He had arrived in the north with libraries of questions, and the Black Kingdom had answered precious few. Instead, it asked its own of him, and then wrung the answers from him. What frightened him? Is anything inherent to the Sutherner? How do desperate men behave? How robust are your ideas of beauty? Decency? Honour? Truth? God?
Bellamus stayed in northern Suthdal. This was partly to keep eyes on the Abus and make certain that no vengeful legions came south, and partly because he did not want to face King Osbert’s displeasure. It had taken an enormous effort of will to launch another invasion so soon after the last, and Bellamus had made promises that he should not have. He stayed away.
Legions did come south, but only to deliver the Suthern army back home. Fifty thousand heads, planted on the pikes that had been left on the battlefield, were erected on the Suthdal side of the Abus. There were enough to stretch, one every four yards, from one coast of Albion to the other. The crows found them and feasted, cutting the island in half with a turbulent wall of black. Bellamus saw it with his own eyes. He and Garrett, accompanied by Stepan and half a dozen Hermit Crabs, sat on horseback atop a hill that overlooked the Abus, in front of which the heads had been planted. There was no sign of Anakim north of the bank.
“This isn’t the last of this,” said Bellamus. “They’re coming south, Garrett.”
“They are not as hard as the Unhieru,” was all Garrett said.
“The Anakim’s bad cousins,” mused Bellamus. “I find the Anakim infinitely more threatening. They have an eye to the long term that neither we nor the Unhieru possess and, given the right motivations and the right leader, they can bend everything towards a single cause. We have given them both.”
“The right leader and the right cause?”
“Exactly. And they and the Unhieru are natural allies. If the Anakim come south, we may have to face Gogmagoc as well.”
“I would like nothing more than to face Gogmagoc,” said Garrett.
“No doubt that would add to your considerable renown,” observed Bellamus.
“And that Pryce Rubenson …” Garrett let out a long, slow breath. “He was the fastest thing I have ever seen.”
“I doubt you’ll see Pryce again, but there are other Anakim champions you can test yourself against. Leon Kaldison is the next great hero, and Vigtyr the Quick is supposed to be the best of them. We must be prepared for a different class of warfare, big man. We have to find ways of matching the Anakim man-for-man. At the moment, the quality of their individual soldier is too good.”
“We have started a war that cannot be won,” said Garrett bleakly.
“No. We have ended a peace that masked a lie; we cannot live with the Anakim.” Bellamus glanced back at Stepan sitting behind, who, unseen by Garrett, dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword. “Or, rather, I ended a peace that masked a lie.”
Garrett turned his head slowly to face Bellamus. “What do you mean, you ended the peace?”
Bellamus smiled at him pleasantly. “What you must understand about the Anakim, Garrett, is that they are too warlike for their own good. Battle is the only thing that keeps their numbers in check. They live such a long time that, though they breed more slowly than us, in the end they will outnumber us if they are not controlled by war.” Garrett was frowning and Bellamus turned back to face the bleak kingdom over the river. “That was the realisation I came to a few years ago. All across Erebos, I’ve seen the frontier where Anakim meets Sutherner, and there is never peace. We are too different; there is too much mutual suspicion and misunderstanding. We have the advantage in numbers now, but it will not last. The sooner this war started, the more likely we were to win it. So I started it.”
“No you didn’t,” said Garrett. “They started raiding Suthdal. That brought God’s wrath: the flooding, the plague, the snakes in the sky. That is why the war started.”
“And why did the Anakim raid south? Because I raided them first. We did,” said Bellamus, gesturing around at the Hermit Crabs. “We provoked them, and they replied. There is always flooding. There is always plague. Every single year. The fiery snakes were a pleasant coincidence, but it was I who paid the priests to declare that they were signs of God’s displeasure for allowing the Anakim to set foot in our lands. I know how the king works, Garrett. He’s scared wicked of the Anakim. All he needed was the right push.” Garrett did not seem to have noticed that the Hermit Crabs were now very close behind him.
“I heard that you were counselling caution in King Osbert’s court,” said Garrett, still suspicious. “And that it was Queen Aramilla who championed the invasion.”
Bellamus waved the queen’s intervention aside, not prepared to reveal everything. “I did counsel caution,” he said. “I did not want my hand detected and I did not want Earl William in charge, but fortunately that situation resolved itself early in the campaign.” Bellamus let silence fall for a time. “So now that you know,” he said presently. “I wondered whether you might join me in finishing this war. I can promise you more prestige than you will find anywhere else. Certainly more than you’ll get sitting in King Osbert’s court. You can have your chance against the greatest Anakim warriors ever to live. You can fight Gogmagoc. Or, you can do as His Majesty suggested and take my head back to him for my failure.”
Garrett was fixated on Bellamus, sitting very still in his saddle. “What will His Majesty do when he discovers
