For a moment, nothing happened. Then the wall he stood on rattled with the turning of winches, as the portcullis was raised. A crowd of thousands rushed the opening, some squirming under the portcullis even before its teeth were a foot off the ground. Up the street, enemy soldiers had already engaged the rear of the crowd, cutting down the slowest while driving the panicked masses before them. Soon there was a bottleneck of people struggling through the gate. Those in the front of the mob couldn’t move fast enough to keep up with the weight of the crowd crushing them from behind.
Another fireball arced down from the sky, this one aimed directly at the gate. Gil redirected his shield at the last moment. The blazing missile exploded above him, scorching the air. The recoil sent him hurling backward, slamming into the stone merlon behind him. Before he could recover, another fire strike was already inbound.
The Khar mages weren’t aiming at the gate, he realized. They were targeting him.
Picking himself up, he raised the talisman over his head.
“Vergis!” he shouted.
Rylan staggered over to Ashra, catching her in his arms. He turned her away from the sight of her father’s smoldering body, cradling her against him as she sobbed into his chest, her whole body shaking. Tears gathered in his own eyes. He had seen too many good people die. Too much horror, too much of it committed by himself.
“Move back,” the unchained mage commanded.
The rest of Shiro’s entourage backed away, leaving Rylan alone with Ashra in the center of a new, expanding ring. They were preparing to kill him, he realized. To immolate him the way they had just executed the Sultan. Only, it wasn’t just him they intended to kill. They had left Ashra with him in the center of the circle.
He shoved her away from him as hard as he could, propelling her toward the outside of the ring. But the people there caught her and pushed her right back to him. Ashra fell to the ground at his feet, clutching her knees against her. Raw panic shot through every nerve in Rylan’s body.
“No, not her!” he yelled, moving between Ashra and Shiro’s mages. “She’s done nothing! Please!”
The Warlord stared at him. Then he turned his back. Removing a pair of black leather gloves from within the layers of his robe, he wriggled his hands into them as he strode away from the circle.
Rylan took a step toward the unchained mage, throwing his hands up. “Please! All she wants is to go back!” The gray-haired man stared at him expressionlessly. Desperate, Rylan called after Shiro, “Take her back!”
The Warlord paused. He looked at Rylan.
“No,” he uttered.
All the strength left him, all at once. He dropped down beside Ashra, trembling in fear, tears gathering in his eyes. He wrapped his arms around her as she curled tight into a ball on his lap, her shoulders quaking. The chain fixed to the shackle on her wrist trailed across the ground, the empty band lying next to his hand. To Rylan, there was something symbolic and sad about that image. She shouldn’t have to die like this. Not like this. Not alone.
She didn’t have to, he realized.
He scooped up Ashra’s chain from the ground and snapped the empty band around his own wrist.
He gasped, suddenly filled with a bottomless comfort. He shivered and closed his eyes, basking in a flood of compassion and warmth. The force of it swept him away, and suddenly he was adrift, floating on a calm, wide sea of peace. And Ashra was there, riding the current beside him, accepting him, welcoming him in. He was content. Neither one of them would have to die alone.
And then a new sensation woke within him: a new power that coursed into him through the link, filling him completely. When he recognized it, he quivered with excitement and hope. It was Ashra’s connection to the magic field; she was unshielded. And, through the link, her power was his to command. All he had to do was take it.
The unchained mage raised his hand, eyes narrowing in concentration.
Rylan reacted. He struck out with every drop of power he could summon through the link. The Khar mage spun away, fanning blood everywhere. The knife-sharp blast of air that sliced him in half continued past him, cutting down others gathered behind him. Some struggled to rise, but Rylan lashed out again with Ashra’s power, and this time he expanded the strike to encompass the entire ring of people that surrounded them. Blood and bodies collected in the street.
Panting, he fixed his gaze on the only man left standing.
The Warlord regarded him with a smoldering glare. Almost, Rylan thought he saw a smile. Then Shiro’s lips moved, uttering a single word:
“Nachiro.”
Rylan winced as an invisible knife stabbed him in the chest and started tearing him open. The pain buckled his knees, driving him to the ground and wrenching a cry from his lips. It was like something clawing and biting its way into him, burrowing through his ribcage. It wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs were on fire, his mouth filling with blood. Frantic, he lashed out at the spell with Ashra’s magic, but the Word wasn’t his to command. It was unstoppable, relentless
Ashra let out a raw shriek, the most painful noise he’d ever heard.
He rolled over onto his back, struggling against the spell, gasping and scrabbling for a few more seconds of life. It didn’t do any good. The pain undid him, ripping him apart. He didn’t have the breath to scream.
Vaguely, he heard Ashra sobbing. Through the link, she could feel everything he felt. And he could feel her pain as if it were his own, her horror at watching him wheeze his last gasps beside her on the ground.
And it wasn’t just Ashra’s pain he felt. The whole of the community was reacting to his death, a collective outcry of sorrow and dismay. As the world darkened and his consciousness faded, Rylan experienced the sensation of drifting away, drifting toward something bigger, something aware. He melted into it, becoming one with it.
He entered the Unity.
And suddenly, he knew.
The Khar were not their enemy.
They were a people enslaved by Shiro. An entire society, imprisoned for thousands of years and compelled to serve a single demon. The same demon who stood glowering above him, a silver bracelet glowing from his wrist. It was that artifact that controlled them all: the `san. Whoever controlled the A’isan controlled the Empire.
And that was the answer.
Rylan used the last of his strength to pass control of the link back to Ashra.
She struck out ruthlessly at Shiro, launching a razor-sharp gash of air that sliced across his neck. Blood gushed in jets from the opening in his throat, and the Warlord sank to his knees with a look of shock on his face.
Ashra struck again, cleaving his head off.
Rylan felt the Warlord’s death through the link: an instant of startled fury that lasted less than a heartbeat. And then the collective outcry and confusion of an entire civilization suddenly stripped of purpose. Rylan smiled, filled with a boundless sense of relief. He kept that smile on his lips as he faded from the world.
“Don’t!” Ashra cried.
He felt her hands on him. Then a shocking wave of heat tunneled into him, attacking and dismantling the Word of Command. Rylan stared up at her as his breath returned to his chest. He lay gasping on the ground, feeling his flesh knitting back together, straining to understand what had just occurred.
“How…?” he wheezed.
Ashra shook her head, her eyes moist. She held up her arm. On her wrist was the A’isan, shimmering with argent power.
“They told me how,” she whispered. Holding his eyes, she unclasped the glowing band and released it from her arm. With a trembling hand, she offered it to him.
“They want you to have it,” she told him in a small voice.
“Me?” he whispered. He didn’t understand.
But then it dawned on him: they didn’t want him. They wanted Keio Matu. It was a wise choice. He accepted the band from her and lay still, just holding it for a moment, rotating the silver manacle, letting it catch t
he light. It felt soft, like satin. Not like any metal he had ever felt. And it was warm, almost as though it were a living, breathing thing with its own vitality. It pulsed in response to his touch, as though urging him to put it on.
He didn’t want to.
The sound of a distant explosion rattled the street. His brothers and sisters were still obeying the last command of their Warlord, still calling down fire strikes upon the palace. The sound rocked his bones. More people were dying.
They didn’t have to. He could stop it, stop the entire war. All he had to do was put on the A’isan. But if he put it on, he might never be able to take it off. He glanced helplessly at Ashra. She looked back at him with tenderness and compassion in her eyes. She understood what he was struggling with. At every level.
“Go ahead,” she urged. “It was meant for you.”
Rylan knew she was right.
He snapped it on.
Gil stood alone before the palace gate, three pairs of Khar mages stalking up the center of the street toward him with purposeful strides. Behind them came an entire assault force. He was the only thing between them and the gate, and Gil knew he wouldn’t be enough.
All around him, the city burned. A block away, the trees lining the street were ablaze. Beyond them, fires gnawed at a row of houses. The outer walls still stood, but the flames had engulfed the insides and could be seen licking out the windows and devouring the rooftops. Burning embers showered the street, drifting down like hellish snow.
The Khar mages stopped yet twenty paces from him and just stood there, one pair ahead of the others. The man facing him had a pale gray face and silver hair. He was lashed to a flaxen-haired woman of the Kingdoms. They both stood regarding him with emotionless faces that masked their intentions. The robes they wore were the same as all the others, and yet they carried themselves differently, as though they were officers, or even nobility.
The two exchanged glances. Then, linking hands, they approached him warily. Gil stood his ground, unsure of what to do. With the talisman in his hands, he could hold his own against the six of them together. But he couldn’t defend against the army behind them. If they wanted to take him out, there was nothing stopping them. He kept his weapon raised and ready, shifting his weight over his feet.
The pair of mages halted only paces away. The man was younger than he’d thought, perhaps his own age. If it wasn’t for the gray skin that made him look like a cadaver, he might have been handsome. The woman he was chained to clung to his arm, looking just as fearful as Gil felt.
The man inclined his head stiffly. “We are here at the command of our Warlord,” he said. “To offer our surrender.”
Gil’s jaw went slack in shock, Thar’gon sinking to his side. He glanced behind the two mages at the size of the force behind them, wondering if the man’s words were just a taunt. Their mages outnumbered his, and their fire strikes had already breached the palace walls. In all ways that mattered, they had already won.
He asked skeptically. “Why would you surrender?”
“Because that is the order.”
Which made no sense. Gil shook his head, struggling to understand what was happening.
Ahead, the lines of soldiers parted to admit another pair of chained mages through their ranks. At first, Gil was so shaken by the gray man’s offer that he didn’t pay much attention to the new pair. But then he noticed all the soldiers bowing their heads and backing away diffidently as the man and woman passed. The gray-faced mage in front of him at last stepped aside, allowing him a good look at the two who approached.
He almost dropped his weapon.
The sight of Rylan and Ashra, chained together, made his mouth go dry.
They stopped in front of him.
Ashra gave him a weak smile. Her cheeks were no longer wet with tears. She looked renewed. Invigorated. Her raven hair fluttered before her face, played out by a breath of smoke-fed air. Beside her, Rylan stood with a strength of presence he’d never had before. He wore a gleaming silver band on his arm that radiated power in visible waves. He stared at Gil a long, silent minute before finally acknowledging him with a nod.
Gil looked back and forth between the two of them, wondering if he’d lost his mind. “What’s going on?” he asked gruffly.
It was Ashra who answered him. “We killed the Warlord. Rylan replaced him.”
Gil glanced at the gleaming band on Rylan’s arm. Then his eyes shot back to the man’s face. “You replaced him?” he echoed, licking his dry lips.
“For now,” Rylan clarified. He shrugged casually. “Until the Empress decides otherwise.”
Gil didn’t know what to make of that. It was too much to digest, all at once. He decided to take it step by step, one thing at a time. Address the most fundamental questions first. Breathing a long, steadying breath, he asked Rylan, “So what are your intentions?”
Rylan glanced behind him at the gathered army. “I’ve ordered a withdrawal from this city,” he replied evenly. “And from this continent.”
Gil nodded, his mind still reeling. He fumbled for the next question. But the sound of a scuffing noise broke him off from his thoughts. Turning around, he looked back to find the Prime Warden standing behind him, her face looking haunted. She drew up at his side and took his arm.
Naia considered Rylan and Ashra with a cautious gaze. After moments, she asked, “When will they be back, Rylan?” She stared intensely into his face, waiting for a reply
Rylan blinked. Then he looked at her. “I don’t know,” he answered, his eyes distant. “Their Warlord was a demon. The invasion was his inception. As for the Empress… I can’t speak for her, but I hope to convince her otherwise.”
Upon hearing his words, Naia’s frown deepened. She let go of Gil’s arm, a grave expression on her face. “You’re going with them? Why?”
Rylan shrugged. “Because my daughter is with them.” He lifted his arm with its gleaming silver band. “And they need me,” he said with a slight, whimsical smile. He glanced at Ashra, looking at her fondly. He kissed her cheek.
Rylan turned to Gil. “Here,” he said. “She belongs with you.”
He reached out and released the band from Ashra’s arm. Her eyes opened wide, and she gasped. She glanced at Rylan, then stared down at her naked arm. Her expression slowly changed, evolving from disbelief into wonder before collapsing into sorrow. She took a step back and stumbled away, careening into Naia’s arms. She clung fiercely to the Prime Warden, sobbing into her shoulder.
Gil whirled back to Rylan, anger chewing his bones. “If you’re going to release her, then release her mind! Otherwise, it’s just cruelty.”
Rylan smiled. “She’ll be fine,” he assured him. “She just lost her father, and she’s been through a lot. But her mind is hers, and hers alone.”
With that, he unhooked the band that had held Ashra’s chain from his own arm, letting it fall to the ground. He stared down at it, a saddened look on his face. Then he nodded, as if in answer to an unspoken question. Breathing a sigh, he turned and walked back the way he had come.
“Rylan!” Naia cried.
He stopped and looked back at her.
“Don’t go!” she urged, taking a step toward him. “You’re not one of them. Please, Rylan. Try to remember who you are!”
Rylan smiled back at her, the lights of the fires reflected in his eyes. “I do remember who I am,” he assured her. “I also remember who I was. That’s why I have to go back.”
With that, he strode away. As he walked, he pulled something out of his coat. Some type of stone dangling from a slender gold chain. He brought the stone up to his lips and kissed it.
As he walked, he started to fade. Within seconds, he was gone.
The pairs of mages he had come with nodded their heads and turned away, walking back down the street through the drifting smoke and eerie lights cast by the fires. Gil stared after them a moment and then turned to Ashra, still cradled in Naia’s arms. He set a comforting hand on her shoulde
r. To his surprise, she looked up and offered him a fragile smile. It was weak and timid, but it was there.
When he looked back, he saw that the street was empty. They were alone. The entire Khar army had disappeared, the silence they left behind resonating off the walls. Gil gazed ahead in shock, then squeezed his eyes shut, relief pouring into him countercurrent to the strength pouring out. He staggered.
“What now?” he whispered.
“Now?” Naia responded. “Now we rebuild.”
THE END
From the Author
Thank you for reading Chains of Blood. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Reviews are worth more to an author than the magic field is worth to mages … good reviews pretty much allow us to keep writing books.
If you enjoyed Chains of Blood and have time to leave a review, you can do so on Amazon. I would be so grateful.
Thank you,
Melinda
Enjoy Chains of Blood?
Then you should try The Rhenwars Saga.
Before Gil and Rylan fought the Turan Khar, their fathers had their own own epic war to fight.
Enjoy a Sprawling 5 Book Series….
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Glossary
acolyte: apprentice mage who has passed the Trial of Consideration and sworn the acolyte’s oath.
Aeridor: lost continent somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
Aerysius: ancient city where the Masters of Aerysius once dwelt. Destroyed when the Well of Tears was unsealed.
Almir: mage of the Khar.
Alqazar Citadel: fortress in Karikesh that wards the Lion’s Gate.
Andarapi Palace: royal palace in Karikesh.
anti-magic: the magic of the Netherworld. Variously known as the Hellpower, the Onslaught, and dark magic.
Archer, Gilroy: sixth tier Grand Master of the Order of Battlemages.
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