Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  Pikarn laughed. “We already knew that. I hope you got more for us.”

  The man’s eyes shot back and forth between Ivin and Pikarn.

  “All right, yes. They were doing something at the Shrine. Sol’s hand on my heart, I swear I don’t know what. But Grolkan thinks it started beyond the Omindi, at the Steaming Lakes.”

  The Steaming Lakes were in the Treaty Lands, a place cursed by the Wakened Dead if rumor was straight. The beat of his heart quickened. “Last I knew nobody, not even Istinjoln, dares approach the region.”

  “I saw it from a distance once,” Pikarn said. “Many years ago. Things not living walk there. Seen them myself, walking the fogs.”

  “The Colok avoid those ruins, too. Mecum told me Istinjoln staked a permanent camp there about four years ago and then Grolkan’s warriors spotted a messenger, killed the group, and by taking Mecum, they also found this.” He pulled a wooden tube from within his cloak and tapped until a scroll slid out. “I’ll let you read it, to interpret the words yourself. It’s a bit cryptic.” Tokodin unfurled the scroll on the ground and weighted its corners with stones. The monk’s fingers jittered.

  Addressed to Ulrikt himself, the letter spoke of the Steaming Lakes and exploring cairns of the dead. Ximfwa, Cimdine, Komdwom, and Extek, family names which didn’t sound Silone. It also mentioned something called the Sliver of Star and Golden Conch, in addition to a long list of names, noting who’d died in their search.

  Ivin said, “They’re nosing into crypts? Sliver of Star, what power does it possess to make it worth all these lives?”

  “And what the hells is a Golden Conch?” Pikarn asked.

  Tokodin’s tone denoted exasperation. “The Conch was one of the first artifacts pulled from the Treaty Lands before there was a treaty. A faction of Clan Emudar stole it around the hundred-fifteenth Year of Remembrance, and half the clans went to war to retrieve it. After the war, the Church took it to Fermiden Abbey for study and storage. Slivered Star? Now that I’ve never heard of.”

  Ivin doubted this Conch and a visiting lord priest from Fermiden were a coincidence. “What good would the conch be?”

  “I’m only reciting history, and I’m not a scholar of artifacts. It reputedly held the power to enhance a priest’s prayers, a weapon of sorts, as I recall. Bugger if I know for sure. As to why crypts, the peoples who built the cities and other places of power secreted away fortunes in treasures with their dead, and it’s said the crypts date to the Age of Warlords, if not to the Age of God Wars. Wealthier the family, the greater the bounty.”

  Pikarn squinted at the text. “They weren’t after no golden coins.”

  Ivin too glanced at the message, and the connection struck him. “Meliu spoke of a Codex, the Codex of Sol. And that book she carried?”

  Tokodin’s attention shifted to them from the brew in his mug. “Meliu is alive! Thank the gods.”

  “Thank us and a lot of luck,” quipped the Wolverine. “And the skin of her head.” The old man chuckled, but Tokodin’s knit brow said he didn’t find it amusing.

  Ivin said, “About that Codex?”

  Tokodin answered only after their stares refused to go away. “The Codex of Sol, prophecies. It’s whispered about, dangerous tome to speak of. There are other notable codexes, too.”

  “Meliu told us this one was hidden in a library near the Crack.”

  Tokodin shrugged. “Meliu would know better than me, I’m just a lowly monk… Yes, ignore the robes the Colok gave me. But we can’t know of which this scroll speaks.”

  Pikarn said, “We don’t want to be blinded by coincidence, but we can’t ignore it, either.”

  Ivin considered letting Tokodin’s words get away, but couldn’t. “And what? What would she know?”

  “Nothing, really. I mean, Meliu was known to study Old Silone and the Holy Tongues. But they’d never let her near the Codex of Sol, if it even exists.”

  “She said we wouldn’t be able to read it,” Ivin said.

  “And we just delivered her and that godsdamned book straight to Istinjoln.”

  Even right choices sometimes had wrong-headed consequences, a truth his father had beat into his memory. Priests lie, another he’d come to believe. Tokodin’s being a mere monk didn’t change that. “So, Monk… Why wouldn’t she be let near it? More and more you sound like a man not wanting to say what he knows.”

  “Bones and barnacles. You’re Choerkin, you should know better than me.”

  “What the hells are you talking about?”

  “Ailing Stars Prophecy?”

  “The Ailing Stars?” Ivin and the Wolverine shared a pensive glance. “That prophecy was destroyed hundreds of years ago. If ever it was real.”

  “Lord Priest Imrok was killed by your great-great… distant grandfather, set him ablaze and paraded his blackened skull across the island in the Fifth Year of Remembrance. But the text wasn’t destroyed.”

  “What the hells would the Ailing Stars have to do with this Codex and Shadows?”

  The priest shrugged. “The Codex, they say, is full of prophecies of the gods from the Age of God Wars.”

  When the clan brought up the Ailing Stars Prophecy, it was to shame the holy. The text had read of an age when the gods walked the lands and priests ruled the Silone people, not the clans. If a new generation of priests adhered to these beliefs and wanted to make it so again, Ivin imagined only one result: Holy War.

  Zjin sauntered to them, his eyes drilling into Tokodin. “Tell.”

  The monk in priest’s robes sighed. “I’m getting to that.”

  Zjin gestured in a manner that brought to mind popping the man’s head from his shoulders. Judging by Tokodin’s scrunched shoulders he wasn’t far off.

  “Here’s the thing.” Agitation in the monk’s tone grew. “Colok scouts came back the other morning, they’re breaking camp at the Steaming Lakes and a party is by now well on its way back to Istinjoln.”

  “Meaning they found this sliver-star thing?” Pikarn asked.

  The monk said, “We can’t know that.”

  Zjin growled, poked the monk with the butt of his halberd.

  “All right! The Colok believe the priests summoned the Shadows on purpose, and they believe they intend to summon more with whatever this artifact is.”

  Zjin growled, “Zwinfolkum.”

  Ivin shook his head, not recognizing the word, unsure if he’d even heard it right. “Zwinfolkum?”

  Zjin grunted and bore what might’ve been a toothy smile. “Zwinfolkum rule Shadow.”

  Ivin glanced at Zjin, back to the monk, puzzling the words together. “The Shadows have some sort of king?” Zjin growled with a nod. “And if they’re bringing these things here on purpose, Ulrikt could be trying to use this king to some end.”

  Tokodin scoffed, his face flushing. “They’re wrong. The Shadows were an accident; I know it in my soul.”

  “I said if they’re right.”

  The butt of Zjin’s glaive jabbed the monk again. “They want you, the Choerkin, to join their fight. To ambush these priests and take the artifact, to stop the Shadows by killing all those people. An ambush in the Omindi Pass, tomorrow. Gods forgive me for speaking.” Tokodin chugged his ale, grabbed the travel keg from Pikarn’s limp grip and marched away.

  Zjin growled, “Fight.” The Colok nodded, his stare intense, frightening.

  What would the Colok do if Pikarn refused? Ivin glanced to the Wolverine, but the old man was no help as they stared at each other. “Godsdamnit, boy. I’m not making that call, this is killing our own people we’re talking here, holy folk. Pieces of shit they are, but still. Let’s say we get this Sliver of Star, what the hells then? Sit on it like some damned hen on an egg?”

  “Destroy it, throw it in the strait, gods be damned if I know, but it’d be war, succeed or fail. And if this is true,” Ivin said, “most of these holies can’t know the evil they’re plotting. I won’t believe that. We’d be slaughtering innocents, holy innocents, pious me
n and women.” He rubbed his forehead.

  “Aye, but if true, no way in the hells we can touch the bastards responsible, best we can do is stop this Sliver. You’re the Choerkin, the clan blood, this is your decision in the name of your father and uncle. The wardens will follow you, no questions asked.”

  “And if you were clan blood?”

  The Wolverine stared at him without a flinch or a hint before smiling. “We could surround them and ask for it nice like.”

  Ivin chuckled, grateful for the levity. “Just what we want, a band of priests who know we’re coming. Whether the Colok are right or wrong on the lord priest’s intent with these Shadows, we’re talking Holy War.”

  The Divination of Bones spoke of bloodshed, of war in his destiny. Rise within the clan to make a decision. What would Meris think if that decision was to butcher a bunch of priests? What would the gods do to his soul? But if they were right, the gods would recognize the sacrifice to save so many, but if wrong he’d have to march through every last hell before sniffing redemption. If he made it beyond the Slave Forges.

  Zjin growled again. “Fight.”

  He glanced to Modan, the man’s rasping breaths, his agony even with the prayers of the monk easing his pain. Ivin had traveled north with the hope of bringing clan and Church together, but more and more it felt like the only chance for peace was to end Ulrikt and his plans. If taking the Sliver of Star prevented the prophesied destruction of the clans, it was a war which needed fought.

  No matter how he flipped scenarios in his head one choice stood out. Ivin nodded to Zjin, then the Wolverine. “We fight.”

  The Wolverine jumped to his feet as if he had a spring beneath his ass. “Puxele! Take three and ride to Ervinhin—no stopping! Every man who can ride needs to gather at the mouth of the Omindi, and let there be no doubt: By command of clan blood, no holy leaves the Omindi alive.”

  TOKODIN SAT on the keg of ale beside Modan, passing a hand over his wounds in prayer, but stopped at the Wolverine’s call to battle. He stared at the dying warden’s trembling muscles and took a drink. He closed his eyes and prayed to ease Modan’s suffering, but no longer called for his body to mend.

  Tokodin drank from his cup, but his mind was on the silver vial of poison in his pocket.

  He should have swallowed the elixir when Mecum gave it to him. War was coming to Istinjoln, home. Ulrikt was to blame, the Choerkins were to blame, while people like Modan and himself suffered for it. The way of the world is pain and we’re caught wounded in its middle. His fingers fidgeted with the dice and poison. Both were a coward’s way out, dice to make a decision, poison to end decisions. He wondered at what pain the poison would bring, and smirked at his own weakness, too afraid to take the coward’s way out. If Ulrikt betrayed the gods, there was hope, Tokodin wouldn’t need the poison.

  Another prayer for Modan and the Warden’s shaking calmed.

  “Do you think you can save him?”

  Tokodin glanced at Ivin, a man born with everything handed to him. Tokodin envied him, loathed him, and pitied him, for being born into a name which would see him fall into the hells. “It’s a decision for the gods, all I can do is try.” Tokodin cringed as Ivin put a hand on his shoulder.

  “You’re a good man; you’ll do all you can. I’ll pray for him with you.”

  He doubted the prayer of a Choerkin meant anything to the gods. Tokodin smiled with a nod and eased his own pain in drink.

  33

  AMBUSH CHOKE

  Living in Lyrical Melancholy,

  heart beat, Beat, drumming—a dirge in celebration of eternity.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Two Days to the Eve of Snows

  The plumes of Ivin’s fogged breath whirled and dispersed in mountain winds. A damned cold day for a ride, and too damned cold for a fight. Ivin stood beside the Wolverine and Tokodin, imagining the disparate worries of the two men. Pikarn fretting for the lives of his men, and the monk praying for everyone’s immortal souls.

  The stretch of the Omindi Pass they chose was such an obvious place for an attack it bore a nickname: the Ambush Chokes. The Chokes looked like a snake that’d swallowed a rabbit: fat in the middle, and skinny on both ends. Ordinary folks traveling the Omindi hurried through this canyon on their guard for any attack, but the group coming wasn’t normal.

  Scouts reported fifty-two afoot, with four horsemen. Most were priests and monks, the rest guardsmen. Swords and arrows didn’t worry Ivin so much as the priests’ prayers of fire and lightning. If high priests rode in the mix, the fight would prove savage, but Ivin refused to consider defeat.

  Twenty wardens and thirty Colok stood scattered in strategic positions overlooking the Omindi. Every advantage he conceived was theirs, except the power of prayer. Colok never attacked parties this large, the holies wouldn’t be ready. When amassed for travel they figured themselves invincible. Scouts confirmed this when they reported the priests traveled without a single scout.

  Ivin glanced to Pikarn, still as stone except for his jaws working beef. The man was a study in confidence, but most wardens couldn’t say the same. They missed Modan. Not a one he’d overheard or spoke to forgot to mention his name. And despite being loyal to a man, they weren’t happy with the Colok as allies.

  The call to battle better be right; if not, even victory was disaster. Impossible to imagine telling his father or uncle he’d killed a bunch of holies over a mistake. Still, a wrongheaded victory was better than a headless defeat.

  A Colok loped in from the north with Puxele on its back. She slid from the beast’s shoulders, a crooked smile on her face. She’d been the only warden to volunteer to take a ride, and by the looks of it she enjoyed herself.

  “They’ll enter the Chokes in a few wicks.” Her brow scrunched, and she looked to Tokodin. “What hell is it you go to for killing a holy?”

  Tokodin turned a pastier shade of ill than normal. “The Malignant. Unless of course the kill is deemed righteous.”

  She nodded. “Well, boys, let’s hope the gods appreciate our bloody dance. I always imagined making it at least as far the Lustful Hell.”

  The Wolverine chortled, and Ivin couldn’t deny a grin.

  They lay behind boulders and drifts of snow, most fidgeting as combat approached. Rinold rested with his head propped on his pack, his eyes closed, for all the world looking like he napped.

  Kotin complained about sitting outside the blood of war, wielding commands instead of steel, when he recounted battles. He said, “Watching men die to win a fight I started turns my stomach in ways no sickness ever could.” Only now did Ivin understand the sentiment. He loathed the notion of his head being more important than another’s, but win or lose they needed his skull intact, if for no other reason than to take the blame if they were wrong about everything.

  The priests sang as they approached, and it wasn’t a holy chant dedicated to the gods. A bawdy lyric based around a blind-drunk husband, a cheating wife, and wolves stealing a keg of ale rose from the Pass. More a song for a dock tavern than holies. Their laughter guaranteed surprise, a boon for his confidence while burning shame into his gut.

  Screams would echo between canyon walls as blood painted the ground, people dying without a chance to defend themselves.

  Ivin’s fingers dug into the snow. The gods would never forgive him; he wondered if he’d ever forgive himself.

  He peeked through a crack in rock and snow. Guards and priests filed through the first choke point, followed by riders. There was no turning back, they’d come too far with too much on the line.

  Puxele crept to Rinold’s side and jabbed him in the ribs with a toe before she lay on her back, taking deep breaths, resting her bow on her chest with an arrow nocked. Rinold feigned a yawn and blew Little Sister a kiss before nocking his own arrow. Tokodin stared at the clouds.

  Ivin slipped his targe from his back, covering his head and shoulders with it, as he stared into the Chokes. His heart pounded in his ears as the party rea
ched the center of the snake’s belly. He glanced to Puxele and her pensive eyes, nodded.

  The woman rose to a knee and launched the arrow blind over the rocks; the whistle-head squealed over the chasm. The priests didn’t have time to react to the signal before a hail of stones and arrows rained from the sky.

  Men and women fell, writhing and screaming or stone dead. Bows thrummed a second time, then a third, before retaliation. Lightning flashed from the sky and fire rushed from the ground, striking the heights of the cliff. A blast thundered nearby and a warden flipped into the air, plummeting to his death at the base of the cliff.

  Two riders collapsed to the rocky ground in the first waves of arrows, and with magic in the air Colok roared through the northern choke, sprinting at inhuman speeds to collide with unsuspecting priests. Fifteen-foot spears thrust through light armors and glaives gashed the flesh of guardsmen and holies as the rain of projectiles focused on the front of the group. The execution went as well as Ivin had hoped. There were losses and injured, but far fewer than in his nightmares.

  Hooves pounded the stone floor, wardens riding through the southern choke; their addition would end this battle. Confidence surged. The Colok killed their way through the footmen, drawing close to the remaining riders. One of the priests must carry the artifact they were after, with Colok bearing down, and riders coming, Ivin rose to a knee for a better view of victory.

  A priest on horseback struck their hand in the air and an aura of light erupted in the valley. The Sliver of Star? A huge mistake, everyone targeted this holy now.

  Bowstrings sang. The aura sparkled and blurred red.

  It took several moments for his eyes to understand what they saw. The perimeter of the aura had shredded holy and Colok alike into a fine, sanguine mist. Eviscerated bodies fell to the ground while the living scrambled with severed limbs from the horror.

  Ivin’s mind froze, his mouth gaped, silent, as his heart sank.