The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War)

by Aaron Pogue

  He hadn’t gone three paces when a strong hand clamped around his shoulder. He spun in place, trying to tear away, but he couldn’t fight that grip. His free hand found his dagger and had it half raised before he recognized the man who’d caught him.

  “Kellen?”

  Corin whipped his head left and right, searching for some explanation for the elf’s sudden appearance, but he found none. The land was rocky and uneven here, crawling with the low fog, but still it was a testament to Kellen’s prowess that he had crept so close entirely unnoticed.

  Despite that prowess, the old elf looked older still since his encounter with the justicar. Dark lines creased his brow, and new scars marked his throat and collarbone. Yet he lived. And he was here. Corin stared in awe.

  “Kellen,” Corin said again, bewildered. “How are you here?”

  “A mutual friend persuaded me to come and speak with you.”

  “Avery?” Corin asked. That was almost as astonishing.

  “I believe he suffered some persuading too,” Kellen said.

  Corin nodded. That would be the work of the dear lady Jane. Even the elves of old Gesoelig could prove fools for a pretty face. Fortune favor, that would never change.

  “Have you changed your mind, then?” Corin asked. “If you’ve come to join us in our fight against Ephitel, you’ve only barely made it. Our last, best hope is even now charging in to die.”

  “I’ve seen the same before,” Kellen said, sad and weary. “No. It is but chance I found you on the brink of battle. I did hear rumors on the way, and I came all the faster, but in truth . . . I only hurried in the hope of catching you before you slipped away.”

  Corin’s heart sank at that. “You came to speak, then?” He poured all the contempt he could find into that. “You came to reprimand me more? Good men will die today, but you did not come here to fight?”

  Kellen raised his chin. “I came here because Avery asked me to.” After a moment’s hesitation, he dropped his chin again. He looked deep in Corin’s eyes. “And then you surprised me. I watched you send your champion off into the fray. I understand his plans today, and there is much honor in them.”

  “Good men, dead,” Corin spat. “And bad men, the only victors.”

  Kellen nodded. “As I said before. That is the way this battle always goes.”

  “Then why interrupt me?” Corin asked.

  Kellen still held Corin’s shoulder, and now his stare grew even sharper. There was something searching in it, like an investigator at the question, even as he offered answers. “Because you surprised me. I thought I knew you, Corin Hugh. Down through the ages I’ve known many men like you. And when I saw your champion ride off to die, I expected you to slink away, to find some way to escape your destiny that you might carry on your war.”

  Corin held his breath. He didn’t blink, didn’t twitch under the elf’s intense scrutiny. He had intended to slink away, but if Kellen wanted to believe otherwise, Corin would be happy to encourage it. He looked Kellen square in the eye and spoke with deep sincerity. “I already told you once: I mean to fight this war with my own hands. I am not a king, and I am not a general. I don’t know how to send other men to die, but I know how to dive into the fray.”

  Kellen held his gaze a moment longer, still considering. Then he bowed his head in admiration. “You are a better man than I had guessed.”

  Corin nodded, and then he turned toward the distant charge. Already, Auric’s men were nearly lost within the fog, but the shining farmboy on his massive charger radiated like a beacon. Corin stabbed a finger after him. “There goes an even better man than I, and he leads a hundred souls dedicated to defying Ephitel. Will you stand here and watch them fall?”

  Kellen showed his teeth. “Not willingly.”

  “Then let us go to battle!” Corin cried. “Kellen Strong will ride for Oberon once more!”

  A cheer went up in answer to that. “Kellen Strong and Oberon!” Corin started as half a dozen more elves dashed out of the fog, every one of them as much a surprise as Kellen himself had been. They flowed forward across the uneven ground like a school of eels, settling in perfect formation behind Kellen. Then half a dozen long, sharp-edged rapiers stabbed toward the sky, and half a dozen fervent voices cried out again, “Kellen Strong and Oberon!”

  Kellen ducked his head and ran a hand through his hair. In that moment, all the cruel years disappeared, and he was the same modest, gentle soldier Corin had met in Oberon’s strange dream.

  “I found a few who will stand with me,” Kellen said in explanation.

  Corin raised his voice for all of them. “Ephitel has sent some fierce assassins to destroy this stain against his pride. There’s at least a hundred soldiers charging through that fog, and they are more than pikes and bows. They have gladiators.”

  One of the soldiers sneered in answer. “And we have elves! I’ll kill a hundred gladiators.”

  Corin felt a flare of hope, bright and painful in his breast. He’d watched Kellen battle Jessamine. If these others were half as good as Kellen, this handful of elves might well turn the tide of battle.

  Corin nodded, thoughtful. “They might have wizards too.”

  “Then we will die in glory! But for my part, I’ll do my best to take one of those wretched wizards with me.”

  They could win. The very thought felt impossible, but Corin couldn’t quite quash the searing thread of hope. If they killed Ephitel’s assassins, would that be enough? Would he come in person then? Corin had planned to build a vast rebellion, to steal away Auric just to start anew and wait for months, for years perhaps, to draw Ephitel out to settle their defiance.

  But this could be enough. Here and now, he could have his vengeance. He drew a shaky breath and pushed the hair back from his eyes. “For justice,” he said. “For Aemilia. To war!”

  He turned to lead the charge, his heart hammering and blood burning with the thrill of it, but once again Kellen stopped him with an unshakable grip on his shoulder.

  “Stay here, manling,” he said, even as he motioned his soldiers on toward the fray. They swept across the ground like summer wind and disappeared into the distance. Kellen held Corin’s gaze. “You may not call yourself a general, but you have vision we will need. Leave the war to warriors. But I will never forget you were prepared to charge.”

  He clapped a fist to his chest in proud salute, then turned and sprinted off after his men. Down in the valley, lost within the fog, iron rang on iron as the initial charge crashed into solid lines. Horses and men screamed and died as free men struck a blow against the armies of the gods.

  It was begun.

  On a sudden instinct, Corin raised his voice. “And you, Avery? Will you go rushing into battle for glory and honor?”

  It had been a guess, a hunch, but the elf looked most impressed as he came around to stand before Corin. “Most men never hear me coming.”

  Corin spread his hands. “I am not most men.”

  “This is true,” Avery nodded. “And in answer to your question: No. Like you, I have more valuable talents than the spilling of blood.”

  “But you do mean to aid me?”

  “Jane would have my head if I did not. She bid me keep you safe.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Apparently there is a matter of some debt you owe her, which she thinks you could not repay as a corpse.”

  Corin nearly laughed at that. “That is all it took to rouse the elves of old Gesoelig to my cause? The earnest request of a pretty woman?”

  Avery smirked, but it lasted just a moment. Then he shook his head, serious again, and said, “We have been reduced to ghosts, Corin Hugh. Can you imagine that? Haunting the edges of this world that was made for our glory.”

  “Aye,” Corin said. “I know the feeling well.”

  “You stirred us up, for good or ill. After facing Jessamine, after seeing the dark powers Ephitel would vest in a helpless manling, dear Kellen found a need to act.”

  Corin nodded
. Avery must have wrestled with much the same consideration as he watched the justicar persecute the Nimble Fingers, though he wouldn’t bring himself to say it. But how far would that anger carry them?

  “She must be stopped,” Corin said, testing.

  Avery snorted and tossed his head. “She’s the tenth part of the problem. He must be stopped.”

  Corin showed his teeth. “I have the means.”

  “Then why do we tarry here? Let us lend our aid to the battle.”

  Corin touched the hilt of his rapier, but he found little courage there. He had no desire at all to rush into the fray. He glanced sidelong at the elf, and asked quietly, “Do you have a suggestion as to how?”

  “The same way I’ve done every time dear Kellen has thrown himself into this mad endeavor. I’ll find some fitting vantage point and try to spot the devious blow he won’t see coming.”

  Corin breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “I know just the place.” His own plans had depended on a clear view of the developing skirmish, and he’d put a great deal of effort into choosing where he meant to hide. “Come. I’ll show you.”

  The fight itself was raging in a huge bowl-shaped valley, bordered on its west by the river that wrapped around Auric’s ruined city, and on the right by steep crags that rose toward the distant plains of Raentz. The best overlooks belonged entirely to the enemy, but Corin had found a rise along the southern edge of the valley—a little twisting ridge that led eventually up and around to the eastern crags. But halfway there a narrow spit of stone looked out across the battlefield. The path was treacherous, littered with loose rocks, but the heroes of the Nimble Fingers walked the line with ease.

  They’d barely left the valley floor before Avery struck up a conversation. “I must know: Did you honestly intend to join the soldiers in their charge?”

  Corin swallowed a curse. For a moment, he was able to pretend intense concentration as he went on hands and knees up the steepest part of the slope, but beyond that he found easier footing again, and Avery still waited for an answer.

  “These are desperate times,” Corin said evasively; then he tried for a distraction. “Where is Jane, then? Did you leave her unprotected?”

  Avery arched an eyebrow. “She is one of the deadliest creatures in Hurope, and I take pride that I was able to instill some portion of that. But yes, I left her in Ithale. I had to come through Faerie to arrive here in due time, and that journey tends to fracture manling minds.”

  Corin licked his lips. “I think I would like to know more about that place.”

  “No you wouldn’t.” Avery went ten paces in silence, and then he cleared his throat. “But we have gone astray. Did you intend to join the soldiers in their charge?”

  It wasn’t much, but now he’d had a moment to consider the question, Corin had an answer ready. He’d impressed the warrior with his bravery. With any luck, he could impress the trickster with his guile.

  It was an uncertain gamble, but Corin had always considered Fortune a friend. “No,” he said. “I didn’t. I had other plans, but Kellen’s arrival changed everything.”

  Avery considered that a moment, and then he nodded. “Kellen’s always been obsessed with valor. You managed his nature well.”

  “And with you?”

  The elf smiled disdainfully. “I cannot be managed. I am Avery of Jesalich.”

  “Aye, well,” Corin said, “I’m only grateful to have such esteemed allies by my side. Now, we’ve arrived. Take a look and tell me what you see.”

  There wasn’t much to see. It might have been the best vantage point below the eastern crags, but little penetrated the roiling fog. The world was gray beyond arm’s length, but the noise of battle rose up all around them—grunts and groans and dying screams, and often enough the wet slap and muffled thud of a man dying to some unseen blow. It hung around them, eerily close and almost unreal without any vision to support the sounds.

  Corin stretched on his belly on the stone, easing up to the very edge of the overlook. He strained his eyes, staring into the fog, but though the battle sounded near enough that he might reach out his hand and touch a soldier, he could make out nothing. Corin offered thanks to Fortune that the elves had come to join him. His own plan would not have worked at all. He could hardly judge the tide of battle through this fog. He only hoped the elves’ strange nature gave them some advantage there.

  As if in answer to the thought, Avery crept up beside him. He balanced on his heels, shading his eyes with one hand and pointing out into the blind fog with his other. He shivered. “What’s happening there?”

  “I can’t see any—” Corin started, but he cut short as a spear of amber sunlight stabbed down from the heavens and tore a gaping hole through the pressing fog. It showed a scene of slaughter, men from both sides dead and trampled on the unforgiving earth. No one remained standing there.

  The light was nothing natural. The sunbeam seemed almost a pillar of fire, thick and straight as a ship’s mast. It burned away the fog for several paces in all directions, leaving a perfect circle perhaps fifty feet across. As Corin watched, the light began to shift, drifting west across the valley floor until it found a pair of soldiers locked in combat.

  Another figure darted from the fog—too tall, too lithe, too fleet of foot to be a manling—and leaped into the air to kill the Godlander with a rapier thrust above his collarbone. The elf rolled when he touched the ground and sprang away into the fog again, leaving behind one of Auric’s soldiers, stunned to have survived.

  It all happened in an instant, and Corin was only half surprised when the drifting sunbeam shifted its direction to follow the disappearing elf. It twitched that way, almost instinctively, but then resumed its earlier path, patiently plotting west across the battlefield.

  Searching.

  “Is that your doing?” Corin asked, though he had little hope of it.

  “Not in the least.” Avery met Corin’s eyes. “I’m itching. She is here.”

  Jessamine. Corin breathed a curse, and Avery nodded his agreement.

  Down below, the questing sunbeam found a knot of fighting men. Corin knew them as gladiators because of their attire; they wore not a bit of armor, but rich silks in red and violet. These were the Godlanders’ fiercest warriors, and here a dozen of them had come together against a scant handful of Auric’s refugees. They had the refugees surrounded and now, moving in perfect unison, they closed in for the slaughter.

  The sunlight paused on the scene for half a heartbeat—just long enough for Jessamine to see that her forces were winning there—and then it started south. She was quartering, meticulously searching the field for her prey.

  Before the light had left the unfortunate cluster of refugees, a blur of movement burst into the ring of light. Not an elf, this time, but a manling on a handsome charger. Corin saw the golden hair and groaned.

  Auric showed himself. It had been his plan, after all, but the foolishness of it cut at Corin all over again as he watched the farmboy dash into plain sight and fling himself upon Jessamine’s most able warriors.

  And win.

  He had the advantage of surprise and a clear view of the scene as he rushed to the attack. He felled a gladiator with one huge arc of that heavy broadsword, and then kicked the second in the teeth with a steel-plated boot while he was still at full gallop.

  The others had time to react, though, and that still left ten gladiators against a single man. Two of them peeled off to deal with this new threat while the rest kept their attention on the knot of refugees.

  “Go,” Corin whispered, begging. “Get back into the fog. You can sally again if you have to, but don’t stand and fight where everyone can see you!”

  Avery snorted. “Just like Kellen. Are all soldiers fools?”

  “Only the heroes,” Corin said. “Look.”

  “I see.”

  Instead of dashing off into the fog, Auric reined his charger short and stood up in his stirrups. As he’d done within the city walls, he raise
d his broadsword overhead so that it caught the fiery light of Jessamine’s strange sunbeam and glowed like molten steel.

  “For honor!” His voice boomed out across the valley floor. Even at this distance, Corin saw the sneer that twisted the face of one of the gladiators closing in on Auric.

  A crossbow bolt flashed out of the fog and ricocheted off Auric’s pauldron. He only stood up straighter and shouted, “For glory!”

  And then a hundred voices cried out in answer, “For freedom!” Even the men at bay within the circle of gladiators shouted their defiance. They charged, foolish refugees against the Godlands’ most elite soldiers.

  But others came to join them. The Godlanders must have spread their lines to cover the whole valley floor, because that one crossbow bolt was the only sign so far of their forces converging on the light. Auric’s forces, though, came boiling out into the clearing, still shouting Auric’s battle cry, and makeshift weapons in sufficient numbers quickly overwhelmed the exquisite blades of the gladiators.

  A dozen of them fell. Any nation in Hurope would have considered that a crushing loss, regardless of the outcome of the fight. But Jessamine had more to spare. Corin ground his teeth and prayed for Auric to see reason, to slip away in the confusion, but instead the farmboy forced his way to the center of the clearing. He sat tall and proud beneath the golden sunlight.

  “For honor!” he cried again. Then he pointed his sword east, toward the crags, commanding a charge. And the fools around him obeyed.

  “What manner of thing is this?” Avery asked, dumbfounded.

  “I have yet to decipher it,” Corin said. “But if I could find some way to keep him alive, I could make that man some kind of king.”

  “If that is your intention, I suggest you kill the justicar who’s making me itch.”

  “I’d have to find her!” Corin snapped, irritated.

  “She’s there.” The elf pointed to a spot atop one of the eastern crags. It was high enough to sit above the fog, and as likely a place as any, but it offered scrubs and boulders large enough to conceal a dozen men.