Heirs of Vanity- The Complete First Trilogy Box Set

by R J Hanson

  They crept to Roland’s door. Yorketh whispered and touched the door lock with his king’s finger and ring finger. The bolt slid open silently and the two entered. This was going to be too easy.

  Dawn, her dagger ready in hand, aimed carefully. This would be the end of the mouthy brat. Dawn hurled her dagger with deadly accuracy.

  Roland was startled awake by a loud clang and a blow to the back of his head. His ears began to ring. The dagger had struck the back of his helmet. He heard the chanting and rolled out of bed just before ‘dactlartha’ and the cold fire of dark energy ripped through the mattress and pillow where Roland had been.

  “El,” Roland yelled. “To arms!”

  Anger flushed through Dawn. She hated this boy for his impudence and his luck! She began around the edge of the bed as she drew her falchion.

  Roland had been lucky. He had dropped onto his pile of armor and equipment. He took all of it up in one armload and grabbed Swift Blood with the other. Roland rolled again and stood. Dawn smiled an evil grin and started for him. Roland hated this, but he didn’t have much choice. These odds would mean his death. Roland lowered his helmeted head and charged for the large window in the room, which was a full story above the alleyway. Dawn and Yorketh stood in disbelief.

  Eldryn had just grabbed up his Shrou-Sheld when he heard the window break. He opened his window and looked out to see Roland laying in the alleyway with his equipment strewn all about him. Despite the situation Eldryn stifled a small laugh. He would never get used to seeing Roland in his nightshirt and wearing a helmet.

  Unsure of what to do, Eldryn decided that he should be at Roland’s side. They had faced many battles together in just that fashion. He grabbed his pack and shield in one hand and his sword in the other. He stepped to the window ledge and jumped. He landed hard.

  Eldryn looked back up to Roland’s window and saw Yorketh preparing another spell. The bolt of energy loosed from Yorketh’s hand and Eldryn had just enough time to raise his shield. He was knocked to the ground by the force of the bolt.

  Roland winced in pain when Dawn’s second dagger hit a few inches low of its mark and struck him in the thigh. Roland and Eldryn scrambled down the alley as two more daggers struck the ground behind them. Yorketh and Dawn looked at the long jump and decided that the stairs would be better.

  “Look,” Dawn said, answering Yorketh’s expression, “they are not even armored. They are weak without their shells.”

  Dawn and Yorketh hurried down the steps and out the front door of the inn.

  Roland and Eldryn made it to their horses and saddled them hurriedly. Roland’s whole leg was going stiff but, with El’s help, he managed a pretty good shuffle. They ran a rope through the straps of their armor and packs and secured them to their newly purchased saddles. Roland tore a piece of cloth from his nightshirt and removed the dagger sticking in his leg. He tied off the wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding. Roland looked at his new dagger. This is an expensive way to collect new knives, he thought. Roland placed the new dagger, a frosting blade, in the empty slot on his belt left by the dagger given to Petie.

  Roland and Eldryn turned their mounts and started for the door of the barn. When they reached the door, they were surrounded by swirling acids somehow magically contained in twenty-foot-high walls. They wheeled their horses to find Yorketh and Dawn standing behind them.

  Yorketh shouted ‘istuderth’ and Road Pounder and Lance Chaser froze, paralyzed. Dawn stepped forward with her mercshyeld falchion in one hand and her enchanted iron mace in the other. She had a smile smeared across her face.

  Roland raised his Shrou-Hayn high over his left shoulder, holding it in both hands. Eldryn raised his shield with his left arm and held his Shrou-Sheld in his right hand loosely. Both dismounted and stepped forward.

  Yorketh whispered another arcane word of command and Eldryn felt the quiet speech rinse through his mind and seize his nerves. Eldryn’s entire body shuddered and he collapsed to the ground.

  Roland also felt the word of command travel into his ears and echo through his thoughts. However, the ancient syllables drifted past with no more effect than a gentle summer’s breeze. His leg was still stiff and hurt like there were biting worms in the muscles. He shuttered at that thought and forced himself to focus.

  Dawn came in fast as Roland hurled an overhead chop at her. She brought up her mace and falchion crossed to block. The momentum of Roland’s attack dropped her to one knee. Roland pivoted Swift Blood on Dawn’s weapons and swung his sword hilt in. The jeweled hilt struck her sculpted nose with wicked force. Dawn’s head snapped back and a broken nose sprayed blood across her mouth and cheeks.

  Dawn’s falchion pulled away from the cross block and slashed toward Roland. Roland attempted a quick-step back but the edge of Dawn’s blade found his unarmored thigh. Steel sliced through flesh and muscle, biting deeply into Roland’s leg.

  Roland staggered back and fell to one knee. If he had heard the word spoken through the roar of pain in his head, he might have been able to prepare. Might have. A blast of black and green flame struck Roland’s right shoulder. His right hand fell from its place next to his left on his sword’s hilt. Roland called his arm to action, but the bolt of cold black fire had struck it numb.

  Dawn rose and forced her eyes to focus through the blood and pain that fired in her nose. She walked toward Roland with the knowledge that she would kill him. Dawn thrust with her falchion and Roland hauled the great sword up with a single hand to swat away the attack.

  Dawn’s mace followed on an arc behind Roland’s parry and struck viciously against his bare left shoulder. Both combatants heard bone snap. Swift Blood fell to Roland’s lap gripped by a hand that would not heed its masters call.

  Roland felt the warmth of his own blood draining out of his leg and seeping out of his shoulder. He felt his strength fading. Roland glared ahead at Dawn. He knew that he would die at her hand, but he might have a chance to take her with him. If he could head butt her, striking her armor hard enough to shatter the crystal in his helmet, the resulting burst of energy would be enough to destroy them both. However, the gem was placed and mounted so that it was protected from just that outcome.

  Yorketh began another word.

  “Quiet,” Dawn said through teeth stained red in her own blood. “This one I will execute with my blade.”

  Dawn smiled and brought her falchion out to her side. She began the arcing swing that would severe Roland’s head. Roland sat, focusing his hate for this woman into fuel for his final act. Roland was no more surprised than Dawn when a dark figure kicked the blade of the falchion up.

  As Dawn’s arm rose a right hand grabbed her wrist and twisted it violently. The falchion fell to the ground. Dawn swung the mace toward the new assailant. The dark figure drove his forearm into the elbow of Dawn’s captured arm, twisting it viscously and breaking it.

  However, Dawn’s swinging mace reached its destination, knocking the wind from Ashcliff’s lungs and throwing him back and away from her. Dawn screamed in pain. Her arm dangled, displaying a grotesque bend at its center that was quite unnatural.

  Ashcliff hit the ground but came up in a roll. He scrambled to his feet to stand next to where Roland knelt. The two old friends exchanged nods. Ashcliff, whose face was always a mask of one emotion or another, succeeded in hiding his horror at seeing Roland’s incapacitating injuries.

  Ashcliff reached into his sleeves and drew out two slim daggers.

  “The second plan,” Dawn shouted through gritted teeth. “The second plan now!”

  Yorketh shouted ‘sectlartha’ and all the world became a jumble of images and gravities to the occupants of the barn.

  Roland and Ash looked around them to find that they were in a field not far from the coast judging by the sounds of the nearby ocean. They noticed that Eldryn’s body and the horses Road Pounder and Lance Chaser were behind them. They saw Yorketh and Dawn standing a few yards away ahead of them. They also saw twenty men clad in
various armors wielding an array of weapons.

  Ashcliff wasted no time. He hurled the two daggers and two men fell dead. Roland steeled himself against what he knew would come. He sat on his knees as his strength drained in a red flood from his body. He would take enemies with him this day.

  A Great Man, by the looks of him, walked toward Roland in confidence. Roland waited, focusing his mind through the pain in his body and the blur in his brain. The Great Man smiled and hoisted his blade high in the air. Roland flexed the fingers of his right hand. He gripped Swift Blood in the numbed right hand and swung it in an irregular arc that severed the Great Man’s left leg. The Great Man screamed out and fell back, unable to keep his footing because now he only had one.

  The swing over balanced Roland and pulled him to the side. The Shrou-Hayn crashed to the mud and Roland hauled it back toward him with only his right hand.

  Three came at Ashcliff. He was ready for them. The first thrust a saber at his chest that Ashcliff slapped aside with the back of his bare right hand. Ashcliff continued the move and struck out with the same hand, striking the attacker in the throat. The first man fell to the ground, dead. The second attempted an overhead cut with a broadsword towards Ashcliff’s unarmored neck. Ashcliff quick-stepped inside the arc of the attack and struck the assailant in the nose with a callused palm. The second attacker was dead before his corpse began to fall. The third man swung his morning star from behind Ashcliff and it struck Ashcliff hard on the knee. Ashcliff dropped to the ground as the knee bent inward. Ashcliff twisted his torso and punched out with a quick fist that struck the inside of the third man’s knee. Now both were crippled. Other assailants drug the third man away from Ashcliff’s reach.

  Ashcliff drew two more daggers and two more men fell dead. Yorketh whispered another arcane word and the suggestion coursed through Ashcliff’s ears and seized his spine. Ashcliff trembled, locked in place by his rebellious nerves.

  “Move back,” Dawn shouted. “Everyone, move back!”

  The crowd of men stepped back away from Roland and his friends. Eight archers stepped into the opening, standing thirty feet away. Roland saw no path that could lead to victory. He called to Bolvii for the strength to take one more with him. Somehow Roland lurched from the ground, hauling Swift Blood in one arm, and charged the archers. The last thing Roland remembered was the piercing pain of arrows, and the comfort of knowing that one more enemy fell beneath his blade.

  Roland awoke in the dark. He tried to sit up, but pain shot throughout his body. His vision blurred, and dizziness swam through his head. He could hear distant voices. Is this the home of Bolvii? Roland thought to himself. Sleep came for him like the charge of cavalry.

  Roland slept.

  Untold hours later Roland again awoke to the feel of a moist cloth on his forehead. He opened his eyes and the blur had cleared. He was now certain he was dead for he looked into the eyes of an angel. She was an angel that was somehow familiar. When she smiled Roland felt peace wash throughout his soul. She was a slim, light skinned beauty with long, raven black hair and sky-blue eyes. Roland’s angel stood and drifted from the dark room he was in. He tried to speak but discovered that he was still very weak. Sleep came for him again as he collapsed back into the silk that surrounded him.

  Epilouge

  Penitence?

  A dark figure walked across the remains of a bleached stone foundation, his long starlight shadow very dim in the night. This foundation was all that was left of what was once a grand cathedral. A cathedral once dedicated to Father Time. Moonlight shined off the tall figure’s pale and shaved head. The shade of the skin on his veined but powerful hands matched the night-covered white stone.

  An armored dark elf approached the lone figure, his white hair streaming out from underneath his helmet, his soft boots making no sound. The Warlock of the Marshes could smell the exhale of the approaching drow. That smell teased his disciplined appetite.

  “It has been ages,” Maloch finally said. “Why do you request this meeting now, priest?” the label of priest spat as an insult.

  “It is my understanding that you had a sort of ‘contact’ with a young warrior some months ago,” Lynneare said. “He was in your caverns and took something from there. Is it not so, Knight of Shadows?”

  “I know the one you mean,” Maloch said. “He isn’t very skilled but he is strong, and lucky. I would rather have the favor of a god than skill any day.”

  “I understand that since that time you have left your followers behind.”

  “What concern is it of yours?” Maloch interrupted with venom in his voice.

  “I know that you still blame me for your curse, and the curse put on your people. I have accepted responsibility for my actions and have lived eons with the mistake. If you cannot forgive me, then forget my wrongs for a time. Let us talk as the friends we once were.”

  “Very well,” Maloch said, staring off into starlight and back hundreds of years. “There was something about him that was familiar... Something… Did you know that he challenged me to a duel? Ridiculous, is it not? He fought not within the bounds of the old Code but, still he was merciful and honorable. Those were traits I thought had been lost, that we drove, from this world forever. He showed mercy and honor. It reminded me of better days. It reminded me of days when I was an honorable elf, of days when I stood for what was just. I could not stand to think of those times and stomach my brethren in their depraved sins and hatreds. I set out on my own. I searched for answers once, thousands of years ago. My searching has begun again.”

  “Do you know why the boy seemed so familiar?”

  “No, it was just something about him.”

  “Did you not recognize the armor he wore. The weapon he carried?” Lynneare asked.

  “Lord Ivant’s?” Maloch asked. His mind went back thousands of years. His heart wanted to believe but, his practical nature was afraid of the implications. “Surely not.”

  “They were indeed,” Lynneare said. “He died in that room the day the battles came to their ends. He has laid there with the original holy sacraments since that time.”

  “I wish I had known,” Maloch said. “I might have…”

  “You could not have,” Lynneare said cutting him short. “We are still cursed. In that other time and place the Hourglass bestowed the ability to see the past and the future. The final vision I received was the blood sacrifice my line would have to make for the king. My blood for the king’s blood. I will crave blood until that sacrifice is made. I am sustained only by blood until that act of repentance is made. The rub is that the sacrifice be made of love. I have toiled since that day.”

  “I had an agent remove the holy sacraments,” Lynneare continued. “I did not know it was you that lived in those caverns, otherwise things might have been easier. I tried to look on The Book of Fate and Sands of Time but could not. You would have surely perished if you had entered the altar room. That curse is still very potent.”

  “So, it was Ivant’s armor that triggered those old memories,” Maloch said. “That makes sense I suppose. I haven’t thought about him in centuries. I curse the day we betrayed him.”

  “I think it was more than the armor,” Lynneare said. “I had years of training and prayer before I could touch the Hourglass or the Tome. I had seen them destroy those foolish enough to handle either with anything less than educated reverence. Even with my gifts and practiced prayers they were a considerable challenge. My agent tells me the boy and his friend both were able to touch the Hourglass. Roland…he was able to glimpse what it had to show…he was able...”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe that boy, Roland, has mighty blood in his veins.”

  “He said that he was the son of Lord Velryk,” Maloch said. “Velryk was always a dangerous and shrewd enemy. It is said that even Ingshburn has a justified fear of Verkial, his general in the east. I can say that Verkial is formidable. I have faced him personally. If Roland is truly Velryk’s son, and
Verkial’s brother, then his blood line is mighty indeed.”

  “I think it goes beyond Lord Velryk and General Verkial,” Lynneare said as his eyes stared into the night air. “What do you do now, in your wandering of the land?”

  “It will sound absurd…” Maloch began and broke off. After a few moments he continued, “I am attempting to make atonement. I realize I have no hope of forgiveness, but one does not repent in search of forgiveness. He repents because he knows he has done wrong and is shamed. I have sinned…I have...”

  “Penitence, then?”

  “Yes,” Maloch, no longer of the Black Lance, replied. “Penitence.”

  “My curse has passed to many,” Lynneare said. “Each of my children carry some aspect of that curse. I have prayed for many years, Maloch. I believe the Infinite Father has given me an answer.”

  “Yes?”

  “I needed to know your heart before I told you of this,” Lynneare said. “I may have a way for us to return to his service. My youngest daughter suffered the thirst more than any of my children, however, my continued penance to the Father of Time along with prayers, and centuries researching, have granted me a miracle. She craves the blood of men no longer. You might again wear the symbol of the hourglass on your breastplate in battle.”

  “How?” Maloch asked, attempting to hide the eagerness, the need, in his voice.

  The Cost of Vanity

  In the days before the Shore Drift, the Father of Time and his bride, Fate, created the world from the void and populated it with three races. They created the elves, which would endure the passing of time, as the great sectot trees, and be of the forest. They fashioned the dwarves, who would age as the mountains they delved in. Then they gave life and soul to the men, who would live briefly, but love and build as passionately as the gods themselves.