The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7)

by Everet Martins

  “Yes, yes,” the man mockingly snickered, head cocking from side to side with each word. “He will have you back.”

  “No,” Juzo whimpered, guts squirming. He can’t be. He released one hand, wound up and drove his fist into the man’s jaw, sending a tooth bouncing from his mouth. The man laughed harder, blood weeping down the corners of his lips.

  “Where is he?” Juzo barked. “Where?” The man threw his head back in a howl, lips pursing as if imitating a wolf. “Stop!” Juzo punched him again, heard his teeth clash as his jaw smacked against his upper teeth.

  Words spilled out of the man. “M-Midgaard sometimes. Sometimes on the northern grounds. Sometimes worlds unseen, worlds of the great Creator.”

  “How did you find me?” Juzo seethed. Nothing made any sense.

  The man howled again, louder this time as if wolves might be summoned to save him. Juzo gripped him by the throat, pressing him down, choking off his annoying voice. It would be so easy, but he needed information. “I’ll ask you one more time. Tell me how you found me or die.”

  The man nodded, face flushed with blood, and Juzo released his grip, eyes vibrating in his skull. The man collected his breath, a long grin crawling up his beard. “He knows where you are. Always. He senses you because you, as I said,” the man jabbed him in the chest with his finger, “will always be his to own.”

  “No,” Juzo breathed. He felt as if the scars Terar had inflicted upon his body were strips of ice. Was he watching, perhaps sensing him now? “I didn’t deserve this, any of this,” Juzo murmured, eyes flicking to the start of the rising moon. Why won’t he leave me alone?

  “Of course not.” The wounded man smiled. “None of us ever do. Now kill me and send me back to my Pure brothers.”

  “Pure? As in the Purists?”

  “The very same ones. It doesn’t matter what you do to me. You and your kind will be scrubbed from the earth. You and all the filth like you. Death Spawn and wizards alike.” The man shrugged in Juzo’s grip, letting his head loll back. “I’m ready to die now, white one.”

  It was Juzo’s turn to smile. “No. You’ll live for many days. You know what I am, what I need.”

  The man jerked his stricken face up, lips twitching in horror. “You’ll make me like you?”

  “No, no. You’ll be my personal blood bag. I’ll keep you well fed and alive. We’ll have a great time together. How does that sound? I can keep you alive for days, just a taste here and there to sate my needs.”

  The Purist’s scream tore at the moon, and it was Juzo’s turn to laugh.

  THREE

  The Purists

  “The Purists were strange creatures, no longer men but wild savages. I hope some part of them found revulsion in their violence.” - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield

  Greyson sighed, raising his head as something caught his eye. A mirror on the wall held his reflection. It had been so long he had almost forgotten how he looked. Full coils of auburn hair fell over his ears and along one side of his brow, eyes dark as night in between the bright rectangles of light streaming in from behind. He wore a long black overcoat over a beige shirt, the sleeves trimmed in gold and the shoulders brocaded with a floral pattern. His pants were ruffled at the knees, feet slippered.

  He hated his outfit. He realized he was more comfortable in the rags he was forced to wear as a slave in Tigeria. In those clothes, he didn’t care if there was a piece of stray lint on his front. In those threadbare rags, he could move and take a full breath. He leaned in closer to the mirror so he could study his eyes. It would only be the fifth time that day. He mastered a flinch at the flecks of violet squirming in the whites. “Gods no,” he breathed and blinked hard. “Go away.” And away the violet went, returning to their jaundiced yellow.

  “Greyson!” his father, King Ezra barked. “Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”

  Greyson turned to regard the king with a groan and gave a wordless shake of his head.

  The Midgaard Palace’s hallway was marked with pairs of red marbled columns veined with gold. They were set every twenty feet between the spacious rooms on the eastern side. Connected between each pair of columns were ornamented golden arches whose keystones held rubies the size of a hen’s egg. Lances of amber light poured in through the western windows, making the stone glint and the arches glow.

  The stink of the city occasionally wafted through the windows to Greyson’s annoyance. And even more annoying was the shout of a quarreling couple in the palace’s gardens. Why his father ever let the commoners grace its beauty was forever lost on him.

  It all came out of him then. It was fast and sudden, rising up his throat like a boiling acid. “I want my comeuppance, and I can wait no longer!” Greyson Rogard hammered his fist into his opened palm, grunting at the pain stinging up his arm, turning to regard his father.

  That minor pain paled in comparison to the chronic agony that corrupted his rest. Every time he tried to sleep for more than a continuous hour, his nerves became fire, spanning out to scorch his skin, tearing screams of misery from his lips. Sleep came in harrowed gulps and spurts.

  Dreams transmuted into nightmares. Big-titted whores became rotting corpses whose flesh fell from their bones at his touch. Magnificent feasts punctuated by the best orchestral bands became heaps of mouldering meat, buzzing with Rot Flies and squirming yellow maggots. The Arch Wizard of the Silver Tower hung from the gallows, her face blue, neck stretched and broken, only to shudder back to life for one last gambit. She seared him in Dragon fire, causing him to wake to the sound of his own screams.

  The Shadow would soon possess him, he knew. He’d been bitten by a Shadow snake while escaping from Beachmarsh in Tigeria. By a miracle of the gods, he’d made it back to the palace, his festering wound gone unnoticed. It was only a matter of time until the embryonic snake in his body grew, feasting on his flesh and stealing nutrients meant for him. Eventually, it would erupt from his body, and he would be gone. The Arch Wizard did this to him. And with his every aching breath, he swore to make the bitch pay.

  The Shadow Princess had somehow followed them all the way to that rural nowhere from Ashrath, the capital of Tigeria. Beachmarsh. He knew the name but had already forgotten it a moment later. His memory was going fuzzy, names, places, and things he’d always known were like a shattered plate pushed back together. Pieces were lost and found again.

  Why did the Shadow Princess care so much about them? But no, he knew it wasn’t he the Shadow Princess wanted, but those affiliated with the Tower. Senka, Isa, and Juzo. He didn’t deserve this and was being unfairly punished. If he was going to die like this, like those horrible Tigerians, then he would not go quietly.

  He commissioned the best herbalists, witch doctors, and back alley healers his marks could buy to help him. They were no better than con men. He couldn’t go to a wizard, as they would surely discover the nature of his secret and ensure his death.

  So, Greyson kept his wound hidden, and his flesh wrapped so curious eyes wouldn’t find it. It was a grisly thing the size of his fist, the flesh stretched thin, bubbled, edges swimming in blues, reds, and purples. Every day he had to place additional layers of wrapping distal to the sore as the veins around it further blackened.

  It was a battle he fought alone. His father hadn’t even asked if something was wrong, never noticing his dramatic weight loss, pale cheeks, and trembling hands. Of course, you’d have to spend time with your son to notice these things. To notice his hands, the king would’ve had to touch him.

  “The time is not yet upon us, my child,” King Ezra said, sweeping his son with a withering glare. “How many times must you demand the same of me and how many times must I repeat myself? My tongue grows tired of your prattling.” He never bothered to look at him, lumbering down the hallway as if his life depended on dealing with the next trifling court matter.

  “Prattling?” Greyson stopped in his tracks, restraining his fist from smashing it through a priceless vase. He snorted a breath, s
taring at his father’s back as he carried on without him. His jaw clamped with scorn as yet another bolt of pain spiked in his leg. The king’s auburn cape dragged at the rich carpets, now too long for his hunched figure. The palace’s tailors offered to adjust it, but he had stubbornly declined, citing it as a waste of his precious time.

  “Father,” Greyson hissed through his jaw, though too quiet to reach the king’s failing ears. He raised his voice, hands balling up so tight he thought he might sprain his fingers. “Have you forgotten what the Tower did to me? To us? The kingdom! Midgaard! Have you no respect for what we represent?” His voice cracked, revealing his unmeasured rage.

  The king whirled to glower at him, about twelve paces away, cape flowing about his bony shape. His gemmed crown slid to the side of his liver-spotted pate, topped with a few sprigs of white hair. He pointed at him with a gnarled finger, heavy under a gemmed ring. “You have no notion of what you say. After all this time in another realm, you’ve learned nothing of diplomacy, guile, and subterfuge. And here I was… thinking your time away would’ve helped you become a man. How wrong I was.” His countenance went dark. “You are but a child in a man’s world. You haven’t even the slightest inkling of proof of the Tower’s betrayal. Without proof, evidence of your claims against the Tower, the courts will laugh you away from their hallowed halls.”

  Greyson’s jaw creaked. He clasped his hand against the back of his neck and started scratching at a scab that had hardly gone a day without his picking. “I told you my only proof is dead.” He seethed. “Captain Derwood and his crew, the bastards who murdered my guard and sold me to Scab are all dead. How many times must I repeat myself?” He tore into his neck, fingertips coming away bloodied, and flicked the crumpled remnants of the scab to the carpets with a frown of disgust. He struggled to restrain himself, clinging to a sliver of self-control. He made himself take a breath, realizing it had gone shallow. “That… that fucking cunt sold me to a slaver, and you don’t care!” Hot warmth filled his eyes.

  The king shook his head, bushy white eyebrows drawn over twitching eyes. The king raised himself up, small in stature, but suddenly as imposing as the fiercest of warriors. He marched for his son, gaze unyielding. In a burst of youthful speed, he reached Greyson, hands curled under his collar and dragging him down so close their noses touched. “Listen to me, you spineless shit,” he hissed, breath tinged with garlic and fish. “If you were the man I raised you to be, you would’ve escaped your slaver’s clutches alone and quietly returned to Midgaard. Or even better, died in the Tigerian wastes. Perhaps then, we could’ve sown your vengeance in back-channels. But instead, you took the Tower’s help, marched up to the Arch Wizard’s High Office and made the kingdom an open enemy of the fucking Tower!” Spit flecked Greyson’s cheeks. “The Tower! Do you realize what you’ve done?”

  “Me?” Greyson’s throat worked, head slightly shaking. “I wasn’t the one who brought the Falcon into the Tower’s halls, threatening to… what was it? Telling her that lightning will tear from the sky, and she’ll remember her king? You—” He screwed his eyes shut as a flash of white pain tore across Greyson’s jaw. He opened his eyes, his father’s open hand raised to strike him again.

  The king’s eyes blazed, and he shouted, “You will be the worst king in seven generations! Fool! You forced my hand, and I had to save face! What king would I be if I walked away with a smile on my face?” The king’s open hand became a pointing finger, jabbing Greyson between the eyes. “Think. I know there’s a brain in there, but it is blinded by vengeance.”

  And agony, Greyson thought, tears thick in his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, gaze finding his father’s polished black leather boots. He hated to admit it to even himself, but his father was right. Had he simply gone back to Midgaard, maybe things would be different. It was already done.

  “What?” The king turned his ear as if he hadn’t heard him, making Greyson wonder if his claims at troubled hearing was a ruse, giving him an excuse not to respond. He was shaming him. “I couldn’t hear you. Please repeat it again for these old ears.” His expression softened, a thin smile tracing his lips.

  “I made a mistake, Father. What do you wish of me?” he said in a moment of weakness, the shield of rage momentarily discarded. “I did what I thought was right. Can you blame me? What we went through… what we survived.” He thought of the Dread Temple and all those shrieking creatures attempting to impale them with thrown spears. Because of them, he now feared shadows.

  The king’s long white beard fluttered with a sigh, hand unwinding from under Greyson’s collar to rest on his shoulder. He gave it a gentle, perhaps even loving, pat. He lowered his voice. “You must have patience, my son. Wait until the back of your enemy is turned before sinking the dagger in. Because of this… state,” he gestured toward the windows, “I have been forced to do things I preferred not to do. That is the nature of this world. We must adapt or be crushed.”

  “What things?” Greyson asked, voice hoarse. A lightheadedness took him then, laying a curtain of mist over his thoughts and making them hard to reach.

  “You…” the king clicked his tongue against his teeth, “should tour the grounds of the Purists. Then you shall see what I mean.”

  “The Purist’s grounds. I thought I’d heard something about them while I recovered in bed. You removed them from the city and gave them land in the North? The rumors are true then?”

  “They are true. They won’t harm you if you travel with a retinue of my guard, so they know your affiliation.”

  “Harm me?” Greyson’s stomach quivered as a string of branching fire flashed up from his leg, stopping to rest in his cheek like a smoldering coal. This sort of pain he’d become acclimated to, able to ignore it for a time. There was a benefit to the pain though. It cut through the haze and brought mental clarity. “They’re bandits, why give them a place to grow? You’ll only have to send the Falcon to crush them eventually. I don’t understand.”

  “No.” The king shook his head. “We need to hurt the Tower. What better group than zealots? They hate… no, loathe everything about magic, the Tower. They’re mostly defectors from the Falcon, highwaymen, rapists, robbers, murderers, all the soon to be imprisoned. But then I had a realization.” His eyes flickered with a mad gleam. “Why waste our taxes on supporting their miserable lives in prison when we can execute them by allowing themselves to be impaled upon Tower’s walls and set alight by wizard fire? This is how we avoid war and disassociate ourselves from their actions. They’re going to be our spear in the Tower’s hide.”

  Greyson frowned through a new surge of pain, making his backside tingle. “An excellent plan, Father, but I only want to hurt the Arch Wizard.” He opened his mouth to carry on, halting the next thought in his throat. He had friends in the Tower, people he’d come to like. When he left the Tower on that fateful day when the king threatened the Arch Wizard, he wanted to think he’d made friends with Isa, Senka, and Juzo. They saved him. They cared when even his father hadn’t.

  The king shrugged. “Revenge is messy.”

  Greyson bit his inner cheeks, tasting a tang of iron. “This spear, how do you propose to control it? What’s to stop them from pillaging the villages surrounding the kingdom’s walls? Even while the Purists were in the city, they were accused of countless crimes and the most horrid of rapes and murders.”

  “I have my ways. Must I counsel you on the punishment for questioning the king’s decisions?” King Ezra leaned close, eyes fever-bright.

  Greyson gritted his teeth for a moment, then forced his mouth into a smile. “Of course not, Father, merely curious. I know that if you made the decision, it surely must be infallible.”

  “Would you like another bruise on your beautiful face? Does the first not linger?”

  Greyson raised his hands. “No. I’m sorry, Father. I’ve been under a lot of stress. The sickness I contracted in Tigeria makes it difficult to sleep, and without sleep, I’m a monster.” He laughed nervously.r />
  He’d slain beasts far more fearsome than this man in Tigeria. What was stopping him from raising his hands now and choking the life from this old, angry creature? He could picture it. His fingers wrapped tight about his narrow neck, thumbs pressing deep into his ancient trachea. He would press and press until his throat gave with a satisfying pop, the thrumming of his father’s pulse hard against Greyson’s crushing palms. His gray eyes would go red, face scarlet, a pathetic gurgling cry for help. And then nothing. His body would go limp, and maybe Greyson would give him a parting kick to the head, causing the crown to clatter across the floor.

  The king’s gaze softened with a warm smile, and Greyson returned the gesture, his smile full, bright, and showing teeth. The start of a true laugh came with it.

  The king’s hand once again clasped Greyson’s shoulder. He could feel the cold metal of all his rings through his coat. “Ah, yes, a lack of sufficient rest makes demons of us all, doesn’t it? Tour the Purist’s grounds tomorrow, get some rest, then return to me. We can make the decision whether or not to send them to the Tower…together.”

  “Together?” Greyson echoed.

  “Together,” the king said with a dismissive wave, turned on his heels and strode away, cape flapping behind. He called over his shoulder, “I think you will find the wisdom in my decision. And do remember to travel with the guards.”

  Greyson’s eyes fell to the carpets, a hypnotic pattern of interlocking rings colored in gold, red, and amber. For a second, they moved, coalescing together, then shifting apart. “Gods. I’m dying,” he whispered. He heard his father’s every scuffing step, cape gently hissing, his throat clearing as he turned the corner at the hallway’s intersection. The air behind him was scented with a strong musk that tickled his nose. “The Purists,” he mused.