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

by Gary F. Vanucci

  Zabalas finally glimpsed the face of the southernmost section of the North Peaks Mountains. The magnificent range occupied a good portion of the northeastern section of Wothlondia, overlooking the Eastern Sea. It was a vast range, running hundreds of miles along the Shindar region, hugging the coastline.

  Zabalas saw it come into view as the powerful mount beneath him tirelessly closed the distance.

  “It won’t be long now,” Zabalas said, looking down upon the head of the magnificent magical beast. The creature was called a ‘Nightmare’—a mythical beast born of solid shadow, with hooves of smoke and eyes of fire.

  Zabalas had not stopped for days as he hunted his prey, leaving the city of Chansuk in pursuit of the next phase of his plan. The sun hovered overhead and he raised his eyes to stare up toward it disdainfully, loathing the thing and all it represented—life, heat, optimism, healing, warmth—all traits and ideals of the weak. It reminded him of his former life.

  A misguided and foolhardy former life, at that, he recollected.

  He narrowed his eyes and grimaced before returning his attention to the suddenly soft and flexible terrain of Shindar, a paradoxical surface when compared to the rocky stuff of Stonehill to the south.

  His Nightmare thundered along, faster now, and he was quickly to the base of the southernmost tip of the range. He sensed his prey, deep within the tunnels below, considered the mountain’s most perilous passageways. He set his mind to gaining the precious dragon blood his Wayfarer required. Any and all that stood in his way would meet with an untimely death.

  He dismounted, landing nimbly upon the gravelly soil despite the heavy ebon-shaded armor. The Nightmare remained unmoving as he entered a concealed passage that soon turned gloomy and all but void of light. He witnessed remains as he proceeded further into the Subterrane, bones and gore littering the passages.

  Zabalas removed his helm and fastened it to his belt. He reached for his ornately detailed hilt and removed the wicked blade from its scabbard. The length of the steel immediately burst into the familiar violet flames that danced about its edges, bathing the cavern in the colorful glow. He also stopped to remove the shield that was strapped to his back, a massive piece of blackened steel with the façade of a demon etched in relief upon its surface, sharpened tips scattered about it. He strapped it to his left forearm and continued, navigating the tunnels expertly, knowing his route without question.

  He progressed at a steady descent, moving through the strangely inactive passageways until he came upon a certain grotto, well below the surface level of the mountain. He could hear the dripping of moisture from stalactites above, echoing loudly as they fell into the pools of water somewhere within the stony shelter. As he closed in on the sound, he could hear running water, too.

  He could hear his prey inside the spacious cavern, squawking and moving about. He heard their clawed feet scurrying across the floor and the unmistakable flapping of their leathery wings as they attempted to take flight. As he climbed a side passage, he finally made it to a vantage point overlooking them.

  There was something magical in the room that shed light in random places—quite possibly enchanted objects from a time before man. It was evident that no mortal had stepped foot in here for decades, possibly centuries.

  Light flickered from the surface of many gems, trinkets and other articles of interest scattered about the grotto, catching the eerie light and intensifying it.

  Who knows how long these things have been here? Zabalas mused.

  There were dozens of black-scaled dragons, all of them young and nowhere near full-grown. They huddled amongst each other and fed on whatever seafood was living in the waters here in the lower portions of the mountains where a river cascaded through.

  They were exactly where he said they’d be, Zabalas confirmed. Venomous drakes. They yet live.

  Their blackened scales shimmered, intermixing with the light cast from the items scattered about the floor. None of them seemed to notice the figure standing high above them, flaming sword in hand.

  Zabalas climbed back down the path and willed the flames of his weapon to diminish. Slowly he made his way down and to the back of the cavern.

  And then he waited.

  Xorgram awoke to the sound of banging upon his door. Cassia was already getting dressed, strapping her rapiers around her waist. She then pulled a leather vest beset with tightly spaced, fastened metal studs over her chest and torso. He must have dozed off after the telling of his tale and the subsequent lovemaking session with Cassia, who peeked over her shoulder at Xorgram.

  “Are you gonna get that…or should I?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Again, the knock on the door sounded, harder this time, paired with a muffled voice—a feminine voice judging by the sound. Xorgram nodded, threw on a pair of linens and swung the door wide.

  It was Helene. She looked about and forced her way into the room past Xorgram, ignoring Cassia and the entirety of the scene. She collapsed into a chair near his desk in the far corner of the room. She was followed by a red-skinned imp that flew silently past Xorgram and Cassia to land on her shoulder. It coughed, made a few infernal utterings in her ear, and then began rubbing its gruesomely misshapen head while Helene caught her breath.

  “What be the meanin’ of this!?” Xorgram asked, pulling on his leather trousers. He finished before she answered and moved to stand over her. He thrust out his barrel-like chest, complete with a smattering of grey hairs that stood out amongst a sea of black.

  “Well…out with it!”

  “There is something you must know,” she began as the imp took to the air to land atop a bookcase, cleaning the forked end of its tail. Helene dropped her face in her hands and her raven-black hair dangled loosely to the floor.

  “There is a demon among us,” she finally spoke, convincingly enough to have Cassia move closer to the conversation.

  “And where be this…demon?” Xorgram asked doubtfully, rubbing the chin beneath his thick beard.

  “It is what has been causing the problems here of late! It is what controlled Rogoth…made him try to kill his wife! And it is also what has been causing the miners to act out,” said the warlock, struggling to explain it all.

  “So yer tellin’ me that a demon be causin’ all of this?!” Xorgram asked incredulously, crossing his arms over his bare chest.

  Helene looked up to Xorgram finally, locking eyes with his good one and nodded. “You need to get rid of it.”

  Xorgram looked the warlock over carefully, her pale, thin form disappearing in the folds of the oversized black robe she wore loosely about her frame, but he could notice her shivering beneath it.

  Her behavior was uncommon, as she was known to speak of—and to—demons regularly. She performed black magic and talked reverently of the demoness, Hecate, if he recalled correctly. He was unsure what to make of the whole thing.

  “This…demon,” Cassia began, sounding as skeptical as Xorgram, “it is something more powerful than you? You cannot control it?”

  Helene looked to Cassia as if noticing her there for the first time, then she narrowed her eyes as she finally spoke.

  “The thing of which I speak contains the soul of a significant demon. It is an avatar of Sammael, one of the demon lord’s very own soldiers within the hierarchy of Pandemonium. Its name is Cyrza. He is an instrument of destruction! It is trapped within a gem that dangles from a length of chain. I have secured it inside my chambers, locked away. I am familiar with this as I have been visited by Hecate’s own avatar who warned me against the treacheries of the demon lord of Hubris,” Helene said simply. “She warded me against this demon, but heed my warning: it shall find more of you and force you down paths that will end in death or damnation.”

  The warlock stood and ambled toward the door, and then looked back to regard the dwarf. “I have warned you, Xorgram. Please take this news into serious consideration.”

  With that, the warlock left the room, followed by the crimson-skinn
ed imp that flew quickly after her.

  “Paths of death and damnation, huh?” Cassia said, raising her eyebrows suspiciously at first. Xorgram remained grim-faced. “It is something you might want to consider, I suppose.” She turned to watch Xorgram finish getting dressed and he finally nodded his consent.

  “Aye, something, all right. She might be a bit touched, but I don’t be doubtin’ her. I be goin’ ta see Fuddle now,” Xorgram said as he stood in contemplation. Then he caught her still staring, and added, “I’m thinkin’ I better be seein’ yerself here this evenin’, or there’ll be damnation in yer future, too.”

  She smiled back at him, winked, and disappeared, leaving behind an anxious and contemplative dwarf.

  Zabalas yanked his blade from the severed neck of one of the venomous drakes that had wandered close to him. The thing was the size of a small horse and was only recently born, he estimated.

  During the course of achieving his goal, he had succeeded in filling several large vials with the lifeblood of this particular young dragon. He managed to repeat this exact feat over as another of the black-scaled beasts shuffled clumsily his way, perhaps somehow sensing him beneath his magically enhanced suit of ebon steel. He sliced the neck of the fledgling dragon, as this filled the purpose of both silencing the thing as well as producing large amounts of blood from a plentiful source.

  He held the beast close to the vial, catching a large percentage of its lifeblood and wiping the remaining essence on his lips and licking them clean. He very much liked the taste, he considered.

  Zabalas held up five large vials of the liquid and figured that to be enough before stowing them away within several belt pouches at his front. As he was carefully stowing the last flask away, he heard a roar that seemed to shake the cavern. It was so feral and stentorian in nature that Zabalas had to cover his ears.

  From somewhere deep below the cavern the sound came again and it grew louder in intensity as the source of the roar neared. Zabalas turned to see the head of an ancient venomous drake—a terrifying beast of legend, indeed, if ever there was one. It craned its neck around a corner of the shelter where its children stayed, bringing with it the remainder of its massive body. It paused briefly and witnessed the wyrmling offspring lying on the floor, dead and lifeless. The magnificent beast quickly moved its large bulk through the space heading toward Zabalas as its heavily scaled tail followed behind. Its considerable claws pulled its mass through the space at such a rapid pace, that it seemed surreal.

  The dragon roared once more and then its black eyes seemed to roll over to white as it belched a noxious, acidic spray in his direction.

  Zabalas was barely able to find cover behind a stalagmite before the toxic liquid enveloped him. He paused a moment and turned to see that the rock formation that had just provided him cover was melting, turned to liquid slag under the torrent of venomous fury.

  He was truly impressed.

  He turned to make his way toward a cave opening when he heard the sound of the drake’s breath as it belched forth from behind him. He made for the relative safety of the smaller passageways, thinking that it could not pursue him in those more confined tunnels, and ran off back toward the surface.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rose lurched forward as the caravan came to an abrupt halt, falling into the arms of the Inquisitor, who was seated at the table. She stared up into his brown eyes and felt a sense of warmth within them that she had never perceived before. His stare was usually so callous and impassive.

  He gently helped her up and set her straight before standing and moving toward the porthole to speak with the construct driving the caravan.

  They had come to a stop at the base of the hill where the archers had been perched. Orngoth, Garius, Elec, Rose and Saeunn all emerged and stood on the solid ground, peering about. The driver remained motionless as Garius spoke, giving it commands to take the vehicle into a nearby copse of trees for cover.

  “That is the remnants of Hollow Hill,” Elec announced, pointing to a ruined village at the crest of one of the many hills set back at least a mile or so from where they stood. He removed a vial from its casing on his bandolier and fiddled with the cork, saying nothing else.

  Rose, chewing on a piece of tough jerky, looked in awe of the site, craning her neck to peer toward the top of the hill where the village was situated. It was certainly something to behold, charred and ruined, seeming to be swallowed up in a relatively unified blackness at the hill’s summit. It certainly wasn’t much to look at. “Looks cheery,” Rose mentioned as she swallowed the salted meat with a grimace.

  “Aye, it is rumored to be haunted,” Garius enlightened them as he wiped the top of his head free of sweat. Rose noted the chill in the valley as the cold wind brushed by her cheeks. She had spoken to Garius a few times before at length about his armor and knew that the heavy plate was enchanted. He had also pointed out that it provided an uncomfortable warmth beneath its protective shell. She found herself again imagining what lay beneath all of that heavy armor before shaking the absurd thought from her mind.

  “Shall we?” Rose suggested as she finished the last of the venison jerky and bade Elec to move forward with a gesture. He went and she followed. There was a clear path leading to the top of the hill, though it would take at least an hour or more to climb, it seemed. It also looked as though it were they only way up and so they marched ahead.

  Rose bent low and nodded to Elec.

  “It looked like there was movement upon the path recently, but the recent rainfall washed away any solid proof,” she mentioned to him. He nodded and moved off ahead of her.

  For the next hour, the five of them traversed the winding path up the hill toward their destination, just as the sun began to sink behind the clouds to the west.

  “There will be little in the way of sunlight to aid us in our exploration I fear,” Garius sighed as he climbed forward, referring to the encroachment of dusk just on the horizon.

  “Do you really think we will find highwaymen all the way up here?” Rose called back disbelievingly as she came to a rest in a clearing. The others caught up to her and she turned to stare up and into the deep blue eyes of the half-ogre, who shrugged and returned his attention to the landscape below.

  “I do not know for sure, but I am beginning to sense a presence nearby,” replied Garius as he began to move off again.

  “Demonic presence?!” Rose asked, looking to him in the hopes that perhaps he wasn’t serious. Then she recalled that he was always serious.

  “Aye,” he replied with a nod. “We have rested long enough—let us continue.”

  Rose spun to observe Elec replacing a flask in his bandolier and wiping his lips. He looked back to regard her eyeing him, and moved off abruptly in front of the Inquisitor to take the lead.

  “I think I saw something leaning over the edge—something not born of this world, if my eyes do not deceive me,” Saeunn suddenly said as she squeezed the pommel of her greatsword tightly in anticipation of combat. “Perhaps your thoughts are correct, Inquisitor.”

  Rose looked at the excitement etched upon Saeunn’s face. There was no denying that she enjoyed the fight. Saeunn began eagerly shifting back and forth in anticipation.

  “Perhaps there is some truth to the rumors of the haunting of Hollow Hill,” Elec added, climbing the path and outpacing Rose quickly. It seemed to her that he was not looking for tripwires or the like and that perhaps this newer, more reckless one replaced the previously alert and cautious elf she had come to know. She was not sure which she preferred, she admitted with a sigh.

  And so, on they went.

  As the group rounded the last corner that would put them in sight of the village proper, dusk claimed the sky and the sun dipped behind the clouds. There was a massive iron fence, as high as two men tall, which surrounded the village. This was affixed with a pair of iron gates that repeatedly rang with the sound of metal on metal. It sounded in unison with the breeze that escalated in intensity the higher
they trod toward the summit of the hill. That clamoring added a sense of foreboding and lent credibility to the rumors of hauntings.

  With the passing of the sun, the breeze at the top of the hill caused Rose to shiver. She pulled her cowl tightly about her body, and then looked back to Garius who nodded for her to move forward. She stepped into a shadow and disappeared.

  A moment passed as Rose traversed the plane of shadow, moving hurriedly along. She exited the shadow realm and immediately stopped her momentum as something dark and sinister moved toward her.

  It sees me! she realized in fear. It sees me in the shadow plane!

  She ran back toward her companions and emerged from the shadows only to feel a cold hand cover her mouth as she made to voice what she had seen. Her voice was muffled as she witnessed that Garius had caught her and gagged her, holding her gently in his arms.

  “What is it?” Elec asked, his eyes completely glossed over white, entirely barren of the outline of his pupils. Rose stared at him and thought it looked as if he were the one possessed.

  “Demons!” she whispered. “In all shapes and sizes around the outskirts of the village!”

  Garius turned a concerned look upon her and stared hard toward the gloomy village.

  “So, it is true,” he said, steadying Rose before releasing his grip on her.

  As if in answer to her mention of them, a horde of demons came crashing through the ruins of the buildings toward the gated entrance where the five of them stood. An abundance of tails, wings, fangs and claws rushed toward the group. They collectively braced themselves as the demons came at them.

  Except, of course, for the two barbarians.

  Orngoth, club held high, and Saeunn, her greatsword at the ready, countercharged the demonic horde. Elec heard Orngoth’s first swing connect as a loud crack reverberated, followed by a squishy sound as he drove one of the demons into the dirt, dark liquid spraying everywhere.