Read God War for Free Online

against the bonelike tiling in a rising drumbeat of hate.
    Enlil pushed himself up, assuming a crouching position. Lightning ripped across the ceiling of the chamber, echoing with such fury that he could feel its pressure drum across his chest. Behind him, a blast of that wild electricity slammed against a stack of the cylindrical birthing pods and they burst into flame. Enlil felt the heat against his back as he watched the milling crowd of reborn Annunaki. Every eye was on him, and every pair of eyes showed the unrestrained fury that welled within. He had betrayed these Igigi, these slaves, betrayed them without a thought, casting them aside as if they meant nothing. But he was a god. Was this not his right?
    “Get back, damn you,” Enlil spit as the Igigi moved in on him. “I am your lord...your master...”
    Enlil’s words trailed off as another of the furious Igigi leaped at him, swiping at his face with a salmon-scaled hand that ended in a phalanx of razor-sharp claws. Each of the Annunaki bodies was subtly different, each with its own attributes, its own natural weapons. Enlil rolled aside as the clawed hand reached for his face, only to find he had stepped out of the path of one attack and straight into another. This Annunaki was a broad-shouldered male with skin a canary yellow freckled with brown spots like rust. The yellow-skinned figure cuffed Enlil’s ear with a savage punch, the blow so hard it made the overlord’s head ring. Then the creatures were following up on their attack, the yellow one driving his knee viciously at Enlil’s gut while the red-scaled one got his arms around Enlil’s throat from behind and snapped him backward.
    Enlil howled in agony as the knee struck his stomach. He was bent so far back by the one holding him that he couldn’t move with the blow, and so it seemed to rip through him in a paroxysm of straining muscles.
    The yellow-hued creature came at Enlil again, drawing his arm back in readiness for a brutal punch to the face. Enlil watched that blow rushing at him, timing the attack in his mind before rolling his shoulders. Enlil’s move served to shift his weight just slightly, but it was enough that he dropped beneath the nasty blow, leaving it to strike at the attacker who still held him from behind by the throat. His captor, the red-scaled Annunaki male, fell down in a flurry of limbs, releasing Enlil as he did so.
    Enlil fell, too, unable to keep his balance as he was drawn down by the creature that had held him. His left palm slapped against the tiled floor in a loud clap, and his bent knee brushed the surface of one of the water channels. Then he was up again, spinning back to his feet with the speed of thought.
    “I am your master,” he repeated as more of the reanimated Annunaki crowded toward him. “You will bow down before me.”
    Still close, the yellow-hued Annunaki pressed his attack on the traitorous overlord, lashing out with a high kick to Enlil’s jaw. The kick brushed against the
bottom of Enlil’s face, and he was driven up and back at the same time, plummeting down to the bonelike tiles once again in a swathe of billowing red cape.
    The yellow Annunaki took a step toward him to renew his attack, but at that moment another lightning strike rocked the high rafters of the room and something large hurtled down from overhead, a boxy shadow in the darkness. It was a seven-foot-long section of one of the catwalks, its surface curved and bevelled, with no railings to prevent a user from stepping off. Now it tumbled through the air, crashing toward the floor beneath.
    Enlil watched as the section of catwalk crashed down into the yellow figure’s back, slamming him hard across both shoulders and back of the head before he could even react. A shock wave reverberated through the room as the catwalk landed, chunks breaking away with the impact. The yellow figure dropped to the floor, moaning in agony as the catwalk pinned him in place. Blood leaked from the sides