Blood Of Gods (Book 3) (9 page)

You should have stayed your course, Ashhur,
the giant thought.
Had you remained true to your teachings, we would still have peace.

He shook his head and pushed through the final copse of tall evergreens as Ang came into view. The village sprawled out before him, tiny cottages haphazardly dotting a landscape of pines, tropical broad-leafed trees, and lush green grass. His people greeted him as he walked through the settlement, the fear plain on their faces when they peered toward the north and heard the steady
thrum, thrum, thrum
.

The villagers gathered in the center square, a wide, circular thatch of grass surrounding a giant fire pit. Gordo Hempsman, Tuan Littlefoot, and Allay and Yorn Loros were leading the charge, urging the frightened citizens to stay calm as they congregated. Bardiya and Onna remained on the outskirts of the square, allowing the stragglers to scurry past. It was only when all of Ang was present that he, the spiritual leader of Ker, took his place at the head of the assembly. Onna fell into the swelling ranks of his brethren, leaning against his walking stick once he found a suitable place to rest.

A myriad of dark, alarmed faces stared up at the giant—men, women, and children alike. Bardiya gazed on them and frowned. There were at least three hundred in attendance, which seemed like a copious number, but he knew better. Ang had once been home to a thousand strong, living, breathing, praying, and breeding by the cliffs overlooking the Thulon Ocean. Yet over the past three weeks, those numbers had dwindled as frightened individuals left the village, seeking safety in the desert, the plains, and the crags and cliffs bordering the water’s edge—anywhere but the one place Karak was sure to visit when he invaded their homeland. Some departed under cover of night, but most chose to leave in full display of their fellow Kerrians, words of warning on their lips and scowls on their faces.

Again Bardiya thought of Ki-Nan, and his frown deepened. The last time he’d seen his friend was on the craggy beach when the Stonewood elves had shown him the massive crates of weapons nestled between the rocks.
“Gifts from Celestia,”
as Aullienna Meln, the little princess of Stonewood, had called them. He and Ki-Nan fought about those weapons after the elves departed, and his friend stormed away in a huff. At the time Bardiya hadn’t thought much of it; he and Ki-Nan had developed an adversarial relationship when it came to what they believed to be right and wrong. Despite his friend’s words to the contrary, he expected to see Ki-Nan again that night at supper, sitting down and laughing off the disagreement as he always did.

But that never happened. Ki-Nan stayed away, his hateful, blasphemous words echoed by all who left after him.
It is his doing,
thought Bardiya.
He is stealing my people’s hearts and minds, leading them on a path to ruin.
He closed his eyes and prayed that they would all come back into the embrace of Ashhur’s love, prayed that all of Ang could share the burden of horror soon to come, but when he opened his eyes again, all he saw was the same small congregation. They fidgeted and squirmed, sniveled and hitched, nervous as a herd of antelope surrounded by a family of sandcats.

These are my people. I must comfort them.

Bardiya raised his arms above his head, casting an imposing shadow over his flock.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said, his voice booming and confident.
If only they could see how frightened I am on the inside.
“Dire times have come to our land. You hear Karak’s soldiers now approaching from the north. When they come, we will face them as one, with Ashhur’s grace in our hearts, as our deity always intended.”

“Is it really them?” shouted one voice.

“They want to kill us!” cried another.

“You said they would leave us alone!” accused a third.

Bardiya shook his head and held his arms out wide. He wished he could hold them all in a single, protective embrace.

“You are wrong, Grotto. I said Karak
may
leave us be. I do not speak in absolutes, unless I am speaking of the grace of the gods.”

“But Karak’s a god,” said Onna. He leaned forward against his walking stick for emphasis.

“He is.”

“Does he still have grace if he wants us dead?” asked little Sasha, her black curls glistening with sweat, though the air was cool.

Damn you, Ki-Nan.
In a time not long passed, such concepts would never have crossed his people’s minds. There was no sickness, and none of them had died before their time. Yet that all changed when the renegade elves murdered Bardiya’s parents in the mangold grove, coupled with the news of Ashhur and Karak’s battle after that. At first he’d tried to allay their fears, but as time went on and his relationship with his friend soured, he saw that more and more of the populace not only understood these concepts but also felt the fear and doubt they caused. Someone had been feeding it to them, preaching violence and terror just as he taught love and forgiveness.
Why could you not leave well enough alone, my friend? Why did you not trust me?

“All gods are glorious,” he told them. “All gods are mighty, the images of perfection.” He swallowed hard, not wanting to say the next part. “But that perfection is
only
an image. While a god’s
ideals
are flawless, the gods themselves are not. Gods can be wrong.
Ashhur
was wrong for turning his back on his flawless teachings, and Karak is wrong for marching into our lands.”

A collective gasp came over the crowd.

“But if the gods are amiss, what can we do?” someone wailed.

“We turn the tables. We teach them both the glory of grace and peace.”

A couple began arguing, followed by a pair of brothers. Then a group of elder women, their hair white as down, joined the fray, and soon the clamor of the throng overtook that of the approaching force. Bardiya tried to call out for them to stop, but they were deaf to him. A fist flew, striking Yorn Loros in the jaw. The violence of the display froze Bardiya. He had never seen his people like this before. He knew not how to react.

Just then he spotted Gordo Hempsman on the edge of the assembly, leaning heavily on his cane while his wife Tulani and daughter Keisha walked beside him. The family of three had been the only survivors of Ethir Ayers’s attack on the mangold grove that claimed Bardiya’s parents; Gordo’s limp was a result of a wound he’d received there.

The three of them reached the giant’s side. Keisha craned her neck to look up at him. Her eight-year-old body was tiny in
contrast
to his, no more than a fly that he could crush with a single hand, and yet the courage reflected in her eyes made her look as colossal as Celestia herself.

Gordo caught his eye next, then Tulani. The family nodded to him and faced the crowd. Bardiya could not hear Keisha as she began singing, but when her parents joined her, the thin vibrato of Tulani’s voice broke above the din. Bardiya listened to the words, let them envelop him—a sermon of Ashhur, sung to the sweet tune of a lullaby. He began to sing with them, and soon the angst of the crowd broke. One by one, the residents of Ang turned their attention to the singers, falling silent, allowing their voices to flutter across the plains, through the trees, into their hearts. At first only a few joined them in singing while the rest watched sorrowfully, but soon nearly all of those gathered in the square had their chins lifted into the air, their mouths opening and closing as they sang Ashhur’s words of love.

In that tiny space between one moment of turmoil and the next yet to come, Bardiya was happier than he had been in a very
long time.

They sang for an hour, changing from one tune to another while the sun dipped lower in the west. They sang and held each other, their quarrels all but forgotten, even as the sounds of the approaching menace grew more and more present. They sang until a great horn sounded, seemingly ten times louder than a grayhorn’s bleating. Then the song tapered off, and all eyes turned to the edge of the northern wood, waiting, anticipating. Little Keisha continued to hum, the sounds of heavy stomping feet and snapping branches adding a percussive yet ominous backbeat.

A trail of wispy clouds passed over the sun, turning the sky red, as the first horse appeared from within the trees. It was an elf on horseback, his skin a sleek bronze and his hair like black satin, a vest of boiled leather painted green covering a tan jerkin, a khandar dangling from his hip. Bardiya’s mouth twisted in confusion. He had never seen an elf such as this before, for his only association had been with the Dezren in Stonewood, they of the pale milk-white flesh and hair with differing shades of gold. When relations between their races had been amicable, Cleotis Meln had told him tales of the Dezren’s cousins who resided on the other side of the Rigon River.
The Quellan,
he remembered, and his confusion doubled. What was this one doing so far from home?

Yet it wasn’t just one, for trailing after the initial elf came scores more, both Quellan and Dezren, pouring out of the trees like grains of sand through a sieve, their horses snorting and whinnying. They guided their steeds around the square, encircling the people.
There are so many,
thought Bardiya. From the trees emerged humans dressed in armor painted black and silver, carrying banners bearing the roaring lion. They lined up in front of the forest, flanked on either side by the elves, and soon the people of Ang were completely surrounded by flesh, leather, and steel.

For a long while no one moved. The elves and soldiers stared at the huddled mass, lips twisted into sneers, a burning desire to do harm showing in their eyes, and though each invader panned the crowd, it seemed their stares always settled on the giant. All sound but the noise of the horses ceased; even the crickets that usually began their sexual dance at the edge of dusk remained quiet.

Bardiya lifted his head. “Sing,” he said loudly, addressing his people. “Show our guests the glory of our love, of our beauty, of our kindness.”

“I truly wish you would not.”

It was a slogging voice, like rocks grinding together underwater. Bardiya took another step forward, looking on as a huge black charger trotted out of formation, approaching him. The charger acted agitated, as if it hated the duty of carrying its rider. That rider was a man of odd shape, the tight black leathers covering his body revealing enormous muscles that bulged and rippled in the wrong places. The man’s head was bald and warped; his chin distended; his eyes, beady red dots beneath a jutting brow. In a way the man looked like Patrick, only more monstrous.

Bardiya swallowed his fear. “Who are you that have come to visit us in our humble village?” he asked. “With whom do the people of Ang have the pleasure of making new friends?”

“Clovis Crestwell, former Highest of Karak.”

Clovis Crestwell? It cannot be.
Bardiya had seen Karak’s first child only once, back in his youth, when his father had brought him along to a gathering of the four First Families in the swampland between the Gods’ Bridges. So far as he could recall, Clovis had been a tall and slender man with crystal-blue eyes, long silver hair, and a stately posture. He saw none of that in this bulging man-toad before him.

“You do not look well,” he said.

“Time changes all men,” Clovis replied. There was also that grating, almost inhuman voice to consider. “The last time I laid eyes on you, you were a mere five feet tall.”

“I have grown.”

“Apparently. Very impressive, if I do say so.”

Bardiya stretched his back, trying to appear even taller than his twelve feet.

“And may I ask you, Clovis, what your intentions are in our fair village? We are messengers of peace and love, and have no wish to fight.” He dropped down on one knee, bowing before the strange man and his army. He muttered a silent prayer to himself, his blood racing through his veins, and heard the rest of his people mimicking his actions behind him. “Whatever you desire to do to us, do it. If you wish to kill us all, do so. You will find no resistance here.”

“That is . . . unfortunate. And predictable,” said Clovis. The man spurred his charger, and the animal bucked as it made its way around the assembly. “However, I do not wish to kill you.”

More agitated murmurs sounded, only this time it was from those on horseback. Bardiya looked up to see the elves staring back and forth at one another in confusion. Only the human soldiers didn’t seem surprised by the man’s words.

“You do not?” Bardiya asked. “Then why have you come here?”

“Why, we came to take you on a journey,” the man said, his words accompanied by the most wicked laugh Bardiya had ever heard. “Judice, get the chains and bind them. We cannot have anyone fleeing before their time.”

“And where do you plan on taking us?” asked Bardiya, standing once more. Behind him, his people whimpered when armored men carrying chains approached.

“To the tall black crystal in the middle of the desert, my brown colossus.”

Soldiers grabbed Bardiya’s arms. He could easily have thrown them aside, could have effortlessly bashed their skulls with his bare hands, but he stayed his anger and allowed them to bind him.

“The Black Spire?” he asked. “Whatever do you want with us there?”

“To fulfill your purpose,” Clovis answered with a wide, hideous smile. “I need you to bring
true
beauty back to this world.”

C
HAPTER

7

S
unlight shone through the tree branches, lighting up the multicolored crystals that lined the skywalk’s railing.
Aullienna
Meln took it slow, one foot in front of the other, as she made her way across the plank. The day was certainly a bright one, and filled with joyous sound. Her people scurried about on parallel walkways, calling out to her, cheering her on, yet she felt no relief in the sound.
I must enjoy the wonder of it, of them,
the young elf told herself.
I must, I must, I must.
Even though autumn’s chill rode on the wind, even though her world had fallen to shambles around her.

Ever since returning to the Stonewood Forest, nothing had gone right. Their band of elves had been surrounded, her betrothed shot with an arrow, her mother clouted in the face. Aullienna herself had been carried away in a sack, only to be dumped onto the floor of Briar Hall, the court of the Lords of Stonewood. No smiles had greeted her. Instead, she’d been welcomed by a long-lost brother she’d never met, who had been banished from Stonewood long before Aully was born.

I hope you die horribly, Carskel,
she thought, hearing the elf’s whisper-soft footsteps behind her.
I hope your insides catch fire and your intestines fall out your mouth.

“Stop dawdling,” she heard Carskel say. Something poked into her shoulder blades, and she peered behind her. There stood her brother, tall and slender, with a head of long white-gold hair, flowing satin blouse over gossamer breeches, and his khandar swinging from his hip.
He looks so much like father,
she thought in despair. The tip of his walking stick was pressed against her back. He smiled, baring his teeth, his eyes twinkling in the slender beams of light that infiltrated the canopy. He seemed so pleased with himself. Just seeing him like that made her hate him all the more.

I should conjure a fireball and wipe that smile off his face,
she thought.

“I’m going,” she said instead. She knew that somewhere nearby, Ethir Ayers and Mardrik Melannin, Carskel’s loyal enforcers, held the rest of her loved ones. Should she turn against her brother, should she hurt him in any way, Mother, Kindren, Noni, Aaromar, and all the rest of those who had traveled with her would be in danger.

We should have never left Ang,
the child in her complained.
Bardiya would never have allowed this to happen.

Grow up,
her new resolve answered.

Elves cheered as she circled around the skywalk, passing small home after small home nestled into the branches of the old, sturdy trees. Her people hung out of windows and from the railings of the planks above, tossing handfuls of shredded leaves down on her in celebration. The scene was eerily similar to when she’d been ushered through the courtyard of Palace Thyne on the announcement day of her betrothal to Kindren. Aully thought she should feel sadness at the memory, or even regret; instead, all she felt was anger.

The Dezren city within the trees took up a relatively small section of forest—only a two-hundred-yard area at most, consisting of a ring of forty-seven trees. What the city lacked in width, it made up for in height, with each of the thick trees containing multiple homes circling around its trunk. Although Briar Hall was one of only two structures resting atop the highest and most distant of the trees, those closer to the center of the ring were much more densely populated, with the lowest of the thirteen houses still twenty feet off ground and accessible only by rope ladders. Within the city’s boundaries, there was no need to let one’s feet touch the earth at all. Each tree was connected by even more ladders, along with those spiraling stairs and hanging skywalks. Back before she’d become a prisoner, the skywalks had been Aully’s favorite places to be. She would stand there for hours, smelling the sweet scents of roast rabbit, blackroot stews, and cooling raspberry and boysenberry pies, in between singing with her friends and listening to wizened old elves tell stories of days long ago. She blended into the crowd then, a nondescript member of a loving and joyous community, for though her parents were the Lord and Lady of Stonewood, it had long been practiced that one elf was of no more import than another.

The odor of food was still present, but she was no longer faceless. Every set of eyes that looked at her now did so expectantly, with reverence, as if welcoming a goddess back into the fold. The attention made Aully feel dirty, but not nearly as dirty as what she was about to do.

Carskel gently nudged her onto the swaying causeway that crossed through the city’s central clearing. He kept his hand firmly gripped around her forearm, squeezing once they reached the center platform. Very slowly he spun her around, and Aully gazed in wonder at the multitude of people that waved and whistled from the various walks. She caught sight of Hadrik, Mella, and Lolly standing with their respective families, the only three faces Aully could see that weren’t smiling. They seemed sad. The three of them had been Aully’s friends since the cradle, and it had been those three who’d found her and her ragged group as they wandered home through the forest. But they’d only been there to put them at ease before Ethir and his henchmen rounded them up.

They aren’t sad,
Aully thought.
They’re ashamed.

“Wave to our people,” Carskel muttered out the side of his mouth. Aully looked up at him, her lips drawn tight in defiance. Her brother squeezed her arm even tighter, making her yelp, a sound that was swallowed by the raucous cheering. Aully caved, lifting her hand and fanning her fingers as she and Carskel circled in place. The cheering picked up a notch.
“We love you, Aullienna!”
someone shouted.
“Our princess has returned!”
said someone else. The platform she stood on rocked back and forth. Aully felt her insides clench.

Carskel then knelt beside her, put his arm around her shoulder, himself waving and smiling at the crowd. “Look down, to your right,” he whispered into her ear. “But don’t you dare react.” Aully followed the jut of his chin, squinting as she gazed at the darkened area beneath the lowest walkway. At first she couldn’t make out what was there, but then Kindren stumbled forward, falling to his knees at the edge of the clearing. Kindren raised his head, staring up at her with pleading eyes. His face was marked with bruises, and his left shoulder was in a sling. For a moment Aully thought about leaping over the platform’s hempen rail. More than anything she wanted to call out to him, but she didn’t dare. Her eyes closed.

“There is more,” Carskel said in his sweetly menacing voice.

She peered through half-closed eyelids as her mother and more than two dozen other elves were shoved into the light. Aully looked on helplessly as Lady Audrianna pulled Kindren to his feet, wrapping her would-be son-in-law in a protective embrace. Kindren shuddered in her grasp, the Lady of Stonewood holding him tightly, as if squeezing the sobs from him. The rest of her troupe then gathered around, consoling him like they would their own child, until Ethir and his cohorts began to roughly separate them. Aully looked all around her, wondering why everyone was still cheering when thirty of their brethren were being mistreated in plain sight. Then she peered behind her, saw that the lower walkways on the opposite side of the clearing had been kept empty. From the vantage point of those on the upper skywalks, only the overhanging edge of the lowest domiciles would be visible.

Aully took a deep breath, stilling her nerves.

“You won’t hurt them,” she said.

“So long as you keep your end of the bargain, no,” her brother replied, again in that sickeningly pleasant tone. “Make sure it remains that way. Your uncle is with us. It is time.”

Carskel gave her shoulder a light squeeze and stood up. He was two heads taller than Aully and carried himself with an air that oozed royalty, but she knew it was nothing but a ruse. This was an elf who had brutally assaulted his own sister, violating her in the most depraved of ways. He was a monster.

The platform began to shimmy, and Aully glanced down the walk to see her Uncle Detrick striding toward them. He looked dignified in his white robe, but she could see the anger hidden behind his easy smiles. His left hand was wrapped in beige cloth, hiding the empty socket where his index finger had once been, cut off when he dared raise his voice against his nephew. Detrick was an elf beaten, resigned to the role Carskel had given him.

Detrick stopped halfway down the walk and raised his hands. The frenetically cheering crowd hushed.

“Citizens of Stonewood Forest,” Detrick began. “My brothers and sisters, we have been rudderless for quite some time, but on this day we gather to welcome our royal family back into the fold. You all know Aullienna, my niece, your princess. Thirty days ago she returned to us, limping through the forest, desperate for home. This young girl has experienced horrors we can only dream of, losses that would send the best of us howling into our beds. Her father, our Lord Cleotis, is dead. Her mother, our dear Lady Audrianna, is seriously hurt, and her recovery is not certain.” Aully gulped at the words and glanced down at where her mother stood, but she could not make out the expression on Lady Audrianna’s face. Detrick went on: “However, she did not go through her ordeal alone. With her the entire time was one brave elf, a lost soul who has returned our princess to us, a brave warrior who saved the lives of many. He will help guide us through the trying times ahead. Are we ready to greet him?”

The crowd roared, but the sound was half as vociferous as it had been. Aully then noticed looks of disapproval painting the faces of the elder elves.
They recognize him,
she thought.
They know what he did.
She felt Carskel stiffen beside her.

Her uncle gestured to her and Carskel with an open hand. “And now,” he shouted, “Princess Aullienna!”

Aully’s hands twitched, her knees shook. She knew the story she was supposed to tell by heart. She had been made to recite it daily whenever her jailers came to give her soup and bread: The humans of Paradise had turned rabid, the god Ashhur attacking Dezerea and putting countless of their cousins to slaughter. Her beloved brother, Carskel, who had been wrongly accused by Lord Cleotis, had returned from his exile to save his cherished family, freeing the prisoners from their bonds and leading the dash across western Dezrel. For months they’d hidden in the desert, avoiding the ravenous humans, gradually sneaking along endless dunes until finally wending their way home.

A horrible lie, every last part of it. The truth, as she had learned during her uncle’s drunken and weeping late-night visits, was that Carskel had taken refuge in Quellassar during his hundred-year exile. He was a tool of the Quellan Triad and had convinced Ethir Ayers to take control of the forest city with promises of wealth and land. Her betrothal to Kindren, as it turned out, was a ruse to get Lord and Lady Meln out of Stonewood, to supplant them. From that day forth Carskel had ruled Stonewood in secret, waiting for the day his sister returned. Evidently, the plan had been to free Aully, and only Aully, so she could return home to become betrothed to her brother, solidifying the allegiance between Dezren and Quellan.

Their escaping Palace Thyne had never been in the design, Ceredon’s righteous conscience never expected. Once more Aully damned herself for ever leaving Bardiya’s side. Had she never come back, her people would still be safe. Had she stayed put, Kindren’s life wouldn’t be in danger . . .

The cheers died down and the crowd began to murmur. Carskel again squeezed her arm. He peered down at her, his phony smile faltering.

“Go on,” he said, his voice full of worry. “You are wasting time.”

She nodded to him and shook out of his grip. Stepping forward, she grasped the hempen rail and stared at the many expectant faces. She cleared her throat. “My people,” she said. “I have returned—”

“Louder,” snapped Carskel.

“My people,” she said, trying to gather strength in her throat. “After a long, harrowing journey, I have returned home. Words cannot express how joyous it makes me to see all of your faces, to once more greet friends I thought gone forever.” She shot a look at Hadrik, Mella, and Lolly. “This beautiful forest I never expected to see again. It fills me with . . . with . . . ”

Her whole body was shaking. “I am happy,” she continued. “I am relieved. And that relief is all due to the elf you see behind me. This great elf who was framed for a crime he did not commit, a noble elf who was forced to live a hundred years away from the home and family he adored . . . an elf who will lead us into . . . into . . . ”

She paused, glanced behind her at Carskel, saw him urging her to go on. Then she looked down at Kindren, Lady Audrianna, Noni, and Aaromar, flanked by their captors. Her eyes met her mother’s, and Lady Audrianna lifted her head proudly, emanating strength. Kindren did the same. Aully focused on them, on their tear-streaked faces, and saw Kindren mouth,
No.
Her eyes widened. She lifted her gaze to the heavens.

Do I dare, Celestia? Please tell me what I do is right.

A gust of wind blew, rattling the branches, swaying the platform, bringing goose pimples to her flesh. In its sound she heard her answer, cruel and unforgiving.

“An elf who has spat in the face of our goddess!” she shouted. A shocked silence fell over the three thousand elves in attendance. Aully didn’t think about what she needed to say, she just said it, and was stunned by the volume of her voice. It seemed to carry for miles despite her diminutive size. “Carskel Meln, my exiled brother. He’s a liar, a fool, a murderer. He raped my sister, Brienna! He plotted our destruction! The goddess damn every last one of you who follows him into ruin!”

A hand closed over her mouth, an arm wrapped around her waist, and she was yanked backward. The crowd erupted, this time in a din of angry, frightened shouts. Some began to throw vegetables from the skywalks.