Witch Eater, Thesorma Raadil, all bedecked in zebra skins, her four arms lifting this way and that, threatening with the four sacred weapons of the Dal Hon tribes. Bola, kout, hook-scythe and rock – he could never understand that: where were the more obvious ones? Knife?
Spear? Bow? Who thought up these goddesses anyway? What mad, twisted, darkly amused mind conjured such monstrosities? Whoever it was – is – I hate him. Or her. Probably her. It's always her. 'She's a witch, isn't she? No, Witch Eater. Likely a man, then, and one not mad or stupid after all. Someone has to eat all those witches.
Yet she was advancing on him. Balm. A mediocre warlock – no, a lapsed warlock – just a soldier, now, in fact. A sergeant, but where in Hood' s name was his squad? The army? What was he doing on the savannah of his homeland? I ran from there, oh yes I did. Herd cattle? Hunt monstrous, vicious beasts and call it a fun pastime? Not for me. Oh no, not Balm. I've drunk enough bull blood to sprout horns, enough cow milk to grow udders – 'so you, Witch Eater, get away from me!'
She laughed, the sound a predictable hiss, and said, 'I'm hungry for wayward warlocks-'
'No! You eat witches! Not warlocks!'
'Who said anything about eating?'
Balm tried to get away, scrabbling, clawing, but there were rocks, rough walls, projections that snagged him. He was trapped. 'I'm trapped!'
'Get away from him, you rutting snake!'
A voice of thunder. Well, minute thunder. Balm lifted his head, looked round. A huge beetle stood within arm's reach – reared up on its hind legs, its wedge-shaped head would have been level with Balm's knees, could he stand. So, huge in a relative sense. Imparala Ar, the Dung God – 'Imparala! Save me!'
'Fear not, mortal,' the beetle said, antennae and limbs waving about.
'She'll not have you! No, I have need of you!'
'You do? For what?'
'To dig, my mortal friend. Through the vast dung of the world! Only your kind, human, with your clear vision, your endless appetite! You, conveyor of waste and maker of rubbish! Follow me, and we shall eat our way into the very Abyss itself!'
'Gods, you stink!'
'Never mind that, my friend – before too long you too-'
'Leave him alone, the both of you!' A third voice, shrill, descending from above and closing fast. 'It's the dead and dying who cry out the truth of things!'
Balm looked up. Brithan Troop, the eleven-headed vulture goddess. 'Oh, leave me alone! All of you!'
From every side, now, a growing clamour of voices. Gods and goddesses, the whole Dal Honese menagerie of disgusting deities.
Oh, why do we have so many of them?
It was her sister, not her. She remembered, as clearly as if it had been yesterday, the night of lies that lumbered into the Itko Kanese village when the seas had been silent, empty, for too long. When hunger, no, starvation, had arrived, and all the civil, modern beliefs – the stately, just gods – were cast off once again. In the name of Awakening, the old grisly rites had returned.
The fish had gone away. The seas were lifeless. Blood was needed, to stir the Awakening, to save them all.
They'd taken her sister. Smiles was certain of it. Yet, here were the rough, salt-gnawed hands of the elders, carrying her drugged, insensate body down onto the wet sands – the tide drawn far back and waiting patiently for this warm gift – whilst she floated above herself, looking on in horror.
All wrong. Not the way it had happened. They'd taken her twin sister – so much power in the Mirror Birth, after all, and so rare in the small village where she'd been born.
Her sister. That was why she'd fled them all. Cursing every name, every face glimpsed that night. Running and running, all the way to the great city to the north – and, had she known what awaited her there…
No, I'd do it again. I would. Those bastards. 'For the lives of everyone else, child, give up your own. This is the cycle, this is life and death, and that eternal path lies in the blood. Give up your own life, for the lives of all of us.'
Odd how those priests never volunteered themselves for that glorious gift. How they never insisted that they be the ones tied and weighted down to await the tide's wash, and the crabs, the ever hungry crabs.
And, if it was so damned blissful, why pour durhang oil down her throat, until her eyes were like black pearls and she couldn't even walk, much less think? Still less comprehend what was happening, what they were planning to do to her?
Drifting above the body of herself, Smiles sensed the old spirits drawing close, eager and gleeful. And, somewhere in the depths beyond the bay, waited the Eldest God. Mael himself, that feeder on misery, the cruel taker of life and hope.