The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  It was also a tricky thing to carry with him. He had some plans in that direction, but first he had to make sure that Ben was with him. Corin chewed his lip, thinking, then said haltingly, “I have a . . . a means to make Ephitel . . . vulnerable. If I can draw him out to a place and time of my choosing, and if I’m . . . properly prepared . . . then I can strike him down. I can kill him forever. Imagine it, Ben.”

  “Oh, I’ve imagined it,” Ben said. “My people suffer more than most beneath these current gods’ regime. But this sounds like a risky proposition.”

  Corin stopped walking and turned to his companion. “There’s nothing riskier in all the world. I am not blind to that. Even with Fortune and Oberon behind me, there’s a thousand ways this could go wrong and only one it could go right. But I can choose no other path.”

  Ben rubbed his jaw, considering. “I suppose I understand, at that.”

  “Understand this too,” Corin said, trying to find some kindness for his tone. But his thoughts hung too much on Ephitel and all his crimes, and his words came out sharp as Godslayer’s blade. “I have no other friend in all the world. There are assets and resources and safehouses I could use, but I have no other friend than you. I need you, Ben Strunk, but I cannot ask you to take up my burden. As you said, it is a risky proposition.”

  Ben shook his head, and his eyes flashed with something like anger. “Ask me. Sand and stone, ask me, Corin, or we’re not friends at all!”

  Corin licked his lips and looked back in the direction they had come, toward the distant studio where Lilya still slept. “I thought . . . perhaps at last your roving days were over. I thought perhaps the time had come for you to settle down and find some lasting happiness. I can’t ask you to give that up for fear and suffering, and almost certain death.”

  The dwarf peeled back his lips and snarled. “You’re a villain, Corin Hugh. I found a pretty plaything for a summer, and you’re declaring that my roving days are through? I ought to gut you just for saying that. Now tell me what you have in mind, or I’ll start thinking you just want me as an excuse to give up your quest.”

  Corin spread his hands in apology. And despite himself he smiled. “Forgive me. I meant no offense.” He turned northeast again, up the sloping street, and Ben fell in beside him. Corin went on, “As I said, I must draw Ephitel out to a place and time of my choosing. I have some plans for how to do that, but as you said, there are risks. When I set my plan in motion, I need someone I can trust who will hang back, somewhere close enough to see what happens but far enough to slip away if things go bad.”

  “And what about you? I’m just supposed to slink away and let you die?”

  Corin showed his teeth in something like a grin. “I won’t die easy. Remember the gifts I have from Oberon. If I am captured, if things go wrong, I can always step away through dream. But if we’re in the fight together, I cannot guarantee that I could reach you and get us both away.”

  “Ah,” Ben said in reluctant understanding. “Hmph.”

  Corin clapped him on the shoulder. “Exactly so.”

  “And what do you need me for at all?”

  Corin chewed his lip. Then he shrugged out of the sword belt he’d draped across his chest. It was fashioned to buckle around the waist, and that was how Corin usually wore it, but he’d hung it on his back to help complete the new illusion.

  The thin gray mists of a glamour hung about the sword, tracing its golden hilt and leather scabbard to Corin’s eyes, but for Ben it would have looked for all the world like a heavy scrollcase. Corin handed it down to Ben, and the dwarf accepted it with a reverence almost befitting the weapon itself.

  “And what is this? Some weapon?”

  “As I said before, Oberon bestowed on me the means to defeat Ephitel. It rests within this case. If everything goes according to my plan, I will meet up with you and retrieve this package.” He hesitated, chewing his lip, then shook his head. “Aye. There should be time for that.”

  “And if there’s not?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Corin said, more strongly than he intended to. “In truth, this package is more important than I am. I hate to say it, but it’s fact. I can risk my life provoking Ephitel. I can even risk facing him and missing the chance to destroy him. But I cannot risk the possibility that something goes wrong, and I deliver this precious artifact into his hands.”

  The dwarf swallowed hard. “And you would trust this to me?”

  “And no one else in all the world,” Corin said. “If anything goes wrong—anything at all—you disappear. Leave Aerome as soon as you possibly can, and make your way to western Raentz.”

  “Raentz? Why?”

  Corin walked a moment in silence. They were in a broad piazza now, near the peak of the city’s highest hill. Here the men and women on the streets dressed in rich silks and rode in sedans or carriages to go about their errands. These were the nobility that Ben Strunk so often worked for, and more than one of them belonged to the house most favored of Ephitel.

  Corin cast his voice in almost a whisper, so even standing at his side the dwarf had to strain to hear him. “Do you remember the woman we delivered there? In western Raentz? We found a farmhouse where she could live quietly?”

  The dwarf did not have to consider long to catch Corin’s meaning. They had worked together—with the help of the druids and a bare handful of trusted Nimble Fingers—to smuggle Princess Sera Vestossi away from Ithale and into hiding with the man she loved. He nodded once; then he too cast a suspicious glare around the piazza.

  No one was close enough to overhear. Corin raised his voice a little and pressed on. “If we are separated and I don’t rejoin you immediately, then take the package to that farmhouse and wait for me. I’ll meet you there, one way or another.”

  They left the piazza for a tree-lined boulevard that would take them to another, higher up. Corin left Ben time to consider these instructions, certain he’d have questions, but for a hundred paces he said nothing. As they emerged onto the Piazza Dei, Ben heaved a tired sigh and looked up at Corin. “I don’t suppose that you intend to tell me the details of your plan?”

  Corin shook his head. “You are a trusted agent of the Vestossis and a respected craftsman throughout Hurope. No one should suspect you in this matter. Anywhere you go, you have honest reasons to be there. Anything you do, and anything you carry, it could be explained.”

  Ben looked down at the package in his hands and nodded miserably. “You think I will be captured, questioned, and tortured maybe?”

  “Perhaps,” Corin said. “I don’t think it will come to that. But the less you know, the more honest you can be.”

  “I must admit, you seem to have considered everything. I can see a master’s handiwork behind your schemes.”

  Corin shrugged. It felt haphazard—wild and dangerous—but he could not find the patience or the caution to craft a better plan. It was all he could do to stop himself ripping the sword from its scabbard and charging on ahead to start things now.

  But there, at least, he would take care. He tore his eyes from the hazy blade and fixed them on Ben. “I will see justice done.”

  “I believe you,” Ben said. “Just answer one more question.”

  “Aye?”

  “Why have we come to Ephitel’s cathedral?”

  A mighty bell rang out the call to prayer, tolling in a tower that reared above the piazza where they stood. Ben nodded past Corin toward the cathedral’s steps. “And aren’t those the royal princes there? Sand and stone, Corin. What do you intend?”

  Corin followed the dwarf’s gaze and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the procession just entering the south end of the piazza. Half a dozen armored men marched with them—personal bodyguards of the royal family, not the mismatched riffraff who manned the city guard. These men were hired killers, brutal and efficient. Corin had tangled with their like before, and it had taken all his wits to escape alive.

  Behind them came the royal family. King Cosimo, o
f course, would not attend the holy service; he sat his throne in personal communion with the nation’s patron god. But his heirs would lead their countrymen by their example, showing up in pomp and splendor to deliver an opulent offering to Ephitel on his day of feasting.

  Ephitel had come to Corin when the pirate tossed an embarrassing cousin from a window. Would he not come when Corin murdered the king’s heirs in Ephitel’s cathedral on his feast day? A hungry grin tugged at Corin’s teeth. He could already taste the blood in the air.

  “What’s come over you?” Ben asked by his elbow. “I’ve seen that look on predators before, but never you.”

  “I have become a predator,” Corin answered, distant, but then he tore his gaze from the parading princes and focused on his friend. He caught a calming breath. “I’m steady. I am steady. But we must take our places.”

  Reluctant though he looked, Ben took a step toward the grand cathedral. Corin caught his shoulder and drew him back.

  “Not there,” Corin said. “I’ll go in there to do what must be done, then I’ll slip out here and find some hiding place to wait.”

  “Out here? On the Piazza Dei?”

  “Better than the cathedral itself,” Corin said. “I cannot guess what magic that place might hold for Ephitel himself.”

  “But here on the piazza? You mean to fight him in front of all these witnesses?”

  Corin laughed. “Aye! Let the whole world watch as the king of their tyrant gods falls at the hand of a simple manling.”

  “You’ve a fever,” Ben said. “This has to be some sort of madness. Is it grief?”

  “Justice,” Corin said, though his voice did sound somewhat feverish. He tempered it with care and spoke again. “I see an alley’s mouth beyond that perfumery. It should give you all the vantage you will need.” He started hurriedly toward the alley, dragging Ben along behind him, then spun and pointed to another across the way, half a hundred paces from the cathedral doors. “And I will hide in there. That should give us a clear view of each other—and all the vantage I will need to strike when Ephitel arrives.”

  “Corin,” Ben said, then hesitated. He rubbed his chin again. “I know you have your reasons to cling to secrecy, but I must ask this of you: What do you intend? I don’t need to know the greater plan. But here and now, when you go into that building, what do you intend?”

  Corin didn’t answer right away. He closed his eyes and took another calming breath, then worked another glamour. This time he imagined himself as he was—tall and handsome, dark and rugged, dressed in black from head to toe—then carefully replaced that with the image of a minor priest in Ephitel’s service.

  Ben grunted at the transformation, but Corin barely noticed. His eyes were on the procession as it approached the enormous arching doors of the cathedral. Piero and Giovanni came with their families to pay worship to their patron. These were the heirs to the throne, Princess Sera’s elder brothers, and only King Cosimo stood higher in the realm.

  Against King Cosimo, Corin could but lay the vaguest accusations. He was a heavy-handed king who owed his throne entirely to Ephitel, but he was no special kind of monster.

  But these sons of his were different. Piero commanded all Ithale’s regiments, and Corin had seen firsthand his brutal tactics when the Aepoli merchant’s guild had protested Cosimo’s levy tariff. Piero had besieged his own city and watched near a thousand civilians starve, then hanged every man among the guild leaders before the thing was done.

  That had been one small victory in Piero’s laurel, but Giovanni had found his fame in the wake of Aepoli’s siege. It was he who had united all the slinking spies and cruel henchmen of the Vestossi family into a network of secret police, beholden to no law and committed only to the family’s prosperity. They’d turned neighbor against neighbor with the threat of thumbscrews or the promise of a paltry purse, until no one dared to whisper unkind words about the rulers, let alone defy them.

  “Justice,” Corin said. “I never thought I’d learn to love that word.”

  “By the rings!” Ben gasped, seeming to understand at last what Corin planned. “I thought you meant to rob them, Corin. Maybe kidnap one! You can’t . . . you can’t intend to kill a prince!”

  “Not one,” Corin said. “Not just one. I mean to stick a blade into the heart of this whole family.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Deadly so.”

  “Corin,” Ben said, sincere, “you . . . you don’t intend to die today. Do you?”

  Corin flashed a grin. “One way or another, this will be a bloody afternoon. But I intend to keep my blood in my veins.”

  Corin had expected at least a chuckle for that answer, but the dwarf wrung his hands, still staring anxiously toward the distant cathedral. Corin elbowed him. “Does that not satisfy you?”

  Ben shook his head, still without looking in Corin’s direction. “I am glad to hear it. It’s just . . . I wish it could be somewhere else.”

  “You fear for the priests?”

  “Of Ephitel? Hah! No, but you should watch your back with them. They’re every bit as wicked as the one they serve.”

  Corin frowned. “What, then? The royal family?”

  At last Ben tore his gaze from the grand cathedral. He stared up at Corin as though the pirate had gone mad. “No! Are you daft? Some of my finest works are on display in the sanctuary.”

  Corin snorted and clapped his friend on the shoulder. “I’ll do everything I can to protect the innocents. But honestly, blood seems a more fitting tribute to this one than precious stones.”

  Ben considered that a moment, then nodded in agreement. “Paint it red. Paint the whole thing red.”

  Corin clasped his arm. Then he turned toward the cathedral. In the time Ben and Corin had spent whispering, the Vestossis’ grand procession had filed through the doors and disappeared. Corin took one more steadying breath, then ducked his head and dashed across the piazza. He sprinted up the marble stairs and clattered into the sanctuary just as the final echoes of the enormous bells above fell still.

  Silks and satin rustled beneath the sound of startled whispers as half a hundred gentlemen and ladies turned to stare in his direction. The sanctuary’s central chapel was filled, divided down the central aisle with Piero’s family and retainers on the left, and Giovanni’s on the right. Even the hired porters turned to stare, now that they’d deposited their heavy chests full of tribute before the golden altar.

  Corin bowed his head in mute apology and went on ahead into the room. He still wore the thin gray mist of glamour draped over himself, else the guards who’d turned his way would already be charging forward to dispatch him. All the same, even seeing him as a red-faced cleric late to morning prayers, they watched with narrowed eyes as he proceeded down the aisle toward the altar.

  He maintained the disguise by force of will, but it took an effort. Even as it concealed him, the glamour blurred the world around him. Everything felt soft, a touch unreal, and time and space seemed out of joint. It was not enough to cause him any true discomfort—Aemilia had said she barely noticed it—but to a man who’d spent his entire life tripping along the thin line of survival on nothing but his wits and fine-honed instincts, that strangeness was enough to leave him feeling naked and exposed.

  He wore it anyway, drifting past the rows of crowded pews, ducking his head as the chief priest came forward to begin his benediction. Corin turned before the altar and chose his first victim on a whim.

  Piero had brought the worst of pain to Aepoli. Corin refused him the easy death. He crossed to Giovanni’s side of the hall, bowed his head in greeting, then dropped the glamour and slit the bastard’s throat.

  The princes’ soldiers were some of the best, but they had never anticipated an assault on a Vestossi within Ephitel’s temple by one of his own priests. They froze in shock for a heartbeat, maybe two, and that was all the time that Corin needed.

  The pirate turned and stretched his arm, flipping his knife end over end
across the room. The blade flew true, but one of Piero’s retainers dove to save his master. The poor man took Corin’s knife below his shoulder before collapsing to the marble floor.

  Corin had never trusted that one blade to do the job. He dashed toward his second victim, drawing the long-bladed dagger at his side even as the attendant fell. From two paces away he lunged, driving hard, and speared Piero beneath the collarbone. It was not a killing blow, but it was enough to draw a scream from the cold soldier.

  Corin grinned at that. Something deep inside him ached to make this man suffer all that Aemilia had suffered—all that Ephitel’s countless victims through the ages had suffered—but more than that, he wanted to draw Ephitel to himself. And live to face him.

  So Corin withdrew the blade and struck again, this time for the heart. Piero shrank away in terror, and his wife behind him hauled him back, so Corin’s blow fell false. Instead of piercing the man’s heart, he cut deep into his belly. Black blood flowed. It was still a killing blow, but a slower one. Fitting in its way.

  And that was all the time Corin could spare. Already he could hear the hue and cry from the piazza, and half a dozen guards were rushing on him now, recovered from their brief surprise.

  Too late. Too late by far. They charged at Corin, but he plunged a hand into an inner pocket and drew out a small paper packet Ben Strunk had procured for him months ago.

  Even outside the cathedral and across the wide piazza, Ben would likely get to see the effects of his handiwork. Corin ripped the packet into two and hurled its powdered contents into the air; then he flung himself to the ground. He hid beneath the heavy black cloth of his cloak, and still his eyes seared at the flash of silver light.

  Then came the screams. Too much had happened and too quickly for most of those in the princes’ retinues to truly comprehend, but at the blinding flash they finally responded. A hundred voices cried out in anger, pain, and grief. Corin dropped his cloak to see the soldiers still charging blindly ahead, arms outstretched before them, roaring as they came like angry bulls.