The Godlost Land (15 page)

Anger suddenly possessed Terellion. Anger and bitterness. Someone would have to pay for all the vile crimes that had been committed upon his person. And there was only one person close enough. Without a thought he turned to the big breasted woman he so wanted and couldn't have and whispered a single word to her.

“Old.”

Immediately the woman put her hands to her face, and stared at them with growing horror as she saw the thought he had given her.  And then she screamed in absolute terror. She had the natural fear of all the young of growing old. The only true fear anyone should know in his view. And then she ran from him, splashing the water of the bathing pool in all directions before she clambered out the far end and ran screaming down the hallways.

The sight made him happy. All that lovely flesh bouncing and jiggling as she ran. And the knowledge that he had absolute power over her was joy. He didn't even mind the sound of her screams. They were like cries of submission to him.

He might no longer have the flesh he needed to bed her properly, but still she was his. They all were. And no one else could have them.

Chapter Ten

Three weeks after he had freed the High Priestess, Harl took his usual trip into the town of Whitebrook to buy his provisions.

As always he was nervous as he walked down the road. The priests didn't usually bother him as he always came into town unarmed and dressed as a trapper – which was how he made his living after all – and he made sure to always grovel appropriately whenever one approached him. He hated doing it, but there was no other choice. He had to look like the other villagers. And if the soldiers accosted him as they sometimes did, he would have an offering of a few coins for the temple ready. That usually seemed to be enough to satisfy them. At no time did he give any hint that he had magic. That would have been a death sentence. To them he was just another frightened villager. Broken and cowed. Someone who would not give them any trouble. They never thought to check where he actually lived, simply accepting that he lived on the edges of the town where the other trappers did. That he had come from Meadton only a few leagues away because the trapping here was better.

For two years that uneasy lie had held. None of the townsfolk had given away the fact that he wasn't a local. But then half of them probably didn't know anyway. A lot of the people who had previously lived further away from the town had since made new homes for themselves on the outskirts of the Whitebrook when the Goddess had sent forth her beastly armies, and they weren't well known by the townsfolk either. It was simply a part of life since the temple had come to Whitebrook. Town after all was the safest place when the chimera roamed the wilds. The other half of the town didn't care that he was a stranger. And he guessed wouldn't tell the soldiers.  While they were in general good people, even the best could be susceptible to a bribe.  However there was no reward offered for betrayal. In fact the chances were that simply approaching one of the soldiers or the priests would earn them a beating. For the most part if the priests or the soldiers approached, people just bowed their heads a little lower, concentrated on their work, and hoped they'd leave soon.

There was also always the fear that someone betrayed would in turn betray those who had done him wrong. Harl didn't know who had spread that speculation. He suspected it was probably another outcast like him, living in hiding. But he knew that people believed it. He'd heard it whispered from time to time. Silence was the watchword.

So he thought he was safe.

Still, since the attack on the caravan he had to wonder if the soldiers might be more wary of people than before. Particularly of those they didn't see that often. It was possible that if they noticed him they might rough him up a little; ask him a few questions, instead of just waving him through and perhaps stealing any coin he had.

So he was understandably wary as he walked slowly up the street, looking for any sign of the soldiers. He didn't see them though. In fact the town looked surprisingly peaceful.

Whitebrook was a small town. Little more than a village in truth having only a few hundred people. Maybe five hundred. Once, five years before, it had been home to over a thousand. But that was before Artemis. When the Huntress had descended to the world and her beasts had poured forth from her Great Temple in Lion's Crest and scoured the land, everyone had either fled or died. Mostly the latter, as even those who fled he suspected were sooner or later taken down by the chimera.

Lion's Crest had only been the start. From it her armies had poured forth. Beasts and soldiers had streamed out across the five kingdoms, taking over town after town, burning down the temples and shrines, destroying the homes and lives of the magical, killing every soldier, priest or wizard they saw, hunting down any survivors and driving away all possible resistance.

And from what he had heard from other survivors, even before the temple had conquered the lands, their agents had been busy. Assassins had been everywhere, killing nobles and wizards, war masters and of course priests. Some had been human, Est's own corps of assassins according to the stories – though why they should work for the Goddess was beyond him – had been everywhere. Some had been chimera, and furies had been seen in the sky, hunting down those who escaped the others. But whatever they were, all had been effective. By the time Artemis' beast armies had arrived, the towns and cities had already been greatly weakened. They had fallen quickly.

Within a year the five kingdoms had been consumed, the cities falling quickly to the temple's overwhelming forces. And wherever they went they built more temples and sent more priests to dwell in them. The priests came with enough soldiers and beasts from the Great Temple to overcome any resistance, and soon they had erected a new temple in whatever town they had conquered. Meanwhile the cycle continued, and ever more chimera poured forth from the Great Temple in Lion's Crest, to take over the next town and the next. And so the invasion had continued.

Of course capturing the towns was only the start. Once they were done, once the priests were settled in with their armies, they had started demanding tribute. Tribute that he supposed went to paying for their mercenary armies. The invasion was a robbery in progress that paid for itself. And in that way the temples had spread through each of the five kingdoms and all of the towns. The people actually ended up paying to be ruled over by the parasites.

They had been brutal in their conquest, and though Whitebrook had been badly damaged, it had suffered no worse than many other towns. The old fort just outside the town had been overrun in a day – even if there had been soldiers stationed there, there was no way it could have withstood the attack. The town guards had been killed as had anyone who even looked like arguing with the invading army. Still, he figured maybe only a quarter of the townsfolk had been killed. Half of those who had vanished had fled south, choosing to make the long journey into unknown lands rather than face Artemis' forces. Or maybe he just hoped that was so.

Those who remained had bent their knee to the Goddess, even though they hated her. And they had done so simply because they couldn't flee. They were either too elderly, or they had children too young to travel any large distance. Some of them simply had nowhere else to go. Many, he suspected fitted into the last group. In the end the towns were their homes. The only ones they knew.

So they'd stayed. They'd bent their knees. They'd built the temple to Artemis the Huntress. And they'd offered their weekly tribute ever since. Tribute that no longer included the hearts of the beasts the proud hunters had slain, but more often was in gold and silver. In food for their armies. It was usually everything they had and more.  Sometimes he thought Artemis' temple was more about theft than faith.

Artemis' temple was the only one in the town. Five years before it hadn't been. It hadn't even been there. Whitebrook was simply too small to have temples. Before the Huntress had come to them, there had only been a shrine to her, as there were to a dozen or so other gods. Actually, maybe a few more. There might be only thirteen gods and goddesses that were officially recognised with temples and feast days, but there were dozens more that people prayed to. But when Artemis had descended the other shrines had all been destroyed, the feast days had been forgotten and her shrine too had been destroyed – something that surprised people. But in its place a temple had been built in the heart of the town. The message was clear. A shrine wasn't enough for her.

The new temple was of course the largest building in town. Artemis had demanded it. It was two stories tall and had a large spire on top of it which towered over everything else. It also had a large barracks attached to it for the two dozen or so soldiers who were stationed there, and most terrible of all, pens for the beasts. The priests kept some of them in town to help with the intimidation of the townsfolk – just in case they ever got the idea of not paying their tribute.

It had taken the people nearly a year to build the temple. It took time to quarry all that stone, carve the oak beams, saw the planks and hire all the artisans, masons and carpenters needed to build it. In the end Whitebrook was a farming town. They had plenty of farmers about. And if you needed one there was a seamstress, as well as a few shopkeepers, a blacksmith and plenty of people to brew the ales and meads the town was famed for. But there were no capable artisans and all the houses and shops in the town were small affairs of wood and brick. Huge oak beams, stone columns and spires were far beyond what they could do. So they'd had to bring the artisans in from other towns to build the temple.

Harl hated the temple. Not just for what it was but for what it represented. The heel of an oppressive goddess pressed firmly down on the throats of the people. And the building was the perfect example of that.

It was massive where everything else around it was small. It was built of materials that were expensive and which required skilled artisans, where every other building in town was built out of materials they could source locally, and which local tradesman could fashion. It was in perfect condition, washed and looked after, the gardens tended to, while all around the rest of the buildings were run down and slowly decaying. It even had good quality glass in its windows where those houses that did have glass instead of just shutters, had stuff that was of such poor quality it barely let any light in. The temple had been built from the blood, sweat and tears of the people. And i
t was exactly the same story as in a thousand other towns.

But this day as Harl walked in from the south side along the main track leading to town, he discovered that things had changed. And the changes began with the temple. The temple with the massive spire that no longer stood tall and proud at the heart of the town.

Someone had burnt it to the ground!

Harl stopped and stared when he saw that, wondering how it could possibly have happened? The fact that it had burnt he understood, it was in large part wood after all – certainly the barracks attached to the back of it was. But who would have allowed the temple to burn? And why were the people of the town wandering around with stupid smiles on their faces? He would have expected them to be miserable as the priests who called the temple home would be in a rage and demanding that it be rebuilt. He also would have expected the soldiers who carried out the priests' bidding to be beating the people as they hunted down anyone who might have had a hand in the temple's destruction. And the beasts should have been everywhere, terrifying them. After all, their pens had also been destroyed.

But none of that was happening. In fact the priests, their soldiers and the beasts were nowhere to be seen.

In time as Harl wandered further in to the town, he noticed other unaccountable changes. It began when he realised that people were carrying weapons. That wasn't allowed under Artemis' rule. No doubt the priests had been worried that they might one day use them on them. They knew they weren't liked after all. But now the men were carrying bows and axes openly. All of them. In fact the only one who wasn't armed was him. All he had on him were a couple of knives, both of which were carefully hidden. Whenever he wandered in to the town for supplies he always dressed as what he pretended to be. A poor trapper, down on his luck, wearing cheap furs and carrying skins to trade. The sort of person no one cared about. It was safer that way.

A hundred paces on he discovered the next wrongness. Yarl the blacksmith had new wares. Normally the blacksmith spent his days shoeing horses and sharpening farm implements. Now he had swords hanging from his walls instead of hoes and scythes. How could that be? Why had the priests not spoken to him? Or taken him out and had him executed? That was the usual penalty for making trouble of any sort.

But as if that wasn't enough, across the way in the alehouse he could see people drinking. Drinking ale in the middle of the morning instead of tending to their fields and their flocks! The priests would never allow that. Especially when some of the patrons were lying in the street, clearly having imbibed too much of Konig's heady brews. Some were snoring. Others were actually singing. Drunken tavern songs he didn't know the words to. But then clearly neither did they.

That was wrong in so many ways. Normally the people worked during the day and hid in their homes at night. In some respects that was no different to before the Goddess had descended. People had always worked hard and retired early. Especially in the towns and villages. However after the Goddess had descended what had been a usual thing had become law. No one wasted any time in frivolities. The inns and alehouses were mostly empty. Workers might come in for an ale during the midday meal, but they didn't return in the evening to drink until the moon was high. And they didn't
ever
get drunk. Not when the punishment would likely be death. And when they were in an alehouse, conversation was muted, words were whispered if they were shared at all, and everyone spent their time looking for the temple soldiers.