Cleotis was dead, so was the Neyvar, so were the Thynes, so was Tantric and the rebellion. All those who had sought to end suffering and fight for goodness, had themselves been ended. Celestia, he thought, you wished me to be your champion, but champion of what?
His forearm itched, and he instinctively attempted to scratch it, but the effort was futile. His hands and feet were strapped to a pair of crisscrossing beams, which were themselves strapped to a tall pole that was displayed high above the congregation. He sighed and worked his arm up and down, but he only succeeded in worsening the sensation. Sucking in his lip, he let his body fall forward, feeling his hips and shoulders stretch as gravity pulled at him. He wondered how long it would take before his joints were strained to their limits and popped.
Down below, the soldiers from either side ignored him, but that did not mean he went unseen. Many of the Dezren, gathered in a massive throng between the ranks of elf and human warriors, looked in his direction. He could not see their expressions, but he knew they must be terrified. He tried to smile even as pain wracked his body. If I can only give them hope.…
A door slammed, and the engorged form of Clovis Crestwell exited Palace Thyne. The demon in human clothing paced along the dais, with a limping Iolas on one side and the young soldier Boris Morneau on the other. Of the three, only Boris, the human with the odd scar, looked up at Ceredon, wincing when their eyes met. He quickly turned away.
Clovis—Darakken—stopped pacing, moved to the edge of the dais, and held its arms out wide to the thousands gathered there.
“Today,” he shouted, his inhuman voice bounding throughout the valley, “a great bond is being forged. Today, not only do the Quellan, the Dezren, and humans set aside their differences, but all three races unite under the banner of a single cause.”
He paused as if waiting for the crowd to react. The humans and the Ekreissar remained stoic; the Dezren murmured among themselves. The man-creature stepped back, lowered its head, and appeared to argue with itself. Only a moment passed before it was on the edge of the platform once more. This time, it faced the human soldiers.
“Soldiers of the Divinity!” it roared. “Who is it you fight for?”
“KARAK!” they shouted in unison.
“Who is the only true god of this land?”
“KARAK!”
“Who is the order in the chaos whose word is law?”
“KARAK!”
The demon turned to the Quellan. “Do you hear that?” it said. “Your brothers in arms have spoken! Will you not raise your voices along with theirs, proclaiming your loyalties to the heavens?”
Silence.
Iolas touched the massive half-human thing on the arm, wincing when its head snapped around. He moved in front of Darakken to address the crowd.
“Ekreissar, our leader is no more. The Neyvar died a traitor, and his son will die the same. Celestia has abandoned us in our time of need. We are alone in this world, but we need not be! Karak is willing to accept us into his arms, if only we will join his cause. Although he might not be able to restore all that we have lost, he will give us land aplenty, fertile land where our crops will grow, expansive lands where our children can grow up happy, living lands where there is rich game! It is Karak who has promised this to you, not Celestia, not the fickle goddess who ripped our homes from us!”
Ceredon struggled in his restraints, biting down on his gag. He could not believe what he was hearing, could not believe the muttering that washed through the ranks of the Ekreissar. They would never, he thought. We may be a cynical race, but we would never turn our backs on the one who created us.…
“All you must do,” said Darakken, “is bend your knee and pledge your loyalty to the Divinity! All you must do is submit, and not only will you receive the lands you desired, but all of Paradise, to live on as you choose! No longer will you be subservient to any god. You will be conquerors!”
A voice rose up, but not from the Ekreissar. Ceredon strained his eyes and peered into the throng of Dezren.
“Karak, Karak, Karak,” it began, a low murmur and nothing more. “Karak, Karak, Karak.” From his vantage point above it all, Ceredon could see what was really happening. A pair of young Dezren males was making the cries at knifepoint, threatened by humans dressed in the simple greens and browns of the elves. They raised their voices louder. “Karak, Karak, Karak!”
Darakken turned to face the downtrodden citizens.
“The nation of Ker must burn!” he shouted. “Unleash your vengeance on those who have surrounded your lands, pushing you deeper into your forests, hunting your game, betraying your lawful boundaries. By the sword, by the spear, and by the bow, slaughter my enemies and take these lands for your own. Join your brothers in praise. Your bonds will be lifted, and your emerald city will be set free if you pledge your love to Karak!”
“Karak, Karak, Karak!” echoed all the louder.
The demon leapt off the dais and stormed toward the Ekreissar. Now the chants were virtually deafening as the soldiers joined their voices with the desperate Dezren. Darakken tilted its head slightly, its eyes glowing faintly in the blinding sun, and winked at Ceredon. “Glory will be yours!” it shouted, turning around once more. “Prosperity will be yours! Paradise will be yours! Ker must burn!”
Then it began. The rangers in front holding staffs began to beat them into the ground, creating a cadenced beat, followed by thousands of voices. “KARAK, KARAK, KARAK!” shouted the crowd. Iolas fell to his knees, shouting the name of the deity along with the rest. Soon everyone in the courtyard was on their knees save Darakken, all with the same name on their lips.
The voices filled Ceredon’s head, squeezing his brain inside his skull. The demon then turned to face him again, holding its almost-human arms out wide in victory, baring its pointed teeth as the refrain was chanted over and over again.
“KARAK!”
“KARAK!”
“KARAK!”
- THE END -
AFTERWORD
David
I’d like to think this collaboration between Rob and me is something professional and consistent, but that’s hardly the case. Each of these books is by far the largest I’ve been involved in, with massive story lines, yet some of them get changed for the simplest and most selfish of reasons. For example: Rob’s the one who has this story line down, knows its ins and outs, and he’s the one who comes up with the initial plot line that we follow. Well, when he finished the outline of book two, I read through it, and a lot of it was awesome, but there was one problem, and I called up Rob to discuss that. Our conversation went pretty much like this:
Me:
“Uh, Rob, where the heck are the lions?”
Rob:
“I was worried you’d ask that. They aren’t in this book.”
Me:
“No, Rob, they are in this book. We will get yelled at if they are not in this book. I will yell at you if they are not in this book.”
Rob:
“All right, I know a spot I can put them in, give them at least one scene. Will that make you happy?”
Me:
“Yes. Yes it will.”
So we reworked a chapter, all to include Kayne and Lilah, because you know what? Kayne and Lilah are awesome and I wanted more of them. But now Rob had something to prove, so when I read Chapter 12, where they make their appearance and talk for the first time, I was grinning like an idiot. There we go, I was thinking. There’s at least one solid appearance of the lions prior to book three (where their role gets increased). I was thrilled, and I told Rob as much.
He, of course, did not mention to me his plans for Chapter 31. You’d think we wouldn’t keep such secrets from each other, but yeah, this is the stuff we do to keep sane during a project like this. So yes, I knew Laurel was going to go in, get captured and thrown into a dungeon. What I did not know was that the lions would be sitting there like kings on freaking thrones, with piles of gore all over the place like they just had a dang Sunda
y afternoon buffet. Nearly brought tears to my eyes, I was so happy. Horrified too, but you’ve got to be a little demented to do what Rob and I do, so happy as well. There were my lions, and I could only imagine the grin on Rob’s face as he wrote that chapter. I hope he muttered a few curses to me as he did it.
“Lions? He wants lions? Fine, I’ll give him lions.…”
Hopefully, he thinks it’s worth it, because for me, this has been phenomenal. I love throwing in references to my various books when I write, and The Breaking World is just overloaded with character names, places, the lions from the Paladins, Velixar from the Half-Orcs, the beginnings of the Trifect from the Shadowdance Series. With Rob’s help, my silly little world feels that much less silly, the corners of the world filled in, breathing, fully alive. You longtime readers should be catching glimpses of even more, the early hints of the Faceless or the glow on certain weapons, signifying the coming creation of the paladin orders. I hope they put a smile on your face, because they put one on mine.
The story’s entering the final stretch, and this is when Rob and I get to go nuts. Whatever limits we’ve been putting on ourselves, they’re gone now. This is the Gods’ War, and it’s full speed ahead. Real quick, I want to thank Rob for suffering through all my rants and demands, with the patience of a saint; Sam, for not minding when we spend way too much time chatting on the phone, figuring this stuff out; Angela, for going through our story twice in herculean efforts to trim the word count down and get everything to make sense; and last, Michael, for landing us this opportunity in the first place. You all are amazing.
And, of course, thank you, dear reader, for sticking with us for nearly four hundred thousand words. I hope the time was well spent in our world, and come the next book, I pray you fall right back in as if you never left.
Robert
This one was fun.
I said in my note in Dawn of Swords that I’d never had a more pleasurable experience writing a book. Well, that pretty much doubled, if not tripled, with this tome you now hold in your hands. With the groundwork set, Dave and I were free to go many different places, explore tons of different avenues, to bring his world of Dezrel to an even greater sense of realness.
As Dave said above, although we do plot out these books and know where they’re going and the specifics involved, the intricacies bring a breadth of color to the story and are free flowing. They change, they warp…sometimes becoming bits of humor, sometimes going down that deep well where my past as a horror lover sometimes wallows. Rather than being a point of weakness, this is, in fact, an area of strength. It allows us to play to each of our strong points and bring you something that, quite frankly, I think is awesome. This free-flowing process led to Avila’s wonderfully bloody downfall; to Matthew’s unfortunate end; and, of course, to the macabre beauty of Kayne and Lilah. And also, because I am mostly responsible for writing the rough draft of each manuscript before Dave hacks it to pieces, I like putting little surprises in there for Dave to discover and then call me saying, “No kidding, you did that? I should do something similar in my Warhammer 40K session. Awesome!”
(At least, that’s how I imagine him talking most of the time. I tend to zone out when he brings up his favorite hobbies.…)
So again, thank you, Dave, for giving me the chance to do this, as it has been a freaking blast working with you. And also thanks to Jess and my kids, who are absolutely everything to me. In truth, they are as much a part of the writing process as Dave is. Thanks also to Angela, the best damn editor in the world, and Michael Carr, the greatest agent. Heck, the whole 47North team is included in this! Yeah, everybody rocks!
But most of all, to reiterate Mr. Dalglish’s words, thank you to the readers. Without you, there would be no us, and frankly, I like us a lot. I hope you’ve enjoyed this book, and we’ll see you soon for Blood of Gods, which—and I can guarantee you this—will be one heck of a ride.
David Dalglish and Robert Duperre
September 21, 2013
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David Dalglish currently lives in rural Missouri with his wife, Samantha, and daughters Morgan and Katherine. He graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in Mathematics and currently spends his free time playing not nearly enough Warhammer 40K.
Gregory Duffey
Born on Cape Cod and raised in northern Connecticut, Robert Duperre is a writer whose main ambition is to create works that defy genre. He lives with his wife, the artist Jessica Torrant, his three wonderful children, and Leonardo, the super one-eyed Labrador.
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