Wrath of Lions

CHAPTER 18

The horse faltered, almost pitching Roland and Kaya to the ground.

“Whoa, girl,” Roland said, trying his best to keep them both firmly in the saddle. The poor horse straightened out, took a few firm steps, and then its leg crumpled once more. Roland cursed and pulled back on the reins, halting the animal. If it had pitched any lower, they would have been thrown to the rocky, root-infested ground. He and Kaya dismounted, Kaya caressing the horse’s side, while he circled around to face her head on, watching her shake her head and blow her nose as if in frustration. Roland tugged on his belt, trying to swing the uncomfortable sword that hung there into a less dangerous position.

Azariah trotted up beside him, his gold-green eyes focused on the horse. Tall trees rose up behind him like swaying sentries.

“Check the hoof,” the Warden said.

His friend sounded sullen, depressed, and fully unlike himself, a change that had come upon him since their last day in Lerder. Roland grimaced up at the Warden, then bent down and coaxed the horse into lifting her leg. The poor creature whinnied, blood dripping from her hoof. Roland immediately spotted a jagged piece of stone wedged into the soft tissue on the inside of the hoof.

“What is it?” asked Kaya from over his shoulder.

“Rock got stuck,” he said. “Comfort her as you can. I’m going to pull it out.”

He glanced at Azariah, who nodded.

Kaya did as he’d asked, her tone soothing as she spoke to the horse in words he was sure the animal couldn’t understand. Yet the horse seemed to relax nonetheless, her leg muscles going slightly limp, allowing Roland to cram his fingers beneath the stone and give it a solid tug. It came free with a thwop, the blood from the sensitive tissue running a deeper red. Azariah handed him a swath of yellow fabric, and Roland stuffed the cloth into the horse’s hoof to soak up the blood.

“It’s best we find a place to rest for a time,” the Warden said. “I will need to heal her.”

Roland shook his head. He looked behind them, at the procession of panting horses in the forest, each holding two or more frightened individuals. A hundred more walked behind them.

“You don’t mean here, do you?” Roland asked, looking around at the tall trees that circled all around them. “Shouldn’t we find someplace more suitable, where the horses can graze on something that isn’t poison berries?”

Azariah peered at the canopy above their heads. “It is almost dusk, Roland. Travel will only grow more dangerous.”

“I still think we should find a different resting place,” Roland said. “We shouldn’t be too far from some settlement or another, right?”

“And what will we find when we get there?” the Warden asked with a frown.

Roland hung his head, dejected. Even Kaya rubbing his back wasn’t doing much to soothe him.

They had kept off the Gods’ Road in their travels, steering through the northern hill country in hopes of throwing off any potential pursuers. At first every village or hamlet they passed was deserted, but for a handful of humans and Wardens, but soon they discovered that the war had, in fact, crossed in front of them. Two settlements they’d encountered on their quest for the Wooden Bridge had been reduced to rubble and ash, the bodies of human and Warden alike strung up in trees. The areas surrounding each settlement had been trampled under countless feet and burned, leaving Azariah’s group with little opportunity to restock their dwindling supply of food. In other places even the fruit trees had been decimated, each apple or pear snatched from the branches, nothing but rotting remains around the trunks. Fields had been stripped clear of all vegetation. And that didn’t even take into account the problems they’d encountered with the horses. The poor beasts were constantly getting rocks or splinters lodged into their hooves, and at least three had broken limbs during the journey, costing them precious time while the Wardens healed their wounds.

“We’ll find what we find,” Roland replied softy. “And make do with that.”

Azariah gave him a strange look.

“I cannot decide if you are stubborn, foolhardy, or wise, though I do find it amusing that you feel you know best. So let us continue, Roland, and discover which of the three it is.”

The trek continued, the land rising and falling as they headed forever west. Just as the sun began to dip closer to the horizon, they came upon a small stream, and where they took a few moments to water the horses, who were exhausted to the point of collapsing. Roland refilled his waterskin and shared it with Kaya, who stayed latched onto his side like a growth. The water tasted off somehow, rotten and unseemly, but he drank it down just the same. He was parched beyond belief, and it hadn’t rained since the day they’d left the riverside community. It amazed him that he actually wished for the rain to return. While building the wall, he’d hated it with a passion, but now he stared at the sky with desperate hope each time he saw a cloud.

But the stream meant there was probably another settlement nearby, which buoyed Roland’s spirits slightly. When they finally began the journey once more, he had Kaya ride in the saddle with her younger sister while he walked beside the horse. The pair started singing, and he felt almost hopeful.

That hope died the moment they came upon civilization-or what was left of it. Jaquiel the Warden introduced the place as the village of Lockstead, yet no village remained. Ashhur had been here, that much Roland could tell; there were shattered chunks of stone and wood everywhere, the remnants of the wall the god had raised for the unfortunate few who’d stayed behind. Beyond the crumbled rubble were the burnt scraps of tents, a few toppled huts, their thatched roofs still smoldering, and a single demolished granary. The grass was scorched black, and when Roland squatted down to trace the outline of a large boot heel in the earth, he realized it was still warm.

“This happened recently,” he said.

“So did the others,” Azariah replied.

“But where are the bodies?”

The Warden shrugged.

Roland stood and circled, looking into the trees, but other than a few blackened lower branches, nothing had been disturbed. Strangely, the lack of bodies made him shudder. It was almost worse than seeing them all swaying in unison.

Kaya tugged on his shirt.

“Roland, I hear water,” she said excitedly.

“The brook might be wider here. Perhaps it is even a stream,” said Warden Jaquiel as he knotted his long auburn hair behind his head. “We might be able to snatch some fish.”

Kaya’s sister jumped in place.

“We could stay here for the night then?” she asked.

Roland exchanged a glance with Azariah.

“I think we should,” Roland said. “It’s dark now, and Karak’s Army has already passed. There’s no one to spot us. What do you think, Az?”

Azariah let out a sigh.

“Yes, we’ll stay. Roland, come with me. I wish to check the nearby stream. Perhaps Jaquiel has the right of it, and there are fish to be had.”

As the rest of the people flooded out of the forest, Roland and Azariah crossed the hill leading to the bubbling stream. As they neared the water, Roland felt his stomach twist into a knot. There would be no fish, not that night. The dead of Lockstead, perhaps seventy of them, bobbed there in the water. They had not drifted far, the stream too shallow and littered with twigs and felled branches to move them. The corpses had snagged and halted, colliding and piling on each other into a dam of sodden, rotting flesh. Roland dropped to his knees and vomited. The water…the peculiar taste of the water…

When finished, he popped the top of his waterskin and dumped the rest of it. Azariah watched, quiet, his face ashen.

“Not all is lost,” the Warden said, his voice hoarse. “I know a spell to purify the water.”

That night they slept in the open spaces of the desolate village. The horses hovered between nestled clumps of people, snorting and huffing. Roland lay on the bare ground beside a collapsed hut, with Kaya pressed against him, the supple feel of her body a small but necessary comfort. Her parents and siblings were beside them, most sleeping, some just pretending to. As he rested, his back sore and his hand aching from holding the reins too tightly, Roland swore he could hear a great rumble descend over the land. He chalked it up to the unified grumblings of two hundred hungry bellies.

He covered his ears with his hands, trying to block out the sound to get some sleep, but when he closed his eyes, he saw the glowing red stare of Jacob Eveningstar as his former master helped Karak raise the bridge across the Rigon. Frustrated and afraid, he lifted Kaya’s arm from his chest and sat up. She stayed sleeping, tucking her hands beneath her chin. It amazed Roland how attached to her he was, how interwoven their lives had become. Yet that attachment had brought with it a deeper well of fear; now when he pictured the dead hanging from trees, they all had Kaya’s face.

“I love you,” he whispered, and kissed her cheek.

He stood and left the gathering, hoping a walk would calm his nerves. After taking a few steps, he realized he’d forgotten the sword Azariah had given him. As he bent to retrieve it, he was struck by how much his life had changed. For twenty-one years he had lived without so much as seeing such a weapon; now it felt as though his life depended on having one near.

Once he was away from the town, Roland felt horribly exposed. His footsteps led him into the forest, where he might find some sort of cover. The moonlight was faint through the thick canopy of maples and elms overhead, and he stumbled through the darkness, arms held out before him, fending off branches and vines that threatened to slap his cheeks or poke out his eyes. He walked for some time, the night deepening around him, and it was not until he reached a circular clearing, littered with rocks and knee-high grasses, that he allowed himself to rest. He sat on a stump in the middle of the clearing, its bark spongy and brittle to the touch. The tip of his sword’s scabbard scraped against the rocks below.

“Roland?” someone asked.

Startled, he swung around on the stump and almost fell off. Behind him was a beautiful specter in a burlap nightshirt, playing with the kinky curls of her hair. The ghost rubbed the bridge of her nose, which she always did when she was uncertain, and the mirage broke.

“Kaya?” he asked. “What are you doing out here?”

“You left me,” she answered. “You promised you’d never leave me.”

He stood up and ran to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her tightly. Though she was the same age as him, and more experienced in many ways, she seemed younger in that moment, like a frightened child wishing to be comforted after a nightmare. But that’s what we all are, he thought. Frightened children, hoping and praying for the best.

“You were sleeping,” he said, placing a light kiss on her forehead. “I just needed to take a walk. To think.”

“I saw you leaving,” she said softly. “I was worried.”

“Kaya, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Yes there is. You don’t have to lie to me. Why else would you have brought the sword?”

He stroked her hair, refusing to answer. He thought of when he’d first used that sword, the night of the attack on Lerder. Moments after he and Azariah had scaled the makeshift wall around Lerder, a group of twenty assailants, those he’d watched swim across the river and scale the western bank, had come screaming around the bend. Though the townspeople had been given every armament stowed beneath Ashhur’s temple, none brought their arms up in defense. Three Wardens were cut down immediately, the rest jumping to action and herding the people into a tight group at the edge of the forest. A handful of attackers had forced their way through the wall of defending Wardens, slaying four more, one of them leaping at Kaya as she sat crying atop his horse. As if on instinct, Roland had rushed forward, driving the tip of his sword through the man’s gut. Blood gushed, screams echoed across the valley, and in a matter of moments it was all over.

“What is that?” Kaya said suddenly, jerking him from the recollection.

“What is what?”

“That light. That sound. Over there.”

He turned his head, looking toward the edge of the forest. Very humanlike noises were issuing from that direction, a grunt or two, followed by a strange jangling, like a giant chime clanging in the wind. The foliage began to quake. Roland felt himself freeze in place, Kaya clutched in his arms.

A shadowy figure stepped into the clearing, looking just as much a phantom as Kaya had. It was a large man with long, dark hair hanging in front of his face. His armor marked him as one of Karak’s soldiers. The man acted groggy, like he was recovering from a long night of wine and laughter. If he saw them, he did not react, instead turning to face a tree a few feet in front of them. There was a faint splashing as he urinated on the trunk.

Roland felt Kaya tremble, and he covered her mouth with his hand. The man finished his business and shook himself off, then ran his hands through his nappy hair and groaned. He started back the way he’d come, but then paused. Slowly he turned, as if in a dream, and gaped at Roland and Kaya.

“What the…?” the man muttered. He fumbled at his waist, grabbing the hilt of a short dagger wedged there, and then took a few staggering steps toward them, the dagger held out before him. Kaya yelped and struggled in Roland’s grasp, which made the man halt for a moment. His face was a mask of confusion and panic.

“Who’re you?” he asked, scratching his head with his off hand.

Roland stayed mum, squeezing Kaya to make her keep quiet as well.

“I said who are you?” the man repeated, his voice panicked now. He turned, gathering air into his lungs as if he were about to shout, but a blur flashed across the clearing before he could utter another word. A gleaming shaft of steel erupted from the place where his head met his neck, and Kaya let out a small shriek. The man offered a choked protest as his body shuddered, then went limp. The blade retracted, and the man teetered backward, falling to the stony soil with a thump.

Azariah hovered over the corpse. The shortsword looked comically small in his large hands, the blade dripping with the dead man’s blood. He glanced up at Roland, his green-gold eyes narrowed, his mouth turned down in a grimace.

Roland couldn’t stop his body from shaking. He gaped at his friend, finding it difficult to form words, as Kaya sobbed in his arms.

“I always know where you are,” the Warden said, answering the unasked question. “It is my duty as your protector.”

That was all Roland could take. He broke, tears streaming down his cheeks and soaking the top of Kaya’s head as she continued to cry against his chest. Azariah stepped up to them, wrapping them both in his long arms.

“Hush now,” he said with tenderness. “You have been strong this whole time, when you could have easily given up. Both of you. You must remain strong even now.”

Roland swallowed a gulp of bile, trying to force his heart to beat slower. The feel of Kaya’s breath against his neck was even more calming than Azariah’s embrace. He imagined his first night with her on the roof, and the few times they’d explored each other’s bodies in the dark of night while the rest of their troupe was sleeping. His frayed nerves unwound, and a seemingly unnatural relaxation came over him.

“Better?” asked Azariah.

“A little,” Roland answered.

“And you, Kaya?”

“I…I think I’ll be okay,” she said timidly.

“Good.” The Warden released them and walked toward the tree line from which the now dead man had emerged. “I am going to see where he came from,” he said. “Stay here. I will be back soon.”

“No,” said Roland, shaking his head. “No, we’re coming with you.”

“We are?” asked Kaya.

Azariah fumbled through the pouch at his waist, pulling out a handful of something Roland couldn’t see.

“If you insist on accompanying me,” he said, “then this will ensure you don’t do something to give us away.” He tossed whatever was in his hand into the air. It tumbled down like bits of twinkling ash, and Azariah spoke a few incomprehensible words. The particles disappeared, and the air around the three of them stretched into a liquid sheen before retracting, as if snapping back into place. “There. We are hidden now, mostly. Only someone very close, and very attentive, will see us.”

“What was that?” asked Roland.

Azariah shrugged. “A magical barrier. It makes those within it…dim. It does nothing for sound, though, so do not stomp through the forest like a mule.”

“I didn’t know you knew magic…well, other than healing and other practical stuff.”

“A bit. Well, more than a bit, actually.” The Warden frowned. “When one spends a great amount of time with Jacob Eveningstar, one tends to learn a few tricks.”

Roland winced at the sound of Jacob’s name but said nothing.

Silently they made their way through the trees. Azariah saw quite well in the dark, as Wardens’ eyes were almost as discerning as elves’. They maneuvered over small hills and thick tangles of vines, and Roland prayed to Ashhur that the snap of branches under their feet would be drowned out by the cacophonic commotion of a million chirping insects.

Ahead was a red glow, which became more and more pronounced as they approached it. After a time, it seemed as if the forest were on fire. Azariah hushed them as the telltale noises of a military camp reached their ears. Roland obliged without question. From the idle chatter, to the crackle of fire, to the clank and clink of stone on metal, it sounded as if hundreds of people were somewhere out there.

Azariah led them to a coppice of thick undergrowth, then halted. Leaning up and over the twisted mesh of twigs and fallen limbs, he gestured for the other two to do the same. Roland and Kaya joined him, trying to rise up just high enough for the tops of their heads to clear the barrier.

Another glen lay before them, many times larger than the one with the stump. To the left, a few men wandered amid what seemed to be hundreds of horses, giving them water and changing the feed bags over their snouts. To the right was a massive pavilion, behind which stood even more horses. Between them, numbering far too many to count, were tents, most of them bordered by crackling cookfires. There were men everywhere, dressed much the same as the one Azariah had killed, along with, amazingly enough, the occasional elf. Roland could not guess at their numbers, but he knew there must be thousands.

For a moment, Roland felt as if he were reliving the time when Jacob, Azariah, Brienna, and himself had spied Uther Crestwell’s ghastly ceremony in the Tinderlands. Even the Warden’s expression was the same-dismayed and breathless. Azariah took a steadying breath and pulled them down into the cover of the thicket.

Kaya looked to the Warden with pleading eyes. “Can we go back now?” she whispered.

Azariah seemed like he couldn’t hear her. He simply stared at the ground, shaking his head.

Roland sidled up to his friend. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Azariah, please talk to us.”

The Warden lifted his gaze.

“They burned the ruined settlements we saw,” he whispered. “Karak and Jacob did not circle around us like I first thought. This force must have come from the north, and there are thousands of them. Even worse, it looks like the elves have sided with them.” Once more he shook his head. “There is no place for Celestia’s children in this conflict. They were to remain neutral.”

“What are you saying?” asked Roland.

There was a dire look in Azariah’s eyes that scared Roland to his core. Even Kaya noticed, inching closer to him and clutching his hand so tightly, it felt as if she’d crush it.

“All of Dezrel is against us,” Azariah said. “Enemies behind, enemies in front and above, possibly even below.” He glanced at the glow above the thicket. “Let us return to camp. We must alert the others, and we must all hurry away.”

“How much of a chance do we have?” asked Kaya, her voice cracking.

“A chance of what?”

“Of crossing the bridge. Of reaching Mordeina.”

“Of not dying,” added Roland.

“Slight,” Azariah answered. He gave no other explanation. He simply took them both by the hand and led them out of the woods, away from the camping army, away from the death that awaited them all.