The Godless, page 1
PRAISE FOR JAMES A MOORE
“James A Moore is the new prince of grimdark fantasy. His work is full of dark philosophy and savage violence, desperate warriors and capricious gods. This is fantasy for people who like to wander nighttime forests and scream at the moon. Exhilarating as hell.”
– Christopher Golden, New York times bestselling author of Snowblind
“Fast-paced fantasy that you simply can’t put down. Great action adventure.”
– Morpheus Tales
“Gripping, horrific, and unique, James Moore continues to be a winner, whatever genre he’s writing in. Well worth your time.”
– Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author of the InCryptid and Toby Daye series
“Moore has laid the groundwork for a trilogy that promises to be loaded with terrifically grim fantasy storytelling. I might even call it epic. There is a lot of swift, merciless violence in this book, mingled with an undercurrent of very welcome, if very dark, humor. All of it together takes me back to what made me giddy about epic fantasy way back when. I’d say I’m happy to be back, but I’m not sure that’s quite the right word for a book packed with this much violent incident. Let’s say instead that I’m bloody satisfied.”
– Rich Rosell for the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
The Tides of War series
The Last Sacrifice • Fallen Gods • Gates of the Dead
The Seven Forges series
Seven Forges • The Blasted Lands
City of Wonders • The Silent Army
The Blood Red series
Blood Red • Blood Harvest • Blood of the Damned
The Chris Corin Chronicles
Possessions • Rabid Growth • Newbies
The Serenity Falls Trilogy
Writ in Blood • The Pack • Dark Carnival
The Griffin & Price series (with Charles R Rutledge)
Blind Shadows • Congregations of the Dead • A Hell Within
Alien: Sea of Sorrows
The Predator: Hunters & Hunted
The Haunted Forest Tour (with Jeff Strand)
Bloodstained Oz (with Christopher Golden)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds
Cherry Hill
Deeper
Fireworks
Harvest Moon
Homestead
Under the Overtree
Vampire: House of Secrets (with Kevin Andrew Murphy)
Vendetta
Werewolf: Hellstorm
The Wild Hunt
Slices (stories)
This is Halloween (stories)
ANGRY ROBOT
An imprint of Watkins Media Ltd
Unit 11, Shepperton House
89-93 Shepperton Road
London N1 3DF
UK
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Everyday a little war
An Angry Robot paperback original, 2021
Copyright © James A Moore 2021
Cover by Alejandro Colucci
Edited by Paul Simpson and Robin Triggs
Set in Meridien
All rights reserved. James A Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Sales of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold and destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.
Angry Robot and the Angry Robot icon are registered trademarks of Watkins Media Ltd.
ISBN 978 0 85766 842 4
Ebook ISBN 978 0 85766 853 0
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by TJ International.
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This one is for Rich Dansky, Jonathan Maberry and Christopher Golden, as well as my wife, Tessa. Thanks for everything, guys.
Special thanks to everyone at Angry Robot who has worked so diligently to make my tales better than they were when they started. I don’t say often enough how much I appreciate all that you do.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Epilogues
About the Author
PROLOGUE
Trigan Garth
Trigan Garth sat at his table in the Wandering Boar and ate a meal of meat and cheese with what had to be the driest bread he had ever eaten. There was enough blood and gravy from the meat to make that a forgivable sin. His biggest complaint at that moment was that people kept entering the building, opening the door and letting in the cold.
Most of the people in the place were smart enough to stay away from him. He was Sa’ba Taalor, and that meant he was a warrior first and civil second.
The Sa’ba Taalor were raised as warriors and followed one or more of seven gods. Each of those deities was a god of war. Trigan had three Great Scars upon his face. One split his mouth at a sharp angle. One in his left cheek was high enough to almost touch his eye. The third was on his left side, along the jawline. It was easy to know the warriors. They had gray skin. Sometimes lighter in color and sometimes darker, though no one quite understood the difference. It was very likely a matter of how long they spent in the sun. Trigan Garth had very dark skin. He had traveled through half of Fellein before he reached this place on the southern edge of the continent.
The man who came to see him was unknown to him. He was not small, but he was smaller than Trigan, with tanned flesh and brown hair. His eyes were a pale shade of blue that stood out against the rest of him. He carried a short sword on his hip, a dagger on the other hip and wore a hardened leather breast plate.
He did not ask to sit down, but pulled up a chair and made himself at home.
Only a fool chooses insult where there is none. Trigan was no one’s fool and so he ignored the obvious breach of etiquette and took a drink of the bitter ale that came with his meal.
After being ignored for several minutes, long enough for Trigan to finish eating, the man at the table said, “You’re Trigan Garth?”
“I am.”
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Trigan’s silvery eyes looked around the room at all of the Fellein pretending not to listen to the conversation. “I am not hard to find.”
The man laughed and slapped the surface of the table with an open palm. “That is true. Are you curious as to why I am looking for you?”
“Did I kill your family in the war? Do you now come to seek vengeance against a kinslayer?” That particular situation had come up several times over the last five years. Trigan was a very good warrior and he had killed many of the Fellein as he rode from the Seven Forges to the throne of the Empire.
“What? Gods no. Your people killed a lot of people, but my family was never reached.”
“Do you intend to try killing me?”
“Hadn’t been part of my agenda, no.” The stranger frowned.
“Then I have no idea why you seek me. Should I be concerned? Or is this a discussion?” His words were in jest. He had no reason to believe he could not kill the stranger.
“Well, I… It’s a discussion.”
“I am not a man who likes to talk. Say your piece before you bore me.” While they had been speaking the people at the tables around them grew less cautious and more actively displayed their willingness to listen in on the conversation. Trigan did not care. They could hear what the fool wanted to say.
“You’re godless?”
Those were possibly the worst words the man could have asked. Trigan narrowed his eyes slightly and leaned across the table. “Why would you ask a question like that?”
The stranger kept his eyes on Trigan, as if staring at an angry bear. He was perceptive enough to know he’d made a mistake “I don’t mean to offend…”
“Too late. Why would you ask that of a Sa’ba Taalor?”
“I…” The man stared at him but did not back away, did not reach for a weapon, and so was spared a very fast and brutal death. “As I understand it some of your people did not go back to the Forges. They did not speak again to their gods. They have not spoken to their gods in a very long time. I wanted to know if you are one of them.”
“I am.” Trigan’s voice was a low growl.
“Well then,” The man smiled as he spoke. “I have an offer for you.”
He continued to talk.
Trigan listened.
Lenwig Wickhaven
“We should run!” Jarry made the comment as he bolted past the campsite. A moment before he’d been on his way to find a good place for voiding his bowels. He was young and strong, lean and capable, but he also ate enough for ten men and sooner or later that food wanted to leave his body.
Lenwig looked up from where he was setting up the cooking fire and watched his companion move in long strides that made him look even leaner than usual. Jarry was a playful sort. He did his work, but he never even considered the idea of being serious when he could be cracking a joke, or making a pun, or singing a rude tune as he rode along the way and helped handle the workload. Ten minutes without some sort of off-color remark was a lot if the man was conscious.
Jarry wasn’t joking. His voice was very serious. He ran past the encampment and called out his warning several more times to the rest of the gathered riders.
Lenwig stood up, frowning, and looked in the direction Jarry had come from.
There were three men riding toward the campsite. They were of largish build, and wore enough armor and weapons that they very nearly bristled like porcupines.
Two of the men looked normal enough, aside from their weapons. The last one, however, the one who rode between the other two, had gray skin.
The world was a strange place, true enough, but on all of that known world only one race of men had gray skin. The Sa’ba Taalor.
Lenwig had not fought against the Sa’ba Taalor when the war came. He had been wiser than that and had managed to make certain he was not where the people from the Seven Forges could find him. The whole of Fellein was one massive empire and it was a peaceful enough place until the gray skins showed up.
The Sa’ba Taalor were not peaceful and never would be. They had seven gods, and as he understood it, each of those gods was a god of war.
Lenwig looked at the approaching men and shoved his flint and his steel into a small pouch tied to the belt over his ponderous belly. He was not a fighter. He had been when he was a much younger man, but these days he preferred to leave the fighting to those he paid. Like Jarry.
If he lived through the situation, he planned to take his belt to the little bastard for deserting them.
The men came closer still, and he took the short sword he carried, more for appearances than to use, and pulled it from its scabbard. Even as he prepared himself the rest of his group were gathering themselves and forming a half circle around the wagons. Though none of the men looked particularly aggressive, they were paid to defend his property and they were paid well enough to, by the gods, do their work.
Lenwig and his guards were transporting Illian wine to Canhoon. Four wagons of the stuff would make him a handsome profit. There were two boats waiting to do most of the work, but before the boats could take it, he had to get the load to the river. That meant moving through the Wellish Steppes and along the Emperor’s Highway. Only a fool would travel the area without protection and Lenwig Wickhaven was no one’s fool.
By the time he’d sucked in his belly and done his best to look ready for a fight, the riders were close enough for him to see properly. The men were hard. They were older, and had enough scars to indicate they were survivors. The Sa’ba Taalor was a terror to behold. His skin was dark gray, as if he’d smeared himself in the ashes from a campfire, only the color was smooth and even across his scarred flesh and Lenwig had no doubt it was skin, and not an attempt to appear more like one of the nearly mythical fighters.
The two men looked rather cocky. The Sa’ba Taalor did not. He was casual, yes, but his eyes moved over the entire area even as he spoke softly to Lenwig.
The man spoke with an odd echoing quality to his voice. “There is little to eat out here.” That was true enough, they were in the Wellish Steppes and a good day of hunting around the area was likely to yield little more than a half-starved rabbit. Very little lived in the area beyond stubborn scrub brush.
“Not a lot, true, but I have a bit we could share with strangers.”
Both of the men snorted. They were the sort that would raid a house and take what they wanted by way of food, property, and flesh without any hesitation. As they were outnumbered that option wasn’t overly likely for either of them. The man with them, the Sa’ba Taalor, he was a different story. A man who worships war gods was exactly the sort that might well kill them all just for sport.
The helmet over the man’s head was a cap surrounded by scales of metal. It ran down to his shoulders and would likely stop any blade that tried to take his head. The armor he wore was, as seemed to be the case with all of his people, forged specifically for him, and if the stories were true both his weapons and armor would have been forged by his hand.
The eyes of the Sa’ba Taalor should have been hidden away in shadow as a result of that helmet but Lenwig could see them clearly. They stood out, much like the eyes of a cat when the light is just so, and cast an unsettling gray glow.
The man dropped down from his horse with one smooth move and his body weight was enough to make the ground shake under Lenwig’s feet. He was a very large man. The leather and metal of his armor was scarred and well worn, but also well-tended. The leather oiled, the metal obviously repaired more than once. This was not a man playing at warrior. This was a warrior who had very likely spent fifteen or more years fighting with regularity.
“We would join you for a meal. I can pay.”
Lenwig nodded his head. “It’s beef stew. The beef was dried, but the mushrooms and onions are fresh enough.”
The Sa’ba Taalor pointed to the sword in his hand. It was held properly. Old, yes, but he’d had his time in the Fellein Army and he’d practiced regularly for years. “Are you planning to kill me?”
Lenwig shook his head. “Just making certain you’re not planning to kill me.”
The man smiled. His mouth moved the wrong way. Part of it curled up into a proper smile and part of it writhed and split open to reveal uneven teeth and gums that were completely independent of the first mouth. Lenwig had heard of the Great Scars but never seen one. A mouth separate from the main mouth, apparently there solely to let a Sa’ba Taalor’s god speak directly to recipients of the scars. There was supposed to be one Great Scar for each god that favored a Sa’ba Taalor. Some of them had two or three. A very few had more. This fellow had at least one. Most of his face was hidden by that helmet and Lenwig could not be certain if he had more than one of the disfigurements. In any event he found the notion terrifying.
“If I intend to kill you, I will let you know first.” From all he had heard, the Sa’ba Taalor were strong believers in honor. They didn’t lie. Of course he had no proof of that, having dealt with them as little as possible.
Lenwig nodded and put his sword away. He had no certainty that the man was telling the truth, but he decided to listen to him just the same. What choice did he have?
Thirty minutes later the entire group was eating their stew, except for Jarry, who upon his return was sent to clean up after the horses and guard the perimeter.
King Tuskandru
There were some people who still called the area Tyrne, though the once fabled Summer City had been destroyed almost five years earlier, at the beginning of the war. Where that massive city had once stood there was now a mountain of epic scale that dwarfed all of the surrounding landscape. Most of what people saw here was the mountain, and after that the trees, the low hills and, eventually, the sea.
Tuskandru did not care about Tyrne. He had been to the city and he had been the instrument of his God’s desires when Durhallem, The Wounder, demanded that the Fellein be taught a lesson.
He was faithful to his god. That was why he was the King in Obsidian, a title of great honor offered only to the person Durhallem chose to be his voice in the world. Currently, he was hunting, along with a dozen of his followers. Stastha was his second and she rode beside him, her spear held in one hand as her mount, Loarhun, grumbled amiably beneath her.
It was a good day for hunting. Brodem moved under him, the mount responding to the smallest touch of Tusk’s knees on the beast’s sides.
“Where are we going?” Stastha rode up next to him and called out loudly. She knew the answer, but she still loved to hear it from her king.
“We go to hunt and kill the Godless!” He smiled as he spoke and then charged forward, Brodem pouncing, scrabbling and slipping down the mountain’s steep angled surface in gigantic strides. Stastha followed, whooping with joy, the curved horns of her helmet hiding the lower half of her face from view. Somewhere behind him Kordha blew the horn he carried to let others know a hunt was on. There was little doubt a few more would join them. Most that did would be doing so symbolically. There weren’t enough of the prey for all of them to hunt, but they would have fun just the same.
