God Wars Box Set Edition: A Dark Fantasy Trilogy

by Mark Eller

  As if he had heard him speak, Jolson turned and fixed his god struck eyes upon Calto. His lips twisted upward into a smile full of knowing, full of power…full of vengeance.

  Calto shuddered as doubt fled from his mind. Jolson, the Chosen Savior, had risen from the ashes of Hell, and he did not appear happy. Calto had no doubt somebody, or something, was about to pay.

  Chapter 8-- Queen’s Resolve

  Elise sweated and dodged and struck and despaired of her troops once again when the man standing before her flinched back from a simple drill. She frowned and dropped her sword's point, not bothering to say the same damn things she had said after the last twenty attempts to show her troops the proper way to use the cheap swords gifted to the cause by the blacksmith's guild.

  Two hundred feet away, Calto and his warrior priests tried to show the coarser points of spear work to a group of recruits without much luck. Elise paused for a moment, watching Calto spar with one of his warrior-priests. He looked strong, assured, and interesting. He moved with a practiced economy which made every attack twice as effective as it appeared. Elise once spent two years learning the spear. At the end of her training, she had been better than nine tenths of her father’s officers. Compared to Calto, she had been a rank amateur. He was magnificent, but then Calto usually was.

  Elise frowned. Calto wore Missa’s favor on his arm. A child’s favor, but the child had a mother. Ani had some sort of strange influence over Calto, which Elise did not like. Though the woman was not beautiful in the classic sense of elite nobility, Ani exuded a certain quality which instantly claimed trust and high regard. Men’s eyes followed her, though she appeared not to notice. Elise, however, had noticed a thousand hungry eyes watching Ani when she, Missa, and Simta rode out of camp a few days earlier.

  Elise smoothed her expression and pulled her gaze off Calto, peering around until she found the small gathering of followers Ani had left behind. They stood in a small group, apparently talking, magical staffs held nonchalantly in their left hands. These were the strange ones, the fey ones, elemental magicians who had almost become the elements they controlled. Earth, wind, fire, and water, their faces fluxed and morphed to match their mood.

  Further off, Harlo and his men had broken more than five hundred troops into squad sized groups while they demonstrated several of the various ways a man could fight dirty during a melee.

  Elise fought down a surge of sad realization. Harlo and his people were having the most luck with training, but their efforts were just a drop in the bucket. For the most part, her army of four thousand volunteers, consisting of merchants, tradesmen, thieves, beggars, and farmers, was hopeless. She was spinning her wheels trying to hold a makeshift army together with not enough supplies, no discipline, and inadequate support. In another week, or maybe two, her army would fall apart, and her rebellion would become a forgotten footnote in history. If not, if they actually did come to battle, most of the people she led would die, and it would all be her fault.

  She mentally shook away defeatist thoughts and focused on the task before her. Her particular group had sorted out who would be the next examples of clumsy incompetence as she attempted to teach them how to hold a sword. Off to one side stood Jolson, the once spawn, his face thin, ascetic. His left sleeve hung loose where it draped over the place where his forearm had once been.

  Another hopeless cause, in her opinion. A drone. Everyone seemed to think Jolson was crucial, but she did not know why. Yes, for a short time within her tent she had held hope, but for the most part, since then, he seemed slightly lost and not quite connected with the things going on around him. Distracted. Nedross, she had heard him called by some. The god of hopeless causes. A hopeless god was more like it, a myth. Nobody of worth truly believed the tale. At best, Jolson was a quandary. At worst, a distraction.

  Fools, those ones who believed the lie of Jolson either being Nedross or once having been Flinstar. She had met Trelsar once, long ago, back when she took her place as queen of the realm. Trelsar had appeared as little more than a stooped old man weeding her flowers while she inspected her new garden, only when he looked at her his eyes blazed with knowledge and power. His presence demanded attention.

  Jolson had owned power and presence in her tent, for a brief while, but so had she and Calto and some others. The event had more to do with the book, she now suspected, and less to do with Jolson. Since then, his eyes had been confused, and his presence withdrawn. True, he did command attention from many, but only because the freak woman, Tessla, would not leave his side. Anywhere Trelsar’s Assassin went she was sure to draw eyes.

  Sighing, Elise sheathed her weapon and stepped forward to show the next volunteer the proper way to hold a sword. This young man seemed eager, confident, but his grip was nothing short of atrocious.

  Elise grimaced. Maybe she was doing this wrong. Though good with a blade, she was no teacher, never had been. She did not have the patience or the—

  Shouts filled the air. Jerking her head away from her trainee, she saw a wagon careening into the camp, pulled by four sweating arvids. A single man sat in the driver's seat. Hair wild, a laugh upon his lips, though his face was set in cautious alarm. Joss. Their head spy in Grace. He stopped to ask questions. Fingers pointed her way, and then the wagon jerked forward.

  Elise’s hand hurt. She looked down to see her fingers clenching her sword’s hilt so tightly they had turned bone white.

  What in the frigging hells had gone wrong now? Joss was not supposed to be here. He was supposed to be in Grace, coordinating her intelligence operatives, but there he was, sitting on top of the damn wagon seat, heading her way. Not good. Not good at all. Were her husband’s troops coming for them? Were hellborn running rampant because she could not get her army together and trained in time?

  Feeling cold, still, and hard focused, Elise pushed her way free from her students and met the wagon in the open. Calto came, stood beside her. His hand reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly, feeding her warmth, giving her a part of his strength. Joss looked down at them, sweat streaking his face. He awkwardly tried to bow from his sitting position, but she waved that away. She had no time for empty pomp when disaster could be eminent.

  "Report."

  "Simta told me the war started without you," Joss instantly replied. "The citizens of Grace and a number of the surrounding areas have banded together, forming their own army at the urging of the thief lord, Mathew Changer. Word on the street is they’re taking the castle tomorrow. Simta is remaining with Changer’s people, so if matters drastically change she promises she’ll get word to us."

  "They'll be killed!" Elise snapped. "They have no training, no preparation!"

  "And no salt," Joss agreed. "Doesn't matter. They've had enough. Hellborn are being attacked everywhere. Patience has run out. People are tired of being scared or complacent. They're tired of dying when the soldiers and guards do little to defend them. It's a groundswell of anger after the king was murdered.

  “Murdered!” Elise exclaimed. “Vere?” There had been rumors, of course, and Changer had mentioned her husband no longer being a problem, but he had not gone into details, she had not asked, and more often than not rumors proved to be untrue. The ones she last heard said the body displayed on the gates some weeks past had belonged to some other fat slob, and not the king.

  Joss appeared confused for a moment, and then shook his head. “Happened the same day we killed Sulya’s son, but Belsac did a good job covering it up. Helace had Vere dismembered and hung his pieces on the gates. It’s said Belthethsia reclaimed and reassembled the pieces. Apparently, the end result wasn’t very convincing, but it worked for a short time from a distance.”

  Elise cursed and snapped a glance towards her general. Harlo approached with that worthless prat of an aristo, Ludwig, by his side. She would have to absorb the confirmation of her being a widow later. Other things took precedence. "The catapults?"

  "All but five are mounted on wagons," Harlo said. "T
hose will be complete in an hour. We have six wagonloads of salt. Dern should arrive with six more in three or four days."

  "Too late to be of help." Elise looked around the confusion that was her army. If her father saw this he would be shamed. Calto’s hand tightened on her shoulder. "We go now. The war has started without us."

  Harlo instantly shouted. "FORM RANKS!"

  Men leaped to obey. Confused calls sounded from group to group but the men did begin to form something looking like orderly ranks.

  “It’s too soon,” Calto said, “but you’ve no choice. I will gather my people.”

  “Take control of Ani’s tree-huggers, too,” Elise ordered. “Make sure they don’t get in the way.”

  “Those tree-huggers are some of the most dangerous people you have,” Calto pointed out. “They deserve respect.

  Elise sighed. “I know, but like with your priests, there are just too few of them to make a difference.”

  Calto shook his head at her fondly. “A small tap in just the right place can split a boulder. I’ll hold them back until a tap is needed.”

  “Do that,” Elise ordered. She shook his hand free but gave him a slight smile as she did so. He was too close. His presence disturbed her more now than it ever had before. The former Lord Calto Morlon, the dandified prick she had both admired and disdained, was almost gone. This Calto had come to terms with himself, had finally acknowledged his faults, recognized his strengths, and had merged the two until he had become someone stronger, someone completely admirable because he was no longer so arrogantly cocksure. He smelled of fresh sweat and male hormones, and she was suddenly reminded her husband, the only lover she ever had, was apparently dead. Always uninspired, his lovemaking had mostly been a matter of indifference combined with humiliation, so the thought of another lover, one who thought of more than himself, was intriguing.

  Calto gestured toward his second in command and walked away. Elise shook away her lurid thoughts and went to work.

  Despite their apparent willingness, more than two hours passed before her army was finally ready to move. It was fifteen miles to Grace City. According to Joss, Mathew Changer planned to start the war tomorrow. Elise hoped her underfed army would make it there on time.

  Suddenly, several absences struck her. She asked, but almost nobody knew where Jolson and Tessla had gone. The one person who might know would not say.

  “Fear not,” Anothosia told her through Missa’s lips as her small hand gripped Anithia’s. “You shall see them again. Neither Tessla nor Jolson have forsaken your kingdom. Indeed, I do not believe they could do so even if it was what they most truly desired.”

  * * * *

  Chaos.

  Men shouted. Women screamed, and bodies lay everywhere. Fire arrows extinguished themselves against castle walls. Arrows, leven bolts, and catapult tossed boulders answered. Overhead, wyverns and dragonets flew, rocks clutched tightly in their talons. They positioned, aimed, and released their burdens on the mob below while scrys darted low, aiming for fingers and eyes. Hellhounds leapt from the parapets, striking the ground and racing into the mob to rip and tear. Men and women fell before them, bleeding and crying, but others surged forward with rocks and knives and pitchforks and scythes, striking again and again until the hellhounds fell. Arrows reached into the sky, mostly missing, sometimes striking a low flying wyvern.

  Disaster.

  Mathew walked among the dying, exhorting his people to fight on, little caring they were fodder for Hell's forces. His people would die by the droves. They would fall like wheat, but Hell had to be driven back now or the world would forever be in its thrall. He would not allow Hell to rule his country, his world…and he would not allow Hell the satisfaction of knowing Glace was dead because of its manipulation. These people would die. Others would die. Most likely, he would die, but none of it mattered. The war would continue on. Win or lose, Athos and Zorce would know they had been in a battle. Even now, more people raced to join them. By ones and twos, by tens and twenties, people arrived faster than they died. Although hundreds had fallen, perhaps thousands, Mathew suspected he had more people now than he had started with.

  Ten of those people rushed the castle walls as he watched, flames flickering from rags stuffed into the open necks of bottles held in their hands. Seven of those ten fell, but three made it close enough to release their weapons. The bottles arched through the air. Two broke uselessly against stone walls, but one made its way through an open window two stories above the thrower. Flames flickered. He saw a rush of activity, and then a dragonet burst out of the window, its wings blazing red and green. It rushed blindly through the air, crashed into two wyverns, and the three of them fell in a burning ball to the ground below.

  A spontaneous cheer erupted for the heroes just before a flurry of arrows struck the three remaining people down. One, a woman, spun a slow circle, six arrows piercing her body. Her knees folded and she crumpled to the ground.

  The castle gate slid upward three feet. Dozens of goblins rushed forward, struck into the crowd, and fell before its fury. Near the front a nearly naked woman owning fur and a cat’s face struck out at the hellborn with oversized claws. Goblins fell before her in droves.

  Smiling grimly at the sight, Mathew swung, and swung again, feeling his blades cut through flesh, seeing yellow blood spurt, before a goblin finally fell to his knives. Panting, he cursed and rallied those around him. His lips peeled back into a wolf's vicious grin, though none of the hell-be-damned ring's curse remained with him. His clothes were ripped in three places and charred in another. Blood showed beneath the rips. Beneath the rips was charred flesh.

  More goblins rushed from beneath the gate. The gate rose higher as hellhounds came forth. Demons and minor devils entered the fray. Half a dozen morphos, wraiths, succubae, and others Mathew could not name, entered into the battle. He cursed, knowing many of these could not be harmed by normal weapons.

  Even so, Mathew rallied his army and fought on while the cat-faced woman rode a devil to the ground and removed its head with one vicious swipe of her claws.

  The battlefield screams became a crescendo. Hundreds fell as the new hellborn charged in, and then hundreds more. Mathew swung and stabbed and shouted, cursing the hubris which made him think his rally, his rebellion, would threaten the hellborn inside the castle. They were too many, too vicious, too weaponed, too magical. His people were only human…like him, and most had no magic to defend themselves.

  Teeth flashed toward his neck. Mathew dodged— too late— but then the beast fountained blood when unexpectedly Tessla appeared and struck with her god-blessed sword. With his attacker fallen, Tessla's lithe form flowed on to another hellborn. Even amid this chaos Mathew had to admire her efficiency. She was quicksilver death, reaching, striking, her face set in emotionless purpose. Jolson moved near her, acting as if he touched bodies with the non-existent fingers of his missing hand. Some of those he neared fell, instantly dead. Others stopped bleeding and healed. Jolson’s stump reached out, something brushed against Mathew, and every ache he owned disappeared in a wash of ecstatic relief.

  It did not matter. Jolson and Tessla and all the others who fought did not matter. They were not enough. Mathew’s people were dying faster than they killed hellkind.

  A hellhound rushed him from one side. A wraith flowed in from the other. Mathew spun, prepared to die, and then white crystals struck his body, bounced off him, fell onto hound and wraith.

  Their screeches expressed the greatest agony Mathew had ever heard. Screaming, they reared back. Their flesh bubbled, erupting in pustules of black bile and septic ooze. A hand flashed before him. More crystals flew free, and then Mathew saw he had new troops, each armed with a bag of crystals which they flung with great purpose onto the hellborn. Hellhounds yelped and fell to the ground, curling into tight balls that shuddered and writhed and shrank until they lay still. Demons shouted defiance and died. Devils shot poison, ripped with talons, and died. Simta threw her head back and yo
wled to the clouds while Yernden’s queen, Elise, stood atop of a wagon, pointing, shouting orders, a small catapult beside her.

  Breaking free of the fight to regain his breath, Mathew saw two men load the catapult with a bag as large as a man's head. They cranked back the arm, released, and the bag flew through the air, lifted above the castle walls, and disappeared inside. Moments later, a dozen wyverns, their wings smoking, burst into the air, only to lose flight, fall to the earth, and wither into thin shreds of twisted leather. He heard the sound of other catapults firing. Crystal filled bags lobbed over walls or broke against unforgiving stone. Another catapult released, and Mathew watched a lump of something smoking and spark spitting soar through the air, leaving a black cloud trailing in its wake. When it struck a wall there was a momentary pause, and then his eyes were blinded by a quick flash while his ears were pounded by a hollow roar which made him wince in aural pain. Shattered stone flung itself out from the wall to shower the people below. Before the queen stood a group of men bearing glowing staffs. Blue and white energies shot from their staffs and enveloped hellborn. Wyverns smoked and exploded when the blessed light struck. A devil twisted into a non-existent fold and slid into nothingness. Another devil, skin gray with great age, manipulated vile energies between his horns. The energy shot forth, arrowed toward the queen— and was intercepted by the suddenly interposed bodies of two priests.

  The priests blew into dry powder that caught in people’s eyes and lungs. Mathew raced toward the devil as it formed new energies, but then it screeched curses when crystals suddenly dusted its head. The formed energy, no longer controlled, turned back on the hellborn, sliced into its head, through its body, and then the devil was gone. Disappeared.

  The priests lowered their staffs, formed a wedge, and entered the fray, joining with the untrained mob. Two of the queen’s wagons were uncovered, overturned. Mathew joined others in raiding the crystals they held. Crystals flew through the air, flung by dozens of eager hands. About them, hellborn fell and died. Some retreated, but even then they died. Within minutes stunned silence reigned but for the moans of the dying and the cries of the wounded. Wyverns and dragonets twisted, shifted, and flew back toward the castle, releasing their final load of rocks as a last defiant gesture. Scrys flew high into the air, weeping tears of blood as embedded crystals ate into their wings until the leather flaps broke apart and the scrys fell, dead before they struck the ground.