He landed in a tumble, came up on to his feet and burst into the clearing. Ash, on his back in the leaf-litter, brawling.
Sword. Crys dived forward, scooped up the weapon by its scabbard and clubbed Ash’s attacker between the shoulder blades as though he was splitting wood, reversed the blade and ripped it free, spun to deflect the spear thrust with the scabbard and punched the sword into the spearman’s ribs.
His attacker dropped his weapon to clutch at the wound and Crys spun again, almost dizzy with it, but Ash rammed an arrow in his enemy’s thigh, fishing for and finding the main artery, and people rarely think about killing someone when their life is pumping out of their leg.
Ash heaved the man off him and staggered to his feet, gasping and wiping blood out of his eyes. Two of the three he’d put down with arrows were dead, the third wounded and trying to crawl to safety. Ash went over and stamped on his back, shoving him into the dirt.
‘Start talking,’ he growled as Crys finished the other two, who were dying already, and then crouched at the injured man’s side. One side of his head was shaved and tattooed with a stylised hare.
‘Shit,’ he breathed. ‘Krikites.’
‘Fucking Rilporians!’ the man raged. ‘The Seer-Mother has forbidden you to set foot in Krike! All Rilporians to be killed on sight. We’ll lend you no aid in your war!’ He had an arrow in his shoulder, through and through, and he was pale with shock and blood loss.
‘The Seer-Mother made this pronouncement, not the Warlord?’ Ash demanded. ‘Who is she to give such orders?’
‘The Seer-Mother sees all, knows all,’ the Krikite snarled, hand clamped around the arrow. He groaned. ‘The Warlord bows to her wisdom.’
‘Wisdom?’ Crys spat as the Fox God rumbled discontent. ‘This is not wisdom. Has the Seer-Mother forgotten her oath to Trickster and Dancer? To me?’
‘You?’ the Krikite tried, but then he squeaked as Crys’s eyes flared yellow. ‘Rilporian demon,’ he muttered. ‘Please. Don’t hurt me.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you, Hare-dream,’ Crys said, touching the tattoo. ‘But the Seer-Mother is wrong in this. Rilpor needs aid and sends me to garner it. I am no demon, Krikite. I am the Fox God and you will lead me to your people.’
‘You what?’ the man asked, and then gasped as Ash snapped the tail from the arrow in his shoulder.
‘Waste of a good shaft,’ he murmured as he bent the man forward and and drew it on through and out, fighting the sucking pull of the flesh. The man screeched and thick pulses of blood leaked from the entry and exit wounds. Ash batted his hand away. ‘Go on, then. Do it.’
Crys put his palms against the wounds and let the light rise. The man’s pain became terror, became awe, and by the time it was done, the fervour of belief shone in his face. He looked at the place where the arrow had been and flexed his arm, then at the newly sealed scar in Crys’s own arm from the spear thrust.
Ash helped him to his feet. ‘When they ask, you tell them the Fox God Himself spared your life and then saved your life. Wait here.’
The Krikite’s jaw was slack and he held out a wondering hand, brushing it gently over the scars on Crys’s chest. ‘I see you, Lord.’
Crys straightened his shoulders. ‘And I see you.’
They dressed hurriedly and Crys looked at those they’d killed, wondering whether he should have tried to save them.
There have to be consequences, the Fox God told him.
Ash buckled his belt and winced as the adrenaline faded and the hurts made themselves known. ‘One way to start a legend,’ he sighed. ‘No healing for me,’ he said, slinging an arm around Crys’s shoulders and pressing a kiss to his temple. ‘I don’t know if you’ve got a limit on that silver light, but use it for something more important than bruises. Besides, sometimes we should hurt. Keeps us sharp.’
Crys squeezed his waist. ‘You’re wiser than you look, heart-bound,’ he said. ‘One of the reasons I love you. But let’s catch up with Cutta before anyone else decides to try and kill us.’
‘Once this one tells his tale to all who’ll listen, we’ll have even more warriors on our side. At this rate we won’t even need to meet the Warlord,’ Ash said as they began walking, pointing to the Krikite now following so closely he almost trod on Crys’s heels.
Crys frowned. ‘No. There’s something I can’t quite put my finger on, but I have to go to Seer’s Tor. There’s something wrong in Krike. All those stories I learnt in the South Rank, everything I told you before Green Ridge about the Krikites and their way of life … well, we haven’t seen any of that, have we? No, there’s something going on here.’ He shrugged. ‘Besides, it’s only fair to meet the man we’re stealing warriors from and give him the chance to join us.’
‘Think he will?’ Ash asked.
‘I really don’t know.’
The Krikite’s name was Sati Hare-dream, and when he burst into Belt Town shouting news of the Two-Eyed Man, Crys was relieved to find Cutta and her warriors already there. He didn’t much fancy explaining having killed four of their number and then asking them to ally with him and Rilpor.
Cutta’s relief at seeing them again was palpable, and it was clear she’d already spent some time trying to convince the town elders of Crys’s double identity, because they didn’t fall about laughing at Sati’s pronouncement.
‘Where is the rest of your hunting party, Hare-dream?’ an elder asked and Ash tensed.
‘In our ignorance we attacked the Two-Eyed Man and his lover,’ Sati said. ‘It was the Lord’s will only I survived.’
I wouldn’t say will, exactly, Crys thought. More like terror. He decided it wouldn’t be particularly godlike to tell them that, though.
‘I would be happy to speak with your priests,’ he said instead. The elders exchanged mutters and embarrassed looks. ‘You do have priests?’
‘The Seer-Mother dispenses wisdom from the tor,’ Cutta said when no one would answer him. ‘I told you this.’
Crys rounded on her. ‘You mean there are no priests left in the whole of Krike, not just Green Ridge? What did you do, kill them?’
‘Of course not,’ Cutta protested. ‘But when the Seer-Mother’s gifts made them obsolete, they were given other work.’
‘Horseshit,’ Ash muttered. Even Dom looked shocked and Crys couldn’t remember an expression other than self-pity on the calestar’s face since they’d left Rilporin. He swallowed bitterness and put him out of his mind.
‘What is a community without priests?’
‘The Seer-Mother dispenses judgement,’ Sati ventured.
‘I did not say judgement; I said community. Your priests are still here – you have just stopped recognising their wisdom. Bring them to me.’
As war leader of the region, it seemed Cutta outranked even the elders, for soon enough an old woman hobbled towards Crys, labouring along the rutted road from a dark, ramshackle house on the outskirts of town. Ostracised. Crys favoured them all with a disgusted look and jogged to meet her; he could hear her whistling breath from ten paces away. He stopped her with a gentle touch and stooped to meet her eyes.
‘Priestess of Trickster and Dancer, I am the Two-Eyed Man and I see you as the vessel through which wisdom passes. Tell me, how can I prove my identity?’
She examined him for long enough that he started to get uncomfortable and doubt began to rear its head. ‘It is for the Seer-Mother to say who you are and who you are not,’ she said in the end, her voice thin as paper. ‘It is she who sees and knows all.’