by Eric Vall
The demonized harpies were also gone.
“What was that?” I asked as I turned to Nikolaus, excited but confused by what had happened.
“The Sword of Healing and the Sword of Light working together.” Nikolaus grinned as he pulled his Sword from the ground. “They are perhaps the two most compatible blades out of all the Swords in existence.”
“Now I know why the king sent you,” I laughed as I pulled my own Sword from the courtyard before I turned my attention to the large door. “Let’s get inside that castle.”
Anton pushed open the door, and even though we were ready for any attack from the inside, nothing happened. Cautiously, we moved into the castle and remained on high alert.
There was absolutely no one in the castle, though. It was almost eerily silent, as if the fortification was completely abandoned. There was no sign of life, not even anything left behind by the soldiers we knew had been there. Dust covered the floors and debris from crumbled portions of the wall, and cobwebs hung thick from the rafters and corners. Each step I took tossed motes of dust into the air, and a few of the Demi-Humans behind me coughed and sniffled. My own sensitive nose twitched, so I started to breathe in only through my mouth. I didn’t want to sneeze anymore, but now my tongue felt coated in decay and ruin.
Soon enough, we came to a point in a corridor that made me think we’d reached the great hall of the castle. A moth eaten and worn down carpet ran the length of the hall, and my enhanced eyesight could pick up that the fabric had once been red a very long time ago. There was a heavy wooden door along one section of the wall, and the passageway continued down on either side of the door.
I walked toward the door and placed my hand on it, but I couldn’t sense any miasma on the other side of it.
Well, there was nothing for it.
I pushed on the heavy wooden door, and a thick smell of dust and decay rushed out, making all of us gag on the horrid smell. It was almost an earthy stench, but there was something more to it, something decrepit and rotting, but it wasn’t like the pungent odor of the corruptive miasma. It was more like the smell of the slowly decaying demons we’d fought in the Crimson Canyons.
However, what was inside was something far worse than the demons we’d fought.
The great hall was full of piles upon piles of mummified child corpses, some of them so old they had already turned to stone. Others still had their leathery flesh intact and almost seemed as if they were only sleeping. Even more wretched than those were the fresh corpses that had been dumped on top of the older bodies.
It was the fresh scent of death that came from those corpses, and I realized they couldn’t be older than a few days at most, and at the very least, a few hours.
I could see all manner of Demi-Humans in the mass grave in front of me, from foxes to snakes to wolves. There were even mummified harpies in the midst of all this death. The bodies only had one thing in common, and that was what made the blood in my veins boil.
Children, they were all children, and none of them were even close to adulthood. I couldn’t see any child older than fifteen, and some of them were even as young as infants.
“My lord,” Dagen began, but his voice failed him as he looked upon the tragedy in front of us.
I didn’t blame him, there was truly no words for what we’d found. But I had to hope … I had to hope there were some survivors left inside of this nightmarish castle.
Hoping there were survivors was the only thing keeping me calm. I wanted to rant and rage, but this wasn’t the time for that. I needed to store that hatred growing inside of me and keep it aside for the day I was able to sink my claws into the Green Glass Sect and Olivier.
“Search the castle,” I ordered calmly as I hid my rage. “Search for more victims and see if there are any survivors at all.”
Dagen and the warriors from the Blue Tree Guild didn’t respond, but there was no need for words. They had a mission, and they would see it through. If there was someone left alive in this hellhole, they would be found.
As for me, I would search through the mummified remains and fresh bodies to see if there was someone alive. There was always the slight possibility of someone hiding underneath the corpses of their companions.
“Searching for survivors?” Nikolaus matched my pace as I walked deeper into the great hall. “I understand hoping, but whoever is capable of such a systematic slaughter would never have left someone alive. Still, I doubt anyone who is capable of killing innocents would have remained sane.”
“Exactly, only a mad man could have done all of this,” I explained as I carefully sifted through the bodies, “and a madman is always careless. He’s going to make mistakes, even if they’re not going to be obvious at first glance. There’s a thousand years for him to have fucked up. There has to be something left behind, and we’ll find it if we search long enough.”
I was ignoring the already mummified remains, there was obviously no way any of those victims could have survived. Instead, I focused only on the fresher corpses and shifted the bodies of the murdered children.
I didn’t want to miss a single child, so I carefully let my healing power seep over the mummified corpses and search for any survivors. I could have just left the search to my magic, but I couldn’t just stand around and watch.
Even so, I didn’t find any survivors with either my hands or my magic.
“So many lives lost, all at the whims of a madman,” Nikolaus murmured as he gently moved the corpses. “It’s a tragedy this happened, but he couldn’t have gained all of these children from the areas surrounding Hatra alone.”
“No, Hatra hasn’t had enough children for this to happen.” My eyes narrowed when I came across an Asuran child, and I took another breath to calm my anger. “The Green Glass Sect seems to have a longer reach than we ever accounted for them having. The web they have woven will be a tough one to cut.”
My fingers trailed over the features of the Asuran child, and they were remarkably similar to the survivors of the Asuran village we’d taken in. Delicate features and a pair of horns on their head. Instead of appearing as if they were simply sleeping, though, the child’s jaw was broken and left open in a mocking parody of a smile.
“Nikolaus,” I broke the silence between us, “I want to take these children back to Hatra. They deserve to rest in peace and not spend the rest of eternity in the place where they died so cruelly.”
“It is only right,” Nikolaus agreed with me and stretched out one of his hands, “we will get vengeance for their souls, and they will rest easy with the knowledge that they will have their retribution.”
“You will not be forgotten,” I promised the corpses around us. “I don’t care how long it takes, but each one of you will have your deaths paid back tenfold. The Green Glass Sect has been running rampant, but their time is running short.”
The air in the great hall shifted, as if sighing in relief, and I could almost imagine the souls of thousands of children looking on as we promised them their vengeance.
There were a lot of things I could forgive. Even after becoming a dragon, I was still an easy going person, and it wasn’t simple to anger me. But when it came to harming children? Well, I never had any control over my temper when it came to a child being in danger, and turning into a dragon had only heightened that part of me.
I watched in silence as Nikolaus stored the bodies of the children into his spatial space and thought about the grave I would make for them. There was no way I was going to dump them all into a mass grave, they deserved more dignity than that.
No, I would make them a monument that would last for thousands of years to come. They’d been brutally murdered, and their names would never be spoken again, but they would never be forgotten. These children would stay alive in the heart of Hatra, and I would make sure that all of Rahma, no, all of Inati knew the suffering they had been put through.
All of this cruelty and injustice would be brought to light by my hands.
It
wasn’t long before the sound of running feet filled the hallway outside the chamber. For a moment, I wondered if we were under attack again, but a quick sniff at the air proved me wrong, and I realized it was just Leon running down the corridor. I could sense the waves of agitation wafting off him, though, and Nikolaus could apparently sense it, too.
“What in heaven’s name did they find?” Nikolaus wondered aloud as he leaned against a nearby column.
“Well, we’re about to find out,” I replied as I started walking toward the open doors.
“My lord, you have to come and take a look at this,” Leon gasped as he skidded into the threshold and motioned me over to the entrance of the great hall.
“What did you find?” I glanced down at the pile of scrolls in his arms and gritted my teeth. “Something worse than these poor children?”
“Perhaps,” Leon replied reluctantly as he extended a scroll toward me. “If I read these papers right, there are more than just these children and what happened to them.”
“What?” I grabbed one of the scrolls Leon had in his hands and read through it. “What kind of abomination is this?”
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It was a diagram of what looked like a human body, and there were notes along the side that referenced certain areas. The notes detailed how the body reacted to increasing amounts of miasma. Further down the scroll were different bodies sketched, and I noticed a number at the side of each figure.
The figures weren’t being numbered, but rather, those were the ages of the body when it was experimented on.
“It seems unimaginable if you’re only reading the scrolls,” Leon tightened the vice like grip he had on the scrolls and took in a calming breath, “but from everything we’ve seen here, it has to be true. There’s no way what’s written down on there is lies. And, my lord, we’ve found even more scrolls like this one and more rooms full of children. All of them dead.”
Rage filled me, and it was burning hot as it seared through every blood vessel in my body. The anger I’d tried so hard to control was beginning to break free.
“Collect everything in this damned castle,” I gritted out as I began to see red, “leave absolutely nothing here. We’re taking it all back to Hatra.”
“Of course, I’ll spread the word to the others.” Leon nodded before he ran down the corridor.
“May I see it?” Nikolaus asked from beside me with his eyes on the scroll.
“Take it,” I pushed the scroll against his chest, “I don’t want to look at it for another moment.”
I wanted to burn this whole castle down, that’s all I wanted to do, but I didn’t have any fire magic, and simply tearing down the stone walls of the castle wouldn’t satisfy me. I wanted to see the castle in flames, as if a part of me wanted to purify it from all the darkness and cruelty that had lived here for a thousand years.
But how? How was I going to do that? Dagen was here, and he had fire powers. If I constantly healed him, then he might be able to break through and burn down the castle. Even as the thought came to mind, though, I knew it wasn’t a good idea. Dagen was too young, and pushing him beyond his limits could potentially cripple him. That was the last thing I wanted. Even through the red haze of my rage, I knew I would never hurt my people.
“Evan,” Nikolaus spoke calmly as he drew my focus back to him.
“What?” I growled, a bit irritated I’d been interrupted from my thoughts.
“Look at your hands,” the Prince of Light replied with an amused smile on his face.
“Why the hell are you smiling?” I frowned just as I looked down at my hands.
Oh.
Crimson flames licked at my fists, and they rose and curled up around my forearms as they gave off a savage heat. I was holding fire in my hands, the fire I had been wanting and desiring for so long. The fire I’d inherited when I’d been adopted by Ruslan as his heir to the House of Hatra el Shamash.
A brutal grin stretched across my face.
Now, I really was going to burn this castle down to the ground.
Chapter 14
Crimson flames licked at my flesh, but they didn’t burn me. The enchanted fire just drifted over my skin as if it were a glove, and it fit me perfectly. Although the fire mimicked the deep rage I felt, it wasn’t out of control. It was eager, but well behaved. All I had to do was think of it being extinguished, and the fire disappeared.
It was almost odd to think of it as a well trained dog, but that’s what it was. A part of me knew it behaved like this because of the Sword that hung from my hip, since in that Sword lay the knowledge of all the previous rulers of Hatra el Shamash.
But it was still pretty awesome.
“Let’s go.” I waved for my fellow Noble of the Sword to follow me out of the hall. “We should see what we can get our hands on before we leave this wretched place.”
“It’s the darkness and cruelty of everything that happened here,” Nikolaus explained as he fell into step next to me. “The walls will always remember the death that plagued this castle.”
“Is there a way to wash away those stains?” A part of me didn’t want to destroy the castle. “If we can, it could serve as a perfect outpost for Hatra in the mountains.”
“There’s a thousand years worth of innocent blood shed here,” Nikolaus replied softly as he stopped in front of a column and placed his hand on it. “To completely purify this castle would take centuries, and even then I’m afraid the evil wrought here has sunk into its bones. It would haunt whoever would inhabit this place.”
“Then destroying it is our only choice.” I gritted my teeth as we came back to my original desire. “This castle is going to go up in flames, and the Green Glass Sect will never be able to use it again.”
“To purify this place with fire,” Nikolaus sighed as he stepped away from the column with a melancholic expression, “an apt end for such a place as this. Perhaps then the gods will take pity upon this land and put a stop to this pointless suffering.”
“What’s wrong?” I stopped Nikolaus and glanced at his depressed face. “Are you thinking about the children we found? If you are, we will get justice for them, and they will rest in peace.”
“It’s not just the children.” Nikolaus’ silver eyes glittered with suppressed anger, and exhaustion lingered behind the rage. “I’ve spent my whole life fighting the seeds of corruption left by the demons, I’ve held back the expansion of the Breach, and I’ve fought the poison of the miasma. Even so, through all of that effort I put into protecting our people, it wasn’t enough. The poison of the demon world has somehow seeped past our defenses and into our very homes.”
Although he had no personal guilt in the matter, Nikolaus felt the burden of it on his shoulders. I wasn’t going to let him shoulder it by himself, though, no matter how many times I would have to remind him.
“Hey, listen to me,” I began as I placed my hands on his shoulders, “if you weren’t at the Breach and fighting the demons, there might not be an Inati left. You all did everything feasibly possible to protect our people, you did absolutely nothing wrong. Besides, you have me on your side now. Those demons and the sick assholes who were behind this have another thing coming to them.”
“You have wrought miracles in the city of Hatra.” Nikolaus shook his head, and a faint smile appeared on his youthful face. “Things won’t remain the same in our world.”
“Exactly.” I smirked as I pulled him to walk alongside me. “You guys have another ace up your sleeves with me on your side. Things are going to get interesting from now on, and it’s just like I promised the king, I’ll purge Rahma of the poison festering underneath the surface. I won’t let a single guilty person get away.”
“No one thought the Sword of Healing would ever return,” Nikolaus fell into an easy step beside me, and the anger in his silver eyes slowly faded away, “but now even the city of Hatra has returned to us, thanks to you. Evan?”
“Yeah?” I glanced at Nikolaus from the
corner of my eyes. “What’s up?”
“Call me Nike,” Nikolaus replied quietly. “You’re going to be family to me soon enough, and I couldn’t have asked for a better comrade in arms.”
I blinked at Nikolaus for a moment, surprised by the sudden request for me to call him by his nickname. Apparently, it seemed like it was a big deal. Especially since this was the first time I’d even heard a nickname be mentioned in this world.
But if Nikolaus wanted me to call him Nike, I’d do it.
“Nike,” I tested the nickname and tilted my head to the side in thought. “Doesn’t that mean ‘victory’?”
There was a loud burst of laughter from Nike, and he brought up his hand to cover his mouth in an attempt to stop his laughter. I guess he wasn’t expecting my comment about his name, or it had somehow defused the rest of his tension.
“It does,” Nike laughed into his hand as he closed his eyes, “victory on swift wings is what my name is meant to be. The light that will ensure victory in battle no matter what.”
“Well, now that light has a mighty dragon by his side,” I teased as we came to the door leading to the courtyard, “our enemies will cower before the mighty Prince of Light and the Black Dragon of Hatra.”
“What, you’re going to let them run away?” Nike shook his head in amusement as we walked into the castle courtyard.
“Of course not,” I corrected him easily, “I said they would cower before us. While they’re cowering, we wipe them out like we’re stepping on bugs.”
“Just like this castle,” Nike added. “It’ll be gone before the sun falls tonight.”
“Damn straight it’ll be gone.” I nodded before I frowned. “Everyone should be done getting everything out of this place. I’ll check up on them.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Nike replied, and his power washed all over the courtyard.
“Thanks,” I said absently as I turned my focus to my own power.
I poured my magic into my hand and watched as it took a solid shape before my very eyes. A tiny crystalline dragon formed in my open palm, and it tilted its head up at me. Every time I created these dragons, I couldn’t help but marvel at how beautiful they were.