The Godlost Land

by Curtis, Greg

  She didn't like that term. She didn't like the idea of a siege. What she wanted was to simply attack the city, level it and destroy the false temple. But every one of the war masters said that that would be a mistake. Midland Heights was a city built to be besieged. And since the false temple had been short sighted enough not to stockpile food and resources, they would be starved out in only a few months. Frozen out too when winter hit since they didn't have the firewood they needed.

  Initially the city had only been taken by the false temple through a mixture of cunning and evil. It couldn't have withstood a siege, but the false temple hadn't wanted to wait. So they'd sent in the furies first, long before the war had reached the Rainbow Mountains, and slaughtered the nobles that ruled the city and the realm. They'd killed the priests and wizards too and any militarily capable leaders they could find. It had been a bloody night. Then, when the time had come to lay the siege, they'd broken the city instead with their harpies. Thousands of them flying at night, killing mercilessly. Though the harpies had been killed, by the time they had finished their bloody business, the guards were gone. Anyone carrying a weapon had been their target.

  After that it had just been a matter of time. The false temple had used their wizards and war machines to slowly break down the walls, and then sent their beasts in through the holes. They hadn't needed to destroy the walls. Not when there were so few defenders left. And one by one the terraces had fallen, and in time the city.

  Of course Erislee didn't have harpies. And though the griffins could fly, there weren't enough of them to destroy a well defended city. Nor would she want them taking part in such wanton slaughter. They were the Goddess' hounds, trained to take down prey, not tear apart everything that moved. So their strategy would be more traditional. They would mass in ever greater numbers. They would bring in the war machines to level the rebuilt walls. And of course they would prepare the battlefield for when the enemy finally came to them. Because they would.

  For the moment the enemy felt safe behind their walls. And they wouldn't risk leaving that safety until they had no choice. Not when they didn't know how many were out there waiting for them. All of their scouting parties had been killed. None had returned. So while they could see five thousand on the plain in front of them, they couldn't see around the bend to the rift valley. They didn't know if more were waiting there for them. But sooner or later, as the food and supplies ran short, they would have to act. It would take time. Months at least unless they surrendered.

  But all the while as the siege continued her army would spend their days freeing the last of the towns in the Rainbow Mountains that the temple still held. By the time winter hit they hoped all of the Rainbow Mountains would be free. And by then their army would be twice the size it was now.

  It was a story as old as war itself. Nothing brought you as much support as victory. Once they'd started winning a few battles, freeing small towns one by one, people had started flocking to their cause. And with their numbers the battles for the other towns had become easier. They'd simply overwhelmed them with their superior numbers one by one. And each victory brought them new recruits.

  It wasn't just youths wanting to escape their lives and have a little adventure as well as strike back at those who had hurt their families who were joining them. It was surprising how many wizards and priests were out there, hiding in the wilds. How many other outcasts who had been running for years. But it wasn't at all surprising that so many of them wanted to join the crusade. They didn't even want payment. They wanted to drive these false priests out and reclaim their homes. They wanted to rebuild their homes, their businesses and their temples. They wanted their lives back.

  They also wanted revenge.

  Some days she could feel the anger and hatred that lived within them almost like a living, breathing thing. Even among the priests. Because it wasn't only her Goddess' temple that had been destroyed. It was all of them. These demon following priests had been determined to wipe every faith but their own from the world. And the strange thing was that they had no faith of their own at all. At every temple they had come to they had faced the magic of wizards and the malice of demon thralls, not priests.

  Actually it wasn't strange. It was insulting. That a bunch of wizards could make a deal with a demon and then simply start destroying temples and pretending to be priests. It was sacrilegious.

  “High Priestess.”

  Erislee turned as she heard someone calling for her, and as always her first thought was to hope that it wasn't going to be someone else wanting her to tell them what to do about some military thing. People kept coming to her, thinking she knew something about wars and campaigns. But she didn't. She kept having to send them to the war masters.

  This woman however didn't look like a soldier. She had no weapons and wore no armour. She was less than physically imposing and from the grey in her otherwise flaxen hair she was too old as well. Grandmothers, didn't normally go to war as far as she knew.

  “Yes?”

  “I'm Dina Windstrider.”

  Erislee recognised the name instantly, but it took her a few moments to remember where she'd heard it before. No doubt it had been during one of the endless military briefings she had to endure daily. But when she did remember it was to know a moment of complete surprise. Dina Windstrider – Lady Elan – the only Circle wizard still living who wasn't part of the deal done with the demon king. And according to what she'd been told, the woman was a very powerful wizard. Someone who could be a huge help in the war.

  Yet at the same time she knew a moment's suspicion. She was a Circle wizard, and one of the things that was slowly being shown time and again during this war, was that wizards couldn't be trusted. There might only be a dozen Circle wizards involved, but there were clearly hundreds more of them serving their demon masters. Maybe thousands. Something was going to have to be done about that in time she knew. Something that would not be well received by those wizards who weren't with the enemy.

  On the other hand, though the wizards were dangerous, they were also a formidable force. Erislee needed more if they were to win the war. So far they had amassed perhaps forty wizards, none of them however, were particularly powerful. They needed more.

  “Wizard?”

  “Dina will do High Priestess. My position as a wizard on the Circle has been lost. The Circle is destroyed and now I understand that those who destroyed it were its own people. My friends. They have shamed me to my heart. Nor am I any more the Lady of Elan. The fortress is gone, the estate is in ruins and my husband is dead. I have lived in exile these past five years in Inel Ison, and as part of that renounced all claims. Titles have come to mean a lot less to me these last five years.”

  Of course they had. Dryads accepted no ancestral titles of any sort. The only ones they permitted were those that people earned for themselves.

  “I'm sorry.”

  “I have no use for your sorrow High Priestess. Only for your ear.”

  The wizard's tone was hard as she said it, and Erislee guessed that that was because it had to be. She had suffered much these past years and just recently found out that all her suffering was due to those she had trusted. Her peers. Now she was both hurt and shamed, and determined to keep from giving in to her pain. Because once the tears started, Erislee suspected they would not stop.

  Hers wasn't a unique tale unfortunately. Once the news of the wizards' betrayal had been made known, all around them their own wizards had started hanging their heads in shame. It had been bad enough discovering that some of their number were working with the false temple, even wearing the robes of priests. But to learn that they were the ones responsible for creating this evil? That had been a body blow to many.

  “Then speak.”

  “From what Geron has said there are two wizards of the Circle in Midland Heights. Alenda Goldeneyes and Maynard the Irrepressible. Alenda is a fire wizard with terrible power and Maynard a summoner capable of calling the greatest of beasts to his aid.
You will need all the magic you can find to fight these two. And I would like to offer my services for the battle and the war.”

  Erislee's immediate thought was to wonder how she could know what Geron had said. His interrogation was still ongoing in Inel Ison. He had been taken there after the soldiers at Glass River had said they could learn no more from him. It wasn't that he was refusing to talk – far from it. The wizard was so frightened of being hung that he couldn't stop talking. It was that he knew so much. So many details. And they simply didn't have the people who could make use of much of what he could tell them. So he had been taken somewhere where priests and sages could ask questions of him. Everything he knew of the deal.

  It was Geron who had first given them a name for their enemy. The leader, perhaps. Terellion the Bright. A summoner. And now according to Geron, the leader of the Circle and the king in all but name of Lion's Crest. A name that was not widely known – yet.

  Of course she realised that Inel Ison was where Dina Windstrider now lived. Given her magic and her knowledge of the wizards of Lion's Crest it was likely that she had been involved in the wizard's interrogation. The dryads would have welcomed her help.

  “Your help would be welcome.” But even as she said it a part of her was wondering if it really was. Suspicion had become a way with her of late. Maybe some of that showed.

  “Let me guess. You're thinking I'm a Circle wizard and the Circle has become your enemy?” Dina didn't edge around the issue. She just stated it as if it was already fact.

  “A little.”

  “And you're also thinking you can't trust any wizards?” Once again Dina just came out with it, already knowing the answer.

  “Yes.” Erislee admitted the truth.

  “And maybe with cause.” The wizard nodded sadly as she said it, startling Erislee. It was as if she agreed with her distrust.

  “I can't give you the answers you want. I can't tell you who amongst us you can trust. I can't say that this will never happen again. I can only show you that you can trust me through my actions. But the one thing you can be sure of is that most of us who stand with you have been hurt as terribly as any others by what our peers have done. Some of us have been hurt far worse.”

  “The arcane smith who gave us Geron's confession. Harl Elder Fire. Not only was his family killed, his home taken from him and his life destroyed, but his dreams were crushed. I remember him from before. He was always a clever lad. He was ambitious and clear headed. Though he said nothing of it to me I know he would have dreamed of one day joining the Circle. Now I imagine the very thought shames him. As it shames me that I was once a member of it.”

  “You have a young water wizard Gleeson in your camp. The same is true of him and worse. His master is one of those who now serves the demons. I dread to think of the nightmares he must have every night as he wonders how he could have missed so much. How he could have let his own master help destroy his family. The guilt must be crippling.”

  “Most of us are the same. Our families are dead. Our lives are ruined. Our hopes and dreams have been destroyed. In that we are no different to so many others. And we have been betrayed by our own. But we also now have to live with one more burden. None of us know which of our people, our friends and even our families, betrayed us. Which of them were responsible for murdering our friends and families.”

  “Perhaps High Priestess instead of looking upon us as wizards, instead you need to think of us as victims, just like everyone else.”

  “As I shall try wizard.”

  Erislee had to agree with her, and for more reason than just that it was politic. The wizard was right even if she was speaking to her it as if she was a teacher telling off a small child. The wizards with them were just as broken as everyone else. Maybe more so. But she was also wrong Erislee knew.

  The simple fact was that some wizards had done this terrible thing. Some, not all. And there was no way to know who had done what. But that didn't apply to anyone else. Certainly no priests had been part of this deal with the demon king. No civilians or artisans. And from what she could gather none of the nobility either. Their only role had been to be killed. As had that of nearly everyone else. That too had to be remembered. But this was not the time to point that out. She wasn't sure that there would ever be a right time to do that. Save maybe after this was ended.

  “Thank you. Now with your permission I will go and join my fellow wizards High Priestess. I only came to inform you of my presence and to ask you to please call on me whenever you need my services.”

  With that and a polite nod the wizard left her, walking off towards the camp, a strangely small and almost tragic figure. But still a determined one. And by the set of her shoulders, an angry one. That surprised Erislee though she didn't know why. The wizard had every right to be angry. As did everyone else. But the anger within her was more. It was the anger of a hunter about to chase down prey that had harmed him or his. She recognised that. The hunt was personal for the wizard.

  Seeing her leave Erislee understood something else about this war that she hadn't until just then. That it was true what her father's people said: In war there was always one lesson that had to be learned. War was for life. When you made an enemy, you made an enemy for life. Forgiveness was an ideal beyond most men. There was never any true peace to follow. And as she watched the woman walk away Erislee knew that these Circle wizards had made an enemy of Dina Windstrider for life.

  Now that she knew who they were they would be hunted by her unto their last breath. Or hers. And to be hunted by a Circle wizard was a terrible thing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  What a change a couple of months could make. That was the thing that constantly amazed Harl as he worked. And it wasn't just the change in seasons. Summer might be almost at its end though the sun was beating down hard on his back as he worked. But even the heat of the sun could have no greater warmth than the joy in his heart.

  To be an arcane smith again! It meant everything to him. A blessing from the gods themselves. One among many.

  The war was going well. More than well according to what he was hearing, and the news was being spread far and wide. Not just by the bards. The soldiers had set up a system of wandering criers, bringing the news of the war to the towns. Partly it was to encourage people to join them. And partly to remind them that there were enemies out there fleeing the towns. They wanted them found. They wanted people to report anyone they saw who looked like a fleeing wizard to their nearest fort. But at least for the first time in years the people were learning about events happening outside of their own town. Not just the lies of the false temple.

  The army that had laid siege to Midland Heights had reported that the city was on its knees. Short of supplies, the people inside were starving, and far worse for them, the creatures within were hungry. The threat those inside faced from the army outside their walls was less than that from the horde of slavering monsters inside them.

  Civilians inside the city were fleeing all the time. Jumping the walls and surrendering as fast as they could to the High Priestess' army. Bringing with them word of conditions inside the city. And from what the criers were saying, it wasn't good. Even the priests were scared. Those of the false priests who were really wizards knew fear because of the beasts. Those of them who were thralls knew fear mostly because of those they served. To fail a demon was a terrible thing. And now he knew that they were thralls and not Artemis's faithful. Mostly. Some days he still wondered a little. Especially when he still had no understanding of how a bunch of thralls and wizards could take the Goddess' temples from her. Even with the demon king behind them. Or why they would want to.

  Meanwhile nearly all the surrounding towns and villages had finally been freed of their tyrant priests. That had to be more than a hundred towns free of their masters. Free of the soldiers and the beasts. Altogether he guessed it was upwards of a million people now no longer bending their knee to the false priests. No longer living in fear and sending them
all their coin and food. Harl was glad for them of course. Just as he was glad for the people of Whitebrook.

  Harl still though yearned to see the dozen Circle wizards and their helpers dead. More than that he wanted them to suffer and burn before they died. He wanted to hear them scream for what they had done. It was dark and unworthy, but it was the truth.

  And two of those Circle wizards were to be found in Midland Heights.

  Maynard the Irrepressible, a master of summoning and from what little he could remember of him, a complete madman, was the first of them. People even called him Maynard the Mad behind his back. Many had said he was touched. They were being kind in his view. The man talked to himself and was forever summoning pet cats to play with. Hundreds of them. Wherever he went you would find them in the streets looking confused as to where they were and how they'd got there. And to make matters worse they might be completely docile with the wizard, but with everyone else they were wild. His soul might be filled with magic, but his mind was empty of reason.