Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 3

It was dusk, and Patrick DuTaureau was busy demonstrating to a group of youngsters how best to parry a sidelong chop. They practiced in a small field to the left of Celestia’s giant tree, where Mordeina’s outer-wall gate had been smashed by Karak’s fireball from the sky. The gate on the inner wall, positioned seventy feet to the right of its demolished sister, was still intact. They’d been at it for over an hour when the muted sound of a blaring horn sounded. His students were young, greener than grass in the middle of summer, and their reaction to the horn showed just how green they were. They dropped their practice sticks to their sides and glanced around, confused.

To Patrick, though, its meaning was clear, its sound painfully familiar. Karak’s Army was launching another attack.

Someone tugged on his shirtsleeve, and Patrick glanced down to see one of his students staring at him, eyes bulging with fear. The boy was no older than twelve, and stocky, with red-blond hair and dark freckles. The rough-spun shift covering him was filthy, appearing to be splotchy black in the murk of the setting sun. He was the only of his class who remained; the others had already fled away from the wall, most likely searching for someplace to hide.

“Mister Patrick, what do I do?” the boy asked, his voice quavering.

Patrick knelt down, the hump in his back sending shooting pain up his spine and his knees popping. “Vinsen,” he said, “have you been practicing your archery like you were supposed to?”

The boy nodded.

“How many targets did you hit this morning?”

“Six.”

“Out of how many?”

Vinsen’s lips curled up, and his brow furrowed in thought, before he replied, “Thirty.”

Patrick let out a deep sigh. No way good enough, but it will have to do.

“Go there,” he said, pointing through a gap in the rushing bodies to where one of the Wardens stood behind a stone barricade at the base of a hill, handing out recently strung bows and quivers filled with crudely fletched arrows. “Grab a bow and join the others on the line. You will be our last defense. If Karak’s bastards get through. . ”

“Put an arrow in them?” asked Vinsen, a blank look on his face.

“Yes, that would be better than dying. Now go.”

Patrick rustled the boy’s hair, and Vinsen sprinted off through the throng of dirty and scampering people. Patrick ran in the opposite direction. His every muscle ached, and his misshapen head throbbed. The burgeoning evening was cool, and without his armor on, his light clothing did little to protect him from the onset of cold, making him shiver. For the millionth time in his life, he wondered why he, the son of Ashhur’s first daughter Isabel, should feel so much pain. What good was agelessness if each day was filled with physical torment? It just didn’t seem fair.

Blame your father, the voice of his inner hatred said. He made you this way, so heap that responsibility on his head.

He shook off his impure thoughts and hurried behind a group of five Wardens climbing one of the slender stairways. The Wardens were each a full head taller than him, and their long, elegant legs were able to scale two steps at a time. In a matter of moments, they were far above him, nearing the top of the wall, while those behind Patrick urged him to pick up the pace. At one point he nearly lost his balance and fell, but he righted himself just as he was about to slip off the edge, even as bodies collided with his backside.

Amazingly, he realized that was the first time his heart rate had risen above normal since the horn started blaring. Falling and breaking my neck scares me, but the possibility of death by sword doesn’t? He shook his head. Something isn’t right in this head of mine.

Once he reached the top of the wall, that fear finally came. He gazed across the valley at the army Karak had massed a mile away. The countless soldiers were like some black disease that had momentarily stagnated, hovering there atop a distant hill, seemingly still in the dimness, yet buzzing with frenetic energy. Patrick was so focused on the sight of them that he almost stepped off the plank connecting the inner wall with the outer. If not for one of the thick limbs of Celestia’s tree, which extended out over the plank, he would have fallen.

When he reached the ramparts of the outer wall, all frenetic energy seemed to die, and his nerves settled. Warden and human alike were behind the parapets, with bows at the ready, peering between merlons at the valley below, a sight that even a few short days ago would have seemed impossible. Warden Judarius had joined Karak’s former soldier Preston Ender in preparing the settlement’s defenses, and the discipline they inspired was a sight to behold. There had to be ninety individuals on the wall, and none of them so much as breathed or shook or whimpered, even when the warhorn sounded once more. Judarius paced behind them, pleading for calm, his long black hair bouncing with every step he took. It was a display of restraint, of order, that would have made even Karak proud. Patrick shuddered at the thought.

He placed his hand on the shoulder of a sandy-haired teen wearing tattered breeches. The youngster glanced behind him, visibly started as he gazed at Patrick’s ugliness, and then dutifully stepped aside. Patrick sighed and leaned between two merlons, peering at the dead land below him, squinting to adjust his eyes to the coming darkness. He heard the whine of wood scraping against metal as he watched a mobile mountain slowly approaching. It was more than halfway between the awaiting army and the protective wall, flanked on either side by at least a hundred armored men who marched with their curved shields raised high. The wheeled tower they guarded was nearly as high as the wall itself. Soldiers stood atop it, hiding behind shields as Karak’s banners fluttered above their heads. Patrick reached over his shoulder and behind his back, but his hand grasped at nothing. He wore no armor, and he’d given his massive sword, Winterbone, to one of the new, young stable hands for safekeeping when he’d begun his lessons. Stupid, he thought. Stupid, foolish Patrick.

The warhorn blew again, and the siege tower rolled ever closer.

“I’d give my left nut for a bow and quiver,” he called out, not taking his eyes off the approaching death tower, and a few moments later one was handed to him. He nocked an arrow and leveled it, feeling how unsteady the bow felt in his grip. Although he was a natural with a sword, he was a less than proficient archer, perhaps no better than even young Vinsen. He closed his eyes. Ashhur, please let at least one of my arrows find purchase in the flesh of my enemy. The contradiction of his prayer was not lost on him.

Someone nudged him, and Patrick glanced to his right to see Preston Ender there, grinning at him, his bowstring lax. The older man’s gray eyes twinkled in the coming darkness, his peppered hair and beard trimmed and proper. In that moment he looked like a stately version of his deceased brother, Corton, who had taught Patrick how to wield a sword in the swamps of Haven. Preston’s armor, which had once been black and adorned with Karak’s roaring lion, was now a shade of off-white, cured in an acidic mixture and repainted to show the man’s new allegiance to Ashhur. He had even stenciled a crude mountain to replace the old sigil on his breastplate. Preston and his band of seven young warriors, all formerly soldiers in Karak’s Army, had been lovingly dubbed the Turncloaks by their fellow defenders on the wall.

“Something amusing about all this?” asked Patrick.

Preston chuckled. “Of course. You don’t see it?”

“See what?”

“That whatever Karak has planned, it’s not going to work,” said a voice on the other side of him. It was Tristan, another of the Karak Turncloaks under Preston’s charge. The boy was only fourteen, but the confidence with which he carried himself while in armor made him seem much older.

Patrick frowned, his insides churning.

“Why not?” he asked, trying to keep himself in the moment. Ever since Tristan had told him about the murder of his beloved sister Nessa, he found it difficult to look at the boy without feeling dismay start to darken his soul.

Thankfully, it was Preston who answered him. “They aren’t ready for an attack. That single tower they’re pushing toward us is nowhere near enough to overtake these walls. Ten men at most can stand atop it at once, and they’ll be hampered, able to do little more than push forward. Even as raw as our defenders are, we can surely take out ten men at a time.”

“So why sound the horn? Why come at us at all?”

“Boredom, maybe,” Preston said with a shrug. “Or perhaps a way to test the strength of the towers they’re building. Who knows?”

Patrick leaned between the merlons once more. The tower was now only a quarter-mile away, and he could hear the clank and clink of the armored men marching beside it.

“Ten men at a time we can handle,” he said. “But what happens if Karak himself is one of those ten? You think we’ll still hold?”

Before either Tristan or Preston could answer, a commanding voice shouted from somewhere farther down the wall: “Everyone quiet!” Patrick glanced up, saw Ahaesarus was now on the wall as well, the Master Warden pacing alongside Judarius. The family’s all here. Patrick nodded to Preston, nudged Tristan without looking at the boy, and then hunkered down to await the inevitable.

It took a maddeningly long time for the tower to get within reach of their arrows, and by that time Patrick could hear the soldiers pushing the giant tower along, huffing and moaning as they strained against its hefty weight. Those marching chanted, “Karak! Karak!” with each step they took.

“Those to the left fix on the soldiers atop the tower; those to the right aim for the men on the ground,” Ahaesarus instructed when the tower was a mere hundred feet away, looming in front of them like an obelisk from the heavens. The whisper and creak of ninety bowstrings being pulled taut came next. The two Wardens continued to pace along the wall walk.

“Hold,” Judarius said, and suddenly it seemed the tower’s painfully slow progress was now far, far too rapid for Patrick’s liking. “Hold. . hold. . let loose!”

The arrows descended on the marching soldiers, slowing their approach, but those that pushed the tower were hidden behind its massive wooden frame. Arrows ricocheted off shields and armor, only a handful of the ninety or so loosed finding gaps and piercing flesh. As quickly as the first round was spent, more bolts were nocked, and at Judarius’s command the next volley launched. Patrick aimed unsteadily at an older soldier, of some importance he hoped due to the man’s lion-headed helm. His arrow plunked meekly into the ground just left of the man. Patrick grunted, reached into his quiver, and nocked yet another arrow.

The tower inched ever closer, now only twenty feet away and swaying. Those atop it stood from behind their shields and loosed their own arrows at the defenders. Others threw spears. Patrick and his brethren ducked behind the merlons as the bolts came flying toward them, arrows expertly crafted with sharp steel heads that flew with much greater accuracy than their own. Patrick groaned as an arrow flew through the gap and snapped against the inner wall. A spear wobbled overhead. Once more he wished he’d brought Winterbone with him.

“Archers back!” he heard Ahaesarus cry. “Spellcasters, forward! Focus on the tower!”

Patrick glanced to his rear, saw that during the confusion more defenders had gathered behind him, including a number of the spellcasters Master Warden Ahaesarus had brought back with him from Drake. Giving them room, he watched as they approached the parapet. Once there, all fifteen lifted their hands, words of magic on their lips. Small fireballs and bolts of electricity flew from their fingertips, and the crack and pop of the attacks striking the wooden structure sounded over the shouts of the soldiers below. A couple of stray arrows came flying at them, and one of the spellcasters-Bordo, if Patrick remembered his name correctly-took a bolt in the shoulder and collapsed moaning. Judarius grabbed him by his tunic and yanked him out of the way of the other defenders. The screams outside the wall intensified.

“Their archers are down! Finish them!” shouted the Master Warden, but it was difficult to hear him over the shrieking.

Patrick scampered back to his feet and nocked another arrow while the spellcasters ducked down to gather their strength. When he peered through the merlons, he saw that the tower leaned to one side, part of its base engulfed with flames. Two burning men tumbled off the side, crashing into a few of those who were foolishly attempting to put out the spreading fires. Patrick focused on them and released another arrow.

It took the spellcasters a half-minute before they were ready again, and now without fear of arrows they climbed atop the merlons and hurled their magical attacks, the dancing flames making them look like the odd beasts that were carved into the outer walls of Peytr Gemcroft’s estate in Haven. Thinking of Haven brought, for the briefest of moments, a memory of Rachida, the merchant’s wife, and the child he had supposedly placed in her belly. That line of thinking quickly vanished when one of his arrows finally found its mark, punching through the cheek of a burning man and dropping him to the dead and withered ground.

The burning tower collided with the wall. Patrick backed away, tossing aside his bow. Without Winterbone, he was defenseless. Soldiers scurried onto the top platform, looking frightened and angry at once. Those with pikes and swords shoved Patrick aside, rushing to the edge of the parapet just as the soldiers began vaulting over the wall. Spear tips crunched into armor, blades clanged off steel plating and chainmail. Grunts and shouts filled the air, as well as the crackle of flames. Still the soldiers rushed up to the top of the tower, attempting to leap onto the outer wall walk.

Patrick’s heart raced as the throng of defenders pushed him back toward the chasm between the walls. Swiveling his head, he saw Preston and the other young Turncloaks battling the soldiers. A few of them collapsed back onto the tower as others sailed over the side of the wall and fell sixty feet to their deaths. Five of them had succeeded in avoiding death, and now they clashed with those on the wall walk, mere feet from where Patrick was standing. Patrick glanced quickly to his right and saw one of Mordeina’s defenders standing there, a sword held limp in his hands while his eyes bulged with fright. The man was shaking. Without another thought, Patrick snatched the sword from the man and shoved him aside.

The blade was short and a third the weight of Winterbone, the steel not nearly as durable, but it would have to do. Finally armed, he shoved his way into the conflict. The Turncloaks and Wardens had the five who’d gotten onto the wall walk surrounded, so Patrick joined those trying to keep the soldiers on the flaming tower at bay. He jostled and thrust his way to the front of the line, the sword singing in his fists. He stepped between two merlons just as a soldier attempted to squeeze his way through, bringing the blade down on his head. The soldier’s helm dented when the sword struck it with a twang, and the man stumbled backward, teetering off to the side, his foot missing the edge of the tower, sending him plummeting to his death. With a grunt, Patrick drove the sword forward, trying to impale the next man in line. That one fell aside, and the one behind him came down hard with a maul, striking the merlon to Patrick’s left, sending chunks of stone into his face. Patrick reeled backward, grabbing hold of the merlon to keep from falling into the crush of bodies behind him. In that moment he peered up, and his heart nearly leapt into his throat.

Karak was approaching, the deity ambling across the dead valley, followed by a massive phalanx of soldiers.

“Shit.”

It seemed the spellcasters from Drake saw as well, and they unleashed a fresh barrage of flame against the siege tower. The light was blinding, and amid its roar Patrick heard a loud creak, followed by a series of heavy cracks. Those atop the tower, those trying to force their way onto the wall walk, teetered along with the tall wooden construction. They dropped their weapons and held their arms out to their sides to keep their balance, but it was no use. The siege tower crumbled in an inferno of red and yellow light, swallowing those standing atop it and crushing those still lingering beneath. The remaining soldiers on the ground dropped their shields and fled the trailing barrage of arrows and magic, staggering across a dead valley that was now illuminated by the crackling flames engulfing the destroyed tower. Karak stopped his march halfway across the valley, the glow of his eyes dimming as the god squinted.

Cheers erupted from Mordeina’s defenders, each and every man standing up tall and beating his chest in victory. Patrick was caught up in the moment, embracing anyone who came within reach of him, and in the thrill no one seemed put off by his deformities. Even the normally stoic Judarius had a hint of a smile on his face as he worked his way down the line, congratulating his charges. Preston clapped Patrick on the back, and Tristan wrapped him up in a mighty hug. Though it did seem strange to feel so much elation over the deaths of nearly one hundred men, Patrick thought it beat the alternative. We could all be dead instead.

His delight waned when he spotted Ahaesarus standing on top of a merlon, not taking part in the celebration. The Master Warden’s expression was dour, the roaring flames giving his flesh a frightening, almost demonic tint. Patrick shrugged off one of the spellcasters who was trying to embrace him. Wedging his foot into the nook between merlons, he pulled himself up until he stood next to the Warden. Night was fully upon the land now, and everything beyond the dying flames coming from the destroyed tower was a deep blackness against a slightly less black foreground. Karak had turned about and was leading his phalanx back to the camp.

“Why so glum?” he asked, hoping Ahaesarus would shudder and begin smiling. “We won.”

Ahaesarus gestured toward the campfires of their enemy.

“We killed barely a hundred men and lost twenty of our own,” he said. “Including a caster from Drake and a fellow Warden, Castiel. Tell me, Patrick. . which of our armies is better trained, and which can better withstand such losses of skilled men?”

Patrick frowned, looked back across the tens of thousands of skilled soldiers arrayed against them.

“Well,” he mumbled. “When you put it that way. . ”