The Bloodstained God (Book 2) by Tim Stead Page A

time he glimpsed some detail. He saw a single Bren Warrior standing before a stone, a map, he heard the unmistakeable sound of the tunnelers moving rock, the pick fingers, the great arms tearing the stone, and there was a shadow of a cave, barely lit, but a cave bigger than anything he had ever imagined, bigger, higher wider, and a shape, a shadow of a shape, moving out of sight.
     
    He tried to turn his head; tried to will the eyes to move. It was important that he should see what was there, because he did not know , and he must. The knowledge was behind the eyes, but he could not touch it.
     
    “Wolves should not chase what they might not wish to catch.”
     
    It was the same voice; the rolling song of polished stone, the great, godlike voice that he had heard before, and suddenly he was awake again, and again in his full aspect, and bathed in sweat.
     
    Eighty thousand Bren. Eighty thousand warriors, and it was not enough. What did the Bren plan to do with so many? What did it mean? He glanced across the small room. Narala was there, sleeping soundly, breathing the air of the faithful.
     
    Narak had never felt so alone.

8. Books and Blood
     
    Sara Bruff sat in the midst of a city of books and allowed her gaze to wander. She had seen books before. There was the rent book that the men from the tannery had brought round. Her father had owned several, and she had been read stories from them, but she had never imagined that there could be so many books in the world, or at least not so many different ones.
     
    She glanced down at Saul, her son. He was a good boy, never making a fuss. The child was not yet old enough to speak, but he watched the world with placid eyes, and he did not cling or scream. She had thought that he was touched, perhaps, in the beginning. She had seen such people – dull and vacant eyes, minds that understood nothing, but Saul was not such a one. She was certain of it now. His gaze was intelligent, he laughed when she tickled him, his grip was firm and sure.
     
    And now this. With Saul dead, dear Saul who had never been unkind, who had worked all too hard to give her a good life. She had thought that life destroyed. She had begged him not to volunteer, but he had insisted, saying that he could not live in the peace paid for by other men’s blood. Saul had been a good man.
     
    And now this. Picked off the street by a lord because Saul, brave Saul, had apparently not died entirely in vain. He had saved the life of this young faced lord, and the lord in his turn had given her new hope.
     
    She did not know what the future held. Perhaps she would have been better off going to Shillana’s house. Her sister would have treated her little better than a servant, but she would have been safe, and Saul, too. She would have been fed, and had a bed to sleep on, and she would have understood the world around her far more than she understood this place and all its intrigues. Now, however, she was a librarian, whatever that might be, the warder of these books at least, perhaps more. She was to have an apartment, the one that the Steward had trespassed in and so angered the lord. She wondered if the rest of the household would treat her well, or resent that she lived so well among them.
     
    She was determined not be become a mistress, a private whore. She had seen the way that he had looked at her, his glance travelling her body, but there was something else there, too. The lord of Latter Fetch had goodness and steel in him, and she had gambled on what she had seen. There was the boy, too; Tilian Henn. The boy burned with loyalty, with pride, with that exceptional, idealistic naivety that could not be distrusted. It was the boy as much as anything that had persuaded her to trust the lord.
     
    She picked up a book. It was fat and heavy and she had to use two hands to lift it off the shelf. It was bound in cream and red leather, as soft as Saul’s skin. She opened it and it creaked a little, its scent