The elves believe in magic. The dwarves believe in strength. Power is mastery. Mastery is power. Your own magic is humble. Your strength is nothing. But your mastery is everything. It holds sway over life itself. This makes you powerful. This makes you better than the gods-born. This will make you a god yourself.
The killing god.
Chapter 1
TIME IS FULL of reuse and repetition and the same faces on different people doing the same things for different reasons. After a while, you’ve shot the same arrow so many times you no longer need to follow its arc to see where it will land. You move with the snap of the string. Each battle becomes your own, because you’re sure you’ve fought it somewhere in the past, either as yourself or as someone else, and you can’t remember which face you wore then and which face you wear now. It becomes second nature. It becomes instinct.
It was an instinct that guided Solomon Sorrows as the string guides the arrow. And so it was that his mug lingered at his lips as he studied three blades strapped to three backs huddled in one dark corner with a whole mess of ill intent. He felt the string tighten along his spine, and Sorrows wondered if the arrow would fly towards muttered acquiescence and exodus or broken bone.
A matter of distance. This far from the mountains there were no dwarf cities. This far from the oceans there were no elf cities. Which made Huvda a small village. Little more than an outpost on the edge of the forest. A refuge for the half-born, the wounded, the mad; those discarded by more civilized society. A small village meant one tavern. One tavern meant one place to exchange coin for meat, bread, and piss passed off as ale. The perfect place for a man to eat dinner and think about a woman. A woman who might have been with him, but who wasn’t. A matter of distance. The perfect place to toss copper and drown regret. Which made it more of an inevitability than a choice for Sorrows to be there. Which made it more of an inevitability than a coincidence for the three lanky, oil-skinned orcs to be there as well. Because orcs were too stupid to hunt, but they could smell well enough. And small villages didn’t harbor the same bright steel that marched upon the walls of a city.
So Sorrows watched the three blades over the foam-laced rim of a wooden mug and waited. The orcs in turn watched the owner move from table to table, wiping away imagined crumbs in preparation for an evening crowd that probably hadn’t come since the tavern was built. And probably not even then. There were a dozen tables. Nine more than the place needed tonight. Each was sturdy and square and held four chairs. Each of the chairs was pressed tight and centered neatly on one edge, dull patches being rubbed into the wood where table met chair. Forty-eight chairs for twelve tables for five guests. Arranged to accommodate wishful thinking, with wide gaps for easy mingling. A path led to a kitchen somewhere on the other side of a door along the back wall. Everything was lit by gas lamps kept dim to offer privacy or save fuel or the happy marriage of both. The furnishings were simple, the arrangement thoughtful, the upkeep meticulous. The owner was a half-born. Elf and goblin, judging by his ears, stature, and the mossy tint of his skin. His hands worked in fast circles while his jaw clenched and unclenched, and his neck convulsed with dry, anxious swallows. His eyes roamed. Black goblin eyes. Bright and darting from the orcs to anywhere but the orcs and back to the orcs again.
Anywhere-but-the-orcs was a rectangular room, fifteen paces by twenty, and another ten high. Wood-paneled, open ceiling. The walls were pale with wide, striped grain and an abundance of oblong swirls. Pine pulled from the nearby forest. The beams were darker, the grain tighter, fewer swirls. Oak. More of it stretched across the floor. Everything was plumb and tight, sturdy and quiet. Goblin-crafted, though not goblin-styled. A good tavern. It kept the wind outside and the smell of bread and meat in. The wall facing the forest had been done up floor-to-ceiling in windows. The top panes angled to match the slope of the roof. The view was of hardwoods, evergreens, and mountains turned gray-blue and hazy with distance. Something either of the gods-born species would like. Something a goblin would like. Something Sorrows liked. A good tavern.
Good enough that he had sat staring through those windows eleven times in thirty days. The ale was mellowing, venison had replaced boar which had replaced pheasant, and the bread held a touch of sweetness that again spoke to goblin bloodlines. And the quiet that accompanied each of those meals had been worth a copper itself. Sorrows had said nothing the first night, but the owner had met his gaze, and understanding passed between the two. The owner left for the kitchen and returned with a platter of food and drink. He set it on the table with a nod. As a half-born, he probably expected a certain amount of disdain and ridicule. But Sorrows had offered nothing more than silence and eight coppers. Generous compensation. And he had returned the next night. The owner had brought more food that time. Half a loaf. Indulgent for a place where flour came by wagon twice a year at best. Still no words spoken. When Sorrows came back for a third meal a few days later, it was time for the
