Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 42

That coldhearted cunt,” Turock grumbled. The older spellcaster bounced with each of his horse’s strides, his mane of wavy red-blond hair bobbing on his shoulders. He clutched his pointed green hat in his lap, twisting it as if trying to squeeze the last drop of juice from a lemon. “She has my children in there! How dare she keep them away from me? Icy little bitch. It probably snows when she pisses. I’m glad my wife doesn’t take after her.”

Rachida Gemcroft rolled her eyes and shook her head, irritated. She had heard this same rant, over and over again, during the five days since they’d been denied entrance into Mordeina.

Turock continued his tirade while Quester Billings trotted up on the other side of her, grinning. “You want me to silence him?”

“Heard that,” said Turock, glaring over at the handsome young sellsword. “I’d like to see you try. You don’t want to know what happened to the last man who trifled with me.”

“Testy, aren’t we?” declared Pox Jon, who rode to Quester’s right.

Turock glowered.

“Enough, all of you,” Rachida said. “It’s like riding with children.”

She snapped the reins, forcing her steed up to a canter. Her frustration boiled over, and she let out a long groan. Even imagining shoving a shank into Peytr’s groin did nothing to lift her mood.

They had taken a circuitous route to Mordeina from Drake, sticking close to the mountain chain bordering the Gihon and heading inland only when the forest of Dezerea came within view. In all, the trip had taken thirteen days, and though the spellcasters’ gemstones had kept them well fed and the weather grew warmer, they still needed to sleep out in the elements, and the anticipation of what lay ahead of them had everyone on edge.

Yet that angst had not been justified, for when they arrived at the settlement itself, they found Mordeina surrounded by a gigantic double wall that put the one around Port Lancaster to shame. Even Turock was awestruck, staring up at the sixty-foot-tall wall of gray stone, and he was speechless for the first time since the journey started. Instead of Karak’s Army, they found an empty valley whose grass and trees, now bare due to the early thaw, were brown and dead. Instead of warfare, they found silence. Instead of being greeted as saviors, the people behind the wall turned them away.

No matter what Rachida told the black-haired man and the rather short Warden who had confronted her on the other side of the portcullis, they would not let her group inside. Even when Turock came forward, confident he would be able to sway the man he called Howard to open the gates, they were greeted with indifference.

“The men you travel with are emblazoned with Karak’s sigil,” Howard had told them, and the short Warden nodded in agreement. “After what our people have gone through, the sight would not be a welcomed one.”

No promise to strip the men of their armor would change their minds. The insults and threats Turock had lashed them with certainly hadn’t helped either. And so they had ridden away from the settlement, frustration steadily progressing through their ranks. Only Talon Blackwolfe and the other two hundred of Karak’s soldiers that had joined their cause up north kept a level head throughout the ordeal.

Arguments abounded. Turock and the spellcasters wanted to head back north to their people; the sellswords wished to return to Neldar and their masters’ employ; and the two hundred turncoats called for pursuing Karak to the east. It was Talon’s men who won that argument, as they were the ones who sided with Rachida. She had stood proudly before her eight hundred men and told them-told, not asked-that they would be staying the course. She reminded the sellswords that they would be burned as blasphemers should they return to Neldar as known betrayers; Turock and his spellcasters she persuaded by promising them their pick of the treasures deep within the Isles of Gold. Peytr might not be happy with the deal, but then again, after she dealt with her plotting husband, he would never object to anything again.

And so they continued on the course Karak and Ashhur had taken, riding through a razed landscape, only to be thwarted at the Wooden Bridge. The bridge was in tatters, its ropes snapped, half its planks dangling. There was no way to get eight hundred men and three hundred horses across. Going back north was out of the question, for the way was too rough and slow, which left them with only two options: Circle around Lake Cor, which would bring them into the Dezren Forest, a place Talon Blackwolfe had informed them was under the control of Karak’s Army; or march south toward Stonewood, where the elves were supposedly more docile. Again they fell into arguments, and once more Rachida was forced to put her foot down.

They would head south toward Stonewood Forest and attempt to make passage where the Corinth River was shallow enough for the horses to cross without drowning.

Now here they were, on the cusp of Stonewood itself, and the only saving grace was the warm southern air. Turock continued his outburst, throwing out curses that made even Quester blush. Rachida rode ahead to get away from him, bringing her horse to a gallop as she neared the huge trees bordering the forest. She sensed eyes on her and felt ill at ease. The only path curved inland, away from the river, and though Turock assured her that the path bent back to the east once they entered the trees, she felt naked without those flowing waters to dive into should trouble arise. The only thing to her right here was a bank of tall trees that sat at the edge of a field, two hundred yards away.

When she was far enough ahead, she turned her horse around just in time to see Turock angrily flick his wrist while yelling, “Cunt!” A tiny fireball zipped from his fingertips and singed the grass bordering the beaten path they treaded. Young Decker, Pox Jon’s second in command, quickly snuffed out the fire. Rachida looked on as Talon and eight of his men began to sneak up on the spellcaster from behind. Behind them, Turock’s students noticed this happening and themselves began to approach, scowling. It would be all-out war between them if she didn’t do something.

She drew one of her Twins and urged her horse to gallop toward them.

“All of you, enough!” she shouted, holding the sword out wide. Turock looked her way, glaring. Talon obediently halted his movements. The other spellcasters, all twenty-two of them, pulled up before they collided with the soldiers’ rears. At the sight of such a display, many in the sellsword divisions laughed.

Rachida rode sidelong up to the angry and flamboyant man. Turock puffed out his chest as if to challenge her, which Rachida answered by swiping at him with her sword at such speed that he didn’t have time to react. The blade flashed against his cheek, creating a thin red line. The man flinched, his hand coming up to touch the wound as a dollop of blood dripped onto his bright green robe.

“You bitch,” he said, eyes wide.

Rachida leaned forward in her saddle, resting the flat edge of her blade against Turock’s neck. “Call me bitch one more time, and I slice your throat. Trust me, as of now nothing would bring me greater pleasure.”

Turock’s expression suddenly brightened, and he forced a smile. “Why, dear Rachida, I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You best not.”

“And don’t think to cast some sort of spell, either,” said Quester with a wink. “My man Pox Jon over there is deadly with throwing knives. He can bury four in you before you get the words out of your throat. Isn’t that right, Jon?”

Pox Jon nodded, reached into his belt, and pulled out three stumpy blades. “Got a few right here, matter of fact.”

Turock visibly swallowed, looking all around him. His fingers started twitching, and sweat pooled on his collar, even though the temperature during this early afternoon was mild. To Rachida he seemed ridiculous; this was a man of Paradise, surrounded by soldiers from the kingdom that was now, technically, the enemy, and yet it was as if he had just then realized that fact. For an obviously brilliant man, he was rather stupid.

“I. . I’m sorry,” he told Rachida in a low voice.

“Say it louder,” demanded Talon.

Rachida held up a hand. “No, that is fine.” She sheathed her Twin and sidled closer to Turock, leaning in. Even though her sword was secure, he still seemed wary. “Listen: I don’t wish to hurt you. But we are about to enter Dezren territory. I don’t know how relations are between elf and human in Paradise, but it is chilly at best in the east. So please, let us not attract undue attention to ourselves while we tread through their land. Once we cross the Corinth, you can go on all you like. Do we have a deal?”

She stuck out her hand. Turock hesitantly took it, his head cocked oddly to the side.

“Deal,” he said, though it sounded like his thoughts were far away.

“Good. Now let’s go.”

The spellcaster cleared his throat. “Uh, one more thing, Rachida my dear.”

“What?”

“What’s happening over there?”

His eyes glassed over as he pointed across the field at the thickly packed forest that bordered the Corinth River. Rachida followed his gaze, seeing movement within the trees, the branches swaying, and the underbrush rustling. It was probably just a wolf or an elk or-

It wasn’t a wolf, or an elk, or any other animal for that matter. Instead, a tall elf, with deeply bronzed flesh and long, satiny hair, burst from the foliage. He was a Quellan and therefore very far from home. The elf ran with abandon, his arms and legs pumping vigorously as he crossed the field of swaying reeds. Rachida’s hand fell to her sword, preparing to draw it should the elf attack, but she noticed that he brandished no weapons. He was running strangely, as well, leaping into the air every few moments and waving his arms at them.

Sensing her men tense behind her, Rachida raised her hand and signaled with a fist.

“Hold!” she ordered.

The elf was on them in an instant, and as he passed them by, dashing through the ranks of soldiers and sellswords, Rachida heard screaming, endless streams of syllables that were alien to her ears. The sound of his shouts elapsed as fast as he did, like the screech of a falcon as it soared through the sky and disappeared over the horizon. The men parted for him, allowing the elf to sprint across the opposite field and disappear into the massive trees of the Stonewood Forest. When he was gone, Rachida gawked at her sellswords, confused.

“What in the name of the gods was that?” asked a bewildered Pox Jon.

“An elf,” Quester told him.

“No shit.”

“He was saying something,” said Rachida. “What was it? I couldn’t make it out.”

“Sounded like nonsense to me,” Talon said, trotting over toward the spot where the elf disappeared. “Just gibberish.”

“It wasn’t gibberish,” said Turock. Rachida turned toward the absolutely terrified-looking spellcaster. It made her uneasy to see him so. What’s more, she now heard a steady thrum, one that vibrated her saddle.

“What did he say?” she asked.

“Noro, nuru e taryet,” the spellcaster said. “It’s Elvish for ‘Run, death has arrived.’ ”

As if on cue, a horribly loud trumpeting rang out, causing most of the eight hundred men gathered on the road to cover their ears. Countless birds squawked and flew from the treetops in bunches. Quester clammed up and actually appeared frightened for the first time since Rachida had met him. Rachida’s head whipped back around, and she looked on as the tall trees to the east began to sway, their budding branches snapping like so much kindling. Her horse whinnied nervously and then bucked.

Then, in a flash of dust and an explosion of dirt, the tree line exploded outward. What rumbled out of the forest was huge. Menacing. Evil. Impossible.

And it was coming their way.

“Flee!” shouted Rachida. Her mind blank with fear, she spun her panicked steed around and hastened into the forest in the other direction, followed by the soldiers and sellswords, while death closed in from behind.