David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

Isabel’s legs wobbled, then folded under her, and she sat clumsily on the floor.

Patrick sobbed and laughed at the same time. “I want you to remember that, Mother. I want you to remember how little you cared until it was too late. And then I want…I want…I want you to look at the rest of the people inside these walls and wonder what it would be like if they all perished. Just like Nessa .”

Knowing he would be unable to say anything more without breaking down completely, Patrick wheeled around and stormed toward the door. From the corner of his tear-blurred vision, he caught sight of the boy king, who looked so young, feeble, and powerless in his chair. He paused by the door, gathered his nerve, and then made a final statement before leaving the makeshift throne room.

“You’d best find someone to care for Father,” he called out over his shoulder, without turning around. “He seems to have thumped his head quite badly.”

With that he walked away as fast as he could, listening to a sound he had never before heard in his life, one that filled him with despair and joy and fright and loathing, all at once.

Isabel DuTaureau was crying.

With those howls of despair fresh in his memory, he hurried out of the manse and into the open air once more. Incessant chatter and the bleating of the grayhorns greeted him. He headed forcefully down the hill, ignoring the faces of those he passed. The crowd parted for him, giving him ample space as he headed east, toward the staircase that led to the wide rampart atop the inner wall. He ignored any and all who called out to him. Only one entity in all of Dezrel could cure his pain, and that entity happened to be standing sixty feet overhead.

It was nearly a half mile from the manse to the wall through terrain packed with people, and by the time he reached the staircase, he felt drained beyond belief. Still, he climbed those wide, steep stairs, placing one foot dutifully over the other, his uneven legs sending shooting pain through his rump and up his back with each step. Though it tormented him, it was still a feeling he appreciated. As long as he focused on the physical pain, he could forget, if only for a moment, the pain that seared his soul.

It was seventy steps to the top of the wall, and by the time he reached the rampart, he felt close to passing out. He stopped there, hands on knees, and panted, listening still to the obnoxious trumpeting of the grayhorns.

When he finally felt strong enough to move, he straightened up. Ashhur was just a few hundred feet away from him, sitting cross-legged on the wide walk, gazing up at the sky. Patrick didn’t need to be told what his god was looking at, and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath before spanning the distance between them. The walls lining the wide walk were low. On one side, he could see the broad expanse outside Mordeina, all rolling, hilly grasslands and thick forests, and on the other, the whole of the enclosed settlement. The vastness of both sights made him feel dizzy.

Ashhur did not look at him when he approached. Patrick stopped a few feet away, keeping silent, watching Ashhur’s godly mouth move up in down in a silent plea to the heavens. That was when Patrick noticed how unwell his deity appeared. Ashhur’s flesh had lost its luster, and there were deep bags under his eyes. He had never seen him this way before, even when he had awoken him from his slumber the day of his arrival in Mordeina. It was even more frightening than seeing his mother cry.

Patrick cleared his throat. “My Grace,” he said, dropping to one knee.

“Yes, my child?” the god replied. He sounded as tired as he looked.

“Did she respond this time?”

Ashhur closed his glowing golden eyes. “She did.”

“And what did she say?”

“That she loves me.”

“That’s all?”

“That is all.”

“Oh.”

The god turned, looking him over with compassion. “Something troubles you.”

He nodded.

“What is it?”

Patrick fell into his creator’s ample lap and started blubbering. “Nessa…she’s dead. I know…I know about my father. I hit him…might have hurt him terribly. I miss her, Ashhur, and I hate my mother, I hate this place…I think I’m becoming a monster.…”

Ashhur stroked his hair with his massive hand, tracing the lumps on his distended brow. Warmth began to spread through Patrick’s body.

“You are no monster,” Ashhur said. “You are the most perfect of my children.”

Patrick sniveled and clutched tight to his deity’s robe.

“No one else in Paradise has been given so many obstacles as you, my child. And yet you have embraced each one, turning it into a source of strength. You are all I could have ever asked for, and more.”

“But I have killed,” Patrick said, staring up at that tired yet smiling face. “Many, in fact. And I think I…enjoyed it. I think that might be why Nessa died. It was a punishment. My punishment.”

Ashhur shook his head. “Nonsense. It was in no way your punishment. I can see into you, my child. You enjoy killing no more than you enjoy poking yourself with a needle.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I feel your guilt. It consumes you. One who revels in the destruction of others does not feel remorse after the fact. Do not confuse the rush of battle with pleasure in violence. One is a survival instinct all humans possess; the other is the seed of evil.”

“And what of a man who poisons his own child while he is still in the womb? Is that a seed of evil?”

“It can be,” said Ashhur with a sigh. “In the case of your father…it was not. Your father’s failing is one of pride and ignorance. He is a cowardly, jealous creature…though that is no excuse for what he attempted to do to you.”

“Yet you forgave him.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because he was sorry. Truly sorry.” The god shook his head. “And he longs for my approval just as much as anyone. If Paradise survives the coming onslaught, he may come to be my biggest failure.”

Patrick chuckled as he wiped away his tears. “Wouldn’t that be my mother’s failure? She was the one who made him, after all.”

At those words, Ashhur grimaced.

“I feel your mother has had other, far greater failures.”

“What would those be?”

“Not now, my child. I will explain after I do what must be done.”

“Which is?”

The deity gently lifted Patrick off his lap, placing him down on his feet beside him. Ashhur then rose to his full height and leaned over the low partition. Patrick did the same, and when he saw a gathering of massive grayhorns foraging on the grasses beyond the lower outer wall, his heart nearly stopped in surprise. There had to be at least a thousand of them down there, perhaps the entire population in Dezrel. It was then he realized that their hornlike calls had ceased.

“So many…they’re silent,” he said. “Why?”

“They are connected with the land. They know what is to come.”

“Which is?”

Ashhur offered him a sad smile, then knelt down and held his hands out before him, hovering over the wall. He closed his eyes, though Patrick could see their glow intensify beneath the lids.

“From the flesh you gain sustenance,” whispered Ashhur, “and like the plants, from the soil you grow.”

Patrick had heard these lines before, and he made a dash for the walkway that connected the two walls, stumbling on his uneven legs until he crashed into the outer parapet. Wedging his shoulders into one of the notches, he wiggled until he could look down. It had started by then.

He looked on in awe as the grass field outside the walls shriveled and died, watched as the leaves and needles fell from the trees in the nearby forest, the trunks shriveling into brown clumps. The giant bodies of at least a thousand grayhorns shifted as their stumpy rear legs grew, fingers sprouted from their three-toed front legs, their necks extended, their snouts widened, the horns on their noses extended, and the tusks wrapping around the front of their elongated snouts drew back, allowing them to open their mouths wide and scream, which they all did, seemingly at once.