“No, that’s right. Just domination by the Aldrain. I think I’ve got some sense of what that’ll be like.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say.” A quick trace of anger in the dwenda’s voice, as quickly wiped away. “There is no reason human and dwenda can’t coexist as we did once before. Our chronicles are full of warriors from your race, taken in out of pity or love and rising to great stature among us. I myself—”

He stopped. Made a small gesture.

“No matter. I’m not some market trader at Strov, hawking his wares, nor a member of the Chancellery making his empty speeches for funds and a handsgrab more power over his fellow humans. If your own wits and experience will not convince you, then I will not drag you to an understanding you do not want to own.” He turned abruptly away. “Come, we are here on other business.”

They picked a careful path through the swampy ground, around the massive iron flank of the platform, to where something like a partially roofed corral had been built against the lowest visible flange. There was a fence of some material similar to the wires of the Aldrain bridge, though nowhere near as subtly worked. Woven more thickly, the same webbing went to form three long, low structures like stables, which were backed up to the ironwork of the platform. The ground the corral occupied was firm and looked dry, was perhaps reinforced with the same Aldrain building materials as the rest, but outside the fence swamp water pooled and sat in stagnant, grayish expanses. The path through was twisted and deceptive and ended at a chained gate.

Around the corral, and set back about a yard from the fence, a number of small, blunt objects protruded from the water. Ringil made them for rotted tree stumps until they were almost at the gate, and one of the nearer protrusions made a wet, sucking sound. He looked down at it more carefully.

And recoiled.

Fuck!

The object was a human head, fixed neatly at the neck to the tree stump he’d believed it to be. A young woman’s head, long hair trailing down into the soupy gray water in clotted rat’s tails. As he stared at it, the neck corded and twisted about, and out of a pale face the woman’s eyes found his. Mud-streaked, her mouth twisted and formed a silent word.

. . . please . . .

Grace-of-Heaven’s story slammed back through him:

I didn’t say these men were dead. I said all that came back were their heads. Each one still living, grafted at the neck to a seven-inch tree stump.

Swamp-water tears started from the woman’s eyes, ran dirty down her face.

Ringil’s eyes darted out across the swamp, and the other protrusions that studded the surface. It was an arc of the same horror, living human heads staring inward at the corral.

He’d seen dragonfire and the charred bodies of children on spits over roasting pits. He’d thought himself hardened to pretty much anything by now.

He was not.

“What the fuck is this, Seethlaw?”

The dwenda was occupied with the chain on the fence, hands laid on and murmuring softly to it. He looked up distractedly.

“What?” He saw the direction of Ringil’s stare. “Oh, those are the escapees. Got to hand it to you, you humans are a stubborn lot. We told them where they were, told them there wasn’t any easy way out of the swamp, told them it was dangerous to try. We told them if they stayed put they’d be fed and well treated. They still kept trying. So those are a kind of object lesson. We don’t have so many escape attempts now. In fact, mostly they stay inside, and certainly well away from the fence.”

Ringil’s eyes went to the stable construction in the shadow of the Kiriath iron. He pressed his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth.

“These are the marsh blood slaves? You’re keeping them here.”

“Yes.” Seethlaw lifted the suddenly unfastened chain aside and pushed the gate open. He seemed to notice Ringil’s expression for the first time. “So what? What’s the matter?”

“You.” It was as if he suddenly could not draw breath properly. “Did this, to them, just to warn the others?”

“Yes. An object lesson, as I said.”

“How long do they go on living like that?”

“Well,” Seethlaw frowned. “Indefinitely, given water supply to the roots. Why?”

“You motherfuckers.” Involuntarily, Ringil found he was shaking his head. “Ahhh, you fucking piece of shit. You cunt. No reason human and dwenda cannot coexist? What do you call that, then? What kind of fucking coexistence is that?”

Seethlaw stopped and fixed him with a stare.

“Is it any worse,” he asked softly, “than the cages at the eastern gate in Trelayne, where your transgressors hang in agony for days at a time as an example to the masses? There is no pain involved in this process, you know.”

Ringil forced down memory of the searing agony he had never suffered. “No pain involved? Would you choose it for yourself, you fucker?”

“No. Clearly not.” The dwenda seemed genuinely perplexed by the question. “But their path is not mine, nor would I have walked it the way they have. This really is a minor matter, Ringil. You’re making far too much of it.”

In that single instant, Ringil would willingly have given his soul to have the weight of the Ravensfriend on his back, the dragon-tooth dagger in his sleeve. Instead, he swallowed hard, swallowed down his hate and looked away from the muddied woman’s face, through the open gate of the corral.

“Why?” he managed, in a shaking voice. “Why have you brought them here? What purpose does it serve?”

Seethlaw studied him for a long moment.

“I’m not sure you will understand,” he said. “You are being very obtuse at the moment.”

Ringil bared his teeth. “Try me.”

“Very well. They are to be honored.”

“Oh, that sounds delightful. That’s better than the Revelation’s purifying inquisitorial love, that is.”

“As I said, I do not expect you to understand. The marsh dwellers on the Naom plain are the closest to kin that the Aldrain have in this world. Thousands of years ago, their clans were favored retainers to the dwenda, favored enough that we mingled our blood with theirs. Their descendants, in however attenuated a form, carry our bloodline.”

“That’s a fucking myth,” Ringil said disgustedly. “That’s the lie they sell down at Strov market so they can jack you twice as much to read your fortune. Don’t tell me you fell for that shit. What, three fucking years of politics in Trelayne, rubbing shoulders with the best liars and thieves in the League, and you still can’t see a simple street scam like that coming at you?”

Seethlaw smiled. “No. The myth, like most of its kind, is based on truth, or at least on an understanding of the truth. There are ways to confirm it. How strongly the dwenda heritage emerges among the marsh clans varies enormously. But when a female child is born unable to conceive in human congress, there the bloodline is strong. It’s harder to tell in males, but something similar applies.”

“So you’ve been creaming them off through Etterkal and bringing them here. Your cousins at a hundredth remove. Come on, what does that really mean, honored?”

He was aware of the same savage grin, still pinned to his face. He saw the way Seethlaw was looking at him, and in some tiny way it felt like loss. There was another test here, like seeing the bridge, and this time he was failing it.

“I think you know what it means,” the dwenda said quietly.

From Ringil’s throat came a single, jolting, almost soundless sneer. “You’re going to sacrifice them.”

“If you care to call it that.” Seethlaw shrugged. “Yes.”

“That’s great. You know, I’m just some scum-fuck human, I’ve barely seen three decades of life, and even I know there are no gods worthy of the name out there. So what is it you fucks believe in so desperately it needs a blood ritual?”