Tradition dictated that Natai should kneel below the steady drip of the shrine dedicated to Kiyer of the Deluge first, letting water splash onto her forehead before offering a silver level and a prayer for another week without a flood.
Afterwards she would place a freshly picked flower before the shrine at the other end of the upper level, a gift to Parss, Ushull's capricious child, who casts boulders down the slopes. The last of Ushull's three Aspects had his shrine on the lower level, a squat lair made out of clay which was kept as hot as a baker's oven. There she would need to add another lump of coal to the fire to appease Cambrey Smoulder, the dormant destroyer under the mountain. That done, she would speak a prayer with one palm placed against Ushull's obelisk and leave a second silver level while Ushull's priests maintained the drone of prayer from their aisles opposite Cambrey's shrine.
Before Natai reached the temple she saw Kayel, who had gone ahead, had been stopped by a party of animated priests. There were faces watching them all around, most ominously from the temple itself, where no one was engaged in worship as far as Natai could see. The wind had been growing stronger during their journey and now it whipped across the district with an impatient ferocity, drowning out the conversation ahead. All around her Natai felt and saw a burning resentment; anger smouldered like Cambrey deep under the mountain.
Cambrey or Kiyer? she wondered as the column of troops stopped and her guards at last faced the penitents on all sides. Cambrey grumbles and blusters, but is slow to anger; Kiyer strikes with the fury and speed of an ice'Cobra.
As though in answer to her question a boom of thunder rolled over the city, the distant rumble that all Byorans had grown up listening out for. For a moment, all faces turned east, towards the mountain.
Natai shivered instinctively. Blackfang was not a flat table-top, as most imagined, but a crazed mess of jagged rock and stagnant pools left by the rain. A storm might simply provide a soaking -or it might turn the uninhabitable wasteland of Blackfang into something entirely more frightening. When the rains were heavy enough, a torrent of water would sweep down, scouring the streets of everything as Kiyer of the Deluge claimed her sacrifices and dumped their remains in the fens a few miles past Wheel, the quarter's most westerly district.
A sudden flash of movement made her turn back. She heard Ganas grunt in surprise and stare up at the mountain with a puzzled look on his face. Captain Fohl said something, but the words were jumbled and confused. Unbidden, her horse turned away from Ganas and a sudden pressure closed about her chest and throat, squeezing the breath from her body.
Unable to move, unable to speak, Natai sat rigid and horrified as Ganas slid unceremoniously from his saddle and to the ground, one foot still hooked in the stirrup. A black-fletched arrow protruding from his back snapped as Ganas fell onto it. Natai stared down at her husband's contorted face in disbelief, paralysed by the sight as the Land exploded into movement around her.
Figures ran forward, a hand grabbed her reins and wrenched her horse around until the beast kicked out. Men yelled and swore on all sides, swords rasped from scabbards. Captain Fohl barged his horse into hers, barely raising his shield in time as another arrow thwacked into it. She saw Sergeant Kayel draw and strike in one movement, turning back towards her before the priest's corpse had even hit the ground.
The ground started shaking, reverberating up through her horse's body and into her own. Before Natai even realised what was hap-pening, her horse gave a shriek and staggered. Beside her, Fohl slashed down at someone just as a spear appeared from nowhere to catch him in the ribs with such force he was thrown from his saddle, crashing into her horse before he fell under its hooves.
She couldn't look down as her horse reared up. Everything lurched, and the cloud-covered sky seemed to reach out to her as Natai herself begin to fall-
Suddenly something smacked into her forearm and wrenched her forward. The sky wheeled and became a dark blur of buildings as the pressure on her arm increased, wrapped around it and wrenched her forward. Natai felt herself crash against the ground and almost bounce up with the impact. Her arm was almost torn from its socket as whatever was hanging onto her dragged her along, her feet flailing uselessly beneath her.
She heard a grunt of exertion as she was swung up and landed heavily on something, the wind driven from her like a punch to the gut. She was lying over a saddle. Now she recognised Kayel shouting above her; short, brutal words she couldn't make out. Something clattered hard into her leg and fell away, and she felt Kayel lean over her body to hack down with his sword. There was the wet crunch of flesh and bone parting. Screams and roars came from all directions, but her eyes and ears refused to make sense of them.
Kayel's voice and the hot stink of the horse were the only things she could recognise, until suddenly the uproar was behind them and she realised they were clear; they were safe. Only then did her mind catch up and the sight of Ganas falling returned, bright and vivid, and as sharp as a knife in her belly. When at last the soldier stopped and allowed her to slide from the saddle Natai didn't feel the hands trying to help her to her feet. The buzz of voices came only distantly: questions, shouts, orders, all meaningless in the face of that pain in her gut. She crumpled to her bloodied knees and puked, and again, but the agony of loss remained.
High Priest Antil paused at the doorway of his personal chamber, peering around the jamb and feeling foolish as he did so. While he was Shotir's chief cleric, the God of Healing's temple in Byora was a modest one, and his room was appropriately small. Normally a wide window covering half of the north wall provided most of the room's light, but since his patient's dramatic arrival, that was covered in sacking. There was a tiny window in the side was which admitted a little pale winter sunlight, but Antil had still brought a candle.
Stop being such a fool, he chided himself, she's your patient, for pity's sake! The remonstrations had little effect. He still felt like he was intruding. He glanced behind him to check no priests or novices were watching him, but there was no one. People rarely came up to the top floor of the temple; they knew this was his personal space, where he could get his thoughts back in order and rest after working in the hospital below.
Antil was a middle-aged man of average height, with thinning hair and somewhat thick around the waist – a professional hazard for Priests of Shotir, those who could heal at least. Magical healing produced a fierce hunger, and only Antil's vanity had kept that in check. Unlike most of his order, his belly was a modest bulge under his yellow robes, and a tidy beard hid his fleshy neck. There was nothing he could do about the worry lines.
He forced himself to enter the chamber, and once over the threshold habit reasserted itself. She was very sensitive to light, so he walked around the bed and crouched at her side. She wasn't asleep; he could sense her wariness, like a wounded animal, and he was careful not to touch her yet. However badly hurt she might be, she was still touched by a Goddess, and he didn't want to do anything to provoke alarm in her. Instead he just sat awhile and looked at her face, fascinated by the mystery she presented.
With a tiny whimper the woman turned her head to look at him and he saw those curious eyes focus on him. They were dark green, possessing an inner light that reminded Antil of the jade ring his mother had worn until the day she died. The woman's face was bruised and covered in splinter-scratches, but the swelling had already gone down. He realised she would be arrestingly beautiful once the discolouration faded.