The Gaellean Prophecy Series Box Set

by C S Vass

  I wish I could be so sure, Godwin thought, but the Shigata kept his mouth closed.

  They walked for the better part of the day, stopping only to eat some hard unleavened bread the elves had given them. Cerulio had even been kind enough to gift them with a jar of honey for the road. Robert wanted to dig into the rashers of bacon that they had in their stores, but Godwin insisted that they would be grateful to have saved it if they found nowhere to replenish their supplies along the way.

  By the time the sky changed in the western horizon, Godwin was ready to search for a spot to make camp for the night. They had been lucky that the sky only threatened so far, but the Shigata was ready to take the thickest grouping of trees he could find and create whatever shelter he could.

  “Not yet!” Robert exclaimed as soon as Godwin had found such a spot. “Up ahead, look! A house.”

  “Hm, so it is.” Surprised he had missed it himself, Godwin looked towards the spot that Robert had pointed out. Indeed, through the thicket of trees there was a spot where the wood fell horizontal and not vertical. A longhouse waited for them up ahead.

  “It certainly would have been stupid to spend the night out of doors in some friendly stranger’s backyard without realizing it!” Robert laughed.

  “Hang on just a second,” Godwin said as he stumbled forward to catch up. “Nobody said a thing about anyone being friendly.”

  Rushing after his galloping companion, Godwin’s mind quickly drifted towards thoughts of rain pattering against a roof while he slept soundly inside, hot food in his belly, and waking to blissfully dry clothes come the dawn.

  Robert’s cry quickly obliterated such thoughts.

  “Robert!” Godwin shouted, rushing forward.

  The easterner had doubled back and was running full speed towards the Shigata. After crashing into him and nearly taking them both off their feet, Godwin—sword in hand—shouted for him to say what he had seen.

  “Death… destruction,” Robert panted between deep breaths. His face was snow-white, and his eyes shook in his head.

  “What are you talking about?” Godwin asked, stepping between his friend and the house. “Speak!”

  “It’s a village. Everyone’s dead. I think. There are ruined houses. Bodies.”

  “Killed by men or beasts?” Godwin asked seriously.

  “How the hell should I know?” Robert howled. “I didn’t stay and inspect the damn place.”

  “You didn’t see anything still living?”

  Robert shook his head.

  “All right, let’s check it out.”

  Mouth gaping like a fish, Robert started to discourage him, but on seeing the steely look in the Shigata’s eye he quickly quieted.

  Killed by men, Godwin thought as he stepped into the clearing. Before him were several ruined longhouses constructed from the wood of the forest. The streets were littered with bodies. They were burned and broken, put to the sword and scorched by fire. Defenseless townspeople whose only weapons were their wood axes and their farming tools.

  Scowling, Godwin moved over the sea of corpses like a ghost. They wore the familiar, terrified faces of peasants who knew death was coming. The faces of farmers and craftsmen standing alone against hired killers. Examining one of the houses that had nearly been obliterated, Godwin shook his head and spat.

  “This house was destroyed by powerful spellwork,” he concluded. “No natural fire would have burned it this way.”

  “Do you think they had a Dragon with them?” Robert asked.

  “It’s certainly possible,” Godwin said. “Don’t give me that look. I know what you’re thinking. I don’t think Boldfrost would be so stupid as to set his own Dragons loose on some peasants this close to Iryllium.”

  “No,” Robert agreed. “But remember those Dragons in the Frost Forest? The elves that somehow went… rabid?”

  Godwin frowned. Could this have been the work of some mutated Star-blessed? Anything was possible in theory, but…

  “Step aside,” Godwin said quickly as he marched passed Robert. Robert immediately fell into line behind him.

  “What is it?”

  Godwin moved toward the town’s center, shaking with rage. In the last light of the setting sun, looming like a mocking memory of his past, stood a large, hastily built scaffold. A line of bloated bodies swung from it, their bloody limbs and purple faces almost invisible in the dim light. Turning, the Shigata noticed another half dozen in a nearby tree.

  “Disgusting,” Robert sighed. “The butchery. Who would do this?”

  Godwin snorted with rage. “Who indeed, Tarsurian?”

  Robert took a step back. “Are you quite yourself, Godwin? Did you just refer to me as Tarsurian?”

  “You pretend to not smell the stink of your people all over this? It’s exactly their style. When I fought in the Second Bloodwater War, during the climax of the fighting when the Tarsurian Empire had nearly taken Saebyl, the city streets were lined with scaffolds every night. It was meant as a deterrent. They specifically chose non-fighters to hang. Women. Children. Old ladies with gnarled bones and not a tooth in their feeble heads!”

  Robert held his silence while the Shigata cursed. Godwin knew, of course, that it was idiotic to blame Robert for something the sun warriors had done, but still… this was beastly madness. A hideous brutality designed to terrify and provoke. Which of course was exactly what it was doing.

  “You just take whatever time you need,” Robert said as he stepped back. “I’m going to take a look around and see what else I can find.”

  Feeling guilty, Godwin let Robert walk off. It was clear from the corpses that the Tarsurians had done their mischief several days ago, and in all likelihood they were long gone. The real question now was what would this mean for the West in the coming weeks and months? Godwin had known that Tarsurian soldiers had managed to make their way onto their shores. He was not so naïve as to think destroying one small fleet would prevent that. But if they were this far inland, then what could their plan be?

  Shaking those thoughts from his mind, Godwin walked over the blood-splattered snow. In the dirty light, he saw shattered glass of blue and purple scattered across a distance of several yards. Stopping to investigate, he realized that the glass was from a modest temple of ice and shadow that stood ruined in a grove of its own. The only brick building he had seen, it still stood despite the scorch-marks that scarred its body. The once beautiful stained glass of the temple had become shapeless, blood-stained shards in the snow.

  “No monks to save them,” Godwin muttered, shaking his head sadly. He walked inside the ruined temple. Dying light illuminated the dirty brick walls that surrounded him. Wooden benches had been blasted to nothing. The stone gargoyles had been smashed to pieces with hammers. Godwin had never once prayed to the gods of ice and shadow—how could he, being a Forsaken—but all the same, it felt somehow perverse.

  The sound of rattling made Godwin spin around, but it was just a cold gust of wind shaking loose a few pieces of broken glass in the smashed temple windows. Turning back, Godwin walked towards the alter. At its base, an old man lay dead. The Tarsurians had placed the white crown of their god, Sacred Jeresemeno, atop his head. The village elder, Godwin realized as he looked at him. The man had a long, tumbling beard of white. By his side was a long pipe that had fallen from his pocket with tobacco still inside of it.

  “Who are you?” a voice asked.

  Godwin spun. What he saw made his heart fly to his throat as sweat drenched his palms. How could it be? What madness…

  “Lyra?” he asked, stepping forward.

  “Who are you?” Lyra repeated.

  Godwin shook his head. The girl before him was not Lyra at all. She only looked like her. The slender frame. Green eyes. She was injured, he realized. Her exposed arms were covered in bruises, and her hair was knotted with blood.

  “It’s all right,” he said gently. He took a step towards her. “My name is Godwin. I’m a Shigata.”

  The g
irl’s eyes widened as shadow swept over her body. The last of sunlight had finally expired beyond the horizon. In the darkness, her pale skin shone eerily blue.

  “Are you hungry?” Godwin asked, careful to keep his voice calm and steady. The girl was clearly traumatized, probably starving, and possibly frost-bitten. The last thing he needed was for her to scamper off into the wilderness. “I have food. It’s okay. We can start a fire and eat something. It’s all right.”

  The girl didn’t respond. A mesmerized expression filled her face, captivating her widened eyes. Godwin waited. He slowly raised his hands, palms outward, to show her he would not do her harm. Seconds dripped by. The girl said nothing.

  “Are you hungry?” Godwin repeated slowly.

  The girl blinked. Her mouth opened a fraction.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m hungry.”

  “Good. That’s okay. I have food. We’ll get you fed. Start a fire.”

  “Food,” the girl said, as if pondering the thought. Then again, more certainly. “Food. No fire.”

  “Okay then,” Godwin said. “No fire. Just fo—”

  “What’s going on!” Robert’s voice boomed off the stone walls. “Godwin! Where are you?”

  The girl dropped to her knees. Godwin swore.

  Robert stormed in, oblivious. “I can hardly see a thing. What’s—oh, oh gods.”

  The girl was heaving and retching on the ground. Through it, she seemed to be trying to say something. “No fire!” she managed to scream through the guttural noises emitting from her body.

  “Bloody idiot!” Godwin growled at Robert.

  The girl hacked and sputtered on the ground, and suddenly her neck snapped upwards. Her eyes made contact with Godwin. They were a fierce yellow so deep they were almost brown and slanted like a cat’s.

  Godwin took a step back and felt his hand fly to his sword.

  “No fire!” the girl shrieked, this time in a deep booming voice that could not possibly have come from her own vocal chords.

  “Get back, Robert!” Godwin screamed. Robert fell backwards and stumbled away as the screaming continued in a hellish baritone.

  Godwin watched in horror as the girl’s eyes bulged, and her throat swelled. What looked like a short, thin stick emerged from her mouth, followed by another, and then several more. Two hands pried at the sides of her head, and then a new face emerged—that of a beautiful, yellow-eyed demon with long white hair, high cheekbones, and tree-green skin.

  “I had thought that the humans would have been done their desecration of this place by now,” the demon said as it fully emerged. “But I see I was wrong.”

  “What are you?” Godwin asked, his sword held outward to ward off a sudden attack. He was shocked to see that the demon was extraordinarily beautiful.

  The demon chuckled. “How rude. The question should be who, shouldn’t it? Besides, don’t you know? You gave name to my people on your way here, did you not? I heard you. You’re not from the village, so that means you must be a Shigata to be so acquainted with us. At least you look like one.”

  “So, you’re a hamadryad,” Godwin said. “What were you doing in that girl?”

  The hamadryad whipped its hair back and grinned malevolently. “Feeding. Is that a crime? The girl has only been dead for a few days. Her nutrients are still fresh. She could either feed the hard ground, or feed me. Why do you stare at me so? I didn’t kill her, Shigata, and surely no one has paid you coin to come here and quarrel with me.”

  “Didn’t kill her, but didn’t help either,” Godwin said.

  “What concern are human struggles to me? When the werewolves of the East started arriving here, did the humans help when they ravaged these woods and feasted upon our game? We had an understanding with the dead man there, Bantheor. He was permitted to settle this place with his children if he limited expansion, but we owed him no fealty. We are hamadryads, not knights.”

  Godwin lowered his sword but did not sheath it. “Can you tell me what happened here then?”

  The hamadryad toyed with its hair while staring hungrily at Godwin. “What’s to tell?” it asked. “The humans came and warred with each other. A slaughter. Then they left. We will take back this grove, restore it all to forest where no human will dare to erect their dwellings again.”

  “All right,” Godwin said. “There are no humans left here. I have no quarrel with you. We’ll take our leave of this place and not come back.”

  The hamadryad grinned seductively. “So soon, traveller? Don’t you want to spend the night? We have no fire, but that human blood of yours is still so very warm.”

  “Don’t,” Godwin warned, raising his blade again. “I won’t be forgiving.”

  The hamadryad laughed viciously. “I don’t need your forgiveness, human. There are no more human gods in this place to watch over you. There is only the mother behind the stars. Only death for you.”

  It attacked.

  Moving faster than he would have believed possible, the hamadryad swerved towards his right side and slashed at his head with a wooden hand. His sword rose to block, and when it met those sharp fingers, there was a screech as if he had slashed into solid steel.

  Hissing, the hamadryad pushed the sword sideways and with its other hand swiped at his side. Godwin was able to leap back before getting disemboweled and returned a series of tumultuous blows that kept the hamadryad dancing backwards towards the temple door.

  I need to hit its body, Godwin realized. The hamadryad’s hands and neck were a stiff wood as tough as iron. Only its head and body were made of flesh.

  The hamadryad seemed aware of the same thing. It kept its stomach well guarded and fought to defend itself before launching a counterattack.

  “The old man knew how to respect the demons of the forest,” the hamadryad snorted. “He would bring us offerings. Berries and honey and smells of the sweet fragrance. But even he attracted death in the end. You humans flock to it. You build these temples. Temples to worship the gods of ice and the gods of shadow. But in the end your only true god is death, and as such you never truly learn how to live!”

  “The one who started this fight was you!” Godwin roared. Swinging with all of his might, he brought his sword down in a vertical arc meant to smash through the hamadryad’s fingers and into its skull. The demon caught his blade with its hands, but stumbled. Seizing his moment, he pushed as the muscles in his legs and torso screamed in protest while driving it back. He could feel himself overpowering its defenses. The demon was trapped. He almost had the kill.

  “Stop!”

  Robert’s voice once more echoed throughout the temple.

  “Get out of here!” Godwin grunted through clenched teeth.

  “Stop, I said!” Robert shouted again. “This fight is over!”

  Godwin relented. The hamadryad stared at him with its hateful cat-eyes. “Who are you to tell me what to do, human?” it spat.

  Robert stepped forward, smiling foppishly. “One who found your tree.”

  Godwin laughed, but suddenly stopped. Robert was unfamiliar with the hamadryads. How would he have known that to truly destroy their spirit, you needed to burn the tree that contained it?

  “And if I kill you before you can reach it?” the demon asked, seething.

  Godwin groaned. The idiot clearly hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  Robert chuckled. “You’ll have to kill all of my friends too, if you can manage it.”

  Godwin stepped towards Robert, but before the Shigata could ask what he was talking about, Shane of the Kirishelliwan stepped into the temple, laughing with flowers in his beard.

  Chapter 2

  The hamadryad’s eyes narrowed. “K’landril!” it exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  Shane laughed merrily, his blue eyes flashing. “I could ask you the same thing, O demon of the woods. Or was I not under the impression that you had agreed to leave this village be?”

  “The village has been ransacked by outsiders,” the hamadry
ad shot back. “I am simply here to reclaim it for the forest.”

  Godwin glanced nervously between the old man and the demon. Obviously they had some sort of pact with each other. It seemed that he and Robert had the misfortune of stumbling across the end of that arrangement at the worst possible time.

  “The forest is yours,” Shane said at last. “But you’ll agree that those best suited to taking down human dwellings are humans. We will clear the area for you and be on our way.”

  Godwin observed the demon’s taut grimace carefully. He could see that she wanted to refuse but knew better than to try.

  “What of the Shigata?” it asked, suddenly landing its eyes on Godwin. “Have the Eternal Children fallen so low as to accept the company of these bloodthirsty mongrels?”

  “We walk with whom we will,” Shane said. “As do all of our mother’s children. You would be wise not to forget it.”

  The hamadryad hawked and spat at the ground. Where its spit fell, the floor hissed and burned, steam rising in the cold air. “You may compel me because you’ve found the tree of my soul, K’landril, but the candle of your people grows dim. In time, all will return to we who were the first to walk this earth.”

  Shane never dropped his warm smile, but his icy blue eyes reflected anger… and something else too. Sadness? “When that day comes you may do as you wish. Now be gone!”

  The hamadryad nodded. It shot one last baleful look at Godwin and said, “Yours will be the first to die. If I’m not mistaken, it’s already begun.”

  It left.

  Shane watched the demon vanish amongst the darkness of the trees without saying anything. When Godwin was beginning to think the old man might have forgotten them, he turned and said, “It’s been only a short time since we’ve seen each other, Godwin of the Shigata, yet much has passed since then.” Then he turned to Robert. Striding forward, Shane gripped Robert firmly by the shoulders and kissed each of his cheeks before embracing him. “My wayward son. I had thought that you would have returned to the Empire by now. What happened? Is the famous hospitality of the East not what I heard?”