A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1)

by Knight, Edward M.

  Table of Contents

  A Thirst for Vengeance

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A Thirst for Vengeance

  The Ashes Saga, #1

  By Edward M. Knight

  www.edwardmknight.com

  © 2014 Edwards Publishing

  Book Description:

  My name is Dagan. There are few alive with more blood on their hands than me.

  I have lived a life of degeneracy. I have studied the teachings of the dark mage Helosis and walked the path of the dead. I have been to the shadowrealm and emerged with my soul enact. I have challenged the Black Brotherhood and ridden with the Knights of Valamor as a brother-in-arms. I have spoken to Xune.

  I've killed indiscriminately—for money, for fame. For vengeance.

  When I was young, I fell in love with a princess and was punished by her death. I have scampered, begged, and thieved. I have been homeless. I have ruled the greatest city ever built.

  I began a succession war. I alone know who lifted the Seals of Regor—and how. I was there when magic was restored to this world. If I'd been born in a different age, I would have been the greatest sorcerer known to man.

  My name is Dagan. This is my tale.

  Chapter One

  My mother was a woman as wise as she was beautiful. She was not a whore, despite stories to the contrary.

  She was the eldest of five sisters born of a lord. She renounced her claim to her father’s land and title when she was just sixteen. When a travelling troupe came through town, her heart was stolen by a young man with jet black hair and a singing voice that could make maidens weep.

  He was my father.

  My mother was a woman as wise as she was beautiful. That is why, when I was two, she tried to drive a blade of pure ivory into my heart.

  But let’s back up for a moment to offer some perspective on this tale.

  I was born on Harvest-Bane’s Eve, an ill omen if there ever was one. I was my mother’s third: her third child, her third boy. As you’ll soon see, the number three plays a pivotal role in my brief and miserable life.

  My oldest brother, whose name need not be spoken, collapsed and died of a brain hemorrhage at age twelve. I do not know much about him, having never met him. All I know is that the blood that came from his ear made such a stain on the wood floorboards of our home that it was still there when I made my return sixteen years hence.

  My middle brother, named Harry after our father, received an ill-aimed crossbow bolt through the gut when he strayed too close to a caravan fight. That was one year later. He was six. I was one.

  So, perhaps it was grief that drove my mother to throw me on the table and reach for her knives. They were the only things she carried with her when she ran from home on the back of my father’s horse. The hilts were gilded gold. A third of each could feed one family for three years.

  But, the true value lay in the blades.

  Narwhal ivory, and centuries old, inlaid with magic to prevent them from ever snapping or growing dull. The knives were a relic from an older time, when magic had not yet been forgotten.

  It always astounded me that my mother would waste one on a boy such as me.

  When she raised the blade over her head and uttered the words of the profane ritual that would steer her hand straight and true, a brilliant gust of wind flung the door open. Maybe it was fate that saved me that day.

  But even I like to think that fate would not be so cruel.

  My mother gasped, and took her eyes off me just long enough to misplace the thrust. The knife lodged into my collarbone and shattered. I carry the scar to this day.

  The shock of her knife breaking reduced my mother to tears. It was confirmation of her most dreaded fear about me. My father—

  “Come on!” the old man’s voice rang out like the sound of tearing leather. “You expect us to believe your mother had three Narwhal ivory knives? Hoy! Who do you take us for?”

  “I did not say she had three,” Dagan told him calmly. He wore a hood so that only the glint of his eyes showed from beyond the shadows.

  “What then? Six?” The old man started to laugh. He cut off with a choking sound, then swept in to show his remaining teeth in a sickening grin. “You spin a tall tale, boy. Hoy! Barkeep! More ale, eh? Keep it flowing all night, that’s what I say.” Without warning, the old man drew into himself. He shuddered. “Ale’s the only thing keeping a man’s bones warm these days.”

  The barkeeper was an elderly woman not unpleasant to the eye. She loaded her arms with two pitchers and carried them to the table where three men sat.

  Earl, the oldest—and the drunkest—made a misguided attempt to pinch the woman’s ass. It earned him a slap that sent his teeth rattling.

  “So then, go on,” Patch, the youngest of the group, urged. In truth, he was little more than a boy. In pleasanter times, he should have been outside chasing game or learning to ride ponies on his Da’s farm. But, war has a peculiar effect that even time does not: it can turn a boy into a grown man overnight. “What did your father do?”

  The hooded man tilted his head back and tasted the air. His nostrils flared the way a dog’s do on the eve of a storm. “There’s going to be trouble,” he said, his voice flat and hollow. “You’d best get home, Patch. We’ll have time enough for stories later.”

  Patch slouched in his seat. “It’s not my fault Earl’s an ass!” he sulked. “I didn’t interrupt your story. Besides,” his voice took on a hopeful tone, “you’ve been promising to tell us for weeks.”

  “Lad’s got a point,” Earl offered, reaching across the table to ruffle his hair. Patch ducked away with a scowl.

  The man in the hood put both hands on the table and leaned close. “You fools aren’t frightened yet, are you?” he breathed.

  “Frightened?” Earl repeated. “Frightened of what?” He hawked up a ball of phlegm and spat it over his shoulder. “I’ve been on this land for nearly seventy years. I’ve seen war and famine. Plague and illness—the sort that come with the wind from the south. Nay, I ain’t frightened of another bloody succession war. It don’t concern me. Stick to your land, that’s what I say. I’ve got no business in the realm of kings and nobility.” He gave a low grunt that showed his opinion of them.

  “I stay on my farm,” he continued, “and ain’t nobody that will bother me. The land might be a harsh mistress, but she’s always given me enough to survive. Treat her well, and she won’t get angry—and that’s the best you can hope for from any woman, eh?” Earl chuckled and flashed his teeth at Patch. “There’s some sound advice for ya. Never rouse a woman’s anger. Keep that in mind, and you’ll survive longer than the best
sell-sword.” Earl picked up his mug and took a generous swig. “Now, what do you say, Dagan?”

  “I say you’re a bloody fool for not being frightened.” Dagan opened his eyes and turned them on Earl. The old man was no coward, but even he could not stop the unnatural chill that those eyes evoked in whoever saw them. “This is not just a succession war. When Zander moved to lift the Seals of Regor, he released things much worse than demons into this world. Older things.”

  “Like the Nehym?” Patch asked, excited. “You mean they’re real?”

  Earl reached over and clubbed Patch on the side of the head. The boy looked at him bashfully. “What was that for?”

  “For believing stories your Na told you when you were suckling at her teat,” Earl countered, with a lot more conviction than he felt. “Everyone knows the Nehym don’t exist. Zander opened the seals half a decade ago, and I ain’t seen a glimmer of difference one way or the other.” He glared at the hooded man. “And you ain’t either. You can go fill the boy’s head with stories of riches or make-believe, but don’t start pretending you know something the rest of us don’t.”

  The hooded man’s lips curled up in a rare smile. “Why, Earl,” he said. “You might be a smarter man than I’ve given you credit for.”

  Earl eyed Dagan with suspicion. “Don’t be mocking, now,” he warned.

  “I was sincere.” Dagan looked at Patch. “You want a story, do you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Patch answered, his voice full of admiration. Remembering his manners, he added, “Please?”

  “Very well,” Dagan nodded. “It’s not often I get a captive audience. Most people who learn my name prefer to run rather than listen.” He glanced at Patch. “That should concern you.”

  The boy swung his head and edged closer. “Nope.”

  “My tale serves only one purpose,” Dagan said. “And that is to teach you the folly of being a hero. My father…”

  Chapter Two

  My father was a simple, God-fearing man. Age had robbed him of his vitality, and more recently, his hair. Patches of it still hung around his skull in long, scraggly clumps that he oiled every night. A bought of pneumonia had left his voice hoarse and cracked.

  He thought it was God punishing him for absconding with my mother. I knew it was just bad luck.

  My screams must have woken him that night, for there he was, standing in the gaping mouth of the farm doors like a reaper out of hell.

  For all his faults, he had a practical mind. When he saw the scene before him, he threw a cloak over the table to hide me from my mother’s eyes. She wept and collapsed into his arms. Together, they retreated from the room.

  Like I said, my father was a simple man. He had the type of blind cunning that came up behind you and slit your throat when you were dozing off in a brothel after paying for the finest girl. It was the type of cunning that raised no qualms over stripping you bare and taking your purse after. Because, after all, dead is dead.

  That is to say, he very nearly succeeded where my mother failed. When the cloak fell over my head, I could not breathe. I almost suffocated.

  I do not hate him for it, for I do not think his actions came from a place of malice. They came from pervasive absent-mindedness.

  Nor do I hate my mother, though I have every reason to. She was frightened. And fear can make people do desperate things.

  So there I was, beneath cover on the wooden table. The cloak was cutting off my air supply, and I was squealing and paroxysizing like a gutted pig. Eventually, I exhausted myself with vain kicks and useless cries. The oxygen in my brain already low, I succumbed to a deep, coma-like sleep.

  I awoke the next day in a ditch by the side of a road. My mother had had a change of heart: instead of killing me herself, she decided to let nature do it for her.

  Where I lived, rabid dogs patrol the countryside. A child my size, alone and unprotected, would have made for a tasty morsel. If not the dogs, exposure would have killed me.

  But I have found in myself a remarkable trait that is rare in this world. I am capable of hanging on to the edge of life for far longer than any sane man should. It is a trait that I have made use of multiple times.

  I would not advise you to try.

  Countless days of rolling around in the mud, crying, and being generally useless came to a blessed end when a gypsy caravan rolled by. I was picked up by an old woman closer to death than even me. Her skin was deep brown from the sun. Cracks ran along her face like fissures in the earth. The mark of gypsies in those days had been their reluctance to don clothing above their hips. Her breasts hung limp and flat all the way to her waist. Her hair had frizzled and dried ages ago. She rarely bathed.

  A more foul-smelling, unpleasant woman could not be found.

  Yet, I adored her as my savior. She gave me food and drink and nursed me back to health. My primitive, underdeveloped mind knew I had found a home.

  My primitive, underdeveloped mind was wrong.

  Two weeks later, I was handed over to a tall, thewy slaver named Three-Grin. In later years, I have heard it said that his name came from his ability to smile three times while flogging a man to death.

  That was not true. His name came from the deep welts he had carved in his cheeks, giving him the impression of three grim, smiling lips.

  And, for what it’s worth, he smiled far more than three times when he killed his property. He enjoyed it because he thought he was giving sacrifice to the great God Xune.

  However, being made a tribute was not my fate. I was left to a much crueler master:

  The Arena.

  Three-Grin raised children for the Arena. After being sold by the gypsy woman, I was thrown into a dungeon and forgotten.

  I was not alone in that wet, dark pit. Other children made noises around me. Some gurgled. Most cried.

  Even the most precocious child will cry for his mother for days on end without giving up. That sort of stark stubbornness has to be admired.

  It is something I lacked entirely.

  My mother had tried to kill me. The woman whom I thought replaced her handed me off to a man who dumped me underground. My life had been short, at this point, but it had also been hard.

  That is to say, I knew Mother would not come. I did not cry.

  That silence served me well. At first, the older children thought me dumb. Later, when they saw the spark of intellect in my eyes, they mistook it for something else:

  Insanity.

  One man took care of us beneath the earth. He did not speak, either. When I reflect on my time there, I now realize that he may have been mute.

  He wore the same ashen gray robes every day. Perhaps he had been a child in my position once who had grown up and survived the Arena. But I did not take him for a fighter.

  If he had a name, he did not share it. His eyes were blank and empty. Despite that, he had overwhelming patience for the children.

  He brought us hard bread and water. He moistened the bread for those too young to chew and dabbed it at their lips. Somehow, that was enough to prevent starvation.

  I remained in those dungeons for five years. I never spoke. I did not see the sun. I just watched, listened, and waited.

  I saw Three-Grin once every other month. He would come down to the dungeons reeking of beer and piss. He would take stock of his property, point to one of the older slaves, and walk away. In the days that followed, the child he picked would simply disappear.

  Sometimes, Three-Grin came down in a blind rage. He would have a sword in one hand and a cudgel in the other. At random he would pick one of the children. Usually it was the one who screamed the most.

  Three-Grin could not abide crying.

  He would kick the child to the center of the room. He liked making a spectacle of things. He would impale his sword through the crying child’s shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Then he would laugh, and, using the cudgel, beat the poor child into a bloody pulp.

  Then he would spin round and round and scream as his craze
d eyes found us in the shadows. “Xune knows all! Xune punishes sinners! Hear me, for I am the great God Xune’s one true messenger!”

  He did not know how right he was. Xune was watching. And Xune was preparing to punish sinners.

  After Three-Grin left, our robed caregiver would kneel beside the broken body of the latest sacrifice. He would cradle the child’s head and hum a haunting melody into one unhearing ear.

  It dawned on me later that perhaps the robed man was a disgraced priest. Many worshipped Xune in their own ways. The Church did not have the same influence back then that it does now. But they were growing, and the lies of the religions were spreading like fleas on a ship.

  But I digress. Over the years, the Church has been both a great enemy to me and a steadfast friend. I will get to that at its proper time.

  Some months after my sixth birthday, I was selected by Three-Grin on one of his patrols. To say I slept poorly that night would be a lie. I did not sleep at all.

  Yet it was not fear that kept me awake. It was hope. Being selected was the only way out of the dungeons. I had had enough of that dank place.

  Let me remind you that, until that day, I had not heard a human language spoken since my time with the gypsies. Three-Grin’s rhetoric did not count. My mind was fallow and ready to absorb anything it could as easily as a sponge.

  So, in the night, when I was cloaked, bagged, and abducted from my spot against the wall, I felt the primitive bloom of joy spread through my chest. I did not know what happened to children who were taken in the night. Anticipation trembled in me like a coiled spring.

  I was brought up one flight of stairs and dumped to the floor.

  That was it. One storey up. It was another dungeon, slightly larger, and right above my previous one.

  But even that could not hamper my excitement. My world had just doubled in size. I was overjoyed.

  Until somebody drenched me with a bucket of ice cold water from behind.

  I gasped and shot up. Two coarse, rough hands grabbed my arms. Instinct told me to fight, but my frozen muscles did not respond. I was picked up and tossed into a tub of steaming water as easily as a ham.