Soul Forge Saga Box Set

by Richard Stephens

  The wizard replaced the stopper and dropped the vial into a robe pocket. With both hands free, the wizard intoned the magical phrase of vision, pronouncing each word exactly as they had been learned.

  At first, the smouldering fire hissed and sputtered, but as the wizard panicked anew, a small flame caught, quickly rearing to engulf the entire pit—threatening to climb out of its confines and onto the stone floor.

  The extreme heat forced the wizard back against the cave wall. Concentrating like never before, the wizard drew from an unknown reserve, and the vision reformed within the leaping flames. The scene of a bloody battle waged in virtual darkness, except for the fires burning in the fields around a river and the sporadic bursts of what could only be magic, took shape, but this was not Zephyr.

  It was difficult for the wizard to determine where the battle took place; certainly nowhere familiar. Immense birds of prey flitted in and out of the vision, swooping down upon hapless victims and then flying out of sight. Men, women, and small misshapen creatures battled for their lives along the banks of a wide river, against an insurmountable number of red demons wielding tridents and other malicious instruments of death.

  The familiar sensation reached through the flames, taking the wizard’s breath away.

  “Silurian?”

  Unseen in the background of the image until now, a cylindrical mountain blazed to life. So intense was the illumination that the wizard cowered behind an upraised arm.

  The raging fire pulsed once in warning.

  The wizard locked onto the compelling pull from within the flames, desperately trying to make sense of what was happening.

  The image of the blazing mountain exploded, erupting like a volcano. A visible concussion shot outward, the intensity of the blast obliterating the wizard’s vision.

  A violent wind emanated from the centre of the fire pit, stoking the wizard’s flames, a harbinger of the fiery maelstrom that suddenly engulfed the cave.

  Voyage to Destruction

  Alhena Sirrus stepped onto Gerrymander’s foredeck, using a walking staff to balance himself against the roll of the ship. He found Pollard Banebridge exactly where he left him yesterday; leaning against the ship’s forward rail—the dejected Songsbirthian oblivious to the spray washing over the deck as the bow cut through the heavy sea.

  Gerrymander had been sailing east to southeast for more than a fortnight since its sudden reappearance on what Alhena and the rest of the crew hoped was the Niad Ocean. Thorr Sandborne, the ship’s captain, had his helmsman chart a reverse course from the portal that had sucked them into the Under Realm. Nobody knew where the ship had resurfaced. All they could do was hope.

  The large vessel travelled slower than her usual pace, the captain careful not to lose the flotilla of boats following her course—many on the cusp of capsizing. The queer folk manning the bizarre armada worked feverishly to keep their bows perpendicular to the rolling waves. Several boats were forced to be towed along behind Gerrymander, far enough back to avoid being tossed in her wake.

  It hadn’t been an uneventful trip since their re-emergence from the Under Realm. The flotilla had weathered an extreme storm a few days prior and many of the lesser craft had capsized in its fury. If not for the heroic efforts of Gerrymander’s crew, many more lives would have been lost.

  Gerrymander brimmed with extra bodies due to the rescues but no one dared to go near the giant man leaning over the ship’s mermaid bowsprit—everyone wisely giving the colossus a wide berth. Everyone, except Alhena.

  Sidling up to Pollard, Alhena rested his elbows on the wet rail and looked out over the rolling sea, respecting Pollard’s silence. Pollard blamed himself for Silurian Mintaka’s death. He had stood on the banks of the mystic river and almost single-handedly kept the demon army at bay with his massive two-bladed sword, providing Silurian the time he required to immerse himself in a suicidal battle with forces far beyond the realm of normal men. In the end, Silurian had succumbed to the river’s pull and was lost. Pollard hadn’t forgiven himself for allowing that to happen. It had been his and Avarick Thwart’s duty to protect the surviving members of the Group of Five. Avarick had performed his duty admirably, even if it had cost him his life.

  Avarick’s death had also affected Pollard more than he let on—the two had become fast friends, almost inseparable near the end. A few of Pollard’s closest companions had tried to soothe him since their return, but no one had been successful.

  “How is your side?” Alhena inquired of the life-threatening gash Pollard suffered when a demon, straight out of a nightmare, had raked him with its claws.

  Pollard grunted. “Better than my heart. It’ll heal.”

  Alhena patted the large man’s muscular back and followed his gaze. The moisture laden skies stretched grey to the horizon.

  The two men remained that way for the better part of the morning. The same way they had every day since returning to the land of sun and stars. They moved only to readjust their stance as the ship bobbed upon large ocean swells. The icy spray and driving wind did little to phase Pollard, but Alhena convulsed with shivers. He was grateful when Pollard removed his weatherproof cloak and draped it over his shaking body.

  Pollard’s exposed skin bristled with gooseflesh, but he wasn’t the type to complain. Instead, he wrapped a massive arm around Alhena and held him close. Together they weathered the day.

  Alhena knew it was midday, not by the position of the invisible sun, but because Captain Thorr cleared his throat behind them, bearing bowls of steaming broth. Alhena mouthed a silent thank you and accepted the food.

  Pollard and Alhena ate in silence, but as Pollard scooped up his last bit of stew, he stiffened and leaned over the railing.

  Alhena squinted, leaning farther over the rail, but whatever the Songsbirthian saw was a mystery. He thought he was being thrown overboard when Pollard slapped him on the back and pointed.

  “Do you see that?”

  Alhena pulled himself back, glaring at the giant, but Pollard didn’t pay him any attention.

  “Smoke. Stretching as far as the eye can see.”

  “A volcano?” Alhena’s suggestion went unheard, still unable to differentiate anything out of the ordinary.

  “Hey! In the crow’s nest!” Pollard leaned to starboard and looked to the sailor high above the billowing sails. “You see it?”

  The sailor, Longsight, leaned over the rim of the nest. “Aye, but no sign of land.”

  Alhena caught snatches of Longsight’s response above the roar of the wind and the splash of Gerrymander cutting through the waves.

  “Where’s the captain?” Pollard shouted.

  Longsight searched the decks. “At the helm. He sees it.”

  Alhena felt himself being jerked backward as Pollard spun him around and sent him stumbling toward the stern.

  “Come on, old man. Let’s see what the captain thinks.”

  Alhena struggled to keep up to Pollard’s long strides, his staff clumping the cadence of his quickened gait. He looked over his shoulder more than once, but only saw the horizon.

  By the time Alhena reached the helm’s deck, set high above the rest of the ship’s surfaces, Pollard had already engaged Captain Thorr and the bandy-legged helmsman, Olmar, in conversation. Olmar was the only man Alhena knew to surpass Pollard in height.

  Thorr’s tone did not bode well. “If we were transported back to the site of the portal, our course suggests the smoke can only be coming from one place. Zephyr.”

  Pollard’s brows knit together. “Then we’ve strayed off course. There aren’t any active volcanoes near Madrigail Bay.”

  Thorr threw his hands up, but it was Olmar who spoke. “Nay. If’n we been set right, I knows me course. That’s the Spine of Madrigail, or I’m a Kraidic whoreson.”

  “Land ho!” Longsight cried out from the crow’s nest.

  Alhena squinted.

  Thorr called up to the crow’s-nest. “Can you make out where?”

  A lo
ng while elapsed before Longsight replied. “Aye, ‘tis the Bay that’s smoking.”

  The four men around the helm searched each other for answers.

  Crew members, and misshapen Voil—the tortured survivors of the Under Realm’s dark magic—flooded onto the deck, taking in the spectacle.

  “I dinnae like it cap’n,” Olmar said, his knuckles white upon the wheel.

  Thorr raised his eyebrows, blowing out a long breath. He nodded and jumped into action. “Man the oars! Ready the ballista!” Running to the top of the port side staircase, he commanded, “Arm yourselves! Madrigail Bay is under attack!”

  As Gerrymander plowed through the waves, it became apparent to Alhena that the entire horizon was shrouded in black smoke. “Been attacked, more like,” he muttered to Pollard. “And razed to the ground.”

  Pollard cast him a grim look.

  Sailors swarmed the masts, furling the sails. The ballista crew manhandled a large, barbed missile into place and ratcheted the throws into position; the whole machine attached to a metal faceplate that dominated the central foredeck.

  Pollard darted to the starboard stair to greet a small, wizened creature, accompanied by an equally odd looking, slightly taller creature. Pollard stood respectfully aside to allow the Voil elder, Wendglow, to amble up the last few steps to the rear deck, assisted by his muscular, orange-furred, personal aide, Yarstaff. Wendglow appeared as a toddler passing by Pollard, but the ancient wizard’s sharp mind more than compensated for his lack of physical stature.

  Wendglow offered Pollard a solemn nod and made his way toward the captain. Yarstaff stopped to hug the big man, his large eyes filled with compassion.

  “Greetings, Master Wendglow.” Thorr nodded to the Voil leader and confirmed the rumours that had reached the ancient’s furry ears. “We have asked all your craft to remain back until we determine what’s happening.”

  The Voil elder turned to take in the great channel that split the mountains rising before them—the inlet obscured behind a pall of dark smoke. He sniffed at the air and closed his large, round eyes. Nodding, he opened them again. “Helleden.”

  The proclamation made everyone stiffen.

  Pollard unsheathed his double sword and squinted. Madrigail Bay lay hidden several leagues down the channel. “Helleden? Here?”

  Wendglow closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head. “No, not here. Only his stain.”

  Alhena shivered. He had lived through one of Helleden’s magical storms—barely. If that was what had happened to Madrigail Bay, it would be a grim homecoming indeed.

  The cadence of the paddles slapping water heralded the rhythmic lurch and lull of the deck under Pollard’s feet. The crew fidgeted along the rails, concern on their faces as Gerrymander approached the last bend in the deep channel flowing out of Zephyr’s largest seaport. Pollard didn’t harbour any illusion that the scene they were about to see would be a happy one—the air thick with the smell of burnt wood.

  Pollard stood beside the ballista, wanting to be close to the front of the ship without getting in the way should they need to fire the mighty weapon.

  Lofty cliffs lined the channel. The slap of the paddles echoed eerily as Gerrymander slipped past the last jutting rock formation and the coastal city of Madrigail Bay came into view. Even though he had expected the worst, he wasn’t prepared for what awaited their arrival.

  Not a single building remained standing; wood, brick or stone. Charred, smoking remains of larger stone buildings were the only evidence that a city had stood here at all. The only landmark remotely intact was the river gate bridge. The massive iron portcullis sat askew of its two tower keepers, blocking the river’s flow. Broken boats and flotsam pushed against its far side, damming the river’s egress.

  One of the sailors close to Pollard said, “Maybe they got away. I don’t see no boats.”

  “The boats are there.” Pollard’s voice killed any optimism the sailor had attempted to evoke. “Look beneath the waves.”

  The sailor frowned until realization set in. He swallowed hard.

  As Gerrymander slid into the harbour, Pollard’s revelation proved true. Ghostly hulks of large ships could be seen beneath the water’s surface. Spars and yard arms protruded from the gently rolling water—some displaying the tattered remnants of burnt sailcloth.

  A female sailor’s shrill scream sounded on Pollard’s right. Everyone jumped. The man in charge of the ballista almost pulled the release lever and put a hole in the foredeck. The sound of retching followed the scream. A bloated, white corpse entangled in the loose rigging of a submerged yardarm, floated on the surface of the water. The only sound in the harbour, other than the water’s rhythmic lapping upon the shoreline, were the cries of carrion birds circling overhead.

  Pollard searched the mountains surrounding the burnt-out city. Come sundown, anyone still alive within the city would have far bigger problems to worry about.

  Helleden

  Helleden wasn’t as patient as a man of his age might suggest. By four hundred and fifty odd years of age, people might think he should have the learned patience of a glacier. The people suggesting it to him would be wrong. The people suggesting it to him would find themselves dead.

  Coming down from his mountain aerie had taken him the better part of the day, but there was no rush. The emperor of the Kraidic Empire could wait.

  Spread out before him, at the base of a foothill abutting this particular crag in Zephyr’s Altirius Mountain range, countless thousands of his minion horde milled about—creatures of varying shapes and sizes, bearing weapons of all descriptions.

  Beyond the writhing throng, a tarpaulin town had been erected around a large, central pavilion, flying the black flag of the Kraidic Empire. He smiled at the vast number of Kraidic troops he would soon have at his disposal.

  He wasn’t a big man by any standard. His wan skin and sunken face cast him sickly beneath long, stringy black hair. Black robes, piped in crimson runes, fluttered about his sparse frame. For a brute, he was small, but his strength wasn’t measured by his size. His strength lay in his mastery of the arcane world. With the demise of the Soul, a satisfying event he had masterfully orchestrated, he had become the most powerful being alive—and, unlike the Soul, he wasn’t bound by ethereal fetters.

  The battle upon the Dead Plains had gone more or less according to plan, but it hadn’t done so without a cost. One of his favourite pets, the Morphisis, would be dearly missed.

  Helleden’s master, the Soul, had been so fixated on Silurian entering the mystic river, that it hadn’t foreseen the wretched leader of the Group of Five overcoming one of its strongest minions. Nor had the Soul figured on Helleden entering the mix.

  Most of Zephyr north of the Undying Wall now lay beneath a layer of black ash. By timing his power draw, Helleden had effectively sapped the Soul of its power at the same instant Silurian had risen to use the Soul’s own power against it. The ensuing demise of the dark deity had blown the top off Iconoclast Spire and rained death on those fighting upon the Dead Plains.

  As well as Helleden’s plan worked, something unforeseen had occurred during its tumultuous climax. A foreign presence had made itself felt within the Soul Forge. One that had been vaguely familiar, and that unsettled him—more so because he couldn’t put a name to it.

  He should have been elated to be rid of the Soul’s over-lordship while at the same time thrilled to have orchestrated Silurian Mintaka’s demise. The swordsman had been a major irritant to his plans for many, long years—him and that damned blade of his. With the Soul and Mintaka buried beneath a hundred thousand tons of blasted rock, Helleden should have been ecstatic, but ironically, that knowledge offered him little solace. There was a new player to worry about.

  Two massive red demons bearing tridents left him at the edge of the Kraidic encampment—his reputation alone was enough to clear a wide swath through the rabble of Kraidic warriors.

  Cognizant of the large group of guards following his prog
ress, he focused on the great tent looming before him, its perimeter surrounded three deep by huge, fur-clad warriors.

  Notoriously ambitious, the Kraidic emperor had had his sights set on Zephyr for many years, but Zephyr’s disciplined army always managed to keep the warring empire at bay. Until now.

  With the devastation unleashed by his latest firestorm, Zephyr’s military might had been eradicated. The combined push of his demon horde, accompanied by the emperor’s savage troops, would prove more than enough to quash any resistance straggling about the crippled kingdom.

  Deploying Kraidic forces in strategic outposts to ensure no insurgency took place behind them was Helleden’s intent, leaving him free to continue his conquest south, below the Undying Wall. All he needed to do was convince Emperor Krakus to do his bidding. Once Zephyr fell, the rest of the civilized world would open up before him.

  Helleden didn’t fool himself. The emperor wouldn’t be happy with his plans to reduce the ferocious emperor to the role of peacekeeper, but Helleden felt confident that when the brute was confronted with that prospect or his life, the boor would capitulate. If Helleden’s threats weren’t enough to convince the emperor, there was always the Sentinel.

  Emperor Krakus paced about his palatial tent, awaiting his audience with the sorcerer—the one referred to as the Stygian Lord. Krakus stroked his greying brown beard, perspiring more than the temperature called for.

  Rumour had it that Helleden would demand he remain behind, serving as a rear guard. Sorcerer or not, Krakus wasn’t about to deny his legions their chance for battle and the spoils of the southlands. If that was Helleden’s intent, the sorcerer had another think coming.

  Krakus looked to the two naked women sprawled on the fur blankets of his travel pallet, and scowled. Even they weren’t enough to lift his spirits. With a snarl, he ordered them out. When they didn’t move fast enough, he roared, “Now!”