Movement.
The valley floor wasalive.
Writhing, twisting, turning back upon itself.
It was the horde.
Thewholehorde, for the branch Balkazar knew was only a fragment of the true size. Of the multitude. And even from his distance, he could see the mutated and grotesque for what they really were... that there was an order in the chaos, ranking assigned to size. A swirling pattern visible only to one of the infected, one who belonged to the many, as Balkazar now belonged.
Despite the urge to surrender, to rejoin the mass of corrupted Anhur, something held him still. Frozen on the edge. Crouching in shadows, he watched. Trying to make sense of what he saw.
It was not a wasted effort.
In the heart of the twisting mass, something moved.
Something of a size that boggled his delicate mind, for it was simply impossible that such a thing could exist.
But there it sat.
In the heart of the Legion, at the bottom of a great pit worn into stone, a Deity held court. A mammoth that took a swing and in a single swipe, erased more infected than even Giaus had slaughtered. Jaws gaping wide, it snatched up any too slow to escape. Cannibalizing the dead and the slow, it feasted upon the army hopeless lost.
Thousands flooded in to fill the void.
Even through the rot, Balkazar understood two simple truths.
This army of infected was not the result of a single dynasty banishing dissenters to the wild—this wasgenerationsof exiled criminals. This was the result of incomprehensible arrogance bred in the Silver City, that assumed no responsibility for the instability fostered by the elite and their large harems that left countless males with nothing to lose. No prospects for a mate, no hope of a legacy.
No future.
And he knew, without a hint of hesitation or doubt, what would happen next. When such a beast caught wind of a certain perfumed cunt of the finest quality. A treacherous little whore who couldn’t help but drip for a monster, who’d betray Sinadim and present that gushing slit for a behemoth more titanic than her precious king.
Couldn’t be helped. It was, after all, her nature.
A sound shattered the moment. Altered the direction of falling raindrops for an instant as the wave caught up to itself.
Balkazar was thrown off his feet.
Flailing, right sight trying to scramble for purchase, he worked to right himself as the horde grew excited by the call of their master.
Groaning low at the back of his throat, Balkazar fought to stand. Terror of an unknown quality splintered through what remained of his soggy brain, the sort of fear that dictated what came next.
He did not join his kind.
He could not press on with the horde.
One blue eye looked back, to the where he’d come. That thing that kept him separate. Enslaved to the echo of the love he’d had for a one-eyed prince. For the king dressed in swirling, crackling flames of inky pitch. And the tiny helpless queen who bound them together with little more than the irresistible lure that wept between her legs.
Turning without conscious thought, the war chief hefted his bulk away. Back, he lumbered through the dregs of the passing splinter of infected, ignoring those too big to do more than glance off his shielded plow. Going straightthroughthe rest.
Never noticing the wetness soaking his front, that he’d lost his bladder at the mere existence of what commanded the Legion.
He was a relic with one last purpose.
Expendable in fulfilling his blood oath, that he might die for his prince. His relevance found not in breeding a queen of worth, or destroying the usurper who’d replaced him, but in a single, final act of devotion.
That he might lay down his worthless life for his prince.
15
