Black Lord of Eagles

By Ben Blake

The Ashir thought they were alone in the world - until the strangers came. The invading Thrain have weapons of strange metal and ride beasts never seen before, and it is soon clear they have come to conquer. Anyone who opposes them is killed. The Ashir realise that their only hope lies with one man. Kai, the kamachi, living servant of the Teacher God.

Kai has never heard the voice of his god, as kamachi are supposed to do. He wonders if the god chose the right man to be his servant. But now he must stand up to lead the resistance, against a terrible enemy with no mercy in him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ben Blake
• Release date: Apr 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781911438076

Ben Blake

I've been a writer since I was a kid, but only recently decided to publish on the internet. A few books will be coming now, since I have several backed up: what Stephen King calls "trunk novels".Away from writing, I like to watch football (soccer) and rugby, enjoy a drink and going to the cinema, and like good food.

Book preview

Black Lord of Eagles

The Blessed Land, Volume One

ISBN 978-1-911438-07-6

Copyright © Ben Blake

The author has asserted their moral rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thie ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover art by Mark Watts

Blue Poppy Publishing

www.bluepoppypublishing.co.uk

For Caz

"Well then, kiss me – since my mother left her blessing on my brow,

There has been a something wanting in my nature until now".

(Sarah Williams)

Praise for Ben Blake

A beautifully crafted tale, well told by a great storyteller.

(Avid Reader)

I have found a new passion and it is discovering indie author treasures.

(Jennifer Hyndman)

Mr Blake's first fantasy novel is the best that I have found in the last year.

(BlackBrigand)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Black Lord of Eagles

Qallariy the beginning

1

Kai saw them coming, two men where both sense and piety said they should not be.

There was no point in going to meet them. Snow lay five feet deep around the little cabin, all the way down to the distant pine trees on the slopes below, where it thinned and then petered out into defiant patches of ice. Kai could see that far clearly in the mountain air. Closer, but still more than a mile, the two men were wading chest-deep through the snow. The larger of them had forged ahead, breaking a path for the smaller with great sweeps of his arms. Behind him, the other man paused to rest, moving so that the blue robe of a kura showed for a moment beneath his heavy fleece.

So. One priest, and a large man with him. Where they should not be.

Then the larger man looked up as well, and by the cabin Kai felt his brows lift in surprise.

That was Matlal. He would swear it by the Eyeless God. Here at the retreat, where he never came. Where he was afraid to come, in truth. Yet here he was, disturbing Kai’s time of solitude and communion. With a priest at his side, tacit permission for his presence.

Which meant something was very wrong. Kai sat for a moment, watching while he thought.

After a time he stood up and went inside the cabin. It was a single small, rock-hewn room carved into the face of a cliff, with a door and one narrow window. A bronze pipe ran from there to the stove, which was lit, as always. Warmth was precious here, alone in the grip of winter. Kai dropped a handful of wood chips on the flames and set a pot of water over it, and he waited.

It was almost an hour before he heard footsteps outside, dragging through the snow. Someone swore under his breath. Not Matlal, which meant this was a priest prone to vulgarity. There was only one priest at the Retreat who swore like that.

Come in, he called, before his visitors had time to speak. The cursing outside stopped abruptly.

Then the door was pushed open, and Matlal’s eyes found Kai as he squeezed his hefty frame through the doorway. Behind him Nata stepped inside, a much smaller man, with the blue of his priest’s robe still showing through his fleece coat. He glanced at Kai and turned towards the fire, throwing back his hood to reveal a mane of ragged white hair. He pulled his gloves off with a sigh of relief, and held his hands out to the flames.

Good afternoon, Kai said pleasantly to the men who had interrupted his communion. There is a jug of elderberry tea on the side. You should drink before we speak.

There is no time, Matlal said gruffly. "We have to leave at once. Kamachi, we must go – "

Patience, Nata said. He smiled at the big man, though Matlal didn’t turn to see it. When you get to my age, you learn to appreciate warmth a little more. Tea would be very good right now. Tezcata’s balls, it’s cold.

Matlal scowled, but after a moment he gave a curt nod. He would have found out how insistent the kura could be long before he reached here, of course. The fact that he was here at all was ample testimony of his own determination. Whatever had driven him through the mountain snows must be important in the extreme, both for him to try and for the kura to allow him. Part of Kai was eager to learn what it was.

The greater part remained calm, perfectly willing to wait while his old friends warmed their hands. One did not spend half a lifetime with the priests without learning to be patient.

Still, something inside him stirred uneasily. Kamachi. Servant, in the ancient tongue. A title that meant nothing much, on the face of it. And yet, a title that had shaped Kai’s life from the moment he had come into the world, when the midwife had wiped away the blood to reveal a birthmark the colour of rich wine, a thick serpent that almost encircled his left eye. Few children bore that mark. One a generation perhaps, and sometimes less. Those who did were very close to sacred. Servants indeed, but sworn to the god alone.

Matlal rarely called him by that name. That he did so now only emphasised what Kai already knew, that something was wrong. He reached for his cup to hide any hint of his concern.

The big man took a sip of hot tea. He watched Nata from the corner of his eye, both of them seated cross-legged on the floor, and waited for the priest to take a sip of his own. As soon as he did, Matlal spoke.

Kai, you have to come back with me.

Nata lifted a hand. Young man, if you will allow it, I should speak first, I think. Matlal scowled again, but didn’t protest. Thank you. Kai, a month ago a message runner came to the Retreat with a missive for you, from the Qapac Ashir himself. You were six weeks into your contemplation by then, so naturally we didn’t allow him through the gate.

Quite proper, he murmured. It was. Nobody should be allowed to disturb a man in contemplation.

Nata nodded his white head. He left, in the end. But a fortnight later a second runner came, and demanded entrance rather more insistently than we thought appropriate. He woke half the priests an hour before the dawn, banging on the gates with the haft of his axe. A smile crinkled the corners of his mouth. Blood and earth, we had to tie him to a bed in the guest hall before he would promise not to try forcing a way through the Retreat. When he finally left, he told us quite openly that the Qapac Ashir would be extremely angry with us.

Very unusual, he said. He sipped his tea.

And two days ago Matlal appeared, Nata went on. "With explicit orders from the Qapac Ashir that he was to be allowed through at once, without regard for any objections we kura might have. A frown deepened crow’s feet around his eyes. I’ve never heard of such a thing. To treat us so, and in our own Retreat besides! The Qapac is our king, but even a king has no authority over the Temples, and especially not the Retreat."

It was necessary, Matlal said. The king said he will make whatever atonements are needed to appease the gods, and the Lady.

Even so, Nata muttered. It shouldn’t have been done. We shouldn’t have let you come. Still, he leaned one shoulder against a bare stone wall, here we are. Tell us what is so important it cannot wait.

Kai felt a flash of surprise. Nata didn’t know this news yet, which probably meant that none of the kura did. The three messengers had all kept the secret well. He turned his gaze to Matlal and raised an eyebrow.

There are strangers in the Blessed Land, Matlal said.

*

A kamachi was said to be able to hear the voice of the god in the quiet place inside. Kai never had.

But sometimes he could almost feel something change in his mind. Like an eagle springing into the air, or a flame beginning at last to burn strong and clear. Maybe it was the training he’d received here, from the days when he was still a baby. Maybe it was more. How was he to know?

He felt that now, a sudden race to his thoughts, though he was sure his expression never changed.

The priest wasn’t as good at hiding his reaction. Nata jumped like a startled goose and then swore. Beside him Matlal began to frown and stopped himself. He must have got used to the old man’s vulgarity as they climbed through the snow, but it would be a problem for Matlal. Men of the god ought not to speak such words, in his mind. He’d be torn between the desires to rebuke and to show respect.

For Kai things were simpler. Nata had been a mentor of a sort while he grew up in the Retreat, the only one of the kura capable of explaining the least thing without invoking the names of half a dozen gods and twenty reasons to be humble.

He taught me to question, Kai had said, one night when he and Matlal were alone, sharing a camp beside one of the tangled forest trails. They rested their backs against a moss-smothered wall, the remains of a structure otherwise swallowed by jungle. To question everything, no matter how sacred. I’m still not sure I’m glad he did that.

Words for Matlal’s ears only, and not to be repeated. Kai knew they wouldn’t be. He trusted only two men in the world, or three if you included the vulgar old priest. Matlal was one of them. He would die before he betrayed a confidence Kai had shared with him.

Strangers, Kai repeated at length. We’re taught that’s impossible.

Unless they’re gods, Nata said.

I doubt they are, Kai answered. There have been no portents. No stars straying from their paths in the sky. And I don’t suppose these strangers bring wisdom and gifts, like Viraca.

Centuries before, the god Viraca had sailed to the Blessed Land from the east, from the rising sun, bringing learning and knowledge to the people. He had travelled the land, teaching agriculture and building, art and writing, metalwork and irrigation: everything the Ashir needed to leave their crude huts behind forever. So the kura had taught for generations. Kai’s fingers trembled in his lap, wanting to touch the birthmark around his eye and not being allowed to. Kai hardly noticed.

He taught me to question everything, no matter how sacred. But some things were never questioned. Kai had never realised it before.

I wouldn’t have come here if they brought gifts, Matlal said. They brought warriors, Kai. About five thousand of them. They hardly look like warriors at all, but they wear armour, and they carry swords and spears. They can’t be anything else.

Very peculiar, Nata said. He leaned forward, his eyes intent on Matlal’s face as he talked.

You haven’t seen them, Matlal said. They… aren’t like us. They’re bigger, for one thing, and most of them wear beards. But it’s more than that. He paused, searching for words. Salali was the man you wanted for clever speech. Matlal was slower, a more thoughtful man. It’s something about the way they look at us. Something in the eyes.

Curiosity? Nata suggested. Perhaps they even think we look at them the same way.

Matlal shook his head. Not that. It’s hard to explain.

Hatred?

No. It’s too subtle for that.

Outsiders. People who shouldn’t exist, according to the tenets, and yet who did and who were here in Apusuyu. What did that mean?

They were outside the blessing of Viraca, perhaps. Or had experienced it differently. It came to the same thing, that they had achieved their civilisation by an unknown path. They were alien. Mortal, yes, men and women just like the Ashir, but strange. Kai couldn’t guess at how they would think, or feel. But he could guess this.

I remember when I first left the Retreat, he said. The other two men fell silent and looked at him. "I was seventeen, and I hadn’t seen the world outside since I was a baby. I went down into the valley, and everyone who saw me knelt or bowed down. One look at my face and they knew me for what I am. It was a long time before I saw any expression on a man’s face except adoration.

But one day I was walking into a village, and I saw a group of children playing. One of the younger ones shouted something in the middle of their game; I don’t remember what it was. An older boy gave him a look I’ve never forgotten. Maybe because I hadn’t seen it before.

That’s it! Matlal burst out. That’s where I’ve seen it, too. It’s contempt. That’s how they look at us.

We are the chosen people of Viraca, Nata snapped. Nobody can sneer at us. Nobody has cause.

They might have in their eyes, Kai said. They may not even know the god we do.

But they must! He –

My friend, he said gently, breaking in, an hour ago you knew there were no lands in the world except our own. The tenets are wrong. Don’t take anything for granted.

The old man stared at him, breathing through his nose.

Will you come, then? Matlal asked.

I’ll come, Kai said. I have to see these outlanders for myself.

Just like that? Nata said. You’ve sworn yourself to a winter of contemplation, and you’ll break the oath?

I don’t have a choice, Kai said. "I am the kamachi. I don’t know why. If the god saw something in my unborn soul, some spark that others lack, I don’t know what it was. But he chose me, and the people need to see me, Nata. Now, with impossible strangers walking the land like living men, they need me more than ever."

And the oath?

I will atone for it, Kai said. In this life or the next.

The Qapac Ashir knows the rules of seclusion, Matlal interrupted. He wouldn’t break them without cause, and he still summoned Kai. His advisors say there is great danger here.

Advisors always do, Nata snapped. It’s how they consolidate their hold on the ruler.

"How often have they urged that the kamachi come out of seclusion?"

Enough, Kai said. Without raising his voice, which he almost never did, he was still able to stop the bickering with one word. "Not even the Qapac Ashir can summon me, and you both know it. He can ask, and when he does I will come if I can, but he does not summon."

He was Viraca’s last gift to the Ashir, made before he sailed away forever. A child, one in each generation, born with the purple snake twined around his left eye. It was the mark of the god’s enduring love, and of his memory. The Ashir were not forgotten as long as one man wore that sign.

Some of the earlier kamachi were famous. Adsila, for example, who had seen that the Qapac of his day was leading the people down a path to war and ruin. Adsila denounced the king from the steps of the Hallows, and two days later Cuemac was dead, his mangled body flung from cliffs into the sea. Or there was Ozcollo, who first tamed llamas on the plateaux and showed they could be farmed, not just hunted. A list of names known across the land, from mountains to the sea.

Now Kai was the kamachi, and more akin to the dozens of forgotten men than he was to the few whose names shone. He shared their pride though. If he thought for an instant that the Qapac had ordered him to come he would walk the other way, just to remind the king that he could. He was a little man compared to some, unable even to hear the god in his thoughts. But he wasn’t a tool. He chose his own path.

Don’t curse me for this, he said to Nata, trying to soothe the old man. I do as I feel I must. Are you angry with me?

The priest snorted. Hardly. I’m the one who taught you that you can make your own decisions, remember? I can’t complain if you then take my advice.

As I recall, Kai said, you have done before. Quite often.

Ah, well. A privilege of the old. Nata ran a hand through his white hair, as though to prove that he was indeed well past his youth. We’re allowed to be cranky sometimes.

Every time I talk to you, Kai said, the old seem to have gained another privilege.

There are some I haven’t mentioned yet, the priest agreed. He tilted his head to one side, like a bird trying to gain a better view. "Blood and earth, you can be stubborn, Kai. Well, if you’re set on this, I think I’ll come with you. One of the kura should see these strangers for himself."

No, Matlal said.

That earned him a sharp stare from Nata, but Kai moved smoothly to prevent an outburst. Go to see these men by all means, my friend. But not with us. I won’t be moving in plain sight.

Nata glared at Matlal for a moment longer, then turned back to Kai. Staying off the roads?

When we can. He touched the snake around his eye with his fingers. This marks me, Nata. I think it’s better that these outlanders don’t see me until we know it’s safe, don’t you?

You’re not going to the Qapac?

He doesn’t summon me, Kai said again. First of all I want to see these men for myself.

You know something, Nata said, shrewd as ever. Do you hear the voice of the god, then?

Kai shook his head. It’s just a hunch. I prefer quiet trails anyway. Where’s Salali?

Suddenly picked out, Matlal took a moment to get his tongue to work. Just down the slope from the Retreat. He said he didn’t see the point of two of us risking frostbite.

That’s just what he would say, Kai smiled. Any excuse not to do something he doesn’t want to do anyway. All right, then. There’s enough daylight left for us to reach him before dark. I don’t enjoy the thought of sharing this cabin with one man who swears in his sleep and another who snores like a wood saw.

Matlal grunted. Not to mention your own nocturnal noises, of course.

As if you could, Kai said. He reached behind the bed and pulled out a heavy pack, which he slung over his shoulders before he caught Nata’s wry expression. What?

You packed, the priest said. When you saw us climbing, I expect. By the blood of the flayed god, Kai, why did you bother to sit and talk all this time? You always meant to leave.

I meant to be ready, Kai answered. "I wondered what could have convinced the kura to allow Matlal through the Retreat to reach me here, and all of the possible answers seemed to require that I leave. It’s usually prudent, he said, to prepare for the worst."

Nata scowled. That’s what I always say.

Yes. Isn’t that a coincidence? Kai pulled the door open. Shall we?

2

They found Salali in the forest, bent over something on the ground with a knife in his hand.

Kai put a hand on Matlal’s chest to stop him. He’d known at a glance what Sala was doing. He and Matlal stood under the trees and watched. After a moment the big man tensed and Kai knew he’d seen as well.

On the earth below Salali was a frog. He’d cut its belly open with a short bronze blade, then pulled the edges of the wound back to reveal glistening organs beneath. The lungs had been lifted out, very carefully, and laid to one side. The rukuku was a large frog, its body the size of a man’s whole hand, but the organ under the lungs was tiny.

A little poison was enough.

Sala was sweating. He moved the knife in increments, hardly daring to cut. Venom had spurted out of that sac before, blinding a man or scarring him, even killing if it splashed onto tongue or lips. A rukuku started making more poison the moment the frog was frightened or angry, which meant that unless it was killed from cover the sac could be full to bursting. And if it bit you then, well. Everyone went to the Halls of Dust in the end.

Sala relaxed a little, wiped his face. Next he took a hollow reed and eased it into the frog’s body, pinching the top closed. He moved it over a stone jar the size of his thumb and released the top, so a couple of drops of venom fell into the jar. He did it again, then a third time.

Hello, by the way, he said, not turning his head. Thanks for trying to be quiet. But you two make more noise than a herd of skunk pigs.

Be quiet, Kai said. You need to concentrate.

I’m most humbly sorry, Sala said. "It’s almost as though I don’t know what I’m doing, isn’t it? Anyway, the tricky bit’s done. I see the kura let Matlal through, then."

Obviously, Matlal said.

Sala only grinned. He stoppered the jar, then cut the poison sac loose and flicked it into the campfire. He laid the knife there too, so the blade was in the flames. Even a trace of rukuku venom could kill. Only then did he turn to look at his friends.

I wasn’t sure you’d come, he said. I thought you’d choose to spend winter god-bothering.

Kai nodded. That was my first choice, yes.

I don’t understand why you do it, Sala said. The contemplation, I mean. You spend half your life cut off from all the things that make life good; wine and women, music and dancing. You miss out on so much when you go off on your own to gaze at your navel.

We can’t achieve clarity of thought when we’re weighed down by possessions, Kai said, or the cares of the world. One of Nata’s lessons, and one he’d found was true. I have to cast them away.

That’s not why you do it, Matlal said. He seated himself by the fire and held his hands out to the warmth. This far down the mountain there was no snow on the narrow leaves of the wayakan trees, but the air was still cold as evening drew in. "You do it because that little cabin is the only place in the world where you don’t have to be the kamachi, every day of your life."

Kai looked at him for a moment before he nodded his head, acknowledging the hit.

Mothers-to-be across Apusuyu dreamed of their child bearing the mark he wore around his eye. It wasn’t just fantasy. Kamachi had been born to every group across the land, however remote. Every people, every clan and tribe. There wasn’t a soul who didn’t know what it meant. People saw Kai and recognised him at once, the living embodiment of the god Viraca’s love for this people and this land. Proof that the ancient covenant still held good, across the thousands of years since Viraca had stepped aboard his raft of serpents and sailed away.

Matlal would have been so much better as the Servant. He believed in a way Kai never had. Faith came easily to him. He’d have worn the mantle easily, sure this was how things were meant to be.

Sala would have been terrible. He’d have left a trail of briefly-loved women behind him as he crossed the country, and forgotten bar bills, and tales of his behaviour. Stories that would spread. The girls might not have minded being abandoned; for some reason, the women Sala left never seemed to grumble. But still, there would have been stories, and they would have done harm. A kamachi shouldn’t do that.

Kai knew what he was. The living embodiment of the god Viraca’s love for this people and this land. Proof that the ancient covenant still held good, across the thousands of years since Viraca had stepped aboard his raft of serpents and sailed away. Never mind that underneath it all was a person.

Enough of this. He threw a branch onto the fire and sat down on a rock close to the warmth. Matlal has been telling me about these strangers. I want you to do the same. Give me your impressions of them, how they make you feel.

They’re big, Sala said at once. Intimidatingly big, to be honest. I haven’t seen one smaller than Matlal so far. You and I would come roughly to their shoulders, Kai.

Go on.

Did Matlal tell you about the horses?

Yes, on the way down. Kai frowned. It’s hard for me to imagine them.

You have no idea. Sala shuddered. Those animals are huge, and when one of the Thrain is riding one –

Thrain? Kai interrupted. That’s what they call themselves?

Yes. Didn’t Matlal mention it?

I did, the big man growled. Kai forgot, that’s all. He’s heard a lot of things very quickly.

That must have been terrible for you both, Sala said, given how little you like to talk, Matlal.

Kai smiled slightly, just to show he didn’t mind the byplay. You were speaking of the Thrain.

"We are the Thrain is about all that most of them can manage in our language at the moment, Sala said. I don’t know much else about them. But you do need to see the horses, Kai. Their size is only part of it. They snort, and stamp their hooves, and they stink like nothing you’ve ever smelled in your life. The sheer presence of them fills up a street."

Intimidation again, Kai mused.

And they have a sense of purpose, Sala went on. The Thrain, not the horses. That would be silly. They’re here for a reason, Kai. I don’t know what it might be, but it isn’t what they keep talking about. They say they’re here for trade, but I never heard of taking thousands of soldiers to set up a caravan route. When you see them, look at their eyes.

Contempt, Kai said. Matlal told me.

Oh, there’s contempt all right, Sala agreed. But mostly what’s in their eyes is hunger. Plain and simple.

That begs the question of what they hunger for, doesn’t it?

I don’t like the sound of that at all, Matlal muttered by the fire. If they want something we’ve got, and they’ve brought soldiers, then I think we know how they plan to get it.

With five thousand men? Kai asked. No, Matlal. They have to know they can’t conquer Apusuyu with so few. We’re missing something.

Then we have to find out what it is.

Of course, Kai agreed. "But quietly. We’re going to be like akatanqa beetles in a field of maize. I don’t want these strangers to know we’re there until the crop is already ruined."

Something in his voice made Sala give him a searching look, which he tried to hide by adding a pair of thick branches to the fire. Sparks crackled as the new wood caught, sending warmth drifting into evening air that had already begun to turn cool. Matlal grunted in appreciation.

Kai sat, thinking. The cold clarity of the cabin was gone from him now, making certainty harder to find. But he could still work things through. He accepted a plate of meats and cheese from Sala and ate without tasting.

Around him Sala and Matlal laid out the camp. Blankets of alpaca wool were laid out close to the fire, with packs for pillows. Sala brought sods of earth to bank the fire, hoarding its warmth through the night. He was quiet, letting Kai think, just about the only time he stopped his hummingbird chatter and became nearly as quiet as Matlal.

Viraca came from the east, Kai said at last. Wrapped in his blanket Matlal raised his head, as he always did when religion was mentioned. From the rising sun. And later from the west came his enemy Tezcata, the trickster and the tempter, bringing shadows in his wake.

Sala nodded. So?

So, these strangers have come from the north, Kai said. What does that mean, my friends? Viraca is the rising sun, Tezcata the setting sun. The coming of light and the return of shadow. Are these people the northern star?

They aren’t gods, Matlal muttered. He sounded almost angry with the kamachi. They’re men, that’s all.

Perhaps, Kai said. "But only gods have ever come to Apusuyu from outside. We’re used to it, even if it was a long time ago. But men? There’s something wrong about that. The kura teach us that Viraca brought civilisation to the Ashir and only to them, and yet here the outsiders are, with a god and culture of their own."

Maybe a better culture, Sala said. Don’t scowl at me, Matlal. They have metals we don’t, and those horses too.

That’s just better tools, Matlal said.

Perhaps. Kai’s voice quieted the bickering. But either way, the priests are wrong. Don’t scowl at me either, please. The fact is that the Thrain are here. So either they’re gods or the priests made a mistake, and you said yourself they’re not gods.

They can’t be, Matlal snapped.

I think you’re right, Kai said. "But how can we know, Matlal? How would we recognise the day when the world changed, and something new replaced the certainties of old?"

Replaced Viraca, you mean? Matlal snorted. These are men, Kai. Just men. Viraca is as strong and as holy as he ever was.

That was the only answer Matlal could give, the only one his heart would allow. His faith had never been in