Chapter 44: Accelerated plans

When you've planned for something for hundreds of years, you learn to build flexibility into those plans. If you remain dedicated to one course, and refuse to change your tactics, only failure will result.

-Athanaric

Ten minutes later, Athanaric stood outside his tent, regaining his breath and ignoring the paladins kneeling nearby.

Twice. Twice in one day he’d given pursuit and failed. He sorely needed to replenish his Ichor stores.

The camp lay in general stillness and silence. The clear starlight gave a soft luster to the tents and sagebrush-spotted streets around him. Several tents over, a few serving girls giggled with some of his younger wives—one of whom he would need to summon later on that night—although most people still gathered on the opposite side of the city, at the feast that followed the Strengthening. The celebration had really only just begun, and generally only paladins remained in the camp. Nearly a thousand of them patrolled the area. The other nineteen thousand held positions around the camp and city, watching for the redheaded draegon-girl. And now, also, for the Godslayer.

Now, after the fact, with his anger dulled and his pursuit failed—and the Slayer of Gods disappeared into the dark countryside—Athanaric again felt the appeal of giving up. How nice it would be to lose the burden of ruling over a disobedient and willful people, to just leave them to their own problems and let them deal with the Godslayer themselves. But no, as their god he needed to provide a way for them to live in peace.

Why had Naresh spared him? The Godslayer certainly could’ve killed him; he had the power, especially given his history of defeating gods and Athanaric's own depletion of Ichor. But why hadn’t Naresh killed him?

Athanaric had no firm answers to that question. He could only guess that Naresh wanted to kill him in public so that everyone knew he’d died—the opposite of what had happened in Hasuke, where most still didn’t know their god had perished.

Whatever the case, Athanaric wouldn’t fall to the Godslayer. He would prepare for the inevitable confrontation. He would continue on his course, down to Hasuke, to take control of the country and bring the people under his wing.

Something Naresh had said returned to Athanaric: the cultists worked with the Hasuken honor guard. The thought hadn’t occurred to him before. But it made sense. Along with the Godslayer, the honor guard had overthrown their god, and now worked with the demigods in the neighboring country to overthrow theirs.

Well, they’d failed.

During the last week, Athanaric had spent a great deal of time searching out the rest of the apostates. While he still hadn’t captured Wester, he believed that he’d pinpointed the rest of the dissenters and killed the last demigods—except for Wester—that day at the Strengthening. Only a group of regular people remained, and he'd learned where they were. As proof that he was right, no demigods had been attacked in days.

He’d almost succeeded in eradicating the rebellion. The problem was almost taken care of. Hasuke now loomed as the biggest challenge.

He and his army could reach the border in a week. His original plan had called for him to go to Hasuke after he’d completed the Strengthening, when all of his Caretakers had returned to their homes. But if he went straight there, and postponed the remainder of the Strengthening, his Caretakers could join him in fighting the honor guard. He liked that idea.

He lifted a hand to pull the tent door aside, but paused.

Of course, he could take that as one more reason to just lie down and end his existence. Pile that on top of everything else. His general boredom with life, the slaughter of his wives and children, the poisoning of his servants, the attacks of the renegades—it was all becoming too much. It would be so nice to give up.

No, he had to continue on. He couldn’t succumb until he’d selected and trained an heir that could care for and watch over the people.

And it might very well be Wrend. The boy had demonstrated considerable strength of will, even despite a few foolish decisions, even if those decisions had probably proven the right things to do—which made them even that much more impressive. He’d gone against tradition in order to make a hard decision. His country needed that—someone with a firm hand, who could take whatever steps any situation might require.

Teirn certainly hadn’t made such difficult decisions. He’d stayed the course, proven obedient in all things—which was, of course, also very important. He would be more easily trained, and would obey and learn without question.

But which to choose as his heir? He’d never made a more important decision, and while he’d moved closer to a conclusion in recent days, he still didn’t know who was the right choice.

He’d intended to wait until battles with Hasuke to really test his sons, but he saw now that he couldn’t wait that long. They’d already guessed—or someone had told them—the purpose of the proving. It annoyed him to no end, for with them having such knowledge, he couldn’t hold back any longer.

He needed a test, something that would force the two sons into a direct confrontation. Then maybe they would make the choice for him. One would eliminate the other.

He liked that idea. Let them choose. Perhaps either son would do. He’d suspected it from the start, from the very day he’d selected their souls and placed them into Rashel’s and Calla’s fetuses.

Let them decide who would be his heir.

The perfect idea came to him.

Satisfied, he headed back into the tent to tell Wrend what he’d decided.