Book Read Free

Wrath of Lions

Page 34

by David Dalglish


  Velixar’s pride was taking more wounds than he could endure.

  “It never would have happened,” he said. “I would have proven my might to you, if only you’d waited.”

  The god shook his head. “Such self-assurance. It will be the end of you.”

  “Perhaps. But children must always stumble before they walk. What you see as failure, I see as a presage of greater glory.”

  “We have neither the time nor the numbers for such failures,” the god retorted. He gazed at the walls once more. “Until now, each victory has come with greater ease than the one before. It has made the men soft. That is unacceptable. Those beasts you faced…my brother erred by not giving them intelligence to match their might. Had he done so, those few that assailed us could have wiped out half our force without my intervention. Imagine that, Velixar. A scant hundred beasts slaughtering two thousand men. A feat such as that would have been well worth the cost.” The god frowned. “Perhaps Ashhur has stumbled upon a wiser path than my own. I may need to start over, cast aside this sorry lot and make beasts more powerful, faithful, and driven.”

  Velixar reacted without thinking.

  “Do it, and you have already lost,” he said. When Karak brought his eyes to bear on him, he tensed, waiting for his god to end him then and there.

  “And how is that?” Karak asked, arms crossing over his chest.

  “Because then you cannot claim your way is superior. You cannot show the greatness of the nation your children have sired by casting those very children aside and fashioning beasts into mindless servants and warriors.”

  Karak stared him down, then let his hands fall to his sides.

  “You are right,” he said. “My brother’s creations are not what I war against, but my brother himself. And though altering life forms takes power, imbuing them with intellect requires a sacrifice of self. Even the little I gave Kayne and Lilah weakened me slightly. Ashhur and I are precariously balanced. Should either of us fall too far below the other…”

  Velixar bowed low.

  “Then you must trust us, trust me, to do what is right. These men are capable, my Lord. They will not fail you again.”

  “Trust you,” Karak said. “Indeed, I do trust you, but I fear that trust will turn against me in time. You are flawed, as are all men, but you refuse to see it.”

  Velixar felt his mouth turn dry. The pendant on his chest throbbed.

  “Flawed,” he said tonelessly. “Tell me my flaws, my god, so that I may fix them.”

  Karak shook his head.

  “You claim to have the power of the demon, yet all you have done with it is scribble in your book and experiment on those who have bended their knee to me. You consider yourself wiser than humanity, yet your wisdom did not see Ashhur’s gambit before it arrived. You think yourself aware of the world in a way mere humans are not, yet you do not realize that those who betrayed you are within striking distance even now.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “As of this very moment your old apprentice Roland travels along the Gods’ Road with a great many refugees from Lerder,” said Karak. “They approach the Wooden Bridge, thinking to find safety in Mordeina. I believe the Warden Azariah is with them.”

  Velixar felt his pulse quicken.

  “How can you know this?” he asked. “Is it a spell? An aspect of your divine nature? Tell me, I beg of you.”

  Karak smiled, but there was a hint of mockery in it, a touch of pity.

  “A message came this morning by way of a raven. One of my rearguard patrols captured a deserter from the group and questioned him thoroughly.”

  Velixar shook his head, feeling humiliated.

  “Why did you not tell me earlier?” he asked.

  Karak placed a mighty hand on his shoulder. His tone lowered, becoming more compassionate.

  “You must learn humility, Velixar. You have become absorbed with your perceived betterment. Though you are privy to the demon’s ancient knowledge, and your body is a timeless perfection, you are still only a man. You will not reach the heights I know you are capable of until you understand and accept that.”

  Velixar wanted to shout at his deity that the demon’s intellect had given him the knowledge that Karak too was fallible, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he quietly seethed, attempting to accept his lesson, no matter how painful, as a faithful servant should.

  “Yes, my Lord,” he said.

  “Good,” Karak said. “Now leave me be. Allow the men a short rest, but that is all. In two days we march—healthy, sick, and injured alike.”

  “Yes, my Lord. But before I go, might I ask…what will you do about the group crossing the Wooden Bridge?”

  Karak shrugged as if it were no important thing.

  “A few hungry refugees are no reason to upset our camp and rush the recovery of our wounded.”

  “As you say,” Velixar said, bowing low. He turned on his heels and went to leave, only stopping when Karak called out to him one final time.

  “Do as I say,” the god commanded. “If you wish for these men to learn, you will learn along with them. At my side, or not at all.”

  Without another word, Velixar left the deity’s pavilion.

  The three-quarter moon rose when darkness descended on the land. Once the bodies of the deceased wolf-men and soldiers had been burned, Velixar reclined on his pile of blankets, staring at the heaving roof of his pavilion. More of the demon’s experience flowed into his mind, making him anxious. He glanced at his journal resting on his desk. Suddenly writing in it seemed a worthless endeavor. If Karak saw him as no better than a mere mortal, what good was the wisdom within it? Who was it even for? Velixar tired of the god’s impertinent treatment of him; he needed to prove to Karak his superiority to the rest of the men.

  He sat up with a jolt, anger flowing in his veins once more. After retrieving Lionsbane, he stormed across the pavilion to the far end of the sleeping camp. There he found an exhausted Captain Wellington, his shoulders slumped as he guarded the temporary stables filled with hundreds of beasts that grazed on the sparse grasses beside the Gods’ Road.

  “Captain,” Velixar said, and Wellington snapped upright.

  “High Prophet,” the man replied, his face awash with apprehension.

  “Find someone else to watch them,” Velixar said flatly. “And gather twenty of your best men. Bring them to me. You have fifteen minutes.”

  “Um…might I ask why, High Prophet?”

  Velixar grinned, and it felt untamed on his lips.

  “Because tonight we ride. There are blasphemers on the road ahead of us, and they will suffer the retaliation Ashhur’s ambush deserves. Now go. There is no time to waste. And Captain, make sure the ones you gather are the most brutal you can find.”

  CHAPTER

  22

  Patrick could not go back the way he’d come. Where only days before there had been flowing fields of wheat and dense thatches of maple and birch trees, all that remained was a smoldering wasteland. Flames still crackled in some places, trees and underbrush licking red and yellow, and the air was thick with smoke. He had to cover his nose and mouth with the smallclothes beneath his armor to keep from hacking. There were hidden shallots like Grassmere dotted throughout the lands bordering the Gods’ Road, and if what he saw now were any indication, they must have been razed along with the surrounding lands. He thought back to the burnt barn and the ghastly secret hidden inside. If he avoided the area, at least he would not have to see more corpses.

  Hopefully.

  He ended up backtracking, guiding his horse out of the destruction and entering the desert once more. The red clay cliffs were just ahead of him. He hoped the scorched earth didn’t reach that far, but then realized it was a silly fear. Sand did not burn like vegetation did. To set fire to a desert would require a god’s power.

  He came to his own tracks, leading across the endless expanse of sand to the Black Spire. If he kept heading west instead of north, he would soon
come on the prairie where antelope and hyena roamed. That path was fraught with danger, as the night’s predators would surely smell his presence and stalk him, but if he reached the Corinth River, he could follow it back north and hopefully reunite with Ashhur at the Wooden Bridge. Then again, given how much time had passed, it was likely the god had already crossed. It had been eight days since he’d left the mass of refugees to have his ill-fated and aggravating reunion with Bardiya. They might already be far into the west. He thought of the scorched earth he had just left behind and shuddered. Or they might all have been slaughtered.

  That night he made camp beneath a jutting stone that offered scant protection from the assault of flying sand kicked up by the winds. The temperature dropped, and his feeble fire flickered and died. His horse whinnied as it gnawed on the bits of cactus he had chopped for its meal. He had stripped the cactus in the dark, so he hoped he’d succeeded in removing all the spines. The last thing he needed was for a barb to get lodged in the beast’s throat. Wandering across the desert with only his uneven legs to propel him would be a good way to get killed.

  As he lay down in the sand, pulling his paltry lone blanket up to his chin to ward off the chill, his mind wandered to Bardiya once more. He cursed his friend’s stubbornness and devotion. Bardiya was willing to allow his people to perish, and for what? Some woebegone notion of belief? It seemed downright idiotic. Why Ashhur didn’t simply head down to Ker and force them to join was beyond his understanding.

  It struck him how backward the whole scenario seemed. In Safeway and the far west of Paradise where Patrick had been raised, Ashhur had treated his children like, well, children. He’d done so ever since their creation, coddling them, giving them all they desired as he hovered like an overprotective parent. And yet ever since Bessus Gorgoros decided to give his vast corner of Paradise a name ninety years ago, Ashhur had treated the wards of House Gorgoros differently. He’d allowed them their sovereignty, letting them deal with their conflicts with the elves in their own way, without interference.

  He grumbled and took a sip of cactus nectar, the question lingering in his head: Why had Ashhur treated Ker so differently?

  “It’s time for your children to grow up and make their own decisions, and from what I saw in Haven, growing up is almost always painful.”

  The realization struck him like a blow to the head. He had spoken those words, and to Ashhur no less. He hadn’t received an argument either. Could it be that Ashhur did wish for his children to be independent? Perhaps it was why he had allowed Ker to remain neutral, why he did not interfere in their dealings. He must desire such independence for all of Paradise. Otherwise he would not have allowed Ker to exist at all, never mind the formation of the lordship or the crowning of the King Benjamin. It was the same reason Patrick had been allowed to take his journey south despite Ashhur’s insistence that it would not succeed.

  “All for the sake of each other,” the god had once said. “With your creator residing in your hearts.”

  Patrick suddenly felt very, very small. And stupid.

  The next morning came much too quickly, the rising sun baking away the night’s chill and causing waves of heat to rise from the sand. Exhausted, Patrick continued on his western trek, crossing from the desert and into the plains by midday. A horde of antelope bounded in the distance, along with wild horses and a few grazing buffalo. At one point he caught sight of a group of tall, dark-skinned men and women working their way through the grassland, spears and bows in hand. He raised his hand to them, a gesture they returned in kind. The city of Ang was two days south, and he was tempted to go there. Instead he ground his heels into his horse’s flank and kept riding.

  He passed a bubbling stream beneath a rocky outcropping and stopped to fill his waterskin and allow his horse a drink. Then it was back in the saddle again, heading toward the red and brown hills in the distance.

  At the crest of a weathered hill, he stopped and gazed southwest at a line of great trees in the distance, the edge of the Stonewood Forest. He also saw the jagged gash of the Corinth stretching out in both directions, the flowing waters sparkling beneath the light of day. A smile came on his face, the first in some time. By this hour tomorrow, he would be at the bridge, hopefully following in the footsteps of his god’s massive entourage.

  Suddenly, Patrick’s attention was drawn to the sound of gruff murmuring and the scrape of something heavy on stone. His head shot to the side, and he saw a thin stream of smoke rising from behind one of the hills to his right. There were people there, and they were not more than a quarter mile away. He almost let out a shout, calling to those hidden behind the rocky hill, but then stayed his voice. Bardiya had told him his people were forbidden from venturing this close to the river after what had happened to his parents. It might be a group of Stonewood Dezren sitting there, sharpening their khandars and stringing their bows.

  Of course, if they were elves, he was close enough that their heightened senses would have picked up the sound of his horse’s hooves clomping over the rocks as it crested the hill. So they were either friendly or they were humans…but on which side? Had Karak’s Army moved so far west already? Having avoided the scorched lands closer to the Gods’ Road, Patrick had no way of knowing.

  He steered his horse toward the voices, edging it down the hill at a gentle trot. Hearing the sound of laughter, he stopped, cocking his head to listen. The path he was traveling was bordered by a pair of rocky ledges, apparently leading to the speakers. The laughter came again, this time from multiple sources. It sounded strained, almost nervous, but his ears could just be telling him something he wanted to hear. Best to avoid them, he thought. He could circle around one of the hills, get closer to the river, and be out of sight before any were the wiser.

  “Fuck Karak.”

  The statement echoed through the vale, followed by desperate, hushed petitions for silence. Patrick chuckled, then looked back in the direction of the smoke.

  “To the abyss with it,” he muttered. He would likely get along well with anyone willing to shout such a statement. He placed his half helm atop his head and unsheathed Winterbone, propping the heavy blade against his armored shoulder. He then trotted toward the voices.

  The group must have detected his approach, for all speaking ceased, and he heard feet shuffling over rocky soil. Patrick swallowed his doubt and pressed onward. Pursing his lips, he began to whistle, mimicking a lighthearted tune the Warden Lavictus used to sing to him when he was young and still wet the bed. He continued to whistle even as he rounded the corner. Strangely, his fear left him, and he became almost giddy with expectation.

  What he found was a generous culvert that split the knoll in two. On either side of him were earthen walls, worn smooth by the passage of time. The alcove would be virtually invisible to any wayward eye. The ground was disturbed by tracks, and there were nine horses hovering on the other side of the culvert, but no people. The mounts were adorned with black draping that hung beneath the saddles on their backs, the roaring lion of Karak stitched on them in red. They snorted and kicked up dirt on his arrival, but made no move to flee. The remains of a fire smoldered in the center of the alcove, the source of the smoke.

  He pulled on the reins, halting his mare, and continued to whistle while he glanced about him. The stitching on the horses suddenly made him wonder how badly he’d erred. There were a great many large stones dotting the culvert, most likely the remnants of the earthen walls collapsing, and he spotted something gray behind one of them. His lips squeezed together, cutting off his whistling, and the gray object dipped out of sight.

  “Saw you,” he said, clinging to his jovial attitude despite his rising fear. “Come out, come out, little rabbits.”

  He heard shuffling, but no one emerged.

  Sighing, he said, “By all that is holy, I know you’re there. Just show yourselves already.”

  “We want no trouble!” shouted a man’s voice. “Leave us be!”

  “Well,” Patrick sh
outed back, “I want no trouble either. But unfortunately you’re in Ashhur’s land, with Karak’s horses. So you’re either from Neldar, or you stole those horses.”

  “How did you find us?” asked the voice.

  “Smoke,” he said. “From your fire.”

  “I told you lighting a fire was stupid!” someone said in an urgent whisper on the other side of him. Patrick turned in that direction.

  “Shut up!” said another voice.

  Patrick waited a few more seconds, and when no one emerged, he sighed and shook his head.

  “I’m waiting,” he said. “Get out here. Now.”

  Again that metal-sheathed head popped up, only to swiftly disappear.

  “We want no trouble,” whoever it was repeated. “We have Karak’s horses, but we hold no loyalty to him. And we’re not thieves, honest. Please, sir, just let us be. We don’t wish to fight.”

  “I don’t want to fight either.” Patrick grunted as he sheathed Winterbone. He was taking a chance, but it didn’t seem like a very large one. “I simply want to see your faces. Come now, I know I’m ugly, but it’s been a long journey and I’d love some company. Can you not give a wayward traveler that much?”

  “You promise not to hurt us?”

  “On Ashhur’s immortal soul, I promise.”

  Grumbling followed, and soon men appeared from behind their rough stone barriers. There were nine of them, each dressed in silver mail over black boiled leather. The sigils on their chests had been scored over with scratches and crude white paint. Eight of the men were very young and strapping, with the look of the east about them, their locks varying from brilliant silver to russet. One was much older, with a head of full gray hair, though his body looked just as strong and durable as the rest. The elder was strangely familiar, his full beard framing a bent nose that must have been broken many times and a pair of steely gray eyes. The man stood strong and tall, while the others wilted behind him despite their greater numbers. The scene made Patrick laugh.

  “Well, aren’t you a sight,” Patrick said, grinning.

 

‹ Prev