David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

To Averan’s left and behind her, reavers all raced to converge. “Help!” Averan screamed. “Help!”

But no one came to her side. She didn’t have Saffira’s allure. She was only a little girl.

She dropped from her horse. A reaver swung a glory hammer behind her, bludgeoning Borenson’s fine mount into a spray of blood and guts.

Averan scampered, hunched over, and tried to make herself small. Desperately she sought someplace to hide.

Ahead, the green woman had just slaughtered a reaver. It lay gasping mechanically, mouth open, its raspy tongue nearly two feet wide hanging from its mouth. Averan wanted to roll under the monster, to hide in the crook of, its legs, but the beast had fallen to the ground.

Its mouth, she realized. I could hide in there.

She leapt into the monster’s cavernous mouth. Its palate formed a hollow nearly as tall as a man, but the sides were covered in slime. The warty flesh of its gums was nearly black, and the reaver’s teeth around her, row upon row of them, were all as clear as crystal knives. She clung to two of the longest teeth, hanging on, lest she fall down.

The reaver’s breath smelled fetid, added to the horrid stench of decay that the fell mage had created. Averan almost imagined that the beast was rotting apart in her hands. Her own hands itched, and dark blotches were forming on them.

The reaver’s mouth convulsed mechanically, and the tongue she stood on shifted. Then the reaver’s maw slowly began to close.

Averan’s stomach clenched in terror. She pushed on its gums with all of her might, struggled to keep the mouth open. She feared that even though the reaver was dead, it might swallow her still. She’d seen how dying animals sometimes moved by reflex. “Help!” she screamed. “Help!”

“I’m coming!” Borenson shouted. He’d sliced cleanly between the reaver’s thoracic plates and now backed away as the reaver came crashing down, its forepaws landing almost atop him.

He’s coming for me, Averan thought.

But now as the eunuchs continued to fight a blade-bearer to Borenson’s left, he lunged beyond them, into a dark gorge formed of reaver corpses. Borenson raced to Saffira.

But I thought you were going to help me! Averan wanted to shout.

The evening sky was going dark. The land was covered in a cloying, sickly mist, and in the deep shadows, reavers rose up black and monolithic. As a new attacker scaled the bodies of the dead, the light above Averan was nearly cut off.

Averan cringed in terror, struggled to push the reaver’s mouth open again. As she did, she squinted, and in her mind’s eye she could see the emerald flame burning brightly.

It’s so close now, she thought. I could almost touch it. She’d been drawn to it for days. Now, she thought she understood why.

Safety. I would be safe with the Earth King, she told herself—safe as his Chosen. A wild hope thrilled through her.

“Foul Deliverer, Fair Destroyer,” Averan cried on sudden impulse, “go get the Earth King! He’ll help us.”

Then the reaver’s mouth closed, despite all that she could do.

Averan screamed.

Raj Ahten raced down from the stone walls of Carris, struggling to be the first to reach Saffira. He shoved aside some slower men on the stairs, then leapt from them onto the back of a dead frowth giant, catching his foot in the beast’s chain mail. He pulled his foot free.

Once released, he leapt from the back of one dead reaver to another, using the dead beasts as if they were ghastly stepping stones. Thus he reached the fallen castle gates well before most of his people did. Only a few of Paladane’s men were ahead of him out on the causeway.

For half a heartbeat, he stood on a reaver’s corpse above the causeway and felt the tremors of an earthquake. It shook the very foundations of Carris, with a roar far louder than the surf. As it hit the shore, it caused a mighty wave to ripple out.

Paladane’s finest men fought ahead down the causeway, embroiled in a melee.

He could imagine how they would fare.

He raced now, leaping along the backs and bellies of dead reavers.

As the quake rocked a reaver beneath him, Raj Ahten vaulted into the air, then landed in the fray atop a living reaver’s head. He slammed his warhammer deep into its sweet triangle, killing it instantly.

A hundred thousand human voices cried out as one as the earthquake surged beneath the castle. Raj Ahten glanced back just as the west wall of Carris sheered away in thunderous ruin, spilling outward.

He dared not hesitate. He climbed the reaver’s sloping head, raced toward Saffira.

He did not watch the fall of Carris, but he heard it, smelled the acrid scent of stone dust in the air. The people wailed as Carris collapsed. Towers toppled. Shops disintegrated.

With six endowments of metabolism, Raj Ahten fought swiftly and furiously, daring attacks he’d never have tried if not for Saffira. He leapt on reaver heads and sought to crush them with his hammer. He raced past one monster, pausing to shatter its leg so that men behind would have an easier time with it. For long moments, his existence became an obscene dream of death and maiming, while Paladane’s men and his Invincibles fought at his side.

Behind him, he could hear hundreds and thousands of commoners charging toward Saffira, racing to do battle in the midst of the reavers. To do so was suicide, Raj Ahten thought. But in his heart he knew that to do less was also suicide.

In the midst of the city, several towers flamed. As they crumbled, they spewed burning wood and cinders up into the evening sky.

As Paladane’s men slaughtered a reaver, Raj Ahten climbed atop it to get his bearings. Behind him in the castle people fled for their lives: warriors and merchants, women with babes in arms, lords and paupers.

Raj Ahten marveled at how many had survived the quake, for if he’d not seen it, he’d have thought that not more than a few hundred would escape the fall of Carris.

For what seemed along hour, Raj Ahten fought on, though it could not have been more than ten minutes of commoner’s time. Paladane’s lords and Raj Ahten’s Invincibles fought at his back, while the commoners of Carris streamed into the battle lines.

Their effect astonished Raj Ahten: Many reavers began a careful retreat, balking at the challenge. Confronted by a dozen men, most reavers backed away.

Until now, none of his tactics had impressed the reavers. But so many people—a mass of people attacking as one—gave the reavers pause. It was easy to guess why: The reavers could not distinguish a commoner from a Runelord. All men smelled the same. To a reaver, any man who dared attack presented a potentially devastating challenge.

We are wasps to them, Raj Ahten realized, but they can’t tell whether we have stingers.

Pockets of resistance grew around his Invincibles and among Paladane’s most powerful lords. But though many reavers balked, they did not flee.

Blade-bearers waded into the commoners and commenced a truly horrific slaughter, cutting down men and women by the thousands and tens of thousands.

The people of Carris threw themselves against the reaver lines, commoners wielding pickaxes and hammers. They gave themselves for their Earth King in ways that they’d never have given themselves for Raj Ahten.

The commoners’ efforts were almost futile, except that they provided some diversion for those warriors who had the grace and brawn and metabolism needed for the melee. So their struggle was not completely in vain. But Raj Ahten would never forget the spectacle that presented itself before the gates of Carris: human blood by the barrels, the splintered bones, mangled flesh, the expressions of horror in dead women’s eyes.