David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

The Sister began to shove her toward the steps leading to the throne room. Fat Walter paced alongside, the dagger still in hand, though she could tell by the anxious look in his eye that he did not want to use it. Marius turned and faced the doors again, his palms pressed flat against the solid wood.

“I have done nothing wrong!” Laurel screamed as she was forced up the steps. Her foot caught on the hem of her dress, tearing it down the side with an audible rip.

“Unfortunately, that is not for us to judge, Laurel,” said Lenroy.

“But I am the king’s trusted servant!”

Marius shook his head.

“The king is no more,” he said gravely. “This city serves new masters now.”

With those words, Marius pulled hard on the doors. They swung outward, creaking, and the buzz Laurel had believed to exist only in her head exploded into a din so loud the air itself vibrated. She was pushed up the last two steps, then flung headlong into the throne room. She hit the ground hard, and the buzzing grew even louder in her ears. The doors slammed shut behind her.

Laurel raised her head and almost instantly vomited. The buzzing came from the millions of flies that filled the chamber, forming living black clouds around the corpses that covered the floor. The bodies were naked yet sexless, ripped apart, parts of them black with rot, their spilled insides writhing with maggots. The stench was horrendous, all encompassing. Her head warbled, her vision wavered, and she vomited again. Suddenly, hands were lifting her up, smacking her awake. She stared into Marius’s eyes, which were filled with a haunting emptiness.

“Keep yourself together,” he whispered. “Face the end with pride.”

He released her, letting her fall into the puddle of her own vomit. Laurel froze in place, trying to be brave in the face of such atrocities. Marius’s heels clicked as he walked away from her. She took that opportunity to tear a strip from the top of her dress, pressing the cloth over her nose and mouth. That done, she looked around once more.

The throne room did not remotely resemble the place of dignity she remembered. The banners had been ripped from the walls, and in their place human remains clung to the stone. Everything was dark, and even the flickering torches offered only sparse light. She glanced at the throne, which had been ripped asunder. The grayhorn tusks that had once rimmed it were strewn around the shadowy dais. That was where Marius stood, just to the side of the steps, his head bowed and hands clasped before him as if in reverence.

A moan sounded to her left, and Laurel turned. A man was slouched on the ground only a few feet away from her, his back resting against the gore-splattered wall. He too was covered with blood, glistening in the torchlight, and when he coughed a red mist issued from his lips. She inched toward him, recognizing his slightly crooked nose, his wattled neck.

“Guster?” she asked softly.

The old man’s eyes cataract-filled eyes opened, seeming to brighten as they gazed on her. He reached out with his right hand. It looked as if he wanted to say something, but he coughed once more and grasped his chest.

Laurel scurried toward him on all fours. At first she meant to throw her arms around him, but she recoiled in horror when she saw his injuries. Long slashes covered his chest, yawning wide whenever he breathed. His left arm was gone, in its place a stump that was blackened on the end as if it had been seared.

“Oh…” Laurel said numbly. Her mind went blank.

Guster feebly lifted his one remaining hand, beckoning her to come closer. Laurel could hear the rattle of his lungs through his chest whenever he took a rasping breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she shuffled closer to the mutilated, dying man. She tried to swat the flies away, but they were too many and too persistent.

He grasped at the front of her dress, pulled her toward him. “They…learned,” he croaked. “They… know …”

His mouth kept moving after each word he spoke, as if there were other things he was intent on saying but could not verbalize. Laurel’s tears fell all the harder. She was about to ask him who learned, who knew, but the answer was plainly obvious from the carnage that surrounded her.

Guster’s eyes began to roll into the back of his head, and a long, phlegm-filled gargle bubbled in his throat. Laurel pulled him upright, her fingers slipping on the slick gore that coated his flesh. “Stay with me, please, stay with me,” she pleaded. “Guster, where is the king? Where is Eldrich?”

On speaking the king’s name, Laurel saw a hint of a smile appear on Guster’s blood-streaked face. “The king…is safe,” he said. “The guards…they gathered him up…brought him away…when they first rose up…when they first spoke…”

His voice trailed off, and another croaking moan left his lips. After that his hand loosened, falling limply to the floor. Laurel continued to shake him, repeating his name over and over. Guster’s head flopped forward and back.

“He is gone, dear,” a voice said.

Laurel released Guster’s body, letting him drop to the floor, and spun about on her knees. She watched as a man dressed in a flowing red robe emerged from the shadows behind the throne. His hands were held together, an entreaty to the gods, and his beady eyes peered out between wisps of his thinning gray hair. Marius bowed to him as he backed away from the throne, edging toward the doors.

“He was judged a sinner,” the cleric Joben Tustlewhite said, “and he was punished as such.”

He spoke more confidently than Laurel had ever known him to. Joben was the mumbling priest no longer, it seemed.

“He was no sinner,” she said, her voice sounding small and feeble to her own ears.

“The masters of Veldaren decided it was so,” the cleric replied. “They are the vessels of Karak’s law.”

They are here, she thought, her body going numb. I will be shredded like the rest.

The man stepped aside, and sure enough, in the darkness behind the throne two sets of sparkling yellow eyes stared out at her. The two lions emerged side by side from the shadows, skulking slowly toward her. They had appeared large from the top of the roof the night Quester, Mite, and Giant had saved her, but now she understood just how huge they really were. Even on all fours they were nearly as tall as Marius, who was slinking in the corner.

The male lion opened his maw wide, running his tongue over his incisors, while the female simply lowered her head, considering Laurel with eyes that radiated intelligence. The two swung their heads toward each other, exchanged a glance, and then turned back to her ever so slowly. A deep rumble sounded in the male’s throat, growing louder as he took another step toward her, then another. The female swiped at the buzzing flies with her tail, matching her mate’s strides. They were testing her, she knew, mocking her with the certainty of what would happen next. Laurel drew her knees to her chest, closed her eyes, and prayed.

She refused to open her eyes, even when she felt their hot, stinking breath moisten her flesh. A wet nose, easily the size of her fist, nudged her shoulder, yet still she refused to look. She kept repeating her prayers over and over again, her voice growing louder in defiance.

“Karak has not abandoned me, Karak has not abandoned me, he is the light in the darkness, the champion of order, I love you my Lord.”

“Unsure.”

The word was spoken clearly, though in a voice that was not human. The sound of it broke her from her prayers, and her eyes finally snapped open. The Judges were standing above her, so close that their whiskers tickled her flesh. Laurel didn’t dare move. She simply looked on as the female glanced at the male and opened her mouth.