The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) (70 page)

It was still terribly, terribly risky, but she had no better ideas. Staying here would be meaningless. She had to get away from the witch’s domain, from his troops, from all this madness.

Sheldon pulled the last strap on his bag. “Done, Mom, before you.”

“I’m glad,” she said absent-mindedly. She was wondering whether to take her herbs. Would she need them ever again in her life? Maybe. Just a few.

Soon, they were fully packed. The boy went around and loaded the mules. She paid the little cabin one last glance. Nothing of value was there, nothing that meant anything to
her, that would make her hesitate or stay. As an afterthought, she tossed a blanket over the prone figure on the floor and stuffed his white clothes under the mattress. Maybe she should torch the place? No. Best if it all remained intact. The soldiers would never dare enter and interfere with their master. That would give her a lot of time to get far away from Marlheim.

From the corner of her eye, she saw she had left
The Book of Lost Words
on the table, near the poisoned pie.

That vile thing. She should burn it. Or just leave it behind. But then, someone might find it and take it and read it. And what then?

She grabbed the book and exited the cabin.

CHAPTER 50

T
ime to kill more people. Again
, Ewan thought.

He shifted his weight, and winced slightly at the pain in his injured leg. Nothing else hurt, just the parts of his sorry existence damaged by the blood pellets. He couldn’t feel the winter’s grip, the kiss of the wind, or smell the urine and poor cooking and the metallic stench of fresh blood. The world evaded him by a hairbreadth, except for the pain in his body. It was slowly receding, like any old wound, but when you didn’t feel anything else, the agony was monumental.

Worse, he had to summon the courage to do it all over again.

He would level the bloodstaff at Calemore’s troops and rain death into their ranks. The witch would respond with his own attack, and Jarman and Lucas would try to shield him. They might distract the enemy with their own blasts of magic. Sooner or later, Ewan knew his luck would run out, and one of the pellets would kill him. He did not relish that. Life might not give him much, but he did not welcome death, not after all this torment. Not after having spent twenty years in the Abyss, among the gods. He wasn’t even sure what being dead might mean. An eternity among lost souls? Silent nothingness?

He realized the White Witch was keen on killing whoever wielded the bloodstaff. He must fear the weapon. Ewan could have given it to someone else and just used his brute strength to decimate the northerners. But he did not want to be the man who killed like that. He did not want to live with those memories. He did not want to wade through all the sea of blood and hatred.

I once thought I was a monster. I am now a much bigger monster than I’ve ever imagined
.

His soul begged him not to give up. Not just his cause or the fight itself. All of it. Not to give up the weapon either. If Ayrton were in possession of that terrible thing, he would never hand the burden over to someone else. He would never stoop to such cowardice.

He felt shame at having wanted to die after his injury. A moment of weakness. He would not let himself fail like that ever again. And he was done running and hiding. He would defend the people of the realms as best as he could, and that was all he had to offer the world. That was his legacy. A sad and maybe meaningless one, but it was his.

He swallowed.

The northern army had not attacked them for a while now. They should bless the respite, but there was no joy left in people’s hearts. Half the defenders had died; many others were wounded or starving or freezing. The king was doing his best to prevent crime and mutiny, keeping a watchful eye on Amalia and fighting his own sorrow. Two old enemies, eying each other over the corpses of their families. All the while the city supplies dwindled, more people died from disease, and the northern army kept threatening annihilation.

Both sides spent time preparing for the next engagement, digging frantically, mending tools and weapons, beefing up
their gear and blades. For the people of the realms hunkering around Roalas, it was the one and only pastime. For the enemy, it was yet another day in a senseless madness. They would soon march south and trample all in their path.

Scouts reported lots of activity that morning. It seemed the enemy was getting ready to try crossing the river at four points, one almost five miles south of the city. King Sergei was diverting his already-worn defenses to try to cover the rear, too. But there just weren’t enough soldiers or weapons to maintain an effective perimeter. Even women were forced to defend the walls now, and not everyone had a spear. Ordinary soldiers got promoted three or four ranks just so the armies could maintain their structure.

Ewan did not pay too much attention to the dealings among the Parusites, the Athesians, the Borei, and others, but it seemed the mercenaries were rather loyal to the king. Amalia’s Caytoreans had almost all left, heading home to their country. Gavril’s pilgrims remained, but their zeal was gone, replaced with the dejected stupor of men without cause and faith.

Ewan still could not tell how the god’s death had affected people. They just did not seem to know. They had never really known.

All faith had been was to make the gods and goddesses stronger. Their own blood tax.

Ewan felt like he shared in all their terror, and it seeped through his pores and burrowed through his veins, formed into a black diamond two hands below his heart, making him queasy just by breathing. He almost retched at the image of hot, steaming organs spilling from bodies, and his hands raking through the pulp like it was river water.

A distant bugle wept a forlorn note into the gray world. Somewhere, a unit was moving to engage. It was beginning.

Ewan tried to breathe, but he couldn’t. His chest would not expand. He tightened his grip on the bloodstaff, wiggled the fingers on both his hands, what few he had left.

Jarman looked at him and nodded. The wizard had lost weight, and he looked haggard. But like him, the Sirtai was not giving up, fighting a war for the greater good, for the people of the realms. This wasn’t their war, and yet, they had made it theirs. Through all the selfishness, they’d made sacrifices.

The troops began to stir, a huge monster flexing its hundreds of gangrenous joints, each a different color, a different shade, a different state of rot. Ewan let the sights blur past him in a nauseating display of color and chaos. The Parusite regiments moved; the Athesians manned their siege engines. Inside the city, the cripples, children, and women lit fires and dipped their arrows in the flames.

Ewan took a deep breath and stepped into a long, elaborate ditch. Calemore knew when he was firing the weapon, so at least he would use thick layers of earth to protect him and help him scurry about unseen. Soldiers on all sides stepped back. They all knew what was coming.

He dragged his injured leg into the trench, placing it down gingerly. The soil was iced brown cake. His foot slipped, twisted, and he bit off a lump of pain.

Then, another kind of pain made him double over. It lasted for a moment and was gone.

His middle hurt, as if someone had kicked him, a memory of pain from when he used to be human. He had no idea what it signified, but he had never seen anything good happen after his guts clenched.

There were no more gods left to die. So who had? Was it his turn now? Time for the monster to be finally destroyed?
Same and yet different, his belly throbbed with the lingering shock of that brief lance of agony.

He waited until he saw the host on the near side of the bank move. It took them a while, like it always did. The huge army never rushed, and their formations uncoiled like a big, fat snake, utterly confident in its sheer size. Soon, though, the huge white mass of troops was marching toward the defenders. Not a particularly coordinated attack, but it had numbers to compensate for every tactical failure.

Ewan aimed the bloodstaff. And fired.

He did not want to watch the death he caused. He closed his eyes and waited a few moments while the magical rod spewed red horror at the enemy. Not waiting for Calemore’s own volley, he dashed left, limping and jumping as best as he could. The Sirtai were shielding him, he hoped. He could not hear any concussion from their magical explosions, so they must be focusing all their strength in defending him.

No return fire from Calemore either.

That worried him.

But he was not going to give up. He leveled the weapon at the Naum forces. His whole body gave off an involuntary twitch. His hands spasmed, and he dropped the bloodstaff against the ditch wall. His knees buckled, and he sank into the cold mush. There was pain in his gut again, his old, familiar companion, his only friend. Like earlier, the pain reminded him of all those times the gods had perished. The sensation gripped him, making him nauseated, like he had eaten too much honey.

The White Witch had not attacked him yet. Maybe this was his new strategy? Magic?

The hurting became dull, spread through his limbs, leaving him weak. Then, it began to fade, leaving behind a warm,
itchy feeling. Soon, the tingling disappeared, leaving him whole and strong and strangely rejuvenated.

Almost like fog slithering through a forest, understanding licked his mind.

Images started to coalesce, and he saw the witch in a distant place, curled on the floor of a small cabin. He had never seen him, but he knew it was him. Words came on top of those fuzzy pictures, spoken in all languages, but he had no problem deciphering them.

It took him a few moments to grasp the enormity of what he had just experienced.

Swallowing a lump, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes, he gripped the bloodstaff and climbed out of the ditch, into the filthy snow, facing the hundreds of thousands of soldiers coming his way. He thought he could hear the defenders behind him screaming defiance or calling him back. It no longer mattered.

Arms spread wide, he walked toward the Naum troops.

The wind and the noise wrapped around him.

He raised the bloodstaff.

And shouted.

“Thank you for everything,” Ewan whispered, extending his hand.

The Sirtai wizard hesitated. Slowly, he reached forward. Ewan could not feel the warmth of his skin. There was just the feel of ridged, paperlike texture, soft underneath.

“Are you certain?”

Ewan nodded. “Yes, I am certain. It’s the only way.”

Jarman pursed his lips, thoughtful. “It sounds incredible.”

Ewan smiled weakly. “It is incredible, but the war is over. There will be no more bloodshed.”

Lucas came over. He looked just as tired, but his blue tattoos hid some of his exhaustion. “I would very much like to study you, god child.”

Ewan looked behind him. Several Naum elders were waiting patiently. “Maybe in the future, one day. Now, I must save these people. Save the realms. Save everyone.”

“Roalas is still in chaos. I believe the king may want to see you, despite his aversion toward magic.” Jarman smoothed his robes nervously.

Ewan stared at the city walls. No one inside wanted to believe the incredible story. No one was willing to put aside the grim terror that had held them for so long. Daring to hope, only to have their dreams shattered, that was even worse.

The northern hosts had halted their advance, but their presence still sullied the fields north and east of Roalas, a huge sprawl of men dressed in white furs, stretching into the hazy, snowy horizon. You didn’t have to be any sort of military expert to assess their strength, their invincibility. Cautiously optimistic almost to the point of paranoid denial, the Parusites and Athesians were waiting for that massive presence to disappear before they’d let themselves exhale with relief. No one would say anything. No one would smile. Until the Naum forces marched away.

Finally, he shook his head. “It’s best if I just leave. King Sergei will not understand.”

Jarman grimaced uncomfortably. “You wish no recognition for your effort?”

Ewan sighed. “What would be the point?”

“You are absolutely convinced the White Witch is dead?” the young wizard repeated.

And all the gods, too
. “Yes, he died.”

“Farewell,” Lucas said.

Ewan nodded and walked away. He left behind him the field littered with the dead, heaps of broken gear, and human suffering. He knew that life in Athesia would be hard for many months, maybe years to come. The little affairs between the kings and emperors and lords remained. They would keep fighting and bickering, maybe follow with a war of their own. Selfishness could always drink more blood.

He wanted no part in that. He didn’t want to walk among men who eyed him with distrust and fear, who hated him for just being different. He did not want to tread anywhere his presence would invoke terse silence or make mothers send their children inside. He did not want to be a monster, an abomination, a creature of sin.