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

by Knight, Edward M.

  His father died the year Vontas turned twenty-five. Lagon inherited the crown. And though Vontas hated Lagon, he was still too frightened to do anything.

  Vontas’s loathing poisoned his mind. He stayed in his rooms, coming out to see the sun only once a year. He plotted ways to overthrow his brothers as quickly as he discarded them. He spoke to no one. He slept alone.

  The only bright spot in his life was the maiden Isabella. She was half his age. He watched her every morning from the window of his chambers as she woke early and helped her father prepare the smithy.

  Perhaps if he had gone out and said a word, Isabella’s kindness would have subdued the darkness in his heart.

  But that is not the story that is told today.

  No. Instead, Vontas watched as his brother, Avery, greeted the girl every morning. When she turned fourteen, Avery began courting her. They were married within the year.

  The morning of their wedding day, as Isabella was woken up and carried away by her bridesmaids, she looked up at Vontas’s window for the first time. Vontas froze as their eyes met. Isabella offered him a shy, sad smile that meant so many things that cannot be described in mere words.

  That smile, and the promise of seeing it again, was what finally propelled Vontas to action.

  Vontas knew that, if he left the city, he could not return. His true nature would be revealed. But that did not bar him from communicating with those outside.

  That night, when the moon was hidden by the clouds, Vontas climbed the city walls. Seeing his brother was the excuse he used for coming up there. In truth, he had written a letter that described Rel'ghar’s greatest weakness:

  Rel'ghar was not built on magic alone. It owed half its stature to great architectural feats. It was a marvel that showcased the ingenuity of man. A series of aqueducts fed the city water from the highest mountains. They did not run straight into Rel’ghar, but instead stopped some leagues off, where they seemed to have simply collapsed. Water poured over the edge into a deep crater, never to be seen again.

  That drop off was part of the design. Underground pipes caught the escaping water and carried it the rest of the way to the city.

  None could suspect the secret of the aqueducts or their connection to Rel'ghar. To passersby, they looked like ancient ruins.

  But Vontas knew better. He knew, and wrote of the weakness and cast his letter over the side of the wall, to be carried by the dark ocean of the night. He trusted those who hated Rel'ghar as much as he would discover the communication.

  Anxious months passed. Isabella moved to live with Avery after their wedding. Vontas never saw her again.

  Doubt grew in Vontas’s mind. Had he been specific enough? Had he trusted too much in chance?

  One night, he was awakened by a raven pecking at his window. He opened the glass and let the bird in. It had a message tied to one foot:

  Dear Friend,

  Tonight is the night we strike. We wish to thank you. At the hour of our moon’s peak, come to the place you spoke of. We will be waiting.

  Vontas ran. He ran to the gate where the underground pipes opened to bring water into Rel'ghar. There, he found a great beast cloaked in shadows.

  “Open this gate, and let my kin in,” the beast said. “Open this gate, and let your revenge be known.”

  The beast’s words shook Vontas. They were not spoken in the common tongue, or in any tongue he knew. Still, through some power of sorcery, he understood.

  Vontas threw open the gate and let in the army that would destroy the city.

  In minutes, screams pierced the night. Alarm bells rang. The city watchmen ran to their posts, seeking attackers past the walls, not within. They were slaughtered with their backs turned.

  The city burned. It burned so bright that the night was cast away by artificial day.

  The enemy had a wizard in their ranks, and he hated all witches. Rel'ghar burned from the flames sprouted of the mouth of the dark creature the wizard had summoned out of hell.

  By daybreak, none was left alive save Vontas. The culmination of all his desires had come. He stood proudly over the carcass of his brother, the King. He stood proud of the burned remains of his brother, the Commander. And he wept when he found the body of the maiden Isabella.

  He wept from joy, not grief. If he could not have her, his hateful heart told him that no other should.

  Vontas stood alone as the sole survivor of Rel'ghar, and his weeping transformed into laughter

  But the wizard saw the man’s true nature. The wizard, like Angelica, could see into the hearts of men. And he saw that Vontas still ached for one thing.

  Vontas wanted to be ruler.

  He struck Vontas from behind and knocked him down. The wizard and his army had no use for the ruins of Rel'ghar. They had eliminated the spawn of witches. That had been their only purpose.

  And Vontas, however unfaithful to the city, was one of Rel'ghar’s own.

  The armies collected all the gold of Rel'ghar and cast it on the ground. They erected a cross on top, and nailed Vontas’s hands and feet to it. The man screamed. His blood poured down and tainted every coin.

  “You wanted power,” the wizard said, “and now you have it. You wanted revenge, and now you have it. You wanted the city to yourself, and now you have that, too.”

  The wizard turned to the beast beside him and whispered in his ear. A great gout of flame erupted from the beast’s monstrous jaws. It ignited the gold at Vontas’s feet.

  The wizard cast two spells that day. The first was a spell that would keep Vontas alive until the last ounce of gold had been removed from the city. The second let the beast’s fire burn for all eternity.

  Those were the last Great Spells that this world has seen.

  With the witches and their offspring dead or dying, the wizard had no cause to remain in this world. He took his armies and his beast and disappeared forever.

  Vontas’s screams endured for two hundred years. They echoed as his blood mixed with the melting gold beneath him.

  People all over the world heard of Rel'ghar’s downfall. They heard of Vontas’s betrayal. And they heard of the treasure burning at his feet. They sought it out.

  When the last piece of gold was taken from the ruins of Rel'ghar, the curse was lifted. And to this day, when mothers warn their children of greed and avarice, they speak of Vontas, whose screams still carry on the wind, all these centuries later.

  ***

  “And that,” Dagan concluded, “is the story of Vontas and the Marks of Rel'ghar. His treacherous blood poisons each coin, and traces of the wizard’s last spell—” he gestured to the melted metal on the table that used to be a mug, “—remain to this day.”

  “Two hundred years, eh?” Earl grunted. “That’s a bloody long time. I wouldn’t believe it, if I hadn’t seen that mark of yours.”

  “Two hundred years,” Dagan said simply.

  “What happened to the rest of the marks?” Patch wondered. “I heard most of them were lost.”

  “Lost, hoarded, or melted,” Dagan agreed. “Only fifty such coins exist in the world today.” He swept his off the table and made it disappear. “Of course, when I received mine, people believed there were even fewer…”

  Chapter Nine

  The journey to Hallengard took me three days. It was a journey that an able-bodied man could have made in six hours.

  My ankle slowed me. So did my hunger. I could not yet hunt or trap. Survival was an instinct I possessed, but not a skill I could call upon in the open country.

  The first day, I found a blackberry bush. I feasted on the small fruits until I was stuffed. It was the first time in my life that consumption did not have a hard limit.

  I paid for the binge an hour later by vomiting all over my clothes.

  From then on, every time I passed a similar bush, I picked only as many berries as would fit in my hand. I nibbled on them as slowly as I could.

  I found the city on the morning of the third day. It rose in th
e distance, the land around it clear of trees for many leagues. I learned later that this was so enemy armies could not approach unnoticed.

  Hallengard was a city build atop a mountain. Its walls seemed to rise as natural outgrowths in the rock. As I got closer, I realized that it had not been erected, but carved.

  There was only one road leading through the walls. During the day, it was full of caravans and bustling travelers. I looked at my rags and compared them to what I saw others wearing.

  They did not match.

  I would stick out the moment I stepped into the crowds. The thought of attracting attention made me nauseous.

  But I had no choice other than to keep going. I gripped my mark tightly, and, remembering the words the man in the black had told me, joined the steady stream of people.

  Relief fell onto my shoulders when I found I was mostly ignored.

  If you have never been to Hallengard, allow me to paint a picture for you. It is a city comprised of eighty thousand people. It was built to house a hundred thousand more.

  The rich flock to the north of the city. The poor, to the south. That leaves a swath of largely abandoned structures stretching through the middle.

  That was the part of Hallengard I found myself in, on my way to the building the stranger told me about, when I was pushed to the ground from behind.

  “Well, well, well! Look what we’ve got here,” a surprisingly high-pitched boy’s voice chuckled. I began to twist back, but a boot landed on my spine and kept me down. “A little lost wanderer!”

  “What’s he got there, Duke?” a second voice asked. “Look, in his hand! He’s holding suthin’!”

  I tried to pull my outstretched hand under my body to protect the mark.

  I saw movement from the sides of my vision. A dirty, ragged, little boy, no older than I was, jumped onto my arm and started to pry my fingers open.

  My strength was ferocious. The coin was the only thing I had. I would not let it go without a fight.

  The boy sank his teeth into my knuckles.

  I cried out in pain. My hand opened automatically. The coin bounced over the cobblestone, making metallic clinks as it went.

  The boy jumped off and retrieved it. The boot lifted from my back. I scrambled up, and twisted around to see the bullies for the first time.

  There were three of them. The oldest, and by far the fattest, was the one who had stepped on me. I took him to be Duke. The other two looked like twins, or at least brothers. It was hard to tell through the dirt caking their faces. They were both as scrawny as twigs.

  Duke was the only one who had clothes without any holes. “Whatcha got there?” he called out to the boy who had retrieved my coin.

  “It’s gold, Duke,” he answered. His voice carried an awed inflection.

  Duke screwed up his face. “It’s not gold, you moron,” he said. He held out his hand. “Give it here.”

  The boy walked back, cradling the coin in his cupped hands. He extended it out to Duke.

  I pounced.

  In retrospect, that was probably not the smartest move. But I had a furious possessiveness of that coin. I saw my chance, and I took it.

  I snatched the coin from Duke’s sausagey fingers. A glorious sense of triumph bloomed inside me. I turned and ran.

  That triumph disappeared when something hard cracked against the back of my skull.

  Pain exploded inside my head. The blow knocked me off balance, and I fell to the ground. I heard laughter around me.

  “Stupid, stupid boy,” Duke said. “Don’t you know you can’t steal from us?” He kicked me over so that I was lying face up. Then, he sat on me.

  The air left my lungs in a rush. I gasped for breath, but my chest could not expand with so much weight on it. I felt my face growing red.

  Duke clutched at my hand. I tried to fight against him. But he was much stronger. And with my head pounding in pain, it was easy for him to pry my fingers loose.

  He held the coin up to one eye. He put it in his mouth and tried to bite. He jumped when it shocked his tongue.

  “What the hell kind of coin is this?” he screamed at me. “What kind of coin bites you? Where’d you get it, boy? Who’d you steal it from?”

  “I… didn’t… steal it,” I managed.

  “Oh? Duke asked. “What? You shit it out, then?” He laughed. His friends laughed, too.

  “It was given to me,” I hissed. “It’s mine! Give it back!”

  Duke knocked my attempt away. “No.” He tossed it to one of the brothers. “Go see how much old Atto will give you for it,” he told him. “I reckon it should feed us a week.”

  “Duke, I think this is real gold,” the boy said. A sudden grin split his face. “Can you imagine what we can get for it if it’s real gold?”

  “It ain’t real gold, you idiot,” Duke barked. “How many times your ma drop you on your head before she threw you out? Think! What would a kid like this be doing with a gold coin?”

  “I’m just sayin’, is all,” the boy muttered.

  “Didn’t I tell you to run?” Duke roared. “What are you waiting for? GO!”

  The boy turned and sprinted, taking my mark with him.

  Rage erupted inside me. Rage at myself, for being so weak. Anger for being so stupid.

  I fought to get out from under Duke to no effect.

  That made him notice me again. “Look at him struggle, Butch!” His friend with the plank laughed.

  Duke shifted his weight. It gave me just the space I needed. I pushed off the ground and popped out.

  I would like to say that I sprang to my feet and ran after the boy with the coin. I would like to say that I caught him, fought him, and got my mark back.

  But you have to remember how little food I’d had in the past week. You have to remember the state of my ankle, which hurt even more now than when I first sprained it. You have to remember the growing welt on the back of my head.

  All I earned in lunging to my feet was a lurching stagger back to the ground.

  Duke laughed mightily. “Look!” he cried. “Look, he can’t even stand!” He grabbed the back of my shirt and hefted me up. Another rush of air left my lungs as he shoved me against one wall.

  “Now look here,” Duke said, trying to lower his voice to sound menacing. It still came out as a squeak. “I can tell you’re new to the city. If you weren’t, you woulda known better than to come into my territory. I’m going to teach you a few lessons. Lesson one—” he punched me in the stomach, causing me to double over, “never come on my turf. Lesson two—” he punched me again. I oomphed. “If any of us see you, we’re going to beat you senseless. And lesson three—” he sent another blow that connected with my kidney, “you’re weak, and I’m strong. Don’t think you can change that.”

  He let go of my shoulders. I collapsed to the ground, clutching my middle. I heard him and his friend laugh as they walked away.

  Something snapped inside me.

  I was on my feet and running in seconds, flat. I didn’t care that I made noise. Duke heard me coming at the last moment. By then, it was too late. I had a stone in my hand and was already in the air, flying at him.

  My momentum knocked us both off balance. Duke hit the ground with a grunt. Clutching the stone, I went crazy. I bashed it against his head. I smashed it in his nose. It slipped out my fingers, and I clawed at his eyes, trying to gouge them out. His shock was so great that I even got a few decent swipes in.

  My victory did not last long. His friend, who was still carrying that plank, took a swing at my back. The piece of wood snapped in two as the blow knocked me over. Duke rolled to his feet, roared, and barreled straight at me.

  I had no chance. Duke was right: He was stronger than me. He was older, too, and much bigger. His fat shielded his vital organs, whereas my emaciated body did not provide such protection. His fist broke my nose. His elbow caught my jaw. His knee came up and struck me between the legs.

  Even though I was young, that one sent me crumbl
ing.

  Still the beating continued. I huddled into myself as kick after kick landed on my body. His friend joined in, too, beating me with the remnant of that wooden plank.

  As pain took over, and my consciousness slowly faded, the only thing I could conjure in my mind was the image of Alicia, choking on her own blood, dead because of me.

  Chapter Ten

  I thought I was dead.

  I drifted in an abyss of emptiness. My body was so far away that I was not sure I would ever find it again.

  The river of darkness swept me downstream like a leaf caught in the current. Every second that passed drew me farther and farther from the street where I lay.

  I think one of my eyes flickered open when my ears picked up the faintest shuffling of feet. I saw two black-toed boots peeking out from under the curtain of a raggedy skirt.

  Then I was being lifted. The sudden shift of position yanked me right back to the world of the living.

  The pain that exploded along every inch of my body was unbearable. It was too much for my wakened mind to take. I passed out again.

  ***

  I came to in a small, dark hut. The smell of arsenic floated heavy in the air.

  A pair of hands, strong but deft, helped me sit up. My vision was blurry. A round, wooden mug was brought to my lips. I was too groggy to even notice the harsh, burning scent that the vapors gave off.

  Suddenly, my nose was pinched, my head tipped back, and that drink poured down my throat.

  How can I describe the concoction? Imagine you are an adventurer high on top of a cold mountain. You’ve run low on food and water. Topping a crest, you discover a magnificent sparkling blue pool.

  You run to it. You kneel by its side. Warmth emanates from the water to heat your face.

  The pool is fed by a hot spring active on the other side. You see steam rising from holes in the ground. You come up to one and wave a hand over it, testing the heat.

  Then, in a moment, of severe indiscretion, you put your head above it and look down.