of a new efficiency. Stores of food and blankets and tents were ready to hand, allegedly in the event of a neighbor attacking. So far they’d gotten away with everything and the steward was pleased that they were working so diligently.
It’s easy to work hard when it’s for your own benefit, Ranowr thought grimly. We’d never have shown them how hard we can work, otherwise.
“You were seen leaving the stable,” Ashala screamed, her voice echoing through the hall. She pounded her fist on the arm of her throne. “Tell me what you did to my krelprep!”
“What makes you think I did anything to it?” Hisshah asked her mother boldly.
Ashala paused. This was most unlike her daughter, who, though on her knees where she belonged, was otherwise upright, instead of her usual cowering posture and was meeting her eyes. She leaned back in her throne. If there was one thing she’d learned in her years as ruler of this domain it was that such a change of attitude could be dangerous.
“What were you doing in the stables?” she asked.
“I merely visited my own krelprep to see how it fared.”
“You never visit your beast,” Ashala reminded her. “You hate krelprep.”
“I’m not fond of them, it’s true. But we’re about to go to war and I don’t intend to walk.”
Hisshah paused. “What happened to your krelprep?”
Ashala glared at her. “As if you don’t know,” she growled.
The younger female returned the glare with a look of innocence.
“You know I would never go anywhere near your krelprep. It’s tried to kill me twice. What could I possibly have done to it without getting in reach of its teeth?”
“It’s dead,” Ashala said through clenched teeth.
“What happened to it?” Hisshah asked.
Hiding her glee was as hard as anything she had ever done. Boldness seemed to be working. At the start of this conversation she’d thought she’d be receiving a whipping by now. Possibly that she’d be a bubbling grease- stain on the stones.
“We don’t know. There isn’t a mark on it,” the great goddess said.
“There’s been some sickness in the barn, the hostlers have been complaining of dead smerp and worrying that whatever killed them will spread to the krelprep. Perhaps that’s what happened to yours.”
Indeed I know for a fact that’s what happened to yours, Hisshah thought. “Perhaps we should clear that barn and burn it down.”
Ashala was still visibly angry, but also thoughtful. What her daughter had said was not unreasonable.
Thress leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“You could have poisoned my beast,” the great goddess said.
Hisshah gave an exaggerated sigh. “If I tried to give food to your krelprep it would have taken off my hand. And if I bribed a stabler to give it food he would report it to you instantly.”
She raised her hands. “Has anyone made such a report?”
It was beginning to feel like she was going to get away with this.
Once again Ashala looked thoughtful, once again Thress whispered.
“Did you kill my krelprep?” she demanded.
Hisshah stared at her for a long moment.
Why not now? she asked herself. Now is as good a time as any.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I couldn’t help myself.”
Her mother’s eyes flared and she knew herself in danger. She still thought she was safe from burning, but she could see that her mother was thinking about it. She readied herself to strike.
“That thing hated me,” Hisshah said. “It wanted to kill me, but I didn’t want to die. It was me or the krelprep, Mother. Which would you rather have alive?”
Ashala actually blinked in surprise to hear her daughter call her mother in open court. She looked out at the assembled courtiers and then frowned at her heir. If Hisshah was clever enough to be able to kill a beast so much stronger and more vicious than she was then perhaps she was too dangerous to have around. She prepared to strike her.
“You can be replaced,” she said at last.
“No, I can’t,” Hisshah said.
The great goddess stiffened and her eyes rolled back in her head, foam formed at the corners of her mouth and her body bucked three times. Then she slid bonelessly from her throne to lie on the burned spot where so many others had died.
Hisshah licked her lips and brought her breathing back under control. She’d felt a wave of heat just as she struck and knew she’d survived only by dint of the unexpectedness of her attack.
She mounted the dais and sat on her mother’s throne.
She smiled at the stunned courtiers.
“Remove that,” she said to the guards, gesturing at her mother’s body. “But save the gems, I’ll be wanting those.”The guards looked from her to Thress and she felt a flash of anger.
“It is by no means settled that you should take the great goddess’s place,” the captain said. “I demand that you rise from her throne!”
He grabbed her arm and yanked. Hisshah made his legs fail him and he almost dragged her from the throne as he fell. She put her foot on his chest and kicked him over backward. He drew a dagger as he fell and would have thrown it but she struck again, leaving him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
“Stop her!” he shouted. “Strike her down; she can’t get all of us.”
“Oh, yes I can,” Hisshah assured them, though she wasn’t sure herself. “I’m keeping the captain alive because I have a score to settle with him. But any of you who wish to die on his behalf I’m willing to oblige.”
She met the eyes of those she thought might rebel and saw them acknowledge the truth of what she was saying. She looked at the captain’s second.
“What is your name?” she asked, though she knew. She knew everyone in the compound.
“Sheth…great goddess.”
Hisshah smiled at him. “You are now captain of my guard. Have Thress taken to the prison.”
Once again she indicated her mother’s body. “Have that removed.”
“Can’t you see what she’s doing?” Thress screamed. “She’s a murderer, she must be stopped!”
Well, so was my mother, Hisshah thought. Many times over. She killed my father and countless others, often for nothing more than her own amusement. Where was your outrage then, my little captive captain? She considered taking his voice, but no, she wanted him to have a voice. Soon she would hear him in full cry.
“Captain Sheth?” she prompted.
The new-made captain gestured to the guards and they began hauling the two bodies away.
“You will regret this!” Thress warned them. “She’ll kill you all!”
Once the still shouting former captain was gone Hisshah turned to her court.
“I am prepared to accept your oaths of fealty now,” she said kindly.
The scent of fear was dense and sharp, and her nostrils flared. This wasn’t as spectacular as burning, but in its way…
Better, she thought, and smiled.
One of the nobles stumbled as he came forward to grovel and swear.
Much, much better.
Tral hurried up to Ranowr where he was practicing strokes with Krar.
“I just saw them drag the body of the great goddess from the hall,” he gasped. “It was really her, the body was glittering with jewels and the guards were dragging it by the feet and they were dragging Captain Thress out,
