The caravan’s track was easy to follow.
Riding north without a backward glance on his Tros horse, Jihan swaying in her
saddle on his right, he had one last impulse: he ripped the problematical Storm
God’s amulet from around his throat, dropped it into a quaggy marsh. Where he
was going, Vashanka’s name was meaningless. Other names were hallowed, and other
attributes given to the weather gods.
When he was sure he had successfully cast it aside, and the god’s voice had not
come ringing with awful laughter in his ear (for all gods are tricksters, and
war gods worst of any), he relaxed in his saddle. The omens for this venture
were good: they’d completed their preparations in half the time he’d
anticipated, so that he could start it while the day was young.
Crit sat long at his customary table in the common room after Tempus had gone.
By rights it should have been Straton or some Sacred Band pair who succeeded
Tempus, someone … anyone but him. After a time he pulled out his pouch and
emptied its contents on to the plank table: three tiny metal figures, a fishhook
made from an eagle’s claw and abalone shell, a single die, an old field
decoration won in Azehur while the Slaughter Priest still led the original
Sacred Band.
He scooped them up and threw them as a man might throw in wager: the little gold
Storm God fell beneath the lead figurine of a fighter, propping the man upright;
the fishhook embraced the die, which came to rest with one dot facing up Strat’s
war name was Ace. The third figure, a silver rider mounted, sat square atop the