Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (54 page)

Whirling back around, Patrick continued onward, determined to reach the castle walls. He fought the urge to check on the location of his mates; that would only slow him down. He kept bringing his sword down again and again, the muscles in his powerful arm singing with strength. Men died by the score, their flesh torn asunder, their armor no match for Winterbone’s gleaming edge. He sat high above it all, dishing out death in the name of Ashhur.

“DuTaureau!” he heard Preston’s voice call out from somewhere amid the chaos. “Horsemen!”

Patrick lifted his head and saw at least two hundred men on horseback appear from a pair of alleys on the right side of the road. They galloped toward him just as arrows began to fly from above, descending into the mass of humanity far behind him. He glanced up at the rooftops, only instead of disheveled women, he saw tall, elegant beings up there, launching arrow after arrow with quickness he had never seen before.
Elves,
he thought.
Great.
Patrick turned away from the sight of them, slashed through the helm of a soldier wielding a giant hammer, and charged toward the horsemen.

He never reached them.

A solid blow took his stallion out from under him, and the animal screeched as it toppled sideways, crushing two soldiers.
Patrick
fell from the saddle, landing solidly on a group of men, armor clanking. He rolled, avoiding stomping boots and plunging blades, before swiftly getting to his feet and pitching backward. A soldier’s face was crunched by his armored hump, and he snarled as two more soldiers turned to face him. He went to lift his sword, but it was snagged behind him somehow. One of them got in a good swing, his sword catching Patrick on the vambrace and sending a shudder through him that rocked his shoulder, but the other one didn’t attack. Instead, his eyes bugged out of his skull as the pointy end of a spear ejected from his neck. His blood splattered against Patrick, who freed his sword and ran it through the first man. He felt someone closing in from behind and whirled around,
Winterbone
leading. His blade met Preston’s with a resounding
clang
.

The old Turncloak grinned. “Not today, my friend.”

Patrick nodded. The two of them swiveled at once, their swords unlocking, and began scything their way through the soldiers. Sharp edges found gaps in his armor, opening what felt to be a hundred tiny cuts all over him, but he didn’t care. He noticed many others wearing the white-painted armor of Ashhur’s legion behind him, including most of the Turncloaks, and grinned. His people were with him. He could ignore his pain so long as that was the case.

When the horsemen entered the fray, crashing through their own brethren as if they didn’t care about their lives, Patrick went back to work. He sliced at the horses’ legs and sides, severing tendons and spilling intestines. His men followed his lead. Many of the horses toppled over, tipping their riders into the melee. After felling yet another horse, nearly severing the beast’s head with one massive hew, Patrick spun around and was almost run down. He fell straight backward, slashing out to the side with Winterbone at the same time. The blade cut through the horse’s front leg, snapping the bone and separating it just above the ankle. The horse crashed head over heels. Bones crunched, and more men screamed.

Someone helped him back to his feet, and then he felt himself being shoved from behind, carried along by his men’s rush. He bounced off soldiers, punching and stabbing at them, until finally he fell forward into open space. He tumbled, smacking his cheek on bloody cobbles, jarring his neck in the process. But there was no time to wallow in his pain. He shot to his feet, ready to face his next challenge, only to see that he now stood a mere twenty feet in front of the castle walls. There was nothing but the slate walk between it and him—no soldiers, no horses, no wrapped women, nothing.

He’d made it.

Before he could turn around and defend against the dangers behind him, he glanced up the full height of the wall. The top of the wall shimmered in the sunlight, drawing his eye to its horrors.
He want
ed to look away but couldn’t. Tristan had told him about the corpses that hung here, and though he knew the boy hadn’t been lying, a part of him still hadn’t wanted to believe him.

Yet there they were, bodies dangling from the wall, at least fifty of them. Some were fresher than others; those to his far left looked like they had been recently hung. Patrick stared at their faces, rotted and drooping, holding very little resemblance to the humans they had once been. The slate walk beneath them was stained black and a wretched shade of green. Patrick couldn’t help but gape at each and every one of them, men and women alike, not stopping until he found the one he was searching for.

Patrick’s heart shattered. He fell to his knees.

There she was, a decomposed husk of the vibrant girl she’d once been, now not much more than a skeleton covered with a thin sheen of gray, peeling flesh. The mane of curly hair, its bright red faded to a dull auburn, coiled around the eyeless skull and fell over the shoulders. Patrick leaned back, staring up at Nessa’s corpse. Her death hadn’t been real before; it had been a message from another—more rumor than fact, even if he’d believed it completely.
But now, to see the proof directly in front of him . . .
something
within him snapped. He threw his head back and howled at the sky, then scampered to his feet, breathing heavily as tears streamed down his cheeks. The din of conflict going on all around him seemed far away.

“Where are you!” he bellowed. “I know you’re here!”

When he turned, he saw that the entire square in front of the castle had become one giant battleground. Soldiers of Karak and Ashhur clashed with a frenzy, while elves, those strange wrapped women, and the Wardens were intermixed as well, killing and dying just as easily as everyone else. Ashhur, his beloved deity, was nowhere to be seen, swallowed by the horde, his undead swaying uselessly between pockets of combat.

That only served to further enrage Patrick, and he focused on that rage. When one of Karak’s soldiers ran at him, he drove his sword through the man’s face, kicked the corpse off the blade, and continued to rumble along the castle wall like a bull seeking a target to spear with his horns. There was one man that mattered, the one that had haunted his dreams with visions of his dead sister, the one he now blamed for everything that had gone wrong.

And then he found him: Jacob Eveningstar, the First Man who had betrayed Ashhur and cast all of Dezrel into war. He stood in front of the castle portcullis, flanked on either side by onyx lion statues, his eyes glowing bright crimson. A ring of soldiers in black armor protected him. His cloak billowed as if he was caught in a harsh wind, and his body was surrounded by swirling shadow. The man chanted, his hands in constant motion, fingers twisting into odd shapes, a look of pain on his face. Patrick never thought twice. His instinct was to let out a scream, one that contained all the rage and heartbreak he had ever felt, but he snapped his lips shut and simply charged.

One of the soldiers in front noticed his approach and turned.
He wor
e a massive helm topped with a pair of horns, and stepped
toward him. The soldier held before him a sword as hefty as
Winterbone
, with a curled black handle. Patrick snarled, kept his feet moving, lifted his own sword above his head, and chopped down as hard as he could when he was within reach.

The soldier easily parried the clumsy strike, kicking Patrick away in the process. Patrick hit the ground and rolled, falling directly on Winterbone. The sharp blade sliced through his armored left shoulder and cut deep into the flesh beneath. Patrick let out a cry of fury and pain and rolled back over, clutching at his gushing wound. The same soldier then yelled something Patrick couldn’t hear.

As Patrick got to his feet, an ear-splitting roar sounded. From above the castle wall leapt two lions, a male and a female, far too huge to be normal. They soared over his head and landed amid the chaos, their jaws snapping and claws swiping. Men were shredded from both sides. One of the Wardens, Sabael, lost his head in an instant.

“You have lost, blasphemer!” someone called out. Patrick turned back around to see that the soldier who had thwarted his attack had lifted the visor of his great helm. Scars ran down half his face, and one of his eyes was milky white. The scarred man took a step forward, pointing a mailed finger in Patrick’s direction.

“You will fall next,” he said.

Patrick took a defensive posture, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, waiting for the man to attack. Behind him, swords clashed, and he heard a youthful voice—either Tristan or Joffrey—screaming his name. He ignored it.

But the helmed soldier didn’t rush him. Jacob Eveningstar didn’t hurl a ball of shadow in his direction. Instead, from out of the portcullis swarmed fifteen elves, moving effortlessly around Jacob and the guarding soldiers, forming a secondary layer of protection for the First Man. Their copper skin glistened in the sunlight, and their pointed ears twitched. The elf in the center stepped forward. He was a massive beast of a thing, square headed and thick shouldered. His armor was black and rutted, like scales. From behind his back he drew a pair of gleaming swords just as black as his armor. The elf leaned forward and scowled at Patrick, clanging his swords together in front of him, causing sparks to shower to the cobbles.

Patrick heard rapid footfalls approaching from behind and threw an elbow, cracking the jaw of a rushing soldier, then stood sideways and faced the giant elf.

Perhaps this is the one to prove me mortal?

“Who cares?” he growled. The ageless Patrick DuTaureau charged.

C
HAPTER

47

E
ldrich Vaelor, the puppet king of Veldaren, stood atop the roof of the tallest public dwelling in the city, gray eyes staring across the narrow alleyways toward the Castle of the Lion. Moira followed his gaze. It was bedlam down there, thousands of combatants, nearly all of Veldaren and Ashhur’s entire armies, mashed into a tiny space. Even as far away as they were, it sounded as if the war were raging right below them.

Moira moved to the edge of the roof, squinting. Her blood was pumping in anticipation, and despite her injuries, which were not yet fully healed, she wanted to dive in down there, where she was most needed. And she knew she would get that opportunity. Though the king had claimed his rebellion was only traversing the city to observe the clash between the brother gods, she knew that the people’s need to make a difference would override his hesitation. Eldrich might not be the same man she had known as a child, a spoiled braggart afraid of his own shadow, but he wasn’t the strength behind the rebellion.

No, that strength was drawn from the one Moira had come here to save. Laurel Lawrence, that brilliant, beautiful, and fearless young thing, was the
true
power behind the forgotten throne.

As if on cue, the woman stepped toward the ledge beside Moira. Laurel was dressed in a pair of loose-fitting breeches covered by a mannish frock, but there was no denying her beauty or the potency of her will. Moira was intensely attracted to her, and even awed by her. From what Moira had learned, this woman had ventured out each day into a city that wanted her dead, determined not to stop until she had saved all the people she could. This was not a woman who would allow her king to stand idly by.

Laurel turned her haunting hazel eyes to King Eldrich. “We must fight.”

Behind them, those from the rebellion who had gathered on the roof cheered.

Eldrich furrowed his brow. “We will lose.”

“We may,” said Gull, running a whetstone along his saber.

“Either way, it will be exciting,” added Tabar.

The king frowned at these two men he barely knew, before turning around and facing the fifty or so gathered on the rooftop. The rest of the rebellion congregated on the empty streets below.

“Do you all wish to join the fight?” he asked, voice raised.

A raucous shout of approval answered him.

“Even if you fight for yet another god?” the puppet king asked. “Karak or Ashhur, it matters not. Whichever wins, we will still be in chains, only of a different kind.”

“We don’t fight for any gods,” said Laurel proudly. “We’ll fight for
ourselves
.”

“Besides,” scowled Danco, “Ashhur was swallowed by a wave of soldiers. For all we know, he’s gone for good.”

That statement drew another riotous cheer, even louder than the first. Moira lifted her sword above her head and joined them, grinning.

Eldrich appeared glum but seemed to gather himself as he shushed the crowd. “And so the choice has been made,” he said. “Any who wish to join the battle can do so of their own free will, but we will force none. It will be the people’s choice whether they sprint to their deaths.” Moira was surprised by the strength behind his voice, but that still didn’t stop her from scoffing at the man
giving
everyone
permission
to do as they chose. The man was a
puppet
king. He held no real power.

Another cheer began.

Laurel hushed them. “Listen, all of you. We’re behind the castle, so let’s keep it that way. When those who want this fight are collected, we’ll circle around the wall to the west, since our view of what is happening on the other side is blocked. Karak hasn’t made himself known yet, but he still might be nearby. Try to stay out of sight until you’re within fighting range. We don’t want anyone becoming lion meat.” She gave King Eldrich a smirk. “Then, my Liege, you will have the straight-on assault you wanted.”

Moira laughed, this time not bothering to hide her amusement.

“Now go, everyone,” said Laurel, “and if I never see you again, know that you were well met.”

Those on the roof began hopping down the stairwell, heading for street level. Laurel gave Pulo Jenatt, the curly-haired former captain of the Guard, a hug before he limped after the others. Moira noted the look of jealousy on King Eldrich’s face, before going to join her Movers.

“Moira, wait,” said Laurel, stilling her.

Moira turned to see Laurel arguing with the young girl with the dark, wavy hair and deep blue eyes, who was constantly at Laurel’s side. Moira walked up to them, listening to the songs of battle the people heading down the stairs sang and longing to be with them.

“What?” she asked.

Laurel’s stare was intense. “Moira, how hurt are you?”

“A bit.” She rolled her shoulders. “Still smarting, but once the blood starts flowing, it should fade away.”

“Good.” Laurel gestured to her young companion. “Lyana is adamant that she be allowed to fight. She is a girl of age now, eighteen and her own woman. However, I must ask . . . can you protect her?”

“I can do my best, I suppose.”

“That’s all I can ask.” Laurel then looked deep into Lyana’s eyes. “You stay safe. Stick by Moira’s side like sap. I
will
see you again, do you understand? You are important, one of only two members of the First Families remaining in this horrid city. Your survival will serve as an example to the rest.”

“I’ll try, Laurel.”

“You best.”

Moira watched the conversation, the sounds of battle melting away as she gaped. She nearly slapped herself upside the head. That was why the girl looked familiar. Lyana. Lyana
Mori
. Rachida’s niece and last surviving family member. Though Moira hadn’t seen the girl since she was in the cradle, the resemblance to the house matriarch couldn’t be denied.

“No,” Moira said, too harshly. “She isn’t coming.”

Laurel and Lyana snapped their heads toward her.

“Why not?” asked Lyana.

“Because of who you are. Because of what you mean. If your Aunt Rachida finds out you died out there, she’d never forgive me for allowing it. I’m sorry, but absolutely not.”

With that, Moira dashed toward the stairwell, ignoring Lyana’s angry shouts. She descended the stairs three at a time, hoping that the girl was obedient enough to heed her warning and stay far,
far away.

For though it was true she’d probably die in the next few minutes, she had to hedge her bets just in case. Lyana would make a splendid present for Rachida should they ever be reunited.

Her Movers awaited her just outside the tall building, and upon her arrival, they began sprinting without a word. From what Moira could tell, more than half of the eight hundred men and women fit to fight had decided to join them on the dash to their deaths. The Palace Guard and Watchmen wore their uniforms, but the commoners were dressed mostly in lighter armor, if they had any armor at all. Those that didn’t had strapped scraps of wood to their arms and wedged heavily stuffed pillows beneath their smallclothes for protection.

As a group they sprinted down the alleyways, crossing the span between them and the raging battle in mere minutes. The roar of it grew more and more deafening with every step Moira took. Then came the fear and excitement, and—just as she’d told Laurel—the pain from her wounds melted away behind a wall of electric
anticipation
.

They reached the rear wall of the castle, the three towers rising high above them, and ran at a measured pace along it. The fighting had spilled over to the side, as soldiers in sloppily painted white armor fought those in silver and black. Ashhur even had a few
Wardens
on his side, the tall beings more than holding their own against the armored hordes. The Judges were also in the mix, working their way through the melee, ripping men apart. Moira paused, looking toward the neighboring rooftops. There were elves up there; she could see them now, taking aim and launching arrows into the hordes.

“Movers, to me,” she said.

Gull, Rodin, Tabar, and Danco sidled up to her, waiting intently for their instructions. She also called over twenty others.

“Forget the fight on the ground,” she said. “See those buildings over there? Get on the roofs and kill those elves. They are likely the ones who are best with a sword, so I want
our
best with a sword to face them. I’m sure there are more on the other side of the square, but the less death coming down on us from above, the better. We have enough to deal with when there are Judges and soldiers and Sisters about.”

Her Movers nodded sharply, pride in their eyes, and took off without a word, leading the twenty others. “I hope to see you again,” she whispered. Moira then took a deep breath and faced forward. Pulo Jenatt was peeking around the wall. He held up three fingers and counted down. When his fist closed, mayhem sparked.

Moira ran screaming into the fray, holding both her swords out to her sides. She used one of her own men as a launching point, kicking off his back and rising into the air. As she descended she spun, hacking at a pair of soldiers’ throats. One she killed, severing his windpipe easily; the second she sliced through the cheek instead, causing his flesh to dangle, exposing his teeth. The soldier fell to the ground, clawing at his face.

She landed amid the turmoil, sprinting into motion once more. She stabbed and slashed, bounding off shoulders and helms, using her lithe frame and agility to keep from dying. Arrows flew all around her, making her spin to the side or arch her back to keep from being struck. Always she eyed the two lions, which were at least two hundred feet away, sending bodies flying into the air. It was then, as she stabbed another soldier in the back of the neck and once more leapt into the air, that she noticed something strange. There were a great many people who weren’t engaging in the battle. They simply stood there in the middle of everything, swaying, eyes blank. Some looked to have taken grave injuries, many missing limbs or with gaping wounds on their bodies that somehow did not leak blood. The momentary confusion caused Moira to falter. She missed her mark, roughly colliding with a soldier’s back and then landing in the midst of countless tramping feet.

At least the arrows won’t reach me here.

She stayed crouched, inching along the ground and hamstringing as many men as she could. A queer sort of panic filled her when one of the men whose ankle she severed fell to the ground, only to have his face stomped by oblivious feet. Though the man’s armor was that of Karak’s Army, there were splotches of white paint covering the breastplate. Moira scooted to the side, avoiding another soldier’s blade, and noticed that almost all of Ashhur’s followers were simply wearing the standard of the lion, only painted over. With the crude paint chipping away during the battle, it would be nearly impossible to tell one side from the other.

The concern fled her when she heard a cry rise above the clamor. It was the scream of a tortured soul, of pain beyond physical, and she recognized the voice. She stood, grabbed a soldier from behind, hoped it was one of Karak’s, and slit his throat. Using his body as a shield, she spun around, looking for her opening. When she found it, a three-foot space of empty, bloody cobbles, she tossed the man’s corpse at the skirmishing men and ran in the opposite direction, putting as much force as she could behind her next jump, arrows be damned.

Batting away blows on either side, Moira hustled toward the sound. Luckily, the arrows were no longer flying on this side of the square, which meant her Movers had done their job. She had to keep one eye ahead and one eye on the castle wall, but then she saw him—Patrick DuTaureau, the father of Moira and Rachida’s child, sprinting along the wall. His expression was one of pure agony, pure
hatred
; in that moment, he actually looked like the
monster
many had
assumed him to be. She had fought by his
side in
Haven, and he’d never looked like that. She wondered what had
transformed
him so.

Then her eyes traced upward, and she wondered no more.

“Fuck no,” she muttered.

Hanging on the wall amid a long row of corpses was one that stuck out from the rest—a small, withered thing with red, curly hair. And beside her, his chestnut locks like reeds blowing in the wind, was Crian. Her brother, the only one in her whole family who had never judged her for her dismissal of the family code, hadn’t made it to Paradise after all.

“No!” she screamed.

A woman possessed, she hacked and slashed blindly, not caring in the slightest which side she killed. The frenzied nature of her assault created a wide gap in the packed group of combatants. When finally she dove out of the fray, she twirled around, whirling both swords in her hands, and split the faces of two soldiers who were brave enough to challenge her. When they fell, she followed the sound of Patrick’s ranting. She found him battling with a giant elf who wielded a pair of black swords. Patrick shouted obscenities each time he dove into a hysterical attack, only to be beaten back by a tumult of parries and jabs. The elf had split the chainmail on Patrick’s thigh and damaged his right vambrace so much it dangled off the hunchbacked man’s massive arm. His skill was too great; and Patrick, too angry. He was swinging wildly, carelessly. Before long he would open himself up and receive a sword in the face for his troubles.

Moira sprinted toward the clash, ducking out of the way of charging soldiers, leaping over a couple others. She reached Patrick’s backside just as the large elf launched into a flurry of cleaves and slashes. Leaping upward, she used Patrick as a steppingstone, kicking off him to continue her forward assault. Flying frontward, she twisted to give her slashes even greater power as she came crashing down. The elf edged away in time so that only the tips of her blades caught his flesh, scoring both his cheeks at once. Moira landed on both feet in a low crouch, her shortswords held one over the other in a defensive stance. Behind her, Patrick staggered ahead, almost falling on his face.