“Er,” Kale stuttered. “Haven’t seen much of Patrick, to be honest.”
I grabbed a man by the arm. “Where’s Patrick Verdan?”
The officer, or perhaps Northern lord given his liver-spotted bald head and thick white beard, swung his head around impatiently.
“Where the fuck is Patrick?” he said to someone.
“The lord commander is in his tent, sir.”
Baldy rolled his eyes. “Lord fucking commander,” he muttered. He threw his hand up, in the general direction of a large tent. “’Parently in there.”
Kale and I headed in that direction.
“Get outta the way,” snarled a man who almost bowled us over as he left the tent in a huff.
Inside, bent over a map, Patrick Verdan lifted his eyes. He gripped the table meaningfully, pushed himself up.
“It would have nice to know,” he said, anger rising in his voice, “that I’m facing an occult force where one soldier can cleave down three of mine!”
“What happened to ambushing the Red Sentinels?” I asked. “And who the hell is that?”
“Lord Jesson Tath,” the man with a mop of greasy hair said. He stood beside Patrick, surveying the map. Certainly ate better than his gaunt-looking father. Might’ve made a competition out of pie-eating if he had faced off against Braddock when he was still among the living. I’d remembered Jesson as an awkward boy who had pimples the size of your knuckles growing out of his face. The pimples had since shrunk, or his face had grown.
“You got fed bad information,” Patrick said. “No Sentinels. A battalion of something or other attempted a siege on Vereumene’s walls, before we got here, but Kane apparently mopped them up easily enough. Speaking of that bastard, he never came to our aid. Officer of Grannen’s ordered an attack on his walls. What was I supposed to do? Sandwich my men between the anger of the South and the betrayal of the East? I had no choice but to turn on Grannen’s men as we discussed. But I’m losing, because I’m goddamn fighting a—”
“A goddess,” I said. “That’s what you’re fighting.”
Patrick regarded me coolly, then rubbed his forehead, either out of shock and surprise or incredulity.
“Hey, look here,” Kale said, “you ain’t got a choice but to believe us.”
“I have plenty of choices,” Patrick said.
“Name two of them,” I said.
Patrick’s eyes narrowed.
“Think of her as a conjurer if you want,” I said. “Whatever makes your mind feel more at ease. She’s infusing herself in each of her soldiers, fortifying them. Strengthening them. You could have three times the numbers, but you’re not winning without putting her down.”
Jesson snorted. “This is absurd.”
I stepped forward, put myself close enough to the oily-faced king of Eaglesclaw that I could feel the warmth of his breath flare out those wide nostrils of his.
“So were the conjurers and dead fuckers who took Dercy Daniser’s kingdom and burned it to the ground. I know you’ve heard the rumors, and I’m here to tell you they’re true. An almighty god is absurd too, and right along with him a goddess of war. But I’ve seen ’em all, boy, while you lay tucked away safe and sound in your swaths of forest. The next time I desire to hear your voice, I’ll look at you and ask for your opinion. Understood?”
Jesson Tath leaned himself closer, his nose smooshing into mine.
“Enough!” Patrick said, slamming his fist into the table and scattering his war pieces. “I’ll deal with your lies, Shepherd, after this ends. For now, I suppose you’re right. I’ve no choice but to believe you.”
“I never lied. I just didn’t tell the truth. How many men do you have?”
Patrick walked away, to the other side of the tent. “Thirty thousand.”
“That’s everyone? The North, the West?”
“Some of the Northern lords didn’t show. And Jesson has yet to unite his lords. Certainly not well enough to march off to war against an enemy that poses little threat to the West.”
Mm. I’d hoped for twenty thousand more. “Enemy numbers?”
“Scouts put their ranks between ten and fifteen thousand.”
“That can’t be. Braddock had been closing in on sixty thousand reserves, not counting the Red Sentinels.” Nor did that count the army Arken had already sent through, whose numbers I was not privy to.
“I’m aware,” Patrick said. “I assume they’re sailing the sea.”
“Oh, shit,” Kale said. “They’ll flank you from the south.”
I clapped my hands, gathering everyone’s attention. “We can’t worry about that now. If we don’t make the goddess of war an afterthought, no one here will be around to see what else the East has up its sleeve. Kale and I will hopefully solve our goddess problem. Patrick, Jesson… minimize the losses till she’s dead.”
Jesson threw up a hand in disgust. “How—”
“Recall the cavalry,” Patrick said. Jesson looked at him, unconvinced. “Now!”
The chubby king of Eaglesclaw trudged past me like a red-faced boy who’d gotten hollered at by his father.
“Call Kiera in here,” Patrick said. “She and I will put together a plan to pull the infantry back.”
“There’s a path,” I said, “right around the edge of the mountain that curls in toward Vereumene. Fairly narrow, got hills on both sides. You put your archers up there, retreat back… it’s something, anyhow.”
With a sigh, he said, “Thanks, Shepherd.” Whether that was a sincere thanks or a thanks-for-involving-me-in-this-bloody-blight, I could only guess.
Kale and I went to exit the tent, but Patrick called us back.
“How are you going to kill this… goddess?”
I smiled. “By putting a blade in her throat.”
This time our exit from the tent was successful. I found Baldy and told him Patrick wanted to speak to Kiera, then I hurried back to my boar.
Kale secured himself in the saddle behind me. “All right, seriously. How are we going to kill her?”
I looked at him blankly. “By putting a blade in her throat. From what I’ve been told, she’ll be wasting away, closer to death than Serith Rabthorn was a second before I kicked his sorry ass off the parapet. She’s putting all her energy into her army. We just need to find her.”
I observed the uneven landscape before us. The ground ramped up steeply from our position, leveling out about sixty feet away. Somewhere up there was where the fighting took place, judging from the warlike cacophony. So we followed the trodden path and had ourselves a gander.
This was what we saw.
A chunky plain of glassy black rock, with hills that swooped up and out from either side like earthen wings. In the distance, maybe a hundred feet away, swords crashed against one another, and shields splintered under the assault of a swarm of madness.
The men of the North and West, they fought with pride and they fought with honor, but neither of those two things are celestial blessings, which was exactly what they needed at this point in time. Some were driven back. Most were driven into the ground by men with swollen arms and veins nearly bursting through their flesh. Blood painted the blackness of rocks in bright red brush strokes.
“Right there,” I told Kale, pointing to the left. “We’ll run this bastard boar right up there, sprint to the backline.”
“Too many gaps,” he said, noting the lack of vegetation that could be used to conceal our journey. There were some trees, but they were the lanky, barren type — the sort that may well have the resiliency to grow nearly anywhere, but they’re brittle and featureless.
“You think they’ll pay any mind to a couple ragtag fucks like us, riding across the battlefield on a boar of all things? Probably assume we’re Northernmen hightailing it outta here. No other way to go about it, anyway. Say your prayers, Kale, my boy.”
“Oh, gods,” he muttered.
Probably not best to involve gods right now, I thought.
The boar snorted a
nd bumbled across the bumpy expanse. He climbed the hillside like a goat traversing cliffs, his hooves digging deep into the bed of crushed rock.
The hill went up and down, up and down, like ocean waves. We garnered ourselves a few looks from the battlefield, but the soldiers out there were mostly concerned with keeping themselves alive amid flailing swords and pikes.
“Gods,” Kale said, clearly disturbed. “You see this, Shepherd? One of ’em just took out four. Swear to the gods he had a blade cut right into his ribs, and he’s still standin’.”
The hill surged upward. Our boar slowed considerably, his shoulders powering up what felt like an almost vertical climb. At the top was a tiny plateau. A few steps forward would’ve sent us plummeting down a severe slope.
“That’s a bloody sharp drop,” Kale said.
“I spy something more interesting than a sharp drop-off,” I said, laying myself on the ground so as to avoid being spotted.
Kale followed my eyes and lifted his head knowingly. “Let me guess. The goddess? Not very… godly.”
Tucked in the nook of two trees whose trunks rose upward and tangled around one another was a woman who sat with her legs crossed. She seemed unable to support her head, which hung listlessly, and her arms dangled at her sides in the manner of a corpse.
“The hells is that thing?” Kale asked. “See it? Behind her.”
I squinted, pushed my head forward. The sun had freed itself from a passing cloud, beaming a brilliant ray of light in the rear of who I assumed was Lyria. Another cloud sucked up the blinding luster, and the “thing” that had startled Kale resolved itself.
“You’ve gotta be fucking me,” I said.
Swaying from a shaft of wrought iron were three metal spheres from which spikes jutted.
“That is not something I wanted to see,” I said. “They call them Wardens.”
“Come again?”
“Wardens. Men sculpted from bloody mountains. They wield maces with heads the size of tortoise shells. And they ain’t real friendly.”
Kale slowly turned his head toward me. “I can see what they look like, Shepherd. What are they?”
“Beats me. Servants of Arken, maybe. Never got a real straightforward answer on that. All I know is that they hunt conjurers in Amortis. And apparently protect the goddess of war.”
I put a hand to my mouth and swore silently. Wardens… it would figure. Besides that obvious problem, nothing separated us from the withering goddess except about three hundred feet of rolling landscape.
The East hadn’t set up camp like the North and West. Nor did they appear to have an interest in war planning with fancy titled officers. Everyone in this army took up a sword and spilled blood. The backline was far enough away from Lyria that they couldn’t hope to both spot me and react quickly enough before I pounced on their goddess, fangs of ebon in hand.
Which meant if we could somehow deal with this Warden…
… and if we couldn’t…
“Always thought of myself as a side dish,” Kale said. “Never the main course, y’know? Kinda the complimentary meal. Been my specialty for a while. I’ll make a busybody outta the Warden. You handle the… whatever she is.”
I glanced at him like one might slowly shift his eyes over to meet those of a renowned coward who’d not only offered to break into a lord’s quarters and steal his gold but demanded he be the one to do it. Not that Kale was a coward, but his suggestion nevertheless had the same effect of bewilderment and awe.
“You don’t just make a busybody out of a goddamn Warden,” I said. “Thing will string you up with those spikes of his, right here” — I poked a finger into his ribs — “and out your mouth, probably.”
Kale got up on his knees and pointed a finger in the distance. “Not planning on killing it. Er, not right away. See those trees? Figure I’d climb one.”
Expecting him to continue with his plan, I waited. And waited. It became apparent his plan had come to an abrupt halt.
“And then?” I asked.
Kale shrugged. “Well. I figure the big fucker will try climbin’ up after me and snap every branch on his way up, so I’ll be safe for a while. Or, he’ll try chopping the tree down.”
“Or he’ll simply lift the bloody trunk out of the ground and throw you fifty feet into the air, which, unless you sprout wings at that very moment, will mean no more Kale in the living realm.”
Kale waved away my concern. “You ain’t scarin’ me, Shepherd. I’m doin’ it. Got big fish to fry here, and you don’t fry ’em without bucketfuls of hot lard. Anytime you deal with that much hot lard, you’re riskin’ a pretty bad burn.”
With what was quite possibly the worst analogy I’d ever heard, Kale winked at me, gave me a pat on the shoulder and said, “Let’s go, Shepherd.”
I reached out for him as he got to his feet. I missed. I snapped at him to wait. He didn’t hear me. Or probably, he didn’t care. Seconds later, he was sledding down a hill of unsettled rock fragments.
And wouldn’t you know it, so was I.
Allow me to explain the pain of rock shards burrowing into the crack of your ass, gouging your cheeks, and rumbling beneath your balls:
In other words, such explanation is not possible. The words do not exist.
After reaching the bottom safely — safely… a word that, to accurately describe the completion of my descent, had to be greatly perverted — Kale told me to get down and stay down.
His sudden vault into leadership disturbed me. I did not enjoy this subordinate role. But I did have to admit, a sense of pride rose up within me. I’d trained Kale since he was a recruit, after all.
Fear quickly replaced pride as the Rot sprinted across the unwieldy land, his head dipping and rising as he navigated humps and bumps. To his right, far enough away to be considered a nonfactor but close enough to hear the grunts and roars and crashing of steel, was the might of the East.
And straight ahead… movement.
One step for the Warden equaled ten strides for Kale. Maybe fifteen, even.
In one blink, the flail-wielding bastard had lurched himself twenty feet closer. Then forty.
My legs were ready to bolt. To save my Rot from certain doom.
But I had to trust him. Just this once I had to allow trust to seep in, to expand its unsettling pressure in my chest.
I had to believe.
Kale swung left, arms thrusting forward and swinging back as he raced for a tree stripped to bare branches. He jumped, hooked a hand around a low-hanging branch and pulled himself up. With nimble feet and an admirable display of strength, he hoisted himself up to another branch, and another after that.
And then the Warden arrived, his thick skull resting on his shoulders as he looked up. That was my cue.
With the malformed concoction of muscle and… well, not much else staring Kale down and considering how to remove him from the tree, I took off toward the goddess of war.
As I traded glances between the two, something struck me as unusual. While the Warden hurled his flail upward, smashing through and dismembering branches, Kale stuck his head out and seemed to be peering toward the cliff we’d sledded down.
A quick look over my shoulder revealed why. Standing atop the precipice of black rock was none other than Baldy himself, lord of whatever Northern province he governed. Like a mouse scurrying away from the pitter-patter of cat paws, he whirled around, took a few strides and vanished, down the other side of the cliff.
Questions abounded, but I had little time to search for answers. So I pushed what I’d just glimpsed aside, because distractions in these circumstances could prove fatal, and let the vigor of a one-track mind propel me forward. I had a goddess to kill.
There was just one little problem. And it wasn’t the splintering of a tree trunk from the Warden’s flail. It wasn’t Kale almost tumbling out of his perceived safety in the boughs.
This problem framed itself as a woman with messy gray hair that suddenly glimmered the color of sil
ver threads. One moment she labored for breath, and the next she jumped to her feet. The red of a sunset burned away the paleness of her skin, and veins almost burst through her flesh like vessels on a leaf.
Also, she held an ax.
Actually, two axes, one in each hand. They chopped the chill out of the air as she bounded toward me. A sickly warmth overwhelmed me, as if all the blood in my body swam to the surface of my skin.
If there was ever a time to say the fuck word, this was it. And I did just that, then I yanked my ebon blade from its sheath.
The goddess of war lurched ahead. She seemed to gallop with the speed of a horse and the gracefulness of a lightning bolt.
I anchored one leg in front of me, body angled sideways, weight distributed evenly. She came at me with an ascending swing, her ax so low it scraped rock fragments as it arced upward.
You could hear the whoosh as it rose. Could hear the growl of her voice as her momentum met the unmatched strength of ebon. Our weapons collided, sparking as I threw my weight forward and shaved the edge of my blade along that of her ax.
She’d lose this fight. She was losing this fight. The butt of her weapon inched closer to her face as I drove it back, two hands on my hilt overpowering the one she had gripping her ax.
A cord of silver hair fell to the bridge of her nose, centering one eye dull and gray and the other missing altogether.
She dropped her arm and jumped back. Her unexpected retreat had me swimming through the air to catch my balance. Nearly face-planting into the coals, I righted myself just in time to find panic seizing every muscle in my body.
She’d cocked her left hand behind her shoulder. I had the precise amount of time to consider my options, but not solutions, before that hand flung forward and the second ax she wielded hurled through the air.
I’d dealt with ax throwers once, spear-throwers a handful of times. But never at point-blank range.
Tried my damnedest to deflect it, but your damnedest doesn’t count for fuck all in these situations. The serrated curved edge of the ax glanced off the contour of my sword.
Maybe its momentum slowed.
Maybe not.
Didn’t matter, did it? It struck me all the same.
An Assassin's Blade: The Complete Trilogy Page 99
