David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

Velixar watched with interest as the multitudes shuffled and mumbled among themselves. A woman stepped forward. She was old, with white hair and wrinkled flesh, but her posture was straight as an arrow. She glanced once at her deity, then threw her head back and stared at the god who opposed them.

“And if we refuse your liberation?” she asked.

Behind her, the massive crowd murmured. They were growing unruly.

Karak crossed his sword over his chest. “A land divided is a land of chaos, and I will have order in my kingdom.”

“This is not your kingdom,” Ashhur proclaimed. The Wardens and humans surrounding him began to spread out, lifting their weapons.

“The peoples’ lives are in my hands, not yours,” Karak said, eyes narrowing. “Tell me truly, whose kingdom does that make it then?”

The western deity frowned.

Karak shook his head and turned back to the throng. “Come to me, people of Paradise. Turn your back on this feeble god.” He pointed toward Velixar. “Do as the first of your kind did long ago. Come into my arms. Allow me to make you as powerful as he.”

Velixar’s heart filled with pride, swelling the power that already existed within him. He took a step forward and looked toward the unkempt citizens, holding his arms out wide, feeling the heat on his cheeks as the glow of his eyes intensified. I will be an example for them. I will be a beacon of Karak’s glory.

Amazingly, the old woman who had stepped forward lowered herself to her knees. The thousands behind her were hesitant at first, but eventually they followed her lead. The sound of the knees of the assembly hitting the ground, one after the other, was like a stampede of horses through a sodden field. Velixar smiled warmly, his pride growing. His eyes kept returning to Ashhur, trying to gauge the deity’s reaction to his people turning their faith to Karak, but his face was like stone.

Karak stepped through the maze of corpses with long, purposeful strides. It was then that Velixar noticed something odd, something he had not noticed during the rush of battle. More than half of the bodies on the ground were long dead, their skin gray going on blue, their joints stiff to the point of immovability. Those bodies had not been there two days ago, when last he had seen the outside world through the eyes of Patrick DuTaureau. He could think of no reason for them to be there now.

Karak spoke, yanking that contemplation from his mind. “My new children. I welcome you into my arms. You may not be forever safe and warm in them, but you will. . ”

His words trailed away as the old woman who first knelt began to sing. It was a sweet song, one filled with hope and love. “And let Ashhur always hold us in his arms,” she crooned. Soon a few of the others behind her joined in, the song rising in volume, voice added to voice until at least half of the immense congregation was lifting their song to the heavens. To Velixar’s ears, the sound was like the scraping of steel on stone. His mouth dropped open. These people. . these children . . would they prefer death to the freedom of creating one’s own life? Would they rather cower in the arms of Ashhur than stand strong before Karak’s dignified order? It made no sense. They were frightened, confused, and they knew with each word they sang, they sank deeper into their own graves. Yet still they sang.

Still they sang.

Velixar looked to Ashhur. The god’s face was still as stone, but tears flowed from his eyes.

“You leave me no choice,” Karak said, his voice thundering over the chaos of the five thousand. “Above all else, I will have order.”

“You never will,” Ashhur said, and though it was spoken as a whisper, Velixar heard it with ease. “Not this year, not this century, not this millennium will you ever have the order you crave. You are chasing illusions, and I will not let you destroy my people in your wake. I promised to protect them, no matter the cost, and so I will.”

His head dipped as Karak bellowed for his soldiers to ready their blades.

“No matter the cost,” said Ashhur.

A brilliant light flared from the god’s eyes, so bright that Velixar could not look lest he be blinded. As he covered his face with his hands, a single, deafening word rocked the landscape.

“RISE!”

Mordeina grew larger and larger in his vision as Patrick slapped the reins again and again. Steam rose from his mare’s bobbing head, and hoofed feet pounded into the icy, snowy ground. His half helm bounced against Patrick’s head while Winterbone, its scabbard fastened to the side of the saddle, thudded against the horse’s flank.

His body ached from being tossed around, but he gnashed his teeth and ignored the pain. He could hear the conflict inside the walls escalate, even over the constant thud, thud, thud of charging hooves. Karak’s voice came clear, and Ashhur’s as well, so loud that they might as well have been five feet away from him instead of five thousand. The sky above the walls lit up with flashes of light. A series of low, resounding booms followed.

“Faster!” he shouted. Only one thing was important now-getting through the walls and defending his place of birth.

The walls were close, so large in his vision that all he could see was a backdrop of mottled gray and black stone. He counted nine wooden towers butting up against the walls, empty and forgotten. Two of them were on fire. In the wide space between two of the towers was a gaping chasm in the wall’s thick stone. He leaned over, urging his mare to quicken her pace. With the afternoon sunlight shining down, brightened five times over by the snowy landscape, he realized that it wasn’t a single fissure he was seeing, but two, one through each wall, each wide enough for ten men to stroll through abreast, leading directly into the settlement. He swore he could see a flurry of activity on the other side.

They were now two thousand feet away and closing fast.

Shadows appeared on either side of him, and Patrick glanced in both directions. Preston had ridden up on his right, the old warrior’s face a hard mask of calculation, while Denton Noonan kept pace with him on the left, his eyes ablaze with anger and focus. The hoots and hollers of the younger Turncloaks echoed behind him.

When they were a thousand feet from the gap, the blood-curdling screams of those inside were almost deafening. Patrick bore down, chancing to take one hand off the reins and grab Winterbone’s handle. He saw clearly into the heart of Mordeina, where countless tiny forms were locked in combat. He tensed his neck and shoulders to keep his upper body steady while his lower bounded with his mare’s strides. Numerous bustling shadows then appeared within the jagged hole in the wall, moving hastily. A second later, soldiers poured out of the opening. They ran haphazardly, shrieking as they stormed through the slick snow. Patrick slowed his mare ever so slightly

“Ready!” he shouted as he tore Winterbone from its sheath.

The thousands of dead littering the ground took to their feet. To Velixar’s ears, the sound was like a million twigs being snapped all at once. Screams followed, from followers of Karak and Ashhur alike.

“Kill them!” ordered Karak. “Kill them all!”

Velixar’s feet were seemingly frozen to the ground. An immensely tall figure rose from within the melee; the Warden Judarius, his fellow member of the Lordship back when Velixar had been Jacob Eveningstar. Only Judarius’s face was wrong. His flesh had gone gray, his eyes milky, and the left side of his neck was a mess of flayed skin. The Warden moved his head slowly to the side, his lifeless stare lingering on the soldier standing in front of him. The soldier appeared bewildered, his dazzled blue eyes shining in the intense light Ashhur created. He never looked up, not even when the Warden lifted a bloodied maul and brought it down on the back of his head. The sound of steel and bone shattering echoed over Karak’s furious screams.