The Daughters of Vei, Chapter 1

Kivli and Varyta ul-Kogon both come to the same conclusion using wildly different investigative methods.

Previously on Daughters of Vei… Kivli saw something that blew her mind.

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(The Daughters of Vei is a prequel to The Shieldbreaker Saga. You can buy the first novel of the series here.)

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“So your merchant friend…”

“Adan.”

“Adan. He says Ikune is fucked.”

“Yes, my Prince. He told me that by the time he had seen enough and got out, Emperor Ruaz was already dead and three different generals were all claiming the red robes, gathering troops to themselves in different sectors of the city—each holding their own granary and keeping it under guard for good measure, too. The gates are all shut, the markets are empty of goods, and the civilian population is—”

“Fucked even worse.”

“—yes, my Prince. Starving, trapped, and terrified. And that’s from a couple weeks ago. Who knows how bad it’s gotten since.”

“Shit.” Varyta ul-Kogon turned to his left to address another one of the young men at his table. “Maraz, there’s still no news from the east?”

“The Runir haven’t been seen or heard from, my Prince. Our man in Aridine hasn’t sent any word otherwise.”

“So there’s no one left to stop the northerners if they decide to come over the Brul.”

None of the three men surrounding the Prince said anything for a moment. Finally, the one who’d brought the news to begin with piped up. “My Prince?”

“Yes, Tarav.”

“When are you going to tell Varyta-Kogon?”

Varyta chewed on his tongue for a moment.

“We depart for the Tapaa in five days' time. I’ll talk to him before that. The chieftains of the rest of the tribes will need to be informed as soon as possible, so...”

“Yeah. Good timing for the meeting.” Tarav hesitated again. “How…how do you think he’ll respond?”

Varyta didn’t answer right away, looking quietly at his man to let him stew in the gravity of his error in judgment.

“I will not presume to speak for our Kogon.”

“Of course not,” Tarav answered as quickly as he could form the words. “Avzaka-min.”

Varyta shook his head and waved away the apology casually. It was only natural for Tarav to ask the question, after all. It had been a long, slow few years for the fighting men of the Hodrir since their ruler had decided not to take any further part in the northern wars.

It was the right move at the time, but now the world felt significantly more dangerous, out of balance. The tribes of Etela had played the empires of Rune and Imandris against each other for centuries to stay independent and become rich; what exactly would they do without them? Not to mention, if these northerners were as strong as his informants said they were, no one tribe could possibly stand in their way. Their independence was suddenly a glaring weakness.

There was only one man with the authority to try to bind the tribes together as one people.

And that was a problem too, because that one man had made it very clear that he wanted his people to stay out of northern business. In fact, just by letting his men continue to quietly travel north and keep their information networks intact, Varyta had already technically disobeyed his father.

The Kogon was not accustomed to being disobeyed.

His orders never came out as commands; he used a light touch with every Oproz, treating them as trusted allies rather than vassals, offering them ‘friendly advice,’ and giving them space to decide for themselves to go along with him. Which they had, cheerfully enough, for nearly twenty years, each of them knowing that the alternative would cost them favor and influence with a man whose enemies’ names were already practically forgotten.

The only one the Kogon ever gave orders to was his heir and namesake. Varyta seemed to be the only one who could make him lose his temper, too.

That would almost certainly be the case tonight.

But for a development this important, Varyta would accept the brunt of his father’s anger as a necessary discomfort. He would do whatever he had to to convince him to act.

—

Kivli woke up with a splitting headache and knew what was about to happen. She lightly laid the palm of her hand over the spot on top of her head where she knew the bleeding would be coming from, then smeared the blood across her face and took a deep breath to accept the gift from her divine patroness.

The visions were coming with more frequency these days. When she first saw Vei’s messengers seven years ago on that battlefield north of Ikune, where the mighty river Keksu bent just so and created a crossing ground that was always fordable in any season, she assumed it was simply the Goddess’s way of showing her love and reassuring Kivli of a place close to her when the time came.

The Daughters had been at the forefront of a crushing victory that day: Metan had let Kivli talk him into having her girls ford the river in darkness the night before. They lay low in the tall grasses until the easterners’ flank passed them and opened itself up to a lethal surprise attack. The Daughters had singlehandedly destroyed a legion ten times their number, the entire Runir left had collapsed, and in the aftermath Tarson II of Rune was found dead on the field and the grateful Imandrir emperor (Ruktaz, maybe? There had been quite a few of them in recent years) gifted the Hodrir the lion’s share of the day’s spoils.

Kivli had not seen all of that, but when she heard how the rest of the battle had gone, she figured her vision was a reward for her prowess and her faith, for teaching her girls well.

But the visions kept happening, more often and with greater intensity. It had been clear for a while that the goddess was trying to tell her something.

Speak to me, Patroness. With all my heart, I am yours; I just need to know what you—

A lightning bolt of pain forced her to her knees, eyes squeezed shut—

Blood and smoke and shit assault her nostrils. She opens her eyes; she is back on the riverbend, sword in hand, head throbbing, waiting to see them again.

And there they are, Vei’s Messengers, firebright and beautiful, walking unhurriedly among the dead and the dying.

But not stopping.

Not for anyone.

Why aren’t they stopping?

Kivli gasped in horror and found herself back on her hands and knees in her quarters, shaking, blood dripping down from her forehead onto the threadbare carpet next to her bedframe.

One of the younger girls’ voices rang from the hallway. “Ohta?”

The door creaked partway open.

Kivli looked up.

Liliti’s head was poking around the door. “Sorry to disturb you, Ohta. Just a lot of noise coming from down this way. You alright?”

Her tone was casual. Kivli knew better, by now, than to expect any of her girls to notice anything amiss. She looked down and noted, just as she expected, the absence of blood on her carpet. Her hands were clean, too.

The vision was only for her.

She scowled. “I’m fine, girl. Back to your post.”

“Yes, Ohta.” She disappeared for a moment, then reappeared just as abruptly. “Closed?”

“Closed is fine.”

The door closed.

Kivli stayed where she was for a while, waiting for the goddess to reach out to her again, before giving up and climbing back onto her mattress.

It took her a while to drift back to sleep.

—

“...I disobeyed you, and I am sorry for it. I will accept whatever punishment you see fit. But I beg you to hear me and take the information into account.”

The Avla Oproz, the chieftain’s hall, had been cleared of guards at the Prince’s request and the Kogon’s instruction. The only two men on hand besides the two Varytas were Metan ul-Aravan, the Ra’an Ohtar, and Metan’s protégé Alakuz ul-Nev, the tall, glowering, dark-skinned foreigner’s bastard who was currently serving as personal bodyguard to the Kogon.

The Kogon was glowering too. He had yet to speak a word. He seemed to be staring through his son, searching for whatever ugliness was hidden within him that would give him the temerity to disobey his chieftain. Varyta knew his father’s silence was intended to make him lose his nerve. He would not let it.

“The situation to the north is no longer even remotely stable, Matavuz. My men tell me nobody knows who is in charge.”

“In Ikune? That happens every two or three years.”

“No, Kogon. I mean, there are three different men there claiming the red.”

Varyta felt a slight thrill of satisfaction as his father leaned back involuntarily, finally paying full attention to the situation. “The throne of Imandris.”

“Yes.”

“From Ikune.”

“Yes, Kogon. And another at Efez. And all the local Imandrir armies are split between the four of them.”

Varyta-Kogon lifted a single finger to scratch his chin under his greying beard. “You think the western empire is about to fall.”

“If it has not already fallen? Yes.”

The Kogon’s finger dug deeper, ratcheting up its intensity. That was the only sound for a moment. Then he looked up at Metan and Alakuz.

“Leave us.”

Metan raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, then shrugged and walked past the prince, patting him on the shoulder gently. Alakuz saluted the Kogon and followed his mentor silently out of the hall. He gave Varyta a perfunctory nod of respect as he passed.

Varyta wasn’t sure he liked Alakuz and wasn’t sure why. No matter; he would get to make his own appointments when he eventually took charge of the tribe.

Hopefully not for quite some time.

When the Kogon saw the curtain was closed, he stood up from the red sandstone chair of Oproz, the chair that held all their people’s stories in its carvings, and walked over to put an arm around his son’s shoulder. There was no reassurance in his grip.

“Alright. Enough with the formalities. How much do you know, exactly? How far does your little network of spies actually stretch?”

Varyta sighed. “East to Aridine, west to Efez, north all the way to Toskalne. And our friends there tell me about what’s happening north of the Brul.”

The Kogon nodded. “So you know about the horsemen, then. That’s what this is actually about.”

“Yes, father.”

“My informants have told me there are only a few thousand of them. A few tribes getting together and creating some distance from the rest of their kind…something about a new god.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

“We don’t know what their intentions are beyond that. What is it you are hoping I will do, exactly?”

“Unite the Etela.”

The Kogon snorted.

“Claim the full extent of your rights as Kogon. The tribes all acknowledge you as their overlord already, why not—”

Varyta stopped abruptly as his father’s grip tightened. “Think, boy. Do you honestly believe that any chieftain of a people as proud and bloodthirsty as ours will accept an outright command? That any of them could bow their heads and say to me, ‘Yes, Kogon, your word is law,’ and afterwards not expect a knife in the guts from one of their own people, for shaming them?” He pulled Varyta closer, squeezing his shoulder in a vice-like grip. “There is nothing to the title of Kogon. Nothing whatsoever, except the respect they owe me, and as soon as I begin to make demands, that respect disappears. We’re more likely to start a big fucking stupid war between all the tribes, just by opening our mouths. If we say we need to unite against a common enemy, we had better be absolutely certain—and we had better not expect to command that force alone.”

He finally relaxed his grip on Varyta’s shoulder. Varyta took a step back and turned to look at him.

“Something terrible is going to happen unless you stop it.”

The Kogon sighed. “You’re young. Those two empires have been on the brink of collapse for as long as I’ve been in power. They are too big and too rich to fall.”

“Father, you have told me time and again that war costs more money than anything else in the world, and those crazy bastards have been fighting each other for fifty-something years. And now the westerners fighting amongst themselves in Ikune are withholding food from the city’s inhabitants to feed their soldiers, and nobody knows where the hell the eastern armies even went. I—” Varyta stopped abruptly, sighed, shook his head. “I think this time is different. We need to be ready for whatever is coming next.”

“Varyta, how many high kings have there been in our people’s history?”

Varyta looked up. “Si—seven?”

“Yes. Seven, in total, over who knows how many hundreds of years.”

“So?”

“You are aware that you won’t inherit the title from me, right?”

Varyta’s cheeks flushed and he clenched his jaw for a moment to stem the tide of foul language that instinctively threatened to burst forth. He took a deep breath and nodded curtly. “Yes, Kogon. I’m well aware.”

The older man flinched slightly and looked down, and Varyta felt a tiny pang of guilt in his chest before his father vanished and the Kogon returned. “Good. Your report is noted. You may go.”

Varyta saluted and turned on his heel, walking as briskly for the exit as he could without betraying his fury. Fuck him. I’m trying to keep our people safe and he—

He wasn’t sure what he collided with until he heard it grunt as it hit the floor. He looked down into the grey eyes of his little brother, thirteen and skinny and so, so quiet.

“Sorry, yereka. Didn’t see you there.”

“It’s alright.”

“Did you hear much of that?”

Kareva looked steadily up at him. “No.”

Varyta chuckled. “Liar.” He smiled and extended his left arm to help the boy up. “Come on. Let’s go find something to eat. You’re going to need some more fucking meat on your bones before we stick you in a shield wall.”

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She is on a hill that she does not recognize, looking out over a plain that stretches all the way to the blackened peaks of the northern mountains. She is dressed for battle, wearing light mail and a tunic and trousers, and her shield is already on her arm. She peeks over the boss to make sure the shield is right side up, with the eyes up top and the blood-tears dripping downward. She painted the symbol of Vei onto her shield the night she had her first vision, as a warning to anyone who might face her. It must always be held right side up.

She looks left and right and sees her girls in formation with her, and the bristling weapons of the tribe behind them. The Daughters are leading the vanguard. She would not have it any other way. Her reputation requires it.

She looks back towards the mountains, waiting for the enemy that must be coming from that direction. The sky is darkening already. Have they already lost their nerve?

And then she notices that the foot of the mountains seem to be closer than they were before.

It isn’t the mountains.

It is the enemy. There are so many of them she can’t see grass.

The sun is gone; the sky is pitch black. She hears thunder—is it thunder? She cannot tell. It sounds like—like the roar of thousands of men in the depths of the Scorpion’s path to Kalaa Ukruv’r.

She turns her head again to try to steady her girls and can only see the closest few on either side of her. The thunder sounds like laughter now.

Some uneasy thing, something she hasn’t felt since she was a child, stirs in her mind and makes her look over the front of her shield again.

The Goddess is upside-down.

And at that moment, the enemy—countless, faceless, formless—are on them, and she is afraid—

She woke up screaming. She’d thrown herself off of her palette and landed on the floor. Her head was throbbing again.

That was no nightmare.

She instinctively reached for her sword as she heard footsteps and voices coming down the hall and a body bumping against the locked door (when had she locked the door?). She braced, blade out, ready for anything, as the boot finally forced the lock.

Liliti burst into the room, and Kivli, relieved and exhausted, dropped her sword and sat down heavily on the floor.

The girl was on one knee next to her in a flash. “Ohta?” Her fear was written plainly on her face. She lowered her voice. “You—you saw something, didn’t you?”

Kivli nodded.

“Something terrible is going to happen.”

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Read Chapter 2

Go back: Prologue

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