David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

The Kerrians made good time as they crossed the border of Safeway and trudged north toward the Gods’ Road. The sun had burned away the storm clouds, and the air had a slightly crisp feel to it. The horses maintained a steady canter while those on foot jogged alongside. Bardiya remained at the head of the procession, his heart overflowing with his newfound faith as his inhumanly long legs carried him forward easily. The only discomfort was his giant sword, which had been tied with hempen rope and draped over his left shoulder. The steel thwacked against his back with every loping stride.

“Onward to the drylands, to snatch the maiden fair,” he called out over his shoulder, a rhyme Warden Ozyel had taught him before his dearly departed father asked the elegant beings to leave their land. When he’d grown older, he’d realized how obscene the rhyme was, but in his youth he had repeated it nonstop while with his friends.

“The maiden’s legs are lengthy, I’ll stretch them once I’m there!” his people shouted back to him. Bardiya glanced to the side and saw Ki-Nan bouncing in his saddle, a smile on his face. It seemed like a scene from a time long passed-a collection of young men heading out for the hunt, excited for the thrill ahead.

Except this hunt would most likely lead to their deaths.

They descended a slick embankment where small patches of snow and ice still remained. Bardiya looked around in wonder. The cold hardly ever invaded the lands he called home, with only the rare flurry during the most brutal of winters, such as the one from the year before. Even then it was rare for him to see such sights. It had been so long since he’d ventured away from Ang, Safeway, and the desert of Ker. Once more he felt young again, and he wished to see a pure white landscape for the first time in forty years.

The simple desires ended when the embankment flattened, and they progressed across a broad, barren plain. There had once been grassland here, and tiny villages as well, but all was gone now, razed by Karak as the rancorous god’s army worked its way toward Mordeina. Bare earth squished and clumped beneath Bardiya’s bare feet, sending a chill up his ankle and through his calf until it took root in his spine. He shivered, a spasm so intense it felt as if his whole core had become unstable. A portent. He gazed across the ruined steppe.

Something wasn’t right.

No matter how decimated the land was, Bardiya still knew precisely where they were. The plains they currently cut through, nestled beneath the red cliffs to the west and the hills bordering the Rigon River to the east, stretched out for another two miles until ending at the Gods’ Road. Yet as he peered ahead, trying to see the horizon, all he saw was a black fog of some sort. It almost seemed as if there were another storm raging, this one hovering only a few feet off the ground.

He planted his foot and came to a halt, the rhyme dying on his lips. Behind him, the rest of his party followed suit.

Tuan Littlefoot sidled up to him. “What is it?”

Bardiya frowned at him and faced north. He heard a sound like that of a waterfall, faint at first yet growing progressively louder. He squinted, noticed that the black cloud ahead stretched nearly as wide as the valley itself. A feeling came over him, a smothering sensation he had experienced only once, years before, when he’d run across the flock of dying kobo. It was as if nature itself was crying in despair, railing against some ill-fated blight.

His eyes snapped open, and he ran forward a few steps, the questions his people tossed his way nothing but a dull murmur to his ears. It was then that he realized the cloud he saw was dust and ash being kicked into the air by countless stampeding feet.

It was a living wall of animalistic fury, undulating as it approached, jaws filled with sharp, snapping teeth. Bardiya had never seen anything like it in all his life. The creatures of Dezrel had been warped into something vicious. He knew right away this abomination was Karak’s doing.

“Ashhur save us,” he whispered.

The others must have noticed as well, as behind him Ki-Nan and Yorn Loros were riding in a frantic circle, forming their four hundred mates into a packed cluster fronted with swords and spears. Yorn rode up to him.

“Fight or flee?” the man asked, sweat beading on his brown skin even though the day was quite cool.

Bardiya looked back at the charging, mutated beasts. “No fleeing,” he said, and offered Ki-Nan, who lingered nearby, a knowing nod. “We must do the opposite of the antelope when confronted with a stalking sandcat; our best defense lies in keeping them before us. Just like the antelope, if we run, there’s a better chance we die.”

Ki-Nan’s face flushed and he turned away.

Yorn wheeled his horse around. “We need arrows!” he shouted.

A group of fifty men dashed forward, fanning out beside Bardiya, raising bows they’d liberated from elven corpses. The bows were larger than the ones the people of Ker normally used, and many of the men had difficulty drawing back the string. The task was made no easier by the fact that they were all terrified, their arms shaking uncontrollably.

The wall of fur, teeth, and claws drew nearer.

“Do not aim!” the giant shouted over the din of hoots and growls as he yanked the giant sword off his back. “This is no hunt. Just loose as many as you can!”

Bowstrings were released and arrows sailed into the afternoon sky. The elven bows were more powerful than those bearing them had expected, and the first volley sailed over the heads of the charging beasts, disappearing in the mass. Nevertheless, the arrows found purchase. Pained yelps and screeching sounded. Standing as tall as he did, Bardiya could see the charging horde was just as deep as it was wide. There were thousands of them, too many to count, too many for his meager four hundred men to hold at bay.

And so it ends here .

The archers adjusted their aim, and this time when the arrows sailed they carried in nearly a straight line across the hundreds of yards separating them. A few of the beasts in front collapsed and were trampled by those rushing up from behind. The archers nocked anew and fired. Still another handful fell, but they kept on coming. They were close enough now that Bardiya could see the beasts approaching them were of vaguely human form and nearly twice as big as they should have been. He saw the echoes of wolves, big cats, flightless birds, deer, otters, even sheep, their faces mockeries of humanity with distended brows, jutting snouts, oversized teeth and beaks, and glimmering yellow eyes.

For every one the archers felled with their shaky volleys, another ten took their place. In a matter of seconds the horde had halved the distance between them, so close now that Bardiya could almost smell the stench of old meat on their breath. “Get back to the others!” he told the archers. “Fight together! Fight with purpose! The Golden Forever awaits us all!”

The archers turned tail and fled back to the others, and he glanced down to see another group of men had joined his side. Allay and Yorn were among them, as was Ki-Nan. Half of them were on horseback.

“Should we die, we die together, brother!” Ki-Nan proclaimed.

Bardiya nodded, then held his massive sword above his head with one hand and pointed at the rushing beasts with the other. A primal scream exploded from his throat, and Bardiya and his fellow warriors charged, ignoring the arrows that now whooshed past them on either side. Hooves and feet pounded the wet, burnt land.

Just before they arrived, the creatures let out a simultaneous cry. Its pitch varied, high and low, an uneven wave of sound, but the word was all the same, and the sound of it chilled Bardiya to the bone.