It all felt like a horrific waste, as if for all they'd fought and lost they'd done no more than delay an inevitable end. They may have hurt the lich, and even thwarted his immediate victory. But just to do that much, they'd lost Gladdic, Bressel, the Drakebane, and the entire Tanarian army with him. The lich himself had only grown his personal power, and his army of Blighted had swollen beyond all measure. The enemy was stronger and they were weaker. Just as it had gone when they'd failed to contain him in Tanar Atain.
The greatest defense Dante had ever seen assembled had been broken, and they had exhausted every ploy and gambit that had held any hope of slaying the Eiden Rane. Just weeks ago, he'd thought he could be a new Sabel, whose deeds and valor would win songs and stories down through generations, perhaps even to become myth itself, like Jack Hand or Lyle or Stathus.
Instead, his story was about to end, and he and all of his friends wouldn't even be worthy of mention beyond a sad tale of failure and futility. And after his final victory, the White Lich would erase everything: all of their wisdom, their knowledge, their culture and belief, their history and their very being. Their loss would be so complete that no one would even know it had happened.
Except for the lich himself.
And the gods who'd forsaken them.
They reached the street below the temple, which had mellowed in color as the sun had cleared itself of the thin clouds skirting the eastern mountains. Blays headed in the direction of the produce market they'd seen on their first visit.
"What do you think you were doing in there?" Dante tried to keep his voice down, but did a poor job of it. "We have to get the spear!"
"And you think you'd get it by yelling at that man?"
"No. I think that I'll get it by killing him."
"Yeah, that's why we had to leave. Because if we'd stuck around, you were about to do something idiotic. And idiocy would have made our next move a lot harder to pull off."
"Our next move?" Dante scoffed. "Which is what? Scurrying back to Mallon and promising the boys we're sure to beat the lich this time?"
"Stop pouting and think about what we just learned."
"That in saving ourselves in the short-term, we cost ourselves the chance to save ourselves in the long-term?"
"Think, dummy. The red-bearded fellow just confirmed they've got the spear."
"And then went on to confirm that they'll never give it to us. In fact, I clearly remember him making this point multiple times."
Blays gave him a deeply disappointed look. "Yes, but the trouble with that is that we really need it, don't we? In fact, we'll all die without it. So if they don't want to give it to us, it seems to me that if we don't want to die, we've only got one option left."
Perhaps Dante's mind was still gummed up with fury. Or perhaps he was still at a loss to have found himself in what seemed to be the land of the living lords of the Celeset, and wasn't thinking clearly.
But then he understood. And he began to laugh. "You're serious?"
"They brought it on themselves, haven't they?"
"And you sound downright cheery about it. You've probably been dreaming about this sort of thing for years."
"So what if I'm happy about it? Every right-thinking fellow should be happy to do his duty." Blays turned to look back at the golden dome of the Temple of the Sun. "And right now, our duty is clear. We're going to rob the gods."
Just then, they passed from behind the corner of an ornate structure and found themselves mere feet from the steep slopes of the ridge the city was housed on. The ground fell away for hundreds of feet, too steep for all but the wiliest shrubs to take root on, granting a clear view of the gigantic valley of the Realm of Nine Kings: its woods and rivers and towns, its peaks and its caverns and castles.
The land was breathtaking, but in their short time in it, they had already learned that it was mysterious and hostile, too. To stay in it would be to confront horrors. He had a feeling they would be far worse than anything they'd faced so far.
But an even greater horror hung over their home. If they were to fall to it—if that was the fate that awaited them—it seemed fitting that their last venture would be the most audacious of them all.
FROM THE AUTHOR
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- Ed
The Spear of Stars Page 57