Wrath of Lions Read online

  She pulled back from him then, smiling as she grasped for his manhood. Her fingers found it, danced across it, and played it back into stiffness.

  Roland moaned. Feeling suddenly sore, he gently moved her hand away.

  “I don’t think I can again,” he said, hissing between his teeth at the rawness he felt down there. “I’m sorry.”

  “You sure?” she asked playfully. “Why not?”

  “It’s just…it hurts a bit,” he replied.

  “It does?” She sucked on her lip. “Well, Mantrel Burgess once said I have a gift for healing. Let me see if I can heal you.”

  “What are you—”

  Kaya disappeared beneath the blankets before he could finish his question. Her healing kisses began and chased away all other thoughts.

  They made love again after that. Roland lasted more than a few short thrusts this time, immersing himself in the feel of their lower halves colliding while he squeezed the girl’s ample breasts. And when he finished, it was so intense that he bit down on her shoulder a little too fiercely, hard enough to make her yelp.

  When the act was done, Roland collapsed on his back, the soreness returning. The rest of him felt numb, euphoric, as if he weighed less than nothing and could soar into the sky, floating all the way up until he reached Celestia’s star. Kaya rolled over, resting her head on his chest while she caressed the fine hairs below his bellybutton.

  “Happy birthday,” she said, smirking.

  He gazed at her, dumbstruck.

  “So, how was it?” she asked. “Second time as good as the first?”

  “Um,” he replied, feeling at a loss for words.

  Kaya giggled. “What, did I steal your tongue?”

  “Well, no,” he said hoarsely. “It’s just…it was all…well…you know?”

  “Fun?”

  He chuckled. “Well…yes, I guess that’s as good a word as any.”

  She slid atop him, placing a single kiss on his lips as she squeezed his sides with her thighs.

  “I still find it amazing that you haven’t done this before,” she said, her hazel eyes glinting in the moonlight. “I mean, by Ashhur, I lost my flower when I was fourteen, and you’re no younger than I am.”

  Roland shivered, wiggled out from beneath her.

  “Wait, you’re done this before?” He’d believed he was her first, just as she was his.

  “Of course,” said Kaya. She cocked her head to the side and stared at him through squinting lids.

  “Where are your children?”

  A solemn look overcame the pretty girl’s round features.

  “I have none. Ashhur has yet to bless me with child.” She looked so sad then, defeated. “Not for lack of trying.”

  She looked away, and in the moonlight he saw the shimmering start of tears. Roland’s empathy overwhelmed his disbelief, and he pulled her close, suddenly feeling guilty even though he wasn’t sure he’d done anything wrong.

  “Why are you sad?” he asked.

  Kaya sniffled. “I am one of eleven, Roland,” she said. “All nine of my older sisters have been blessed with children. Me? I’ve been with five men since that first time, and none has been able to plant his seed. It is a mark of dishonor. Healers have touched my belly, but it hasn’t helped. My mother jests that I’m cursed. No man will take me if I cannot provide him with children.”

  “You’re not cursed,” he said, grabbing her by the shoulder and pulling her to him. The blankets slid off them, piling up around his waist and revealing her fully. He drew back and was once again overtaken by how beautiful she was, with her wide hips and firm breasts. He had always thought his future was with Mary Ulmer, Master Steward Clegman’s daughter. But Mary was gone now, having joined Ashhur’s march toward Mordeina. And besides, as he stared at the woman before him, he couldn’t imagine himself being with anyone else. Visions entered his mind of giving Kaya the children she so desired, of building a small hut in the hilly lands on the outskirts of Ker and living there until old age claimed them both. He had only known her for a few short months, but already that felt like forever.

  “How do you know?” she asked, almost shyly.

  “Because someone so wonderful could never be cursed.”

  She smiled, soft and sweet. “That’s very nice of you to say.”

  “I’m not just saying it. I mean it. I would live the rest of my life with you, whether you bore my children or not.”

  “You would?”

  “Of course.”

  A shooting star flashed overhead, making the night even brighter, and for a moment Kaya put him in mind of Brienna. When the mirage faded, he tilted his head forward, memories of the beautiful, lost elf washing over him.

  “Though I must say, I don’t know why you would need a child to make you feel worth. You are perfect as you are, Kaya. That is what should define you.”

  “But women are created to make children. It is our reason for being, our grand purpose, as my mother always says.”

  At one time Roland might have agreed with her. After all, until Haven, life in Paradise had always been about farming and breeding and praying. But he had seen too much, experienced too much, for him to feel that wonderful naïveté any longer. He was a different man, and though the world itself might not be better for it, he believed he was.

  “That’s not true,” he told her. “Everyone has a purpose, a journey all their own. It’s up to us to decide which path to take, which adventure to embark on. The only shame in life is if you do not find happiness with being yourself.”

  Those had been Patrick DuTaureau’s words to him in the aftermath of the battle between the brother gods—sage advice from such a twisted and ugly being, obviously springing from personal experience.

  Kaya leaned into him once more, a smile on her face. “You make me feel good, Roland. You really do.” She pressed her cheek against his breast. “In more ways than one.”

  They reclined on the roof and gazed up at the midnight sky, Roland pointing out the stars, naming those Azariah had told him about, and together they mused on what the other worlds out there might be like. Roland’s dark thoughts floated away as they laughed and kissed. He knew it was a feeling to cherish, even if it only lasted a night. Tomorrow they would be back at work, slaving away beside the Wardens as they prepared the town of Lerder—the only true town in all of Paradise—for the inevitable coming of Karak and his followers.

  Stop thinking of it, he told himself. Go with the moment.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Kaya.

  “Nothing,” replied Roland. He quickly changed the subject. “So, Highrose, huh? Interesting surname. How did you come about it?”

  Kaya shrugged. “The first of my family lived on the hills north of the Stonewood Forest. My grandmother said the Wardens had planted a plot of roses on the highest hill any could see, and it was the most beautiful thing for miles. So when the first couple chose a name, they picked Highrose.” She looked at him queerly. “I don’t know why you would think it interesting, though. It’s not so odd as Norsman.”

  “That’s true,” Roland replied, laughing. “But my forbearers were odd, I think. They took our name from one of Warden Loen’s poems, ‘The Barbarians of the Beltway.’”

  “I don’t know that one.”

  “Not surprised you don’t. Your family is from the other side of the Corinth; mine’s from Safeway. Loen lives here, though. You should ask him to recite it to you when you get a chance.”

  “Which one’s Loen?”

  “You know: tall, gray eyes, straight golden hair?”

  She scrunched up her face. “That describes half the Wardens in town. Like I said, which one is Loen?”

  Roland laughed, a hearty snort that caused his whole body to quake. Kaya joined in his laughter, falling into his chest and writhing, planting tender kisses all over him. He thought he might be up for another tumble, but then came the cries of Morgan Eastwick, the proprietor of the inn atop which they lay, screaming that there best
not be anyone on her roof. Laughing helplessly, they gathered up their discarded clothing and hurried to the to the slender rope ladder that had been hung at the side of the three-story building. When they climbed down and reached the ground, Kaya placed a kiss on his lips and ran off into the night, returning to the home she shared with her family, while Roland laced up his breeches and wandered toward the front of the inn, where he hoped to enter his room without waking Azariah.

  For Roland, morning came much too quickly. He felt sluggish as he moved along the outer edge of Lerder with a six-foot log propped on his shoulder. There was a pounding behind his eyes, and he felt out of breath. He tried to force his way through the discomfort, keeping his thoughts on his encounter with Kaya, but if there was one thing he hated more than the cold, it was being wet. And that morning, just like most mornings lately, was depressingly soggy.

  The clear skies of the night before had given way to swollen gray and black clouds as spring rain pummeled the Rigon River’s middle banks. He cursed the weather, even though both Kaya and Morgan had assured him the rains were a blessing for the harvest to come. He couldn’t agree with them, not when his foot plunged into a cold puddle with every other step, and his clothes clung to his body.

  He made his way down the causeway, his soft-soled boots sloshing on the wet slate. There were workers to his right, on the side facing the river, stacking logs and sacks of sand up as high as they could. Wardens and humans alike hefted and pulled, grunting as they labored in the early morning downpour. The Wardens took their places at the top of the makeshift wall, grabbing whatever the humans below handed up to them.

  The wall stretched as far as he could see, thickest and tallest by the river, shorter and thinner where it circled around into land. Ezekai, the Warden in charge of the wall’s construction, was convinced that when Karak decided to strike, he would target this spot. “The Rigon is more than a mile wide, sometimes two,” he had said. “This town was built where it is thinnest. If Karak chooses to cross at multiple points other than Ashhur’s Bridge, this will be one of those points.”

  It seemed reasonable enough, but even so, Roland questioned the logic of building the wall in the first place. He’d been there in the delta. He’d seen the might commanded by Karak. Although the eastern god’s forces had swords, axes, and shields, Lerder had little more than sharpened sticks and heavy stones. The true weapons they possessed were few, just those given as gifts in the past by visiting elves. These, combined with a twenty-foot stack of sandbags and felled trees, would do little to stop an actual army, never mind a giant fireball brought down from the sky like the one that had decimated the Temple of the Flesh.

  Just as he did every day, he began to doubt his choice to stay behind and assist with the reinforcements. He had wanted to leave with Ashhur, Patrick, and the majority of the townspeople, not to mention his family from home, but he’d stayed because of Azariah. The Warden, who’d kept him from crossing the battlefield to join Jacob after the First Man’s betrayal of their god, was his only true friend in the world, and Roland was hesitant to leave him. Or he had been before Roland met Kaya. Again his thoughts were filled with images of the life he could have with the frisky girl who’d given him his first taste of love. His spirits lifted ever so slightly.

  They plummeted again when he reached his destination, a section of the wall that had toppled in the night. A few men came over to retrieve the log he carried, wedging it against the sandbags and rocks they’d used to brace the collapsed area. “We need more,” one of the men told him. Roland moaned, hung his head, and headed back the way he’d come, where a cluster of Wardens were chopping down a thatch of evergreens that grew just inside the town’s border.

  More men carrying logs passed him on his trek, their expressions blank, their eyes weary. One of them stumbled, and Roland rushed over to support the heavy log before the man collapsed beneath its weight. The man thanked him cheerfully and headed on his way, whistling as he went. Roland’s blood started to boil. Despite their efforts to fortify the town, none of those who lived here truly understood what was coming. Oh, they understood in theory that there was danger, but just like Kaya, they hadn’t experienced what Roland had.…They hadn’t stared death in the face and lived to tell the tale. He blew a gust of air between his teeth, realizing that they would only understand when it was too late. If the Wardens hadn’t been here to help build the wall…

  Damn the wall, Roland thought. Ashhur should have raised one himself, like he did in Nor.

  Azariah had been the one to squash that notion. The walls Ashhur had raised from the earth in the settlements along the Rigon tributaries on the way to Safeway were small. Lerder was huge by comparison, stretching four miles in either direction. There were actual buildings here, seven large ones in fact, including Morgan’s Second Breath Inn and Ashhur’s Temple by the Ford. The rest were small domiciles for the people. And there were roads that led from one structure to the others, which were lined with countless hovels and cabins. Unlike any of the other settlements he had visited, everyone in Lerder had a real roof over his or her head. There were no tents or lean-tos save those erected specifically to dry fish or hang grain. Elves, and even some merchants from Neldar, had oft frequented the town in the past, staying in the Second Breath Inn and drinking mulled ale in Barker’s Tavern, which made the town a commercial hub of sorts. It was the only place in Paradise where trade was practiced at all.

  All of which meant the barrier had to protect each of the tall structures, extending nearly seven miles around. Azariah had been adamant that the amount of godly power it would take Ashhur to raise a blockade from the ground would leave the deity greatly weakened, and his power would go to better use in Mordeina. Seventy Wardens stayed behind to assist in the construction, joining the mere two hundred townspeople who had chosen to stay. The rest had left with their deity, marching west along the Gods’ Road.

  As he scaled a small hill, Roland listened to the grunts and thwump of axes of sharpened stone biting into trees. At the crest he saw Azariah, his short, russet hair standing on end, sticky with sweat and sopping with rain, as he hewed at an evergreen. One of the other Wardens shouted, “Make way!” as the tree teetered and began to fall. A loud crack filled the air before it struck the ground, bouncing slightly on the springing branches. When it stilled, the other Wardens stepped atop it, swinging axes of their own to cut the trunk into six-foot sections.

  There was a stack of already segmented logs close by. Roland prepared to lift one of them, but he heard his name called from behind him. When he turned around, Azariah stood behind him, an ax slung over his shoulder. He was naked from the waist up, and rainwater beaded all over his slender torso. His green-gold eyes sparkled in the morning’s relative darkness, and a smile curled his lips.

  “Back so soon?” the Warden asked.

  Roland looked up. Just like all the Wardens, Azariah towered over him. It was something he hadn’t minded in his youth, but now that he was a man grown, it made him feel insignificant in comparison. They were creatures from a different world, and at times Roland couldn’t help but think they were humanity’s betters, no matter what assurance Ashhur gave to the contrary.

  “Need more logs,” he replied, stepping aside so another returning laborer could heft the one he’d been preparing to lift. “Part of the wall fell last night, and we need to brace it.”

  “I know,” replied Azariah. He leaned down and offered him a slight jab on the shoulder. “Perchance your midnight madness blew it over?”

  Roland’s cheeks flushed and he turned away.

  “I thought you were sleeping,” he muttered.

  “I awoke when you attempted to sneak into our room,” Azariah said. “At first I thought you might be sleep wandering, but your sighs told a different story.”

  Roland shook his head and began to walk away empty-handed, too embarrassed to face his friend. He heard the sound of something heavy thumping against the sodden grass, and then Azariah was by his side,
walking with him.

  “What bothers you, Roland?” he asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come now. We are friends, are we not? You can talk to me.”

  Roland paused and glanced behind him, making sure he was far enough away from the other Wardens. He then looked back at Azariah and frowned.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” he said. “We should leave.”

  “You know we cannot do that. We must help reinforce the town.”

  Roland threw his arms out wide. “But why? What good will it do? We can’t fight an army! What happens when Karak comes? Everyone here…everyone…is going to…”

  Azariah grimaced. “The girl. Kaya. You care for her.”

  “Of course!” shouted Roland.

  The Warden cast a quick glance behind him, then hurriedly threw an arm around Roland, leading him away from the others. They reached a distant section of the wall that was barely taller than Azariah and constructed from flimsily stacked stones, twigs, and branches. When he turned to face Roland, the Warden’s expression was serious, very much unlike the way he usually carried himself.

  “Tell me what you fear,” he said.

  Roland took a deep breath, trying to calm down. He owed his friend that much.

  “I just don’t understand,” he said.

  “Understand what?”

  “Why we’re here. Why we’re building this wall. It won’t stop Karak from burning this place to the ground. You’re smart. You know that. Yet no one else seems to understand!” He shook his head and lowered his voice. “And neither do I. When we first came here, I was still in shock from what happened to Brienna, and then what we saw in Haven. But now I see two futures ahead of me: one where I’m happy and free, and another where everyone’s dead, and that one seems far more likely.” He looked up at his friend once more, and he knew from the tears he felt dripping down his cheeks what he must look like. “Please tell me, why are we here? Why are we choosing such a horrible fate?”

  Azariah stooped down. He looked to the overcast sky for a moment, his lips moving as if in prayer, and then his eyes found Roland’s once more.