“Torch the trees!” he cried out repeatedly as he laid about him with his sword, and in moments, men not in the forefront of the fighting began throwing their torches into the woods and snatching up those which had been dropped and tossing them, as well.
With so many torches soaked in pitch flung into the woods and undergrowth, the flames began to spread despite the dampness, and it gave them light by which to see. At the same time, it provided an unexpected bonus. The undead burned.
With all their bodily fluids long since dried up, the corpses caught ire like kindling. Despite that, they kept on coming, impervious to pain, burning as they walked. Men hacked away at flaming bodies that advanced upon them, but inevitably, the corpses succumbed to the fire and collapsed to the ground.
However, they were not the only ones who fell.
Aedan saw many bodies lying on the ground, and among the burning or dismembered and still writhing corpses of the undead were many of the troops.
Some were badly wounded, others had been slain, and dismembered corpses gnawed at many of them.
Those still alive but too injured to move screamed horribly as the flames reached them, but there was nothing to be done. There was no time or opportunity to pull them back to safety, for there was no safe ground anywhere. The formation of the troops broke up into a wild melee. The undead kept pressing forward, rank upon rank, and the soldiers of the Army of Anuire hacked away at them like men pos sessed.
Aedan fought his way to Michael’s side, with Sylvanna and the others close behind him. They tried to form a protective ring about the emperor, but Michael was not cooperating. He did not remain still for an instant, turning his horse this way and that as the animal reared and plunged through the grisly ranks as flame and smoke rose all around them.
Then Aedan felt a strong wind come up behind him, and as he felt it plucking at his clothes, he heard Gylvain’s voice within his mind.
“Futhark has opened a portal ahead,” he said. “The front ranks are passing through. Get the emperor and bring him back to thefront while the rearguardfights a holding action!”
The wind passed on, circling the fighting, fanning the flames away from the main body of the troops and blowing them back at the undead.
“Sire!” Aedan cried out. “We have a portal! Hurry, Sire, come quickly!”
“Not until the troops are through!” Michael shouted back.
“Sire! For Haelyn’s sake, come on!, A number of the men around them heard the exchange and shouted out for Michael to go back.
Within moments, the cry was taken up in unison by everyone around them until the firelit night reverberated with the shouts.
“Roele back! Roele back!”
But before he could respond to the entreaties of his troops, disaster struck. As Aedan watched, horrified, Michael’s horse reared up, striking out at several advancing corpses with its hooves, and one of them plunged a spear into the animal’s belly. The horse gave out a shrill, whinnying cry of pain and went down hard. Michael tumbled from the saddle.
“No!” Aedan shouted, urging his mount forward, but several walking corpses blocked his way. He chopped at them frantically with his blade, trying to reach the emperor. The troops fighting closest to him saw it too, and the men surged forward, heedless of their own safety as they tried to reach him. But already Michael was encircled by at least a dozen of the undead, and Aedan could catch no glimpse of him as he desperately fought to reach him.
Suddenly, one of the undead near Michael was brought down, and then another literally went flying, hurled through the air with astonishing force.
Another one went down, and another, and bodies were flying everywhere.
Aedan reached Michael, who like a dervish lay about him with his blade, eyes wide, lips pulled back in a grimace of bestial rage, blood pouring from several wounds. He had unleashed his blood power of divine wrath, and Aedan knew there could be no reasoning with him till it was over.
It was beyond control, and in this godlike state of fearsome rage and bloodlust, Michael would smite friend and foe alike. The episode would not last long, for it called upon all the resources of the body, and when it had passed, it would leave him so exhausted he could barely move. But while he was caught in the grip of this overwhelming power, Michael was like an indiscriminate juggernaut of death, and Aedan did not dare approach him.
“Stay back!” he shouted to Sylvanna as she started to the emperor’s aid.
She glanced at him, startled, then realized what had occurred when she saw Michael laying waste to the undead around him, snarling and growg like a cornered animal, oblivious of his wounds.
Among all the powers that had passed down to the blooded from the old gods, divine wrath was the rarest and most dangerous, for once it was unleashed, there was no stopping it until it ran its course. Those who had it used it only as a last resort, and only in the most dire extremities because it was a power that possessed its wielder absolutely, releasing the feral beast within and magnifying it many times. It turned a human into a raging berserker incapable of rational thought or self-control, bent only on mayhem and survival.
Blood powers were not a certain thing. It was known which hereditary blood abilities ran within each line, but there was no way of predicting which ones would be inherited by any given offspring. The potential for all the blood abilities that ran within the line was there, but some remained latent, to be passed on and perhaps manifested by the succeeding generation.
