Even Gods Must Fall - Christian Warren Freed Page 0,41
riders to send word to each of the other columns. I can’t have two-thirds of my army marching blindly into a trap,” Aurec ordered.
Mahn nodded and rode on, leaving the king of Rogscroft and commander in chief of the combined army at yet another loss. The more he thought he was getting ahead, the more setbacks reared up to slap him back into place. Goblins already in Delranan. What have we gotten ourselves into?
ELEVEN
The Olagath Stone
The quest was uncharacteristically somber since Boen’s departure. While they might have chided the big Gaimosian for his singular mindset, he was the anchor that kept them moving. Bahr had grown increasingly silent as the days progressed. The loss of Maleela and his expected confrontation with his brother plagued him more than he was willing to admit. A man unused to answering for his deeds, the Sea Wolf harbored all of the hurt and pain since being arrested in Chadra and kept it for his own. Not even Anienam correctly guessed the reasoning. Quiet, Bahr drove them ever eastward, towards the ruins of Arlevon Gale.
Everywhere they went were scenes of violence. Burned homes. Slaughtered animal carcasses. The occasional body partially buried in the snow. Whatever games the rebellion and loyalist soldiers were playing seemed confined to the far western stretches of Delranan. They feared that Skaning and his cutthroat band of mercenaries had already gotten ahead and were terrorizing their way across the kingdom in efforts to prevent the quest from finding safe harbor.
Sitting atop the horse they’d acquired in exchange for their broken down wagon, Anienam made a show of yawning and accidentally reaching over and slapping Skuld on the shoulder. Blind, he grinned at still being able to outsmart the former street thief. Their relationship was rocky at best, though nowhere near as turbulent as his and Bahr’s. Anienam often found mixing with normal people mundane and difficult. He attributed that to growing up in the shadows of the last Mage. Magic was forbidden in many parts of the world and frowned upon in the rest. Only the Elves continued their practice in the arcane arts, though what really happened in their hidden forest cities remained the subject of much speculation.
“I swear you’re not as blind as you claim,” Skuld chided. His tone was playful.
Anienam laughed, a tormented cackling sound. “You doubt the handicapped? Not very polite of you, young one. Why, in my day I was taught to respect my elders. My father would turn in his grave if he heard you just now!”
“What happened to your father, Anienam?” Skuld asked. “We all know he was the last of the Mages but you never said what happened.”
The wizard fell uncharacteristically silent. He’d never spoken about Dakeb, his father, to anyone before. Doing so was always so complicated in his mind. He seldom viewed the past with fondness. There was too much pain in Dakeb’s life for Anienam to enjoy the memory of what his father had been. Who he was, however, was an entirely different matter. Anienam decided that he didn’t need to shoulder the burden on his own any longer, not if he expected Skuld to step into his shoes when the time was right.
“Dakeb was…a different sort of man. He was the last of the old breed. A guardian of the collective hopes and dreams of the entire world. Not any easy task for anyone to take on, young Skuld. Malweir knew him as a true Mage, but he was so much more. Did you know he was the one responsible for taking the four shards of the crystal of Tol Shere and hiding them once the war ended? Few did. Of course Sidian eventually discovered them and attempted to release the dark gods from their prison years later. The Silver Mage failed and the crystal was ultimately lost to the other dimension.”
Eyebrows scrunched together as Skuld tried to piece important, or what he thought were important, elements of the grand tale together, and the young thief shook his head. “I don’t understand it.”
“Understand what?”
“The need for crystals and stones. You said something about an Olagath Stone to Bahr earlier. Now this talk of a crystal. Why would beings as powerful as gods fear something so simple as a stone?”
Anienam’s sense of pride increased as Skuld tried to flesh out the center of the entire tale. “Gods aren’t as powerful as you might assume. What is the quickest way to kill a god?”