The Godswar Saga (Omnibus)

by Jennifer Vale

  “Doesn’t everyone?” Sarina murmured. She continued peering out of the spyglass for a few more moments before pointing east. “There’s another rider up there. He seems to be heading out over the water. They must be flying low because of the fog.”

  “Perhaps we should lower our sails and drop anchor,” Tam suggested. “They’ll be much less likely to spot us if we remain still.”

  Jason shook his head. “There’s no way they’re out here looking for us, and ships pass through this strait all the time. We haven’t spotted any wreckage or flotsam, and none of the merchant ships we passed said anything about being attacked or searched.”

  “It’s probably nothing, then,” Tam said. “Just scouts.”

  “This far north in Numenese territory?” Sarina asked. “Manticore don’t have that kind of range on their own, and the Crell navy barely has a presence up here. They rarely leave the shallow waters around their northern border.”

  Tam shrugged again. “Well, obviously something must have changed. They probably have a warship or two out here to keep Numen from sending supplies to Solaria.”

  “Or they have a flotilla hiding somewhere nearby that no one knows about,” Jason said.

  “How nice for them,” Gor muttered from his perch on the upper deck behind them. He had been sleeping just moments ago, but his orange feline eyes were as alert as ever. “This does not concern us. If Sel taught you how to steer, then we should increase speed and leave the strait as quickly as possible.”

  “For once, I agree with the cheerful cat monster,” Tam said. “And not just because I want to get back to dry land. We’ve been able to avoid the Crell so far, and I don’t see any reason to push our luck.”

  Jason sighed and pursed his lips. He couldn’t conceive of any tactical reason why the Crell would be hiding soldiers all the way up here in Numen. The Sovereigns might have been egomaniacal tyrants, but they weren’t stupid—opening up a multi-front war with Solaria and Numen would have been suicide. But like Sarina had also pointed out, the Imperial Navy rarely patrolled the waters beyond their direct northern border, and it wasn’t like they were being threatened by the Asgardians.

  “We should at least try to figure out what they’re hiding,” Sarina whispered as she set down the spyglass. “If they’ve built a secret base up here, the Solarians need to know about it.”

  “We’re a thousand miles from the front lines of the war,” Gor pointed out, “and your little queen friend has bigger problems to worry about.”

  “Forget the queen—we can do this for our own sakes,” Jason said, silently thankful that Sarina had broached the idea first. Considering his recent record, he doubted anyone here would take his suggestion seriously otherwise. “If the Asgardians and the Numenese don’t know the Crell are here, such information would be quite valuable to them—valuable enough, I’m sure, to warrant a nice cache of gold or even the promise of safe harborage if we find ourselves without anywhere else to go.”

  The chagari crossed his giant arms and growled under his breath. “You don’t seriously expect that to work on me, I hope.”

  Jason shrugged. “I figured it was worth a shot.”

  Gor glared at him for a long moment before his tail twitched hard to the left. “How large a cache of gold would you expect, precisely?”

  “Oh, by the bloody void,” Tam grumbled. “Just once it would be nice if we did the sensible thing and left well enough alone.”

  Jason grinned. “Don’t worry—I’m not suggesting we sail around looking for a Crell battleship to board. But we have three channelers, a thick fog, and the cover of night. I’m sure we can figure out a way to use that to our advantage.”

  “Just remember that this is my ship,” Gor said. “I will expect adequate compensation if she is destroyed. Say, time and a half what I paid in Bal’Aqui.”

  “You really are a merchant at heart,” Jason muttered. “But don’t worry. I don’t even think we’ll need a ship for this.”

  ***

  “This is crazy,” Sarina said between clenched teeth. “Didn’t you just learn this trick ten minutes ago?”

  “Yeah, but it’s easier than it looks,” Jason assured her, his brow creased in concentration. “Just relax. I know what I’m doing…I think.”

  She grunted and clutched her arms and legs so tightly around his waist that she actually heard him wheeze. The two of them were currently skimming mere inches above the near-freezing water, Jason’s magical vortex of wind holding them afloat and propelling them towards the closest shore. She had seen Selvhara levitate herself upwards hundreds of times, but this seemed different. They were actually flying, albeit incredibly low to the ground. The sensation was exhilarating but also terrifying; she was completely at the mercy of Jason’s rapidly-expanding powers.

  Which seemed to be a growing and rather annoying trend as of late.

  “Admit it,” Sarina whispered into Jason’s ear. “This whole idea was just some macho fantasy of yours to try and impress your woman.”

  He grinned ever-so-faintly. “Is it working?”

  “A little,” she admitted, craning her neck around so she could see the water whipping past just inches below her face. “But how about next time we just stick with a bed? Or the floor or the dirt or anything solid.”

  “And here I thought Asgardians were the adventurous types.”

  “Only in shallow water,” she murmured. “And just to be clear: if you drop me, I will rip you in half.”

  “I feel more macho already,” Jason said with a grunt. “Just hang on—we should be hitting the shoreline any moment.”

  “Hopefully without running into any company. Getting blasted by Crell Imperators will spoil the mood.”

  “If they spot us through the darkness and the fog, they deserve an open shot or two. But I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  For once, he was actually right. No arrows or fireballs came streaking towards them from the darkness, and Sarina didn’t spot or hear any other manticore in the sky, either. They eventually floated up onto the northern shoreline of the strait, and Jason flipped them up vertically before releasing his spell.

  “Now I know what Tam feels like,” Sarina muttered, her stomach churning. She knelt down and clutched onto a nearby rock to try and catch her breath. Jason, annoyingly enough, seemed perfectly fine.

  “Someone came through here recently,” he commented, pointing down at the snow. Numen was so far north that the ice probably wouldn’t melt for another month or two at least. “I can’t tell how many, but it looks like a whole squad.”

  Biting down on her lip, Sarina hopped back to her feet and unfastened her longbow from her back. “Between six and eight men,” she told him after she’d studied the prints for a few seconds. “Definitely soldiers, though they obviously weren’t worried about hiding their tracks or moving in formation.”

  “I doubt many people ever walk along the shoreline here,” Jason said. “It also snows pretty frequently right up until summer. I doubt they’re worried about being tracked.”

  Sarina nodded. “Obviously not. We might as well see where the tracks go—they’ve been here for a while, so I doubt we’ll be tripping over these soldiers anytime soon.”

  “As long as we trip over them eventually,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder to the waning moon. “We have about three hours of darkness left. Let’s make the best of it.”

  They traveled further up the shoreline, and for the most part Sarina had no difficulty following the tracks. The Crell soldiers had probably just been taking an everyday lazy patrol, which by itself was rather interesting. Laziness suggested complacency, and complacency suggested that they had been assigned here for a while. The operative question remained why.

  Ever since the fall of Galvia a decade ago, the Asgardian navy had assumed de facto control over the Sea of Splintered Ice. The Numenese had stuck to guarding their shores, and the Solarians had never bothered building much of a fleet in the first place. T
he Crell, for their part, had kept the bulk of their naval forces near Velashel Harbor to protect Borden, Elashi, and Tracordian shipping interests. At least until now.

  What Sarina couldn’t figure out was what possible tactical purpose a hidden naval base would serve in the ongoing war. And after an hour of hiking further up the shoreline, they still hadn’t found an answer.

  “We have two hours of darkness left, and the fog is already starting to thin out,” Sarina warned. “I assume the others haven’t spotted anything?”

  Jason sighed and shook his head. “No, they haven’t found any prints on the southern shoreline. They’re already heading back to the ship.”

  “We should probably do the same. I’d like to keep going, but…”

  “We did what we could under the circumstances, and it’s not worth the risk,” he agreed. “Come on.”

  “Wait a minute,” Sarina said, standing from her crouch and grabbing his shoulder as he turned away. “What did you say?”

  “I said it’s not worth the risk. We should head back.”

  “And you’re sure your name is still Jason Moore?”

  He groaned and rolled his eyes. “I see Tam has started to rub off on you.”

  “I just expected to have to fight you about leaving,” Sarina said. “You have to admit, once you decide to do something you’re basically impossible to dissuade.”

  Jason’s cheek twitched as he glanced away. “Well, this time is different. I’m trying to—”

  Sarina never heard what he said next. A low, distant rumble shook through the air, and a massive black shape abruptly blotted out the beams of moonlight piercing the foggy veil. She dove forward and tackled Jason to the ground, and before he could protest she clapped her hand over his mouth. A few seconds later, he understood. Swooping down from out of the sky, its dark wings sprouting outward like an angel of death, was a dragon.

  And it was not alone.

  Six of them flew by in total, all fully-grown adults with riders and saddles. The fog parted in their wake, but mercifully they didn’t seem to notice the two pesky humans lying prone in the snow beneath their flight path. They landed just a few hundred yards beyond a nearby snowbank, and Sarina felt the aftershock of their tremendous weight even from here.

  An eternity seemed to pass as she and Jason clung tightly to one another. Eventually, once she finally mustered the will to move, she crawled forward as quietly as she could towards the snowbank. Half of her brain and most of her body was screaming at her to turn and run in the opposite direction, but for some reason she didn’t listen. Her arms continued to pull her forward unfettered, and once she reached the frozen, rocky lip she peered over the edge…and immediately wished she hadn’t.

  “Gods have mercy,” she rasped. “This isn’t a flotilla.”

  “No,” Jason agreed as he dragged himself up next to her. “It’s an armada.”

  Sarina swallowed heavily and forced her brain to take in what she was seeing. The rocky bluffs along the edge of the strait formed a wide alcove just ahead, and beneath the massive overhang was a camp filled with thousands of Crell soldiers, dozens of fully-constructed warships, and more dragons and manticore than she cared to count.

  “Those are transport ships,” Jason said, gesturing off to their left. “They can carry five hundred soldiers each, more if they’re traveling over short distances.”

  “Maybe they really are going to attack Numen,” she breathed.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think they’d take the risk of parking this close to enemy territory and revealing their hand. They’ve been here for a while—they must have permission.”

  Sarina pursed her lips. “So what the hell are they doing here hundreds of miles from the front lines?”

  “I have no idea,” Jason said. “But the Solarians need to know what’s going on, and so do your people.”

  She nodded distantly. Asgardia was well-defended, particularly along its western shores. But this armada could do serious damage if the Crell decided to attack, and her cousin’s shaman would have no more defense against the Breakers than any other Bound…

  “Come on,” Jason said. “I’ll tell the others to pick us up.”

  “Right,” she rasped, tearing her eyes away. Somehow, she had a feeling this wasn’t the last they’d be seeing of this armada…and the thought sent a dark shiver down her spine. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “That foolish girl will be the death of Solaria. The sooner you accept this, the sooner we can save our lands and our people”

  —Edgar Margrove, Lord of Malgron, in a correspondence to the rest of the Alliance Council

  The Temple of Sol had long been considered the jewel of Celenest even when compared to the far more opulent palace or its surrounding gardens. On a normal day, most of the priests would provide spiritual advice to the faithful while the rest tended to the wounds and ailments of dozens of the city’s denizens. Krystia had spent most of the last thirteen years of her life living inside this very structure, and while she had occasionally needed to work long hours to treat everyone who’d come in, she had never once imagined the possibility that the rows of maimed and injured would stretch all the way out into the street and beyond. And she had certainly never imagined that all of them would be Legion soldiers fresh off yet another defeat.

  “With all due respect, Your Majesty,” Lady Savilen said as Krystia stepped back from one of the soldiers, “the infirmary is not the proper place for the Queen of Solaria right now.”

  “It’s the only place for me to be,” Krystia countered. She glanced up and down the long rows of bloodied men and women as her priests struggled to ease their pain. Nearly six hundred had fallen in the actual fighting at Amberwood, and another thirty had died on the road during the trip back. But while most of the survivors here would recover given time, she suspected that their morale couldn’t be salvaged so easily.

  “These soldiers will live, and you have underlings capable of handling this,” Savilen insisted. “You should be in the war room discussing strategy with the Council and your commanders. We need a plan to—”

  “I’ve already told you my plan, and the loss of Amberwood changes nothing,” Krystia said, trying to keep her voice low enough that only Savilen could hear. It wasn’t overly difficult given the frantic din of the priests and soldiers scurrying about. “We will withdraw our forces from the front lines to defend Celenest until the dragons are ready. Then we shall hit the Sovereigns with everything we have.”

  The woman’s cheek twitched. “And what about the tens of thousands of people we’ll be abandoning to the Crell? We can’t simply pull back, not with their army—”

  “We don’t have any other options!” Krystia interrupted again. This time she couldn’t help but raise her voice. “We must hold out for another few weeks, and I cannot guarantee the city’s safety without our armies from the Darrowmere. I’ve made my decision, and I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”

  She watched intently as a storm of emotions flickered across the older woman’s face. Savilen’s preternaturally calm façade had finally cracked at this point. Her voice was tight and anxious, and her eyes were narrowed in quiet desperation. She was a woman accustomed to being in control, but now the unthinkable had happened. All the wealth and influence she had accumulated over the years would mean absolutely nothing if the Crell conquered Celenest. Savilen was old enough to remember the fall of Izaria; she knew the Sovereigns didn’t negotiate with surviving provincial lords. They would probably string the entire Council up in the gallows before replacing them with imperial governors.

  “Your Majesty, I have supported you through everything thus far, occasionally despite my better judgment,” Savilen whispered. “But we cannot simply clutch onto Celenest as if it is our last slice of bread. We must find a way to defend our people.”

  “We have a way,” Krystia said. “How many times must I tell you before you listen?”


  “You have never allowed any of us into the Hatchery to see these new dragons for ourselves, and some of my colleagues remain…skeptical.”

  “Forget your colleagues. What about you?”

  Savilen’s jaw quivered. “I have no reason to believe that you’re lying to us, Your Majesty. But you must understand that what you’ve told us about these dragons is difficult to accept on faith alone.”

  “You will get your demonstration soon enough,” Krystia promised. “The Unbound assure me that soon we’ll have enough dragons to scour the Crell from the face of Torsia. What else could you and the others possibly want?”

  The older woman glanced around the infirmary and seemed to resummons a bit of her composure. “If you could arrange a brief demonstration, it would make it easier for me to convince the others to remain patient. But without evidence, I’m not sure there is anything I can do to maintain order.”

  “I’m afraid the Hatchery must remain off limits for a bit longer,” Krystia said as diplomatically as she could manage. There was no way in the Void she was about to let the Council or any of their lackeys watch the Unbound in action. No one else needed to know the truth about what they were doing…or see the results of the early failed experiments in action. “You and the others will just have to trust me. I carry the experiences and the memories of every Solarian monarch inside me. They will not fail us.”

  Savilen’s lip twitched. “Let us hope not.”

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, our soldiers need me,” Krystia said, turning away and tending to another of the wounded. She spent the next several hours helping wherever she could, and she only left once the priests had the situation under control. Savilen and the other politicians could grouse all they wanted, but it felt good to be here helping regular people again. The soldiers certainly appreciated it, and that was all Krystia really cared about.

  Night had fallen by the time she returned to the palace, and after a few terse conversations with her other various advisors, she made her way to the war room to find Darius. He was still there, just like she’d expected, but he was no longer surrounded by a throng of underlings. Instead he was standing alone above the large tactical map of the country, his hands pressed flat against the wood.