

Lord Gemmel, for his part, was solemn enough, with furs around his shoulders and what retainers he still had to flank him. Only the tap of his boot betrayed his impatience.

While Potol busied himself around the altar, head buried in a book to make sure the bones and incense burners were placed at the right angle, the warriors shuffled into the hall.

Over the hours since Eibad’s defeat, Gemmel had judged him and placed him under the guard of his pupils. Not to humiliate him, understand, as some tyrant might, but to ensure they took respectful care of him. Anar limped alongside him, and although Eibad was thoroughly bound with knotted ropes and divested of his armor, plumed helmet and even the most meager weapons, he stood taller than anyone.

At the crescendo of their chant, Tars appeared. Led by the hand from behind the altar, he was clearly insensible, face vacant and gait staggering. The acolytes converged to lead him in a precession across the hall.

Anar, of course, could see Eibad worrying at his bindings. What plan could he hope to execute? She wondered as she glanced down. Would she call out or chasten him?

Anar turned her gaze back to the ritual, silent.

‘Master of the house, step forward!’ Potol called out in his most officious voice and the twisting shadows and his billowing robe transformed his outline into something inhuman. Around the hall, they lead Tars, so disoriented he almost fell. Eibad worked the knots that held his hands, and almost slipped them. ‘Your blessing.’

Potol held out his ecclesiastic rod, which ordinarily would be used to stir Evcharya, the God-given sacrament used for the safe dissolving of corpses. On this day, it had a holy seal affixed, the type that had spent the entire journey secreted within a small chest at the heart of Potol’s personal belongings, wrapped in furs and kept under an ivory clasp. Gemmel gave his blessing with a wave of his hand and then stepped back so that Tars could pass. At the altar, a brazier roared and crackled.

The seal was of the most holy type, worked from the stones that fell from the sky, which could only be carved or etched under very great heat, and this one formed a circle that shone in the dark, all filled with intricate whorls and knots, so as to make a complex pattern that proved a maze for the eyes. All in all, an ecclesiastic device of this kind was worth more than dusty old Ivriskap itself, and it was only on the strength of Potol possessing this thing that he hoped to conduct this Gamos, although he would be loathe to admit it.

By the time the precession had headed to the altar, Tars was held on his feet by a fast grip of our acolytes. Potol ran his precious seal through the fire again, until the fine spiderweb patterns glowed with trapped heat.

‘Tars of the Anandes, be anointed. Go now to the stallion. We exalt and summon thee, Genhedd Eumos, son of the Most High, steward of pairings and fertility! Appear, take this offering for your stable!’

Potol thrust out with the rod, and the acolytes held Tars fast while he pressed the seal into Tars’ chest. Of course, he did not cry out, no, the boy didn’t even flinch as the holy seal seared his flesh.

The smell of meat filled the air as vaporized blood rose in a cloud. Anar and the rest of the warriors were shocked, and indeed, so was Eibad, but already being mostly free, he slipped his bonds and bowled over the acolytes without hesitation. Even Gemmel, taken aback by the sudden branding, allowed him to pass.

Perhaps Eibad might have challenged Potol. Had he known anything of the Gamos and acted earlier, perhaps Tars might even have been saved his maiming and the tribulations that followed. Of course, this record comes to you in some dark, clandestine place, and is far from blessed. That is why I have no hesitation in telling you that Eibad was a man of honor, despite what he would do next.

Far beyond the Pale Country, which despite its storied history, was part of the Middle Realm, a congregation of Kadmoy had gathered at the Twinned Stallion Temple. It was a place of dusty skies and restraints, a palace of creaking rafters and lonely jade icons that smelt of beasts. An outcropping from Samaivish, the highest realm of all and the home of twin Eumoi Genhedd and Genloss.

These Kadmoy had blown their horn, as was their duty, but otherwise gazed as one with dutiful silence down on Ivriskap. They wrung out their hands and wrapped their long whiskers in anticipation. On this occasion, one of their masters did appear. Genhedd lumbered down the steps towards their reflecting pool, and in a voice like thunder, demanded to know who had summoned them.

Poor Eibad was bowled off his feet, as were Pottol and all his minions. Gemmel cringed in fear and the warriors shrank back. Only Tars, who had been marked, was spared, and instead the pillar of light that had smitten the others held him like a gentle lover, supporting his buckled knees and small, bleeding body.

Eibad, meanwhile, had been robbed of his senses, and for a brief moment he knew nothing but pain; the fresh injury, the wounds from his loss against Anar, and now the pain of what Potol had done to his brother. He shook his head to clear the blood from his eyes, but they swam with dark spots, and so he spat to clear his throat and shook his neck like a dog to banish the ringing from his ears. The first thing he heard were the heavy impacts of Genhedd’s hooves.

“Accept this offering, holy one, and send favor to the house of Daienbough!” Potol was busy doing his usual, incanting while he furiously bowed and scraped. Eibad first set eyes on the Eumoi from the ground, as he stared up at the frayed hairs and flowing fur that swept down his legs. Indeed, because he had been struck to the ground, Genheed took him to be another supplicant and ignored him.

In the moments of cognition, as Eibad cleared his eyes, he knew and understood what happened; Potol’s ritual had worked and one of the Eumoi had arrived to carry away his brother. Of course, no mortal, no matter how mighty, could challenge such a creature, and even if they could, it would be the gravest crime imaginable. Secondly, he knew that if he were to keep to the floor, as Potol and his minions had, he was likely to be spared. In that moment, he saw what might happen; his crime overlooked, Daienbough ascendant, genuinely favored, entrance into the Prytany, the ear of Solon. Perhaps a return to his home?

But all these things he had long fought for would be without Tars, and that was the end of his consideration.

Eibad staggered to his feet, ready to fight.

Genhedd towered over the prostrate humans, though it was impossible to say how tall he stood because where a man might have a head there was a pulsating sack, like the distended belly of a frog, which stretched and warped with a flashing light that carried down Genhedd’s body. This light pulsed through bands of black and white down its fluted torso and under layers of muscles, across its equine haunches and through long, flowing manes of fur that clung to its legs. Its hooves, though, were a dirty bone, like the unwashed teeth of a beggar, and its hairless arms were blotchy and gray, covered with scaly scabs and ornamented with all kinds of bracelets, rings and gemstones.

Genhedd’s ornamented, three-fingered hand wrapped around Tars head, and turned it this way and that. A thumb pulled back his lips to check his teeth.

‘I accept your offering.’ The voice of Genheed was loud, of course, the baritone of a being with mighty stature, but nonetheless it had a mundane quality, considering it issued from some ineffable hole in its glowing, sack-like head. ‘One whose behalf is it given?’

‘House D-daeinbgough!’ Lord Gemmel stuttered. He had fallen to one knee, but his eyes were down, not daring to meet the light that circled above Genhedd. The candles had all gone out. ‘Please favor us-’

‘A little premature, but the blood is good,’ Genhedd continued, as if he had not heard Gemmel at all, ‘I shall accept-’

“No! You will not!” Eibad stood, armed only with a pointing finger. His voice was like an early morning bird compared to Genhedd’s rumble, but the defiance in it carried well. Of course, Eibad had no plan now he might fight one of the sons of God, let alone beat him, but being vindicated in the twisted nature of Potolo’s ritual, he could hardly abandon his defiance now. ‘Unhand him…and begone!’

Genhedd’s crowning pouch shrank, and for a moment the light dimmed enough to tell the rows of exact veins that played across its surface. The Eumos regarded him. After a few moments, Genhedd understood the stance Eibad had adopted was one of a fighter.

‘You challenge?’

‘I do.’ Eibad’s response was instant. Recall that he was not a holy or even pious man, but he was eager to return to some familiar ground. He made the sign of the chains to the towering creature, and then raised his fists.

Its fingers wrapped around Tars and lifted him into the light. Eibad stepped forward to attack, and only then did he realize the rhythmic rumble was Genhedd’s laughter. Heedless, he struck, a forward-facing punch into the hairy knee of the creature.

The patterns beneath its skin changed, but if it felt pain, it gave no sign. He struck again, and a shadow crossed through the light; early warning of Genhedd’s massive hand as it reached down for him. So large it was that Eibad threw himself to the ground and rolled to avoid it. He scanned the back of the creature for weakness, but saw only jewels and pouches that hung from the back of its girdle, which itself was a complex knotting of multicolored fabrics.

It’s an old story, isn’t it? A skilled challenger against a powerful oaf. It would not be the first time Eibad had triumphed against a stronger opponent, and perhaps that thought was one of the last things to cross Eibad’s mind.

Genhedd Eumos was no oaf, of course. He was the son of two Gods and had fought in their name since the Age of Initiation, before years were counted. His duties were vital and jealously guarded from his siblings, who all coveted the glory of ruling over fertility and marriage for the power it would bring them over mortal affairs. Genhedd had always abided by a set of principals; it his mind, honor. He had allowed his challenger to make the sign of the chains, which, unbeknownst to Eibad was quite offensive to an Eumos, and even allowed him the first blow.

In the blink of an eye, Genhedd raised his hoof and kicked back. Yes, Eibad should have known better than to stand behind a creature who shared the blood of horses. It was a quick movement, but even so, Eibar’s life was ended before Genhedd’s hoof met the ground again.

Every bone in the many’s body was shattered and his skin was torn away around the curve of the strike. The strike had severed his spine and only gristle held him together. He felt nothing except shock, and perhaps that was Genhedd’s tacit acknowledgement of his bravery.

The brave man was dead and nothing more was said. Genhedd, Tars still clutched in his hand, rode the light he had brought back to his palace, and left the hall full of supplicants in total darkness.

The following days were very difficult for all involved, although Gemmel, Potol and Anar did not, as a habit, speak to one another, and nothing much changed about their circumstances.

Indeed, the revenants of Danod’s soldiers remained in place for many more weeks, and some among the warriors whispered that Gemmel, in his haste, had sacrificed their young ward and their master for nothing.

Of course, Gemmel himself wondered the same thing, but many among the footmen and servants begged Potol to educate them, and his following grew, so awed were they by his summoning.

The following month, though, a knightly band of Quarter-men came to the castle, and along with the warriors inside Ivriskap, they made war with the revenants and succeeded in destroying enough of them that burial fires could be dug outside, and the monsters were destroyed.

The Quarter-men proclaimed they had been led by a holy vision, since their leader was the equerry of a prophet, and Gemmel proclaimed them all saved by Potol’s Gamos. Unity was restored to Daienbough, and although morale was lost from his warriors, Gemmel forged on.

With his forces joined by Quarter-men, the warriors trained in more orthodox styles, and eventually joined an enormous host that had surged from the southern reaches of the Pale Country, leaving their solitary journey behind. Although Gemmel was forced to become but one chair under a very large tent, he did it under the sign of the Quarters and felt content, for a while. His campaign for glory ended the year afterwards, when a fierce battle on a steep slope bowled over his horse and he was pinned under it. He perished from thirst, abandoned by his men. His house never joined the Prytany, and indeed, he died without Solon ever hearing his name.

Anar did not fight with Gemmel for much longer; she and many of the other warriors who had felt that Eibad’s death was unjust learned what they could from the Quarter-men and journeyed to the south, where eventually they swore a fresh oath to the country of Yrel. Not being of its blood, they were allowed only to settle on its borders. Anar and all her fellow warriors ended their lives as they fought in a sudden raid by the reconstituted Vengel army, and were torn asunder by savage Vargs as they issued defiant shouts in their name of their new king.

Potol’s tale was the longest, and his Gamos brought him a great deal of esteem. In the following years he rose higher than Gemmel in the great host, and over the years advised Eteren Lechre, one of Vengel’s most dedicated supplicants, in many bloody campaigns, until duke Lechre returned to Vengel and died in his bid to claim the throne.

Potol, meanwhile, retired into seclusion, his witness to Genhedd’s manifestation had fueled a growing obsession with the Eumoi. He sought higher and higher audience as his following of eklesiasts and magicians grew. He would make a legacy of conducting the Gamos for influential patrons. Leant more and more power by the Eumoi, he sought an audience with Tengdemar, who some call the highest of the archemoi, but a carless word earned him Tengdemar’s ire, and he was pulled apart by goats.