God Conqueror 3

by Logan Jacobs

  I didn’t know if the priests and vestals that provided Willobee with an audience were necessarily convinced by all of his tales, but they played along with them as if they were, and I realized that these people probably had a long-standing habit of humoring Tarlinis no matter what self-aggrandizing lies he imposed on them. A crucial difference, though, was that Tarlinis seemed like miserable company for the most part, and Willobee rarely failed to be excellent company. His listeners were either grinning, smirking, or raising their eyebrows at each other, but not a single one of them looked bored.

  When we reached a stream after a few hours, we stopped to water all the horses and refill our waterskins. This process took quite a bit longer than I was used to when it was just the nine of us, or rather ten now that half of my core group consisted of my selves, and it made me reflect on the logistical complications that were going to be involved in leading a force of this size. A force that was still unimaginably puny in comparison with Thorvinius’ massive host, but approximately six times the size of what I was used to. I still didn’t even know everyone’s names, although I was trying to learn them.

  When we made camp that night, I asked Gavin for his recommendations regarding which of the priests and vestals could be trusted to stand watch capably, and then had him relay those instructions to them. Tarlinis’ had not been a warlike order, far from it, but Father Yunis had believed that they should be at least moderately prepared to defend themselves and some of them had weapons they had brought with them from the temple.

  One of my selves joined the priests and vestals on watch. Another of my selves joined a hunting party, since with this many mouths to feed, even Elodette couldn’t do it single handedly. I also helped with the cooking efforts to turn the rabbits that were brought back into a stew. I also helped dig a ditch to serve as a temporary latrine, so that the unfortunate young novices assigned to that task wouldn’t feel so resentful about it. That left me with one spare self to roam the camp and pause to make conversation sometimes and try to ensure that all the various work details were running smoothly together.

  Somehow, no matter how many more bodies I gained, it never seemed to be any more than barely enough to meet all the new challenges that I encountered.

  Once everyone had been fed and the latrine had been constructed, I started running some of the priests and vestals through sword drills using mostly sticks. Not all of them intended to fight, some of them had only volunteered as camp cooks, laundresses, nurses, and so on and so forth, but a significant number agreed that they were at least interested in learning basic self-defense tactics. Father Yunis’ training regimen, from what I could tell, had fallen somewhere between lackluster and nonexistent. His only real contribution to the military readiness of his order had been to at least set aside money from their budget to purchase spears, shields, and bows and arrows.

  Elodette volunteered to teach archery lessons too, which I hadn’t expected of her.

  “Be nicer to them than you are to me,” I said. She always pointed out twigs the size of a girl’s pinky finger for me to aim at and then made scathing remarks when my arrows skimmed past.

  The black centaur actually grinned at me. “Of course I will,” she said. “Unlike you, they’re not walking around claiming to be gods, so they don’t need to be able to shoot like one.”

  By that time Lizzy was prowling around camp in her giant wolf form, which I suspected was partly motivated by her desire to avoid all menial chores involving the use of opposable thumbs, and when she overheard my conversation with Elodette, she pawed at me and gave a querulous growl.

  “No, no wrestling,” I said.

  Lizzy snorted grumpily.

  “You killed me once by accident, remember?” I asked. “And these people can’t just regenerate like I did if you do that. So no wrestling. If you want to be helpful, change back and help me train them in hand-to-hand tactics.”

  Instead, the she-wolf padded off to slurp up an entire cauldron of unattended stew.

  The former Tarlinians didn’t have tents exactly, since most religious orders, with a few glaring exceptions, didn’t make a habit of going on the warpath, but they did have plenty of bedsheets, and they had brought those with them, so after it got too dark for us to spar anymore we set about using sticks and sometimes spears to rig the bedsheets into makeshift tents to provide some degree of shelter from the elements. Luckily, it wasn’t too cold in that region of Ambria, so I didn’t expect any of my newest followers to freeze to death due to a lack of talent for tent construction.

  Three of me shared two tents with Florenia and the centaurs, while one of me slept outside curled up with Lizzy and Willobee using the she-wolf’s fur and body heat for warmth and another stayed up to take charge of the order members who were standing watch.

  The grand canopies that Danazar’s caravan had carried with them could accommodate dozens of bodies at once, but our little bedsheet contraptions could barely fit four without getting knocked over, so we all just had to squeeze in where possible. Given the flimsiness of the bedsheets, privacy was also no more than a fond memory. I could already tell that bringing these enthusiastic new followers along was going to involve some regrettable compromises, but I hoped it would be worthwhile in the end.

  In the morning, we broke our fast on leftover stew and on dried foodstuffs from the temple’s stores. I recalled Tarlinis saying that he believed his people only had a few days’ worth of supplies with which to withstand the Thorvinian siege and realized that if that was the case, we were going to have to obtain more food somewhere soon somehow. It was already hard enough trying to make sure there was enough for sixty mouths. I couldn’t imagine having to support thousands as Thorvinius apparently did. But then again, Thorvinius’ slaves simply pillaged and devoured whatever religious settlements they came across, and I wasn’t willing to abuse innocent civilians in that way.

  A few hours after we set out, we encountered a river across our path. At the point where it converged with the road, and at that particular season, it was only about chest-deep, although the currents were fairly strong and it immediately dropped off a few yards downstream into deeper, churning waters. So it was going to be precarious for us to cross, but perfectly doable without the need for any bridge or rafts.

  Everyone dismounted. A few of my selves and the strongest of the order members took the saddlebags off the horses and hoisted them over our own heads while we waded through the approximately fifteen feet of icy cold water. Others guided the horses by dragging them by the reins. Some of the horses didn’t have any problem crossing, but others shied away from the cold water and had to be coaxed and bullied. Then, there were the vestals to consider. Some of them handled the icy water better than their male counterparts did and were able to help out with ferrying loads and horses across, but others whimpered about hypothermia or about not being able to swim, despite the fact that their toes could touch the riverbed, and ended up having to be carried across like chattel. That reminded me of Danazar’s twelve wives, who were extremely alluring dancers but didn’t use their legs for any purely locomotive purposes and were a constant burden on the caravan members who had to lug them around in litters no matter how hot it got or how deep their feet were sinking into the sand under the added weight.

  Lizzy of course splashed across like a champ hoisting a squealing Willobee above her head, and Elodette stood right in the middle of the frigid water in order to direct the skittish horses, which always responded better to the centaurs’ influence than to that of any humans, and denied that she was even cold at all, until I noticed the blue tint of her skin and finally convinced her to get out.

  I carried Florenia across myself, not because she complained or refused like some of the other girls, but because the duke’s daughter was so slim that I didn’t know if her constitution would be able to handle the shock of the cold.

  That left Ilandere. I was, in fact, capable of carrying her for short distances, although it was the most superhuman feat
of brute strength that I had ever performed in my life and I had no desire to repeat it. But I didn’t think that would be a good idea under the circumstances anyway, because the riverbed footing was slippery, and the currents added another destabilizing factor, so if I tried to lift something as heavy as a centaur the endeavor would more likely than not end in both of us falling over the nearby drop off and drowning in the more perilous section of the river.

  After having watched most of the group cross already and witnessing them struggle to various degrees, the princess seemed to recognize that fact without my having to explain it to her as she looked glumly at the rushing water.

  “Will you be okay?” I asked her. “I’ll be right there with you to catch you if you slip. Two of me will.”

  On the far side of the river, I was also already arranging for fires to be built. The sodden priests and vestals who had already crossed gratefully huddled around the fires to warm themselves. I knew that for health reasons they should remove their wet clothing, but the problem was that we didn’t have any spare clothing to change into, so I figured they would be more comfortable relying on the heat of the fire to work its way through the wet cloth than with stripping naked in front of everyone.

  Ilandere looked over longingly at the cozy fires, sighed, and nodded in answer to my question.

  The delicate little centaur princess bit her lip and started shivering violently as soon as she entered the water, with one of my selves on each side of her holding her hands to steady her, but I felt helpless to make her any more comfortable. If I gave her any more clothing to wear, it would just get immediately soaked through and weigh her down. She hobbled tentatively across step by step, and I knew she must hate the slipperiness of the rocks along the riverbed, just as she hated uneven terrain and even solidly constructed stairs.

  Then, when we were almost exactly in the middle of the river, one of her front hooves slid out from under her, and she was submerged all the way to her chin in an instant before I dove under and boosted her back up by her horse chest. I held her steady while she gasped panicked breaths, and her eyes brimmed with tears. Her chilled white skin was more like marble than ever.

  “It’s okay, come on, Ilandere,” I said. “We have to get to the other side so we can get you out of the cold to a spot by one of those nice fires. Okay? You’re fine.”

  She nodded, gulped for breath, and kept walking, and leaned even more heavily on my selves for support than she had been doing before her little slip. But after another minute we reached the shore, and I boosted her out of the river.

  “That wasn’t too bad, was it?” I asked her. “And now you can go get dry--”

  But then she clutched her chest and let out a gasp that made me think her system was going into some kind of shock.

  “Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now,” I said. I gripped her little white shoulder and held her gaze while my other self stroked her long silver blonde hair to try to reassure her.

  “I lost it,” she choked out.

  “…Well, I mean, you did panic a little bit, but no harm done,” I said. “We’re across now, so we can just forget about--”

  “No, I mean the necklace, I lost the sapphire necklace,” Ilandere said.

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’ll get you a new one. Don’t worry about it. The important thing is that you’re safe.”

  “But it fell in the river!” she exclaimed. “I had it before. I know for a fact I was wearing it right before I got in the river. So it must have been when I slipped, it came unclasped somehow, it’s still in the river!”

  She seemed to be somewhat missing the point. “I don’t care about the necklace, Ilandere, I just care about you,” I said.

  “But I care about the necklace, because you gave it to me,” she said with obvious distress. “You said that it suited me perfectly, and what if we never find another just like it? And it’s extra precious because it reminds me of the time that we spent together in B-B-Bjurna.”

  The little centaur’s ash blonde hair was plastered down her back, her flimsy top was completely translucent with water, her skin looked like a lily covered in morning dew, and by this point her teeth were starting to chatter, but she was ignoring my gentle attempts to nudge her away from the river in the direction of the nearest fire. Instead she was staring down into the river as if she thought there was a chance she could somehow see exactly where the sapphire necklace had landed under all those tons of churning water, even though it had doubtless been swept far away downstream by now.

  I sighed. “Well okay, if you want me to try diving for it, I--”

  “Wouldn’t we all rather forget Bjurna?” Willobee asked wistfully, but Ilandere was too distraught to even acknowledge him, which was unlike her.

  I sighed again. This wasn’t going to turn out well. If I dove for it, there was a fair chance I would freeze or drown, and then not only would Ilandere have to watch that, she also still wouldn’t get her necklace back. But I didn’t know what else to do to try to make her feel better.

  “Do you mean this necklace?” a small voice asked as the collar of sapphires dangled in the air in front of the centaur princess. It was still dripping with river water.

  Ilandere gasped and exclaimed, “My necklace! You found it!”

  “Tarlinis?” I asked. “You’re back?”

  A small sigh issued from the air. “Well, I never really left,” the invisible god replied. “I kind of just hung around to see what happened to you guys, and if my disloyal followers would come to their senses eventually, and hear what everyone was saying about me.”

  “Oh,” I said awkwardly. There wasn’t any spite in the kinds of comments most of his followers made about him, in fact most of them seemed to be fond of him in an odd, grudging sort of way, but their comments definitely didn’t paint a flattering picture of his performance as their god, either. “I see.”

  There was a pause.

  Then Tarlinis continued, “…They like you better than me.”

  “No fucking duh,” scoffed Lizzy unhelpfully. She had headed over to see what was wrong when she saw Ilandere and two of my selves lingering by the river and quickly figured out the new situation.

  “At first, I thought that was just rotten and unfair,” Tarlinis said. “I mean, I’ve been here this whole time, all their lives, and you just got here and you’re brand new and shiny, and I can’t help that you’re better-looking than me.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” I objected out of politeness. It was the literal truth, I really had no way of knowing for certain whether I was better-looking than Tarlinis.

  “Just trust me on that one,” Tarlinis sighed. “But anyway, I had a lot of time to think, since I wasn’t talking to anyone, since I was pretending not to be here.”

  “Spying, you mean,” Lizzy interjected.

  I gave the she-wolf a warning look.

  “And I realized that maybe some of it had to do with me,” Tarlinis said. “The way I used to treat them, I mean. I guess I could have been nicer. I always just took them for granted. They were my followers because I was a god and they were just mortals. I didn’t worry about having to do anything to earn their worship or make their lives better. I was never mean to them, at least not on purpose, but I guess I was just… kind of apathetic.”

  “If you’re just trying to elbow in again--” Lizzy said suspiciously.

  “I’m not,” Tarlinis replied. “I can never be the head of that temple again. Maybe I never really deserved the spot anyway. But I guess I’m just used to this order, and I’d be lonely without it, so I was hoping maybe you guys would let me stick around?”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” I said. “I never did. You’ll have to ask the order though. But their vote wasn’t to exile you, it was just to, er… ”

  “Depose you,” Florenia said. By this time all of my original companions and many of the former Tarlinians had gathered around in a crowd to listen in.

  “You’re more than welcom
e to stay, as far as I’m concerned,” Gavin spoke up. “You’re just not in charge of us anymore. Qaar’endoth is taking the fight to Thorvinius, so we’re following him now.”

  The surrounding priests and vestals murmured and nodded their agreement.

  “Got it,” Tarlinis said a little glumly. “I’m not a god anymore, I’m just an invisible guy. Who can walk through water and walls and stuff. Well, I still think this new guy’s way is going to get you all killed, but who am I to complain. So if that’s really what you all want, I guess I’ll come along and keep you company for as long as you survive.”

  “Guess we can’t stop you,” Lizzy sighed.

  “Well, I appreciate any support that you’re willing to give us,” Hester spoke up warmly. “We did miss you when we thought you left us. And for a long time in that quiet valley, we didn’t need any other god. But the deeds of Thorvinius have turned this into a bloody era, and a bloody era requires a warlike god to ensure that good triumphs over evil.”

  “Thank you for getting my necklace back for me,” Ilandere said shyly. She had clasped the sparkling blue stones back around her pale slender neck and couldn’t stop stroking them. “Without you, it would have been lost forever.”

  “Eh, it was the least I could do,” Tarlinis said in a smug and slightly more cheerful tone. “I can walk through water, you know.”

  “We know,” Lizzy said.

  After we stayed at the fires for a while to get everyone’s clothes as dry as possible, we smothered the fires, reloaded the horses, and moved on.

  Honestly, I suspected that maybe not everyone was completely thrilled by Tarlinis’ return, but no one actually spoke out against it, and I had a feeling he was going to be making a lot more of an effort to be pleasant and helpful after the harsh learning experience of getting voted out of divinity.

  As we rode, Florenia asked my self that was beside her, “Qaar’endoth, this whole situation with Tarlinis made me wonder… what is the scientific definition of a god?”

  “Scientific?” I repeated. “Well that’s the thing, it’s not really scientific.”