David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

A few muffled cheers came from the huddled masses. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Men climbed out of the trench, and a few women as well, their new steel clutched tightly in their pale fingers. They faced the southern wall, and it seemed for a few moments that all sound ceased. Ahaesarus glanced behind him to Manse DuTaureau atop its hill and saw a pair of figures, one tall and one small, standing outside the structure, surrounded by a mass of women and children who crowded together in the snow. The standing figures worked their way through the crowd, seeming to offer solace to the masses. King Benjamin and Howard Baedan. It seemed the Master Steward had continued his tutelage of the boy after all. For a brief moment, Ahaesarus allowed himself the very hope he preached.

A great horn sounded, and the dying began. Ahaesarus stood his ground, surrounded by his wards, watching intently for any sign of what might be going on atop the wall. He could see nothing but slight shadows and the occasional pike raised high in the air, but the noises of battle were unmistakable-the thump of blunt objects colliding with shields, the clang of steel against steel, the thud of men falling seventy feet to the frozen ground, the crack and fizzle of the spellcasters’ magics. I should be up there on the wall. I should be defending my wards with my life, not waiting down here for the enemy to come to me.

However, he followed Ashhur’s command, and the defenders seemed to be holding.

From his right, where seventy-five yards away the barred gate on the inner wall stood, he heard more shouts, these on ground level, only they were not wails of the dying. It seemed there were living souls down there. “They are in the causeway!” he proclaimed. He snapped his head around, looking to where his fellow Wardens were gathered. “Judah and Olympus, take twenty of our brothers to the gate. Bring pikes and spears. Do not allow the soldiers to batter it down.”

The Wardens rushed off. Ahaesarus turned his attention back to the top of the wall. The form of a man appeared, hobbling into the gap between merlons where the stairs to the ground descended. The man teetered as he walked, holding his stomach. His head flopped back, his arms falling to his sides, and blood and a mess of red entrails pitched from his abdomen. The man took another blind step forward, his foot missing the edge of the stairway, and he plummeted. His body folded over itself when he struck the frozen ground. His intestines, trailing behind him, landed wetly on his twisted form. Behind the Master Warden, someone vomited.

“Stay strong!” he called.

It was then that bedlam erupted. A bright purple light flashed above, painting the sky a lingering crimson, and the battle atop the wall spilled over the ramparts. Countless flailing bodies dropped from above, waving as if their arms could turn to wings and help them soar. Potrel Longshanks was among them, as was Warden Mennon, his tall, graceful form falling sharply. Their bodies struck the ground like a living rain, landing amid the rows of corpses, bones breaking, flesh torn asunder, their screams cut off as their heads were crushed. Ahaesarus winced and drew his sword. With measured breath, he glanced to the side, watching a virtuous glow envelop Ashhur as his flowing robes transformed into the god’s immaculate plate armor. The deity raised his hand, and his divine sword sprung forth, casting a brilliant blue light over a land painted white, gray, and red. Ashhur climbed atop the bunker before him and threw his head back.

“KARAK, FACE ME!” he bellowed, and the ground shook beneath Ahaesarus’s feet.

As if to answer him, Karak’s soldiers began descending the stairwell as ropes were thrown over the side of the wall. They must have used planks of their own to cross the gap, Ahaesarus thought. The defenders were too green, too inexperienced, to properly defend the walls. Ahaesarus grunted just as Ashhur hopped off the bunker, taking menacing steps toward the center of the field of corpses. Elves swung over the top of Celestia’s tree, flipping from branch to branch with ease as they descended. They were like an army of invading locusts, moving ever onward. Ahaesarus looked to the left and right, and saw that the very same scene was taking place all around him. His wards tensed, and his fellow Wardens began shuffling this way and that.

“When, Master Warden?” someone shouted.

“Soon,” said Ahaesarus. “Those with swords and spears, out of the bunker now. Form up behind me.”

The men did as they were told, passing the order down the line and gradually exiting the bunker to form a row of five hundred behind Ahaesarus. The Master Warden again looked to the field of corpses, this time seeing Ashhur stopped midway through, holding his divine sword out before him while he was peppered with arrows from both the enemy atop the wall and the elves near Celestia’s giant tree. The soldiers continued to descend the wall, forming ranks once their feet touched the snowy ground, waiting for the rest of their brothers to join them. Their numbers swelled. There looked to be more than a thousand there, awaiting the order to charge.

Any hope Ahaesarus had felt earlier threatened to leave him. The sight of all those pale faces, of those armored shoulders rising and falling, of their steel glinting in the morning light, told him this was the end. Just then something hard thwacked his shoulder, and when he turned, he saw Judarius there, leaning with one hand against the lip of the bunker, his massive bloody maul held tight in his hand. His face was spattered with red.

“Soldiers approach from behind,” Judarius said, breathing heavily. “There was little we could do to stop them.”

Ahaesarus nodded. “What of the others?”

“The teams of Wardens guarding the northern wall are broken. Many are dead, and the rest are fleeing this way. I do not know about the rest of the settlement, but I assume it’s the same.”

Ahaesarus nodded again. “I know. It does not matter. They are here now, and we must fight.”

Judarius lifted his head above the bunker, staring at both Ashhur, as he held his ground against the assault of arrows, and the massive throng of soldiers gathering at the base of the wall. The Warden shook his head, smoothed his long black hair with a bloody hand, and snarled.

“We charge now.”

“No,” Ahaesarus shot back. “You will do no such thing. You are to gather up all of Ashhur’s children that you can, all those who cannot defend themselves, and bring them to the hidden postern gate. Lead them to safety. Protect them.”

“No,” Judarius said.

“You will do as I say.”

“I will do nothing of the sort. You wish for a nanny, then find my brother. It’s what he’s suited for.” Judarius stood up straight, slapping his maul against his free hand. “I was built for better things than that.”

“I am your Master Warden!” Ahaesarus shouted, coating Judarius’s face with spittle. He cared not that an audience was gathering. “You will do as I say, and you will do it now, or else-”

He never had the chance to finish that statement, for one of the soldiers lifted a horn to his lips and blew. When that bellowing trumpeting ceased, the army of Karak charged.

Ashhur stepped forward to greet the soldiers, looping his massive glowing blade, cleaving through flesh and steel with ease. Yet he did not kill many, for the soldiers gave him a wide berth, passing right by him and rushing headlong for the bunker. It was the elves who kept Ashhur distracted, continuing to pelt him with their arrows while others rushed him from behind and the side, slashing and jabbing and leaping out of the way of his blows.

“Now or never!” Judarius screamed, and oddly enough he was grinning. “Any who aren’t cravens, come with me!”