Fá begins removing the muzzle.
“She may blaspheme the Allfather,” Volga warns and shoots me a look that says, Don’t get yourself killed.
“Did I break Ilium only to fear the voice of a silly Red girl?” he says and finishes removing the muzzle. I’d spit at him if my mouth was not chalk dry from fear. “Darrow has fallen far. Once, I admired him. But what sort of warrior sends such a fragile thing to do his dirty work?” he asks. “Defeat has made him a coward.”
“He issued you a challenge, didn’t he?” I reply. “You’re the coward. Hiding behind your army.”
“I am here,” Fá says. “Under the open sky. Where is he? Hiding in the Deep.” He smiles as I try to hide my surprise. “Yes. I know he awaits me there, girl. Just as I know he let me take two of the sealifts, both leading to an obvious trap. But there are other routes down, down, down.” He chuckles. “Do you know what a Moses Column is? A pillar of force that parts the very sea.”
Oh gods. Does Darrow know Fá’s plan?
I sneer because it’s all I can do. “Did Atlas show those routes to you?” I ask in Nagal and shout to the jarls. “Fá is a puppet of the Fear Knight. You are tools of Gold.” Then in Common, “Do you hear? The Fear Knight is the Allfather! You are puppets of the Society!”
The party is loud and Fá has not called for their attention. Few pay me any mind. Their diversions are more interesting than a babbling Red girl. Fá smiles down at me. “Your Nagal appalls. Darrow must be desperate if the only weapons he has are lies.” He returns his attention to Volga. “I am told she carried a message too?”
Volga proffers up the holocube.
Fá rolls the cube between his fingers. “More lies?”
“They say you serve Atlas,” Volga says.
“I have told you of my time with Atlas.”
“They say you serve him still.”
Fá watches her a moment before chuckling. “They would. Would they not? So many lies to tear us apart.” Fá crushes the cube. “Your loyalty brightens my heart, daughter.”
“I am glad, for I must ask a boon of you. I owe Lyria a debt. She is dear to me. Aside from you, she is all that is dear to me. I would ask for your mercy, my King. Allow me to add her to my retinue or send her back to Mars.”
“Is she a friend of our people?”
“Yes.”
“Did she not come for Darrow?”
“No. She came for me.” I know deep down she believes that. “She was a slave like us, and the Republic has mistreated her too. Her eyes are not open, but her heart is brave.”
For a moment, I see great sadness in Fá’s eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, and then seems to change his mind. His eyes harden, and he waves to the partying jarls. “You know what they say of you, my kin. The Volk claim you are impure. Unnaturally born. The Ascomanni whisper of your mercies. They think you are weak, with Republic sympathies, and worse. A woman. Look at them. Beasts, all. They follow us like desert creatures follow a man without water. Waiting. Waiting.”
“We are the blood of Ragnar,” Volga says. “Let them wait.”
Fá smiles. “The power of blood is like the power of a crown. It is an illusion. There are deeper truths you do not yet grasp. Sacrifices I have made to become what I am.” Again, he looks sad, and he touches her face. “You have led in war, but you are still like snow. Now is not the time for mercy, granddaughter. Now is the time for you to prove what you are. To them. To me. To yourself.” He pauses. “To the Allfather, most of all.”
Volga frowns in worry. “I don’t understand.”
A gong sounds, followed by several more. Ascomanni with strange helmets begin to drone from their place atop the acropolis’s roof. Fá glances up at them in annoyance. “Shamans. Ugh.” Jarls playing in the garden begin to find their way back to the table. The Ascomanni move with excitement, the Volk in annoyance. “First, another mythic feat for the small minded. The Holy Kill is upon us. To your seat, daughter. All will be made clear.”
Fá’s bodyguards take custody of me and drag me toward Sigurd as Volga takes a seat at the high table. When the jarls have all returned to their seats, Fá jumps onto the table. The added weight from all the jarls leaning forward on it has ended the misery of the Golds beneath it.
“My jarls of war! Invincible brothers! Sons of Kuthul! Brothers of Ragnar! For three hours we have feasted, ten more lie before us!” The Ascomanni roar. Some of the Core Obsidian join them. “Now the Allfather, who has delivered Europa’s bounty unto us, hungers for our sacrifice!” Ascomanni shamans drift down from the acropolis’s roof to cry out a song and fall to their knees shrieking prayers. Slaves file out carrying entire trees, which are stacked before the shamans. When their chanting reaches a crescendo, fire leaps up from the stacked trees. Like magic. The shamans’ chanting subsides, and a hush falls over the crowd. Fá has raised his palms, calling for quiet.
“On Io, Jarl Volarus claimed the honor of the hunt! We feasted on Abraxes, mightiest drake of the Raa herd. Yes, we ate of his heart and flesh, and pitched his organs in the volcano Prometheus in offering to the Allfather.”
He flourishes his scale cape and then thrusts the trident at a flat-nosed Ascomanni.
“On Callisto, the honor of the hunt was claimed by Ramanar the Ice Blood. And we feasted on the mighty ghost raptor Fenoracius and ate his heart and flesh and burned his organs in offering to the Allfather. On Europa, the honor has been claimed by Jarl Gherala of the Third Band.”
He turns to a lean Ascomanni of his own height.
“Jarl Gherala, I starve like a slave. But you, my most loyal jarl, you have brought me the fallen King of Europa to feast upon! You have wrested him from his ocean throne, dragged him up from his watery lair. Where is he? Where is Cyaxares?”
69
LYRIA
Hour of Hunger
I FEEL LIKE I AM watching a Violet drama.
Jarl Gherala points his spear at the sea. Engines rumble and a gravskiff rises up from the sea, up and up toward the acropolis. It is an immense machine, maybe two hundred meters long and just as many wide. Its edges are gilded in gold and silver. Maybe the surface is too, but it’s hard to tell because a beast covers it end to end.
A leviathan thrashes beneath chains. Its body is black and gold and nearly too large for the altar. Its central face is like that of a shark. About ten meters behind its neck sprout fin-like appendages, each with their own eyes and mouths at the end—smaller than its central face and the mouths more like the beaks of squid. Its midsection is swollen like a whale’s and tapers to a long, thick tail with three dorsal fins. Lidless milky eyes stare out.
Even Sigurd flinches at the power of its thrashing.
Jarl Gherala watches it with cool satisfaction. He cries out in Nagal: “Only kings may kill kings. My lord Fá, the honor is yours.”
Fá twirls his new trident and heads for the gravskiff. As the shamans chant, he jumps the gap between the acropolis and the skiff. He may be old, but he’s as nimble as an acrobat. Using the chains that bind the beast, Fá climbs until he stands just behind its main head. He laughs and rides its bucking muscled body. Its smaller mouths snap at him. “Allfather! I offer you this stain!” Fá cries and brings the trident down.