Realms of Valen - Blasphemous Crusade (War of the Gods Book 2)

by Rickk Berry III

  Malcade and Telvas stared at Rykar for a long moment, then Malcade shook his head, turned, and headed out to pack. Telvas, meanwhile, stared slack-jawed for a moment longer, then closed his mouth and nodded.

  “Yes, my Lord,” he nodded and then, he too, left the home.

  “Farren, my dear, please make sure my house does not explode while I'm away,” Rykar instructed.

  “Yes, Rykar,” the blonde woman replied with a roll of her blue eyes.

  “Right then. Are you ready, Kai?” the newly crowned king asked.

  “Yes,” Kai answered shortly.

  “Good! Off we go to pester Malcade until he's ready,” Rykar said with a grin. Kai chuckled and the pair left, leaving Farren in a suddenly quiet home.

  * * *

  “You're the new what?!” Malcade questioned rather loudly.

  Malcade, Kaidia, and Rykar were all three on horseback, armed and armored, Mehroth having disappeared in the distance. All three were headed in the same general direction for the time being so they traveled together. Eventually, Kaidia would split off to head into the southern forests but for now, they enjoyed each others' company.

  “King, you deaf bastard,” Rykar repeated.

  “How the hell do they appoint someone like you as the new king?!” Malcade asked, incredulous.

  “I helped them pick him for the job,” Kaidia interjected calmly.

  “Thanks for that, by the way,” Rykar muttered dryly, obviously not thrilled with his new position.

  “How was he the most qualified candidate?” Malcade questioned, eyes on Kaidia.

  “Are you doubting the decision of a god, Malcade?” Kai asked, managing to hide her smirk.

  “N.. no! I'm just... wait a minute... you don't believe in gods, you knob!” the fiery-haired man shouted. Kaidia and Rykar burst into a fit of laughter while Malcade just gave the king and the god dirty looks. “Asses.”

  “Yes, I've seen you stare at Kai's,” Rykar remarked. Kaidia looked up, a brow arched high.

  “I what? No no no, um, you see, I uh...” Malcade fell over his words. Rykar and Kaidia found themselves laughing again.

  “It's fine, Malcade. Rykar is just messing with you. If I minded people staring, I wouldn't wear pants that accentuated my form.” Kaidia reassured the stammering man.

  “Damn... and here I wanted to torment him all the way to Anklis.” Rykar complained with a chuckle.

  “Screw you. And why are we going to Anklis with only two people again?” Rykar's second in command inquired, eyes on Rykar.

  “It's a diplomatic meeting, not a declaration of war. You're going because, now that I am king, I need a personal bodyguard, a right hand if you will, and we both know you're damn good at that, Malcade. So you get a bump in position and pay. The Scorpion Company will become the new elite soldiers of the crown, Malcade, and you will be their Commander. I will be busy being the king. Also, we'll need to appoint someone to be the Lord of the Third District and Commander of that detachment of our company. Probably Telvas, he's capable,” Rykar rambled, not unimportantly.

  “Telvas is Second Commander for a reason,” Malcade replied.

  “Yes, so, we shall bump him up from Second to First and you from First to General since I'm King now, and all will be well. We'll take the best we have with us when we move to Corrana to rebuild,” Rykar went on, then paused. “But I get ahead of myself. We have to win the war first and that may prove to be a problem.”

  “How so?” Malcade questioned.

  “Well, even though, for the most part, the races on Haelstross get along to the point where the borders between our lands are fairly blurred, we've never had an army that consisted of multiple races. Who will lead such an army? How will the command structure work? And then there are the kyrians and the people of Anklis. The kyrians tend to keep to themselves and might take some convincing to get them into this war, not to mention that they have no real king or queen. They're made up of several large tribes and broken into smaller clans. And Anklis is... well... it's Anklis. This trip will be interesting, I imagine,” Rykar answered at length.

  “The clans and tribes of the kyrian people do hold council with one another. Fighting between them is rare, and I'm sure my tattoo and my status as a god will help me in getting them involved,” Kaidia said, attempting to assuage Rykar's doubts about the feline people.

  “That still leaves the giant question mark that is Anklis. We will have to be on our toes, Malcade. Just in case.” the king muttered.

  “Right,” the larger man answered.

  “You two have fun with that. I'm sure that when we meet up to head back to Mehroth, you'll have a story or two to tell,” Kaidia chuckled.

  “Knowing this guy, I don't doubt it,” Rykar muttered, jerking his thumb at Malcade.

  “Me?! You two are both crazier than I am. We'll be lucky if we don't end up fighting a war against this weird army that's wiping out cities and Anklis because of you, Rykar!” Malcade exclaimed.

  “You know, he might be right,” the king said with a smirk. Kaidia simply chuckled.

  * * *

  That evening, as the sun sank below the horizon, the three warriors stopped to set up their camp some distance off the road in a stand of trees. Sitting around a camp fire, eating a few cooked rabbits, the trio was swapping stories and information about the almost unknown enemy they were getting ready to face down.

  “So your council is handling the orcs, dwarves, and all three elven nations. The humans are obviously on board,” Kai summarized, glancing to Rykar.

  “Correct. The Sorku, Esmera, and Selvath all have ambassadors to... well... my kingdom. As do the orcs and dwarves,” Rykar confirmed.

  “Sorku? Esmera? What the hell are you talking about?” Malcade asked, a brow arched.

  “Did you not pay attention in school?” Rykar answered with another question.

  “I excelled at physical classes, not the boring ones,” Malcade replied defensively.

  “I don't doubt it,” Rykar chuckled.

  “Just shut up and tell me,” Malcade muttered.

  “The Sorku are the Wild Elves, the Esmera are the High Elves, and the Selvath are the Smoke Elves. While they're all elves, they are all somewhat different and are considered three separate nations,” Kaidia explained.

  “Oh. We just called them pointy-eared people,” Malcade grumbled.

  “I'm not surprised,” Rykar said flatly.

  “Kiss my ass, Rykar. All my physical training has saved your ass more than once,” the bigger man growled.

  “Fair enough, but it never hurts to know more about the other people of the world. You know, just in case you have to get diplomatic with them,” Rykar retorted lightly, smirking.

  “Point taken,” Malcade admitted.

  “All the same, you should probably let Rykar do the talking when you get to Anklis, Malcade,” Kaidia suggested with a wink.

  “Yes, yes. Wise ass,” the Commander muttered and tossed a few sticks into the fire.

  * * *

  Kaidia rode with Rykar and Malcade until midday the next day. When they came to the fork in the road she had to take, they had a quick discussion, and decided to meet back at the fork in two or three days. With a wave, Kaidia parted from the two men and headed off on her own. Far off in the distance, barely visible to the naked eye, lay the edge of the vast forest that the majority of kyrians called home. The road Kai was on wound through open fields of grass and crops. Gently sloping hills caused the road to disappear into shallow gullies only to reappear upon the incline of the next little hill.

  As she rode, Kaidia encountered a lonely farmstead here and another there, even riding past the odd farmer working near the road. Every one of them paused to greet her in a friendly manner before returning to work. She was all too happy to return the greetings and not be immediately recognized. Not that she particularly minded being fawned over or held in awe, but it was nice for people to just be friendly once in awhile.

  By the time sh
e reached the tree line, night had fallen and Kai decided to set up camp just inside the forest. After tying her horse off to a sturdy tree, leaving it enough room to graze, the god started a fire and spread her bedroll out on the ground. She sat down on the bedroll and stared into the flames, thinking about the war, her sister, and the general mess in which the continent found itself mired. No one knew where the marauding army was at the moment or where they would strike next. Before they had left Mehroth, Rykar had assembled several scouting parties and sent them out far and wide via magical portals to, hopefully, gather some sort of information about where the army was and where it was headed.

  After a quick meal of dried meat and water, Kaidia laid back on her bedroll and let sleep pull her down in its warm, dark embrace.

  * * *

  Kaidia awoke from a dreamless sleep by virtue of a wet nose sniffing at her face. The mercenary grumbled and gently pushed it away, assuming it to be her horse. However, after a moment, the realization that she'd left her horse tied up across the clearing brought her to sit upright rather abruptly. She then whirled around, on her feet, hand on the hilt of her sword. She relaxed a moment later and let out a sigh of relief.

  “You startled me there,” she admonished lightly.

  The rather large, black furred cat standing at the head of Kai's bedroll stared at the warrior with bright amber eyes for a long moment before padding over and proceeding to nuzzle the woman's hip. Kaidia dropped a hand down to pet the large beast on the head.

  “And how long have you been watching me?” she asked of the large feline, not expecting any sort of verbal answer. The only reply was a low, rumbling deep in the creature's throat. It was a purr though it sounded more like a growl to most ears. The big cat was a panther, though the kyrian word for them was “vaku.” The big cats were sensitive to other creatures and could sense malice, fear, and other such emotions. This one felt nothing malign or sinister about Kaidia, thus it was being very friendly. Kai crouched down as she scratched behind the beast's ears, smiling at how the panther's eyes closed as it enjoyed the attention. When the mercenary stopped scratching, the big cat gently head butted the woman before padding off into the forest, as if to thank her for the attention she had given.

  “How long are we going to pretend that I'm not aware of you?” Kai asked the empty air as she stood.

  “You are as perceptive as a kyrian,” a male voice said. A moment later a kyrian man leapt from the branches of a tree at the edge of the clearing and landed in the grass a few feet from Kaidia. He wore light leathers from head to toe. Such clothing was much easier to run in than metal armor.

  “Why thank you,” the noble responded lightly.

  “You're quite welcome. You are, no doubt, Kaidia Valengaard,” the man stated, his feline ears perked in Kai's direction.

  “I am,” Kai replied.

  “I can only assume someone of your stature, being both a noble and a god, is here to speak to the elders of my people about the rogue army terrorizing the land,” he went on, eyes trained on Kai.

  “You would be correct again,” Kaidia stated.

  “We have noticed a few of their scouts sniffing around the edges of our forests. Well placed arrows seem to have discouraged them thus far,” the man said with a smirk.

  “Good to know but they will become a much bigger problem,” the god asserted.

  “Well then, we should make haste, Dragon God. I am Tian-Vere. I will be your guide,” the kyrian informed Kai, a friendly smile on his face.

  Chapter V: Negotiations in Anklis, A Strange Vision

  “Remember, let me do the talking,” Rykar reminded his companion.

  “I know, damn you. You've only told me eighteen times in the past ten minutes,” Malcade growled.

  “Surely that is an exaggeration,” the smaller man insisted with a smirk.

  “It is not,” Malcade stated flatly.

  The two men stood outside the gates of Anklis, the setting sun casting blinding light and long shadows. While Malcade was in his full armor, Rykar was just wearing his cuirass and bracers in the way of armor. Other than that, he was clothed normally _a tunic under the cuirass, leather pants, and boots. His sword was secured at his left hip. The guards at the gate had sent a messenger scrambling inside once Rykar had made his status known, as well as the fact that he wished to speak with Zathias. Waiting was a bore, but the guards refused to let the two men inside the city.

  “Is their king on the other side of the city?” Malcade muttered rhetorically. He was far from amused with the wait.

  “The center of the city. I've seen the layout of the city; the palace is in the center. Back before this city was its own entity, the palace was the noble's residence. It would be very odd if Zathias didn't take up residence there,” Rykar informed his friend.

  “Where would you see a layout of Anklis?” the bigger man inquired.

  “Both the city of Mehroth and my own home contain libraries filled with these objects that some people call books. There are also scrolls and sheaves of papers. Among all those are maps, city plans and charts. I like to peruse. So I see and learn a lot. You should try reading sometime, my friend,” the royal answered with a decidedly smart-ass grin. Malcade opened his mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the screech of the city gates opening. Both men eyed the gates with a caution born of several years of mercenary work and war.

  Out of the gates walked a tall, dark skinned man with long, dreaded hair, clothing made of fine cloth, and boots of hard leather. His expression was serious and he was accompanied by six men in various garb. Their bearing told of experience and skill, but they weren't uniform. Each wore different armor and no two had the same type of weapon. It was a motley crew to be sure, but only a fool would mistake that for lack of ability.

  “Well now, this is an interesting group,” Rykar said aloud as the tall man stopped just in front of him. “I see a spear, a short sword, a war axe, a long sword, daggers, and a halberd. And then you, my friend, have bastard sword. Fitting... you're a tall bastard.”

  Malcade's eyes went wide and his hand went to his sword as the six men behind the dark skinned man brandished their weapons at the apparent insult Rykar had given. But Rykar was grinning and didn't seem the slightest bit on edge. In fact, when the tall man gave a hearty laugh, Rykar was the only one who wasn't startled.

  “Put your weapons away, boys. He didn't mean that as an insult and even if he did, attacking him would only end in your deaths. This man is the king of the human lands of Haelstross and that is by no mistake. He's a strong one and his companion is no slouch, either,” the tall man said with a strange accent that Rykar couldn't place. The man's eyes were different colors, one dark brown and the other an unreal gold that seemed to shimmer. Malcade wondered, rather uneasily, how the big man could gauge his abilities with just a glance.

  “You know who I am, if not my name. Who might you be?” Rykar questioned.

  “I am Dosfar, General of the Anklis Army,” the man replied. “And what is your name, royal?”

  “Rykar Vaikos,” Rykar answered.

  “Lord of Scorpions and now the king of the humans in Haelstross. Your legend as a mercenary commander is known and admired even here. Your appointment as the king is new, but there is no mistaking the ring on your hand. I take it the rumors of Corrana's destruction are true,” Dosfar said, his face grave.

  “They are, hence, I am the new king and I'm here now,” Rykar replied, running his fingers through his long hair.

  “I assume you seek an audience with King Zathias,” the Anklian general guessed.

  “Correct,” came the response.

  “Come, I will take you to him. Given the rumors we have been hearing, you two will have much to discuss,” Dosfar said, beckoning with his hand as he turned and headed back toward the city gate, his men following. Rykar and Malcade followed as well, the former catching up to Dosfar to walk alongside the tall man, continuing to discuss the aforementioned rumors.

  * * * />
  The kyrian people were a strange mixture of savagery and sophistication. They had only a handful of permanent settlements, but those settlements were grand and had everything a person could desire. Most kyrians lived the life of nomads, never settling in one place for long, always wandering about the forests, settling in towns made up of tents and temporary buildings until they felt the urge to move on. The kyrians that made their homes in permanent cities were often looked upon differently by their brethren. Not necessarily in a bad way, just differently. A few struggled with their tendency to wander and maintained a home in one of the few permanent kyrian cities while leading the nomadic life on a part-time basis.

  Kaidia and Tian-Vere walked out of the thick trees and into one of the few permanent settlements, the former leading her horse along behind her. While there was no city wall, soldiers kept an attentive watch on the surrounding forest. Dressing in a mixture of metal armor, leathers, and furs, they made for a curious sight and Kai found herself smirking at the memory of her first encounter with the kyrian people. It had been awkward, especially with the mercenary trying to check her urge to pet every cat person in sight. They took great offense to that unless they really liked the person doing the petting. Otherwise, one would get about two seconds of growled warning before a sword, claws, or sharp teeth struck out at the offending hand.

  “The good news for you, Mistress Kaidia, is that the elders and tribal leaders have already called for a meeting. They are still waiting on some people to arrive. You were one of them. Your coming was foretold. Unfortunately, the last of the elders will be arriving tonight and the final tribal leader is not due to arrive until tomorrow so you will have to wait for that long to take part in the meeting,” Tian-Vere explained as he walked down the main street of the city at Kaidia's side.

  “That cannot be helped, I suppose,” Kai sighed.

  “It cannot,” Tian-Vere confirmed.