Wrath of Lions

CHAPTER 13

Patrick’s legs ached, but still he put one foot in front of the other. He followed at his god’s heels as Ashhur marched north, leading their wandering nation into an unnamed settlement, the last before they rounded back south. Their destination was a hamlet that resided just outside the border of the Forest of Dezerea, nestled in the surrounding hills. There were grazing deer everywhere, and the trees were the tallest Patrick had ever seen. The place was idyllic, especially given that spring now had a firm grip on the land. The air had warmed and the flowers awakened, as had the leaves of the coniferous trees. Summer was still a few weeks away, but its scents filled the air.

They set up camp in a vast gulley, countless people pounding stakes into the ground and erecting their temporary shelters. They had been traveling for weeks since leaving Grassmere, moving away from the Gods’ Road, and Patrick was nearing the end of his rope. The going was rough and painfully slow, and the procession of lost souls that followed him and Ashhur had started swelling immensely now that the deity had stopped leaving anyone behind. The entirety of the many villages and settlements they came across were added to the growing mass of human flesh. Patrick had to guess there were at least a thousand score traversing the land, maybe twice that, flattening the grasses of eastern Paradise and devouring all the sustenance they could find as they went. The mere sound of all these people performing the duties to keep themselves alive and comfortable was deafening. Patrick’s head was throbbing. All he wanted was to lie down and rest his weary bones, but a giant hand grabbed his shoulder as he drove a tent stake into the ground, and he knew his desire would go unmet.

He turned around and saw Ashhur standing there, towering over him. There was a strange look on the god’s face.

“Come, Patrick,” he said.

“Where?”

“To the settlement.”

“Now? How far is it?”

Ashhur pointed toward a steep, moss-covered hill. “Over that rise.”

“Great,” he said with a sigh.

Ashhur and Patrick left the rest of the flock, climbing the nearby hill atop which the deity assured him more of his children lived. When they arrived, they found a land that had come under recent strife. The trees were scorched, and the tents and crude huts that had served as shelters were trampled and torn. The commune was small, less than a mile wide, but there were no living souls to be seen. The only sign of human presence was a plume of smoke rising from behind a copse of giant evergreens.

They pushed into the forest and discovered a clearing. Patrick’s heart beat more quickly in anticipation. The brightness seemed to fade as they moved forward, partly due to the vast amount of lingering smoke. In the center of the clearing was a huge, smoldering structure. The walls and roof were still standing, though blackened and flaking, and the iron nails that held the building together were hot to the touch. Something inside still burned, sizzling and popping.

Against his better judgment, Patrick kicked the barn’s barred door while Ashhur lingered behind him. The boards were so thoroughly burned that the door seemed to disintegrate, filling the air with dust and ash. He covered his mouth and stepped through the portal, the hiss and sputter much louder now that the barrier had been broken.

What he saw inside made him fall to his knees.

There were at least two hundred corpses in there, most charred, some still cooking. Flesh was melted, bodies fused together, tangles of blackened arms and legs that looked like some hideous demon from the underworld desperately clawing for freedom. Some were piled over each other by the door, others in a scorched mass toward the center. There were floating embers all around, a few glowing, most gray, everything devoid of life. Brittle clumps of blackened debris crunched underfoot with each uneven step he took. His nostrils itched with the scent of burnt flesh.

He fell to his knees, billowing ash all around him. His hand slipped down and his fingertips found a charred rope, and when he glanced around him, trying to keep his eyes from absorbing the countless twisted and screaming faces, he found many more bits of burnt rope. The picture grew clearer.

The people had been herded into this barn against their will. Then the barn had been barred and set aflame from the outside. The inside had been stocked with bales of hay, which had caught fire easily once the flames climbed over and under the barn walls. The barn had been constructed solely for this purpose. They were burned alive, he thought. Some rushed the door, trying to get out, while others huddled in the center, probably praying for their god to save them. They were men, women, and children, and they died screaming, they died screaming, they died…

Patrick heard a screech and turned around to see Barclay, the youth who had taken to spending long, annoying moments with him on the road, squatting in the doorway. Patrick rushed out, gathered the boy in his arms, and gently held him. Ashhur, who had kept a slight distance, considered him with a tilt of his head. Patrick opened his mouth, but nothing would come out. His god’s glowing golden eyes brightened, and the deity lumbered forward, ducking down to peer into the smoking barn.

Suddenly a thought took root. Iron nails. There was very little production of iron in Paradise, certainly not in a crude settlement such as this, yet the doors had been secured with iron nails. Karak’s Army was still in pursuit of them, which left but one possibility. The nearby forest, and the kingdom within, was filled with elves who had so far remained out of the war. Or had they? Patrick thought of the deceased Bessus and Damaspia Gorgoros, slain while they knelt for morning prayers. Perhaps Neldar wasn’t the only kingdom that wanted to see Paradise burn.

A moment later Ashhur retracted his head from the door. His expression had gone blank, and his chiseled jaw hung low. He didn’t scream; he didn’t fly into a fit of rage as he had in Haven; he didn’t run toward the trees to punish the elves who bore responsibility. Instead, what he did was worse. He collapsed to his knees, still facing the barn.

And the god wept.

It was a disconcerting experience, hearing a deity cry. The sound was like the pounding of rain on stone mixed with the trumpeting of a hundred thousand grayhorns. Ashhur’s sobs were the ebb and flow of the tide, the rumble of thunder in a rainstorm, the pull and crack of a great earthquake. His body shook as tears clear as water from a mountain spring cascaded down his godly cheeks. The sound summoned others from the sprawling camp below, and soon the clearing was ringed with a multitude of confused and sickened people, all watching the god who had made their existence possible. His hopelessness was echoed in the uneasy murmurs of the crowd.

Barclay continued to blubber, smearing snot all over the front of Patrick’s tunic, but Patrick didn’t notice. The sight and sound of his god wailing was the only thing that mattered. For the first time in a long while, Patrick felt truly afraid.

“Fire is an inimitable beast,” the great Isabel DuTaureau had once said. “It is the essence of the heavens, personifying the giver and the taker at once. It can be tamed, but with care, for it is greedy. Just like its brother, snow, a little is wondrous-too much and life ends.”

Patrick had received that bit of wisdom after burning his hand over a cookfire while trying to roast gooey bits of a reduced sugar concoction. The reply was typical of his mother. He had been around nine years old at the time, and he’d run to her in hopes of a soft touch and some soothing words. Instead, she’d delivered a lecture on the philosophic components of fire, before sending him to the temple for the healers to mend his blistered fingers.

Even so, her words were all he could think of as he watched flames lick out of the small circle of stones before him two nights after the discovery of the barn. The paradox was palpable. Fire had made it possible to cook, to keep warm, to make tough wood pliant. Fire made up the sun that rose each morning, allowing plants to grow and forming the unmistakable distinction between day and night. Fire allowed them to send the souls of their deceased to the Golden Forever.

Yet fire was also used to forge steel, which was then crafted into knives, daggers, and swords. It was used to destroy fields of grain in order to starve frightened people, and then to end the lives of those very same individuals. This was a recent usage unique to gods and men…and elves.

Patrick grunted, shifted on his rump, and tossed another log onto the fire. Winterbone was beside him, the dragonglass crystal on its hilt reflecting the flickering flames. He shuddered, the image of the barn once again before him.

“Patrick?” asked Barclay.

He glanced across the flames, to where the youth was reclined on the other side of the pit. Barclay had rarely left his side since the discovery of the barn, which was still hidden in the trees atop the hill just beyond their camp. What had once been an amiable fourteen-year-old on the cusp of manhood had become a quivering child. He hadn’t asked a silly question for two days. Instead he walked with a sulking gait, his lower lip constantly quivering. Not that Patrick minded much. At least he had silence.

On second thought, perhaps silence wasn’t at all what he needed, for silence seemed to invite doubt.

“What is it?” Patrick asked.

“I can’t sleep,” said Barclay, twisting in his bedroll. “I’m scared.”

“We’re all scared,” replied Patrick.

“Not you. You’re not scared of anything. You weren’t even scared of…of…that.”

Patrick shook his head. He wanted to tell the boy that of course he’d been scared, that all he could think about was running back to Mordeina and curling into a ball while his sisters comforted him.

“Just close your eyes,” he said instead. “What’s the dumbest animal you can think of?”

“Uh…a sheep?”

“Well, picture a huge herd of sheep, and start counting them all. Don’t stop counting either-got it?”

“Really?” said Barclay, his expression blank.

“Just do it,” Patrick said. “Trust me. I’ve done this plenty.”

“Do you use sheep too?”

Patrick cleared his throat.

“Sort of. I more use articles of clothing. Now go to sleep.”

Barclay placed his head back down on his folded surcoat and closed his eyes. The boy’s lips gradually parted and closed as he counted. By the time he hit thirty-nine, he was fast asleep.

“Sweet dreams, boy,” Patrick said softly. “Someone has to have some.”

There would be none for him tonight; that much he knew. Not after the last two days.

He shook his head, trying to force the lingering image of all those burned and screaming corpses from his mind, but it was no use.

“Shit,” Patrick muttered. A chill overtook him as a light breeze caught him unawares. The fire had died down to embers, casting an eerie red pallor over the stones that formed the pit. He picked up Winterbone and used its tip to turn a log, one side of which remained untouched by the greedy flames. As soon as the bark touched the glowing cinders, it began to catch, fingers of red and yellow flame licking along the underbelly until the log was fully aflame, exuding warmth once more.

Fire giveth; fire taketh away.

He cocked his head, listening for the despairing resonance of Ashhur’s weeping. It was still there, though less intense now, a moaning from the far-off clearing at the top of the rise. Maybe he’ll be done soon. Maybe he’ll wash all his sorrow away. A wave of hopelessness passed through him. The people of Paradise meant nothing to those who wanted it destroyed. Be it Karak or the elves, it was only a matter of time before bloodshed found this massive traveling enclave and reduced it to stinking piles of rotting meat just like those inside the barn. He grunted, knowing he should find peace in the fact that when the end came, his god would be by his side, but he couldn’t. No amount of preaching about love and forgiveness would spare him the pain of what was to come, and he could in no way bring himself to accept his fate without a fight. Poor lost Nessa had instilled this combative spirit in him. Unyielding faith in an ideal was Bardiya’s realm, not his.

Thoughts of his old giant friend made him curse and jab Winterbone’s tip into the coals with more vigor. It was folly for the great Bardiya Gorgoros to deny his own god, to ignore his brothers and sisters in creation and isolate the wards of House Gorgoros from the approaching hostilities. The Kerrians were able hunters and gatherers, strong and athletic and independent. They were proficient with bows and spears, and regularly held competitions of physical strength-competitions Patrick had joyfully participated in when he was younger. Like Nelder, they had ousted the Wardens from Ker, opting instead to make their own way, using Ashhur’s teachings as their guide. It was a sovereignty their god had only accepted after a lengthy summit with Bessus and Damaspia. If only the people of Ker would join our fight, thought Patrick. Their numbers, their skills, might swing the odds back to their favor.

Then again, perhaps they would simply roll over and die at Bardiya’s orders. Scoffing, Patrick tipped back his skin, drinking down a massive gulp of potent corn whisky. The liquid burned going down, and he immediately felt dizzy. His anger at his friend only grew.

“Bite me, Bardiya,” he whispered, emptying the skin. He wished he were with his friends from Haven, who had taught him to think and fight on his own. His stomach turned in knots, and as the world began to spin around him, he collapsed onto his side, holding his gut to keep from retching. He felt sick and dizzy, but he finally faded into a dreamless sleep, his heart beating in tune with his god’s sobs.

When he awoke, his neck was sore from lying in an awkward position. The hump in his back throbbed, a headache pounded behind his eyes, and his mouth was dry. He spotted the skin lying to his right and knocked it away, cursing himself for taking to liquor to quell his depression. I should have found a nubile young thing instead, he thought groggily. The aftereffects, come morning, are far less painful.

Patrick lifted his head, experiencing more than a tiny bit of pain. The firepit was dusty and dry, and Barclay was nowhere to be seen. The sun was high in the sky, shining down on him from a hole in the canopy above. Trees rustled in a warm breeze that wafted the smell of roasting bacon.

He sat up and forced himself to his feet. Winterbone lay in the grass, its tip black with soot, and it took all his effort to lift the damn thing up, slide it into its scabbard, and sling it over his shoulder. The leather bit into his flesh, and the added weight seemed to multiply the ache in his head. Grunting, he stumbled forward, using the closest tree for support, and began descending the hill.

More than once he slipped, nearly tumbling down the tree-dotted rise. By the grace of Ashhur, he kept his balance, and eventually he caught sight of cookfires interspersed between the trees on either side of a babbling brook, where the rest of Ashhur’s many, many children had set up camp.

He made his way through the maze of tents and people. Most paid him no mind, but others gave him curious glances as he wove his way through them, moaning. He was searching for Denton Noonan: Barclay’s father, a healer and master of herbal remedies. If anyone could fix his aching head, it was him.

“Where are the Noonans?” he asked a pretty, black-haired youth. The girl reminded him of Bethany-or was it Brittany? — the young woman who’d used him for his useless sperm in what felt like a different life. Patrick felt his cheeks flush as the girl’s wide, olive-shaped eyes widened as if he’d spoken elfish. He felt embarrassed, but at least his headache seemed to have lost some potency.

“Barclay Noonan,” he said, speaking more slowly this time. “Where’s the boy’s father?”

The girl pointed behind him but remained silent. Patrick followed her finger. She was gesturing toward Ashhur’s pavilion, which had been raised in the center of six widely spaced birch trees. He grumbled his thanks and lurched toward it.

The pavilion stood fifteen feet high and was so large that Barnabus, the Warden in charge of its care, usually did not bother to erect it. Looks like Barney thought we might be staying awhile. He thought of Ashhur’s ceaseless sobbing, and he spun around, listening for it. He was shocked to realize it had stopped.

He came to the pavilion’s entrance, where a pair of felled tree limbs held up the flap like a canopy. When he entered, he stopped short, nearly toppling over in the process.

Ashhur was sitting on a great oaken chair, one giant leg thrown over the other. The god’s golden eyes were intent on a small piece of parchment that stretched between his pinched thumb and forefinger. A great hawk perched on his shoulder.

“My Grace,” Patrick said, almost tripping over his words.

Ashhur glanced up, his eyes focused and intense. There were no tears, there was no flush in his cheeks; there was nothing to indicate that the deity had spent the better part of two days sobbing over the brutal murder of his children.

“Patrick, why are you staring at me so? What is the matter?”

Patrick shrugged. “Nothing’s the matter. Got good and drunk last night is all. My head’s pounding.”

“And what do you want from me?”

“Well…actually, I was looking for Denton to cure my aches, but you always heal much better than he does.”

Ashhur squinted, shook his head, and returned his attention to the parchment in his lap.

Patrick let out a moan. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Shuffling from foot to foot, he cleared his throat and said, “I’m glad you are feeling better, my Grace.”

To that the deity nodded slightly. “I am.”

“And who is your friend?”

Ashhur’s posture seemed to grow more relaxed now that Patrick had assumed a more practiced tone. “A messenger bird. It arrived early this morning while I was still weeping in front of the scorched barn.”

“What does the message say?” Patrick asked, though deep down he already knew.

“It has begun,” the deity replied. “Karak is here.”

“How far along is he?”

“I have no way of knowing, but it is as I feared. Warden Ezekai sent the hawk from Lerder, saying that Karak created a bridge and crossed into Paradise. No doubt another force of his crossed the bridges erected by us, which means we have at least two separate factions of to deal with. And others may have crossed still elsewhere.”

Patrick felt a lump form in his throat. “They might not be very far behind us,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

“We need to leave,” answered his god. “Now. As it is, the elves who burned this settlement are still lingering. I can feel them in the trees, though they probably hesitate to quarrel with a god.”

“So above and behind, we have enemies. The Wooden Bridge is only a two-day hike from here. If we depart now and march through the night, we can get there before sunset tomorrow-”

“No,” said Ashhur.

“What, my Grace?”

“No. That will not do. We travel with thirty thousand of my children. It would be impossible to march with such haste without leaving many behind, and that is something I will not do. I fear my sacrifices have been for naught. My children must be made safe, no matter what the risk.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“We will delay my brother. We will fight him.”

Patrick threw his hands up. “We can’t fight him, my Grace. He has trained soldiers, and we have…you, a few dozen Wardens, and me, I guess. We’d be slaughtered.”

At that Ashhur grinned, and his smile was full of cold cunning. “Who says we must do the fighting?”

Without further explanation, Ashhur rose from his oaken chair and walked to the entryway. The hawk on his shoulder took flight, darting upward through the thick canopy. The god then began to walk away, gesturing for Patrick to follow. They curled around the camp and started up the rise. Headache all but forgotten, Patrick felt ill at ease, and it had nothing to do with the odd glances they garnered from those they passed. He did not like the look in Ashhur’s glowing yellow eyes.

They reached the top of the hill where Patrick had slept the previous night, and kept on climbing. Three hundred yards farther up was the tattered settlement, and farther still was the clearing where the horror-filled barn stood. Patrick exited the copse of trees behind his god, and Ashhur marched right up to the blackened structure.

“What are you doing, my Grace?” Patrick asked.

Ashhur sighed and bowed his head. “They are gone now,” he said. “They have found their way to the afterlife. What resides here are but their shells, pale reminders of the people they were. I have no more reason to grieve.”

With those words, the deity placed his palm against the side of the barn. The wall began to glow, black being replaced by a brilliant orange, and then the whole structure was alight with blinding white flame. The weakened boards creaked and snapped, and the roof began to crumple. With a mighty groan, the barn caved in on itself, the wood crackling and dissolving, becoming wisps of ash that spiraled up in a funnel. A dome of bluish light formed over the crumbling ruins, pulsing, spreading, and then all sound seemed to be swallowed. A single whoosh followed, and what remained of the barn became a pile of blackened flakes that the wind picked up and carried into the sky.

When it was over, the only sign that there had been a structure there at all was a darkened rectangular depression. Ashhur walked to the center of the depression and stopped there. Patrick stayed by his side, afraid to do anything else. Ashhur closed his godly eyes, then lifted his chin. His lips parted ever so slightly, and his throat began to vibrate. Patrick couldn’t hear a sound, but a moment later the whole of the forest erupted with a cacophony of animalistic howls. They came from every direction, from near and far, from the high ground and the low ground, and their approach was so loud that he was sure it could be heard for miles. Beneath the howling he noticed frightened shouts from their people far below. They must have been terrified. Patrick sure as shit was.

The forest came alive around them. Undergrowth rustled, trees swayed, and small saplings were trampled as countless forms approached, emerging into the clearing. The creatures were hunched on four legs, their backs arched, their fangs bared, snarling and snapping.

Wolves. A whole pack of them, if not multiple packs combined into one. Patrick tried counting them to ease his fraying nerves, but he stopped when he reached a hundred sets of rheumy yellow eyes. Some had black fur, some gray, and others were differing shades of brown or even patchwork. They were all mangy, and the heat of their combined breath seemed to close in on him.

Their growls became louder until Ashhur held out his hand, and then the beasts stopped their rumbling and sat on their haunches. Some offered whimpers and some lay down in submission, whereas others simply stared straight ahead with frostily primitive eyes that spoke only of hunger. Many of them had globules of red clinging to the fur around their jaws, bespeaking recent hunts. Patrick sidled up closer to Ashhur. Craning his neck as far as his hunched back would allow, he stared up at his deity’s face.

“My Grace,” he said, keeping his tone a faint whisper, “what are you doing?”

“My children are in need of protectors,” Ashhur said, “and so I will create them.”

With that he lifted his arms. Ashhur’s glowing eyes became twice as bright, as words of magic flew from his lips. The atmosphere shivered, and the gathered throng of wolves began to writhe. They thrashed and mewled, offering braying protests to the heavens. Patrick covered his ears once more, his eyes wide as he watched the beasts flay and twist. A repetitious crack filled the air, rhythmic like the beating of a thousand drums at once.

“From the flesh you gain sustenance!” shouted Ashhur. “And like the plants, from the soil you grow!”

The foliage that lined the clearing liquefied, becoming a multitude of thin silver streams that flowed toward the thrashing beasts. The rippling fur of each wolf seemed to drink in the liquid, and then they began to grow. Their limbs stretched, their chests widened, and the cracking noise became all the more pronounced. Patrick looked on as paws flattened and then extended, furry fingers sprouting from the creatures’ paws. Each of the beings wailed in pain as they thrashed, their newly formed arms and legs smacking at the silver liquid that flowed into them.

Then the moaning began. To Patrick, it sounded like a chorus of sadness, of wounded creatures lamenting the loss of their natural innocence. Ashhur ceased his chanting, and very slowly the wolves began to cease their struggles. The strange cracking sound died away, as did the bellowing. Soon all that could be heard was the combined rasps of hundreds of gasping lungs.

One by one, the wolves rose off the ground. Patrick looked on, not believing his eyes. The creatures were now twice the size they had been, and they stood upright on two legs. Patrick stopped breathing. They were a perfect combination of man and wolf, every single one of them, though they stared ahead with eyes that appeared just as icy and unfeeling as ever-the single-minded gaze of an animal.

Patrick happened to glance down, where the streams of silvery liquid had appeared, and he saw that the grass beneath the wolf-men’s clawed feet, grass that had only moments before been the bright green of spring growth, was now light brown and dead. Looking up, he saw that the first row of trees behind the beasts was just as lifeless, their leaves crinkled and sagging, the bark breaking away in chunks.

He heard a thud beside him. Ashhur had fallen to a knee, the glow in his eyes faded. He panted, the knuckles of his right hand digging into the scorched earth beneath him. Patrick held out his hand, and the god took it. He instantly felt silly for the gesture, for Ashhur’s hand swallowed his own like an infant’s, but his act seemed to steady the god. Ashhur closed his eyes, rolled his neck, and then stood to his full height. When he did, every single wolf-man fell to his knees. They were clumsy even then, some falling over and rolling on the ground in panic.

“My Grace,” Patrick began, but he could not finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

“We needed soldiers,” said his god.

“But how?”

“The knowledge of form and function resides right in here,” Ashhur said, tapping his temple. He was winded, but his voice hadn’t lost any of its potency. “You can alter any form if you know the proper ways.”

“Yes, but you made them grow as well.”

“The universe is all about balance; other than the gods, nothing can be created from nothing. I gathered nutrients from the plants around us and minerals from the ground beneath us, and added them to their bodies, allowing them to grow. Everything in this world, from the stones beneath your feet to the whales living in the deepest reaches of the ocean, contains similarities I fear you would not understand. Just know that, for me, what I did was akin to piling sand upon sand to build a larger mound.”

Patrick squinted. Ashhur looked a hundred times more exhausted than he ever had after bringing up the walls around the settlements. “But you’re panting, my Grace,” he said.

“Did I ever say it was simple?” asked Ashhur. “The power required was tremendous, and I fear I have overtaxed myself.”

“Will they fight for us?” He looked around at the creatures. They seemed hungry, wanton. “They might stand upright, but they still seem like…well, wolves.”

“As they are. They still have the minds they’ve always had and are driven by the same instincts. But they know my desires, and they will fulfill them as best they can. It will take them a few hours to adjust to their new forms, but nature is adaptable.” Ashhur gave a sad smile. “Our armies may not have swords or armor, but these wolves will require neither. They hold their weapons in their mouths and at the tips of their new fingers.”

Patrick looked at the curled, sharp claws protruding from each of their digits, both on their arms and legs. He shook his head.

“Why didn’t you make them smarter?” he asked. “That might have been helpful.”

“I cannot,” the god said. “Not without great cost. This is not the same as when my brother and I brought man from the ether. We infused our power into the ewers, giving a small piece of ourselves that now resides in each man, woman, and child in Dezrel. We were weakened to mere shells of the beings we once were. Should I give these creatures a bit of my essence, my intelligence…Karak marches against us, Patrick, and I will surely face him again. When I do, it cannot be as his inferior.”

“Oh.”

Ashhur gestured toward his monstrous creations.

“They will fight for us, Patrick, for even as wolves they can understand my desire, for it is one they are very good at fulfilling. I want them to hunt…to kill.”

The wolf-men howled as one, and a moment later they were rumbling into the forest on all fours, hand over foot, heading south. The god had it right; they seemed ungainly with their new, larger forms, but the speed at which they moved was uncanny. Patrick could see their muscular shoulders working as they galloped through the trees. In a matter of minutes, he and his deity were alone in the clearing once more.

“How much time do you think they’ll give us?” he asked.

“Two days, perhaps three,” Ashhur replied. “They are few compared to what approaches, but we have surprise on our side. If there is one thing I am certain of, it is that Karak will not expect this.”

Frowning, Patrick said, “Karak is akin to you in many ways. Are you certain?”

Ashhur grinned. “Yes. No matter what occurred in Haven, my brother will still assume I’m playing by the rules.”

It was an ominous statement, and one Patrick didn’t press any further. Without consciously thinking about it, his mind drifted to Bardiya. His friend would hate the idea of Ashhur creating wolf-men to fight his battles for him. Bardiya believed in the sanctity of all life, not just humanity’s. He would find it unsavory that the wolves of the forest were being sacrificed in such a way.

A memory of the barn and the destroyed bodies again entered his mind. He turned to Ashhur, threw back his oversized shoulders, and stared up into the deity’s eyes.

“My Grace,” he said. “I apologize, but I must ride south. I’ll catch up with you at the Wooden Bridge, and if not there, in Mordeina.”

Ashhur stared at him, and Patrick knew the god already understood his intentions.

“It will do no good,” he told him.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, my Grace. If you don’t have to play by the rules any longer, why should Bardiya?” Patrick grinned. “And besides, if anyone can convince someone to break a few silly rules, it’s me. I am his oldest friend, after all.”