by Aaron Pogue
She blinked, clearly surprised. After a moment, she bobbed her head. “They remain unchanged. Here is what I would ask of you: Do not entangle him in your schemes. Do not speak with him at all unless I am present also.”
“And if he should speak to me?”
She smirked. “You have a dark and brooding nature. Play the part. Your travels must have left you weary. Retire soon, and leave us with the dawn. You should not have much trouble evading him for so short a time.”
Corin nodded. “I can do these things. And you are more than gracious for the offer.”
“I am,” she said. “I am. I try every day to emulate Auric’s generous spirit. I pray you don’t teach me to regret it.”
Corin swallowed hard. For all her dedication to the gentle farmboy, she was still a Vestossi. There was steel behind that pretty mask. Corin worked moisture into his mouth and stammered, “Aye, my lady. You have my word.”
“Then get some sleep. There’s an empty room right through there. I’ll let Auric know you’re staying.” She took three steps toward the kitchen, then looked back over her shoulder. “And know this for the simple truth: If you do anything to harm my Auric, I’ll see you hanged.”
She said it with a summer smile and eyes as cold as winter. Corin didn’t doubt her for a moment.
Sleep should have come easily. Stepping through dream had played havoc with his sense of time, so he could scarcely have guessed how many hours it had been since he’d last slept. Days, at least. A lifetime.
He’d gone to sleep beside Aemilia. That’s all he knew for fact. He’d slept an easy sleep and woken to the smells of breakfast frying in the kitchen. He’d gone off to work with the other woodsmen, and he’d put in a hard day’s labor.
Since then he’d fought with Ephitel and taken his knocks. He’d argued with the druids, killed two most deserving Vestossis, and even tussled with a justicar. He’d leaped back and forth across a thousand miles and battled wills with half a dozen fierce opponents.
And somewhere in it all, he’d lost his love. The thought leaped out at him, treacherous, and he cursed at the flush of pain it brought. He wasn’t equipped to handle pain like that. He’d known unnumbered miseries in his short life, but none of them had cut as deep as this. He forced his breathing to be steady, waited for his heart to stop its hammering, and then gingerly he locked away his thoughts of her. Better far to focus on revenge.
But that course fared him little better. He’d gone off to Aerome with a plan to lure out Ephitel, but that had failed. If the elf knew about the sword Godslayer, if he was wise enough to use a justicar instead of answering in person, Corin could not see any obvious way to lure him into a trap. He searched and searched his mind, through all his clever schemes, but he could not find one.
There were other things to fear as well. If Sera’s information was accurate, then Ben Strunk was already two days overdue. Was he lost? Captured? Corin scarcely dared consider the possibility that Godslayer was lost. Why ever had he let the sword leave his side?
There were no answers for him here. Not now. His mind and body both ached beneath fatigue, and pushing himself harder now would gain him nothing. He fought to slow his breathing more, focusing on his bone-deep weariness, but still it felt like an age before he drifted off to sleep.
And it was no easy sleep. He tossed and turned, awakened more than once by brutal dreams of Ephitel arriving at the farmhouse and doing to Princess Sera what he’d done to Aemilia. Corin dreamed of fighting him in vain. He watched as Auric died a hero’s death. He saw Ben as the cruel elf’s prisoner, then as his accomplice, won over by the serving girl.
He found no rest in sleep that night, and before dawn had come, he gave up any hope of it.
Muscles still aching and head buzzing with an angry energy, he rose and dressed, pulling on his high black boots. He washed his face and hands in the basin. He went to the window and spent some time staring out over the moonlit yard. The house was utterly quiet, but Corin’s shoulders tensed as though there were enemies all around. His hand kept finding the hilt of his dagger and gripping it until his fingers cramped.
He strained his eyes, searching the moonshadows for some threat, but there was none. He snarled at the night. Despite the messages his body was sending him, he knew there was no immediate threat here. The threat was larger, spread out—Ephitel might show up anywhere, any time, but until he came, there was nothing Corin could do to fight him.
Corin dropped his forehead against the cool glass of the window. Even if Ephitel came, Corin couldn’t fight him. He’d given up the sword. It had made so much sense to keep it safe, but now he’d left himself completely helpless.
And he had come to this wretched cabin. For what? He pounded a fist against the windowpane and felt a touch of surprise that it didn’t smash to shards. He spun and kicked the bed that had given him no rest. He glared around the empty room, teeth bared and lungs heaving like some wild beast. He felt an urge to tear this building down around him.
Understanding crashed home then, and he caught a shuddering sigh. Aemilia again. This cottage, this countryside, reminded him too much of the place he’d shared with her. This very room felt like the room they’d slept in. And just there was the corner where he’d found her broken body.
The ache beneath his breastbone sharpened viciously, like a stiletto slipped between his ribs, and he had to gasp for breath. His knees went weak. He caught himself on the windowsill, supporting his whole weight, while a blackness fell across his eyes.
They had been happy together. They had felt safe. For the first time in his life, he’d had a home. And like a lightning strike, like a summer storm out of a clear blue sky, he’d lost it all. A pain even stronger than his anger surged up around him, and Corin clenched his jaw to stop a cry of agony. He choked back his sobs and fought his ragged breath until he could hear the total stillness in the cabin once again. His vision cleared, and he found himself staring out the window at the woodpile. At the handsome battleaxe that Auric had used to chop wood.
It called to him. He slung his heavy black cloak around his shoulders and left the room. Nothing stirred within the house. He went with nimble silence across the narrow sitting room and down the hall. Without a sound, he went out into the autumn chill.
He stood a moment, staring down at the chopping block. They’d had one just like it at the cottage—an old stump, shorn of bark by errant swings, scarred across its face from years of punishment. Its naked core, exposed, had turned from a honey color to a dark umber, weathered by the elements and time.
Could he do that? He felt freshly carved now. Could he survive? Could he hold up long enough to wear the scars? To become something useful once again?
He shook his head. Foolish, sentimental thoughts. He hadn’t come out here to feel sorry for himself; he’d come out here to accomplish something. He stooped to grab an unsplit log and lifted it into position upright on the chopping block. The motion felt familiar, and he reached automatically for the haft of the heavy axe.
How had this ever become commonplace? He was a vagrant, a thief, a pirate. But for three short months, he’d had a home.
He dashed the thoughts and heaved the axe into the air. Its heft was not familiar. This axe was a thing for killing—brutal and straightforward in a way that Corin had never mastered. Still, as he raised it high, he thought perhaps this served as more than a romantic gesture. He felt a proper headsman, towering above the block, and it was no challenge to imagine the neck that should have been stretched there. He thought of Ephitel, so cruel and gloating at the scene of his great crime. Corin clenched his jaw and swung the axe. It slammed into the solid chunk of wood and split it clean.
It helped. In a tiny way, it helped. He lifted another log into place and struck again. Again. Sweat pricked his brow, and he shed the heavy weight of his familiar black cloak. Then he split another log. And another.
He lost all track of time within the rhythmic motion. The sun rose while he worked, but he ba
rely noticed. He cleared the pile before he stopped, then stood a moment, stunned. His chest heaved, his lungs and arms ached, but his mind felt sharper than it had in days.
“More,” he said, his voice raw to his own ears. “I am not finished.”
“It’s true,” another voice answered.
Corin wiped sweat from his brow and turned to find Auric watching. The farmboy’s hands were dirty, and a sheen of sweat covered him too. Corin realized there were no split logs around the block. Auric had been clearing them while Corin worked, stacking them neatly on the pile beneath the cabin’s eaves. It had to have been more than an hour they’d worked together without him noticing Auric or either man saying a word.
Corin licked dry lips. “True?”
“You’re not finished,” Auric said, passing Corin a waterskin. “That’s clear as day. But I doubt that there are trees enough in all of Raentz to satisfy your need.”
Corin took a long, slow drink. Then he nodded his agreement. “No matter how I try, the wood won’t bleed.”
The farmboy didn’t answer right away. He took the axe from Corin and turned it over and over in his hands. Then, with a casual gesture, he tossed it aside. He met Corin’s eyes. “That is not the proper tool for your task.”
Corin nodded. “A friend is bringing me—”
Auric cut him off with a shake of his head. “Sera told me all about it, but the sword won’t do it either—not on its own.”
Corin sank down on his heels, still fighting for breath. He was worn out, but he could see the golden light of an autumn morning shining bright. He’d find a way to do what needed doing.
“The sword will serve me well enough,” Corin said. “It will spill the blood of Ephitel.”
“And what will that gain you?” Auric asked. “Zyphar will only take his place. Or Elsbrit. Or Pellipon. There are gods enough to fill the role, and every one of them is cast from Ephitel’s mold.”
“So what would you have me do? Forget the wrongs he’s done? Grieve for what I’ve lost and try to find a normal life again?”
Auric shook his head emphatically, and Corin loved him for it. “Don’t be a fool. You have to kill him.”
“But you said—”
Auric spoke over him. “You’re not sufficient to the task. You don’t have to be. I tried to tell you so last night.”
Corin frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You do. You already know precisely what is needed, but you’ve allowed your grief to blind you. Before you first brought Sera here, you told her that you meant to raise an army.”
“Ah,” Corin said in sudden understanding. “Last night you spoke to me of good friends. But I have none. My plan required the assistance of the druids.”
“I . . . I thought you were friendly with the druids.”
“The circumstances of that relationship have changed.”
Disappointment touched the corners of the farmboy’s eyes, but he said nothing of it. He considered this new information a moment, then asked, “What did you need of them?”
“They were to connect me with the elves. But in the end, they could not help me there.”
The farmboy ran a hand through his hair and asked with exaggerated care, “Your true goal is to find the ancient elves? Long lost and most forgotten?”
“Aye. They’d be true and powerful enemies of Ephitel if I could but rouse them to the fight. But, alas, even the druids cannot tell me where they’ve settled.”
Auric let loose a mighty laugh. “You see! What did I tell you?”
“What?”
“I have a good friend who is even now setting out on a grand quest to find the elves of lore.”
Corin’s jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am! He was at the cabin yesterday. You must have passed him on the road. I suspect he’s still in town making arrangements for the voyage.”
“The voyage?”
“He thinks the elves are living on the Isle of Mists. He thinks they’ve been hiding there for ages, and all the terrible rumors about the place are contrivances to keep them hidden.”
Corin shook his head. “He has the right of it. I heard the plan from Oberon’s own lips before it was set in motion. But that was a thousand years gone. Surely by now they’ve moved elsewhere.”
“That was the favorite belief of ancient scholars too, but my friend has uncovered new secrets. He swears they are still there, concealed by some extraordinary power.”
Corin fell very still. Some instinct warned him this was too perfect a coincidence, and he wondered how it could have come to pass. Was it some trap of Ephitel’s? Or perhaps the druids manipulating events around him? Perhaps it was the work of the very elves that Corin sought. Would that be for good or ill?
Or perhaps it was merely the work of Fortune. She’d always smiled fondly on Corin, in spite of all his sins. Was this another chance, another twist of Oberon’s dream to benefit his misfit heir?
More likely by far, it was nothing but an errant venture. The thought rang true, yet he could not entirely shake off the wave of hope that Auric’s pronouncement had cast up. “Surely . . . surely he can’t have unraveled such an ancient secret on his own.”
“Oh, he could,” Auric said, grinning. “He is a very clever man. Smarter than the two of us combined. He’ll find his way, and I suspect he’d benefit from a sturdy hand and sharp eye to keep him safe. I think you should join him.”
Before Corin could find any answers, the farmboy interrupted all his thoughts with a piercing question of his own. Eyes fixed on the ground and voice cast low, Auric asked him, “Did you really mean it?”
Corin shook off his suspicions to focus on his companion. “Mean what?”
“When you were speaking with Sera. You told her you have no plans for Ephitel’s succession. Do you honestly believe we could survive without the gods?”
Corin dropped a hand on Auric’s shoulder and caught his eyes. “I swear on sea and sky, I think we’d thrive if every one of them were dead. These false gods have never served us. We should preserve the dream of the creator and strive to be free men living in a world of wonder, not slaves subject to distant tyrants. This world was made for us, Auric. We are all we need.”
Auric stared at Corin, stunned, and only then did Corin understand what he had done. He’d grown up a beggar and a thief, hunted by the powers of authority. His own desire for survival had driven him to despise the god that so despised an orphaned child.
Then he had left the Godlands to become a pirate, sailing the seas as a free man in defiance of their laws. Perhaps there were some true believers hidden here and there among the crews Corin had joined, but most of those men hated the gods for all the same reasons Corin had.
And then he’d stepped into Oberon’s dream. He’d met Ephitel firsthand and seen the dark dawn of that tyrant’s reign. He’d spent his time since then surrounded by the druids who knew all these secret truths.
It had grown so easy to speak of the gods—all the gods—as enemies. He no longer thought of them as myths or legends, but as men. The whole lot of them upon Mount Attos were naught but craven sycophants who’d bent knee to a regicide and traitor.
And certainly the farmboy had never balked when Corin spoke ill of Ephitel. Why would he? Any upright Raentzman hated Ephitel as surely as he hated all Ithalians. It was only proper.
But he would not hate his god. Raentzmen honored Pellipon. Most Ithalians made heartfelt sacrifice to Ephitel. It was easy to forget that all across the Godlands, good men and women earnestly worshipped their gods in righteous fear. And none would do so more than an honest, good-hearted farmboy from the remotest corner of Raentz.
Corin raised his hands, prepared to argue his defense. “I meant no offense,” he said quickly. “Just the idle musings of a shipless pirate.”
But the farmboy did not lash out. Instead, even as Corin watched, a burning hope seemed to dawn in the other man’s eyes. It took the place of a fear so old and so famil
iar that it had become a part of him. Auric rolled his shoulders like a man who had just shed some dreadful burden he’d been carrying for years.
“My mother raised me to love Pellipon,” Auric said, his voice still low, but stronger now. “To love Pellipon and hate Ephitel like every man who’s good and true. However, in my travels I met Tesyn, and he loved Ephitel and hated Pellipon. But he was good and true.”
Corin nodded, understanding.
Auric went on. “Then I met Hartwin who worshipped Elsbrit. He didn’t murder innocents or wallow in obscenities. He is the most righteous man I know, but he would spit in Pellipon’s face if he ever met him.”
“I suspect they make us war for sport,” Corin said. “You’ve seen it in the Games. They play our nations off for their amusement, and men die.”
Auric nodded. That much most men accepted. After all, the ways of the gods were mysterious and just.
The farmboy continued. “Then I met Longbow. He knows nothing of the gods except their names, and he reserves those as the vilest of curses.”
“I remember Longbow,” Corin said. “He was good and true.”
“I respect the things my parents taught,” Auric said slowly, “but my whole life since I left Raentz has taught me they were wrong.”
“They were wrong,” Corin said. “Deceived by the gods they trusted. I have seen the secret face of Ephitel, and he is an elf who killed his king. Everything since then has been a farce at our expense.”
The farmboy clenched his massive hands in fists. He took a slow breath, then raised his head and showed Corin a startlingly innocent smile.
“So I suspect it’s not enough to bring down Ephitel. We’re going to have to kill them all,” he finished.
Corin yelped with laughter, startled. Then he clapped a hand on Auric’s shoulder. “You know . . . I’m slowly starting to believe you. We could be good friends indeed.” He glanced toward the house, remembering his conversation with Sera, and he had a sudden, sinking feeling. She would not be pleased at this new conviction.
