David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

A horrible lie, every last part of it. The truth, as she had learned during her uncle’s drunken and weeping late-night visits, was that Carskel had taken refuge in Quellassar during his hundred-year exile. He was a tool of the Quellan Triad and had convinced Ethir Ayers to take control of the forest city with promises of wealth and land. Her betrothal to Kindren, as it turned out, was a ruse to get Lord and Lady Meln out of Stonewood, to supplant them. From that day forth Carskel had ruled Stonewood in secret, waiting for the day his sister returned. Evidently, the plan had been to free Aully, and only Aully, so she could return home to become betrothed to her brother, solidifying the allegiance between Dezren and Quellan.

Their escaping Palace Thyne had never been in the design, Ceredon’s righteous conscience never expected. Once more Aully damned herself for ever leaving Bardiya’s side. Had she never come back, her people would still be safe. Had she stayed put, Kindren’s life wouldn’t be in danger. .

The cheers died down and the crowd began to murmur. Carskel again squeezed her arm. He peered down at her, his phony smile faltering.

“Go on,” he said, his voice full of worry. “You are wasting time.”

She nodded to him and shook out of his grip. Stepping forward, she grasped the hempen rail and stared at the many expectant faces. She cleared her throat. “My people,” she said. “I have returned-”

“Louder,” snapped Carskel.

“My people,” she said, trying to gather strength in her throat. “After a long, harrowing journey, I have returned home. Words cannot express how joyous it makes me to see all of your faces, to once more greet friends I thought gone forever.” She shot a look at Hadrik, Mella, and Lolly. “This beautiful forest I never expected to see again. It fills me with. . with. . ”

Her whole body was shaking. “I am happy,” she continued. “I am relieved. And that relief is all due to the elf you see behind me. This great elf who was framed for a crime he did not commit, a noble elf who was forced to live a hundred years away from the home and family he adored. . an elf who will lead us into. . into. . ”

She paused, glanced behind her at Carskel, saw him urging her to go on. Then she looked down at Kindren, Lady Audrianna, Noni, and Aaromar, flanked by their captors. Her eyes met her mother’s, and Lady Audrianna lifted her head proudly, emanating strength. Kindren did the same. Aully focused on them, on their tear-streaked faces, and saw Kindren mouth, No. Her eyes widened. She lifted her gaze to the heavens.

Do I dare, Celestia? Please tell me what I do is right.

A gust of wind blew, rattling the branches, swaying the platform, bringing goose pimples to her flesh. In its sound she heard her answer, cruel and unforgiving.

“An elf who has spat in the face of our goddess!” she shouted. A shocked silence fell over the three thousand elves in attendance. Aully didn’t think about what she needed to say, she just said it, and was stunned by the volume of her voice. It seemed to carry for miles despite her diminutive size. “Carskel Meln, my exiled brother. He’s a liar, a fool, a murderer. He raped my sister, Brienna! He plotted our destruction! The goddess damn every last one of you who follows him into ruin!”

A hand closed over her mouth, an arm wrapped around her waist, and she was yanked backward. The crowd erupted, this time in a din of angry, frightened shouts. Some began to throw vegetables from the skywalks.

“Our princess is feverish!” Aully heard her uncle’s voice shout close to her ear. “Tired from the journey and delusional!” She bit down as hard as she could, drawing blood. Detrick shrieked and spun around, releasing her. She stumbled forward a few steps across the platform. . directly into Carskel’s arms. Her brother spun her around and locked his hands around her waist, lifting her off the ground.

“You have been a bad girl,” he murmured, his hot breath moistening her neck. “And bad girls need to be punished.”

Detrick continued his pleading with the infuriated people of Stonewood Forest while Carskel spun Aully around and leaned against the thick hempen rail. The rope bowed outward so far that Aully feared it would break, sending the both of them plunging to the rock- and root-covered ground below. But the rope held.

“Look what you wrought,” he said, forcing her to look to where her people were huddled in the shadows. They were being beaten by their captors, the sounds of their struggle drowned out by three thousand hollering voices. Already one lay dead: Aaromar, her mother’s protector, kind, handsome, and now nothing but a corpse with an arrow pierced through the eye. Aully looked on in horror as Noni was brought to the front, her upper body bathed in darkness. Unlike the others, the ancient elf did not struggle, tight-lipped resolve on her wrinkled face. Ethir appeared behind her, grabbing her by both shoulders. Noni gazed up at the girl who had been her ward for fourteen years, and she opened her mouth to scream.

Aully never heard what her nursemaid had to say, as a moment later Ethir came down hard on the old elf’s head with a dagger. Noni’s eyes bulged, the dagger’s tip exiting below her chin along with a spray of pinkish blood. Her eyes rolled back and she collapsed, falling into Ethir’s arms like a fainting lover.

Aully’s entire body went numb, and she collapsed just as Noni had. Carskel held her tightly, carrying her across the walkway, deftly avoiding flying fruit and sticks. The whole while, Detrick continued his pleading, declaring Carskel’s innocence and Aully’s lunacy.

“You have been bad, my darling,” her brother said in a sinister whisper as they exited the walkway amid a mob of angry elves. Two of the Meln house guards appeared, shoving protesters aside. Carskel rounded the corner and began climbing the spiral stair back toward Briar Hall. “But all is not lost,” he said when no one was around to hear. “The people will come around. . you will come around. Once I show you the cost of betrayal, you will have no choice.”

Aully stayed silent, allowing him to carry her. She had seen her father murdered right in front of her. She had suffered in a dungeon, lived as a refugee, and became a prisoner to pain. It’d have been easy to succumb to it all, but her loved ones had shown her the way, defiant even before the face of death. Because of Carskel, she’d suffered, she wept, and now she swore to the last breath in her lungs to never give the bastard what he wanted.

Not ever.

The bombardment began at sundown.

The ground shook with the force of an earthquake, rattling Patrick’s teeth. He slipped off the rock he sat on, whacking his elbow on the ground. His wineskin slipped from his grasp and spilled across the grass. Preston and the Turncloaks, who were with him around the fire, similarly lost their balance. Little Flick even teetered into the flames, scalding his meaty hand in the process. All around them, the defenders of the wall broke into panic.

“What the fuck?” Patrick shouted, turning his eyes upward, toward the wall and dark purple sky looming above him. Another massive thud then sounded, ringing in his ears. Bits of rock and dust misted down from the top of the wall.

“They’re attacking!” said Preston’s son Edward.

“They can’t be!” Joffrey Goldenrod said. “They haven’t finished their towers!”

“Climb the wall and see then!” shouted Tristan Valeson.

Patrick heard an odd whining sound and threw his arms around the closest man to him. “No, you dumb shits!” he said, collapsing on top of young Ragnar Ender. “Get down !”

A massive black shape soared over the wall, crashing against the upper parapets and sending large chunks of brick and stone careening to the earth. It was like a deadly rain pounding all around them. The black shape continued its flight, dropping ever lower until it smashed down a hundred feet away, right atop a small gathering of confused people, crushing bodies and hurling chunks of dirt into the air. Now unmoving and in the light of their fires, Patrick saw it was a boulder the size of a small hut, gray and craggy. Screams of pain erupted, filling the early evening with terror.