by Sandell Wall
“Forgive me, but I cannot leave her here to die,” he said. When Sir Ignatius unbarred the door and swung it open, Reginaldus stepped into the hallway. Her right arm was cradled against her side, held in place by a filthy fabric sling. She looked like she had been abused worse than Aventine’s father. Reginaldus fell into step behind them without saying a word.
Back at the entrance to the passageway to the barracks, Aventine paused to take stock of their party. Holmgrim and Saffrin waited for her to signal the exit. The two of them seemed taken aback that their group had grown from three to nineteen since entering the prison. Alypia stood with what remained of the Rune Guard, who were ready to follow Aventine into the abyss if she commanded it. Varis, Ignatius, and Reginaldus, stripped of their armor and weapons, looked like sad shadows of their former glory, but two of them were praetors, one of them the most formidable warrior in the empire.
This is all that’s left of the emperor’s legacy.
Aventine gave the order to move out, and the Rune Guard soldiers led the way into the secret passage. Unlit torches were stored inside the tunnel, and when they had light, the hidden doorway was closed behind them. As they made their way single file toward the exit in the cave thousands of feet away, Aventine felt the awesome weight of destiny rest on her shoulders. She was the commander of surviving fragment of the Rune Guard, and in her company she guarded the man who was to be emperor. Ahead of them, the empire waited, now a dark and unknown land full of death and war. The hope for a better future lived and died with her.
Watch over me, mother, my work is not yet done.
Chapter 32
HIGH ABOVE THE EARTH, the Black Citadel floated over Umgragon like a dark cloud. Tethana and Brax had been moved inside. Remus had instructed that they be placed in a room with windows, and from where he stood between the tables that their still forms rested on, he looked out into open sky. Sunlit squares of bright blue, the windows tried to beat back the dark and forbidding gloom of the castle with a splash of color and warmth. Remus had spent the last three hours querying the citadel for a way to revive Tethana, and although he learned much, every avenue of investigation was a dead end. He was exhausted.
Scattered throughout the great fortress, Remus could sense the runebound as they went about their duties. An odd thing had happened when the thralls entered the Black Citadel. He was still connected with them, and could control them directly if he wished, but the thralls were also linked with the citadel. Remus was aware of the citadel instructing the runebound to perform basic functions of maintenance and repair.
Remus had been surprised to discover that the runebound seemed to retain a fragment of personality and the capacity for emotion. He sensed that the thralls were happy and content to be engaged in the work of returning the fortress to its ancient glory. They were tools that longed to be used—inactivity was their bane. Eight thousand eager minds all set to a common goal created a steady hum of background activity in Remus’s mind that was not altogether unpleasant. He was going to have to figure out how to keep that many mouths fed, and soon.
The several hundred surviving members of the First Legion had elected to stay in Umgragon to help rebuild. When Remus had lowered the castle to let the soldiers disembark, he asked Crell if anyone had seen his old squad, hoping to learn that Ellion had survived the battle, but Crell had not seen any of Remus’s men. Ellion was either trapped in the city, or fallen in the streets.
Marthis still lived, and with Crell’s help, he was organizing search parties to sift through the rubble of the city looking for survivors. Hundreds of Volgoth were among the dead, but Goregash and the rest of his people were nowhere to be seen. Somehow, the chieftain had led his people out of the city and into the flatlands. There was no doubt in Remus’s mind that the Volgoth would not stop until they reached the Wilds.
Remus shook himself from his recollections, turning his attention to the present. There was one problem he could put off for no longer. Pricker had turned the power of the gauntlet against Remus. He could feel the chains of their covenant lurking in his mind, and he knew that if he tried to break his word, the bonds would tighten on his soul in a stranglehold.
“Attend to me in Tethana’s room,” Remus sent the command to Pricker in his mind. There was no response, but Remus knew Pricker would soon appear. While he waited, he stroked Tethana’s hair. She looked like she was resting. His heart ached at her beauty, and his powerlessness to aid her. Brax lay on the table opposite her, unconscious since the battle in the courtyard. Remus’s attack had broken the control circlet on the big man’s brow, but he did not wake.
Pricker appeared in the doorway and paused there, watching Remus with his haunting yellow eyes. The thin Drathani waited for Remus to explain the summons. Since Remus had snapped at him, Pricker refused to volunteer information or even speak unless Remus asked him a direct question. The pettiness of this behavior infuriated Remus, but he suspected anything else Pricker could do would make him just as angry, and Pricker probably knew that.
“I suppose it’s fitting that I suffer the consequences for trusting you when no one else would,” Remus said in his mind. “I won’t make the same mistake twice. It seems I have no choice but to honor my promise to turn the Black Citadel over when this war is over, but I won’t be manipulated further by you. If you threaten me, if you raise a hand against ally or friend, if I even think you’re playing me for a fool a second time, I’ll tear everything down around your head. Do you understand me? There won’t be a fortress for you to take control of if I smash it into a mountainside.”
“Save your childish threats,” Pricker responded in Remus’s head. “I am content with our agreement. The castle will be mine, in time. Until then, it’s in my best interest to see Savaroth defeated. I will continue to fight alongside you. Trust me or don’t, I care not.”
Remus waved Pricker away. “You may go. Heed my warning, or lose the citadel.”
Pricker watched Remus for a few long heartbeats, blinking slowly. Finally, he turned and walked away. Pikon’s dark-armored form replaced Pricker in the doorway.
“You have a report?” Remus said.
“It is as you said,” Pikon said. “The runebound are rebuilding the fortress. I’ve explored some of the tunnels below. There are vaults of strange tools and weapons of the like I’ve never seen. The thralls seem to know what they are for, and have begun dragging them into the light of day. Soon, this castle will be equipped for war.” Pikon looked at the still forms of Tethana and then Brax. “Have you made any progress here?”
“No,” Remus said with a sigh. “I know that their ailments must be different, but both of them seem locked within their own minds. I cannot find a way to reach them. The citadel contains vast arcane knowledge, but so far I’ve found nothing pertaining to this.”
“Your barbarian friend mourns his cat as if he’s lost a brother.”
“Shim’s not dead yet, and may recover, but if he stays unconscious much longer, he will die from lack of water.”
“And these two will not?”
“I can’t get them to eat food, but they will swallow liquid if I pour it into their mouth. They’ll not die for want of drink.”
Pikon looked around the room, his gaze stopping on the open windows. He did not speak for some time, and when he did, his voice was contemplative. “This is not where I thought we’d end up when I saved your life in front of Fort Delgrath.”
“Nor I,” Remus said. “Was it worth it?”
“It was worth it,” Pikon said with a nod. “Many have fallen, but not all. We’ve weathered the tempest and come out the other side, and now we have a fighting chance. The Ethari stand ready to follow your lead. I will return to my duties and leave you to your work.”
Pikon saluted and then turned on his heel and walked out. As Remus watched the Ethari’s armored back disappear through the door, he reflected on his present circumstances. This was not the destiny he had envisioned when he stormed out of Holmgrim’s smithy.
It felt like an eternity ago that he had worked alongside Axid under Holmgrim’s tutelage.
Through the strange rune-power of the Drathani, he was now linked to eight thousand runebound souls, all eager to do his bidding. He was master of an ancient, flying fortress full of terrible and untapped secrets. An exiled and immortal general of the enemy held him hostage to a promise he did not want to fulfill, and a crazy, tree-wearing barbarian wandered the hallways mourning his comatose cat. On top of all that, the fate of mankind might rest on his shoulders.
But most astonishing to Remus was that he had found Tethana. Before her, he had given no thought to love, and would have laughed if anyone had asked. Now cut off from Tethana, every heartbeat that passed without her by his side hammered home to Remus just how much he needed her. Shame and grief warred with fiery determination in his soul. He did this to her. She trusted him, and he had failed her.
Remus placed a gentle hand on Tethana’s arm. He looked out the window into the bright blue sky. Unable to resist the subliminal pull, his eyes were drawn east to where Savaroth waited.
I can fix this, Tethana, I swear it. I can save you—I can save everyone.
Epilogue
DRANZEN, HEIR TO HOUSE LOME, nephew to Sir Lorent, collapsed in the dirt of the road. For the second time in an hour, his legs had given out. He lay with his face in the mud, reliving the horrors of the past week. His squad had joined the Drathani in an assault on Umgragon. With ten thousand runebound thralls on their side, it should have been a lopsided victory. But then the gods-cursed castle had risen out of the ground like a flying mountain. Dranzen could still feel the terror that had gripped his heart when the earth shook and the Black Citadel shrugged off the bonds of the earth.
After that, the battle turned. The Drathani prefects had fled, taking to the air and streaking away over the flatlands faster than an arrow shot from a bow. Dranzen and his men had been trapped in the city with ten thousand hungry runebound, and without a master, the thralls were no longer allies. Two of his soldiers were torn apart before they realized the runebound had turned against them. They had fought street to street, hacking their way through a forest of living flesh to win clear of the city.
Once outside the walls, fear had driven him to lead his men into the mountains. Dranzen knew there was a path over the Brokenspire Peaks that would lead them to Lome, and he had decided to brave the dangers of the old mountain trail rather than challenge a flying fortress. How foolish he had been.
Face down in the muck, Dranzen trembled as his body remembered the horrors the dark mountain chasms hid. Great, clawed tentacles had risen from the fathomless depths to pluck his men from the path, the hooked nails shining like sickles in the moonlight. Swarms of monstrous insects had crawled out of the rocks and devoured any man who fell behind. They had tried to barricade themselves in a cave to sleep, only to wake covered in a creeping fungus of death. Dranzen’s skin was still blistered and burned from the monster’s digestive acids.
Dranzen alone had stumbled out of the Brokenspires. He lifted himself from the dirt and forced his weary legs to take another step. His mind had not yet accepted the devastation all around him. The province of Lome had been destroyed. Any building not made of stone had been toppled, and as far as the eye could see, every living thing had been slaughtered. Having nowhere else to go, Dranzen pressed on, seeking Castle Leo.
Someone has to still be alive. How could we lose everything so quickly?
After dragging himself the last few miles, the seat of the House Lome’s authority came into view. Castle Leo sat alone in the center of the province. The family preferred privacy; they had never allowed a town to spring up outside the walls of the fortress. Heartened by the sight, Dranzen picked up his pace. He had toddled through the halls of the castle as a young child, trained to be a warrior on these fields, and lain with his first woman in the nearby forest. This was home.
However, as he neared the gate, his enthusiasm gave way to dread. The wooden doors of the gate were smashed, and a corpse dangled from the battlements. Its body had been horribly abused, but the face had not been touched. It was the body of Vispanius, Lord of Lome.
Dranzen dropped to his knees. He retched, but all his empty stomach had to give was bitter bile. Unable to resist the draw of exploring his ruined home, Dranzen climbed to his feet and crept through the broken doors. The courtyard told the story of Lome’s last hours. Dead warriors lay crumpled on the cobbled stone. Crows and maggots feasted on the rotting flesh of Lome’s greatest champions.
Amongst the fallen, Dranzen saw soldiers wearing familiar silver armor. His mind reeled at the discovery. In disbelief, he tore the helmet from one of the bodies to find the gray-fleshed face beneath. He rocked back on his heels, astonishment and then anger flooding through him.
Drathani did this!
From inside the castle, he heard a terrible scream. Dranzen lunged to his feet, sudden strength filling his limbs as he sought the source of the horrible sound. He saw the familiar hallways through a veil of tears. Bodies were everywhere—not even the servants had escaped the massacre. At last, he reached the throne room. Here he paused, stepping lightly as he approached the ornate wooden doors. They were open a crack, and he held his breath as he peered through the slit with one eye.
Dranzen’s legs almost gave out again when he discovered the source of the scream. Sir Lorent was slumped on the throne, the blood from a thousand cuts running down his naked torso. Strange rune symbols had been carved into his skin. The red runes of a control circlet burned fiercely on his brow.
A Drathani prefect stood beside the throne, a bloody blade held in his hand. In front of the throne, the being that Dranzen only knew as the leader of the Drathani inspected Sir Lorent. At least ten feet tall, the creature was the embodiment of menace. The horns on its helmet made it look like a demon straight out of the abyss. Long, talon-like fingers gesticulated smoothly as the thing talked.
“Thou hast failed me, Lorent of Lome,” the terrifying creature said. “One task I gave thee: kill the false emperor. Yet he escaped thee and unleashed a power I had rather kept hidden. Better that thou hadst perished in those flames than that thou endure my disappointment.”
The creature raised its left hand, on which it wore a golden gauntlet. On the back of the gauntlet, a ruby glowed with inner light. With fingers spread wide toward Sir Lorent, it said, “But thou shalt serve me still, and perhaps please me yet. Rise, Sir Lorent, and redeem thy failures with blood.”
With a hideous groan, Sir Lorent lurched to his feet. He stood before the throne, swaying as if he was drunk. The runes carved into his skin burst to life, and he started to scream.
Dranzen fell back, away from the doors. Revulsion and dread overwhelmed him. He fled, abandoning his home, leaving behind all he knew, and disappeared into the wasteland that had been the empire.
——
On the edge of the empire, crouched next to a weed-covered crevice in the ground, a slight, pale figure watched the sky. Long-fingered hands shielded its eyes from a harsh sunlight that beat down on bone-colored skin. A featureless white mask covered the watcher’s face.
To the east, suspended above the forest like great carrion birds floating on the wind, a host of dark castles levitated across the treetops. Propelled by some unseen power, the soaring citadels moved westward, silent, sinister, and unstoppable.
The watcher knelt, transfixed as the nearest fortress eclipsed the sun, and he knew then that the long-dreaded time had arrived. Savaroth had come, and the end of the world came with him.
About the Author
Sandell Wall is a computer programmer/business analyst by trade. He lives in Michigan with his wonderful wife and newborn son. He has embarked on a personal quest to write a million words. This book represents the fulfillment of one tenth of that quest. Rune Destiny is his second book.
You can visit his website at http://www.sandellwall.com. He would love it if you stopped by and joined his mailing list.