Forbe's smile was hopeful as they pulled up to the larger gates of the inner Greenswatch Keep. The polite reaction of the attendants to him, all clean in his new clothes, made him feel, for the first time, like more than just a peasant from a Green Sea village.
"When you speak to the prince, always say Your Grace," the captain told him stiffly. "He will understand your dialect, and probably speak to you with the same distorted accent you herders use." They were escorted through the cool, white stone corridors towards the Great Hall where the prince was holding court. "He will probably correct you to address him as My Lord, but the flattery will get you far."
Nervous, Forbe asked, "Do I bow my head?"
"You fall to one knee and bow your head," the captain said roughly. "And you tell the truth of what you saw. Nothing more, nothing less."
Forbe had first been placed in a room, that was what they called it, but it was a cell, he knew. He'd been left there alone to worry and wait while Captain Skallin spoke with the prince. Then, finally, they came for him.
He was trembling now and his knee hurt fiercely. The prince sat before him on a throne of gray-veined marble. The curtains were closed, but through the cracks, he could tell it was still early evening. A dozen strange looking men all dressed in black stood evenly spaced against the torch lit walls of the hall. The flames flickered and danced between them just above head height so that he couldn't make out any of their features. It wasn't anything like he'd expected, and he was as scared as he'd ever been.
He did just as the captain told him and told the angry looking thing they called Prince Venom what he'd seen. Now he was in the middle of the third telling, and so terrified that he could barely speak. His new clothes were soaked through with sweat, and his knee was throbbing from kneeling so long.
It wasn't so much the telling that scared him, though, it was the giant blood stain on the floor between he and where the prince sat.
Prince Venom wasn't human, at least not anymore, but when he closed his mouth and eyes you might think he was. Forbe had seen the prince once before, and this thing scarcely resembled the man he'd seen when he was younger. It seemed that the crib tales of changelings he'd been told weren't just crib tales after all.
Prince Venom's eyes were like a serpent's, slit up and down, and his teeth were sharp and fanged like a dog's. And worse than the prince was the woman-thing standing beside the throne, whispering into his ear.
Young, and well-formed by any human standards, she had orange eyes that were slit like the prince's, blood-red lips, and needle-like teeth. She was dressed in all black, as was the prince, and their skin looked pasty and pale in the flickering firelight. If they sat still long enough, they could have passed for dead.
"A little girl goddess in silver chainmail on a blue dragon," the prince said, shaking his head. "Had my loyal and trusted captain not taken oath and served me for as long as I can remember, I would not believe a word of it."
The woman whispered into the prince's ear. He touched a long, black fingernail to his chin while he listened, then he smiled and nodded.
"This wild man you say talked to Prince Trovin, and the dragon-riding child. Describe him to me."
Forbe took a breath and did his best to steady his voice. "He had long silvery hair your grace, and bright yellow eyes." He swallowed hard. "He wasn't much bigger than the lady," he nodded to the woman thing beside the prince. He finished with another hasty, "Your Grace."
"You say this dragon-riding child healed the knight and the handmaid, who Captain Skallin's men ran through?"
"Yes, My Lord," Forbe replied. His knee was hurting so bad on the uneven stoned floor that he thought he might fall over. He'd long forgotten about any sort of reward. All he wanted to do now was be back in the village on the plains far away from these creatures before him.
"Tell us of the captain's men, if it pleases," the woman said, her deep orange eyes burned through Forbe, and he felt like she was searching inside of him for something.
"Most were burned and scorched, but not by a fire. It came from the dragon's mouth, but it was something I don't have words for," Forbe felt his spine tingle and knew the woman was probing him somehow. "One man was in pieces, and another missing half an arm."
"And Captain Skallin, how was he?" the prince asked yet again.
"When I found him, he was sitting up with one of his eyes hanging on his cheek and covered in blood," Forbe answered.
The woman leaned over and whispered into the prince's ear. He speaks the truth, Forbe heard her say, but not with his ears. Her voice came from within his head, and it scared him so much that a tear rolled down his cheek. He was sweating so profusely that no one could have noticed he was crying. He wondered what happened to Captain Skallin? What if it was his blood on the floor before him?
"Dragons and elves," Prince Venom said to himself, but loud enough for all to hear. Then he looked at Forbe.
"You have spoken true, and we approve." The wild looking creature the prince had become leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "Do you swear to willingly serve me in any way you can?" Forbe caught a faint smile on the prince's face, but couldn't tell if it was mocking or approval.
"Yes, Your Grace," Forbe said feeling more than a little relieved.
"Good," the prince said as he rose to his feet. "Then I command you to feed Darka-Xera for me, for I've already had my fill, and the Queen of Darkness needs her strength."
"Darka-Xera?" Forbe said, wondering who or what Darka-Xera was and what he was supposed to feed it.
The woman stepped down toward him and smiled, showing him her thin white teeth. I am Darka-Xera, her voice formed inside his head. And I am hungry, as are they. She indicated the black clad beings in the shadows along the wall.
He felt himself standing. He tried to turn and run but couldn't. She had a hold on him from the inside. Her orange eyes flared and she sank her teeth into the side of his neck, but he felt no pain. She kept her mouth there, gulping down pulses of his life blood, then she let him crumple to the floor. She then got on her hands and knees and began to rip and tear bites of his chest away, shaking them until they tore loose. She barely chewed the chunks before she tilted her head back and chugged them down her gullet.
After a few more bites, she was joined by the changeling males that had been standing along the walls, and a few other females. In a matter of moments, Forbe was reduced to nothing more than another blood stain on the floor.
Later, Captain Skallin knelt in the sticky stain that had once been the pilfering village boy. Darka-Xera sat in the marble throne, flanked by two equally fierce looking women, all three dressed in black. The room was filled with pale, fiendish looking men, each holding a blood red candle whose flame reflected in Darka-Xera's orange reptilian eyes like stars in a night sky.
"You, Brandon Skallin, have served your prince well," Darka-Xera said in her icy sweet voice. "But that was in life. A life, I might add, that cost you your wife and your daughter and even more than that." She indicated his missing eye. "But you fought back and survived, and I will have you serve me now, for one who knows how to survive the likes of dragons deserves to be granted his wish."
Darka-Xera stood and opened her arms to the room full of darkons. "Tell us, Captain Skallin, what is it you told your prince you wished him to grant you?" Captain Brandon Skallin looked up at the Darka with his one good eye. It was full of rage. "Revenge," he said angrily, causing a murmur of approval to flow through the hall. "Revenge for what?" she asked.
"Revenge for my daughter's life. Revenge for my missing eye. Revenge for the loss of my prince's men." He found her face with his good eye and looked deeply at her. "Revenge for what life has taken from me."
"Then I shall grant your wish," she said aloud. "Only, you will no longer serve the prince. Henceforth, through me, you will serve mighty Drar. You will lead a company of darkon feeders, and you will kill the prince who took your eye and the winged beast who took your daugh
ter's life. You will feast on the white feathered bird who scarred your pate and your pride, and you will bring me the still beating heart of Princess Trava of Ormandin." Her gaze bore into him. "Will that be vengeance enough for you Skallin?"
"Yes," he said through clenched teeth. "Take me. Change me. I will relish doing these things."
She took a goblet of thick dark liquid from one of the other darkas that flanked her and stepped closer to him. The darkon men with the candles began to chant a slow, rhythmic sequence of words that Skallin couldn't understand. He could feel beads of sweat stinging in the six long jagged wounds that ran from his brow, straight back over his head and in the raw tender socket of his missing eye.
"Say the words," she commanded him, and the two other darkas came down and took a position on either side of him. Each had a similar goblet of the thick black liquid.
He didn't know the words, but the other darkas began to chant them, and he joined in, repeating what he heard.
"I am no longer one. I am of the Drar. The Drar is my god and master. His will I will serve. Darka-Xera, mistress of Drar lead me. Guide me. Take me." And then the chant repeated again. "I am no longer one. I am of the Drar—" and so he said over and over again.
The two darka at his sides raised him to his feet and stripped him bare, and each of them poured the contents of their goblet over his head and tossed away the cups. They began rubbing the thick, black, jelly-like substance all over him. It tingled on his skin, and he felt it burn and sting his wounded scalp and eye.
After a time, the two darka pushed him to his knees and tilted his head back, and one of them pushed a glob of the black oozing stuff over his empty eye socket, and then suddenly thrust her finger into it. When he opened his mouth to scream, Darka-Xera poured the contents of her goblet in his mouth, and then put her mouth over his in a long, forceful kiss. He was forced onto his back, and the three darka massaged every inch of his flesh with the oily goo.
For Captain Brandon Skallin, one life ended there, and another began. When he opened his eyelids, he could see out of them both. His body felt leaner and harder than it ever had, and he was famished.
He was put in a dark chamber, his body crawling with tingling sensation. It was as if his every muscle and nerve were being rejuvenated and he could barely stay standing. Lying in the chamber, he could think of nothing but the need to feed.
Before long, a boy came to the room to tell him that Prince Venom had summoned him to the Great Hall. The captain devoured the young man and seemed even hungrier when he was done.
He went to wash the boy's blood from his face in the basin the room afforded him and caught his reflection in a polished piece of silver there.
The socket that had been empty before was filled with a black glassy eyeball, and as he looked closer, a tiny pinpoint pupil widened to focus. The dot was as red as blood. The wounds on his head had also healed, but the long scars were as black as fresh sailor's tattoos, not pink as they should be. He didn't care, though. He looked as mean and vile as he felt, and he couldn’t wait to take the life of the Ormandin prince who had taken his eye, and he could already taste the white falcon's flesh on his tongue.
It was morning he could see, and the sun cut mote-filled lines across the otherwise dark stone hallway that led to where Prince Venom waited.
He vaguely remembered Prince Venom coming to the hall after the darka had taken and changed him. He remembered all of the changed darkons chanting, "The Drar has come to be born again, the Drar has come to be born again, the Drar has come to be born again." Now Skallin wondered if Prince Venom was the Drar reborn. If he was, it was all the better, he thought.
The lords and ladies of Greenswatch parted a wide path for the huge, stripe-headed, battle worn captain, sporting one wild black and red eye. None of them appeared pale and strange as they had the night before, and a murmur of distaste and fear rippled in his wake. He could sense that even the darkon standing against the walls on each side of the hall feared him.
Had they been darkons yesterday? Skallin wondered. The way they stood with their hoods up, eyes almost closed, and mouths shut, it was impossible to tell. The sunlight couldn’t reach them, so they very well could have been.
A moment later, Skallin realized he could smell them. He could smell their fear, he could smell their respect, and most of all, he could smell their eagerness to serve him, for in all of what he sensed from them, he felt he was their superior. He decided that if he smelled one that was too weak with fear, he might just make an example of him. He would be Prince Venom's hardest, cruelest, and most fearless servant. Then he smelled Darka-Xera, and he smelled submission, his own submission.
Instinctively, he understood the way it would be. He had been mistaken about something, though. He would serve the prince, but only because the darka willed it. The darkas were the ones in control. More specifically, Darka-Xera. The place where he knew he should somehow sense his master, Prince Venom, the coming Drar, there was only an empty space inside him.
"Captain Skallin," the prince said from his throne. Darka-Xera stood behind him deeper in the shadows than she had been before. The room, while still lined with darkon feeders, was filled with lords, merchants, and courtiers. Every one of them was after something, no doubt. Here to plead their grievances or honor the prince of Greenswatch. When Skallin's eyes finally fell on Prince Venom, he saw that the eyes and teeth, even the essence of the Drar, was absent from him today.
"Prince Verdin," he said as he bowed. Then he looked up past the prince into Darka-Xera's eyes. In his head he heard her voice speaking, but her lips never moved.
You are to take your vengeance, she instructed. But never forget that you promised me the beating heart of the Princess of Ormandin. We must have her alive, for that is what the Drar commands. I will give you men and darkons, and all that they require, but I warn you, it will be wise to bring me the princess you promised before you indulge in your vengeance. If you fail to bring her to me soon, the pain I will inflict upon you will be eternal. Her beating heart is required to bring the Drar all the way into this world, and time is of the essence.
He hadn't heard a word of what the prince said to him, but he felt himself stand and say, "As you will, m’lord." Then he turned and left the hall with a strong sense of urgency and a dozen hooded, black-clad darkons following.
Chapter Seven
Grey Rock was more of a fortified castle than a stronghold. It boasted thirty-foot stone walls on three sides, the fourth side being a monumental cliff formed of the same grey rock that rose hundreds of feet straight up out of the grassy green plain. At the corners, crenelated towers provided excellent visibility, and it looked to Braxton as if the men stationed there could see for leagues and leagues. The place could be easily defended by archers. Inside the heavy iron-bound gates, save for the two other towers that rose up out of the blocky, rectangular keep, it seemed like the main structure had grown right out of the cliff face. One of the towers was easily eight stories tall, the other maybe twice that height. These had sharp, pointed hammered copper roofs that had long since lost their shine to a dull green patina. These appeared as grey as the rocks behind them due to the thick layer of bird droppings that was caked on them.
From four hundred paces back out into the grass, the whole thing had been invisible against the backdrop of the cliff. At three hundred paces, only a vague outline was visible, and only to a trained eye. Braxton hadn’t picked it out until they were less than two hundred paces away. There were no gates facing the open green sea. These were cleverly hidden at each end, where the outer walls met the cliff. Braxton could imagine a caravan riding down the distant road that paralleled the plateaued grey face, not even noticing it as they passed.
Once through the gate, Braxton reveled at the size of the undetectable open space within. Men were gathering outside of a hall, and one of them stood out due to his loud voice more than anything.
Lord Amicuss was a jolly round man with a dark beard and sky-blue ey
es set under bushy eyebrows. He was wearing dark blue leggings and a long silken shirt that was the exact same shade of blue as his eyes. The cloak he wore was the same shade of grey as all of the stone that surrounded them. He greeted them from across the vast open bailey with a smile and a loud, enjoyable laugh. His expression was one that Braxton clearly took as relief.
Lord Amicuss called out to as many servants to prepare a feast as Prince Trovin and Princess Trava, followed by Sammani disappeared into the keep stopping only to kiss each of the lord's cheeks in turn.
Braxton watched from the distance as the lord's expression turned from wide-eyed shock to utter disbelief, then to downright red-cheeked rage as he listened to what the prince said in his ear. A man dressed in dulled grey mail and plate, with a lighter almost white cloak stood beside his lord at attention until he was given his order, then he strode off proudly barking commands to the men on the wall tops. After a few moments, Prince Trovin nodded to Braxton, and Braxton waved his arms at the sky.
Lord Amicuss strode over to the wagon and greeted Braxton and Cryelos, and a sullen, silent Sir Jory.
"An elf?" Lord Amicuss questioned loudly. "By the gods, it has been a long time since an elf has graced these halls." Cryelos smiled at that. "It is my honor, Lord Amicuss."
"And mine," Braxton added while the lord shook his hand vigorously.
Sudden shouts followed by ahhhs and ooohs erupted from above them. The white-robed commander had already spread word that Cobalt was coming. Apparently, the princess or the handmaiden had spoken of it, too, for people were pouring out of the buildings to see. They gathered on the balconies of the keep and crowded in the windows of the towers. Within a matter of moments, there were several hundred people visible, where a moment ago there had only been a few.
Warrior of the Void (Fantastica Book 4) Page 6