Leviathan's Blood (66 page)

‘No,’ Orlan corrected him softly. ‘No, I am sorry to say that they will not do all of that. Se’Saera has issued an order to Ren and his soldiers. She has ordered them to
leave the country. She has demanded that Aela Ren and his soldiers destroy Cynama so that the path to Dyanos is clear.
Glafanr
will meet us there. After that, we are to head to Leera
– and you and I are to be part of that journey, I am afraid. There may be no guards around us, Bueralan, but we are prisoners who are to be loaded onto that ship before it sails into her war
against the Kingdoms of Faaisha, against Yeflam, and against the remains of Mireea.’

‘Why the rush?’

‘She has seen the future,’ he said, as a single butterfly rose into the burnt sky before them. ‘General Waalstan will not survive the year.’

The girl led him into the small, warm house. It had only two bedrooms, a kitchen that led into a tiny backyard, and a small living room filled with jars and books and boxes. In
the last, Heast knew, the bones of the witch, Anemone, were packed beside the bones of her daughter, her sister, her mother, and the two generations of women who had come before her. They had bound
themselves to their daughters in servitude and, Heast suspected, the old witch had done the same to the girl who he followed.

‘Have you taken her name?’ he asked.

‘It is an old name,’ the girl replied. ‘One with power, one without.’

‘It is also a flower.’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘My grandmother bids you hello.’

He sat on an old lounge, the fabric torn around the edges of the arms, and stretched his steel leg out. ‘I am sorry I missed the funeral.’

‘She knows you are not, Captain,’ the young Anemone replied. ‘The rituals that bound her to me are nothing you would find pleasant. In fact, if I were to be honest, my
grandmother’s opinion is that you do not like witches at all.’

‘I liked her,’ he said. ‘But she and I have had that conversation before. If she is to haunt me with it, she can begin another day. What else does she have to say?’

The girl laughed, and in her laugh, Heast heard echoes of the old woman he had known. ‘She wants you to know that she is sorry to hear about Baeh Lok,’ Anemone said, sitting on a
chair opposite him. ‘She wished that she could have spared him that fate. However, it is her opinion that he was right to take the letter to you. The war is going poorly for the Lords of
Faaisha. The rumours of defections in the smaller kingdoms are true, just as the defeats in others are. But she says that is not the reason she agrees with the calling of Refuge. Kingdoms rise and
fall, she says. But now there is a god. Se’Saera has been named. She has been revealed. She says that you have seen the soldiers she has made and you have heard about the slave routes to
Gogair. Grandmother says that is enough for Refuge. She says it was enough for the soldiers, it is enough for the witch, and it should be enough for the captain.’

‘Should it?’

‘She also wants you to know that your friend, the one who accompanied you long ago, the one who frightened her.’ The girl paused. ‘Zaifyr,’ she said. ‘Grandmother
says that he has died.’

‘And Muriel Wagan?’ he asked.

‘She still lives.’

Heast pushed himself slowly from the couch and thanked the girl.

‘My grandmother,’ Anemone said, as he reached the front door of the house, ‘wants to know what you think.’

He met the girl’s dark eyes. ‘It is enough,’ he said.

‘She wants me to accompany you when you leave.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘There is no future for me here,’ she said truthfully. ‘I wish to continue my grandmother’s legacy. It is mine, as well.’

‘Gather your things,’ Heast said. ‘We won’t be here long.’

It was the news about Zaifyr that sat uncomfortably in him as he left the girl and made his way to The Eel. It surprised Heast and he wanted to question it, but he could not imagine that the old
witch would have lied to him: he could no more doubt her loyalty in death than in life. Still, a part of him had relied on Zaifyr to kill Se’Saera, to leave the Leeran Army without its
figurehead, to leave him a simple, if messy, job.

Inside The Eel, Kye Taaira was waiting silently at a table surrounded by Maosan veterans. Only Qiyala engaged him in conversation, but even she, when Heast pushed through the door, raised her
hand with the others to call him over. In the discussion that followed, the veterans voiced their discontent, their fear and their anger, but Heast found himself returning to the death of Zaifyr,
to the failure of the charm-laced man’s gambit. He had placed everything on convincing the Keepers to side with him. He had allowed shackles to be put around his hands. He had let the house
he had sat in become a prison. He had been so sure and so confident that Heast could imagine that he had only failed if both the Enclave and Se’Saera had fought against him. He would have to
know for sure, of course, but if such an alliance had occurred . . . well, Heast had to admit, the complaints that he was hearing might soon become calls for peace.

Eventually, he left the veterans and fell asleep on the narrow bed. In the morning, he awoke to find that the rain still fell.

Heast did not eat breakfast that morning. Instead, he belted his sword around his waist and, with the tribesman beside him, walked into the stables. There, Anemone waited for him. She had an
old, thick cloak over the clothes she wore the day before, and around her waist were a dagger and a collection of pouches. She had neither a pony, nor a horse, and he made a mental note to buy her
both before the day was out. Kye Taaira greeted her respectfully, but it was onto the back of Heast’s horse that the young witch climbed, and the three of them rode silently through the muddy
streets, turning not in the direction of the gates of Maosa, but towards the castle.

Veterans began to emerge onto the streets as the three of them made their way in the rain. At first, they came singly and in pairs, but a large group, led by Qiyala, waited for them before the
castle. He felt Anemone’s warm, excited breath against his neck as he and Taaira rode up the path, and he glanced at the tribesman once, to find that he regarded everything taking place with
a calm acceptance. The guards outside the castle took the reins of Heast’s and Taaira’s mounts as they drew up to the heavy doors of the building.

Inside, he made his way to the centre of the castle. On his right stood Kye Taaira, on his left, Anemone, and behind him followed Qiyala and the veterans. The doors of the throne room opened at
his approach and the tall, robed figure of Kotan Iata was revealed. He stood in the chalk outline of the Kingdoms of Faaisha, a silver goblet of wine in his hand, and a young page with
chalk-stained hands crouched over the map, recolouring the blemishes that had been made by the wooden figures and their movements. At the sight of Heast, Iata frowned, but his scowl deepened into
outrage when he realized that behind him were his own soldiers.

‘You were not invited here,’ Iata said, throwing the goblet where, a moment ago, the page had knelt. ‘Guards—’

Heast’s hand clamped over his mouth and his dagger plunged into Iata’s stomach.

The self-proclaimed Warden of Maosa struggled, but soon his body dropped to the floor. In the silence that followed, Heast turned to the men and women who stood behind him and regarded each of
them. ‘My name,’ he said, ‘is Aned Heast. I am the Captain of Refuge.’

The Godless

Leviathan’s Blood

Ben Peek is the critically acclaimed author of
The Godless
and three previous novels,
Black Sheep
,
Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth
, and
Above/Below
, co-written with Stephanie Campisi.
He has also written a short story collection,
Dead Americans
. In addition to this, Peek is the creator of the psychogeography pamphlet,
The Urban Sprawl Project
. With the artist Anna Brown, he
created the autobiographical comic
Nowhere Near Savannah
. He lives in Sydney with his partner, the photographer Nikilyn Nevins, and their cat, Lily.

www.benpeek.livejournal.com

@nosubstance

First published 2016 by Tor

This electronic edition published 2016 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-4472-5187-3

Copyright © Ben Peek, 2016

Cover images: figures on horseback © Stephen Mulcahey/Arcangel
All other images Shutterstock. Cover design by Neil Lang

The right of Ben Peek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

Map artwork © David Atkinson 2014:
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