The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  Corin raised his knife, ready to throw, but even as he scanned the empty clearing, all the mist dissolved. The ground showed the clear signs of Kellen’s struggle with Jessamine, but elf and justicar alike were gone.

  Her guards still littered the ground, unmoving. Corin noticed with some small distaste that Tesyn was still there as well, crouched against the tree where he’d been held. Blood in great quantity stained the shoulder of his fine white shirt, but it was not his own. One glance showed Corin that the guard who had held him prisoner now lay behind him on the ground, pierced through the heart by Kellen’s rapier. It had probably been done before the fight with Jessamine, and all this time the scholar had cowered there, watching.

  Corin fell to one knee. For a long time he only knelt there, gasping for breath. Fortune favor, what had happened here? He stared down at the forest floor, searching for some hint in the damage made by boots and blades. He saw no blood but his own.

  The scratch across his chest no longer seared. It throbbed now, slow and hot, like a forge fire beneath the bellows. He knew that for a bad sign, but he could scarcely attend to it now. A step through dream might take him to the druids, but he could not guess what welcome he might find there. Surely they wouldn’t let him die. But they would not allow him any liberty either.

  The Nimble Fingers might have the skills to save him. They would certainly provide a place to hide. And while he convalesced, he could make use of their spy network. He was not yet sure how that might lead him to Ephitel, but it was the last resource remaining to him.

  Something tugged at his memory. Something about the Nimble Fingers? Something Kellen had been saying? But his thoughts seemed heavy for some reason. Sluggish. He frowned and tried to trace the thread of memory, but it slipped from his grasp.

  Something about Kellen? No. He’d lost it. The Nimble Fingers, though. They could help him. Corin closed his eyes and fixed his mind upon a bustling common room richly dressed in pure black velvet, but before he could step through the dream, someone spoke his name.

  “Corin? You’re alive?” The scholar’s voice rang with surprise and just a touch of disappointment. “I’d thought for sure I watched her stab you. Isn’t that what set the elf in such a fury?”

  Corin almost left. He’d come to hate the bright-eyed nobleman for more than just his social class. But Corin had made a promise to Auric, and he might still need the farmboy’s special talents. Repeating that within his head, he exhaled heavily and opened his eyes.

  The scholar was just now rising. He looked more than a little unsteady on his feet as he brushed himself down, but he showed no signs of injury. That same old curious sparkle danced in his eyes despite everything that had happened here.

  Corin dragged himself to his feet so he could face the man standing. He clenched his jaw against the pain and answered. “The elf was trying to protect me. He gave his life for my freedom. Surely now you’ll recognize how important a role it is I play.”

  The corner of the scholar’s mouth turned down; he was clearly thinking hard, but then he shook his head. “No. I just don’t see it. It was remarkable to watch him fight, though, wasn’t it? And then to catch a glimpse of Faerie!”

  “Of what?”

  “Of Faerie. Where’d you think they went? The mad old elf tore a hole right through reality and left a gaping window into the land beyond.”

  Corin’s shoulders slumped. “He said he meant to wait for Avery.” How many souls would he have to send to the next world? So far all of them had been for nothing. Would that ever change?

  Tesyn came forward, eyes glowing with excitement. “I think he did it to counter her magic. Did you see the way she glowed? I’ve never seen a justicar all full of righteous fury before. Not like that. It was giving her an edge, but then he tore the world apart and kicked her through into Faerie, and the light whipped out like a candle in the wind. You should have seen the shock in her eyes.”

  “You mean he won? He killed her?”

  The scholar shrugged. “I couldn’t say. The world closed up behind them, and then you were here and they were not.” He fixed Corin with a disapproving glare. “You promised I would have a chance to speak with him.”

  Corin arched an eyebrow. “You blame me for this?”

  “Who else is there to blame? She knew your name. She said she was here for you. And what is this anomalous sword she mentioned?”

  “Nothing you should concern yourself about. Now come, we must tend our wounds and then make plans to get you home.”

  The scholar frowned, skeptical. “I don’t believe I am prepared to dress battle injuries. That will have to fall to someone else.”

  Corin looked around the battlefield. There was no one else but corpses. He met the scholar’s eyes. “A bandage will do the job for now. But don’t you know the hidden secrets of the world? Herb lore? Surely at the University you learned to make a poultice to cure any wounds. A potion to restore vigor?”

  “Not really. Sorry. I mostly learned the names of dead men.”

  “In seven languages.”

  “Oh. Sure. That part’s important too.”

  Corin groaned. “I hate to inconvenience you, but I am sorely wounded.”

  “You are sorely wounded?” Tesyn asked. “All you’ve lost is blood. You cannot guess how much of my life I spent on this mission—how many months I searched for clues to find the last of the ancient residents of Jezeeli. I brought you here against my better judgment—”

  “You begged Kellen to string me up.”

  “And with good reason! But then he didn’t. He talked to you like an equal, and for a moment I dared to believe we might salvage this venture. I thought perhaps when you were done bickering with him, you might introduce me, perhaps convince him to speak freely, and that might at last have undone some small measure of the injury you did when you stole my family’s ancient map.”

  “I have, in fact, apologized for that,” Corin said.

  “No. No, you haven’t.”

  “Well . . . I considered it.”

  Tesyn gaped. A moment later he waved it away. “After all of this, I thought perhaps you had redeemed yourself. And then you picked a fight with him over your mad schemes and brought an angry justicar down upon us.”

  “I am trying to undo the ancient wrong of Jezeeli’s fall! I’m trying to break the power of a tyrant god. It’s not just some mad scheme!”

  The scholar shrugged. “Well? What has come of it? Nothing at all. Now we’ve wasted all this time, and it will take another age for us to return to civilization, and weeks more after that to get to Aerome.”

  “Aerome?” Corin asked. “Why Aerome?”

  The scholar blinked. “Don’t you ever listen? The elf told you of his companion. This Avery.”

  “Somewhere in the Godlands. That’s all he said.”

  “No! He said it was in the very shadow of their enemy. Where could he mean but Aerome? Where else would a man go to taunt the tyrant god?”

  Corin stared, stunned. It’s where he himself had gone. And everything he knew, he’d learned from the Nimble Fingers—Avery’s own organization. Could it be so simple?

  He barked out a laugh. Aerome, where all of this had started. Aerome, where he would find the richest Nimble Fingers in the world. He took an unsteady step closed to scholar and tapped him on the chest.

  “You know,” he said, “in some ways, you’re a very clever lad.”

  The scholar frowned, wondering what was coming next.

  Corin withdrew a step and spread his hands. He closed his eyes and offered a slow smile. “In other ways, you aren’t very smart at all.”

  Then he fixed his mind upon Aerome, and left the scholar in the woods alone.

  Corin always liked to make a splashy entrance, but this proved one of his best. He arrived within the busy common room of Aerome’s Nimble Fingers just at midnight—the tavern’s busiest hour—in tattered clothes and soaked with blood.

  He drew himself up tall despite the pain
that wracked his body and proclaimed to the room at large, “Aerome! Your hero has returned. No accolades required, but I could dearly use a bed. And someone be so kind as to summon me the elf named Avery. I would have a word with him.”

  Then he swept a stern, imperious gaze around the hall and collapsed upon the floor.

  Corin regained consciousness in an unfamiliar chamber. It took him a moment to recall the circumstances of his arrival, but when he did, it only sharpened his confusion, because he knew at a glance that this was not one of the guest rooms at the shady tavern.

  His hands were not tied. That was promising. And he was still alive.

  He lifted himself upright and succeeded without any great difficulty, though the skin across his chest began to itch fiercely. He felt the tension of a bandage tight enough to hold his ribs together, which seemed a bit too much for a flesh wound. But as he rose, his vision washed dizzily. Perhaps it had been a graver injury than he imagined.

  His knee too still throbbed slow and hot, but he could feel the familiar weight of a poultice there, wrapped tight as well. He tried to keep that leg still as he adjusted on his bed and looked around.

  It was not a prison cell, though the size was right. And the quality of furniture. He shifted uncomfortably on the thin, hard mattress. A dressing table stood beside the bed, backed by an enormous mirror that must have cost at least as much as all the room’s other contents combined. Three wig stands on the dressing table held three wigs in very different colors, and a fourth stood bare. More than a dozen jewelry pots in outlandish colors stood before the mirror, all arranged in careful rows.

  He worked some moisture into a painfully parched throat, then tried his voice. “Hello? Am I alone?”

  His wounds still ached, and a vicious hunger worried at his belly. Whatever sleep he’d gotten had been spent repairing all his injuries. He felt weak and weary still.

  “Hello?” he tried again. “Who brought me here?”

  A young lady peeked in at the outer door; then she nodded to herself and came in. “Thought I heard something,” she said, offering him a smile. “I’m glad you’re awake. The physician said it might be weeks.”

  Corin felt a stab of fear. “Physician?” He looked beneath his sheets to confirm he still had all his limbs, but still couldn’t shake the quiet anxiety that word always sparked in him.

  She laughed. “Don’t worry. He’s a careful man. And discreet.”

  “That sounds expensive.”

  “Very.” She turned up her smile. “I hope you’re worth it.”

  Corin looked around the room again. “There aren’t many actresses who can afford such services.”

  “You of all people should know better than to judge by first appearances.”

  Corin arched an eyebrow. “Oh? You know me so well?”

  “You have quite the reputation. Born a pauper, turned a pirate, and raised to a captain before you’d seen twenty years.”

  “I like to keep my feet moving.”

  She smirked. “I’d say so. Because in the last year you have discovered some new magic, made friends with the ancient druids, become a hero of the Nimble Fingers, murdered poor Giuliano in his own house—”

  “Technically,” Corin corrected her, “it was just outside the house.”

  She laughed. “And now you’ve spat in Ephitel’s face, it seems, and blackened the eye of his favorite justicar.”

  Corin whistled low. “You are well informed.”

  She preened. “I try to be.”

  She was dangerous. Beautiful too, but deadly things were often beautiful. She wore her long black hair tied back, showing off a pixie face of pale skin and huge, innocent eyes above the most mischievous smile he’d ever seen.

  He blinked in sudden recognition. “I know you!” He’d met this girl before, though she had not made such a strong impression then. He’d needed a small favor following the Ethan Blake affair, to help keep Auric and the princess safe from scheming Vestossis, and this was the girl who had procured the document he needed. “You went by the name of Jane.”

  “You remember!” She clapped her hands, the picture of a child delighted at a bit of recognition. But her eyes were sharp and measuring.

  Corin shook his head. “I’d never thought to make a Nimble Finger of an actress, but I begin to see the value.”

  She gave a performer’s bow, then dropped the act. Her stance relaxed, but her expression only grew sharper. “Not an actress myself,” she said, coming over by the bed, “but some of my best friends are.”

  “But you are of the Nimble Fingers?”

  She hesitated half a heartbeat before nodding. “I am,” she said. “In heart, at least, I am.”

  That answer did not surprise him. There weren’t many women in the organization, though Corin had never truly understood the reason. Some of the most deadly folks he’d ever known were women, and certainly some of the cleverest. But membership required a sponsor, and some old habits had proven hard to break. Few men chose to take female protégés.

  But somehow—without the support of the Nimble Fingers behind her—this girl had stolen from the paranoid and powerful Vestossis a document of great value to them. Such a feat could not go long overlooked. And she could not have done that on a lark. She must have had someone teaching her.

  “Keep trying,” Corin said. “You’ll find a place someday.”

  “Hah! I will be leading them someday. But that’s not why you’re here.”

  “Oh?” Corin asked, a sudden chill chasing up his spine. “Why am I here? I went to the Nimble Fingers, trusting them to hide me away somewhere safe while I recuperated.”

  “I did already mention the very expensive physician, didn’t I?”

  “You did,” Corin said. “And now you want some favor from me in return?”

  She grinned. “You are as clever as they say.”

  “I’m sorry,” Corin said. “You’ve earned a debt from me, but I am caught up in events of huge importance. I don’t have time to train you up and sponsor you.”

  She cocked her head, considering him for a moment. “Training me? Unless you’ve been skulking in the shadows on your poop deck, you are half a decade out of practice. When was the last time you picked a lock?”

  More than a thousand years ago, Corin thought, though he didn’t say so. He’d had to brush off rusty skills to survive his time in Oberon’s strange dream. But if it wasn’t that, what did she want him for?

  “Do you mean to hand me to Ephitel?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “I mean to ask you questions. Nothing more. I want to know what you know about Avery.”

  He blinked. “You . . . what?”

  She sank down on her knees beside his bed. For the first time since she’d entered the room, she looked entirely unguarded. She licked her lips and clasped her hands together. “You announced to the Nimble Fingers common room that you were looking for an elf named Avery. I’ve invested a small fortune seeking any hint of information on an elf of the same name, and then the newest legend of the Nimble Fingers appears within reach of the table where I’m eating and announces that he knows the man. I need to know what you know.”

  “You know an elf named Avery?”

  She looked away. “I am trying to, but he wears secrets like a second skin.”

  Corin nodded to himself. Kellen had said that Avery had a project keeping him around. This girl could well have been enough to trap the old elf’s heart here in Hurope. That would explain where she had learned her trade without the Nimble Fingers to support her.

  And by the expression on her face, Avery’s was not the only heart affected.

  “I need his aid,” Corin said, measuring his words. “The future of this world might well depend on his goodwill for me. Do you understand?”

  She thought a moment, then shook her head. “No. But I will listen.”

  “I might know some portion of the secrets you demand. I don’t know them all, but I likely know a few.”


  Her eyes lit up at that, and Corin laid a consoling hand on her shoulder. “But if Avery has kept it from you, how can I risk his ire? I need him, Jane. I can’t afford to betray his confidences.”

  “Surely you can tell me something.”

  Corin’s heart went out to her. She had him wholly in her power and deeply in her debt, but she’d forgotten all of that. Or she was too kind of heart to use it. Instead, she begged him. What sort of hold did this Avery have over her?

  It didn’t matter. Corin was not so blinded, and he was certainly not softhearted. He saw his opportunity and took it.

  “I can see a way,” he said, his voice warm with sincere encouragement. “Take me to Avery. Convince him to hear me out, and I’ll gain his permission to tell you what I know.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “You won’t. He guards his secrets like an ancient treasure.”

  Corin considered her a moment. He had another card to play, but it was a greater gamble. How good an actress was she? How sincere were these lovesick sighs?

  He chose to trust in them. He looked left and right, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. “There is another way. Help me gain the aid I need from him, and then I will be willing to endure his wrath. I’ll tell you anything that won’t endanger him.”

  “I’d never hurt him,” Jane insisted.

  “I believe you, but he’s beset by enemies you can’t begin to comprehend. Everything he does, he does from desperate need.”

  That only added to the man’s romantic mystique. Corin saw the fire kindle hotter in the lady’s eyes, and he knew he’d judged well.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Help me in this, and I promise I’ll help you in return.”

  “Upon your name?”

  He shook his head. “I have no name, but I will swear it on sweet Fortune’s favor. May I never win another gamble if I let you down.”

  She dropped her head against his knees at that, a penitent in benediction, and whispered quietly, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”