The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War) (20 page)

“What is this?” Corin asked. “Who are these others?”

“Refugees. I told you there were quite a few who wanted to leave a town Jessamine had visited twice.”

“These did not all come from that sleepy village.”

Jeff glanced his way, then nodded admiringly. “Perceptive. No. No, most of those moved to the ruins months ago. These are their distant friends or family or others who heard about a place of refuge and came looking.”

“There are rumors about this place?” Corin asked, horrified. “And you let them come?”

“
He
lets them come,” Jeff answered, and Corin understood with no more explanation. Auric wouldn’t turn away a refugee. Not for anything. And he had a way of winning arguments.

Corin sighed. “This will be trouble.”

“I’ve been saying that for weeks.”

“How many are there?”

“Hundreds,” Jeff said. “We’ve built a refuge in the Wildlands. Civilization has returned to Spinola.”

“Fortune favor,” Corin said; then his stomach rumbled again. “But breakfast first.”

C
orin spoke a word of caution to the druid as they descended on the camp. Then he dressed himself in the glamour of a young pirate he had met back in Rauchel. It was disguise enough to stop rumors among these refugees and to forestall Princess Sera’s wrath, for a while at least.

He found a hearty breakfast, with buttered rolls and roasted pheasant and sweet red beets. All he’d had since leaving Aerome had been one loaf of bread and four sad apples, so he went back for a second helping and a third, and the woman tending to the food seemed all too happy to comply.

As he was finishing his third plate, she came to settle down beside him, groaning in a friendly way as she rested her feet after the morning’s work. “Not too bad, huh?” she asked in Raentzian.

Corin knew enough of the language to carry on a conversation, if clumsily. Most pirates could do the same in any of the languages along the Medgerrad, but Raentzian and Ithalian were the most important.

This time Corin did his best and hoped the glamour would make up some of the difference. “Best food I’ve had in days. Seems like the only.”

She nodded, sympathetic, and though she didn’t mention it, she clearly noticed he was not a native speaker of her language. She ducked her head for a better look at his face. “You one of them Nimble Fingers?”

He started, but she laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Oh, no need to fret. My husband ran the tavern out of Loison. He was one of the first.”

Something in her tone—a blend of grief and sympathy and deep, abiding hatred—made it entirely clear what she meant.

“The justicar,” Corin whispered.

“Fires take her. Yes. You chose right in coming here. There is no shame in running from a foe you cannot conquer.”

Corin blinked. “Avery said that.”

“A husband talks,” she said in answer. “I know some of your principles. There’s more honor in them than some people think. Certainly more than this justicar has shown.”

Corin frowned, considering. He’d taken the druid at his word that these refugees were all the friends and family of people from Taurb, but it stood to reason that if word had gotten out, there would be others. And certainly the wife of a man caught up in Jessamine’s purge would have reason to want to flee.

But Corin couldn’t let the Nimble Fingers get caught up in this. They were already paying too high a price, and if he meant to use his position in the Wildlands as bait to lure Jessamine, then associating the Nimble Fingers with the refugees could prove disastrous for them.

“Please,” he said, worry gnawing at his spine, “don’t tell anyone there is a member of the organization among the refugees. Will you protect my secret?”

She laughed and patted his back warmly. “Oh, it’s no secret. You know how rumors spread among your brothers. Half the people in this camp are Nimble Fingers. I’m surprised that you don’t recognize them.” She nodded to herself in sudden understanding. “Oh. But you do come from a long way off.”

“Aye,” Corin said, falling back into his native Ithalian. And then he fall back onto the ground, staring up at the sky. “Fortune favor! What have I begun?”

Just as Jeff said, it took the refugees three days to reach the permanent camp, though Corin suspected he could have done it all in two, without the burden of such a large contingent. As it was, he felt the slow pace like a weight around his neck. He itched to spur his horse ahead, to leave them all behind and rush to his destination.

But that would not have served him at all. Even if he’d been able to pry useful directions from the druid, he didn’t dare charge the farmboy’s camp unexpected. If he came in disguise, they might well cut him down as a Godlander spy. And if he came in person, Sera might do far worse.

So he clung to his thin glamour and fought against his own impatience. He ate well for the first time since he’d left his cabin, and he found time for idle conversations. He sought out Jeff at every opportunity, if only for some company. Alas, the druid could not tell him much more than they’d already discussed. He had sent out requests for information on the missing dwarf, and he checked his tablet again every time Corin asked, but there was no news. Ben Strunk had disappeared.

Corin asked for details concerning Jessamine—some clue to her weakness that he might exploit—but the druids knew little more of justicars than did anyone else in Hurope. Their powers were mysterious—some strange convergence of Faerie and manling magics that only the druids and their gods could wholly understand.

That left them little to discuss, as all serious strategy would depend on Corin’s conversation with Auric. More than once he considered searching for some chance to draw the farmboy aside for a quiet conversation, but there were a thousand problems with that plan. The first that occurred to Corin was a sincere doubt that Auric could tell a straight-faced lie. The boy wore pure-hearted honesty like a second skin.

But a more practical concern overwhelmed even that one. Auric was never alone. He always had a swarm of refugees around him, asking for advice, offering assistance, or just listening to his conversations with the others. Corin joined in on that, and he was startled to discover how much organization was truly going on.

Jeff had told him there were hundreds of refugees, but Corin hadn’t really considered the full significance of that until now.
Hundreds
of civilians camping three days’ journey into Spinola’s lowlands? It was madness. Finding food and water for so many would be a challenge anywhere, but arranging shelter for them in such a hostile place as this? They could scarcely have found tents enough to house them, let alone the soldiers to protect them from raids by manticores or savages or both.

He grew more concerned about that with each passing day. How much would these refugees impede his plans? Jeff had said he’d wrestled with the same question, and Corin knew he’d run aground against the same difficulty too. Auric would not abandon them. He would not turn them away. He was a hero, not a statesman.

Corin heaved a weary sigh when he considered that. For all his generous heart, Auric lacked the ability to make the most difficult choices. No ship’s captain lasted long with that naïveté, but a farmboy could preserve it, and so could an adventurer. If anything could wreck this venture, it would be Auric’s tender heart.

More than once, Corin caught himself hoping for a manticore raid to resolve the problem. Then he remembered how many among the refugees were Nimble Fingers—how many of them were only here because of him—and the shame cut deep. Perhaps he needed more of Auric’s heart.

For three days he wrestled with these things, constantly anxious for and dreading their arrival at the permanent camp. He rode always near the front of the contingent, eyes straining for the stain of a hundred tents sprawled along the bank of some muddy stream. Then late in the afternoon on the third day, no more than an hour after they had stopped for lunch, Corin crested a wide, tall hill, and looked down into a sprawling valley.

A river half a mile wide meandered down below, and nestled in a gentle bend of that river stood the ruins of an ancient city. Smoke rose in lazy tendrils from a hundred points within those ruins—cookfires and forgefires alike, from the things Corin had overheard. But this was nothing like he had expected. Everyone had called this place “the camp.” Everyone had spoken of the hardships here. But there were soaring towers still intact. The ruins had a wall four paces high that ran unbroken around three sides, and a river deep enough to drown a horse protecting th
e fourth.

This was not a camp. This was a fortress.

“Gods’ blood,” Corin breathed, staring down at it.

Jeff was there beside him. Corin didn’t know when he’d arrived, but now the druid clapped him on the back. “I told you. We’ve brought civilization to the Wildlands.”

“It’s true,” Corin said, looking down into the future. “And next, we’ll bring a war.”

The first thing Corin did when he reached the city was find his lodgings. A friendly woman with tired eyes sent him to a vast, completely empty room within what might have been a cathedral to a pagan god. There was room to spare for anyone who wanted it, but almost nothing in the way of furnishings. She offered him a bedroll, a tin plate, and a battered pewter cup. Meals were available at the bells; and shares of beets and barley, at the storehouse.

He barely registered that information. As soon as she had finished talking, he bowed his head in thanks, then followed her directions to the room she’d promised. There he spread out his bedroll in the farthest corner and stretched out on his back, with the handle of a blade beneath each hand. The war would have to wait. He needed sleep.

He’d left his sickbed to ride day and night from Aerome to the Dividing Line, and he’d joined up with the refugees just at the start of a full day’s march. Since then he’d had two nights’ sleep, but they’d been nights beset with the anxiety of discovery and the constant nagging reminders that he was stretched up, unconscious, and exposed within the untamed wilderness of savage Spinola. And of course there’d been the rocks. He’d never found a comfortable position, no matter how he’d squirmed.

No, he’d found no rest beneath the stars. He’d been a city boy before he went to sea, and years of sleeping on a deck had done nothing to prepare him for a night stretched out on barren dirt.

He would have shuddered to think of it, but he never had the chance. No sooner had his head settled on the thin, hard pillow than his mind shut off. His breathing settled into a slow, steady pattern, and muscles he’d held tense for days gradually relaxed. Within half a heartbeat, he fell into the quiet, restful sleep of men long dead.

Somewhere deep within that darkness, his dreams found him. He was working in the little cabin’s kitchen with Aemilia, preparing a Sunday lunch for two. Then sometime later, he sat with her, discussing plans for thwarting Ephitel, trying to unravel the strange mysteries of Corin’s powers.

And then the setting changed. A forgefire heat seemed to hang in the air, and the taste of ash soured his tongue, but in the next room over, he could hear Aemilia quietly at work. She was a scribe in old Gesoelig, and a prestigious customer had come to request a small favor.

Ephitel. Corin groaned, deep within the dream, and now Corin and Aemilia stood side by side at Oberon’s throne. Outside, the city was burning. Innocent men and women died as Ephitel and his regiment marched upon the Oberon’s stronghold.

Within the bower, the ancient, tired king of this world slumped in his throne, strain creasing his forehead and knotting hard the muscles of his shoulders. His hands clenched into fist, and perspiration beaded on his face. Somewhere behind them, Jeff’s voice rose up in excitement. “It’s working! A moment more. Good lord, it’s working!”

The throne room rang out like a struck bell. The very world around them groaned, straining hard; and then, with a flash of light like a mighty thunderbolt, the world changed. A distant, impossible stone ceiling blotted out the sky, and the air around them echoed with the vastness of a stone cavern. Oberon’s city had found its tomb.

And on the throne, the great king slumped. That final act of mercy had cost him more than strength. He would never again leave his living throne. But for the moment, his people were safe. He drew a weak, rattling breath, and Corin squeezed Aemilia’s hand in his.

Then the king opened his bloodshot eyes and fixed them on Corin. Something like a smile tugged at his lips, showing teeth more fitting to a fox’s grin than to any man’s. “It is done,” he wheezed, “but who is left to face the traitor?”

Corin started forward, but Aemilia didn’t budge. He looked back at her, and she was beautiful, but the taste of ash still stained his tongue.
She looked beautiful upon her bier.
The thought rose up from somewhere else, some other awareness, and it awoke a flare of searing anger in his chest. He released his grip on her hand and turned away to throw himself before the king.

“I will face him!” he cried.

“It is no easy task. You will falter.”

“Perhaps, but I will not fall! I will not forget! I will not rest until he has paid!”