Kill the Gods
Being the third part of
Lake of Dragons
E. Michael Mettille
TMR Books
PO Box 510886
Milwaukee, WI 53203
www.themikereynolds.com
Copyright © 2021 Mike Reynolds. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
All images provided provided by Deposit Photos
Cover Artwork – © 2021 L.J. Anderson of Mayhem Cover Creations
Published by TMR Books 05/15/2021
ISBN 978-0-9975571-4-5
DEDICATION
For Shelia…you know.
Chapter 1
Darkness
Pain can be a tricky thing, difficult to gauge. The same pain can be at one moment merely an annoyance detracting from one’s ability to focus on the task at hand while in the next moment the only thing on which they can focus. The throbbing in Doentaat’s leg when he woke in darkness so pitch blindness seemed the only possibility was the latter. Rather than pushing the pain away from his focus, the disorienting fear of being without sight and unaware of his surroundings only served to strengthen it. It pulsed like someone stood above him repeatedly striking the same spot on his thigh with a hammer. Attempting to sit up only made it worse, like a jagged spear tore through his flesh. The sound he made as he gave in to the pain and lay back was something to which a warrior of his stature would never admit. The Lake could have his soul if only his agony might cease.
As the dwarf king lay in darkness waiting for death to come and end his suffering, his focus shifted. It seemed accepting his eventual demise somewhat numbed him to the pain. Of course, the throbbing in his leg had not ceased. However, it slowly loosened its grip on his awareness, or he simply stopped caring about it. As his breathing grew steady and his heart rate slowed, the why seemed increasingly less important. His mind drifted to other things, and he followed.
Helpless to do much else besides lie on the hard ground and wait for death, his mind slipped to his argument with Bindaar. They had been in his chamber talking about the war ships anchoring up in Biggon’s Bay when the great horn of Havenstahl—one of the twin horns of Galgooth—blared. The sound sparked something in him, some hidden longing lying just beneath his awareness. That spark must have shown on his face.
“Don’t even think about it,” his old chum and most trusted general had told him. “The king’s royal rump had best remain firmly planted in its throne. Leave the fighting to your solidas.”
Whether it had been hubris or defiance—the king gives orders, he does not take them—his response had been less than agreeable. “This from the scrawny waste I molded into a proper dwarf. Anything good about you, you learned from me. Tell me you don’t presume to stand in my own chambers and give me orders.”
The memory of the look on his old friend’s face hurt almost as bad as the throbbing in his leg. “No,” he looked as if he might lose a tear, “I presume nothing, but reports of what came riding in on them ships have me worried for my king’s…my friend’s…safety. This ain’t a pack of rogue grongs. They say giants fill them massive ships. My friend, you have risked your own skin to save mine more than once. I seek only to repay the favor in kind. But what do I know? The king does what the king wants.”
Of course, he failed to heed the warning, and Bindaar stormed out of the room. That was the last they had spoken as chums. When the five battalions Alhouim sent to support Havenstahl in the battle at Fort Maomnosett formed up to march, he gave the orders, and Bindaar obeyed like the rest of his generals. He recalled that same look on his old friend’s face—the frightened, sad, fury, fear that looked like tears waiting to spill onto rough cheeks—when the battalions split to take up their assigned positions, but he ignored it. Friend or no friend, there was not a dwarf alive who would give him orders.
The benefit of hindsight can help a dwarf make better decisions in the future, but it cannot undo foolish decisions once they have been made. Had he listened to his old friend’s wise counsel, he would not be blind and lying helpless in… It suddenly occurred to him that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness surrounding him. He was not blind. The pain in his leg was still nagging him enough to stifle a chuckle at how easily he let himself fall to panic, but it did nothing to keep him from feeling a bit of shame. Luckily, nobody would ever know about the moment of weakness but him.
Doentaat had not been elevated to the status of king of Alhouim by his peers because he allowed things to be done to him. He was a dwarf of action. He did things. He controlled situations, and that was precisely what he intended to do with the one he was in, control it. The world around him was still very dark, like the late hours of a moonless night. However, he was not deep into a night of any kind. The light filtering through the canopy above him was faint, but it was there. It took mere moments for him to realize he was deep in a dense forest, and the last bits of light were fading from the western sky. Had he woken just a few hours earlier, the fear of potential blindness would never have entered his mind.
With blindness out of the way as a pressing matter, Doentaat could focus on what had quickly become his most pressing matter. Despite a great urge to ignore it, the throbbing pain in his leg demanded attention. Shifting focus back to it was like blowing on a smoldering fire. Intense and furious, it flared again. Though he was not blind, there was insufficient light to see the cause of his agony. Touching the spot certainly would do nothing to ease the pain at all. Simply moving felt like a spear was shoved through the spot. He did not want to imagine what touching it might do. Therefore, he did not imagine it very long. He gritted his teeth and got to it.
It was worse than he thought. His fingers slid slowly down his right leg toward the source of distress. His trousers were torn open, the edges crusty. Though the carnage remained hidden from sight, the spot was obviously saturated with blood. How long had he been unconscious? Considering there was no wetness, it had to be a while. It made no sense to put it off any longer. He had to assess the damage. He clenched his teeth together so tightly it hurt his jaw as he shoved his fingers into a deep, ragged gash. The spear was back, and this time it sliced through and twisted. It was difficult to tell whether it was bone or meat his fingers probed, but the cut was deep, wide, and full of gore. Through tightly clenched teeth, his howl sounded more like a war cry than a pitiable expression of pain. His hand shot to his dagger, quickly slipping it out of its scabbard. He desperately wanted to plunge it into his gut and twist, end his own suffering. That would be the coward’s way out. King Doentaat was anything but a coward. The Lake had failed to claim him, and he had no intention of giving it an easy meal.
Doentaat had grown accustomed enough to the pain throbbing in his leg to finally notice the smell. He had spent enough time with healers working over wounded solidas to recognize the stench of infection hanging in the air. It fraternized with the smell of death. Where was Feingaal? Memories trickled in. Feingaal had been with him when they chased a mob of fleeing grongs into the woods south of the wide clearing in front of Fort Maomnosett. By the time they had realized their battalion was no longer tromping through the dark wood behind them, they were deep in it. Had it been blood lust, the glory of battle, or hatred for the vile, scaly bastards they pursued? In the end, it did not really matter. They barely had time to acknowledge they were lost in the forest when the amatilazo came. It was a large pack, at least thirty of the hungry beasts. He and Feingaal had put up a good fight, took better than half the pack before… What had happened? The last thing he remembered was slamming the back of his fist into the side of an amatilazo’s face. He protected his neck
, but the damned thing latched onto his thigh. After that, everything went black. Knowing the source of his wound did not diminish the pain at all, but at least he knew the reason for it.
If Feingaal were still alive, he would have to wait. Doentaat needed to dress his wound before he could be of any help to anyone. He slit the leather straps holding his chest plate in place. Then he cut a strip out of his shirt. The thing was dirty and covered in sweat, not the best option for covering a wound. Unfortunately, it was the only option he had just then. The mangled gash needed to be covered, and the bleeding stopped. Based on the condition of his trousers, he had already lost too much blood. He could not afford to give up another drop. He wrapped the strip of shirt around the wound covering it as best he could without being able to see it. Then he cut his belt and fashioned a tourniquet above it. Hagen would not be impressed with the work, but it was the best he could do with the tools available.
The dressing did nothing to ease the pain. Thankfully, Doentaat’s focus had shifted from self-pity to duty. If Feingaal still lived, he had to find him. Before trying to move, he took note of his surroundings. A quick, wide sweep with both of his arms found something. He quickly ran his hand over the lump and realized it was a head. There was no hair, just leathery skin, and the ears were small and slightly pointed. It was not Feingaal. That dwarf had more hair than any dwarf Doentaat had ever seen, both on his head and his chin. No, this head belonged to an amatilazo. The body that had once extended from it was no longer attached, just a bunch of gore hanging from the spot where it should be connected. Based on the thing’s proximity to his mangled, right leg, it had to be the one that got him. Feingaal must have taken the thing’s head before it could finish him off.
Aside from the amatilazo’s body and an axe—that must have been Feingaal’s—there was nothing else within reach of Doentaat’s outstretched arms but a tree behind his head. As horrible as the idea seemed, he had to move. He dug the bottom of his palms into the soft dirt beside him and struggled toward the tree. The pain had become a conquerable adversary. It could try to stop him, but he refused to be turned aside.
Moving was a struggle. He had no idea how much time had passed as he labored, but he eventually found himself sitting up against the trunk of a stout tree. After a bit more struggling and more grunting than he cared to admit, he was on his feet leaning against that tree. Now dizziness dropped in to dance with the pain. He must have lost a lot of blood. Where to begin his search? Though he could see the faint breath of light in the canopy above him, the ground was nothing more than darkness with none of the light above able to penetrate deep enough to reach the forest floor. He would have to feel his way.
Shuffling forward hurt, but not near as much as gaining his feet had. Luckily, it was a short journey before his foot encountered something other than soft, decaying leaves. Though It was dense and had a good bit of girth, it was not a rock. A rock would not have given at all when his foot struck it. Dropping back to his knees hurt at least as bad as standing. He pushed the pain aside once again and examined the mass. The hairy thing had to be Feingaal. As Doentaat ran his hands across his dead friend’s body, he thanked Coeptus the wound in his leg paled in comparison to the gore he felt. The stout dwarf must have fallen protecting his king.
He knelt there in darkness above his dead companion long enough for a heavy sense of dread to settle into his chest like a weight crushing down on his ribcage. He had no idea what to do next. He had to move, but to where? Feeling his way through the darkness would be painfully slow and the direction near impossible to gauge. It was an unattractive option but, slim as it was, probably his only chance of survival. His dry throat and grumbling stomach assured him he needed both food and water. Would he survive the night if he waited out the sun? How much could even the light of a new day improve his odds of surviving a slow trek through the dark forest?
Doentaat had barely decided not to test whether the forest would grant him another day when he heard something other than the sound of his own breathing. Bodies moved through the forest, more than five as best he could tell. By the time he struggled back to his feet and turned toward the sound, he caught the faint flicker of torchlight through the darkness. It was closer than he expected. The group moved quietly toward him. He strained his eyes trying to make out who carried the torches, but the underbrush was too thick. A quiet grunt solved the mystery. They were grongs. Perhaps the Lake would have him before the light of a new day.
Quietly into the night is a place no self-respecting dwarf would go. If this would be his end, Doentaat would bring as many of them with him as he could. He gritted his teeth, pushed back the pain, and knelt back to the ground. After a bit of fumbling around over the mossy ground he came upon the axe he had found earlier. Gripping the handle, he shoved the pain deep into his gut and let it fuel his rage. The bloody axe in his hand and that fire in his belly were all he could depend on deep in the dark wood. Shuffling through darkness with only flickering torchlight in the distance to guide him, the ample trail he followed remained invisible. It was not until the grongs with their torches rounded a bend about twenty feet further up the path that he noticed the uniform lines of trees to either side of him and the unfortunate lack of cover before him. There were six in the approaching group, all armed for battle with bloody clubs and stained armor. They saw him as soon as he saw them. So much for the element of surprise. ‘For the glory of Alhouim,’ he thought as he readied his axe.
“Come then, you vile monsters,” he shouted with as much fury as he could muster, “show me you ain’t just sacks of scales and fear.”
The pack seemed startled at first, but the shock wore off quickly. Grongs are opportunistic if nothing else, and Doentaat was obviously alone on the trail. Wildly swinging their clubs, grunting out war cries, and gnashing their teeth, they charged.
Adrenaline was just the thing the wounded dwarf king needed. It surged through his body, propelling him down the trail at something just short of a slow jog. The distance between him and the grongs shrunk quickly. A mere few moments passed before the blade of his axe tasted the scaled flesh of his first victim. The thing’s oblong head had barely reached the apex of its flight before Doentaat’s axe came down onto the skull of his next victim and cut clear down to the grong’s collar bones. He roared into the beast’s split face as he yanked his axe back out of it. The scaly bastard stood there blinking with eyes too far apart from each other for a few moments before falling dead in the dirt. The dwarf king nearly watched the result of his fury too long, ducking just in time to avoid a club swinging past the split face as it fell. By the time he stood back up, another club came sailing toward him from his other side. This time, he was a hair too slow to avoid the blow.
The club crashed into Doentaat’s temple; a brilliant flash of light accompanied by an equally impressive blast of pain. Luckily, the stout dwarf had a thick skull which had collided with things far denser and harder than any grong club in its long career of encasing his brain. He rolled with the blow, regaining his feet after a short tumble. Despite a brief wave of dizziness, a dull throb was all that remained where the weapon had struck. He had precious little time to regain his wits before that same club flew at his head again along with two others. He ducked low and swung his axe. A grong’s leg flew into the brush alongside the trail as a club pounded into the top of the raging dwarf’s skull. It was a heavy blow. The world grew bright again. Even after it dimmed, white dots flashed all about Doentaat’s blurring vision.
The last blow was a tough one. It dropped Doentaat squarely on his rump and sent a sharp jolt up his spine. As pain flared in his tailbone, an upside to all these new pains suddenly occurred to him. Since charging into battle against the small pack of grongs, he had completely forgotten the pain in his leg. The idea sprinted away as quickly as it had come. The grong whose leg he removed fell toward him. He raised his axe and the scaly thing crashed upon it. The beast was thick and heavy. Once the edge of the axe had penetrated its sternum,
the other blade—the one facing Doentaat—nearly crashed through the dwarf’s chest. He would rather be dead than locked in a macabre embrace with a dirty grong. Doentaat shifted and let that side of his axe pound into the trail. He rolled and tried to regain his feet, but the three remaining grongs were already swinging clubs at him.
The first few hits were rough, across his shoulder blades, then his right arm, and finally his chest. The bone in his arm was probably broken. There was no time to lament the injured limb as the clubs just kept coming. Savage and merciless, they beat him to the ground and kept pounding him deeper into the forest floor. Despite orange light flickering from a small, dead bush which had caught fire when one of the grongs had dropped their torch, the world grew darker again. After a while, the blows hardly hurt anymore. It became increasingly difficult to distinguish one blow from the next. The Lake was finally calling him to rest.
Consciousness was fleeing quickly when something caught Doentaat’s eye. It probably caught his ear first, but it was difficult to pick individual sounds out of the dull ringing in his ears. Several of the blows had struck his head. Whether he heard it before he saw it made little difference. It was a horse with a rider who had orange hair, burnt like the sky at sunset, and the unmistakable glint of metal bathed in torchlight. A savior draped in the colors of Havenstahl galloped quickly toward him. Before the world went completely black, Doentaat hoped the fellow knew how to swing that sword and that he was not too late.
Chapter 2
Kill The Gods
The tent was not much more than some fabric loosely strung between posts haphazardly pounded into the dirt on the wrong side of the broken bridge to Havenstahl. Daritus stood worrying over his map, wondering how much time they had before needing to defend their broken city from another attack. The map mocked him, his painted tokens occupying spaces with little meaning. It appeared a proper strategy to the three men in the tent with him, but he knew the reality of it. It was all a sham. He could lie to them but not himself. There was no plan. His forces were strewn about the valley, maybe in the Sobbing Forest, maybe on the other side of Alhouim, or maybe in one of one-hundred other places. The truth was, he had the loosest approximation of where roughly a quarter of his forces resided at that moment. The rest was anybody’s guess.
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