God's Last Breath

by Sam Sykes

  That didn’t matter, either.

  He felt the roar tear itself from his throat. He charged forward, kicking up red-soaked earth with each stride.

  Their weapons nicked him, grazed against his skin. That was fine. He caught them all at once, spreading his arms out to seize them and drag them forward, barreling all three of them forward at once, like three logs bound together to make a battering ram. They fought, screaming and beating at him with their weapons. He bled. That was fine, too.

  Their bodies shuddered as they caught bolts meant for him, swords meant for him, spears meant for him. Their blows grew weaker. Their screams grew louder. They fell from his grip, stabbed and skewered and useless, one by one, until he had only one left.

  When he came to a halt, he dropped the corpse, riddled with wounds and unmoving, to the earth. His breath was ragged. His body was bleeding. His eyes were rimmed with red and his body held itself so tense he thought it would snap.

  That was all fine.

  He was where he needed to be.

  She looked different from when he had seen her last. She stood a little taller now, with her shield and her sword, in front of that banner like it meant anything. She was wearing metal instead of cloth. It wasn’t the same puny, impotent rage in her eyes this time.

  She had changed.

  But a human was still a human. Behind the shield, behind the armor, behind all the anger, she was as weak and soft and stupid as she always had been. If she had any sense, she would be running.

  But she was not.

  Good.

  Several humans moved forward around her: small things carrying smaller things. Weapons? He didn’t care. He had gone through bigger to get here. He could go through a little more.

  “Get back!” she cried out. She swept her sword, bidding them to step away. “Let me handle this.”

  “But Prophet—” one of them said.

  “DO IT.”

  They backed away warily, eyes still locked on him, fear battling relief in their stares. He didn’t care. He stepped toward her, rolling his shoulder, rubbing stiffness out from his arm.

  “Keep them if you want,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No one needs to die because of me,” she replied, raising her shield.

  “They’re going to, anyway,” he said.

  She shook her head. “All this,” she whispered, “because you felt abandoned.”

  “No.” He snorted. “Maybe it began that way. I gave up my home to follow you and Lenk and the others. I followed you into your diseased cities and your reeking taverns. I killed for you. I bled for you. I gave up everything for you and you chose to stay and chase coin. That was why I wanted to kill you.”

  He held his hands out wide to the sprawling melee surrounding them.

  “But all this,” he said, “is for something more. All this …” He glanced at the tulwar, the dying and the bleeding and the howling. “This is for them.”

  “Bullshit.” She spit on the earth. “Whatever you gave up, we gave back to you. We followed you, just as you followed us. We bled with you, fought with you, stood by you.” Her eyes narrowed to thin slits. “And when we didn’t give you everything you wanted, you ran away. Just like you’ll run away from them when they don’t give you what you want. Because no one will ever be able to give you what you want, Gariath.”

  She spoke iron. He felt her words sink into his skin.

  “No one will ever be your family like we were.”

  He stared at her flatly. His fists unclenched. He let out a long, slow, hot breath. His nose filled with the smell of sodden earth. He spoke and tasted her name.

  “Asper.”

  Her shield lowered slightly. The anger ebbed out of her face. She looked at him as though she were just now seeing him for the first time. His hands snapped back into fists.

  “You still talk too much.”

  A roar in his throat.

  Blood in his snout.

  Dirt bursting beneath his feet.

  He charged toward her, earth torn apart in his wake. His jaws craned open, his howl his shield even as she raised hers. It would be just like last time. She would try to fight. She would use that little sword. He would catch her arm. He would finish her. He reached out; his claws ached. His lips curled backward, his teeth bared. She raised her blade, so tiny and feeble and puny.

  He roared.

  He leapt.

  She fell.

  As he sailed over her, she tilted her shield toward the sky and shot upward. The rim of the metal caught him hard in the stomach, crushing the wind from him in a savage blow. His leap was cut short, sending him crashing to the earth.

  He tasted copper on his tongue. He hacked up airless gasps, struggling for breath. Pain coursed through his body as he struggled to find his hands, then his knees, and struggled more to remember how to go further than that.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  He smelled a flash of anger. He heard her boots. He looked up and saw her charging toward him, sword raised and ready to come cleaving down into his skull.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen, either.

  She brought her blade down in a savage arc. He lunged forward, catching her wrist. He snarled, squeezing, ready to twist it off. Before he could, her shield lashed out and smashed against his jaw. He held firm. She lowered it, smashed the rim of it into his side. Agony flared up inside him once more as the little breath he found went screaming out.

  He released her arm and swung out with his claw. She ducked away, lashed out with her sword as she did, cut his arm. He roared and brought his fist down toward her head. Her shield was up; his bones rang with the impact. She slashed at him again, her blade finding his shoulder. A flash of pain lanced through his arm.

  It hadn’t hurt this much last time.

  It wasn’t supposed to hurt this much, was it?

  He snarled, reached out, and seized her by the arm. She brought the pommel of her blade down hard on his wrist. His hand went numb and released her. Her blade shot out again, narrowly missing taking his head off before he leapt away from her.

  A cold realization settled into him as he landed.

  He had retreated from her.

  He had never retreated from anyone before.

  She didn’t press her attack. She was waiting behind her shield, watching him, waiting for his next attack. She had always been hesitant to fight, always waiting too long and acting too slow. But this time, she was waiting with intent, watching him carefully, ready for whatever he might do.

  She had changed.

  “It didn’t have to be like this.”

  The part of her that loved talking, though? That hadn’t.

  “It still doesn’t,” she said. “Take your army and go, Gariath. Take them back to their homes. We won’t pursue you. Go live your lives elsewhere.”

  His tongue flicked across his lips. He tasted blood. His nostrils twitched. The smell of his own pain was stronger than the smell of her fear.

  “There is no ‘elsewhere,’” he growled. “There’s nowhere on this earth that’s far away enough to keep humans away. If we leave here now, we just die slower.”

  He lowered his head. He snorted a red mist.

  “And I don’t have an army.”

  He let out a roar, rushed toward her.

  “I HAVE A FAMILY.”

  His claws lashed out, catching steel, blade, leather, but no flesh. Her blade answered every swipe, every fist, every grasp. She cut him at his wrist, his elbow, his flank, his knee. Never going for a killing blow, never coming in close where he could put an end to her. She kept backpedaling, stepping away from his blows, his reaching claws, his gnashing teeth, his lashing tail. And every time he swung, she countered.

  The battle wore on him. He became more aware of the stink of his own blood, the pounding of his own heart, the raggedness of his breath. His voice ran hoarse. His blood ran thin.

  But his patience ran out before either of them did.


  He howled and charged toward her, not caring about the shield, the sword, or what they might do to him. So long as he could wrap his claws around her throat, he could—

  She twisted. Her shield caught him in the flank, pushing him away. Her blade followed, whipping about to carve a deep wound in his back. He felt a gout of warm life pour over his flesh. His spine erupted in agony. His legs went out beneath him. He went crashing to the damp earth.

  And he did not rise.

  He drew breath, still. He bled, still. But he did both of these sparingly. Wounds and pain had been his constants in life before. But the ones he felt now were not the bright, fiery agonies that urged him to rise and keep fighting. Perhaps it was his age. Or perhaps he had been fighting too hard for too long. The pain in him now was something dull and deep and tired. It bid him to lie, to sleep, to let go and join his sons.

  “Gariath …”

  Even her voice sounded not quite so grating anymore. Distant, soft; perhaps this was what all the other cowards heard when she held their hands before they died. She loomed over him. He could feel his life dripping out on her blade.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” she said. “Don’t make me.”

  He wanted to make her. He wanted to rise up and turn and make her look him right in the eye when she jammed that sword up to the hilt in his chest. She owed him that much.

  “It doesn’t have to end like this,” she pressed. “You can still go home. All of you.”

  He drew breath that wouldn’t come. He willed blood into his arms, but it was bubbling out of his back. He struggled to reach out, to grab the earth, to pull himself up.

  “Just see reason,” she hissed.

  And there it was.

  Something inside him, harder than blood or bone, suddenly grew red-hot. Maybe it was what she said or just how she said it. He didn’t know. He only barely knew what was happening as something surged through him, sent him leaping to his feet to land in a spray of earth.

  He roared, whirled on her. She ducked behind her shield, ready to fend him off. He howled, pressed forward, seized the shield by the rim, and pulled her forward. He used the momentum of the pull to bring her up and hurl her over his shoulder, sending her crashing into the dirt.

  “Reason? REASON?” he bellowed.

  He turned on her as she tried to rise. His leg swung out and his foot caught her in the belly, knocked the wind from her, and sent her rolling across the dirt. She scrambled to get up.

  “You don’t know the fucking meaning of the word,” he snarled. “It’s one of your shitty human words you made up. You take. And you steal. And you kill. And you call it reason so no one else can call you what you are.”

  She staggered to her feet and tried to bring her shield up. His fist was there sooner, smashing against her cheek.

  “Coward,” he snarled.

  He struck again. Her shield was up. His claws found the metal and punched through. It screeched as he tore at it.

  “Weakling,” he roared.

  He tore the shield from her arm. He threw it aside. She lashed out with her blade. He took it against his shoulder, slapped it out of her hand, and watched it clatter to the ground. His hands wrapped around her throat and hoisted her off the ground. Her eyes went wide as she pounded at his fists.

  “Human.”

  She fought, with fear and fury that she should have had earlier. She struggled against him, kicking and trying to free herself. He tightened his grip around her throat. She choked out a word. A plea? No. There was no fear in her eyes. Desperation, yes, but no fear.

  He strained to hear her.

  “Fuck … you …” she gasped.

  She had changed.

  But no matter how much a human might change, they were still just a human. Still so weak. Still so stupid. Still so—

  Air whistled. The sky shrieked. There was the sound of flesh punctured.

  And suddenly, there was an arrow in his arm.

  He glanced at it. It was no crossbow bolt. It was too long. Too dark. Its fletching was of feathers he had seen before.

  His nostrils filled with the smell of something strange and alien. Hatred without anger. Murder without fear. Sorrow without sadness.

  Another arrow fell from the sky. He dropped Asper as he stepped out of its way. He watched it there, quivering in the ground. And suddenly, he recalled where he had seen it.

  And when he looked up, to the high walls of the cliffs, he saw a thousand more aimed at him.

  In the span of a few last breaths, the battle had fallen silent.

  The Djaalics had just broken. The tulwar had just poured through in earnest, five of them for every human on the field. The Karnerians had taken their shields to make their final stands. The Sainites had taken their crossbows to stand behind them. The war cries had been such that he had felt it ringing in his helmet.

  But now they were silent.

  The clash of steel and the cries of battle and the screaming of the dying, they had all gone quiet, given way to the sound of wind moaning through the pass.

  And all around Pathon, the dead lay. The Karnerians who hadn’t found their shields in time. The Sainites who hadn’t looked up. The Djaalics who had tried to run. The countless tulwar who had been trapped by their own companions’ eagerness to attack.

  The ones left standing held their breath as they looked up to the cliffs.

  And beheld the many empty, wooden smiles looking down at them.

  Like ghosts, they had appeared. How they had gotten up there, when they had arrived, how long they had been standing there, he didn’t know. He doubted anyone did.

  No one had noticed them until the arrows started falling.

  But that, Pathon supposed, was what shicts did.

  He had never seen them before. Not up close. In Cier’Djaal, they had always kept to their ghetto. He wasn’t one of the ones sent to enact retribution on them. Somehow, he always thought they’d be taller.

  He had heard stories about them, their hatred of humans. In the stories, they had always been the scheming thieves, the savage warlords with fiery eyes and fanged mouths and long-winded speeches about how they would kill all humans.

  But he saw none of that here.

  They were short, slender creatures, scantily clad in furs and leathers. Behind their wooden masks, with their hollow eyes and empty grins, he saw no fiery hatred and he heard no dramatic speeches. They, in their thousands, simply stared down at the battle.

  And, silently, one by one, they drew their bows back and aimed.

  “Not like this …”

  A voice to his left. Dachon, his brother, with a wound in his brow and his shield shattered and his spear hanging limply from his hand. The Karnerian stared up at them, the countless shicts and their empty grins, and tears formed in his eyes.

  “Not like this …” he whimpered. “Not with no battle.”

  There were people trying to run, trying to flee the canyon. It wouldn’t work. There was no escape. There was no way out.

  There was no way for them to survive this.

  Pathon looked down the road to a single figure standing there, staring up with wide eyes.

  Not all of them, anyway.

  And, without really knowing why, he took off running.

  Above, a single shict stepped forward.

  Pathon charged toward her, a single woman in a single battle, without quite knowing why.

  Above, the single shict looked down through a mask with a severed human face tacked to it.

  Perhaps it was about ideals. Perhaps it was about duty. He didn’t know why he didn’t seek cover. But then, he didn’t really ask. Faith was like that.

  Above, the shict raised a long spear above her head.

  And, he thought, faith is worth dying for, right?

  He leapt forward. He wrapped his arms around someone tightly. He shut his eyes and whispered a prayer to Daeon.

  Above, the shict’s ears twitched.

  A thousand ears twitched in response.


  And a thousand bowstrings sang.

  Asper did not know what was happening. Not when Gariath dropped her to the earth. Not when she saw the shadows on the cliffs. Not when Pathon leapt out of nowhere, tackled her to the earth, and wrapped his arms tightly around her.

  She didn’t know until she felt the shudder of his body as the arrows punched through him.

  She didn’t find the words until she looked up into his face, twisted in a grimace, his eyes wide and unblinking.

  “No …” she whispered.

  Pathon stared back into her eyes. He trembled with the effort of it. His face drained of color in a single, halting breath. With monumental effort, he whispered in reply.

  “Heaven … is … watching.”

  His last breath fled his mouth and vanished into the orange sky. He went limp against her body, slumping bonelessly off her and sprawling onto the ground. A dozen arrows bristled from his body.

  And around her, a forest of quivering, feathered trees had grown.

  Arrows, hundreds of them, seemed to rise out of the earth, growing from a rich soil of flesh and blood. The corpses of men, of tulwar, of beasts, lay still, new gardens for the morbid crop of black and white and red fletching to grow.

  Some lay facedown in the dirt, their attempt to cower from the rain of steel having won them only a cloak of arrows jutting from their backs. Some lay on their back, shafts lodged in eyes that had looked dumbfounded to the sky and mouths that still gaped with their last words of surprise. And an unlucky few crawled, moaning and screaming and trying to pull free the arrows that had graciously found only calves and shoulders and arms, leaving hearts and throats free for their brothers.

  She couldn’t feel herself do it—the feeling had drained from her limbs and pooled into a heavy weight at the back of her neck—but Asper climbed to her feet. She looked around the arrows as the last few stopped quivering. She looked around at the dead.

  And, no matter where they were looking, she knew they were staring at her.

  The cliffs were rimmed with shadows, empty wooden faces with empty wooden grins staring down at her. Maybe they couldn’t see her moving from way up there; maybe they didn’t know she was still alive.