Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (31 page)

However, he followed Ashhur’s command, and the defenders seemed to be holding.

From his right, where seventy-five yards away the barred gate on the inner wall stood, he heard more shouts, these on ground level, only they were not wails of the dying. It seemed there were living souls down there. “They are in the causeway!” he proclaimed. He snapped his head around, looking to where his fellow Wardens were gathered. “Judah and Olympus, take twenty of our brothers to the gate. Bring pikes and spears. Do
not
allow the soldiers to batter
it down
.”

The Wardens rushed off. Ahaesarus turned his attention back to the top of the wall. The form of a man appeared, hobbling into the gap between merlons where the stairs to the ground descended. The man teetered as he walked, holding his stomach. His head flopped back, his arms falling to his sides, and blood and a mess of red entrails pitched from his abdomen. The man took another blind step forward, his foot missing the edge of the stairway, and he plummeted. His body folded over itself when he struck the frozen ground. His intestines, trailing behind him, landed wetly on his twisted form. Behind the Master Warden, someone vomited.

“Stay strong!” he called.

It was then that bedlam erupted. A bright purple light flashed above, painting the sky a lingering crimson, and the battle atop the wall spilled over the ramparts. Countless flailing bodies dropped from above, waving as if their arms could turn to wings and help them soar. Potrel Longshanks was among them, as was Warden Mennon, his tall, graceful form falling sharply. Their bodies struck the ground like a living rain, landing amid the rows of corpses, bones breaking, flesh torn asunder, their screams cut off as their heads were crushed. Ahaesarus winced and drew his sword. With measured breath, he glanced to the side, watching a virtuous glow envelop Ashhur as his flowing robes transformed into the god’s immaculate plate armor. The deity raised his hand, and his divine sword sprung forth, casting a brilliant blue light over a land painted white, gray, and red. Ashhur climbed atop the bunker before him and threw his head back.

“KARAK, FACE ME!”
he bellowed, and the ground shook beneath Ahaesarus’s feet.

As if to answer him, Karak’s soldiers began descending the stairwell as ropes were thrown over the side of the wall.
They must have used planks of their own to cross the gap,
Ahaesarus thought. The defenders were too green, too inexperienced, to properly defend the walls. Ahaesarus grunted just as Ashhur hopped off the bunker, taking menacing steps toward the center of the field of corpses. Elves swung over the top of Celestia’s tree, flipping from branch to branch with ease as they descended. They were like an army of invading locusts, moving ever onward. Ahaesarus looked to the left and right, and saw that the very same scene was taking place all around him. His wards tensed, and his fellow Wardens began shuffling this way and that.

“When, Master Warden?” someone shouted.

“Soon,” said Ahaesarus. “Those with swords and spears, out of the bunker now. Form up behind me.”

The men did as they were told, passing the order down the line and gradually exiting the bunker to form a row of five hundred behind Ahaesarus. The Master Warden again looked to the field of corpses, this time seeing Ashhur stopped midway through, holding his divine sword out before him while he was peppered with arrows from both the enemy atop the wall and the elves near Celestia’s giant tree. The soldiers continued to descend the wall, forming ranks once their feet touched the snowy ground, waiting for the rest of their brothers to join them. Their numbers swelled. There looked to be more than a thousand there, awaiting the order to charge.

Any hope Ahaesarus had felt earlier threatened to leave him. The sight of all those pale faces, of those armored shoulders rising and falling, of their steel glinting in the morning light, told him this was the end. Just then something hard thwacked his shoulder, and when he turned, he saw Judarius there, leaning with one hand against the lip of the bunker, his massive bloody maul held tight in his hand. His face was spattered with red.

“Soldiers approach from behind,” Judarius said, breathing heavily. “There was little we could do to stop them.”

Ahaesarus nodded. “What of the others?”

“The teams of Wardens guarding the northern wall are broken. Many are dead, and the rest are fleeing this way. I do not know about the rest of the settlement, but I assume it’s the same.”

Ahaesarus nodded again. “I know. It does not matter. They are here now, and we must fight.”

Judarius lifted his head above the bunker, staring at both
Ashhur
,
as he held his ground against the assault of arrows, and the massive throng of soldiers gathering at the base of the wall. The Warden shook his head, smoothed his long black hair with a bloody hand, and snarled.

“We charge now.”

“No,” Ahaesarus shot back. “You will do no such thing. You are to gather up all of Ashhur’s children that you can, all those who cannot defend themselves, and bring them to the hidden postern gate. Lead them to safety. Protect them.”

“No,” Judarius said.

“You will do as I say.”

“I will do nothing of the sort. You wish for a nanny, then find my brother. It’s what he’s suited for.” Judarius stood up straight, slapping his maul against his free hand. “I was built for better things than that.”

“I am your Master Warden!” Ahaesarus shouted, coating
Judarius’s
face with spittle. He cared not that an audience was
gathering
. “You
will do as I say, and you will do it now, or else—”

He never had the chance to finish that statement, for one of the soldiers lifted a horn to his lips and blew. When that bellowing trumpeting ceased, the army of Karak charged.

Ashhur stepped forward to greet the soldiers, looping his massive glowing blade, cleaving through flesh and steel with ease. Yet he did not kill many, for the soldiers gave him a wide berth, passing right by him and rushing headlong for the bunker. It was the elves who kept Ashhur distracted, continuing to pelt him with their arrows while others rushed him from behind and the side, slashing and jabbing and leaping out of the way of his blows.

“Now or never!” Judarius screamed, and oddly enough he was grinning. “Any who aren’t cravens, come with me!”

“No!” Ahaesarus shouted back.

“We must fight, or are you a craven as well?” sneered Judarius.

Ahaesarus grabbed his fellow Warden by his collar, pulling him close. Judarius’s eyes widened in surprise. “The time to fight will come,” Ahaesarus said, seething. “For now, follow my orders.”

Ahaesarus released him. Judarius stepped back, gripping his maul with both hands.

“Archers up,” Ahaesarus ordered. His breath hitched as the soldiers drew closer. There was no time for second thoughts. He looked down the line and saw all of his archers were in place, arrows nocked. “Loose them.” No one did anything. “I said
LOOSE THEM
!”

Ashhur’s children heard Ahaesarus that time, launching volley after volley at the onrushing soldiers. Many were struck, some fell, and others used the bodies of their comrades as shields as they continued their stampede. Even the remaining spellcasters could do little to stop them with their fireballs and bolts of electricity. Ashhur turned his attention away from the elves and rushed the soldiers from behind, slaying many, filling the morning air with a bloody mist, but still they came.

The archers continued to fire, but they were hurrying their aim. Many of their arrows missed their marks, even though the soldiers were only twenty feet away and closing fast. The hands holding the bows shook, and tears streamed down the archers’ faces. Finally, Ahaesarus had had enough.

“All of you, get back!” he ordered. In an instant the archers hustled from their positions, running behind the wall of men holding swords, spears, and axes. Judarius stood by Ahaesarus’s side, huffing, his gaze intense.

The first wave of soldiers hit the curved barricade guarding the bunker. They were so close now that Ahaesarus could see every crease in their foreheads, every speck of mud on their cheeks, every starburst of color in their eyes. He offered no orders to his defenders this time. As the soldiers scaled the barricade, he simply screamed and pointed his sword at them. The men holding spears rushed forward. The soldiers who jumped first were impaled on the sharp points. Judarius and others bearing blunt weapons bashed in skulls. Blood spilled. The shrieks that filled the air were deafening.

Ahaesarus heard more screaming from behind him, and when he pivoted around, he saw the countryside awash with violence for as far as he could see. Soldiers of Karak and the children of Ashhur clashed, and blood soaked the snow red. Steel against steel, man against man, the trained against the untrained. For every one soldier the brave citizens of Mordeina felled, they lost five of their own. There was slaughter on all sides of him. Finally, he swung back around, narrowly avoided being impaled by a pike, and saw Ashhur still tramping through the soldiers, his movements sluggish as men hung off him. They were rushing the god now, trying to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.

And it was working.

Ashhur collapsed to one knee, tearing soldiers off him, crushing them in his fists and hurling them away, their bodies soaring through the air like so many shattered birds. Ahaesarus’s mind went blank. If his god couldn’t help them, no one could. The soldiers closed in on Ahaesarus and his men.

No. No, no, no!

“Attack!”
he shouted as he hacked away with his sword,
swinging
with all his might, trying to press closer to the bunker and his distressed god. But there were just too many of them. Judarius fought at his side, swinging his maul with abandon, sending soldiers careening. Blood flew into Ahaesarus’s face. Together, he and Judarius cut a path through the throng until they reached the bunker. They both leapt atop it, fighting like old, experienced warriors, killing and maiming. Ahaesarus hopped down on the other side of the bunker, only to catch a sword in his left arm. He fell back against the barricade, screaming in pain. Judarius bolted out ahead of him, shoving through the mass of steel and flesh. His every move was determined, his every swing willed by rage. The black-haired Warden shattered a soldier’s jaw, caved in another’s helm, splintered yet another’s arm. Ahaesarus swallowed his pain and drove in after him, slicing throats and severing limbs.
We will make it! Ashhur, we are coming!

Only they never did. Just as Ahaesarus drove his sword through a soldier’s mouth, he caught sight of Judarius whirling around, his maul flailing, keeping dozens of men at bay, but even his power was not enough. A soldier leapt atop him from behind, jamming a dagger into Judarius’s shoulder. The Warden screamed, grabbed the man, and hurled him into his own comrades. Another swing of his maul, but it was slower now, weaker. Blades cut into his sides, a horde of attackers, and as Ahaesarus watched in horror, a glimmering length of steel pierced through one side of his throat and out the other.

“Judarius!” Ahaesarus shouted. He tried to cut his way through, but he found himself surrounded. A blade chopped at his lower leg, almost severing it at the knee, and he collapsed while above him the soldiers continued the onslaught. He was kicked and stepped on, his wards and brothers dying left and right, and though he took out as many feet as he could by blindly swinging his sword, it was no use.

He was stomped on, bombarded, until a pair of strong hands gripped the back of his damp, cold tunic and hauled him backward. At the bunker, his unseen rescuers lifted him up above the crowd, trying to get him over. It was then that a loud
boom
rocked the morning. Many of those standing around fell to their knees, blown back by a rush of hot wind. Ahaesarus was released, sliding down the bunker wall as black smoke billowed from Mordeina’s main gate. Thick iron rods fell from the sky. The bodies of his fellow Wardens hung limp atop the barricades that formed the murder row, bits of stone and steel jutting from their lifeless forms. Of those he had sent, he saw only one standing—Judah, who limped away, clutching his dangling right arm.

More soldiers emerged from the smoke, charging and howling seemingly without care, their swords and axes held high. Then the captains stepped forward, the horns on their great helms painted red, and they shouted as well. Those who had descended the wall stampeded across the snowy, corpse-strewn ground. Men on horseback galloped through the chasm, veering to the side and riding perpendicular to the long bunker. Ahaesarus watched them disappear into the distance before he slid fully to the ground, but he had no time to question what they were doing, not with death staring him right in the face.

The battle had changed. Lying prone amid the chaos,
Ahaesarus
saw flares of magic lashing the air above, constant, violent, and powerful. He couldn’t see what was happening from flat on his back, but he didn’t need to. They had lost the day. Mordeina would fall, and all of Paradise would belong to the east.

C
HAPTER

26

J
ust as Azariah had said, the tunnel leading out of Mordeina was three miles long and dumped out into a rocky, ice-covered gulch fronted by a bubbling stream. Beyond was the thick
forest
. By the time Patrick and his band of twenty-two brave souls
re-enter
ed bright sunlight and snuffed out their torches, the morning was growing long. Preston gestured for the Turncloaks to ride two by two, and Denton Noonan, young Barclay’s father, tried to do the same with his group of fourteen common men. Patrick looked back at the cave mouth they had just exited and shook his head. The trip had taken longer than expected.

Preston trotted up to him on his horse as they circled the lip of the gulch. “So that was . . . impressive. Where are we now?”

Patrick pointed to the west, where another thick grouping of trees stood. “The sea is forty miles that way. Fifty miles north will be the Whitetail River.” He grinned. “And if we loop around this wood here, it’s another couple miles until we reach the Gods’ Road.”

“You know this place?” asked Tristan.

“I do,” he nodded. “That cave has been there for as long as I’ve been alive . . . though it didn’t always run as long as it does now. I spent a lot of time in there as a child, exploring all the odd things that lived in the darkness. Good times.”

“You loved spending time in caves?” Joff asked.

“Of course,” Patrick told him. “When one looks like me, the darkness can be liberating.”

Big Flick scrunched up his face. “What’s that mean?”

“It means I was teased a lot as a child. Children can be cruel, as I’m sure you know.”

“But you were a child of a First Family,” said Ragnar. “Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Only if your mother wishes for it to have that influence.”
Patrick
grunted. “Alas, the great Isabel wished for me to learn to deal with the japes on my own.”

They rode for an hour, the sun slowly inching higher into the sky. An eerie feeling crept up Patrick’s spine. Despite the relative quietness of the day, he could hear odd sounds below the howling of the wind. It sounded like the far-off caw of an eagle combined with the rumble of a grayhorn stampede. He knew what it meant. Guilt at his decision to go on this vengeful quest formed a lump in the back of his throat. He had left his people behind. His armor suddenly felt too constricting, the furs on top too heavy.

“You hear that, don’t you?” asked Preston.

Patrick nodded.

“Hear what?” asked Edward, a bit too loudly.

“Shut
up
,” Patrick snapped before Denton could clout the young soldier. He turned to Preston, who stared in annoyance at his son. “The attack began. Sounds like it’s for real this time. We should have stayed.”

Preston chuckled to himself and shook his head. “We are twenty-three men, Patrick. If Karak has begun a full assault, what difference would we make against fifteen thousand trained soldiers?” A grin stretched across his wrinkled mouth, pulling up the sides of his beard. “But out
here
, away from Mordeina, we might do some good. I would wager Karak will attack with all he has, all at once, without the slightest possibility of defeat entering his head. If he does that, then only a sparse force will remain behind to guard his supply wagons.”

“So this might not be a suicide mission after all,” Patrick said. His guilt subsided slightly, replaced by the nervous excitement that he had felt in Haven when Karak’s Army first attacked.

“We’ll have surprise on our side.” Preston peered over his shoulder. “So long as no idiot gives away our approach.”

Edward hung his head. Ragnar, his brother, trotted up to him and placed a comforting hand on his back.
They are seasoned men in battle, yet sensitive boys when not thus engaged.
Patrick almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. His humor, however, lasted only until Ryann spoke up.

“If Karak takes Mordeina, what’s the point of torching a few wagons?” Ryann asked. “Won’t the war be over?”

Patrick swallowed down a massive lump in his throat.

“You can’t think like that,” he said. “We do what we can, to the best of our ability. Let the gods deal with the rest.”

He led his troupe into the wood, following a winding path he still remembered, even though it had been more than fifty years si
nce he’d
stepped foot on it. Snow crunched under their horses’ hooves; ice fell from the leafless branches overhead; and the clamor of war grew ever louder. The farther into the forest they went, however, the more stumps of felled trees they found. It looked like the center of the woods had been clear-cut—no doubt the result of hundreds of campfires and the numerous siege weapons Karak’s Army had built. Patrick’s heart began to race, and he reached behind his head, pulling Winterbone from its sheath. Having a weapon at hand seemed to help, at least a little.

The trees again rose up, the closer to Mordeina they drew, these ones brittle, their trunks hollowed out and devoid of life from when Ashhur had drained them of their essence to create the grayhorn-men. Patrick halted his mare, and those following did the same. He climbed out of the saddle, as did Preston, and together they trudged through the dead wood. They were at the edge now, and with no foliage to conceal them, he felt naked. If anyone looked their way, they would be spotted immediately.

“Looks like I was right,” Preston said.

Patrick squinted, rising up on his toes and straightening out as much as he could with his humped back. He saw countless tents populating the valley’s ridge, and behind them were a seemingly never-ending row of covered wagons. “I don’t see any soldiers,” he whispered.

Preston chortled lightly. “The soldiers are there,” he said, pointing. Patrick followed his finger and saw a line of perhaps sixty of them, small as figurines as they stood in a line farther out in the snowy valley, facing Mordeina’s walls.

“But what about other people?” Patrick asked. “Those who, you know, service the camp. Wouldn’t they be needed?”

“Not here, not in Karak’s Army,” said Preston. “When Karak started this war, he pulled from their lives nearly all the men old enough to fight. Need a blacksmith? There are a hundred soldiers who have been blacksmiths all their lives. The same with chefs, tailors, and horsemasters—any profession that would be of use to a traveling army is here. If something needs doing, there is a man to do it, one who can still pick up his sword and run into battle when the time comes.”

“But all men?”

Preston nodded. “You will find few women here, perhaps none at all. Our regiment in the Delta had only seven, not counting the Lord Commander, and all of those seven were sent away early on.”

“Why? Would they not be useful in battle as well? After all, Moira and Rachida were two of the best fighters I’ve ever seen. By gods, a quarter of our warriors in Haven were women. Many of the archers in Mordeina are too.”

“Neldar holds a . . . different view of the fairer sex,” said Preston with a nod. “I assume Karak feels that having women on the battlefield will be nothing but a distraction. It is simply the way life is in Karak’s Army, and also yet another reason why Ashhur must win. Should Karak come out the victor . . . and to the victor goes the spoils . . . with all those men who have not lain with a woman for more than a year . . . ”

“I get it,” Patrick grumbled. “No need to spell it out.”

“Very well.”

They turned around and headed back to their awaiting compatriots, who had remained deeper in the dead wood. “What do we do?” asked Little Flick when they both climbed back atop their horses.

Tristan shifted eagerly in his saddle, his hands flexing. “Yeah, what’s the plan?”

“We charge,” said Preston. “The soldiers are all lined in a row, though there may be more inside the tents. Their attention is on the siege, so be quick, be brutal, and ride fast. No yelling, no talking. Let the horse’s hooves be the only warning. The tents are arranged into rows, like we had in the delta. Ride between them, so your horses don’t trip. For those of you new to this, each of you follows behind one of my boys. They’ll show you the way.”

Denton and the fourteen others went white as fallen snow, but they nodded nonetheless.

With that, Patrick led them out of the forest a little farther back on the Gods’ Road. When they emerged they spread out five wide, with each of the young Turncloaks leading one or two of the new warriors brought by Denton Noonan. They sat in place for a few moments, Patrick allowing the nerves of all present to harden before offering a brisk nod and bringing his horse to gallop. Preston fell in beside him, with Ragnar, Edward, Tristan, and Joff forming the first line. The repetitive sound of hooves beating the frozen earth was like the endless rumble of thunder.

They swerved around a bend in the road, and the camp of Karak’s Army opened up before them. The soldiers’ attentions were still fixed on the battle waging in the far-off city, and for a second Patrick doubted their plan. Their rush was so loud, it was sure to attract their attention, and should that happen, they would have at least two minutes to prepare themselves for what was to come. If there was one thing Patrick had learned about battle over the last three years, it was that two minutes could be a lifetime.

Yet the soldiers never turned, instead keeping their eyes on the distant walled settlement as if transfixed. Patrick allowed himself to
glance up, and he saw bright flashes light up the sky above
Mordeina
.
That can’t be good,
he thought. He tore his eyes away and had to shove aside worry for his sisters, nieces, and nephews, all locked away inside Manse DuTaureau. Should any harm come to them . . .

Stop it. Focus.
He lifted Winterbone and held it out before him like a lance.

He veered his horse through the rows between the tents, keeping his vision fixed on the soldiers. He saw one of the tents billow, but he wasn’t sure if that was due to the bitter wind or someone moving about inside. Not that it mattered. Any who emerged would receive their due when the most present threat was taken care of. On and on thumped the hoof beats, but the battle from afar was so loud and full of chaos, it appeared to be an unexpected blessing.

They were only twenty feet away from the soldiers when finally the one at the end of the line turned. He was an older man, and a smile was on his lips. That smile faltered when he saw Patrick on his horse, and it disappeared completely when Patrick hacked down with Winterbone, cleaving his face from his skull. The man collapsed, clutching at the bloody ruin where his face had once been. He disappeared as Patrick’s horse shot past the soldiers, galloping out into the field a good fifty feet before he yanked the reins and turned around.

The rest of the soldiers whirled in a confused panic just as
Patrick’s
mates descended on them. Seventeen fell during that first pass, the twenty-two other riders fanning out and hacking away. The unharmed soldiers fumbled for their weapons, but they were too shaken, too surprised. By the time the first few had pulled out their swords, each of their attackers was charging once more.

Another fourteen died on the second pass.

This time when Patrick and his regiment tried to turn around, they had to maneuver through the tents to do so, allowing the thirty remaining soldiers to ready themselves. Panicked orders rang out among Karak’s men, and they spread out, dashing this way and that in an attempt to separate their assailants. Patrick’s militia didn’t fall for it. Denton and two of the other men from Paradise, David and Michael, sheathed their swords and pulled out their homemade bows. They fired shot after shot at the soldiers while the rest continued the assault. Patrick spied the three of them over his shoulder for just a second, in awe that these men who had only seen a true battle once could adapt so well when the moment called for it.

Patrick chased after three soldiers who scooted between the rows of tents, heading for the supply carts. As he rode, this time he did see two other men emerge from the canvas enclosures, looking bewildered and frightened. These two never had a chance to draw their weapons, for Preston and Ragnar were on them a moment later, running them both through.

The three soldiers veered once more, and instead of swerving along with them, Patrick went against Preston’s advice and charged straight through the tents. His mare trampled them, scattering iron cookware, piles of smallclothes, and stones across the snow. Once the horse’s rear hoof became tangled with the corner of one of the tents, but after a momentary stumble the beast righted itself and kept on galloping.

He came upon one of the soldiers an instant later, driving
Winterbone
down and piercing the man through the back of the neck. The soldier lifted off the ground, impaled on the sword’s blade, his legs still kicking. Patrick’s forearms screamed at him with the extra weight, and he jerked upward. The razor-sharp blade ripped through the soldier’s scull, shearing it in half and freeing the sword. Blood sprayed everywhere as the soldier fell. Patrick winced, switched the massive sword from one hand to the other, and shook the pain out of his arm.

Big and Little Flick had cornered another of the fleeing men, viciously hacking at him. Patrick pulled back on the reins, bringing his mare up on its hind legs for a moment. When the beast returned to all fours, he spun in a circle. He saw no more standing soldiers, only his twenty-two brothers-in-arms, all hovering over the last of their kills.

Patrick whirled back around, searching for the final fleeing soldier. Grunting, his blood racing through his veins, he sheathed Winterbone, hopped off his horse, and began to walk down the line of supply wagons. Each cart was surrounded by a mound of snow that rose to the top of the wheels, and he noticed that one of those mounds had a deep impression in the center. When he reached it, he ducked down and saw a pair of feet pushing against the snow, desperately trying to get away.

“Got you,” Patrick said.