Wrath of Lions (44 page)

And then it was over. One moment there was an army of mutated beasts approaching; the next, just a field strewn with blood, bones, and entrails. The remaining wolf-men, a third of the original number, darted into the forest, yelping and baying. Velixar stumbled to his feet, feeling weaker than he had in a hundred years, his body aching, his brain throbbing. Turning around, he saw that half the camp had gathered around the base of the hill to watch Karak dispatch the murderous invaders, their jaws hanging open in awe. One by one, they dropped to their knees before their deity. Karak turned to them, not even winded. The glowing sword in his hand slowly faded away until it blinked out of existence.

“Today, we failed!” the god bellowed, and his worshippers dove forward until their faces kissed the dirt. “Who are these things before me? Surely they are not my children, trained and blessed with the finest weaponry and strongest armor in all the land? What
am I to do with you, you pathetic, frail lot? What have the fruits of all my labor delivered to me? One day I will lead an army against the west. One day I will drive the scourge of chaos from the land, and establish a blessed order in Dezrel. But it is not this day. It is not with this army of children and cowards and fools!”

Velixar struggled to his feet as Karak abruptly turned and stormed away. He had to run to keep pace, so great were his god’s strides.

“My Lord, we had them,” he said, winded. He clutched the pendant through his chain and smallclothes. “Please, you must give them another chance.”

Karak said not a word. He simply stormed up the hill and violently batted aside the flaps to his giant pavilion. Velixar followed him in, his strength slowly returning, and with it, his anger.

The god faced away from him. A brisk wind blew outside, rippling the pavilion’s walls and seeming to heighten the din of pain and tragedy from the outside world. The pavilion itself was virtually empty—the only adornment was a small ring of stones in its center, a waft of black smoke rising to the hole in the top of the tent from the dying embers within the ring. Velixar stopped, huffing while he stared at his god’s back.

“You have failed me,” Karak said. His voice was soft now, yet it retained its potency.

“We did not fail you, my Lord,” Velixar insisted. He could not keep the edge out of his voice.

The god turned slightly, fixing him with a dissatisfied glare.

“No? Tell me, Velixar. Tell me how this was a great victory. Tell me how losing two hundred men to a small battalion of my brother’s ill-conceived monstrosities is a triumph.”

“I—”

“You cannot say, because it would not be true.” Karak fully faced him, and never before had Velixar felt so small as he did in that moment. It was a bitter sensation, and it made his blood boil. “My
creations may be inexperienced, but inexperience is no excuse for abject failure. We have been fortunate up until now. Ashhur has made us lazy by showing only token resistance as he slowly gathers strength. And when we battle against foes that are actually
eager
for a fight, I watch my trained men die like rats at the feet of lions.”

Velixar gritted his teeth. “It is a learning experience, my Lord. The men shall not fail so mightily again.”

“So you say. Yet how many more would have perished had I not intervened? I watched you lead the charge. You are powerful, and some of the men were willing to fight, but the beasts overran you still. I saw one of them towering above my own High Prophet, ready to feed. Yet now you glare at me as if I have done wrong. Tell me, Velixar, should I have let the monstrosities tear you apart, all so my soldiers might have
experience
?”

Velixar’s pride was taking more wounds than he could endure.

“It never would have happened,” he said. “I would have proven my might to you, if only you’d waited.”

The god shook his head. “Such self-assurance. It will be the end of you.”

“Perhaps. But children must always stumble before they walk. What you see as failure, I see as a presage of greater glory.”

“We have neither the time nor the numbers for such failures,” the god retorted. He gazed at the walls once more. “Until now, each victory has come with greater ease than the one before. It has made the men soft. That is unacceptable. Those beasts you faced…my brother erred by not giving them intelligence to match their might. Had he done so, those few that assailed us could have wiped out half our force without my intervention. Imagine that, Velixar. A scant hundred beasts slaughtering two thousand men. A feat such as that would have been well worth the cost.” The god frowned. “Perhaps Ashhur has stumbled upon a wiser path than my own. I may need to start over, cast aside this sorry lot and make beasts more powerful, faithful, and driven.”

Velixar reacted without thinking.

“Do it, and you have already lost,” he said. When Karak brought his eyes to bear on him, he tensed, waiting for his god to end him then and there.

“And how is that?” Karak asked, arms crossing over his chest.

“Because then you cannot claim your way is superior. You cannot show the greatness of the nation your children have sired by casting those very children aside and fashioning beasts into mindless servants and warriors.”

Karak stared him down, then let his hands fall to his sides.

“You are right,” he said. “My brother’s creations are not what I war against, but my brother himself. And though altering life forms takes power, imbuing them with intellect requires a sacrifice of self. Even the little I gave Kayne and Lilah weakened me slightly. Ashhur and I are precariously balanced. Should either of us fall too far below the other…”

Velixar bowed low.

“Then you must trust us, trust
me
, to do what is right. These men are capable, my Lord. They will not fail you again.”

“Trust you,” Karak said. “Indeed, I do trust you, but I fear that trust will turn against me in time. You are flawed, as are all men, but you refuse to see it.”

Velixar felt his mouth turn dry. The pendant on his chest throbbed.

“Flawed,” he said tonelessly. “Tell me my flaws, my god, so that I may fix them.”

Karak shook his head.

“You claim to have the power of the demon, yet all you have done with it is scribble in your book and experiment on those who have bended their knee to me. You consider yourself wiser than humanity, yet your wisdom did not see Ashhur’s gambit before it arrived. You think yourself aware of the world in a way mere
humans are not, yet you do not realize that those who betrayed you are within striking distance even now.”

“What are you saying?”

“As of this very moment your old apprentice Roland travels along the Gods’ Road with a great many refugees from Lerder,” said Karak. “They approach the Wooden Bridge, thinking to find safety in Mordeina. I believe the Warden Azariah is with them.”

Velixar felt his pulse quicken.

“How can you know this?” he asked. “Is it a spell? An aspect of your divine nature? Tell me, I beg of you.”

Karak smiled, but there was a hint of mockery in it, a touch of pity.

“A message came this morning by way of a raven. One of my rearguard patrols captured a deserter from the group and questioned him thoroughly.”

Velixar shook his head, feeling humiliated.

“Why did you not tell me earlier?” he asked.

Karak placed a mighty hand on his shoulder. His tone lowered, becoming more compassionate.

“You must learn humility, Velixar. You have become absorbed with your perceived betterment. Though you are privy to the demon’s ancient knowledge, and your body is a timeless perfection, you are still only a man. You will not reach the heights I know you are capable of until you understand and accept that.”

Velixar wanted to shout at his deity that the demon’s intellect had given him the knowledge that Karak too was fallible, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead, he quietly seethed, attempting to accept his lesson, no matter how painful, as a faithful servant should.

“Yes, my Lord,” he said.

“Good,” Karak said. “Now leave me be. Allow the men a short rest, but that is all. In two days we march—healthy, sick, and injured alike.”

“Yes, my Lord. But before I go, might I ask…what will you do about the group crossing the Wooden Bridge?”

Karak shrugged as if it were no important thing.

“A few hungry refugees are no reason to upset our camp and rush the recovery of our wounded.”

“As you say,” Velixar said, bowing low. He turned on his heels and went to leave, only stopping when Karak called out to him one final time.

“Do as I say,” the god commanded. “If you wish for these men to learn, you will learn along with them. At my side, or not at all.”

Without another word, Velixar left the deity’s pavilion.

The three-quarter moon rose when darkness descended on the land. Once the bodies of the deceased wolf-men and soldiers had been burned, Velixar reclined on his pile of blankets, staring at the heaving roof of his pavilion. More of the demon’s experience flowed into his mind, making him anxious. He glanced at his journal resting on his desk. Suddenly writing in it seemed a worthless endeavor. If Karak saw him as no better than a mere mortal, what good was the wisdom within it? Who was it even for? Velixar tired of the god’s impertinent treatment of him; he needed to
prove
to Karak his superiority to the rest of the men.

He sat up with a jolt, anger flowing in his veins once more. After retrieving Lionsbane, he stormed across the pavilion to the far end of the sleeping camp. There he found an exhausted Captain Wellington, his shoulders slumped as he guarded the temporary stables filled with hundreds of beasts that grazed on the sparse grasses beside the Gods’ Road.

“Captain,” Velixar said, and Wellington snapped upright.

“High Prophet,” the man replied, his face awash with apprehension.

“Find someone else to watch them,” Velixar said flatly. “And gather twenty of your best men. Bring them to me. You have fifteen minutes.”

“Um…might I ask why, High Prophet?”

Velixar grinned, and it felt untamed on his lips.

“Because tonight we ride. There are blasphemers on the road ahead of us, and they will suffer the retaliation Ashhur’s ambush deserves. Now go. There is no time to waste. And Captain, make sure the ones you gather are the most brutal you can find.”

C
HAPTER

22

P
atrick could not go back the way he’d come. Where only days before there had been flowing fields of wheat and dense thatches of maple and birch trees, all that remained was a smoldering wasteland. Flames still crackled in some places, trees and underbrush licking red and yellow, and the air was thick with smoke. He had to cover his nose and mouth with the smallclothes beneath his armor to keep from hacking. There were hidden shallots like Grassmere dotted throughout the lands bordering the Gods’ Road, and if what he saw now were any indication, they must have been razed along with the surrounding lands. He thought back to the burnt barn and the ghastly secret hidden inside. If he avoided the area, at least he would not have to see more corpses.

Hopefully.

He ended up backtracking, guiding his horse out of the destruction and entering the desert once more. The red clay cliffs were just ahead of him. He hoped the scorched earth didn’t reach that far, but then realized it was a silly fear. Sand did not burn like vegetation did. To set fire to a desert would require a god’s power.

He came to his own tracks, leading across the endless expanse of sand to the Black Spire. If he kept heading west instead of north, he would soon come on the prairie where antelope and hyena roamed. That path was fraught with danger, as the night’s predators would surely smell his presence and stalk him, but if he reached the Corinth River, he could follow it back north and hopefully reunite with Ashhur at the Wooden Bridge. Then again, given how much time had passed, it was likely the god had already crossed. It had been eight days since he’d left the mass of refugees to have his ill-fated and aggravating reunion with Bardiya. They might already be far into the west. He thought of the scorched earth he had just left behind and shuddered.
Or they might all have been slaughtered.

That night he made camp beneath a jutting stone that offered scant protection from the assault of flying sand kicked up by the winds. The temperature dropped, and his feeble fire flickered and died. His horse whinnied as it gnawed on the bits of cactus he had chopped for its meal. He had stripped the cactus in the dark, so he hoped he’d succeeded in removing all the spines. The last thing he needed was for a barb to get lodged in the beast’s throat. Wandering across the desert with only his uneven legs to propel him would be a good way to get killed.

As he lay down in the sand, pulling his paltry lone blanket up to his chin to ward off the chill, his mind wandered to Bardiya once more. He cursed his friend’s stubbornness and devotion. Bardiya was willing to allow his people to perish, and for what? Some woebegone notion of belief? It seemed downright idiotic. Why Ashhur didn’t simply head down to Ker and force them to join was beyond his understanding.

It struck him how backward the whole scenario seemed. In Safeway and the far west of Paradise where Patrick had been raised, Ashhur had treated his children like, well,
children
. He’d done so ever since their creation, coddling them, giving them all they desired as he hovered like an overprotective parent. And yet ever since Bessus Gorgoros
decided to give his vast corner of Paradise a name ninety years ago, Ashhur had treated the wards of House Gorgoros differently. He’d allowed them their sovereignty, letting them deal with their conflicts with the elves in their own way, without interference.

He grumbled and took a sip of cactus nectar, the question lingering in his head: Why had Ashhur treated Ker so differently?

“It’s time for your children to grow up and make their own decisions, and from what I saw in Haven, growing up is almost always painful.”

The realization struck him like a blow to the head.
He
had spoken those words, and to Ashhur no less. He hadn’t received an argument either. Could it be that Ashhur
did
wish for his children to be independent? Perhaps it was why he had allowed Ker to remain neutral, why he did not interfere in their dealings. He must desire such independence for
all
of Paradise. Otherwise he would not have allowed Ker to exist at all, never mind the formation of the lordship or the crowning of the King Benjamin. It was the same reason Patrick had been allowed to take his journey south despite Ashhur’s insistence that it would not succeed.