Compassion is cowardice! Wisdom is falsehood! If the blood be weak, let it spill!”
Tehlvar, our brother, lay naked on the altar before the priest, his body a pale, six-foot-long testament to the many battles of his life with its web of scars marring the honed muscle. I remember that he barely twitched as the knife hovered above. The priest waited until the shadows cast by the jagged majesty of the Great Tor faded, bespeaking the exact moment when the sun had aligned with this precise spot in the centre of the Iron Steppe. Then, as the slightly curved blade caught the midday sun, he brought it down. One swift, expertly placed thrust directly into Tehlvar’s heart. I watched my brother jerk as the blade sank home, watched him convulse with the last few beats of his sundered heart and then lay still.
“Druhr-Tivarik!” the Mestra-Dirhmar said, grunting a little with the effort of pulling the knife from Tehlvar’s body before raising it high. Blood streaked down his arm to bathe his bare torso. As one of the Divine Blood, I stood amongst the ranks of the favoured between the two massive stones that formed the east-facing gateway. Consequently, I was close enough to the altar to witness my brother’s murder in grim but fascinating detail. I remember watching as the blood dripped over the flaccid muscles of the priest’s chest to the sharp grate of his ribs. It was strange to think so mighty a warrior as Tehlvar could be slain by one so old and weak, one who had never known battle.
He is the Mestra-Dirhmar, I reminded myself, repeating the words and lowering my gaze in concert with the thousands of others gathered to witness this most sacred of rituals. He speaks for the Unseen. Even then the words felt empty, my subservience merely the rote response of a well-trained dog. A smaller but truer thought lay beneath my obeisance, even as I and the gathered luminaries of a hundred Skeld sank to our knees and bowed our heads to the earth: He is just a weak old man. Tehlvar was better.
You should understand, honoured reader, that I did not love Tehlvar. At thirteen years his junior I barely knew him except by reputation, but what a reputation it was. They say he killed more than fifty men in combat before ascending to Skeltir. It was under Tehlvar’s leadership that the pre-eminence of the Cova Skeld had been completed. It was through his courage and skill at the battle of the Three Rivers that the heretic traitors to the Divine Blood had been slain or captured. Although a good deal of discord lingered, many Skeld of the Hast now stood as allies rather than endlessly feuding rivals. But it hadn’t been enough to spare Tehlvar the Great Priest’s knife.
Having been called to the Great Tor, he was required to answer the last of the Three Questions, an answer that would see him receive his final blessing as Mestra-Skeltir: Great Lord of the Hast. Twice before the priests had summoned him to answer a question, and twice before he had provided an acceptable answer. Not all Skeltir are chosen for this honour, just those who have won the greatest renown. Years would pass without a question being asked and only four other Skeltir in all the long history of the Hast had ever answered two questions correctly, and none the third. Long had we awaited the coming of the Mestra-Skeltir, the leader who would ensure our ascendancy over not just the Iron Steppe but the far-wealthier lands of the Merchant Kings to the south.
But whatever Tehlvar’s answer had been, spoken only to the gathering of priests far beyond the ears of the assembled throng, it had not been sufficient to secure his ascendency. Druhr-Tivarik he was, the Divine Blood flowed in his veins as it flows through mine, but it had been proven weak, and if the blood be weak, let it spill.
“Kehlbrand Reyerik!” the Mestra-Dirhmar intoned, lowering the knife to point the blade at the young man kneeling at my side. “Stand and be recognised!”
I watched my brother rise, seized by the impulse to reach out and stop him somehow. Although young and steeped in the priests’ lies as I was, I still knew his choosing to be a curse and not a blessing. To restrain him at that moment would have meant death, and not the swift end meted out to Tehlvar. Interference in the priests’ rituals would earn