David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

He rolled off the corpse and onto his hands and knees, looking on as the body of Clovis Crestwell deflated and then collapsed as if there were nothing left within it to keep its form. The living shadow that had been trapped within it writhed and billowed in the night sky, forming a giant cloud above the thrumming Black Spire.

So huge, Ceredon thought. How did that frail body ever contain it?

A primal scream seemed to emanate from the very air. The light from the Spire was bright, so bright it hurt to look; yet despite the pain, Ceredon watched as the living cloud stabbed into the pulsating rock. The Spire began to shake, fissures forming along its surface like cracks in thin ice. The corpse of the elf beside Ceredon quivered, as if something inside were trying to escape. Ceredon backed away from it on his hands and knees, watching in horror as the corpse’s eyes exploded. Thick, coagulated blood seeped from its every orifice, flowing along the sand in thin streams.

Ceredon struggled to his feet, panic making it difficult to think. All around him the lifeless bodies of Dezren and Quellan elves performed the same perverted dance as the first, their blood spewing from their bodies until the combined streams became a great river flowing in the direction of the Black Spire. The thirteen human soldiers left bound by Bardiya’s men writhed against their chains, screaming in agony as their blood burst from their eyes, mouths, and nostrils. Only instead of it joining the flowing river, it flew backward, as if the Black Spire deemed it unworthy.

The wreckage of the dais collapsed further as the river of elven blood surged over it. The dark fluid pooled around the base of the Spire, and the tall, pulsing formation of dark crystal began to drink it in. Its glow became darker and yet more forceful. The book Darakken had read from lifted into the air, rotating on an invisible axis, itself bathed in a strange light. A deep rumbling shook the ground.

Ceredon started running as the corpses themselves rolled toward the pulsating obelisk. He dared not turn around, not when he heard the sickening crack of bones being pulverized, nor the rip of flesh and muscle torn asunder. He kept his eyes on his goal, the tall dune that led west toward the very edge of Ker. Boris Marchant’s words to him the first night he visited him repeated over and over in his head.

“Because after Darakken destroys Ker, he’ll turn his back on his promise to your people. He will fulfill the purpose he was created for: devouring elves. Stonewood will come next, then Dezerea, then Quellassar.”

Ceredon ran until the whole of him burned as he crossed the treacherous, shifting sand underfoot. When he reached the top of the dune, he collapsed, panting, and looked up to see a whitened cliff face before him, radiant in the moonlight. He caught the flash of feline eyes hidden within the softly blowing grasses at the base of the cliff. Sandcats. He clenched his teeth, ready for them to chase a helpless meal, but they did not. They remained where they were, partially concealed by the grass.

Hiding from the most dangerous of all predators.

A low, hornlike bellow sounded. Dread gripping him, Ceredon stood and faced the Black Spire. With distance it looked almost appealing: a fountain of swirling colors pulsed out of it like those in the sky over Mount Hailen during the winter northern lights. That appeal died the moment he spied the monstrous blob of writhing gray flesh, made from the remains of his people, in front of the Spire. Hoofed feet sprouted from the rear of the heap, and clawed, pawlike appendages from the front. A spiked tail grew like a snake wiggling from its leathery egg. The gray flesh took on a bumpy texture, and though Ceredon was too far away to know for sure, it seemed like scales slowly covered its hide. A backbone formed, rippling as it writhed, and pointed spines grew from each bulging vertebra. Last came the bulbous head, the snout growing outward, stretching to each side as a horrific face took form: wide-set black eyes, huge slotted nostrils, a hinged jaw. The still-forming thing threw its head back, opening its maw to silently scream. Teeth poked through the pink flesh inside its mouth, and a monstrous pair of tusks popped out from either side of its maw, creaking as they grew ever outward, not stopping until they extended far beyond its triangular, fleshy nose.

The shifting of its body wound down as it fell to all fours. Ceredon imagined bones growing, muscle tissue knitting together, organs sprouting from the combined remnants of nearly six hundred dead elves. Despite his horror, he marveled at the size of the thing. It had to be thirty feet long, perhaps forty given its spiked tail, and it looked like a ghastly combination of a bull and one of the giant water lizards that once roamed the Rigon Delta, but with the tusks of a grayhorn. The book was nowhere to be seen.

Silence fell over the desert. Even the wind seemed to die, as if Celestia herself were holding her breath.

The Black Spire throbbed a few final times, and then a high-pitched scream discharged from within. All light combined into a blinding white, leaping from the obelisk and swallowing the newly made creature. Ceredon threw his arm over his eyes, unable to bear its brilliance. And then, with a deafening boom, the Black Spire exploded. In millions of bits, it flew into the air, soaring for miles and then falling like an ashen rain. As Ceredon looked on, tears in his eyes, the last of the light faded, and only a blackened hole in the sand remained of what had once been a part of his goddess.

Through the dimness Ceredon watched the creature suck in a long, labored breath. Its eyes, formerly filled with shadow, began to glow, bringing forth that same red resonance Darakken had possessed when it dwelled inside Clovis Crestwell. The beast shook its head, snot flying from its bull’s nose, and rose to its full height. Maw lifted to the heavens, it let out a booming roar that seemed to go on and on.

Ceredon fled west, one foot in front of the other, pushing his aching body to its limits. He didn’t know what he’d do, what he could do. But he had to gather himself, figure out a way to keep Aully and Kindren safe. He had to protect his people. As the terrifying roar continued, he realized it was not just a primal howl, but a single word, stretched out and mutated, full of terror, full of exaltation.

“REBORN!”

The snow had stopped, and Mordeina was quiet for the first time in gods knew how long. No shouts from the army outside their walls, no barrage of heavy stones, no screams and shrieks of the frightened and dying.

Ahaesarus didn’t like it, not one bit.

The Master Warden pulled his heavy woolen cloak over his shoulders as he exited Manse DuTaureau. He gazed out at the calm night, taking in the eerie white world around him. From atop Manse’s high hill, he saw Ashhur standing at the crest of the wall. The god’s back was to him, white robe fluttering as he stared at the army that gathered across the valley. Ahaesarus lowered his eyes, reflecting on how the settlement he now called home looked so different. What had once been a rambling green land filled with rolling hills and small pockets of trees now closely resembled the village he had lived in his whole life, back on Algrahar, the same village that was decimated when the winged demons descended from the sky to lay waste to everything.

Ahaesarus shuddered.

He turned left and walked along the footpath circling the manse, his keen eyes observing. To the south there was the heavy gate cut into the inner wall, with seven-foot-tall stone barricades lining the road leading into the settlement. Murder row, Ashhur had called it. Much like the causeway between the two walls, should the enemy succeed in pushing through the portcullis, the tall barricades would hem them in on either side, and they would be helpless as Ashhur’s defenders hacked away at them from above.