Blood Of Gods

CHAPTER 52

Rachida’s surviving band of sellswords tried to scale the stumpy new hillock as the winged horses approached, but the steep incline and their armor made them clumsy. Her men slid down the rocks or tumbled head over heels. Rachida herself attempted no such foolish measure. She had just seen a demon turn into a precipitous pile of rocks, elves stare up at the sky as if listening to some unheard diatribe and then half of them fall screaming to the ground, and now winged horses flew over the horizon. No, she was going to stay ready for whatever came next.

“Quester!” she shouted over the din of flapping wings and shrieking elves. “Pox Jon, Turock-get the men moving! Forget the winged horses. We have our own.”

The Crimson Sword was but a few feet away, gazing undecidedly at the writhing, warping elves, and the brash young sellsword began barking orders to the others wearing Karak’s armor. Pox Jon and Decker, who’d been trying-and failing-to scale the mountain, ran past her to where the few horses they had remaining lingered, held six reins per hand by others of their party. Turock and his spellcasters gave the collapsed elves as wide a berth as they could. She was impressed by the restraint they all showed, not gawking in awe at the flying horses.

But then again, the earth itself had just risen up and swallowed a demon. Dark wonders were becoming surprisingly commonplace.

The others began hustling after her, armor clanking and boots stomping the ground. Rachida waved them past, keeping a wary eye constantly on the fallen elves. There were so many, possibly more than a thousand, both males and females among them. Their bodies swelled and twisted, their skin changing color. Rachida didn’t like that one bit.

She liked it even less when they stood up.

Her men were still filing past when they did so. With the new hillock creating an obstruction on one side, the cliff on the other, and so many forms packed in the two-hundred-foot area in between, the soldiers who had yet to cross the threshold stood no chance. The altered elves, their upper bodies bulky, their incisors sharp, shook their heads as if waking from a dream. That only lasted a brief moment. They roared in voices raspy and bestial and proceeded to lash out at the closest things to them-her men.

Her soldiers had weapons, whereas most of the beasts didn’t, but the men were vastly outnumbered and ill prepared for the brutality of these new, savage things. The beasts leapt at their prey two, three, four at a time, biting faces, ripping at necks, bludgeoning with their fists. “No!” Rachida exclaimed. She went to draw her Twins but came away with only one. She’d forgotten that she’d given one to the Quellan who had taken charge during the demon’s attack. One would have to do. “Quester-with me!” she screamed. With the shortsword in hand, she charged into the melee.

In the art of swordplay, if Moira was the gymnast, Rachida was the dancer. She flowed like water through the madness, on her toes, each part of her body moving in harmony. She spun away from greedy claws, ducked beneath snapping mouths, pirouetted around her would-be murderers. Her sword was an extension of her hand, its blade going exactly where she wished it. She flicked her wrist, severing a throat, then slid to the side, raised her free hand up, and brought her other arm around, spearing a female beast in the chest. Each time she twirled, she grabbed the collar of one of her men, shoving him toward safety. Some of her men made it; others were swallowed by the riotous horde of gray flesh.

Quester appeared by her side, the young man’s forked beard colored red now, but not with dye. He was elegant in his own right, his longsword looping around, easily cutting away at the unprotected creatures. “There are too many,” he called out. Strangely enough, he almost sounded gleeful about it.

“I know!” said Rachida, dipping her shoulder and stabbing upward, impaling a beastly elf through the chin.

“Retreat or die fighting?”

“Retreat,” she called back.

The two of them backed away slowly, a constant flurry of motion as they kept space between them and the beasts that wanted them dead. They were soon joined by Talon Blackwolfe, who hacked away in his own special, belligerent style, his greasy, dark hair flopping about him. The three of them gathered up men as they went, until it was a group of twenty that cut their way through the homicidal host. The beasts surrounded them, pressing in on all sides. Their strength seemed to grow with each passing moment, as did their threshold for pain. Rachida slashed one across the belly, only to have it run at her again while its intestines trailed behind.

“I’m sorry, Moira,” she muttered as she gutted yet another former elf.

“Get down!” she heard Turock scream.

The largest fireball Rachida had seen since Karak decimated the Temple of the Flesh soared over her head just as she ducked. It struck the ground and detonated, sending dead soldiers and flailing gray-skinned beasts tumbling into the air. The smell of scorched flesh filled her nostrils. Smoke began to choke out the space they fought in.

“Hot damn!” Turock shouted.

The beasts surrounding Rachida’s pack began to thin out, when another fireball, slightly smaller this time, soared overhead, setting even more of the beasts aflame. The former elves stared at the flames, their deep-set eyes wide with fear. “Now!” Rachida ordered. With Quester in the lead, they shoved their way through those who remained. Men still died, but more of the beasts did now. A ray of lightning as thick as Rachida’s body struck those off to the right, making their bodies shake and smoke and finally explode, sending more of the twisted elves over the cliff.

Finally, the beasts fell away from them. Rachida turned and ran toward the line where Turock stood with his sixteen spellcasters. The looks on each of their faces were of pure glee, Turock’s in particular. The strange, red-haired man hooted as he began launching fireballs with each hand, one after the other, killing beasts and shoving the rest back.

The survivors dashed past the spellcasters and huffed their way to the other side, away from the cliff where the narrow and flat grassland spread out. Rachida glanced up. The last few winged horses descended to the peak of the new hillock and lifted off mere seconds later, a pair of elves on each of their backs. She watched them glide south, out over the ocean, and spin around, sailing back over their heads as they flew northeast. She then brought her attention to Turock. The spellcaster and his students seemed to be running out of strength, their magical attacks weaker and weaker. Not that it mattered much. Only a handful of twisted elves remained. The rest had fled around the other side of the hillock and disappeared into the forest.

When it was over, Rachida gathered her remaining men into ranks and took a rough count. Barely half of the eight hundred who had made their way south from Drake remained.

“We lost so many,” she said, to which Talon dipped his head in respect.

“Fewer men, fewer greedy hands grasping for my gold,” said a gleeful Quester Billings. The Crimson Sword winked at her. Rachida scowled but said nothing. A sellsword was a sellsword. He was simply living in a world Karak had built, owning the ideals Karak believed in. There would be no changing that.

She approached the spellcasters last. The group of them was gathered in a tight circle, talking enthusiastically among themselves. Rachida tapped Turock on the shoulder, and the man spun around, his eyes wild with excitement.

“Did you see that?” he exclaimed as he followed her away from his apprentices. “Did you fucking see that?”

Rachida nodded. “But how? I thought you said your magic was limited?”

“I know, and it was. By Karak’s wilted prick, I thought I’d used up all I had fighting the demon! But it was a good thing I was spent, because had I not. . ” He trailed off.

“The fireball would have been much bigger?” Rachida asked.

“Indeed. And then who knows how many of your people would’ve died.” The odd man laughed. “Hell, I might have blown up that mound and freed the beast again if that had happened!”

“Somehow, I do not think that likely,” said Rachida.

“Probably not. However, this changes things entirely.”

“How so?”

The man grinned. “Why else would magic be suddenly rendered powerful where once it was weak? My teacher, Errdroth Plentos, told me once that all magic lost potency once the brother gods came to Dezrel. So if now that magic has returned. . ”

“Then the gods no longer walk the land,” she finished for him. For Rachida, the thought was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Be careful what you pray for and all. “How do you think it happened, if it did?”

“Who knows?” Turock said with a shrug. He then pointed at his fellow spellcasters. “And I don’t rightly care. Just think on this, Rachida, my wonderful slice of the heavens. Let’s say the gods are gone. How many men and women do you know, in Neldar and beyond, who are practiced in the art of magic?”

She shrugged. “You, I suppose. And your students.”

“Exactly,” the man said with a wink as he proffered his pointed cap. “And some of the elves, of course. Which, if my grasp of numbers doesn’t fail me, will make me a very, very sought-after man.”

“I suppose it does.”

“You just remember to save some of that gold your men keep talking about for me. I think you owe me that much.”

Rachida frowned and walked away while Turock laughed, not liking that statement one bit.

An hour later, the cavalcade began the long march north. Rachida lingered behind, staring from a distance at the new hillock, the smoking divots in the earth, and the litany of corpses heaped on the ground. It was a quiet moment. She closed her eyes to pray for the souls of the dead, but suddenly realized that she didn’t know to whom to pray.

“Is the great Rachida Gemcroft feeling introspective?” she heard Quester ask.

Her eyes opened. The young sellsword was beside her, the blood in his forked beard now dried. It flaked off as he ran his hand through it. The handsome man smiled deviously at her.

“Should you not be watching over my charges?” she asked him.

“I handed the reins to Blackwolfe. The man’s eager. Has potential. Could make a good sellsword one day.”

“Perhaps.”

“Anyway, what happens with grimy Talon doesn’t truly concern me. What I would really like to know is where we go from here.” He laughed. “Do you wish to remain in Paradise and build a new life for yourself?”

She chuckled. “Fuck Paradise. I do not think I like it here.”

That elicited a laugh from Quester as well.

“As a matter of fact,” said Rachida, “I have a sudden, burning desire to march back to Neldar. Hopefully, I have someone there waiting for me, someone I haven’t seen in far too long.”

Moira’s image flashed in her mind, her icy blue eyes, her silver hair, her slender body. Rachida felt warmth spread through her.

Quester nodded. “So we find a way around the river and head east, then?”

“No. We ride back to Conch and sail back to the Isles of Gold.” She looked at her last remaining Twin, its cutting edge stained brown. “I miss my son, and I have a very special gift for my husband too.”

“That, and you still need to give us our gold.”

“Yes, that too.”

They laughed together and turned their horses about, heading toward the rear of the convoy as it plodded over the hills.