an apology, before she stabbed the tip of her blade into the base of the kneeling man’s skull.
“Hurry!” she called to Vaelin, beckoning urgently before pointing her reddened steel in the direction of the fleeing boats. “We have to finish the rest!”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“The Stahlhast first came last spring.” The thin woman’s name was Ahn-Jin and she spoke in an accent very different to Chien’s, her voice possessing a softness that belied the tale she had to tell. A denizen of the hill country close to the northern border, she sat close to the stern with her five children, relating how her people had been forced to flee their village.
“There were only a hundred or so, that first time,” she went on. “They stole the naphtha we harvested from the earth, and some of our young folk, killing those who tried to fight.”
“So, that is their sole object?” Vaelin asked. “Theft and slaughter?”
She gave a grim shake of her head. “They made it clear this was just the first cut of many. They told us their god had been made flesh and now rode at the head of their horde. Soon he would sweep south to claim all the wealth of the Merchant Kings. When they stole and killed they had been laughing, but when they spoke of their god there was no laughter. Each bowed their head when one spoke his name, and it was spoken in a whisper.”
“His name?” Vaelin asked.
Ahn-Jin nodded and spoke a short phrase in Chu-Shin that caused Vaelin to straighten in surprise.
“Brother?” Nortah said. “What did she say?”
“The Stahlhast have a leader,” he murmured in response. “A man they think of as a living god, apparently. His name . . .” He let out a soft laugh, shaking his head. Simple coincidence, surely. “His name translates literally as ‘Darkblade.’”
Ellese let out a laugh at that, something he hadn’t heard her do for many days now. “How rude of him not to ask your permission, Uncle.” Seeing Alum’s puzzled expression she added in slowly phrased Realm tongue, “As far as my people are concerned, he”—she nodded at Vaelin—“is the Darkblade. Named in the Prophecies of the Maiden as a great and terrible scourge visited upon all those who enjoy the Father’s love, since redeemed by the word of Blessed Lady Reva, as inscribed in the Eleventh Book.” She closed her eyes, reciting the words with practised accuracy, “‘And so did the Darkblade come to Alltor in its time of direst need and with his steel and his fury did wash away his sins with the blood of our enemies.’”
She opened her eyes to regard Vaelin with unusually sincere gravity. “This simply won’t do, Uncle. There can’t be two of you. It’s blasphemy.”
Vaelin gave her a withering glance and turned back to Ahn-Jin. “So, that is why you fled?” he asked.
“We didn’t flee right away,” she said. “The Merchant King’s soldiers came a day later, the officer telling us it was just a raid and we should have fought harder to defend the king’s property. We were also fined for falling short on our quota for the season. The Stahlhast raided other villages in the months that followed, always in greater numbers, always taking more, killing more. In time the Merchant King sent his army, who also took from us. ‘Soldiers need to eat,’ they told us, ‘so they can fight in your defence.’ Weeks later they came back, what was left of them, a few dozen starving, terrified wretches who tried to steal from us again. The men of the village killed them with pickaxes. We tried to stay, some of the elders reasoning that conquest had come and gone before, that even the hated tribes that had rampaged all the way to the capital could be bought off with gold or naphtha. But then”—her expression darkened further—“the others came.”
“Others?” Vaelin prompted.
“Others in thrall to the Darkblade, but they were not Stahlhast. They were like us, from the northern villages, still like us in language and dress, but . . . changed. Most had no horses and carried only sparse weapons and armour, and they spoke only of him, their love for him. ‘You will all be redeemed in the sight of the Darkblade,’ they said, then they hung the monk who tended our temple from the gatepost and cut his belly open whilst his legs were still kicking. After that, we knew we couldn’t stay. I wanted to head east, to the