“No. That won’t work either. You can hardly control them. You’ve still lost the other, Juzo Pulling I believe, friend of the Shadow Slayer. You should find him, get control. He could be useful,” Prodal said casually, resuming his stroll.
“Yes…” Terar frowned, but only half his mouth shifted with the expression. “I’ve found him, I think.”
Prodal gestured, fingers twiddling. “Find Juzo, use Larissa if you must. Protect Greyson by whatever means. He must be allowed to flourish.”
“By whatever means,” Terar echoed. “If I do this, does this mean my debt is paid?”
Prodal crossed his arms and let out a sinister chuckle. “Maybe. If you perform, I can consider your debt paid.” He bridged the distance between them and raised one hand to rub the back of Terar’s neck in an almost loving gesture. His touch was as frozen as the dead. Terar forced himself to stare into his eyes, colors shifting from ruby to indigo. “Maybe,” Prodal said again, puffing into a wisp of smoke and dissipating into nothing.
Harwood Hold, the palace set in the Center of Helm’s Reach, mirrored the Midgaard Palace’s structure. The principal differences being that it was built at about half the size and with clay bricks rather than veined marble. It was a three-story building with a broad base, the walls narrowing as it rose to form a series of sharp-angled rooms at the apex. Its face held long rectangles of stained glass that reached from base to roof line. It even had the same geodesic domes gleaming from the tops of a pair of twin spires on either edge of the palace. The architect who had built the Midgaard palace had been commissioned for Helm’s Reach, though he was wise enough to avoid constructing an edifice that could usurp the beauty of the king’s palace.
Inside Harwood Hold, the palace was rich with polished wooden floors and sturdy beams that could support half the world. The furnishings were handcrafted and spoke of a city rife with profits. The lobby leading to the deceased Earl Baraz’s meeting chamber featured several couches and end tables made of Ivory Wood, a pale variety imported from the Far Islands.
The walls were liberally adorned with a mix of paintings depicting Helm’s Reach battling against hordes of Death Spawn. A shelf held a series of Death Spawn skulls, each unique and taking on a strikingly different shape. One was round and human-like, others oblong like a dog but with three eye sockets.
The deceased Earl Baraz’s meeting room had a pair of towering bookshelves that stretched up to the high ceilings. The ceilings were trimmed with intricately carved moldings, all straight lines and sharp angles. There was a marbled hearth crackling with a low fire. Above it was a mounted trophy fish, the length of a man, its bright blue eye wide open. A series of ancient looking swords were hung down one section of wall, dully reflecting the firelight. The day was still high, but the room would have been dark without the fire. The few windows let in just enough light to put the rest of the room in grim shadows.
Romek Baraz had gotten rid of his father’s other trinkets, favoring all but the most beautiful and useful. Upon his dead father’s desk was a small glass statue in the likeness of the Dragon. Its claws were black as obsidian and the flames emerging from its mouth a beautiful mix of reds and oranges. It was one of the few he liked, despite who and what it represented.
“We’ve salted their gardens, fouled their water, and the beggars in Dirt Ring harass any wizards bold enough to venture into the Middle,” said Walcott, Romek’s younger brother by two name years, his skin pale and hair a blazing red. “Do you have a new idea for us? We must be careful with her.” He leaned back in his chair with a bewildered sigh.
“True,” Romek gestured. “We’ve done well by making the Tower’s presence in Helm’s Reach difficult. But our true time to strike beckons, brother.” Romek had a black square cut beard in the likeness of his father, head shaved, and body well-muscled from endless hours working the sword. There was a long scar running down his temple, skipping over his eye and ending at his jaw.
“I have a meeting with the Merchant Master in thirty minutes. Whatever this meeting is about, you’d best be out with it now,” Amand said. He wore an overlapping vest in carrot orange, trimmed with golden beads and forest green trousers stylishly wrinkled at the knees. His skin was olive, pockmarked, and appeared to be stretched over his bony face. His jaw was set at a skewed angle, never quite the same after the Arch Wizard urged the men of the Falcon to beat him near to death.
Amand was a lawmaker for the king, stationed to oversee the law in Helm’s Reach. The Arch Wizard slighted him once, bumping into him or some other trivial guff. She apparently didn’t apologize enough, and he wasn’t a man to let a grudge go lightly. Romek’s father owed Amand a debt, and it had been called in that awful day. Amand wanted the Arch Wizard’s life, and Baraz was compelled by his debt to deliver it, but Romek’s father, Earl Baraz, underestimated the Falcon’s loyalty to the Arch Wizard. His own army, a contingent of the Falcon, had turned on him, running him through as they all bloodied their spears. She ordered the Falcon to slaughter Romek’s father in cold blood. There would be reckoning for her crimes.
Revenge boiled in Romek during the long and grinding years, rebuilding all that been laid to waste during the Shadow War. The Arch Wizard had to pay. She wasn’t the law, despite what she thought. She was a worse tyrant than the king had ever been. At least he honored the law. “Amand, I assure that the time for yours and all of our revenge draws near.”
Amand scoffed. “There’s nothing more we can do to the Tower without arousing their dogs. Even what we do now worries me. When the Arch Wizard is done with the Shadow Princess… she’ll certainly set her sights on our agitators.” He reached for a long stem glass and sipped a bubbling rosé.
“No,” Romek growled, tapping his stubby fingers on the table’s edge. “That’s where you’re wrong. We have a chance to help Midgaard and befoul the Silver Tower. Get in the king’s good graces.” And to hurt the Arch Wizard.
Amand and Walcott leaned toward him in unison. “I’m listening,” Amand said.
“That…” Romek struggled to get the words out over a wave of choking anger. “That fucking bitch killed my father. There’s going to be a duel here in two days’ time. It’s been kept quiet until now, and everyone will know about it by sunset. That damned New Tower has been a boil on my hide. Every time I view it, it makes my chest burn.”
“A duel? What for?” Walcott asked, rubbing his narrow chin.
“You don’t pay attention to anything, do you, brother? To settle their squabbles over the king’s heir, of course. The bitch kidnapped Greyson and sent him to Tigeria, remember? A duel between two champions, to settle it once and for all.”
A sinister smile spread up Amand’s acne-scarred cheeks. “And that’s where we come in.”
“What do you have in mind? How can we help the king? And what if we’re caught?” Walcott asked in a nervous puke of questions.
“You won’t get caught because I’ll do the thing,” Romek said, lowering his voice. “You remember the man who’s been training me? Artus?”
“The elixir skinned bastard, that’s the one, isn’t it? Told you he was a swordsman of the Falcon but turned out to be a former Scorpion,” Walcott muttered.
Romek nodded, leaning in close to meet them. “That’s the one. He’s good. Taught me a thing.”
“Are you mad?” Walcott splayed his fingers around his round belly, giving it a hearty rub. “You’re going to try to kill the Arch Wizard? You must wish for death, brother.” The hearth crackled behind him, cloaking him in shadows.
“Do you think me that soft?” Romek glared at him. “No. She’ll likely be with a retinue of her personal guard too. I fear the chance for a true vengeance will never appear, but there will be a chance to hurt her.”
“The champion?” Amand asked, raising his chin.
“The champion,” Romek grinned with a nod.
Amand set his glass on the table with a click. “I presume the Tower’s champion is a user of magic. They’ll be able to he
al with the Phoenix,” Amand said, shaking his head with a frown. “Whatever your plan, it won’t work.”
“No, no.” Romek’s smile grew. “She is no wizard.”
The Shadow Princess leaned over the walls of Ashrath, the capitol of Tigeria. Its walls were higher than the tallest spire in the Silver Tower. It was the largest construction in all the realms by her estimation. The walls were sheer and reached up forever, stuccoed with a cream-colored mud, showing the occasional spot of bricks behind it like a torn scab. The enormous bricks that made up the wall’s bones must have each spanned four feet and weighed hundreds of pounds. Humans always built for the sky, unaware that there was nothing to be found up there but the scorching heat of the stars.
Gray archer’s towers loomed over her, casting jagged shadows on the golden sands before the city gates. The archers fell months ago, their savaged bodies crawling with maggots and Rot Flies. The gate’s main archway reached up at least ten stories as if they needed enough room for a siege engine to pass through. These Tigerians would never siege anything ever again. The distant roads were like the branches of a great tree, the central artery passing under the gate. Between the branching roads were shanty huts where Tigerians once lived. Among the shanty huts were farms, the crops all wilted husks.
On the ground stood two huge statues of Tigerian warriors perched on either side of the gates. They wore harsh armor with spikes that seemed sharp enough to impale a man upon. They stood about half the height of the wall, each bearing double-axes that intersected at the apex of the archway. There was a mirrored copy of them in the Tigerian Bluffs in Zoria, though in a sore state of disrepair from the violent winds and years of neglect.
The Shadow Princess examined the intricate stonework lining the ramparts. The same images repeated everywhere on every tiled face. From what she could tell, there was some type of story inscribed upon the wall’s face. She saw men fighting Tigerians, Tigerians on boats, an image of the Dragon and the Phoenix gods. On another tile a Tougere head swallowed both of the gods, its giant teeth depicted piercing through both of them. She snickered at seeing what could only be a carving of Asebor, her father, surrounded by an army of Tigerians. She could almost see the motion of his chains in the artwork, hewing through bodies like a scythe through wheat. She wondered how many he’d killed that day, the day the wizards enslaved him in that Milvorian tomb.
There were spiraling stairways on either side of the wall as if inviting a raiding force to storm up them. It was a show of arrogance, disrespectful of the Shadow’s strength. It might have been a remarkable advantage if your enemy can’t fly, she thought. It would likely take an invading force at least ten minutes to climb those circuitous stairs, ample time for dousing them with Shadow fire.
The only figures that moved among the city now were her pets. Her creations were a mix of snakes and demons constructed from the corpses of the dead. Her snakes were her main conduit for infection, biting and traveling great distances to find fresh hosts. She felt all of them as extensions of her mind, like hair bristling from one’s arm. She couldn’t feel them all at once, of course, but like an area of hair, she could tune into a group of them. They were her tentacles on the world.
They were like ants at this distance, a wriggling mass of demons and Shadow snakes, seeking out the flesh of any remaining Tigerian in the city. Swarming over every surface, from hard angled roofs to winding alleys. Where Shadow snakes coated the ground, violet light flickered from their amethyst eyes.
Towering among them were hideous constructs of flesh, blade, horn, and spike, the very manifestations of the Shadow Realm forged in this realm. She gazed at a demon, its humanoid body thick with great slabs of muscle, its head a twisted mass of horns. At least ten horned tentacles slithered from its back. Another’s guts had been removed, leaving its spine showing, its stomach replaced with a giant mouth lined with teeth as large as a fist. Its arms dragged along the ground, gripping a pair of giant swords and hacking at Shadow snakes that got in its way. Its direction was an aimless milling, only able to go as far as she allowed it. A third was a two-headed being covered in coarse fur, and held in each hand a cat o’ nine tails. A dead Tigerian he’d been torturing for days was hung from a wall, its flesh only ragged strips hanging from its bones. A shred of its pants hung from one leg.
There was a time when the area below her was a wall of shrieking sound. She was glad it was gone. Scales once clattered, goats bleated, Tigerian’s roared, and Tougere’s lumbered through a pressing rabble of vying creatures. The street was broad enough to fit at least twenty carriages, filled with the smashed remnants of endless rows of merchant’s carts. Once there were chained gangs of human slaves being marched off, their flesh covered in dirt, their owners eager for them to be sold or eaten.
Touching the perimeter of Ashrath’s great walls were hovels. They were stacked on top of each other at least four stories high on either side of the main thoroughfare. Each subsequent dwelling was a bit smaller than the one below it, such that the bottom most dwelling presumably had less weight to support. They were poorly constructed with all manner of materials from rusted iron to freshly hewed wood. Bright fabric hung across the road on crisscrossing lengths of rope. The linens swayed in the breeze and cast shadows on the squirming Death Spawn below.
“What are you waiting for?” Annoyance asked from the princess’s right side. She was a figure her mind fabricated, and she knew it, but somehow, her voice was terribly real. The Shadow Princess was alone in this world. Even the children of dead gods have a need for companionship, she thought. A dark smile formed on her lips as she regarded Annoyance.
Annoyance’s body was a replica of her own. Annoyance was lithe, yet muscular, hips wide and breasts full. Every part of her except her face shimmered in a ruby carapace, eyes glowing with a hint of violet light. The skin of her face was ivory white and flawless, nose tiny and lips set in a permanent scowl. Her jaw was narrow, cheekbones all sharp angles. Great swathes of flesh connected at her wrists and draped down to her ankles for her wings.
Annoyance put a hand on her shoulder, fingers long and tipped with talons. “What are you watching?” Annoyance leaned close and whispered in her ear. “This place bores me. There are no more here. We’ve taken them all.”
“You mean I’ve taken them all,” the Shadow Princess stated. “You’re not really there. You’re just in my mind.”
Annoyance leaned back with a knife of a smile, peering at her. “How do you know you’re not a creation of my mind?”
That gave the Shadow Princess pause. “Because there are others like you. All of which I named, Annoyance. I know your thoughts before you voice them. Can you say the same of me?”
Annoyance started to pace, crossing her wings over her front.
“Well, can you?”
“I suppose not,” Annoyance muttered with a quick shake of her head. “When are we leaving for Zoria? Do you ever intend to do what’s right?”
“You’re not helping me decide. I need to know when to strike, when the army is strong enough. Can’t you see that? Don’t you already know that?”
Worry, another delusion, spoke at her back. “No, no. She’s right, Annoyance. We don’t have enough of an army yet. There’s much that could go wrong, so much we must do before we move to Zoria. The timing must be right. The Tower is not a force to take lightly. Killed your father, killed your mother, and they’ll kill you too if you don’t take precautions.”
Courage appeared at her left, shaking her head at her with a scowl. Her voice was gravel. “Don’t listen to these fools. You have more than you’ll ever need to crush the Tower under your heels. What your mother and father could not do, you can. You have your father’s martial prowess, your mother’s gift of Shadow.”
“You might be right, but—” The Shadow Princess cut off as Annoyance shoved her into a stagger, striding toward Courage. Annoyance wrapped her hands around Courage’s throat, her wine-red fingers wriggling at Annoyance’s. Courage drove a hard
knee into Annoyance’s groin, hands falling from her throat. Courage slashed Annoyance across the cheek, sending a spray of violet blood against the wall.
“You dare!” Annoyance shrieked, hand pressing at the violet streaking her perfect face.
“You’re not helping her!” Courage barked. “Shut your mouth, or must I shut it for you?” She planted her hands on her hips, leathery wings twitching against her back.
Worry fell into a ball of carapace at the Shadow Princess’s feet, suppressing sobs. “Please don’t hurt me, oh please, oh please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
The Shadow Princess placed a hand on the back of her neck, gently stroking it. “I won’t. I know you’re just looking out for me, darling. There’s not many who do. It’s so hard here… always being alone.”
“Always alone,” Worry sniffed.
“What would your father think if he heard you now?” Courage scoffed in her ear. “You two are pathetic. You might as well go on and smash your phylactery now. You’re already dead to me.”
“Alone, alone,” Worry repeated while gently rocking.
“If we don’t leave now, all our efforts will be for naught,” Annoyance muttered, resuming her pacing, blood trickling down her chest.
Anger appeared, eyes wide, jaw clenched, and hands balled. “I’ll kill them all! All of them!” she roared over them, dashing to the wall, and looking out over the squirming horde of demons. “Isa, Senka, Walter, Juzo, the Arch Wizard, each and every wizard’s flesh will be reaped from their bones. I’ll turn their remains to charred heaps. Senka… she was the first to wound us, and thus, will be the first to die.”
“Please, oh please…” Worry sobbed, hugging her ankles.
Anger turned on her, eyes narrowing. “You. Oh, look at you. Utterly useless.” Anger marched toward Worry and drove a hard kick into her face. The Shadow Princess groaned as she felt Worry’s nose crumple and one of Anger’s toes break on the impact. It was a deliciously painful feeling. She wanted more.
The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7) Page 16