David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

No more tears. Never again. If they endure, so will I. My family may be dead, but I have another, and right now, they are all in chains.

“Laurel?” Lyana asked, clearly worried. “Are you all right?”

“I am now,” Laurel said, and despite her sorrow, she smiled.

When the first snowflakes fell, the barrage began. As had happened the past twenty-three nights, boulders pounded Mordeina’s walls as arrows sailed over the parapets. Only this time, the thousands lurking inside the settlement were ready. Ashhur had helped erect a massive stone bunker fifty yards from the walls, proclaiming the land between the bunker and the wall a dead zone. None but those assigned as watchmen were allowed to climb the stairs. All the rest were put to work crafting weapons and raising countless domiciles with the last of their timber. It was arduous work, but none complained, not when Ashhur marched among them, an expression of icy determination burning in his glowing yellow stare.

“Karak is baiting us,” the deity had said the week before, after allowing his children to cry and shriek praises to the heavens when he exited Manse DuTaureau alive. “He wishes us frightened and helpless. When he thinks us broken, and his strength at its greatest, he will come. When he does, he will not find sheep waiting for him, but wolves.”

Patrick should have been happy with this new change in attitude, but he was not. When the nightly bombardments began, he was a man conflicted: Part of him wished to climb the walls, drop down on the other side, and surge against the soldiers as he had when they’d penetrated the outer wall; another part wished to dash into Manse DuTaureau, climb into his mother’s bed, and hide.

The fear he now felt as he slogged through the freezing muck on this first dark, wintry evening, carrying a heavy block of ore, was entirely due to the nightmares. They’d begun days ago, assaulting him whenever he shut his eyes to get some much-needed rest. In the dreams he was a man haunted. Nessa came to him, her flesh torn and leaking pus, her hair falling out in clumps, and maggots writhing in the shallow black holes of her eyes. His dead sister hurled insults at him, casting blame his way. “You are a monster,” she cried in a voice that was always too far away. “You never truly loved me. If you loved me, why did you never come looking for me, big brother? Why didn’t you search for me? Why didn’t you save me?”

Every time, he woke up screaming.

The worst of it, though, was that of late the nightmares had begun to follow him into the waking hours. Exhausted as he was, he did his best to fulfill his daily duties to Ashhur. But no matter where he looked, he swore he saw Nessa, always just out of sight, mocking him, tormenting him. His head began to grow heavy as exhaustion took its toll. He stopped training his young warriors, for sleep-deprived as he was, he could hardly concentrate. Instead, he performed mindless tasks, moving this and that, gathering water, even spending time in the fields, dragging a plow behind him through the frozen earth, so Ashhur’s magic could help bring food up through the soil.

Men and women ducked beneath the stone bunker as arrows plinked off the top. They were hard at work, pounding with crude hammers on the blocks of ore Ashhur had lifted from deep within the ground in the northwest corner of the settlement. Some busied themselves stoking the fires that would heat the ore, while still others formed branches into slender rods and passed those rods to others to be fletched with crow feathers. The deity did his part as always, demonstrating to a large group of his children how to work with the ore, before using his godly magic to bend it to his will, stretching it, thickening it, forming it into blades of steel. Patrick watched his god, and when he dropped the heavy block he was carrying, it landed on his toe. In the ever-worsening cold, his thick leather boots did little to soften the blow.

“Fuck!” he shouted, hopping on one foot and squeezing his injured digit. He hated the cold, hated the winter. The only saving grace to the change in seasons was the fact that the corpses stacked on the other side of the stone walkway didn’t stink any longer.

Someone snickered behind him, but when he wheeled around to scream at the offender, he saw most everyone was hard at work. Even those whose attention was on him had words of compassion on their lips. Then he caught sight of a demonic, red-haired sprite from the corner of his eye, teeth bared behind rotten lips. When he whipped his head around to look, the vision was gone.

Someone grabbed his shoulder, and he almost reached for Winterbone, which still hung in its scabbard on his back. He breathed deeply, calming his nerves, and turned around to see Judarius standing there, a quizzical look on his face.

“What is wrong with you?” the brawny Warden asked.

Patrick shrugged. “Nothing for you to worry your ugly mug about. What are you doing off the wall anyway?”

If Judarius was insulted by the slight, he didn’t show it. Instead, he leaned over and whispered to one of the women fletching the arrows. The woman nodded, handing the Warden a crate made from birch bark and filled with at least a hundred finished arrows. The crate was heavy in her hands, but when Judarius snatched it from her, it looked as small as a breadbox. The Warden tucked it beneath his arm and lifted out one of the arrows, examining the sharpened steel arrowhead, running the pad of his thumb over the tip. Patrick felt confused as he watched him, and wavered on his feet. He suddenly found it so interesting and unbelievable that Ashhur had succeeded in creating nearly a complete armory in little more than three weeks.

“We needed more arrows,” Judarius said. “I am not much for archery myself, so I volunteered to retrieve them.”

“Oh,” Patrick said in a daze.

The Warden cocked his head. “Patrick, something is not right with you. More than usual, at any rate.”

“I know. Nightmares. Not feeling well.”

“Are you eating?”

“Eating what? There isn’t much food to go around, and there are over two hundred thousand people here who would gladly accept my portion. I can go without. I probably wouldn’t be able to keep it down anyhow.”

“Why? Are you sick?”

Patrick’s head grew fuzzy again, his vision doubling. He blinked, trying to get the two Judariuses that stood before him to merge into one image. The one on the left then began to bulge and warp, developing blackened eyes and familiar, slimmer features. The fires burning all around blinded him. His eyes rolled back, and he teetered forward. With his free hand, the Warden snatched Patrick by the arm before he fell.

“Patrick, this is starting to worry me.”

“Don’t,” Patrick said. His thoughts began to wander, his mouth moving as if on its own. “Forget me. Let’s talk about something useful. Where have you stationed the other Wardens?”

He didn’t know why, but he felt instantly engrossed in hearing the answer. Judarius released his arm and positioned the crate of arrows to be more stable. “There are three hundred assisting with preparations at the south wall. Another hundred patrol the citizens, assisting the people with anything they require. The rest are working the grounds, trying to coax crops from the soil. Why do you ask?”

It was a good question, actually, and strangely enough Patrick didn’t have an answer. Something about what Judarius said piqued his interest.

“Is no one guarding the western settlement?” he asked.

“Just the barest of skeleton crews,” Judarius said. The way the Warden was looking at him was strange. “There aren’t enough people on that side of the settlement, but you already know that.”