David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

Before he could turn around and defend against the dangers behind him, he glanced up the full height of the wall. The top of the wall shimmered in the sunlight, drawing his eye to its horrors. He wanted to look away but couldn’t. Tristan had told him about the corpses that hung here, and though he knew the boy hadn’t been lying, a part of him still hadn’t wanted to believe him.

Yet there they were, bodies dangling from the wall, at least fifty of them. Some were fresher than others; those to his far left looked like they had been recently hung. Patrick stared at their faces, rotted and drooping, holding very little resemblance to the humans they had once been. The slate walk beneath them was stained black and a wretched shade of green. Patrick couldn’t help but gape at each and every one of them, men and women alike, not stopping until he found the one he was searching for.

Patrick’s heart shattered. He fell to his knees.

There she was, a decomposed husk of the vibrant girl she’d once been, now not much more than a skeleton covered with a thin sheen of gray, peeling flesh. The mane of curly hair, its bright red faded to a dull auburn, coiled around the eyeless skull and fell over the shoulders. Patrick leaned back, staring up at Nessa’s corpse. Her death hadn’t been real before; it had been a message from another-more rumor than fact, even if he’d believed it completely. But now, to see the proof directly in front of him. . something within him snapped. He threw his head back and howled at the sky, then scampered to his feet, breathing heavily as tears streamed down his cheeks. The din of conflict going on all around him seemed far away.

“Where are you!” he bellowed. “I know you’re here!”

When he turned, he saw that the entire square in front of the castle had become one giant battleground. Soldiers of Karak and Ashhur clashed with a frenzy, while elves, those strange wrapped women, and the Wardens were intermixed as well, killing and dying just as easily as everyone else. Ashhur, his beloved deity, was nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the horde, his undead swaying uselessly between pockets of combat.

That only served to further enrage Patrick, and he focused on that rage. When one of Karak’s soldiers ran at him, he drove his sword through the man’s face, kicked the corpse off the blade, and continued to rumble along the castle wall like a bull seeking a target to spear with his horns. There was one man that mattered, the one that had haunted his dreams with visions of his dead sister, the one he now blamed for everything that had gone wrong.

And then he found him: Jacob Eveningstar, the First Man who had betrayed Ashhur and cast all of Dezrel into war. He stood in front of the castle portcullis, flanked on either side by onyx lion statues, his eyes glowing bright crimson. A ring of soldiers in black armor protected him. His cloak billowed as if he was caught in a harsh wind, and his body was surrounded by swirling shadow. The man chanted, his hands in constant motion, fingers twisting into odd shapes, a look of pain on his face. Patrick never thought twice. His instinct was to let out a scream, one that contained all the rage and heartbreak he had ever felt, but he snapped his lips shut and simply charged.

One of the soldiers in front noticed his approach and turned. He wore a massive helm topped with a pair of horns, and stepped toward him. The soldier held before him a sword as hefty as Winterbone, with a curled black handle. Patrick snarled, kept his feet moving, lifted his own sword above his head, and chopped down as hard as he could when he was within reach.

The soldier easily parried the clumsy strike, kicking Patrick away in the process. Patrick hit the ground and rolled, falling directly on Winterbone. The sharp blade sliced through his armored left shoulder and cut deep into the flesh beneath. Patrick let out a cry of fury and pain and rolled back over, clutching at his gushing wound. The same soldier then yelled something Patrick couldn’t hear.

As Patrick got to his feet, an ear-splitting roar sounded. From above the castle wall leapt two lions, a male and a female, far too huge to be normal. They soared over his head and landed amid the chaos, their jaws snapping and claws swiping. Men were shredded from both sides. One of the Wardens, Sabael, lost his head in an instant.

“You have lost, blasphemer!” someone called out. Patrick turned back around to see that the soldier who had thwarted his attack had lifted the visor of his great helm. Scars ran down half his face, and one of his eyes was milky white. The scarred man took a step forward, pointing a mailed finger in Patrick’s direction.

“You will fall next,” he said.

Patrick took a defensive posture, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, waiting for the man to attack. Behind him, swords clashed, and he heard a youthful voice-either Tristan or Joffrey-screaming his name. He ignored it.

But the helmed soldier didn’t rush him. Jacob Eveningstar didn’t hurl a ball of shadow in his direction. Instead, from out of the portcullis swarmed fifteen elves, moving effortlessly around Jacob and the guarding soldiers, forming a secondary layer of protection for the First Man. Their copper skin glistened in the sunlight, and their pointed ears twitched. The elf in the center stepped forward. He was a massive beast of a thing, square headed and thick shouldered. His armor was black and rutted, like scales. From behind his back he drew a pair of gleaming swords just as black as his armor. The elf leaned forward and scowled at Patrick, clanging his swords together in front of him, causing sparks to shower to the cobbles.

Patrick heard rapid footfalls approaching from behind and threw an elbow, cracking the jaw of a rushing soldier, then stood sideways and faced the giant elf.

Perhaps this is the one to prove me mortal?

“Who cares?” he growled. The ageless Patrick DuTaureau charged.

Eldrich Vaelor, the puppet king of Veldaren, stood atop the roof of the tallest public dwelling in the city, gray eyes staring across the narrow alleyways toward the Castle of the Lion. Moira followed his gaze. It was bedlam down there, thousands of combatants, nearly all of Veldaren and Ashhur’s entire armies, mashed into a tiny space. Even as far away as they were, it sounded as if the war were raging right below them.

Moira moved to the edge of the roof, squinting. Her blood was pumping in anticipation, and despite her injuries, which were not yet fully healed, she wanted to dive in down there, where she was most needed. And she knew she would get that opportunity. Though the king had claimed his rebellion was only traversing the city to observe the clash between the brother gods, she knew that the people’s need to make a difference would override his hesitation. Eldrich might not be the same man she had known as a child, a spoiled braggart afraid of his own shadow, but he wasn’t the strength behind the rebellion.

No, that strength was drawn from the one Moira had come here to save. Laurel Lawrence, that brilliant, beautiful, and fearless young thing, was the true power behind the forgotten throne.

As if on cue, the woman stepped toward the ledge beside Moira. Laurel was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting breeches covered by a mannish frock, but there was no denying her beauty or the potency of her will. Moira was intensely attracted to her, and even awed by her. From what Moira had learned, this woman had ventured out each day into a city that wanted her dead, determined not to stop until she had saved all the people she could. This was not a woman who would allow her king to stand idly by.

Laurel turned her haunting hazel eyes to King Eldrich. “We must fight.”

Behind them, those from the rebellion who had gathered on the roof cheered.