Bloodchild. Anna Stephens

get. Patrolling the Western Plain is one thing, but why not besiege the South Rank forts? Break the threat on our flank ready to face the Listrans if they come?’

      Corvus stood and strode to the window and then back again. ‘You tell me nothing I haven’t thought already myself,’ he said eventually, and Valan’s shoulders relaxed a little. ‘And while our warriors are fit again, if we leave Rilporin now, we lose it to our own fucking slaves. Make no mistake, if we abandon this place, we’ll have to fight to retake it. If we pull the East Rank back to secure Rilporin, we lose the rest of the country. I’ve been waiting for Fost. Our women are well used to dealing with rebellious slaves, and with them in place to rule our households for us, aided by a few hundred of the men, we can leave Rilporin in safe hands.’

      Valan sat back with a soft whoosh of air. ‘I had not considered that,’ he admitted.

      They were interrupted by a pounding on the door, which was thrown open before Corvus could give leave to enter. He leapt on to the dais, banging his knee into the small table before the throne. ‘Fuck! Fost? Gods, we were just talking about …’ Fost’s face was grey beneath the sweat and stubble. He looked like a man with a hidden wound. ‘Tell me.’

      Fost bowed jerkily, gaze flickering from Corvus to Valan and back. He stopped well out of reach of either of them and weight settled in Corvus’s gut, black and heavy. ‘You don’t … didn’t my messenger reach you?’

      ‘Tell me.’

      Fost swallowed hard. ‘Dead, Sire. They’re all dead.’

      Valan grabbed his shoulder and threw him into the chair opposite Corvus. Corvus didn’t sit; he leant on his knuckles on the table. ‘Explain.’ His voice was quiet, deadly.

      Fost’s throat clicked as he swallowed and hurried to clarify. ‘Well, not all. I bring you one hundred and six children and seventy-two women, Sire. The only survivors of all our towns along the Sky Path. The rest are corpses, or missing in the storms in the mountains. A few weeks after we destroyed Watchtown, hundreds of Wolves took the Sky Path and slaughtered every woman, child and priest they could find. Our women and boys fought hard, but they were overwhelmed. The Wolves freed the slaves, who fled with the livestock, and we found a few children who’d survived the attack only to starve to death, it looked like. Those I have with me were clever or lucky enough to be overlooked, and although a few swear they saw the Wolves stealing children—’ Corvus’s breath hitched. He’d been a stolen child, stolen by the Mireces and brought into the Red Gods’ embrace. Saved. ‘—everyone else – everyone – is dead.’

      Now Corvus did sit, and Valan too, perching on the edge of the table with no thought for propriety. His second breathed as though he’d sprinted the length of the city, greasy sweat darkening his hair. His hands shook.

      They stared at Fost, and the war chief swallowed again. ‘Forgive me, Sire. I did not … There was nothing I could … They were already dead, months dead, by the time we reached Cat Valley, let alone all the way to Eagle Height.’

      ‘Who are the survivors?’ Valan asked, his voice hoarse. ‘Is Neela with them? My girls?’

      Fost’s shoulders hunched. ‘The women are all minor consorts from Falcon’s Landing and Cat Valley; a storm blew in and they were able to flee, invisible. The children are from all our towns, but Neela’s gone, Second, and your girls too. I’m sorry.’

      Corvus and Fost turned from Valan’s ragged grief, shuffling in their seats as he bent double, arms wrapped around his waist as though to ward off a blow. A strangled keening came from him that grated like stone against Corvus’s nerves.

      ‘I sent a messenger as soon as we reached Cat Valley, Sire, I swear. If I’d known he didn’t make it through …’ He blinked, then coughed. ‘We’re holding all the survivors outside the city for now, Sire. I wanted to inform you first, before the men see how few they are.’

       Almost all our women, our children. Our future, gone. We tore apart their people and they did the same to us. So be it. If they want a war of fucking attrition, they’ve got one.

      Corvus’s face was hot with rage, but an ice-cold, ice-hard ball of hate sat heavy in his chest. ‘Fost, you have a list of the women and children, who their consorts and fathers are?’ Corvus barely recognised his own voice, it was so harsh with sickening anger. He’d had a few consorts, at least one daughter, both in Crow Crag and Eagle Height. Fost’s refusal to even mention them said all he needed to know. The man nodded and held it out. Corvus didn’t look at it.

      ‘Bring the men to the women, not the other way around. Women whose man is dead will be reallocated on a merit basis in the first instance. I will announce the … tragedy at dusk, and ask the Blessed One to say a few words about what has happened.’

      ‘Your will, Sire.’

      ‘Valan, I grieve for your loss. Go to Pine Lock for me and kill those Evendoom brothers. Take out your rage on them and make sure everyone knows who they are and why they’re dying. I want everyone knowing the royals are dead, that my claim is uncontested.’

      He couldn’t even be sure Valan had heard him, but his second nodded and stalked from the throne room without another word. Corvus pitied anyone who got in his way. He poured ale, drank without tasting, then hurled the cup to shatter against the far wall.

       I will kill every last fucking one of them, roast them on spits, wind their guts out, peel their faces off. I will kill them all for this. Dark Lady, Gosfath, God of Blood, witness my oath. Now it’s personal.