Age of the Gods: The Complete, twelve novel, fantasy series (The Blood and Brotherhood Saga)

by Laszlo,Jeremy

  Though Seth felt he was the instrument through which humans might perish from Thurr, he hoped that this small deed might at least allow his race, or a closely related race, to rise from the ashes of his failures and make up for the deeds he had done.

  Shaking his head, Seth stretched his wings in preparation of what was to come. If Sara needed more time to save Valdadore, then he would do everything in his power to buy them every second he could.

  Turning his gaze once more, it settled on his wife. Stronger now, and in the absence of light, she had foresworn her armor, wearing only skin tight black leather and her favorite pair of enchanted blades. Her once amber eyes flickered red in the dying light of the burning walls of Valdadore. Reaching to her, Seth ran the back of his fingers down her perfectly smooth cheek, eliciting a smile from her deep red lips.

  “I love you,” Seth whispered into the night, before launching into the air with a leap and flap of his great wings.

  * * * * *

  Sara heard the deep sounding slow words of the only man deserving of her love, and watched as he ascended into the night air. He seemed to move impossibly too slow for flight, but she knew it was her own increasing speed and strength that made it seem so. What felt like minutes later, though was likely only seconds, Borrik followed his master into the air and Sara knew the battle was about to begin. Though by her standards, about to begin meant she had time to ponder a few things before she needed to lend herself to battle.

  The first thing that she thought of was fear. Not the fear of losing the battle, or failing to do what she must. Nor was it the fear of dying in battle. Sara realized that as she was growing stronger and faster she was becoming more and more alone. Already she could not speak to normal humans. Borrik and Seth barely understood her. In the hours to come she would become yet faster and stronger and further distance herself from all that she loved, and all those she knew. How was she to be Seth’s bride if she was unable to touch him or speak to him?

  For what felt like a long time she pondered the problem, finally deciding upon two things. First, if given time, Seth would find a solution to the problem. She believed in him more than any person in the world. Second, Seth had enough to contend with, especially with the burden on his conscious. If there was a will, there was a way, and Sara already knew one way that was certain to relieve her of the power she was gaining.

  Looking about, she witnessed as the first sections of wall became free of flame, creating breaches in Valdadore’s defenses. Drawing her blades, she hopped to the rim of the wall in front of her and stepped over the edge into darkness.

  * * * * *

  Battle was upon them and Garret stalked down the massive stairs from the city wall. Reaching the bottom, he spun on his heel and stormed across the cobbled street towards the city gate. The massive gate was closed and barred, and its portcullis lowered to protect those within the city. But beside the large gate only a few yards away was a smaller portal unknown to all but a few who were charged with the city’s defense. It was a hidden doorway within one of the guard posts just inside the city wall. Daily guards inhabited the small structure built up against the wall of the city, not only watching their post at the massive gate, but also defending the secret of this hidden entrance. In reality, most of the guards themselves were unaware that the portal existed.

  Entering the small building, Garret simply slammed an arm through the wooden paneling that made up the back wall of the building. With a quick heave he ripped the secret panel free from the wall and looked into the darkened tunnel that stood before him. Though his brother preached to spare the lives of as many enemies as possible, Garret wanted every last tainted monster ripped to pieces and burned while he watched.

  He knew not what had turned his brother into an instrument of evil, but still held a diminishing hope that the man turned monster could be redeemed.

  Stalking into the darkness, Garret breathed deeply the scents of moss, mold, and dank, stagnant water. Though he carried no light into the darkness, and had never been here before, he strode confidently through the blackness without so much as a raised hand to protect him from collision.

  At first the darkened tunnel sloped down, then after splashing through a cold puddle it again turned upwards. Ahead of him he could hear the scurrying and squeaking of rats, a grim reminder of Seth’s latest debacle. Disgusted, Garret slowed his pace and at last raised an arm and felt the last few feet until he found the stone wall before him.

  Feeling the creases between the stones, he located the one he sought and gave it a rough twist. With a snap it spun a quarter turn before he thrust it into the wall. With a breath, now filled with dust, the hidden stone door swung silently open and before Garret stood the first of his enemies where behind it milled hundreds of its kind.

  Still within the confines of the small tunnel, he was unable to call upon his blessing when the creature attacked. There was nothing to do but draw his sword and fight his way out of the confines of the wall.

  No more was the tip of his blade clear from the scabbard at his side, than the beast was upon him. Clawing, scratching and biting, the ravenous thing landed upon him drawing blood time and again. It clung to him with tooth and nail, forcing Garret to relinquish his sword as he fell back into the tunnel. Using his fists he pummeled the creature and finally breaking its grasp he smashed it, first into one wall of the tunnel and then into the other with a sickening crack. Throwing the lifeless body of the creature out into the waiting horde, he watched as they converged upon the tunnel opening.

  Daring not to have a repeat of the event, Garret ran headlong out into the field beyond the wall, ducking only to retrieve his sword before breaking free of the dank tunnel into the night air, where he collided with two of his foes. As he cleared the opening he began to shimmer, and with a concussive boom the king of Valdadore exploded in size, his flesh becoming that of metal, his foes being thrown back further by the blast. Kicking the hidden portal closed behind him, he flexed his massive shoulders, and with a crack of his neck he raised his sword above him as a chuckle escaped his lips. It was time to right the wrongs of his brother.

  * * * * *

  King Robert Sigrant watched with the unparalleled vision of an inhuman night predator as the flames upon Valdadore’s walls began snuffing out. He watched as a wave of bodies engulfed the once white walls. His troops climbed like cockroaches up the meager defenses that stood between them and the blood they craved. He heard the familiar boom of a blessed defender, though now the sound carried on entirely too long and the seemingly lower pitch disturbed his head due to his vastly improved hearing. He debated joining the lowliest of his troops for some sport, but that idea was cut short.

  Watching as his minions neared the top of the wall, from out of the sky green and yellow magical fire lanced out and Sigrant felt the emptiness that came with the loss of his underlings. With wicked speed the cursed demon prince bore down upon his vampires upon Valdadore’s wall and obliterated them, hundreds at a swoop. His suspicions confirmed, he dared not face the prince in an open fight.

  If that were not enough, the prince’s beast commander too was in the air, throwing fireballs and ripping Sigrant’s weakest from their holds upon the walls. Even so, with the events playing out in extreme slow motion before him, he could not help but wonder if he could survive a blast from the prince, or perhaps even attack the demonic man unaware. His speed was so great, after all, that no mortal stood a chance against him. Sigrant nearly acted on his impulse, but two things held him at bay when the momentous decision was made.

  First, his troops, though falling en masse before the prince’s assault, were making progress, some of them beginning to top the walls and battle the defenders. This meant, of course, that more power would be on its way. If time would hurry the hell up. Second, even in the darkness, at an impossible range, the invading king watched as a being moved so fast upon the grounds surrounding the city that only Sigrant and his harem would be able to track her movements with his e
yes. He knew her in an instant, recognition bringing forth a scowl. Not only had the prince somehow been resurrected from whatever hell he inhabited after death, but so too was his bride restored to his side, seemingly more powerful than ever. His scowl deepened. She was near his equal, and reason made him believe that she, not the prince, was the bigger threat of the two.

  For now, there was nothing better for him to do than watch and calculate odds.

  Chapter Twelve

  Seth let the wind gather in his great leathery wings and used them to glide, more or less, in a great circle around the city. Sigrant’s troops clung to every wall, clawing and scratching their way to the top like horrid insects hell-bent on destruction. It was a precarious path Seth strode down. One he knew would lead him to an inevitable battle of wills. But he knew in his heart it was necessary.

  For those watching his actions from the tops of the walls, the fields below, or the camp belonging to king Sigrant, it appeared as if Seth incinerated those vampires upon the uppermost reaches of the wall, but in fact it was not the case at all. Seth had instructed all of his troops to only kill as a last resort. Their main purpose at present was to buy time for Sara to grow stronger than the invading king. Seth’s main purpose was to make it appear that he was simply killing the enemy, and spare Valdadore’s troops as many casualties as possible.

  He knew it was impossible to save both sides of the conflict in entirety. One sought only to destroy, the other sought only to survive. For the majority to live, some had to be sacrificed.

  So it was that Seth swept down from the darkened heavens once again. With his hands out before him, he paralleled the great western wall of Valdadore and sought out his enemies with the power only he could wield. Nearly simultaneously, he siphoned the lives from nearly two hundred of the enemy troops, before releasing a fraction of that power back as a great blast of fire.

  With this method, he contained the vast majority of the tainted life forces of Sigrant’s troops, and spread magical fire upon the stone of the city. The fire only lingered for a minute or two, but kept those attackers below the blast from climbing further while it lasted, buying more time. Then, seeking out their only hope, Seth unleashed the remaining tainted power into the woman he loved, making her more Sigrant’s equal with every feigned blast.

  It was a dangerous game Seth was playing in more aspects than was rational. The gods wanted the power from those dying on the field, and by collecting it and pouring it into Sara he was denying them that which was rightfully theirs. He could not help but wonder if such an act made Sara and him a target of the gods. He imagined that eventually he would know the answer to that question first hand. Another dangerous aspect was simply the unknown. Man was not made to possess such power. At what point did the power take over and the man lose control? Was there a limit to what a person could contain? Was eternal life possible? It certainly seemed so. Would the immense power alter a person in irreversible ways?

  Seth himself was powerful by mortal standards. Hundreds, likely near two thousand souls that had been sworn to him had perished and come to join his own. But Sigrant, and now Sara too, far exceeded the power that he himself contained. If the physical changes that were so obviously apparent were so extreme, could not the mental and emotional changes be just as vast? Could anyone recover from such extensive change and remain sane?

  He had a plan to bring Sara back to a reasonable level, but feared that like his previous attempts at saving her, something could go awry.

  Flapping his wings, now against the cold breeze, he felt he was finally getting the hang of his new appendages. Reaching out all along the western wall of the city he turned to ash all that clung to the top half of the wall before lancing fire to coat the stones in a temporary barrier. Again, he fed Sara life.

  Time. They needed more time!

  * * * * *

  Borrik felt utterly useless winging along the skies, mimicking his master, throwing fireballs in an attempt to dissuade the attackers from wanting to climb further. It was working, but his human and feral sides were at war within him concerning the usefulness of such tactics. Through his shared pack consciousness he watched as his few remaining men fought atop the walls, hurling the blood-sucking beasts back over the side instead of tearing them to bits.

  From time to time he would wing in close to the wall and rip an unsuspecting creature from its surface and fling it into the air, more for show than anything else. But truthfully his more primal side enjoyed it immensely.

  Deciding that his feral need to kill, or at least maim and injure, should be satiated once more, he swooped low to tear yet another of the vampire creatures from the wall. Just as he grasped the foe, a flood of images flashed in his mind of a sizeable breach not far from him. Releasing his prey, he flapped hard and began to climb.

  Within seconds he crested the wall and slammed to its top, landing in a crouch, lowering one palm to the stone to assist in adjusting from flight to land assault.

  Before him, nearly two dozen of Sigrant’s bloodthirsty monsters clawed and bit like savage animals trying to break through Valdadore’s defenders and get into the city to feed. The bulk of the troops here belonged to Seth, the rat troops commanded by Borrik himself via his wolven pack members. Tucking his wings, and leaning yet further forward to charge, Borrik sprang ahead, recalling his secondary arms as he ran along the wall.

  Though he imagined himself an odd sight, a great wolven beast of a man who was rapidly degenerating, a second pair of arms as he ran with wings tucked against his back behind him, it was what he watched as he neared that he found even more peculiar.

  All along the wall, though especially right ahead, Seth’s young rat soldiers battled the vampires. Both sides fought savagely, ripping and tearing at their foes, like caged animals over a scrap of meat. It reminded Borrik of a traveling troop of acrobats he had seen once. The way the combatants fought was almost like a dance. They lunged and leapt over one another and darted this way and that. Lunge and feigned attacks were used by both sides, and he was impressed to find that Seth’s young troops seemed up to the task of defending against the creatures. Oddly, both sides fought nearly identically. They did not fight as men fought, but then again, neither side was truly a member of human kind any longer.

  As Borrik watched, however, he witnessed proof of not only the power of his master, but also the thoughtfulness of the dark prince as well. Witnessing as he rushed ahead to lend himself to his allies, Borrik saw a small rat soldier fall beneath a pair of Sigrant’s creatures. Dragged to the ground without a chance of escape, the small hairy soldier grasped at the medallion given to him by his creator, and Borrik heard the scream that followed.

  “Seth, save me!”

  That was it… Poof. The rat soldier vanished. No smoke. No flash. No boom. Nothing. Gone. The rat soldier had disappeared and those who would have killed him within an instant fell to the ground where he had been in a tangle of teeth and claws. Borrik was astonished. He knew Seth had enchanted the medallions, but had no idea what their effect could have been.

  Reaching the spot where the rat man had went down, Borrik grasped at the creatures who had felled Seth’s soldier and tossed them back over the side whence they came.

  “Poof,” he growled with a smirk, having done a little magic of his own.

  Looking up, he watched ahead on the wall as another young soldier invoked his medallion and then another. But just when he feared that the defenders would begin to grow too thin to hold the wall, up they came once more.

  From within the city the rat soldiers climbed back up the wall to resume their posts in a fairly steady stream. Seth hadn’t made them vanish, he had simply removed them from harm’s way so that they could fight on.

  Smiling at his master’s genius, a wicked feral smile of fangs and saliva, he charged forward once more to help those who fought on ahead of him.

  * * * * *

  As the battle waged on, Sara felt her power growing by the second. Then at other times she
felt a huge wash of power through her, so intense that had she been weaker she would have been overcome. Though she was growing stronger and faster and more agile by the second, it was as much a curse as it was a blessing.

  Because she was constantly in motion, momentum was beginning to become an issue. With each passing moment she moved faster. Higher speeds meant more time to slow or stop, and also made it more difficult to change direction. So even though time stretched out before her, she was in a constant state of flux, having to relearn her limits and the consequences that came with her power over and over again as they constantly changed. Even so, she was a terror on the fields surrounding the city.

  To Sara it felt as though she walked among the shadows of men, so attached to the ground they seemed, that they appeared barely to move as she slipped between them unnoticed. She grabbed them and hurled them like playthings back the way they had come across the fields, and even at the distance that they landed she could hear the cracks of their bones and their screams as they slowly began to mend. She too understood that killing them was a last resort.

  Seeing that the defenders upon the wall were beginning to see more than their share of the action, Sara rushed to the wall and, using the climbing vamps like stepping stones, she leapt from one to another up the wall simply to dislodge them, as she could now make the full thirty story jump with little effort at all.

  With bodies raining down below her, the lethal princess of Valdadore cleared the top of the city wall and landed as lightly as a wraith upon the stone defenses. Moving down the wall she walked among and between combatants, breaking limbs of some enemies and flinging over the side the screaming and wriggling bodies of others. It was a mundane task at best, as she now moved too quickly and was too strong for any of them to combat. If it were a fight to the death, Sara did not doubt that already she could handle the whole lot of them at once. And that was before the third generation of her underlings began to awake and feed.