The First Champion

by Sandell Wall

  She rolled over onto her side as she tried to find a comfortable position. It got harder with every passing day. Sorrell worried about what life would be like when her pregnancy started to show. Niad and Lacrael guessed she had a month, maybe two, before she had a noticeable bump.

  Instinctively, Sorrell’s hands cradled her belly. While she waited for sleep to take her, her thoughts drifted back to her conversation with Gustavus. No one had loved the sea more than Stone. Would their child be born with the wanderlust mother and father had shared?

  “I’ll get you home,” Sorrell murmured into the darkness. “I’ll take you to where the waves lap the beach and the ocean fills your world. There’s nothing else like it. It’s what your father would have wanted.”

  Contented by a vision of playing in the surf with her newborn baby, Sorrell drifted off to sleep. Her last conscious thought was that she could almost hear the sound of the waves.

  Chapter 14

  MAZAREEM STOOD IN THE shadow of Candeth’s towering main gates. Colossal in their size and construction, the gates stood at least three stories high, but they still only reached halfway up the fortified stone wall that protected the city from the miasma outside. The double doors were crafted from ancient, petrified wood and black iron. Mazareem suspected they were hundreds of years old.

  In the street before the gates, a grand procession was forming. He stood in the midst of the organized chaos, doing his best to act aloof. After all, this tumult was for his benefit. Pynel stood nearby, and her two seplica flanked Mazareem as an honor guard. The dark metal collar chafed on his neck, but Mazareem resisted scratching at it. He refused to give Pynel the satisfaction.

  Pynel’s presence had spurred Dezerath to greater heights than even Mazareem had anticipated. The Candeth venerator was sparing no expense of this pilgrimage to the capital of the empire. Fifty of Dezerath’s house troops would accompany them, each one in full kit, armed and armored. That many soldiers required a lot of supplies, and male laborers from Dezerath’s house were being drafted into service. This would leave the city itself understaffed, but the venerator appeared to consider that inconsequential.

  In total, Mazareem counted at least a hundred souls that would venture out into the miasma.

  “If we wait any longer, we’ll have to delay another day,” Pynel said. The seplica captain paced back and forth in the street.

  Pynel was impatient to leave. She considered the ostentation that Dezerath insisted on a waste of time and resources. But as long as she was going to respect Mazareem’s wishes, her hands were tied.

  “Patience, my good captain,” Mazareem said. “What’s the hurry? You’ve chained me, and I’ve consented to my bonds.”

  “My mistress isn’t known for her patience, and she doesn’t abide failure,” Pynel said.

  Mazareem winced as the reference to the mystery woman skipped across the surface of his memory. He hoped Pynel did not notice.

  Finally, Dezerath appeared at the head of the formation, just in front of the gates. Someone produced a small platform for her to stand on, and the venerator stepped up to address her soldiers.

  “This marks a grand day for House Gorvan!” Dezerath said, her voice echoing off the buildings that lined the street. “We depart for Orcassus, on a pilgrimage that will culminate in the rite of oblation. I’ll not see these walls again until I return from the grave. You march for the honor of the risen one that has chosen our house, for my ascension, and for the glory of the journey ahead of us!”

  The gathered women cheered, swords raised in the air as a salute. In their midst, the men did their best to look busy to avoid honoring Dezerath.

  “Fear not the Ravening, for we are its masters,” Dezerath cried. “Open the gates!”

  With these words, Dezerath raised the mask that had been dangling on her chest to her face. The armored face covering was attached to a pack on her back with two tubes. When secured behind her head with leather clasps, it covered Dezerath’s face completely. She looked out at them through two glass lenses set in the metal helmet.

  Following Dezerath’s example, the rest of her soldiers donned similar masks. Pynel and her seplica did the same. Mazareem had learned that the packs the soldiers carried on their backs contained a special sort of fungus that scrubbed the miasma from the air, leaving only untainted air to pass through the tubes and into the wearer’s lungs.

  The men had much smaller apparatuses that only covered their lips. A single tube connected this mouth shield to a pack carried on their waist. They clamped their noses shut with wooden pins to force themselves to breathe from their mouths.

  Mazareem watched all of this with interest. Unfortunately, he had not been supplied with a mask. They assumed he was undead and would need no such aid. He had never tried to breathe raw miasma before, but he hoped his enhanced body could filter out the toxins.

  Behind Dezerath, the gates started to creak open. When the center seal had been broken, an avalanche of miasma cascaded through the gap. It flowed into the city in slow motion, splashing to the street and spreading out around the feet of the crowd. The stuff fascinated Mazareem. He had studied it at length, and knew much about the miasma in theory, but he had very little firsthand experience.

  The gates swung completely open with a final thud, revealing a doorway into the abyss. The world beyond was obscured by a wall of roiling, churning miasma. It seemed to sense a gap in the city's defenses. Long, snaking tendrils clawed at the sides of the gates and along the inside of the high stone walls.

  At Dezerath’s signal, the procession moved out. She lifted a glowing guidestone high over her head and stepped through the gate. In fifteen paces, she had vanished from sight. At the back of the formation, Mazareem watched as rank upon rank of House Gorvan tomb keepers marched through the gates. They disappeared into the mist without a sound.

  When it finally came to his turn to move, Mazareem followed Pynel towards the gate. He looked up at the gatehouse high overhead. They were preparing to close the giant doors as quickly as possible once he was through. Already, too much corruption had found its way into the city streets.

  Pynel activated a guidestone of her own before she stepped through the gateway. Mazareem focused on the stone's eerie blue light as he followed the seplica captain from the city. The miasma accepted him with a caress. He imagined he could hear a sigh of satisfaction as it folded itself around him.

  Mazareem drew a breath, testing the tainted air. His lungs almost seized as the miasma invaded his body. He knew it had sentience of a sort, but he had not expected to be able to detect it. The polluted air filled his chest with its poisoned will. It wrapped itself around his heart and started to squeeze—Mazareem forced himself to keep walking. He turned his focus inward, applying every scrap of his concentration to find a way to resist the corruption.

  The collar around his neck handicapped him, but he was not completely helpless. Trapped in the same mortal shell for a thousand years, Mazareem had learned to understand and control his body on a minute level that most people would think impossible. For a moment, he let the miasma have its way. Careful to give no indication that he was aware of its pervasive influence, he opened his senses and waited.

  Mazareem floated as if he had stepped into the clouds. The world around him receded as the miasma dominated every facet of his being. Pynel and her seplica were walking right beside him, but he was no longer aware of their presence. Cradled in the embrace of the mist, it seemed like time had stopped.

  He sensed the Ravening’s curiosity. It had never encountered a being like Mazareem. The intelligence that guided the miasma was ancient, older than even he was. He let it fill him to the brim, lying in wait as he looked for a way to defy it. Given free rein, the miasma tore into the core of his being with a thousand tiny hooks. It wanted to turn him, to make him into a living puppet or a gibbering monster.

  But Mazareem’s flesh did not respond the way the Ravening expected. Traces of Abimelech flowed through his veins, suffus
ing his body with a latent power that resisted corruption. The miasma clawed at Mazareem as it tried to find purchase within him. While the mist churned around him, he sensed a familiar, acrid tang on his tongue and in his nostrils. It was the same taste and smell left behind by magus fire.

  A slow smile crept across Mazareem’s face. At its fundamental elements, the miasma was magical in nature. And he knew how to deal with magic. Mazareem gathered the power within his body, marshalling his focus for a single, overwhelming surprise attack against the Ravening. The collar around his neck leaked trace amounts of magic-suppressing metal into his body, and he incorporated this into his strike.

  Mazareem sprang the trap he had set. One instant, he pretended to be unaware of the miasma, the next, he lashed out against the questing intelligence behind it. He attacked the foreign magic inside his body, pushing it out and leaving it nowhere to hide. The Ravening recoiled. It rushed out of him so quickly that Mazareem stumbled. He chuckled to himself. That was probably the first time anyone had defied the insidious nature of the miasma.

  Despite this small victory, he could not actually expel the physical smog that still filled his lungs. It no longer tried to work corruption in him, but it did make breathing difficult. And on the edges of consciousness, the Ravening still lurked. If Mazareem let his guard down, it would try to overpower him.

  He became aware of Pynel and her two seplica again. They still walked at Mazareem’s side, although they were oblivious to what had just transpired within him. The masks that covered their faces gave them the appearance of ghouls. Pynel set a pace that kept them close enough to follow the next group’s guidestone.

  The blue light from the guidestone was reflected by the miasma that surrounded them, enhancing the mist’s unearthly appearance. Without the magic stones, they would be hopelessly lost and unable to navigate. In his mind’s eye, Mazareem imagined their procession as a chain of glowing, blue pearls spread out across the wretched landscape.

  Days passed. Nights were spent camped on the road in defensive formations. Mazareem’s honor guard never left his side. The soldiers only removed their masks to eat, which left very little time for talking. For the most part, they traveled in complete silence. This suited Mazareem. It gave him plenty of time to contemplate what he would do when they reached Orcassus.

  Pynel continued to produce blood for Mazareem to sustain himself with. He had no idea where she was getting it, and he did not care. She had little to say to Mazareem. The captain was clearly on edge. Dezerath’s house troops did not respect the miasma the way that Pynel and her seplica did. They were always watching the mist, hands never far from the hilts of their swords.

  On what Mazareem estimated to be the second day of travel, the group ahead of them stopped walking. He and his honor guard were quickly in their midst, and Pynel was not pleased by the delay.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Pynel said. Her voice was muffled by the mask covering her face.

  “Dezerath called a halt,” one of the House Gorvan tomb keepers said.

  “We’re strung out on the road,” Pynel said. “We can’t stop like this. We’re exposed.”

  “Take it up with the venerator. I follow her orders, not yours.”

  Pynel muttered, her words impossible to understand behind her mask. She waved a hand forward to indicate they were going to find Dezerath. They passed group after group waiting in the road. The soldiers maintained their spacing between each party, but they did not seem terribly alarmed to be stopped. Most of them were reclined in the sand, taking full advantage of the brief respite. A few had even removed their masks.

  “They’re not even standing guard,” Pynel said in disgust. “Who trained these troops? Have they never ventured across the Ravening before?”

  At the head of the procession, they found Dezerath in conference with her lieutenants. They had removed their masks and were speaking quietly amongst themselves. The venerator was unmistakable in her armor of burnished iron and gold. She stood inspecting a map that had been unrolled on a small, portable table.

  Pynel strode right up to the table and removed her mask. Mazareem stopped a few paces behind her. The other two seplica never let their vigil over him falter.

  “Why have we stopped?” Pynel said. “You’ve left the entire procession in an indefensible position.”

  Dezerath looked up at the interruption. She grimaced like she had just swallowed something bitter. “I don’t recall asking for your opinion.”

  Pynel glanced down at the map. “What’s going on here? Our route is clearly charted. The guidestones will keep us on course.” She traced a line on the unfurled parchment. “We’ll reach the city of Breach in a few days, pass on to Cadagold, and then prepare for the crossing to the capital from Chasm’s Deep.”

  “You mean the route that you charted,” Dezerath said.

  “I care little for your tone. What does it matter if I picked our path?”

  “See, that’s what I thought you’d say. In my mind, it goes like this: you knew the route you’d set us on when you sent your woman back to report to your master. No doubt, she told your people when to expect us to arrive in Orcassus. But now that we’re away from Candeth, I’m of a mind to make a slight detour. We can cut three days off of our journey and arrive when they don’t anticipate us. This way, I can rendezvous with my family before you try to intercept our prize.”

  Dezerath’s gaze touched on Mazareem where he stood behind Pynel’s shoulder.

  Pynel shook her head in frustration. “That’s not the way the Ravening works. You can’t just leave the highway on a whim. The course I set us on is the safest, and quickest, way to reach Orcassus.”

  “This map says otherwise,” Dezerath said. She touched a gauntleted finger to the parchment.

  Pynel leaned over to inspect the spot that Dezerath indicated.

  “You can’t mean to traverse Corpsefire Canyon,” Pynel said in disbelief.

  “It’s a straight shot towards the capital,” Dezerath said. “We’ll reach Ravengard on the other side in a matter of days. The original route has us going well out of our way to get around it.”

  “For good reason! It’s off the charted highway. The guidestones won’t work. And when you descend beneath the desert floor, the miasma becomes more concentrated. Not even us seplica venture into that canyon.”

  “We won’t need the stones. The canyon doesn’t have any other exits. All we have to do is follow it through to the other side.”

  “No exits means no escape. You’ll be trapped.”

  “Go around if you wish, but the risen one is coming with us.”

  “I advise you to rethink that statement,” Pynel said. Her right hand drifted to rest on the hilt of her sword.

  “There’s fifty of us and three of you,” Dezerath said. “Do you think you can defeat all of us?”

  “To raise a hand against the seplica is to make yourself an outlaw,” Pynel said. “Your house would be stripped of its titles. You would doom your family to a slow and painful end. When the empress finished with you, the dogs in the street would quench their thirst on your blood.”

  “Who’s to say anyone harmed one of your precious seplica? It was a long, hard journey from Candeth to Orcassus. Unfortunate accidents happen in the Ravening all the time. We were beset by monsters, and the risen one’s honor guard died valiantly trying to protect him. Worry not, we’ll make sure to glorify your sacrifice.”

  Pynel was trapped, and she knew it. Mazareem did not doubt that the captain and her two seplica could carve a bloody path through Dezerath’s troops, but there was no way they would win free of fifty hostile soldiers.

  “Entering that canyon is a mistake,” Pynel said.

  “I’ve considered your opinion and discarded it,” Dezerath said. “Now, will you be coming with us, or will House Gorvan forever remember the cowardice of the seplica?”

  “Don’t confuse prudence with cowardice, and pray you don’t have to eat those words,” Pynel said.
Mazareem could not see her face, but he heard the snarl behind her voice. “We’ll stay with the risen one. Someone has to make sure he arrives safely.”

  “How fortunate for him,” Dezerath said. “You’ll understand, I’m sure, if I require you to travel behind my group from here on out.”

  Pynel did not speak, but she gave Dezerath a curt nod.

  “Then we’re done here,” Dezerath said. “Clean this up and let’s move out.”

  Dezerath reaffixed her mask to her face. Her soldiers followed suit. Pynel turned away from them and beckoned her two seplica to move in close.

  “This is madness,” Pynel said. “They have no idea what we’re walking into down there. If we encounter trouble, and we will, all that matters is getting the risen one out. Leave Dezerath and her troops to die. If we fail to deliver him to Orcassus, the empress will find our corpses and return us to life so that she can torture us before killing us a second time.”

  Pynel returned her mask to her face before Mazareem could say anything. Which was fine, because his mind was struggling to recover from the mention of the empress. Every time someone referenced her, it became harder for Mazareem to pretend that it had no effect on him.

  Dezerath’s group set out again, and Pynel followed close behind. The guidestones went out after about a hundred paces. They had left the relative safety of the imperial highway behind. Within a mile, the ground started to slope noticeably downward. Sand gave way to dirt, and the walls of a canyon rose up on both sides.

  After just a few minutes of descent, the characteristics of the miasma changed radically. It thickened and hung in the air like a soupy fog. Visibility dropped dramatically. Ahead of them, Dezerath’s group paused to light torches. When they lifted the flames above their heads, the fire burned with an oily light that beat the miasma back about twenty paces all around. Behind Mazareem, the other troops lit similar torches. Only the seplica walked in the dark.