Wrath of Lions (38 page)

“Hush now,” he said with tenderness. “You have been strong this whole time, when you could have easily given up. Both of you. You must remain strong even now.”

Roland swallowed a gulp of bile, trying to force his heart to beat slower. The feel of Kaya’s breath against his neck was even more calming than Azariah’s embrace. He imagined his first night with her on the roof, and the few times they’d explored each other’s bodies in the dark of night while the rest of their troupe was sleeping. His frayed nerves unwound, and a seemingly unnatural relaxation came over him.

“Better?” asked Azariah.

“A little,” Roland answered.

“And you, Kaya?”

“I…I think I’ll be okay,” she said timidly.

“Good.” The Warden released them and walked toward the tree line from which the now dead man had emerged. “I am going to see where he came from,” he said. “Stay here. I will be back soon.”

“No,” said Roland, shaking his head. “No, we’re coming with you.”

“We are?” asked Kaya.

Azariah fumbled through the pouch at his waist, pulling out a handful of something Roland couldn’t see.

“If you insist on accompanying me,” he said, “then this will ensure you don’t do something to give us away.” He tossed whatever
was in his hand into the air. It tumbled down like bits of twinkling ash, and Azariah spoke a few incomprehensible words. The particles disappeared, and the air around the three of them stretched into a liquid sheen before retracting, as if snapping back into place. “There. We are hidden now, mostly. Only someone very close, and very attentive, will see us.”

“What was that?” asked Roland.

Azariah shrugged. “A magical barrier. It makes those within it…dim. It does nothing for sound, though, so do not stomp through the forest like a mule.”

“I didn’t know you knew magic…well, other than healing and other practical stuff.”

“A bit. Well, more than a bit, actually.” The Warden frowned. “When one spends a great amount of time with Jacob Eveningstar, one tends to learn a few tricks.”

Roland winced at the sound of Jacob’s name but said nothing.

Silently they made their way through the trees. Azariah saw quite well in the dark, as Wardens’ eyes were almost as discerning as elves’. They maneuvered over small hills and thick tangles of vines, and Roland prayed to Ashhur that the
snap
of branches under their feet would be drowned out by the cacophonic commotion of a million chirping insects.

Ahead was a red glow, which became more and more pronounced as they approached it. After a time, it seemed as if the forest were on fire. Azariah hushed them as the telltale noises of a military camp reached their ears. Roland obliged without question. From the idle chatter, to the crackle of fire, to the
clank
and
clink
of stone on metal, it sounded as if hundreds of people were somewhere out there.

Azariah led them to a coppice of thick undergrowth, then halted. Leaning up and over the twisted mesh of twigs and fallen limbs, he gestured for the other two to do the same. Roland and Kaya joined him, trying to rise up just high enough for the tops of their heads to clear the barrier.

Another glen lay before them, many times larger than the one with the stump. To the left, a few men wandered amid what seemed to be hundreds of horses, giving them water and changing the feed bags over their snouts. To the right was a massive pavilion, behind which stood even more horses. Between them, numbering far too many to count, were tents, most of them bordered by crackling cookfires. There were men everywhere, dressed much the same as the one Azariah had killed, along with, amazingly enough, the occasional elf. Roland could not guess at their numbers, but he knew there must be thousands.

For a moment, Roland felt as if he were reliving the time when Jacob, Azariah, Brienna, and himself had spied Uther Crestwell’s ghastly ceremony in the Tinderlands. Even the Warden’s expression was the same—dismayed and breathless. Azariah took a steadying breath and pulled them down into the cover of the thicket.

Kaya looked to the Warden with pleading eyes. “Can we go back now?” she whispered.

Azariah seemed like he couldn’t hear her. He simply stared at the ground, shaking his head.

Roland sidled up to his friend. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Azariah, please talk to us.”

The Warden lifted his gaze.

“They burned the ruined settlements we saw,” he whispered. “Karak and Jacob did not circle around us like I first thought. This force must have come from the north, and there are
thousands
of them. Even worse, it looks like the elves have sided with them.” Once more he shook his head. “There is no place for Celestia’s children in this conflict. They were to remain neutral.”

“What are you saying?” asked Roland.

There was a dire look in Azariah’s eyes that scared Roland to his core. Even Kaya noticed, inching closer to him and clutching his hand so tightly, it felt as if she’d crush it.

“All of Dezrel is against us,” Azariah said. “Enemies behind, enemies in front and above, possibly even below.” He glanced at the
glow above the thicket. “Let us return to camp. We must alert the others, and we must all hurry away.”

“How much of a chance do we have?” asked Kaya, her voice cracking.

“A chance of what?”

“Of crossing the bridge. Of reaching Mordeina.”

“Of not dying,” added Roland.

“Slight,” Azariah answered. He gave no other explanation. He simply took them both by the hand and led them out of the woods, away from the camping army, away from the death that awaited them all.

C
HAPTER

19

I
t was a sprawling machine of organized chaos, and Avila was the architect.

She sat astride her mount at the forefront of the vanguard, Integrity held out before her like an extension of her arm. Her charges obeyed every word that leapt from her mouth, holding back from the left, pushing in on the right, fastening ropes to the spires atop the twelve-foot wall surrounding the village—the same ineffectual barrier they’d encountered at nearly every settlement during their long campaign first to the north and then the west, circling around the lands dubbed Ker, where she had been forbidden to venture.

The arrows that fell from the sky were also familiar, crude bolts of wobbling wood with frayed bits of vulture feathers for fletching. Most dropped harmlessly to the parched earth, and those that did find purchase in flesh rarely sank deep. One thudded off Avila’s silver breastplate while she screamed commands to the right flank, reinforcing the notion that they were mere aggravations.

In this village, no one had emerged from behind the wall to drop to their knees in submission to Karak, as had happened at many
of the other small villages. Another change was that there was no clumsily constructed gate for them to storm. Instead, a heavy boulder had been rolled in front of the lone gap in the barricade. Her cheeks flushing with annoyance, she directed the vanguard to part in the center, allowing a trio of sturdy chargers to come through. Her archers fired just above the wall, keeping those on the other side from cutting the thick ropes that were slung around the timber spires, while soldiers fastened the ropes to the harness binding the three horses. When it was done, she gave the order, and the horsemaster lashed at the chargers. Hooves pounded the dusty ground, and the muscular beasts grunted with exertion. The wall creaked slightly, causing the horsemaster to push his pets all the harder, until a section of the wall cracked beneath the pressure. Timber splintered and fell as the chargers began galloping away, dragging the downed section with them.

Shouts rang out from inside the village as Avila sounded the battle cry, then kicked the sides of her mount and galloped through the gap. It was a sufficient breach, the width of at least ten men, which allowed ample room for the rest of the vanguard to follow her through. On entering, she was greeted by eight Wardens. The tall and elegant creatures lined up shoulder to shoulder, holding rudimentary shields, while those behind them—humans all—brandished polearms. She tugged back on the reins, her horse rearing up on its hind legs, while her men charged past her into the wall of wood. The humans with the polearms thrust between their protectors’ shields, impaling two soldiers through the shoulders and nicking the cheek of a third. Swords, maces, and axes began chopping with abandon, sending splinters into the air. An agonized bellow sounded as one of the Wardens had his hand severed above the wrist. Blood spewed from the stump, blinding one of her soldiers, giving a skinny, olive-skinned man the chance to spear him in the face with his pike.

More of her men streamed through the opening, only to be rushed from the right by a charging mob of at least thirty humans
and Wardens, each wielding basic bludgeons and stone axes as they shouted the name of their god. The two sides met in a flurry of hacks, slashes, and bashes, the anger and will of the defenders making up for the steel and skill of the attackers. Avila glanced at the red cliff behind her. The remainder of her unit waited on the Gods’ Road. She had assumed this tiny community would be as easy to defeat as the countless others they had obliterated on their journey, so she had only brought seventy men in the vanguard—ten horsemen, forty-five foot soldiers, and fifteen archers. Now it looked as if she might have to do the unthinkable: flee the village, scale the rise, and order more men to come to her aid.

She shook her head, anger boiling in her gut. That would be failure, and a Lord Commander could not fail.

Shrieking, she stormed ahead on her mount once more, entering the melee. She swung Integrity in measured arcs, bloodying her blade on the gathered mass of flesh. Something heavy thudded against her knee, drawing a sharp breath from her throat. The resulting throb rankled her all the more, and she hacked and slashed, her slender sword piercing flesh and chopping down to the bone.

The horsemen entered the village last, charging the town’s defenders with deliberate thrusts and hews. From their advantageous positions atop their steeds they avoided major injury while dishing out the maximum punishment. The tide turned, the Wardens and townspeople dying by the handful, their meager weapons of stone and wood no match for those fired in the Mount Hailen kilns. The foot soldiers formed a circle around the survivors, cutting down any who still lived.

Avila continued her breathless assault, every fiber of her being alight with energy. Someone grabbed her from behind, and instinctually she swiveled, lashing out with Integrity in a sideways cleave, thinking she was about to behead a Warden. Instead, her strike was parried with a powerful
clang
, the vibration traveling up her arm and stinging her shoulder. It was Malcolm, Darkfall clutched tightly
in both hands, his steel kissing hers. Avila glared as she pulled her sword back and flipped its hilt to her opposite hand, clenching and unclenching the fingers of her sword hand.

“The battle is done here, Lord Commander,” her lieutenant said. He backed his large stallion away and sheathed Darkfall on his back. “Please allow me to finish off the miscreants.”

“The battle is done when I
say
it is done, Captain,” she snapped at him. With that, she jerked the reins to the side, spinning her mount around. She took in the scene around her, the dead humans and Wardens who were sprawled out on the ground, their blood painting the sand red. A few of her charges moved among them, thrusting daggers through the eyes of those who still moaned. Though she had felt fear when the townspeople fought back so bravely, she found that fear to have been completely misplaced. As far as she could tell, they had lost only seven soldiers during the raid—the most casualties in any conflict so far, but according to the books Karak had given her, tomes from far-off worlds translated into the common tongue by the god, such losses were acceptable. She kicked her mount and tramped farther into the village.

The place was more an encampment than a true village, and it had been set up strangely: there was a single giant firepit in the center, and countless tents spun outward from it in a spiral. At the far end of the spiral was a large building surrounded by a myriad of raised garden beds. The building was most likely the granary, and given its sturdy construction, it was the one shelter in the village that offered the illusion of safety.

The afternoon sun shone down on her as she rode through the spiral of tents, gazing at the unsophisticated bedding and clothing that spilled from each. The sounds of the battle—if it could still be called a battle—grew quieter behind her. She heard sobs as the few remaining humans fell to their knees, begging uselessly for mercy. Avila grunted and rode onward. They had lost their chance when they’d refused her call to surrender.

The granary was made from crisscrossing logs held together by sturdy twine. There was a single door tall enough for a Warden to step through without stooping. Avila dismounted and grabbed the door’s handle, holding Integrity at the ready in case anyone inside meant to surprise her. It occurred to her for a moment that she should leave this task for her men, but she shrugged the notion aside. There was no challenge to be met here, at least not one she couldn’t handle.

The door was heavy, its wooden hinges swollen from the heat, so it took a few tugs to open it. She stepped inside, smelled the musty odor of old vegetables mixed with the sharp scent of pickling herbs. There were portholes in the ceiling, allowing sunlight to filter inside. To her right was a mountain of sacks presumably filled with grain and perhaps corn kernels; to her left piles of potatoes, carrots, pomegranates, turnips, and onions.

A strange noise reached her ears, almost like one of the feral cats that roamed the forests of Brent. She approached the bags of grain, her each deliberate footstep causing the boards to creak, and then stopped. Reaching out, she grabbed one of the sacks and pulled it down violently, lifting Integrity in a defensive position as she leapt backward.

The heavy sacks tumbled in an avalanche, and when the dust cleared, a young woman came into sight. She was wearing a smock that seemed to be made from the same material as the grain sacks, and she held something in her hands. Her hair was dark and quite curly, tied in a knot at the top of her head, and her skin tone was tanned almost to brownness. She had wide, pretty azure eyes, and thick rosebud lips. The woman trembled, edging away from Avila until her backside struck the mountain of sacks behind her.