David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

“Sinner?” Lilah asked.

Kayne didn’t reply. Instead he gazed down at Laurel, and then his mouth opened wide, and he roared. Massive incisors the size of an infant’s arm dripped with pink saliva. Wind scented with rotting meat buffeted Laurel in the face, and she finally screamed, planting her fists onto the bloody floor and scooting backward, only stopping when she collided with Guster’s slippery corpse.

“Sinner,” the male lion said. It sounded like he was laughing.

Both lions lowered onto their haunches, looking like they were preparing to leap at her, but they straightened suddenly, their giant heads turning toward the throne room doors, their ears twitching. Laurel followed their gaze, trying to listen through her fear, but she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of buzzing flies and the thrumming of her heart. Then the doors flew open and Lenroy Mott stumbled in, accompanied by three Sisters. Walter waddled in right behind them. The lions stayed frozen in place, staring at the newcomers with their mouths agape, saliva clinging to their jowls

“Masters, they are here!” Lenroy exclaimed. “The Watch have stormed the front gate!”

At once, both lions leapt into action, bolting across the gore-splattered floor and out the door. A moment later, Laurel could hear the clang of metal and men screaming. Her jaw trembled. She wanted to get up, to sneak into the chamber behind the throne and scurry up to King Eldrich’s private quarters, but she was frozen in place.

Marius, who had been cowering in the corner throughout Laurel’s ordeal, stepped out into the open. He was shaking, though he tried to hide it. When he went to exit, Joben stepped in front of him.

“You, take care of her,” the former mumbling priest said as he shoved Marius back into the room. “Bring her to the dungeons, and then take out that useless sword of yours and join the fight.”

“Do you think that wise? Should we not be hiding? I feel the Sisters-”

Joben lifted the front of his cloak, revealing flesh scarred in an interlacing pattern by the lions’ claws.

“You will not question my words, Councilman. I have been marked by the Judges. I serve them, and by serving them, I serve Karak. You…are nothing. My acolytes are mere boys, and they are better than you. Should you find fault in my commands, you can face judgment as well.”

Marius closed his mouth and vehemently shook his head.

“Good. Now go.”

Joben left the throne room, and moments later Marius marched across the floor, grabbing Laurel by the arm. Her mind was reeling. None of what was happening made any sense in the slightest.

Her fellow Council member yanked her out of the horrific throne room and into the hallway beyond. Instead of heading toward the front entrance, where a battle raged, he hauled her down a side passage. Laurel had never been in this part of the tower before, and when Marius threw a door open, she understood why. A set of stairs led into total darkness. Her captor hauled her down them, into a torch-lit burrow whose ceiling was so low they had to squat, and then up an opposite stairwell. At the top was another door, and when Marius shoved it open, a double row of iron-barred gray cells was revealed.

The gates to the cages were open, and Marius threw her into one of them. She landed hard on the hay-covered ground, cracking her chin and biting her tongue in the process. Blood pooled in her mouth. She rolled over, saw that there was a corpse in there with her, and hastily crawled away from it. She kicked over the piss pot in her desperation, which spilled its contents, making the stink of the place all the more unbearable. As the gate to her cell swung shut, she drew her knees to her chin and rocked in place, her mind a whirl of terror and disbelief.

Marius lingered at the bars for a moment, staring at her, his plain features turned malevolent in the torchlight.

“I do pray the end for you is quick, Laurel,” he said softly. “But perhaps I will ask Joben if I can spend some time with you first. You have always been nice to look at.” Yet there was no power behind his words. When he left, he snuffed out the only torch brightening that level of the dungeon, leaving Laurel in complete blackness, and when her mind broke and she began to scream, she was very much conscious of how strange it was that such a primal sound could come from her little mouth.

Rain fell in sheets, creating streams that flowed through gaps in the rocks where the group of humans and Wardens were hiding. Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating the camp in front of them in a brief moment of clarity. Hundreds of tents were perched on the harsh, dead earth. There were horses too, more than one could count, along with carelessly built wagons and one durable wooden structure. Soaked banners bearing the mark of Karak hung limp from their poles. It was a huge settlement, and those gathered were arguing quietly among themselves as to how many might be sleeping in the tents below. Ephraim Wendover suggested five hundred. Judah countered with ten thousand.

“Enough. They will hear us if you keep arguing.”

Ahaesarus sighed and looked at the camp through the curtain of his sodden hair. He didn’t care how many men were gathered in the valley. All that mattered was that they had found it, and quickly.

There were eight of them in the group: Ahaesarus led the Wardens Judah, Grendel, and Ludwig, while Ephraim had been placed in charge of three young men, Craxton, Enoch, and Uulon, Turock and Abigail’s son-in-law. Each carried a sword that had been recently hammered out at Turock’s secret new smithy. They had departed via raft from Blood Tower just as sunset stretched its crimson fingers across the sky, and after making landfall on the other side of the raging Gihon, they had proceeded to follow their enemies’ embedded footprints deep into the lifeless hills and valleys of the Tinderlands.

The cold rains had started to fall after only an hour, the downpour washing away many of the tracks. When the footing turned treacherous, Ahaesarus started to think they should turn back. But luck seemed to be with them, for only a few moments later they stumbled on an overturned carriage whose wheel had become stuck in one of the many gaping cracks in the earth, snapping its axel. From there they climbed the uneven rise where they now stood, and found the sleeping encampment spread out beneath them.

Ephraim turned to him, squeezed water from his thick beard, and scrambled to get a better position on the perch. “I assume we’re done here?” he whispered. “Turock wished to know what we were facing, and now we do.”

“No,” Ahaesarus said, shaking his head. “We already knew Karak’s men were here. What we need to know is their true numbers and whether this is their only camp. The attacks have been spread out for miles. It’s possible this is but a portion of their total force.”

Enoch crept closer. Water dripped from the tip of the young man’s large nose, drawing attention to the way one side of his mouth was twisted higher than the other in a frustrated grimace.

“We’re only eight; what else could we possibly do?”

Ahaesarus closed his eyes, listening to the camp through the constant patter of the rain.

“They are overconfident,” he said, a plan forming in his mind. Opening his eyes, he scurried along the edge of the gradient, trying to find a better vantage point.

“So?” asked Craxton. “How does that matter?”

“It means there are no guards,” Judah replied, and Ahaesarus silently thanked him. The Warden’s hair, black as night, appeared almost blue in the rain. Judah had been by his side when Ashhur and Celestia arrived in Algrahar. If any knew what he was thinking, it was he.