The King of the Vile (34 page)

“Be ready,” Azariah shouted to Judarius. “I will extend the same offer as before, but I do not expect the people of Ker to kneel, nor abandon their king.”

“Will we kill them all if they refuse?” Judarius asked. “The Council will not be pleased.”

Azariah frowned. He’d promised the Council of Mages they’d have a land of their own. When first working with Roand, he’d believed that achieving salvation for the people of Mordan was worth the loss of controlling Ker. Saving the entire world was impossible, so why not cede the loss to achieve some measure of good? That was just one of many compromises that had steadily eroded their dedication. The land of Ker needed to be subjugated just as much as Mordan. This meant her army, and her king, needed to pledge loyalty or be destroyed. The wizards would be dangerous foes, but they needn’t know of their expendability yet. If asked, Azariah would say the destruction of Bram’s army opened the way for the Council’s takeover of the nation. There would be no lie in that.

“The Council is still one of humans,” Azariah said. “And we are done fearing what humans say or do.”

Azariah dove, slamming down on the road with a heavy thud. Judarius took position beside him. Soldiers rushed about, readying for battle, as the other fallen angels hovered around them in a circle.

“Fetch me your king, for I would have words with him!” Azariah cried.

The soldiers continued forming up shoulder-to-shoulder so they might not be ambushed from any side. Azariah expected the king and queen to be hiding among their numbers, and he wondered if Bram would have the courage to face him. The human soldiers whispered to one another, yet as a minute dragged on, it seemed Azariah was no closer to receiving an audience.

“Your king!” he shouted again. “Bram Henley, master of Angkar, come forth so we might discuss terms.”

“I have terms for you,” a soldier shouted from behind the front lines. Men shifted aside so an older man in shining platemail and sporting a gray beard pushed to the front. He held a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. By the markings on his chestplate, Azariah guessed him to be one of Bram’s generals.

“And what might those be?” Azariah asked, annoyed.

“Just what my king has ordered me to tell you,” he said.

“And what might that be?”

“In his words?” The older man grinned. “Fuck yourselves and die.”

The man hoisted his spear and then threw it in a single, smooth motion. Azariah fell back a step, caught off guard and unable to defend himself. The spear sailed true, its aim for Azariah’s heart, but it did not pierce his flesh. Judarius’s mace swung with perfect timing, smacking the spear upward so that it careened wildly away. The nearby soldiers roared as they charged, but both Judarius and Azariah soared skyward, out of their reach. Arrows followed, ripping through the air on either side. Azariah’s heart pounded as he flew faster, faster, ignoring how close the wild shots came. One even struck Judarius’s armor, but it could not punch through the enchanted plate.

Without an order to attack, the other angels surrounding the army fled as well. Azariah spun about once out of reach of the arrows and glared at the bodies of several of his brethren lying bloodied in the grass. The soldiers cheered and struck their weapons and shields together, mocking them for their cowardice.

“How have you not yet learned?” Judarius asked him. “Humanity is never, ever to be trusted.”

Azariah glared down at the cheering soldiers. “Destroy them all.”

“They deserve no less,” Judarius replied, smacking the head of his mace against his palm.

The angel reared back, sucked in air, and then bellowed his command to the entirety of the Fallen.

“Dive!”

The angels soared together, black wings and gleaming swords streaming toward the soldiers like rampaging floodwaters. They could have crashed through the outer lines of shields, but they had no need to. They were no normal army. Battle lines meant nothing. The angels flashed overhead, enduring another barrage of arrows, and then rammed into the archers. Man’s blood flowed like a river. The footmen tried to turn their attention inward, but Judarius led a segment of two hundred angels from the inner ranks and back around to the outer. His mace smashed through armored men like they were naked children.

The sounds of death and battle echoed in Azariah’s ears. Before, it’d been a sound that made his chest tighten and his head light. Now it was strangely muted and distant. Pleasant, Azariah dared admit, like chimes. Hands curling into formations, Azariah decided to join in the fight. Ashhur’s priestly magic might have left him, but the arcane powers Roand the Flame had taught him remained.

A ball of fire leapt from Azariah’s hands and slammed into a formation of soldiers rushing from the east flank in hopes of aiding against Judarius’s push through the center. The men screamed as flames bathed them. Azariah felt satisfaction at the size of the explosion, and he sent a second toward different portion of the battle, careful to avoid injuring his own kind. After fire came stone; he ripped up boulders from the ground beneath soldiers so they fell into the holes, only to then have the stones settle back atop them, sealing them into airless tombs.

It all came so easily to Azariah, and always had, even back when the world was young and he called the Eveningstar his friend. He wished he’d studied more back then. He’d taken Ashhur’s grace for granted, but now that it was gone, he finally realized the biggest difference between priestly spellcasting and the arcane. To cast such spells before, Azariah had to whisper words of prayers to Ashhur. He came as a beggar before his god, hands outstretched, hoping to have power given to him so he might destroy his foes or heal the flesh of his allies. But with the arcane, he wasn’t a beggar, but a king. By his strength, he took the power he envisioned. Even the words and hand formations were not necessary. They only aided in the demand, for it was the strength of soul that mattered. Much of it was an art, and while the mages painted in rudimentary colors, Azariah had glimpsed the entire spectrum over centuries in eternal glory.

Rivulets of flame raced through the battle lines, guided by Azariah’s weaving fingers. Cracks burst open in the ground, hands of molten rock grasped men and dragged them to their deaths. Besieged from all sides, some of Ker’s soldiers tried to flee, but they could not run faster than the angels could fly. Some fell to their knees, begging for mercy or swearing fealty, but they could not take back their initial rebellion. Azariah swooped overhead, shards of ice flying from his palms like a hailstorm. He felt like Ashhur in the earliest days of Dezrel, when mankind was but dust in jars of clay.

The sounds of battle faded away. The carnage ceased, for there were no more soldiers to kill. Only a small group remained in the heart of the battlefield, and Azariah hovered over them warily. By their black armor and burning blades, they were clearly paladins of Karak. Eight of them gathered around King Bram, protecting him against any attack by the angels. Azariah knew he could stay airborne, casting magical attacks of fire and ice until the paladins lacked the strength to defend themselves, but he didn’t.

Azariah’s eyes had opened to many things over the past years, allowing him to see the paladins of Karak in a whole new light.

He landed before the group, keeping a safe distance in case they refused to listen to reason. The paladins readied their weapons, bunching tightly together in anticipation of battle. Azariah looked them over, surprised by their youth. In the times before the first Gods’ War, when injury and disease were abolished by the Wardens’ constant care, he’d have considered them nothing more than children. Yet here these children were, wielding powerful weapons bathed in fire as hot as their faith.

“Who among you may speak for the rest?” Azariah asked.

“I may, if we must,” one said. He had a freckled, scarred face, and two lion tattoos on his neck.

“And who are you?”

“Umber,” said the paladin. “And stay back unless you want an ax in your gut. You may be uglier than we remember, but you’re still angels of Ashhur, bloodthirsty ones at that.”

Azariah lifted his hands to show he meant no harm.

“I only seek words,” he said. “Are you willing to listen?”

Umber glanced around at the thousands of angels hovering about, watching. Sweat trickled down his forehead and neck, but despite his obvious nervousness, he kept himself together well enough.

“If you bring words instead of swords, then we’re willing to listen,” Umber said.

Azariah nodded. He felt oddly hopeful, despite the supposed impossibility he knew he was about to propose. Ever since Karak and Ashhur warred, so had their followers. Centuries of conflict, all stemming from that defining moment when Celestia flung both gods into the eternal void, imprisoning them in their respective domains. But Azariah remembered the days when he’d been a mere Warden. He remembered when loving one god did not make you an enemy of the other’s followers.

“There was a time when Karak and Ashhur were brothers,” he said. “When they worked together in search of a way of life for mankind that would result in peace without slavery, happiness without perversion, and wealth without suffering. Those times may come again, if only you are willing to listen and learn just as we have allowed ourselves to learn.”

Umber still seemed wary, but the ax in his hands wasn’t lifted quite so high, nor clutched so tightly. “And what lesson might you angels have learned?”

What lesson?
Only one, which he’d learned as he came upon a heartbroken Ezekai outside the remains of the slaughtered village of Norstrom.

“No matter the lessons we offer or how many laws we create, mankind will still be sinful creatures,” said Azariah. “That sin wears on us like nails clawing the length of our spines. Sin is an act of selfish rebellion. A chaotic act against a natural order, Karak might say. My kind endured the sin out of need to save the sinner, but that cost us dearly. We need peace.
Dezrel
needs peace. And there is only one way to find peace in this broken world.” Azariah smiled. “Emptiness. In absolute emptiness, we may find peace.”

“And in absolute emptiness, we may find order,” Umber said. He lowered his ax and offered his hand in friendship. “Perhaps you are right, and there is still wisdom we may share.”

Azariah shook his hand, and he couldn’t help but feel proud. In a single day, he’d healed the rift Ashhur and Karak had created. In a single day, he’d proven himself more capable than the gods they followed. The dark paladins stepped aside, making open the way to King Bram. The man stood tall, blade drawn, unafraid of his impending death. It didn’t seem an act, either.
Impressive.

“My wife yet lives,” Bram said as Azariah approached. “Riding on my fastest horse toward Ker. She’ll rally my people. Every man, woman, and child capable of lifting a weapon will tear at your wings and cut at your flesh. We will not submit to Ashhur, nor his abandoned followers.”

Bram swung his sword. Azariah caught Bram’s wrist before the blade connected. Azariah’s other hand grabbed the king by the throat and lifted him into the air.

“They will submit, or they will die,” Azariah said. “The same choice offered to kings and beggars alike. A fair offer, and a fair punishment. Let your nation resist, Bram. We’ll burn it to ashes if we must and start anew. Time means nothing to us...and nor do your impotent threats.”

Bram’s free hand pulled at Azariah’s, trying to loosen the grip enough to breathe, but he was too weak. Azariah stared into the king’s eyes, never blinking, never relenting. He watched the life dwindle away, that precious spark fading into deathly stillness. A life of temptation and selfishness ending, an imprisoned soul breaking free of its tattered, sinful shell to find peace in the hereafter. Beautiful. Just beautiful.

Azariah tossed the worthless bag of flesh and bone to the ground.

“These are grand days,” he told the paladins of Karak. “The future of Dezrel is in our hands. Let us rebuild Paradise like it was before war tore it asunder. Let us build it wiser, and stronger, so it may withstand the ages. A land ruled not by sinful creatures, but the gods and their servants. A righteous land. An orderly land.”

Umber put his fist to his breast and bowed, and all other paladins bowed with him.

“To Paradise reborn,” he said.

“To Paradise reborn,” Azariah echoed, and he smiled.

28

T
arlak’s portal opened in the grasslands twenty miles away from the two towers, but it wasn’t far enough. He’d prefer to be all the way in Mordeina, but that required energy he simply didn’t have. Twenty miles was nothing to mages using locator magic. So as Deathmask lay on his back in the grass, Tarlak scrawled a few quick runes into the dirt with a stick, cast a spell over them, and then plopped onto his rear.

“What do you think?” he said. “Hide out here for a month or two, then go storming back and rip those damn towers to apart brick by brick?”

“Sure,” Deathmask said, arm over his eyes. “I might need more time, though. The Council’s going to the bottom of a very long list of people I need to skin alive, starting with Azariah.”

Tarlak frowned at the mention of the angel. Roand had claimed he worked with Azariah to bring Avlimar crashing to the ground. He’d expected to miss a few things while trapped in the towers, but that one seemed like a doozy.

“Roand and Azariah working together,” he said. “Care to help me make sense of that?”

Deathmask sighed and sat up. Black circles surrounded his eyes. Tarlak doubted he’d gotten any sort of restful sleep while chained to the wall. Still, given all Tarlak had done to get him out of there, it only felt fair to get a few answers before they both passed out for the night.

“It happened not long after Antonil’s army was crushed,” Deathmask said. “I have a feeling the Council had a hand in that. Would I be right?”

“Absolutely. Bastards bombarded us with magic as we approached the tower seeking aid.”

“Why go to them for aid?”

Tarlak sighed.

“Because we had our asses handed to us by an orc army led by a war demon. When we reached Ker’s border, King Bram refused to let us cross. At the time, I thought he was being an opportunistic jerk, but given Roand’s plans of taking over Ker, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bram was being manipulated by the Council in some way.”

“That answers a few questions,” Deathmask said, his eyes glazing over as he thought. “During Gregory’s crowning ceremony, Avlimar came tumbling to the ground. Not an angel was there due to the ceremony, a convenient little fact I should have noticed far sooner. I always thought it was so whatever magic necessary to destroy it could be cast in secret, but obviously it was because Azariah didn’t wish to lose any of his people.”

Tarlak drummed foreign fingers against his kneecap. “You said Gregory’s crowning ceremony. I’d feared Kevin Maryll would attempt to usurp the throne when the Council betrayed us. Did he?”

“Yes.”

“And Queen Susan died in the attempt?”

“Unfortunately. Susan’s death elevated Gregory to the throne, at least in theory.” He chuckled, the glazed look vanishing from his eyes. “And yes, Harruq and Aurelia both survived just fine, in case you were worried about that. Harruq even cut off Kevin’s head and tossed it out a castle window. You know, sometimes that half-orc knows how to do a display just right.”

Tarlak let out a sigh of relief despite immediately feeling guilty about it. Susan had always been kind, and surprisingly accepting of Antonil’s odd collection of friends. Losing her was terrible, but he couldn’t deny his relief at knowing his friends had survived. Tarlak had lost enough people close to him to fill a dozen lifetimes, and the last thing he wanted was to add more to the list.

“I can piece together most everything else,” Tarlak said. “Though I’m curious, why did the angels capture you?”

“Azariah blamed me for Avlimar’s collapse.”

“You? But why?”

Deathmask shrugged.

“I guess I have a guilty face.”

“Yeah,” he said, wincing. “Sorry about that, by the way.”

The guildmaster chuckled, his smile stretching the worn, wrinkled scars across his mouth, cheeks, and jaw.

“At least my face is still my own,” he said. “The same cannot be said of you.”

Tarlak laughed. “I spent the past few weeks focusing on polymorphic studies just for such an occasion. Give me a few days. I’ll be my old self again, or at least a fairly close approximation of it.”

“Excellent,” Deathmask said He settled down into the grass. “Speaking of a few days, that is how much I would like to rest. Wake me come morning so that doesn’t happen.”

“Will do.”

Tarlak removed his hat to use as a pillow, and then lay down on his side. Not the finest of beds, and nothing compared to the ridiculous softness of his mattresses in the towers, but Tarlak felt himself relaxing better than he had in weeks. No burning amulet clung his neck, chaining him against his will. No more wondering when he might ever see his friends again. Come the morning, he’d rip open a portal to Mordeina, march right up those castle steps, and wrap the Tun couple in a gigantic bear hug.

Granted, he might want to explain his new form first...

Tarlak woke with a splitting headache and an aching stomach. Grimacing, he pulled his knees to his chest and tried to go back to peaceful dreams where he suffered neither ailment. Maddeningly, a toe poked into his back.

“You were supposed to be the one waking me up, remember?”

Tarlak groaned as he rolled over. His eyes fluttered open. Deathmask hovered over him, arms crossed, scarred lips locked in a frown.

“I beg your forgiveness,” Tarlak mumbled. “By chance you find us anything to eat?”

“The sun’s barely risen. Did you think I caught, killed, skinned, and cooked a rabbit for you during that time?”

Tarlak reached into an inner pocket, but the robes weren’t actually his. This meant no hidden stash of topaz, which meant no whipping himself up a simple meal with a few wags of his fingers.

“Well, I know exactly where in Mordeina I’ll be taking us,” he said, envisioning the open air marketplace in the eastern district. Stumbling to his feet, he shook his hands and twisted his neck in an attempt to clear his head. Casting a portal over such distances wouldn’t be easy, and the last thing he wanted was to make a mistake and send both them to a random location, or even worse, right into the middle of something solid like a mountain.

“Roand mentioned the angels ruling Mordan,” Deathmask said as Tarlak prepared the portal. “Gregory might have already been overthrown. If that is the case, the city may not be safe for either of us.”

“Caution may be your thing,” Tarlak said as the portal ripped open before him. “But I’m more of a ‘bust in and blow things up’ kind of guy. The angels want to capture either of us, they’re welcome to try. Besides, I’m hungry, damn it.”

Tarlak stepped through. He’d focused on the rooftop of a home beside the market, a place he figured would be safely concealed and bereft of people. When he stepped out, he moved aside so Deathmask didn’t bump into him, then turned toward the market. Before Deathmask could even appear next to him, Tarlak already knew something was wrong.

“What happened here?” he wondered aloud.

On any given day over two hundred people should have been walking through the lengthy street, browsing the dozens of tables. There should have been the smell of cheeses, pastries, and fresh bread, all arrayed on plates and cloths. The sun was low in the sky, and many would need to eat prior to heading off for their daily labors.

Only there was no one here.

“Clearly we missed something,” Deathmask said. The portal hissed shut behind him. “A rebellion of the angels?”

“Perhaps,” Tarlak said. He snapped his fingers and stepped off the roof, gently floating down to the center of the barren street. Deathmask hung from the side of the roof before dropping onto his feet. Tarlak wandered down the road, the pain in his stomach growing worse. Many of the tables were overturned the stalls trashed. A stone wall sealed in the market to the right, but on the left were many buildings tucked behind the stalls, and Tarlak saw a quarter of them were damaged in some way. A few had broken windows or holes smashed into their thatched roofs; almost every one of them had a door that hung off its hinges.

Most frightening of all was the blood. There were thick puddles of it, splashes of red on walls, and long streaks upon the road as if someone had been dragged along it.

“Tar, over here.”

Tarlak turned to see Deathmask standing before the post of a particularly large stall that had escaped damage. He hurried over, eyes narrowing as he saw a thick piece of parchment nailed to the post. Tarlak ripped it free of the nail.

“What is this?” he asked.

“The Laws of Ashhur,” Deathmask said. He glanced up and down the street. “I don’t know if you sense it, Tarlak, but I do. The essence of death lingers about here like a plague, strong enough for a necromancer to get drunk on. Look at the blood in the streets. It’s like the Abyss came to visit Mordeina in the middle of the night.”

Tarlak read the first few laws. Do not steal. Do not rape. Do not worship Karak. At ‘do not murder’ he crumpled the parchment up and tossed it into a drying puddle of blood.

“Seems like someone’s not paying attention to their own damn laws,” he said. “This is bad, possibly very bad. We need answers.”

Deathmask waved a hand to the cobblestones.

“Then we follow the blood.”

The smeared tracks were easy enough to follow. Tarlak kept his eyes open for any sign of human life, but the market was home only to a few rats and buzzing flies. Surely if they moved closer to the residential districts they’d have better luck. The idea that a city of thousands could be dead was too mortifying to consider.

The market ended at a main street running north to south. The blood smears turned north.
So much blood.
Tarlak followed it, wincing at the pungent smell that assaulted his nose.

“That’s what I think it is, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I fear so.”

It took another minute of walking down the eerily quiet street before reaching a junction. The smell grew stronger, nearly overwhelming in its power. The blood smears turned left, and Tarlak’s fears were confirmed.

There had to be at least two hundred bodies piled atop one another in the center of the road. Those near the bottom were an indecipherable mess of gore and rot, while those at the top sprawled out, skin pale, eyes milky in death. A rickety cart was parked beside the pile, four bodies atop it waiting to be dumped. Several men stood beside the cart, working together to lift the corpses and toss them upon the pile. They wore cloths over their faces against the stench, but given how strong the reek was, Tarlak assumed it didn’t help much.

“Hey,” Tarlak shouted, giving the corpses a wide berth as he rushed around. “Hey, who did this? Who’s responsible for this?”

The men watched his approach with dead eyes. It gave Tarlak the chills.

“The angels,” one of them said. “How could you not know?”

“We only recently arrived,” Deathmask said. “What caused this? Why would angels massacre so many?”

The men clammed up, their eyes lingering on something behind Tarlak, and he felt his chills worsening. Leaving them to their work, he turned about to see an winged monster standing atop one of the nearby buildings, arms crossed over his chest. His skin was ashen, his robes dull, his breastplate the color of bone, his wings dark as ink. His lips parted to reveal broken teeth sharp as knives. It was an angel…but it wasn’t.

“Go about your work,” the angel said. “If you are new here, heed the laws of Ashhur, for they are now...”