They lost that battle.
The presiding Ephor, draped in an immense cloak of eagle feathers that flashed and rippled every time he shifted in his seat, was not swayed by the noise of the hall. There were witnesses who spoke out against the two brothers. Three quivering women, teary-eyed but unwavering, insisted that Urthr had forced himself upon them. “Lies!” Urthr screamed at each in turn. “Where did they find these wretches? Every word, a lie!” He was found guilty, though, and trussed up to be sent to one of the prison-ships in the North Sea.
“There you will labour,” decreed the Ephor, voice well trained to carry over the baying crowd, “for twenty years for each woman you have wronged. Once free, you will start afresh as a nemandi and re-earn your status as a subject.” Urthr had been demoted to an apprentice rank, a rung below the full peers and subjects of the Black Kingdom. Stricken, Urthr appealed to his father, but Uvoren had turned away and strode from the room as soon as the sentence was read out.
Unndor was next to be dragged down, falling victim to a dozen tales of cowardice. On three separate occasions, it was said, he had shuffled back from the front rank when it was his turn, and sheltered behind the flesh of worthier subjects. Four times, it was alleged, he had attacked warriors already engaged in a fight and slain them from behind. One legionary testified that he had seen Unndor turn away from the battlefield earlier in the autumn before the Black Lord had signalled the retreat.
“How convenient that every witness so far has been either Vidarr or Jormunrekur!” howled Uvoren.
“Yes,” said the Ephor cuttingly. “What a surprise that none of the Lothbroks have testified against these men.” Cowardice, in its most extreme form, was punishable by sticky-fire. But this was not one of those: Unndor had twice been close to receiving a Prize of Valour and had something of a reputation of his own. Nevertheless, the evidence could not be ignored and, though he avoided the prison-ships and even retained his status as subject, he was reduced to an auxiliary legionary.
Roper had been at both trials. At first Uvoren had ignored him, but after Unndor was reduced to an auxiliary, the captain had looked across the chamber to Roper and raised a trembling finger to point in his direction, his jaw set, his nostrils flared and his eyes shining with spite. Roper had responded with a cold nod, holding Uvoren’s eye for a time before turning away from the scene.
Two gone from the table. Six remain.
18The Hybrid
It was a still morning when Bellamus and his ragged band at last snaked through Lundenceaster’s main gate. As they travelled south, the influence the Anakim exerted on the locals had lessened. A hundred miles after the barn in which Bellamus had left two of his soldiers hanging, the locals started to lose their hair-braids and bright bracelets. Many of the Anakim words remained in use but the land was less sparsely populated and less wary. They knew of the Anakim there, of course, but nobody had seen one in a decade, there were no hybrid slaves, and they had no fear of mentioning the name of that race out loud. Even so, the folk there still stopped their work to stare uneasily at the whipped Suthern force, turning to look back to the north as though they might see pursuing and vengeful Anakim darkening the hills.
Further south, the Anakim had drifted into the supernatural. The people there knew of the race of fallen angels that inhabited the north, but were unclear how they might tell them apart from any other man. Bellamus heard that sometimes individuals were accused of being Anakim and put on trial to determine their innocence. Unusual height was enough to place you under suspicion; but so was having a good harvest when everyone else’s had failed, or being a recluse, or having particularly bright eyes, or giving birth to twins.
At last they had come to Lundenceaster: a city where the nobles were taught Anakim along with Frankish, Samnian, Iberian and Frisian as they grew up; a legacy of the days when the Anakim had swarmed over the walls and invaded the streets. To the folk here, the Anakim were almost totally mystical, and were kept at bay with crosses, ceremonial braziers that burned herbs and feathers, and, by royal decree, symbols inscribed in chalk onto the streets at night.
There were no symbols now. Just snow. Everywhere he looked, Bellamus could see signs of the damage wrought by this turbulent year. Skeletal houses stripped bare by the wind crowded those haggard few that had resisted the elements. He could feel from the way his horse walked that beneath its hooves were not snow-covered cobbles but a smooth sheet of ice. A bell was tolling in a nearby church and the sound was enough to make Bellamus smile. He had not heard one since before he had crossed the Abus and it made him realise for the first time that the Anakim had no bells. How could he have missed that?
People stepped aside as they saw the little column enter the streets, watching suspiciously from doorways or upstairs windows as they progressed. They stared particularly at Bellamus, eyes lingering on the enormous war-blade that he carried, strapped over his shoulder.
Bellamus’s household was one of the sturdy stone buildings left behind by the empire that had stretched over these lands long ago. Its tiled roof had resisted the
