Behemoth (Lost Civilizations: 5) by Vaughn Heppner

Author:Vaughn Heppner [Heppner, Vaughn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy
Published: 2011-05-17T22:00:00+00:00

-13-

Lod and Keros threaded through the greenery of the forest. The two moved past huge gopher and bdellium trees and slipped through walls of vines. The mountain warrior of Shur was in the lead. Keros often paused, listening and sniffing the air.

Lod was aware of Keros casting worried glances back at him. Lod stumbled too much. He flung sweat from his eyes. His foot just as often crashed down as stepped quietly. A silent snarl twisted his mouth. His eyes burned with fatigue and heat beat across his body. There was a madness upon him, and there was a haunted rage in his soul.

A damned spirit dwelled on him and wanted to dwell in him. Foul Nephilim. Foul necromancers. They used magic and beasts, and in their veins coursed diluted celestial blood. Their kind didn’t belong on the Earth.

Lod wheezed as he leaned against a tree and as sweat dripped from his beard. He dragged a forearm across his face. He had to concentrate. He had to keep his wits now that he neared Dagon’s camp. The damned spirit on his throat—for a wild instant, Lod wanted to claw out his throat, if that would free him from the pestilence of possession.

A callused hand pressed against his shoulder. “We’re near,” Keros whispered in his ear.

Whips cracked in the distance. There was the sound of hammering.

Lod straightened, and he drew his sword. He looked haggard, and he looked like an elemental force. Fierce determination burned in his blue eyes. “There is a way that seems right to a man,” he said, “but in the end it leads to his destruction.”

The Bolverk-forged blade was in Keros’s hand. He cast Lod a questioning look.

“Gog will never gain the Behemoth,” Lod said, his eyes shiny.

“You should rest,” said Keros.

“Rest?” asked Lod. “When I’m dead I’ll rest. Until then, I will plague the First Born and their brood. I will strike them down if I can or devour their hopes as they devour humanity. Come. Let us see the handiwork of the evil ones that we may prepare for their destruction.”

With a heavy tread, Lod brushed through the forest, his sword ready and his breathing labored. He pushed aside ferns, stumbled between thickets and grunted as he crouched behind a tall clump of reeds.

In a moment, Keros crouched beside him.

Lod squinted, his leathery features tight with anger.

“Look at all the stumps,” Keros said. “They’ve been busy.”

Two hundred paces separated Lod’s clump of reeds from a rugged log stockade. Many tree stumps and trampled ground lay between them. Several red-cloaked reavers patrolled from the top of the stockade. They marched about fifteen feet from the ground. Sunlight glinted from their bronze helmets and glinted from their spear-points. A thin column of smoke rose from within the stockade.

Lod cocked his head. The sounds of whipping and hammering seemed to come from behind the stockade.

“There,” whispered Keros, pointing.

A gate creaked open on the eastern side of the fort. They only saw part of the great log gate. An ox-drawn wagon soon appeared and then disappeared, hidden by the stockade.

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