Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One Page 4

Dead, but not for long. A bloody trail stretched behind him; he’d dragged himself this far before expiring.

  Death wasn’t a stranger, but Tokodin swallowed back bile and covered his mouth. With clothes sliced, ripped, and torn the man lay damned near naked. Scratches and teeth marks marred his skin, half of his right thigh gone, eaten.

  “By the gods, it’s true. The Colok ate him.”

  Tokodin glanced at his friend. “You’re good with your prayers, but you’d make a damned poor hunter. Colok have claws, they would’ve split him open like a sacrificial goat. The scratches, too small, man-sized.” He stretched his hand over scrapes down the man’s back, his fingers matched. “And these.” He pointed at teeth marks. “Think a baby Colok did this?”

  “You’re saying a cannibal?”

  “If the killer were starving, why leave the damned mule alive?” Could cannibals gain such a taste for human flesh? Campfire tales of cannibalism in the mountains frightened and educated postulants, but those were desperate people in dire straits. This looked like a hunt, but so much wasted meat—his stomach turned. He rolled the man over. “Ah, hells.”

  Loepus vomited too close for Tokodin’s taste, but his eyes didn’t leave the dead man’s face where dark bruises and blood surrounded empty sockets. What? How? The answer brought him to his feet.

  Something had sucked the eyes from the miner’s skull while still alive; there wouldn’t have been bruising if the man had been dead.

  “Get the hells out of here,” Tokodin whispered.

  They scrambled down the mountainside, sliding on their asses to reach the Omindi and ran to Guntar.

  “Miners, all dead. Not just dead, eaten, his eyes,” said Loepus, panting. and out of breath

  Tokodin added, “Not by Colok, either. Fresh kills.”

  Guntar squinted at him. “Not Colok, then what?”

  A damned fine question, and Shadows from the Stone danced on his tongue before he bit and swallowed them. Shadows couldn’t eat a man, could they? “Never heard of nothing like it. We need to get out of here.”

  They traveled fast, his thighs burning as they cleared a steep rise and turned downhill into a section of pass with sheer walls. They were at least halfway to the foothills and they’d make good time downhill, but as they rounded the next corner, his heart palpitated.

  Snow slide. Thigh-high with drifts above his head and stretching several hundred paces through a narrow gorge, the mountain pony wouldn’t make it through.

  Loepus glanced his way. “Screams ambush, don’t it. There any way around?”

  Only one came to mind. “There’s the Beroy Branch, but it’d add three candles and no promise it isn’t blocked too.”

  Both men glanced back to the priest who’d decide.

  Guntar bellowed over a gust of wind: “Monks to your shovels, priests in a circle. Slow and steady gets us through this.”

  Tokodin shoved his staff into its harness and yanked his shovel from his pack, digging as Loepus strapped on snow shoes and strode atop the drifts, watching the heights of the gorge.

  THE SNOW WAS a fine powder that collapsed back in on them as they dug, adding to the torment, but perseverance made headway.

  The sun was slipping behind the mountains to the west and the temperatures dropped fast with the growing shadow. Tokodin’s throat and lungs burned with every heaving, frozen breath. He wanted to collapse, but clear trail lay a dozen strides ahead. Muscles burned and shook with every step, and he dropped to his knees as he struggled onto bare stone with several monks following behind.

  Loepus slapped him on the back. “We’re almost out of here.”

  Guntar and the remaining priests entered the canyon of snow.

  A bellowing roar louder than a bull elk’s call and far more terrifying ripped his sense of accomplishment to shreds; Tokodin had never heard a Colok so close.

  Ambush.

  The pony’s shrill whinny brought him to his feet. A boulder crushed a priest’s chest at the back of the party, burying him in the deep snow. Lightning answered a priest’s prayer, a series of flashes striking the walls of the Omindi with pulsing thunder. The deadly energies crackled in a terrifying display, but the attack was too slow. The enemy no longer hid in the nooks and crannies the lightning sought; Colok leaped through the air, landing in the midst of the holy men.

  The bear-like creatures were over eight feet tall and wore bits and pieces of armor covering portions of their striped and whorled fur. They were powerful, lithe, and the snow didn’t slow them, while the priests slipped and slid to find their footing. Clubs, spears, and pole-axes thrust and whirled in the beasts’ powerful hands. Blood sprayed, and the holy fell screaming.

  Guntar yanked his mount’s reins, an able rider, but the pony reared and spun with terrified eyes. If the priest steadied his mount, he’d be able to focus his prayers; hope remained, but the pony went wild, and only the leather straps kept Guntar in his saddle. Monks and priests didn’t lend the bearer a hand, they fought for their lives.

  Tokodin stared at the scene, dumbstruck by fear and exhaustion. Courage and duty didn’t drive him to take the Oath of the Guardsman, a few extra coins and a roll of the dice had. Instinct begged him to stay on open ground and run; reason told him hope rode a pony, hope for them, and everyone at the Crack.

  His legs drove him into the ambush. A rock twisted under his ankle and he plowed into a drift face first. He scrambled to his feet and brushed freezing snow from his cheeks and nose. With a duck and dodge, he slid between two Colok, collided with a priest and stumbled, snatching the pony’s reins to keep his feet.

  The critter reared, its hooves missing his face by a finger. He yanked the animal’s head to its chest, and they spun in an uncontrolled circle, threatening to drag them both to the ground, but man and pony kept their feet. It was enough.

  Lightning crackled from Guntar’s hand, striking a Colok square in the chest. The creature blew back from the thunderous force, opening a hole in the wall of battle.

  Tokodin planted his feet and steadied the pony best he could, gauging the battle from the eye. Loepus held his ground, but of those on their feet, he was the exception. Another bolt of lightning screamed into the battle, saving a priest’s life, but for how long?

  Chickens with their heads cut off, standing, fighting, but dead all the same. Hope deserted him. Everything was backward. The bearer protected them when they were his escort. His message must reach Istinjoln or an enemy he couldn’t fathom would slaughter Meliu and everyone at the Crack.

  Tokodin grabbed Guntar’s arm and yelled. “Ride! Ride out of here!” Guntar’s infuriated eyes bore into him. Surrender and flight weren’t in the man’s nature, but Tokodin matched his gaze. “Go! Or they’re all dead!”

  A moment passed, time enough for the mission to overpower the man’s temper. Guntar nodded and spurred the pony.

  Lightning flashed as he drove through the fray, but Loepus lay knocked to the ground, freeing a beast to attack. The Colok struck Guntar in the chest with a club, throwing man and mount to the ground, the pony’s shriek echoing as it slid on its side into the snow. Another blow hit Guntar’s back.

  Tokodin focused his mind and screamed a prayer; fire raged, enveloping the monster’s head, searing the Colok, and its club swung wide.

  The creature dove into a drift to quench the flames, giving the pony time to scramble to its feet. Guntar clutched the animal’s neck and mane as it whinnied and bolted, leaping from the vestiges of deep snow to run free. The pony’s clopping hooves meant Meliu might live.

  Tokodin watched the rider with pride before pain erupted in his left shoulder. He spun and collapsed into a boulder. A Colok brandishing a club the size of a small tree stalked toward him through trampled, blood-stained snow. Howls, explosions, and screams echoed, but for Tokodin the moment froze in time. Saliva flowed over yellow fangs set in a black bear snout, and bare skin pulsed red beneath deep-set yellow eyes, a terrifying trait men called the blood rage.

  He pr
ayed for fire, but the pounding pain in his shoulder fractured his focus, leaving him bereft of the power of the gods. He drove his back into the boulder, pushing, struggling to regain his feet, but snow, ice, and a ruined shoulder felled him.

  “Loepus.” No one could hear such a pathetic cry.

  Screams and intermittent explosions of a prayer’s might echoed between gorge walls, but he abandoned hope. Exhaustion and the excruciating pain in his shoulder defeated any chance of powerful prayer. His doom strode to him at its leisure, testing the heft of its cudgel and licking its fangs with a bestial smile.

  Loepus leaped to his side, a prayer weaving fire between his hands. Flames seared the creature, patches of fur turning to a cloud of reek.

  Tokodin tried to smile, but his hope was brief, as insubstantial as the warmth of a kiss on a winter’s day.

  A glaive’s strike came from the corner of his eye and left his friend of fifteen years standing without a head. Blood splattered Tokodin’s face and robes, and he vomited through his pain as Loepus crumpled into a headless heap.

  Tokodin fought for breath, retching, spitting, coughing, and by the time he regained control of his body the last echoes of battle had faded. The Colok who broke his shoulder rolled in the snow, snuffing its smoldering fur, and in the distance a pony whinnied. He wished Guntar well. If the bearer got his message to Istinjoln, it earned Tokodin’s soul favor with the gods as he strode the Road of Living Stars in search of the heavens.

  He slumped against the boulder, staring at the blood-and-filth-soaked snow between his legs. The Colok approached with heavy steps crunching snow, the creature’s black claws digging ice and stone for traction. Tokodin refused to lock eyes with his death.

  The silence of the Omindi Pass meant defeat. He muttered a prayer under his breath, but no power came, his prayer beseeched a merciful death.

  A Colok growled, and hidden in the reverberations of the snarl he imagined the word “weakling,” and at this, the last moment of his life, denying the accusation was impossible.

  The glaive tapped beneath his chin, and he felt blood trickle, pooling in his jugular notch.

  The beast growled, long and guttural… trying to speak? He didn’t understand until:

  “Choerkin.”

  The word hid in the back of the beast’s snarl, easy to pass off as his imagination, but the impression was too strong. Why the Twelve Hells did the beast speak of Clan Choerkin?

  The blade slid from his throat, and a great paw grabbed his robes. The Colok lifted and flung him over a shoulder, pain ripping through his torso. He screamed. His heart pounded slow in his chest and he grew faint. Then, darkness.

  4

  THIRD SON OF THE SECOND SON

  Upon the Creation of the World, the First Dragons cast their seed

  in the light of a Sun and a Thousand Suns,

  beneath the Moon and a Thousand Moons,

  on a World and a Thousand Worlds.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Seventeen Days to the Eve of Snows

  The body of Ivin Choerkin’s mother lay reposed in the burning logs of the great hearth’s morning fire, her golden hair and pale skin untouched by flame, flawless in all the ways only a memory achieved perfection. It had been twelve years since Peneluple’s soul strode the Road of Living Stars and her body turned to ash on Pyre Rock, and still the images haunted his wakened eyes.

  Ivin figured it was a sign of weakness, a flaw that an old pain could still bring sorrow, but some days, her vision didn’t force him to fight tears. On rare days like today he could gaze upon her face in the fire, and if not smile, at least recall some pleasant memory. Hints of lilac amidst the musk of her perfume, imported from the Crown Islands of the Luxuns, cracked his lips with a smile this morning, but he knew not to linger long else sorrow would follow.

  He shut his lids and took a breath to dissolve the illusions, and trained his gaze elsewhere when again they opened.

  The great hall of Herald’s Keep stood fifty paces long and thirty wide, capable of entertaining great parties beneath hand-hewn beams of a girth to have served as masts on mighty ships. Seven candelabras hung from the ceiling, great oak wheels carved with fanciful hunting scenes, but dust covered their candles and hoods since the lady of the tower strode the Road of Living Stars. Light here was no longer to accentuate detailed moldings and other millwork, it was for heat; any beauty hid in shadow.

  His father sat at the end of an oak table suited to seat thirty, but today there were only three, the old man and two of his boys. Lord Kotin squinted as he perused a vellum scroll, shifting it in his fingers as he read by the dim light of the hall’s hearth, but any message from Kaludor these days was worthy of strained eyes.

  Ivin asked, “Any helpful word?”

  Kotin might as well have been an island away. Ivin glanced past the hearth and its roaring fire to his brother, Rikis, who sat hunched and silent. “You’ve lost your tongue as well?”

  Rikis snorted and smirked, dipped a spoon in his stew without a word. The eldest son wasn’t just the spitting image of their father, with dark eyes and unkempt beard, he’d spent his entire life perfecting the same gnarled attitude.

  Ivin fidgeted in his seat, gazed at the great hall’s ceiling, and drummed his fingers on the table. It was his day to be off this rock of an island, but he was as far from the docks as he could get without climbing the highest tower of Herald’s Watch. And if that damned note pertained to him—

  Vellum crumpled louder than the crackle of the fire, and Ivin’s eyes drifted back to his father.

  Kotin said, “Burn this damned thing.” The balled scroll sailed through the air, hitting a bumbling scullery boy square in the nose.

  Joslin scrambled under a chair for the message like a kitten for a ball of string and bounced to his feet with prize in hand. “Aye, my lord.” A boy of ten, whose parents both worked in the kitchens of the main keep, he was used to the Choerkin lord and his tempers.

  Ivin grinned. “Don’t punish the boy for another man’s words. Is there trouble at the Fost?”

  Kotin snarled through his beard, his feet rocking the table as he kicked them up for repose. “A man might as well yap with an oracle, if you want to take blind shots at interpreting blather. No word on help from Istinjoln, not sure if the messages aren’t reaching the lord priest, or if they’re gouging our eyes. Godsdamned lord priest’s always got his nuts in a clamp over somethin’ we done or said. A score of souls might well walk the stars with him dragging his toes.”

  They’d gotten word of a cave-in at the Ihomjo mine five days past, trapping at least twenty miners. In times past the priests of Istinjoln were quick to help, but the Ihomjo was a new and rich vein of gold on ground Istinjoln claimed holy. By both tradition and law, the claim was dubious; if nearby ruins ever belonged to the church they were centuries removed from use. A legitimate claim would’ve given mining rights to the church, or at least, they’d have been due a share of gold, but the Choerkin denied the claim outright and reaped the benefits of taxes. There was no doubt in Ivin’s mind why the lord priest ignored their demands, it was one part pride, and one part greed. Lord Priest Ulrikt would dance around every excuse to make a point.

  “If you’d listened to me and had the miners pay a tiny stipend to ease the egos in Istinjoln, we might save those men.”

  Kotin’s right eye squinted with a glare that made Ivin swallow. “Lovar heads the Clan Choerkin, not me.”

  “Your brother, and he listens to you.”

  “Your uncle, and he makes his mind on clan matters without my word or yours. All the best, on the latter.”

  “A failing of both brothers, never listening.”

  Rikis guffawed but choked his humor back as the other men stared. “My pardons, choked on a tater in my stew.”

  Kotin’s eyes returned to his youngest boy with a smug smile. “It’s thinking like yours that got us here, boy. It’s the Choerkin who command these lands and tolerate the church’s holdings, not
the other way ‘round. I’ll take orders from the gods when I’m good and dead, not a flicker before. Every time we loosen the reins the further those holies stray.”

  “Everyone knows who rules, but whether we rule with an open hand or a balled fist is our choice. The price of peace is generosity, and the price of gold is blood.” Ivin knew those last words were a mistake before they finished from his tongue; a religious quote from the Book of Leds would set a fire, not put one out. It didn’t help one spit that the book specialized in how a mortal’s soul earned its way into the hells.

  “You’d see your old man to the Hoarder’s Hell, would you? The price of letting your enemy regain his feet is steel in the belly. Fairness and blood, what the hells does a boy know of these things?” His face turned red through his beard as he laughed. Kotin snatched the goblet in front of him to find it empty. He shot a glare at Joslin and the youngster scrambled to refill. “Any further wise words for your poor deaf father before you sail?”

  Ivin’s cheeks burned, and he stood, the feet of his chair squawking on the maple floor. He kept his voice flat, but his words held an edge. “I’ll head for Skywatch to consult with the oracle.”

  “Breaking bones with that whore-witch? I forbid it!”

  “I sail for Kaludor to ride with the Estertok Wardens, by your biddings, and you forbid me the oracle of the gods?” Ivin met his father’s wide-eyed snarl the best he could, then turned to leave. He reached the door and snagged his heavy cloak, wrapping the bearskin over his shoulders as he wandered into the hall.

  Pounding steps echoed in pursuit behind him and Ivin hurried to the tower’s exit. He hadn’t planned on breaking bones with the old priestess before traveling north, but he sure as hells was going to now.

  Winds whipped the door from his grip and slapped icy rain in his face as he stepped from Herald’s Keep. He squinted into the tempest as he pulled his hood tight to his face and descended granite steps to the cobbled street where a cart rattled past. It was petty and childish, and he’d feel guilty later, but he left the tower door open and predicted the count: One, two, three.