The Undying Champions (The Eternal War Book 1)

by Brennan C. Adams

  All three men sobered, and Kheled flinched. The one-armed man stepped forward to answer the question

  “She’s dead,” he said. “I’m commander now.”

  “And you are?” Raimie asked. “Wait, I know you, don’t I? When have I….?”

  He had seen the man before, but the Eselan had possessed both of his arms at the time. He’d used them to drag Raimie into a large chamber concealed behind enormous stone doors there to be cured of his fever.

  “You’ve changed in nine years, sir,” Raimie murmured faintly. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Forgive me, I don’t believe you ever shared your name.”

  Horror briefly crossed the stranger’s face.

  “I-” he started, and Kheled coughed.

  The one-armed man drooped, lowered himself to one knee, and raised his sword above his head.

  “I, Gistrick,” he said shortly, “commander of a rebel faction of the Zrelnach army, do swear fealty and support to Raimie, destined ruler, so long as his interests do not conflict with Allanovian’s.”

  The rest of the escort rode up as Gistrick finished his oath, much to Raimie’s panic. It was one thing to have someone give an oath of loyalty when the only witness was his stubborn grandfather, another entirely when those watching would spread the word through the rank and file.

  He glared at the Eselan. Gistrick had played a clever hand. If he accepted, he’d absolve the commander’s subordinates of their betrayal. Gistrick had also made his loyalty conditional, a fact Raimie had quickly picked up on. Essentially, he gambled that Raimie would still want him or his people.

  The truth was that while he might not need the Zrelnach anymore because of the addition of the many soldiers under Marcuset’s command, he wouldn’t reject them. If he did, they’d be left to the mercy of the Queen which didn’t extend to those who failed so miserably in their duty. He’d grown to like many of the Zrelnach in their brief time together. It would be a shame for such interesting and useful people to die.

  “I, Raimie, destined liberator of Auden, do accept Gistrick, Zrelnach commander’s, fealty and swear to honor and protect him with all the means at my disposal so long as he serves me.”

  Raimie shortened the oath as much as possible, uncomfortable with all of the eyes on him, but he had to slip a condition of his own on the end. If the man ever decided to switch allegiance back to Allanovian, he didn’t want to be responsible for protecting him.

  He allowed Gistrick to rise on his own, aware that any offer to help would be a blow to the man’s pride. Someone stomped to a stop behind him, and Raimie grimaced.

  “They’re all yours, Eledis,” he said. “Will you need Khel?”

  “I hardly see what the healer could contribute to the discussion,” Eledis said dismissively.

  He strode over to his seated son and rested his fists on his hips.

  “Report,” he ordered.

  Raimie snorted at his grandfather’s brusque way of showing affection. He met Kheled’s eyes and jerked his head to the side. When they were far enough away, he turned on the healer.

  “You seem different,” he commented.

  Anger hovered over his friend like a cloud.

  “So do you,” Kheled replied. “More… confident.”

  “Yeah, that comes with months of faking confidence for the Queen.”

  Raimie shuffled his feet.

  “I have a serious question for you,” he said. “It’s something that’s been bugging me for a while. Were we fighting when I left? Because I remember that we got into a fake fight, but I could have misinterpreted…”

  Kheled’s smile lifted the miasma of anger surrounding him.

  “We weren’t fighting,” he answered simply.

  “Oh, thank Alouin!” Raimie said in a rush. “I had no idea what to apologize for!”

  He pulled his friend into an embrace, thumping his back enthusiastically. Kheled stiffened at first, but he relaxed after a moment and returned the hug.

  “I have so much to tell you!” Raimie exclaimed. “I’ve learned more than I thought possible about a variety of subjects. I’ve even learned a few tricks from our mutual friends.”

  He whispered the last part behind a hand.

  “And you have to tell me what you’ve been up to here!” he continued excitedly. “I want to know all about how dad’s alive and how you defeated the wicked Ferin.”

  Kheled flinched and took a calming breath.

  “We can share stories once we’re on board your ships.”

  “How do you know about those?” Raimie asked.

  Kheled shrugged.

  “We’d heard rumors you’d escaped, and the fastest way to travel between Daira and Sev is by ship. It seemed logical to assume that’s how you’d come for us, if you came.”

  “How did you hear… you know what? Never mind,” Raimie said. “Let’s get these people on board so we can depart before Kaedesa catches up.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take nearly as long to load soldiers and supplies as Raimie had thought it would. Gistrick’s troops had been ready to move out at a moment’s notice since he’d taken over. They’d arrived at dawn’s break and before evening fell, were prepared to depart.

  The number of Zrelnach warriors, human mercenaries, and hangers-on had significantly reduced during the change in leadership, dropping from two thousand to just over one thousand as Allanovian loyalists and disillusioned humans slunk off into the night. Where before such a dramatic change in number might have alarmed Raimie, now he took it as a necessity after the tumultuous events of the last few months.

  When he’d first learned what was expected of him by his grandfather, he’d balked at taking on a Dark Lord with only his two family members at his side. The one who stood on deck watching Ada’ir slip away found such reluctance silly. He had his army now.

  Still, he couldn’t help the uncertainty and bittersweet reluctance that flooded him as the land of his birth retreated further and further away. After all, they didn’t know what waited for them across the ocean. He had an army, but would it be enough for whatever they might find on Auden’s shores?

  Shaking his head to clear it, he headed to the mess hall, intent on catching a bite before they plunged into the storms. He eyed the approaching storm wall guardedly before descending below deck and entering the rowdy hub-bub of hungry soldiers jostling one another to get their meals.

  The room quieted when he entered, and somehow, despite the fact that the mess was packed full, an empty space opened up between him and where the cook served dinner. He looked for and found the end of the line, and taking his place, he hummed quietly. Noticing the men and women watching him, he applied a confused expression.

  “Why isn’t the line moving?” he asked. “Tonight’s meal can’t be worse than the last, can it?”

  Laughter filled the room, and the soldiers returned to their jostling.

  Thank Alouin that had worked. Raimie saw no need to enforce rank in something as simple as getting a meal. If they were successful in casting down Doldimar and were in the midst of setting up a kingdom, he could see its usefulness, but right now, it served no purpose.

  So he waited in the long line with everyone else before getting his meal. Plate in hand, he navigated around the clumps of people until he found Kheled dining in perhaps the only quiet corner of the mess hall. He dropped heavily to the deck beside him, plopping his food in his lap.

  “Can we catch up now?” he asked.

  Kheled smirked at Raimie’s attempt to startle him, and the young man was disappointed to see that his ploy had failed.

  “I’ve been eagerly awaiting tales of your exploits in the capital,” the healer said. “How’d you manage to get caught?”

  Raimie told his friend all about the treacherous innkeeper and the midnight visit from the Queen, the sea voyage and subsequent imprisonment in the dungeons. Kheled laughed with admiration at Raimie’s description of his first escape attempt-he left off the part about the tear-
, and the respect grew as he learned of the dozens of others in the months that followed.

  “You didn’t find Shadowsteal?” he asked when Raimie had finished.

  “We were in a bit of a rush,” the young man explained. “As it was, we were nearly sunk by those cannons the Queen has. Those things are terrifying, Khel!”

  “I can imagine,” Kheled murmured.

  “That’s what you’re curious about?” Raimie asked, incredulous. “Not the fact that I can turn invisible?”

  Kheled glanced around the busy mess, but enough people crowded the room to make eavesdropping virtually impossible.

  “I’m happy that you and your splinters can finally speak to one another without obstacle,” he said. “Maybe you can learn a few more basic techniques now.”

  “Basic techniques?” Raimie sputtered.

  He’d been hoping to share something new with his friend.

  “Of course,” Kheled said with an odd look. “Did they say what they wanted with you? I’m guessing it’s something ranging from complicated to impossible since you’ve attracted splinters from both sides.”

  “Ele and Daevetch seem to want me to choose between them, but Bright and Dim have other ideas. I’m in the midst of discovering what they want from me,” Raimie said, trailing off. “In any case, tell me what you’ve been up to the last few months.”

  Kheled quietly informed Raimie of his investigation, its inevitable conclusion, and his flight to save his friend only to be hindered by Sev’s gates. He explained his resolution to protect Aramar and the discovery of Zetaneb’s body. Raimie’s lips tightened at the news of his tutor’s death, but he recovered while listening to Kheled’s daring plan to help Sev’s population resist Queen Kaedesa’s annexation.

  “Where is this Ash?” he asked. “I’d love to meet her.”

  “She stayed behind,” Kheled answered. “I didn’t want to disrupt her life any more than I already had.”

  He told Raimie about the night Ferin had fallen, how he’d gone in good faith and been betrayed, and then he fell silent, anger collecting around him once again.

  Raimie didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m so sorry,” he managed. “Being used for murder is not a pleasant experience, I know.”

  Kheled’s eyes flicked to his friend’s, his jaw clenched.

  “It numbers among the unpleasant experiences that can still cause a severe emotional response.”

  “Do you want me to speak to my father and Gistrick?” Raimie asked.

  “And say what?”

  Raimie paused. He hadn’t thought about that. Nothing he could say would really matter.

  “I can discuss their methods with them and express my displeasure. Maybe they respect my opinion enough for it to never happen again.”

  Kheled laughed.

  “I may respect your opinion that much,” he spat angrily, “but they don’t. Your father sees you as his child, not as someone with the strength that you have, and Gistrick only swore fealty because I forced him to. Don’t try to read others. You’re extraordinarily bad at it.”

  The words stung even if they had the bite of truth in them.

  “You’re upset,” Raimie muttered. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

  He rose from the deck.

  “You obviously need your space so I’ll bid you good night.”

  Lost in his thoughts of self-recriminations and doubt, Raimie almost missed his father rolling out of his cabin.

  “You spend the whole evening regaling your friend with stories and don’t think to stop and tell your father?” Aramar asked with a hurt expression.

  “I’m sorry, dad, I-” Raimie shook his head, “I don’t have an excuse, actually.”

  “Well get in here and start explaining,” Aramar said as he returned to his cabin.

  Raimie followed and shut the door after them. His father’s cabin was much like his, tiny and enclosed. There was a small hammock strung from one end to the other along one of the walls, and a short table was bolted to the floor with a candle melting on top. A storm lantern hanging from the ceiling provided additional illumination. His father’s wheelchair barely fit into the remaining room between the table and the door.

  Raimie carefully skirted the chair and perched in the hammock precariously.

  “Eledis has told me some of what happened, but not all. Apparently, the Queen’s hospitality wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d feared?” Aramar asked.

  For the second time that evening, Raimie related the stories he’d accumulated over the last few months. As he spoke, Aramar grew increasingly sober, an almost dour expression on his face once his son had finished.

  Raimie waited uncomfortably for his father to respond. When the waiting grew intolerable, he latched onto another subject in the hopes of driving the silence away.

  “Have you ever heard of a primeancer?” he asked.

  That broke his father’s troubled reverie. He snapped unreadable eyes to Raimie’s face.

  “Of course I have. Everyone has. Why do you ask?” he said shortly.

  Raimie had asked because it was the first question that had come to mind when he’d been scrambling for a change of subject, but now that it was out there, he realized that he also wanted to verify the story that Kheled and his splinters had told him.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t trust his friend. He simply knew that what someone believed to be true with all his heart wasn’t necessarily the whole truth. Kheled may have been manipulated in the past to believe what he’d told Raimie or heard false information from someone who believed it wholeheartedly. He wanted to know what a person uninfluenced by a splinter thought of primeancy.

  Not that he could tell his father his reasons.

  “I caught mention of them while I was reading some of Kaedesa’s books. They seemed interesting, so I thought I’d ask you. You’re the one who used to tell me stories of knights in shining armor when I was a kid after all,” he hedged. “How come I’d never heard of them before then? They seem to be fairly common knowledge throughout the rest of Ada’ir.”

  Raimie had found fragments of tales concerning primeancers during his visits to the library, but he’d never investigated them further when he came across them. At the time, he was mostly concerned with obtaining the castle floor plans or discovering stories about secret escape paths.

  “We lived pretty isolated lives, son. I’m sure there are a lot of topics you’ve never heard of because of that,” Aramar said carefully.

  “I guess that makes sense. Even still, these primeancers are fascinating! Can you tell me a story about them?” Raimie asked.

  Aramar’s face pinched with pain briefly, but it smoothed away near instantaneously.

  “Your mother was always better at the story telling. It’s why you liked those horror stories so much more than fairy tales when you were a kid. You sure you want me doing it now?”

  “It’s not like I have a choice,” Raimie said sadly. “Mama’s gone.”

  “You don’t still blame yourself, do you?” his father asked. “It wasn’t your fau-”

  “Tell me a story about the primeancers, dad.”

  “All right,” Aramar said shakily. “The history books only collude on three facts relating to primeancers. One: they were incredibly powerful mages. Two: they lived epic, but always violent and brief lives. Three: each primeancer belonged to one of two factions.”

  “Besides those three facts, there are a lot of stories about them that could be truth but aren’t verified. For instance, one of Terrynil’s books concerning the Succession Wars mentions briefly that the reason primeancers often didn’t see their second decade was because the two factions opposed each other so highly that they’d go out of their way to eliminate primeancers of the other side. Since his books are the only ones to mention the idea, it’s not considered verifiable and therefore, can’t be counted on as truth.

  “And of course, there are lots of theories about their magic. Some historians
have postulated that they were working with some magic that originated from before Alouin brought us to this world or that it’s somehow connected to what the Esela can do naturally. One theory that falls into the extreme fringe even suggests that they were somehow connected to greater beings that control and influence our world.

  “We have to rely on historians to give us any information regarding them. Primeancers haven’t walked our world in centuries, thank Alouin.”

  Raimie took it all in silently. He knew why Kheled was so insistent on the secrecy now. If every story suggested that primeancers died young, you wouldn’t want to advertise that you were one, now would you?

  “But they were real. Not stories,” he stated questioningly.

  His father laughed.

  “Yes, they were definitely real. There’s some debate about their abilities or if they had some purpose, but no one doubts their existence.”

  “Why is that?” Raimie asked, genuinely curious this time.

  Granted, he hadn’t grown up with tales of them, but if he didn’t have very real proof that such magic was possible, he’d have laughed off the idea that people could draw from the very forces of nature. How did people without that proof accept primeancers as real without such evidence of their own?

  “Every civilization ending war, every great calamity, every near world-destroying disaster. Primeancers caused them. Every one of them,” Aramar said firmly. “Most of the time it was by accident, and sometimes a fraction of them worked to oppose those that were causing the mayhem, but they’re still the reason our current civilization struggles along. Who knows where this world would be if some disaster didn’t knock us back into the stone ages every couple centuries?”

  Aramar fell quiet, silently musing on could have beens. He never noticed his son’s ashen face. Raimie quickly rose and rushed to the door.

  “I’m feeling a little sea sick,” he mumbled back to his father. “I should get to bed before nausea hits full force.”

  “That seems wise,” Aramar agreed quickly, probably discomfited at the idea of cleaning up his son’s sick. “Good night!”

  Raimie pulled the door open and stumbled outside. He wandered the ship’s narrow hallway in a daze. Quickly finding his cabin, he prepared for bed. He only really noticed the rapid sway and bob of the ship as he fell into his hammock.