Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (45 page)

Hysterical sobbing reached her ears, and she turned quickly toward the sound. A gruff older man with a shaved pate was
dragging
a young girl by her hair out of one of the boxy brick homes. Tears streamed down the girl’s face as she kicked her feet and clawed at the strong hands that held her. The man pulled her up by the throat, growling something into her ear. The girl’s eyes bulged, and she started shrieking all the louder as the man continued to tow her along, heading for another of the side alleys.

Moira burst into action, ducking around individual skirmishes until she had a clear line on the man and his helpless quarry. The man never looked up at her, so intent was he on his destination. Moira kicked herself into a leap, spinning the swords in her grip so they pointed downward, and stabbed as she descended, hoping to skewer the man just below the base of the neck, as she’d done during the fight in Cornwall Lawrence’s estate. This time, however, she missed her mark. The girl stopped her screaming when she saw Moira, which in turn captured the man’s attention. He swiveled at the last moment, a shocked expression on his face, and then released the girl’s hair and fell backward. Instead of piercing the back of his neck, Moira only succeeded in slicing through the front of his
filthy tuni
c.

She landed straddling the girl, who was now inching away from her would-be captor. The man reacted almost the same as she did, pushing himself backward on his rump while staring wide-eyed at the wound on his chest. Moira took a menacing step forward, preparing to lunge again as the man fumbled with the sword on
his hip.

“Who
are
you?” he shouted, glancing all around him, as if hoping help would come. “Don’t you underst—”

Moira crossed her swords in front of her and then flung her arms outward, cleaving through the man’s throat. He clutched at the gushing wound and fell backward, blood spurting between his fingers. If any of the other combatants noticed, none came to avenge him. Moira pirouetted and rushed toward the girl, who was now on her hands and knees, hurrying away.

She grabbed the girl by the back of her thin shift and lifted her. The girl struggled against her just as she had with the man. A fingernail dug into Moira’s cheek, and she yelped and released the girl, who backed herself against the stone wall of the dwelling she’d been ripped from, panting.

“Hey!” shouted Moira, touching her cheek and coming away with blood. “I was trying to
help
you!”

The girl said nothing. Her eyes flitted from side to side, as if taking in the action going on around her, before she rushed back into the home. Moira sheathed one of her swords and gave chase.

“Come back here!” she yelled.

The door to the dwelling slammed in her face.

Something hard collided with her, knocking her to the side. Moira stumbled but kept on her feet, spinning and holding up her blade defensively. Her confusion was overwhelming. It was a woman standing there, one with a rigid jaw, short black hair, a scar on her forehead, and holding a curved dagger. The woman looked down at Moira and scowled, then rapped the dagger against the door that had just closed. She wore a bloodstained cloak, and when the door opened and she stepped inside, that cloak flapped, revealing legs wrapped in off-white cloth. Moira stared after her as she disappeared, remembering the letter the Conningtons had sent to Port Lancaster, in which they’d revealed that their many Sisters of the Cloth had been taken from them by Karak’s acolytes. Moira turned back around, gazing over the turmoil of battle toward the alley where she and her compatriots had emerged.

Her Movers were gone.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a cluster of movement. In a flash she had her second sword drawn and twirled around, raising both swords just in time to parry two blows from onrushing attackers. Steel clanged off steel, numbing her arms, and she tucked her head between her knees, rolling between two more pairs of cloth-wrapped legs. She quickly shot to her feet, hunched over, and watched as her two assailants whirled to face her. She could only see the Sisters’ eyes; the rest of their faces were hidden beneath their wrappings. One held a curved saber and the other, a dirk.

Stupid, stupid, stupid,
she thought.
You knew the priests had demanded the Sisters be confiscated from the merchants. What else would they be used for?
She also realized that although there were many men engaged in the fight, a good number of them were women
dressed
as men, wearing heavy leather armor and chipped and rusted helms. Her confusion rose so greatly that she almost didn’t react in time when the two Sisters charged her, graceful and deadly at the same time. Moira lashed out, batting away their blows as she backed up. She was more adept with her right hand than her left, which meant the Sister attacking on her left side was able to press much too close. The Sister slashed upward with her saber, aiming for
Moira’s
midsection. Moira couldn’t drop her left sword quickly enough; the only thing that saved her was another pair of combatants, who tumbled in front of her just as the blade was about to pierce her side. A man howled in pain. Given a momentary reprieve, Moira hacked mercilessly at the lone Sister now before her, beating her back. The wrapped woman’s eyes widened with each violent hew, and Moira finally landed a solid blow to the Sister’s wrist. The sword dropped to the cobbles, knocked aside by blindly shuffling feet, and the Sister grasped her leaking wrist. Moira thrust with both blades, but the woman spun away as quickly as Moira had before, disappearing into the throng. Moira’s sword cut through the empty air.

She heard hooves, but was not quick enough to react. Hands were on her then, snatching her from behind and yanking her from her feet. She was thrown aside, just as a press of at least a dozen
Sisters
—some fully wrapped, some not—charged. She landed on her hip, startled, and lost grip on one of her swords. She looked up to see her four Movers, still on horseback, battle the Sisters back. Gull led the way, brutal and efficient with each looping arc of his longsword. In a matter of moments, the twelve Sisters were either dead or had fled, but more moved in to take their place. Moira scrambled to her feet, snatched up her second sword, and charged into the fray.

Suddenly, a roar split the night, and though a few individual scuffles continued, most of the discord ceased. A second roar thundered through the square, from the opposite direction as the first, gravelly and high pitched at the same time. Moira glanced up at her sellswords, then at the mob. Everyone appeared nervous, even the Sisters. A few of the wrapped women disappeared inside one of the many buildings.

“We will not back down!” shouted a feminine voice. “You
Sisters
still enslaved to the priest and his Judges . . . there is still time for you to see the light. We are the people of the city, and we will not back down! Karak has abandoned us, and he has abandoned you. Join us! Throw aside your wrappings and be free!”

Heads turned, gazing up at a point above Moira’s head.
As if
in a trance, Moira backed up toward the center of the square,
following
their gazes. There was a young woman standing on the rooftop
of th
e two-story building behind her, her form silhouetted by the sliver of sun that now poked over the horizon. She was striking, this woman, with a head of flowing auburn hair and stately features. She wore a masculine getup, with slacks and a heavy jerkin, but the power of her youth and confidence made it seem as if such clothes were the most natural things for a woman to wear. Her shoulders were thrown back, and the group of men standing around her, purple sashes fluttering in the breeze, seemed to regard her with reverence.

“Now go!” the woman proclaimed to the formerly embattled crowd. “Seek shelter before they arrive! We must live to fight another day!”

With that, she offered a knowing smirk and disappeared over the other side of the building. Once more the square descended into madness. The Sisters, both clothed in wrappings and not, tore through the throng, heading for the squat brick homes lining the square. The men and disguised women scurried left and right,
darting
down the various alleys. It was then that Moira noticed a
handful of men sporting the same purple sashes as those on the roof,
and others who wore helms painted with gold stripes—
symbols
of th
e Palace Guard and City Watch, respectively.

Another roar resounded off the stone buildings.

The square was still emptying out when men and women screamed from the darkness of the alleys. Moira’s heart leapt and she took a few jogging steps forward, leaving behind the safety of her sellswords. A wave of people flew back out of the alley as Moira approached, re-entering the square, their faces frozen in terror as they dashed along the wall of homes and shops, searching for another way out. Moira inched even closer, her mind awash with turmoil. She looked on in wonder as a body came soaring out of the darkness, arms and legs flailing as it spun, until it landed with a
splat
on the cobbles not ten feet in front of her. The corpse’s flesh was shredded, its face a mess of pulpy gore. Entrails formed a red path behind it, disappearing back into the alley. Moira thought of Erznia, of the horror that had happened there, and hunkered down, holding out her swords.

Just as the sun disappeared over the western horizon, bathing the city with a reddish hue, a lion stepped out of the darkness of the alley. It was a female, six feet tall, her eyes shining with a golden light. Moira’s arms dropped ever so slightly, the tips of her swords dipping, as she stared at the beast.

“Lilah?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder and childlike fear.

She hadn’t seen Soleh Mori’s pets in ages, and as far as she knew they had been kept locked beneath the Castle of the Lion for more than forty years. She recalled her younger days, when Vulfram would wrestle with Kayne while Oris and Ulric cheered him on, and the girls of the house would groom the lioness. The lions had been huge even then, but nothing compared to what she now saw. This was no childhood pet or even a beast of the wild.

What stood before her was the personification of Karak’s rage.

Lilah swiped at those trying to flee, scoring the back of one man and knocking a woman into the air, splitting her ill-fitting helm. A ragged collection of men and women in armor then began inching along the walls, approaching the beast. The
lioness’s
glowing eyes glanced toward them and then locked on Moira. The lioness froze. Lilah sniffed the air, a guttural rumble vibrating her throat. Her tongue, nearly the size of Moira’s arm, licked the blood off her maw.

“Moira,”
the lioness spoke.
“Blasphemer.”

Moira stood slack-jawed, knowing she should run but convinced that the moment she did, the lioness would leap.

“You know what to do,” Gull shouted from behind her.

Lilah dipped her head and charged. The sight of those gleaming claws in the burgeoning darkness broke the spell upon her. She spun to the side just as the lioness leapt. A single claw dug into her leathers, gouging her forearm as the beast sailed past. Moira ground her teeth against the pain and rolled.

Despite her massive size, Lilah touched back down with barely a sound and whipped her body around. Moira was back on her feet, frantically considering her next action. Although Corton had taught her how to fight men much larger than her, she doubted such maneuvers worked well against a thousand-pound lion. As if to mock her, she heard another roar, and more screams, erupt from behind her. She chanced a look over her shoulder, spotting Kayne, the male lion, as he bounded into the square from the opposing alley. The beast had a man dangling from his jaws, and when he jerked his massive neck, the body ripped loose from the neck. The corpse splattered against the side of one of the buildings while the lion bit down on the head in his mouth. The crunch that followed nearly turned Moira’s stomach.

“We’re dead,” she whispered.

“I would not be so sure about that.”

Moira spun her head back around and saw her four Movers standing before her, three facing the lioness while Rodin stood by her side, his eyes locked on the male. “Form together!” Gull shouted, and they all backed up until their shoulders were almost touching, forming a five-person circle in the center of the square.

The lions began to circle around them, eyes squinted and glaring as they examined their prey, angling nearer with each revolution. By that time the center of the square was empty but for the hundred or so corpses that littered the cobbles, though the armored men and women lingered in front of the alleys as if waiting for something. Kayne dipped his head into the gaping chest of one of the corpses while passing it by, slurping down a mouthful of entrails.

“They speak,” said Gull out the side of his mouth.

“Seems that way,” Moira replied.

“How intelligent are they?”

She shrugged, tracing the lions’ movements. “I don’t know.”

“Let us see then, shall we?”

Gull stepped away from their defensive circle, holding his longsword out before him. He had a self-assured manner about him as he began to mirror Kayne’s movements. He flicked the tip of his sword to the side and fully faced the beast, his legs spread out wide. His empty hand lifted, and he made a mocking, beckoning motion to the lion.

“I challenge you,” Gull stated, his voice still strangely flat despite the danger facing him. “Let us see if a beast can indeed be anything but a beast.”

Kayne scowled at him, his massive head dropping. The lion moved slightly to the side.

“Are you afraid, animal? Do you fear a mere human with a sword?”

“What are they waiting for?” Danco whispered in Moira’s ear. He jutted his chin at the gathered, armored people who lingered beyond the lions’ claws.