Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 28

The thousands of dead littering the ground took to their feet. To Velixar’s ears, the sound was like a million twigs being snapped all at once. Screams followed, from followers of Karak and Ashhur alike.

“Kill them!” ordered Karak. “Kill them all!”

Velixar’s feet were seemingly frozen to the ground. An immensely tall figure rose from within the melee; the Warden Judarius, his fellow member of the Lordship back when Velixar had been Jacob Eveningstar. Only Judarius’s face was wrong. His flesh had gone gray, his eyes milky, and the left side of his neck was a mess of flayed skin. The Warden moved his head slowly to the side, his lifeless stare lingering on the soldier standing in front of him. The soldier appeared bewildered, his dazzled blue eyes shining in the intense light Ashhur created. He never looked up, not even when the Warden lifted a bloodied maul and brought it down on the back of his head. The sound of steel and bone shattering echoed over Karak’s furious screams.

Bedlam ensued as the walking corpses lashed out at the soldiers with whatever weapons they still held; those that had nothing bit with their teeth and scratched with pale bleeding fingers. Men fell, their bodies torn asunder, while Ashhur’s children fled in all directions, looks of abject terror painting their faces.

Velixar couldn’t believe what was happening. He’d seen images like this in the memory of the demon he’d swallowed-the Beast of a Thousand Faces had raised an army of undead elves to march against Kal’droth during the great war-but he had never expected Ashhur to take such an extreme measure himself. But no. . that wasn’t right. He’d seen this before. His thoughts retreated to the moment when the western deity had animated the corpse of Brienna Meln, the elf Jacob Eveningstar had loved. Terror filled his soul.

A cold hand grabbed him around the neck, ripping him from the painful memory. In desperation he whirled around, flailing violently, and the hand fell away. When he pushed back his hood, he saw a staggering dead man with a slit throat before him, the symbol of the roaring lion embossed on his breastplate. The walking corpse righted itself and stared at him with eyes that shone with soft yellow light. The dead thing reached out for him again, fingers curled into claws, and Velixar stepped back. His horror and disbelief made him weak; the link funneling the power from Karak into him vanished. Still, he was strong enough to take out a single undead monster. Words of magic spat from his lips and the thing crumpled into a mound of useless flesh and bone.

When he turned, everywhere he looked there were undead. Thousands of them, men, women, and children from Paradise, along with a great many dead soldiers of Karak. They fought with mindless intensity, even those who appeared to be long deceased, their movements forceful but erratic. The living soldiers were thrown into panic, unsure of whom they should defend themselves against. Whenever one of their brethren fell, a moment later he stood again, eyes shimmering with that sick yellow light.

The whole time, Ashhur conducted the chaos, glancing this way and that, steering his undead horde.

Velixar desperately searched for Karak as the battle raged around him, found his god flinging the walking corpses left and right as he shouted for his army to remain strong. None were listening. Soldiers fled for the hole in the wall, first a few, then many. Even Aerland Shen and his Ekreissar, though they handled the undead with relative ease, retreated toward the opening. Velixar wanted to scream at them, to pulverize their bodies with a word, but a group of seven corpses lurched toward him, their jaws chattering wordlessly. He impaled one with a lance of living shadow, crushed another’s skull, set a third aflame, but that didn’t stop their advance. They knew no fear, no pain. Even the one he’d impaled with shadow continued on despite a gaping hole in its chest and the entrails spilling out around its knees.

Four more continued on, so close now. Velixar fled, the shame of it burning in his chest. Toward Karak he ran, veering side to side, nearly having his head lopped off by a cluster of living, terrified soldiers. He ducked beneath the attempt and kept on going, his gaze focused on his beloved deity.

Karak seethed as he stared at his brother, looking like he was ready to leap into the air and pounce on him had it not been for the undead that clawed at his godly form. “Face me!” he shouted, his words aimed at Ashhur, who still played puppet master behind the stone bunker. “Come face me yourself!”

The undead pressed even harder as Ashhur watched from across a sea of writhing corpses.

The hiss and clink of his fellow warriors drawing their weapons was music to Patrick’s ears. He raised Winterbone, holding it steady despite its great weight, and prepared to strike. He was on the first soldier in moments and drew back, ready to slash with all his might. But when he caught sight of the soldier’s expression, his eyes bulging with fear, Patrick faltered. Instead of lopping off the man’s head, his blade glanced off his helm, raising a flurry of sparks, and the soldier rushed right past him. Patrick pulled up on the reins, forcing his mare to rear and nearly pitch him from the saddle. When he spun the horse around, he saw that the soldier had simply kept on running, his feet trudging desperately through the snow.

He heard the ring of steel meeting steel, and he whirled in a circle. The Turncloaks and Denton’s brave civilians had followed his lead and halted their horses as well, randomly hacking at the charging soldiers, yet meeting no resistance. None of the running men wearing Karak’s sigil tried to assail them. They aren’t charging. They’re fleeing.

“STOP!”

Hesitantly, his mates ceased lashing out at the soldiers, Big Flick punctuating the stillness when he brought the hilt of his longsword down on a soldier’s head with a clang. All twenty-three sat slack-jawed and bewildered, their horses fidgeting nervously as hundreds of terrified men hurried past. They were like stones in the middle of a surge of water.

“What’s happening?” yelled Tristan over the din.

Patrick grinned, his heart rate quickened.

“He’s winning! Ashhur is winning!” he proclaimed. “Come on, follow me!”

Patrick urged his horse forward, working his way through the fleeing soldiers. Their numbers parted like the knees of a wanton maid after too much wine, allowing them uninhibited passage through the holes in the walls. He could smell blood and smoke in the air, as well as the sickly sweet stench of burning flesh. He crossed through the break in the outer wall, followed closely by his compatriots. He was past the ten-foot chasm between the two walls in the blink of an eye.

When he charged through the second fissure and into Mordeina, he found himself surrounded by absolute madness.

There were people fighting everywhere, tight-knit clusters swinging swords, mauls, axes, rods, and even hands and fists. It was so crowded that the hordes pushed up against both sides of his mare, sealing off any possible escape. A helmeted head collided with his knee, and something heavy shoved at him from the other side. A spray of blood caught him in the face, momentarily blinding him. Invasive fingers grabbed at Winterbone, trying to pry it from his grasp. For a moment he thought he heard someone shout his name, but it was impossible to tell. There was so much conflict, so many voices, that it was as if nothing existed save screams and clashing steel. He glanced about him in a panic, but couldn’t make out anything except the flurry of bodies locked in struggle. He couldn’t see Preston, Big Flick, Edward, Denton-anyone. It was all confusion.

It was like the night he had led the Turncloaks against Karak’s soldiers in the chasm, only a hundred times worse.

Another stream of blood splashed against his cheek, and his mare shrieked in pain. The beast reared back, this time far enough that Patrick tumbled out of the saddle. He threw his arms up as he plummeted, keeping Winterbone high in the air. His back collided with a seemingly solid wall of humanity, but the force of his fall carried him, and those he crashed into, to the ground. Someone gasped-the first distinguishable sound he’d heard since entering the settlement-and he rolled over, his elbow splashing in gore-soaked muck. The man who had broken his fall writhed, face down, arms and legs pounding the sodden ground, weighed down by his heavy plated armor.

Even though a swarm of bodies crushed in on him from above, seeing the struggling soldier caused Patrick’s head to clear. He glanced at his right hand, saw that he still held his sword, his fingers clenched so tightly they had turned white. Quickly, he scampered to his feet, seeking higher ground. As he had learned that night in the chasm, Winterbone was nearly useless in close quarters.

He shoved his way through the throng, stabbing at those in armor to try and keep them at a safe distance. He took a nasty slash to the bare flesh of his left wrist between his vambrace and his mailed glove, but he couldn’t turn enough to see who delivered it. Instead, he put his head down and churned his uneven legs, bulling his way through.

Finally, he reached a gap in the fighting, nearly falling when suddenly there were no obstacles blocking him. Ahead of him was the bunker, but in front of that were two soldiers locked in battle with a Warden with long auburn hair. Patrick recognized him as Ludwig, and he was badly hurt. The soldiers hacked away mercilessly at him, and though Ludwig was much larger than they were, he was not nearly as good with a sword. It was all he could do to bat aside every third blow. Two of the fingers on his left hand were gone, a massive gash yawned on his chest, and innumerable other tiny cuts covered him.

Patrick charged, relishing the freedom of not being crushed by countless bodies, and came down hard with Winterbone. In the clamor, the soldiers never heard him coming. His blade sliced through steel, flesh, and bone alike, severing the arm of one of the men. It flopped uselessly on the ground. He then drove the tip of his sword through the slit in the soldier’s helm, and the man fell backward. The second had turned when he realized his partner no longer fought with him, giving Warden Ludwig a chance to stab him through the neck from behind.

With both soldiers down, yet more approaching, Patrick rushed to the Warden and drove his shoulder into him, forcing the injured being against the outside of the bunker. “Climb, dammit!” he shouted, and Ludwig complied, albeit weakly. Patrick pushed and prodded until the Warden had reached the top of the five-foot curved wall. Only when he disappeared over the other side did Patrick’s fingers find a crevice in the stone. With bodies beginning to flail toward him once more, he pulled himself up.

For a moment he stood atop the bunker and gawked at the carnage, but a second later he began running along the curved surface, slashing at the soldiers standing below. He noticed a Warden with a wide back and thick black hair, carving his way through a group of Karak’s men. Patrick hacked off a soldier’s sword-wielding hand as he tried to climb the bunker, then looked back up at Judarius and smiled. The Warden was a beast with his maul, an animal of single-minded fury. He crushed three skulls before turning around, and when Patrick saw his face, he stopped in his tracks. The Warden was horrific, his jaw dangling, his loose-fitting tan leathers saturated with red. Yet it was his eyes that riveted Patrick. Judarius’s eyes had been green, but now they were pale and glowing slightly. His expression was blank.

That’s when Patrick noticed that he himself was being mostly ignored. He looked this way and that, his eyes growing wider as he took in the battle scene around him. Soldiers were fighting soldiers. Soldiers were fighting men and women whose flesh was every shade from gray to blue. Soldiers were fighting attackers missing one or both of their limbs.

“What the fuck. .?”

Velixar swung Lionsbane, taking half the head off a naked dead woman, and slid to the snow-and-gore-covered ground when five more reached for him. Fingers snagged his cloak, and he lifted his arms, allowing it to be torn from his body. He almost lost Lionsbane in the process, but his grip on the sword’s handle was true. He scampered to his feet, his pendant bouncing against his chest as the undead descended upon the cloak as if he were still in it. Without protection from the elements, the cold hit his sweat-soaked body like an icy wave. He shivered but kept running.

He was almost to Karak when the deity raised his hand and a gush of purple flame and shadow, eight feet wide and spiraling, leapt from his palm. The spinning shaft decimated all in its path, living and dead alike, as it careened toward Ashhur. The God of Justice locked both arms in front of his face and lowered his head, and Karak’s magic hit an invisible wall a few feet in front of him, sending tendrils of destructive energy flying in all direction, killing even more soldiers.

Those soldiers, their bodies smoking but still intact, rose a second later.

“COWARD!” Karak roared.

Velixar reached his chosen god’s side, shoving Lionsbane through the chin of yet another grasping undead. The blade exited the top of its skull with a pop. He yanked it free and turned to Karak. The god sent another magical attack Ashhur’s way, only to see his brother deflect it once more. The anger in the deity’s eyes was so great, Velixar thought his god would set the whole world on fire if it led to Ashhur’s defeat, consequences be damned.

“My Lord!” he screamed.

Karak’s glowing eyes turned to him, and for a moment it seemed the deity might burn him to a cinder. Velixar kept his gaze intent on the god’s, using his elbow to smash away another dead attacker.

“It is lost, my Lord,” he said, his voice ragged and gasping to his own ears.

“It cannot be! I will not let it!” snarled Karak, turning back to Ashhur and sending another blast of energy his way.

“It is, but not forever,” Velixar said. “My Lord, we must fall back. When next we come for him, we will be ready!”

Another undead slammed into Velixar. He kicked the thing to the ground and removed its head with two frustrated hacks.

Karak looked at him once more, his gaze softening. Velixar swore he saw not only rage behind those divine eyes, but embarrassment as well. The deity nodded to him, then leapt forward, gathering twelve grasping, snapping beasts in his arms. He hurled them straight ahead, toppling the hundred now approaching like so many saplings.

“Soldiers of Karak, my brave warriors,” his god called out. “We must retreat. We have failed this day, but we must live to fight again!”

His voice carried throughout the settlement, and the remaining Eastern soldiers turned tail and sprinted for the hole in the wall. Karak placed his hand on Velixar’s shoulder, and the strength that had previously left him returned tenfold. The pendant on his chest pulsed as he slid Lionsbane back into its sheath. Together, the god and the First Man raised a wall of fire, shielding the retreating soldiers from the advancing undead. Grunting, he poured all his anger into the spell, heightening the flames. Finally, the last brave stragglers limped through the gate, and the god and his prophet followed suit, Karak having to duck beneath the jagged opening.

Once outside, Velixar saw thousands of soldiers tramping across the snow-covered valley toward their distant camp, where black smoke billowed. No. The last of their supplies were burning. He shot one last glance behind him, saw the undead pouring out of the gap in the wall, but noticed they didn’t pursue. They stopped the moment they emerged, forming a wall of decaying flesh, their dimly shining eyes staring straight ahead. Not wanting to see any more, Velixar turned away, quickening his pace to keep up with Karak’s much longer strides. Where once there was confidence, frustration now simmered.

“All this time. . for nothing,” Velixar said. “How did this happen? Victory was there, we held it in our hands. . ”

Karak gazed down at him, and the pendant on his chest throbbed.

“I made a mistake, High Prophet,” the god said. “And now all of Dezrel shall suffer for it. I offered mercy, yet only death will suffice for my brother and his people. So be it. If he will turn his own dead into soldiers, then let us make soldiers of his entire kingdom as we burn it to the ground.”

A bright flash came from Patrick’s left, followed by a gust of hot wind that knocked him off the wall. He lost hold of Winterbone and landed on the ground on the other side with a thud, then rolled down into the bunker. His head rattled and he shook it. Lying just in front of him was Warden Ludwig. The Warden’s eyes were open and unblinking, already gone milky in death. Patrick watched in horror as a faint light began to shine deep within those unblinking eyes. The body shuddered once, and Ludwig lifted his head. He looked right at Patrick, though there was no recognition in his gaze. The Warden slowly hauled his body off the cold ground and walked, hunched over, out of the bunker. The flap of flesh on his chest sagged like a panting tongue.

Patrick scampered after him, picking Winterbone up along the way, and watched as Ludwig hopped over the bunker and re-entered the fray. Another bright flash came, momentarily bringing stars to his vision, and he blinked and turned around. There he saw Ashhur, standing not two hundred feet away from him and surrounded by a crowd of bleeding humans and Wardens. Ashhur looked imposing, a scowl on his face and his hair fluttering behind him like golden smoke. The light coming from his eyes was so intense that Patrick couldn’t gaze at it directly. He turned his head slightly and squinted, watching as the deity raised his hand. Another whoosh ensued, and a massive spiral of dark matter detonated not ten feet in front of the god, sending streamers of dissipating energy in all directions. Patrick had to duck before one of those streamers struck him in the side of the head.

“We have failed this day, but we must live to fight again!”

He recognized that voice. How could he not? It had been seared into his brain in the aftermath of the attack on Haven. In a daze, he took a step backward and peered over the low wall. Sure enough, there in the distance he saw Karak, the deity just as imposing as Ashhur in his black armor and with his flaming ethereal sword. The god was backing away through the horde of vicious dead things, fending off dozens of them at a time. And beside him, his eyes alight with crimson, was Jacob Eveningstar. God and man both then lifted their hands, and a massive sheet of flame rose into the air. The flames raced across the ground, becoming a wall all their own, blotting out Patrick’s vision. A good number of the walking dead were set alight, but that didn’t stop their forward momentum. They continued to pursue even though their skin charred and smoked.

Then, not ten minutes later, it was over. The wall of flame fizzled away. A few hundred living soldiers remained within the walls, dashing this way and that, trying to escape any way they could. He even saw a score of them along the far wall to his right, tiny from such a great distance, attempting to climb the staircase. A cluster of men and women wearing burlap chased after them, fists pumping as they shouted. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, for the sound of weeping and moaning drowned out all else.

There were wide patches of muddy earth all around him, littered with discarded bits of armor and even a few wriggling limbs. There were also the corpses of at least two hundred horses out there, somewhere among them his own mare. Yet though the dead horses stayed on the ground, the human corpses persisted in walking. There were thousands of them streaming out the gap in the wall, but they didn’t pursue Karak and his soldiers across the snowy field. Instead, they spread out once they exited the outer wall, lining up in a formation of living death. Patrick felt disgusted just to look at them. . and his horror peaked when he saw Denton hobbling among them, his right arm dangling by a thread, his gait lurching. Patrick closed his eyes. Barclay would be overcome with grief, if the boy still lived.

Finally, he allowed himself to consider the battlefield again. Dazed people were moving about all around him, appearing almost as mindless as the living dead. The wounded were tended to, and he even saw a young man wandering among the numbers of the walking corpses, eyes brimmed with tears as he scanned every face. Patrick turned away from the sight, but in doing so he was forced to look at his childhood home as it sat atop its hill. There was a crowd packed around Manse DuTaureau, more people than he had seen in a single place in all his life. For a moment he wondered if they were cheering or sobbing over what had just transpired, or if they were like Patrick and felt nothing but revulsion.

War makes monsters of us all.

“Fuck that,” Patrick muttered.

He jammed Winterbone into the earth, turned on his heels, and marched toward Ashhur, farther along the bunker. His sorrow bloomed, even though he caught sight of Preston and Edward assisting with the injured. He also saw Tristan, and the youth raised a weary hand to him in greeting. Patrick ignored him and picked up his pace. Just as the soldiers had done when he rode through the walls, the multitude of weary people gave him a wide berth as he walked. When he reached Ashhur, he found the god on one knee, hovering over Master Warden Ahaesarus. Ashhur touched the Master Warden’s chest, his hands lighting up a brilliant white, and Ahaesarus cried out. A chorus of snaps and pops followed, and Patrick watched the Warden’s nearly severed leg gradually stitch back together. There had been many times in the past when Patrick had felt awed by such a spectacle. Now was not one of those times.

When the deed was done, three Wardens helped Ahaesarus to his feet and supported him as he limped away. Other men and women began approaching the god, but immediately retracted when they spotted Patrick coming up from the rear. Ashhur turned around and looked at him. The deity wasn’t smiling. In fact, he looked more exhausted than he had back in Haven.

“My son,” Ashhur said.

“Your Grace,” Patrick said softly. He spoke his next words without thought. “Does that name even fit any longer?”

“How dare you?” shouted an injured Warden flanking Ashhur. Patrick recognized Judah, one of Ahaesarus’s closest confidants.

“Leave, Judah,” the deity said.

“I cannot, your Grace. He has-”

“Leave.”

Judah, his eyes showing hurt, gradually bowed and backed away. Ashhur turned his attention back to Patrick.

“What in the ever-living fuck did you do?” Patrick asked coldly.

“I did what was necessary,” answered Ashhur, even more coldly. “There are no more rules now, my son. I must protect my children.”

“This. . ” Patrick waved his hand at the undead streaming out of the wall. “This is an abomination.”

“Is it any greater an abomination than the thousands of my dead children Karak has laid at my feet?”

Patrick felt his righteous fury beginning to falter.

“But at what price?” he asked. “What of allowing your children to mourn their dead? There is supposed to be peace after death. That’s what you always told us. Not. . not this!”

“Their souls are safe in the afterlife,” said Ashhur. “I have raised their earthly bodies and nothing more. What you witness are empty shells.”

“But what about your children? What of their grief? How do you think they feel watching the corpses of their loved ones strolling about? Did you think of that?”

The deity looked disappointed. “One cannot grieve if one is dead.”

Patrick went to retort but held his tongue. Good point. Finally, after a long pause, he said, “But what happens when Karak returns? You know he will. Will your army of corpses help us then?”

“Karak will not have a chance to return. We will pursue him, even if we must chase him all the way to his own pathetic kingdom.” For a moment, it seemed like smoke curled out of Ashhur’s eyes, a sight that made Patrick shiver. “His army is in shambles, his lines broken.”

“But how can we, with all we’ve lost?” asked Patrick. He glanced over his shoulder at the decimation of Mordeina to prove his point.

Finally, Ashhur’s expression softened, and his massive fingers wrapped around Patrick’s shoulder.

“It is true we have lost much,” he told him wearily. “But should we allow my brother to gather himself and come back at us, we will lose everything. Karak began this war, and I will end it, even if I must empty every grave in all of Dezrel.”