Sins of a Sovereignty (Amernia Fallen Book 1)

by Plague Jack

  Calcifer finally understood why humans respected dwarven strength as he watched dwarfs crack the knees of men sideways and smash their golden armor in ways that put Kaevin to shame. So, too, Calcifer gained a new respect for elven aim as their white-feathered arrows found the weak spots in armor and sent humans sputtering and falling to the ground in agony.

  “Push forward,” shouted Pierah over the chaos. “Forward, all of you!” she echoed, as the army in green surged forward.

  A knight in red ran at her, his sword arm raised high. “For Sir Gontine!” he screamed proudly. Sir Gontine’s massive red mane of plumage swung wildly as he brought his sword down at Pierah’s shoulder. Her fingers closed on empty air, and even though she wasn’t touching the knight, the powers she commanded crunched his gauntlet into his flesh. Sir Gontine screamed and dropped his sword, his heroic charge ending when Pierah closed her fist again and sent Sir Gontine’s head flying from his neck. Arteries sprayed blood in a ridiculous fountain that was lost in the light of the blood moon.

  Shrike’s smuggling tunnel proved its worth as ten of the Wild Hunt’s best burst from a baker’s shop behind the Queensguard. They crashed into the humans from their flank, catching them off guard and stabbing wildly and frantically. Steel clashed on steel as they met the humans in a whirlwind of chaos and carnage. Cut off from the rest of the Hunt and surrounded by humans, they fell one by one until their remains were trampled into the stone.

  In the midst of the horde, Calcifer was just another fish in a sea of violence. He rode amongst knights, doing his best to shield them from arrow fire. At the top of the hill he could feel the rippers he had bound as they tore through the dark castle high above. Come to me, he thought, projecting his will upon them. Feast.

  His projection was disrupted when a spear tip appeared bloodied and gory from the back of his horse’s neck. The horse stumbled and Calcifer had just enough time to free his legs before horse and rider fell together onto the cobblestone. A carpet of death cushioned their fall, and the sorcerer had barely managed to find his footing before a gilnoid collapsed beside him, her back riddled with arrows.

  Invisible, the rippers crept down from the castle that the Archduke had once called home. Their presence was noted by a freshly recruited crossbowman who wrote off the wavering of the shadows and strange shimmering of torchlight as a trick of his fear and unsettled nerves. This was the last mistake he made in his short life before a ripper appeared behind him and plunged its talons through the boy’s back, tearing open his mail and sending hundreds of little links spilling onto the earth. Only three rippers had survived the attack on the Ribcage, but three were more than enough to ravish the ranks of the crossbowmen. The rippers cackled to each other as their lips ran red with blood and the air filled with the stench of shit and iron.

  “Get down, Bottler!” shouted a faeling with blond hair as she pulled Calcifer down by his coat. A knight of the Queensguard had ridden past on a black charger, his sweeping axe almost taking the Bottler’s neck clean off. “Are you mad?” she asked. “That knight almost took your head.”

  And then the knight rode back and took hers. A black hole of exposed esophagus stared back at Calcifer while the faeling’s jugular spewed blood into his face. He stared transfixed in horror for a moment, until his senses returned to him and he let go of the body, which flopped onto the ground. We’re not going to win this, thought Calcifer, caught in the savage chaos. There are too many of them, and they’re bigger and better equipped. An elf warrior in a green cloak was battling a pair of Norfieldians to his left. Skillfully he wove and dodged between them, his sword flowing like an extension of his body. A crossbow bolt to the shoulder ended his valiant effort, and the Norfieldians fell upon him, stabbing him again and again. I shouldn’t be here. I should have left after I killed Blake, not sacrificed myself for the dreams of the desolate. A horse ran down a dwarf, smashing the man’s face into the mud with a hoof. He did not get up again. Not here, not in this horrid place.

  His head flashed with visions of Monica lying naked upon soft sheets before him. A hellion feasted upon the remains of his mother, while his father snuck out the back door. A soft voice told him he was a good man. Just another lie. A mocking dwarf with chained hands laughed, and a great and powerful dragon spread its black wings and roared. He saw Minerva atop her golden throne, but she rotted away before him and trilobites feasted upon her corpse. She was entirely covered by their shells, except for her eyes, which shone blue through the blackness that enveloped her. Cambrian’s eyes. The Life-Bringer spoke from her in an ancient tongue that felt like broken glass sliding across his brain. Arterius Blake laughed, his hand upon Monica’s throat.

  “No!” Calcifer screamed, his heart ringing in his ears. White light shone upon him, Pierah’s blood moon had faded, and for a moment the fighting stopped as all eyes looked towards the night sky. The red cloud which had fooled the Norfieldians and Queensguard began to swirl around the moon in a spiral, twisting downwards to the earth. “No more,” shouted Calcifer as a warm wind began to blow. “You wretches will all be punished for your sins.” The elf’s arms were outstretched as he spoke and his eyes began to glow a bright blue. Winds tossed his hair about as he was lifted into the air and thunder boomed. The clouds surrounded Norfield and encased the city in a dry tempest.

  The wind circled around Norfield, gaining speed as it went faster and faster. The banners were the first to get torn down as they were ripped from their standards. Next came signage and the shingles of houses, torn off one by one by raging winds. Faster and faster they spun in the air above Calcifer, who floated above the battlefield.

  “This city has stood testament to everything awful about this land. This evil bastion,” said Calcifer, his voice imbued with thunder. “The only remedy for evil is its destruction. Only then will it be cleansed!”

  “What’s happening?” a Huntsman asked Pierah as Calcifer’s voice bellowed from above the battlefield. “Has he gone rogue?”

  “I don’t think he means to,” shouted Pierah as the wind tore at them. “I think his mind’s finally broken.”

  “What do we do? Can you stop him?” asked the Huntsman.

  “I…I don’t know.”

  The winds now carried two pythons of rubble and junk that twisted and writhed through the air. Calcifer directed them like a conductor directing a symphony, channeling the fire in his mind and the hatred in his heart. A flame started in the writhing pile of junk as Calcifer conducted his song. The fire’s yellow light rushed over the rubble, burning shingles, flags, and planks as it seared. From the remains of this garbage came hummingbirds, each a tiny winged being of blue-eyed golden fire. There were tens of thousands now swarming above the city in two tentacles of light that lit up the night sky brighter than the moon.

  Both the Queensguard and the Norfieldians broke when the swarms descended. Hummingbirds shattered windows and pushed down walls, their bodies blazing with heat. The swarm surrounded the fleeing humans and attacked without mercy. Hummingbirds plucked out eyes with their bills, their fire making the eyes sizzle and cook until they melted off and sloshed onto the ground. As the humans screamed, the hummingbirds poured into their mouths, blackening and burning their lips as they entered. The heat burned so hot that teeth and bone began to crack and rupture as hot marrow melted through flesh. Hummingbirds undid the clasps of armor to expose the men’s skin, which blistered and smoked at the beat of their wings.

  “Get everyone into the elf district,” commanded Pierah as her Huntsmen ushered people back down the stairs. Calcifer was in control of the swarm, but there was no way of telling how long that control was going to last. Pierah couldn’t help but feel a little relieved to see the fleeing humans running for any cover they could find.

  The twin horse statues of Norfield had served as a symbol of the city’s nobility since Vaetorian rule. They cracked and shook with eldritch energy as Calcifer’s storm brought them to life. The massive stone mares neighed a fiery neigh and began t
o trot forward, their weight shaking the ground as they marched over the battlefield. A member of the Queensguard lay dying and burnt at the horse’s feet, and with an inquisitive sniff the horse poked the burnt flesh with its nose. Finding the smell to its liking, the horse picked the man up in its teeth and chewed armor and flesh alike. It enjoyed the taste of man and let loose a happy snort of flame before charging with its brother into the fleeing survivors. Whatever pathetic formation the Queensguard still held was dissolved as the stone horses tore through their ranks. Their massive hooves thundered as they stomped Queensguard into bloody puddles and left flaming hoof prints in their wake.

  “The whole world has gone insane,” said Pierah as the Wild Hunt retreated and birds of flame and horses of stone wrecked and burnt their way through the human district. She straddled her staff and gave a stomp of her foot that lifted her into the air.

  Before long she was soaring above the battlefield and buildings alike. Down below she could see the hummingbirds rejoining to create a single massive swarm once again. Pierah was surrounded by a sea of golden feathers and thousands of tiny beating wings. They did not harm her as they flew upward and surrounded Calcifer in a massive glistening ring of gold.

  Hunched and hanging limp in the sky was the thing that was once called Bottler. Black feathers covered nearly every inch of Calcifer’s skin, though he still wore his blue coat. His legs and arms were bowed and talons grew from his feet and hands. He turned his head towards her as she approached, his face an eerie white amongst the black. Calcifer still wore his clothes, although he was packed into them tightly. “What do you want from me, bitch?” asked Calcifer upon seeing Pierah through slitted eyes.

  “Calcifer, you have to stop this madness,” shouted Pierah. “Look at what you’ve become. You’re a hellion.” She was relieved to see that the Bottler’s tankard still hung loosely by his side. “You once scolded me for abusing my power, and now you do the same. How many men have you murdered tonight?”

  The thing that was once Calcifer let out a long, cackling laugh that sent a shiver down Pierah’s spine. “Not enough. Wicked, vile, filthy creatures. They paid for their crimes in fire, just as they deserved. You should be happy now. I saved the battle and now you and your little pets have Norfield.”

  “There isn’t going to be a city left unless you control yourself. Cambrian brought you back to fight monsters, not become one.”

  “The Life-Bringer brought me back so I could clean up his messes!” screamed Calcifer as the hummingbird swarm flew faster round and round with his wrath. “He deserves to suffer just as I made those pigs down there suffer for what they did to me.”

  “But they didn’t do anything to you!” retorted Pierah, struggling to stay stationary as the winds beat her back.

  “They took my love from me!” screamed Calcifer, his eyes a shining blue. “They violated her until she broke, raped her and left her for dead. I will make them suffer—I’ll make them all suffer.”

  “All of them?” asked Pierah. “Did all of them rape your sister? Every single one?”

  “Their sick society allowed it. Their society could have killed Blake, but instead they let him live among them. My father was right. Humans have no understanding of justice, nor the weight of their own sin.” The circle of hummingbirds was getting smaller and tighter, forcing Pierah and Calcifer closer together

  “What of Evrill? What of Pendragon? Are they not human? I know you’re hurting Calcifer, but you can’t believe that you’re the only person who’s lost someone they care about. Would we be here if that were true?”

  “Blake said that whores are nothing to great men,” said Calcifer, his eyes narrowing as the hummingbirds began to close in. “I wish that were so.”

  “Calcifer, stop!” screamed Pierah as the birds engulfed her. She summoned a mana shield to block them and tried to hold it with all of her strength. “You believed in something once. People looked up to you!”

  “That man is dead!” said Calcifer, his voice cutting through the storm.

  “No, he’s not! I know what the power feels like. It’ll bring you only misery and regret!” she said, her shield beginning to dissolve under the weight of the hummingbirds. Desperation gripped Pierah as the birds’ flame began to warm her skin uncomfortably. It wasn’t hard to mutate into a hellion; it was just a simple matter of taking more power than you could handle. The magic provided a gentle euphoria as it coursed through her veins. Dragonfly wings burst from her back and a crown of horns erupted from her skull. Pierah’s skinny body burned with blue fire as the white in her eyes turned black as ink.

  Her freshly grown wings beat faster than her eyes could see. Above her head she held her white wood staff as her mana shield began to break. She twirled her staff, and it began to glow and stretch until she held a lightning bolt in her hands. It writhed angrily as it spun, cutting through Calcifer’s swarm and vaporizing the hummingbirds who vanished into black smoke. “I didn’t want it to come to this, Bottler!” said hellion Pierah as the hummingbirds retreated. “But you brought this on yourself.” Pierah’s bolt crackled with a blue-white light as she pulled her arm back and threw the shimmering electricity at Calcifer with all her strength.

  The hummingbirds parted as the lightning bolt cut through them. Calcifer screamed in pain as he compressed the wriggling energy between his clawed hands, trapping it in a black ball of plasma. The lightning went out as the sphere in his hands turned a deep purple and cracked like an egg. Calcifer raised his hand as claws of shadow hatched from the orb he held. It grew in the sky, getting larger and larger until it was as big as a mill. The hand flew at Pierah, smothering light and cutting a black swath through the gold.

  The black hand grabbed for Pierah, its fingers clawing through the sky. A beam of pink fire burst from her crown of horns and struck its palm. A rosy blush of magic tore through the hand and exploded in a rainbow aurora that floated gently down to the earth.

  “You’re just like all the others,” screamed Calcifer as his right hand liquefied and writhed like a tentacle. “Just another liar—they’re all liars!” screamed Calcifer as the coiling flesh on his right hand hardened into an eight-foot lance of sharpened bone. Calcifer shot forward with his lance’s point aimed for Pierah’s heart.

  Down below, the Ribcage lay abandoned, its nobles either dead at the hands of the rippers or having long since fled. A stack of metal boxes vibrated ferociously amongst the bodies. The entombed drones struggled to break free of their bonds. It was pure dumb luck that one of the drones managed to break the lock on its crate, exploding forth with its rotor whirling. An eye glowed red as it sprayed lightning from the bulb on its bottom and broke the locks that constrained its brothers. Together they soared upwards through the upper windows of the Ribcage and past the many stone buttresses to join the battle above in? the night sky.

  There was an explosion of metal as Calcifer slammed into a drone which had positioned itself protectively in front of Pierah. A second suddenly appeared at Calcifer’s side, its spinning blades keeping it suspended in midair. “One of your tricks?” he shouted.

  “What is that?” responded Pierah in confusion before two circled her. The first blast of electricity caught her brutally in the stomach. Had she not been mutated the force would have ripped her in half, but instead her insides churned and her skin smoked.

  Calcifer let out a howl of rage as he too was struck by white fire and the hummingbirds flew to his aid. The lightning coils of Eldred’s machine sizzled and popped with sparks as they sprayed the swarm of birds, causing them to dissipate. Another bolt hit Pierah, and she screamed in pain as she almost fell from the sky. The Bottler seemed to be getting the worst of it as he was struck again and again, each strike turning his feathers back into flesh. The last of the hummingbirds vanished in a crack of flame as Calcifer began to fall unconscious from the sky.

  Lightning whizzed past Pierah’s face as she plunged downward after the falling Bottler. She sent a bolt flying over her shoulde
r as she flew, exploding one of the drones in a rain of gears and glass. She caught Calcifer in her claws, tankard and all, and flew as fast as she could. Her translucent wings beat at the wind while she carried him away from the burning ruins of Norfield, away from nightmares and Wild Huntsmen. She carried him east.

  Chapter 12

  Young man, if you think this rebellion is about you, you are sorely mistaken. You did the elfkin a great service by killing Gabriel, but you crossed a line when you defiled your mother. The only reason I let you live is because you still have a use. Am I making myself clear, you spoiled sadistic little brat?

  —King Harendiir to Darius the Usurper.

  The Wild Hunt’s chains were locked around Shrike’s chest and arms so tightly that he was finding it hard to breathe. He was escorted by thirty Huntsmen, all armed and watchful. Mordigan bumped into him as he stopped to try to catch his breath.

  “Little man needs to move,” growled Mordigan, taking a swig from the absinthe Shrike had bought at the market just a few days prior. Salus and Evrill rode behind Mordigan, both watching the scene unfold.

  “These chains are too damn tight,” said Shrike. “Perhaps if you loosened them I might be able to walk faster.”

  “Hur hur hur,” laughed Mordigan, his face contorting into an ugly, noseless grimace. “You think you’re clever, dwarf? You think you’re cleverer than Mordigan?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Shrike. In response the gilnoid gave a sharp yank on the chain, throwing Shrike to the ground and knocking the wind from his chest. When I get out of these chains I’m going to saw your ears off, you filthy git.

  “Enough of this,” ordered Evrill as she rode up beside the gilnoid and dismounted. Shrike shook the Duchess’s hand off his shoulder as he forced himself off the ground. “I’ve brought you water,” said the Duchess, holding a bottle near the dwarf’s mouth.