The Nesilia's War Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set: Books 4-6)

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Torsten shook his head again though his face confirmed that it was true.

  “That sure sounds like a guy who was lovestruck,” Whitney said.

  “It’s true, Torsten,” Sora said, stepping forward and placing her hand on Torsten’s arm. “We don’t need to tell anyone. I don’t want anything, I swear it on my life. But down here, surrounded by the kings you vowed to protect, you deserve the truth.”

  Sora stared him straight in the eyes, making sure he would see the amber there, the source of which Sora had discovered after so long. She may have been given every other feature by her mother, but her eyes… those belonged to Liam.

  Torsten silently stared back for a few long seconds, then yanked his arm away. He stammered for words, but none came. Instead, he shoved by Hovom and left the crypt, failing even to retrieve his dropped sword.

  A deep hush followed him, as if his leaving sucked all their words until, as usual, Whitney broke the quiet.

  “That went well,” he said.

  XXXVIII

  The Knight

  Torsten quietly roamed Yarrington’s streets like he used to before things became so confused and confusing. Celeste and Loutis hung high above, but it didn’t feel like night. Not with all the activity. It barely felt like the city where he’d spent nearly all his life.

  Lines wrapped every street corner, people waiting for rations. Poor, nobles, soldiers, and conscripts—all had to wait their turn. The siege hadn’t even begun, and they were treating things like it had.

  And Torsten knew things would get ugly. People cursed and scuffled in alleys, some even out in the open, yanked each other out of the queue. The soldiers posted to keep the peace were equally starved and irritable, which didn’t help. Yarrington was a big city, but not this big, especially with South Corner being evacuated. You couldn’t walk more than a few feet without bumping elbows. The rats in the sewers had more space.

  Torsten looked right. The city’s defense catapults were being set up along the eastern fortifications. Spare blacksmiths and carpenters hammered on the joints. Carts rolled in arrows by the thousands, along with tar and rocks to be dumped upon invaders from the ramparts above. Some even looked to be stones chipped off the Glass Castle itself.

  Nothing was sacred any longer, and rightly so.

  The soldiers were too busy to even acknowledge Torsten. Sir Mulliner was up over the gate, barking orders to conscripts who barely knew how to wield a sword, let alone dig proper trenches around the city.

  Torsten kept walking, the protests and complaints from confused Glassmen like a dull roar from every direction. He’d told the truth of what was coming, but he barely believed it, let alone humble villagers from the countryside. They’d understand when they saw Nesilia’s horde. Until then, Yarrington would suffer.

  There weren’t enough beds. Families had to share single bedrolls in some homes. Barely enough food and water. Not even buckets for shog. The streets stunk. Closets became bedrooms. Women and Children cried as soldiers went door-to-door, recruiting able-bodied men to serve in the defense. Those who hid were punished, publicly. It was the only way.

  Torsten rounded into the Northern Mason’s district, another area having its inhabitants removed, forcefully and otherwise. A dwarven mason crew on scaffolding worked by a small span of wall, hacking and whittling to purposefully weaken it. That was where they’d let Freydis think she broke through.

  It led into a small square, surrounded on all sides by workshops and homes with plenty of windows. Spiked barricades blocked all roads leading out. Unlike Dockside, nearly all was stone here, so fire wouldn’t spread. But they piled hay and tinder where they could, and gave every archer arrows and torches. The smoke and chaos would provide Sora her opening to take Freydis down.

  Torsten didn’t feel good about surrendering yet another portion of the city. After all the initial bedlam of the ambushes, the lower city would be completely breached. And if their plan to kill Freydis and draw Nesilia out failed, a full retreat to the castle would be their last hope.

  They’d die fast instead of slow. At least there was that.

  Torsten shook his head to dispel the negative thought.

  The plan will work. He repeated those words in his head, but the notion didn’t stick. For it to work, he had to rely on Sora. To trust her. After what she’d just told him, he wasn’t sure what to think.

  Either she really was the bastard daughter of Liam Nothhelm and had inherited his ability for unorthodox strategy, which allowed him to conquer more than half the known world. Or, she was as much a liar as the thief she loved. A servant of the Buried Goddess to sow doubt in Torsten’s mind.

  He found himself climbing the steps to the Yarrington Cathedral without even realizing it. From the high ground, he could see just how busy the city was. Torches marched like tiny ants in every direction, around every corner of Yarrington.

  Behind him, the Grand Plaza of Old Yarrington itself—some called it Yarrington Square, and some Cathedral Square—was most crowded. Tents coated the stone like snow. Thousands of refugees from South Corner, Dockside, and Northern Yarrington were packed into them. The stench reminded Torsten of Valin Tehr’s dungeon.

  The mansions along the Royal Avenue were crammed as well. Shadows lurked behind every single window.

  Torsten had never seen anything like it. With Liam, they were always on the offensive. Yarrington was always at peace. He wondered if this is what Yaolin looked like when Glass armies surrounded it and let the mystics drive their subjects to starvation. Living like cattle stuffed in muddy pens, soldiers, like farmers, keeping them herded.

  The conditions had most resigned to their fates. Any man leftover was old and crippled, and the women focused on keeping their children fed. But patches of the slums roared in protests, their chants filling the night air. Some thought this was all a ploy by the nobility to eradicate Dockside and ship them off.

  They had to spare a large portion of Glass soldiers and former Shieldsmen to oversee the evacuation. South Corner and Dockside were shog holes, but the people were territorial—proud of their heritage. And the Shesaitju couldn’t be seen dealing with the inhabitants, lest Yarrington burn itself down and save Nesilia the trouble. Though, that was the plan, wasn’t it?

  It was bad enough to have former enemies occupying the castle. Their assistance had to be contained to prepping the harbor itself.

  “Sir Unger, my home, they took my home!” an enraged woman squealed from the markets, Docksider accent heavy on her lips.

  Torsten lowered his head and shoved by. She grasped at his sleeve.

  “Yer from there! Don’t let them take our homes.”

  Seizing her wrist, Torsten peeled her away, but as he turned, he saw the swaddled infant in her other arm, and all he could come up with to say was, “I’m sorry,” before pushing on through.

  She wasn’t the first to beg his mercy and wouldn’t be the last. The moment she uttered his name, eyes of the starving and homeless fell upon him like ravenous wolves. The crowd swelled in his direction, screaming and hollering. Guards did their best to calm them, but it was no use. Emotions were too high.

  Torsten found his way to the doors of Yarrington Cathedral and slipped inside. Pounding fists echoed, but Shieldsmen within held the doors shut. Of all places, the Cathedral needed to be kept secluded from the madness.

  Not because it needed to be kept clean. Though having Yarrington retain some dignity in these trying times wasn’t a bad thought. But it wasn’t Iam’s way. Churches and Cathedrals were built sturdy, and all across Pantego, they’d long served as havens for those with nowhere else to go.

  However, the Cathedral was already filled with priests—all of Hornsheim, there and waiting. Only at the selections of High Priests were so many men of the cloth together in the same place, but then, it was only priests. Now, hundreds of sisters and monks filled the place. Their beds between every arch, every side altar, every pew.

  The cathedral was as packed as any Da
wning morning.

  Only nobody was praying. They all survived no differently than the rabble outside. Waiting for food and water. Complaining about the conditions. Snoring loudly.

  There was so much clamor that, for once, Torsten’s footsteps didn’t echo on the polished marble. And just like outside, most didn’t notice his presence. He felt like a ghost in the aisle, not stirred by faith and conviction like his previous visits to the beautiful edifice that was the home of his God. A part of him couldn’t help but know that Iam had given all He had left to provide them this last chance to show they were worthy of being His favored children.

  He stopped at the front pew, directly before the altar, the very same place he’d sat when Dellbar was anointed High Priest. Moonlight pouring in kept the great crystal Eye of Iam bright and shining. The only part of the Cathedral left untouched. The altar itself was covered in unfurled scrolls and dusty tomes. Words in languages ancient and modern filled them. It looked like Pi’s mad scrawling when Torsten found him that night, long ago.

  The words the boy had used then tortured his mind. Buried… not dead.

  Torsten sat, scrunched between two sleeping monks. His legs were sore from walking the city. His brain ached from all the madness outside, and from their planning, and most of all, from the thought that Liam’s line wasn’t dead, but endured in the blood of his most-worthy, dark-magic-wielding adversaries.

  Sighing, Torsten reached up and removed his blindfold. The world became black, and for the first time since returning to Yarrington, he felt like he had a moment to himself. He could focus on his breathing, and all the din of the cathedral’s inhabitants melted away.

  He didn’t pray. He didn’t ask anything of Iam. He simply sat. And he wasn’t sure how long he was there before he heard a familiar voice.

  “Searching for answers?” Dellbar asked.

  “Searching for anything,” Torsten replied.

  Dellbar chuckled, then gave a sleeping monk a whack with his cane. The man cursed, then noticed who it was and apologized profusely. Dellbar sat beside Torsten, and Torsten couldn’t help but be reminded of when he and Wren the Holy sat like this, many times before.

  “Sometimes it’s pleasant not to see, isn’t it?” Dellbar asked.

  “It is.” He clutched the enchanted blindfold and held it up. “You want it?”

  “It doesn’t work for me.”

  “Right. Iam chose me to be His eyes, His shield, and His sword.” Only then did Torsten realize he’d left Salvation in the Royal Crypt.

  “You place too much responsibility on those broad shoulders, Torsten,” Dellbar said. “Have you ever wondered if, perhaps, He gave you your sight back simply because you never deserved to lose it?”

  “No. And you don’t believe it, either.”

  “Too true. There has to be a plan, doesn’t there? That’s the way of the Glass Kings. Here by His mandate, to carry His word.”

  “Have you lost your faith now? After all of this?” Torsten asked.

  “Quite the opposite. I’ve just stopped trying to hear Him, and started to actually listen.”

  “And what does He tell you?” Torsten asked.

  “For one, He answered how we can dispel Nesilia’s demons before they possess all of our bodies. And I may not care about much, but I would like to die in control of my own self. I felt helpless once, lying on the floor in my church as Redstar’s savages slaughtered everyone around me. Never again.”

  “I can agree with that.” Torsten turned to face him, though he let himself remain blind. “How will it be done?”

  Dellbar drew a deep breath. “’Light and darkness, we live or die together. Bound, eternally. One cannot be without the other. And one cannot die without the other. Put faith in the Light, and fade to shadow with them. It is the only way.’”

  “Is that scripture? I’ve never heard it.”

  “No. Iam spoke to me in Hornsheim. In a dream, or directly, I’m not sure.”

  “Does it matter?”

  Dellbar gave Torsten a pat on the leg. “Now you’re getting it. No, it doesn’t at all. And I didn’t understand it at first until your friend showed us his cursed stone.”

  “He’s not my friend,” Torsten muttered.

  “He has to be. He’s here. We may fail, Torsten. I’ve accepted that, and you must as well if we have any chance. And better to die beside friends than in a city full of strangers.”

  “Have you been drinking again?”

  “I think the people out there need an ale much more than I do.”

  “Or three.” Torsten let out a chuckle with him. That was Dellbar, able to see the light and dark in any situation, at the same time. Torsten had missed him in Latiapur when he seemed out of sorts, but this was the High Priest Yarrington needed right now. One who could accept the awful fact that Torsten’s brain refused—they could lose.

  “So, how does banishing her demons work?” Torsten asked.

  “So long as the gates of Elsewhere remain open, it’s a temporary solution,” Dellbar explained. “But it is as Iam said. ‘Put faith in the Light, and fade to shadow with them.’ And so, we who have dedicated our lives to his Light can absorb the demons after their hosts are killed.”

  “And be possessed yourselves?”

  “Holding the Brike Stone showed me the way. In that moment, when we are full of darkness, we must let go. Bind them in our souls with faith, and be banished with them to the furthest recesses of Elsewhere, where it could take Iam-knows-how-long to escape again.”

  “I’m not sure I’m understanding,” Torsten said.

  “You are,” Dellbar said. “You just don’t want to hear it, but you have to listen. To dispel them, we who have willingly given our eyes to see only with His, must go with them.”

  “So, you must die?”

  “In a sense.”

  Torsten shook his head. “And those who have already been taken… what about them?”

  “They’re already gone.”

  “Sora isn’t,” Torsten argued.

  “And do you have hundreds of magical artifacts as powerful as a bar guai or a dragon’s cursed heart lying around?”

  Torsten bit his lip.

  “Then why do we even need the stone?” he asked. “We’ll gather all the priests together. Ignore the rest and banish her.”

  “She is no mere demon, Torsten. It will take extraordinary power to hold her. And just as the Brike Stone must go with Nesilia, the light we hold in our hearts is our weapon against the others. It is our magic. It is how priests of old healed or summoned shields of blinding light. Maybe the magic comes from a different place, but it’s the same. Magic is in the blood, and faith flows in ours.”

  “You know that’s not true. Their magic comes from Elsewhere.”

  “A domain created by Iam to hold his enemies.”

  “No,” Torsten said. “The mystics are born with the curse that allows them to draw on Elsewhere’s dark power. Anyone can be a priest of Iam.”

  “Can they?” Dellbar asked, a hint of playfulness to his tone. “Would they? Or do only some find that unfillable hole in their hearts that can only be filled by undying, dutiful faith in His power and Light? I wonder if that Sora girl felt the same before she summoned fire to her fingertips?”

  “Why are you bringing her up?” Torsten asked quickly. “Did she talk with you?”

  “You brought her up.”

  “I… oh.” He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “She’s not who we thought she was, Dellbar.”

  “I didn’t think her to be anything but an ally in our most desperate time,” Dellbar replied.

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “Though Mahraveh seems to approve, and the girl is an excellent judge of character, wouldn’t you say? You get that sense from her right away.”

  “Not any of that.” Torsten swallowed back his suddenly dry throat. He leaned in even more, forehead against the side of Dellbar’s head just to make sure he was as close as could be. “If
I tell you something, will you promise, here before Iam, to keep it between us?”

  “I doubt Iam is listening in.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Of course, Torsten,” Dellbar said, as earnest as Torsten had ever heard him. “Since I found you wasting away in that cell, I value nothing more than our conversations.”

  “Well…” Torsten swallowed again. Now his throat stung like his body was rejecting even saying the words aloud. His lips parted a few times, only for nothing to come out. But Dellbar waited patiently, listening, as he’d said he’d learned to do.

  “Sora claims to be the bastard daughter of Liam Nothhelm and Sora Sumati, the last known Ancient One of the Mystic Order.” He was breathless by the time he forced it all out. His stomach turned over. His hands beaded with sweat.

  “Does she?” Dellbar laughed.

  “Ridiculous, right?”

  “Less ridiculous than a shred of cloth giving a blind man the ability to see.”

  “You believe it?” Torsten asked.

  “I didn’t know the man,” Dellbar said. “Or the woman. Or their daughter. She told you this?”

  “In the Royal Crypt. Right in front of his family.”

  “And what did she ask for?”

  “She told me not to tell anyone,” Torsten said. “That she didn’t want anything.”

  “Yet, you told me.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Relax, Torsten. I’m not judging you. All I wonder, is why lie about something you want nothing out of?”

  “To distract us, because Nesilia is still in control of her.”

  Dellbar let out a low murmur of acknowledgement. “Perhaps. What do you think? Not in here.” He poked Torsten in the side of the head. “But when you listen to your heart.”

  “I don’t know,” Torsten admitted. “The thing is, I’ve learned that Liam wasn’t the man we all saw.”

  “You mean he wasn’t God incarnate walking around with a sword?” Dellbar said. “Instead, he was a simple man, flawed like all men, who got sick and died, like all men?”