Sons of the Gods

by James Von Ohlen

  The story differed a little each time he told it, but Torsten knew from firsthand accounts that it had involved an epic brawl at the largest and most expensive whorehouse in the southern isles. That same brawl had resulted in the place being burned down and the city guard arresting no less than fifty men. What had actually started the fight was a closely guarded secret, though some suspected it involved a certain redhead that had been employed there.

  Whether a woman was the ultimate cause of the injury, and weren’t they usually, Torsten wondered, the damage had been done. The eyepatch had covered an empty socket shrouded over by scarred lids.

  Now some type of steel construct resembling an eye stared back at him. Living steel, the men of Torsten’s crew had guessed. Like the hand Torsten had been given. Whatever it was, it allowed Ed to see again as though he had two good eyes. Definitely not a bad thing in their estimation.

  Torsten looked down the other man’s emotionless face and his eyes settled on the gorget emerging from beneath the mail hauberk that Ed wore. All five of them had been equipped similarly. To their dismay, they had discovered that the gorget could not be removed.

  The strangely shaped armor to protect a man’s neck bore odd symbols and the bronze knights spoke of it as the ultimate blessing of the War God. Their voices had echoed inside of their suits of plate armor, giving the impression that the suits were empty save for the voices. What purpose could possibly be served by the gorget beyond the obvious, Torsten couldn’t say.

  The God of War had told them he had placed it there for a reason and if they valued their lives they would not tamper with them. When he spoke to them in their minds, the collars burned and Torsten could feel it weaving through and into the flesh of his neck. Collar, he had decided, was a good term for it. It marked them as the dogs of the God of War.

  No sooner had Anhur’s words finished echoing through the Hall of Iron, than Torsten’s vision began to shift. The world blurred to orange. Stone and iron and white marble became one in a soup of sights and there was a sensation of floating and being pulled in two directions at once.

  Torsten felt firm ground beneath his feet once more and opened his eyes, having not realized that he had closed them at some point. The all too familiar stink of a city under siege assaulted his nose. Unwashed bodies, open sewers, smoke, and blood.

  Thick dust swirled before him and obscured his view. He felt more than saw the others standing by his side. Their weapons were drawn and held at the ready, just as his was, though he could not remember doing so. There was a moment of strange silence punctuated by a few coughs, and then men began to scream.

  The wind shifted and cleared the dust around them. Torsten and his men found themselves standing virtually in the breach of a stout stone wall. Miners had tunneled under it and blown it up, by the looks of it. A swarm of men clad in ragged leathers and roughspun wool charged forward, screaming from behind faces painted in a half dozen different colors.

  Torsten’s crew stood on the crest of the rubble even as it continued to settle around them. Their sudden appearance seemed to shock the charging Mountain Men, causing those in the front ranks to pause momentarily. Several saw them and simply turned and ran in the other direction. Torsten turned to look behind him and through the dust and smoke he recognized the place that Anhur had sent them. Fort Pleasant.

  Torsten could feel heat growing behind his eyes and looked to his right. Two of his crew stood there, eyes glowing red. To his left the same scene greeted him. Above them, the Lost Star traversed the sky in the wrong direction, shining brightly despite the light of the early morning competing against it for domination of the sky.

  Before long it would lost in the light of the sun. As he looked at it Torsten somehow knew that it was Anhur’s. Somewhere far above the world of men the God of War stood and watched. Had the scouts really been there, above the whole of Veldt somehow? Any doubt Torsten may have had on the subject was washed away as he watched the Lost Star pass and felt the hot metal of the War God’s collar pressing into his neck. He took a deep breath and grated at the way it seemed to constrict his ability to breathe.

  The Mountain Men regained their composure, seeing how greatly they outnumbered their enemies, and began their charge into the breach anew. Within seconds most of the vanguard was no more than a dozen paces from the broken wall. The quickest among them had already begun to climb the pile of rubble that the wall had become in this section.

  Great beasts of men. Tall. Strong. Pale. And very angry. They carried large weapons that matched their stature. Men who had earned their place in the vanguard by demonstration of their martial skills on the battlefield. Families and friends as well as enemies likely honored them. Torsten wondered who, if anyone, would be weeping for these brave men by the end of the day. Children and wives? Better them than me, he thought.

  Styg waved the steel staff once, passing the demon’s breath over the entirety of their first rank. Men screamed in agony or surprise or both for the brief moment that they still lived. They burst into flames and burned to nothing but ashes on the wind in the blink of an eye. Dozens of them gone just like that. Great men or not, they died like vermin.

  People screamed behind them. There was something decidedly panicked and cowardly about the shouting. If it was soldiers giving voice to those cries, Torsten would be surprised. He braced himself on the uneven footing and gripped his blade tightly.

  Siege warfare and fighting on the line was one of the few areas of battlefield study that Torsten and his crew could not claim to have mastered. They were familiar with the concepts and had received training in such long ago during their days as fresh recruits and conscripts. In practice however, their participation in sieges had been sneaking in and out to sabotage or kill. Or even better, escape. Holding a breach in a wall against masses of enemy infantry was a new experience.

  But then again, so was being abducted by a God and sent back to the world of men to do his bidding.

  The advance of the Mountain Men reached the scouts, the death of their vanguard doing nothing to staunch the flow of their assault. Torsten thumbed the activation rune on his blade and webs of lighting began swimming over the surface of the sword. He moved so fast it was difficult to tell if he was actually doing it himself or if he was just witnessing someone else using his body. Time flowed in dreamlike distortions.

  He cut down the first two men to meet him before they could even take a single step. The third was dead before the others hit the ground. A fourth managed to focus his eyes on the blade descending upon him as the last man fell to his knees as he collapsed. None could manage to attempt a defense. Torsten simply moved too fast for them.

  A clap of thunder rolled through the air and something passed by Torsten’s head moving the hair on his head and in his short beard with the speed of it. A sound like a giant angry hornet defending its nest passed by him as well. It caught his attention only for a brief moment before he set back to killing everyone around him.

  Figures moved among the Mountain Men, outlined in pale blue and striking them down as he watched. He moved near one, at first unable to tell if it was friend or foe. Pier’s face looked up at him. Friends then, he thought. If that was the work of the War God it was a useful trick indeed.

  Torsten had seen more than a few men killed by their allies on the field of battle. There was no doubt in his mind that such things were by far mostly accidents. The result of men lost in battle unable to tell who his enemies were in the chaotic fighting after formations and lines collapsed and before order was restored. Uniforms were supposed to prevent such things from happening, but it could be difficult to tell one knight or footman apart from another after tunics had been torn or ripped off completely. At that point one suit of steel looked pretty much like all of the others.

  Some of those deaths were no doubt intentional. A way to settle old scores or take out a potential rival. Women, money, advancement in the ranks. They could all result in a man ‘accidentally’ stabbed in the back
on the battlefield. This magic of the War God, though, could virtually erase all of it. Any man who felled a comrade would have some serious explaining to do.

  Why hadn’t he seen fit to share this knowledge with men? The legends said that he saw men through battle, not that he sent them to die without reason. Wanting to see oceans of blood and death for its own sake, that was the domain of the Mountain Men’s god of slaughter and battle. Mordechai. The enemy named by Anhur in his hall.

  Thoughts turned back to more immediate matters as a raider threw an axe at Torsten with both hands. The blade seemed to turn over in the air in slow motion as Torsten grabbed the slow moving handle with one free hand. He spun, taking the head from another raider before sending it back to the man who originally threw it. The blade buried deep into the man’s chest, sending him over backwards.

  A severed head passed through Torsten’s field of vision as it was hacked from a set of shoulders somewhere to his left. Droplets of blood trailed along behind it, marking its path through the air as the long hair of a Mountain Man circled around the head in slow motion. I bet some pretentious catamite back east might find that artistic, Torsten thought as he looked from the gory work to his next foe. I guess someone in my crew has a bright future ahead of them.

  Two more men died before they could act in an effective manner. They managed only to bring themselves closer to Torsten’s sword with their final efforts. The remaining Mountain Men had the good sense to shy away from the five men defending the breach in the wall. Their advance had completely halted and the men could only look on in disbelief as their friends and tribesmen were cut down by warriors that had just descended from the sky on beams of light and moved faster than lightning. Whose weapons cut through iron and steel as easily as flesh.

  Silence overcame the scene of the slaughter, wide eyed men not daring to speak lest they bring the wrath of these demi-gods of death down upon them. One man dared to voice what they all thought. Speaking in the language of the Mountain Men, he was still easily understood by Torsten.

  “God spawn.” He spoke as he lowered his weapon and backed away, looking as though he were about to flee for his life. He pointed with a single finger and spoke loudly this time. “Sons of the Gods.” His voice rose, nearly yelling as he finished.

  The effect on the men around him was immediate. Some threw down their weapons seemingly in surrender, more turned and ran. None dared advance.

  None save for a group of warriors clad in steel plate from head to foot and carrying swords that glowed a faint blue. The gray men, returning to the fight with the scouts. They moved slowly and the ranks of mortal men parted to allow them to pass. The hand of fate, pushing lesser men aside so that demi-gods might clash.

  Three in total, they were outnumbered. Torsten remembered how little that had meant before when he had tried to fight them. The memory of his severed hand laying at their feet spurred anger within him and he gripped his blade tight with his hand of living steel.

  No matter the small advantage the scouts now had in numbers, these men were not to be trifled with. Torsten opened his mouth to speak a command to his men but was stopped as some door in his mind was battered open with all the finesse of a ram crewed by a squadron of drunken giants. The same command forced its way into the minds of all of Torsten’s crew at once, spoken in the granite tones of Anhur’s voice. Flat. Emotionless.

  “Kill them. Kill them all.” It said.

  The voice faded and Torsten and his men moved into action. Three moving to the right and two to the left to flank the three men who approached them. The gray men moved fast, possibly even faster than the scouts. It was difficult for Torsten to say, but they didn’t seem to be stuck in slow motion like the raiders around them.

  The two groups tried to flank one another repeatedly, exchanging a glancing blow meant only to gauge responses and distances. Like children at a dance, Torsten thought, moving around one another but afraid to touch. He permitted himself a smile for a fraction of a second as the dance of the eight men led them back through the breach and into the interior of Fort Pleasant. Still standing on the rubble, they finally engaged.

  Ed struck first, bludgeoning the sword of one of the gray men out of his hand with a well-timed blow that shattered the warrior’s gauntlet and pulped his hand beneath just as the sword sought out Ed’s neck. The gray man screamed and blood flowed from the wreckage of the armor that had covered his hand. Ed reversed direction with the hammer almost immediately and caught the gray man just below the chin, shattering the gorget protecting his neck and causing a sanguine cascade to erupt from the ruin of the gray man’s throat. Ed’s steel eye shone brilliantly, blue light reflecting off of the gray man’s polished armor as he collapse to the ground.

  The other’s moved quick, seeing the danger they were in. Torsten barely intercepted a blow aimed at Ed’s exposed flank, turning aside the gray man’s sword with a shower of crackling blue sparks. Torsten turned the strike back and drove the cutting edge of his blade against the gray man’s chest. The attack failed to penetrate the gray man’s armor but left a glowing streak down the warrior’s side as if the metal beneath the edge of the blade had suddenly grown white hot.

  Torsten raised his blade just in time to deflect the gray man’s riposte, allowing his sword to slide down the edge of the other warrior’s weapon. The motion brought the point of Torsten’s blade in line with the gray man’s visor. He drove his weight forward behind the blade and felt the tip of the sword contact bone. There was resistance for a moment and then none as the point of the sword passed through the gray man’s head and emerged from the back of his helmet.

  The gray man postured, his limbs seizing up and going rigid as if he had just suffered a great blow to the head. He twitched for a second before Torsten withdrew the blade and the dead warrior collapsed forward at his feet.

  Ed stood behind the fallen warrior, having positioned himself to crush the man’s skull if Torsten hadn’t finished him first. They nodded to one another and turned to the remaining gray man. He was on his knees with one head of Pier’s double headed battle axe buried between his shoulder blades. Styg lay amidst the rubble near them.

  Unmoving.

  The gray man still struggled, but he had been disarmed and was unable to fight back from his current position. Ragnald strode forward carrying his blade that burned red hot and carefully pressed it against the side of the armored warrior’s neck. The metal there began to glow red hot as well and then white as the gray man began thrashing furiously. The metal of the warrior’s armor began to run like liquid under the intense heat and spatters of it dripped to the ground sizzling like fat on a skillet.

  The smell of burning flesh assaulted Torsten’s nose as Ragnald laughed and pressed the blade further into his victim. Torsten had never seen the man take any pleasure in dispatching wounded enemies. There had been enough of that done over the years and he of all of Torsten’s crew had approached it in the most businesslike manner possible.

  Suffering men, wounded beyond help, needed to be given some measure of mercy. A blade drawn quickly across the throat in the right place and a man was gone in seconds rather than the days filled with agony it would take to succumb to his wounds. Most never even felt the wound that finished them off in such a manner. A burning sensation perhaps towards the end, but no more than that. Ragnald had not been squeamish about dispensing that mercy when required, though he had taken no delight in such. A practical man in every sense of the word.

  Now, Ragnald’s facial features twisted in what could only be described as a smile. Sardonic. Sadistic. No trace of the man he had been only some short time before lingered there. Had the man changed or was this the work of the War God, Torsten wondered.

  The gray man screamed in agony several times before the blade finally severed something vital and he slumped. Pier put the sole of one foot squarely between the dead man’s shoulders next to his axe and pushed forward with his leg while he pulled back on the axe. It ripped free with a
welter of blood as the gray man collapsed onto his face.

  Torsten made his way to Styg. A huge cut had been opened deep in the right side of his neck. Blood stained the ground about him in a spatter pattern that told the story of what would likely be the final seconds of his life.

  Styg moved weakly. As Torsten watched, the wound began to seal itself. Slowly it closed and bright pink scar tissue began to replace the gaping cut that should have been lethal. Just as had happened with the Mountain Man Torsten had cut down. The man had regained his feet after the blow and staggered away to reappear later as the standard bearer for the skull faced wizard. The same he hunted now.

  “God spawn” spoke voices behind the scouts. Torsten turned to see a smattering of Mountain Men standing in the breach, having raced up behind the advance of the gray men to watch the fight. “Sons of the Gods.” The call was taken up and repeated along their disjointed line. It was as much praise as it was a declaration of allegiance.

  These men were no longer a threat to The Kingdom. After what they had just seen, they might very well become its fiercest allies. They would fight their own mothers before they tried to fight Torsten’s crew. It was plain for Torsten to see.

  “Still, they must die.” Anhur’s voice chuckled in Torsten’s head. Something reached through him and seized control and Torsten became Anhur’s hands in the world of men. He knelt and snatched up the demon’s breath caster Styg had carried into the battle.

  It was the only weapon he had ever encountered that he couldn’t properly name. The variations of battlefield arms he had encountered in his life, no matter what exotic shape they took, all fell in to a few easily defined categories. Sword. Axe. Spear. Polearm. Bow. Hammer. Knife. There were others, but the classification was relatively simple. This thing in his hands now, he simply couldn’t name what it was supposed to be. ‘Magic’ perhaps described it. Holding it though, it seemed like any other piece of metal forged for the purpose of killing men.