The Godlost Land (46 page)

And she felt so good against him! Warm and soft even through her wardwood armour. She fitted well in his arms, just as a woman should. And she smelled good too. Of wild flowers and forests.

“We still need to speak of your protection.”

Nyma tried to return to the topic at hand. But her arms gave the lie to her words as she wrapped them around his shoulders. She didn't want to talk.

“Or not.” He kissed her some more. “We could just celebrate the fact that you're alive.”

“Celebrate? What exactly do you mean celebrate?” But she knew what he meant and he gathered she wasn't completely opposed to the idea even if she was trying to sound as though she was. Not when she was letting his hands wander all over her body without complaint. Not when she was doing the same with hers.

“You know I would very much like to see if these markings and ripples in your skin cover all of you.”

Was that indecent? Probably. But Nyma didn't seem to mind and he was actually curious. Close up and under his fingers he realised that they weren't like the cracks in tree bark. They were merely an illusion of it. Slight indentations that looked as though they were deeper thanks to a little pigment. Sort of like the stripes on a tiger he supposed.

“I'm supposed to be protecting you.”

But even as she said it he undid the straps to her banded armour and she let it fall off her. Which left her wearing only her wardwood armour, and that was both tight fitting and strangely pliable under his fingers. Her people might claim it had some protective value, and maybe it did against a sword. But not against his hands.

“We can talk about that after.”

“After?” She did her best to sound shocked, but it was hard to be convincing when her hands were already inside his robe, pushing it off his shoulders, undressing him.

“After!” Harl's hands finally found the clasps to her armour and started undoing them, and soon he could feel the softness of her skin under his fingers. A lot of skin as he started peeling her out of the wardwood and kissing everything that was exposed. There was a lot to kiss.

“You promise?”

“I do.”

“That seems fair then.”

◄►

Afterwards as they lay in one another's arms Harl felt amazingly happy.

It had been a long time for him. Five years in fact. There had been a time before the false temple had come when he had been a popular man with the women folk. He had been a wizard after all. A man with his own business. A man with prospects. Many had sought him out. Not just unmarried women but their mothers as well seeking good marriages for their daughters. And maybe he had taken advantage of that – a little. But if he had been punished for that the punishment had been far too great for the crime. Because ever since then he had been a man on the run. Fugitives hiding out in the wilds did not have a lot of chances to meet women. And maybe that was justice of a kind for his insincere heart. But the rest? So many losses – his and everyone else's? That was too much for a minor failing.

“Are you all right?” He asked when he saw that Nyma had opened her eyes again. For some reason she'd almost fallen asleep after they'd finished, closing her eyes and making strange, soft noises that he couldn't understand as she curled into him. He didn't know quite what that was, but he was sure it was a good thing. She seemed happy. Still, he wanted to be sure.

“I'm well.” She smiled at him and then kissed him on the nose. “Very well.”

“Good.” He wasn't completely surprised by that. Maybe a little surprised that his pillow was covered in leaves and twigs though. He really had thought they were a part of her hair. But apparently they were just woven in for effect. Her hair was strange. Thick and thin in places, knotted as well, but it wasn't made of tree branches.

“So is this going to happen every time you don't want to talk about something?”

Nyma murmured the question, leaving him wondering if she was asking if he had simply been trying to distract her, or if she was asking if he was planning on doing this again.

“We'll see. If Eros grants me any blessings at all we'll see.” Her only answer was a mumbled groan, and it made him laugh. Already she seemed to be accepting the possibility that this would happen again. He could be happy with that.

The cat annoyed them about then as he started mewling from the other side of the room.

“I thought the cat was outside.” Nyma propped herself up on one elbow to stare at the orange mound of winging fur. And as she did so her breast fell free of the covers. It was a nice breast he thought, round and firm and most importantly right in front of him, so he kissed it. And he didn't want to talk about the cat. It had just shown up the previous day, made itself at home and then demanded food. He wasn't happy about it. But something in the way it had cried piteously had overcome his common sense.

“He was. But he seems to have found a way to get in even when the door is closed. There must be a gap in the walls or the floor somewhere. I've been trying to find it.” And he did. Mostly because it was annoying to be woken up by the cat when he was asleep, simply because the fur ball was hungry. The damned cat was always hungry. Even after a day he knew that. And strangely the miserable orange ball of fluff didn't seem to want to eat any of the mice he caught. He wanted to eat whatever Harl was eating.

“Why is he on the table?”

“Because he thinks it's lunch time of course.”

“The cat eats at the table?” She sounded horrified by the thought, and perhaps it wasn't the sort of thing that should happen in a respectable dryad household. But this wasn't a respectable home at all.

“Actually he'll eat off my plate if I'm not fast enough. He is annoyingly quick.”

“You can't have that!” Suddenly she was on top of him, pushing him back into the bed, looking down at him as though she was completely appalled by the thought. Did she have a problem with cats? But he was less interested in that than he was in the fact that she was on top of him. And that his strength seemed to have returned.

“I'll talk to him about it. After.”

“After?” She stared at him in surprise. “Again? Already? Are you part satyr?”

But if she was upset Harl wondered, why did she suddenly loop her legs around his so eagerly? Still, he supposed there was going to be a lot of talking –
after
.

Chapter Thirty Six

Terellion was in his dungeon when he finally heard from White Tail. He was studying his specimens and desperately looking for any sign that they were with child. He checked them every day. He had done so ever since he had had them bred. But thus far there had been no sign. It was disappointing. Still, there were more men available. Prisoners who had been captured. Soldiers who had failed their commanders. Civilians who had annoyed him. There were always more men. And if they failed he could always find others to continue the experiment. Even if it hadn't failed and they were with child it couldn't hurt to breed them again, just to make sure. He'd enjoyed the spectacle. In fact it had been one of the most enjoyable moments of his rule. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.

Of course the furies hated it. They hated the men and they had killed them all. That had always been his intention. He had never intended for any of them to survive. Because as well as being an experiment it also served as a lesson to his soldiers as to what would happen if they failed him. They had to know that nothing the enemy could ever do to them would be as bad as what he would do to them if they ran. He required absolute obedience, and if coin wouldn't buy it for him then fear would. Actually, he preferred it if they were frightened of him.

For a while though he had worried that one of the twelve men would survive the punishment, and the thought had not sat well with him. It had been the last man of course. He had made it through all three furies without having had his neck opened up. It wasn't that the furies were accepting the advances. It was that they were becoming exhausted by then. Even a fury could only struggle against chains and being bred for so long.

But even though the trio hadn't sunk their huge fangs into him, the smaller fangs of the viper hair had struck him again and again, and eventually it had been enough to kill him.

The last man had crawled off the final fury, and celebrated, a little. Some of the soldiers had cheered with him, albeit very quietly. Because even though he was covered from head to waist in the creature's venomous love bites, they'd thought he was going to survive. They'd imagined his survival would be some sort of slap in the face for Terellion. A victory of sorts for them.

But he hadn't.

The man had got off the last fury, raised his hands above his head in some sort of victory dance, and cried his relief to the ceilings. But even as he'd celebrated, the soldier had started to falter. One moment he'd been alive and standing tall; a large naked man with scores of swollen blisters covering him from his waist up. Then he'd stood not quite so tall. And little by little over the next five minutes he'd gone from that to lying on the floor gasping for breath. It seemed that too many of the smaller bites could kill in much the same way as the big fangs could.

Terellion was pleased about that. He liked that the trio even bound and supposedly under the control of their masters had killed all the men. He liked that those watching had witnessed their deaths. He liked everything about the execution – except that he had no offspring yet. That was frustrating.

But it was nowhere near as frustrating as what White Tail was telling him.

“The priestess bitch has a bow?” Terellion raised his voice as he spoke to the faun, and the guards looked his way. But they knew better than to annoy him when he was visiting his pets. And it wasn't as if he was talking to them, even if there was no one else in the pen. Still, he knew gossip would follow. Most still didn't know he was wizard of the mind. They didn't know he could speak with those he had bound to him across the leagues. Sooner or later he suspected he would have a similar reputation to Maynard the Mad. A man who spoke to himself. Another reason he wanted them to be scared of him. If they couldn't respect him because he was truly their superior, then they could respect him out of fear.

“From the Huntress herself so they claim. Brought to her by a pack of griffins from the heavens, and blessed with divine magic so powerful that it can destroy mountains. She killed Tyriole, Immelda and Harriss with it and the weapon was so powerful it brought down the mountains on the rest of the army. They're singing the songs of it in hundreds of alehouses and inns, and word of it is bringing soldiers flocking to her cause.”

“They're saying that she doesn't just walk with Artemis, but that Artemis walks with her.”

Terellion cringed a little when he heard the faun say that, and he wanted to snap back at White Tail. But it wouldn't have helped. Because there were two problems he now faced. The first was that the High Priestess was drawing followers, and would continue to draw more. There was nothing he could do to stop that for the moment. But still there was time. He could go to Xin and get more chimera – he hoped. Though thus far Varrious had kept telling him that the demon king wanted nothing to do with him for a while. Aggravating little worm!

The second problem was far worse. If White Tail was right then it seemed that the Goddess might actually be helping her servant. And if that was true they would be in terrible trouble. He had not expected the Goddess to get involved. Gods normally didn't concern themselves in the affairs of mortals. Not even those of their followers.

Worse, he knew White Tail could be right. If there was one goddess who was angry with him it was the Huntress. What she could do he didn't know. The gods seldom acted directly in the world themselves, choosing instead to act through their followers and priests. He had counted on that when he had created his plan. And now Artemis had few followers or priests left in the five kingdoms – thanks to him.

Nor could she avail herself of the power of the greater gods, Zeus and Nemesis. They would only act under certain conditions, and he had made very certain that those conditions were not met.

In essence Zeus was the father of the Gods. He would act if any of the others were threatened in any way. Not that that was truly possible. And Nemesis was the agent of divine retribution. He would act if crimes were committed against any of the gods. However no crimes had been committed against them. They had all been committed against
the followers
of the gods.

So any followers of Artemis along with her priests had been killed and her temples had been destroyed, just as had been done to the others. That might anger her but it was not a crime against the Huntress. There had been no sacrilege. Her name might have been blackened but her words and what she stood for had never been changed. In fact he had seen to it that every wizard masquerading as a priest knew the rituals and the stories perfectly and could recite them word for word. Xin had done the same for his thralls.

Really, he thought, the Goddess could be angry. But in truth she had no reason to be. Her words were still being spoken, as was her name. Then again, she was a woman – even if she was a goddess – so reason wasn't in her path.

But a bow that could destroy mountains? He'd never heard of such a weapon. Not even the God of War had one. And yet a miserable little huntress had one? That was unfair! It was more than unfair, it was wrong! And yet the only thing that truly mattered was how he could defend himself against such a weapon? And the truth was that he didn't know if he could. If entire armies were being destroyed by it, what hope did he have?

For a while he'd been grateful when White Tail had told him he finally knew how his army had been defeated. Until then he'd assumed that they'd been destroyed in fair combat after being weakened by the loss of their leaders. That the High Priestess had had more soldiers than he'd guessed. That had been a worry, but not a reason for alarm. He could fight armies. He could destroy them. It was simply a matter of having more soldiers and better strategy. But this? A weapon of the gods?

“And the other matter?”  Terellion asked, immediately thinking of the barbarian who had killed Alenda and endangered him. A creature that needed to die.

Terellion needed to distract himself, and the barbarian was a good distraction. White Tail had been given the task of trying to support the other three wizards at Midland Heights with his contingent of harpies. They had been the key to destroying Midland Heights years before, and they should have been again. But the faun had also been sent to the Rainbow Mountains to hunt down Alenda's killer with one of the demon king's thralls and a fury. After the defeat of his armies Terellion had had him continue with that mission. It seemed a small thing after everything else that had happened, but still he could not get that barbarian's face out of his thoughts. The face of the wild man with the sword. And it would be nice to be able to at least kill one enemy. Especially now when his armies were retreating from Inel Ison and Pariton.

That was the price of defeat. Having lost so many chimera in two short battles for one accursed city he needed to be able to consolidate his remaining forces before the High Priestess came for him. In a matter of mere weeks his campaign of conquest had become the defence of his four remaining kingdoms. And until Xin would finally come through with more beasts it was a price he would have to keep paying.

“I'm on my way to Whitebrook now and I will find this man and kill him. And a few others as well. If nothing else there's supposed to be an arcane smith out there who's supplying the High Priestess' army with quality weapons. And the fury looks hungry.”

“Good.”

Terellion wasn't worried by White Tail being out alone in what had now become an enemy land. The faun might not be as powerful as him, but still with his magic he was more than capable of looking after himself against a bunch of peasants and partisan rebels. And the thrall travelling with him was dressed in peasant attire while the fury could fly. They should attract no attention they couldn't deal with. He was more worried about the rest of the Circle wizards, scattered as they were. Because all of them were in cities that sooner or later the High Priestess would be coming for. At some point he knew he would have to bring them back to Lion's Crest, because the one thing he couldn't afford was any more deaths. Not when each one might in turn kill him. He'd rather lose the other four kingdoms than any more of the Circle.

“Go.”

Terellion dismissed White Tail, as always a little surprised that he could. In theory as a wizard of the mind he should have been one of the hardest to control. But in practice he had been one of the easiest. Terellion had simply taken him and then reshaped him into his own image. The faun no longer had any curiosity about many things. In fact he was almost completely unquestioning. It never occurred to him to ask why they were doing what they were doing. It never occurred to him to wonder why a supposed summoner like Terellion could speak to him across the leagues. He was loyal without even wondering why. If only everyone was so easy to control!

It was time to go Terellion decided. His pets were still showing no signs no matter how closely he inspected them, and he had business to attend to. But as he walked to the door of the dungeon and the stairs leading up to the rest of the castle, he couldn't help but notice that the two guards were staring carefully into the distance – making sure not to look at him. And he knew why. He didn't have to read their minds to know.

They'd heard him talking and seen no one around and so assumed he was either talking to a beast or to himself. They thought he was losing his mind. And for some reason that annoyed him. A lot. And ever since the deaths of three of his Circle he'd been in a bad mood. So he walked up to them and spoke to both at once.

“Your comrade here is sleeping with your woman. I'd suggest killing him before he kills you.”

He didn't have to say anything more than that. He didn't even have to look behind him to know what was happening as the two soldiers stared at one another and gripped their weapons tightly. Before he'd made even half a dozen steps along the corridor beyond them he heard the first angry yells and the clash of metal on metal. It made him smile.

It was a small magic, nothing worthy of a wizard like him. But they had had the gall to doubt him. And in time they would have gossiped. This was much better.

Besides, he decided as he carried on and more soldiers came running past him to stop the two soldiers from killing each other, maybe he had his next two volunteers for the breeding program? After all, attacking your fellow soldiers was a form of treason, wasn't it? And the furies were looking so lonely in their cages.