Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (42 page)

“What are you doing, my Lord?” he asked. He had to shout to be heard over the din.

“I told you that Ashhur offered me a half measure when he created the wolf-men. Now he has dispensed with pretense, and I shall retaliate in kind.”

All creatures great and small burst from the forest in a stampede of fur, teeth, and legs. Elk, deer, wild goats, wolves, even
squirrels
emerged from the trees. A pair of black bears, early risers braving the
end of winter, made themselves known. Migrating birds
swiveled
in the air and changed course, descending to join the fray. The caws and growls and snarls and chattering of the wildlife was so loud that it was like standing beneath the crest of a crashing wave.

The sloped clearing they stood in was large—perhaps a mile squared—yet not ten minutes after Karak had bellowed his silent call, there was nary a patch of bare earth to be seen. Velixar drew closer to his god as a litany of eyes stared at him, both black and docile, glinting and predatory. And still creatures emerged from the wood, clambering over one another, jaws snapping, antlers jabbing, drawing ever nearer to the three beings that stood at their center, becoming a nearly solid wall of undulating fur and teeth.

“What is happening?” Aerland Shen shouted, his normally hard voice wavering.

“You wish to see true power, child of Celestia?” Karak said without looking at the elf. His words bellowed across the countryside with enough potency to cause pebbles to bounce at their feet. “When a god is in need of soldiers, he
creates
them.”

In a violent motion, Karak threw his arms out wide and his head pitched back. He screamed; it was a sound so horrible that it might as well have been the shriek of a dying star. But Velixar was not afraid. He felt the magic flow out of the deity, could see the threads exiting Karak’s body, bore witness to the well as it filled with strength, pulsating.
This is creation,
he thought, awed. In his mind’s eye he could see cells split and combine, looked on as the primordial sludge of unreality became the template for life itself.

Light poured from Karak’s mouth, creating a second, earthbound sun. The countless animals that had gathered—possibly close to one hundred thousand, both in the ring and hidden behind the trees—cowered from the god’s radiance. The energy that exited Karak’s body hung in the air, a brilliant golden cloud, and then slammed back down to the earth, coating the landscape with living fire. Velixar flinched and Aerland Shen screamed, but neither was touched by the descending light.

It was the animals that were engulfed. They screeched as one, the clamor so great that Shen dropped to his knees and covered his ears. Velixar looked on in wonder as creatures great and small began to writhe, their bodies warping and contracting, the bones beneath their flesh snapping and elongating. Fingers tipped with claws formed at the ends of furry appendages, snouts shortened, knee joints cracked as creatures that once walked on four legs rose up on two.

All the while, the transforming creatures bawled in pain. Every last one of them.

The blinding light that had engulfed the entire vicinity then disappeared with an audible
pop
. Karak’s mouth snapped shut, his arms fell to his sides, and he collapsed to one knee, panting.

“It . . . is . . . done . . . ” the god gasped.

No longer did the beasts cry out in anguish. In fact, the only sounds to be heard were the rasping breaths of untold thousands. Chief Shen had both his swords drawn and stood hunkered down as if he expected a battle. Velixar touched the large elf on the shoulder. When Shen turned to him, Velixar saw his eyes were wide and shimmering.

For the second time that day, the chief of the Ekreissar was afraid.

“Put your swords away,” Velixar told him. “You have nothing to fear.”

He stepped in front of the elf without another word, gazing out at what his god had created. Animals that had once been creatures of the forest now stood with the posture of hunched men. Each beast’s body had nearly doubled in size: the elks were eight feet tall and slender; the wolves as large and broad as any soldier; the squirrels like malevolent, two-foot-tall imps; the birds varying from three feet to six in height, with talons sprouting from the ends of their wings. All of their eyes glowed yellow, much like those of Karak’s lions, the Final Judges Kayne and Lilah. Those eyes stared back at him, brimming with recognition. Then, in an act that surprised Velixar to no end, the beasts dropped to their knees, one after the other.

As one, their snouts opened, revealing fanged and stumped teeth alike, and their tongues undulated in their mouths as they tried to speak.

“Ka-rak,”
they said in the voices of primitive children.

Velixar stepped up to what had been a goat a moment before. He placed his hand beneath its maw, lifting the creature’s head. Its eyes met his, and he could see fear, confusion, and anger in its stare. The thing growled. Velixar released it and stepped away, looking over the sea of fur and teeth. It was then he noticed the grass beneath his feet. Its color was a dull yellow, no different from before. He spun around and looked to the forest, where an audience of befuddled soldiers had gathered on its edge. Velixar saw that although the trees had no leaves, they still appeared hearty and healthy; their bark was still crisp, their sap still flowing from broken branches. He thought back to when they’d first arrived at Mordeina, to the dead valley they had entered, where the trees of the bordering forest were crumbling, brittle things.

“How?” he asked, gazing across at his god.

Karak raised his head. The deity’s flesh had lost its luster; his stately brown hair was matted; the glow of his eyes, dim; and his lips, like gray slugs in the middle of his face. Yet still he smiled.

“A piece of me lies within each of the creatures that stand before you now,” Karak said, his voice weak and rasping. “The same essence that created you, Velixar, the same essence that forged humankind on this land, now pulses in their veins. With the beasts Ashhur made, he gave not of himself, but took from the land. Mine, due to my essence, will be wiser. Stronger. Better.”

Velixar looked away, examining one of the wolf-men up close. Saliva dripped from its fangs, and it snorted when he drew near.
So many of them. I cannot begin to imagine how much power this required.
Velixar faced his god once more. Karak wavered on his knee and had to place one of his giant hands on the ground to keep from falling. There was also something odd about the expression on his face, a slight upturn to one side of his lips and his right eye twitching. It made Velixar recall Cotter Mildwood, the old man who had been driven mad when he read the scribblings in Velixar’s old journal. That was how Karak appeared now—a whisper away from madness.

“But at what cost, my Lord?” he asked.

“A necessary one,” Karak answered, a feverish grin crossing his features. “A willing sacrifice in the name of maintaining order. Now come to me, High Prophet, swallower of demons, and the greatest of all humanity. I lent you my power when you required it; it is time for you to return the favor.”

The pendant resting on Velixar’s chest leapt and pulsed. He felt his lips stretch into a grin. With determined strides, he stepped past a gawking Aerland Shen and marched up to the deity, holding out his hand. Karak’s fist engulfed his. Velixar closed his eyes, picturing the land in all its magical glory, siphoning the godly energy from the very air itself, filling the cosmic well. Power infused him, raced up his legs and into his heart, then down his arms and into Karak, filling the deity with renewed vigor.

The creak of steel sounded, as well as a low grunt. Velixar
opened his eyes and craned his neck to see Karak standing at his full
twelve feet
, wavering slightly but radiating strength. The deity released his hand and stepped away from him. The thousands on thousands of beast-men dropped lower to the ground. Karak slowly turned in a circle.

“Beasts of Dezrel!” he shouted, and though he wasn’t nearly as thunderous as he’d been in the past, his voice was still imposing and incredibly loud. “You are my children now! I have given you strength beyond measure. I have given you knowledge. I have given you a second life! Who is it that you worship? Who is it that you adore?”

“Karak,”
the beasts growled.

“Now heed my words, my children. A pair of enemies approach, enemies that wish harm to your creator. You will defend me with your claws and teeth. You will defend me with your very lives if need be!”

“KARAK,”
came the vociferous howl of the beasts once more.

“Ia mapa ammen,”
muttered Chief Shen.

“Now go, children of the forest! Bring pain to any that do not worship my name!”

Once more, it was a stampede. Thousands of newly altered creatures began to run, adeptly veering around the three in the center. Never once were they touched. The entire procession took nearly a half-hour to complete, until the last stragglers passed them by, barreling down the steep hill toward the Gods’ Road. On reaching the road, two-thirds of the beast-men veered to the west while the remaining third ran directly south. Velixar tore his eyes away from them, noticing the awed expressions on the audience of soldiers watching from the tree line. He then looked on as Shen stumbled up the hill, heading for the throng of elves that awaited him on the edge of the forest.
They will not abandon us now. They would not dare.
A chuckle escaped his throat, and he looked back at Karak.

“Will they be able to bring Ashhur to his knees?” he asked.

“If my brother is weak,” said Karak, eyes distant. “It is the delay that matters, and the indecision that their mere
existence
will cause my brother to feel. But they are strong, and my essence is with them. Even if they do not find victory, thousands of our enemy will die. Let us see just how committed to the chase Ashhur’s people are after the animals of the wild descend upon them.”

C
HAPTER

36

T
he Kerrians made good time as they crossed the border of Safeway and trudged north toward the Gods’ Road. The sun had burned away the storm clouds, and the air had a slightly crisp feel to it. The horses maintained a steady canter while those on foot jogged alongside. Bardiya remained at the head of the procession, his heart overflowing with his newfound faith as his inhumanly long legs carried him forward easily. The only discomfort was his giant sword, which had been tied with hempen rope and draped over his left shoulder. The steel
thwacked
against his back with every loping stride.

“Onward to the drylands, to snatch the maiden fair,”
he called out over his shoulder, a rhyme Warden Ozyel had taught him before his dearly departed father asked the elegant beings to leave their land. When he’d grown older, he’d realized how obscene the rhyme was, but in his youth he had repeated it nonstop while with his friends.

“The maiden’s legs are lengthy, I’ll stretch them once I’m there!”
his people shouted back to him. Bardiya glanced to the side and saw Ki-Nan bouncing in his saddle, a smile on his face. It seemed like a scene from a time long passed—a collection of young men heading out for the hunt, excited for the thrill ahead.

Except this hunt would most likely lead to their deaths.

They descended a slick embankment where small patches of snow and ice still remained. Bardiya looked around in wonder. The cold hardly ever invaded the lands he called home, with only the rare flurry during the most brutal of winters, such as the one from the year before. Even then it was rare for him to see such sights. It had been so long since he’d ventured away from Ang, Safeway, and the desert of Ker. Once more he felt young again, and he wished to see a pure white landscape for the first time in forty years.

The simple desires ended when the embankment flattened, and they progressed across a broad, barren plain. There had once been grassland here, and tiny villages as well, but all was gone now, razed by Karak as the rancorous god’s army worked its way toward Mordeina. Bare earth squished and clumped beneath Bardiya’s bare feet, sending a chill up his ankle and through his calf until it took root in his spine. He shivered, a spasm so intense it felt as if his whole core had become unstable.
A portent.
He gazed across the ruined steppe.

Something wasn’t right.

No matter how decimated the land was, Bardiya still knew precisely where they were. The plains they currently cut through, nestled beneath the red cliffs to the west and the hills bordering the Rigon River to the east, stretched out for another two miles until ending at the Gods’ Road. Yet as he peered ahead, trying to see the horizon, all he saw was a black fog of some sort. It almost seemed as if there were another storm raging, this one hovering only a few feet off the ground.

He planted his foot and came to a halt, the rhyme dying on his lips. Behind him, the rest of his party followed suit.

Tuan Littlefoot sidled up to him. “What is it?”

Bardiya frowned at him and faced north. He heard a sound like that of a waterfall, faint at first yet growing progressively louder. He squinted, noticed that the black cloud ahead stretched nearly as wide as the valley itself. A feeling came over him, a smothering sensation he had experienced only once, years before, when he’d run across the flock of dying kobo. It was as if nature itself was crying in despair, railing against some ill-fated blight.

His eyes snapped open, and he ran forward a few steps, the questions his people tossed his way nothing but a dull murmur to his ears. It was then that he realized the cloud he saw was dust and ash being kicked into the air by countless stampeding feet.

It was a living wall of animalistic fury, undulating as it approached, jaws filled with sharp, snapping teeth. Bardiya had never seen anything like it in all his life. The creatures of Dezrel had been warped into something vicious. He knew right away this abomination was Karak’s doing.

“Ashhur save us,” he whispered.

The others must have noticed as well, as behind him Ki-Nan and Yorn Loros were riding in a frantic circle, forming their four hundred mates into a packed cluster fronted with swords and spears. Yorn rode up to him.

“Fight or flee?” the man asked, sweat beading on his brown skin even though the day was quite cool.

Bardiya looked back at the charging, mutated beasts. “No fleeing,” he said, and offered Ki-Nan, who lingered nearby, a knowing nod. “We must do the opposite of the antelope when confronted with a stalking sandcat; our best defense lies in keeping them before us. Just like the antelope, if we run, there’s a better chance we die.”

Ki-Nan’s face flushed and he turned away.

Yorn wheeled his horse around. “We need arrows!” he shouted.

A group of fifty men dashed forward, fanning out beside Bardiya, raising bows they’d liberated from elven corpses. The bows were larger than the ones the people of Ker normally used, and many of the men had difficulty drawing back the string. The task was made no easier by the fact that they were all terrified, their arms shaking uncontrollably.

The wall of fur, teeth, and claws drew nearer.

“Do not aim!” the giant shouted over the din of hoots and growls as he yanked the giant sword off his back. “This is no hunt. Just loose as many as you can!”

Bowstrings were released and arrows sailed into the afternoon sky. The elven bows were more powerful than those bearing them had expected, and the first volley sailed over the heads of the charging beasts, disappearing in the mass. Nevertheless, the arrows found purchase. Pained yelps and screeching sounded. Standing as tall as he did, Bardiya could see the charging horde was just as deep as it was wide. There were thousands of them, too many to count, too many for his meager four hundred men to hold at bay.

And so it ends
here
.

The archers adjusted their aim, and this time when the arrows sailed they carried in nearly a straight line across the hundreds of yards separating them. A few of the beasts in front collapsed and were trampled by those rushing up from behind. The archers nocked anew and fired. Still another handful fell, but they kept on coming. They were close enough now that Bardiya could see the beasts approaching them were of vaguely human form and nearly twice as big as they should have been. He saw the echoes of wolves, big cats, flightless birds, deer, otters, even sheep, their faces mockeries of humanity with distended brows, jutting snouts, oversized teeth and beaks, and glimmering yellow eyes.

For every one the archers felled with their shaky volleys, another ten took their place. In a matter of seconds the horde had halved the distance between them, so close now that Bardiya could almost smell the stench of old meat on their breath. “Get back to the others!” he told the archers. “Fight together! Fight with purpose! The Golden Forever awaits us all!”

The archers turned tail and fled back to the others, and he glanced down to see another group of men had joined his side. Allay and Yorn were among them, as was Ki-Nan. Half of them were on horseback.

“Should we die, we die together, brother!” Ki-Nan proclaimed.

Bardiya nodded, then held his massive sword above his head with one hand and pointed at the rushing beasts with the other. A primal scream exploded from his throat, and Bardiya and his fellow warriors charged, ignoring the arrows that now whooshed past them on either side. Hooves and feet pounded the wet, burnt land.

Just before they arrived, the creatures let out a simultaneous cry. Its pitch varied, high and low, an uneven wave of sound, but the word was all the same, and the sound of it chilled Bardiya to the bone.

“KARAK!”

The giant crashed into the line first, slicing three beasts in two at the waist with a single sideways hew. Then the mass of the stampede slammed fully into him, knocking the breath from his large and powerful lungs. His fellow warriors followed his lead. Their horses reared back and shrieked as claws tore into their flanks, spilling guts and riders alike. Men began screaming, and Bardiya swore he could hear Ki-Nan’s voice rise above the others as he shouted curses at the beasts.

A pair of upright-walking wolves crashed into his chest while a cat-man came at him from the side. Teeth raked against his flesh, claws dragged down his back. His shoulder was impaled by an antler that he snapped off with a single flick of the wrist. Bardiya grunted as he grabbed the beasts in turn with his powerful left hand, tossing them back over their swelling numbers as if they weighed nothing. He thrust forward with his sword, impaling six beasts through the chest like they were on a spit. A smaller creature tried scaling his leg—a squirrel-man, by the looks of him—heading for Bardiya’s most sensitive area with its teeth bared. The giant snatched the two-foot-tall thing off him and made a fist. The writhing squirrel popped like a rotten fruit, bathing his hand with entrails.

Still the beast-men swarmed, relentless. These were not mindless things, Bardiya realized. They were attacking in clusters, the larger beasts such as deer and elk in front, the lesser predators behind, while the smallest of the forest creatures dashed through the legs of their larger brethren, using the bodies of the larger creatures to mask their movements. Bardiya hacked the head off a giant elk-man in a single swing, narrowly missing being skewered by its antlers, and then turned to see one of his fellow defenders whipping around and gargling blood, a human-shaped gopher attached to his throat. A pair of wolves fell upon the poor soul, ripping into his chest and sending intestines flying. The body was flung to the side, and Bardiya could see it was Tuan Littlefoot, one eye gone and leaking blood while the other one stared at him, lifeless.

The same was happening all around him. Every horse that had charged was now gone, swallowed by the ungodly numbers of beast-men, and he could see only a handful of the men still clashing with their savage opponents. He wondered if Ki-Nan was one of them, before his thoughts were interrupted by the flash of feathers in his face. Bardiya plucked the bird-man off him, a crane with stumpy claws at the end of its wings and serrated teeth inside its beak, and snapped it over his knee.

Three more beasts rushed him, only to be cut down swiftly. Bardiya pivoted on his heels and saw the cluster of four hundred men being overrun. The larger beast-men raked and snapped at those on the outside of the circle, while the smaller of their species leapt off shoulders, careening through the air and descending into the center of the desperate defenders. Blood began to fly into the air, Bardiya’s people being decimated from both outside the circle and within.

He went to storm forward, but an impossibly heavy weight collided with him from behind, knocking him face first to the sodden ground. He lost hold of the sword when he landed with a splash, and he rolled just as powerful jaws closed around his left forearm. Wickedly sharp teeth pierced his flesh and scraped against bone. Bardiya cried out in pain, beating at the gigantic, fur-covered head with his free hand. The thing’s grip was insanely strong, as if it were made from solid rock.

A beast with a pair of black eyes, faintly glowing yellow at the center, rolled in his direction. Bardiya recalled the day he’d been attacked by timber wolves while hunting with his father in his youth, and did the same now as he had then. He plunged three fingers of his free hand into the beast’s eye socket. The eye itself was large, the size of a mango, and it slipped and sloshed against the tips of his fingers as they snaked around the backside of the orb. The beast’s gyrations became all the more violent. Bardiya then tore his hand away from the socket, ripping out the eye with a sickening
plop
. The beast finally released him, rearing back and lifting its snout to the sky as it roared. Bardiya kicked away from the thing, searching for his sword, while smaller beast-men scurried past him, heading for his doomed brothers in faith.

Bardiya hastened to his feet, his left arm aching and leaking blood. The beast that had attacked him ceased its bellowing and faced him, and Bardiya could now see that this monstrosity had once been a black bear. It was taller than Bardiya by at least two feet, and with its bulk it must have weighed as much as four of him. The thing stared, its empty eye socket oozing while the intact left eye radiated hatred. The bear-man growled, and Bardiya was buffeted by its hot, stinking breath from ten feet away.
“Hurts,”
he heard the beast growl. It then ran at him, its claws like ten long daggers aiming to pierce his heart. Bardiya braced for impact, knowing this would be the end of him.

He caught the claws when the bear-man collided with him and shoved him backward. His heels dug into the damp earth. The beast was strong, so damn
strong
. It leaned forward, bending Bardiya’s arms nearly to the point of breaking. Its maw pounced, snapping with six-inch incisors. One of those massive teeth scraped against Bardiya’s cheek, opening up a new, gushing wound.

He fell to one knee, the bear-man crushing its full weight down on him.
I love you, Ashhur,
he prayed.
I am sorry to have failed you.
He screamed as loudly as he could, trying to shove back against the bear-man’s crushing weight.

Amazingly, he succeeded.

The bear let out a sharp cry as it stumbled. When it righted itself, the beast suddenly flailed, its good eye bulging as it whimpered and grunted. Then there was a flash of silver between its legs. The bear pitched forward, clawed hands grasping at the gaping vertical mouth that appeared where its nether parts should have been. Innards as thick as a human arm poured out of the wound, slopping onto the earth. The beast gawked at Bardiya as if insulted, taking a single step forward before its colossal bulk toppled over.

Another form was dragging itself toward him. Bardiya regained his wits quickly enough to bat a bird-man off his shoulder and draw back his fist, ready to strike. The head of the beast lifted, and beneath a wolf’s nose there was the lower half of a grimacing
brown face
.