Sea of Revenants (Nysta Book 6)

by Lucas Thorn

  A long soul-wrenching moan of endured agony, emerged not from his lips, but the marine mouth of the kraken. Its splintered teeth clicked. The Madman’s own jaw hung slack, drooling slender threads of slick black slime from between his teeth.

  Translucent blue-white skin pulled tight, exposing tracks of vein and muscle beneath.

  He took another step, the weight of the kraken driving him lower to the ground, but he kept coming. Drawn by instincts he probably couldn’t name.

  Rockjaw stood firm, pushing Nearne further behind him. She went willingly, sobs wrenched with wild abandon, covering her eyes with her hands.

  A few raiders retched as the stink of putrefied fish washed over them.

  One more step.

  Chilled to the bone, no raider moved. None spoke.

  The only sound to be heard was the Madman’s slow dragging footsteps and the terrible moan of the kraken.

  Then, as the fog gently dissipated around his gigantic form, he halted at the foot of the stairs and, with unfathomable strength of will, lifted his burden so he stood tall and straight before the altar.

  Slowly, almost painfully, he opened his eyes.

  Clear and sharp, twin violet eyes smouldered into life as they woke from a dream. A nightmare only he tasted.

  He shivered.

  Closed his mouth, hiding sharp fangs which had been hanging from his upper gums. Drew ghostly lips back into a manic grin and breathed deep through his flaring nostrils. Deep enough that the kraken’s body inflated as he sucked air, their lungs paired together in a grotesque mockery of nature.

  One of the raiders dropped to his knees and let his sword fall. Bowed his head as if in worship. Or defeat.

  Perhaps both.

  Lux, still trying to balance himself, shuffled to the edge of the stairs. Staff held in front, he licked dry lips and spoke. His rasping voice somehow carrying through the courtyard though he spoke with little more than a cautious whisper. “Your name,” he said. “Was Ozric. Do you remember?”

  The Madman flashed a look to the blind deathpriest. A look which oozed suspicion and resentment.

  “Ozric.” Cold and wet, the word swam with a thick shiver. “I am Ozric.”

  “No,” Lux said with a quick shake of his head. “Not anymore. You were Ozric. You are Ozrick no longer. It’s important you realise this.”

  “I am Ozric!”

  “Look at yourself! Look! Open your senses and truly see. You’ve been dreaming. Dreaming for thousands of years with a brain so long dead its thoughts are nothing more than ghostly echoes. But sometimes you rise from the deep. Sometimes you almost wake. Like now. And you’ve broken the barriers which kept you from understanding.” The blind deathpriest tapped his staff impatiently against the stone. “You have to see what you’ve become. There’s no choice. You can’t hide inside the kraken’s madness anymore. It sleeps. You wake. But no matter which of you is control, you’re still not alive.”

  “I am Ozric.” Less sure now, though. And his violet eyes rolled in his skull. An almost featureless face made smooth and pale from the centuries beneath the sea. He struggled, perhaps consciously feeling the full weight of his burden for the first time. “And I live.”

  “You died. But your magic warped you. Warped the creature who killed you. Out of control, it blended you into one broken being.” Lux paused. “You must have been desperate.”

  “I must live.” He took a step forward, dragging the heavy kraken’s carcass another yard. “Death will not hold me. I must have my revenge. Urak will pay. He will pay for what he’s taken from me!”

  “He paid already,” Lux hissed. Jabbed a finger toward the elf. “The weapon of his destruction is in the hands of another. He was destroyed. He died screaming with his cursed children. Rest now. Be satisfied your enemies are vanquished.”

  “And her? The sorceress? What of her?”

  “Gul’Se?” The elf felt the words emerge from her mouth like tight knots. “I slit her throat.”

  “Be quiet,” Lux snarled as the Vampire Lord’s gaze swept toward her.

  “You killed her? You saw her die?”

  “Yeah.” She felt the echo of the insane woman’s sorrow and was surprised to find a stab of guilt. “Seems she ain’t the only one of you who lost their mind.”

  “The throne,” he said. Fingers balling into a fist. Frenzy crashing into his voice as he blinked the fevered dreams loose and felt a thrill of excitement. “Then the throne is mine. The Keep is mine. I can take it. It’s mine. It should have been mine all along. He had no idea what he had. What he could do with it! Power. Endless power!”

  “Ozric!” Lux snapped, glaring at the elf. “Look at yourself. First, look what you’ve become!”

  But the Madman wasn’t listening. His eyes squinted at the elf and the violet glitter brightened. Glowed. “I will bend it to my will. Break it if I have to. I’ve studied it. Learned from it. It needs a strong hand. A guiding hand. I know the words. I have read the words which form its heart. Words which will unlock its secrets. And I will speak them. And when I do, the world will call me god. No. Not the world. The universe!”

  Lux tapped his staff against the ground between his feet as Ozric began to cackle uncontrollably. The sound worked to make the Madman blink into silence. Into the silence, Lux rasped; “Like they called Urak a god? All gods can die. Remember that.”

  Ozric hissed. Eyes flashed with rancid hate as they glared at the deathpriest. “Who are you?”

  “I am the Second of the Forged Low, and Elevated Son of Grim’s Malefaction.” He tried to lift himself, but was obviously still too weak to stand straight. “I am Transgressor. I am Self-Condemnation, Dishonor, and Remorse. My name is Lux Corepith.”

  “It is too long,” Ozric sighed. Squeezed eyes shut. “Your name grates on my ears.”

  “It gave me the cramps,” Nysta murmured, low enough only for her to hear. She inched closer to the altar. Trail of blood dotting the ground behind her.

  Curiosity lit the face of the ancient Vampire Lord as he opened his eyes again. “What are you, Lux Corepith? You are not mortal. You are not one of us. You are neither draug nor homunculus. There is power in you. Power I don’t recognise. But it tastes familiar. What is it, Lux Corepith, that keeps you together?”

  “The Dark Lord created me,” the blind deathpriest said, not hiding his reluctance to speak of it. “With power you have only dreamed of.”

  “Oh, you couldn’t begin to understand my dreams.” Ozric stifled a chilling giggle, eyes rolling in their sockets as something pulled at his sanity with wire-tight strings. “Such terrible dreams, Lux Corepith. Dreams which I can feel still curling through my skull. Are they real, do you think? Dreams? They feel real sometimes. Tell me, is he powerful? This so-called Dark Lord of yours, is he more powerful than me, do you think?”

  “Grim’s dead,” Rockjaw supplied, perhaps finding a spark of his former self. “Dead and fucking buried. The only fight you’ll be getting around here is from us. And if you think that’s gonna be easy, you’re wrong. Real fucking wrong. It’ll be hard. And it’ll hurt. Because you’re big, and you’re definitely ugly. But so am I. So, if you want us dead, then you’ll have to work for it.”

  As the ork spoke, one of the kraken’s tentacles snaked around the torso of a shredded draug and lifted it carefully from the ground. Black slime dribbled from the gaping hole where its lower body had been.

  One of the draug’s legs broke loose and dropped to the ground.

  Gently, the kraken lifted the draug’s remains above the hunched back of the vampire lord and angled the body into its gaping maw. The kraken’s massive teeth crunched meat and bone, churning it in its mouth.

  The slow wet crunch continued as more draug shuffled a few steady steps closer to the ork.

  The Madman, eyes burning as they fastened on Rockjaw’s defiant figure, moved his jaw in perfect rhythm to the kraken joined to his hunched back. Grinding his teeth as though tasting the foul meat himself.

&n
bsp; Drool slid down the side of his mouth and dribbled off his chin.

  “That’s what I want,” the Madman said as the kraken swallowed its grisly prize. He wiped his slick jaw and grinned. “I want you. Dead. I want you all dead. Every one of you. At my feet. Dead. Dead. Dead…”

  The yellow fog surged ahead of him, a blanket sweeping up the stairs and washing around their ankles. Its touch was frigid, cold enough that it felt like the bites of an insect swarm into her skin.

  She skipped out of its reach, unsure what was happening but not liking the yellow lights shining bright within the fog. “Shit.”

  And the draug followed, unleashed and eager. Mouths roaring wide. Tongues flapping as they hooted with violent hunger. Claws curling, they darted in close, sniffing the air and tasting fear.

  Nemo’s raiders were the first to meet them. They fought with panic. Wild-eyed and desperate. Steel cleaving flesh.

  Splitting bone.

  She watched a black-bearded raider go down. Watched as one of the Madman’s creatures shoved its hand into the raider’s stomach and tore. Tore skin like it was rubber. Stretching until it snapped with a bloody gush.

  His screams were the first. But they weren’t the last.

  Ainu shouted from above, and arrows shot down from the bridges.

  Ozric hissed, madness blazing in his eyes as he snapped his gaze to where a young raider danced with his bow. He pulled back. Released. The arrow speared into the kraken’s flaccid head, above its eye.

  A tentacle thrashed, looping up around the bridge. It grappled tight around the archer’s leg and he threw his bow down to stab at the thick arm with a long-bladed dagger.

  But the kraken felt nothing as rancid blood bubbled from fresh wounds. Shrieking, the raider continued to struggle as the tentacle dragged him from the bridge, holding him aloft.

  Almost tenderly.

  Unconcerned by the frantic and desperate strikes as he tried to hack and saw free of the terrible grip.

  It lifted him above its mouth.

  Teeth. Thousands of needle-shaped teeth. They quivered as the tentacle swayed.

  Then the kraken released him, its mouth lunging to capture the falling raider. The sound from his throat was the raw sound of sheer terror shredded into one of agony.

  A sound cut off with one monstrous snap of the kraken’s huge jaws.

  And the Madman cackled int he wake of the scream.

  The demented laugh echoed in the elf’s head as she struck with Queen of Hearts, tearing a limping draug open from neck to belly. Letting its innards shiver loose at her feet.

  But she didn’t stop to check if any part of it still lived. She staggered, dizzy from loss of blood, to the edge of the stairs and looked down at the crazed Vampire Lord. Should have felt horror.

  Or fear.

  But felt only hatred. Hatred she couldn’t control.

  “Ihan,” Lux growled. He shuffled close to her, leaning on the altar. Aimed his staff at a group of draug and blasted them with a plasmic energy, stripping the flesh from their bones. Skeletons took a half step them dropped into puddles of bone and steaming goo. Bones rattling in fetid puddles. “We have to find Ihan. And if it’s too late, we have to get the knife! The knife is our only chance. I think if we sacrifice with it, it’ll appease him. Slow him down. The Madman’s tied to the knife somehow.”

  “Yeah,” she said. Wiped her lips with the back of her blood-crusted fist. Felt the rags drag across her skin. “You do that, feller. I’ll keep him busy.”

  “Leave it to the ork. You can barely stand. The knife, Nysta. Think about the knife. We’ll need-”

  “I heal quick,” she said. Took a drunken step down the stairs and had to pause to catch her balance as a wash of vertigo reeled through her head from the base of her skull. She lifted her arms as the dizziness swept through and was gone, defying the heavy weight they’d become. Feeling the worms racing through her body. Feeling them work. Feeling their need for time. Time to repair her damaged body. But hatred refused to let her wait. Refused to let her search for safety. Instead, it drove her forward. Queen of Hearts pulsed in her hand, enchanted black tendrils sliding eagerly around the blade. “By the time I put this in his face, I’ll be back on my feet.”

  “You’re not immortal, you fool!”

  “Never thought I was, feller,” she said. “Like most things in this fucking world, I breathe, after all.”

  “Nysta, that knife isn’t what you think it is. It won’t kill him. I’m sure of it.”

  “How sure?”

  He twisted his lips into a bitter line. “Fairly sure.”

  “Then look at him. He breathes, Lux. Sucking at air like a blacksmith’s bellows. Reckon that ain’t an act. And it’s a lot of breath for a skinny feller like him, right? Breathing for two, maybe. Figure that doubles my chances.”

  “You’re crazy. Just as mad as he is!” The blind deathpriest reached for her, but she tugged herself free. “Listen to me, Nysta. We can stop this. Stop him. We just need to find Ihan. Find the knife! The knife! You can’t fight him like he is. If he doesn’t kill you, the kraken will tear you apart. Listen to me, for fuck sakes! I brought you to kill draug, not to fight him. Not as he is. Not awake. Stop, Nysta. You can’t fight him!”

  “Get the ork. Get everyone else. Then go get this priest of yours. Find him, or what’s left of him. You do what you got to do, and I’ll do what I’ve got to do.” She thought of Mija. The look in the young girl’s eyes. The need. The terrible need. A need she felt right now. The Madman, perhaps feeling what she was feeling, was waiting. Fingers curling into fists as he stared up at her. On his back, the kraken shifted. Reached lovingly with its tendrils to slabs of meat and dismembered limbs which it swept into its drooling maw. “They might be working in concert at this stage, but I’m about to give them something I’ll bet they’ve both been dreaming of for thousands of years.”

  Hope flared in the blind deathpriest’s face for a moment. “What?”

  “One way or another, I’m gonna get them a part.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  She fell down the stairs more than anything, bouncing from draug to draug. Thrusting with Queen of Hearts and spinning away into the next. Trying to stay upright.

  Trying to stay alive.

  Leaving the wreckage of draug bodies in her wake, thick black blood erupting from jagged wounds. Some writhed. Others were still, bodies gutted of the necromantic magic which had kept them moving.

  Her face a rictus of hate and determination as a dull sense of lethargy swept through her body after every sudden strike of her blade. Within reach of the kraken’s massive tentacles, the elf reeled to a halt and shook sweat from her brow as she looked down at the Madman.

  Staring back at her, he giggled between his teeth. Then wrenched his expression into one of thoughtfulness. The insanity leaked from his eyes and, for a moment, he appeared lucid. Despite the chaos raging around them, conversational.

  “Is it true? Is he dead?”

  Knowing who he meant, the elf nodded. Lifted Queen of Hearts so he could see it clearly. “This ripped him apart, feller. Then pinned him to a wall.”

  “Pinned him to a wall?” Ozric slowly licked his lips. “Like a bug? An insect? A worm?”

  “Just like that.”

  “Good.” He hauled on the kraken’s weight, trying to get closer. Stretched out his hand. “Give me the knife. I want it. It killed him, so it must be mine.”

  “Come and get it.”

  A tentacle slashed out of the fog, crashing into her side and rolling her down the remaining stairs. Her shoulder slammed into the ground as she landed near his feet. Tore a gasping cry from her mouth.

  She moved fast, tumbling to her left. Had to push awkwardly from the ground with one arm and more pain shot through her shoulder.

  Another tentacle thundered into the ground where she’d been sprawled. Split the stone ground with the force of its impact.

  No time to think, she ducked another tentacle
. But was too slow for the next. It wiped the elf off her feet and blasted her into one of the remaining stone warriors. Stone crumbled as she smashed into it, but so did she.

  Choking, she spat bloodied spit and looked up, trying to drag energy into her aching body.

  The Madman was approaching. A slow drag of feet and the kraken’s body shuddering on his back.

  “Give it to me.”

  “Sure, feller,” she said. Spat more blood. “Whatever you say.”

  Then leapt at him, A Flaw in the Glass bursting with venomous energy as it dug into the hard carapace protecting the tentacle lifted to protect him. Blazing green energy bubbled eagerly as it speared through hard chitinous plate and into soft flesh beneath.

  Black inky blood squirted, spattering the elf’s face and chest.

  The kraken’s arm shook violently and curled back around, reaching for her leg. Mouthlike suckers opened. Thin fangs, some broken and bent, quivered as they made to clamp onto her flesh.

  But Ozric showed the two beings, though joined by meat, weren’t joined by thought. His fist cracked into the side of her forehead, taking advantage of how she’d twisted in the air to counter the writhing kraken.

  She was jetted back, splashing into the remnants of destroyed stone warriors.

  Her head hit a dislocated stone arm, sending wave after wave of sparks glittering across her vision. Sparks which looked like stars. Stars from the deepest depths of space.

  Something about them left her mesmerized.

  The way they swooped and swirled.

  Ducked and dived, burning in the dark.

  She didn’t notice the tugging on her arm at first. Didn’t feel a thing, even as her shoulder twitched, the skin beneath her jacket darkening as the darkness squirreled up her back and down her arm.

  She was dragged from the mound of debris, coughing dust.

  Blood trickled from a gash on the back of her head. Her violet eyes, dulled by the frozen numbness infecting her brain, stared at the thick black tentacle winding around her torso.

  She stared as it dragged her closer to the Vampire Lord.

  Stared incomprehensibly at the lusting look on his face when he reached for the knife in her hand.