The Crowned (The Blood and Brotherhood Saga, Book 6) (19 page)

Gritting her own teeth Sara knew she had to stick to the
plan, and the plan was to kill as few as possible and save all that could be
saved. But time was running out. Morning was coming, and the spread of her
alteration would have the Valdadorians leaping up to the walls within a short
time to feed upon their own defenders. Another generation, perhaps two, and no
humans would be left within the city. Time was running out, but if Sigrant had
fifty thousand men, Sara was not yet his equal.
Just a little more time.

* * * * *

Garret stood within what could only be described as a hell
of his own. All around him the enemy swarmed, and they came at him several
dozen at a time in hopes of tasting his blood. They leapt upon him like wild
dogs, biting and clawing as he stomped, pummeled, and slashed the apparently
unending wave of demonic enemies. He could not believe the relentlessness of
the creatures, so driven by their need to kill they did not give up no matter
how many of their kind he slaughtered. After some time they came from
everywhere, swarming from all sides and even raining down from above on
occasion.

Though he felt as if he had been in constant motion for
several hours, cutting and slashing at his enemies he turned to see the wall of
the city only a few yards behind him. The twisted men, infected by the unholy
disease carried by his brother’s wife, were a difficult breed to kill. Even
with crushed bones or removed limbs they thrashed upon the ground or rose again
to fight with unnatural desire to kill. Perhaps it was the killing that made
them stronger. Garret had no real way of knowing. What he did know was that if
they did not die, the demonic enemy would mean the end of Valdadore.

No matter how resilient the enemy was, Garret was the
better, and with the hours of constant butchery in such a small area the bodies
began to pile up. When the change came, he stood upon a mound of the dead,
seemingly telling the enemy that he would remain king even if he had to kill
them all himself.

One moment the creatures were behaving as they had from the
beginning, the next they did something beyond peculiar. As if Garret was
suddenly forgotten by the enemy, they suddenly shifted their attention and
turned on members of their own kind. Around him, more than a dozen men screamed
in horror as they were beset upon by their allies. The sound was blood-curdling,
and Garret stood frozen as the men were fed upon by their own. Then, as if the
incident had not happened at all, the creatures turned their focus back on the
king of Valdadore, which was no disappointment to the king. Chuckling and
hurling insults, Garret resumed his slaughter once more.

The odd alteration of behavior would happen several times
within the next half of an hour, but Garret rolled with the punches and was
only slightly caught off guard when the second wave of creatures arrived at the
walls to his city.

It was somewhere near dawn, Seth guessed, when Sigrant grew
weary of watching his preliminary attack fail. With the absence of light, Seth
watched the second wave of enemies come, even while still fighting the remnants
of the only slightly reduced first wave. These troops moved faster, much faster
than the previous wave. But that was not all that had Seth concerned. Instead,
it was those among the approaching wave of vampires that had an ethereal
umbilical cord that stretched across space and time into the heavens, where it
was fed by a god.

These were not just average vampires. Some of them had fed
upon many people, growing stronger than any of Seth’s troops, minus perhaps
Borrik. Others were blessed troops belonging to the foreign king that had been
changed on top of their original blessings. Seth had no idea what to expect
with this new wave, except that his troops would fail in holding the walls.

If he did not do something drastic, none would be left to
cheer the arrival of the dwarves when they arrived. Then it occurred to him. To
save many he could simply kill one! Reaching out with his god vision he sought
the most powerful vampire that came with the second wave, watching all around
the city for the result. With a slight tug Seth felt the power relinquish its
hold on the body, and felt the shiver climb his spine as the power rushed into
him. Even with the power’s euphoria-like effect, however, Seth found defeat in
the face of victory.

It had not worked as he intended. Siphoning the life of the
more powerful vampire did not simply kill the creature and release those it had
changed. Instead, so intertwined were the connections of their auras, that
siphoning the one, killed not only it but all those it had fed on. Not only
that, but any they had fed on died as well, and so on. It was a tragic learning
experience, and one that gave him fear for the future. He had planned on
siphoning Sara’s granny progeny to end her, as well as Sara herself, as best as
he was able, to try and return her to normal. Not all at once of course, but a
little at a time, as there was no way he could handle the amount of power she
contained in a single blow. But now, he feared that even if he siphoned a
little, the consequence would be the deaths of those who had sacrificed to make
her powerful. He needed another approach.

As the enemy neared the base of the walls, Seth expected
them to leap and bound up them like the previous wave was still doing. Without
time to spare he reached out again, and locating a suitable target he struck
the tainted man with a bolt of crackling and sizzling lightning. Watching the
surrounding fields with his vision of the gods, he was able to watch the aura
of the vampire depart to dissipate as it returned to the gods, but no others
followed suit. Instead, nearly two hundred of Sigrant’s soldiers’ auras altered
slightly and Seth knew that they had been cured.

So it was, that Seth gained understanding. The auras were
like vines upon a fence. They wrapped around one another and were intertwined
even down to the smallest levels. Pulling on one, pulled on them all, yet
cutting one off and ending its life spared those that remained. Though fate
again laughed in his face, as his revelry only lasted a moment.

Within seconds of the invaders being restored to their
former human selves, they were set upon by their own brethren to be fed upon
and altered once again. Within only a few moments every one of the restored
humans was upon their backs, unconscious from lack of blood, as once again
their auras began to slowly change.
That
, Seth decided, would have to
work for now.

Reaching out again and again in rapid succession, he
handpicked one target after another and struck them down as thousands of lesser
vampires from the first wave were restored to their former selves. The feeding
frenzy that ensued brought nearly every vampire from the first and second wave
back to the ground to join in on the feeding. It was a gruesome means, but it
was buying precious time.

Seth reached out and fed the immense power of the vampires
he had just collected into the woman he loved and hoped to save. Her power was
growing vast, and quickly. She was nearly ready.

* * * * *

Zorbin saw the light in the sky vanish rather abruptly and
neither he nor Linaya could fathom any reason for the change. Though he could
see the panic in the eyes of his charge, the Dwarven knight of Valdadore dared
not venture a guess as to the meaning of the newfound darkness. Instead he
focused on the task at hand, leaning low upon Xanth to decrease the wind on his
chest and face. Just a couple hours more and Valdadore would be within reach.

It was a surreal realization, really. Knowing that they
would be returning to the city they called home, yet uncertain of the condition
of the city or its inhabitants. For all Zorbin knew, though he would never
voice it to Linaya, was that the fires had went out because there was nothing
left to burn. If he were a man who feared the uncertain, such thoughts would
have unsettled the stout dwarf. Fortunately he cared not for guessing, instead
preferring to lay eyes upon the situation himself. It was thoughts such as
these that were filling Zorbin’s mind to occupy the time when he heard the
first rumblings.

At first it sounded strangely like someone grinding their
teeth and then grew louder and louder until there was a great cracking sound. Valdadore
would be in sight any minute, but not soon enough to discover what the sound
was. Again the sound came and with it the ground trembled slightly. Then, as if
they were lost souls carried upon the winds, shrieks and screams drifted to the
ears of the mounted dwarves and the wolves that bore them. With ears twitching
the wolves sprang forward at an increased rate of their own accord, as if on
the hunt for some unknown game. All there was for Zorbin to do was hold on to
Xanth and let his mount and friend guide him forward to his fate.

Seth had already killed more than he was comfortable with. He
had bought them hours of valuable time with minimal casualties, minus those his
own brother slew near the western gate. Sara was strong enough. He hoped. Her
aura encompassed an undefinable space, it was so large, and when she moved
within it, it swept along with her like a bloated swarm of insects called to
dinner. In comparison to Sigrant, she was his better, though just barely so at this
point. Given another hour or two she would be able to squash him easily enough,
but they did not have hours. Even now, vampires from within the city were
seeking the defensive wall for a meal of blood. If the defenders were fed upon
they would fall unconscious and all would be lost.

With his vision of the gods Seth watched the spread of the
vampirism disease in real time and watched as it spread, uncontrolled, outward
from the city’s center. Hours was too long. They needed to act now.

Shaking his head, his shoulders slumping, Seth knew that he
had to continue killing some of the greater vampires and tried to mentally
prepare himself for the task. Tracking Sara’s aura with his mind, he looked in
her direction.

“Sara, you must go now!” he yelled as loud as he was able,
assured that her superhuman hearing would be up to the task. It was odd really,
the speed of her reaction. He had barely finished the words, and her course
changed and she was halfway across the fields to Sigrant’s camp, almost as if
she moved so fast she had heard the entire command before it was completed. Was
there a point that speed surpassed time? Was it possible that making Sara
stronger could disrupt the flow of time and perhaps fate and destiny as well? The
thoughts were immense, as was Seth’s mental ability, but he dared not ponder
the possibilities, for the consequences were unknown to a mortal. Instead he
turned back to the task he loathed, and realized that things had changed.

Far below him, at the base of the wall, Seth watched the
vampires take up a new tactic. Thinking them insane, he watched as they
scratched and clawed at the stones of the wall, trails of blood staining the
stone where their fingers passed.

Though they ripped out their own finger nails in the task,
after many moments he watched as some of the vampires began gripping finger
holds created by their incessant clawing and scratching. Working furiously, the
monsters he inadvertently created began to scratch away the mortar that held
the stones of the wall together, and within minutes the first stones were being
removed from the wall.

All along the wall, the assault from without had ceased, the
invaders having turned their attention to the wall. From below, Seth watched as
some of the blessed among the enemy began to swell in power. Then came the
attack in earnest.

Below the Valdadorian defenders the enemy vanished in a
thick blanket of fog dredged up by magical means, and from the fog fire lanced
through the air to smash upon the ramparts where the meager defending force
ducked low to hide from the assault.

Seth saw it for what it was, of course. The attack was not
meant to destroy the defenders, just hold them at bay while the attackers
worked down below to tunnel through the wall. Seth grinned. Problem solved. No
one was dying. The walls were thick and had stood for centuries, and Sara was
fast and growing in power by the second. All would be over well before Sigrant’s
forces gained entry to the city.

With his mental abilities trained on the spread of vampirism
within the city, the attackers in their tunneling process, and Sara in the
distance, Seth watched the maelstrom of godly power around him. The gods had given
the power to the world but now they wanted it back. They waged war on one
another. Not openly, yet it was as obvious now as light or air. It was
everywhere, and mortals were the instrument through which the deed was
accomplished.

If the all-powerful immortal beings were the ones who pulled
all the strings that started the wars and led to the division of the peoples of
Thurr, perhaps one of them could stop it as well. Seth wondered if it was
possible to enlist another of the gods in this endeavor. If anything was to
gain their attention, it would be this day of darkness. A day where two titans
of mortals clashed, and one’s power was returned to the heavens. Perhaps he
would be given the opportunity to speak to one of them face to face.

Seth watched the two immense auras, hoping that at any
moment Sigrant’s would dissipate.

* * * * *

Sigrant saw her coming. She was still growing faster at an
alarming rate and just as he had suspected she was now his better. For the
first time in over a decade he saw no means to escape this encounter unharmed. At
least not alone.

Calling his harem, the only underlings he had that could
understand him, he watched them appear from all corners of the camp in an
instant. They were the ones who fed him power, his only direct vampire
descendants. None of them was his equal, but each of them was nearly so. Any
two combined would surpass him, for he only got a portion of the power they
each received, but he received power from each of them making the total of his
combined power more than any one of them alone.