All around me there was celebration. The Savage Land was at peace. The goblins had been freed from their curse, as had the Savage Land.. The World Tree hung heavy with leaf again, ,and the energy of its roots flooded the land., the magic driving the ancient rivers underground to steal the water of the land to enrich the gods blessed Holy Land and Dread Empire had been broken. It would be months before the rivers reached the surface in full strength, but streams scoured at the land, tearing the wounds that would widen to become the rivers who would succeed those lost to time. The goblins sang the song of their dead earth goddess, not the scream of her torment, and the land answered. The Savage Land bloomed. The goblins farmed. They worked their own lands, they came to assist the orcs and human tribes, and where they worked, the land yielded richness. It would be months until the harvest, but in a land where tribes shed rivers of blood for scraps of food, there would be plenty.
I taught the chieftains, my squad taught the champions, and we sent them back to their tribes of all races with the beginnings of mortal cultivation. The golden power of the will of creation that was the legacy of the titans, and the tentacles of the primordial darkness that were remnants of an age that never knew gods, nor the limits of their magics. In a land without magic, a land where the gods scorned starved in poverty and weakness, strength and plenty grew. It would not be allowed. He stroked the shaft of God Killer and his fingers and soul brushed the Mortal Bronze of its head. Blood red blade, starless dark edge, he touched it and the endless screaming of the trapped goblin souls within howled. He felt the death of the Phoenix, the ending of the first truly eternal being, the promise of immortality itself. The spear shivered. God Killer knew its purpose. It was a world ender. An age ender. True immortals could not die. They could be ripped from this world, but at most they would pass to Tarterus where Yn'Tereth and the Legions of Hell served to hold them beyond the gates now that the Chains of Demeter no longer bound them shut. Even in Tarterus, they stirred. They could touch the world with their mind, with their influence if not their direct power. The immortals could not truly die. That is how his father had been able to find and love his mother, though slain by the first Titans when his children rose against him, and ripped their mother apart for the power they called magic. Until God Killer. What died on its head was gone forever. Clover's will, blended with the will of the First Titan and the Primordial Darkness of Chaos were bound in the bronze. The unnatural union bound in the bronze with a thousand screaming goblin souls not allowed to return to the World Tree and rebirth, the God Killer unmade things. That which Clover's soul bound weapon killed was not simply killed, it was unmade. Immortality ended.
I heard the screaming, and drank my wine. Food tasted like dust and ashes, like pus and corruption. The life within it was consumed at his touch, and he got nothing from it but the knowledge that all the power life had locked within it had been taken from the world with his touch. So he drank. Bitter wine was supposed to taste of regrets. Looking over at Captain Xiang, he noticed her arguing with two orcish and a human chieftains. She eventually settled the argument by driving her knife through the hand that grabbed at the map, and with its blood traced out the new road. Captain Xiang was teaching the new Legions of the Savage Lands the truth none of these barbarians were ready to accept. Legions did not just train to fight, they built.
Roads moved between the settlements. Aqueducts to guide water to where it was needed. Dykes to keep water from destroying what it shouldn't. Captain Xiang had the freedom to turn her Legions to civil engineering, and a work force whose cultivation was slowly growing them to inhuman (inorcish, inoogerish, whatever) levels of strength and endurance. She knew she was building a nation for Clover, and if the stupid locals could not see that their petty squabbling over the prime bits of wasteland was distracting them from the forging of a new Power, then those who embraced the change would have taken up the positions of power and built the structures to run this new nation before the fossils realized their age had passed. Fucking nobles were all wastes of skin anyway, not matter their skin colour. The gods were not going to allow the Savage Lands to prosper. Those without gods were expected to starve in poverty, to cower in powerlessness before the might of the blessed. Those days were over. Give him a decade, and the nations of the world would not be able to stop him. They would not give him a decade. They might not give him a year.
I felt my hands grow to white knuckles on God Killer's shaft. When they came, we would be ready. Their magic was no longer a trump card. I could not do what they did, I could not teach my people to do what magic could do. I could teach them to be free of it. I could teach them to break it. Spear to spear, flesh to flesh, those who walked the path of mortal cultivation in time would be more powerful than those who borrowed power from the gods with the cheap and easy magic. Given time. He would not be allowed time. They would come, and he would kill them.
The voice whispered in his mind. It showed him the war of the gods, he knew the touch of the mind, for it was like that of Ajax. Was it not the father of Ajax, the Titan whose ancient ghost had awakened Clover himself. He knew the voice that whispered to him. Kronus, king of the Titans. Lord of Time. Dead and bound in Tartarus, but since Demeter had been freed, not as dead as he should be; not as bound as anyone would like.
"They will come for you. You have brought a new thing into the world. God Killer. They cannot allow you to live. You have taught your mortals, mortals of other races to live without their gods. This cannot be allowed. You must destroy them. This is the way. The new rise up, and sweep away the old." The voice of the first Lord of Olympus, the fallen King of Titans whispered.
"Rise up and kill, as you killed your father, and mother?" I asked.
The flow of memories flooded my mind, too fast, too strong. I was only human (ish). There was too much mind. Too much emotion. Too many memories, but the rage, sweet gods, the rage shook his bones and boiled his blood as the ghost's voice rose up.
"KILL THEM, ABOMINATIONS. This world was not meant for gods. This world was built for the Titans. It is for us to rule. Reality is ours to shape. Ours the right, ours the rule. Destroy the abominations. You hold the God Killer, only you can wipe them out. Do not banish them. End them. KILL THE GODS!" Kronus shouted, his will hammering into me as it merged with the screaming of the goblins bound into God Killer in a harmony of darkness that made me almost drunk from its power.
"As you killed my father?" I asked.
The laughter of Kronus as he remembered the death of their mutual father, the first titan. Kronus had been the Titan of Time, the Titan of Entropy, and by his act of primordial creation, the father of Clover and Kronus had brought time into the universe and made all things in it subject to Entropy. Thus Kronus slew his father, and with his brother and sisters, laid waste to the rest of primordial chaos until there was nothing left in the universe that was unbound. They had created the ultimate order, an order that birthed the gods who rose against them, and the magic they wielded against their parents.
"YES, kill them. Destroy them as I destroyed our father." Kronus laughed, and his laughter was a primal thing. Uncaring about anything but the desire to place the whole universe under his will and absolute dominion, there were not possible tolerable limits to his will. There was no possibility of freedom from his rule, no mercy from his judgement. I stroked God Killer and asked the question I hadn't dared to ask before.
"And my mother?" I asked.
"KILL HER! kill her, KILL her, kill HER, kill her, kill, kill, kill" Kronus voice became a chorus, all times and all places, all possibilities focused into one truth. The order of the universe was set. The new generation rose through the slaughter of the old. His mother's song was the song of creation, but his song had been the song of creation and destruction. She brought him to life with the song of the first act of creation, a time before death, a beginning before the first ending, but he was a thing of endings. He had sung the song of the cycle of destruction and creation, of predator and prey, consumption and renewal, but in his hands now was the God Killer, the spear of endings. He could make his own song the only song. He could end the gods and their dominion, he could bind the souls of all the mortal races to this world so strongly they could never leave, never pass the gates of death to anything but rebirth again. With this spear, he could end anything.
The hall grew loud as the gates parted. He felt the song rise, the old song, the first song.
Mom was here.
She walked into the hall flanked by his squad, as if she had always belonged here. She swept right to Anya and hugged her. Touching my wife's belly and laughing as if she knew her grandchild slept within. Hugging my orcish wife as if she had known her since birth, the two of them laughing and crying as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I watched her take up baby Goo. His eyes blazed with bronze fire and his tentacles of darkness reached out to touch the flowers woven in Mom's hair. I felt my hand tighten on God Killer as her song filled the room. I felt everyone in the hall react to it. Their eyes followed her, the tension that had been within them, the fear they held being near me since I forged God Killer fell away as she grew near. She undermined the fear I inspired, threatened the Dominion my will held, even in my own hall. Her song was a simple peasant thing, a song of growing fields, of fruit and grain, birth and harvest, of love and life, of change and growth, loss and healing. There was no screaming in her song, no scent of blood, no corruption, no rage. I gripped God Killer. It was the way of the world. As it had been in the beginning, it was the way of the universe. The new generation rose through the blood of their parents. The new order could not permit the old to exist. I held God Killer and knew myself for what I was. I was the ender of things, it was time to make an ending, no matter what it cost me.
Mom finally came before me, holding baby Goo who was busy chewing on her hair as if it was his life's mission.
She reached out and touched God Killer. It parted her skin and her blood dripped upon the floor of my hall.
"Clover honey, this is it. This is what changed your song? Can't you hear them screaming?" Mom asked, her eyes so simple. Kind, loving, no judgement. She had been my world, she had been my whole world growing up, had taught me her song, and then taught me how to embrace my own when I came home changed and terrible. She tossed grapes to my tentacle friends while I cultivated the primordial darkness that sought to devour all creation, but would settle for her stew. I learned to rework broken bones and torn muscles into things faster than running wolves and stronger than any bull or bear while she taught my tentacle friends to remove honey from the hives without hurting the bees. I held the power to reshape reality, to free mortals from the rule of gods forever in my fist, and she thought to judge ME?
I smiled, sadly. This would hurt more than being impaled on Ajax bones, worse than my tentacle friends teaching me to unmake and remake my body. This would hurt more, but I had a duty. I took up the spear. God Killer. The spear of unmaking. I remembered forging it, remembered the sacrifices required. This would not be the hardest thing I had done. It is good to be able to lie to yourself. I smiled again, this time brighter. Mom should be proud. When I left home, I couldn't lie, even to myself. Now I could even lie to her.
"It's okay Mom. Come with me to the Tree. It is where we freed the Earth Goddess. It is where we sacrificed all those goblins to break the curse. It is where my song changed. If you see it, you will understand." I said, I gestured to my squad. Janice looked alarmed, Brencis looked worried, Gracie looked suspicious, Fuckhead looked at Mom's ass. Seriously? She isn't even a troll.
Her goblin's followed her, and I could see why. As she walked the ground awakened by the World Tree, flowers bloomed beneath her feet. Wild strawberries by the looks of them. As she walked towards the tree, she began to slip into the song, and before we were within a hundred meters, she was slipping off her dress and dancing. Trailing after her, the peasants of all races, goblin, orc, human, followed her in the dance around the tree. Only my squad moved slower, feeling our own dance rising to blend within and around her song. The song of creation and destruction, the song of war. The song of death. I took God Killer in my hand and danced through the ring of dancers, weaving in slow terrible counterpoint, shield and God Killer spear moving as my squad followed in the dance until we neared the tree. Mom was stroking the tree, feeling where the chains used to bind the earth goddess, feeling the scars left behind by the Acheron Iron that God Killer had broken. She looked at my spear and her eyes flew wide.
"I'm sorry Mom. Sometimes, there are costs to the things we need to do. Sometimes I don't like who I have to be to pay those prices." I tossed aside my shield and took God Killer in my hands, I looked at Mom one last time and smiled.
"Love you Mom. I'm sorry." This had been the original site of creation, but I had turned it into a tree of sacrifice when I forged God Killer. There was one sacrifice left, but I wasn't strong enough to make it myself.
Mom's eyes flew wide, realizing what came next. This wasn't her song, this was my song. Death was not part of her song. Hers was the song of creation, but mine was first and foremost the song of destruction. I was the murderer here. She screamed out, desperate to prevent what she saw me resolve to do. I wasn't strong enough to do it myself, no matter how much I knew it needed to be done. I could not trust my squad to do what was necessary. They cared too much sometimes. Well, there was one I could trust, for this.
I tossed the spear casually in the air and spoke one word.
"Fuckhead" I commanded and turned to face him.
With a grin, the largest troll in the whole damned Legion, possibly the stupidest soldier that had ever not been killed in basic training, grabbed the spear in mid air and taking two quick steps drove it with all the power of a herd of charging war elephants to drive it into the soft spot between the wings of the ribs, just above the belly button. The stroke was an up thrust, so it drove through the body, carrying all the way through to drive into the flesh of the World Tree. The song rose, the song of destruction, the song of endings, blood flowed over God Killer and the Spear of Endings felt the dark primordial edge of the first chaos drink blood rich in the fires of the first creation, and caught fire.
Mom screamed, and it hurt my soul to hear it. She reached out to grip the spear, trying with all her strength to pull it out, but her strength was just that of a mortal woman, whatever else was in her soul, and it was not enough.
Gracie and the squad were beating Fuckhead to death, but they would probably stop before they finished the job. They understood that what I had ordered him to do was necessary. Or they would understand. Probably.
Mom's tears streaked down her face, and her song slowed, turning into a dirge, and the sky began to darken, to weep as she wept. I am glad, the rain would hide my own tears.
"Why Clover?" She begged me.
"Soldiers do the ugly necessary things Mom. We pay whatever it costs to finish the job. I'm sorry. This was necessary." They were not the last words I would choose to speak to Mom, but they were what I had.
I looked down at the spear impaling me, nailing me to the World Tree. I felt my blood bathing the Mortal Bronze of God Killer, and the screaming souls in the weapon, bound by my will, bound by my need, bound by my crime, and I freed them. I drove my tentacle friends into the blade. They were primordial chaos, the endless potential that preceded the universe. The Celestial Bronze had been forged from pure will to destroy such chaos, to bind its endless potential into one thing, into reality. My blood carried my will, my song, and my blood was in the spear, as was my will. My tentacle friends wreathed in my blood drove into the Mortal Bronze of God Killer and tore at it. I howled and shrieked, this weapon was bound to my soul, as they unmade it, they unmade me. Sacrificed myself, to myself on the World Tree, I hung and I screamed as my tentacle friends tore at the Ending of All Things that was driven through me, and tore from it the souls of the bound.
Nine days I hung, each hour driving my will deeper into the blade, tearing more of it away, each hour another soul of a bound goblin howled free to flow down the spear head into the World Tree. Howls turned to song as the World Tree took back the children of the Goddess for the promised rebirth I had taken from them.
Yn'Tereth the Defiler came on the third day and sat gazing at me as I writhed. He stared at me as I paid the price for my crime in the place of his crime. He stared, and the God of Evil looked away.
On the sixth day, the King of Heaven came to the tree, but when my eyes flew open and blazed at him with the unravelling power of the God Killer leaking from me, he fled whatever it was he saw in me.
On the ninth day, the last of the goblin souls was freed from my spear, and the last of its bronze rotted with it.
I fell from the tree, and Mom was there to hold me. My squad picked me up to carry me home. Anya, my wife, picked up the shaft of God Killer, and brought it home with me. Something was changed within me. I don't know what it was, but one thing I knew. The scream was gone from my song. It was clean again. I no longer had to fear for the souls of them I taught to sing it.
Lightning lashed down at the World Tree, but did not strike it. The gods raged, and knew that God Killer was unmade. They would move against me, and I would have to deal with it. My people would not be allowed to live, but I was a soldier. I would do what was necessary to keep them safe. Somehow.
Thanks for the series so far, I love it.
You have to wonder if f*ckhead was too stupid to know what he was doing, or just smart enough to trust Clover's seemingly foolish order.
My money is on the latter. It has been mentioned that he knows he can't be trusted without supervision. This implies a certain level of self-awareness of his own shortcomings, and his trust in his friends to try and guide him to a better path.
Same, I think f*ckhead knew exactly what he was doing and trusted Clover for it.
@tinyestim I doubt he had any idea of what plan Clover actually had, but knowing there was a plan was enough.