The Undying Champions (The Eternal War Book 1)

by Brennan C. Adams

  Both of his legs were trapped in a thick mud up to his thighs. Raimie attempted to draw them out, but when he did so, the mud sucked them in further.

  That was why Dath hadn’t stuck around. He’d left the job of vanishing Raimie to the Withriingalm’s sinking mud. What a clever plan.

  Unfortunately for Dath, Raimie was awake, and he’d no intention of letting the Withriingalm eat him. He pushed and shoved against the solid ground, clawed at the surrounding vegetation, and shimmied his hips in the mud, but everything he tried seemed to make his absorption progress more quickly. Very soon, the mud crept over his shoulders.

  “You always were a stupid child, weren’t you?” a venomous feminine voice broke the stillness of the marsh.

  Raimie flinched, twisting back and forth to find her.

  “Mama?” he asked in a tiny voice. “Is that you?”

  And there she was, standing in front of him, healthy and hearty. Not a trace of the wound or bloating from the fever that had killed her.

  “Mama! What are you- How are you here?” he asked with wonder.

  “Pathetic. Ungrateful,” she spat each word like a curse. “You ruin everything.”

  Pain stabbed through his heart, and he sucked at the air. The mud reached his chin, and he tilted his head back in an effort to keep his mouth and nose clear.

  “You’re right,” he said disconsolately, “and I beg for your forgiveness. I didn’t mean to make you fall, and everything I ever did as a child… I only lived to please you.”

  “Well, it’s not enough!” she loomed, her body disappearing to be replaced with an enormous image of her face blotting out the sky. “It’s never enough!” she screamed. “Do you have any idea what I’ve sacrificed for you?”

  Why could he hear her through this mud? The sludge should have done a better job at plugging his ears.

  “I’m sorry!” he sobbed. “For everything I ever did to displease you, I’m sorry!”

  Maybe he could drown in tears rather than liquid soil.

  “You killed me, you ungrateful wretch! How could you?!”

  “I know!” he wailed. “I’m so sorry, mama! Please! I’m sor-“

  The mud filled his nose and mouth, and he breathed it in.

  * * *

  He woke to a blank slate of a world. A pleasantly bland field of cropped grass stretched away in every direction, not a tree in sight, and blue sky canopied from horizon to horizon. A whine hummed in the background, barely audible but distinctly there.

  The only blip in the scene of blue and green was a hand sized hole at the apex of the sky’s curve. There, a miniature battle played out between light and dark reminiscent of one he’d seen previously when Bright and Dim showed off their true forms.

  “Are you two planning to come out?” Raimie asked with little hope.

  He wasn’t terribly disappointed to be proven right. So, this was the afterlife then? It wasn’t at all how he’d pictured it.

  “Bright? Dim?” he asked again on the off chance that they were being stubborn.

  A middle-aged man stepped out of thin air and onto the grass, brushing his hands off on his strange, stiff, blue pants. His sleeves cut off halfway down his upper arms, and his weird tunic had a faintly demonic, hooded figure painted on the front with the word Disturbed above it.

  Besides the strange clothing, the stranger could have posed as the average human male with his short, brown hair salted by gray and murky blue eyes

  “Sorry!” he said, flustered. “It’s been a while since a primeancer came through. Now, let’s see what we have.”

  He lifted his eyes to meet Raimie’s, and immediately, his hands’ brushing motions stopped, hovering at the waist.

  “You’re not supposed to be dead yet,” he stated flatly.

  “I’m sorry?” Raimie asked.

  “You should be. I don’t have the power to intervene in your reality at the moment, and your death ensures that it’ll endure immeasurable suffering before another ally can be found.”

  “Does that mean I’m truly dead this time?” Raimie asked. “You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve had a lot of close calls lately, and this place seems the least like the afterlife of those I’ve experienced so far.”

  His companion finally took note of the surroundings, glancing first at the ground and sky and then sharply up to the battle overhead.

  Raimie followed his gaze, and as before when he watched the play of light against dark, something drew him in, although the pull was not quite so intense this time. Now that he was focused on it, there was something different about this depiction. Something about the center, the frontline where shadows formed.

  “How did you get into my world?” Raimie’s companion barked. “Tell me now, and I might not hurt you.”

  Beside him, the nondescript man held light in one hand and dark in the other. He advanced threateningly on Raimie who threw his own hands forward disarmingly.

  “I died? I don’t know,” he said frantically. “I was eating mud, and the next thing I knew, I was here.”

  Alouin, the pull of the battle might be weaker here, but that didn’t make it any less distracting. He snuck a glance overhead, hands unconsciously lowering.

  He was right! There was something new in the center! A black spot maybe, or no. A splash of light revealed a figure suspended between the combatants, its body shaking and twitching. Suddenly, the high-pitched whine he’d ignored since arriving took on a completely different tone.

  “Holy shit, you’re like me.”

  Right, the possible threat.

  But, Raimie’s companion didn’t look at all threatening at the moment. His hands hung limply at his sides, and his mouth gaped in shock.

  “Ok, I’m sorry if I scared you,” he said once he’d recovered. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to come closer.”

  Raimie hesitantly nodded, and his companion stepped within arm’s reach. He summoned light and dark to his hands again, and Raimie nervously leaned away.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to test something, ok?”

  Raimie gulped and nodded again. His companion placed the hand filled with dark to the base of his neck and the one filled with light over his forehead.

  Opposing energies flooded his system, threatening to tear him apart with their warring and raging. The storm built quickly, and Raimie struggled to remember how he’d dispelled it before. Only when the war threatened his sanity did he crush the two forces into one. This time, he let the resulting combined energy leak away instead of releasing it in one big burst. The rise of crushing fatigue lessened slightly with the change in tactics.

  “You are!” his companion whispered with wonder as he withdrew his hands. “I can hardly believe it, but you are!”

  “I’m what?” Raimie tiredly asked.

  The pity in his companion’s eyes scared him.

  “I can’t explain fully at the moment. There’s not enough time, but if you ever want to know, we can talk through your reality’s tears. Suffice it to say for now that I’m intervening.”

  He turned away, mumbling and gesturing randomly at thin air.

  “-if she performs CPR thirty seconds longer, then… no, too high a cost. They find him a minute sooner? Could work. He’ll essentially be brain dead for a time, but it shouldn’t be a problem. Let’s see.”

  Raimie waited patiently. Once his companion made his decision he turned back to Raimie.

  “You’re going back now. So good to meet you, Raimie,” the man grinned. “You’ve no idea.”

  He moved forward.

  “Wait!” Raimie exclaimed. “What do I call you?”

  The man narrowed his eyes.

  “That’s right. I never told you,” he straightened his slouching posture. “The denizens of your realm call me Alouin.”

  Raimie’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

  “Always loved that part,” Alouin chuckled. “Safe travels!”

  He poked a finger at Raimie’s f
orehead, and the young man fell backward. The ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

  * * *

  He floats in the space between realities. The call to move on and begin his next adventure is so very strong, and he’s eager to follow it. He imagines it would be like walking through a door into the next chapter, and lo and behold, one appears before him.

  He smiles at the familiar whirls and bumps of the wood. He misses home.

  As he considers opening the door, something gives him pause. He vaguely recalls a need to complete a task, one last piece of unfinished business abandoned in his life left behind.

  He decides to check in on those he’d loved before crossing the threshold. After all, what could it hurt?

  At first, only voices reach him.

  “What happened?” Kheled asks with great strain.

  “I don’t know,” Ferin pants. “Khel, I was lucky to find him. Only his fingers were free of the mud when I got here. I should’ve started looking as soon as I couldn’t find him for his lesson!”

  “You did the best you could. Help me get him back to camp. You! Run along and get your friends to set up a tent.”

  A grunt and the creaking of leather.

  “You feel the need to hide this?” Ferin says through gasps.

  “Did you see the cut on his cheek?” Kheled asks. “I think someone tried to kill him, and they may have succeeded. Do we want rumors of our only hope’s demise circulating a camp full of mercenaries and untrained soldiers?”

  “Shit! I hate it when you’re right.”

  There’s a long period of panting, scraping, and shoving. Then the sound of a heavy burden lowered into cloth.

  “Can you do anything for him, Khel?” Ferin asks.

  “I don’t- “

  “What’s going on?” Eledis’ booming voice joins in. “Why have I -?”

  Raimie almost chuckles at the imagined look of shock on his grandfather’s face, and as if requested, he can observe the scene from a great height.

  Ferin and Kheled face Eledis from across a cot with a mud-caked body lying in it. The enclosing cloth of a tiny tent keeps him from viewing the outside world.

  Eledis’ face almost matches Raimie’s imagined expression, but tendrils of disappointment, fear, and anger twirl alongside the shock.

  “Somebody explain,” he commands as Aramar comes in.

  Gods, his father. With wife dead and son soon to be, he’ll be left alone with Eledis, and Raimie knows how those two feel about one another. Maybe that’s his unfinished business.

  Aramar lets loose a grief-filled cry and is kneeling beside the bed faster than he can track. The father brushes mud-soaked hair away from the face.

  “I found him completely engulfed in sinking mud,” Ferin tells Eledis.

  An unknown Eselan intrudes upon the tent’s interior. She glares at Kheled as she passes him.

  “Excuse me, sir,” she says, moving Aramar’s hand. “I need space to work.”

  She hovers an ear over the body’s mouth, holds two fingers to the side of the neck, and lifts an eyelid.

  “Barely sustained respiration rate and thready pulse,” she pronounces as she rises. “I’ll do what I can, but all of you need to leave so I can work properly. Go back to bed if you can. It may be a while.”

  Ferin nods as if satisfied and hurriedly departs. Eledis appears grim. He drags Aramar to his feet and supports him out. Only Kheled remains behind.

  The female Eselan tsks, but she can’t hide her relief now that they’re alone.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispers anxiously. “His soul has fled his body. I can’t fix that!”

  “I know,” is all Kheled replies.

  “Alouin, they’re going to kill me!” the healer panics. “Their blessed king gets himself killed, and I’m going to pay the price for it.”

  “No, you won’t,” Kheled stiffly informs her. “I’ll tell them you left his care to me, and I failed.”

  “You would do that?” she asks with shocked disbelief.

  When he woodenly nods at her, she attacks him with a hug.

  “Thank you! I won’t forget this!”

  She’s gone quickly as if afraid Kheled will change his mind.

  The last person in the room sits beside the cot and rests his hands on the muddy chest. Indecision wars on his face, and when he comes to a conclusion, he sighs heavily.

  “You bastard,” he says quietly to himself. “Don’t you die on me.”

  Raimie is satisfied. Whatever unfinished business he has isn’t enough to override the call. He’s back at the door, momentarily paralyzed by fear, but he swallows it. He shoves the door open, and white light pulses around him.

  A magnetic force rips him backward to fall through the space between realities and land in his body.

  His limbs jerked uncontrollably on the soul’s return. Bitter pain flogged Raimie’s mind, and he screamed once loudly before lapsing into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to resist its influence. And how can I? I struggle against a god.

  Kheled stumbled weak-kneed from the tent and yelled for help. He quickly found a box to lean against, a temporary ally in his losing fight to retain his stomach contents.

  Healer Chela returned quickly enough, her eyes bulging with concern.

  “He woke up!” Kheled gasped between stomach heaves. “He’s having a seizure. Get in there!”

  She took off into the tent, and Kheled squeezed his eyes shut. He slid down the box’s side to sit with legs splayed. Once he’d settled, he focused on his breathing to stave off the nausea clawing its way up his throat. Take a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

  In this way, his stomach had settled by the time Chela joined him again. Kheled cautiously opened his eyes when her footsteps came to a stop nearby. The image of her had thankfully stabilized, and he smiled weakly up at her.

  “Is he all right?” he asked dazedly.

  “He’ll survive,” she replied with a guarded expression. “What did you do to him?”

  The smile dropped from Kheled’s face.

  “What do you mean? I did nothing,” he said carefully.

  She wordlessly considered him, determining the veracity of his statement. She must have believed him because the guarded expression fell away to be replaced with worry.

  “What about you?” she asked, kneeling beside him. “You look feverish.”

  She placed a hand on his forehead. Years of ingrained fear and panic overflowed the dams he’d erected against them.

  “Don’t touch me,” he shrieked, wildly flinging an arm up to knock her hand away.

  Chela nearly fell over from the force of his blow. She clutched her hand to her chest, eyeing him warily. Realizing how badly he’d lost control, Kheled flushed.

  “I’m…” he trailed off, at a loss for what to say. “Apologies, mistress. I believe I may have sustained some head trauma in there. Raimie whacked me in the face rather hard during his seizure.”

  The lie fell off his tongue with ease.

  “Alouin, no wonder you look sick!” she exclaimed.

  “A bit of double vision is all,” Kheled waved off her concern. “Still, I shouldn’t have reacted so poorly. I’m very sorry.”

  Chela relaxed.

  “You don’t have to apologize, Healer Kheled,” she laughed. “We’ve both encountered much worse reactions from patients in the past.”

  The tent stole her attention once more.

  “Speaking of which, someone needs to inform his family,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Please, you go,” Kheled told her, “and make sure you take full credit for his miraculous recovery.”

  She cast a doubtful eye in his direction.

  “Are you sure? He was technically in your care when it happened.”

  Kheled scoffed.

  “Details. You’re the one that saw him safely through a seizure. You deserve the credit.
”

  She blushed at the praise.

  “Fine then. Are you going to be all right? I’m not going to find you helpless in the mud when I return, am I?”

  “I’ll be fine, Chela. Please, hurry and tell Eledis and Aramar that Raimie has returned to us. I’m sure they’re worried,” he waved her away.

  As she practically skipped around the carts and campfires, Kheled tiredly dropped his arm. He was absolutely sure that Raimie’s tumble into sinking mud hadn’t been an accident after watching the youth wake up, and he was fairly certain he knew who the perpetrator was as well.

  The attacker needed to be dealt with, but he was physically and mentally exhausted. He’d rest here for a few minutes, and then…

  Someone roughly shook his shoulder. Kheled bolted upright.

  “I’m awake,” he shouted.

  Eledis crookedly smiled at him.

  “You certainly are now.”

  Kheled hastily scrambled to his feet and assumed parade rest.

  “Eledis, sir, is there something wrong? Is Raimie safe?”

  “My grandson is fine, Healer,” the old man replied. “You’re unusually concerned with his safety.”

  “Of course I am, sir,” Kheled was surprised at Eledis’ amusement. “Not only is he my only hope to see my homeland again, but he’s also technically my king.”

  Confusion crossed Eledis’ face.

  “I wasn’t criticizing, Healer, only commenting,” he said. “I wanted to thank you for assisting Ferin in her search. Your actions will be rewarded.”

  He moved toward the tent.

  “Sir!” Kheled blurted. “I believe Raimie’s still in danger!”

  “And what makes you say that?” Eledis asked with an amused expression.

  “Do you really think your grandson would be stupid enough to wander off by himself into a swamp he’s repeatedly been warned is full of danger?” Kheled asked. “He may have difficulty reading people, expressing himself, and avoiding trouble, but he never deliberately puts himself in danger if it can be helped.”

  “You believe this was an assassination attempt.”