The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  Corin hid his amusement as he raised a comforting hand to the farmboy’s shoulder. “No apologies are needed. I have not always treated her or hers fairly, and she has right to show me some coldness.”

  Auric chuckled. He wasn’t blind to the truth. Then he nodded past the house, away from the village road, and started walking in that direction. Corin fell into step beside him.

  “I’m sure you’ve come to offer explanations and apologies,” Auric said. “Sera didn’t think you’d come at all, but I’ve been expecting you ever since we heard the rumors. It will do her well to hear your reasons, I think, but you must understand that it will take her time before she’s ready—”

  “Rumors?” Corin asked, confused. “Apologies? For what?”

  Auric stopped in his tracks and stared down at Corin for a moment. Then a light kindled in his eyes. “You didn’t do it?”

  “I can’t even fathom what it is!” Corin said.

  Auric grinned and slapped him on the back. “You’d hardly overlook a thing like this.” His voice turned grave as he bent closer to Corin’s ear. “Someone’s attacked her brothers while they were at worship.”

  “Oh, that,” Corin said. He frowned harder. “I did that. Is she concerned?”

  “They were her brothers!”

  “They were awful men!”

  “Still, they were her brothers,” Auric said. He’d begun to take control of his surprise, and an angry reprimand began to growl beneath his words. “How can you believe she wouldn’t grieve over a thing like that?”

  Corin spread his hands. “In truth, it never crossed my mind. Vestossis aren’t men; they’re monsters. I would not have believed the princess loved them. I can scarce believe it now.”

  “Well . . .” Auric said, hesitating. “Perhaps not ‘loved.’ She should! Family is family. But in truth, I’d say she’s more . . . concerned that you could kill so callously. She doesn’t think I should be friends with someone like that.”

  He sounded concerned himself—like a man afraid he might be on the brink of disappointing his beloved wife. Corin took a glance up at the big man’s face and found an expression of nervous concentration. The farmboy was working hard on the puzzle of it.

  Corin couldn’t wholly hide his grin, but perhaps the night was dark enough. He did conceal the humor in his tone as he asked, “Are we friends, then?”

  Auric frowned. “If you make sufficient apologies to Sera—”

  Corin shook his head. This was not at all why he’d come here, but seeing the farmboy face to face—and finding him so congenial—Corin found himself overwhelmed with curiosity. He caught Auric’s elbow and stopped him in his tracks. “I’m not concerned with Sera. What of you? I left you trapped within the hold of a smuggler’s ship beneath a hundred pounds of Dwarven powder.”

  Auric waved that away as nothing. “I ordered you to leave me.”

  Corin swallowed hard. Confession was not much in his nature, nor was contrition for that matter, but he’d ached the day he left this noble farmboy to his death. He’d cursed himself and cursed the man who’d put him there, and in all the days that had passed since then, he’d wondered.

  “How did you survive?”

  Auric cocked his head, considering Corin by moonlight. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “Are you sincerely concerned about that business? I told you at the time that I’d survive.”

  “Sera told me the same,” Corin said. “When I brought her news that you were dead and told her the circumstances, she said you’d escaped from worse than that. I was sure she was just hiding from her grief, but then I heard . . .”

  “I lived,” Auric said. He laughed again and squeezed Corin’s shoulder. “Sun and skies, Corin. I’m an adventurer. I’ve survived far worse.”

  “But how?”

  The farmboy caught Corin’s gaze and held it for a long moment. His answer had no laughter in it. “By the aid of good friends. I’ve never passed up the chance at a friendship, and those friends have never ever let me down.”

  Corin hazarded a guess. “Was it Ridgemon? I know he was training to be a wizard.”

  Auric nodded. “Ridgemon magicked me away before the ship exploded. And he knew where to find me because Longbow led him there. And Longbow was alive because Hartwin never trusted you. He tracked us through the woods that day and watched as Longbow fell. He brought the others back to rescue me, and they succeeded just before the powder blew.”

  His voice never changed as he explained it all. He sounded fondly reminiscent and grateful for the friends he’d had around.

  But that brief narrative revealed a dozen damning secrets Corin had believed secure. He had led Auric into the ambush that left Longbow bleeding out on the sand and the farmboy trapped in the smugglers’ hold.

  “Longbow lived?” Corin asked, his voice hoarse. He tried not to tense, lest Auric sense it through his friendly grip on Corin’s shoulder, but Corin felt an urge to grab for his knives. If the friendly farmboy decided to see justice done—and gods knew he had reason to demand it—he could likely wring Corin’s neck before Corin had a chance to flinch.

  But Auric only nodded. “He did. He comes from hardy stock, you know. And Tesyn is a wonder with a needle and thread.”

  “Then he . . . he told you everything?”

  “Him and Hartwin, between them.” Auric frowned, and then his eyes went wide. “Are you afraid? Corin, none of this is news to me. I learned it all a lifetime ago.”

  “It’s been three months.”

  “Nearly five now, but that is not my point. We survived the day. That’s all that matters. You had your reasons, clear enough, and in the end you saved my Sera from the clutches of her enemies. You brought her out here with me.” He released Corin and shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’ll call us even just because you rousted her from Ithale. Can’t stand the food there, really.”

  Corin gaped. “You must be mad.”

  Auric shook his head dismissively. “Don’t think so. But ask me sometime how I first came to know Longbow. He tried to kill me. Or Hartwin. He did too. Or Kalad, for that matter! I caught him shoving Ridgemon around when we were all boys. Gave him a bloody nose, and he broke seven bones for me. Best friends ever since.”

  Corin barked a laugh. “You mean it?”

  “All my life, I’ve never let a good friend pass me by. And they’ve served me well, no matter how we came to meet.”

  Corin heard in those words a warped echo of something Ephitel had said when the two had stood face to face in Aemilia’s cottage. His awe at Auric’s good nature evaporated in the angry heat of that memory.

  Auric must have seen the change in Corin’s expression because he whipped his head around, searching the deepening night for some sign of danger. He was unarmed, but he flexed his massive hands as though ready to do battle. All of it was instinct, and he spoke in the hoarse whisper of a stalking hunter, “What do you see?”

  “Ephitel,” Corin said. “Not here, but he may well come hunting us here. He killed Aemilia. He must be stopped.”

  The farmboy slowly straightened, though he lost nothing of the tension in his frame. He heaved a weary sigh. “Is there nowhere we can escape them?”

  “Not until we stand beside their graves.”

  Auric nodded. “This is grim news indeed. And not the sort of battle I can fight. If you mean to do anything about the gods, you’re going to need Sera.”

  “I know.” Corin answered Auric’s sigh. “Will she talk to me?”

  “I wish I could say.”

  “Take me to her. Let’s find out.”

  “Gods preserve us both.” He caught a deep breath. “Come on, then. And wipe your boots at the door. If you track mud into the house, we’re done for.”

  He left Corin at the door, and it took more than a moment before he came back. When the door finally did open, it was to Sera, who offered Corin a lovely smile. “Master Hugh,” she said, her voice honeyed, “I fear we have already eaten, but will you join us
in the sitting room for drinks?”

  It was not at all the greeting he’d expected, especially after waiting so long. But she was a princess, after all. And a Vestossi on top of that. She’d been raised on politics and subterfuge. Corin swept a gracious bow in answer. “I would be delighted.”

  Corin followed her down the short hall to the modest sitting room. Though she moved with a fluid grace, she carried a tension in her shoulders and a rigidness to her fingers that suggested she was fighting an urge to ball her hands in fists.

  Corin caught the little details, and they ignited a spark of guilt. He’d spoken truthfully when Auric confronted him about killing Sera’s brothers. He’d never seen it as a personal attack, but she could scarce ignore it.

  He caught her shoulder at the threshold of the sitting room and lowered his head in contrition. “My lady, please accept my sincere apologies for any harm I’ve done you.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do you have something particular in mind?”

  He licked his lips and shrugged his shoulders. “It was I who slew your brothers in Aerome. I never meant to cause you pain. I only wanted justice for a damage done me.”

  For a long time she didn’t answer. Pain or anger tightened the edges of her eyes, but she showed no other hints at her thoughts.

  In the end, she ducked her head. “Auric told me of your loss. You have my sympathy. Aemilia was a good woman.”

  “And your brothers—”

  Her hands did finally close in fists, but still she held her voice under careful strain. “Let us not speak of them. I was never close to either of them, and I am not blind to my family’s misdeeds, but I still remember them as boys at play. I cannot easily overlook what you have done.”

  Corin sighed. “I appreciate your understanding. As soon as I have done with Auric—”

  She shook her head. “You are already done with Auric. I can find some way to forgive the things you’ve done to my bloodstained kin, but I will not have you corrupting Auric’s honest nature.”

  Corin drew himself up tall. “He’s not a child, Sera.”

  “And I am not negotiating. I’ve spent my life surrounded by your sort—careful, conniving, and hungry for any advantage you can grasp. I love Auric precisely because he is none of those things, and I will not let you prey upon his goodness.”

  Corin blinked. He’d not expected this. “Auric is a soldier. A mercenary! Even if I’d come to ask him to fight by my side, I wouldn’t be the first. And my cause wouldn’t be the worst.”

  “Perhaps. But I believe you may well be the most devious. I fear that you recognize in him a spark that none else ever thought to fan to flame.”

  Corin grunted. “I begin to see. You love him as the humble farmboy. But he could be so much more.”

  “I have known men who were more, and none of them were better for it.”

  “But surely none started from such honest stock.”

  She dismissed the argument with a shake of her head. “He would make a mighty general and an admirable king, with some able counsel, but I understand the demands that weigh on both sorts of men. Either role might rob me of him as surely as some grievous battlefield.”

  “Are you so selfish, princess?”

  She arched an eyebrow, and Corin understood the words she didn’t say. He was at least as selfish in his pursuits, and he acknowledged it with spread hands and a mock bow. But he pressed on.

  “I am but a vile rogue. You, however, are gracious and benign. I’ve seen it. You were far more forgiving the first time we spoke.”

  She nodded sharply. “I was. But two things have changed since then.”

  “The first?”

  “I have come to know you. I fear I’ve never met a man so capable of heartless guile and desperate depravity than the one who stands before me.”

  Corin licked his lips. He could find no answer to that, so he nodded and asked weakly, “And the second?”

  “I am with my Auric now. That has taught me a selfishness I never knew before. I am no more a princess. That matters too. I will cling to him however I must, and the world outside can burn for all I care.”

  “Then why have you not already sent me on my way?”

  “I promised Auric I would hear you out. But I do not want your apologies and I do not want your careful lies. Tell me why you’ve come here, and then I will send you on your way.”

  It was not a generous offer, but given the things she’d said, it was more than he should have hoped for. For half a heartbeat he cast about, searching for some clever lie that would gain him her compassion, but in the end he settled on the truth.

  “I mean to bring Ephitel to justice.”

  She sighed. “This is not news to me.”

  “No. But it is a complicated matter. Among other things, it depends on a certain artifact I discovered in my journeys.”

  “What artifact?”

  “There is a weapon with the power to wound the invulnerable Ephitel.”

  Sera blinked at that. She covered her shock with the careful decorum of an Ithalian princess, but it showed in the pulse pounding at her temple and the quaver in her voice. “You . . . surely there is not such a thing.”

  “There is,” Corin said. “Aeraculanon’s blade, and it can do to Ephitel what it once did to Memnon. The druids know it for what it is.”

  “And you have this sword?”

  “I do.”

  Her eyes widened, but then she looked him up and down. “Not with you, though. I must take your word?”

  Corin quickly shook his head. “I don’t have it now, but it is coming here.”

  She laughed. “That is a magic sword indeed.”

  He fought down a growl of irritation. “I did not know if I could come here unmolested, so I sent it by a trusted messenger. It might be waiting here already. Have you not had a visit from a city dwarf?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t mean the silversmith?”

  “Aye,” Corin said. “I had forgotten you were already friends with dear Benjamin.”

  “Not friends,” she said, “but he has served my family. I am surprised that you can tolerate him.”

  “I have known him longer than this current engagement, and I have reason enough to trust him. In fact, it helps that he belongs to your family; that should place him above suspicion.”

  “And you say he has this sword?”

  “He does. He brings it here at my direction. When he arrives, you’ll know the truth—”

  “When he arrives?” she asked. “You expect him on the moment?”

  “I cannot say precisely when, but if you’ve had time to hear news from Aerome, he can’t be far behind.”

  “That could still be days,” Sera said with a too sweet smile. “Time enough for you to embroil Auric in some scheme, whether this dwarf ever arrives or not.”

  “I assure you—”

  She shook her head. “You will forgive me, Captain Hugh, but I cannot be satisfied with your assurances.”

  “But you have other evidence. You’ve seen me working with the druids. You’ve seen the lengths I’ve gone already in pursuit of this.”

  “I’ve seen you lie to me and risk my life in pursuit of your own agenda. I’ve seen you kill a cousin and brother.”

  “All to draw out Ephitel. All in an attempt to bring him within reach of the sword Godslayer that I might end his reign.”

  “And who is to replace him?”

  The question surprised Corin. Replace him? An exterminator made no plans to replace the vermin he went out to kill.

  But of course it would occur to Sera. The princess had lived all her life surrounded by men clawing for every scrap of power, and murder was not an uncommon means of gaining a position.

  Even as he reached that understanding, Sera pressed on. “You? I would not have you for the god of all Ithale.”

  “Not I,” Corin said, with a shudder that he didn’t have to feign. “I’ve no desire to rule. In truth, I’d be best pleased if no o
ne replaced Ephitel at all. Let Ithalians choose the destiny of Ithale. Let the people serve as their own providence. But anyone at all would please me more than Ephitel.”

  She eyed him for a moment, weighing some possibility. Then she stepped closer and held his gaze. “You mean it to be Auric, don’t you?”

  Corin laughed harshly. He had no time to consider the ramifications, and he regretted it when Sera’s brows came down.

  “Why do you scoff? He is as good as any man! Better than most.”

  Corin raised his hands defensively. “I mean no offense, but the thought had never crossed my mind. I have not the means to elevate a manling to godhood; only the sword that will reduce a god to so much rotting flesh.”

  She paled at that, disclosing a hint, but only a hint. She had as much to gain from Ephitel’s death as Corin did. He pressed closer and held her gaze. “I cannot stop until this thing is done. I’ve no desire to embroil Auric in it, but I had to get the sword out of Aerome. I had to meet Ben somewhere, and this was the only place I knew.”

  “That’s why you’re here? Just to receive the sword?”

  “Aye. I’ll swear to it.”

  The princess nodded, satisfied. “Good. Now I’ve heard you out, in keeping with my promise, and my decision is an easy one. You said the dwarf planned to meet you here?”

  “Any day now.”

  She nodded. “Then I’d invite you to return to Taurb. It’s a pleasant little village east along the farmer’s road. I know the tavern keeper there, and he is an honest man. He’ll board you for a fair rate, and if Master Strunk should darken our door, I give my word I’ll send him to meet you there straightaway.”

  Corin sighed. “Could I at least beg one night’s hospitality? I might not find much welcome arriving so late at night.”

  She hesitated a moment. Corin waited. She heaved a sigh. “Very well. Against my better judgment, I’ll offer you a room for the night.”

  He did not for a moment imagine that he’d won her over. And she was too clever by half to forget her concerns. So he chose to address them directly. He hoped it would make him look straightforward and trustworthy. He met her gaze. “What of your concerns for Auric’s innocence?”