The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4)

by Everet Martins

  The barber’s arm drifted up behind Ezra, hand hidden. Lajoy took another step forward, his arms reaching out to seize Walter. Walter didn’t need to see the barber’s hand to know what was there. The barber’s eyes were black slits intent on the king’s neck.

  “Walter!” Grimbald roared in his ear, seeing what he saw now. Grimbald started for the barber, teeth bared.

  Walter took a sharp breath through his nose, allowing the Dragon’s rage to pour through his veins. It was a surge of floodwaters in his body, yearning to spill over the river’s edge. He ignored Lajoy, just a step or two away. The shafts of colored light cutting the room dulled in intensity, while each shaft’s beam became wholly distinct. Ezra’s wine-stained fingertip stabbed the air, wrinkles around his scowl deepening. Was this a man worth saving? He cared about his people and that was enough for Walter.

  He had to be precise. He pointed with two fingers and squinted at the barber’s head. His arm came up beside Ezra’s neck, straight razor gleaming death. An arrow of flames emerged from his fingers and tore across the room, burning through dust and puffing with a trail of black smoke.

  “No!” Lajoy reached for him, one hand clawing the air, the other dragging out a dagger. The rasp of steel on leather sent a shiver down his neck.

  The barber’s razor was on the King’s neck. A drop of blood welled out from under his skin as the razor bit into his flesh. Ezra winced. The arrow struck the barber, burning a hole through the side of his head. For an instant, Walter could see the green drapes behind him through the hole. Blood filled it and spurted out onto Ezra’s back, spilling over his furs and splashing over his golden throne. The razor fell away from his neck.

  The audience chamber filled with echoing screams. Larissa scrunched her eyes and turned away from the shimmering beads of the barber’s blood. They slapped onto her face, spattered on her dress and spoiled her image of perfection.

  Thurber’s jaw dropped open, head jolting back as if he’d been assaulted. His clipboard fell, twirled through the air and clattered onto the ground. It sent a streak of liquefied candle wax across the floor. He staggered back, one hand clawing the robes on his chest.

  Lajoy crashed into him, shattering his Warrior’s Focus. Time sped up, resuming its regular course. The air was expelled from his lungs. Lajoy stared into his eye, one hand crushing Walter’s throat, the other holding a dagger overhead.

  “Wait, look,” Walter croaked, prying his fingers loose. Lajoy turned his head to look at the king, a dagger tip twinkling in a shaft blue light. Walter’s heart thudded in his head and Lajoy’s grip around his neck relaxed. Lajoy growled as he stood, eyebrows drawn. He darted for the barber and the king.

  He lunged up the last few steps to the dais, the king madly shrieking. He was wildly pawing blood from his face as if it were searing acid melting his skin. “No! No, no. What is this? Get it off, damn it!”

  Grimbald had dragged the barber behind the throne and dropped a crunching fist into his nose.

  Lajoy squatted down and rammed a dagger into the barber’s chest, piercing through his heart in a single, fatal blow. He didn’t leave anything to chance. Four other Black Guards poured into the room, scanning for other threats. Their weapons were drawn, poised to strike like viper’s fangs.

  “Father! Are you—?” Larissa placed a hand on his shoulder, but he swatted it away.

  “Leave me alone, damn you!” he screamed at her.

  The king’s wine had spilled and the bottom of his white furs were drinking up the scarlet liquid. The king stammered and Lajoy handed him a handkerchief. He wiped his face until it was raw, working the barber’s blood deep into the creases on his cheeks. His white beard was a bright red with blood on one side, the hair matted and pressed against his sharp jawline. His jeweled crown was upside down beside the throne, leaving a ringlet of depressed flesh around his liver spotted skull.

  Thurber was still screaming, a high-pitched womanish squealing. He staggered back into the wall of gems, arms wide and pressing into it. His spectacles had abandoned his face a few paces back. Lajoy strode over to him.

  “Warmaster!” Thurber shrieked.

  Lajoy backhanded him across the face. “Shut your mouth hole,” he grunted.

  Thurber sobbed and spat a bloody tooth out into his cupped hands.

  Walter dragged himself to his feet, working his neck from side to side. He cleared his throat and took a shallow breath. He wanted to heave for breath, not getting enough. He forced himself to breathe deeply. It was the quickest way to recover from having the air blown out of you. His mother had said there was a muscle in there—he forgot the name—that would cease working for a bit when you were struck too hard.

  “What happened? Why did this happen?” The king hurled the bloody handkerchief to the ground and it clung to his fingers. “Damn it!” He wrung his hand a few times until it finally came loose, fluttering down to the marble. He looked from the barber to Walter, Grimbald, then back at the barber, then to Lajoy. “Damn it, Lajoy. How could you have let this happen? You’re supposed to be my fucking bodyguard. The best in all the realms! Pah! I could’ve hired the damn gardener’s for all the protecting you’ve done.”

  Lajoy sheathed his bloody dagger and straightened up as the king moved within an inch of his face.

  “You useless bastard.” The king spat. There was a furious twitching in the corner of his lip.

  Lajoy narrowed his eyes at Ezra and snorted a breath.

  “You’re off the fucking job!” he shrieked in Lajoy’s face. “Pack your belongings, and leave the city immediately.”

  “But it’s not his fault,” Grimbald said. “Look, it’s no ordinary man.” Grimbald pointed at the shimmering barber.

  The image of the well-groomed barber shifted, transmuted into a figure with a metallic head and lightly armored body. There was a bleeding hole in the side of the perfectly smooth sphere of a head, bits of cracked metal around it. This Death Spawn had a small form, like a child hardly in their teen years. “A meta, meta-something.” Grimbald scratched his stubble.

  “Metamorphose—a shape shifter. They can take on the image of anyone with enough time.” Walter walked around the pair of bloodied chairs, stopping beside Grimbald. He gave it a quick look, then watched Ezra and Lajoy.

  Lajoy followed Grimbald’s meaty finger and swallowed. This wasn’t the first time he’d failed in protecting the king from one of these beasts.

  “Nicely done, Walt.” Grimbald grinned at him.

  “Thanks, it was… nothing.” Walter said absentmindedly, watching the standoff between the king and his warmaster.

  Grim peered down at the body. “Can’t believe that man was this little creature.”

  He felt Larissa’s eyes on him. He flicked his eyes to hers, meeting them for a breath. In that moment, thousands of words were spoken. She came up behind her father’s back, placing a blood-spattered hand on his shoulder. He angrily shrugged it off.

  “Stop, Larissa,” Ezra shot over his shoulder. His head snapped back to Lajoy. “Why are you still here, you effectual shit? I told you to leave. Now. You know my rules. One mistake is forgiven, but not two, not like this.” His eyes quivered.

  Lajoy took a whistling breath and took a big step back, eyes locked onto the king’s. His hand was a blur of shadow as he drew the dagger from its scabbard. The edge stopped at his neck. “It’s been a great honor to serve, my liege.”

  Grimbald gasped. Larissa cringed away from the pair of them.

  “Wait! No!” Ezra reached for him with a gnarled hand.

  He wouldn’t. Not here. Not like this.

  The blade carved through his neck from ear to ear, flesh yawning and squelching open. His head flopped back and snakes of blood pulsed out from his carotid arteries. His helmet clanged onto the tiles, freeing his coils of yellow hair. Screams filled the air, a mad echo in a room with such high ceilings. Lajoy’s body crumpled to the floor like his powerful limbs had become straw.

  Larissa turned with a
hand over her mouth, eyes filling with tears. “No!” she yelled. She ran through an archway, leaving a trail of scarlet footprints behind. Thurber followed, adding his own set of bloody smears on the ornate tiles and priceless gems.

  A tragedy. Walter wondered who would be tasked with cleaning up this grisly mess. Most people never gave a thought to the peasants they were shitting on with their selfish acts. You’d think with death lurking all over the realm, people would be better, nicer even. Maybe they would unify, fight together and put their own personal issues aside, but nothing ever changes. Asebor didn’t need the Death Spawn to slaughter men; they’d do it just fine themselves.

  “No, Lajoy! Why? You bastard! Why?” The king beat his little fists into the thickening blood on Lajoy’s chest. Walter wasn’t sure if Ezra was more upset about the mess he’d made or his suicide.

  “Probably time for us to go, then” Walter said to Grimbald. His voice felt dead. He could have healed Lajoy instead of watching the last of his blood leak out. Maybe even could have saved him if he acted now. It would be a great drain on his stamina and he had a feeling it would be needed soon.

  He didn’t care much for Lajoy. Didn’t care much for the way his eyes had stripped Nyset bare. Didn’t care for how he’d treated him on the day they first met the king, like he was shit to be scraped off his boots. It was important to be nice to people. You never knew who would tip the scale that determined whether you lived or died. He was sure the Shadow Realm would welcome him with open arms. He felt the beginnings of a mad grin touch his mouth.

  “Yeah.” Grimbald looked at him with sober eyes. “You alright, Walt?”

  “Mm.” He nodded, turned away and started walking.

  They had made it halfway towards the main corridor when Ezra called out. “Wait.”

  They turned and shared foreboding glances.

  The king was slumped and swallowed in his enormous chair, uncaring of the gore covering it and the loyal man still bleeding a step beside it. He stared at them for an uncomfortable minute. “Thank you for saving me again.” He gave a weak wave and closed his eyes.

  “Will you help us then?” Walter asked. It couldn’t hurt to try again.

  “Be gone from my sight.”

  They turned and left the king alone, stewing in a fraction of the blood to come.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Shipton

  “Fire Vortex: When the wielder of the Dragon has fully embraced its fury and needs to release it before burning out, the Fire Vortex is well suited for this purpose. Energy will build up inside of you and explode in an outward dome, casting all around you in scorching flames.” -The Lost Spells of Zoria

  At the bottom of the horizon was a forest, a dark band of stabbing spears. Above the forest was a sliver of orange light, like someone had smeared honey across the world. Above the orange were gradients of blue going from light to dark in the cloudless sky. A few plumes of smoke rose up from the embers of dying hearths, dancing between the trees. All was quiet in Shipton, except for the piercing crowing of a few roosters.

  Charles Landon stirred in his bed. “Damn those roosters,” he groaned. For a minute, while he lay there blinking, he felt good. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and the throbbing pain in his back and his elbows returned with a vengeance, a constant reminder of the fragility of life.

  He rubbed his elbows, then his back and rose from his bed. The bedroom was bathed in a gloomy blue, hardly enough light to see by. There were a few charcoal sketches hanging on the wall, drawn by his late wife. There was a polished axe by his bedside table, only used once for dark work. It always gave him a little comfort, made him feel less alone at seeing it.

  He snatched a robe from a hook and worked it on. It was tattered on the elbows and fraying at the bottom. He cinched it around his protruding gut and shrugged it over his broad shoulders. He scratched his bald head. When had all his hair left him? “Long ago.” He chuckled to himself. Every day was a new day, one not to be taken for granted.

  He peered at the empty bed where Grimbald used to sleep, still made and always waiting for the day he’d return. The bed had been lengthened and widened twice as the boy grew. The legs were doubly reinforced to support his weight. The Falcon would give him leave eventually, wouldn’t they? He missed the help, and truth be told, missed just having him around. It got tiresome waking up by yourself every day.

  Grim was a grown man now, no longer a lad swinging a wooden axe. He was out there conquering the world, fighting alongside with the Midgaard Falcon. “Ah yep, that’s my boy,” he laughed. He was glad for him, glad he chased his dreams. Charles had resigned himself to running the tavern long ago and that was all right with him. He got to talk to a lot of people and he liked that.

  He made his way down the creaking stairs of the Hissing Gooseberry, the best damned tavern on the west coast if you asked him. The business was good, even with all the ill news coming in of the Tower from the east. At first, he hadn’t believed it, but after hearing the same tale so many times, it’d be only a foolish thing to go on denying it.

  He walked over to the hearth and set a log into the sputtering embers, something to cut the morning chill for the customers. He rounded up stray mugs from tables, setting them on the bar to be washed. People always thought running a tavern was easy work. He’d tell them they should open one, then they’d grow quiet and stare into their mugs. He would open for morning supper in a couple hours and had to get the place ready.

  He grabbed a cedar bucket in one hand. He lifted the iron bar set across the door, setting it into a notch to keep it from locking while customers were in. He never used to lock the door, but it seemed the prudent thing to do now. He pushed through the front door. He breathed deeply on the cool morning air and started towards the well in the center of the village. “Another beautiful morning,” he said, grinning at the prospect of a profitable day. It was mostly quiet, the kind he liked best. The damned roosters didn’t count though.

  He trundled along the dirt path and reached the well a minute later. He placed his hand on the splintered crank when the distinctive shattering of glass reached his ears. In the tavern, he’d be groaning at the sound of marks fading away and patrons sheepishly smiling. This was something different.

  He felt goosebumps waving up his arms and the pressing urge to turn and run. That would be silly though. He couldn’t run like a child at an unusual sound. He was a man, a father. But why wouldn’t the feeling pass? He licked his lips, throat dry as cotton.

  He peered around the houses and shops across the square, a motley assortment, each designed by an architect with an entirely different style. Propped open windows were shadowy eyes and mouths, gaping open with surprise. Some of the buildings were narrow and tall, others squat and wide like they’d been flattened to resemble a flour cake. Not a single candle burned in a window. He narrowed his brows, peering into bedrooms, searching for the glow of a morning lantern. All was dark and still, bathed in a dark blue before the sun washed away the remains of the night.

  The cold rarely touched him, and it didn’t now, yet his skin was still tight, the hair on his arms standing upright. He swallowed and softly set his bucket down. He jerked up at a scream getting cut off before it started. His heavy brows dropped down further, partly obscuring his eyes. It came from a house across the square, where exactly he couldn’t say.

  His gut prickled with the sense of danger he knew never to ignore. He turned, shuffling back towards the tavern and abandoning the bucket. The shriek of a woman rang out, then ended just as quickly as the first. Sweat bloomed in the middle of his back. He spared a glance over his shoulder and gasped at what he saw.

  There was a figure swallowed in shadow staring at him, one eye red as fire. A dark liquid painted the bottom half of its face. His heart dropped into his guts, eyes bulging out. He let out a surprised moan. “The demons.” He found his voice, for the sake of the others he would. “They’re here! Demons!” Charles shouted into the night.

  H
e ran, more like a hurried shuffling, almost at the Hissing Gooseberry’s door. He felt a burning sensation between his legs. His thighs and fruits viciously rubbed together, scouring off the first layer of skin. He’d let his damned gut get too big over the years. He knew his bodily negligence would catch up to him eventually, but not like this. A rooster let out a babbling crow and pounding steps came from behind, too close, too fast.

  He leaped up the two steps before the door, snatched the wooden handle, flung the door open just enough to slip inside. He shouldered it closed and dropped the heavy iron bar across it with a bang. He pressed his back against the door, heart beating against his ribs. A rooster let out a crow that echoed between houses. There was another scream from far off, becoming a muffled gurgle.

  “Bloody Dragons. What’s happening?” He panted. Charles wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow on the back of his hand. “Am I imagining things? This can’t be happening. Maybe I’m just dreaming?”

  The boards on the landing outside the door creaked. This was no dream. What to do? If he moved, it would know where he was. If he moved, he could get to Lovebleeder, his axe. Maybe he could—

  An explosion of shattering wood pierced his ears. He screamed. Tinkling nails and wood splinters shot across the tavern floor. His screaming was quickly turned into a gagging fight for air. Something was tight around his neck. He reached up to find a powerful arm there trying to choke the life out of him.

  Charles was considered one of the strongest men in the village, but even with all his strength, he couldn’t move the arm. It was small and wiry. The dark boards of the tavern floor swam in and out of focus. He grunted and jerked, clawed at the arm to no avail. Grimbald. He had to live to see him again.

  He spread his mouth as wide as he could, showing all his teeth, and savagely bit into the arm. He ground his teeth into the flesh, trying to rip out as much as he could. The arm loosened its grip, now trying to free itself from his gnashing. He was filled with an animalistic rage and used his meaty hands to pin the little arm. The owner of the arm would pay dearly, this he knew. Pulsing blood filled his mouth, slick over his knuckles and between his fingers. He felt the flesh under his teeth give and he jerked his head to the side, tearing a chunk of muscle and skin free. The flesh peeled away in tattered strips of flesh and cloth. He spat it onto the floor, hitting the wood with a squelch. He released the arm and it wriggled into the hole it had punched through.