The Chosen (33 page)

Seth watched as the goblin exploded in a wave of fire and shrapnel, and though he saw the deaths of so many of his men, it was what he felt that overtook him. Something inside Seth snapped. It wasn’t something emotional, or mental or even physical, but somehow it encompassed all three. As his men’s lives were extinguished Seth felt awash with great power as some force surged into him, unbinding his subconscious self, tearing asunder his previously limited conscious mind and joining with his own being. It mended him anew, lending to him power like he had never felt before. This power was not like that he had siphoned from his enemies that he could shape and twist and lock away for later use. This new power was something more. Seth felt invigorated, limitless, unbound by physical restraint. For the first time in his life Seth was awash with confidence as if his very will was enough to end this battle.

But as quickly as the feeling came, its effects began to diminish. It wasn’t the same seductive power he had felt before that brought pleasure to him physically, but something more. As the overwhelming effects of the power began to fade, Seth knew that he had indeed somehow changed. Just standing upon the hill, Seth could feel his own inner aura as it pulsed with increased power. So strong it was that Seth half expected he could hear it pulsing were he in a quieter place, but that was not all that had changed. Seth could feel that his mind had altered as well, as if a type of barrier had been removed, or doors unlocked into his subconscious mind. As if to prove it, as the last initial effects of the new power finally faded, Seth realized that he had a much keener sense of those auras around him, as if now, instead of whispering to his subconscious, they screamed. Reaching out experimentally, Seth discovered he could quickly and readily grasp at those so far from him he would not have even attempted it before for fear of losing consciousness. Now it seemed an easy task, and that was when the realization took him.

Seth had created his wolf men, and through their feral understanding of the world they had worshipped him in their own way as their creator, their deity. Now many of them had perished, and with their deaths, their sparks of life given by the gods had returned to
him
, not to Ishanya. The implications were astronomical. Seth had just gained nearly fifty of his men’s life forces, and as such would live fifty times longer than an average man. His abilities had expanded exponentially, to what extent he was still unsure, but he knew he was now more powerful. As much as he wished to ponder the change, to seek inside himself to find whatever other evidence of alteration he could, now he had no time to do so.

*****

Garret watched as the opposing army marched to meet him. He gazed unblinking at the approaching horde, waiting for the absolute last moment. As the enemy neared the first of the king’s surprises was unleashed as giant steel ballista bolts were loosed into the enemy ranks. Nearer and nearer the enemy marched and, coming within range, the call went out and thousands of arrows began to rain down upon the evil masses. Then the monstrous army charged in a mass of flesh and blackened armor, and praying to Gorandor, Garret unveiled a little surprise of his own.

With a thunderous boom Garret exploded in size, his bare flesh turning silver and becoming hard as steel. Pulling his massive sword from the scabbard strapped to his back, Garret yelled a deep resounding battle cry as he charged into the wall of puny opponents. Slashing and hacking with his immense blade, Garret chuckled as he slaughtered half a dozen foes with each swing of his great sword. Guts and blood seemed to rain around him, coating his body within moments with a slick, oozing spray of coagulating gore. Garret felt unstoppable with the power of Gorandor coursing through him, and the pleasure it brought did not excite him in the way it did other men. To him it was quite like being tickled as a child, and though he fought it, he could not help but chuckle all the while as he waded through his enemies, laying waste to them by the score. Garret had begun to believe that he was unstoppable when the first fireball hit him in the ribs.

To any normal man the blow would have incinerated him instantly. Even those in armor would have burned inside their metal shell, but Garret's flesh was like that of steel in his blessed form, and though he was not burnt, the blast hurt like hell. Even metal was susceptible to heat, and though outwardly he showed no signs of damage, he felt as if his insides had been slightly cooked by the blast, and it irritated him no end. Turning in the direction of the fireball, Garret began carving himself a new path through his foes. Within a few moments another fireball was unleashed towards him, giving Garret the bearings he needed. He waded through a regiment of orcs and trolls, casually slaying those who dared stay in range as he surged towards his target. Locating the goblin in the horde had proven easy enough, and wanting to make an example out of him, instead of slicing the pathetic green beast in two, Garret kicked the tiny mage with all his might expecting to send the beast flying well overhead of its peers. However, such was the force of the blow that the small creature more or less crumpled with the impact, squishing and tearing and sticking to his foot, like a mosquito being swatted, and left gore hanging between Garret's toes. Lesson learned, by both of them Garret presumed, he continued carving a path this way and that, occasionally harassed by a fireball-throwing mage of one race or another, whom he quickly dispatched before again resuming his macabre masterpiece.

For over an hour Garret waded through the invading army unimpeded, wreaking havoc as he went to and fro, raining gore in all directions. It wasn’t until he had stomped far into the black mass when the enemy gave him a surprise of its own. As Garret hacked and slashed through a regiment of goblins, three oversized trolls came rushing through their comrades. Normal trolls were larger than a man by a third in most cases, but these three were near Garret's equal, having doubled in size themselves. Garret watched the trio come, absently slaying those around him, sizing up his opponents. The trolls were identical to their smaller counterparts with a thick, blue, leathery hide that resembled a wrinkly part of his own anatomy. They had very blocky features, all solid muscles with thick arms that ended in thick hands and thick legs that ended in thick feet. Unlike orcs, they didn’t have massive, sharp teeth or claws, just a lot of bulk. These three brandished giant hammers in their hands, and wrapped over their shoulder and around their chest and back, each carried a large length of chain. Garret too noticed that around their waists, massive spikes hung in a row. Garret was thankful for his steel skin.

The trolls closed the distance as Garret made a sport of spraying them with gore from those he slaughtered, which seemed to anger them quite nicely. The first troll rushed him head on, thinking to pound Garret with his great hammer. Garret, seeing a mistake in the troll's logic, stepped into the blow, letting the hammer’s head careen over his shoulder where the wooden handle, with a loud splintering sound, shattered upon his collarbone. Disarmed, the troll growled and tackled Garret, but having grown up wrestling with his twin, Garret used the beast's momentum against itself and sent it rolling across the slick path of gore where it toppled over, crushing a handful of goblins beneath it. Turning to face the other two trolls, Garret found himself outwitted.

As Garret turned, the two remaining giant trolls rushed past him to either side, holding between them one of the massive chains. Caught off guard, Garret attempted to duck the chain, but unable to react in time, the massive links caught under his chin, craning his head back and pulling him over backwards to land with a crunch among the mass of carnage beneath his feet. He lost his sword in the fall. Garret struggled to regain his feet as the trolls kicked and battered him, but finding no purchase on the slippery ground, again and again the trolls battered him down. Garret struggled on in vain for moments, until at last, feigning an attempt to rise again, Garret kicked the legs out from one of the trolls. Rolling upon the beast, he used its body as leverage to get to his feet once again, as the other troll rushed in to tackle him. As it neared, for no reason apparent to Garret, with a pop and a shimmer all three trolls shrank back to their normal size. Seizing his advantage, Garret stooped to regain his blade and summarily cleaved all three opponents in two, spilling their entrails and black blood onto the ground in steaming piles. Crisis averted, Garret resumed his course through the blackened mass of the grotesque army, cleaving and chuckling as he went.

Garret had slaughtered an entire regiment of orcs when, hearing several horn blasts, he watched as a single goblin cleared a path through the midst of its peers, sprinting with a torch in hand and a trail of smoke behind him. Curious Garret watched the goblin head directly into his brother's pack of beast soldiers. Assured the little green guy would make a tasty meal to one of Seth’s troops, Garret began swinging his mighty blade again just as an explosion shook the ground. His skin, like metal, carried the reverberations into his skull where his ears began ringing annoyingly. Looking to see what was amiss as shouts arose, Garret discovered the damage the little devil had achieved. And worse, looking to the rear of the enemies’ troops, he could see dozens more similarly-laden goblins tooting their horns as they too began to sprint through the lines that opened like hallways before them. Knowing the soldiers on the defensive line would not withstand such an assault, Garret raced towards the nearest torch-bearing goblin when suddenly the slimy beast vanished into a pile of ash and exploded among his own troops. This explosion came followed by a rapid succession of several more, each causing his ears to ring louder and louder. Oh how Garret hated goblins.

*****

Gaining control of his mind after a moment, Seth forced himself to focus on the world around him, effectively extracting himself from his subconscious. Looking ahead at the devastation the goblin had left angered Seth to the core, but he had no time to dwell on it at present. Seeing the great effect their single goblin sapper had achieved, the enemy had unleashed countless more to devastate the already weakening defensive line of Valdadore. Although the king’s knights and mages both targeted near a hundred of the sprinting beasts bearing torches and horns, Seth saw they were overwhelmed. Unsure of his current abilities Seth reached out with his mind, picking those racing goblins who drew nearest the defenders, and was amazed at how quickly he was able to find and isolate them. Grasping the nearest twenty beasts, Seth ripped their lives away leaving naught but ash and armor in their wake. As an added bonus, as several of them seemingly vanished, their torches fell to the ground, igniting their fallen packs, and explosions sounded from more than a dozen locations killing over a thousand enemy troops. Feeling the power of twenty goblins surge into him, Seth was relieved to find that such an immense amount of power was now easily manipulated, where only an hour ago it would have been unbearable. Taking the raging torrent of power within him and bending it to his will, Seth unleashed it in a horizontal column of green-yellow flame over the heads of his wolf men. So powerful was the blast, his own troops were forced to cower low to the ground beneath the torrent of flame, their fur singeing in the heat. The column of fire exploded into and through the front lines of the black horde, over ten yards wide. It laid a path of smoldering destruction where once stood over four hundred enemy troops. Again Seth reached out, and pushing his abilities he grasped all the remaining torch-bearing goblins, numbering more than fifty and extinguished their lives. The force of the dozens of explosions ripping through the black horde was nothing in comparison to the power that ripped through Seth in those same moments.

As the life power of more than fifty goblins poured like a tidal wave into Seth, he was overtaken like never before with absolute ecstasy. Every nerve ending in his body succumbed to the pleasure instantaneously, causing a shiver to run down his spine over and over again, looking to others like a seizure. Seth, fighting to control the power as his body was wracked by pleasure, fought to contain it for many moments as his body recovered from unnatural bliss. Having regained himself, Seth began to stride forward towards his men's portion of Valdadore’s defensive line. As he approached, his men made way for him to come. Realizing that Borrik and Jonas strode with him, thinking to protect him, Seth motioned for them to stay as he continued ahead. Reaching the front of his men’s line, where moments before he had blazed a trail of fire through his enemies, Seth strode into the charred wasteland as orcs and goblins, trolls and ogres alike all rushed to fill the hole in their midst.

Unleashing metered amounts of his power, Seth blasted those who got in his way with pure waves of invisible energy, sending dozens of bodies careening through the air to land dozens of yards away atop their fellows. As Seth waded into the ocean of enemies, many made way for fear of him and those who did not got a quick lesson in flying. One such troll even attempted to charge Seth. However, the troll simply vanished into a wisp of ash, causing his peers to retreat further from the approaching human. As Seth passed the black mass filled in behind him, making it appear from a distance as if a bubble was rising up through the black army. Though battle still raged all along the defensive line of the humans, and King Valdadore’s knights still plowed among the enemy destroying them en masse, and fireballs continued to erupt from both sides and arrows rained down like droplets of death from the heavens, here in the middle of the vast black army Seth found himself surprisingly cut off from the sounds of the conflict. Reaching his destination Seth stopped and turned to survey the defensive line from this angle and found, much to his dismay, he was not alone.

Surrounded on all sides by tens of thousands of enemy troops, forgoing any type of protection but his magic alone, Seth had stridden into the black horde with the intent of ending the battle singlehandedly. But turning around, Seth could not help but grin behind the ferocious mask that was his helm at Sara, who apparently had not gotten the message. The woman was crazy, it was true, but it was her love of Seth that made her so. Without any regard for her own life, the small woman he loved had come with him the entire way, with naught but her small crossbow to protect her. Though in her armor she looked opposing, and the enemy knew not if she was Seth’s equal, none had moved to engage her. As if to protect him, Sara strode directly to Seth, and turning as she passed, pressed her back into his as if they would fight the entire invading army together, back to back.