Duty Calls: The Reluctant War God Book 1 by Bill D. Allen Read Free Book Online Page B

gaining up strength for the coming fight, but for whatever reason the pause gave the Guldon troops more time to prepare the defense.
    As those defenses firmed up, I got to spend more time at the Black Rose and fencing and less digging ditches which suited me just fine. The defenses were about as ready as they could be.
    The familiar, boisterous atmosphere of the great room of the Black Rose felt like my natural habitat. A few tankards and a few songs raised anyone’s spirits, but this is where I tended to truly thrive. I also did what I could here and there to assist in bolstering the cheer of the others. I fought the black dread hanging over the troops with lively jigs and dirty ditties.
    In the process, I also overheard stories about the Jegu invasion from the conversations of the customers. Many were refugees from neighboring kingdoms. What they said was disturbing.
    None knew where Jegu came from. He had no people. His troops were a mishmash of conscripted men and women from the lands he had conquered. They had disparate cultures, random weapons, many even spoke different languages. The one thing they had in common was a fanatical devotion to Jegu’s divinity and holy right to dominate all lands and all peoples.
    It seemed Jegu could easily divide the loyalties of lifelong friends and close families. Those who took up his banner would perpetrate any audacity against those people whom they had supposedly loved. Husbands had slain wives. Parents had slain their own children. Those who escaped were dumbfounded as to the power Jegu wielded to create such fanatical zealotry.
    I’d seen it before, or at least something damn near like it. My family had led millions to their deaths, shouting in ecstasy as they slew their fellow mortals or praising us with their agonal last breaths. Still, Jegu seemed better at it than we’d ever been.
    I played near the hearth where I could keep an eye on the room and they could all get a good look at me as well. One night, I was about halfway through an old moonshiner song when I noticed the Black Rose had hired a new serving girl. She had dark eyes and hair and just a glance of her made me miss the next chord and stammer over the lyrics. I made a joke of it and recovered immediately, but to tell the truth, I was astonished a mortal woman had affected me so greatly.
    I’d lived hundreds of lifetimes, and there would be no way to count the number of women I’d known in that time, but only a handful had immediately created such a feeling of attraction within me. I made it my mission to come to know her, and over the next week I did so.
    The woman was named Angelina. I ensured she was the girl who brought me my drinks so we could share a word here and there. When we looked at each other, an obvious, undeniable flame of desire burned bright along with more than a bit of mischievous playfulness.
    She was smart witted, trim waisted and big breasted and to top if off, she liked musicians—what more could I ask for?
    Of course, she was no longer a girl. She was around thirty, an age just starting to be unkind to mortal women who had to work as hard as she did in a world such as this. The lack of medical care, reliable nutrition, and reliance on physical labor made for low life expectancies. The flower of her youth was still on her face, but faded and just beginning to wither, but a light from within her shined more brightly than any young little tart.
    She was more than she appeared to be. As we grew to know each to each other our relationship developed quickly, in part fueled by our evident natural attraction to each other and in part certainly due to the air of eminent threat suffusing the city. How long was there to live? Why not take a chance on a romance?
    She was rather quiet about herself. She avoided talking about her past. At her age, in this culture, she was an old maid. It was unusual for a woman, especially one as beautiful as Angelina to be unmarried and without children. There was an