David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

A breathtaking spectacle, indeed.

Inspired, Velixar ripped Lionsbane from its sheath and urged his steed forward. Nearly half the remaining grayhorns had fallen, and the Ekreissar, who continued to pummel the beasts with their arrows, were encircling the others. One of the creatures stampeded the circling elves and managed to gore a ranger through the midsection. The elf shrieked as he was lifted high into the air on the grayhorn’s tusks, and then impaled by the horn on the beast’s snout. The elf fell limp as the grayhorn roared, thrashing this way and that, blinded by the flopping dead thing attached to it.

Velixar raced behind the creature and hacked at it with Lionsbane. Its hide was tough, but his blade sliced, severing the tendons on the back of the thing’s tree-trunk legs. It collapsed to its knees, while a blast of panicked air left its elongated snout, filling the air with its trumpetlike bleating.

It was silenced by a wave of Velixar’s hand, which turned both creature and impaled elf inside out. The tide of the battle seemed to be turning, with the grayhorns pushing the Ekreissar back now. Two more elves were killed, their bodies trampled and broken in the dry brown grass, and while Shen and the rangers continued their assault, the grayhorns seemed to be learning. When the twang of bowstrings sounded they dropped their heads, allowing the shafts to enter their thick hides while protecting their more sensitive areas. They also formed defensive positions, grouping shoulder to shoulder with one another, their flailing horns and tusks keeping the elves’ khandars at bay. For mere animals, their survival instinct was remarkable. In many ways, Velixar began to admire them.

Just not enough to let them live.

Bringing his horse to a halt behind the eviscerated grayhorn and its victim, Velixar sheathed Lionsbane and accessed the deeper recesses of the demon’s knowledge. As he twined his hands together, he felt Karak’s strength surge through him, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. Arcane words left his mouth, and a liquid feeling of connection permeated his being. His vision returned to him, and he saw the blood and bone of the elf and grayhorn he had eviscerated circling in the air, a funnel of ruin that twisted with the force of gods, ever widening, ever spiraling. The funnel lashed across the ground, guided by Velixar’s own hand, collecting the ruin of the dead that were strewn about until it was nearly as wide as Tower Honor itself. As if sensing the potency of the spell, the grayhorns packed tighter into their defensive circle. The elves, who had ceased with their rain of arrows, backed their horses away. It seemed all eyes were on him, including his divinity’s. Now was the time for him to prove, once and for all, that Karak’s faith in him was not misplaced.

He leaned forward and then thrust his interlocked hands toward the huddled beasts. The death funnel surged into motion, ripping up chunks of dirt and grass as it spiraled toward the beasts. The base of the funnel grew as it went, the bone fragments within becoming sharper and more deadly with each revolution.

The grayhorns turned to flee, their primal gazes filled with fear. Their giant rumps rose and fell with each leaping stride, the creatures deceptively fast given their size.

They weren’t fast enough.

The death funnel swallowed the slowest grayhorn, ripping the beast off its feet and into the massive spiral of blood, tissue, and bone. Its shrieks were deafening, and Velixar could see the shadow of its form whipping back and forth inside the cyclone. When it was ejected, flesh and muscle flayed from its bones, it landed on the dead ground in a steaming lump.

The funnel’s density grew with each beast it devoured, until it became so large that it seemed to swirl nearly a thousand feet wide. The fleeing grayhorn-men were annihilated, one by one, until a scant few remained. Velixar watched from a distance as they disappeared into the skeletal forest, their massive bodies colliding with the dead trees in their horrified flight. He snapped his fingers and the death funnel abruptly ceased to spin. Each bone fragment, each strip of blackened flesh, each drop of blood hung in the air for a precious few seconds before falling to the ground in a deafening rain of gore.

Shen glanced over at him, his wide-set eyes alive with fear. The Ekreissar chief then dismounted, crossed his black swords over his chest, and fell to one knee. The rest of the rangers followed their chief’s lead, showing subservience to the swallower of demons.

Velixar’s belly filled with pride as the pendant against his chest pulsed with heat. He spun his horse around to look for Karak and saw that the deity was staring at him, eyes aglow, arms crossed. The god nodded in approval while the thousands of soldiers behind him gaped in awe. Velixar then caught Lord Commander Gregorian’s eye, raised his right hand to the sky, and pointed two fingers toward the smoking hole in the wall around Mordeina.

The Lord Commander needed no further invitation. The man yanked his horse’s reins with his good arm, urging it to the side.

“March forth!” he shouted. “Slay the worshippers of the false god!” The entirety of the first vanguard hollered their approval. The riotous thudding of clanging armor and stomping feet sounded as the soldiers began to charge across the dead field covered with the remains of the grayhorns. The second vanguard stepped up, preparing to follow.

Velixar sat and watched as the soldiers rushed past him, weapons raised, spittle flying from their lips. They would do their god proud, just as he had.

The assault on Mordeina had begun.

The demons were upon them, swooping from the heavens, snatching women and children, slaughtering any who opposed. As Ahaesarus listened to them scream, his vision blacked out, his body searing with pain. He sensed people leaping over him as he lay on his back.

A foot connected with his side, rolling him over. He remained where he was, elbow pressing into the soft earth, while his sight slowly returned. Muffled voices shouted warnings. Something slumped to the ground beside him, and he lifted his head, not wanting to see Malodia take her final breath, but bound by honor and love to do just that.

The world came clear to him, and he saw that the body alongside him was not his dead wife’s, but rather that of a young man with curly red-blond hair. His dead eyes stared at Ahaesarus until they were covered in blood from the ugly wound on the side of his head. The Warden reached over, his every muscle aching, and felt the man’s chest. His heart was still.

The screaming and clamor of the stampede continued as Ahaesarus sat up. There were bodies everywhere, some writhing in pain, most stilled, all covered with gashes and bruises and surrounded by large chunks of heavy, jagged stone. The Warden looked up at the twin walls Ashhur had helped raise, at the wide crevasse that had been solid stone moments before. Someone crashed into him from behind, knocking him forward, and he bent painfully at the waist, his chin almost kissing his knees.

He rolled, got up on all fours, and surveyed the pandemonium all around him. The people were rushing about in a mad panic, an endless mob of them, their roughspun stained with grime, ash, and blood. His fellow Wardens tried to usher them along in an organized manner toward the manse on the hill, but the mob’s panic was too great. He watched as one of his brethren was trampled by a swarm of terrified men and women, disappearing from view. The last Ahaesarus saw of him was his hand rising above the bobbing heads in a feeble attempt to make them stop.

With the crowds moving steadily away from him, he took a moment to grab hold of his ears and rock back and forth. There was a persistent buzzing in his head that muffled all other sound, almost as if he were underwater. Confusion abounded as he tried to remember what had happened, why everything had gone so insane so quickly.