The Guardian (The Gods and Kings Chronicles Book 2)

by Lee H. Haywood

  Aghast, Demetry scrambled to the edge of his bed, watching in wonder as life abounded within the dank cell.

  “There are no words for such things, but that does not mean they cannot be done,” said Jeremiah. “The words serve only as a medium through which to channel your focus. They cripple you, and deny your inherent strength. But once you realize this power is yours, and yours alone to control, you will know no confines. You may yet learn to turn all things to your will, save for the minds of men.”

  “The Old Magic,” said Demetry in awe.

  “The Magic of the Gods,” said Jeremiah in agreement.

  That night Demetry sat facing the wall of his cell for hours. Hand carved rock was all that separated him from the outside world. Hours passed as he mastered his focus, channeling all of his concentration on the individual granules that made up the brick. Mote by minuscule mote, the wall began to come apart, sluicing away like sand through an hourglass. He placed his cheek against the stone. The wall sagged under his weight. Just a little more, and he would be through. Free of his prison, free of his torment.

  A hand grasped his shoulder, firm and unyielding. “Don’t try to stop me,” he remembered crying. He was forced to face his mentor’s judging gaze. The lucid memory became shadowed, twisted with competing remembrances. Serpent eyes glared back unblinking.

  “You can do this,” said Tyronious. The dragoon’s bare chest was speckled in the runic script he was wont to wear in battle.

  Demetry curled his lip scornfully, turning his attention back to the iron gate that ran from floor to ceiling in the New Halgath bazaar. He gave it a hard rap. The sound was dull, immovable. He thumbed the medallion Tyronious had given him, and for a moment contemplated the situation.

  “Imagine it and it will be,” whispered Tyronious in his ear. “We cannot halt short of our goal.”

  “Whose goal? His or yours?” chided a nagging voice. “Make no mistake, he will betray you in the end.”

  Demetry turned to find Luca Marcus. The proconsul was fastidiously making his way across the bazaar, high stepping about the bodies that littered the ground. The floor was awash in blood, and he lifted the fox fur hem of his gaudy robe to keep it clear of the mire.

  Throughout the cavern dragoons were ravenously going from dwarf to dwarf, checking to see if there was any life left in their broken bodies. The wet chop of hewing blades chimed like music in the hall. A part of Demetry was disgusted, and he flinched with each stroke of the blade. But another voice in his crowded mind liked the sound. Each halted moan was another soul whom he would soon command, he reminded himself.

  “Where did this door come from?” demanded Luca Marcus when he came within earshot.

  Tyronious cursed under his breath, doing nothing to hide his distaste for the proconsul. “I haven’t a clue,” he admitted.

  “This is a hindrance to our plan,” snarled Luca, echoing the dragoon’s sentiment. The two began to bicker about what to do next.

  Demetry ignored the argument between his advisers. Instead, he continued his study of the door, running his hand along its sheer surface, feeling its steely chill, sensing its essence.

  This caught Luca’s eyes. “As strong as you might be, you cannot move that gate.”

  “I’m not so sure,” replied Demetry.

  “We cannot simply accept defeat,” said Tyronious. “Much revolves around the Halgan king. Demetry must try.”

  “It could kill him, you daft fool.” Luca’s brow quivered with rage. “The energies involved are potentially deadly. The most nuanced error and it will all come undone catastrophically. Stick to your butchery and violence, dragoon, and don’t meddle in arts you know nothing of.”

  Tyronious looked as if he wanted to rip out the proconsul’s heart. Instead he turned his attention to Demetry. “This is a choice you must make, and soon. We don’t know what they’re preparing beyond. Can you do this?”

  “I believe so, yes,” said Demetry.

  “Don’t even think about,” said Luca, suddenly livid. He glared at Tyronious with contempt. “Don’t let this fool tell you what to do.”

  But Demetry wasn’t paying attention any more. The voices became garbled and indistinct; it was as if he had passed into another room and shut the door. He turned all of his focus to the gate, and pressed his palms firmly against its pitted surface. He closed his eyes, envisioning the iron core in his mind’s eye.

  “I have been endowed with great gifts,” he whispered to himself.

  “The Sundered Soul is strong. The gods have been good.”

  Demetry grinned.

  His brow shook feverishly, his fingers began to pulsate, plucking the surface of the steel as if it were a harp. His stomach burned with an internal flame. The steel hummed, and then shivered. It became putty in his hands.

  • • •

  Thatcher eyed the mess before him with pity and despair. There had to be a thousand dwarves splayed along the road, most of whom were marred with grievous wounds. Medics scrambled to and fro, doing their best to help those they could, but for many it was already a lost cause.

  Thatcher’s own hands were shaking uncontrollably, and he had to grip the handle of his long sword to hide the tremors. His nostrils flared from the pungent scent of blood, and a more base instinct to feed was stirred within his body. He crushed the shameful urge, reminding himself why his people had turned away from the practice of eating creaton flesh long ago.

  King Salmaen approached slowly through the lines of ravaged soldiers, speaking words of praise to the wounded men as he passed. When he finally arrived to Thatcher’s side, his face was grim. “They dealt us a vicious blow here,” said King Salmaen. He cast his eyes over the sea of dying and injured men before them. “By the gods, I thought we could have done better than this.”

  “Aye, so did I,” said Byron. He was covered from head to toe in the grime of battle. A sizable gash ran across the dwarf’s thigh, and he had to lean heavily upon his maul for support. He patted his brother upon the shoulder. “This is just a start. We’ll adapt our tactics and hit ‘em hard next time.”

  Their conversation was broken by a scream from the head of the cavern. The dwarves milling around the tunnel’s mouth began to back away from the gate, slowly at first, and then with purpose.

  “What’s going on?” asked King Salmaen. He went up on his toes trying to get a better view.

  From Thatcher’s height he saw nothing out of the ordinary, but something was causing the soldiers near the gate to retreat. Thatcher tried to work his way to the head of the cavern, but it was no use going against the panicked flow. The dwarves were pushing frantically. The crowd was barely moving.

  Thatcher grabbed the nearest soldier of rank. “What’s happening?”

  “The door’s making a noise,” answered the soldier. His eyes looked fearful. “Someone said they set explosives to it.”

  Thatcher let the dwarf go, it was nonsense. No force could rip through metal of such thickness. He eyed the wall of iron, faintly detecting a bizarre noise. It was rhythmic, as if the metal was resonating at a rapid frequency. There was a sharp twang. The earth shuddered. All about the cavern dwarves leapt in fright. Then with a sudden snap, the door lurched upward, clearing the ground by a few dozen spans.

  A lone figure stood on the other side, his body shrouded in an aura of blue light.

  “The necromancer,” hissed Thatcher. He swallowed the knot in his throat, resisting the urge to flee. This was his chance. The necromancer had come to him. He could end all of this right now. But even as he thought this, a dozen heavily armored men flew into the cavern. They were not carrions.

  Scimitars flashed, ball lightning flared. The screams of a hundred souls simultaneously discovering their fate rent the air. Thatcher was ill. The phirops pressed into the terror-stricken mob dismembering anything that lay in their path. Separated limbs and shattered torsos flew through the air like discarded rags. The lamenting screams rose to a wretched din. The mass of dwarves turne
d into a stampede. Thatcher let the flow of traffic carry him to King Salmaen’s position.

  Like a spur of rock in a river, King Salmaen’s guard formed a wall of black steel about their liege, forcing all others to turn aside. Despite their stalwart appearance, Thatcher knew it would not be enough; not against this foe.

  “What in the name of everything holy are those things?” spurted King Salmaen when he caught sight of Thatcher.

  “They’re phirops,” yelled Thatcher over the cries of agony sounding at the head of the chamber.

  “They’re what?”

  Thatcher shook his head, there was no time to explain. He barked an order to the guards. “You need to get the king out of here, now!” The mist of flying blood showed the enemy’s progress through the crowd. They were coming fast.

  The guards stood unmoving, not accustomed to taking orders from anyone other than their lord. King Salmaen made as to object, but Byron shoved him in motion. “Go!” commanded Byron. “To the palace!”

  That was what the guards needed to hear, and they nearly lifted Salmaen off his feet, dragging him along as they began to rush through the crowd, shoving anyone aside who slowed their progress.

  Thatcher watched King Salmaen’s slow retreat. “It’s us or the king,” said Thatcher, not believing the words that were coming out of his mouth. Beside him Byron nodded bleakly.

  The air about them seemed to shiver, like the air before a storm, and slowly they turned to discover the phirops were upon them. Thatcher lifted his broadsword. Byron ground his palms into the haft of his maul.

  Seeing Byron and Thatcher as little more than an obstacle between them and their prey, the phirops didn’t hesitate for a second. One lunged at Thatcher. Thatcher’s body coiled, and he waited to catch the glint of the man’s curved scimitar before he acted. With a guttural roar, he wheeled about, bringing his broadsword crashing into the phirop’s frame. The man tried to block, bolstering his own strength with a magical chant, but it was no use. Thatcher’s blade shattered the man’s sword and cut through his body as if it were air; his two halves fell to the ground with a thud. Thatcher bounded atop the next phirop like a pouncing cat, catching the bewildered man before he could raise his hand in defense. The phirop frantically unleashed an incantation into his chest, flailing him with boiling flame. Thatcher’s cloak shriveled and burned, but he had the hide of a dragon, and no fire could singe his flesh. The heat only gave him strength, and he crushed the man’s skull between his hands.

  Thatcher roared the call of his people. “Avofew! Pit rein peta timawe!” He reeled to go after a third foe. There his fortune ended.

  This phirop was grimly aware that Thatcher was no creaton. He unleashed a wave of energy from his fingertips, sending the rippling force smacking into Thatcher’s body like a sack of stones. Thatcher was sent smashing through the wall of a nearby storefront. He slumped to the ground under the crushing blow. As he tried to regain his feet he was hit again. Thatcher’s breath exploded from his throat; his chest felt as if it might collapse, his bones ached as if they were being set to a grinding stone. The phirop held him there almost playfully, his tattooed face curled in pleasure. Then without warning, he released his hold and pranced off in the direction he had come.

  With an aching heart, Thatcher realized why. A phirop ran by, seemingly skimming over the ground as he went. King Salmaen’s still frame was settled upon his shoulder.

  Thatcher jumped to his feet, stumbling a bit at first. His whole body ached from battle, and his muscles seared from exhaustion. But he had no time for that now. He gritted his teeth and transformed to his true form, exploding into a gallop. He closed the distance to the rearmost phirop.

  The man was obviously taken aback by the sudden appearance of a dragon. He only had a split second to react before Thatcher crushed him flat. The next phirop he came upon met a similar fate. But time wasn’t on Thatcher’s side. The culprit with King Salmaen’s body was nearly through the gate.

  Midstride, Thatcher picked up a statue set along the side of the road, snapping the spindly stone ankles that held it to its marble base. He hurled it at the fleeing man. The marble figure crashed into the phirop with shattering force, breaking the man’s back grotesquely. King Salmaen’s body fell to the ground, but another phirop immediately took up the slain dwarf. Fifty paces, twenty, ten. The phirop sprinted beneath the gate. There was no more time. Thatcher dove head first.

  It felt as if time slowed to a crawl. The gate began to fall inch by inch. In that instant Thatcher knew what he had to do, though he was certain it meant his doom. He transformed to his creaton guise so that he could fit through the rapidly narrowing gap. To reenter the bazaar would mean his own death. This would be his sacrifice to Laveria, akin to the sacrifice of his ancestors in the War of Sundering. He tried to channel their spirits to find the strength in himself to produce dragon fire. It was up to him to burn the last shred of King Salmaen’s body to dust. He had to guarantee the necromancer could never lay his evil hands upon the king. Then and only then could Thatcher die.

  His body slid beneath the plummeting sheet of iron. His throat began to fill with the boiling bile of his stomach. The fire raged. There was hope still.

  Then, to Thatcher’s horror, his body suddenly lurched in reverse, struck by an overpowering force he could do nothing to resist. Fire vomited from his mouth, an arc of molten blood, and he shot backward over the cobblestone road, past the collapsing gate, past the heap of dismembered bodies, only coming to a stop after skidding a hundred paces into the city.

  The gate shuddered shut, a booming knell of defeat.

  Thatcher staggered to his feet, spitting fire from his mouth. He could barely move, but there was not time to spare. He stumbled like a drunkard toward a host of terrified dwarves.

  Byron came limping from the throng to meet him. The right side of his head was drenched in blood and his face was stricken. “We couldn’t hold them off. I...”

  Thatcher gripped Byron hard. “The catacombs, where are they?”

  “What do you mean?” Byron’s eyes rolled in their sockets, the horrors of the day too much for his mind to bear.

  “I need to know where the catacombs are, because if we don’t get to them fast this entire city is going to be crawling with carrions.”

  CHAPTER

  XX

  THE WITCH OF STONE KEEP

  “Why didn’t the Guardian take the Orb with him to Coralan?” Evelyn rocked her slender frame from one side of the stool to the next, daring it to topple over.

  “Because there it would not grow strong.” Calycia Manherm gently spun her daughter’s head back toward the fire. “Focus, my dear.”

  “Yes, but why leave it behind?” continued Evelyn. She hardly took note of the flaming logs in the hearth. “If the Orb of Azure is so precious, why leave it where it can be found?”

  “Has anyone found it yet?”

  “No...”

  “Then the Guardian has done a good job of hiding it, hasn’t he?” Calycia knelt so that her head was at the same level as her daughter’s. She placed a directing hand on Evelyn’s waist, ceasing her rocking, and pointed her toward the fireplace. Gleaming firelight danced on Calycia’s jet crown of hair, making it appear as if she wore a glowing halo. Evelyn grabbed a tress of her mother’s hair, tying it into a knot with her finger. It was not hot, as she had supposed, but frigid.

  Calycia pointed to the hearth. “The fire and the Orb are akin to one another. They demand to be fed. The Guardian left the Orb behind so that it would become overripe. He has plans, daughter, just as we do, and for what he intends to do, it will take more power than any soul has ever wielded.” She motioned to the leaping flames. “The Orb is the fire, the earth’s core, the sun. It is the light, my dear child. Yet how can you hold light without being burned?”

  “With the abyss,” recited Evelyn, saying what was expected of her.

  Calycia nodded in approval. “The abyss is before and after, the abyss is the void.”
/>
  “I don’t feel it,” said Evelyn, slightly saddened by the truth. She had never felt the dire touch of the abyss. Her mother swore it was there, or more precisely wasn’t anywhere at all, but instead was a part of her. It was the very essence of the Sundered Soul.

  “You will,” said Calycia confidently. “That is why the Weaver made you.” She redirected Evelyn’s gaze to the fire. “Try again.”

  Evelyn huffed with displeasure.

  “Again,” instructed a gruff voice.

  Evelyn’s eyes focused like a hawk.

  The wood in the fireplace popped, sending evanescent tendrils of flame curling toward the flue. Evelyn caught the point of light right before it faded to nothing. There she held it, midair, a point of energy little more than a smoldering gleed, so precious a breath might extinguish it.

  She closed her eyes, envisioning a forest fire scorching the world. The ember became a torrent of white flame, leaping from the hearth, spilling from the mantel like groping hands. Then, in an instant, it was gone. Everything vanished to a point of near nothingness. The room fell beneath a veil of shadow. A dire chill, beyond that of the coldest winter, encased her body. Evelyn thought she might freeze to death, and already she could feel her joints go rigid from the void. She reached into the hearth and there found her wildfire, now reduced to such an infinitesimal point it could have been the morning star on the horizon. She lifted it on the tip of her forefinger and held it aloft. Before her eyes she saw the power of a thousand swirling suns. Slowly the chill faded; the heat grew, burning then searing. She fought it, grasping the void with all her mental will. An ocean of pure black, solid, serene, immovable. It was the only way to control the raging inferno, but it was too late.

  Not a moment too soon, she cast the shimmering mote into the hearth. The void collapsed in a maelstrom of crackling lightning. Plasma boiled the air. The plaster about the hearth browned, and the adjacent painted frieze blackened and curled. The pop of fracturing bricks echoed in the expanse of her apartment. Heat wafted against the exposed flesh of her face, drying the skin of her cheeks, sucking the moisture from her eyes. The wildfire fed on itself, roiling inward and inward, until it was no more.