The Dark God: Servant Part 1

John Brown.

SERVANT.

The Dark G.o.d Book One.

Author's Note.

SOME READERS WILL be familiar with a previous version of this book published by Tor Books as Servant of a Dark G.o.d and wonder what the differences are between that obsolete version and this one.

This version is the result of a significant edit that includes line edits, copy edits, section resequencing, and one important adjustment and addition.

Line edits include changes to make individual sentences or paragraphs read more clearly. I made line edits to almost every page. I think most readers won't notice these. But then that's the point.

Copy edits catch small things like typos and misspellings. There were a number of maddening copy issues that weren't caught in the first version and still others that were introduced as the ma.n.u.script moved through production. No book is perfect, and so I'm sure there are still some gremlins lurking in the text. But in this edit we caught and killed a host of the little fiends.

Resequencing involves moving chapters or sections around and does affect the experience. The biggest resequence was switching the first eight chapters back to the original order I intended. This is an important change and will have a large effect on the reader for the first quarter of the book. Then there were three other smaller sections inside the story that needed to be moved around to make the chronology clearer and improve the suspense.

The line, copy, and resequencing edits make up the bulk of the edits. But I did adjust and add a short section to the ending immediately after the climax to clarify a few things that should have been revealed in the first version and that lead into book two.

What does this all mean?

It means that while this is a superior version of the tale, the base story remains the same. I care about the characters of Sugar, Talen, Argoth, Hunger, and the others, and the dilemmas they face. So I did not change their tales. I did significantly change the experience for the reader.

I am stoked about this version and can't wait for readers to dig in.

For Nellie.

The Goat King danced the crags by day, At night he came to feed, And dupe the foolish farmer's wives To hold his monstrous breed.

The husbands sought to hunt him down And take him as he lay, But the wily King, with a wicked touch, Stole their souls away.

1.

The Hunt.

BARG, THE HARVEST MASTER and butcher of the village of Plum, stood in the crisp light of early morning with a number of men, waiting to murder his friend the smith, the smith's wife, and their two children.

Oh, none of them called it murder, but all knew that's where this would lead. And what choice did they have?

The villagers had been joined by others in the district and divided into groups positioned around the smith's. One group hid behind the miller's. Another, the one lead by Barg, kept itself behind Galson's barn. The third waited in small grove on the outskirts of the village.

The men with Barg stood for an hour, checking the buckles of what armor they had, wrestling with the shock of the matter, and waiting for the signal in silence. At first, a handful of the outsiders had boasted of what they'd do. "Mark me," said a Mokaddian wearing the turquoise of the Vargon clan. His Vargon accent was plain, rolling his r's much too long. "I will land one of the first five strokes."

Barg cut off a handful of his hair with a knife to show his mourning for what was about to occur. "You'll be one of the first five he guts." He grasped another handful of hair and sawed through it.

"What do you know?" the Vargon said.

"I know that today I will help kill a man who saved my life." He cast another clump of shorn hair to the ground. "The smith is a roaring lion. You had best beware."

The Vargon said nothing in return, but what could he say? He was only trying to cover his fears. Sparrow the smith was a formidable warrior, and if the accusations against him were true, then it was certain some of those who had gathered today would die.

The approaching dawn silvered the fields and thatched roofs about the village and set the roosters to crowing. The cattle in the paddocks began to low. A stray dog outside the ale-wife's barked at a snake trying to get to the tall gra.s.s. And down in the south field, a few straggling deer decided it was now time to leave the fields and find cover. The men knew their signal was only minutes away.

On the side of the village closest to the forest and Galson's, the smith's daughter, Sugar, stood in her barn feeding the family's two horses and heard the jingle of a trap bell in the garden. The sound was followed by the panicked cry of a hare.

Nothing ever got away from one of Sugar's traps. And from the sound of the ringing, this creature was big. All that commotion was sure to bring Midnight and Sky, her family's dogs. She'd trained them to leave her game alone, but these two liked to bend the rules whenever they could. So Sugar put down the hay fork, and told Fancy, their mare, she'd return later. Sot, their draft horse, had already had his fill and had moved out to the watering trough. Then she picked up her smothering sack and stepped out of the barn and into the yard with her bare feet.

The village homes looked like fat ships floating amidst a sea of grain. But it was not a quiet sea. Da had flung both doors to the smithy open and stood at the forge hammering away at his work. Farmer Galson's cattle bellowed. They were the noisiest bunch of cattle in the whole district. Sugar saw them bunched up at the far end of their paddock waiting for one of Galson's grandsons to open the gate so they could go to the watering pond. But that was odd . . . someone should have led them out long ago.

Beyond the paddock gate stood the thatch-roofed homes for farmer Galson, his children, and his adult grandchildren. Almost a village all by itself. The soft yellow light of hearth fires still shone in many of the windows. Outside, one of the wives made her way back from the privy in a pale nightgown. She held a wailing babe on her hip.

The woman looked up, and Sugar waved across the field at her, but the woman did not wave back; instead, she dashed for her house. Maybe she hadn't seen Sugar. But then again, maybe she had. Some of the Galsons thought they rode a lord's high horse. And that included the boys who had begun to court her.

Sugar walked to the garden, opened the gate, and stepped under the arch of climbing rose. The lemony scent from its pink blooms lay heavy in the air. She walked along the shadowed rows of vegetables until she came to the peas and salad greens.

There she found a large hare, a black-tail that was going to make a fine breakfast.

It was easiest just to brain them with a stout stick, but she didn't want to chance ruining the fur about the throat, so she readied the smothering sack and approached the animal. This part of the garden was still wet with yesterday's watering and the soil stuck to the bottoms of her bare feet. When she got close, the hare began to kick in earnest.

It was a monster. Twelve pounds at least.

She threw the sack over it to protect her from its kicking and clawing and quickly held its hind and head quarters in place. It cried out in distress, but she kneeled on its side and pushed the air out of its lungs. She pushed until she knew she'd start breaking its ribs then waited for it to suffocate.

The giant hare struggled underneath her for a minute or so and then lay very still. Sugar removed the snare noose from its leg. The hare felt dead, but she'd been tricked before. A number of years ago, before her moon cycles had come upon her, she'd picked up a hare and carried it into the house and laid it on the cutting stone. The whole time it had lain in her hands like a limp rag, but the second she began to cut, it jumped up, knocked the knife right out of her hand, flew off the table, and bolted out the open door, all to her father's delight. She didn't want a repeat, and so she continued to press this hare.

Across the paddocks the Galson's dogs began to bark. They were joined by another group down by the Miller's. The dogs would often bark this way when travelers pa.s.sed through. Sugar looked up to see what was causing the commotion.

A wide line of men on the far side of Galson's paddocks marched out from behind the barn. They marched in battle order with bows and spears, their helmets gleaming in the early morning light. Those with spears also carried shields painted with a grotesque boar's head circled by a ring of orange. It was the mark of the Fir-Noy clan of Mokad.

It was not uncommon to see such things. All men, Mokaddian and Koramite, were required to regularly attend their clan musters. But something about this was not right.

She turned and saw another line coming up from the Miller's.

Then she realized: these men were converging, but not on the practice field. No, they seemed on a direct course for her house.

2.

King's Collar FEAR RAN UP Sugar's back. Not only were these men converging, but none of them wore the armbands that distinguished friend from foe during the practice musters.

Sugar stood, trying to get a better view.

The hare that had lain beneath her bucked free of the smothering sack. It bolted down the row of peas, pushed through a hole she'd missed in their fence, and fled to the short hedgerow that grew along a portion of Galson's paddock.

The men continued to march toward the house. She could see the intricate Mokaddian tattoos around their wrists and forearms. She could see beards and naked chins under their helmets, but they were too far away for their eyes to be anything but dark pits.

She ran to the back door and flung it open.

Mother bent at the hearth building up a cooking fire. She startled when Sugar rushed in. "Goh, you do that just to set my heart leaping in my throat, don't you."

"There are men dressed for battle in Galson's field," said Sugar. "Others down by the miller's, Was there a muster today?"

Mother picked up the bowl the potter had thrown just for Cotton, her infant brother who had been stolen the previous season. "I'm sure I would have heard something."

At that moment Da opened the front door. As the days turned hotter, Da had taken to wearing as little as possible. He stood there bare-chested with the morning at his back, smelling like charcoal smoke. His ma.s.sive back and arms glistened with the morning sweat.

"Purity," he said to Mother, "this beard is going to be the death of me. I'm sick of the braids catching fire. I'm not going back to the smithy until it's shaved off,"

Sugar saw that two of his braids were indeed singed.

"Ach," Mother said undoing the shutter latch, "they're so handsome on you. Half the men in this village would give a finger for such a beard."

"I don't want their fingers," said Da. "They can have the beard for free."

Mother walked to the back door and looked outside. "That's odd," she said.

Da spoke to Sugar. "I heard the hare trap. All this time I've been l.u.s.ting after beef. Why can't you catch one of Galson's steers? I'd even settle for one of the old ones."

"There's the matter of farmer Galson," said Sugar.

"Bah," said Da, dismissing the farmer. "Make a trap for Galson as well."

"Sparrow," said Mother, "did you forget today's muster?"

"None that I know of." He walked over to her, but instead of looking out the doorway, he reached out with one of his ma.s.sive arms and grabbed her round the waist. Then he nuzzled into her side and took a nibble.

"Stop," she said and pushed at him. "Sparrow, what are those men doing?"

Da looked outside.

Midnight and Sky began barking out front. Sugar looked through the front door Da had left open. "There's another group coming down the lane."

Not two months ago, a group of Fir-Noy beat a Koramite woman until they'd ruined one eye and half her teeth. But Da had said that wouldn't happen here. The louts that had beaten the woman were upland Fir-Noy. Their kind didn't have sway in the village of Plum, and Da had the a.s.surances of the Territory Lord on that.

However, Sugar wasn't so sure. Years ago, a war had been fought between Koram and Mokad across the sea. The Glory of Koram lost the ability to protect some of his territories, including his settlements in the New Lands. The Mokaddians thought they could come and easily take the settlements as booty, but the Koramite colonists surprised them. They fought for eight years until Mokad realized it would be wiser to come to an agreement than spend more blood and treasure. When the lords of the Koramite clans in the New Lands signed the treaty in Whitecliff, they promised to submit to Mokaddian rule only if they were guaranteed certain rights.

The treaty had worked for a while, but that was some time ago. Now there were far more Mokaddians in the New Lands than there were Koramites. Of the nine Mokaddian clans with holdings here, a few, like the Shoka, got along with their Koramite neighbors. But many had begun to argue against the old treaty, and the ones Sugar heard arguing with the most vehemence were members of the Fir-Noy clan.

Mother had wanted to move out of the Fir-Noy lands for the last two years, but Da had a bond he was working off. If they'd left, the territory lord would have simply hunted him down.

"They're surrounding us," Sugar said. The men were close enough for Sugar to see the set of their mouths was bitter as garden rue.

She felt for her knife. When Sugar was a child, a gang of four village boys had tormented her until Da confronted the boy's parents. But that didn't end the issue. So Da took it to the village council. He demanded the boys come fight her one-on-one. Mother was furious, taking him to task for making Sugar fight his battles. But Da stood his ground.

Da himself was a fighter, and for one week he sparred with Sugar, preparing her as best he could. Then the boys had come, some grinning, some all business. They brought most of the village with them. And in the wedge field, surrounded by grandmothers, children, and dogs, Sugar had taken a beating. But the boys had not left unscathed either. There was a black eye, a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. She'd kicked one so hard in the gut that he'd vomited in the gra.s.s.

Afterwards, some of the villagers cheered for her. A few of the fathers of the boys who had started it all came and made peace. Da was satisfied. Mother was not. She would not speak to him for two weeks. But even with her heavy fury on him, Da did not give up on Sugar's lessons. "There are those who act," he said. "And those who are acted upon. I'm not ever going to leave you in a position again where you have no choice."

Two years later when her moon-cycles came, Mother convinced Da he was ruining her chances of a good marriage, for what boy wanted to bed a bruiser? So he stopped teaching her how to use her feet and hands as weapons and began to teach her knives.

That was a number of years ago. She'd never had to use the knife Da forged for her protection and made her wear. Not to draw a man's blood. Although she had let a few of the boys she'd been introduced to at Koramtown know she wore it. But mostly she'd used the knife around the yard in her ch.o.r.es. Now, even though she knew it would be useless against a host of men, she was glad she had it.

Mother turned to her. "Get Fancy saddled."

Sugar moved to obey, but Da held his hand up. "No. Running will only raise their suspicions or prod them to act. This might be nothing. Leave it to me. I know how to handle these men."

"And then it will be too late," said Mother.

"Woman," said Da in warning. Then he walked out the front door.

When he was only a few paces into the yard, Mother turned to Sugar. "You get Fancy."

"Do you want saddle bags?" asked Sugar.

"All I want is a horse. The Fir-Noy are not what they once were. Too many have become oath breakers, turning their backs on the promises made in Whitecliff."

Sugar dashed out the back door.

The troops in farmer Galson's fields had fanned out and were now walking as a line toward the house.

Legs, her younger, blind brother, stood in front of the chicken house, his head c.o.c.ked at an odd angle and looking off into s.p.a.ce as he did when he paid fierce attention to every sound and smell. His wild hair stood up. In his arm he held a basket of onions and eggs.