David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

Confused, Roland peered through the looking glass once more, and into his vision came another man, much shorter than the towering god. This one wore a billowing black robe and his eyes burned red, as if the fires of the underworld raged within him. Roland gasped as he took in Jacob’s all too familiar visage. The First Man seemed to be looking right at him, those burning eyes boring into his soul. There was such anger there, such hatred. Roland handed the looking glass back to Azariah. He could see no more.

“He has returned,” Roland whispered.

Someone shouted something along the wall of sodden burlap sandbags, and Roland peered across the river again. He didn’t need the looking glass to see what was happening. He watched as Karak and Jacob walked to the edge of the rushing water and lifted their arms. A great rumbling followed, and the massive boulders that formed Paradise’s high bank began to shift. First one fell into the current, then another, creating a single column that rose out of the water. More rocks fell, rumbling and cracking and splashing as column after column rose into the air.

“They’re building a bridge!” Azariah shouted, his cry echoed by all who stared over the wall.

Roland dropped his head into his arms as the commotion around him grew into an uproar. Jacob, why? his mind pleaded. You were my hero, my master! Why?

There was no answer but the sound of the grinding boulders.

Azariah grabbed him by the shoulder, giving him a shake. Tears rolling down his cheeks, Roland glanced at Azariah’s face. The Warden tried to give him one of those reassuring smiles of his, but this time it rang false.

“The town is lost,” Azariah told him. “Go down there and gather Kaya, her family, and as many others as you can. It will be some time before they are able to finish the bridge, but others will be crossing before they are through. Stay at the inn. Don’t move until I come for you.”

“Why, Az?” Roland gasped. “What are we going to do?”

The Warden glanced down at Ezekai, who nodded in reply, as if a silent message had passed between them.

“The time is now,” his friend said. “I am getting you out of here before Karak rains death on us all.”

He had seen them. He had seen them . And he could not wait to get across.

The sun had fallen behind the western rise while men laid down long planks atop the newly formed scaffolding that crossed the Rigon River. It was tedious work for those building the bridge, but none fell into the water. The whole time Karak and Velixar continued their chanting, keeping the men balanced, raising stones and sludge from the riverbed to reinforce the structure. The river below rushed on unimpeded, the current oblivious to at all that was happening above it, while from the other side came the nearly inaudible sound of flapping wings.

Darkness had spread across the land by the time the bridge, a two-thousand-foot long, thirty-foot wide behemoth of stone, wood, and sediment, was complete. On the other side of the river, countless points of light shone from behind the makeshift wall around Lerder. It was a flimsy thing, their wall, haphazardly built and teetering in spots. They did not have Ashhur’s assistance to make it strong, Velixar thought. Nor did they have mine.

He took his place beside Captain Wellington at the head of the vanguard and raised his right fist to the sky. His eyes, burning brightly, illuminated the bridge before him.

“For Karak!” he shouted. “For a free Dezrel!” The soldiers behind him- his soldiers-echoed his words before they charged, their captain in the lead. Velixar stepped onto the sturdy riverbank, allowing the vanguard to cross ahead of him. Their shouts became the bays of wolves, the sound of their booted feet clomping across the bridge an ever-present rumble of thunder. The first legion of horsemen cantered behind the vanguard, hooves clopping against the wooden planks, and Velixar followed them.

The bridge was wide enough for all to make it across without incident. The high bank on the other side was steep and muddy from the spring rains, and soldiers scampered over one another in an attempt to scale it. Men struggled to gain their footing, and a few careened into the Rigon’s strong current, their plate and mail causing them to slip below the surface before the current could take them. The first few over the rise were battered by a rain of arrows, but few of the bolts found purchase. Their tips were either wood or stone, neither strong enough to punch through the armor and shields.

Where is the iron, the steel? Velixar wondered. He had not dared to hope it would be this easy.

Finally the first wave crossed the high bank. The shield bearers formed a protective barrier while behind them soldiers drove stakes into the ground, tied off ropes, and laid down planks of wood for those below. With actual solid ground beneath them, the rest climbed easily. The horsemen followed them up, their horses fanning out wide, once over the lip. The war cry began anew as Karak’s soldiers rushed the makeshift wall.

When Velixar stepped foot on the bank, he saw that the wall encircling the town was even shorter than he’d originally assumed. It could not be more than fifteen feet tall, and his vanguard flung their grappling ropes over the side with ease. But as they began scaling it, the stacked wood and sacks of sand proved too unstable for their weight. The wall tumbled in spots, and more soldiers rushed through the debris, tramping atop the crushed bodies of their comrades. Now there are gaps in the wall where the horsemen could ride through .

Velixar’s grin grew wider as he glanced behind him, where a towering Karak awaited with the bulk of their regiment. The deity stood at the foot of the bridge, arms crossed over his chest, his intense golden stare like a pair of nightbugs from this distance. Velixar nodded to his master, then faced forward and muttered a few words of magic. Air gathered beneath his body, lifting him off the ground. He sailed over the high bank, his feet touching ground just a few short yards from the wall.

A group of tall beings had emerged from the town to meet his vanguard head-on. He recognized each of them, even as they fell and died. The Wardens fought with swords and axes of stone, brave in the face of certain death, but they were not warriors and they wore no armor. Soon the humans’ swords, battleaxes, and pikes ran red with blood.

Velixar walked past the various melees as if nothing could touch him, his sword bouncing on his hip as he fingered the pendant hanging around his neck. The night came alive with screams. One particular soldier caught his eye, a compact and powerful man with a teardrop scar beneath his left eye. The soldier fought expertly, his steel slashing into Warden after Warden while he led the vanguard.

As Velixar walked, the pockets of violence seemed to shrink away from him. Only once did a Warden approach him. It was Warden Croatin, who’d helped raise the Mori family in Erznia. Croatin’s eyes widened when he saw him, and a mighty swing of his great stone ax dispatched the soldier with whom he’d been brawling. The Warden then charged, shoving aside other combatants, his ax held high above his head. Velixar calmly channeled the power of the demon whose essence he’d swallowed. When he brought up his hand, inky black shadows formed in his palm, solidifying into bolts. They shot out from his fingertips, striking the Warden square in the chest. Croatin fell to his knees, gasping as the shadows swirled around his body, constricting, cutting off his breath. Velixar searched his stolen knowledge.

How best to end this? he wondered. When it came to him, he grinned.