Springing from his cushion with such force that he shattered both of his legs, the invading king went out to test his abilities, his legs mending before he landed upon his feet. Some of his champions had been spared the bite of the vampire whores, at least for the time being. Eventually even they were likely to succumb to the thirst of one of their peers. For now, however, these warriors would be his test subjects.
Leaving his candle-lit tent, he was amazed how well he could see in the darkness. His eyes had become so keen, it were as if the sun shone even now, late in the night. Within seconds he was at the edge of the camp. Grinning again, he realized that he moved so fast now that he would have to pay closer attention to his movements. Already, he had to turn around and go back the way he had come, having passed his destination. Invading Valdadore had been his best idea yet, and with his improved army, he could easily destroy any of the other neighboring nations as well.
He pondered that line of thinking a moment, imagining his many conquests and victories, before once again reaching the opposite edge to his camp.
“Shit.”
Turning once again, in the direction he had come, he focused solely on his destination, careful not to become sidetracked in newly realized fantasies.
* * * * *
Sara sat uncomfortably within her cage, like a beast being hauled to slaughter. For better than eighteen hours she had been confined to the small metal prison, a situation she did not imagine herself getting used to. Most of that time was spent trundling ever further away from Valdadore. She wished she could escape and return to help in the fight. It would allow her the vengeance she desired. Instead she wondered if Valdadore still stood, its valiant defenders putting up a good fight to retain their home.
After crossing the lake, some hours before, the oxen pulling the cart had been replaced by great black steeds. These beasts whisked her along the well beaten road previously trodden by the armies of King Sigrant. A singular inhabitant traveled with her. A small man adorned by tattoos that covered nearly every inch of his flesh. It was he who had replaced the oxen with the large horses when Sara’s care had been transferred on the western shore of the frozen lake.
She had tried to talk to him once in an attempt to glean information about where they were going, but found the venture useless. The man ignored her, sitting just out of reach at the front of the cart. There he guided the beasts ever onward at a dangerous pace, their hooves thundering down the road, the creaking cart behind them.
With nothing else to do but count the passing moments, Sara sat against the back bars of the cage, her arms wrapped around her knees. The need to sleep being nothing but a memory to her, she waited patiently, praying to any god who would hear her, for a chance to escape. Even now her power increased with every passing moment. Sigrant was changing multitudes of humans to be a monster like her. Whereas he got a portion of power from each of his direct underlings, he gained a smaller portion from those that they changed. So too was it with her. Sara was gaining a fraction of the power Sigrant was gaining, though less than the invading king himself. With every passing minute she grew stronger, her senses growing keener. She had tested the bars an hour before, but still was unable to bend them. So she waited, growing ever more powerful, for the first opportunity that presented itself.
* * * * *
Linaya rode her Valdadorian white stallion beside Zorbin Ironfist atop the great dire wolf Xanth. The dwarves had brought the pair their mounts upon exiting the mountains that served as the dwarves’ home. Together they followed the immense Dwarven army, a sea of a hundred thousand stout men and women whose polished armor sparkled even in the near absolute darkness. At the head of the army, the new king of the Dwarven nation marched along with his advisors and royal guard.
Linaya watched in awe as the immense army marched, each of them in step, pounding the ground beneath them in a steady thunderous rhythm. Every dwarf bore a great hammer resting upon their shoulder, a feat that she was sure would grow tiring in little to no time. Thus far, however, she had not noticed a single soldier switch arms or move to relieve the pains of hefting such a weight for so long a time.
“Zorbin…” Linaya near shouted over the pounding of the Dwarven army’s feet. “Why do the dwarves carry no torches with them? Would it not be safer if those in front could better see the ground before them?”
“We dwarves see better in darkness than you humans, a benefit, methinks, that comes with living underground, m’lady. It also hides our numbers from any enemy scouts who may hear us coming.”
“Makes sense.”
“We may not war with the other races of men often, m’lady, but I assure you that little has changed in war since the races of men first discovered one another,” Zorbin grumbled.
Linaya shifted upon her mount, restless, wishing they could move faster. She could not wait to return to Valdadore, Dwarven army in tow, finally feeling she was doing her part to save her people. She relaxed her grip upon the reins once again, an act she had had to repeat on several occasions. She hoped they arrived to find Valdadore and her defenders holding strong, especially Garret. She missed him dearly and looked forward to his embrace. For now all there was to do was wait and hope they arrived in time.
Chapter Two
Borrik could hear them coming and smell them as they neared. Nearly an hour had passed since he had given the warning that they were coming. The enemy screamed and yelled like crazed animals, and as they came into sight of the beacon fires that surrounded the city, it was apparent that they were not what was expected. Immediately he knew them for what they were. These beasts were like Princess Sara, moving unnaturally, like fluid over the surface of the ground.
Their leaps covered too much ground, their strides were unnaturally long. They bounded over the meager ground defenses of spiked poles and pits like stags leaping brambles in the forest.
Borrik watched them come, studying their movements and speeds. They were but a small fraction of Sigrant’s force, and though they moved like Sara they were slower. These were a shadow of what the princess had become, but even so he knew that if they made it past the walls and into the city, the common people would have little chance against the faster and stronger mimics of humans.
Everyone saw them coming, and a cheer arose upon the battlements on the wall as the wave of Sigrant’s soldiers came to a halt outside the gleaming white walls of the city. Their cheers ceased abruptly when the first of the creatures began digging fingernails and toenails into unseen holds in the stone and started to scale the supposedly smooth walls. Within seconds the creatures’ comrades followed suit, each of them scratching and clawing up the walls like spiders. Up they came, a thousand unholy enemies.
Borrik watched as realization struck Valdadore’s defenders. Its remaining mages began flinging fire down the walls, incinerating those attackers too slow to move out of the way. Borrik joined them, summoning his own fireballs in two of his four hands and hurling them down upon the bloodthirsty wretches. He heard the boom when Garret invoked his blessing, and was sad in the knowing that no further booms beyond his own would come. All they needed to do was hold out until Seth came.
Touching his armor and whispering a prayer to Seth, Borrik exploded in a concussive boom before leaping from the wall. The cold updrafts hitting the immense walls helped keep him aloft as he swept dangerously close, pulling his nearest enemies free of their holdings, letting them plummet to the ground. Others he cleaved with blade or burned with fire, but they climbed too fast and already were nearing the top of the wall in many locations.
* * * * *
Garret watched the enemy climb, believing them yet another type of blessed troop in Sigrant’s arsenal. He swore at his bad luck, angered beyond measure that against these troops his ballista and other war mechanisms were useless. They moved too fast and kept distance from one another. Before he knew what was happening the attackers were climbing the walls like insects swarming out of a hive. His mages and archers began an assault in r
etaliation but there were so few left, their impact was miniscule.
Garret called upon his blessing and a moment later watched as Borrik did the same before flinging himself over the edge of the wall. A minute. Maybe two. That was all the time Garret had before they breached the top of the wall and inevitably made it into the city. If that happened the gates would be compromised and all was lost.
Then it struck him.
Dashing down the walkway atop the wall, Garret watched as his remaining soldiers dove aside at his approach. He had no time to slow. Reaching the first great cauldron, he bent his knees to prepare for the right moment.
Usually these cauldrons, filled with boiling oil, were tilted into a stone gutter that led down into the wall and out a sluice that caused it to rain down below the wall on gathered troops and siege engines. The problem was that in this case the enemy was on the wall, not below it on the ground. Garret had a solution.
Planting his feet and wrapping his one immense, metallic arm around the cauldron, he shoved with all his might, leveraging the giant bronze container against the battlements. Growling with the exertion, he pressed upwards with his legs as the cauldron scraped slowly up the stone. Reaching the top, he pressed further still as the oil began to spill out.
“Mages!” Garret shouted in a deep resounding tone that was sure to be heard by everyone. With that single word he pressed once more, and using his shoulder he tipped the giant cauldron over the edge of the wall and began sliding it down the wall to coat as much as he could.
Boiling oil cascaded down the wall. Invaders not only fell from the burning torment from above, but those who remained found it impossible to find a hand or foot hold any higher than their current position. Those below Garret either fell or found themselves sitting ducks, for as soon as the cauldron was emptied, the king released it to fall again to the stones of the castle wall with a hollow resounding toll. On that mark, battle mages unleashed their inferno upon the oil-coated section of wall, burning those who remained and creating a fire barrier for any who climbed from below.
Garret dared not wait, he had only protected a hundred feet or so of the wall that stretched on for what now seemed an eternity. Running once more, he approached the next cauldron and began to lift it as Borrik slammed to the stone wall opposite him. Together they lifted the second immense container of boiling fluid and repeated the process.
By the fourth cauldron some of the invaders peaked the wall, but Garret dared not stop, hoping his men could handle the foes.
“Borrik, we must continue!” he shouted, to a replied nod.
There was no one else able to lift the giant cauldrons. Even the great werewolf was having issues, his skin beginning to blister on his hands and arms as the fur burned away.
Minutes passed and the men upon this western wall managed to hold their foes as the king and great wolf dumped cauldron after cauldron, working their way northward along the wall, but they were too slow. Ahead, more and more of the foreign men topped the wall and the defenders could not hold them. Garret witnessed as the unnatural invaders pounced upon his meager forces, biting and clawing them ferociously. They drank the blood of those they felled before leaping to the rooftops beyond, to be lost again in darkness. He had seen another drink the blood of her foes.
It was no use, and Garret abandoned the next cauldron, rushing past it to help those falling back upon the wall. Borrik leapt into the air, out of his way, and took up the fight as well. Within seconds, the masses of the enemy began breaching the wall everywhere the burning oil did not protect. The city would fall on the very first night.
With that thought Garret got his wish as his vision turned red and a chuckle escaped his lips, before he drew his massive blade and began hacking the unholy creatures to bits. He stomped ahead on the wall, allies trying to make a clear path as he came. The one-armed king, a giant among men, cut a path of gore upon the great stone wall as hundreds of the creatures poured over the edge to meet the defenders.
Approaching a group that did not flee at his approach, Garret swung low, knowing the things would easily leap above his blade. Then, mid swing, he changed the angle of his attack and bending one knee he arced his blade upwards, catching more than half of the creatures across the abdomens, effectively severing each of them in two.
Five or six at a time was not going to be enough, however, as his forces upon the west wall began to fail at an increasing rate. There were more enemies than allies, and within moments the wall would be lost. Garret charged ahead, swinging his blade wildly, hacking anything that did not evade him. The city was lost. There were too many to hold off with such diminished forces. Even the few remaining werewolves realized it, as they all howled into the night as if of one mind. If things were not bad enough, as Garret focused his attention on a throng of enemies topping the wall, a series of explosions sounded as a great wind blasted him, driving him back a step. He had failed Valdadore’s people.
* * * * *
Seth soared along on his great, black, leathery wings, feeling at one with the night. His magical wind propelled him on at an alarming speed that made his eyes water and his flesh rise in goose pimples. Flying was amazing, even with everything that had gone wrong in the last few months. Right now he did not have the luxury of dwelling on all of his mistakes. He could not afford to repeat them, either. It was best to focus on the present, and what he could do to fix it.
Reaching out, he once again checked his progress. Sigrant’s camp grew nearer by the second, and Valdadore was only a few miles beyond that. He had noted the small contingent breaking off from Sigrant’s forces, and checked in every few moments to see their progress. At first, when the two forces seemed to collide it appeared that Valdadore was winning. Now, however, the tide was rapidly turning for the worse. Again Seth shut away his vision of the gods. It would do him no good to watch if there was nothing he could yet do about it. He could not get wrapped up in the emotional aspect of what was happening. Such a mistake had cost him on several occasions. He would arrive when he could and then decide what actions to pursue.
Just minutes passed, and he watched as Sigrant’s camp passed beneath him. Seeking again a look through his magical vision, he could easily see King Sigrant himself, but there was nothing Seth could do. Sigrant held too much power. The aura of the invading king was immense, unlike anything Seth had ever seen before in a man, and it grew by the second. Seth could not contain that kind of power. He did not know his limitations, but knew for certain that the power held by Sigrant exceeded them.
Seth’s own power was immense, having grown more and more each time a person loyal to him died. But the invading king’s power was more than five times that of what Seth had amassed. Seth both envied and feared the man below as he winged overhead. The best he could do for now was assist in defending the city and try to find a solution.
A minute passed as Seth rushed the great flaming walls in the distance. Even from here he could see the creatures scaling the walls by the hundreds, their bodies a stark contrast to the white painted walls of the city. Then it struck him.
Reaching out as he made his approach to the city, Seth located his few remaining troops and infused them each with power. Diving lower, he watched as Borrik noted him, an instantaneous howl breaking from his open maw, echoed by each of the remaining werewolves as the image of their god was shared telepathically. Explosions occurred again and again as his troops called upon the power. Seth dove lower, pulling up just before colliding with the battlements atop the wall. Ahead of him, perhaps twenty paces, his brother fought in a rage, hacking and cleaving his way across the wall.
Seth folded his wings behind and around himself like a cloak, watching the scene play out before him. His brother, lost in rage, made no note of him even as a cheer erupted from those defenders remaining. The common troops of Valdadore witnessed Seth’s troops valiantly summoning their blessings once more, and more still witnessed the landing of the walking, now flying, god. Seth looked upon his brother, his brea
th catching in his chest a moment. Garret, the king, was a wreck. He battled on with one arm, growling and grunting as he stomped a path. His strikes swung wild more often than not. It was apparent he was weary and worse, being reckless with his own life and the lives of those loyal to him.
Seth shook his head. No emotions, he reminded himself. Reaching out, he snuffed out the lives of over a hundred vampires upon the top of the wall as the defenders again cheered his return. Then, with a thunderous boom, green and yellow lightning split the air, breaking into dozens of electrical fingers that crackled, each seeking a foe.
Breathing deeply as his brother turned and their eyes met, Seth tried to remain focused as the metallic giant’s eyes grew moist, a broken half grin trying to show through the king’s obvious pain.
Seth merely nodded at his brother before leaping off the wall and unfolding his wings to glide further down the wall. He could feel Garret’s eyes tracking him but tried to ignore it.
Landing anew, he watched as Borrik raced overhead, lancing fireballs, his jaw snapping again and again. Seth reached out, snuffing another hundred or more invaders, feeling the power rush into his reserves once more. Reaching out past the wall, he turned his palms downward and let the power free. Unholy green flame erupted from his hands, spreading out in a wall of death below him, encompassing the entirety of the wall for several hundred yards. From the top of the wall all the way to the ground was scorched almost instantly, its white paint peeling and smoldering as the ashes of enemies floated slowly through the air to the ground below.
Again and again Seth sprang into the air, only to land once more and extinguish the lives of his foes within moments. When nearly all upon the walls or climbing them were destroyed, there remained yet another task for the dark prince. Reaching into the city, he found those infected by the change. There were nearly two hundred, and the number was rapidly growing. Focusing his mind he tugged at the sparks of life from each and every one of them, wincing as he separated the life of a young baby and its mother. Power rushed into him, but with so few foes remaining he turned as the battle came to an end, and strode towards his brother, the king.
Age of the Gods: The Complete, twelve novel, fantasy series (The Blood and Brotherhood Saga) Page 124
