The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga)

by Gary F. Vanucci

  She merely smiled at them, knowing she could seduce any or all of them, one by one, including Megnus and King Dolgrath himself. Still, there was a mutual respect between the two races and neither really attempted to war with the other—as of yet.

  They strode into the stone city, with faint sounds of metal on metal, or metal on stone, ringing in the distance. The slagfell were renowned weapon smithies, armorers and stoneworkers, just like their counterparts, the dwarves. Structures were carved directly from the natural stone, reshaped if and where necessary, with the familiar gray, black and brown décor of the stone-carved dwellings barely emitting any light from within at all.

  The slagfell preferred the darkness most of all.

  Shadowmere was reminiscent of Ulthon in structure, but there was no vibrancy or color to their city, Phaera noted. There was the occasional torchlight that could be seen within a dwelling here or there, or the spark of a weapon being forged, as hammer hit anvil. The slagfell favored the anonymity that came with the dullness of the stone, making their already muted and understated housings seem even less grand to Phaera. However, upon closer inspection of the dwellings, Phaera noted a high level of expertise in the shaping of the stone.

  The brightest things in the entire city that Phaera could see, were the beautifully colored and variously shaped gems that adorned one of the buildings. It was their king’s bastion, no doubt. It could only be the Stronghold of King Dolgrath ahead of them. It was a magnificently crafted structure that stood out amongst the other modest buildings.

  The gems adorning the structure were certainly plucked from the many mines maintained in and around Shadowmere. Slagfell were dwarven kin after all, and this clan obsessed over gems and jewels and shiny things, Phaera confirmed.

  They only allow the gems to adorn the king’s castle, eh? Phaera assumed, figuring this to be a reasonable explanation why the other homes were so drab.

  The group continued, with Prishnack now in his corporeal form, covered in dark robes that exposed nothing from beneath their silhouette. He still appeared to glide across the surface of the stone. Phaera’s milky-white skin and long white hair gave away her identity to any onlookers, but she did not care in the slightest. And of course, the mighty warlord Zabalas with his plated armor and commanding presence also drew stares from the entire settlement, as well as from the many slagfell warriors and sentries that lined the walkway to the King’s fortress.

  The gate to the hall opened and they were brought inside the semi-lit structure that King Dolgrath named his stronghold. They were led into a wide open room where they witnessed the king’s personal guards feasting on some kind of burnt meat, plant fungus and what looked to Phaera to be yeast.

  “Come eat with me clan or watch ‘em eat. I don’t be carin’ much either way,” King Dolgrath greeted them, waving a hand toward the table, a piece of dried food stuck in his long gray beard. Megnus immediately greeted his father, removing his helm and placing it on the table. He banged his fist on his chest in salute. Dolgrath returned the salute, eyeing his son up and down as if to inspect him for battle.

  None except Megnus shared of the feast, the slagfell prince grabbing and tearing a piece of flesh from the bone, a haunch of what resembled the leg of an animal to Phaera.

  Zabalas stood across from the King, who gestured to a pitcher, offering him some wine. Zabalas refused, staring down into the beady eyes of the bald, pale-skinned and heavily bearded king.

  As with Megnus, there were strange markings on Dolgrath’s forehead and neck, more so than on any other of his kin. The tattoos wrapped around to the left in a darkly-colored design. They were brandings that represented the chain of command to the slagfell, similar to what the barbarian tribes did to mark various accomplishments all about their arms and chests. Zabalas watched as Dolgrath retrieved the pitcher of wine and filled a goblet.

  “I can still count on the complete support of Clan Shadowmere in the upcoming months?” Zabalas asked, not removing his eyes from the King’s, as Dolgrath took a large swig of the wine and wiped his bearded face. “Especially with regards to the more clandestine tasks?”

  “Of course, Zabalas,” King Dolgrath answered, stepping away from his feasting guards toward his throne. “Me kin already be in place, waitin’ fer yer instructions,” he offered, planting himself in the seat. “Yer promise of treasure an’ a chance fer a reckonin’ with the dwarves and the humans…it be too much for me and me kin to turn down!” King Dolgrath finished, raising his goblet and downing its contents. “There’ll be payback o’ plenty.”

  Phaera laughed at that comment, but stifled it quickly before drawing attention to herself. She’d heard various rumors as to how the slagfell broke off from the dwarves. Reports had it that the slagfell pursued gems and treasures deep within the bowels of Wothlondia at the expense of everything else. She believed that tale to ring truest.

  “Very well,” Zabalas confirmed. “I have had counsel with Aspect Nahemia earlier this day and am thinking that she will be joining us. But, I must be getting home,” Zabalas admitted. “There are more preparations and plans that need be executed.” Zabalas stared directly into Phaera’s amber eyes and then dropped his gaze to the floor. “Besides, I don’t want to keep my ‘visitor’ waiting long.”

  “What visi—,” King Dolgrath began to ask, but was interrupted by a slagfell guard who entered the room, gasping for breath and doubled over.

  “Speak!” Dolgrath commanded, slamming his fist on the arm of his throne.

  “Me liege, we got a pair of succubi demons held at the city gates,” the slagfell mentioned, catching his breath. “Me best bowmen managed to plunk ‘em both with poisons, but that won’t be lastin’ much longer.”

  “Succubi, eh!?” Dolgrath cast an accusatory gaze at Phaera.

  “I know nothing of this!” Phaera responded curtly.

  The King of Shadowmere and his loyal guardsmen—six of them in all—stopped their feasting immediately and followed their king, heading down the path to the city’s entrance. They arrived there soon after.

  The path that wound this way and that ended in a straightaway passage where several slagfell stood around two succubi, hands bound behind their backs. More slagfell had crossbows leveled on them from above.

  The succubi stood frozen by the poison coursing through their half-demon veins, fearing that the slagfell might torture them or worse. Never before had any of the succubi attempted to enter Shadowmere, nor had they even traveled near it, until now, Phaera knew

  “What be this treachery!?” King Dolgrath demanded from the succubi. “What brought ye here to Shadowmere? Ye can speak, the poison just won’t let ye move…or use yer’ demon-born influences!”

  Phaera did not recognize the succubi as members of the Sine brood and listened intently as they answered.

  “We were tracking a tyrantian worm when your guards attacked us,” the first claimed, speaking for the two succubi as the other stood silently.

  “Not durned likely,” Dolgrath scowled, walking around the two captured succubi. “Pull those bolts outta their hides,” Dolgrath ordered. The guards looked at him as if he were an imposter. “Now!”

  One of the guards tried to protest. “They tried to use their wiles to—“

  “Now, I said,” Dolgrath stated firmly and calmly.

  “Do as me father—and yer king—says.” Megnus stepped forward, axe in hand, as if to ensure the orders were obeyed.

  The slagfell did as they were told. The succubi both rubbed their limbs as the feeling began to return. Then they looked at Phaera with pleading eyes, and then back to the slagfell, perhaps expecting some kind of aid from her, Phaera supposed.

  Then she happened to glimpse the symbol carved into a ring upon one of their fingers. Phaera suddenly recognized them as daughters of Aspect Risa Cheronea, a brood of the Daughters of Leviathan, the demon lord of envy. Of course it would be Leviathan’s own daughters who tried to usurp the Sine brood—they were jealous. They had been trying to
gain the upper hand in Ulthon for years now. Each brood had its own responsibility and Phaera would make sure that Nahemia’s brood would not be held responsible for this.

  Phaera quickly moved to Zabalas’s side and whispered counsel to him. He had been standing and observing from the back with Prishnack, seeing how the slagfell would handle this intrusion. Megnus, King Dolgrath and the king’s guard were handling the situation so far. He stepped forward and stood before King Dolgrath, bending low.

  “May I?” Zabalas asked Dolgrath, gesturing to the two succubi. King Dolgrath reluctantly, but eventually, nodded his approval.

  Zabalas strode right to the female who initially spoke, knowing she was in charge.

  “First and foremost, keep your wiles in check, demoness…for they shall have no effect on me,” Zabalas warned evenly.

  “So, you know nothing of Phaera, or the goings-on of Aspect Nahemia in Ulthon?” Zabalas continued in an attempt to catch them in a lie, perhaps, Phaera mused.

  “You know that not to be true, I can see,” answered one Cheronea daughter, obviously frustrated to be caught in her lie. “I do what I must for Aspect Risa! The Daughters of Leviathan will soon have more thralls than even the Sine brood and will rule Ulthon, as is our rightful place!”

  “I see…but that will not matter soon enough,” Zabalas answered. “You may return to Ulthon with a message to your Aspect,” Zabalas said calmly as he withdrew his wicked sword. The familiar violet flames immediately engulfed the blade.

  Faster than the eye could follow, he cleanly severed the head of one of the two succubi, sending it airborne down the tunnel to disappear into the shadowed recesses. Most onlookers near the sight of the gruesome beheading jumped back or gasped, hands on their weapons as they expected retaliation.

  “You may tell the Aspect Risa, all the other Aspects, and every single succubus in Ulthon, to obey the word of Aspect Nahemia as if the demon lords of Pandemonium were commanding them.” He let the words resonate for a moment, returning the extinguished weapon to its sheath. “Or they will have to answer to me,” Zabalas finally added after he had made sure that the cambion’s attention was on him. “Go now and do as you are bid before there are none of you left to carry my message back to Ulthon.”

  The remaining succubus immediately turned her back on them and flew off into the dark corridors of the Subterrane. The group collectively watched until she disappeared.

  “That was quite a display, Zabalas. And I hope you meant what you said,” Phaera remarked with a wry smile on her face, “because the Sine brood will no doubt be under attack from not only Aspect Risa, but all of the other Aspects as well. We should go back to her and warn them at leas—”

  “I did,” be interjected mysteriously. After a brief pause and a glance at her, he continued, “I meant what I said, that is. I will ensure that nothing happens to your mother, dearest Phaera. Trust me.”

  Phaera turned and walked back toward the entrance, following several slagfell warriors and Prishnack.

  “There’ll be repercussions, ye know,” King Dolgrath spoke now to Zabalas. “The demon kin’ll be thinkin’ we killed ‘em! E’en if the Aspect didn’t send ‘em, more’ll be comin’ fer sure!”

  “Perhaps,” Zabalas replied to the king. “I expect you will be able to handle such an attack if it happens? I do not and will not tolerate weakness.” Dolgrath frowned and mumbled something under his breath.

  “You have poisons and well-trained guards and the demonesses have their influences. Every race has a skilled method of survival, King Dolgrath, lest you would not have endured or thrived as you have in this harsh environment,” Zabalas continued logically as if to offer the slagfell king a compliment to follow the thinly veiled challenge prior. King Dolgrath nodded, apparently accepting it for what it was.

  “Get to cleanin’ that mess up,” Dolgrath instructed the several slagfell scouts who had wandered out to see the commotion while gesturing toward the remains of the succubus. “An’ double me watches fer the next two weeks!”

  Megnus nodded at his father when he passed and stared at Zabalas, wondering what exactly this man was capable of doing. The death blow that removed the head of the half-demon was inhumanly brutal and accurate. He almost did not see it when it happened and he was looking right at them both. He wasn’t even sure if he could swing an axe that truly and he’d been wielding an axe for decades. Zabalas was more than human. That was the only thing he knew for sure.

  He recognized too that betraying Zabalas would lead to a quick death and that the dark warlord controlled his father, the King of Shadowmere, and all of the slagfell, too. This meant that Megnus, the entire Bloodstone family, and the whole of Shadowmere was Zabalas’s to command.

  And Megnus had to accept that.

  As they traversed the winding caverns once more and re-entered the throne room, King Dolgrath called upon another, whom Phaera noticed was dressed in motley garments, nothing like the rest of the slagfell she had seen to this point. He was completely hairless except for a set of thin eyebrows and bore similar brandings about his neck. He certainly seemed out of place amongst the other slagfell.

  “If ye be finished with the consult and I’m assuming ye are… I have a gift for ye.” Dolgrath gestured for them to follow this newest and uniquely clad slagfell. He made his way out of the throne room and into the greeting hall of the king, then up a set of stairs that ended in a balcony.

  “This be the most powerful mage in all of Shadowmere, Dainn Gravelhand. He be a Wayfarer and he been workin’ hard at somethin’ to make things easier for gettin’ around,” King Dolgrath explained. The beardless slagfell approached them and spread everyone out for a moment before speaking.

  “Imagine your home,” Dainn explained as he spoke an incantation. Phaera noted that when this one spoke, he strangely did not have the typical accent of the slagfell. He began another chant as soon as he finished the first one and drew a large circle in the floor, using a peculiar ink. Upon the circle he quickly traced runes and other symbols that the onlookers did not recognize. But, it seemed to Phaera that he was tracing over something that had already been worked earlier.

  A long time passed before the mage finished and the circle was complete. It took on a sudden energy of its own and began to glow, faintly, but steadily.

  “Step into the circle and prepare yourself,” Dainn uttered in a strained voice. “The first trip can be…unpleasant.” The Wayfarer continued chanting as they all followed him. Each of them cautiously stepped in, and one-by-one, they disappeared.

  Phaera stepped into the circle and was transported to a section of the Bastion of Skulls directly outside of Zabalas’s main throne room. The runes that Dainn had scribed were ablaze as they transferred to the Bastion of Skulls before the fire went out again.

  “Impressive,” Phaera uttered as she experienced a strange vertigo after emerging. She felt on the verge of vomiting. Even Prishnack uttered something of an agreement, she believed. Zabalas was the last to come through and Dainn appeared with them in the room for a moment. The runes remained scorched into the floor as they each stepped out of it.

  “I must finish the ritual on this side as well,” Dain explained. “This will remain here until Zabalas or King Dolgrath instructs me to bring it down,” Dainn continued. “I will be placing more of these in strategic places as an extension of King Dolgrath’s loyalty to you. This will take some time.”

  With that, the strange mage began the task of finishing his assignment on this end of the magical two-way portal.

  “A teleportation circle,” Zabalas observed. “This is most satisfying.” He also pondered how advantageous several of the teleportation portals would be in key places.

  He strode out of the room toward his private chamber where his wretched personal servant, Kaldar, awaited, along with another.

  In the corner of his bed chamber stood a thing—an undead thing—a lich by the name of Sadreth.

  Chapter 24

  The foursome heade
d away from the cavernous area where they’d encountered the goblinoids and continued their descent into the unknown passageways. They traipsed down a series of long corridors that wound back and forth but still funneled them on one direction—down.

  As they proceeded, there was a turn, then a long straightaway. Every few paces, the passageway seemed less and less natural and more like it had been shaped that way purposely.

  Rose and Elec scouted ahead, while Garius and Saeunn followed several paces behind, as not to betray their presence. Rose and Elec had split the duties evenly. Rose, using the shadows to maneuver, was looking for any fiends or critters that might be lurking within them. Elec, meanwhile, was looking specifically for mechanical or magical devices and traps, while paying closer attention to their environment and the ground upon which they tread, as well as the walls and ceilings.

  “Hold!” Elec whispered to Rose. “Something is out of place there.” He pointed at a dagger that seemed opt be partially jammed into the cavern wall, approximately chest-high.

  “I’ll warn the others,” Rose said from amidst the shadows. Her voice was as a whisper that echoed eerily off the stone walls.

  The dagger appeared embedded in the stone wall, but Elec figured it to be more than that. The surrounding walls and floor appeared very solid, but something set off alarm bells in his mind. Rose returned quickly.

  “What do you think it is?” Rose asked him.

  “It looks like a lever…or a trigger. But to what, or for what, I could not begin to speculate.”

  “Maybe it isn’t a trap,” Rose suggested. “Perhaps it simply opens something?”