Darkness Rising (Ancient Vestiges Book 1)

by Brenden Gardner

  “Think o’ what the overlord would pay for his head,” declared the shorter, crossing his arms.

  “Might be I will be allowed back in his bloody good graces again. Untrustworthy sot,” the first said.

  “You were the one who is much too afraid of movin’ without his word,” Daniel scoffed. “You would not collect a thing.”

  The pair of them laughed together, and Daniel could not help but smile. “Ole Shipp and Trey Jackson. What are the lot of you doin’ here?”

  “Looking for your besotten arse!” Trey declared, embracing his old friend. “Overlord be paying much for you, dead or alive. I would take his coin, as I have before. I would feel bad about it, though.”

  “The pirate still talks too much,” Ole Shipp said, taking his turn in the embrace. “I suppose you have good reason to be sailin’ aboard a Dalian ship? The good kind of reason that would not raise our swords?”

  “The days make strange bed fellows, my friends. I must ask a favour of you, and one that you will not like: the Isilian there, the last of their lot, her and I must make landfall near Lanan. We mean to make an end of this.”

  Ole Shipp’s scraggly face darkened, mirth and laughter gone as if it never touched his lips. “If Davat said it true, she tried to slay Damian. Should he learn we let you pass, be more than you that be branded a traitor.”

  “If we fail, there will be no Lanan, not anymore,” Daniel replied.

  Trey spat. “I do not see why I should care one whit about that. Piss on the overlord, and piss on your righteousness.”

  Stubborn fish-get. “We want the dominion of the overlord disbanded. Not destroyed,” Daniel retorted.

  “I would not be one to say otherwise,” Ole Shipp put in, but not without a glare towards his tall friend. “Still, there is much we risk. I am of a mind to listen, but a man must know where he would land before he leaps. What do you know?”

  Shipp is the easy one. Trey will not believe much. “You would call me a liar, and not a man here would fault you for it, but know this: Damian laid ruin to Lanan, and then he turned it on Isilia. The Harpy does what she can, but alone, the overlord will not fall.”

  “We were not born yesterday,” Trey declared. “I have half a mind to put you under hold ‘til we hear our orders.”

  “Curses Trey, how much longer will that be?” Ole Shipp protested. “Damian is not himself, and I have no reason to mistrust the Corsair.”

  “He cannot slit our throats. We obey Davat, whoreson that he is,” Trey sighed. “Either way the eastern command is not yours, Shipp—do not be forgettin’ that. It is my word that must be given, and I am of a mind not to give it.”

  “Even if we promised what you wanted?” Ashleigh asked, walking forward, eyes intent on Trey Jackson. “I may be some wretch to your eyes, but I know what Lakarn means to you a hundred times over. If you will not trust the Corsair or I, trust in the pain and sorrow we share. Let us land, and I will see Damian’s blood spill. Let us do what you cannot.” The sentinel paused before she finished, “our own ship can slip through. Your hands would be clean.”

  Trey smirked. “I may be a heartless sea dog, but I would be lying if I have not wanted blood for Lakarn. Not that the overlord could e’er understand that. Still, what makes you think I can trust the pretty words from the likes of you?”

  “Vengeance,” Ashleigh said emphatically. “Trust to vengeance.”

  “You trust this slip of a girl, Corsair?” Trey asked. “Is this truly what you want?”

  “It is what we must do,” Daniel insisted.

  He rarely recalled a smile on Trey’s face, one covered his ugly face. “Alright you crimson caped bastards, back to the ships. You saw naught; I challenge the man who says otherwise. Off this bloody ship!” The stone-faced swordsmen slipped away, ever obedient.

  “Track south, but go near no settlement,” Ole Shipp warned. “Do come back, you bastard. We must have a drink.”

  Ole Shipp departed, but Trey still stood there, back against the mast, as he was when they came aboard. He spoke. “If you are untrue to me, old man, I will haunt you through the watery hells the gods made for us. And you, woman, do not expect no kindness from me.”

  “I will not,” Ashleigh said flatly.

  “Heh, keep this one close. I would have that drink too,” Trey put in. “You are picking up the tab, though. I will drink you poor!”

  With Trey Jackson gone, Daniel signaled towards the first mate, and the oars pushed them towards the islands. The captain would only near the sight of land, offering a rowboat. “The Dalian fleet is not what it was; I must bring men and words back to the Voice. Our part is done.”

  “You have our gratitude,” Daniel said from the rickety raft. “May we drink together when this has come to an end.”

  The captain walked out of sight, not feigning an answer.

  After a wordless half hour, Daniel felt sand beneath his boots, and helped Ashleigh hide the rowboat beneath the foliage of a thin forest. He pointed to the west, wading through a copse of trees.

  “You played your friends false,” Ashleigh declared suddenly.

  “They do not trust—and for good reason. Lakarn has been a sore point among the islands for many long years. Every man’s coffers were lighter for it. Damian has been suspected every day since, though none could prove it. I must admit that I played a part in it. Those boys know that I have been to that town since, and quieted any man who gleaned an inkling of the truth.”

  “Is it true, then?” Ashleigh asked, though it seemed more like a demand as she ducked under a wayward branch.

  “As much truth as the bastard was willing to give. I suspect Damian, but of your home—no, I do not think it was. I betrayed him for what he was doing. Heh, if he did slaughter your people, I would have turned my sword on him, not his ships.”

  The sentinel was still bothered. “Did the high servitor not tell you the truth of it?”

  “I would rather not speak on what was said.”

  “As you will.”

  The forest thinned and a wide plain spread in the distance. The eastern road appeared on the left. High rising cliffs on the right shielded them from the sea, but Daniel knew discovery would be from Lanan, not errant ships that patrolled too close to the Overlord’s Seat. He bared steel and crept along near the road, weaved in and out of low crested hills, ever on alert.

  He thought the silence eerie as he trudged onward. The grass seemed only to sway to footsteps. No birds soared in the sky, nor squirrels on the ground. Flies and gnats were common near this time of year, but even they were absent. He only heard the crash of waves against the shore.

  It felt like Isilia.

  No, I must not think that.

  He saw the stone walls of the eastern gate in the distance. Ducking low to the ground, he moved quicker, flexing his fingers. Guards were posted near the gatehouse, eyes straight ahead, but never moved to the left or right.

  Five feet from the men, he understood why.

  A pair of long, thick iron spikes broke through their armour, and pinned them to the stone; short bladed daggers pierced their throats, and their blood bubbled hard and dry. Both men were armed with swords and dirks, yet they were in their sheaths, hands clasped the stone behind them. Daniel thought they never tried to defend themselves, far too taken with terror. The gate was open though, and a trail of blood lead towards the city.

  “Not again,” Ashleigh murmured.

  The city horrified him. Men, women, and children lay butchered in the streets, hung high from lamp posts, and skewered atop tall fences. Blood congealed beneath them, and bloodless faces stared back in horror and dread. He moved with sword raised, hard as it was.

  “Here, this alley,” Daniel pointed, not far past the Pirate’s Brew. The road twisted and turned behind tall stone houses on either side. He stopped at a ragged door with fresh blood on the handle. “Be ready.”

  The chamber was dirty and grimy, lit only be a guttered candle near a worn table. Its light ref
lected on a body beneath ragged blankets; blood seeped through the wool. “H-he-lp.” Daniel thought the voice coarse and raspy.

  Daniel seized the candle, placed it on the ground near the man’s head. He was old and weathered, and glaringly familiar. His heart dropped to his stomach, putting eyes upon the Old Coral. “What happened here?” Daniel asked frantically, cradling the old man’s head, brushing hairs away from his eyes.

  “C-Corsair?” the old man croaked.

  “Yes, old friend.”

  “W-what have y-you rent?”

  He did not know what to say. There was much he had done, much more that he meant to do. The Old Coral aided him when he was most reluctant. If things went awry and scum talked, there would be consequences.

  But not this. Not this. “I did what I felt I had to do. But this—”

  “Y-you brought t-this.”

  “No. No, I never issued this command. You know me better. No, it was not my work.”

  “O-old f-fool.” The old man coughed and wheezed. “You m-may not have given t-the order. I t-told you not to. N-now Dalia pays us in b-blood. C-cursed fool.”

  Daniel did not understand this at all.

  “H-he was f-fast and s-strong. S-stronger than y-you,” the Old Coral spoke. “L-like a s-shadow. A-avenge us you old s-sea d-dog. A-avenge us. In the D-Deep B-below you will e-earn your k-keep. In the D-deep B-below.”

  The Old Coral’s eyes closed.

  Damian and the Old Coral. The two men that I owe my life to. One betrayed all of us, the other thought me a traitor in his last breath. What did he do to deserve this? No, he did not deserve this. The old pirate, he harmed many, innocents, yes, but never like this. No man deserved this tortuous death. Every life they had taken was quick and clean. Only monsters let them die overlong.

  “There is a parchment,” Ashleigh said, offering the worn page. “It was on the table beneath the candle. I did not see it swept aside, but here it is.”

  He snatched the parchment, and read it quickly by the fading light.

  The old man put up a fight, but not enough it would seem. So resolute, so stubborn, but all men fall. Do you recall what I told you when I arrived in this accursed land, when you warned me on the steps of the Overlord’s Seat? ‘I can contend with the will of the overlord.’ You rebuffed me, I recall, to which I said, ‘You do not know me. There are no men like me.’ Oh, you did not know me, not at all, Lord Daniel Baccan. If you had, why, you would have slew me right then and there. Ah, but you did not, and all these men, women, and children, their blood is on your hands. Will you not join them? The overlord and his right hand. You should burn together. I will fan the Phoenix’s flames. Do not be late.

  “Son of a bitch!” he screamed out, anguish roiling within him.

  “Daniel? What is it?” Ashleigh asked.

  “Read,” he exclaimed, thrusting the parchment back at her.

  She read the words, lips trembling. “This is the stone, not Sebastien. We must free him from it.”

  He stared sullenly at her. “The only freedom I will give that monster is from this life. Stand in my way, and you will join him.”

  “You cannot fight this foe!”

  “I can. I will. Everything is lost to me now. All that is left is this. This is all that is left.”

  He burst from the slum and charged through the streets. Ashleigh screamed out, but he paid no heed to it. The dead were everywhere: pinned against doors, drowned in fountains, strewn on grass and roads.

  There will be a time to weep and mourn. It is not now, not in this moment. I must take vengeance.

  The city was a blur as he ran through. Memories flooded back to him as he passed by a shop that he oft visited, an ale house where he recruited his best men, side streets and alleyways where he made secret deals and traded for unspeakable cargos. Laughter and merriment, prosperity and profit, they fled as quickly as they came, but he held on to part of it, embraced it.

  I will hold you to account for all this. I told you, accursed Dalian, in the steps of our power, ‘I see no dead Dalians today.’ Mark it you bastard, there will be a dead Dalian today, and the rest will fall. Lutessa, Stephen Francis, Anastasia. I will do what Damian promised us years ago. I will break your marbled halls, burn your cities to the ground. When you have lost all that you held dear—as I have—then you will die, by my sword, and no other.

  The great fountain where the southern, eastern, and western roads met came into view. It was the overlord himself, blade pierced a felled foe, and water flowed out from the wound. No, that is not water or I am a pious pontificator, Daniel thought. That is blood. A crimson river! Damian, curse your hide! What did we ever fight for? Is this what you wanted? To build and tear down? I will have answers—and then your hide. You shall not be free of my wrath. You were supposed to defend us, I, naive as I was, believed that you would. Traitors alike, you and I, but your crimes are more heinous.

  He climbed the low rising slope, and the southern gate of the Overlord’s Seat came into view. It sat atop a low cliff, but the higher he climbed, the more that seemed amiss. The iron grates were pulled all the way up, and he could see the spikes tipped with blood. To the right the squat gatehouse was filled with dead guardsmen, one with sword in hand, the rest limp across a table, and broken tankards littered the floor. He ran through, but when he reached the courtyard, the horrors of the city did not stop before the castle’s walls: crimson cloaks hung from atop tall trees, women and children splayed on the broken cobblestones, the outer walls splashed with blood and writ in ink of the darkest black: He hath come.

  Daniel ignored it, and charged through the tall twin doors left askew, and his courage left him. It was too much: all the horrors that brought him down; he could no longer stomach what he saw. Still he looked, but all he could do was gape and stare in wonder, in fear, and in dread. Ashleigh was right behind, and when she did not speak, he knew the dread was not just his own. He saw rivers of blood and broken bodies, and a thin mist of shadows upon the ground that creeped up the walls, suffused all sight to a twisted darkness; though it looked like it was ascending the stairs on either side. Wordless it slithered and sought, but he knew what it meant. He knew who had come. Nodding to the sentinel, he rushed to the east, leaping up the steps, trying to outrun the shadows.

  The further he ascended, the deeper the dark mist seemed to be. It was all he saw, like a dense fog. He pushed forward from memory. It gave way upon the third floor, but it seemed more that it thrust towards someone. A warrior with blade in hand was at the far end; it shone and brightened, cutting through the darkness, and it cleaved the shadows that dared to rise.

  “Aerona?” he shouted out.

  A loud, screeching sound echoed in the air as the dark mist formed into the shape of some fell daemon out of myth and legend. It looked like a man, with coarse claws and long raking nails with the leathern wings of a bat, large and draping. It charged at him weaponless, fear and hate in its eyes. He could not move, could not think. He felt his blood run cold, but then it was gone when it was mere feet from him. Ashleigh stood near where it was, as if she severed it. The shadow gone as if it had ne’er been, but still the mist creeped by, weakened, but not banished.

  “You cannot fight this foe,” Ashleigh said again.

  The castle seemed to shake and churn, and a loud voice, strong and resolute, boomed from behind the wall to his right. Aerona stood by the oaken doors to the throne, and the shadows fled underneath and through the broken bodies of crimson cloaked men.

  “He must be there for this,” she declared, pointing to Daniel.

  “For what?” he asked, walking towards the doors. He felt stronger now, resolute, but fear still gripped him.

  “For our last stand,” Aerona answered simply. “The men in cowls are monsters who serve a dark will. Sebastien among them. I mean to slay him and all his kind.”

  “If you mean to stop the servants of Sariel, we will fight together,” Ashleigh proclaimed.

  Aerona looked over A
shleigh just then, probing her. “You have changed.”

  “As you have.”

  “Sebastien is mine,” Daniel declared stubbornly.

  “Short of death, naught will stay his sword, Aerona,” Ashleigh said.

  “Death is all we will find in there,” Aerona replied as she pushed open the oaken doors.

  Daniel followed her with sword in hand, feeling dread and despair.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The Sea of Storms

  Aerona stared at Lord Aleksander and the Dark Brotherhood.

  The two she had seen in Lanan stood to either side of the broken throne, and Lord Aleksander stood the foot of the wide stone steps. The eyes of these creatures probed and appraised, whilst they held aloft their own Animus Stones: brown and grey and black in hue. The stones pulsated and burned, emitting an eerie light that conjoined with the slithering darkness and shadows.

  “You were purged, rent clean, and shorn of all that you were” Lord Aleksander declared.

  Aerona took a deep breath and tightened her grip upon Vindication.

  “High Servitor Jophiel freed me,” Ashleigh replied with calm and serenity.

  Aerona looked towards the sentinel, smiling. A sisterhood against the brotherhood.

  “Freedom you call it?” another of the cloaked men declared, soft and fluid. “You would not know the thing.”

  “It is but a ward, stronger then He thought, but He has not yet come in full,” the third croaked. “When he comes, even the high servitor will learn the price of disobedience once more.”

  “None of that matters,” Damian declared stubbornly. “I will have your heads for what you have done, heh, then feed you to the dogs.”