getting a grip on his emotions. I’m not human now - this is how men act in the presence of the Chosen.
He looked down at his left hand and waggled his fingers. They moved more easily than they ever had in armour before, but that was small consolation for the fact the metal had fused to his skin from fingertip to shoulder. Vesna had expected the teardrop-shaped ruby attached to his cheek to remain, but not this too. Now he was just as noticeable as a white-eye, except amidst soldiers, and even then, Vesna had discovered all eyes turned towards him. He could see the fear in their eyes, and the awe at the presence of the Mortal-Aspect of Karkarn, the God of War’s chosen general. Every soldier could feel him like the heat of a furnace on their skin.
There were four of them in the guest bedroom of Perolain Manor, in the southernmost reaches of Helrect’s borders. The countess who owned it had, Vesna suspected, once been a member of the White Circle. As a result she couldn’t have been more helpful to the retreating Farlan Army in an effort to avoid possible reprisals.
Outside, a gale howled and battered the walls of the manor. He had been able to smell the cold emanating off those aides who’d come in from the camp to report. It was a freezing night once again, and more than one had had to gasp for breath as they stood as near as they could to the small fire.
Suzerain Torl stood at Vesna’s side: a tall, stern man, and the tribe’s most devoted soldier. Neither looked at his best; having lost most of the army’s baggage in their retreat the Farlan troops could hardly now be described as the peacocks their enemies nicknamed them.
The strain of the past weeks was clear to see on Torl’s lined face. The suzerain looked exhausted, as if he had aged ten winters in one, but Vesna would have traded with him in a heartbeat. He looked at his left arm and flexed his fingers. The armour covering it was far less unwieldy that it had previously been, but still . . . Once made to measure for him, the black-iron was now a horrifying parody of Lord Isak’s lightning-marked arm.
The divine air surrounding Vesna hadn’t been enough for Karkarn, it appeared, nor had turning the scars of past injuries blood-red, so they stood out on his pale Farlan skin. Now Vesna was a clear statement to the entire Land: Gods walk among mortals once more.
‘Count Vesna?’ the mage said in an abrupt, emotionless voice. He knelt on the stone floor, swaying rhythmically as though listening to a song in his head. Despite the privations they were all suffering, the mage’s head was freshly shaved and his skin scrubbed clean as he was ritually purified.
‘Yes,’ Vesna barked, moving back around the mage with such speed the attendant’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘This is Fernal,’ the mage replied after a pause in which he had mouthed Vesna’s reply. The ritual matched his thoughts to those of his twin, allowing them to relay a conversation across hundreds of miles. ‘I am here with Chief Steward Lesarl, Lady Tila and High Cardinal Certinse.’
Vesna and Torl exchanged puzzled looks. Only one person could speak through the mage; why would that be Fernal? Vesna imagined the huge Demi-God sitting in the now-vacant ducal throne in Tirah, and something about that image made him pause. As big as the Chosen, with midnight-blue skin and a mane of shaggy hair falling from his fierce, lupine face; Fernal presented a savage visage that belied his quiet nature. He was a bastard son of Nartis, the Farlan’s patron God, but he remained an outsider to the tribe.
‘I have been named Lord of the Farlan,’ the mage said after a longer pause. ‘Lord Isak appointed me as his successor and the Synod has reluctantly confirmed it.’
Vesna gasped. Isak had discussed nothing of the kind with him, and he was one of the dead lord’s closest friends. ‘I — I had no idea,’ he stammered, seeing Torl was as shocked as he was. ‘I congratulate you, my Lord.’
Isak’s death hung like a black cloud at the back of Vesna’s mind, but he refused to allow himself to mourn yet — not while his grip on the battered Farlan Army remained so tenuous. His new-found divine emotions had allowed him to dissociate himself from the ball of loss that appeared in his stomach