David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

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Lightning sparked at her fingertips.

The sandcat whirled around, gaining its footing for another charge. Aully uttered no words of magic when she thrust out her hands. Blue lightning leapt from her palms, striking the sandcat in the side. The beast yelped and skittered, falling to the sand. A thunderous boom echoed inside Aully’s head, and all the colors in her vision momentarily reversed. She fell to her knees, completely drained.

Despite her exhaustion, she felt a new sense of control over the world’s chaos and the dark things that sought to harm her. The sandcat rose up, unable to lift its left rear leg, its side charred and blackened above its front hip. The beast licked at the wound and glanced at her, and she saw fear in its emerald-green gaze. Then the beast limped away, heading back for the three-tiered rock face where it likely lived.

“Did you see that?” Aully panted. “Kindren, did you see what I did?”

There was no answer.

She turned, groggy, and her eyes fell on Kindren. Her breath quickened and she scooted across the sand, her panic returning tenfold as she took in the blood surrounding his prone body. She reached her prone love and lifted his head into her lap. He was a mess, with deep gouges all over his torso and puncture wounds in his neck. His cheek dangled in a flap, exposing the musculature of his jaw and his rear teeth.

“Kindren,” Aully whispered.

Her hand touched his chest. She could not feel his heart beating. She leaned over him, crying, kissing his maimed face, her lips lingering just below his nose. No breath came from his nostrils. Agony filled her, and whatever rage she’d known while fighting the sandcat suddenly seemed pitifully small compared to her sorrow.

“Kindren!” she screamed.

“But what about the barn?” the deformed man said. “Does such rampant evil not need to be stopped?”

Bardiya gazed down at his old friend Patrick, who was standing next to his horse, his intense blue eyes filled with disappointment. Bardiya swore he could see contempt there as well, and it wounded him deeply. But he would not change his mind, no matter how much he was disappointing his friend. He would stay forever strong, just like the timeless Black Spire, which loomed beside them.

“I am sorry, Patrick,” he said. “I made a promise to my people, and it is a promise I intend to keep.”

Patrick shook his head, the half helm atop it shifting and clanking. “Dumb. Just fucking dumb.”

“Save your harsh words. Surely Ashhur told you what my answer would be before you came here.”

“He did.” The misshapen man looked up at him in scorn. “But I thought maybe the story of what our people suffered would change your mind. I thought you’d be smarter.”

“Intelligence has nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, that’s right. We’re talking about the great Bardiya, he of the grand ideals. Those ideals are going to get you and everyone else you love killed!”

“If that is what comes, that is what comes.”

Patrick pulled off his helmet and flung it to the ground.

“Oh come on ! You cannot be that stupid. You can’t! Too many people are depending on you.”

Bardiya jabbed his fists into his hips. Feeling anger rising in his gut, he took a deep breath, slowing his heart rate.

“Ashhur preached peace, love, forgiveness, and nonviolence. He created Paradise. I will not taint that by becoming all I disdain.” He swallowed hard. “I have seen the price of brutality, Patrick. I have lost control before. It will not happen again.”

“You think you’ve seen the price?” Patrick exclaimed. “You didn’t see Karak kill thousands of innocent people with flames from the sky! You didn’t see those people burned to a crisp while they were trapped and screaming!”

“I am not so free of the world as you’d think,” Bardiya said, gritting his teeth, “but I am determined to practice the words of our god. I met those who killed my parents, and I put Ashhur’s sermons to use. I forgave them. And because of that forgiveness, we have been left alone.”

Patrick kicked the helmet, but it was halfhearted, and the metal barely moved.

“You really think that’s the reason, don’t you? What about when Karak comes storming southwest, ready to burn and kill everything you hold dear? You think your forgiveness is going to help then?”

Bardiya frowned.

“You said Karak’s forces approach the Wooden Bridge. They’ve already skirted our borders; yet instead of invading, they turn north. If what you say is true, why has the Eastern Divinity not descended on us? He has had every opportunity.”

Patrick screamed an incomprehensible curse at the sky.

“I have no idea. Maybe he’s waiting. Maybe it’s because you’re ten fucking feet tall. Who knows? All I do know is that he is closing in on Ashhur, and the god you spent your whole life dedicated to might die if you don’t get off your ass and help!”

Bardiya extended his arms to the sky in supplication. “Do you not see, Patrick? Karak pursues Ashhur because Ashhur violated his own edicts. He succumbed to violence, he assailed when he should have stood idle. It is our god’s fault that his Paradise is threatened.”

“Wait! Hold on,” said Patrick, his jaw dropping open. “You’re mad that Ashhur refused to keep his vow of nonviolence, yet you won’t condemn Karak for bringing a whole fucking army into our nation to slaughter thousands of those innocent people?” The man took a step back, looking thoroughly defeated. “My god, Bardiya…you’ve lost it. Truly lost it.”

Bardiya’s pride felt wounded, and he hated the look he saw on his friend’s face.

“Karak’s beliefs have nothing to do with me,” he said quietly. “And when a child wanders into the forest only to be attacked by a wolf, you do not blame the wolf. For myself, I choose to remain impartial, just as our beliefs have always dictated.”

“Beliefs change. Circumstances change. Even Ashhur can see that.”

“Mine do not.”

Patrick’s horse whinnied, and he placed his hand on its cheek, stilling the beast. The mismatched armor he wore was dull and scratched, and he seemed weighted down by the massive sword strapped to his back, a weapon whose presence in Paradise Bardiya had long loathed. His old friend looked like a sad imitation of the noble warriors from the Wardens’ stories, and Bardiya felt pity for him. Perhaps Patrick DuTaureau was the one who was truly lost.

“There is still time,” Bardiya said, picking up the helmet and handing it to him. “Decry violence. Turn your back on this war, and convince Ashhur to do the same. Even if you perish, you shall do so nobly. The gates of the golden eternity will swing open wide for you, and you will be greeted as a hero.”

“There you go again,” Patrick said with a sigh. “Sometimes I think you’d rather be up in the heavens than here in the flesh.”

“I wish to have both, my friend. One cannot enter the heavens if the flesh is not pure.”

That elicited a chuckle. “Then I have no chance either way. My flesh hasn’t been pure for a long, long time.” His smile faltered, and he bent down, brushing the sand with his fingertips. “All of Ker buries their dead under these sands, correct?” he asked.

“Yes, we do.”

“How many now? How many have you buried?”

“Four hundred and eighty-seven.”

“And your parents are under here as well?”

“Yes.”

Patrick stood to his full height, looking somehow both noble and ridiculous at the same time.

“I’d prepare, if I were you,” he said. “You’ll soon to have a lot more dead to bury.”

Patrick took two steps away and then froze as thunder echoed in their ears. A blood-curdling scream ripped through the afternoon sky a moment later. Bardiya felt his heart leap into his throat.

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