The Godswar Saga (Omnibus)

by Jennifer Vale

  Jason lifted his crossbow and took aim. As balls of energy streaked down towards the walls of Garos, the defending Alliance priests steadied themselves and erected a bubble of energy about the fortress. The massive translucent shield shimmered as balls of flame splattered harmlessly across its surface. The wall of manticore riders veered away, fanning out in all directions to re-engage the Alliance griffons and then attempt to make another pass. As they turned, Jason steadied himself and fired.

  The shield dropped nearly the instant he did so, allowing the archers to retaliate. A barrage of arrows soared outward and many struck home, burying themselves into the underbellies of creatures that had gotten too close. Jason fired freely, shot after shot, until the riders had reengaged the griffons and their captain signaled for a hold.

  Taking in a deep breath, Jason gripped the edge of the battlements as the flood of emotions from the nearby soldiers washed over him. Excitement, fear, anger—they all swirled together into a tight ball of determination. Even in the most experienced soldiers, those who, like him, had seen the long battles and sieges of the last war, still felt the exhilaration and fear of combat as if it were their first time on the battlefield. The difference was how well they kept their poise under the pressure.

  His own thoughts were less focused on the here and now and more on the reality of what all this meant. If any of them had doubted that this was really happening, that somehow despite the imminent threat, the Crell would retreat and the tepid peace would endure, those delusions had now shattered. No matter what happened here today, a wave of devastation was about to sweep over Torsia

  The Third War had begun.

  ***

  Despite having personally witnessed Sovereign Damir oversee an attack on the Galvian rebels in Lyebel, Admiral Onar Tenel still marveled at the woman’s remarkable ability to coordinate her troops. Today, she was personally directing three separate armies spread over a thousand miles apart across the Crell-Solaria border, yet she still sat calmly in her throne, legs crossed and hands folded in her lap as if she were listening to another routine report. The only outward sign of her exertion was the occasional twitch of a facial muscle which could have just as easily been a prelude to a sneeze or cough.

  The crystalline mirrors arrayed in front of them flickered back and forth between her various agents, but the images were far too chaotic for Tenel to follow. Instead, she had provided him with something more simplistic but every bit as useful: large, translucent projections of each of the three ongoing battles. The images were miniaturized, of course, just as they would be in a tactical war-gaming map with marble pieces representing regiments of troops. But as far as he could tell, every troop was accounted for in the projection, from the lowliest infantry to the most savage-looking chagari on the front lines. It was rather like a ghostly chessboard—except the opposing player was a thousand miles away.

  High Command used similar channeling techniques to coordinate their military operations, but Tenel had never seen someone maintain three projections at the same time, let alone conjure one with such precise attention to detail. He felt like a disembodied god hovering above the battles as his servants crusaded in his name.

  “I trust you approve, Admiral?” Damir asked.

  “This is all very impressive, Your Eminence,” Tenel replied, trying not to sound quite as awed as he really was. “No commander could ask for a better view.”

  “I’m glad you approve,” she said. “We’ve received final confirmation about the Alliance commanders at each outpost. As you suspected, General Iouna is commanding the forces at Garos, while General Wystan is at Brackengarde and General Belyise is at Aman-Dapor.”

  Tenel nodded, his eyes flicking between the different battles. “Make sure Colonel Persk keeps his forces outside the range of their bombards at Aman-Dapor,” he warned. “Belyise is the most aggressive of the three—she’ll risk overextending her reach to get easy kills. We can’t risk provoking her as long as their Bound hold the line.”

  “I will let him know.”

  “Iouna is the least predictable, but I have a hunch he’ll come at us swinging. Once their riders form up, have our 7th and 9th wings hang back and sweep beneath the primary engagement zone. They should be able to make a quick strafing run on the fortress. It will force Iouna to be more conservative and give our ground troops more protection.”

  Damir’s eyes flickered with recognition, and Tenel couldn’t help but smile thinly. For all that could go wrong today, he had to admit it felt good to be sitting at the helm again. Even on the Perilous he had always been surrounded by adjutants barking suggestions in his ear. But not here. Damir didn’t question his analyses; she didn’t doubt his every move or quibble with minutiae. She may have been the one whose powers were ultimately fighting this battle, but here and now Tenel felt like he was the one in control. This was an opportunity unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

  It was up to him not to waste it.

  “Iouna is already mobilizing his griffons,” Damir reported. “It seems you were right again, Admiral.”

  Tenel’s smile stretched just a bit further. “Order wings one through six to ascend and greet them. Have all other units hold position. It’s time to bunker in and wait for our Solarian insurrectionists to strike.”

  ***

  Garin Kroll tilted his head upwards at the sound of approaching footsteps outside his cell. He heard a woman’s voice trying to convince one of the guards that she had been given instructions to open Kroll’s cell and speak with him. At first, the guard resisted, but the woman was persistent and persuasive, and soon she continued her approach.

  Kroll smiled fractionally and allowed his arms and legs to go limp. He took a deep breath to calm himself and then concentrated on the Aether around him, drawing the faintest trace into himself as not to upset his suppression collar.

  The hour of reckoning, it seemed, had finally come.”

  “Stay at least ten feet away from him, priestess,” the guard warned. “Don’t let the chains fool you—he’s dangerous.”

  “Yes, I know the drill, Major,” the woman said with an annoyed tone, stepping in front of the gate.

  Two armored guards stood behind her, both leveling their crossbows at the prisoner through the bars. One unlocked the cell and slid it open just wide enough for her to slip inside. Kroll watched her approach, noting from her slight frame and casual movements that she clearly didn’t possess any significant combat training.

  “Priestess Dailyn said you might be willing to speak with me,” she told him mechanically, and he could tell the words were not hers; she was being telepathically compelled by someone else nearby. “Is there something you wanted to discuss?”

  “I’m not really in a talking mood,” Kroll said, “but there might be something else you could do to help me.”

  “Of course,” she said, smiling and stepping forward. She leaned down towards his collar…

  “Priestess, what are you doing?” the guard called out, dashing forward into the cell.

  He was fast, but not fast enough. The woman managed to grab onto Kroll’s collar and unlatch it from his neck before the man tackled her.

  “Thank you,” Kroll said.

  The Aether suddenly surged through his body, banishing his aches and strengthening his muscles. It felt as though he had finally peeked his head above water after a week of drowning. His entire body tingled euphorically as his senses sharpened, and an instant later a crackle of destructive energy sparked off his skin and destroyed the shackles restraining his arms and legs. The guards lowered their weapons and prepared to fire, but they were already too late.

  With a guttural roar, Kroll vaulted to his feet and backhanded the priestess across the face. As she flopped limply to the ground, he conjured a bolt of pure force in his palms and hurled it across the cell. The invisible fist of energy slammed into the nearest guard’s chest, flinging him violently backwards until he crashed into the wall with a sickening crunch of snappi
ng bone. Caught flat-footed, the remaining guard managed to dive out of the way of his companion’s body, but his hesitation bought Kroll the time he needed. Extending a hand, he channeled a crackling burst of lightning into the hapless fool, and he died with a startled shriek of pain and horror. Kroll’s nostrils flared with the acrid stench of burnt flesh.

  Beneath him, the priestess struggled to lift herself to her feet. He had clearly broken her jaw, and with another flick of his wrist he could easily sear the flesh from her bones or even crush her feeble body into the stone floor. More than anything he really just wanted to hurt her, to make her suffer for her weakness…but sadly, he couldn’t afford to give her the chance to raise an alarm. So instead he leaned down, cupped his thick hands softly around her skull, and snapped her neck.

  Stepping roughly over the corpses, Kroll took a moment to study his surroundings. Several other guards were already dead near the entryway; they had all been shot in the back with deadly precision. He stepped over their corpses and noticed a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. A tall man cloaked in black was standing nearby, a slender crossbow in his right hand. His eyes were black and glossy like a polished lump of coal, and his skin was an unnatural pale white.

  Our time is short, the Shadow whispered into his mind. Arm yourself quickly.

  Kroll nodded and procured the best sword he could find. He lamented the loss of his personalized armor back in Lyebel, but it didn’t really matter. The Aether could shield him far more effectively than steel. He had felt like an animal these last weeks, trapped within the limitations of his primitive physical body. It was time to be a god again.

  As the Shadow led him out of the prison area, Kroll stretched out with his mind until he once again felt the reassuring presence of his mistress. She was there, if distant, and he could tell she was distracted by the various battles raging across the border—battles it was now up to him to win.

  The way has been cleared, the Shadow told him, but it will not remain so. All we encounter must die. Break them quickly and quietly.

  Kroll smiled at him. With pleasure.

  ***

  “It’s time,” Krystia announced.

  Ethan nodded. A part of him still found it difficult to believe that this day had finally come. After all the sacrifices he had made in the years since the war, after all the friends he had lost and all the people he had killed, everything came down to this. Either they would march into the king’s chamber and assassinate him, or they would be killed in the attempt. It had been so long since he had felt the Aether coursing through him—since he had felt like a whole person—that sometimes it seemed as if he were remembering someone else’s life.

  But that life had been his once, and after today, it would be again. He had placed all his faith in the power and ambition in the young woman standing next to him, and despite all the doubts that had plagued him over these months, he knew she was ready. And maybe, just maybe, she might even make a good queen when all was said and done.

  They stood in an empty corridor of the King’s Tower, only a few levels above Areekan’s private chamber and the guardians that protected it. Krystia’s various diversions were in full swing, and virtually the entire area had been cleaned out. Her confirmation meant that the Zarul agent had been released from his prison and was now carving a path of destruction towards the king’s chamber. It was time for them to follow in his wake.

  The pair slipped quietly through the marble corridors towards their destination. Krystia wore her usual priestess raiment, and Ethan had donned a similar guise. It wasn’t going to deter any serious investigation, but it was enough not to draw second glances, and that was really all that mattered the majority of the time. The robes reminded him of his youth when he had served King Whitestone as a humble priest and not his most trusted general. That Galvia was gone, he knew, but he would have a chance to build a new and more powerful one in its stead—one that would sit upon the ashes of the Imperium and restore their rightful place as the oldest and most influential nation in Torsia.

  Two minutes later, their plan hit its first snag. Krystia froze in her tracks, her eyes flicking back and forth, and Ethan knew something had gone wrong.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Warnings from the garrison,” she told him. “They know of the prison break, and the distractions aren’t going to hold them much longer.”

  Ethan swore under his breath. They had planned for this contingency, of course, and he had been in enough battles in his lifetime to keep his cool when things didn’t go as planned. What surprised him most was how well Krystia seemed capable of doing the same.

  “This way,” she told him, dashing off down another corridor.

  She must have known there was no one nearby considering how quickly she moved, and Ethan’s withered body struggled to keep pace. Two turns later they stood at one of the major junctions connecting most of the lower levels of the tower.

  “Make sure you stay behind me,” Krystia warned, and extended an arm towards the wall.

  Nodding, Ethan retreated a few steps…and was immediately glad he did. A surge of violet energy erupted from her palm, and the metal support columns shimmered briefly against the assault before crumbling into a cloud of dust. A second blast splintered the stress points in the stone walls, and soon after the entire junction began to collapse. Less than a minute later a pile of rubble covered the corridor, and the dust became so thick Ethan could barely see. Volleys of energy continued to arc out from Krystia’s hands as she sealed the chamber well enough to hold off any Alliance reinforcements for a few more minutes. It certainly wasn’t the most subtle tactic he’d ever seen, but it would work.

  Krystia strode past him through the cloud of dust, her blue eyes glimmering like tiny stars inside her head, and Ethan was once again thankful that he had chosen her to aid him. One way or another, Areekan was going to die.

  And a new era was about to begin.

  ***

  Tevek Dracian’s hand dropped down to the pommel of his sword when he heard the muffled sounds of a struggle outside the king’s chamber. Ever since he had received word of the prison break in the lower levels, he had a sneaking suspicion that the inmates would make their way here—or rather, one inmate in particular.

  “The guards have engaged the intruder,” High Priest Kaeldar said, his voice and face strained in concentration. Areekan himself was virtually insensate—the king was busy trying to coordinate thousands of his Bound on the front lines, and he had no concentration to spare for the world around him.

  “At least now we know their secret weapon,” Tevek murmured and he took another step closer to the door. He had avoided an “I-told-you-so” moment thus far; when he’d learned about Kroll’s presence in the tower prison, he had immediately suggested the man be moved. But to no one’s surprise, his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

  Still, he had no idea how the man could have possibly escaped. The prison was well-protected, and his special restraints should have suppressed his ability to channel. Had the Crell figured out a technique to beat dampening crystals as well? If so, then the purification chamber outside this room wasn’t going to slow this man down…

  “The guards are…” Kaeldar trailed off, his hands shaking meekly. “I can no longer hear them.”

  Tevek grimaced, and he wished more than anything that Elade were here with him right now. She had defeated this man in Lyebel before, and she might very well be the only one capable of defeating him now.

  “How could he have escaped?” the Voice rasped. “How could he have gotten this far?”

  “He obviously had help from someone on the inside,” Tevek said. “But recriminations can wait. Where are the reinforcements?”

  The High Priest’s eyes were blank as he continued shaking his head in disbelief. He had been one of the most powerful people in the Alliance for decades, and now he seemed to be unraveling right before Tevek’s eyes.

  “Kaeldar, focus!” Tevek said, grabbin
g the other man’s shoulder. “Where are the reinforcements?”

  “One of the corridor junctions has collapsed, and the rubble is blocking most of them off,” the Voice whispered. “The rest…”

  “The rest what?”

  The man’s eyes flicked upwards. “Some of our men have turned against us. They’re being manipulated, controlled…and His Majesty doesn’t have the strength to free them.”

  Tevek clenched his jaw so hard it hurt. If Kroll was a powerful enough telepath to twist the minds of elite Solarian soldiers, then the situation was even worse than he feared. “All right,” he murmured. “I’ll make my stand inside the purification chamber. Just keep the door closed.”

  “You can’t defeat him,” Kaeldar whispered. “He just carved his way through our best soldiers.”

  “I don’t need to defeat him—I just need to delay him long enough for reinforcements to arrive.”

  Tevek turned to leave, but Kaeldar’s hand flashed out and grabbed his shoulder. “This is suicide, Tevek,” the Voice told him. “He’s thirty years younger than you, and he’s an Unbound.”

  “Not in that room he isn’t,” Tevek said. “And you forget, old friend—I’m a Knight of the Last Dawn, with or without the Aether. I will buy you the time you need.”

  He spun on a heel and gestured to the two royal guardsmen standing nervously in front of the door. “Stay in here with your king. If I fail, the three of you can still stop him. Just keep him in that room and don’t give him a chance to channel.”

  Tevek might not have been their commander, but the two men nodded their agreement nonetheless. He flashed his most reassuring smile, clapped each man on the shoulder, and then quickly slipped into the purification chamber. A moment later, the door sealed shut behind him.

  For many years, he mused grimly, this room had been his least favorite place in all of Celenest, but now it felt no different to him than anywhere else. There was no pain, no discomfort, just the knowledge of the gift that had been taken from him. And the man responsible was just beyond this door.