Meta Gods War 3 by B. Miles (the ebook reader txt) 📕

Cam caught Galla’s eye. Her face was horror-stricken. They balanced on the edge of a blade and Cam knew Remorn was about to shove them off into the abyss. He realized that Galla never really expected her father to turn to violence.

In that moment, he knew what he had to do.

He called on his magic again and reached out with his off hand. He held his sword to the side, and before Remorn could issue an order to his troops, Cam summoned a stream of flame. He released it from his palm and sliced it straight through Remorn’s back.

The fire broke from Remorn’s chest like a spear tip. He released a shocked groan as he fell to his knees and half twisted to face his daughter. Galla’s hands flew to her mouth and a scream fell from her lips.

Cam walked forward, sword pulled back into a two-handed grip. He saw Remorn’s men staring at him from behind their helmets.

He brought the sword down and sliced through Lord Remorn’s neck.

The Lord of the Mansion’s head fell from his shoulders and hit the ground with a wet thud. His slumped over in the opposite direction. The smooth stone floor was soaked in moments as Remorn’s head came to stop a foot from the infantry line.

“Stand down,” Cam said to the nearest soldiers. “Your Lord is dead. Throw your weapons to the ground.”

Cam heard Galla’s sob but couldn’t let that stop him now. He stared at the men nearest him and saw the fear in their eyes. Cam stepped closer and raised his sword, the blood on the blade sizzling from the residual heat.

“Throw down your weapons!” Cam shouted.

The man nearest him dropped his shield. His spear came next. Both clattered on the stone floor.

More threw down their weapons. It spread like a wave and soon the entire division was down on their knees, hands up and behind their heads.

Cam spotted Vogen, still alive, kneeling with all the others.

Captain Brice marched forward and began issuing orders. Her armored division gathered up the weapons and began to take prisoners.

The Elves sheathed their swords and withdrew almost as silently as they had come.

Galla’s sobs punctuated the silence. Cam turned to her as she knelt staring at the headless corpse of her father. Tears dribbled from her eyes and her mouth hung open in horror.

“I didn’t think…” she said. “I didn’t think…”

Cam knelt beside her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I truly am. But there was no other way.”

She met his eyes. Her beautiful face was drawn and pale and tear-stained. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

He touched her shoulder and she flinched away.

Cam stood and sheathed his weapon. He looked down at Galla Remorn, at his first wife, at the Lord of the Mansion, and he wondered how anything could survive through this.

But he knew they’d been through worse already, and worse was still to come.

He left her there to mourn the death of her father.

13

“I heard you cut the bastard’s head clean off.”

Cam grimaced as he grabbed a rock and climbed up to the next hand-hold. The drop below was sheer. Cool mountain air pulled at the edges of his clothes.

Sirrin offered him a hand. Cam took it and the former General pulled him up.

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Cam said. “He was surrounded and outnumbered, but he was still going to fight.”

“Brought the Elves in, huh.” Sirrin shrugged as they took a few steps along a tight rocky path.

“I thought he wouldn’t see that coming.”

“Did he?”

“I don’t think so.” Cam let his fingers trace uneven stone. “But that might’ve been my mistake. I thought he’d be smart enough to see that he was outmatched. Instead, I think it just pissed him off even more.”

“Made him irrational,” Sirrin said. “Hate can do that.”

“I didn’t know he felt that way about the Elves.”

“Most Humans do. I mean, not outright, but, you know.”

“Hate what they don’t understand.”

“I think shaman tend to be a little… different in that regard.” Sirrin walked ahead of Cam. “We know what it’s like to be a bit of a freak.”

Cam smiled to himself. He’d never thought of himself that way, but now that Sirrin said it, Cam couldn’t deny the truth. He caught looks while walking through the Mansion’s halls. Eyes stared out at him over breakfast bowls. People were curious about him, like he was some kind of exotic animal. It didn’t matter what Cam did, they’d always see him as something different.

Sirrin climbed up a large boulder. Cam followed and found himself on a flat plateau at the base of another steep cliff. Sirrin sat close to the back wall and leaned back on his hands.

Cam sat next to him. They were a couple of hundred feet above the Mansion’s entrance. Cam had wanted to train his magic but Sirrin insisted that they go for a little mountain hike instead.

That mountain hike turned into a mountain climb. Cam’s arms burned from the exertion and he wondered how in the hells they were going to get back down.

The valley was shrouded in mist below them. Cam thought he saw cook fires spread out through the trees. But at their height, he knew it was only a trick of the mind.

“Almost makes you wonder,” Sirrin said.

“Wonder what?”

“How we ever made it to this place.” He ran a finger through the dirt. “I mean, what crazy bastards decided they were going to carve an entire village in the side of a mountain?”

Cam laughed and leaned forward, hooking his arms around his knees. “The ancients did a lot of things I don’t think we really understand.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Cam said. “Like magic, for instance. How’d they even find it?”

“Who knows,” Sirrin said. “How’d we find how to make metal? Same sort of thing, I guess.”

“I guess,” Cam echoed. “How’d you learn magic? I don’t think I ever asked you. Was your father a shaman?”

Sirrin shook his head. “My father was a