The Dawn of a Desperate War (The Godlanders War) by Aaron Pogue Page A

dropped. “You can’t be serious.”
    “I am! He was at the cabin yesterday. You must have passed him on the road. I suspect he’s still in town making arrangements for the voyage.”
    “The voyage?”
    “He thinks the elves are living on the Isle of Mists. He thinks they’ve been hiding there for ages, and all the terrible rumors about the place are contrivances to keep them hidden.”
    Corin shook his head. “He has the right of it. I heard the plan from Oberon’s own lips before it was set in motion. But that was a thousand years gone. Surely by now they’ve moved elsewhere.”
    “That was the favorite belief of ancient scholars too, but my friend has uncovered new secrets. He swears they are still there, concealed by some extraordinary power.”
    Corin fell very still. Some instinct warned him this was too perfect a coincidence, and he wondered how it could have come to pass. Was it some trap of Ephitel’s? Or perhaps the druids manipulating events around him? Perhaps it was the work of the very elves that Corin sought. Would that be for good or ill?
    Or perhaps it was merely the work of Fortune. She’d always smiled fondly on Corin, in spite of all his sins. Was this another chance, another twist of Oberon’s dream to benefit his mis fit heir?
    More likely by far, it was nothing but an errant venture. The thought rang true, yet he could not entirely shake off the wave of hope that Auric’s pronouncement had cast up. “Surely . . . surely he can’t have unraveled such an ancient secret on his own.”
    “Oh, he could,” Auric said, grinning. “He is a very clever man. Smarter than the two of us combined. He’ll find his way, and I suspect he’d benefit from a sturdy hand and sharp eye to keep him safe. I think you should join him.”
    Before Corin could find any answers, the farmboy interrupted all his thoughts with a piercing question of his own. Eyes fixed on the ground and voice cast low, Auric asked him, “Did you really mean it?”
    Corin shook off his suspicions to focus on his companion. “Mean what?”
    “When you were speaking with Sera. You told her you have no plans for Ephitel’s succession. Do you honestly believe we could survive without the gods?”
    Corin dropped a hand on Auric’s shoulder and caught his eyes. “I swear on sea and sky, I think we’d thrive if every one of them were dead. These false gods have never served us. We should preserve the dream of the creator and strive to be free men living in a world of wonder, not slaves subject to distant tyrants. This world was made for us , Auric. We are all we need.”
    Auric stared at Corin, stunned, and only then did Corin understand what he had done. He’d grown up a beggar and a thief, hunted by the powers of authority. His own desire for survival had driven him to despise the god that so despised an orphaned child.
    Then he had left the Godlands to become a pirate, sailing the seas as a free man in defiance of their laws. Perhaps there were some true believers hidden here and there among the crews Corin had joined, but most of those men hated the gods for all the same reasons Corin had.
    And then he’d stepped into Oberon’s dream. He’d met Ephitel firsthand and seen the dark dawn of that tyrant’s reign. He’d spent his time since then surrounded by the druids who knew all these secret truths.
    It had grown so easy to speak of the gods—all the gods—as enemies. He no longer thought of them as myths or legends, but as men. The whole lot of them upon Mount Attos were naught but craven sycophants who’d bent knee to a regicide and traitor.
    And certainly the farmboy had never balked when Corin spoke ill of Ephitel. Why would he? Any upright Raentzman hated Ephitel as surely as he hated all Ithalians. It was only proper.
    But he would not hate his god. Raentzmen honored Pellipon. Most Ithalians made heartfelt sacrifice to Ephitel. It was easy to forget that all across the Godlands, good men and women earnestly