Wrath of Lions

CHAPTER 11

He had seen them. He had seen them. And he could not wait to get across.

The sun had fallen behind the western rise while men laid down long planks atop the newly formed scaffolding that crossed the Rigon River. It was tedious work for those building the bridge, but none fell into the water. The whole time Karak and Velixar continued their chanting, keeping the men balanced, raising stones and sludge from the riverbed to reinforce the structure. The river below rushed on unimpeded, the current oblivious to at all that was happening above it, while from the other side came the nearly inaudible sound of flapping wings.

Darkness had spread across the land by the time the bridge, a two-thousand-foot long, thirty-foot wide behemoth of stone, wood, and sediment, was complete. On the other side of the river, countless points of light shone from behind the makeshift wall around Lerder. It was a flimsy thing, their wall, haphazardly built and teetering in spots. They did not have Ashhur’s assistance to make it strong, Velixar thought. Nor did they have mine.

He took his place beside Captain Wellington at the head of the vanguard and raised his right fist to the sky. His eyes, burning brightly, illuminated the bridge before him.

“For Karak!” he shouted. “For a free Dezrel!” The soldiers behind him-his soldiers-echoed his words before they charged, their captain in the lead. Velixar stepped onto the sturdy riverbank, allowing the vanguard to cross ahead of him. Their shouts became the bays of wolves, the sound of their booted feet clomping across the bridge an ever-present rumble of thunder. The first legion of horsemen cantered behind the vanguard, hooves clopping against the wooden planks, and Velixar followed them.

The bridge was wide enough for all to make it across without incident. The high bank on the other side was steep and muddy from the spring rains, and soldiers scampered over one another in an attempt to scale it. Men struggled to gain their footing, and a few careened into the Rigon’s strong current, their plate and mail causing them to slip below the surface before the current could take them. The first few over the rise were battered by a rain of arrows, but few of the bolts found purchase. Their tips were either wood or stone, neither strong enough to punch through the armor and shields.

Where is the iron, the steel? Velixar wondered. He had not dared to hope it would be this easy.

Finally the first wave crossed the high bank. The shield bearers formed a protective barrier while behind them soldiers drove stakes into the ground, tied off ropes, and laid down planks of wood for those below. With actual solid ground beneath them, the rest climbed easily. The horsemen followed them up, their horses fanning out wide, once over the lip. The war cry began anew as Karak’s soldiers rushed the makeshift wall.

When Velixar stepped foot on the bank, he saw that the wall encircling the town was even shorter than he’d originally assumed. It could not be more than fifteen feet tall, and his vanguard flung their grappling ropes over the side with ease. But as they began scaling it, the stacked wood and sacks of sand proved too unstable for their weight. The wall tumbled in spots, and more soldiers rushed through the debris, tramping atop the crushed bodies of their comrades. Now there are gaps in the wall where the horsemen could ride through.

Velixar’s grin grew wider as he glanced behind him, where a towering Karak awaited with the bulk of their regiment. The deity stood at the foot of the bridge, arms crossed over his chest, his intense golden stare like a pair of nightbugs from this distance. Velixar nodded to his master, then faced forward and muttered a few words of magic. Air gathered beneath his body, lifting him off the ground. He sailed over the high bank, his feet touching ground just a few short yards from the wall.

A group of tall beings had emerged from the town to meet his vanguard head-on. He recognized each of them, even as they fell and died. The Wardens fought with swords and axes of stone, brave in the face of certain death, but they were not warriors and they wore no armor. Soon the humans’ swords, battleaxes, and pikes ran red with blood.

Velixar walked past the various melees as if nothing could touch him, his sword bouncing on his hip as he fingered the pendant hanging around his neck. The night came alive with screams. One particular soldier caught his eye, a compact and powerful man with a teardrop scar beneath his left eye. The soldier fought expertly, his steel slashing into Warden after Warden while he led the vanguard.

As Velixar walked, the pockets of violence seemed to shrink away from him. Only once did a Warden approach him. It was Warden Croatin, who’d helped raise the Mori family in Erznia. Croatin’s eyes widened when he saw him, and a mighty swing of his great stone ax dispatched the soldier with whom he’d been brawling. The Warden then charged, shoving aside other combatants, his ax held high above his head. Velixar calmly channeled the power of the demon whose essence he’d swallowed. When he brought up his hand, inky black shadows formed in his palm, solidifying into bolts. They shot out from his fingertips, striking the Warden square in the chest. Croatin fell to his knees, gasping as the shadows swirled around his body, constricting, cutting off his breath. Velixar searched his stolen knowledge.

How best to end this? he wondered. When it came to him, he grinned.

“Hemorrhage,” he whispered, power flowing out of him. The air seemed to ripple as a bolt of something invisible and deadly traveled between the Warden’s eyes. Instants later, blood violently erupted from his eyes, ears, and mouth. The elegant creature collapsed and fell still.

Velixar never drew Lionsbane. He never even stopped walking.

He entered through one of the gaps in the wall, stepping over spilled sacks of sand, shattered logs, crumbling stone, and horse dung. The town of Lerder opened up before him: the wide road, the seven widely spaced tall buildings with innumerable cottages nestled in between. There were Wardens everywhere, perhaps a hundred of them clashing with the foot soldiers and horsemen. The beings Celestia and the brother gods had rescued from a dying world fought valiantly, holding their ground. Their stand would not last long. Velixar moved aside, allowing a second phalanx to storm into the town. The air was alive with pounding footfalls, clattering mail, and raised voices. He lowered his head, the glow of his eyes intensifying. Holding his arms out to his sides, he watched electricity dance across his flesh. A few of the Wardens at the front of the battle went to rush him, but they never reached their target. The phalanx swallowed them in a swarm of armored bodies and sharpened steel.

The battle lasted for much of that dark, moonless night, and when it was over, Velixar toppled the rest of the wall with a word, using the power within him to help his men shove aside the detritus. He felt strangely ill at ease as he walked the perimeter, looking on as his soldiers pried the surviving Wardens from their shelter within the Second Breath Inn. His next destination was the central town courtyard, where the bodies of the deceased were being carted and lined up on the grass. He went down the line, counting one hundred and seventy-seven dead Wardens.

All Wardens. No humans. And no weapons other than crude stone. This was far too simple.

He grunted, relieved yet slightly disappointed by the way the night had unfolded. He’d expected at least a few of Lerder’s citizens to stay behind and make a stand, but other than his own men, there were no humans in the town. They were here. I saw them. It had been the sight of Azariah and Roland, two figures of importance in the life of Jacob Eveningstar, which had stoked his initial excitement. How he wished they were here now, kneeling with their hands bound behind their backs like the remaining Wardens.

It is no matter, he told himself. They will not get far. And when I catch them…

A shout brought his head around, and he glanced away from the sunrise to see Captain Wellington and two young soldiers marching toward him. All three dropped to their knees. One of the soldiers, he noted, was the wild beast with the teardrop scar.

“What news, Captain?” he asked.

Standing, Wellington went to speak but hesitated, leaning from one foot to another. His platemail creaked, in need of oil after days of marching in the rain. There was a gash on his temple and a stripe of dried blood streaking over his ear and down the side of his jaw, but otherwise he was unharmed. Even his armor had nary a dent or scratch.

“Out with it,” Velixar demanded.

The captain cleared his throat. “We found corpses on the other side of the western wall, High Prophet.”

Velixar raised an eyebrow. “How many, and what side?”

“Thirty. Twenty-three of ours, seven Wardens. And the wounds on ours are too clean and sharp.”

“Swords and knives?” Velixar asked.

The captain nodded.

It made sense. The Wardens who’d defended the city had brandished spears, hand-fashioned bows and whittled arrows, and stone axes. The weapons that Lerder’s master steward kept stowed beneath Ashhur’s temple had never made an appearance.

“I gather,” said Velixar, “that when our men search the town’s armory chamber they will find it bare.”

“We already have, and it is indeed empty.”

Velixar looked to the west, imagining the frightened people in flight.

“The townsfolk took the weapons with them when they fled,” he said.

“Does this worry you?”

Velixar laughed. “Not in the slightest. What they did was folly. By fleeing with the steel weaponry, they doomed the Wardens to a quicker death. We will still catch them.”

Wellington seemed to accept that answer, but then he fidgeted again, his gaze dropping to the ground.

“What is it?” asked Velixar. “Spit it out.”

“I searched the rookery, High Prophet,” the captain said. “It is empty.”

Velixar let out a sigh.

“Of course it’s empty,” said the young soldier with the scar below his eye. “Did you not hear the birds take flight when we first arrived? Did you think no one would bother to alert the rest of Ashhur’s kingdom of what happened?”

Wellington glowered at the soldier, who hastily kneeled before him.

Many apologies, Captain,” he said. “I spoke out of turn. I must still be on edge from the battle.”

The captain raised his hand to strike the young soldier, anger burning in his eyes, but he seemed to think twice when he noticed that Velixar was staring at him. Wellington slowly lowered his hand.

Velixar couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Ashhur has known of our plans for months now. The news will not surprise him in the least.”

“And he will have prepared his defenses, am I right, High Prophet?” the young soldier asked.

“What is your name, soldier?” Velixar asked, more and more intrigued by this youth with each passing moment.

Straightening up, the soldier jutted out his chin. “Boris Marchant.”

“Well, young Boris, look around you.” Velixar gestured toward the destroyed rubble of the wall. “What defenses? The God of Justice knew this town was one of two places we might cross, given the narrow width of the river here, and yet he left his children to die. Those same children abandoned the Wardens, refusing to even leave them with true weaponry to fight us. Ashhur’s children are frightened and confused-little more than beasts pissing themselves as they cower before an angered master. Of course Ashhur has prepared defenses, but we’ll tear them down, every brick, every stone.”

Boris and Captain Wellington both bowed; then the captain excused the trio to oversee the scout parties that were combing through the town in search of provisions they might take. He struck Boris in the side of the head as they walked away. It was a just punishment for publicly scolding his superior, but Velixar understood Boris’s response. Combined with the soldier’s actions on the battlefield, it made the young man rather interesting. He promised himself to seek the soldier out later.

Disappointment struck Velixar again. The town had fallen in six hours. Six hours. Lerder was the hub of trade in the west, the only town in all of Paradise that had even the slightest chance of protecting its borders. The cache of steel weapons from the elves, combined with the huge population, should have been sufficient enough to provide a fight. With a properly built wall, a little training, and a decent harvest, the citizens could have held out for a month, perhaps longer. Instead, less than a hundred of Karak’s soldiers had perished while taking the town.

“Do you even care?” Velixar wondered, thinking of Ashhur’s face from his distant past. “Or have you foreseen your defeat and chosen not to fight it?”

As the sun climbed the sky over the next few hours, Velixar ordered his soldiers to set down sturdier ramps on the Rigon’s high western bank, to allow the rest of their ranks passage onto flat land. The slow procession began in earnest as two hundred horses, five hundred archers, four thousand soldiers, and sixty supply wagons crossed the newly constructed bridge. Once across, they maneuvered up the ramps and over the dismantled remnants of the wall, trundling through the heart of the crumbling town. Not a board or even a pebble came loose from the bridge during the march, the result of a god’s magic combined with well-trained craftsmanship. It remained so until Karak himself crossed just past midday. When the god stepped onto the moist bank, he turned and lifted his hand. The bridge immediately shuddered and collapsed, countless tons of rock and wood falling into the river. The boulders sunk while the current quickly carried the planks downstream.

Velixar glanced up at his deity in curiosity.

“Should we not have left it intact for our return?” he asked.

Karak swiveled, taking in the sight of the sacked town. “We can raise another bridge if necessary, my Prophet,” he finally said. “For now, I find it best to eliminate an easy route of escape into our own lands.”

“I understand, my Lord,” Velixar replied with a bow.

The soldiers began stacking timber over the corpses, pouring from clay jugs a sticky, flammable concoction over the various hovels and buildings. The last of the supply wagons rumbled away, heading toward the main column, which awaited a mile or so down the western spine of the Gods’ Road. Velixar remained behind with his god and a small regiment of men to take care of one final piece of business.

The surviving Wardens were bound hand and foot to the front stoop of the inn. Eighteen in total. Velixar ambled past them, studying each face, remembering each name: Loen, Crenton, Gabbrion, and Mordecai, among others. None of them spoke or so much as glanced his way, keeping their eyes fixed instead on the blood-splattered grass before them. Bareatus was there too, the Warden who had greeted him when he’d returned to Safeway from his journey to the Temple of the Flesh with the corpse of Martin Harrow strapped to the back of a donkey. So long ago, thought Velixar. Much had transpired since that day, and he was a completely different man now…if he could be called a man at all. More and more he understood himself as something greater, something transcendent.

He reached the end of the line, where the broadest of the Wardens knelt, his arms tied behind him at such an extreme angle that his back was arched. Yet this specimen showed no visible signs of discomfort and, unlike the rest, he did not bow. His head was thrown back, exposing his thick neck and broad chest. With his platinum hair, crystal blue eyes, and porcelain skin, he could have been a very, very tall member of House Crestwell.

“Ezekai,” Velixar said. “You look well.”

Ezekai had been the Master Warden of House Gorgoros before Bessus, Ashhur’s first child, had sent the Wardens away from Ker. He was towering and headstrong, a natural leader. And unlike most of his brethren, Ezekai had received training as a soldier before fleeing his home world. It was fortuitous-and imbecilic on Ashhur’s part-that he had been wasted on such a feeble defense.

“Any final words, Warden?” came a booming voice from behind Velixar. As Ezekai looked up at Karak, who stood with his hands on his hips, his godly head blocking out the sun, his eyes grew somber.

“Why?” the Warden whispered.

Karak ignored the question. Instead, he stepped in front of his High Prophet, grasped Ezekai by his hair, and wrenched back his head. Ezekai made not a whimper, simply staring up at Karak, tears running silently down his cheeks.

The god released him.

“You have outlived your welcome,” Karak said. “Your presence is no longer required in my kingdom.”

“Your kingdom?” the Warden spat. “You lord over a kingdom of rats and leeches. You are no true god. You are a disease. Ashhur created peace and harmony, yet all you bring is strife and death.”

Karak laughed, and the sound echoed as if there were a hundred of him. “You know nothing, Warden, and never have.”

Ezekai smiled sadly.

“I have eyes to see, ears to hear. You’re creating everything you swore to avoid, Karak. You are a disgrace, a travesty.”

Karak struck the Warden with the back of his hand. He did it slowly, as if it meant nothing to him, yet the power of it knocked Ezekai into the wall of the inn. His head struck hard enough to crack the wood, and when he opened his mouth to speak, he instead let out a soft moan as blood dribbled down his chin.

“You speak with a creature of the heavens,” Karak said. “For one as lowly as you to question a god insults us both. You should learn from the examples of your brothers, who have accepted their fate with dignity. Come, my Prophet: put an end to this folly, so we may leave this place.”

Karak stepped back, crossing his arms. He was waiting, watching. Velixar swore not to let his deity down. With a snap of his fingers, men came forward, dousing all eighteen Wardens with oil.

“What happened to you, Jacob?” Ezekai asked as the flammable liquid ran over his forehead and into his eyes. “You were once the best, and now…”

“I still am,” Velixar said, cutting him off. He snapped his fingers, and fire spread about his hand, burning without consuming any flesh. Velixar felt the power rise up in him and reveled in it. Before him was life, and he was the deliverer of death. The power of it was intoxicating. The Wardens began to plead for mercy, some crying for Ashhur, others shouting the name of the long-dead god from their long-dead world. All but Ezekai.

“I should have butchered you in the delta, Jacob,” he said coldly.

Velixar matched his coldness.

“Neither man nor Warden can kill me, Ezekai. Only a god.”

As Karak looked on in approval, Velixar brought his fingers to his lips and blew. Blue flame soared into the sky, accompanied by the sound of the great roar of a lion. The homes, the hovels, the grass. The Wardens. They all caught. They all burned.