Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 48

Castle gates didn’t exist. All that mattered was Ashhur. He would assail the deity while Karak remained inside the castle, waiting for the moment Ashhur was near defeat before emerging to finish him off.

He reached into Karak’s deep well, siphoning the god’s power as he had done many times before. Drawing upon the fount of knowledge of the demon inside him, he reached across time and space, deciphering ancient spells and incantations, building up his inner reserves, imprinting them onto his brain. He cast out a wide web, drawing energy from not only the God of Order but the God of Justice as well. I am the child of two gods. I am the child of ALL gods!

Velixar’s body thrummed with energy, the very air around him growing unstable with charged particles, as if his tiny pocket of creation existed wholly separate from the world on which he stood. Electricity caused the pendant around his neck to vibrate. Thunderclouds billowed before his eyes, lightning crashed. Never before had he swallowed this much power. His nerve endings were on fire, pushing well past the threshold of pain. He ignored a speck of cowardice, which cried, It is too much-too much! For Velixar knew it was never too much. The demon whose name he had taken had told him so.

He closed his eyes, and the labyrinth of magic opened up. Millions upon millions of intersecting lines, like dust motes flittering through multiple shafts of light, became clear. For the first time Velixar understood, truly understood, the nature of the universe, the connection between all things, the web Celestia had woven, built up and over those that had come before, stretching all the way back to the beginning of time itself.

And in the middle of it all stood Karak and Ashhur, faulty vessels of once-powerful cosmic entities, entitled to the power of the universe but restrained, limited and made solid, by singular ideals.

It was Ashhur he focused on, illuminating the filaments of living energy that connected the deity to his multitude of marching corpses, bringing them to the forefront of the web. With the secret revealed, he leapt forth, snagging each of the threads in his own ever-growing web, pumping his influence into them.

The Beast of a Thousand Faces had once commanded an army of the undead, now so would he, even if he had to rip control from a god to do so.

He felt Ashhur’s pain as his energy traveled along the ethereal filaments and surged into the god, contaminating his essence. The thread doubled in width as Velixar and the deity fought over control, but he couldn’t sever Ashhur’s connection. The undead stopped moving, the contradictory orders passed along the invisible threads locking them in place.

They struggled, god and man-turned-god, the tide shifting one way then the other, then rolling back again. Ashhur suffered, the toll of his weakened state made all the more horrific by the constant push and pull. Velixar felt none of that; he was beyond pain. Though he knew his soul was expanding far beyond what should have been possible, he felt nothing but the exhilaration of conflict, of power, the thrill of driving a god to his knees.

Potency continued to pulse into him. The cosmic dust of the universe seeped out of his pores. Velixar expelled more and more of himself, a conduit draining energy from one source and shoving it into another. Ashhur was falling, failing, growing weaker by the moment, but the deity wouldn’t surrender. Velixar grinned, his hair lashing about his face, and poured as much as he possibly could into the spell. The threads binding the undead swelled, became volatile. It was then that Ashhur did relinquish control, and Velixar withdrew in horror. The energy he had hurled in an attempt to thwart the deity instead surged into the undead in a single, violent current. The corpses expanded as the force infused them, their every particle alive with more power than their frail forms could hold. The bodies exploded, filling the afternoon sky with torrents of blood and bits of bone.

The energy snapped back into Velixar, causing him to recoil from its force. His knees buckled, but he didn’t fall. The pain returned. His view of the web crumbled, revealing the battle that still raged, the combatants bathed in the falling blood of the undead. But still he felt vital, he felt strong. And then Ashhur stood from the swarm of battle, himself bathed in blood. The deity beat back the Judges, who attacked him on sight, and then bellowed to the heavens.

“KARAK, SHOW YOURSELF!”

“You will only face the true god of the land if you prove yourself worthy!” Velixar called out. The soldiers who had been guarding him, including the Lord Commander, scattered.

The deity leveled his gaze at him. “Jacob, stand aside. You do not frighten me.”

“I am Velixar now,” he shot back, laughing. “And honestly, my Lord, I should frighten you. Even the gods trembled before the beast.”

There were thousands of people between he and Ashhur, and Velixar again drew on the endless pit of strength, creating a violent wave of dark energy that threw everyone, both friend and foe alike, into the air as if they were scraps of parchment caught by a gale-force wind. When it was done, an expanse of bloodstained cobbles stretched out before him, he standing on one end and Ashhur at the other. Those tossed aside, the ones who were capable enough stood up and began fighting once more.

Ashhur held out his hand, and his ethereal sword grew from nothingness. The god then ran forward, streamers of blood trailing behind him, the glowing blade held above his head, ready to cleave him in two.

Velixar laughed as he reached back inside, tapping into Karak’s might. His power doubled, further pushing against the boundary of his physical form. Ashhur thought him unarmed; the deity didn’t realize that to Velixar, every corpse, every puddle of blood, every bit of bone, was a weapon.

The pools of crimson lining the open space shimmered. Dark, oily vines shot out of them, wrapping around Ashhur’s legs, his waist, his arms, his head. The god was a mere twenty feet away when his momentum stopped, the bloodvines growing more elastic and potent with each word Velixar spat from his mouth. Ashhur grunted, trying to snap the tendrils, but every broken one was replaced by another, and then another, until practically the whole of the deity’s form was wrapped in their pulsating, meaty limbs. Ashhur dropped to his knees. Soldiers skirmishing close by, sensing an opportunity, rushed the struggling god, stabbing at him with swords not strong enough to even scratch Ashhur’s armor. Some jumped on his back, trying to gouge the deity’s neck, but their blades scraped off his shimmering flesh.

Velixar’s fingers worked quickly, twisting into rune after rune. The soldiers attacking Ashhur, all twenty of them, screamed at once, their bodies bulging within their armor as they were lifted into the air. The High Prophet of Karak then flipped his hand over, and the men’s insides came pouring out their mouths. Their bones crunched and pulverized, creating tiny shards that ejected along with the spray of blood and minced organs. When it was done, their armor clanked down to the cobbles, filled with empty husks of flesh. The mess of blood, viscera, and bone began to swirl around the fraught deity, growing faster with each passing second. Velixar laughed and laughed, shoving as much power as he could into the smallest fragments of matter. The rotating cone closed around Ashhur, squeezing him. Smoke rose from the top of the funnel as charged blood particles singed his godly flesh; the hardened bits of bone pricked him like a million tiny needles. Velixar brought his hands together slowly, attempting to crush the deity, but the resistance was great. Ashhur bellowed, his sword slicing upward through the wall of blood and bone that crushed in on him. The spell broke. Once more the power snapped back into Velixar, knocking him back a step.

Ashhur tore the remaining bloodvines off him, scowling as he slowly rose to his feet. Velixar gritted his teeth and cursed, eyes flitting across the arena of war until he caught sight of what he was looking for: a pair of giant bodies covered with bloodstained fur, struggling to stand amid the chaos after being walloped by a god.

“Kayne, Lilah, to me!” Velixar shouted, just as Ashhur let out a cry and brought his sword down with all his might. Velixar raised a globe of shadow and purple fire around himself. When Ashhur’s sword struck the outer edge of the sphere, the blade dug in, sending out geysers of flame that singed the god’s armor. Yet still Ashhur pressed against the sphere, buckling it, cracking it.

Velixar battled against the force of the deity as best he could, driven to his knees beneath that brutal strength. He then saw the two Judges limp out of the mayhem. Velixar squeezed his eyes shut, confident that his shield would hold for a time, and transferred energy from himself to the lions. They shuddered, dropped to their bellies, and then stood up once more. When they took their next steps, neither was limping. Kayne roared and Lilah followed suit.

Ashhur glanced behind him, then back at Velixar, his face a mask of rage that appeared and disappeared between wisps of shadow and jets of flame.

“They aren’t enough,” the god said, his words grinding into Velixar’s skull.

“I know,” Velixar retorted through clenched teeth.

The strength he held, while great, was inadequate. He had to dive deeper into the well, find a new source of power. Placing one hand on the ground, he closed his eyes and concentrated, felt the burning heart of Dezrel buried deep beneath the soil, the fragment of Celestia herself. Who needs the Black Spire when you have the power of a god? A cackle escaped his lips as he focused on that energy, on that massive blazing mass, drawing its power up through the bedrock and into him. His eyes bulged from his head, and his skin felt on fire, so quickly did the transfer come. Outstretching both arms toward the approaching lions, he poured it into them.

The lions fell back on their haunches, bellowing. Warriors from both sides scurried away from their writhing forms. Ashhur ceased attempting to break through the shield and spun around.

Velixar looked on in wonder, feeling the inferno of Dezrel’s everlasting heart as he consumed it. That same inferno now raged in the Judges, burning them, altering them, improving them. The lions’ fur began to smoke, smoldering away in a flash of white light. The seams in their flesh split, leaking magma that melted the cobbles beneath them. The flesh itself became like stone, black and scorched like the onyx statues guarding the portcullis behind him. Men screamed. The lions’ teeth and claws became like black diamonds as they writhed.

When it was over, the smoking forms of the Judges rolled over and stood, shaking their heads like dogs shedding water. Kayne took a thunderous step forward, the blood on the cobbles boiling where his paw landed. His mane was a ring of fire. Lilah opened her maw and roared. Both lions then swiveled their heads toward Ashhur, flames raging in their eyes, their nostrils, their mouths.

“The impure god,” Kayne said, his voice like a boulder tumbling down a mountainside.

“The bringer of chaos,” added Lilah.

The fiery Judges leapt at Ashhur. The god slashed with his sword, batting the male aside, sending chunks of volcanic rock from the lion’s body where his blade struck. Lilah bounded at the deity from the other side, her jaws closing around Ashhur’s forearm. The lioness’s teeth pierced the god’s vambrace, cracking the unearthly metal. Ashhur screamed and battered the lioness with his opposite fist, sending more chunks of blackened rock flying but doing little damage to her.

Kayne pounced as Ashhur tried to free himself. The lion’s flaming maw wrapped around the god’s neck, its teeth digging in deeply. Ashhur threw his head back and screamed. Magma poured from the god’s wounds, further stoking the Judges’ fire. The deity’s glowing eyes dimmed ever so slightly. The blazing female jerked backward, shattering Ashhur’s vambrace and flinging it aside, smoking. She then bore down and lunged, her maw opened wide.

Ashhur’s fist shot out, plunging deep into the lioness’s flame-filled throat. Lilah’s burning eyes bulged, even as her jaws snapped shut, further crunching and melting the god’s armor. Ashhur’s face scrunched, and he let out a roar as he whipped his upper body around, sending the female Judge careening across the battlefield, crushing and burning those unfortunate enough to be standing in the way. The deity then raised his hand, coated in red-hot rock, and snatched Kayne by his fiery mane. He forced the lion’s head back, the teeth withdrawing from his neck. With a mighty heave, he lifted the gigantic lion up above his head and slammed it back down. The ground cracked on impact.

Velixar’s eyes widened. The energy from the heart of the world continued to flow into him uncontrollably, and he poured all he could into the Judges. The lions were on their feet a moment later, assaulting Ashhur with all they had, but the god was more than their equal. He batted away jaws, slammed his fist into their faces when they snapped at him, driving them backward. He was like a raging comet, his force not to be withstood. Velixar couldn’t understand where he found the strength. He looked about him, where the battle had once raged. It raged no more. Combatants from both sides simply stood there, gawking at the clash of god and ungodly beasts. The Wardens who still lived, as well as half of the human soldiers, were kneeling, looking up at Ashhur with pleading reverence in their eyes. Everyone was coated with blood, making it impossible to tell whose side they’d fought on.

“No!” shouted Velixar, turning just in time to see Kayne leap at Ashhur. The deity ducked out of the way and slashed upward with his sword. Kayne’s momentum carried him directly into the blade, slicing him from nose to rear. The two halves of the flaming lion soared through the air, and when they landed, both halves exploded into chunks of smoking, molten rock.

The lion’s mate let out a rumbling howl of despair and charged as well. Ashhur plunged his fist into the lioness’s snout, driving her maw into the ground. Then he sidestepped and brought his glowing blade down on her neck, splitting through the solid stone and roiling molten rock. The gaps in Lilah’s stony flesh ceased to glow, smoke rising instead. Ashhur grabbed the beast’s severed head by the ear and lifted it. He turned to Velixar, showing the head to him before tossing it aside.

From all around the god came a chorus of gasps, cheers, and prayers.

With the Judges gone, the power that forged them had nowhere to go but back to its originator. It slammed into Velixar, the combined energies churning, boiling over. He fell to his knees as Ashhur stormed toward him. His shadowy, protective sphere dissolved. Smoke billowed from Velixar’s throat when he tried to speak. He tried to form runes with his fingers, but his flesh bulged and rippled. He screamed in pain as the pendant on his chest burned through his ribcage.

“It. . cannot. . be,” he gasped.

“Indeed it can.”

Ashhur snatched him up by the front of his cloak, lifting him into the air. Velixar felt no fear of the god; he was too fearful of what was happing inside him to worry about much else. He felt his flesh expand, his blood boil, his bones begin to shatter under the massive weight of all that he’d swallowed.

The deity lugged him off the slate walk while awestruck onlookers gaped. Velixar couldn’t blink, couldn’t move, couldn’t defend himself; it was like he was filled with a raging star that pressed against his limits, ready to explode. He felt impossibly stiff. Almost gently, Ashhur set Velixar’s two feet on the ground and stood before him, glowing sword in hand, shaking his head. Velixar glanced above the deity. He was now facing the Castle of the Lion, its three towers rising above the wall and into the afternoon sky like stone fingers.

“This. . should never. . have happened,” he murmured, looking up at Ashhur. “The soul. . is limitless. . so said. . the demon. . ”

Ashhur shook his head. “The mortal body is not.” He almost sounded compassionate. “Never listen to a demon. They lie.”

The god stepped backward and swung his radiant sword. The blade cut through the man’s shoulder, sliced down through his ribcage, and stopped upon hitting his spine. A rush of white-hot pain surged through him. All of the energy Velixar had absorbed came rushing out of him in a giant shaft of translucent fire. People screamed and fled. Ribbons of heat curled around the entirety of Velixar’s being. The beam of energy slammed into the wall around the castle, instantly disintegrating the bodies that hung there. The wall then detonated, crumbing, the heavy stones toppling one after another. The beam continued on its way, growing ever larger as it punched through the bottom of the three towers. The sound of crunching rock filled the air as the towers wavered, falling against one another, losing form as they collapsed, stone by stone, brick by brick, with a sound like an avalanche. The beam continued on, pulverizing the opposite side of the wall.

And then it was over. Velixar fell, his innards spilling over the cobbles, adding to the gore. The castle and its wall kept crumbling while Ashhur stood over him, a look of triumph on his godly face.

I am sorry, my Lord, Velixar thought, reeling with the pain of a mortal wound. I have failed you once more. .