The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Read online

  Marya no longer felt she could continue, and she stopped to look in all directions. A plain of glistening snow surrounded her as far as she could see, broken only by the tracks she had left behind. A final few snowflakes, smaller than the tips her little fingers, still dropped here and there. She looked down where she stood and suddenly realized she could no longer feel her hands or feet. Marya removed her half helm and, using it as a shovel, began to clear the snow away from her feet. It seemed to take forever, though she had no sense of time with the sun still hidden. The activity felt good, warming her muscles and eventually causing her to sweat. Eventually, she had cleared most of the snow away from a rough circle perhaps six feet across.

  When she finished, her muscles ached, and she boiled within her chainmail. She fell heavily on her backside onto the frozen ground and used the last of her strength to remove the chainmail shirt and legguards that threatened to bake her alive. Marya reached down to struggle with her boots and screamed with frustration when they would not budge, truly frozen to her feet. She gave up and lay down onto her back to rest, her underclothes soaked with sweat and ice. As she drifted off to sleep, Marya the realized she just might freeze to death, and she didn’t really care.

  Marya could not have been more surprised when she awoke. The sun was high overhead, shining down warmly for the season, and she lay on her side with half of her face in ice cold mud. A warm breeze aided the sun to melt the snow around her, and she cupped some of the water in her hands to drink. It was freezing to her feverish skin, and it hurt to swallow. It was a supreme effort to push her body up to a sitting position. Due to the cold, the hard ground or the fever, her entire body ached. She thought that she should have frozen to death overnight, and she knew not whether to thank the gods or curse them for her life.

  She finally resolved herself to standing, to continuing her journey to gods knew where, and for a brief moment, Marya thought herself a fool for leaving Byrverus. A sudden feeling streaked through her as she thought of Keth, some sort of panicked anguish, but she angrily pushed it away as she thought of Cor’s refusal of her. No, she was no fool for leaving them behind. Cor was determined to make himself subservient to the Westerners, and she would have no part of it. With her determination set, Marya forced her protesting muscles to obey her will. She stood for just a moment, but suddenly fell screaming as horrendous white pain ripped through her feet.

  She curled into a fetal position clutching at her boots, and as the pain dulled into an ache, so subsided her screams. She rolled to sit on her rump and worked to remove her boots, but her fingers fumbled and betrayed her. Examining them closely, she saw that the usually gray flesh had a splotchy white aspect that grew more consistent toward her fingertips. Oddly, her fingers hurt to bend and move, though she could barely feel them at all. Gritting her teeth through the pain, Marya forced her hands to work, and she finally removed her boots from swollen feet. Done, she inspected her feet closely and found the same discoloration among her toes as her fingers. Her feet seemed to increase in size before her eyes, and she knew she would never get her boots back on them.

  Marya sighed. One good bloodletting would heal her, if she survived long enough to find someone to kill.

  She sat in her muddy clearing for two days, drinking melted snow and eating what little horsemeat she had left. Her feet continued to swell to the extent that the skin on them began to split, and she doubted how long she would keep her toes and fingers. The pain was constant and fiery, and yet surreally, she felt none of it. Screaming in frustration and furious pain, Marya finally worked her feet back into her boots only after having wrapped them tightly in strips of dried wool torn from her tunic. Every step for the first mile caused a yelp or whimper, until she finally could no longer feel it. She left her armor behind, but not her sword and dagger.

  2.

  I had never felt such sensations in my life as when I sat in the chair for the first time. It’s funny to say first time; I know it’ll also be the last time. My remaining marines and Hightower will form their reports to the admiral, and there will be debriefings, debriefings and more debriefings. It might have been interesting to see how that all played out, but my sight doesn’t reach across light years. I am limited to Rumedia, its people no matter where they are and even their gods with one notable exception. I am unable to observe the happenings within the Vaults of the Others, the Loszian gods, and I haven’t quite figured out how to see everything at once. I suppose it will come in time.

  My marines understood why I had to sit in the chair. After all, they were there when the gods revealed themselves. Hightower was a different story – he begged me not to do it. He pleaded with me, and he even threatened me. He even said that he would dismantle the entire facility himself before the marines restrained him. They pulled him from the command center literally kicking and screaming as I looked pensively around the great circular room. When the echoes of Hightower’s shouts were cut off by the airlock’s door, the place was really rather serene with the soft blue glow of the computers’ holographic displays. I shut them all down one by one before settling into the empty chair.

  I wasn’t afraid, but perhaps I should have been. I’ve never experienced such pain ever before in my life, and I was completely powerless to stop what happened. I was wholly restrained by something I could neither see nor feel, and I would’ve jumped from the chair in a heartbeat if I had been able.

  Seemingly of their own volition, needles and catheters connected to flexible tubing appeared from nowhere and began to pierce my body. Some injected me with various things and went away immediately, but others were more permanent. My kidneys, arteries and veins were suddenly attached to machines elsewhere in the command center, machines that whirred softly. Tubes were forced up my nose and down my throat, into both my lungs and stomach. This was all uncomfortable and even painful, for the feeling of violation if nothing else.

  Another needle (at least I assume it was a needle as I couldn’t see it) pierced my carotid artery, and I heard then felt a soft whoosh. I was suddenly and comfortably numb, completely unable to feel my body in any way. Thank God (the gods?), for I have no doubt that what happened next would have driven me insane with the pain of it. In hindsight, I wonder why the anesthesia simply didn’t put me completely under. That would have been more humane, for while there was no pain, I could still feel what happened next.

  I felt an odd sensation on the back of my skull, just behind my left ear. At first, it was merely a tingle, as if my scalp there had somehow fallen asleep, but it grew warmer by the second. I realized that a laser removed all of the hair in perhaps a two inch square area to the extent that it burned the skin underneath. That would later leave me with a dull ache little different from a sunburn, but that wasn’t my prime concern at the time. I felt something like a pinprick on the shaved area, but it was constant and grew in intensity. Though there were tubes up my nose feeding my lungs oxygen, I still had some sense of smell, and I distinctly detected burning skin.

  I knew what it smelled like; I’d smelled it once before. I was standing on the promenade of AGS when it was bombed.

  After a few seconds, the pinprick intensified into a boring. While I felt no pain, I knew something slowly chewed through the back of my skull, and it was like lightning fired across my brain when it finally broke through. The feeling vanished as quickly as it had come, like a lightning strike, and I thanked whoever was listening that it was over. And then it happened again – this time I think a mere centimeter to the left of the original drilling. It was followed by a third and final assault perhaps a centimeter lower to form an equilateral triangle, and I heard a slight beep as the Universal Link Device was then connected to my brain.

  I found myself connected to the facility’s immense computer system with access to all of its power, all of its senses and all of its collected data. I could see everyone in Rumedia, I could see the gods, and I saw all of this simultaneously, as if I had a billion sets of eyes and ears anywhere I needed t
hem all at once. Yet my mind did not explode from the brilliance of it all. Perhaps the computer systems I was connected to made it all possible, though I still cannot be sure.

  I began to record. After all, I was the Chronicler, and I felt a twinge of approval radiate from the Vaults buried deep below me.

  While so doing, I found it easy to multitask, and I began to sift through the records of the Chronicler before me. I found that he recorded everything that happened, though he seemed to focus a bit more specifically on a number of recent events and persons. I found those individuals and began to follow them as he had. Later, I discovered that I could actually insert a bit of myself into one of Rumedia’s denizens, presumably for the purpose of bringing these stories to the world.

  3.

  Cor sat all alone and thought of what was to come when the rest of the Grand Council arrived. He had come too early, hours before the others would find their seats, so that he could watch them enter, so that he could weigh their moods. King Rederick and his son, Lord Red, would both wear their emotions on their gauntlets, while some of the others were more inscrutable. Away at Fort Haldon for some time, he had not gotten to know them as well as he liked, but he had started to learn their mannerisms. He even considered hiring spies to watch the other Counselors so that he could better understand the way they acted and thought. Cor decided that he hated politics.

  There was one surprise, and that was Mora. She had married Rederick upon the liberation of Martherus, which seemed to be the perfect celebration of both their love and the freedom of the city they had both called home for years. Cor wished he had been there. The Convocation had to select two priests to join Rederick’s Grand Council, and of course they picked Mora. Politically, it only made sense; they had suddenly lost much of their power, as they would no longer select Aquis’ ruler. As wife to the king, Queen in title, Mora could have a great impact on the decisions her husband made. Cor always found resistance and abrasiveness from the other Counselors, but never so much as what he received from Mora. The surprise was that often they ended up on the same side of the discussions and arguments, though perhaps for different reasons.

  “Milord, it will be some time before anyone else arrives. Would you care to breakfast?” asked a servant to Cor’s right.

  Cor lifted his head from his hand and blinked twice to clear his eyes. He hadn’t meant to doze. “Yes,” he answered, “something light.”

  Cor hated the days the Council meet; he found it made his stomach hurt if he ate too much before they came together. Fortunately, this day’s meeting shouldn’t be too much of a struggle, as it was more of a review of Aquis’ condition coming out of the winter.

  Fort Haldon had fallen without a fight, and while Martherus had not gone quite so easily, King Rederick and his host crushed the remaining Loszians quickly. They had taken some captives, the disposition of which was determined by their station in life. The lords were put on trial and, with no one to testify on their behalf, put to death within days. Rederick offered a choice to the soldiers - the same fate as their masters or lifetime conscription. The new conscripts were divided up and spread around throughout the army. The remaining slaves were set free, but it became immediately clear that they knew not what to do with their newfound freedom. As such, most stayed with the army.

  Cor awaited King Rederick’s arrival at Fort Haldon, with the expectation to invade the Loszian Empire. However, he couldn’t wait long. Within days, his lieutenants brought to light a serious problem – they simply did not have enough food for a host ten thousand strong, even confiscating the supplies left behind by the Loszians. They dispatched parties in all directions, raiding anything they could find in abandoned farmhouses and fields, and they hunted out all of the local game. Cor sent word to Lord Paton requesting any assistance, any food his lands could spare. In the end, they managed to scrape together enough to feed half of Cor’s small host.

  He sent the other half back to Byrverus to reform with King Rederick’s army, and it was not long before a rider delivered a message from the king. Apparently, Rederick had the same problem. With its two largest cities in ruins and their populaces virtually wiped out, feeding fifty thousand men became a massive problem. Rederick broke his host in two, taking one half back to Byrverus. He disbanded the other half, but with the point that Aquis may soon need them again. Upon his return to Byrverus, Rederick recalled the Grand Council.

  This created the next problem. For the priests, being constantly in the service of the Grand Council was no concern; they merely turned their duties over to others. The lords that sat on the Council had stewards and exchequers that handled the day to day operations of their lands, and rarely did matters come up that required the lords’ immediate attention. Cor, on the other hand, had no support. In the loss and reconquest of Fort Haldon, all such support staff was lost one way or another. Beyond the fact that he had no idea what was needed, he simply couldn’t run his lands and yet be constantly in the king’s immediate service.

  Of course, there wasn’t much to lord over at Fort Haldon and its surrounding lands. The only thing to be found there was a military garrison, and though Cor had some small experience at the head of an army, his place was with his Dahken and the Council. As he ate a pair of fresh and lightly toasted bread rolls, he came to the conclusion that he would address the topic with the Grand Council.

  Finished with the rolls, Cor leaned back in his chair at the end of the table, opposite of King Rederick’s seat, and his mind began to wander a bit. Keth was with the Dahken, no doubt, rousing them and getting them fed; the younger Dahken would likely have to hold off training until well into the afternoon due to the Council. That was fine, as the days grew longer with the onset of spring. Truly, there was no need to disturb their rest, except that Keth had grown to believe in a consistent regimen. Cor sometimes thought it important for children to be children though.

  He heard soft feet behind him, and Cor turned to find Thyss quietly padding across the hall toward him, nursing their son as she walked. Her breasts had stayed swollen and sensitive since his birth, and the fact annoyed her every time she had tried training to keep up her fighting skills. Cor’El hadn’t started cutting his first teeth yet, though Thyss said she could feel them when he suckled. It wouldn’t be long said more experienced mothers. As she neared him, she realized that the babe had fallen asleep, and she gently removed his mouth from her and pulled her plain wool tunic back over her breast. She rarely wore her customary garments, the black silk that was as hard as steel, this early in the morning.

  “I missed you when I awoke,” she said. She laid one hand on his right shoulder, and Cor could feel the heat radiating from his son, something that happened often as the babe slept. “How long have you been here?”

  “A few hours. I like to arrive early,” he said, turning his chair slightly to face her.

  “Too early. How long do you plan to stay in Byrverus?” she asked.

  Cor hesitated, afraid of her reaction to the answer. “Perhaps permanently. Rederick has gifted the Dahken two places on his Council. Keth and I are the only Dahken available, and we can’t sit the Council from Fort Haldon.” She nodded quietly, and Cor considered her face carefully. “How long will you stay with me?”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Your mannerisms have long mirrored Hykan – dangerous, impatient and passionate,” he replied. “You told me once that you would stay with me so long as I kept life interesting, as long as I sated your desire for thrills and adventure.”

  “It’s easy to live for the thrill of adventure when it’s all that you have,” Thyss said, moving Keth’s chair so that she could sit. “I still honor Hykan. Though for now, I may be more like Nykeema.”

  “Nykeema?”

  “Hykan’s sister. She is the Goddess of Water, cool and serene, yet powerful and deadly in her wrath.”

  Cor spoke slowly, and a slight smile touched the corners of his mouth, “I have never doubted the deadliness of your wrath.” />
  “So what do you intend to do?” Thyss asked.

  “Trying to establish the Dahken at Fort Haldon was foolish. I put us – you, me, the Dahken – right in danger’s path. It could have been the end of us then and there. I’ll get Rederick to give us a small part of the city. That way I am close to the Council, and the Dahken can learn and grow in safety.”

  “Safety!” Thyss blurted. “Safety? As soon as Nadav took Fort Haldon, he moved on Byrverus. Byrverus stood even less chance than we did. How would you call that safe?”

  “Because he’ll never get this far again. Next time we meet Nadav, we’re coming for him.”

  * * *

  “Never!” Red thundered and he slammed his mailed fist down onto the tabletop. He had thrown his chair onto its back in his rush to stand. “The slayer of Queen Erella shall not have so much power right here in Byrverus. He would consolidate his strength, raise his Dahken brood and take the throne by force at a time of his own choosing! He will murder King Rederick as he did the queen!”

  The Grand Council had gone so well, so smoothly that Cor thought they might adjourn by midday. Everything, all reports, were as expected. The dispersion of the armies to different parts of Aquis made feeding them much easier, and caravans brought supplies and settlers daily. Boons were promised to commoners all over the kingdom if they came to help rebuild both Byrverus and Martherus. Even still, large parts of both cities remained in ruins and unused.