Free The Sacred Band: Book Three of the Acacia Trilogy by David Anthony Durham Page A

determine the order in which the clans would march away on this campaign.
    Realizing the man was staring at Sabeer, Rialus looked back at her. She smiled and dipped her head in greeting. Her gaze ascended as Menteus Nemré continued his climb. “You shouldn’t ask such things,” Sabeer said, returning to Rialus’s question. She leaned a bit closer. “You embarrass us. You see, we’ve forgotten.”
    “Forgotten?”
    She shrugged, waved him away with her hand, and then pointed at the musicians. “Sing.”
    Howlk asked, “So what do you believe, Rialus? I’ve heard the quota speak of few gods. There is one that gives, yes?”
    “The god of presents,” Allek quipped.
    “Yes, that one. Can you get him to give me something? I want a great many things.”
    They all looked at Rialus with playfully serious faces, expressions that grew more amused as he tried to convey the essential details surrounding the Giver. Before he had gotten far at all, Jàfith said, “What nonsense! Did you just make that up, Leagueman?”
    “No, I’ve heard others speak the same many times,” Allek said. “Theirs is a feeble faith. Don’t look offended, Rialus. What sense does it make that one god would create all? Why would he create … rabbits. Soft and cuddly, yes? And then create foxes that hunt them down and tear them to shreds? Why do that? That god is no god to the rabbits. He is a demon that favors their enemies. But nor does that god honor the fox, for he creates other animals bigger than it. Creates wolves. Creates you Acacians. Even you, Rialus, could kill a fox if you were lucky and had the right weapon.”
    “And if the creature was lame or old,” Jàfith added.
    “It simply makes no sense. It’s an addled god who creates hunted and hunter both, killer and those to be killed. Health and disease at the same—”
    “No, the Giver did not create disease,” Rialus said. “Elenet did that!”
    “Elenet?” Sabeer asked. “Who is Elenet?”
    “One of the first humans. He followed the Giver and learned his language and tried to use it, but when he did he released disease, illness, death. Things like …”
    Rialus’s voice faded as the triumphant expression on Howlk’s face grew. “Listen to yourself. You’re telling us that a human stole the words of creation from a god? All he had to do was talk like a god and he became a god?”
    “That’s like saying if you stole Devoth’s armor and wore it you would become as he,” Allek said. “Do you think that, Rialus?”
    “No, I—”
    “But that’s what this Elenet did,” Howlk said. Rialus tried to say more, but Howlk talked over him. “Foolishness from start to finish. You know how the world really works? Life is war. It’s the struggle between forces that defines it. Hunger gnaws your belly until it is defeated by consumption. But then just when consumption lies down to sleep, hunger rises and grabs it around the neck and starves it. The night overcomes the day; the day burns away the night. Back and forth. Back and forth. War, Rialus, but not chaos. That’s the difference between us. In conflict you and your people see confusion, see something to be lived through in waiting for peace. We, though, see conflict as what the gods intended.”
    “I think this is good news for us, yes?” Allek asked. The others agreed that it was.
    Sabeer rose to her feet. “Rialus, pay these fools no mind. Come, let’s entertain ourselves privately.”
    “Me?” Rialus said.
    She smiled suggestively. “Yes, you, none of these others interest me tonight.”
    A howling protest answered this, mixed with invitations and suggestive encouragements for Rialus. The humorous remarks followed them to the edge of the chamber, where Sabeer slipped on boots of white fox fur and a coat of some other hide that she wrapped around herself loosely. Rialus, unsure what he was heading to but trying to be relieved to get away from the others, fumbled himself into his outer garments. He