King Of Souls (Book 2)

by Matthew Ballard

  “I see dead villagers aboard that ship, and it’s been floating out here for hours abandoned. I won’t hazard a guess about what happened aboard these ships. But, I’m not going to destroy a brand-new warship based on some absurd story about ghosts.”

  Tara’s stomach fluttered, and she clung to fresh hope. How could that gray souled slug order about a soul knight?

  “I can assure you captain, the stories are real, and I carry the king’s backing on this matter,” Tyrell said.

  “I’ll not have a ship named after the king’s own mother burned on my watch,” Captain Redford said. “Those villagers have families that will expect their remains returned intact for burial. Burning their corpses and sending them to the bottom of a frozen harbor is heartless and unnecessary.”

  “Lieutenant, arm the fire shot now,” Tyrell said ignoring the captain’s rebukes.

  Tara stiffened and begged for the chubby captain’s intervention.

  The lieutenant’s gaze shifted to the captain as if awaiting a response.

  “Commander Tyrell, I’ll arrest you on charges of treason if that’s your wish. Your brother, may Elan rest his soul, would never have challenged my authority.”

  “My brother would’ve lit the bloody ship on fire ten minutes ago,” Tyrell said.

  Tara held her breath waiting for the standoff to play out.

  “Commander, don’t force my hand!” Captain Redford said.

  Tyrell shook his head rubbing the trimmed gray beard lining his face. “Then tow the ship back to harbor if you must, but don’t let your men touch her decks.”

  “Fine, fine.” The captain turned and faced the ship’s stern. “Seaman Crowley!”

  A young man wearing a simple dark-blue uniform whirled toward the captain and snapped to attention. “Yes sir.”

  ”Secure a line to that ship. I want her towed into dock.”

  Seaman Crowley saluted. “Aye aye captain.” He scurried toward the ship’s stern bellowing a series of orders to sailors following in his wake.

  Tara went limp as tension drained from her muscles, but she kept a wary eye trained on the soul knight standing aboard the warship.

  Tyrell’s piercing green eyes scoured the Arianne’s decks.

  Sailors tossed out lines and secured the ship with two heavy iron chains.

  “Raise the main sail and turn about.” Captain Redford shouted the orders and strolled toward the warship’s bridge.

  Over the next thirty minutes, Tara didn't move while the warship Glory towed the lifeless Arianne into port.

  During the trip, Commander Tyrell never moved. He focused his gaze on the dead villagers scattered in haphazard piles atop the Arianne’s deck.

  The warship Glory pulled the Arianne alongside Ripool's twenty-foot wide ice covered dock. Sailors clad in heavy winter uniforms scrambled along the dock tossing ropes aboard deck before pulling the ship to a stop.

  Commander Tyrell made his way from the Glory’s deck, down its gangway, and paused on the dock ten-yards from Tara.

  A young sailor prepared to lay a plank from the dock to Arianne’s deck when Commander Tyrell spoke. “Hold there sailor.”

  Captain Redford appeared next to Tyrell and glared. “For Elan’s sake Devery, let the boy do his job.”

  Devery motioned toward the harbor entrance. “Not until I’ve taken the necessary precautions.”

  Tara stiffened and waited to hear the soul knight’s plan.

  A Meranthian marine scrambled along the dock stopping before Tyrell. He saluted. “You wanted me sir?”

  “Be at ease sergeant,” Tyrell said.

  The marine relaxed spreading his legs shoulder width apart. He turned an expectant expression on Tyrell.

  Commander Tyrell turned his back to Tara and murmured a few inaudible words to the marine.

  The marine lowered his head and leaned inward. He nodded as Commander Tyrell continued to speak in hushed tones.

  Tara strained to hear his orders, but he kept his voice too low and guarded his words. She felt exposed with her body lying open on Arianne’s ice covered decks. She didn’t know what the soul knight had planned, but a wave of tension tightened her muscles. She started to yell for General Demos and forced her mouth shut. Should she unleash her pets? No, she couldn’t. Not yet.

  “Don’t you think that’s going a little overboard?” Captain Redford said overhearing Tyrell’s orders.

  Tyrell shot him a look that could’ve stricken the man dead on the spot. “You’ll hold your tongue. Do you understand my order or should I have you arrested?”

  Captain Redford stiffened. “There’s no call for threats commander.” He straightened his uniform jacket, spun on his heel, and strode away from Tyrell with his rigid arms planted to his sides.

  The sergeant saluted before jogging along the pier toward Bawold’s open gates.

  Devery Tyrell took the gangplank from the gawking sailor’s hands. “I’ll take that seaman.”

  The sailor saluted. “Thank you sir.”

  Tyrell set the wooden plank on the pier and dropped the opposite end against the Arianne’s deck. The shield surrounding him brightened while a bright blue energy blade appeared in his right hand.

  Tara squinted as she watched the man’s blinding presence cross the gangway. She wanted the soul knight away from her, but his vitality also left her somehow inspired. How would it feel to spend just a single minute with such life flowing through your veins?

  Archers armed with six-foot longbows appeared along the stronghold’s ramparts fifty yards away. They readied their weapons with fire shot before training them onto the Arianne’s decks.

  Tyrell’s steel boots clanged against the icy deck as he walked among the dead surveying the littered corpses. His warm breath left pockets of steam curling through the chill air in his wake. He paused ten-feet from Tara and stooped beside the corpse of a young red-haired female villager near Tara’s age. Tyrell tugged on her shoulder, and her lifeless head rolled off the sunken chest of the man beneath her. Tyrell studied her face for a few moments and let her go.

  Tara’s stomach lurched, and she stifled a scream. The soul knight sought her out among her pets, and he knew what she looked like. She pulled her hood tight and twisted her head beneath the corpse of a teenage blacksmith’s apprentice.

  Tyrell strolled closer, stepping over the corpse of an old man with half his face missing. Black rot had eaten away his upper lip and gum line splitting his face with a ghoulish grin.

  Tara dared not send her pets against the soul knight. Twenty archers pointed loaded longbows on her ship and could set it aflame with their accursed flaming arrows. But, he left her feeling terrified in a way she couldn’t name. She didn’t dare expose herself.

  Tyrell paused beside Tara and stared at her shrouded head.

  Tara felt the man’s lurking presence like a lead weight pressing against her chest while his gaze bored a hole through her brain. She thought she could feel his soul hum inches above her.

  Tyrell knelt and reached for Tara’s hood preparing to expose her face.

  “Commander, thank you but that will be enough.” A whiny voice came from behind Tyrell causing the soul knight to pause.

  Tyrell craned his neck toward the voice and stood. “And you are?”

  Four soldiers accompanied the rail-thin man. A pair of wire-framed spectacles sat perched on his hooked nose, and a thin greasy goatee sprouted from his upper lip and chin. He’d combed over his thin brown hair in a failed try at disguising a wide bald patch gleaming atop his head. “My name is Phineas Butterfield. I’m Ripool’s undertaker.”

  Tyrell frowned at the man. “I ordered the city evacuated. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes, about that. Captain Redford mentioned that he might have need of my services this evening.” He scanned the corpses lining the deck as he donned a pair of skintight black leather gloves. “I can take it from here. Thank you Commander. You may go.” He turned his back on Tyrell and spoke sharp directions
to the four soldiers standing amid the corpses.

  Tara wondered if she could reach the sniveling undertaker. She could take him in a few seconds.

  “I’d like to finish my inventory of the villagers first Mister Butterfield.”

  “That’s Doctor Butterfield." He pushed his wire-framed spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "I really can’t have you cavorting through the dead like some sort of heroic grave robber. What would the locals say?”

  “I’m looking for a particular young woman, she —”

  “Commander, we will bring all the dead inside the stronghold for identification,” Butterfield said. “Can we show a modicum of respect for the dead?” His eyes slid over Tyrell as if inspecting a dirty stray dog. “Unless you insist on sifting through piles of dead women and children, I must insist you leave me to my work.”

  The distant shouts of the oarsmen sounded from the harbor. A warship towed the second stranded vessel toward the dock interrupting the confrontation. Thirty feet off the Arianne’s starboard side, the Knight’s Lady appeared. Like the Arianne, its decks carried Porthleven’s dead stacked in scattered heaps.

  Tyrell tipped his head toward Butterfield as if granting the undertaker’s request. He crossed the deck toward the gangway and paused. Tyrell glanced over his shoulder toward the undertaker who knelt near a pile of three corpses. “Doctor, one last piece of advice.”

  Butterfield rolled his eyes and sighed. “What is it Commander Tyrell?”

  “If you notice anything…extraordinary, run.”

  Butterfield pursed his lips and turned back to his work without responding.

  Tara thought she might float away from giddiness. Every step the soul knight took from her filled her with more relief.

  “Be careful with those specimens,” Butterfield said directing the soldiers. “They’re damaged enough already.”

  A few yards from Tara, the soldiers loaded a young boy’s corpse onto a stretcher.

  Tara recognized the boy as belonging to Harbor Master Montgomery.

  More soldiers filed beneath Bawold’s gates. They marched toward the stranded warships moored along the harbor’s dock carrying empty stretchers.

  Tara tapped a fragment of power and pushed two fingers of black mist toward the soldiers carrying the boy.

  The soldier nearest Tara flinched as the mist took his life. The second soldier’s eyes widened as the mist unchained his soul setting it free for capture.

  Tara pulled on the free souls adding them to her reserves. She ordered the soldiers to continue working under Butterfield’s direction.

  The soldiers carried the harbor master’s son across the ship's deck, down the gangway, and toward Bawold.

  More soldiers came aboard and Tara took their lives in turn. When soldiers finally arrived for Tara’s body, she commanded a dozen fresh pets. As trained warriors, these men would make formidable dark soldiers.

  A lean muscled soldier now under Tara’s command scooped her body from the deck and placed her atop a nearby stretcher.

  Tara commanded the soldier to cover her body with a sheet. She inched the sheet aside revealing her surroundings while leaving her face hidden.

  The soldier, and a second Meranthian marine, lifted the stretcher. They followed a long procession of Tara’s pets carrying the dead toward Bawold’s gate.

  Tara set loose tendrils of death mist letting them linger beneath the soldier gripping the stretcher near her head.

  As his life slipped away, Tara captured his soul. She commanded him forward along the pier toward the stronghold’s massive iron gate.

  Blue light flickered from the Knight’s Lady. The soul knight milled about unimpeded among the Porthleven dead lying atop her frozen decks. Bright blue spirit energy flashed from his palm entering one of her pet’s decayed corpse.

  Tara couldn’t imagine the knight’s intent. He couldn’t make them any more dead than she’d done on her own. Her new pets marched onward transporting her body along the pier. She sent forth tendrils of death mist into every soldier she met along the way.

  The soldiers marched up a short hill following the line of stretchers carrying Porthleven’s dead. Near the stronghold’s gate, Captain Redford spoke with a chisel-faced marine. He gestured toward the harbor then pointed toward a line of empty warships moored near the shipyard a few blocks from Bawold.

  Tara sent instructions along the soul links connecting her pets. She ordered them to slow their pace and take her nearer the obese captain.

  “…yes sir. I’ll make sure Lieutenant Purvis receives your orders,” the marine said.

  “Ice has the ship trapped not a half-mile off-shore. A drunken blind man could find it,” Redford said.

  “If the lieutenant asks for boarding orders?” The soldier said.

  “Boarding! We’re not boarding that vessel sergeant. I want a company of archers on deck with fire shot at the ready. As soon as they’re within range, order them to fire at will.”

  The sailor saluted. “Yes sir. I’ll tell him right away.”

  “One more order sergeant. Have the lieutenant lead with the Glory. She’s the fastest ship we’ve got. You’re dismissed.”

  The soldier saluted “Aye aye captain.”

  Redford returned the sailors salute. The sailor spun, and hurried toward Ripool’s shipyard.

  A hard knot of worry twisted in Tara’s stomach. She ordered her pets to resume their normal pace as she passed through Bawold’s open three-foot thick iron gate. She couldn’t allow Captain Redford’s warship near the Damocles. General Demos and the most elite rangers in Baerin’s military hid in her belly. Left alone with the warship Glory, General Demos could secure victory with a quarter of his men. But Captain Redford had mentioned the Glory leading the attack. How many ships would he send?

  Bawold’s gates stood fifty-feet tall standing even with the stronghold’s fortified outer walls. Bawold Stronghold looked ready to withstand either an invading army or a tidal wave. The homes and businesses lining Ripool’s streets appeared tiny under the stronghold’s imposing dominance.

  A half-dozen soldiers stood near each of Bawold’s iron doors. Attached to each door, a six-foot handle protruded from a large set of iron gears.

  Tara sent tendrils of death mist floating airborne and guided her magic into the nostrils of the guards manning the doors. A few seconds later, she’d collected twelve more pets adding their souls to her increasing power reserve.

  Along the courtyard’s inner wall, the dead Porthleven villagers lay stretched out in a neat straight line. Thin white sheets covered the head of each corpse leaving a long line of leather shoes, boots, and bare feet visible.

  Archers lined the ramparts high above the courtyard. But, Tara’s magic couldn’t reach them at that distance. She would use her pets to handle the archers.

  The soldiers placed Tara in line with Porthleven’s villagers and slid the white sheet over her face covering her from head to toe. When her pets finished stacking the dead, she ordered them to wait near ladders leading to the ramparts.

  On the far side of the courtyard, a gangly pimple-faced teenager led a pitch-black stallion through a stable door. He guided the horse past the long line of dead villagers.

  In a small stone building near the stables, a wooden door creaked open. A stocky red-haired steward teetered under a bundle of fresh sheets. He stepped through the door and kicked it closed behind him. He signaled for the stable hand. “Darren, come help me with these sheets. They’re about ready to tip over.”

  “I can’t.” Darren, the stable hand, fought to keep the horse restrained. “Captain Redford told me to bring around Commander Tyrell’s horse.”

  The stallion tossed its head from side to side dragging a wide-eyed Darren with him.

  “Easy boy. What’s the matter?” Darren said pulling on the horse’s lead.

  The stallion whinnied and shuffled backward from the corpses lining the courtyard wall.

  Tara couldn’t stand animals. They always knew he
r secrets without trying. She’d long ago given up trying to figure out how.

  “He’s spooked by all the dead people. What do you think is wrong with him?” The steward shook his heading gaping at the stable hand like he’d lost his last shred of common sense. “And I can’t say that I blame him. I don’t want to go near them either.” The sheets piled high in his arms wavered caught by a gust of wind.

  “Just give me a minute,” Darren said calming the stallion enough to lead him past the corpses toward Bawold’s open gates.

  Captain Redford caught sight of the stable hand and motioned him past.

  The sheets tipped sideways and spilled onto the courtyard’s slushy cobblestones. “Damn.” The teenager muttered under his breath as he knelt beside the muddied sheets. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder and peered around the courtyard.

  Tara’s thoughts wrestled over the best way to use the boy as she scanned the courtyard’s bustling interior.

  Beyond Bawold’s iron gates, blue light flickered. It moved from the harbor’s entrance along the cobbled path toward Bawold.

  Tara recoiled at the soul knight’s presence. She couldn’t let him inside the gates. She might lose half her pets or more in the assault, and General Demos needed her. She needed to act. Black mist curled from her fingertips and seeped beneath the blanket. Tara guided the mist toward the red-haired steward.

  Before the mist reached him, he stood piling the sheets high in his arms.

  Butterfield, the undertaker, entered Bawold’s courtyard and motioned for the steward. “Christopher, come over her with those sheets.”

  “Yes sir.” The steward hustled toward Butterfield.

  Tara's death mist curled skyward disappearing into the morning breeze.

  The soul knight’s spirit shield crested the hill closing within fifty yards of the gate.

  Tara lurched upright and pushed away the thin sheet covering her. She took control of a dozen pets waiting by the ladders and ordered them to attack the archers lining the ramparts.

  Butterfield’s jaw dropped as he gaped at Tara. His face drained of color, and he staggered backward. He stumbled over Christopher, the red-haired steward, carrying the high stacked sheets. Butterfield and Christopher collapsed in a twisted mess of arms and legs. The stacked sheets flew upward scattering in the wind.