Dawn of War (Legend of the Gods Book 3)

by Aaron Hodges

  “And you lead them?”

  Corrie shrugged. “No one leads us. I was just the first to notice your people.”

  “You should have a watch set,” Devon grunted. “If the Tsar is in Trola, he will have raiding forces scouring the countryside.”

  Corrie looked doubtful, and Devon shook his head. “Joseph!” he shouted, turning to the small retinue of Baronians that had followed him into the city.

  Joseph stepped forward, his bulk making the young Trolan look tiny. “Yes…sir.” He said the title hesitantly, and Devon nodded his thanks at the man for not using his name.

  “Take a dozen men and set a watch on the approaches to the city,” Devon said, and the man moved away.

  Selina stepped up to join them, and the two of them exchanged glances. “Is there room in the city for our people?” she asked the young Trolan.

  Corrie shrugged. “There’s only a few hundred of us here. The city used to host a thousand. If your people wish to join us for the night, we won’t stop them.”

  Devon chuckled. “It would have been a bit late if you wanted to,” he commented, gesturing to where the Baronians were already streaming through the fallen walls. “Anyway, if your people were intending to join the Queen, we’ll march with you.” He hesitated, casting another glance around them. “Though I think many of your number would be best left here.”

  “They’ll come, or they won’t,” Corrie replied. “As I said, I don’t lead them.” He eyed the black-garbed Baronians. “You still haven’t told me where you came from, or who you are, for that matter.”

  “Ay,” Devon replied, his stomach tying in knots.

  Clenching his fists, he took a breath. He saw a sudden look of panic on Selina’s face, but he could hide the truth no longer. If he was to fight alongside these people, they deserved to know who he was.

  “Because I am Devon,” he said softly. Reaching up, he drew his hammer. “Because this is kanker, and its head is stained with the blood of your people.”

  Corrie’s eyes widened and he took a quick step back. He looked from the fabled weapon to its wielder. Devon watched as hatred blossomed in his eyes.

  “You dare to stand here and claim yourself an enemy of the Tsar?” he whispered. “An ally of Trola?”

  “I do,” Devon rumbled. “Every day since the war ended, I have regretted the part I played in your fall.”

  “And what is your regret to us, butcher?” Corrie snapped. A crowd was starting to gather around them now. Devon glimpsed men reaching for sword hilts as they realised what Corrie was saying. “Can your regret help to rebuild our cities, or bring back our Magickers? Can it restore our loved ones to life?”

  “No,” Devon replied. He stepped towards Corrie, so that he stood just an inch from the man, and looked down at him. Beyond the crowd, several Baronians had taken notice of the commotion and were moving towards them. “But you’ll find no greater warrior for your cause, sonny.”

  “We don’t need help from the likes of you.”

  “You do,” Devon snapped, his anger flaring. He threw out an arm, gesturing to the men and women that had gathered around them. “Your army is made of old men and cripples. They’re brave, I’ll give them that, but it is the Tsar you face. His army cannot be defeated by bravery alone. You need warriors, fighters with the strength to see an empire fall. You need me.”

  As he spoke, Devon had watched the doubt enter the young Trolan’s eyes. Like many in his nation, Corrie was hotblooded, quick to anger, but now that he found himself facing the Butcher of Trola, Devon could see his hatred turning to fear. He looked around, seeking strength in those around him, but the crowd had taken an unconscious step back at Devon’s outburst.

  Selina still stood nearby though, and she advanced, her face radiating calm.

  “Devon is not the only one here who carries the weight of your people’s fate on his shoulders, Trolan,” she said quietly. “I too have Trolan blood on my hands.”

  “You fought against us, lady?” Corrie asked, taking the chance to retreat from Devon.

  “I doubt Devon remembers me, but it was not just legends who fought beneath the Tsar’s banner,” Selina replied.

  Devon stared at her in disbelief. With her greying hair and slim frame, he’d never guessed for a moment that she too might have fought in the ranks of soldiers who had marched against Trola. Her eyes flicked in his direction, and a knowing smile touched her lips.

  “Very well.” Devon looked around as the words burst from Corrie. “You and your people may remain, Butcher. But do not expect our friendship.” With that he turned and vanished through the crowd.

  Despite his claims he was not their leader, the crowd dispersed after that, leaving Devon standing alone with Selina.

  “Was that true?” he asked when the last of the Trolans had faded away.

  Selina raised an eyebrow. “Is that so hard to believe, hammerman?”

  Chuckling, Devon shook his head. “No, I should have guessed it sooner, the way you ordered us around back at the inn.” He gestured to where several Baronians had already finished setting up his tent. They started towards it as he continued. “So you decided to retire and set up an inn after the war?”

  “It was more for the quiet of the forest, but yes,” Selina answered, and Devon chuckled.

  “I think my friend would have liked you,” he said as he ducked beneath his tent flaps.

  Selina followed him inside, and Devon waved for her to join him in the camp seats already laid out by the brazier.

  “I’ll give ‘em this,” he said as he sat, “at least the Baronians are more organised than these poor souls.”

  Selina said nothing, and Devon found her staring at the fire. After a moment she blinked and looked around. Catching Devon watching her, she sighed.

  “We never learn, do we?” she said softly.

  “What?” Devon asked, nonplussed.

  “The folly of war.”

  Devon frowned. “The Tsar hasn’t exactly given us a choice.”

  “There is always a choice.” Selina sighed and leaned forward in her chair. “Tell me, Devon. If you win this fight, what will change? After all this blood and death, after all the orphans you create, what will be left?” There was anger in her voice as she looked at him.

  “What do you want from me, Selina?” Devon asked, taken aback. He shook his head, his own anger rising. “I’m no king, no ruler. Those aren’t my decisions to make. You think I like this any more than you? I left all this, threw everything away to escape it.”

  “Ay, and what did you do then? What good did you create in this world, to atone for the death you dealt with that hammer of yours?”

  “I…” Devon trailed off as the innkeeper’s eyes drilled into his.

  “Truth is, you did nothing,” Selina hissed. “And you expect the Trolans to be grateful, because after you slaughtered them like so many pigs, you hung up your weapon and said, ‘Well that’s enough.’”

  “I lost my friend,” Devon snapped, surging to his feet. “I might have been late, but I have fought for their cause. I have bled and bled for it, gone up against Stalkers and demons and dragons for it. Don’t you dare say I have done nothing!”

  Selina was on her feet now as well. “You have killed for the cause, Devon, but what have you built? What legacy will you leave this world, other than one of death and destruction?” She gestured to the people outside in the ruins. “Those people out there, the Tsar destroyed their lives, took everything from them. But every one of them has built more than you. They have families and farms, a home to return to. They are here to protect their own, to strive for a better world for their children.”

  “So am I—”

  “No, Devon,” Selina said sadly, “you are here because after the war, you were empty.” She slumped back into her chair, the fight going from her in a rush. “I know, because it was the same for me,” she said quietly. She swallowed, her eyes on the walls of the tent, as though she could see straight through t
he fabric, out to where the Trolans made camp. “If men and women like them ruled this world, there would be no more wars. But instead, it’s men and women like us who are worshiped. And so the evil spreads across mountains and rivers, on down the centuries, unending.”

  Devon sank back into his chair, all anger draining from him. “What can I say, Selina, except that I think you are wrong? I know what I am: a soldier, a warrior, a fighter. It’s all my family has ever known. Perhaps someday that will change, but it will not change the way of the world. The powerful will always seek to conquer. Some will fight for the light, others a different shade of grey. But when the dark ones come, it’s up to men like me to stand against them, to give our lives to ensure men and women like them—” he gestured to the unseen Trolans, “can live their lives in peace.”

  Selina’s eyes were sad as she watched him. “I know that, Devon,” she murmured. “But do you not think the soldiers who fight for the Tsar believe the same? To them, you and the Baronians and the Trolans are traitors, the Queen a foreign invader, coming to take their land and enslave their families.”

  “I know, believe me, I know,” Devon said. “By the Gods, I fought alongside many of them. And who knows, maybe they’re right.” He sighed, staring into the dead brazier. It was growing cold in the tent, but he would have to find fuel before it could be lit. “I can only go by what my eyes tell me, Selina. Those Trolans out there, they have suffered because of the Tsar, because of us. And I have met the Queen and the northerners. She’s a hard woman, but Northland is no longer the devil it once was. They are thriving and have no reason to invade. She did not come here unprovoked. So I will fight alongside the Trolans, and Northland, and the Baronians, against my former comrades. It may not be what you or I want, but it is what it is.”

  “Who says that is not what I want?” Selina chuckled.

  Devon frowned. “Understanding your words is like wrestling piglets in the mud; soon as I think I have a handle on them, another one slithers free.”

  “I’m sorry, Devon, if I took my own frustration out on you. It’s just, after all our Three Nations has suffered, I thought we were finally done with war. To sit here now, watching more young men and women marching off to fight for their freedom…” She shook her head. “It’s hard to see how it will end in anything but more grief.”

  “Ay, the Tsar will show them no mercy this time.”

  “You were right, what you said out there,” Selina put in. Devon only shrugged, but she went on. “But they will need more than your courage if they’re to stand a chance.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They need a leader, Devon, one who believes in them, who will fight for them to his dying breath.”

  “Me?”

  “Who else?” Selina whispered.

  “Rubbish,” Devon rumbled. “They despise me.”

  “Ay, they hate you, because of what you’ve done. But that is not who you are, Devon. Who you are is the man who led the Baronians through the mountains. Show them that Devon, and they will follow you to the gates of hell.”

  “If the Tsar is marching, hell doesn’t begin to describe what we face.”

  “They need you, Devon,” Selina said, cutting across his deflection. “You’ll see that, come the morrow.”

  Chapter 34

  Merydith sighed as she sank onto the grass behind the hastily erected ramparts. Silence fell over the men and women stationed there as they broke off their conversations to look at her. She offered them what she hoped was her most reassuring smile. The fear in their eyes told Merydith she was only halfway successful.

  “They’re beautiful from here, aren’t they?” she said, gesturing at the mountains.

  The rising sun stained their snowy peaks scarlet, a sign amongst many of her people that a bad day was to come. Bad for whom, though, was yet to be decided. Slowly the red gave way to gold as the burning globe topped the mountains, bathing them all in its warmth. She let out a long breath, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment. They might have left the mountains behind, but winter’s chill still lingered over Trola.

  “Do you really think we can hold them?” a Trolan woman crouched nearby asked her.

  Merydith flashed a grin in her direction. “Hold them? They should be so lucky! Today we’ll see the Tsar’s empire fall, I promise you that.”

  The woman swallowed visibly. Betran moved alongside Merydith. “Trust her, Beth,” he murmured. “The Queen has a plan.”

  “It’s just…I never knew there would be so many.”

  “Don’t worry about the numbers,” Merydith answered in her calmest voice, even as she recalled the sight of the Tsar’s horde marching towards them in the fading light of the evening. They had just kept coming, hour upon hour, long after the sun had set and torches were needed to light their way. “We have the high ground, and the courage to use it. When the time comes, we’ll slice them in two like a knife through butter.”

  “I hope so,” the Trolan murmured.

  “Don’t hope, know,” Merydith said, patting the woman’s shoulder as she stood.

  Nodding to Betran, the man joined her and they bid the woman and her comrades good luck. Together they moved down the line, Betran greeting men and women he recognised and introducing her. They stopped several more times to talk with the troops, letting them see her, to speak with the Queen they would soon be risking their lives for. Most of those stationed along the ramparts were the Trolan rebels that had joined with Betran, or the volunteers they’d picked up along the way.

  If her plan failed, it would fall on these men and women to hold the ramparts long enough for the wounded to be evacuated. Merydith prayed it would not come to that, but she knew if the worst were to happen, it was unlikely she would live long enough to witness the aftermath.

  Reaching the end of the northern defences, they climbed the earthen mound that was their ramparts. Merydith looked down at the land below, and the dark shadow that spread around their hilltop. Nestled within the valley, the Tsar had not even bothered to take the slopes to either side of his force. He had stalked her across Lonia, far through the mountains, all the way to this lonely hilltop. And like the wolf at the end of a hunt, he knew they were done, that they did not have the strength to flee any longer.

  Or at least, she hoped that was what he thought.

  If her plan were to succeed, they needed him to be overbold, to throw caution to the wind and attack up the long, open slope below their hilltop. He would expect her to sit and wait, to defend her makeshift ramparts and trench to the last man and woman. Looking down at the mass of humanity below, Merydith shivered, and wondered if she were mad to think of attacking such a monster.

  The emerald and scarlet of the Lonian and Plorsean soldiers wound up the valley and disappeared out of sight, uncountable, though she knew they numbered around forty thousand. Against her tiny force, the odds seemed insurmountable.

  Her eyes drifted to the sky, and she wondered whether the Three Gods were looking down on her today, if they had given their blessing to this desperate gamble.

  The thump of marching feet rumbled up from the valley below as the first wave of soldiers started forward. Row upon row of ironclad men and women stretched across the valley, wide enough to engage the defenders across the entire rampart.

  Despite herself, Merydith allowed herself a smile. The Tsar’s battle plan was obvious. He would launch a frontal assault upon their hillside, sending wave upon wave of southern soldiers until the defenders were overwhelmed. A less confident commander might have ordered his forces to surround the hilltop, cutting off their escape. But the Tsar knew she had nowhere left to go, that even if the Queen fled, she would only be delaying the inevitable.

  No, the fate of their two worlds would be decided here, and neither the Tsar nor the Queen wished to delay its conclusion any longer.

  The rumbling grew as the first wave of soldiers approached the base of the hill. The sound carried up the slope to where the Northland army waited, break
ing over them like thunder. Merydith glanced along the line, and smiled when she saw the Trolan defenders standing strong.

  She was surprised to find her own fear had evaporated. Looking out at her nemesis, she realised she had been waiting for this day for what felt like a lifetime. Now that it had finally come, she felt a strange indifference to the odds they faced, an acceptance of whatever fate would bring that day.

  Even were they to be defeated, Merydith knew the northern battle cry would live on. They had hurt the Tsar these past few weeks, damaged his aura of invisibility. Today, every southern soldier her people slew was one less for their kin back home to face. And if Merydith herself were to die, her death would ring out through the Northland clans, becoming the rallying cry of the free.

  The thought brought a sudden melancholy to Merydith, and she pushed it aside.

  Death could wait.

  Today was for living.

  As the sun crept higher into the sky, a single figure broke away from the southern army and started his way up the grass-torn slope. He walked slowly, a white flag flapping above his head. Waving Betran back, Merydith rose and strode down to meet him. Two of her guard followed close behind, the memory of her attempted assassination still fresh in their minds.

  “That’s far enough,” she boomed when the man was still ten paces away.

  “I come to discuss terms of surrender!” the man bellowed.

  “Excellent!” Merydith shouted back. “Then my terms are this: surrender now, and all but the Tsar may live.”

  The man stared at her for a long moment, his mouth frozen open. Finally he seemed to shake himself free of his shock. “Pardon?”

  “Do you need me to repeat them, sir?” she asked with a laugh. “I thought they were quite simple. Surrender, and you and your soldiers may live.”

  His face coloured, and baring his teeth, he took a step towards her. “I have not come to negotiate our surrender, witch,” he spat, “but the surrender of you and your army of heathens!”

  Merydith twisted her lips into a pout. “Oh, that is shame. You seem like such a nice man. Really, there’s no need for you to die here. In fact, I’d rather not see anyone die today, it’s such a beautiful morning.” She paused. “Other than the Tsar, of course.”