Realms of Valen - Blasphemous Crusade (War of the Gods Book 2)

by Rickk Berry III

  Kaidia struck at Alyssia with unthinkable speed. Even with her natural agility, Alyssia struggled to keep up with Kai's attacks. Nadia, while not quite as quick or agile as her sister, had Sesaria in retreat, blocking and dodging the flurry of sword and axe blows that the younger Valengaard was doling out. Sesaria didn't have a spare moment to counterattack.

  The two pairs of fighting warriors moved across the training yard, steel ringing and scraping against steel in a symphony of sound that would've set teeth on edge if everyone involved weren't so preoccupied with avoiding every potentially fatal strike. The noble-blooded sisters pushed the elven twins across the open area one step at a time, slowly but surely.

  Kai and Nadia steadily pushed the elves toward the wall of the training yard. Sensing that they were about to have their backs, quite literally, to the wall, Alyssia and Sesaria took a chance. Alyssia ducked a swing of Kai's sword and used the opening to put her hand against Kaidia's ribs and let off a burst of sorcerous energy, throwing the god backward, sending her sprawling over the hard ground. Before Kai stopped tumbling, Alyssia had joined her sister in fighting Nadia. Together, the twins started to force Nadia into a retreat.

  Nadia's sword and axe deflected most of the blows, she dodged the rest, but she was having to move as fast as she could and she couldn't keep it up for long. Swords clanged together, ringing out in the yard. Nadia hissed as one sword made it through her defenses and grazed her arm, splitting the skin. She mentally cursed herself for wearing armor that left her arms bare. The other elf's sword managed to barely catch her face, slicing along her cheek.

  She jumped backward, away from the elves, and slashed her sword toward their feet. Ice coated the ground, spikes of it shooting up toward the elves, making them back away. They all paused, catching their breath. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Kaidia and the god made the twins pay for that with a blast of fire that engulfed them both, vaporizing Nadia's ice, and knocking both elves to the ground.

  Alyssia started to get up and reach for her sword. She'd dropped it when she hit the ground. She had no sooner stretched out her hand for the hilt than Kaidia's foot stomped down on the sword's blade. Her other foot collided with Alyssia's face a moment later, sending the elf sprawling, bloodying her nose and mouth.

  “I'm done fucking around with you elf brats,” Kai said, her tone giving even Nadia the chills.

  Nadia raised a brow. Her sister seemed a bit different. Kai's body radiated power, the air around her wavered with it, shimmered even. Kaidia reached down, grabbed Alyssia by the front of her armor, and flung the elven woman across the yard with inhuman strength. Alyssia crashed into one of the pillars, toppling it. Kaidia walked over calmly, watching as her prey struggled to stand. Nadia glanced to the other elf who lay, unmoving, on the ground. Whether she was dead or just knocked out, Nadia wasn't sure. She turned her attention back to Kaidia, not sure what was about to happen. She just knew it wasn't going to be pleasant for the elf.

  Kaidia picked Alyssia up from the rubble of the pillar, dragged her along, and slammed her into the next. A moment later, she tore the elf's armor from her, exposing Alyssia's tunic. Alyssia struggled as Kai raised the blade of her sword. She pressed the tip against the elf's stomach, on the left hand side, approximately where Kai had been pierced with Alyssia's arrow, and she started to push the blade forward. Alyssia screamed out as her abdomen was slowly, inexorably impaled.

  Nadia winced faintly. She knew that hurt, but she wasn't about to tell Kai to stop.

  “How does that feel, little elf?” Kai asked, pressing the tip of the blade further into the elf's stomach, a sadistic look of pleasure overtaking her features.

  Alyssia could only scream louder in response; a shrill scream that carried with it the helplessness that the elf felt, overpowered, facing down a vengeful, vindictive god. Nadia watched, then arched a brow in surprise as she felt someone pass by her.

  Sesaria, woken by her twin's pained scream, moved to save her sister, seething with anger, and shot past Nadia, ignoring her.

  “Kai! Look out!” Nadia shouted, raising her hand, a spike of ice materializing in her palm, aimed at the running elf. Kaidia whipped around and threw her sword at the enraged, charging woman. Sesaria saw it and tried to skid to a stop, but she couldn't manage to do it in time. The sword went straight through her gut with a wet, meaty thud. The only thing that stopped it from going straight out her back was the crossguard. Sesaria nearly fell over, she managed to keep her feet, but little else. Her sword clanged against the rocky ground as it fell from her numb fingers. The shock of being so violently and abruptly wounded had her unable to really move. As she looked down at the sword sticking out of her gut, she coughed up a gush of blood, soaking the hilt of the sword. She reached behind her and felt the blade sticking out of her back. As her knees buckled, she was struck in the side of the skull by Nadia's spike of ice, which put her out of her misery. Sesaria slumped over dead, blood pooling underneath her body.

  Alyssia wailed at the sight and scrambled over to her sister's body. She pulled the ice out of Sesaria's skull and threw it aside, then pulled the sword out and discarded it as well. The sword clattered across the ground and settled near Kaidia. She picked it up and watched Alyssia, giving her a moment to grieve.

  The moment was interrupted as Khamora came crashing through the outer wall, breaching it a second time, and sending debris scattering across the yard. He fell onto his back, shaking the whole outpost, his body savaged with bleeding wounds. Kai's dragon slammed down on top of him, pinning the demon god to the ground, claws digging into Khamora's shoulders. The dragon reared back as far as it could without letting go of the demon and then let a jet of fire out of its mouth, straight into Khamora's face. The demonic god let out of roar of pain and rage, the flesh of his face burning off, peeling away as his eyes melted. The roar died off in a gurgling sigh and Khamora's body relaxed.

  Alyssia watched her god die with horrified expression, her mouth open, eyes wide, body trembling with disbelief and despair. Everything she had fought for, those she loved, had all just come crashing down around her within the past three days. The army, her sister, her god, all dead. Alyssia's sadness began to burn away, replaced by a desperate rage. She grabbed her dead sister's sword and whirled around with a cry of anguish. She attacked Kaidia with powerful, reckless slashes of her sword which Kaidia deflected with ease. Alyssia's anger fueled attacks left her open after each strike. Kaidia ignored the opportunities to counterattack, letting Alyssia work her anger out and slowly realize that she wasn't going to win.

  The moment that she truly realized that she couldn't win showed in Alyssia's eyes. It was that moment that Kai took to disarm the elf, the sword hitting the rocky ground with a muted thump, kicking up a cloud of dust. Her free, armored fist caught Alyssia on the jaw and sent her to the ground. The elf pushed herself up on her hands and knees, spitting out blood. Kaidia reached down and grabbed Alyssia's ponytail and undid the tie holding it in place. Her fingers grabbed hold of hair at the base of the elf's skull and pulled the woman up until she was standing on her knees.

  “I will bury you and your sister properly, with honor, in marked graves. This place will be your tomb. I promise you that,” Kaidia said, her tone gentle and reassuring. Alyssia could barely nod. All hope had fled her mind and body. Kaidia held the elf's head back, the blonde woman's mouth hanging open. “May you find peace in the warm embrace of death.”

  Kai raised her sword, reversed her grip on the hilt, the blade pointing down toward Alyssia's face. Only a moment passed before Kaidia drove the sword downward, ramming it into the elf's mouth, down her throat, and down into her body, rupturing all of her organs in one swift move. The width of the sword split the elf's cheeks, spilling blood down the sides of her neck and down into her armor.

  Kaidia held the sword in place for several long moments before pulling it up and out of Alyssia's throat. She turned the elf loose and watched the body crumple to the ground. The god wiped the blad
e on Alyssia's tunic and then sheathed it. She looked up as she heard a rather loud crunching noise to see her dragon gnawing on Khamora's body.

  “Are you really eating that?” she asked. The dragon raised its head up and looked at her innocently. “Of course you are.”

  Kaidia sighed, and then looked toward the outpost. She raised a brow as she spied Echo, Wylkas, and Thorgrimm standing by the hole in the wall that Kai's body had created earlier. The three of them looked like they'd been through the wringer, but they were all alive and less than mortally wounded.

  “How much did you see?” Kai asked the three as they slowly approached.

  “Since right after she showed up,” Wylkas said, gesturing to Nadia.

  “Ah. Enjoy the show?” Kaidia questioned.

  “A bit brutal at the end there,” Echo admonished gently, but wrapped her arms around Kaidia. “I'm glad you're alright.”

  “I'm always alright,” Kaidia said with a smirk, returning Echo's embrace. After a moment, Kai pulled away, her armor turning into black smoke, and drifting away. She was relieved by the weight of it being gone. Echo stepped over to Nadia, looked her over, and sniffed at her. Nadia raised a brow.

  “That's my younger sister, Nadia,” Kaidia supplied.

  “Lovely to meet you. I'm Echo-Seras,” the kyrian greeted, her hands grasping Nadia's shoulders briefly.

  “Likewise,” Nadia said with a faint smile.

  “Did any of you see a way down into a cellar or tomb while you were wandering around in there?” Kaidia asked, looking between Echo, Thorgrimm, and Wylkas.

  “No, but the people who built this would have one,” Wylkas said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I want to put them in it. It isn't right to just leave their bodies out here,” Kaidia explained, gesturing to the dead elves.

  “Honorable of you. I have an idea of where it might be,” Wylkas said before heading back into the outpost. Kaidia rolled up the sleeves of her tunic and bent down to gently pick Alyssia up in her arms, treating the fallen elf as tenderly as she might treat the body of a loved one.

  “Nadia, pick up Sesaria, bring her,” Kai ordered. Nadia arched a brow, but moved to follow her sister's instructions. She picked up Sesaria and cradled the elf's body in a mimic of her sister's tenderness. Together, with the honor guard of an elf, a kyrian, and a dwarf, the twin elves that gave their lives for their cause were carried into the outpost.

  It didn't take long for Wylkas to find the stairway to the tombs down below ground level. The five of them made their way down into the cool darkness, Echo summoning an orb of light to float along with them to illuminate the passageways. The air was stale and smelled ancient. Wylkas peeked into several rooms before walking into one. Like all the rooms they had passed by, this one was long and somewhat wide. Running along each side of the room were stone sarcophagi; the head of each one against the wall, the foot of each jutting out in the room. Those sarcophagi at the far end of the room were filled, covered with stone lids that were inscribed with the names of their occupants and, if applicable, their rank and the battle in which they died. Some of the sarcophagi stood open, their covers leaning against the sides of the sarcophagi they were meant to seal closed.

  “They ran out of bodies before they ran out of boxes,” Kai remarked.

  “A callous way of putting it, but yes,” Wylkas said, his voice tinged with reverence.

  Kaidia carried Alyssia's body to the next open sarcophagus and Nadia followed with Sesaria. Kai gently lowered the elf's limp form into the cold stone box, making sure to close Alyssia's eyes after she did. Nadia place Sesaria into the stone coffin next to Alyssia's with a similarly gentle touch. With both of the elven siblings laid to rest in the sarcophagi looking, if not for all the blood, as if they could be sleeping, the group slid the coverings onto the sarcophagi, sealing the twins inside.

  “Who knows how to etch names?” Kai asked.

  “I do, with the right tools,” Thorgrimm said.

  “Like these?” Echo asked from the far end of the room, holding up a chisel and a hammer.

  “Aye, like those,” Thorgrimm confirmed.

  * * *

  An hour later, Thorgrimm had finished. Wylkas had stood beside the dwarf the whole while, watching him work.

  “I didn't know chiseling could be done so quickly,” the elf said.

  “Lots of practice and a few dwarven techniques,” Thorgrimm replied.

  Echo, who had been watching from a few paces away, looked around for Kaidia and Nadia. Nadia was busy at the far end of the room, reading a floor to ceiling inscription on the wall. Well, she was trying to, anyway. The language the inscription was written in was long dead and dated to the early Second Age.

  Kaidia was sleeping on a sarcophagus nearby, simply to be near her sibling. Echo walked toward the end of the room, ears perked, tail flicking back and forth with her steps. She leaned over the sleeping Kai and tapped the god on the nose with a forefinger.

  “Kaidia... I don't think napping on a coffin is considered good manners,” Echo chided playfully.

  “I don't think Corporal Edison Gharut gives two shits if I sleep on his sarcophagus,” Kai retorted without opening her eyes.

  “Well, at least you bothered to read the inscription on his coffin,” Echo chuckled.

  “Yep. Corporal Edison Gharut, Thirty-seventh infantry regiment of the Royal Army. Died in the Battle of Fort Woltvere on the Fifth Day of Winter's Dawn, Year Nine Hundred and Eighty-Six of the Second Age,” Kaidia recited. Echo arched a brow.

  “Memorized it, too, I see,” she stated, somewhat impressed.

  Nadia blinked, glanced between the wall, then the sarcophagus, then shoved her sister off of it. Kaidia managed to land on her feet, but gave her sister a dirty look.

  “What the hell, Nadia?!” she demanded.

  “How can you read that?” Nadia asked, pointing to the lid of the sarcophagus that Kai had been lounging upon. Kaidia and Echo glanced at the lid and, for the first time, Kai noticed that the writing wasn't in the common tongue, it was in the same dead language that was scrawled all over the wall. Echo looked to Kaidia curiously.

  “I don't know,” Kaidia said with a shrug. She simultaneously recognized and did not recognize the language and it made her feel strange.

  “I think I know why,” Echo stated.

  “Enlighten me,” Kai said, looking Echo in the eye.

  “You powers as a god are expanding. So is your knowledge. You must have all the knowledge of the dragons in your head and I'd bet it will slowly open up to you over time,” Echo hypothesized.

  “Nice theory. I suppose we'll see,” Kai said with a shrug.

  “So what does this say?” Nadia asked and gestured to the wall.

  Kaidia looked over the wall in the magically conjured light. She took a couple of minutes to skim over the text and looked to Nadia afterward.

  “It's an account of the battle that claimed the soldiers buried here. Apparently, the Royal Army lost the battle, but the enemy laid them to rest with respect. Rules of engagement and all that. There are also soldiers from the opposing army buried here as well, in another several rooms. I get the impression that the tombs here are much larger than the fort itself,” Kaidia said.

  “Interesting. I love stuff like this,” Nadia said, then glanced back to the wall. A moment later, she turned to Kaidia. “Where's Rykar?”

  Kai's eyes went wide, as did Echo's.

  “Aw, shit. I forgot about him!” Kai exclaimed.

  * * *

  Rykar sat on the remains of the ancient statue of the forgotten god that had been watching over the massive clearing. He glanced around as he combed his finger through his hair. The clearing had been expanded, somewhat. Some trees had been broken, others set aflame, half the grass in the clearing was burned, and a lot of the ground was gouged and dug up.

  The King himself had lost all of the armor for the upper half of his body, including his tunic. He was dirty, bloody, and quite worn out. His swor
d was held in one hand, his shield lay at his feet, dented and bent. The demon he had been fighting lay dead with a tree trunk impaling his torso. Rykar let out a long breath.

  “I need a drink,” he said to himself.

  Chapter XX: Snow, Love, and Dark Thoughts

  Kaidia stood in the lavish back room of the newly built Dragon Temple in Corrana. It was meant to be a living quarter for a god, specifically, Kaidia herself. The bed off in one corner of the large room was large, soft, and covered with pillows. There was a fire roaring in a large fireplace at the other end of the room and books lined the walls. A private washroom and a closet were located near the bed. Three large windows interrupted the bookshelves on the back wall and it was out of one of these that Kaidia was staring.

  Snow fell outside the window, coating the entire city of Corrana in a cold, white powder. The city was still being rebuilt after the rampage of Khamora's army. The temples, the King's palace, guild halls, and colleges were all the first to be repaired or rebuilt. But with the help of the Scorpions, mages, and regular people all chipping in, the city was starting to regain some of its former glory. Temporary housing had been set up outside the city limits and several temples, including Kai's, were playing host to many of Corrana's residents who had lost their homes. Several auxiliary buildings for the temple were housing families while the main building remained open for followers to worship or confer with priests or just wander about. Kai's room was in the back of the main building, of course. As were the living quarters for priests and acolytes.

  Tonight, however, the largest room of the temple, often reserved for quiet reflection and worship, was filled with guests. Family and friends of Nadia and Sae-Mirra had gathered to witness the two women join together in bonds of love for the rest of their lives. Kaidia had been surprised when both women had asked her to perform the ritual. She had no reservations about it. She knew Sae well and her sister even better. She knew the love they shared was real. Any doubts about it had been erased when Kai and Nadia had returned to Vortha after the fight with Alyssia and Sesaria. Sae had been so happy to see Nadia awake and after a bone-fracturing hug, she had launched into an hour long rant and ass-chewing session about Nadia waking up and leaving without saying anything. The whole situation had left Kaidia smirking with amusement and, at times, breathless with laughter.