Blood Of Gods (Book 3)

by David Dalglish

  The concern fled her when she heard a cry rise above the clamor. It was the scream of a tortured soul, of pain beyond physical, and she recognized the voice. She stood, grabbed a soldier from behind, hoped it was one of Karak’s, and slit his throat. Using his body as a shield, she spun around, looking for her opening. When she found it, a three-foot space of empty, bloody cobbles, she tossed the man’s corpse at the skirmishing men and ran in the opposite direction, putting as much force as she could behind her next jump, arrows be damned.

  Batting away blows on either side, Moira hustled toward the sound. Luckily, the arrows were no longer flying on this side of the square, which meant her Movers had done their job. She had to keep one eye ahead and one eye on the castle wall, but then she saw him—Patrick DuTaureau, the father of Moira and Rachida’s child, sprinting along the wall. His expression was one of pure agony, pure hatred; in that moment, he actually looked like the monster many had assumed him to be. She had fought by his side in Haven, and he’d never looked like that. She wondered what had transformed him so.

  Then her eyes traced upward, and she wondered no more.

  “Fuck no,” she muttered.

  Hanging on the wall amid a long row of corpses was one that stuck out from the rest—a small, withered thing with red, curly hair. And beside her, his chestnut locks like reeds blowing in the wind, was Crian. Her brother, the only one in her whole family who had never judged her for her dismissal of the family code, hadn’t made it to Paradise after all.

  “No!” she screamed.

  A woman possessed, she hacked and slashed blindly, not caring in the slightest which side she killed. The frenzied nature of her assault created a wide gap in the packed group of combatants. When finally she dove out of the fray, she twirled around, whirling both swords in her hands, and split the faces of two soldiers who were brave enough to challenge her. When they fell, she followed the sound of Patrick’s ranting. She found him battling with a giant elf who wielded a pair of black swords. Patrick shouted obscenities each time he dove into a hysterical attack, only to be beaten back by a tumult of parries and jabs. The elf had split the chainmail on Patrick’s thigh and damaged his right vambrace so much it dangled off the hunchbacked man’s massive arm. His skill was too great; and Patrick, too angry. He was swinging wildly, carelessly. Before long he would open himself up and receive a sword in the face for his troubles.

  Moira sprinted toward the clash, ducking out of the way of charging soldiers, leaping over a couple others. She reached Patrick’s backside just as the large elf launched into a flurry of cleaves and slashes. Leaping upward, she used Patrick as a steppingstone, kicking off him to continue her forward assault. Flying frontward, she twisted to give her slashes even greater power as she came crashing down. The elf edged away in time so that only the tips of her blades caught his flesh, scoring both his cheeks at once. Moira landed on both feet in a low crouch, her shortswords held one over the other in a defensive stance. Behind her, Patrick staggered ahead, almost falling on his face.

  “What the FUCK!” he screamed.

  “Sorry,” Moira called out, chancing to glance over her shoulder.

  Patrick’s eyes widened as he huffed. “Moira?”

  “It’s me,” she said. “Look out!”

  Patrick tilted to the side, and a soldier’s blade passed through the air where he’d been. The hunchback planted a meaty fist in the soldier’s face, breaking his nose before gutting him with that massive sword of his. When he shoved the dying man away, he looked back at Moira. His face whitened.

  Moira whirled back around and saw that another five elves had joined the one in black, who looked wild with rage, the dual scars, like red teardrops, tracing down his cheeks. Moira shifted position, standing sideways with her front leg bent and the rear leg straightened, one of her shortswords angled above her head while the other one was held out straight. A moment later Patrick was by her side, holding his blade by his waist with both hands.

  “Just like old times?” he asked out the corner of his mouth.

  “Just like old times,” Moira echoed. “Only channel your anger. Don’t be stupid.”

  “Yes, mistress,” the deformed redhead said.

  The elves rushed them, and Patrick sprang forward, this time swinging with measured strikes. Moira used his back as a pole, spinning from one side of him to the other, parrying jabs, and knocking aside slashes. One of the elves fell, then another, devastated by Patrick’s sword. During one of Moira’s revolutions, the elf in black was there to greet her, planting a boot squarely in her chest. The wounds the Judges had given her flared to life. She shrieked and twisted back to the other side, but there was no relief there. Another of the elves lashed out with his khandar, a blow Moira had no choice but to block. Had she tried to duck beneath it, the blade would have dug into Patrick’s neck. A spike of pain coursed through her upper body when their swords met.

  A hand wrapped around her, and Patrick scooped her up while ramming his shoulder into the elf in black. Patrick screamed, that shoulder obviously wounded and soaked in blood, but he pumped his legs nonetheless. He used his strong arm to toss Moira into the air. She did a pirouette, driving her foot into the square-faced elf’s nose. He barked and stumbled away, blood gushing from his nostrils.

  Patrick faced the massive elf while Moira landed and scampered back around him. They stood back to back, staring at the enemies that surrounded them.

  “Sorry our reunion ended so quickly,” said a winded Patrick.

  “It’s not over yet,” answered Moira.

  “No? Too bad. I’m getting tired of this.”

  “You can rest when you’re dead.”

  “Ashhur help me, that’s sort of the point.”

  The elves charged from all sides, holding their khandars like spears. Moira tensed for impact, but then the elves were thrown off balance by a mighty gust of wind. A round of explosions came next, as if people themselves were suddenly bursting all at once. Blood and viscera flew into the air in geysers all around, so thick that it fell like rain, coating everything.

  “What the fuck was that?” shouted Moira.

  “The undead,” said Patrick hesitantly, obviously confused. “They . . . exploded.”

  A single word then rumbled over the battlefield, as potent as a million thunder strikes happening all at once.

  “ENOUGH!”

  It seemed for a moment as if the battle had ceased. In the middle of the chaos rose Ashhur, his silver armor layered with blood. He took a massive step, scattering the soldiers, Sisters, and Wardens before him. Never before had Moira seen a god look so angry, not even Karak. One of his hands was gathered into a fist, and the other held the limp form of one of the massive Judges—Lilah, the female. With a mighty swing of his arm, the deity tossed the giant lioness through the air, where she crashed down into another group of combatants. Moira heard a feline whimper. The thing wasn’t dead.

  Neither was the male. Kayne bounded through the throng, roaring, trampling soldiers beneath his claws. Ashhur slammed his palms together just as the lion hurdled toward him. The god’s fingers knotted together, and he clobbered the male upside the head, snapping Kayne’s head to the side and sending him soaring as well.

  “KARAK, SHOW YOURSELF!” the deity roared.

  “You will only face the true god of the land if you prove yourself worthy!” said another voice, softer but no less threatening, from behind her. She turned just as the soldiers guarding the portcullis parted, revealing a man she recognized standing there, his eyes glowing red, his cloak fluttering even though there was no breeze.

  “Jacob, stand aside,” Ashhur said coldly. “You do not frighten me.”

  Jacob Eveningstar? thought Moira. Here in Veldaren?

  Beside her, Patrick growled.

  “I am Velixar,” the cloaked man said, laughter playing on his lips. “And honestly, my Lord, I should frighten you. Even the gods trembled before the beast.”

  The man who had once been Jacob sl
ammed his hands together. A massive arc of black light shot forth, swallowing all in its path. Moira was caught in the wave and sent careening through the air along with at least two hundred others, Patrick included. They all landed in a heap fifty feet away, clearing a path between the god and the man who challenged him.

  Moira groaned and shoved at the men piled atop her, trying to get loose. Nearby she heard Patrick cursing. Armor creaked, dying men moaned out their last breaths. But the one sound Moira didn’t hear was the clash of steel on steel.

  She finally wedged herself free from the tangled mass of humanity. Patrick was nearby, his powerful arms quivering as he tried to pick himself up off the ground. She ran to him, urged him to stand. The fighting around her began anew as Moira and Patrick fled to the shelter of the half-demolished stables nearby. While the others waged war, their attention was fixed on Ashhur and the First Man.

  Ashhur held out his hand, and a radiant sword of pure light appeared in his grip.

  “This ends now,” the god said.

  Moira couldn’t turn away.

  CHAPTER

  48

  Castle gates didn’t exist. All that mattered was Ashhur. He would assail the deity while Karak remained inside the castle, waiting for the moment Ashhur was near defeat before emerging to finish him off.

  He reached into Karak’s deep well, siphoning the god’s power as he had done many times before. Drawing upon the fount of knowledge of the demon inside him, he reached across time and space, deciphering ancient spells and incantations, building up his inner reserves, imprinting them onto his brain. He cast out a wide web, drawing energy from not only the God of Order but the God of Justice as well. I am the child of two gods. I am the child of ALL gods!

  Velixar’s body thrummed with energy, the very air around him growing unstable with charged particles, as if his tiny pocket of creation existed wholly separate from the world on which he stood. Electricity caused the pendant around his neck to vibrate. Thunderclouds billowed before his eyes, lightning crashed. Never before had he swallowed this much power. His nerve endings were on fire, pushing well past the threshold of pain. He ignored a speck of cowardice, which cried, It is too much—too much! For Velixar knew it was never too much. The demon whose name he had taken had told him so.

  He closed his eyes, and the labyrinth of magic opened up. Millions upon millions of intersecting lines, like dust motes flittering through multiple shafts of light, became clear. For the first time Velixar understood, truly understood, the nature of the universe, the connection between all things, the web Celestia had woven, built up and over those that had come before, stretching all the way back to the beginning of time itself.

  And in the middle of it all stood Karak and Ashhur, faulty vessels of once-powerful cosmic entities, entitled to the power of the universe but restrained, limited and made solid, by singular ideals.

  It was Ashhur he focused on, illuminating the filaments of living energy that connected the deity to his multitude of marching corpses, bringing them to the forefront of the web. With the secret revealed, he leapt forth, snagging each of the threads in his own ever-growing web, pumping his influence into them.

  The Beast of a Thousand Faces had once commanded an army of the undead, now so would he, even if he had to rip control from a god to do so.

  He felt Ashhur’s pain as his energy traveled along the ethereal filaments and surged into the god, contaminating his essence. The thread doubled in width as Velixar and the deity fought over control, but he couldn’t sever Ashhur’s connection. The undead stopped moving, the contradictory orders passed along the invisible threads locking them in place.

  They struggled, god and man-turned-god, the tide shifting one way then the other, then rolling back again. Ashhur suffered, the toll of his weakened state made all the more horrific by the constant push and pull. Velixar felt none of that; he was beyond pain. Though he knew his soul was expanding far beyond what should have been possible, he felt nothing but the exhilaration of conflict, of power, the thrill of driving a god to his knees.

  Potency continued to pulse into him. The cosmic dust of the universe seeped out of his pores. Velixar expelled more and more of himself, a conduit draining energy from one source and shoving it into another. Ashhur was falling, failing, growing weaker by the moment, but the deity wouldn’t surrender. Velixar grinned, his hair lashing about his face, and poured as much as he possibly could into the spell. The threads binding the undead swelled, became volatile. It was then that Ashhur did relinquish control, and Velixar withdrew in horror. The energy he had hurled in an attempt to thwart the deity instead surged into the undead in a single, violent current. The corpses expanded as the force infused them, their every particle alive with more power than their frail forms could hold. The bodies exploded, filling the afternoon sky with torrents of blood and bits of bone.

  The energy snapped back into Velixar, causing him to recoil from its force. His knees buckled, but he didn’t fall. The pain returned. His view of the web crumbled, revealing the battle that still raged, the combatants bathed in the falling blood of the undead. But still he felt vital, he felt strong. And then Ashhur stood from the swarm of battle, himself bathed in blood. The deity beat back the Judges, who attacked him on sight, and then bellowed to the heavens.

  “KARAK, SHOW YOURSELF!”

  “You will only face the true god of the land if you prove yourself worthy!” Velixar called out. The soldiers who had been guarding him, including the Lord Commander, scattered.

  The deity leveled his gaze at him. “Jacob, stand aside. You do not frighten me.”

  “I am Velixar now,” he shot back, laughing. “And honestly, my Lord, I should frighten you. Even the gods trembled before the beast.”

  There were thousands of people between he and Ashhur, and Velixar again drew on the endless pit of strength, creating a violent wave of dark energy that threw everyone, both friend and foe alike, into the air as if they were scraps of parchment caught by a gale-force wind. When it was done, an expanse of bloodstained cobbles stretched out before him, he standing on one end and Ashhur at the other. Those tossed aside, the ones who were capable enough stood up and began fighting once more.

  Ashhur held out his hand, and his ethereal sword grew from nothingness. The god then ran forward, streamers of blood trailing behind him, the glowing blade held above his head, ready to cleave him in two.

  Velixar laughed as he reached back inside, tapping into Karak’s might. His power doubled, further pushing against the boundary of his physical form. Ashhur thought him unarmed; the deity didn’t realize that to Velixar, every corpse, every puddle of blood, every bit of bone, was a weapon.

  The pools of crimson lining the open space shimmered. Dark, oily vines shot out of them, wrapping around Ashhur’s legs, his waist, his arms, his head. The god was a mere twenty feet away when his momentum stopped, the bloodvines growing more elastic and potent with each word Velixar spat from his mouth. Ashhur grunted, trying to snap the tendrils, but every broken one was replaced by another, and then another, until practically the whole of the deity’s form was wrapped in their pulsating, meaty limbs. Ashhur dropped to his knees. Soldiers skirmishing close by, sensing an opportunity, rushed the struggling god, stabbing at him with swords not strong enough to even scratch Ashhur’s armor. Some jumped on his back, trying to gouge the deity’s neck, but their blades scraped off his shimmering flesh.

  Velixar’s fingers worked quickly, twisting into rune after rune. The soldiers attacking Ashhur, all twenty of them, screamed at once, their bodies bulging within their armor as they were lifted into the air. The High Prophet of Karak then flipped his hand over, and the men’s insides came pouring out their mouths. Their bones crunched and pulverized, creating tiny shards that ejected along with the spray of blood and minced organs. When it was done, their armor clanked down to the cobbles, filled with empty husks of flesh. The mess of blood, viscera, and bone began to swirl around the fraught deity, growing faster with each
passing second. Velixar laughed and laughed, shoving as much power as he could into the smallest fragments of matter. The rotating cone closed around Ashhur, squeezing him. Smoke rose from the top of the funnel as charged blood particles singed his godly flesh; the hardened bits of bone pricked him like a million tiny needles. Velixar brought his hands together slowly, attempting to crush the deity, but the resistance was great. Ashhur bellowed, his sword slicing upward through the wall of blood and bone that crushed in on him. The spell broke. Once more the power snapped back into Velixar, knocking him back a step.

  Ashhur tore the remaining bloodvines off him, scowling as he slowly rose to his feet. Velixar gritted his teeth and cursed, eyes flitting across the arena of war until he caught sight of what he was looking for: a pair of giant bodies covered with bloodstained fur, struggling to stand amid the chaos after being walloped by a god.

  “Kayne, Lilah, to me!” Velixar shouted, just as Ashhur let out a cry and brought his sword down with all his might. Velixar raised a globe of shadow and purple fire around himself. When Ashhur’s sword struck the outer edge of the sphere, the blade dug in, sending out geysers of flame that singed the god’s armor. Yet still Ashhur pressed against the sphere, buckling it, cracking it.

  Velixar battled against the force of the deity as best he could, driven to his knees beneath that brutal strength. He then saw the two Judges limp out of the mayhem. Velixar squeezed his eyes shut, confident that his shield would hold for a time, and transferred energy from himself to the lions. They shuddered, dropped to their bellies, and then stood up once more. When they took their next steps, neither was limping. Kayne roared and Lilah followed suit.

  Ashhur glanced behind him, then back at Velixar, his face a mask of rage that appeared and disappeared between wisps of shadow and jets of flame.