David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

Boris stepped forward wordlessly, drawing his sword. He grabbed Cotter by the shoulder and whirled him around. The old man’s hand lashed out, striking the soldier across the cheek. Boris released him, stumbling backward in surprise, and Cotter lunged forward, mouth opened wide, baring his remaining teeth, his gnarled hands bent into claws.

The soldier thrust upward with his sword, the tip piercing the underside of the old man’s chin, then exiting the back of his head with a pop . Cotter’s arms went limp, and his body collapsed against Boris, who stepped back, letting him fall. The young soldier looked like he wanted to turn on Velixar, to scream and rant and perhaps drive a blade into him, but he shook it off as if physically shedding his anger. He then calmly reached down, wrenched his sword from Cotter’s head, and wiped it clean before returning it to its sheath.

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt him,” Boris said when he was done. Despite the delay, his voice still quivered a bit.

“And I did not. He hurt himself, and then you ran him through.”

The soldier gaped at him.

Velixar leaned forward, gazing with disappointment at the stilled body on the ground, before sitting down and grabbing the sheet of parchment on which he’d written Cotter’s name and age, and then he started scribbling with his quill. “A shame,” he said. “There is much I could have learned from this one.”

“Learned?” asked Boris. The tiniest quaver in his voice betrayed the calm he was trying to portray. “What could you possibly learn from that ? That was…that was…unnatural.”

“No,” Velixar said, lifting his head from his writings. “It might not have appeared so, but it was actually quite natural. It is fascinating the effects certain stimuli have on the human mind. Everything has a cause and consequence. The only failure was on my part, for I did not know what outcome this passage would bring. It could have made the man calmer, or more intelligent, or reduced his mind to that of a child.” He shrugged. “Instead it drove him mad.”

Boris strode up to the desk, grabbed the corner of the journal, and turned it toward himself.

“What kind of witchcraft is this?” he asked, his eyes dipping to the opened page.

Velixar’s arm quickly shot out, slamming the massive tome closed.

“Do not read that!” he shouted at the soldier. “Do you wish to die? There are some things the human mind was not meant to comprehend. That passage is obviously one of them.”

Boris slowly backed away.

“I was…I just wanted to see what it said, what it looked like,” he said.

“Then you would have ended up like the man you just ran through,” Velixar said, jutting his chin at Cotter’s corpse.

“Oh. But did you not write it? Why can you look on it when others can’t?”

Velixar withdrew his hand, sighing.

“Because I am beyond humanity now. I am the High Prophet of Karak, privy to knowledge that transcends mortality-that transcends the fabric of the universe itself. Do not insult me by insinuating that the sniveling old man’s mind was of equal strength to mine.”

Boris considered the now closed journal. “Is that book full of similar…things?”

Velixar smiled, amused by the soldier’s almost reverence toward his personal writings.

“There are more than a few spells in here that might render a man mad, Boris. It is a chronicle of my life and all I have learned, from ten years before the gods created you until this very day. The history of the elves, the first baby steps of man, Karak helping to erect the city of Veldaren and the commune of Erznia, Ashhur forging the Sanctuary and adopting the cast-out Wardens, countless remedies and spells-all are within these pages.” He patted the tome’s leather cover. “I once wrote this as my gift to the race of man, a legacy of wisdom and knowledge in case of my death.”

The soldier gave him a wry smile.

“Once?” he asked.

“Now I do not know who I write it for,” Velixar said, surprised by how he was revealing himself to the soldier. “Not even the brother gods have seen what is written here. The spells are archaic, many of them dangerous.…Still, I find myself driven to record them, to test the limits of my newfound wisdom. I should destroy the book; part of me knows that, yet I cannot bear the thought. It will no longer be a gift for mankind, though, I do know that. There is danger in too much knowledge. After all, one might accidentally loose a demon on the world.”

Boris frowned, looked at Cotter’s body, and shifted awkwardly on his feet.

“I suppose I should clean up the mess,” he said, bending over and hefting a stiff arm over his shoulder. “I will send a squire to wipe up what is left.”

He began dragging the corpse along the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind him.

“Young man,” Velixar said, halting the soldier in his tracks. Boris turned to him, expectant. Once more Velixar was reminded of Roland. So much potential. So much desire to learn, consequences be damned.

“There is no need to send a squire,” he told him. “I will handle this mess. And though you may never look within the journal, I would not deny you some of the wisdom inside. Prove yourself, Boris. Dedicate your service to Karak, and show our god the true cleverness of your mind. I have been without a capable steward for some time now. When our Divinity claims Paradise as his own, I may require another one.”

“Yes, High Prophet,” he said, grinning. And then he ducked beneath the flap.

When he was gone, Velixar snatched up an empty inkwell, stood, and circled his desk. He hovered over the trail of blood and raised his free hand. With a few chanted words of magic, the blood began to shimmer and rise up off the ground, the droplets shimmying and swaying like hovering puffs of cotton. The liquid rippled, drawing together the higher it floated, until it became a single massive bubble. Velixar held out the inkwell, and the blood formed into a narrow tube, gliding through the air and entering the open top of the bottle. When the tail of the crimson serpent disappeared inside, he placed a cap on it and set it down.

He slowly shook his head as he stared at the capped container. A shame Cotter had died. To have custody of one of the first humans crafted by Ashhur, his blood pure and unmixed with others, could have been useful. Still, he couldn’t blame Boris for killing him. The boy was only human, prone to fear and doubt. Still, it bothered him, for there were many more pages of mystical transcriptions he longed to experiment with, all written within his journal over the last five days. He shrugged. No matter. They had collected a great many refugees from the towns they’d sacked, all of whom had bent their knee to Karak. There were plenty of other subjects for his experiments. Perhaps even Lanike Crestwell would do. The wife of Clovis was locked in her private wagon on the other end of camp, likely chomping on her fingernails and crying herself to sleep. All it would take was a word and she would be brought before him, eyes wide and pleading. It was tempting, if not for his need to keep Darakken in line.…

A shrill scream rose in the distance, stealing away his daydream. He paused, thinking it might have been in his head. But then another scream sounded, followed by panicked shouts. Velixar snatched Lionsbane from the back of the chair on which it hung and swiftly ducked beneath the pavilion’s entrance flap.

It was dusk, a gloomy mishmash of crimson and purple that hovered over the miles of flattened grassland where the army camped. Velixar’s pavilion was positioned on a slight hill, close to a thick expanse of forest in the shadow of Karak’s own dwelling. The soldiers’ tents stretched out below him like folded bits of paper, from one distant line of trees to another, the entire area ridging the Gods’ Road. A great many people gathered at the northern edge of the camp, those who’d decided not to join their mates around the bonfires for food and drink. There were a hundred of them dashing this way and that, many fumbling for their weapons, their faces masks of confusion and fright. Smelling something odd, Velixar cast a quick glance toward the southeast, and despite the darkening of the day, he could easily spot the billowing black clouds of smoke that filled the sky, evidence of Lord Commander Avila’s continued onward march as she circled the province of Ker, sealing Ashhur’s tall, dark children in behind a wall of scorched earth.