Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (40 page)

“No!” Laurel shrieked, and almost ran toward her, but a firm hand gripped her by the back of her bustier, choking her of breath and will and ripping the skimpy garment in the process. She was hauled outside, slipping and sliding on the icy staircase. She fell to the side and had to grab onto the rear leg of one of the onyx lion statues to keep from tumbling down the stairs.

The door slammed shut a second later, and that sound was followed by Harmony’s screeches. Laurel stared straight ahead in shock, her mind racing.

“Laurel, we must go!”

She turned her head and there was Lyana, a badly injured Pulo leaning on her. The girl’s wrappings had come undone around her head, and bits of dark hair sprouted out like so many dead saplings. Much to Laurel’s shock, thirty other men and women stood at the bottom of the stairs behind them. Most of them were those Laurel had brought to the caverns beneath the Black Bend.

Inside the temple, Harmony had ceased her screaming, joining Roddalin and Jonn in death. The lions roared, the sound shaking the door of the temple. Laurel didn’t need to be told what to do next. She slipped around Pulo’s other side, threw his opposite arm over her shoulder, and together she and Lyana hauled the wounded man through the snow and toward the wood. The others who had come with the two former Sisters hacked away at the statues of the two lions with mauls, rocks, and anything else they could get their hands on, until the onyx bases broke. They grunted as they heaped the two statues in front of the closed temple door. After that, half of them stayed behind, fear in their eyes while they held their weapons at the ready, while the rest rushed toward Laurel and Lyana to help with Pulo’s wounded form. From atop Karak’s Temple came a series of gasps as the acolytes, their song long finished, stared down at them as they fled.

For the first time since the brothers Connington had opened her eyes to the sins of her god, Laurel began to pray. Only this time, it wasn’t to Karak.

The caverns were mostly quiet when Laurel, Lyana, Pulo, and the rest who had helped them flee the temple descended the stone staircase. They had fled through the wood, seemingly blind, the fear of being mauled from behind by the Judges making every shadow in Laurel’s vision become threatening. But luck was with them, and they returned to the Black Bend without further incident. Only time would tell if those who had stayed behind would arrive as well.

Laurel shook her head. They were dead already, and she knew it.

She glanced at Pulo as they entered the caverns, his normally tanned flesh appearing pale and clammy in the sparse torchlight. His body was raked with slashes and gouges from Lilah’s claws, and he had lost copious amounts of blood. Both Lyana’s wrappings and Laurel’s tattered whore’s garb were covered with it as well. Together, the two women guided the injured man and those who carried him toward the cave that Harmony had once called home. The large former Sister had kept a bevy of salves and healing herbs among her belongings, and now, being dead, she would have no need for them any longer.

Laurel’s spirits sank even lower at the thought. Her staunchest supporter, the mighty Giant, was gone. A part of her wanted to lash out at Lyana for disobeying her order and following them, but she knew that was folly. She and Pulo would be dead if they hadn’t.
I will remember you always, Harmony,
she told the dank cavern air, and then pushed those thoughts from her mind to focus on their next step.

After leaving Pulo in the care of Lyana and those who knew better than she how to deal with the injured man, Laurel snatched up one of her young companion’s daggers, straightened herself, and began marching through the snaking caverns. For a brief moment she considered going to her own private grotto and changing her clothes, but decided against it. She was an open wound now and would be seen as such. She clutched the dagger tightly, turning it over and over in her hand, feeling its weight.

She remembered Joben’s words:
“ . . . the caverns beneath the Black Bend hold no safety for your fellow blasphemers . . . ”

The constant bruises, the flayed strips of skin, the mysterious contact within the castle. It was all too obvious to her who had betrayed them.

She entered the large central hub, and sure enough, there was King Eldrich Vaelor, sitting at the long table and nursing a cup of some sort of alcoholic beverage. The gaunt king never slept when she was out of the caverns, his concern for her growing by the day. Karl Dogon was with him, the bodyguard looking worse for the wear, with his arm in a sling and his face mottled with bruises. His sword rested on the table before him, still in its sheath. Vaelor’s gaze lifted to Laurel at the sound of her entrance, and his eyes bulged in their sockets. She didn’t know whether he was reacting to her scant clothing or the sight of blood drenching her, but it didn’t matter. She stepped up to the table and slammed her fist down on it, making the gaunt king flinch. She tapped the tip of the dagger against the table. Dogon’s eyes found hers, looking tired yet surprised. It was on the bodyguard that she focused her attention.

“Why did you do it, Karl?”

Vaelor tilted his head at her and squinted, but said not a word. Neither did Dogon.

“You told them everything. From the beginning. Why?”

King Vaelor seemed puzzled, his eyes flitting from Laurel to Karl and back again. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Laurel peered at the king. “They knew we were coming, my
Liege. The Judges were waiting for us. They know about
the caverns
.
I’m sure they even know we’ve been gathering people here.”
She pointed an accusatory finger at the bodyguard. “All because of
him
.”

Eldrich pushed himself away from the table, the legs of his chair scraping against the stone. “This cannot be right.” The king gawked at his longtime guardian. “Tell her this isn’t true.”

Karl Dogon chuckled. It was deep and throaty, and in a way he almost sounded relieved.

“With all due respect, my Liege,” he said, “you’re an idiot.”

The man stood up sharply, kicking his chair so that it tumbled and crashed behind him. He pressed the knuckles of his left hand into the table and leaned forward, squinting at Laurel. She took a single step back, holding the dagger out before her.
I am the daughter of Cornwall Lawrence. I will show no fear.
Yet she still couldn’t stop from glancing at the sword on the table, inches from the large man’s knuckles. She should have thought to bring Lyana with her.

“You were supposed to protect the king,” she said, summoning her strength, “not betray him.”

“You understand nothing,” said Karl. His gaze lingered on hers. “I’ve
always
protected my king, and always shall.”

“Then why give our secrets away?”

The man laughed, winced, and shook his head. “Secrets? We have no secrets, girl. The priest knew about the caverns from the start. Joben grew up a child of the Bend. He knew it was the most logical place for us to go when we fled.”

“When were you planning to turn on your king?” asked Laurel, waving the dagger before her.

“Never,” Karl declared.

“Bullshit.”

Karl scowled at her. “Eldrich was never in danger. I love my king, no matter how foolish he may be. The pact was long ago sealed, back before Karak marched his army into Paradise. How else do you think we could have escaped the throne room when the Judges and Sisters attacked? Do you really think that Joben would fail to leave the only other exit out of Tower Honor unguarded? The only reason we lived was because Joben
allowed it
.”

King Vaelor gaped at him.

“It was all for you, Eldrich,” the man said, turning to the king and dropping to a knee before him, his face twisting in pain as he moved. “We were raised as brothers after your father brought me out of the gutters. Never once would I allow harm to come to you. That is why I have done what I have done.”

“I still don’t know
what
it is you’ve done,” the king said.

“He’s signed our death warrants,” declared Laurel.

“Yours, perhaps.” Karl glared at her. “But not yours, my Liege. You were to be protected, no matter the outcome. You may not have been allowed your station, but you were to be allowed to
live
.”

“And the others?” Eldrich asked.

“Fuck the blasphemers,” spat Karl. “They’re the useless fodder of gods and lions. It is to you I’ve pledged my life, not them.”

“That’s it,” said Laurel, and both the king and Dogon glanced over at her. “That is why they haven’t assailed us even though they knew where we are. They were waiting for us to collect all of those who turned against Karak’s law.” She looked at the king, saw the horror in his eyes. “We haven’t been building a rebellion, my Liege. We’ve been packing a slaughterhouse.”

Dogon opened his mouth as if to retort, shut it again, and then moved for his sword. Even wounded and with his sword arm in a sling, he was still as quick as could be when he snatched the hilt with his left hand and flicked the scabbard aside. Laurel backed up a step and hunkered down, the dagger shaking in her hand. She was half Karl’s size. Even as hurt as he was, if he decided she needed killing, she was a dead woman.

Yet Karl didn’t move from behind the table. Instead, he gawped at her, his eyes watering and his lips trembling. A thin trickle of red liquid dribbled out the corner of his mouth. Laurel glanced to the left and saw the wrapped leather handle of King Eldrich’s knife sticking out the side of Dogon’s neck. In a violent motion, Eldrich swung his arm outward, showering the table with blood as Karl’s throat tore open. The man fell backward, clutching at the gushing wound, kicking so hard that he almost upended the table. King Vaelor took a step away from him, bloody knife still in his hand, a look of dejection on his gaunt mug.

“My Liege . . . ” Laurel said.

“Laurel, what’s done is done,” said the king. His voice trembled with disappointment and agitation all at once.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

He looked up at her, his gray eyes distant and fierce.

“Now, we wake everyone in these caverns. They’re no longer safe.”

“But what then?” Laurel asked. “Where is there left for us to flee?”

A sad smile crossed King Eldrich’s lips. “Flee? No, dear
Laurel
. It’s time we stopped being the sacrificial lambs of the gods. It’s time we showed Karak’s faithful just how lethal the free citizens of Veldaren can be.”

C
HAPTER

34

B
ardiya’s people restlessly slumbered beneath crude tarps while a light drizzle fell from the sky. Their horses, taken from the dead elves and soldiers, whinnied. The horses’ coats were wet and glimmered in the darkness. The air was cold, but at least the winds had died down. Luckily, they were on the crags of eastern Paradise now, and though the rocky terrain was slippery, it was solid. This was preferable to the desert, where the once shifting sands underfoot had become like clay, packed and solid at times and dangerously solvent at others due to the unheard-of rain. On more than one occasion, the people had needed to throw ropes to those trapped in the quagmire as the greedy, drenched sand sucked them into the earth. So far two men and one horse had been lost, disappearing under waves of undulating bog, never to be seen again.

Yet still they soldiered on, traversing the land, now camping a few short miles south of Ashhur’s Bridge.

The rains had come the morning after he ushered his herd, which included those accompanying Ki-Nan, away from the Black Spire and the valley of slaughter beside the ancient relic. It was the first precipitation Bardiya had ever remembered seeing in the desert. He’d assumed it an oddity that would quickly pass, but he’d been wrong. The rains had not let up since, raging for six days strong. What he first took to be an anomaly became a harbinger of doom, a physical manifestation of the god’s disappointment in him.
You faltered. You turned your back on what is right.

Three days before, when the people had made camp, Bardiya had sat naked in the rain and gazed across the sopping northern expanse, his legs folded beneath him, his hands clasped in his lap. He’d been trying to find the center he had lost, and that’s when he’d felt
him
. Karak was there, on the Gods’ Road far on the other side of the soaked terrain, heading for the bridge leading into the Rigon Delta. The fires the deity left behind made the northern expanse glow red. Bardiya had lifted his eyes to the heavens, and he mouthed a
thank you
to the hidden stars. His rage, which had been his only comfort since he had lost control, began to ebb.
Do not leave me,
he had demanded, and his conscience obliged. All he need do was picture the seven innocent children standing on the dais as their bodies were hacked to pieces.

Bardiya stood on the edge of a quay, the path leading down uneven and precarious. The flooded vale was behind them, leaving a damp but passable area filled with rolling hills between them and the road. He gazed northeast. Though he couldn’t see it, he knew Ashhur’s Bridge was only another day’s ride away. He turned and looked north at the glowing horizon. They had moved ahead of Karak slightly, picking up speed at Bardiya’s command. Come morning, they would strike out north at a rapid pace and hopefully take the god by surprise. Again his doubt churned. He was running blind into whatever lay ahead. He didn’t know how many soldiers Karak had with him currently, and Bardiya had barely four hundred. The only thing that gave him hope was the fact that the deity was heading away from Mordeina, but whether Karak had been victorious or Ashhur had defeated him, he did not know.

Bardiya would learn which soon enough, once Ki-Nan returned.

A soft, sloshing sound emerged, making him tense; his grip on the great sword tightened. From out of the dark night came three men on horseback, Ki-Nan in their lead. All three were tired yet smiling, holding their shoulders back with pride as they bounced in their saddles. Bardiya nodded to them, and Ki-Nan halted his horse, whispering something to his cohorts. He dismounted, handing the reins to the other two, who would tend to the horses before heading to their sleeping rolls.

Ki-Nan approached the giant, his smile slowly fading the closer he drew. The two old friends shared an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Then Bardiya turned and loped down the quay, seeking asylum in the small basin of stone below. Whatever the news, he wanted it told out of earshot of his people. Ki-Nan followed him.

“What happened?” Bardiya asked once they reached the floor of the basin. Even though it was only drizzling, water cascaded down the rocks, pooling at his feet. “Did you find the encampment?”

“We did,” answered Ki-Nan. “Karak’s Army sleeps in the forest beyond the Gods’ Road. It was difficult to stay out of sight, what with the fires raging behind them and the elves in their midst, but I think we managed.”

“What shape is the army in?”

“The soldiers back at the Spire said that Karak traveled with fifteen thousand soldiers, but so far as we could tell, there weren’t nearly that many. I would say a third that at most. And many of the men we spotted were in dreadful shape. Injured, hungry, and exhausted.”

Bardiya nodded. “This is good.”

“It is, brother. It is. If the weather improves tomorrow
evening
,
we can sneak up on them while they sleep. Darkness will be
our all
y.”

“No,” said the giant, shaking his head. “They will have reached Ashhur’s Bridge by the time the sun sets. Whatever we do, we do on the morrow, come daybreak. When I face Karak, it must be in Paradise, not in the delta or Karak’s own kingdom. He cannot be allowed to cross the bridge.”

“But . . . are you certain this is your path, brother?” asked
Ki-Nan, breathless. “You have little experience with that sword, and fighting a deity is much different from fighting soldiers half
your size
.”

“Ki-Nan, my decision is made.”

Silence again passed between them, with Ki-Nan averting his gaze as Bardiya stared at him. These silences, and the arguments that preceded them, had become all too common in the weeks before Ki-Nan had left Ang months ago, and were the same way now. Only with the others did Ki-Nan ever seem at ease, never around Bardiya.

The giant sat down cross-legged on the drenched stone. When sitting, he was as tall as Ki-Nan was standing.

“My friend,” he finally said, “what happened to you?”

Ki-Nan’s eyes lifted to meet his. “What do you mean?”

“We were close once,” Bardiya said. “We once could speak of anything. You would regale me with stories of your adventures at sea when you returned from your trips. Only Onna, bless his soul, entertained me nearly as much. Now, you will not so much as smile at me.”

“Times change, brother. The world darkened.”

“Yet not so much that you cannot share a laugh with the others.”

“You don’t understand. Being with you is . . . difficult.”

“Why?”

Ki-Nan shifted on his feet, his eyes downcast. “Because of our past. Because of the disagreements between us. You let our people be executed. I pleaded with you to fight; yet you refused. I knew you would never understand until you experienced the pain for yourself. I have always loved Ashhur, brother—how could I not love the god who created me? But I was not willing to suffer needlessly for him.”

They were words Bardiya had heard many times over, but the
look
of his friend when he spoke them was different. It was as if the atmosphere around him wavered, becoming darker for a barely perceptible moment. Bardiya shook his head, and his vision cleared. Sighing, he said, “And now I have seen, and I have turned against everything I once held dear. I hope you take comfort knowing you were right.”

“You know I don’t.” His friend took a step forward, placing a hand on the giant’s massive shoulder. “How many times have you told us that doing the right thing is rarely easy? I fear that’s where your anger takes us now. The hard path is overcoming our grief and learning how to kill. The hard way is questioning everything we ever knew and believed. Death, though? Death is easy, especially when clothed in honor and vengeance.”

Again the air around Ki-Nan flickered, and Bardiya felt a strange yet undeniable tightening in his gut. Ki-Nan was . . . lying. About what, he wasn’t sure, but his friend’s words echoed in his head.

“Learning how to kill . . . ”

Bardiya shoved Ki-Nan away. The much smaller man stumbled and almost fell to his knees on the water-drenched stone.

“You lie,” Bardiya said, his deep voice rumbling.

Ki-Nan’s expression turned into a worried frown. “Lie? About what, brother?”

“I watched you on the battlefield. You wielded your blades with precision, cutting down trained soldiers with ease. How could you, and all those who fled from Ang with you, be so adept in the art of warfare?”

“We trained, day and night, for what was ahead,” his friend replied.

This time, Bardiya saw no wavering, but his gut was still knotted. He sucked air into his lungs.
Stay in control.
So Ki-Nan and his people did train . . . but there was more to it. More, hiding in the words.

“
How
did you know to train?” Bardiya asked. “You lived your whole life in Paradise and never touched a sword until that day on the beach when the elves showed us the cache of steel.”

“We . . . we did as best we could,” Ki-Nan insisted. “Our race was . . . our race is flawed, brother, built for war. You saw when you held that sword in your own hands! The soldiers you destroyed, the men whose lives you ended . . . it came as naturally to you as breathing!”

Again that certainty, cinching and snarling in his gut. “You hide yourself from me,” Bardiya whispered. Sadness swelled within him. “I sense it each time you open your mouth. Have I been blind until now? Have I ever truly known you?”

“Brother,” said Ki-Nan, scrambling to his feet. He held his arms out to Bardiya. “You’re tired, confused. Please, come back to the camp. We can discuss this when we—”

“NO.”

In a single motion, Bardiya snatched his friend by the front of his tunic and slammed him to the ground. Ki-Nan gasped, spittle flying from his lips, the air knocked from his lungs. Bardiya loomed over him, a gigantic fist pressed against Ki-Nan’s chest. His anger was beginning to take hold.
It would be so easy. A simple push of my shoulder is all it would take . . .

“All lies,” he said instead. “I give you this one last chance,
Ki-Nan
. If you tell the truth, I will let you live long enough to answer another question. If you lie, you will receive the same fate as those who perished before the Spire. Do you understand?”

Ki-Nan nodded, breathing heavily, his eyes bulging from his skull.

“Good. Now tell me who trained you to wield a sword.”

He removed his fist from Ki-Nan’s chest, and the man began coughing, rolling over onto his side. When his gaze rose to meet Bardiya’s, he was quaking with fear.

“I met them nine years ago,” he said, “during the summer of my twenty-second year.”

“Met whom?”

“Traders from the east, stranded in an ill-built ship by the bluffs surrounding the southern islands. They’d pierced their hull, and I helped save their crew as the ship sank.”

The tightening in his gut released, and his vision was clear, so Bardiya knew this was the truth. He nodded for Ki-Nan to
continue
.

“The masters of the boat were two fat brothers, Romeo and Cleo Connington. In the aftermath, the two fat men lauded me for my help, but they couldn’t stop staring at me. I don’t think they had ever seen anyone like our people, brother. I
intrigued
them, they said. We talked for hours on end, and they regaled me with stories of Neldar, and I shared of Paradise. They asked if I wished to experience life outside our humble existence of fishing and hunting and praying.”

“And you said yes.”

“I did.” Ki-Nan was shaking now, rubbing his chest where Bardiya had pressed against him. “I have long been restless, brother. What harm can there be in learning of the world beyond our borders? So they taught me the ways of the east, of money and trade and self-defense. They made me a part of their
family
, for Ashhur’s sake! They said I was to hold an important place in their house. The men I came to know in the Connington household grew to mean more to me than my eleven brothers and sisters.” Soundless lightning flashed overhead, brightening the night and washing out Ki-Nan’s features. He looked like a living ghost. “To those of the east, I became a man of importance,” he said, “while here at home, I was simply a fisherman.”

Bardiya ran a hand through his sopping hair and looked at
Ki-Nan
sadly. “Do you really require more than what you have been given by Ashhur?”

“Not all of us were granted leadership and respect at birth, brother.”

“Do
not
call me ‘brother’ again,” Bardiya snapped. “You are my brother no longer. Now tell me: Your leaving me, our disputes—were those sincere, or were they guided by these Conningtons you speak of?”

“Those . . . those were real, broth— . . . Bardiya.”

A lie. Bardiya lurched, swinging wide to strike Ki-Nan down. The man shrieked and lifted his hands, a feeble attempt to protect himself.

“I did what I was told!” he shouted.

Bardiya backed down.

“I was supposed to convince you to fight,” Ki-Nan rambled desperately. “But you were so stubborn, so damn stubborn. I delivered those weapons to the coast with the intention of feigning discovery later, but then the elf princess found them first. And still you refused. So I did as I was told and left you alone . . . until the time was right.”

Fear seemed to have finally scattered the last of the lies off
Ki-Nan’
s tongue. A dark thought crossed Bardiya’s mind. “The demon in the Clovis Crestwell guise . . . did you know of that? Did you know what the creature had planned?”

At that, Ki-Nan shook his head. “I didn’t. I swear on that which I love more than anything else that I didn’t.”

Again, no lie. The words, however, gave him pause. “What you love more than anything else . . . it isn’t Ashhur anymore, is it?”

Ki-Nan hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I . . . I fell in love early on, during a trip to Port Lancaster, a city on the southeast coast of Neldar. She was the most exciting woman I’d ever met. Elegant. Exotic. And strong, so strong. I fathered a child by her, though I’ve never seen his face, and she is with my child once again. It is them I wish to return to, whom I wish to build a life with.”