"Then we have to find Gladdic before he learns the tide's turned."
"He was seen coming here. When the Andrac died, he fled southwest."
Blays caught Dante's eye. "Toward the road. Sounds like we'd better hurry."
With the need for as much speed as they could muster, they left the Keeper behind. The city streets were clogged with debris and skirmishes, so they drifted south toward the open ground that ringed the butte, sprinting across the paving stones. Dante felt remarkably good. It wasn't just the triumph of having destroyed the Andrac. The Keeper was a skilled healer.
Shouts carried from the interior of the city. Before, they'd been scared. Now, they were defiant. As Dante ran, he caught glimpses of mixed groups of soldiers and citizens jogging down the street, weapons in hand.
"They're going to retake the city," Blays said. "When they do, suppose they're going to reprise the slaughter at the river?"
"If they've got a brain between them, they'll keep the prisoners as leverage. But it doesn't matter. As soon as we finish Gladdic, we're going to find Naran and put this place behind us for good."
Hearing the shouts of their fellow citizens, people had begun to open their shutters. As Dante and Blays ran on, Blays called questions to the residents, asking if they'd seen Gladdic pass. Three confirmed having seen a tall, cadaverous man in plain gray robes. As Dante and Blays neared the south side of the city, however, a woman in a window told them that rather than going to the road, Gladdic had continued past it to the west.
Blays glanced to all sides. "The road's the only way down from here. Why would he go back into the depths of the city?"
Dante shook his head. "Maybe some of his people were trapped by the Colleners. Or he's going back for a relic of some kind."
"Or maybe it's a trap."
They headed west. Within three blocks, heavy footfalls sounded ahead. Gladdic bobbed down the street at a fast walk. He glanced over his shoulder, double-taking as he spotted them, then broke into his best effort at a sprint.
Dante and Blays caught up easily, spreading apart as they neared. Blays held his swords in hand, Dante the nether. Breathing heavily, Gladdic turned. His face was sweaty, red, and contorted with fear.
"I know how this looks," the priest said. "But there's been a mistake."
Sick to his stomach, Dante laughed. "It was an accident that you tried to murder everyone in this city?"
"You don't understand. That wasn't me! I'm not—"
Dante clenched his teeth. "You put thousands of innocent citizens to their deaths. Now, you answer for that."
Nether slashed through the air in a black blizzard. Dante hurled it at Gladdic. The priest shrieked and flung his hands over his face. Droplets of ether shimmered in Gladdic's grasp, but they were torn aside by the storm of shadows.
Blood squirted into the priest's robes. With an airy gasp, he flopped to the dirt. Gladdic lifted his hands, a marble-sized ball of ether shining in each palm. Dante gathered more shadows. Hands shaking, Gladdic turned the ether on himself.
His body contracted, shortening and plumpening. His gaunt cheeks filled out. His gray hair darkened; his face went round, wrinkles smoothing under a boyish layer of fat. He was no longer a tall, ropy man in late middle age, but a short, rotund youth.
Bleeding into his robes, the young man gave them a tired, baleful look, like that of an old bloodhound. As if to say "I told you so." He collapsed on his back, hands plopping to the ground, eyes staring vacantly into the warm autumn day.
"A second ago, wasn't he all gangly?" Blays said. "What did you hit him with? A plate of bacon?"
"This was a decoy." Dante spat in the dirt. "An illusion. To cover his tracks while he escaped down the cliffs."
"If you're smart enough to have figured that out, then what are you doing standing around while Gladdic escapes?"
It felt like Dante had spent the entire day running. Even after the Keeper's ministrations, he barely had the strength to jog back to the road down from the butte. Collenese soldiers had taken the top of the road and were digging in, leery of a counterattack from the small Mallish army that remained on the plain. The Colleners reported that a plump young man in gray robes had been seen descending the switchbacks fifteen minutes ago, but peering down the road, Dante saw no sign of Gladdic there or in the fields below.
"He's been operating out of one of the caves, hasn't he?" Blays motioned downslope. "Think he might be hiding out there?"
"Why would he do that?"
"Because worms feel most at home in dank, dark places?"
With no other ideas, Dante headed downhill to the cavern where Gladdic had brought forth the gigantic Star-Eater. The doors remained open. Dante blew on his torchstone, lighting it. The cavern beyond was big enough to hold hundreds of people. Clean bones lined the walls. The smell of recent incense couldn't quite cover the lingering odor of blood.
"This was where he was killing them," Dante murmured. "Careful. Earlier, he had a second Andrac guarding the slopes. I haven't seen it since."
Other than the bones and a small platform near the back, the chamber was empty. A passage at the rear curved into a second room as large as the first.
Dante stopped in his tracks. Hundreds of bodies lay on the floor, packed shoulder to shoulder, three to five layers deep. Most showed blackened, withered wounds. The predominant smell was that of skin; beneath it were notes of urine and feces, but there was no rot whatsoever.
Thousands of them. Dante had seen more dead in one place on the battlefields of Gask, but those men had died fighting. They'd been armed, uniformed, equipped. These people had been fed to a demon and then stripped to their smallclothes.
Blays nosed the air. "This wasn't all from today, was it? How can they be so well-preserved?"
"Ether. It's holding them in their ideal state. Unable to decay."
"Why would he preserve them? Part of another ritual?"
"I don't think he could dispose of them without tipping off the city as to what he was doing. He preserved them so they wouldn't smell. Once everyone was dead, I'm sure the bonfire would have been visible from Dog's Paw." Dante tried to make a quick count of the bodies. "How do you think the others will react to this?"
"By making the local vendors of torches and pitchforks very rich."
"And the hatred the Colleners hold for Mallon will only burn hotter. It's already beyond control. I wonder if it wouldn't be better to bury the dead before the survivors find them."
"They already know what Gladdic was doing." Blays sheathed his swords. "Anyway, I thought we were done meddling with this place."
They headed to the town below the butte, but it was completely vacant. If Gladdic had come through it, there were no witnesses. Even if there had been people there to see, most likely, Gladdic had left in disguise. They spotted a handful of people hastening west through the desert, but even if, by luck alone, they chose the one that was Gladdic, they wouldn't know it until and unless he revealed himself—which, if it happened, would most likely occur as he was attempting to slay them.
"He'll go back to Bressel," Dante said. "We'll find him there."
"That worked so well for us before."
"Things are different now. We've destroyed his source of shaden. Learned to defeat the Andrac. He doesn't have any more weapons left to use against us."
"But this time, he'll know we're coming."
Dante smiled thinly. "Do you think that will matter?"
"No," Blays said. "I don't."
They trudged back up the road. At the top, four hundred Colleners had gathered to defend the chokepoint into the city. Many had blood on their weapons and clothes.
Cord jogged from their ranks. "Ah, there you are. We've retaken the city!"
"That was fast," Blays said. "Though I suppose everything goes a little faster when you don't have monsters trying to bite you in half."
Dante motioned downhill. "We think Gladdic's fled the city. Have any of your people seen him?"
She qu
eried her defenders. A couple of them confirmed having seen Gladdic heading west past the road, but that meant they were referring to the dead young man who'd been disguised as the older priest. They were still interviewing the soldiers when a runner approached Cord, sweating heavily.
She spoke to him briefly, then made her way to Dante. "The Keeper's at the Reborn Shrine. She insists we join her."
"Insists?" Dante looked to the east, but after the devastation of the shrine, no part of it rose above the rest of the city. "What's this about?"
"She said nothing more. But she's the Keeper. Her request is enough."
Cord let her lieutenants know she was stepping out, then walked to the east at a good clip. Dante and Blays fell in beside her. People were singing in the streets. Others had started cook fires, aided and surrounded by men and women who'd gone gaunt during the occupation. Seeing their celebrations and relief, Dante's heart soared with pride.
The shrine lay in its own ruins. Hundreds of people had been drawn to the spectacle of its shattered walls and tumbled dome. They stood in silent disbelief, glancing from the wreckage to the new arrivals.
The Keeper stood in front of the bronze front doors, which had fallen, dented and half-buried. Before her, she had assembled a gut-high cairn, each of its rocks seemingly made of a different type of stone. The woman's pale blue eyes flitted to Dante, then drifted over the heads of the crowd.
"Time after time," she said, voice booming like the northern surf, "the Mallish have torn this shrine to the ground. No matter how many times they've forced us to rebuild it, we have never despaired. For the prophecy has always told us that, after the twelfth time the Mallish razed the shrine, we would rebuild it yet again. And on that day, Arawn himself would appear to lead us to lasting victory."
She gazed up at the ragged back wall of the Reborn Shrine. "History tells us that, before today, the shrine had been razed and rebuilt ten times. That was a lie. One meant to lull the Mallish into complacency. In truth, they have destroyed it eleven times. And eleven times it's been reborn."
Placing one hand on her back for support, she stooped and picked up a jagged slab of basalt. Arms quaking, she stood. "Today, our foes tore down our shrine for the twelfth time. Now let it be reborn."
She placed the stone atop the cairn. As soon as it was in place, a squiggly line of light sprung from either side of it, converging in front of the monument. Dante recognized it at once. Duset. The two rivers.
Symbol of Arawn.
The crowd thrust up their fists and cheered as if the god himself had arisen behind the Keeper. In disbelief, Dante wandered closer. The Mallish hadn't blown up the temple. During his research into the Andrac, hadn't he read an account from her archives confirming the shrine had been destroyed and rebuilt ten times?
He drew within twenty feet of her and stopped. Around him, the audience quieted, watching.
"I don't understand, Keeper," he said. "Your prophecy said the Mallish had to destroy the shrine." He gestured to the broken stone. "They didn't do this. I did."
The Keeper laughed wisely. "But you are Mallish." She uplifted her hands to the sky. "Behold! The man who freed his people from the empire of Gask. The man who exposed Mallon's lies about our past and brought us the truth: that the ruining of our land wasn't our fault. Behold the man who slew the demons that threatened to kill every last one of us. The man who commands the nether as the gods themselves."
The Keeper lowered her arm and pointed at Dante. "My people! The avatar of Arawn appears among us—and he will lead us to victory in Mallon."
Every eye in the square locked on him. Before, the crowd's shouts had been furious. Now, they were frenzied. The manic, euphoric cries of losing your mind to a belief far grander than yourself.
The Keeper kneeled to him, bowing her head. Hundreds of Colleners did the same. Dante stood alone, like an idol before the masses. Ones convinced that he'd been sent by the gods to put an end to a war that had burned for nine hundred years.
Once, many years ago, an old man had used him as an unwitting weapon against a mighty kingdom. As the people began to chant his name, and the old woman grinned at the ground, he understood.
The cycle had repeated.

1
The half-ruined rear wall of the Reborn Shrine held itself up as best it could. A thousand Colleners kneeled in the hard sunlight, gazes turned down to the ground. Hundreds of Mallish soldiers lay prone on the flagstones, blood staining the geometry of the grout.
And Dante stood alone.
The Keeper had declared him a god. The avatar of Arawn, arrived, as prophesied, to fight back the Mallish and free the Collen Basin from centuries of torment. As the Colleners kneeled before him, he could feel the yearning roiling off them like stink off a dog. They needed him. Not just for his skill. But for what he represented: the hope that he might finally break their cycle of warfare, rebellion, and slavery.
Dante knew two things: first, that he was no avatar. And second, that the Keeper had played him like a reed flute. Jaw clenched so tight he thought his teeth would crease, he turned his gaze on the Keeper. She remained on her knees, but gazed back at him from beneath her white brows. Daring him to undo the moment she had created.
He wanted to throw it back in her face, spit on the Colleners' prophecy, and walk away. A few years ago, he would have done just that. But he had led the city of Narashtovik through war. He knew what a moment like this meant. The morale of a people galvanized to their cause was more valuable than the finest steel.
He closed his eyes. "People of Collen! For ages, your future hasn't been your own. Instead, it's been at the mercy of Mallish warmongers. Today, that changes forever."
He opened his eyes. The crowd had lifted their heads and their eyes shined like lanterns reflected in glass windows.
"They came to your land with soldiers. Priests. Demons. We've thrown them out, but they will come back, just as they always do—unless you unite today. Unless you dedicate your every act to keeping the enemy at bay. Will you do this? Will you fight back? Will you claim your land for good?"
"Are you really him?" Hesitantly, a young woman raised her hand. "Are you really…Arawn?"
The crowd seemed to hold its breath. Dante clenched his fists. "I am just as you see." He drew the nether to him in thin lines, letting it swirl around him like the black streaks of a norren ink-painter lost in manic creation. "And I've had enough."
The woman made a choking sound. Two others beside her burst into tears. Others thrust up their fists and shouted. At first, their words were a babble, but they soon resolved into a single repeated word.
"Dante! Dante! Dante!"
He raised his fist. Their chant doubled in volume. He meant to turn and go, but he stood transfixed, riding their emotion like a boat on the swells. What if Arawn had brought him here? Was it that crazy of an idea? The prophecy was an almost perfect match. He was from Mallon; the Reborn Shrine had been destroyed and (again, technically) rebuilt again, completing its cycle; he'd driven not just an army from Collen, but also destroyed an enormous demon. Yes, the prophecy also said that he'd arrive as an incarnation of Arawn, but what if that was figurative? Wasn't his power with the nether more godlike than mortal?
He scanned the crowd, testing out a smile. A man was holding up a young child. Dante's eyes locked on the boy's. He was blonder than Blays, with the pale and piercingly blue eyes common to Colleners. Unlike the rapt faces around him, who were awash with eager and unquestioning devotion, the boy regarded Dante with a calm stare, chin pushed up, mouth slightly puckered: the clear expression of doubt.
Dante laughed dryly. Physically, the boy looked nothing like him, but the emotion on the kid's face was exactly how Dante had so often felt when adults had tried to explain the world to him.
He was no god. He'd come from the same humble place the boy had. To try to convince himself otherwise was to walk down the same path Gladdic was on.
"I can help lift you toward your freedom
," Dante said. "But only you can reach up and take it."
He turned his back on the crowd and walked from the square. People murmured questions to each other. Before their uncertainty could fall into fear, the Keeper spoke out, her croaking voice booming through the square.
Dante didn't bother to listen. He picked his way through the rubble of the shrine, joined by Blays, who was as dirty as Dante was bloody.
"Where are you off to, Captain God?" Blays stepped over a severed arm. "Got an afternoon miracle to attend?"
"I'm going to find Naran."
"When were you planning to tell me about the Keeper's plan to add you to the Celeset?"
Dante's face flushed with anger. "You think I knew about that?"
"She pulled that off on her own?"
"It was a stunt. She used me to fulfill the Colleners' prophecy. In the wake of this, she'll be able to bring the entire basin to her banner."
"That's a masterstroke of cunning. You'll have to remember that one for the next time you're trying to manipulate someone into war." Blays tilted back his head. "If you didn't know about this, then why did you look so happy about it?"
Dante strode through a thin puddle of blood. "Want to know the real reason I'm getting out of here? Because if I have to listen to one more of the Keeper's lies, I'll kill her myself."
He tracked down a servant from the Reborn Shrine and got directions to where Naran was being treated. Dante was too exhausted to run, so as he walked toward the blacksmith's where they had Naran, he got a good look at the state of the city.
Smoke rose on all sides. Some was from the city burning in the wake of the battle, but other plumes were from cook fires to feed prisoners and refugees starved during the Mallish occupation. The smell of herbed mutton and baking bread mingled with the stink of burning whitewash. The streets were strewn with garbage and debris, most of it so dusty and dingy that it must have been the product of the occupation rather than the day's battle.
All of the corpses, however, were from that morning. An equal mix of Colleners and Mallish. He looked down on the Mallish with the shallow pity of a commander regarding the enemy's dead grunts. He found that he felt little more than that for the dead Colleners. Because the Keeper had alienated him?
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 90
