Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 25

The attack began as the sun crept above the horizon.

It started with boulders smashing against Mordeina’s walls from all sides, pounding and pulverizing the thick stone. Ahaesarus raced along the western wall, shouting out orders, the warning Azariah had given him coming too late, the assault beginning too quickly for him to get all of his charges to safety. Though the walls remained standing, cracks soon formed. Just like the many times before, many of the heavy boulders soared over the walls as well, only this time, just as Azariah had said, they were not flung blindly. Each falling chunk of rock landed much too close to the defensive formations Ahaesarus had formed. The defenders scattered, Warden and human alike. The huts where weapons were hammered out and stored were pulverized. Boulders fell onto the fields in the north of the settlement, crushing the weak crops; smashed into their horse stables; dropped onto their dwindling livestock. Animals fled the destruction of their habitats, horses, cattle, pigs, and goats tramping through the settlement to avoid the death raining from above. Snow and mist filled the air. The people were thrown into a panic. All was chaos.

With one final boom, an eerie calm descended on the settlement. It had been by far the most extensive attack yet, with what seemed like five hundred boulders. When it ceased, Ahaesarus rushed up the stairs to the top of the wall, sprinting along the ramparts with Judarius by his side as they examined the damage. A great many cracks lined the interior of the outer wall, a few of them large enough to fit a man or even three through, but those would be easily defended. Karak, you have misjudged your brother once more, Ahaesarus thought with a smile. He then crossed the plank to the outer wall itself, gazing out at the forest that lay a mere quarter mile away, and his heart froze in his chest.

Skeletal branches snapped as giant wooden towers emerged from the frozen, dead forest. Soldiers of Karak, bundled in furs and grouped in clusters of fifty, shouted as they shoved their wheeled towers through the packed snow toward the wall. The five regiments he saw were evenly spaced, with at least three thousand feet between them. The archers among the soldiers raised their bows, pulled back the strings, and loosed their arrows. Ahaesarus ducked behind a merlon, eyes wide. The bombardment had been a brutal distraction, forcing those inside to cower while the soldiers moved their towers into position and approached the walls. Karak had spread out his force, presumably coming at them from all sides. So far as Ahaesarus could guess, the tall towers would be close enough to mount an assault in a half hour at most. Given the size of the settlement, he had no opportunity to fully organize their defenders, most of whom were positioned by the southern portcullis. By the time he gathered the archers and climbed back to the top of the wall, the soldiers would already be here, and given how much space was between them, the pitiful two hundred archers would be less than useless.

“Damn it,” he muttered.

“Ahaesarus!” shouted Judarius. “We need orders!”

The Master Warden gazed over at his compatriot and saw anger boiling over in his green-gold eyes. Judarius was breathing heavily, his elegant hand held firm over the giant maul fastened to his belt. For a moment he thought Judarius would leap over the wall, the sixty-foot fall be damned, and charge the approaching clusters himself, but instead his expression stiffened. Arrows continued to fly over their heads. Down below, the people of Mordeina, their wards, were screaming and running for cover.

“What is your command, Master Warden?” asked Judarius, and strangely enough, he seemed suddenly calm. “Do I fetch the archers?”

Ahaesarus tapped his fingers on the parapet’s compacted stone. “How many towers did Leviticus report at last count?” he asked.

“Over thirty.”

Ahaesarus chanced another look around the merlon and saw the wobbling tower growing ever closer.

“There is no time for archers,” Ahaesarus said. “No time for anything but melee weapons and pikes. Judarius, go down to the people. Find the bravest men and make them lead. Have them gather as many as they can and bring whatever they have at their disposal-old tent posts, rocks, buckets of grease, anything-up here. Tell them they must delay the soldiers as best they can.”

“They will die,” Judarius said, his tone devoid of emotion. “These people are not properly trained.”

“Does it matter? Delay Karak’s men, Judarius; that is all I ask.”

Judarius nodded. “Stay safe, my friend.”

The black-haired Warden sprinted back across the plank connecting the two walls, ducking to the left and right to avoid the flying arrows, until he disappeared over the stairs. Ahaesarus took a deep breath, counted to ten, and then began to run south along the wall walk. He stayed as low as he could, but it was difficult to stay below the merlons and move at a decent speed. A sharpened arrowhead grazed his back, slicing through his thick leather surcoat and opening a small wound across his spine. He barely felt it. His booted feet crunched on the snow packed on the wall walk. Sweat poured down his face despite the cold.

The wall was long, the distance far, and Ahaesarus forced his legs to churn. He gave up on his hunched run and stood up straight, allowing his long, loping strides to carry him farther and faster. Ashhur’s booming voice filled his head, the god magnifying his voice to relay commands to his children spread throughout the settlement. Ahead and behind he saw people climbing to the top of the wall, men with tall wooden shields protecting the spellcasters from Drake in their drooping furs. Strangely, he didn’t see an archer among them. Arrows thunked into the shields, causing those bearing them to waver. Ahaesarus then looked on as the hands of the spellcasters began to glow. One by one, the stone planks connecting the inner and outer walls exploded in a rain of pebble and dust.

Ahaesarus ran faster.

An arrow passed in front of his eyes, startling him and causing him to lose his footing. He slid forward on his hands and knees, the sword on his hip dragging through the snow behind him. His mind racing, he scampered back to his feet and kept on going. Celestia’s tree, rising above the wall like a broken guardian with half its branches snapped off by hurled boulders, was a half mile ahead of him. If he simply kept his feet moving and was lucky, he would be there in minutes.

Minutes are all we have. He chanced a look out at the valley outside Mordeina. He had passed by the dead forest, and now the sprawling white world to the south opened up before him. Thousands of soldiers, like black ants on a white backdrop, rushed the walls. Their camp stretched from one corner of the land to the other on the horizon. Over the rush of blood in his ears, he heard the soldiers chanting their warbling battle cries. He was once more reminded of the winged demons descending on Algrahar, the memory filling him with crushing hopelessness. Death from above or death from below-it didn’t matter. Both ended in the same way: with the destruction of everything he knew and loved.

No! he told himself, catching a glimpse of Ashhur pacing in front of the lengthy bunker, instructing his children to defend. This time they could fight back. This time, there is a god on our side.

Past a chunked and crumbling section of the wall he flew, Celestia’s tree growing larger and larger in his sight. The inner rampart was now crowded with people, his wards and fellow Wardens alike, working feverishly at lugging heavy pots of bubbling grease along the slippery walk or hammering away at the stone planks the spellcasters had yet to destroy.

The arrows had ceased flying once he finally reached Celestia’s tree. He nearly separated his shoulder when he collided with its steel-hard trunk. He immediately climbed to the top of the nearest merlon, grabbing a thick branch for support. He had been correct: From this vantage point, he could see eight towers approaching, each pushed by regiments of fifty. A massive phalanx of what looked to be five thousand soldiers marched behind the towers. He heard a heavy thud from below and leaned over the wall. His breath caught in his throat. There was a veritable hive of soldiers pressing against the base of the outer wall, some hammering away with large mallets at the weakened sections while others nailed differing lengths of ladder together. His gaze shifted, and just below him he saw at least a hundred elves on horseback. Their leader, the largest elf he had ever seen, with scaly black armor and a pair of wicked swords crisscrossed on his back, shouted orders. Thirty of the elves dismounted, snatching ropes from their saddlebags. One by one, they tossed the ropes over the lowest branches of Celestia’s tree, pulling them taut.

And then they began to climb.

“Warden!” he heard a man’s voice shout over the din of crashing hammers and jangling armor. Ahaesarus lifted his gaze. Right in front of him, fifty feet away and slowly closing in, was a wobbling tower. The cloaked man standing atop it had glowing red eyes and black hair that seemed to whip about like writhing snakes. Ahaesarus recognized the man’s slender jaw, his easy posture, the intensity of his stare.

“Jacob.” Ahaesarus’s voice was a wisp.

The First Man smiled and lifted his hands. Shadow oozed from his fingers, forming a swirling ball before him, growing larger and larger by the moment. Jacob then thrust his hands forward, and the ball shot through the air, straight for Ahaesarus’s head.

The ball of shadow was thick, its surface shiny and rippling like oil. Ahaesarus saw faces in the sphere, those of his long-dead wife and children, and their screaming visages held him fast. A loud hum shook him as the sphere collided with the invisible barrier Ashhur had raised. A sound like the shrieking of a thousand murdered souls filled the air as the ball of shadow exploded outward, creating a web of writhing black smears that hovered in mid-air before gradually fading into nothingness. Ahaesarus took a step backward, his heart pounding, his thoughts awash with revulsion.

Atop the approaching tower, Jacob Eveningstar laughed.

“Master Warden!” someone called out from behind him, and Ahaesarus whirled around. A crowd had gathered on the inner wall walk, their expressions just as horrified as he felt. A spellcaster was standing there among them-Potrel Longshanks, one of the original four from Drake. The man inclined his head at Ahaesarus, tugging on his thick, bushy beard.

“Master Warden,” he said again, pointing at the stone plank he stood before.

Ahaesarus needed no further instruction. He dashed across the plank; it was not even a second after his feet left it that Potrel decimated the stone catwalk with a flash of blinding blue light. Ahaesarus shook his head, trying to dismiss the stars in his vision as he weaved in and out of the frightened cluster of defenders who busied themselves on the wall walk. Then the first of the towers collided with the outer wall, and soldiers began climbing over the ramparts, steel drawn. All around him, people screamed. Ahaesarus grabbed the handle of his sword, and torn, he struggled with what he should do. He heard Wardens shouting orders, Mennon and Florio among them. Ashhur then called out his name from somewhere down below, and Ahaesarus spun around.

Down the steps he flew, his feet slipping on the ice-slathered stone. When he reached the bottom, he hastened across the long section where the thousands of dead bodies had been laid out in a macabre display. His stomach cramped, doubling him over, but still he kept his eye on his destination: the long bunker, and the god who stood with hands on hips, his golden eyes aglow, behind it.

Ahaesarus leapt over the stone barricade, landing on both feet on the other side, glancing to the right and the left. Hundreds of people were hustling about, bundles of freshly fletched arrows in their arms and steel slung over their shoulders. Nearly to a man, their eyes were wide with fright. Ahaesarus turned to the side and saw Ashhur a hundred feet away, staring at him. The god nodded. The Master Warden righted himself, standing tall and throwing his shoulders back while he stared at the masses huddled in the trench.

“Stand your ground!” Ahaesarus bellowed. “No matter what occurs, remember what we are here for! We must defend the innocents with our very lives!”

“We can’t stand against all that!” someone cried.

Ahaesarus gestured to the side, where Ashhur stood, larger than life. “Your god is here to protect you,” he said, spittle flying from his lips as he paced the line. “Accept his strength, and know that nothing is impossible when we stand with him. Karak may come at us from all directions. His soldiers may wield the sharper steel. But we have righteousness on our side! We have glory! We have Ashhur! For the sake of him, we will stand tall, and should death come to us, we will be well met in the Golden Forever, drinking our fill for eternity!”

A few muffled cheers came from the huddled masses. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Men climbed out of the trench, and a few women as well, their new steel clutched tightly in their pale fingers. They faced the southern wall, and it seemed for a few moments that all sound ceased. Ahaesarus glanced behind him to Manse DuTaureau atop its hill and saw a pair of figures, one tall and one small, standing outside the structure, surrounded by a mass of women and children who crowded together in the snow. The standing figures worked their way through the crowd, seeming to offer solace to the masses. King Benjamin and Howard Baedan. It seemed the Master Steward had continued his tutelage of the boy after all. For a brief moment, Ahaesarus allowed himself the very hope he preached.

A great horn sounded, and the dying began. Ahaesarus stood his ground, surrounded by his wards, watching intently for any sign of what might be going on atop the wall. He could see nothing but slight shadows and the occasional pike raised high in the air, but the noises of battle were unmistakable-the thump of blunt objects colliding with shields, the clang of steel against steel, the thud of men falling seventy feet to the frozen ground, the crack and fizzle of the spellcasters’ magics. I should be up there on the wall. I should be defending my wards with my life, not waiting down here for the enemy to come to me.

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.