Chapter 15
The Scorched Horn had a reputation for holding all the garrison’s most recent recruits on feast nights and still finding space for a full-blown brawl. By the roar that poured from its windows, this evening was no exception. The large tavern was slouched against Duskweld’s most popular brothel like a siege engine left to rot, its warped roof sagging low to shelter the doorway from the wind. A bull’s horn jutted from the blackened wood of the sign that hung above it, which was burnt at one corner.
Rook pushed the men through the narrow entry, shoving past a brace of apprentices and a merchant’s runner as he scouted for a table for himself and his friends.
Light seeped from every crack in the walls, with the low ceiling pressed in overhead like the lid of a barrel. Smoke filled the air in greasy layers, torches guttered, and almost every table overflowed with people. Rook gestured to one empty table near the back, jostled his way to the head of it, and set his claim with a thump as he sat down. The rest of the squad, Brune, Sval, Danill, young Joren and a half-dozen others whose names Rook had committed to memory but never to heart, slunk to their seats, heads down, shoulders hunched, eyes red-rimmed from the day’s wind.
“Wait a minute,” Sval asked, looking around. “Where’s Theron?”
“A Brightwarden came and grabbed him a few minutes ago,” Rook replied as he waved down a serving girl. “Said Houlis wants to see him.”
The men all turned to Rook in unison, eyebrows raised. He held up his hands. “Look, that’s all I know. Let’s just get drunk and forget today ever happened.”
A lovely young serving girl arrived with a warm smile, sparkling eyes, and graceful charm. She set a tray of mugs before them with all the delicacy of a quarryman unloading rocks. “That’s three coppers each, if you want ‘em topped off, that’s another copper. No songs, no gambling, and if you fight, you clean up after.” She swiveled, shouted a reprimand at a bickering pair at the next table, then melted away into the gloom.
The first round went down in silence, each of the men feeling the warm comfort of the alcohol settle in. At the table on their left, a couple of battle-hardened guards argued in low, vicious tones about the proper way to gut a Sylphar with a shortsword. Near the front, a knot of regulars warbled the Luminarch anthem, only two of them even marginally on key. Behind it all, a minstrel fingered the same four notes on his lute in the corner, singing an ancient dirge that Rook thought was mildly inappropriate.
“Jac’s balls, what a rotten day,” Brune grumbled, staring down into his drink. He was all stubble and hard lines, nose mashed to one side, eyes too close together. He wore his bitterness like a cloak.
“At least the ale’s strong,” said Danill, who’d already drained his second mug and was signalling the serving girl for another. His upper lip had foam on it, and his laugh, when it came, was as rough as a saw blade.
Rook considered the pair, then tilted his own mug to his lips. It was slightly sour, with a hint of scorched barley, but the drink worked its way down his throat in a hurry, and left a pleasant numbness in its wake. He watched the way the other men in the tavern held their cups, the way they leaned in to talk, the flex and relaxation of shoulders as stories wound their way through the thick air.
They drank in mild silence for a while until the table had filled with empty mugs and the corners of the tavern grew soft and orange. Conversation slouched, shuffled, and finally settled into the groove that men always found when they had nothing left to do but talk about the past or the future or the space in between.
It was Danill who broke the quiet. “At least Carpen’s with the gods now, eh?” He said it with a sideways glance at Joren, who was the youngest of the group by at least half a dozen years and still had the clean skin of a boy who hadn’t been properly broken by the world yet.
Brune snorted. “What do you know of the gods?” he asked, voice low. “You ever met one, Danill?”
The question hung there, uneasy, and for a second Rook thought the table might crack apart into one of those pointless arguments that always ended with a fist in the ribs and a promise to keep the noise down next time. But Danill only grinned and raised his mug. “Don’t need to meet ‘em. Can’t anyways. They’re up there,” he pointed to the ceiling, “watching every damned step we take. Celestial Concord, all six of ‘em, staring down at us like bugs under a glass.”
Joren blinked, then blurted, “We never heard of them, not like that. Back home, all we got were the old women’s stories about something called a ‘Stillight’, and nothing else. Nobody ever said there were six gods!”
Rook leaned forward, sensing an opening. “Six is the official count. More, if you listen to the old traders who’ve been north of Luminarch City. Every region’s got its own version, but in most places within the Dominion, it’s the Celestial Concord who run the show. And that there Concord consists of only six gods.” He gestured to the others, half waiting for a challenge, half not. None came.
“Name ‘em, then,” Brune said. “If you’re such a scholar.” There was a hint of derision, but Rook welcomed it.
He held up a finger, ticking off the names as he went. “Aldren the Wise, first and best of the Concord. Dark-skinned with white flowing hair. He’s the one who inspired the Luminarch Charter. The Luminarch Council hundreds of years ago set up the whole hierarchy of Brightwardens and all of our laws and whatnot based off Aldren’s wise direction.” He sipped his ale, then went on. “Then you got Vyrae, the Twilight Queen. It’s said she was a real looker. She rules over change, endings and beginnings. Some say she’s the only one who really understands what’s coming next, after this damned Endless War, well, you know… actually ends.”
“Third is Naehorn,” Rook continued, “the war god, sometimes called the Unyielding. He was a giant of a man. Flowing red hair and beard. He’s the favorite of every soldier and officer from Haelmont to Greenhill. Fourth, you get Lysara. She’s the healer, the keeper of knowledge. Ironically, not much is known about her appearance. They say she keeps a record of every wound ever given or taken in this world, and maybe the next one, too.”
He checked the faces at the table, saw that Joren’s jaw had dropped and Brune’s skepticism faded, just a little.
“Fifth is… well, most people just call him the Wanderer, but his name is Celarion. They say he was the funny one. The one who kept everyone’s spirits up with his lightheartedness. It’s said he could crack a joke that would make you weep with laughter for hours on end. Sounds pretty familiar, right?” He gave a flourishing bow. “He’s the balance-keeper, the one who keeps the others from tearing the world in half with their power. And last is Zephyr, the Swift. Wind, nature, and secrets. They say she can hear every word we speak if the wind’s just right.”
Brune grunted. “Never heard of most of ‘em. Seems to me if there were gods in this world, they wouldn’t let it turn out the way it has.”
“I told you, they ain’t in this world. They all left us centuries ago. Went someplace better!” Danill said.
“Unfortunately, I agree with Danill,” Rook said. “They’re all just watching everything go to the deep hells from a safe distance. Or maybe they just don’t care anymore.”
Joren found his voice. “So which one do we pray to?” he asked. “If we wanted to, I mean.” There was a quaver in his voice, not quite fear, more like the desperation of someone who’d never had a reason to believe until now.
Danill reached out, ruffling the boy’s hair. The gesture was awkward but kind, and for a second Rook wanted to thump the older man on the back and thank him. “Any of ‘em, I suppose. Or none. Never saw it make a difference, not once.”
Brune said, “My old man used to pray to Naehorn. Swore he’d seen the Unyielding on the battlefield once, right after his best friend lost his head to a Sylphar axe.” He looked up, eyes unfocused, as if trying to see the god himself through the haze of torch smoke. “Said the god just watched, didn’t lift a hand. Maybe that’s all any of them do. Just watch.”
Rook wondered, then, what it would be like to have someone watching after you, someone who cared enough to intervene. He doubted it made a difference, but the idea was a comfort, in its way.
He turned to Joren. “The story goes the Concord weren’t gods at first. Once, they were just people. Did something so big, so important that the world had no choice but to turn them into legends. After they left, the Elyvari, who are those Jac-damned neutral caretakers, got stuck cleaning up the mess. Now they run the show from the Temple in the mountains, keeping the balance or whatever it is they do.”
Joren’s eyes widened. “You mean the Mountain Temple? The one with that strange fire that never goes out? Is that what the Stillight is? The thing that this never-ending war is all about?”
“Aye, the Stillight. That’s the one.” Rook nodded. “They say the Elyvari were made by the Concord to watch over us before they ascended, but nobody knows if that was a kindness or just another way to keep us in line.”
Joren leaned forward, his elbows slipping in a puddle of spilled ale. “So what exactly is the Stillight? Why do we fight the Sylphar for it?” His voice cracked with earnestness. “All the trainers ever say is that it’s our sacred duty to obtain and defend it.”
Rook took a deep breath and glanced around, then back to the boy. “The Stillight is power, pure and simple. They say it’s a sort of... eternal flame that burns at the heart of the Mountain Temple. Not real fire, but more like a liquid light that shifts between gold and crimson. Supposedly, whoever controls it controls the abundance of the land itself.”
“What do you mean?” Joren asked.
Brune snorted. “He means whichever side holds the Stillight gets fat while the other side starves.”
“It’s more than that, though,” Rook said, taking another sip of his ale and feeling the warmth spread through his chest. “The Stillight isn’t just about crops and cattle. It’s about the very fabric of things. Reality, maybe. The stories I’ve heard from old traders who’ve been near the Mountain Temple, back when we actually controlled it... they say the Light does things to people. Changes them. Makes them see things that aren’t there, or maybe things that are there but shouldn’t be.”
He paused, watching Joren’s face grow pale in the flickering torchlight. The boy was hanging on every word, and Rook felt a familiar thrill at having an audience.
“The Stillight is older than the Dominion, so most of this is just theory. But some legends say it’s what keeps the world from falling apart at the seams.”
Danill scoffed, “And yet we’ve been in this Endless War over it for hundreds, maybe thousands of years. Does anybody actually even know? I say it’s the very thing causing the world to fall apart. Maybe the gods will come back from whatever place they ascended to and put an end to this cursed fighting.”
There was a pause, then Brune lifted his mug in a mock toast. “To the gods, then, and to Carpen, wherever he’s gone.”
They drank, and for a moment the table was united in something that might have been hope, or at least a shared illusion of it.
As the night wore on, the ale grew stronger and the crowd thicker. Rook listened to the rising tide of voices, the laughter and argument and the ever-present threat of violence just below the surface. He watched as Joren fell asleep on his folded arms, and as Brune’s complaints grew soft and repetitive, the man’s head sinking lower with every new round. Danill went outside at one point and did not return, and Rook assumed he’d found a quiet corner to piss away his grief in solitude. The rest of the men slowly either fell asleep or drifted back to the barracks.
He lingered for a while after the others had gone, soaking up the noise and the warmth, letting himself forget for a little while that the world outside the Horn was colder and darker and infinitely more dangerous. When the serving girl came by to clear the mugs, she stopped for a second, peering at him through the haze.
“Staying all night, soldier?” She asked, one eyebrow raised as she gathered the empty mugs from the table.
Rook flashed his most charming smile. “That depends on the company, doesn’t it?”
She rolled her eyes, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. “Is that supposed to work on me? I’ve heard better lines from men twice as drunk and half as pretty.”
“Ah, so you think I’m pretty,” Rook said, leaning forward on his elbows. “That’s a start.”
The girl snorted, but there was a warmth to it that hadn’t been there before. She studied him for a moment, her gray eyes taking in the Dominion blue of his uniform, the easy confidence in his posture.
“You’re the one who talks too much,” she said, her voice carrying a teasing lilt. “I’ve seen you in here before.”
“Oh? You’ve noticed me, have you?” Rook replied, with a playful grin spreading across his face, his eyes sparkling with intrigue.
“You’ve even made me laugh on occasion,” she said, a sly smile dancing on her lips, her gaze warm and inviting. “Tell you what, my shift ends in a few minutes. Let me finish cleaning up and… maybe you and I head upstairs for a little while.”
Rook, grinning, leaned back in his chair. The wood creaked softly beneath him as he watched her slink away, her movements graceful and confident. She cast a glance over her shoulder, her eyes glinting with mischief.
“Yep, I still got it,” he said, smiling to himself. Joren snored quietly next to him, as if in answer.
When Rook finally left a few hours later, he went out into the alley behind the tavern and let the cold slap him awake. He stood there, breathing in the dark, listening to the distant sounds of the city. The clang of a bell, the hollow roll of a wagon’s wheels, the sudden, shivering silence that settled between the echoes. He thought of the Concord, the Stillight, and the Elyvari, and the way the world kept turning even when nobody wanted it to.