The Silent Army by James A. Moore Read Free Book Online

muzzle or head. Was it necessary? No, but Gorwich seemed to like it.
    “Delil?”
    “Yes, Andover?” She was currently climbing onto her mount, and preparing to ride again.
    “If the Forges are moving so far apart from each other, does that mean the Sa’ba Taalor will have to choose only one god each? Fellein is vast. A thousand or more times the size of the Taalor Valley.”
    Delil shook her head. “The distance we rode to the Seven Forges. How long was it?”
    “I could not say. The storms of the Blasted Lands hid so much from us.”
    “They hid nothing the gods did not want hidden. Sometimes a trip to the Taalor Valley is a trip that takes months. Other times a day or only a few hours.”
    Andover frowned, considering that.
    Delil continued. “The time it takes to reach any place we are required to go is changed by the gods themselves, Andover. If they wanted us at Canhoon now, if they needed us there, we would be within sight of the city. That is their way.”
    Andover rubbed his iron palm on Gorwich’s neck and then climbed onto the mount’s back. If his weight bothered the great beast, it gave no sign.
    “So let us see how quickly they want us there,” he said. “But let us be careful. We are now in a land where the Daxar Taalor are not the only gods, and there are enemies here who would see us dead.”
    Delil smiled and patted the hilt of her long, thin sword. “Finally,” she sighed. “A war.”
    Drask Silver Hand raised his eyes from the ground before him and frowned.
    “I tire of this.” Neither of his companions spoke. He was not completely sure that either could any more.
    “Brackka! To me!” Drask roared the words and the air around them shimmered as the dust at their feet rippled, impacted by the sound waves.
    His voice echoed far further than should have been possible. In the far distant remains of the Mounds, half hidden by the settled ash and soot, a shadow was burned into the very stone where Brackka had stood when Drask and the others fell into the glowing essences that powered the endless caverns of the forbidden underground realm. The resulting contact between living flesh and reservoirs of power locked away in the Mounds had been… explosive.
    Drask was not even now completely certain what the energies had been. He only knew that they were still changing him, altering his mind and his body alike. One look at his silver hand was enough to make that point clearly. Striations of silver ran all the way up to his bicep now, slithering slowly up from his wrist like arteries of liquid silver.
    He knew something else as well. He knew that Brackka was dead, and how he had died, burnt into naught but a shadow.
    One last thing he knew. He knew that when he called for Brackka, his mount would come to him.
    In the distance, in the Mounds, left far behind, the shadow of Brackka rose, and pulled itself away from the stone. It moved quickly and took on flesh as it ran toward Drask’s voice. Flesh, and familiar armor, leather and straps and supplies and a dozen weapons long since forged by Drask.
    By rights it should have been days or at the very least a long night before Brackka could reach Drask.
    It took only minutes.
    Drask did not wish to wait for his mount, and so he did not have to. For some beings, time works differently.
    There was a moment of joy when Brackka got there. He patted his friend’s thick neck and ran his flesh fingers through the thick mane and murmured nonsense to his longtime companion.
    And all the while he contemplated what it meant that he was able to so easily bring his friend back from complete destruction.
    What, he wondered, makes a god a god?

    Merros walked the Mid Wall, looking into the stone faces of each of the Silent Army. They were easy to tell apart. Some were male, others female. All wore the same armor, archaic breastplates and helmets that did not cover their faces. Each looked slightly rough, reflecting the fact that they appeared carved from the very