David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

Ceredon gaped at the human. “Who are you? What is your purpose here?”

“I am but a humble servant,” Boris said with a bow. “I am Boris Morneau Marchant, son of Francois Marchant and Gillea Connington, sworn to protect the house that bears my mother’s maiden name.” He stopped talking and glanced over his shoulder, looking suddenly cautious before leaning in close and saying, in a hushed voice, “I am a mutineer, Ceredon, a wolf among wolves. I am one of many infiltrating the army of the Eastern Divinity and spreading falsehoods, sparking desertion, and casting a seed of doubt into all who stand with Karak.”

The Quellan prince found himself taken aback, frightened even by the man’s proclamation. “But why? To what purpose?”

“To reach an end where no more gods walk upon Dezrel, an end where humankind is truly free. Karak and Ashhur are at war, and it is our duty to make sure that neither of them wins.” The man smiled, the teardrop scar on his cheek flaring red in the light from the lantern. “We wish you no harm, Ceredon, not you or your people.”

Ceredon shook his head. “Yet you handed the demon means to remake its true form.”

“True, but don’t think that you will stand alone should the worst come. Please trust me on this. Though we are surely different, we are very similar, humans and elves. We both love, we both hate, and eventually we both die. They are similarities we should ignore no longer. When the time is right, when it is safe, I will free you from your bonds. And when this war is done, should the gods destroy each other and leave us be, you will always have an ally in House Connington.” The man cocked his head and peered once more at the tent flap. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must be going. The prisoners have gone silent, which means dawn is just around the corner. Get some sleep, Ceredon. You will need it.”

Boris grabbed his lantern, stood up, and hurried to the exit. He snatched the sack containing Iolas’s head on his way by.

“Wait,” Ceredon called out to him before he exited.

The human paused. “What is it?”

“What should I do until that time comes?”

“Wait and watch,” Boris said. “And learn.”

With that, the soldier disappeared through the flap. Ceredon sat there for a long while, stunned and frightened by the conversation. Outside, he swore he heard the giant weeping. The night drew to a close, and sunlight brought a glow to the sides of his tent. With the dawn, he ceased thinking of potential, future horrors and focused on the present. His fear and doubt waned. He thought on Boris’s words, on what they meant , and finally his lips curled into a smile. If the human was right-if Darakken believed as Iolas said-it changed everything . Ceredon was no longer a powerless, vulnerable whelp.

By the time the soldiers outside the tent began beating the prisoners from Ang to wake them and begin the march anew, Ceredon finally felt like the mountain he had promised his goddess he would become. You still have your life, Celestia had told him. That is all that matters. There was more truth in that statement than he had realized. And when Larstis came to retrieve him and break down the tent, he stood in the middle of the hot desert sand and stared at the bright blue sky.

“Unyielding, unmoving, forever,” he said, and meant every word.

Someone was watching. Bardiya could see figures in the distance as he sang; black dots that spread out along the desert’s hazy white horizon behind the procession. He could not tell for sure who they were-if they were human, elf, or animal-but he was convinced it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks. When the convoy shifted directions, so did the pursuers. When the column turned about to march back, they hastily disappeared like soldier ants retreating into a threatened anthill.

Even more interesting was that no one else seemed to notice. Even the elves, with their far superior vision, made no mention of their presence. Perhaps they knew of the pursuers and simply didn’t care. Or perhaps, in their overconfidence, they never entertained the thought that they could be hunted.

His foot caught in a shallow hole in the sand, and he stumbled, the song dying on his lips. The ox harness fastened around his neck caused his back to buckle. All thoughts of Ashhur’s grace or secret scouts left his mind, replaced by pain. He fell to his knees, the rear of the heavy wooden harness smacking the back of his skull. Stars burst in his vision.

“Stand up,” someone commanded, followed by a snap and a pinprick of pain in his shoulder. Then came another crack and another small ache. The soldiers were whipping him again. Bardiya lifted his head, peering at them through squinting eyes, and saw a few of them smiling. He wondered if they would get such joy from torturing him if they knew how little it hurt. Truth be told, the ache in his soul was far worse than anything physical they could do to him.

Calloused hands were on him then, and voices shouted for the whipping to stop. Bardiya turned to see Gordo and Tulani Hempsmen grabbing his shoulders, urging him to stand.

“Please, Bardiya,” Tulani said, fear in her eyes. “You must get up.”

“That’s right,” said her husband. “If you stay down, more of us will be hurt.”

They backed away from him. Bardiya nodded, dug his fingers into the sand and rose on popping knees. Keisha, Gordo and Tulani’s daughter, appeared between her parents. Her rosebud lips were cracked and peeling, as was her brown skin from too long a time spent beneath the brutal desert sun. Little mute Marna came next, followed by Tuan Littlefoot and the brothers Allay and Yorn Loros, followed soon after by old Onna. Voices both human and elven shouted for the column to keep moving, but the people of Ang ignored them. Before long most of the three hundred stood before him, the chains binding their wrists hanging, their eyes solemn, their posture slumped. It was a brutal sight, one no song could hide: Their hope was gone.

“Why are we not moving?” asked that familiar, grating, inhuman voice. A massive charger approached, Clovis Crestwell sitting atop it. As had become the norm, Clovis appeared sickly, his body losing the heft it’d had when the force first rode into Ang. His neck was now slender as a reed, his eyes sunken into his skull, his lips pulled back to reveal chipped teeth and white gums. The man was wasting away before their eyes.

Clovis approached him, having to look up at Bardiya, though he was on horseback.

“Set your people to march, Gorgoros,” he said, his red eyes leaking pink tears. The appalling man peered toward Bardiya’s throng, who were now huddling close together, surrounded by soldiers with pikes. Clovis’s gaze fell on Keisha. “Or would you prefer it if we tortured another of the children? Perhaps that one, the one with the large eyes and sweet voice?”

“No,” Bardiya murmured. He bowed his head. “We will march.”

“Good. Make sure they all keep pace.”

He tried to do just that, but it was difficult to keep three hundred people from stumbling. At one point Onna’s walking stick caught in his chains and snapped, and he collapsed. A group of the olive-skinned elves with clubs beat the man senseless, then beat a young woman named Nina who urged them to stop. Before they started moving again, five people had been sent to Bardiya to mend their broken bones, their bruises, their internal and external bleeding. But no matter how well he healed their bodily wounds, he could do nothing to repair their fractured souls.

Still they were kept walking, made to suffer lashes and still more beatings. By the time the sun began to set, Bardiya was exhausted. The amount of energy it took to heal the injured drained him, making it difficult to lift a foot off the ground. Yet he persisted. Yet he went on. My faith in Ashhur’s teachings will not waver. I will be an example to them all.