David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

Fifty yards behind the gate was the bunker his god had raised, a six-hundred-foot long crescent that ran from the far side of murder row to well past Celestia’s tree. The trench was shielded by solid rock on the side facing the walls; it opened on the other, allowing the defenders to hunker down inside and work on molding steel into weapons, or await their next shift atop the wall. Right now he saw the glow of a few fires inside the bunker as those still awake burned the midnight oil.

Farther east, in a slight vale, sat the remains of the storehouses where the winter provisions had once been held, along with the old well that had been Geris Felhorn’s prison. The rickety storehouses were long dismantled, the wood used to construct the many huts that had risen up all throughout Mordeina. There were over thirty of those twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot huts down there now, each crammed with three or more families. Even on the footpath high above, he could still be hear the soft cries of children.

Ahaesarus walked north around the manse. Mordeina’s frozen fields came into view, partly covered with snow and ice and partly muddy and dark, the result of Wardens painstakingly tilling the land with Ashhur’s assistance, the god using his magic to raise crops to feed his children. Those crops were stunted, pathetic, barely enough to feed two hundred men, never mind two hundred thousand. The earth was used up, its nutrients sapped over the long year, and too much of Ashhur’s energy was in use keeping the magical barrier around the walled settlement intact. It seemed even a god could not make something out of nothing.

Beyond the fields were the grazing grounds, where barely two hundred cattle, swine, goats, and sheep milled about, watched over by a small cluster of Wardens. Butted up against the grounds were the stables, where most of the fifteen score horses had settled in for the night. Ahaesarus sighed. When they’d first raised the walls around the settlement, there had been almost two thousand animals here, most owned by House DuTaureau, but also many others brought into the settlement by those seeking the protection of Mordeina’s walls. With the stores all but used up, and crops a near impossibility, it had come to only the meat the animals provided to sustain the masses. Nearly four hundred of them had been slaughtered over the last month alone, even newly born calves and kids. Not even heavy rationing would slow it down. People had to eat, after all, and Wardens too. At this rate, they would exhaust their food supplies in less than two weeks. As for the horses, some of them had begun to die off as well, no matter the healing touches the Wardens gave them. Horses belonged in the plains, running and breeding and free. To be locked within a confined space was against their nature. The only saving grace was that whenever a horse died, one cow was saved from slaughter for another day.

The Master Warden groaned, seeing the distant Birch Forest nestled into the northwest corner of the settlement and the camp that had sprung up around it. A sense of longing filled him, for these were the last trees in all of Mordeina; the maples, elms, chestnuts, oaks, and willows, whose wood was much sturdier than birch, had been cut down to help build shelters and weapons. Wood was so scarce now, such a valuable commodity, that it was prohibited from being used for fires. The people needed to use hay and dried blocks of dung instead, which created an ever-present pungent smell.

A few people moved within the camp, which now included four large, white-topped shacks that housed the majority of the two thousand who lived there. Ahaesarus sighed. Patrick was down there somewhere, probably twisting and writhing in his bed. Ever since the brave and disfigured DuTaureau had seemingly lost his mind, his presence had become scarce in the southern portion of the settlement, where Mordeina’s defense was being prepared. The Turncloaks kept a watchful eye on him, and they’d told Ahaesarus that the poor man was in a horrific state of mind after the death of his sister. Ahaesarus found that strange, as Patrick had learned of Nessa’s death months ago. Everyone processes grief in their own way. This is Patrick’s. He needs time to heal. Though truth be told, he wished the man would get on with that healing already. In his absence, Ahaesarus had taken on many of his duties, including his shift atop the wall at dusk. The combined efforts were rapidly eating away at him. He hadn’t slept more than two hours on any given night in over a week.

If I go on like this much longer, I will drop dead from exhaustion.

Beside the forest was the enormous camp of those who had accompanied Ashhur on his long journey from the Rigon River to Mordeina. The white landscape was dotted with many heavy tents and rude hovels, positioned in square grid patterns following Warden Leviticus’s design. This part of the settlement stretched out lengthwise for nearly a full two miles, butting up against the wall and reaching all the way to a hundred feet below Manse DuTaureau’s high hill. By rough count, there were over a hundred and fifty thousand people residing in this quarter of the settlement, as Ahaesarus was always painfully aware due to the rancid odor of human waste constantly wafting from it.

Finally, Ahaesarus’s eyes fell on the settlement’s darkest segment, one that no one wished to acknowledge. Positioned thirty yards west of the inner gate and a hundred yards from the end of the populated area, this section was relatively small, cordoned off by a short stone wall that Preston Ender had ordered built. Within that cordoned space lay the corpses of all those who had died within Mordeina’s walls. By last count there were almost six thousand bodies in there, from the soldiers of Karak-those whose lives Patrick and the Drake spellcasters had ended in the causeway-to citizens of Paradise who had perished due to battle, disease, or boulders falling from the sky. Ahaesarus had demanded they be burned to prevent their stench and sickness from spreading, but Ashhur denied him.

“The dead will serve their purpose,” Ashhur had said, refusing to elaborate further.

Ahaesarus finished his revolution around the manse and found Howard Baedan standing in front of the building’s front stoop, with King Benjamin by his side, both bundled in furs. The youth appeared frazzled, gazing with trepidation out into the quiet night. The steward’s hand was firmly on the boy’s shoulder, and whenever the young king shivered, Howard squeezed and shot him a disapproving look.

“Stand tall,” the steward said. “Stand strong .”

“But it’s cold .”

“It’ll be colder when you’re dead,” Howard said. “You need to display strength, not whine like a child.”

“But there’s no one here to see me but you.”

“Does my opinion mean nothing to you?”

“Should it mean something to me, servant ?”

Ahaesarus couldn’t believe the haughtiness in Benjamin’s voice, couldn’t believe the nerve of the child to speak to the Master Steward that way. Those were words that would have come from Isabel DuTaureau’s mouth, not from a plump youth prone to bouts of whimpering. Even though the matriarch of House DuTaureau had been confined to her quarters within the manse, her sway over the boy king remained.

“You would be wise to listen to him, boy,” Ahaesarus said, unable to keep his mouth shut. “You’ve experienced nothing of life, yet dismiss those with wisdom who seek to help you. Ashhur would not be pleased.”

The boy’s head snapped around, his eyes widening as he lifted them to Ahaesarus’s approaching form. Howard Baedan, on the other hand, seemed unsurprised. He chuckled under his breath and offered the Master Warden an appreciative nod.