by Aaron Pogue
By Aaron Pogue
The Godlanders Trilogy
The Dreams of a Dying God The Wrath of a Shipless Pirate The Dawn of a Desperate War The Dragonprince’s Legacy Taming Fire
The Dragonswarm
The Dragonprince’s Heir Remnant (short story)
From Embers (short story)
The Dragonprince’s Arrows A Darkness in the East Ghost Targets Surveillance
Expectation
Restraint
Camouflage
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2014 Aaron Pogue All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North, Seattle www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477824269
ISBN-10: 147782426X
Cover design by: Kerrie Robertson Illustrated by: Chris McGrath
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014932944
Contents
Map
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11
12
13
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15
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31
About the Author
In southwest Raentz on the Dividing Line, at the farthest end of the civilized Godlands, the woodsmen dressed in shades of green and brown, the better to hide among the gnarled trees. Though they went with axes to their tasks, not a man among them went without a dagger at his side and a bow upon his back. These woods rested on a dangerous frontier, in easy reach of the Wildland savages and the fearsome creatures that roamed there.
These days, a stranger walked among the woodsmen. He wore the same clothes, though he was clearly uncomfortable in them. He wore the dagger on his belt, but something in his gait suggested he was more accustomed to the weight of a heavy sword. He swung an axe with strength and stamina, but with scant weeks of experience in his form. No matter how he pretended, he was unquestionably an outlander.
Still he put in a hard day’s work, and the locals saw it in him. Day after day, he’d found a place among them and earned their respect, until they might overlook the implications of his sudden arrival. He was hiding from something. Something grave. It took some effort for a man to overcome those suspicions, but he was on his way—well on his way.
It was hours yet until sunset when the woodsmen headed home. They were hard workers, but no lord would risk his men on that frontier at dusk. They leaned their axes on their shoulders, hauled the day’s last logs toward the nearest flume, then trudged toward their homesteads—modest houses made of stone, with solid bars behind the doors and lamps already burning bright against the coming night.
The stranger found his way among the other woodsmen, and though he showed no clear intention, he soon ended up in step beside a man named Endan Wade. Wade nodded to the stranger as he arrived, but still they walked awhile in silence, eyes watching the woods around them. The stranger had more to fear than raiding savages. Three months in this disguise had not been enough to dull his edge. More than any other here, the stranger walked as though ready to do battle.
Endan Wade gave him a sigh. “No one would mistake you for a common woodsman.”
“I am not anything common these days, no matter how I try.”
“Try harder. You must keep hidden.”
The stranger growled. “What more can I do, druid?”
Endan Wade looked around at that, but no one could have overheard the stranger’s words. The druid lowered his voice nonetheless. “Watch your tongue, Corin. That’s precisely the sort of slip—”
“No!” Corin Hugh snapped. “I grow tired of this charade. When will we begin to move?”
“It will take time to plan a war against the gods.”
“I have given you weeks.”
“And it may take years! If you persist in defying us—”
“I have done nothing to defy you,” Corin interrupted, frowning. He thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Not for several days.”
The druid snorted. “Did you think today’s meeting would go unnoticed?”
The ever-present thread of Corin’s fear twisted tighter in his breast. What meeting? What had the druids noticed, and why hadn’t Wade said something sooner? Corin forced a calming breath and asked the question: “What meeting do you mean?”
“You can drop the act,” Wade said. “We know how you hope to use the Nimble Fingers.”
Corin shook his head. “I have not yet set that plan in motion.”
“Give over. The other men were discussing it this afternoon. A dozen outlanders arrived in the village near midday, asking for directions to your cottage. They were joined by a lord all dressed in black.”
The fear pulled taut, squeezing the air from Corin’s lungs.
The druid cocked his head. “Good lord, Corin! You’ve gone pale.”
“Aemilia,” he whispered. “Wade, you have to help me. I did not bring anyone to the cottage today.”
“But the man in black—”
“It wasn’t me. I’ve been hard at work, maintaining my disguise.” A bitterness twisted his voice, and he didn’t try to fight it down. He dropped the axe from his shoulder. “Go to the Council. Bring everyone you can find.” Corin was running before the words were out.
Wade called after him. “Why? Why, Corin? What’s happening?”
Corin didn’t even try to answer. He ran. That fear clamored inside him now, wrenching at his heart.
He didn’t know. He didn’t know what had really happened, but weeks of constant fear seemed realized now, the trap snapped closed. Wade had been right, after all—Corin made a lousy woodsman. He was a pirate, a scoundrel, a city rat. He did not belong here, but that very fact had made it an ideal hiding place.
Until he was discovered. How? How had they found him so quickly? And who had come for him? His terror told him that the figure dressed in black must have been Ephitel himself—king of all the tyrant gods—but surely it was not. Surely he would have sent a soldier in his place—a watchman or a justicar. Even a wizard would have been better than Ephitel. But it was he. Corin knew it was he, with a certainty that drove him to near frenzy.
He didn’t have his sword. It had been too great a risk, too valuable a resource, so Godslayer rested in its clever little vault, hidden. Without that sword, he couldn’t face Ephitel. Please, Fortune, he prayed, Let it be someone else. Let Aemilia be away. Just . . . let her be safe.
But she wouldn’t be. She would be home. She was part of his disguise, and she played the part well. That pretense had been the only brightness in this whole charade. He’d shared three months with Aemilia while the druids pumped him for every fragment of his memory.
He’d pretended to be a country lad. He’d pretended to be a coop
erative asset to the aggravating druids. And he would have gone on doing all of it for an endless age if he could have kept pretending to be part of a happy family with Aemilia. She’d made him a very happy home.
Tears burned in his eyes, but he refused to shed them. It had all been for naught if Ephitel had found him. Corin slowed in his mad dash. He bore the hope of the world within his memory, and all the angry fires of justice stoked to render final judgment on the tyrant Ephitel. But as Wade had said, it would take time to accomplish such a thing. It was no easy task to strike down a god, and all their plans would come to nothing if Corin fell into the monster’s hands.
He strained his eyes in a vain attempt to catch some glimpse of the distant cottage through the woods. He wasn’t close enough yet. He could still run away. He should, to save himself. Or at least find some hiding place and wait for Wade to bring the Council. He could not afford to charge right in. His quest was far more important than the life of one man. Or one woman.
It didn’t matter. He couldn’t leave her—not without knowing. For all of three paces, he had slowed, but now he ran harder yet.
“In the village near midday,” Wade had said. These men had come hours ago. What could Corin hope to find? It didn’t matter. He ran harder.
He didn’t know it was an enemy. It could even have been the Nimble Fingers. Perhaps they were looking for him—to beg his aid or warn him of some dark rumor. Or it could be some plot of Aemilia’s. She was almost as sharp a schemer as Corin himself.
It was probably something harmless. Almost certainly.
Still, Corin never slowed.
The cottage sat alone in a little clearing, far from town, far from any roads. It had been a druid sanctuary through long ages, and for a short while it had become a home. Corin darted from the tree line, heedless of the risk involved. He leaped the low, neat hedge that bounded a modest garden.
He sprinted for the warped oak door, noting as he passed the sharp-edged boot prints in the turf, the trampled lawn. He tamped down the quiet fury in his heart, clenched his jaw, and flung a hand up toward the door.
But the door opened ahead of him. And standing just inside, clearly surprised at Corin’s sudden arrival, was Ephitel himself.
The tyrant god had come a-calling.
Corin flung himself at Ephitel. Surprise flashed in the eyes of the cruel elf, but not a spark of anger, not a glow of hate. No real emotion showed at all. He leaned almost casually aside, twisting at his narrow waist, and Corin’s desperate momentum flung him past.
Corin crashed against a wall, and pain exploded in his shoulder. He stumbled, and Ephitel caught him with one hand, steadying him. Corin jerked free of that grasp, shrank backward half a step, then stood his ground and raised his chin.
“What have you done with her?”
Ephitel frowned. “She was a druid, you know? In the ancient days, when they still held some power. Filthy creatures, really. Scarcely better than the witches.”
Corin stomped forward. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Ephitel drew himself up proudly, but still no emotion touched his voice. “They are outlawed, outcast, exiled from the lands of righteous men. And yet they linger on. They skulk in shadows, meddling in the affairs of holy nations. This one tried to end the Vestossis’ reign.”
Corin snarled. “I did that. Aemilia—”
Before Corin could say more—before he even saw the flash of motion—Ephitel’s hand clamped hard around Corin’s jaw and lifted him from the floor. Casually, unstrained, the tyrant god drew Corin up to meet him face to face, and for a long moment Ephitel considered him.
Corin couldn’t move his jaw. His whole weight rested against that rock-hard grip, and bright bursts of agony bloomed in his neck and shoulders. He slung a vicious jab at Ephitel’s unarmored belly, but he only bruised his knuckles in the process. Ephitel had bathed in the Waters of Aubrocia, and Corin knew of only one weapon that could do him true damage.
For his part, Ephitel showed no indication that Corin had made the attempt. He licked his lips, thoughtful, then spoke in a quiet voice near Corin’s ear.
“You did me a favor, manling, in killing Giuliano. He was a spoiled child and something of a bother. For that, I’ll let you live. And you did me another favor too, by leading me to one of the druids. For that, I will forget your name. I will forget everything about you, and you can spend the rest of your miserable life in some shade of peace. Let it not be said that I am unmerciful.”
Through all the speech, Corin did not stop struggling. He caught the elf’s forearm in both his hands and tried to heave himself up against the strangling grip. He gasped for air and forced words past his bruised throat. “Where is she? What have you done with her?”
Ephitel shook his head. He dropped Corin to the floor and turned away. “Even manling farmers know what to do with vermin, child. I exterminated her.”
Those words stabbed at him like lightning bolts. Aemilia was dead. Ephitel had killed her. The words cut all the sharper for the monster’s dull tone. Corin found his feet and flung himself upon Ephitel’s back. He pounded uselessly on the elf’s shoulders, wrenching at his head, but Ephitel tossed Corin aside with a vigorous shake.
He sighed. “Leave off this show of passion, manling. I’ve heard the rumors in the lands of men. They believe you killed someone protected by my favor. You’ve forced my hand, but for the favors done me, I extend this gift. You killed one of mine, and I killed one of yours. I’ll call this thing done, if you will.”
Corin strained to catch his breath. A sharp pain stabbed in his left side, near his ribs, but it was nothing to the crushing grief. All the druids’ careful plans had come to this. They’d said it wouldn’t be enough to kill Ephitel in cold blood. They’d said it needed groundwork, precise preparation, so the tyrant’s death would not just leave a power vacuum. There were more than enough among Ephitel’s followers to fill his place. No, the beast could not be killed until everything was ready to ensure the act would lead to something truly better.
And until that day, the druids had said, they could not afford to risk losing the one true weapon that might kill him. So the sword Godslayer lay hidden in the inner room. And while it waited there unused, while Corin spent his days pretending to be a simple woodsman, Ephitel had not forgotten him. All Corin’s slinking, all his patient planning, and still Ephitel had shown up at his door. He’d killed Aemilia.
That thought lit a fire in Corin’s breast. In a heartbeat he forgot his caution, forgot all the druids’ reasons. He thought only of revenge.
He couldn’t bruise the elf, but he could kill it.
Corin struggled to his feet. Ephitel arched an eyebrow at him, perhaps expecting another wild attack, but Corin drew back. Ephitel nodded, satisfied, then turned his attention to a handful of soldiers just now coming from the inner room.
The soldiers’ arms were full of Aemilia’s things. They had her jewelry chest, her papers, and her outlandish druid artifacts. Of course, Ephitel would want to learn everything he could about the other druids. Corin barely cared. He saw at a glance that none of them had the sword, and that was all he needed now. He darted past them, rushing for the inner room.
The soldiers must have looked to Ephitel for orders, because the elf spoke from his place by the door. “Leave him to his grief. He’s paid in full. One life for another.”
They didn’t interest Corin at all. He’d have killed them to a man if they had stopped him, but the only death he craved was Ephitel’s. So he let them take Aemilia’s old things, and they let him slip past into the room.
She lay in the corner. He’d almost hoped she wouldn’t be there, carted off by some of Ephitel’s minions while the others searched her things, but she lay crumpled and motionless beside her desk, beneath the room’s only window.
She’d loved that window. She’d loved the view of daisies hanging on despite the autumn chill. She’d loved to stand there watching as he left for work each morning. She’d
used its light to read by and its gentle breeze to air the little cottage.
The light bathed her now. Her milky skin almost glowed. Her expression seemed serene despite the bruising near her eyes and on her throat. Corin swallowed hard and tore his gaze away. There was but one thing he could do for her, and weeping over her corpse wasn’t it. He dashed across the room without a sound and knelt down on the far side of the bed. That way, he couldn’t see her. It helped a little.
In the outer room, Ephitel was speaking with his men. The elf’s words carried clearly to Corin, crashing against his stunned grief like the pounding waves of an angry sea. “You searched the room? And this is everything?”
“Yes, my lord. Exactly as you commanded.” It was the fervent voice of a worshiper in communion with his god.
“And there was nothing left behind? No hiding places?”
“No, my lord.”
Corin’s lips peeled back at that. It was not quite a smile. It was the animal grin of a predator prepared to pounce. There on the floor before him was a small trapdoor, barely wider than Corin’s palm, but it ran three paces along the wall. It had no lock, just simple hinges, but it was inset at the level of the floor and protected by far more than mechanical artifice.
The trapdoor was invisible to anyone but Corin; the soldiers who’d searched the room would have seen an unbroken floor. Even the druids hadn’t found a way to pierce the glamours Corin wove. It was a special kind of magic, a gift given him by a dying god, but Corin spent no time in wonder. After all the waiting, Ephitel now stood in the outer room, and here beneath this panel lay the key to killing him. Corin cast aside the druids’ worries. Anything at all would be better than that monster. He destroyed the glamour with a work of will. He ripped up the trapdoor and plunged his hand into the hiding place beneath.
But all he touched was earth. The sword was gone.
The sword was gone.
In the outer room, Ephitel was still speaking with his soldiers. “Deliver all these things into the keeping of my steward; then post a guard upon this place. The girl’s companions may show their faces here, and I would have them followed and found out.”
