The Godless, page 26
“Majesty, might I suggest we take this discussion elsewhere?”
Swech answered. “What is there to discuss?”
“What to do with you, for one thing.”
“I am here at the request of the Empress. I am hers to do with as she will.”
Nachia said, “I could kill her if that would be to your liking, Desh.”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “I think we can do without the scandal, currently.”
“What scandal? She’s mine to do with as I please.”
“Might I suggest something less permanent? Perhaps finding her a room to call her own while she’s here?”
“If that’s your preference.”
Ahdra wandered slowly away, once again chatting with several dignitaries. Prince Hammond watched the conversation as if he were watching a gathering of ruffians preparing for a knife fight. That made him slightly more observant than Desh had actually expected of the man. So far, he seemed the most likely to keep Nachia’s attention for more than five minutes.
That was important. She needed to find a proper husband, and she needed to produce an heir. There was more at stake than she realized and he knew all too well that she would never take his word for that. As was often the case she seemed to take things too lightly, as if both she and he were indestructible and would be around forever.
He knew better. The Sooth had warned him.
He looked toward the Empress and found her once again in discussion with Swech. The Sisters surrounded the two women, worked as buffers against the other people in their vicinity.
That was good. Nachia needed as much protection as she could get, and not just from the Sa’ba Taalor.
The gray skins were also working as buffers, their bodies strategically placed around their king, though they hardly seemed aware of how they had positioned themselves. Like as not it was automatic with them. They were in a foreign land, and not that long ago their people had been at war with literally everyone around them. Small wonder they moved to protect their ruler.
Desh considered the latest changes and knew that before the night was done, he’d be consulting the Sooth again. Oh, to be free of the possibilities. But that would not happen. There were no guarantees of what the future held, it was true, but glimpses and promises of what might be were better than facing the unknown without any preparation at all.
“Are you listening to me?” Nachia’s voice cut through his musings.
“No, Majesty. I fear my attention drifted. Apologies.”
“I said I’ve spent enough time here. I need to leave. I have things to consider.”
He wanted to disagree. She had a social game to play, a need to be here, where people could see her and be reassured, where she could be courted and adored by the very people he’d carefully selected to be around her at this time.
“Of course, Majesty.” He bowed formally. “Shall I entertain your guests for now?”
Nachia offered a very small smile and nodded imperceptibly. “If you could make apologies for me, Desh. Swech and I have a few issues to discuss.”
Goriah asked a question with her eyes and Desh nodded as imperceptibly as Nachia had. A moment later the Sister was gone as if she had never been there, and he felt better knowing that she would be following Empress and King alike.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Andover Lashk
The blade cut across his midriff and Andover hissed, retreating.
The deck swayed beneath him and the winds roared, even as waves tried to wash his feet out from under him. Donaie Swarl stepped in closer and pushed her advantage. Andover’s left hand blocked her blade and he felt metal scrape across his palm and fingers, and was grateful for the nearly indestructible gift he had been given of iron hands.
Donaie Swarl, not to be deterred, dropped low and swept his legs. He almost managed to save himself but the ship tilted beneath him and he crashed to the deck again.
“Better! Get up!” She called the words and stepped back, giving him a chance to regain his feet. In a true combat situation, he’d likely have been dead a second after he fell. The King in Lead was dangerous, and struck as fast as a venomous snake. She kindly did not kill him.
Andover groaned inside but remained calm and quiet as he rolled his body and climbed to his feet. As soon as he was standing, she came forward again, feigning with her sword and dagger alike. He moved, not certain how she would attack, only that she would, indeed, be willing to kill him when she did.
It was a brutal fight, to be sure, but he had been trained to deal with nothing less.
The weather was nightmarish, and the great black ship under them rocked with each wave that crashed along the hull. Donaie had sought the storm in an effort to teach him what it meant to fight on the deck in a turbulent sea, and she had done very well at finding what she searched for. He had a deep desire to vomit, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was staying alive when a madwoman was trying to kill him.
She offered no quarter. None was expected.
The blade that hit his arm turned just enough to avoid cutting muscles and sinew. The flat of the blade slapped hard and the edge sliced through his skin easily. He stepped in closer and drove his elbow into her ribs with enough force to stagger the king, and all around them sailors cheered and jeered as they watched the combat.
Donaie Swarl fell back as he pushed into her, and her knee tried to crush his privates. He managed to block the blow, but barely, and in the process she struck with her dagger, shaving skin from his ear.
He grunted and then tossed his sword at her face. While she was knocking the weapon aside he struck a hard blow to her sternum, pulling back from what would have been a killing strike at the last possible second. The impact was enough to send her staggering backward and he moved in closer, striking again before she could recover herself.
He’d have celebrated the blow if he could have, but somehow, he found himself on his back, on the wet deck of the ship, just as a wave washed over and smashed into him hard enough to roll his entire body sideways.
Donaie held up her hands. “Enough.”
Andover coughed half a wave of ocean water from his mouths and shook his head. He was winded, sore, wounded and exhausted and he loved every second of it. The Sa’ba Taalor around them sounded their approval, and as Andover rose again, Donaie Swarl came closer and thumped him on his chest with one callused fist.
“That was invigorating!” She smiled, and he smiled back. Had he fought that hard in Fellein, they’d have called him a monster. Here, among the People of The Forges, it was just another practice session.
Another wave rolled over the side of the ship and slopped across the deck, washing detritus away and staggering Andover. No one else seemed the least affected by the water. They were used to the worst the seas had to offer. Andover was still a novice. There were children on the ship who did a better job of standing against the waves.
Donaie put a companionable arm on his shoulder and slowly slid it down towards his elbow, her fingers trailing over his bicep. Andover sighed, and stood carefully as the ship swayed under him. He feared he would never get used to the motion. Still, he would do his best to adapt.
“Where are we going, Donaie?”
“Where the seas take us. Where Wheklam commands. We gather the fleet to the east, on the far side of the land. Near Elda.”
Andover nodded. He had been to the mountain before, but not since it had relocated to Fellein. It would be a long trip, as he understood it, though he had never been that far from his place of birth.
The vast black ship rolled with another massive wave and then abruptly settled. The change was so strong that everyone on the ship was thrown off balance by the sudden transition from rocking back and forth to motionless. The waves that had been throwing the ship so easily were gone as if they had never existed.
Andover looked to the seas and found the waters nearly as smooth as a still pond. He frowned at the concept. Though he had never been much of one for traveling to the ocean, he had seen rivers, lakes and the vast waters, and never truly seen them calm.
“What is this?”
Donaie Swarl, who had lived at least as much of her life on the waters as she had on the land, shook her head. “I would call it impossible if I were not experiencing it.” She stared at the waters and moved to the edge of the ship, looking down at the calm sea. “Wheklam did not cause this.”
“There are other gods.”
She nodded. “Yes, there are.” She agreed, but he suspected she did so only because she felt obligated. The Sa’ba Taalor seldom acknowledged the other gods of the world; or if they did, it was grudgingly.
A dozen commands came from the King in Lead and the crew of her ship began hoisting sails and preparing. The waves were unsettlingly calm, but the winds had not faded away. In short order the ship was sailing into a heavy fog, pushed along by a favorable breeze.
Andover was capable of following the orders given and did his part, though he had never truly been trained on a ship. When they were under way he started below decks. It was not long before Donaie found him and ushered him into her cabin. He was inexperienced in many things, it was true, but he was not a fool.
While Andover and Donaie were otherwise occupied, the source of the sudden calm on the seas slipped past the great black ship, lost in the heavy fog.
Jeron
He held the short staff in his hands and contemplated it. The wood was dark. The details on the serpents carved into the walking stick varied from shape to shape, but in all cases were superior craftsmanship. The oil from countless hours of handling had worked its way into the wood over time, and even without benefit of a sanding and oiling session, the wood was smooth and polished.
It was almost enough to make Jeron regret killing the Inquisitor when he was caught out on the streets of Goltha.
There were many rumors about the Inquisitors that he found interesting, but one of the greatest was that the seat of their power came in the form of their walking sticks. Not quite true, of course, but there was an element of truth in the words.
He was a necromancer, he could feel the power in the stick, could feel the portions of souls used as the source of that power. Desh Krohan had long since showed him how to take his own power and store a fraction of it at a time in carved stones. He expected what the Inquisitors did was similar. A little portion of the energies available, locked away for later use.
The difference was simply that this was like benevolent necromancy. Not a single life force stolen, but tiny fragments of a hundred or more lives, caught in wood and held until needed.
Sorcerers used stone because it could hold the power. The Inquisitors used wood, which he’d have thought would be ruined by the power. How strange that they had managed what the wizards could not.
Jeron’s hands moved over the wood, seeking to understand what made the staff a useful tool for the Inquisitors and not the sorcerers. He had only minimal success, and that bothered him.
Roledru watched him skeptically, but was wise enough not to comment. The man’s discretion was admirable.
They were currently sitting in Jeron’s tent, which was off limits to everyone else. Well over a thousand mercenaries were with them now, and more trickling in every day. It was inevitable that at some time in the near future, Desh Krohan and his fellow sorcerers would learn Jeron was alive. When that happened, his descent into necromancy and his connection with the Overlords would become common knowledge.
He was not pleased by the notion. He’d rather enjoyed being believed dead. It made his experiments into the forbidden sorcery much easier. There was little he feared in the world; Desh Krohan was one of the exceptions, and if he were being truthful, there were a few other sorcerers he had concerns about, like the Sisters and Corin.
He had one advantage. He had the Overlords, and if he could work out the secrets of the damned stick in his hands, he’d have a second advantage, power to charge his abilities. Magic always came with a price, and if he could find a different method of paying that price, he would indeed be a source to contend with.
“You have that look on your face. You are considering the wizards.”’ Roledru was sharpening his long knife.
“Yes, of course I am. They’ll soon be considering me.”
“Can you not continue to hide from them?”
“There is already a strong chance that they will not recognize me, Roledru. I have changed a great deal.”
“This is true.” The man nodded and pulled his hair back, tying it in place with a strip of leather. “You do not look at all the same.”
“I do not look human.” He marveled at that. His body had changed so very much, become something he had never expected. When he was away from his tent, the robes covered him completely. There was no way he could allow himself to be seen without them and not expect a reaction from the very people he paid to follow him. His form had never been seen before, or if it had, not in a very long time.
Roledru did not seem bothered, but he was the exception. He had watched the changes taking place.
“You have not looked human for some time, Jeron.”
“Yes, but I am less human now, I think.”
Roledru looked at him critically, and then nodded. Then he went back to sharpening his knives.
Jeron contemplated the staff again and moved his thumbs over the wood.
Roledru grinned ruefully and shook his head. “It’s wood. Not a mystery for the ages.”
“How would you know what I’m considering?”
“Because you mumble when you think, and I am fluent in mumbling.”
“I mumble, do I? What was I mumbling about?”
“The difference between a sorcerer and an Inquisitor. The difference between stone and wood.”
“I shall have to be more careful what I say in the future.”
“As you will, I suppose. But it’s still just wood.”
“Wood is not supposed to hold sorcery.”
“It doesn’t hold sorcery, Jeron. It holds life. Wood holds life when it grows from the ground, yes? Why should it be different now?”
“You are remarkably observant, Roledru.”
“No. I am simply not as foolish as you think I am.”
Jeron laughed and moved his head in something between a shake and a nod.
“Why are you so worried about the wood?”
“Because it holds something I want.”
“You want the life force held within it.”
“Yes, of course.”
“So just take it, like you did from the people.”
“That might destroy the staff.”
Roledru nodded. “And did you want to save it for later? Use it if you grow feeble and need a staff?”
“Well, no.”
“You killed every person you took life from, Jeron. Why are you worried about a stick?”
“And that’s precisely why I keep you around, Roledru. You always get to the heart of the matter.” It only took a few words to pull the life from the staff, the same incantation used to open a passage from the body to the spirit. The same markings in the wood worked as surely as they did on flesh, and soon the collected power within the walking stick was entering Jeron’s body, pouring into him as easily as wine pours into a goblet.
So much power! Jeron shivered as the energies flowed from the walking stick, as the wood grew pale, decayed and destroyed by the power that was drawn from it. He knew from experience that the exact same power ripped from a person left that person screaming, whether they were dead or alive.
Was there a way to measure the power? He was not certain, but he suspected it was no less than the life force of a dozen men he drew into himself. It was more than one human form could hold, but not more than his new shape could contain. Not more than one of the Overlords could capture within themselves.
Roledru studied him as the power flowed into his body, filling him, satisfying him in ways he didn’t know could happen.
The man did not speak, he merely watched.
When Jeron was done draining the walking stick, the wood he had so admired was ruined. What had been a thing of beauty was no more. Instead, he held little more than flinders, which he let fall from his fingers and collapse on the ground.
“You see?” Roledru shrugged. “Just wood.”
Jeron nodded. “You were right, my friend.”
Roledru nodded and resheathed his knife after wiping the blade clean. “You keep all of this for yourself? Or do you share with the ones below?”
It was a powerful temptation.
Still, “I suppose a wise man would share it.”
“If one is to have gods, one must make sacrifices, yes?”
Jeron sighed and rose from his seat. “Indeed, and these days I have gods.”
Roledru said nothing, but he nodded his head and watched as Jeron moved from the tent, pausing long enough to grab his robes and drape them over his shoulders and head.
The trek down the long, curving slope that led to the Overlords was uneventful, save for the thoughts that filled his head. Calculations and considerations took most of his time, and thoughts of what came next took the rest. There were situations to consider. The army he’d amassed was of fair size, but hardly more than a defensive force if he were to be honest. The biggest advantage he had for now was anonymity, and by all of his calculations, that would be gone soon. Merros Dulver and a force of a hundred of his best were on their way, and they’d soon see that an army was amassing.
An army. He laughed at the notion. The Overlords were powerful, he knew that, but his army was small, far smaller than he wanted to think about. Less than two thousand soldiers, all told, and most were mercenaries of dubious skill.
Something had to be done. A change had to be made, or surely the Overlords and their servants would be finished in short order.
What he needed was more than he had, and likely more than he could accomplish on his own. There was simply no denying that any longer. To be sure, his soldiers could take on General Dulver and his lot, could handle them easily enough. There were well over ten to one odds in his favor, but even if he killed every last one of them, there would be tens of thousands more waiting to be called forward. If nothing else, the war with the Sa’ba Taalor had increased the size of Fellein’s Imperial Army.
