Free The Godless by Ben Peek

asked, incredulous. “Were you the child he carried?”
    â€œNo, but you’ve missed the point,” Zaifyr said. “We saw it done, like bread baked.”
    â€œHow did she do it, then?”
    â€œWith blood and death,” the Captain of the Spine replied. “We have a limited time to find the Quor’lo if we wish to know before Bau or Fo arrive. They’re showing some interest because, like us, they think it has been sent from Leera, and if it has, then we want to catch it before they do.”
    Bueralan did not think the last likely to happen and, given the speed with which Heast commanded his waiting sergeant and soldiers, the captain did not either. Of the four mercenaries only Bueralan and Zaifyr were instructed to assist in the search, the two mercenary commanders being dismissed. The evening had been an education for them, a glimpse into the kind of enemy that they would be fighting. Even should the Quor’lo prove not to have been sent by the Leerans—an unlikely prospect, given what Bueralan had already been told—the point had been made that they would not just be fighting with swords and muscle.
    There would be blood.
    The graveyard was a gamble, Bueralan thought as they made their way down the road, a roughly built wooden gate looming above them. A gamble, but an educated one. The safest place for a Quor’lo whose throat had been cut, whose hands were blackened and face burned, was a yard full of men and women who would look no different.
    Outside the city, thin trails of mist swept into a wide road leading down a gentle decline. On either side stood silent trees, their canopies woven thickly together to throw a queer light, a mix of green and orange, upon the path they walked. Further along it widened, turning into a large opening with old, cut-back canopies that the dawn shone through.
    There stood intricate funeral pyres made from iron. Numbering eight lines of ten, the pyres were twice Bueralan’s height and bolted to the ground, each with a god designed into the frame. The first he saw was Ger: the tall god looked introspective with his head bowed and hands over the hilt of his great axe; the Wanderer, who had walked the roads of mortal men and women, stood beside him, his hood lowered and his arms folded; next to him was the Goddess Maita, once goddess of his homeland, whose wings dissolved every morning as the sun rose. It continued, each pyre holding an intricate design, from the obscure gods like Hienka to those like the Leviathan, whose memory lingered in the ocean, until each of the seventy-eight Gods were replicated.
    â€œThe last two,” Zaifyr murmured beside him, “are empty of any design. Whoever is executed by the rule of the land lies there.”
    Grunting, the saboteur said, “Why would someone build this?”
    â€œBecause the gods did exist.” Sergeant Illaan turned to the two men. “Is it so surprising that we pay homage to what they once were? The Third Lord of the Spine believed that we should. He had these pyres built by the blacksmith Juen Methal. It took him thirty years to build them all.”
    â€œIf I die, bury me in the dirt,” Bueralan said. “I don’t need the ceremony.”
    â€œOur ceremony is an important part of our culture. A remembrance.”
    The saboteur shook his head. “Where I was born, people believe that you could capture a soul and hold it in a bottle. The bottle is very dark and made from a specially blown glass. Once your soul is caught, a couple will make an offer to your family, the amount depending on what kind of life the dead has lived. Once an agreement is reached, the woman drinks from the bottle shortly after she conceives.”
    â€œYou believe that?”
    â€œPlenty of children are conceived without a bottle being drunk.”
    Illaan looked as if he were to speak again, but pressed his lips tightly together and his gaze focused behind Bueralan. Turning,