Wrath of Lions Read online

  “Just like with animals,” he told them. “Look for the soft spot, and strike for it.” A few from those gathered on the Gods’ Road, including four Wardens, came down to assist him in his duties. Stoke Harrow, a man who had accompanied Ashhur on his trek into the delta, helped him put on his mismatched suit of armor, so he could show his students the weak points.

  All the while Ashhur sat in the center of the spiraling tents, chanting silently, using his godly magic to bring pillars of brightly colored stone and trees from the earth to form a jagged wall around the settlement. It was an amazing spectacle to see, and the pillars and trees caused quite a ruckus when they emerged from the crust, which made Patrick’s teaching efforts all the more difficult.

  Not that it mattered. The people took to their lesson as though it were a game, acting as if Ashhur’s dire news were nothing to worry about. Frustrating as it was, he couldn’t necessarily blame them. You’ll learn soon enough, he thought solemnly.

  They were back on the Gods’ Road several hours later when the sun set below the western horizon. Tents sprang up all across the road, stretching outward for miles, lit by dozens of cookfires. Patrick spread his bedroll out on the packed dirt, far away from the noisy mass of humanity. Pigs squealed and horses whinnied. The scent of cooking meats reached his nose, and his stomach cramped. He was famished, having eaten only some salted beef that morning, but his body was too sore from the day’s labor to move. Instead, he took a swig from his waterskin, wishing it were wine, then pulled a pile of blankets atop him to stave off the night’s cold. At least he wasn’t staying behind in Grassmere, as the four Wardens who’d assisted in the citizens’ training had been asked to do. Four less guides to help lead this motley lot.

  Ashhur sat nearby, legs crossed, gaze fixed on Celestia’s star, the brightest in the heavens. He had spent much of the evening among his people, blessing them, joining them in laughter and prayer. He now appeared tired and worn to the nub, the light of the half-moon forming deep lines of worry on an otherwise perfect visage. Patrick shifted beneath his blankets, rising up on his elbow.

  “You look troubled,” he said.

  Ashhur glanced back at him, his eyes glowing faintly.

  “I am. It is an unusual sensation for one such as me to experience.”

  “What’s the reason for the worry? Same as usual, or something new?”

  The deity shook his head and glanced down at the settlement at the base of the plateau, with its new multicolored wall.

  “I fear this may all be for naught. Those I leave behind do not understand what is coming for them. They will perish, and they will perish horribly. I should bring the whole throng of them with me.”

  “We go through this every time,” Patrick insisted. “Yes, it’s awful. But as you said, you can’t coddle your children any longer. It’s time for us to grow up and make our own decisions, and from what I saw in Haven, growing up is almost always painful. Take solace in the fact that those who come with us will be protected once we reach Mordeina. That is all we can ask for, is it not? And besides, those who stay behind will fulfill their purpose…”

  “That is my hope,” the deity said with a nod. He looked odd in that moment, more guilty than a deity should ever appear to be.

  “Sometimes hope is all we have,” Patrick said. “For example, I hope my mother’s making progress on that wall you wanted, and I hope the king they crowned is up to the task of leading these people once we arrive, since I assume your attentions will be focused…elsewhere.”

  That seemed to snap Ashhur back to his old self. “Yes, it is my hope as well. Your mother is strong. Perhaps not strong in the same way Bessus was, but she has her talents. She is the only survivor of my first creations, and she’s more than capable. I believe she will teach Ben Maryll well, just as she taught you.”

  Patrick scoffed inwardly at the notion. He had come to realize that his mother and father had very little to do with the man he’d become. He didn’t correct his god, however, for Ashhur knew far more than he did. If Isabel DuTaureau’s harsh and distant parenting could make this new King Benjamin anywhere near as strong as Patrick was now, there was a chance Paradise might be saved.

  Patrick lifted his waterskin to his lips in a toast.

  “To Paradise, to your ever loving grace, and to pounding Karak’s ass when he finally arrives,” he said.

  “As good a toast as any,” Ashhur replied, a somber smile lifting his lips.

  CHAPTER

  4

  “Heave! You, stop that dawdling. There will be time for water when we set this stone. Stop worrying about slicing your hand open. I’ll heal it if you do. You—the man with the torn breeches—don’t stand there! If that rope snaps, you will be crushed. Is that what you desire? No, no, no! Stop jumping on those boulders. Do you think this a game, you fool?”

  Ahaesarus took a step backward, throwing his hands up in frustration. Those who should have been working were laughing and cajoling instead. At the rate the stones were being put in place, they would never have the wall built before Ashhur’s arrival.

  After taking a deep breath to calm his nerves and tugging on his scarred ear, he allowed himself a moment to put things into perspective. It was early morning, the sun barely up long enough to take the haze from the sky, and there were already two hundred people working. The citizens of Mordeina stood among acres of mud, lifting granite blocks—each as wide as a small hut—from the nearby mountains with pulleys made from ropes and felled tree, attempting to swing them into place atop the uncompleted wall. Others stood atop the completed portions, pouring mortar into the gaps before the blocks were nestled into place. The progress they’d made over many months of labor was extensive, yet laughable considering how much still remained to be done. The main entrance was finished, a stone arch that had taken a full week to perfect. The wall in general was fifty feet high and went on in a semicircle for a span of six miles. It would take more than fifteen miles of wall to completely encircle the settlement.

  We will never finish in time.

  They had received Ashhur’s letter describing the events in Haven in painstaking detail just as autumn took hold of the land. Along with that message came a warning of Karak’s planned assault on Paradise. The final instructions were to begin construction of the protective wall around Mordeina, the planning of which had fallen to the Wardens. None of the humans knew anything of woodwork or masonry, never mind architecture. Each of the great structures that had been erected in Paradise—Manse DuTaureau, the Wooden Bridge, and the seven buildings in Lerder—had been conceived of and built by Ahaesarus’s brethren. Even considering that fact, the designer of these edifices had been a single Warden, Boral, who still resided and worked his craft in Lerder, on the banks of the Rigon, hundreds of miles away. Most of the Wardens had been minor tradesmen in their past lives on their obliterated, faraway world. Ahaesarus, in fact, had been a farmer and a priest. He had risen in stature after his people were brought to Dezrel to become nursemaids, and he’d learned to appreciate his second chance. He had become a strict adherent of Ashhur’s laws of love and forgiveness, a teacher whose loud voice served him well in gaining the attention of the juvenile beings under his care. His size and integrity had made him the most prominent of all the Wardens, climbing so high in the eyes of Ashhur that he had been named Master Warden and given the responsibility of tutoring one of the three youngsters who had been tabbed as potential kings of Paradise. He took pride in his duties and excelled at them.

  But building a gigantic, fifteen-mile-long wall? He felt out of his league. He and his fellow Warden, Karitas, had painstakingly mapped out the giant oval that would surround the settlement, reconciling which areas of the surrounding forest would need to be cleared, how many massive stones they would require, and from where the stones would be harvested. He was often still anxious when he fell into bed at night, and sleep had become a rarity. The proposition was simply so huge. If not for the fact that they had Mordeina’s thirty thousand
residents at their disposal, they would have been lucky to raise even one section of wall.

  Eveningstar would have been better suited for this work, he thought, and then shook his head in disgust. Jacob Eveningstar was a traitor who had turned on them all. It appalled him that he had not seen that betrayal coming. Ahaesarus had always considered himself a stickler for detail, yet he’d ignored all the signs. The fact that Benjamin Maryll, the boy who now was king, had been a chronic underachiever under Jacob’s tutelage, only to flourish under the Warden Judarius’s watchful eye, should have been sign enough that something was amiss.

  He shrugged aside his guilt and threw back his shoulders.

  “Get moving, you idle ingrates!” he shouted. “This wall is not going to build itself!”

  He received countless groans and complaints in reply.

  “What seems to be the problem, Master Warden?”

  Ahaesarus looked to his right. Isabel, the matriarch of House DuTaureau and Ashhur’s second creation, stood beside him. She had appeared from out of nowhere, and her intense green eyes were observing all the commotion before her. She was a tiny creature, but the confidence with which she carried herself made her seem larger. Her clothes were a study of contrasts: her tight-fitting, emerald-green gown, colored to match her eyes, made her look like a goddess of the sea, whereas the bundle of furs draped over her shoulders were more reminiscent of a barbarian. Some commonfolk whispered that her cold stare could turn men to stone, and others said that the bright red of her hair was a sign that the fires of the underworld burned in her veins. She was aloof and unflinching, a woman who guided the simple people of Mordeina with a heavy hand. Though she had never been nice to him, Ahaesarus admired her greatly.

  “I apologize, Isabel. I did not hear you approach,” he said.

  “You should pay better attention,” she said coldly.

  “Perhaps you are correct.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Master Warden. What is the problem here?”

  Ahaesarus cleared his throat. “I am simply trying to motivate the workers. They are easily distracted.”

  “They are. As well you would be too if you had only known a life of comfort.”

  “I have been in this world as long as you, Isabel.”

  As the woman gazed up at him, her steely gaze narrowed.

  “Yet you also lived through war and hardship none here could imagine,” she said to him. Her tone wasn’t necessarily cruel, but there was an accusation there that made him feel like a child, even though he had outlived her by nearly a hundred years. “You cannot treat these people like they are your fellow Wardens. They are naïve, simple folk. They cannot wrap their heads around the concept of losing the safety they’ve always known. They don’t understand it, and I fear they won’t until Karak’s Army stands before them.”

  “You have lived just as they have. How can you understand it?” he asked

  Isabel offered him the chilliest smile he had ever seen.

  “I may not have lived through the genocide of my people as you Wardens have done, but I have experienced my own hardships. I have never claimed to understand yours, so do not belittle mine.”

  He bowed his head. “Many apologies, Isabel. I meant no disrespect.”

  “Yet disrespect you did.”

  Ahaesarus had no retort for that.

  The tiny woman cleared her throat. “Be that as it may, you are forgiven. Your presence in our settlement has been a blessing during trying times, and for that I am thankful.”

  He grabbed her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it.

  “It is my honor, Isabel,” he said.

  She pulled her hand away as if he were diseased and frowned at him.

  “I am sure it is. However, my purpose for stepping out of my home at this ungodly hour was not to exchange pleasantries. Judarius has returned from the north with guests. They arrived before dawn, and are now bathing. They will join you shortly.”

  A sigh of relief pierced his lips. “Thank Ashhur. Why did you feel the need to inform me yourself, Isabel? You could have sent another.”

  The woman dismissed his question with a wave. “I required air. The homestead grows more crowded by the day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a young king to instruct.”

  With that, she turned from him and walked across the muddy ground, heading toward the road that led through the center of the commune, accompanied by five of her personal escorts. Ahaesarus brought his attention back to the men working on the wall, who were now fully entrenched in their labor. Though Isabel had reprimanded him, he was sorry to see her go. She hadn’t said so much as a word to them, but her mere presence had inspired the workers to new productivity.

  He joined the men, helping brace loads and hoist stones. The workers were diligent at first, putting their every strength into the project and singing songs to keep their spirits high, but their exuberance faded as time passed. The complaints soon began, and Ahaesarus was once again reduced to shouting as he tried to keep his distracted subordinates on course.

  Judarius arrived during a particularly venomous tirade. Ahaesarus was laying into a man for positioning one of the squared stones so that it jutted a good three feet from the wall instead of falling flush. It was yet another setback. They would have to remove the stone, reapply the mortar, and set it again—an onerous task.

  He descended the ladder when he saw his fellow Warden approach. There were four men with him, rough-and-tumble sorts wearing animal hides and heavy leather boots. Each had a beard so thick it looked as though his eyes were peering out from a mountain of fur.

  “My friend,” Judarius called out. “Look what I brought with me.”

  Ahaesarus nodded, considering the newcomers standing before him. They didn’t look like anything special, simply mountain men with broad shoulders. He had sent Judarius north, to the village of Drake, at Isabel’s behest. She had told him of the troubles experienced in the secluded community on the banks of the Gihon River, and of the brilliance of the people who lived there, led by her son-in-law, Turock Escheton. Supposedly they had built four lofty towers to defend themselves against a renegade faction of Karak’s Army that had gathered in the Tinderlands. Ahaesarus was skeptical—it seemed dubious at best that anyone could erect so many towering edifices in a scant twelve weeks—but he had sent Judarius to seek them out regardless. If even a portion of what Isabel had crowed about these people were true, they would certainly be a help to the cause, though by the look of them, he had his doubts.

  “And your names are?” he asked, trying to hide his disappointment.

  Judarius answered for them. “I give you Potrel and Limmen Longshanks, Martin Cleppett, and Marsh Gingo. They’re part of the newly formed Colony of Casters from Drake.”

  “Well met,” Ahaesarus said, bowing ever so slightly.

  The one named Potrel smiled—he could tell because the man’s massive mustache and beard arched upward—and moved past him without a word. The rest of his troupe followed. “Alright fellows, let’s show these lugs how to build a wall!” the front man exclaimed, his voice rough and throaty.

  Ahaesarus stood back, bemused, and watched as the four men ordered the other workers away from the construction site. Once the others had cleared away, they clasped hands and, staring at the giant stone that had been wrongly set, began murmuring as one in a language he couldn’t understand. He looked on in amazement as the offset stone lifted slightly from its place, freeing sticky threads of mortar in the process, and then angled backward and nestled softly in the proper position. The workers who stood off to the side, two hundred strong, broke out into a round of hoots and applause. The four casters turned as one, faced their audience, and bowed.

  “Oh…” said Ahaesarus.

  Judarius squeezed his shoulder. “I experienced the same reaction when they demonstrated their skills on the Gihon’s banks. I wish you could see the towers they’ve built. They are truly majestic and strong.”

  The four casters b
egan organizing the other workers, positioning them at intervals along the wall. A few climbed to the top and applied mortar to the next section while the newcomers prepared to lift another giant stone from the mountain…this time without the assistance of the ropes and pulleys.

  “How did they learn this?” Ahaesarus asked, astonished.

  “They had a capable teacher,” said Judarius. “Turock has spent his entire life learning the ways of magic. He had an elf for a teacher, or so he says. He began instructing others a few years back, and I think you can see how effective his methods are.”

  “Why have we not heard of this before?”

  The green-eyed Warden shrugged. “Why would we have? Has there been a need for such talents before now? Turock’s quest for knowledge was a curiosity, nothing more. It held no practical use in a land where people possessed all they needed and desired. Until now, Ashhur’s magic has always been enough.”

  “True, I suppose. But the Warden of Drake still should have told us of these happenings.”

  “There is no Warden of Drake.”

  Ahaesarus glanced sidelong at his friend. “Why not?”

  “The village is but ten years old, created by one man. They never requested the presence of one of our kind, so none of our kind went.”

  “I see.”

  “And also, you must take into account that—wait, you up there! Come down here this instant!”

  Judarius stormed away from him, his attention now on a laggard who was reclining atop one of the massive square stones. The young man sat up sheepishly and slid down the side of the rock. Judarius loomed over him, then leaned down, speaking words Ahaesarus couldn’t hear over the creaking of taut ropes and the grinding of stone against stone as work continued on the wall. Judarius did not look angry, and the youngster responded to his reprimand by leaping into action, grabbing a rope, and helping to drag another piece of thick stone across the muddy earth. Judarius then continued along the line of workers, murmuring words of encouragement that inspired them to dive into their duties with greater zeal.