The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  Corin had never quite believed those tales. The sea was not so fickle a thing as that. Northward had a feel like falling, if a man grew still enough within himself. And east was like a yearning. Even in the densest fog, Corin had never lost his way at sea.

  But here . . . here he could imagine it. Here there was no end to the fog bank. There was no escape. He and Tesyn might blunder right into those knotting woods at any moment. Or step into another bog and drown beneath the sucking earth. He’d heard that on the highlands there were chasms, unpredictable and sudden, that might swallow a man whole.

  He trembled as he came full circle, grateful for the knife still quivering in the turf. Tesyn was watching him, confused, but Corin couldn’t find the words to express this fear.

  He looked toward the smear of red that marked the sunset. It was too wide, too uneven to give a pinpoint west, but it might be enough to keep them from blundering in circles. Small hope, that, but it was all he had.

  “We stop at dusk,” he commanded. “The moment we can’t mark the sun’s position, we stop moving. And we don’t begin again until it shows us east. You understand? If there comes a storm, we wait it out. We never move unless the sun is shining.”

  The scholar frowned, his gaze fixed on something faraway, almost forgotten. “May I ask you why?”

  Corin licked his lips. “The fog. It could kill us if we lose our way. You understand?”

  Tesyn thought a moment and nodded. “It clarifies a thing or two. But how do you intend to wait out a storm? We have no food. We have no water. It’s barely been an hour since we passed the last stream, and I’m already parched.”

  “We’ll find a way,” Corin said. “Perhaps tomorrow we’ll get a little better sunlight. Perhaps we’ll find some high ground where we can rise above the fog. If nothing else, we’ll lay some snares and hope for coneys.”

  “That’s not much of a plan,” Tesyn said. There was no accusation in it, and Corin couldn’t bring himself to disagree.

  “I’ll have something better by tomorrow. But come. We’ve no more than an hour left, and I mean to make headway while we may.”

  He retrieved his knife and pressed on in the same direction. North, or something like it. They made perhaps another mile—it felt like a mile by the aching in his back—and by then Corin was glancing to his left at almost every other step, and always wondering if there was really sunlight there, or if he was imagining it. The fog played games with light sometimes.

  He opened his mouth to call the halt, and ran hard into the trunk of a tall oak. It hurt. He staggered back, cursing, and ran into Tesyn. He pulled himself away, fighting for his balance, and bumped into something else.

  It swayed away from him, swinging gently on a tether, but not before he heard the ghastly rattle. Not before he saw the bleached-white skull.

  A skeleton suspended from a higher limb. Corin drew a calming breath and caught the corpse as it came swinging back. He knew the pattern on the dead man’s bandolier, rotted though it was. Only one crew on the Medgerrad had ever worn the slavers’ brand as a badge of honor. Corin had learned the trade on Old Grim’s ship. He’d worn that bandolier for years, before he’d risen to his own command. And now he found a comrade swinging from a tree on this haunted island.

  “What’s happening?” The scholar asked behind him, leaning on Corin’s shoulder and stretching on his toes to look for himself.

  “Worse and worse,” Corin muttered, as he recognized the hair-thin cord that had been used to tie a noose. “I was wrong,” he answered, louder. Only the elves had ever made such cord. He prayed Fortune they would give him a chance to plead his case. “The fog is not the only thing to fear. Brace yourself, Tesyn. We have a long, dark night ahead.”

  Corin had hoped to find some stream or pool to camp by, and he certainly had no wish to sleep beneath a hanging tree, but he could see no real alternatives. He could not even pretend to find the sunset now, and with that light gone and all the stars obscured, true dark was falling fast.

  “Four paces straight ahead,” he told Tesyn over his shoulder. “You’ll find the trunk of a tall tree. Walk to it and make a mark with your belt knife at eye level.”

  “What?”

  “Do what I’m telling you,” Corin said. “Walk to the tree, mark it, then try to find a comfortable position within reach of it to pass the night.”

  “That’s no answer to my question,” Tesyn said. “I heard your yelp.”

  “I didn’t yelp!”

  “Your cry of warning, then,” Tesyn said, patronizing. “Tell me what you discovered in the mist.”

  Corin swallowed hard and turned his back on the corpse he’d found. “Another tree,” he lied. “And when I strained my eyes, I could see still more, all around us. Despite our best efforts, it seems we’ve blundered right into the forest we’d hoped to avoid.”

  “Gods on Attos,” Tesyn grumbled. “Who can guess what horrors might await in a place like that?”

  Corin didn’t answer. An eddy in the swirling mist revealed another form not far beyond the scholar. Tesyn was walking the other way so he didn’t notice, but Corin saw the way the figure swayed so gently on the breeze.

  He turned away. There was nothing he could do for them, and nothing they could do to him. Gruesome though it was, this tree would make as good a shelter as any other, and it was all they had. He only hoped that he could keep the scholar from discovering their grim companions. The nobleman’s frail courage might shatter altogether if he discovered what surrounded them.

  Despite his care, Corin almost lost himself again. He’d gone three paces past the tree, arms outstretched and searching, when Tesyn called from behind him, “Corin? Do you plan on scouting? I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “No,” Corin answered, turning toward the voice. He took a step and his right hand brushed against the oak. The form of Tesyn resolved near his feet, and Corin sank down on his heels to speak with him.

  “I anticipate three problems,” Corin said, thinking aloud. “We have no supplies, so there’s a risk of exposure. There’s a risk of starvation. And there’s a risk of dehydration.”

  Tesyn nodded, a shifted shadow not far from Corin’s knee. “And don’t forget the ghosts.” Something went scritch-scratch on the ground beside him, but the scholar didn’t seem concerned.

  “I’m not as worried over ghosts as I am about the elements. By all accounts, this is a temperamental land. If we lose our way, if we blunder blindly forward, we could wander aimlessly until our strength gives out.”

  “I see,” Tesyn said, though he was paying no attention. He had his head bent away, and he was staring down in the direction of that scratching sound. Corin leaned closer, but he could see almost nothing through the fog.

  “What’s there?” he whispered.

  “Hmm?”

  “What has your attention?”

  Tesyn looked up suddenly, and they were nose to nose. The scholar blinked and frowned at Corin. “What do you think it is? An angry spirit come to haunt us in the night? Or perhaps one of your pirate friends, slipped free of his aging noose.”

  Corin pulled away and dropped his gaze. “You spotted them?”

  “It would have been hard to miss them. I counted half a dozen, but there might well be a man for every limb on this majestic oak. They’re pirates, right?”

  “Aye. Who else would dare to come here?”

  “Who else would provoke so unfriendly a reception?” Tesyn asked in answer. “Why would the elves greet visitors in any other way, if the only visitors they ever see are brigands?”

  “Not all pirates are vicious men,” Corin said. “The Godlander authorities reserve a special kind of justice for the orphaned, for the homeless and the poor.”

  Tesyn raised his chin. “Whatever made them outlaws, it’s a cruel life, and it makes cruel men.”

  “Hah! You’ve missed a cruel point. The elves are outlaws too. They chose this place and use it as a refuge for the selfsame reason pirates do.”<
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  “Fascinating,” Tesyn said. He turned away, and Corin heard the scratching sound again.

  Corin gasped. “You’re taking notes?”

  “Shouldn’t I? What other chance will I ever have to experience this place? If only someone else had thought to document these things, then you and I would not have come here blind.”

  “But . . . but how? It’s dark as sin already.”

  Tesyn gave a condescending chuckle. “I forget not everyone can write in darkness. I owe my gratitude to a professor at the University who requires all his students to master the skill. He gave every lecture in an unlit cellar room. And yet, somehow, he kept a perfect record of attendance.”

  Corin stared a moment, though the scholar was no more than a darker shadow in the darkness now. “You . . .” he began, and then he shook his head. “You and I have lived very different lives. But where did you find paper?”

  “I have a little book for just this purpose,” Tesyn said. “And a case with ink and pen, though I fear the ink will not last long. I do wish I had a grinding bowl.”

  Corin rolled his eyes. “That’s what you wish for? But where’d you keep the book and pen?”

  “I wear a little oilskin pouch beneath my tunic,” Tesyn said. “I never travel anywhere without a book for notes.”

  “And food?” Corin asked. “Surely if you thought that far ahead—”

  Tesyn heaved a weary sigh. “I did think so far ahead, you will recall. I brought food enough to feed us for a month. But all of that is lost beneath the sea.”

  “And yet you have a pen and ink.”

  “Indeed. Fortune showed her favor, eh?”

  “Oh, aye! It’s fortunate that you have the means to record your fancies while I’m trying to find some way to keep us both alive.”

  “My deductions—”

  “Are nothing of the sort!” Corin snapped. “You are inventing support for the things you already believed.”

  “What? How so?”

  “This fantasy about the elves all hating pirates! You’ve written that down as some discovery, but you have no evidence.”

  “We are surrounded by the evidence!” Tesyn shouted. “Can’t you see the significance of all those corpses?”

  “I see no proof its elven handiwork,” Corin lied. The scholar’s theories rattled him, and despite the cord he’d seen, he found himself still anxious to dismiss them. If elves had ever lived here, some more recent traveler might have found the cord and put it to such a grim use. He tried his hardest to believe it, and offered the scholar another explanation. “It could easily be the result of a failed mutiny.”

  Tesyn paused on the point of a rejoinder. And then a moment later, he snapped his mouth shut with a click. Another moment passed, and then he said, “Or a successful one.”

  Corin didn’t like the thought of that any better. He’d seen a successful mutiny firsthand, and under similar circumstances. If a pirate captain had led his crew to a wandering doom in this godsforsaken fog, he might well have found his end—along with any loyal supporters—hanging from those trees.

  “You see?” Corin asked, voice suddenly hoarse. “There’s no need to assume it was the elves or to imagine they feel about pirates the way you do.”

  “I have good reason!”

  “You do,” Corin said, mollifying him. “But we must set that aside for now and make our plans. As I was saying, exposure and starvation seem the greatest risks, so I intend to find some firewood to keep us through the night.”

  Tesyn heaved a sigh and levered himself up. “No. You stay here. It should be me.”

  Corin chuckled. “I trust my sense of direction more than yours, and still I have my fears.”

  “And I trust my fears more than yours. You’ve proven useful. I’ll give you that. But if you stumble on an elf while you are hunting for firewood, they’ll kill you right away, whereas I might have a chance to beg some aid.”

  Corin flung his hands up. “The ancient elves do not hate pirates!”

  A cold, deep voice rang out in answer some way off. “In that, I fear, you are entirely wrong.”

  Tesyn yelped and called, “Who goes there?” But Corin needed no introduction. He recognized that voice.

  The new arrival answered anyway. He came forward, steps soundless even on the bed of dry leaves, but his voice grew louder in the air. “Lay down your arms and abase yourselves. You’ve met the ghosts of old Gesoelig.”

  “Kellen,” Corin breathed, astonished.

  The elf stopped. It was not a sound, but a change in the air. Then he spoke a word in the elven tongue, and fire flared up all around them, cold and blue. It seared away the creeping mists and bathed the canopy beneath the tree in stark relief.

  The one who stood before them was a fearsome sight. He stood head and shoulders taller than a man, lithe but with an air of springs compressed.

  He was not the same man Corin had encountered in Oberon’s dream. That man had died, but it had been a dream within a dream, a half-remembered fantasy.

  Here before him was the Kellen who had lived, and time had made a martyr of him. His left arm ended just below the elbow, and a sterling patch hid his right eye. A vicious scar passed beneath the patch as well, running from his hairline to his jaw.

  But time and injury hadn’t dulled him any. He held himself prepared for battle. Menace hung about him like a winter robe, and judgment was his crown.

  “I’ll say again, lay down your arms, or I will take them from you.”

  Corin took a step toward him. “Kellen. You have changed, but I would know you anywhere.”

  Before Corin had gone a pace, Kellen’s sword was in his hand and hovering between them. It didn’t waver.

  “I do not know you, manling, and I’ve no wish to. Take your companion and leave these shores forever, or you may decorate our trees. There is no other option.”

  Corin held his gaze, unwavering. How best to proceed? He might win the warrior’s respect by fighting, though he had no hope he could best Kellen Strong. He might persuade the kindhearted man he’d known in Oberon’s dream, but perhaps the long years after Gesoelig’s fall had scoured away that gentleness.

  While Corin was still scheming, Tesyn dashed forward and threw himself down in the dirt at Kellen’s feet. “Hang him! He’s the dreaded pirate captain Corin Hugh, and he brought me here against my will! Hang him, but I beg you, show me mercy.”

  Something cold and deadly settled on the elf’s expression, and Corin saw his doom written in those eyes.

  “Tesyn,” Corin said levelly, “I’m going to make you pay for that.”

  Then Kellen charged.

  Corin had already decided not to fight, and he held to that. He sprang aside from Kellen’s charge, rolling as he hit the ground, and came up with the scholar positioned between them. It only bought him a moment, and though Corin’s hands itched to draw his blades, if only in defense, he didn’t touch them. Instead, he raised his voice.

  “I am not a pirate anymore. I’m Oberon’s chosen emissary. I beg you for an audience.”

  Kellen started right, and Corin shifted to keep Tesyn between them, but the elf anticipated that. He’d feinted right and came back left faster than even Corin would have guessed. His blade licked out, passing within a hair of Tesyn. The scholar let out a terrified scream, though it was Corin who took the wound. The blade’s tip took a long, shallow gouge from Corin’s forearm.

  He spun away, gaining distance, and tried to ignore the searing pain of the injury. “I’ve seen Gesoelig underneath the mountain,” Corin cried. “I know what happened there. I know Oberon named you mayor for your valor in fighting Ephitel and tasked you with protecting the survivors.”

  “You know too much by far,” the elf snarled. He came forward again, slashing hard, and Corin chose to try his luck. He stood his ground, unarmed and defenseless, and stared the charging warrior in the eye.

  “I want justice for the traitor Ephitel. I need your help!”

  That l
ast came out a squeak, despite Corin’s best efforts, as the warrior’s blade slashed straight and true toward his neck.

  It stopped against his flesh. It didn’t cut, but the blade lay cold and sharp beneath his jaw.

  For a long moment, the elf only stood there breathing. Corin held his gaze.

  Tesyn came forward, shaking his head. “You cannot possibly believe him.”

  “Gods’ blood,” Corin snarled. “Hold your tongue or I’ll have it out!”

  The blade’s pressure at his throat increased, and Corin clicked his teeth shut. Still he didn’t yield.

  That seemed to earn some measure of respect from the elf. “You will make no more threats upon this manling while you’re on my soil. Do you understand?”

  Corin didn’t dare nod, so he answered, “Aye.”

  The elf turned his head to answer Tesyn. “I am afraid I do believe him, until he convinces me otherwise. He knows too much of things he shouldn’t know.”

  “He’s a scoundrel!” Tesyn snapped. “He knows his way around a library, but he is not to be trusted. String him up or send him away. It’s me you’ll want to talk to.”

  Corin didn’t answer. He held Kellen’s gaze, and after a moment the warrior nodded to him and removed his blade.

  “I’ll hear your tale, pirate.”

  “What?” Tesyn cried. “No! At least hear mine first. He’s going to trick you.”

  “No easy feat,” the elf said, dismissive.

  “Please,” Tesyn cried. “I cannot tell you how many great projects he has ruined! But now I have this chance—”

  He cut off sharp as the elf’s sword swung his way. Kellen stared the scholar down. “You’ll hold your tongue or lose it. I keep my own counsel when it comes to prisoners. I don’t need your advice.”

  Tesyn nodded mutely, then shrank away from the sword’s point. In truth, Corin admired the scholar’s steady nerve as he withdrew three paces, then took his seat upon the trunk of a fallen tree.

  Corin turned back to Kellen and found the old warrior waiting. “You have your audience,” Kellen said coldly. “Now plead your case.”