The Ghost Princess (Graylands Book 1)

by M. Walsh

  Although she considered it possible she could slip by the guards unnoticed, she thought it better to try and get in through the catacombs. With her strength, she could pry some bars off and slip through, and if the dungeons were down there, that would be the best place to start looking for Katrina.

  With a sigh, Lily started her way toward the nearest window. Approaching the barred window, she tried to tell herself that, with the climbing over with, the worst was over.

  If only that were true.

  * * *

  As Lily was finishing her climb across the bridge, Drake Garrison, his squad, Benedict Vogel, and Krutch Leeroy were approaching the tower. They dismounted a half-mile away, hid their horses in a small ravine, and made the rest of the way on foot in case guards were watching from the tower.

  Krutch was still tied up and being tugged along like he was a pet on a leash. None of the Sentries liked the idea of leaving him with the horses—even while bound—and only dragged him along until they knew for certain what they were dealing with. Not even trusting him to keep his mouth shut, Wells stuffed a gag in his mouth.

  As the tower came into view, Krutch had an image of the Sentries using him as cannon fodder against the demons if things went sour. Just throw Leeroy at them—we’ll get away while they’re eating him!

  They took cover behind a rock wall and spied the tower with small scopes they kept in their bags. “Only one way in,” said Drake. “Heavy guard. And no way of knowing how many more are inside.”

  “What do you think we should do?” asked Dillon.

  “Don’t know. We’re also dealing with a time limit. Leeroy, you said they’re looking to sacrifice the woman tonight, right?”

  Krutch nodded.

  “If I had to guess,” he continued, pointing toward the moon. “I’d bet it goes down when the moon is at its highest.”

  “That doesn’t leave us with much time,” said Vogel.

  “Maybe we could use some kind of distraction?” Wells suggested. No one noticed, but when she said it, she nudged Krutch with her knee—and the image of him being thrown to ravaging demons came to his mind again.

  The gag was stuffed in Krutch’s mouth because the Sentries still weren’t sure he was telling the truth. They felt it would be best to keep him silent in case he was leading them into an ambush and intended on shouting out a signal to give them away.

  But in another of life’s ironies, had they not gagged him, Krutch would’ve warned them the Enforcer was coming up behind them.

  * * *

  Katrina Lamont had finished her second bottle of liquor and, although quite intoxicated, was nowhere close to being black-out drunk. Her mood had not softened in the slightest. In fact, with every swig and gulp, she felt something inside her turn darker and colder. The guards outside her cell talked and laughed. They tried to goad her into making a drunken fool of herself, but she sat in her place, sulking.

  “Enough,” Rictor growled, appearing behind them. “The time has come. Bring her to the courtyard.”

  “Okay, Princess,” said one of the guards, opening the cell. “It’s time for your special moment.”

  The three guards approached her. Rictor stood by the cell door. She didn’t move. They moved casually, figuring her too drunk to put up any kind of fight. They grabbed her arms and tugged her up, but she wouldn’t budge. She was dead weight. They groaned, and one suggested someone pick up her legs. Another guard joked that he hoped Daredin wasn’t going to need her upright when he sacrificed her. They laughed.

  “Enough fooling around!” Rictor barked. “Pick her up and move!”

  Katrina barely heard any of this. Something inside her was ticking. It was not a new thing, she realized. It’d been there for a long time. Festering and growing deep in her soul—ever since she saw the Red Plague engulf her kingdom.

  She’d felt many things since that day. Despair, self-pity, outrage, depression, shock, horror, guilt, and numbness. The numbness was probably the most prevalent, and she’d welcomed it. She embraced the deadening of her emotions—feeding it with alcohol and using it to suppress everything else.

  But now she felt something much stronger. Much clearer—like a lightning bolt exploding in a darkened room. As drunk as she was, she felt something that made her see everything so clear and so very real. It had always been there—and maybe there was a part of her that secretly knew that and feared it—but she felt it now more than anything else.

  Hate.

  It wasn’t a burning frenzy of rage. It wasn’t a blind, petty lashing out at everything that had wronged her. It was cold, seething, and deeply rooted. It was hate that crystalized everything in front of her.

  Nothing mattered anymore—she didn’t care if this was her destiny. She didn’t care if destiny was all just a cruel joke. She didn’t care if she was to die that night, and she didn’t care if her death meant saving the world or ending it.

  All she knew—with venomous, poison hate pulsing in her veins—was she wanted to see everyone dead first.

  Her guards could not have been prepared for what happened next. They took Katrina for drunk beyond recognition and assumed they’d only have to carry her to the altar. None of them realized she was moving before it was too late.

  In a flash, the guard to her left had his arm broken at the elbow. The guard in front who went to pick up her legs was on the ground, his knee broken in. The last guard, to her right, had only a split second to register something was going wrong before his dirk was taken from his belt and plunged into the side of his head.

  She turned to find Rictor greeting her with a savage shoulder-ram that slammed her into the wall. With how drunk and angry she was, she barely felt it and was already dodging his follow-up attack. She went to stick the dirk into his kidney, but he moved too fast. He grabbed a handful of her hair and threw her into the opposite wall of the cell.

  She heard him sigh in annoyance behind her. As she got to her feet, she found on the floor the talisman she was given in Dictum. Rictor took her by the back of the neck, and she jammed the object into his face, thinking she might take out an eye.

  Instead—to both her surprise and Rictor’s—there was an intense sizzling sound as the metal object melted onto his face. The half-orc Rictor howled in agony, clutching his burning face, and stumbled toward the cell door.

  Katrina grabbed the sabre at his belt. She kicked Rictor down to his knees, and with a swift slash of the sword, the top half of his skull was cut away. He remained there a moment, as if in shock of what happened, twitched and gurgled, before melting away into a disgusting black sludge—the ghostly howl of his soul fading away echoing throughout the halls.

  Behind her, the guard with the broken arm tried to draw his sword, but his stomach was slit open before he could manage that. He didn’t die instantly, and Katrina let him see his own insides before slashing an ugly vertical line up his face.

  All that remained was the guard with the broken leg. He had pulled himself to the bars, when he looked behind and saw her standing over him. The black blade dripped with blood. Her face was stone and grim.

  “Please!” he screamed. “Please, I just work for them..!”

  He was cut off by the sword being shoved down his open mouth. He made a sick gurgling noise and started convulsing. Katrina kept the sabre in place until the life faded from his eyes and twitching stopped. She then kicked the body off with her foot—paying no mind to the spurt of blood on her boots.

  When it was done, and silence returned to the small dungeon, Katrina stared at the weapon she took from Rictor—the sabre with a thin, curved black blade. She recognized it as a rare metal, found only in the Dark Lands. Swords such as these were said to be lightweight, strong, and razor-sharp—best suited for slashing and cutting.

  She thought of the broadsword she took from Marcus—the one that reminded her of her father’s. She liked this one better.

  She took a moment to look over the carnage she caused. There was no fear. She felt no hint of
panic in her stomach. Her heart was steady and sure. She didn’t even feel the blood that had sprayed onto her face.

  She gripped the sword and let cold hate flow through her body. She realized this was something she’d wanted for years. Something she needed. This was no act of heroism. She was not reclaiming her destiny as some defender of good and justice. This was a reckoning.

  Jacob Daredin and Rasul Kader had awakened the hurricane—and she would watch them all burn.

  26

  Krutch saw the Enforcer approaching them with the slow, steady stride he recalled from their previous encounter. It was a walk with purpose, and if there was any doubt as to what that purpose was, the sharpened length of jagged metal in the Enforcer’s right hand, and ax in the left, revealed what it was.

  He tried to get the Sentries’ attention, but due to the gag in his mouth, it only came out as muffled whining. “Shut-up, Leeroy,” said Wells, elbowing him in the chest. “We’re busy.”

  The Enforcer was ten feet away and closing. The Sentries were still discussing how they might sneak into the tower, and Krutch frantically wriggled on the ground like a worm. He lost his balance and rolled onto Wells’s lap.

  “You little pervert!” she shouted, her face blushing as it contorted into a look of anger.

  “Damn it, Leeroy,” Drake grunted. “What the hell are you—DEVIL SHIT!”

  Much can be said of Major Drake Garrison of the Sentry Elite. Physically, he was a young and handsome man. He was strongly built and athletic. But although he was well regarded as a good soldier, his mind for strategy and thinking was never counted among his merits. He was best described as a good fast-thinker, but poor slow-thinker.

  Luckily for Krutch and Lt. Wells, Drake’s ability at thinking fast proved true that night. They turned around to see the six foot, six inch Enforcer looming right over them—his arm raised and ready to bury his blade into either (or both) of their faces. But Drake acted faster, drawing his broadsword in a flash and blocking the blow before it landed between Krutch’s eyes.

  Vogel followed up the attack, striking the Enforcer’s side with his own sword. Dillon then clocked the Enforcer with the blunt side of his axe while Wells and Hemley rolled to safety.

  Krutch, showing no regard for his body, hurled himself away from the fight and went tumbling down the rocky hill—getting all manner of pebbles and stones down his shirt. He came to a rough stop at the bottom, landing in a cloud of dust and dirt.

  He couldn’t see what was happening above, but he certainly heard the fighting—though what stuck out more was the sound of drums and horns echoing from the tower. Signaling the sacrifice ceremony, perhaps? That, or some kind of alarm—bad news either way.

  He decided not to think too deeply on the matter and continued wriggling on the ground, hoping he might find a safe place to hide and/or get free of his bonds. He didn’t get far before he was greeted by a pair of boots standing in front of him.

  “Hi, guy.”

  He looked up and found the smirking face of Cyfer Mord looking down at him. All things considered, he was happy to see him and started mumbling and squirming in the hope Cyfer would untie him.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Leeroy,” said Cyfer, removing the gag. “You’ve certainly seen better days.”

  “Quick, untie me! The Enforcer’s here and—”

  “Yeah, I noticed that,” he said, indifferently, cutting the ropes. “The night gets more interesting by the second.”

  The ropes came loose, and Krutch scrambled to his feet. “Come on,” he said, out of breath. “We’ve got to hurry! We’ve got to ...”

  He trailed off, turning and looking at the Enforcer still fighting Drake and the Sentries. He looked back at the tower, where the sound of drums intensified.

  “I got a bad idea.”

  He scanned the ground at his feet and found a heavy stone. He picked it up, waited for an opening, and then whistled at the Enforcer.

  To Krutch’s surprise, he actually looked at him. He hurled the rock directly into the Enforcer’s faceless black mask. Although his skills were few, Krutch proved to have a natural talent for aim, and he hit his mark good and true. The Enforcer’s head jerked back as the rock bounced off his mask.

  He stood there, tilting his head, as if even he was perplexed by the audacity.

  “Eat shit, you twat!” Krutch shouted before running as fast as he could toward the tower.

  He took only one glance over his shoulder to make sure the Enforcer was following—and indeed he was. Disregarding the Sentries and Cyfer, the Enforcer strode after him.

  Looking to the tower ahead, he saw the orcs spot him approach and brace themselves for a fight. They could have easily cut him down before he even made it halfway across, but partially in shock over his brazen charge, and mostly because they saw the Enforcer following him, the orcs only put up a minimum effort at stopping him.

  Moving on pure adrenaline and panic, Krutch ran straight into the tower, not thinking of where he was going or what he would do when he got there. He charged down the first corridor he found, the sound of drums and chanting filling the air all around him.

  Running blind, he had a delirious thought: I’m going to fucking die!

  * * *

  After escaping her cell, Katrina found few remaining guards in the lower catacombs. This didn’t come as a surprise to her, as she figured the majority of Daredin’s people were in the upper levels for her intended sacrifice. She had no qualms with going up to meet them, but wanted to take her time before greeting her hosts.

  Aside from mercenaries, the only guards she encountered were orcs. Despite being well drunk, she felt remarkably lucid. There was no panic or hesitation—only anger. Her hate was strong, and the alcohol she consumed only enhanced it. The sword in her hand felt like an extension of her arm, and she had every intention of making all her enemies suffer.

  She cut down the guards with brutal efficiency before any of them realized what was happening. The humans died easy, but orcs, like most demons, are notoriously difficult to kill. But this fact only served Katrina’s purpose. She took her time with them—cutting them apart slowly and methodically. Only when the monsters were screeching like wounded dogs would she end it by beheading them. Her path through the catacombs was strewn with bodies and streams of blood.

  As she made her way to the tower, she came across a cache of wooden barrels piled atop one another in a tightly spaced room. Half the barrels were filled with liquor, which didn’t surprise her—guessing it was for the celebration after her sacrifice—but she smirked when she found the other barrels contained black powder.

  She chopped open several of the barrels and let the alcohol inside splash all over the floor. Katrina’s smirk turned into a grin as she lit her last matches.

  If any more orcs or gargoyles were lurking in the lower catacombs, they were in for a rude awakening. And as for Daredin and his people above—their guest of honor was about to make her entrance in grand fashion.

  * * *

  To his later regret, Jacob Daredin hadn’t sensed something was amiss. Unless he was concentrating, he wouldn’t have seen the Enforcer approach or Lily sneaking into the tower. But he should have felt Rictor’s death. When the chaos erupted, he wondered if maybe he had, but mistook it for the evil energy in the air brought about by the Devil’s Moon.

  It shined in the red sky, resembling a demonic yellow eye overlooking the center courtyard. The preparations were all in place. Daredin entered the courtyard and approached the altar. His disciples circled around him, bowed and chanting. Their voices and the pulsing drums drowning out the sound of howling wind outside and waves crashing against the cliff below.

  Daredin stood atop the altar, the Dragon’s Fang in hand, feeling like a conquering hero. He felt darkness swelling in the air. As far as he knew, all was as it should be. He deemed it a fitting atmosphere to usher in the birth of a god.

  “Brothers!” he shouted, raising his hands. “Sisters! The time has com
e at long last! On this night, we bring about a new age! On this night, we herald the new Dark Emperor who shall tear the Seraphim Towers to rubble and unite the Dark Lands! And his name is Jacob Daredin, your master and savior!”

  A hushed awe came across his followers. They looked upon him, all dressed in their ceremonial black robes, and sank to their knees.

  “With this sacred dagger,” he continued. “Under the Devil’s Moon, I shall spill the blood of the last Princess of the Vigorian line! And thus, the great prophecy shall be fulfilled!”

  Beside him on the altar, Lenora Hawke stared at him like he already was a god. On a balcony from the tower, Rasul Kader held up his glass in cheers.

  “Let us not delay any longer! Bring forth the Princess for her destiny! And mine!”

  All eyes turned to the entrance of the courtyard. They watched, anticipating Edmund Rictor to appear with Katrina Lamont in tow—but found nothing but an extended silence.

  “The Princess!” Daredin shouted. “Bring her forth!”

  His order echoed throughout the still courtyard, but no one came forward. After another few awkward moments, Daredin felt the first hint of anxiety. He was about to suspect something was wrong, when there was a sudden rush of activity at the entrance.

  But it wasn’t Rictor or the Princess. Krutch Leeroy burst out, clumsily slamming into the disciples there. He lost his balance and crumbled into the pathway leading to the altar, looking befuddled.

  Upon seeing the oafish fool yet again, fury took hold of Daredin. He had not come this far, or this close, to see his destiny ruined by an imbecile pirate. He was about to give the order to swarm the man and rip him to pieces when a thunderous explosion rocked the foundation of the tower.

  Daredin nearly lost his balance and fell from the altar as debris shot into the air, followed by billowing black smoke. All around him, his disciples began shouting and screaming in confusion and fear.

  From where he was, Daredin could see the first hints of fire coming from the lower catacombs. And standing there, before the flames—blood splattered all over her clothes and dripping from the sabre in her hand—was Katrina Lamont.