Chapter 34
Iwent back to my room and changed into the fighting gear I had asked the seamstress from Lumoria to make for me.
It fitted like a glove, giving me the best range of motion possible while protecting the most vulnerable parts of my body.
I braided my hair into two sections and secured them with plenty of little pins.
I covered the area around my eyes, my temples and the bridge of my nose in black paint, just like I had seen the other soldiers do yesterday.
I strapped my baldric across my chest and checked the position of my sword in the mirror. I preferred the dagger in combat, but I knew if I wanted to survive on the battlefield, I would have to use my sword first. Just to be sure I had two daggers strapped to my thigh and in my boots.
A stranger was staring back at me in the mirror. Oh, how the times had changed. A few months ago, I would have never suspected that I’d be standing here today, about to engage in a battle of Gods and Faeries and to potentially betray the people who had put their trust in me.
I heard a knock on my door. I opened it, to find Veridus standing there, clad in black with a smirk on his face.
“Are you ready to kick some Heralds asses, wordsmith?” he asked and I nodded.
There was no smile on my face.
* * *
Veridus knew the Citadel inside and out.
He knew which staircases to take to avoid being seen and when we ran into someone by accident, he quickly made use of his heka for storytelling.
It was mesmerizing watching him, the way he leaned closer to people and with just a few words making them believe whatever it was he told them.
“You were just on your way to the kitchen, sentinel, to make yourself a sandwich with jam and mustard. You didn’t meet anyone on your way there.”
I could feel the vibrations from his magic and the confused look on the sentinel’s face told me that the spell had worked. With a dazed look in his eyes, he took off towards the kitchen and would probably end up with the worst kind of stomachache later.
Veridus winked at me and motioned me to carry on.
“Why do you always make up such horrendous stories? Couldn’t you just have sent him on his way to the kitchen?” I whispered.
Veridus looked around a corner to make sure there was nobody there.
“It’s more fun this way,” he said with a shrug. “If you had been alive for 900 years, you’d also get bored of always doing the noble thing.”
I couldn’t even fathom what it would be like to be alive for such a long time and to know that life could potentially carry on for another 900 years.
So who was I to judge? It still felt unnecessarily cruel to make that poor sentinel eat such a vile combination of spreads, but then again, no real harm was done.
We got through the rest of the Citadel without incident and arrived at the most outer wall which was facing the western parts of the castle.
The plan was to leave through the side gate and go straight for the forest which lay on the western side of what would be the battlefield.
The gate was guarded, so Veridus had to use his powers to distract the guards with a little story.
This one was even more ridiculous, because the guards had to stay where they were to protect the Citadel, so Veridus couldn’t send them for a random errand.
He fixed his eyes on the guard and said in a low voice: “For the next ten minutes, you will be counting the fingers on your hand. When you reach the 10th finger, you will have forgotten how many fingers you have already counted and begin again.”
The magic vibrated off him, and the guards took off their gloves in unison, starting to count over and over again.
“What will they remember when the 10 minutes are over?” I whispered.
Veridus shrugged.
“They will be a little confused, but they won’t remember what exactly they did.
It’s only a small portion of magic I have sent towards them, so we should hurry.
” He opened the gate and we slipped out and towards the trees without being detected.
The forest was thick, but the sun had already risen so that we didn’t need any additional light to find our way.
Veridus would bring me to the edge of the forest and would then join Auretheos and the other Gods on the battlefield.
I would wait in the shadows of the tree line, watching and waiting to see if I had to intervene.
We reached the edge of the forest and crouched down to stay out of sight.
Our army had stopped on a slope, the banners of the Gods and Fairies swinging gently in the wind.
I looked towards the Heralds army. They had stopped moving too, but something didn’t feel right about the scenario.
There were not nearly enough Heralds to take on our army.
The ships that had brought them here had already drawn back from the bay and it didn’t look like there were more to come. The Heralds were mortals, and even with the support of a few Gods who I couldn’t yet identify in the crowd, they would never have enough strength to win this battle.
Veridus must have thought the same thing because his brows furrowed, and he murmured, “I am going to join the others, see what they make of this. It looks like a trap.”
I nodded and wished him good luck. He went back to the Citadel, and just a few minutes later I saw him walking towards the army and joining the Gods in the front.
Nothing happened for a while, and I was growing restless.
I needed to know what was going on, but I couldn’t very well walk towards them and ask.
That’s when a piece of paper appeared out of thin air.
“Their army is too small to even make a dent into our legions. It might very well be a set-up to draw our armies out of the Citadel. We are going to keep some men behind to protect the Citadel and attack with a smaller number. Wait for my signal. T”
His plan made sense and yet the uneasy feeling persisted.
I heard shouting from our army. Lythandra had taken over the reins now, looking like the true Goddess of War in her silver armor and the red tunic underneath.
Her blonde hair was braided into a crown atop her head and her dark red sword glimmered in the light when she lifted it above her head and shouted something in a language I didn’t understand.
The soldiers responded, raising their swords and marching towards the enemy lines.
The battle had begun.
The first clash of swords was the worst for me.
I heard the clinking of metals carried over to me by the wind and it felt like someone had stabbed me with it.
The noise went through my body like lightning.
Up until that point I had still believed that maybe there would be no fighting, no injuries, no death.
But with the clash of the first swords that hope was gone and all I could do was watch and listen.
For the first hour, both armies stood their ground and the number of hurt soldiers who were being dragged out of the masses was relatively small.
But when the sun was at the highest point in the sky, something seemed to shift.
Our army broke through their defense lines and split the Herald’s army up in two.
It was easier now to surround them and fight them from all angles.
It looked like victory would be upon us soon.
I wasn’t foolish enough to believe that this was their best effort, that the war would be won this easily, but it still seemed as if there were no more ships coming.
I had caught glimpses of Gods fighting for the enemy. Ignara seemed to be there, because her sword made of molten fire slashed through the sky a few times. Other than that, I had not been able to identify any Gods. Though that meant little because Theo had also disappeared in the fighting masses.
A horn sounded and our army raised their hands in victory. There were a few hundred Heralds left, who surrendered with their arms up in the air, kneeling down.
I saw Theo then, looking around the battlefield to check on his fellow Gods and friends. But he did not look happy, worry was written across his face.
This had been too easy, too little resistance. Where was the Fraction?
While the foot soldiers were already cheering, Malek’s Dreadshade Legion was on high alert, scanning the woods around the battlefield and the coast for enemies.
Nothing happened for a while, Theo and the other Gods standing together and probably discussing whether to return to the Citadel and wait for another attack or to remain where they were.
Some of the sentinels were rounding up the remaining Heralds and started leading them towards the citadel dungeons.
One lonely figure was separating themselves from the circle of Gods and started walking towards the water.
It was hard to see from the distance who it was, but the figure appeared to be female.
Nobody minded her and she moved without any hurry.
My attention went back to the sentinels and the prisoners.
My heart kicked up a notch as I spotted Ignara.
She was on her knees like the rest of them, her hands behind her back.
But the way she looked at Auretheos and the others gave me the chills.
Her stare was icy, but there was a cruel smile on her face. Her lips were moving, although it didn’t appear like she was talking to anyone. The uneasy feeling in my stomach grew, I knew I was missing something. My gaze jerked back to the figure I had seen walking towards the water.
She had disappeared from the shore, like she had disappeared into thin air. Suddenly, she resurfaced, quite literally, from the waves of the ocean. Her arms were raised in the air, and I felt a pang of magic wafting over to me.
It hit me then, who was standing in the water, unnoticed by any of our Gods: Thalora, the Goddess of Oceans and Tides, who had been at the library a few weeks ago.
She had told us about where the Heralds would attack and now she was here, in the water, working some sort of magic. I didn’t think twice and grabbed a pen.
“Theo! Look towards the water!”
The second I had finished writing, Theo’s head shot up and he looked towards the sea. He called out to Thalora in alarm, but she stayed where she was.
The surrounding water was reverberating, sending ripples of waves in all directions.
Theo and the other Gods unsheathed their swords, and Ignara’s smile was deepening.
She had known what was about to happen, because she had orchestrated this “loss” of the Heralds.
They had drawn our army towards the water because something or someone was coming from these waters.
Theo shouted commands and the stunned soldiers looked towards the water but obeyed. They left the Heralds standing before the Citadel with their hands bound and raced towards the rest of the army. The Gods formed a united line, the Dreadshade Legion close behind them.
Ignara jumped to her feet, signaling other Gods to do the same. They rose to their feet from where they had been hiding between the Heralds, but I did not recognize either of them. Instead of joining Thalora though, the Fraction Gods disappeared into thin air.
Theo called out again towards Thalora, but she looked like a stone pillar and didn’t react to any outside noise.
Lythandra separated from the group and raced towards the water, ten men from the Dreadshade army by her side.
Before she could reach Thalora, a blaze of energy erupted around the Goddess of Oceans and Tides.
The ground was shaking beneath my feet and the air vibrated with a dark kind of power that I had never felt before.
The waves of the ocean were rising. Was she planning on flooding the battlefield?
It turned out that what she had in store for us was much worse than that, because out of the depth of the ocean a roar echoed through the sky.
A roar so loud and deep that I felt it deep in my bones, raising the hairs on my arms and back. And then all hell broke loose, as a giant monster broke through the surface of the water, rising up high into the air and sending out another booming roar that nearly knocked me over.
What were we going to do now?