The Demigod Proving (54 page)

Part IV: Ax to the root

Chapter 69: The southern limits

If you’re going to fight a battle, you might as well win it.

-Athanaric

Athanaric sat on Cuchorack’s saddle, clicked his tongue, and confronted the entire Hasuken army.

He pulled on the reigns to urge the draegon to stand on his hind legs, and pushed the stirrups forward. Cuchorack stepped to the edge of the butte, perched on the cliff. He stretched his neck high, tilted his head up, and roared.

Three hundred feet below and about a mile south of the base of the black and red rock cliffs, the Hasuken troops’ eyes widened. Athanaric could hear the rumbling of their voices, even with the hot desert wind blowing in his face. Their frowns betrayed their fear. And right they should fear. Behind Athanaric, on the opposite side of the butte, twenty thousand paladins waited to annex Hasuke and kill the Hasuken soldiers, in their green livery and with their little round shields and pikes and swords. All forty thousand Hasuken would die. True, they outnumbered Athanaric’s army two-to-one, but paladins counted as ten men.

At the front of the Hasuken army, a clump of banner-bearers held triangular flags at the tops of poles, and a cluster of leaders sat on horses, looking up at him. Naresh sat among them. Athanaric would make sure to kill him near the first.

Cuchorack stood on the northwestern end of the butte, which curved less than a mile to the southeast. To Athanaric’s right, the ground dropped almost straight down about three hundred feet to large boulders. To the west, another butte of red rocks rose up and continued on, soon transforming into broad ridges and long hills, eventually blocking anything in that direction out from his sight. Between the bases of the two plateaus, a stone wall lay in ruins: the remains of a long-dead country’s effort to defend itself. The wall dated from before the nation of Hasuke, which made it nearly two thousand years old.

This place had seen many battles. The people had called it Fort Bluff, and built a city of stone buildings, but when Athanaric had annexed it a hundred and fifty years before, he’d forced the people to abandon the fort, and built them a new home further north. He’d then renamed the area Southern Limits. What remained of the stone ruins lay scattered on the northern side of the wall, near his army of paladins. People still came down to this area to take the red stones and use them in their buildings further away. On the opposite side of the broken wall and the buttes, near the Hasuken army, the rotting remains of siege engines and broken wagons spotted the ground.

To the south and east, other ridges and plateaus rose in the distance: dull red spotted by green juniper trees and cacti. In the valley beyond the Hasuken army, whirlwinds stirred up dust and hawks circled above. At the moment, one of the innocuous white clouds that spotted the sky had covered the sun. Athanaric would have appreciated rain. The air was dry, and his throat was absolutely parched. But rain rarely fell here.

A wall, he thought, wasn’t such a bad idea. He didn’t indulge himself in elaborate architectures and projects like other gods did; he made a point of not abusing his people by living in opulence. Yet, a wall might have been a good idea, to keep people in or out of his country. Although, of course, the walls at the Seraglio had only succeeded to a certain point at keeping people out. A wall could only do so much. A determined person could certainly find a way in or out of any location.

Cuchorack roared again, and Athanaric prepared to turn around and return to his army. But as he pulled on his reigns, a voice called from below.

“We want a parley!” Naresh shouted, cupping his hands over his mouth. Certainly he used Ichor on his throat to make his shout louder. “We would give you the opportunity to surrender.”

Athanaric grunted. These common soldiers couldn’t stand against his paladins, let alone defeat them. He raised his voice to a shout.

“Very well!”

Naresh motioned ahead of himself, to the general area of the wall between the buttes.

“There. In ten minutes.”

Athanaric waved his assent. He could’ve met right then. It wouldn’t have changed anything. He also could’ve stayed right where he was—he had no need to return to his camp to discuss strategy or negotiation tactics with any advisors. He’d already talked with his three children who led the army, as well as the ten who each led two thousand paladins, and the hundred who each led a force of two-hundred paladins. They knew what to do.

As he turned and looked back at his troops, a cloud of dust rushed down a hill behind them, from four galloping horses. Further up the ridge, about a hundred paladins followed.

Athanaric swore.

Wrend rode on the front-most horse, and next to him Rashel, her face screwed up tight like she had a lot to say but didn’t want to say it. He’d seen that face a thousand times, borne that scorn just as many. Someone had upset her, but probably not as much as she’d upset Athanaric. She’d disappeared two mornings before, causing him worry.

But Rashel wasn’t what made him swear. It wasn’t even the redheaded sitting behind Wrend with her arms around him like she owned him—he would have to deal with that soon. What upset him was that Teirn rode behind Wrend, next to Calla. The two had their heads together, and motioned fervently with their hands as they talked with each other.

One of those boys shouldn’t have returned. One of them should have killed the other.

Not that he wanted to lose one of them—he loved them both. He was just weary of this contest to select an heir. He wanted it to end, even at the cost of his draegon or his scaella.

But there they both were, riding toward him. A head dangled from Wrend’s saddle. Did that mean Athanaric should punish Teirn? Kill him and be done with it? He’d anticipated that the boys would fight over completing the task, and one wouldn’t live. He’d hoped for it. He loved them too much to kill one himself.

He turned his mount and ordered it to fly down to the army. As Cuchorack dropped down the cliff face, hot wind blew in Athanaric’s face and his stomach lifted up into his throat. Maybe he could do as Wrend wanted and choose one as heir and simply let the other live, become a normal demigod and serve the people for thirty years before dying.

Except, it was in their nature to excel, to be favored. If the loser lived, it would lead to conflict someday. One of them had to die. He just didn’t want to do the killing. He was tired of all the blood on his hands.

Cuchorack landed near the three generals and ten lieutenants, all demigods. They stood at attention, as did the rest of the army in its ten battalions of two thousand, each in ten groups of two hundred, in perfect rows and columns, each of them with a demigod at the head.

He hadn’t expected to have so many demigods with him during the battle. But Naresh and his promise that Athanaric would have to deal with the Hasuken honor guard had made it prudent to bring the demigods along.

“What news, the Master?” Alacker said. He was one of the generals.

Athanaric glanced at him, and looked across the army as Wrend led the others down the aisle, between the middle of the troops toward him.

“We go to parley. Prepare for battle.”

Alacker nodded and raised his eyebrows in the direction of the ten lieutenants. They saluted by touching their chins with their fingertips, and bringing their flat hand forward. Then they hurried off to their several battalions.

Athanaric dismounted, his full suit of plated armor clanking. He wore the armor only in extreme circumstances, for its weight required him to apply a constant stream of Ichor to not collapse—beyond what he already had to use to keep his body from aging. Yet, with its sharp angles, draegon-horned helmet, and blood-red paint, he knew it intimidated his foes. That, alone, was perhaps worth the Ichor cost.

He ordered Cuchorack to lie down, and waited with the generals as the four people most important to him approached. He would’ve preferred if they’d waited for him back at the caravan; he didn’t need this distraction now.

The cloud of dust rose behind the horses as they came down the slope, and it hung in the air around the paladins. They didn’t cough or sneeze; after all, they didn’t breathe.

Wrend reined in about thirty feet away, met Athanaric’s gaze with a somber look, and flipped one leg over the saddle to dismount. He turned and began to untie the head. The redhead sat tall in the saddle, looking like it took all her effort to not pounce and free her mate from an evil god’s influence. Teirn didn’t meet Athanaric’s eyes. Neither did Rashel as she dismounted. Calla looked at him with confidence as she lighted off the horse and fell to her knees. Rashel and Teirn did so more slowly.

Once Wrend had untied the severed head, he turned around and strode to Athanaric, throwing it down into the dirt. If Athanaric hadn’t known better, and if Wrend had not immediately fallen to his knees with his face in the dirt and his arms forward past his head, Athanaric would have thought his son had thrown the head down with contempt, as if delivering a foul prize. The head rolled to a stop at his feet, its face—or what was left of it—looking up at him from beneath a layer of dirt.

“Master,” Wrend said, “we’ve completed our task.”

He gave Athanaric a long, accusatory look, and Athanaric knew he would never convince this son to kill his brother.

That could only mean Athanaric would have to do the killing, instead.

Chapter 70: The past explained

Sometimes it’s best not to know the truth.

-Rashel

Athanaric’s boys would not do his job for him. He saw it in Wrend’s eyes and in Teirn’s posture. They wanted nothing to do with it. Such loyal boys. Such good friends. Letting them grow close had been a mistake.

“Who killed the leader?” he said.

Wrend shrugged, looked up, then back at Teirn, who knelt a few feet behind. Calla frowned at Teirn.

Athanaric hardened his voice. “Who killed the leader?”

“Wrend did,” Teirn said, not looking up.

“Then
you’ve
failed me, Teirn,” Athanaric said. He hated to say it.

“Yes, Master,” Teirn said. He kept his face down, but his voice cracked and his body trembled. “Wrend bested me.”

“You fought?”

“I only won,” Wrend said, “because . . .”

He faltered, clearly not wanting to continue. He glanced back at Rashel, but didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. Athanaric understood. Rashel had somehow been involved.

“Wrend, tell me what happened.”

Agony and regret washed over Wrend’s face. He glanced at Rashel again.

“Wrend,” Athanaric said. “What happened?”

“Teirn had defeated me,” Wrend said. “But Rashel attacked him from behind, giving me the advantage.”