Wrath of Lions Page 5

  They were agents of chaos, and Velixar felt no pity for them.

  He finally arrived at Karak’s black-bricked temple and scaled the steps, passing between the twin statues of onyx lions, mirrors of the ones guarding the gates to Veldaren’s castle. He rapped on the heavy, oaken door, noting that the three dots that had always adorned it, representing the three gods, had been sanded away. The door was now smooth and black, ominous in its emptiness. When none answered his knock, he shoved the door open and stepped inside.

  Just like the unused throne room of the Tower Keep, Karak’s monastery had been cleaned out. The plants that used to line the walls now resided in the courtyard behind the temple. The pews that had filled the center of the room had been disassembled and used as timber for ax handles, bows, wagons, and other such items the army required. In their place a giant map of Dezrel had been painted on the floor by the god himself, a painstakingly detailed atlas showing every hill, valley, township, and holdfast both east and west of the Rigon River.

  It was there he found his towering god, bent at the waist and hovering over the map, his giant feet following a path north along the great river that split the land in two, his glowing yellow eyes narrowed in concentration. Velixar said nothing as he approached. He stood in the god’s shadow while torchlight flickered all around them. Karak was twice Velixar’s height, and his hands were large and powerful enough to crush his head by simply making a fist. Most men were awed by his mere presence, forced to their knees by the Divinity’s might. Velixar was not most men. When he bowed, he did so because he wanted to.

  “My Lord,” he said, dropping to a single knee before the deity.

  “Velixar, my son,” replied Karak in his booming voice. Rather than looking up, the god continued to trace lines over the huge map with his eyes. “I am glad you have come.”

  “Is that so, my Lord?” he replied. He rose to his feet once more and stood by Karak’s side, where he should have been standing since his creation. Though he had been made by both brother gods, Velixar was convinced that Karak’s path of order and discipline was the better.

  “It is. I have put much thought into our last discussion and have come to a decision.”

  “Which is?”

  The god’s finger, as big as Velixar’s forearm, pointed down at his feet. “I have near twenty thousand fighting men in my service, and my brother’s Paradise is expansive. Our men are to be divided into four separate factions. One faction will head south, pass through the delta, and fall on my brother’s Sanctuary.” His finger moved north along the river. “One will cross the river here, across from the west’s largest eastern settlement.” Again the giant finger moved north. “The third will join with our allies in Dezerea.” This time the finger traced a line to the northwest. “And the fourth shall sail along the Gihon, uniting with those Uther left behind in the northern deadlands, and face the spellcasters who live there. The three southern factions will slowly maneuver across the land, burning the areas where they find resistance, gathering as many converts as they can, and they will finally merge in Mordeina, which I am sure my brother will have fortified.”

  Velixar nodded. “And you will heed my advice and leave Ashhur’s dark children alone?”

  “I shall. Ker will fall after my brother has perished and his surviving creations have joined our cause, swelling our numbers. I fear you are correct about the risk they pose should their current desire for neutrality be broken. Once we have victory over Ashhur, I will leave them no choice but to bend the knee.”

  “Will you spare them if they do?”

  Karak nodded. “Most, yes, but there are few who are too dangerous, their thinking too stubborn. The giant Bardiya, for example. Let those who would cling to Ashhur’s simple-minded weakness find order in the life beyond instead.”

  “A wise choice, my Lord.”

  Karak stood to his full height, his majestic black platemail shimmering in the torchlight. He truly was an imposing figure. Velixar couldn’t understand how any man, even Bardiya Gorgoros, Ashhur’s greatest pupil, could deny him.

  When the god looked down on him, his expression shifted to bemusement. “Why have you come, my son?” he asked. “I see something troubles you.”

  “I bear ill news,” said Velixar. “Erznia is no more.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It is. The demon Darakken took control of the detachment I sent there. Instead of bringing back the Moris as I requested, it ordered the slaughter of every living being.”

  Karak’s expression darkened. “All of them?”

  “Every man, woman, and child, according to Captain Handrick.”

  “And the captain let it happen?”

  “Not only that, he relished it. He arrived at the keep this very afternoon, gloating. I taught the man the lesson he deserved, but even that will not bring back the lives lost, lives that would have been valuable to our cause.”

  The air seemed to grow hot, and Karak’s arm shot out. He smashed his fist into the floor, disintegrating the painted depiction of one of Neldar’s southern townships. An angry roar left his lips, and the vibration knocked Velixar back a step.

  “This will not do!” the god shouted, gazing at him with eyes that seemed capable of burning out his soul.

  “I understand, my Lord,” replied Velixar, breathing deep to stay calm in face of the deity’s wrath. He dropped to both knees. “I like it no better than you, but please understand that all is not lost. As much as you love your children in Erznia, the fact remains that they have ignored your edicts for months. I sent Handrick there to force their complicity. Darakken is a simple beast, one that understands only death, destruction, and loyalty to you. It simply doled out punishment in the only way it knows how.”

  Karak scowled at him, and for a moment Velixar thought the deity would strike him dead.

  “You said you could control the beast,” Karak said. “This is not the first time it has acted on its own. I do not want my people killed without reason. Chaos lies that way.”

  “I can control it, and I have. The spirit of Clovis Crestwell still lives and still elicits a small amount of influence on Darakken’s actions.”

  “Yet it went against my decree.”

  Velixar shook his head. “It did not. It was the soldiers who disobeyed, not the beast. They all knew what was expected of them, but they succumbed to their bloodlust. The demon had no part in the plan, had no knowledge of the plan. It is they who should be held accountable, not Darakken.”

  Karak’s visage softened ever so slightly. “We cannot have disorder in the ranks of our fighting men.”

  “I agree, my Lord, but that is the way of humanity. They are weak creatures, guided by instinct and emotion. That is the reason I chose you over your brother. He wishes to nurture their deficiencies, whereas you wish to mold them into something more, for only then will their freedom mean anything.”

  “You speak of them as if they are separate from yourself. You too are human.”

  “Not any longer, my Lord. Now I am something greater.”

  Karak chuckled at those words that caused anger to rise up in him once more. So even his chosen deity wished to mock him as Handrick had.…

  Velixar cleared his throat, trying to swallow down his frustration.

  “My Lord,” he said evenly, “I understand all of this, and I will work with the leaders of our army to instill a greater level of order and respect among the fighting men. I am Highest now, and they will learn to respect that. However, I must first confront the demon. Although I understand its actions, I agree that it cannot be allowed to operate in such a way, and will show it the error of its ways.”

  “Do you know where it is?” the god asked, his giant head tilting to the side.

  “I do. A scrying spell revealed that the demon remains in Erznia.” He swallowed hard, dreading his next words. “I wish to confront it immediately but lack the power to do so on my own.”

  “You are weakened.”

  It was a
statement, not a question, and unfortunately it was true. Velixar had no dragonglass mirror to step through in Erznia, a tactic that had in the past allowed him to move from one point to another in an instant. And though the essence of the Beast of a Thousand Faces had strengthened his innate abilities, and he could ride the shadows, using them as portals just as Karak did, his ability to do so was weaker now than ever, presumably because that power was being exhausted by his newer talents. It would take him hours to cross the hundred miles between Veldaren and the Erzn Forest, and by the time he reached his destination, he would not have the strength to return.

  “I am,” he said.

  Karak flicked his wrist at the torches on the far wall, extinguishing them, creating a deep pool of darkness between cascades of light. He then looked Velixar in the eye, his mouth firm, his glowing gaze as serious as a blade to the throat.

  “My power is yours to use, my Highest,” he said. His booming voice grew softer, but it still possessed a threatening undertone. “You are my greatest ally, the best of all my children. I trust you with the fate of my kingdom. Do not prove that trust unwise.”

  Velixar bowed his head. “I will not, my Lord. That is my solemn promise to you.”

  The god held out his hand, and Velixar took it. Energy surged through him, prickling his fingertips, making every hair on his body stand on end. It felt as if his chest had swelled to twice its size by the time he released the deity’s hand and stepped into the darkness between the torches. He closed his eyes, concentrated on his destination, and was overwhelmed by the sensation of his body being broken down atom by atom.

  An instant later he opened his eyes to find himself in complete darkness. When his senses returned to him, he muttered a few words. Flames licked from his fingers, revealing his surroundings to be a small room. Faint streaks of daylight shone through the gaps above and below the door in front of him, intruding only a few scant centimeters before being swallowed up by blackness. When he pushed open the door and stepped outside, the sun was beginning to dip behind the treetops.

  The room was an empty shed on the edge of Mori Manor. The pillars on which the house banners once flew had been toppled. There was blood everywhere, smeared on the sides of the houses, the grass, and the dirt path leading through the center of the settlement. Hundreds of corpses hung upside down from the rooftops on ropes that creaked as they swayed. The stink of death was virtually unbearable.

  Velixar moved among them. Men and women, boys and girls, young and old, even infants; none had been spared. Their bellies had been ripped open and their insides devoured, leaving them nothing but empty shells. Judging from the amount of decay, he guessed they had been dead for at least five days, perhaps as much as a week. The beast has been busy, he thought. In a way he admired Darakken’s fastidiousness. There was an exacting nature to the way the corpses had been hung—by height, ascending and descending and ascending again, as if the creature were trying to perfect its own sort of morbid symmetry.

  Hearing the sound of tearing flesh, he stepped away from the dangling cadavers. He strolled down the center of the dirt road, the grooves from the carts brought by Handrick’s men still etched into the soft ground. Glancing to the left, he spotted a massive creature sitting cross-legged in front of a small log home. The glimmering pate of the thing reflected the rays of the dying sun as its head moved up and down, up and down, ripping tubes of intestines from the body of the young boy that rested across his lap.

  Velixar approached the beast. Clovis was completely naked, and his flesh had been stretched almost beyond recognition, to the point where it was virtually transparent. Hearing his approach, the beast’s head shot up. Its eyes glowed brilliant red from the center of Clovis’s bloated face, meaning the demon was in full control.

  “You seem to have eaten more than your fill,” Velixar said.

  “My brother-made-master, did you come for me?” the demon asked, chunks of meat and strings of viscera dangling from its swollen lips. It was still strange to hear its odd inflection—the voices of two entities speaking simultaneously.

  “I have,” he said, stopping before the beast and folding his arms over his chest. “And I am not happy.”

  “Why is Velixar not happy?”

  “Look around you. These people were my god’s children, just like myself, just like you. And yet you destroyed them.”

  “They were blasphemers against the mighty Karak. I promised to sheer the flesh from thy enemies. Have I not done so?”

  Velixar sighed. Darakken was indeed a simple beast.

  “I do not wish to speak with you, Darakken. I wish to speak with Clovis. Bring him forth.”

  The beast grinned, showing its sharp, red-stained teeth.

  “The little man is sleeping,” it said.

  “Wake him up.”

  “I do not wish to.”

  The creature plunged its claws into the gaping chest of the corpse in his lap, pulling out another sloppy pile of entrails and stuffing them in its mouth. Velixar calmly lowered his head, muttered a few words, and lifted his hands. Karak’s borrowed power still flowed through him, and his fingertips crackled with black lightning and swirls of shadow. He pictured the demon’s soul dangling by a slender thread, and he snipped at it, severing tiny strand after tiny strand. Darakken winced in pain, spitting out a mouthful of meat and gagging.

  “I submit, I submit!” it shrieked.

  The thing pitched forward, the body in the beast’s lap rolling away as it collapsed face-first into the mud. It lay still for a moment, its rippling, distended form falling still, and then its head lifted and a pained gasp left its lips. Velixar could see the beast’s eyes alight with panic, and they were no longer glowing. He stood over the thing-turned-man and laughed.

  “Clovis, you fool, get up.”

  He did so, awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable with his stuffed, swollen bulk. He looked down at himself, at the bulbous forearms and sagging breasts, at the penis that vanished beneath a rolling gut. Recognition slowly shone through in his stare, and Clovis Crestwell gazed on Velixar with fear and hate.

  “Look what you’ve done to me,” he choked out.

  “Whatever happened to you, you did it to yourself,” Velixar replied.

  “I’m a monster.”

  “You were always a monster, Clovis, only not a very good one. You are much more efficient now.”

  The naked monstrosity turned away from him.

  “Leave me alone, Jacob,” he said. “Go away. You don’t understand how horrible it is to exist like this.”

  Velixar lurched forward, grabbing Clovis by the shoulder. It sickened him to feel the clammy, sodden flesh beneath his fingers, and he had to restrain a wince.

  “You will not turn away from me, Crestwell. I am Highest; I am your master now. You will do as I say.”

  Clovis swiveled toward him. His form was already starting to lose its extra weight as Darakken’s essence swallowed the nutrients.

  “What would you have me do?”

  “I left you alive for a reason. I could have allowed the demon to devour your soul as it devours everything else, but I need you. You are what keeps the beast in line. And yet you shirked that duty by allowing it to slaughter this entire settlement.”

  “I had no choice. He is too strong!” Clovis pleaded.

  “And were the Quellan too strong as well?”

  Clovis tilted his head, confused.

  “Another example of your failure, you weak fool,” seethed Velixar.

  “But…but the Quellan elves are loyal to our cause. Dezerea is ours now that they’ve taken it! Just as you asked…just as the Whisperer asked…”

  “You were also told to protect the Meln family from harm. Yet the Lord of Stonewood and many of his underlings are dead, and his wife and younger daughter have fled and are in hiding.”

  “They acted on their own!” he shouted. “My son…my poor dead son…he told them the terms, and they ignored him!”

  Velixar shook his head
as if disappointed with his answer. “The betrayal of the Quellan only goes to prove that you never had any true power.” He grinned and said, “Tell me, do you love your wife, Clovis?”

  The swollen man stared back dumbly, then nodded.

  “Would you like to see any harm come to her?”

  Clovis dropped to his knees and clawed at Velixar’s breeches. “No, Jacob, please no! Lanike is my creation and all that I have. Please don’t harm her!”

  He shoved the pleading half-man away. “I won’t lay a finger on her,” he said, disdain dripping from every word. “But you will. Should you not learn to keep this creature under control, should you allow him to disobey my decrees again, I shall cut the thread that connects you to your body. But I will not kill you. No, I will allow you to look through your own eyes as I set the demon on your wife, letting him use her in whatever way he pleases. What do you think will happen then, you miserable wretch? Will you enjoy watching Lanike flayed alive by your own hands, perhaps from the inside out?”

  Tears streamed down Clovis’s face. “I will try! I will do it! I will try! I will do it!” he shouted.

  Velixar turned his back on the blubbering half-man and sauntered away from him, all smiles.

  “Oh, and Clovis, one more thing,” he called out over his shoulder as he approached the rapidly darkening forest. “If you call me Jacob one more time, you’ll suffer that same fate. Remember that the next time I free you from your cage.”

  CHAPTER

  3

  The sores covering Patrick DuTaureau’s thighs stung to high heaven as they rubbed back and forth against his saddle. He cursed softly and pulled back on his horse’s reins, slowing to a mild canter so he could adjust himself. Reaching into his saddlebag, he pulled out a vial of greasy salve a man in Lerder had given him, uncorked it with his teeth, gathered a dollop on his finger, and shoved his hand down the front of his breeches. He closed his eyes in relief as the elixir worked its magic. His head lolled back until it rested against the hump in his misshapen spine. Ecstasy, he thought. Pure fucking ecstasy.