Gorb stood in front of him. “Rise, My Prince. You will not die here today.”
“Stand down, Gorb.”
“But, My Prince—”
“I said stand down.”
Aysta approached him. “You will not spirit away so easily. Rise, and fight me. If you win, I will not march. If you lose, you will die.”
Kandarian got to his knees. “If there is no other way.”
“There is not.”
He pulled out his two pearl-handled blades. “Forgive me for the wrongs I’ve done you.”
Aysta acted as if she were turning around to lace up her boot but in an instant she was in the air. She was like an arrow, taut and spinning, the blade in front of her as she screeched and flew toward Kandarian.
It was almost too fast to see but somehow Kandarian saw it and twisted out of the way as the black arrow soared past him. He moved like a snake, both blades in front and twirling in constant motion.
Kandarian fought in a unique style. His blade strikes were minimal and aimed at vital targets. As Aysta lunged at him with a kick he ducked low and jabbed her wrist, hitting a nerve that made her drop her blade. But she crashed her knee and then her foot into his jaw and knocked him on his back as she cracked her wrist, gaining back its use, and picked up her blade.
Their movements were a flurry of limbs. The men were cheering for Kandarian. But I kept glancing around for the thousands of orcs I had seen. As far as I could tell there was nothing, and nowhere to hide.
Kandarian blinded her with a strike to the eyes and then kicked into her chest and flew up, landing on her head with an elbow, attempting to stab through her torso. Aysta flipped forward and the blade scraped across her leather, exposing a breast, and the men shouted in pleasure.
She rushed at him and kicked into his knee and came up at his face, before jumping and spinning with her heel into his neck. He ducked her next kick and did multiple jabs with the tips of his blades into vital areas in her thighs and calves. She fell to the ground and he lifted his blades for a devastating blow to her neck.
Aysta lifted her blade and sliced through his torso as he jumped back, the blade entering and exiting him quickly, probably not enough to do significant damage. Yet he was bleeding; it rolled out of him in long droplets down his trousers.
As if realizing they would die if they continued, there was a lull in the fighting. Both of them were breathing heavily and staring into each other’s eyes. Neither moved for a long time and the men had stopped cheering and were watching with bated breath.
“Surrender,” Kandarian said.
“No. You’ll have to kill me. As long as I live, I will turn your empire to ashes.”
Kandarian didn’t speak and didn’t move. Then he bent low and spun. He traversed the distance between them instantly and the blades were targeting her neck for a beheading. As he was about to connect, he stopped.
Kandarian looked down to the blade sticking out of his throat. It had flown from her hand and through his neck, the black steel glimmering and wet, jutting out the back with bits of flesh and bone on it.
Aysta rose to her feet, her legs pouring blood like a waterfall. “Now, Prince, you die.” She ripped out the blade and held it high.
Then her head fell from her shoulders.
I looked behind her and saw the girl standing with eyes of fire, staring at the corpse.
“That’s for my mother, whore,” she hissed.
Chloe looked up to me and her eyes turned to slits. She stood up straight, and below the mountain, in the forests, I heard the unmistakable sound of drums and marching.
Chloe bent down and picked up Aysta’s head. She held it aloft and let the blood from the neck dribble into her mouth. Instantly, she fell on the ground, convulsing in pain and vomiting. I could see blue veins rising and falling underneath her skin.
“Join me,” she murmured, “or die.”
Gorb was standing by the body of his prince. He looked to the girl, blinded by rage, and screamed as he ran to her. I pulled out my blades and leapt in front of him. He swung at me with his broadsword and I closed in and the strike went wide. I bashed the hilt into his nose, which snapped back his head, and swung to cut his throat, but he lifted his sword in time to block it.
“Get out of the way, Slesh.”
I looked back. Chloe was standing upright now. Too upright. I glanced down to her feet and saw that she was off the ground by three fingers width. She was levitating. Her eyes were a fierce red and they caught only Gorb. I stepped aside.
Gorb rushed at her with his broadsword. She lifted her hand and Gorb was flung back, gasping and groping at his throat and he started vomiting rich blood. It flowed from him in a torrent and he tried closing his mouth only to have it burst from his ears and eyes and nose. He tried to scream but was choked and fell into a garbling mess as the blood continued to rage out of him.
I looked to the girl. She floated toward the other men. “Any who join me will live.”
The men fell to their knees and Chloe turned to me.
“You served my mother well. She spoke of you often. My father said you were a friend to the mages. Join me willingly and I will give you the world. We will rule it together, with you at my side and leading my armies.”
“You’re their daughter?”
“I’m surprised you didn’t see it sooner. I suppose we see what we want to see.”
I dropped my swords. “I have fought for long, killed for long. I’m so tired of death and blood. I just want to go somewhere and be left in peace.”
“There is no such thing, great warrior. Join me, and serve me as you served my mother.”
“Please,” I said, desperate, “let me go.”
She paused. “As a recompense for the service you have rendered, you may leave if you wish.”
I turned away from her and began walking down the mountain. When I looked back, she was standing at the edge of the plateau as the army of orcs came out. She drifted off the mountain and held herself in the air over them. They shrieked and cheered and batted their hooves in the ground. She was their queen now. And she had her army.
I disappeared into the jungle, determined never to return here again.
EXCERPT FROM NECROMANCIA: A HANDBOOK FOR MAGES
The Last Line of Vas
It was unknown how the young child, the last in the line of Vas, came to power over a great army of orcs, but there are many myths and legends of the time. Some say she appeared out of the sea where she had been waiting for her mother’s death to take her mantle. Some say she killed her mother’s killer and drank her blood, imbuing her with great power. Other says she didn’t exist and was simply a myth that explained the brutal war to follow.
But such is the nature of history. It is a perception of events of the past: not a description of them. Blood is such as well. The queen, and mother of the child, was said to be so powerfully manipulative of blood magik that she could control men across the world with it, if they continued to drink blood themselves.
Whether her daughter had such a power is unknown. But what is known is that she was not impatient. She built her army and worked ceaselessly on her blood magik until she knew she was ready to wage her war.
And what a war it was.
TEMPUS KANDARIAN
I stood over my father’s grave as I heard the crowds outside the palace grounds weeping. It had been forty seasons since he had taken me in, and I dare say I was a man now, but even a man feels pain acutely at the death of his parents. It is something I do not believe one can ever truly prepare for.
The rain soaked my beard. I had gained in weight and was a powerfully built man, no longer the gangly boy who’d showed up to the palace all those seasons ago. I had been trained in war and bureaucracy, love and hate, knowledge and wisdom and ignorance. And all these things I owed to my father, he who had taken me in and given me his name and removed the stain of bastard.
It was raining so harshly that many of my father’s most loyal serva
nts could only stay for so long. But I stayed. Me and my cousin Dane. There was no one else. Mother had come and shed a few false tears and had been escorted back to the palace. Rumors abounded that she had hastened my father’s death with poisoning so I could take the throne. If I ever found out that was true….
The last conversation I had with him was when he was lying near death on his bed. He gripped my hand and a tear rolled down his cheek.
“I have wasted so much time,” he whispered. “So much time that could have been better spent. The men fear me and they obey, but they love you. They love you, Tempus, and you must never allow that to change.”
“I won’t, Father.”
“Protect the realm, protect your family, and ensure that you have the best around you at all times. Court can be a den of snakes. So you must ensure that you do not have people that just agree with you to your face and slit your throat while your back is turned. You must have men you can trust and that trust you enough to speak their minds freely.”
I pulled the blanket over him as he looked like he was shivering. “Do not talk of such things now, Father. You will beat this illness.”
That was the last thing I said to him. That he would beat this illness. He was dead by nightfall.
I looked up and Dane was staring at the grave. I had brought him out shortly after I had been brought to Zeries, and he had stayed by my side every day since.
“Are you ready?” he said.
I nodded. Dane put his hand on my shoulder and we walked back to the palace. As we entered through the gates and into the courtyard, all the servants and slaves and guards were there. They all fell to one knee, their heads bowed.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
“You’re their emperor now.”
2
It was the next day when word came in the form of a single rider. A city on the southern edge of the Empire had been wiped out. The man was frantic, covered in dried blood and malnourished. We fed him and allowed him to drink and I sat across from him as he did so.
“The entire city?” I asked.
“Yes, Your Grace. Everyone.”
“All dead?”
“Yes.”
“How many citizens?”
“Over a thousand, Your Grace. But they were not … men that did it.”
“What were they then?”
He hesitated a long time. “Monsters.”
“And how did these monsters fight?”
“With claws, Your Grace. They … tore men apart with a single blow. I have never seen anything like it.”
“And how did you survive?”
“I began leaving on horseback when we heard the drums. I only caught the beginning of the battle and it’s something that will never leave me. One of the men in the village, an old drunkard named Slesh, said he knew what the drums were. He fought for everyone to flee the village but we … we thought he was just a drunken fool. He was in and out of the jail for his drunkenness. How were we to know he knew?”
“What did he say?”
The man drank a cup of water. “He simply said he knew what the drums were. He was persistent enough that I saddled a horse and went to the edge of town. I was scarcely there a moment when arrows rained down from the sky tipped with red flame. So many they blocked out the sun. I fled as fast as I could and all I heard behind me was screaming … an awful screaming and grunting, like the grunts of pigs. I turned around and saw them. I saw them take a woman and lift her in the air and crush her head like an egg.”
I exhaled. “Dane, prepare a caravan. I wish to go visit this village.”
“Why don’t I just go, cousin?”
I knew what Dane was actually saying, that this man was a lunatic and not to be believed. But something about the way he told the story made me think that it was possible, just possible, he was telling the truth, and I wanted to see it for myself. The custom was for governors of territories to investigate claims of attack, but I believed this man to be honest and wanted to see for myself. Besides, the last place I wanted to be was at the palace with the corpse of my father, which would be on display for ten days, followed by games and ceremonies for another eleven days.
Rumors of an army in the Darklands that had crossed into imperial territory had already reached me. I’d heard these stories from several of the servants, who had heard it from others who had supposedly heard it from people they knew in the south. Most in the empire thought it a tale to tell children to get them to obey their parents, but I had always thought it held a ring of truth. The simple fact was that many credible sources had supposedly seen them cross into our land.
“No. I wish to go. Prepare it right away.
3
We traveled south for many days with the messenger and a small army. I thought it more prudent to go by myself with perhaps a few guards, but Dane insisted on at least one regiment accompanying me. So we marched south.
Soon we were in the wild swamps and we traversed a large distance on horseback before we had to walk. We camped where we could. The weather in the south was always better than in the north and I was able to sleep under the stars.
The village was called Norland. When we arrived before dawn, I waited a distance away before giving the order to move forward.
Blood mixed with the dry earth, forming a black mud. It was early in the morning, cold, and what blood was left in the corpses that the wolves hadn’t drunk had congealed into a lumpy gelatin.
Next to one body was another, and next to that yet more. The entire village was littered with corpses. Dane was silent on his horse, as his eyes went from one to the next. Their faces did not appear real but something perhaps concocted by a puppeteer—frozen faces with glistening eyes and rotting skin. I noticed that many were missing limbs.
I could see into some of the homes; meals sat decaying on tables. Some held other corpses. Many of the women and children were nude, and near the center of the village a massive pit had been dug. Inside were the entrails and bones of many dead.
“They burned the poor bastards,” I said.
“No,” Dane said, an edge to his voice, “this is a waste pit. They ate them.”
We stared at it in wonder and I heard a chuckle behind me. I looked back and, seated against a house, was a man in armor, soot and blood over his face. I pointed my horse in his direction and went over. When I was near I climbed off and walked to him. The man was drunk.
“She let me live,” he said with another chuckle. “She wants me to watch.”
“Who? What do they want you to watch?”
“She wants me to watch her turn the world to ashes.”
The messenger had climbed off his horse and come over. “Slesh, how did you survive? What happened?”
“She took a long time to prepare. She’s patient. An awful, terrifying patience. She can wait centuries. She came here because she knew I was here … these people are dead because of me.”
I bent down and looked him in the eyes. “Who did this?”
“Hell is on its way. And the whore of the devil is leading the charge.”
I stood up. The stink of alcohol was so strong on this man that it burned the eyes. “Rodrick, please get this man some food and water. Check him for injuries.”
One of the men jumped off his horse. “Yes, M’lord.”
I turned and looked at the pit, at the dozens, if not hundreds, of corpses at the bottom. The stench was putrid; a mixture of rotting flesh and piles of feces. I looked out over the horizon as the sun rose to its zenith.
“Dane, get word back to Zeries. Prepare the armies. War is upon us.”
SEMI OF THE GUILD OF SHADES
I gathered my weapons and ran my hand over my sword. Blood began to cascade over my palm and onto the black stone of the Guild. I bent to my knees and said a prayer to the gods, asking them for the power of war.
“You always were devoted,” Master Nemesh said behind me.
“Do you wish to know a secret?” I asked. He did not respond.
“The gods resent us, my master. They resent us because we are so fragile and can die at any moment. When you are immortal, nothing is beautiful for it will never end. Nothing is sacred for it will always be with you. We are gods to them because we are so temporary.”
He exhaled. “My boy, you have the heart and soul of a poet. One day you could lead this guild to the greatness it once shared. Why throw your life away?”
I rose and turned to him, placing my sword in its sheath. “I will gladly exchange my life for the girl’s.”
“Why?” I didn’t respond. “I see. You loved her?”
“I did.”
“And killing this young girl will bring you peace you think? I was with Aysta before she left. She said something nearly identical. Killing her will bring you no peace.”
“I won’t just kill her. I will decimate her armies and force her to watch as all the power she believes she has fades from this world. And then, when only she and I remain, I will show her the true power that men are capable of.” I brushed past him. “War is here, Master. And I don’t think the Shades will be able to remain neutral this time. Choose your side. And though I love you, if you stand in my way, you will be my enemy.”
“I will not stand in your way, Semi. I am not your enemy.”
I looked to him. “I will return when the girl is dead.”
I left the Guild and began my way south to find the army of orcs. They were all dead, as was their queen, and none of them knew it yet.
Book II in the Empire of War Trilogy Coming Winter 2013
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