The Last War (Book #9 of the Sage Saga) by Julius St. Clair Read Free Book Online Page A

rise.
    “Take your time,” Deaf replied. “We’ve got all day, and I want to make this last. You’re Bastion, aren’t you? The great Bastion? The one that ruined our lives? Yes, I’m ready to savor this. Give me the opportunity to kill you, and I will take it. I don’t care what the little ones say.”
    “What little ones?” Lily asked from behind him.
    “Don’t you have a city to save?” Deaf asked, unconcerned with her arrival.
    “It’s all taken care of,” she said. “You’re all that’s left.”
    “Then you must not be paying attention. What about the second wave? The Sages should be here any moment.”
    “Sages?” she scowled. “But you’re Cimmerian. Sages wouldn’t even dare to side with filth like you.”
    “The times are changing,” he laughed. “Allegiances are breaking. Names are losing their meaning. I’m part of something greater now. Paragon and Cimmerian as one, it’s a brand new outfit.”
    “Paragon’s sanctioning this?”
    “No, they’re off fighting the lost cause,” Deaf said, yawning. “But while they’re busy dying, we can take care of the real threats like shorty here.”
    “The Delilah have nothing to do with this.”
    “Oh, they have everything,” Deaf said with bright eyes. “I heard they heard something. Something sweet. Something that will change everything. I’m looking to find out who knows what was heard.”
    “Ugh, you’re confusing,” Lily said in disgust. “Just listening to you makes me want to take a bath.”
    “I tend to make people feel that way,” he said. “But all this talk is pointless. You going to fight me or what? I was sent her specifically to take care of you and lover boy here.”
    “Sure, you were,” Lily said. “Just like how the Sages have sided with Cimmerians.”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Believe what you like. It’s the truth.”
    “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
    “Break me enough and they’ll step in. Call it a consolation prize.”
    “Fine,” Lily said, moving toward him one step at a time, gauging him for weaknesses. He smiled and turned his back completely to Bastion who was still lost. For some reason though, the young Sage wasn’t moving.
    “We got this, Bastion,” she called out to him. “Like we always do.”
    “You don’t get it yet,” Deaf laughed. “Your era is over. All of you that have caused our suffering will get it a hundred times more and then some. The Sages will either join our cause or die trying.”
    “I can’t say the philosophy doesn’t sound familiar,” Lily said. “Tell me, do you know a man named Gideon?”
    “Nope,” Deaf said, shrugging his shoulders.
    “He said something similar,” Lily said as Deaf’s muscles tensed. “He spoke of making us suffer for causing all of this.”
    “I don’t know him,” Deaf said adamantly, “but I like the sound of the guy. Maybe he’s the one that brought us altogether, who knows? It doesn’t matter. Our cause is more than a name. More than one person. This is a force that you can’t stop. This is nature. This is the hand of a god. This is the way of a Solon.”
    “Damn it,” Lily muttered.
     

Chapter 6 – Atone
    “Gideon got out somehow?” Lily asked but she didn’t get an answer. Bastion tried to catch Deaf off guard, extending his Gladius out and willing the blade to grow in length. Deaf swatted the blade away with his mace and bounded toward the young Sage.
    Bastion leapt at him but Deaf grabbed him by his robe and threw him over his head back toward Lily. Lily half-caught  him, half-fell over at Bastion’s weight, but she quickly wrapped her arms around his neck and began yelling into his ear.
    “I need you all here!” she shouted. “We can’t do this with brute strength alone. Delilah will fall without us!”
    Bastion gnashed his teeth and roared at Deaf, but eventually he began to calm down. Deaf waited for the Sage’s eyes to turn back to normal and Bastion began huffing as if he was out of