Hethal shadowed Moyan to the throne, grateful of the carpeted path that curved around the great pit. He held his gaze on his brother’s back and denied his mind access to the past and future horrors of the chamber. He craved to turn and run, but only he could tie the first knots that would bind the threads of the future together. To run now would doom the world.
Halting before the throne, he knelt alongside his brother upon a stained rug. At one time it could have adorned the floor of an exotic brothel with its subject of countless provocative women depicted in its weave. When Moyan stood straight again, Hethal remained kneeling because the future demanded it.
His brother was already a slave to destiny, staring into the shadow that hid Scythe’s face. He did exactly as the threads of fate determined he would.
“Welcome General,” the Queen began in a pleasant tone, but a rising note of irritation crept into her voice as she continued. “You wish to have this audience with me? Or do you wish to stand there and sing your undying love to my little pet?”
Moyan’s eyes snapped back to Ivrane. “Forgive me, My Queen. I bring my brother before you. He is gifted with prophecy. It is he who has implored me for this audience so that he may share with you a vision of our illustrious future. Will you honor us by hearing it?”
The Queen sat forward on her gilded chair, a raised eyebrow of genuine interest showing for an instant before a scowl wiped it away. “This is the Mad Monk I have heard accompanies you on your campaigns, is it not?”
“So the soldiers name him, my Queen. He is my brother, Hethal, priest of Lorn. His visions have always led me to victory on the battlefield.”
The Queen’s attention settled on Hethal, and he held her speculative gaze with a straight spine and square shoulders.
“Is this true, Hethal, brother of Moyan, you are one of the gifted? My Scythe is gifted as-” The Queen’s struggle to say more was fascinating to watch, but the future showed him bowing his head to the floor and he obeyed.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Hethal said as his nose pressed into a nymph stitched into the rug, “I am. I would tell you of Zuxra’s greatest victory, if it is your will.”
The Queen remained silent for a moment before Hethal heard a whisper of movement from the dais. Then a soft voice spoke. “We should hear this prophecy, Your Grace. Your finest general would not seek to mislead us.”
A slap sounded accompanied by a small gasp of pain. Moyan’s boot lifted to take a step, but dropped when Hethal clutched at the hem of his surcoat.
The Queen snarled at Scythe, verging on apoplexy. “Your words are a waste of breath, sorceress. You are already in my head to make me listen like a good puppet.”
Hethal grimaced, his face hidden from witnessing the Queen’s struggle for freedom. She had found her answer to Scythe’s coercion in madness.
“Hethal, whom Scythe commands me to lavish with my attention,” she continued in a voice made horrifying for its toneless surrender, “it would please me greatly to hear you wag your tongue at me.”
Hethal took a deep breath and relaxed the grimace from his face before raising his head. “While the Old Gods sleep there is yet one among them who does not slumber, Your Grace. The Lady of Destiny, weaver of the web of man’s fate, has awakened, and in one moon, she will call forth a great storm over the Vestral Sea. Four great ships of Zuxra must sail into the wake of this storm, and bear five hundred of the finest soldiers of your army to the walls of the City of Thunder in Erenar.”
He watched the Queen’s face, but the important one to push was the cloaked woman beside her.
“The people of that impregnable city shall bear chains,” he said, tailoring the truth of his vision with care. “General Moyan will return leading the greatest army the world has ever known, and we will be witness to the birth of a god in this very chamber, one who will bring all the people of Vorallon to their knees in our honor.”
The Queen jumped to her feet, tipping the gilded chair onto the pillows. “Is this true?”
“Hethal’s visions are always true, My Queen,” Moyan replied without hesitation. Hethal’s heart pounded in his chest at the pride in his brother’s voice.
“The City of Thunder is Halversome on the coast of Erenar,” Scythe informed the Queen, fulfilling her masquerade as adviser to the throne. “Built by the dwarves of the Stormwall Mountains and warded by the magic of the elves. It guards the riches of Vlaske K’Brak and the deep Keth Forest. We have a loyal servant within Halversome, Your Grace, one whom I have shielded from the priests of Aran who rule there. He will pave the way for Zuxra’s greatest victory.”
The Queen rounded on the gray-cloaked woman. “Enough!” she shrilled before turning to glower at Moyan. “General, you have the honor of preparing Our four greatest war galleys and five hundred of Our finest soldiers.” Her eyes narrowed with sudden cunning. “Captain Andrigar will remain here in command of Our home guard. Be ready to sail in one moon.”
Hethal bowed low again as the Queen stepped off her dais to stride toward him. Her embroidered slippers stopped within a hands-breadth of his buried face before she hissed down at him, “There had best be a storm on the Vestral Sea in one moon, Hethal whom I adore.”
chapter 2
the fall of zed
Twentieth day of the Moon of the Thief
-in Zed
A biting wind drove clouds in front of the lowering sun, casting the streets of Zed into deep shadow. The first storm of the coming winter was forming over the sea as a horror, wearing the body of a man, stalked his prey. His figure drew many appraising glances among the women he strode past, but their gaze darted elsewhere when they met his hungry eyes. The low people called him the Killer, while the highborn took great care never to acknowledge his existence with a name.
His hunt began earlier in the day, when Igan Long-Tooth had passed him several gold pieces, the first half of the price his services commanded, and pointed his target out in the bazaar with one palsied finger. A large man concealed within a hooded black cloak and wearing boots that showed the scuffs of wilderness travel. Once the target had breathed his last breath, he would receive the remainder of his fee.
As the man had wandered about the city, the Killer had followed, studying his prey. Now the cloaked man headed straight for the outer east gate, intending to leave the confines of Zed. The Killer’s lips parted in a predatory leer. By this time of day, the last wagon had returned to the farms beyond, and the guards would have closed and barred the gate behind it. If the target remained determined to exit, he would have to circle to the south gate that lead to the granite narrows, where locations for private encounters abounded. The Killer yearned for this with an added hunger, already planning a route that would put him in advance of his prey to set up a clean ambush. Screams in that maze bounced and echoed off the canyon walls in ways that none could track.
Some hunts could last for days and in cases where a body was not required, such as this one, the victim’s last breath would come only after the Killer’s appetites were fully sated.
He had followed to just within sight of the gate when guards along the top of the wall gave a cry of alarm. A signal of impending doom, but the true death knell of Zed sounded with a crash. A hulking black monster burst through the barred gate in a spray of exploding timbers. The Killer noted the target’s right hand as it grasped at his left hip. His smirk twisted the corners of his lips even higher. The hunt always revealed everything he needed to know about a man.
The gleaming ebon creature snatched up guardsmen in its long-taloned hands, ignored their impotent swords and spears.
“Demon!” wailed a man who had already turned to flee.
The Killer gave a bow to the creature’s single-minded lust, as the towering monster lifted each man in its grip to the multitude of sharp mandibles lining its gaping maw and snipped their heads off. Stunned at first, the crowd in the streets screamed and fled in all directions when the blood began to fountain.
Behind this demon, a tan
gled mass of many more pressed into the smashed gateway to join in the killing, each one a chaotic dark form unique unto themselves. Dozens soon overran the fallen gates, and hundreds more pressed forward from behind.
The target only waffled for a moment among the fleeing crowd before wheeling about and striding back the way he had come, nearly colliding with the Killer in passing. As tempting as it was to strike then and disappear from the scene in the chaos, the demon attack had raised his bloodlust to level that a quick kill would not sate. His prey must think himself safe before the cold of his end came. There was only one possible escape to the west: the ships and fishing boats moored at the docks.
More screaming echoed from the broad streets to the south where another wave of demons flooded the wealthy district of landowners, merchant barons, and born noblemen. The high paid mercenaries and thugs they owned outright to guard their holdings would be every bit as impotent against the mass of demons as the underpaid city guards were. Their hoarded gold would not buy their life as ravaging demons crashed through their homes and manors.
The Killer paused to admire the black demons flooding into Zed, the larger ones gouging out chunks of the wall surrounding the gate to make enough room to pass. Smaller, more agile demons climbed directly over to slash their way into the midst of crowds hemmed in by narrow streets like penned cattle. They did not pause to eat their victims. Their desire was only to kill using whatever claws, teeth, or deadly appendages they could bring to bear. The Killer absorbed every grizzly detail.
When the crowd had been culled to the point that the demons were pressing toward him, he turned and ran. He mimicked the fleeing citizens while making up some distance on his target, screaming and waving his arms, though he made no attempt to disguise the smile that played across his lips.
He shadowed the cloaked man through the dilapidated ruin of the original east gate, entering a region of sagging hovels and crumbling stonework. The paupers here were just beginning to crane their heads about for the source of the disturbance. The Killer had begged and stolen to survive on these ramshackle streets, hiding the remains of competing urchins under the piled refuse.
Renewed screaming erupted close behind. He snapped around in time to duck the claw of the leading demon, the same towering horror that had bitten the heads off the guards at the gate. The Killer snatched up a running child of perhaps five summers and flung her at the demon’s hooved feet. The beast stooped to its new victim, like a vigilant gardener spying a perfectly ripened melon.
A grey-haired man, dressed in the white robes of a foreign priesthood bellowed in outrage, but upon meeting the Killer’s cold gaze, he turned and continued his flight.
The Killer sneered at the priest’s back before the demon’s moan of rage reclaimed his attention. Long, clutching talons strained toward him, but the demon was struggling against an unseen force holding it back. The claw and arm were yanked away and the entire demon lurched after, drawn to a vanishing point that twisted all sense of perspective. Impossibly far yet close beside him, it dwindled away, and with a final forlorn groan, the beast fell into nothingness. The inexorable pull that had captured the demon drew upon the Killer as well, staggering him a step in its wake.
Confused by the strange familiarity, a sensation of fullness and weight dragging at him, he pivoted and raced on among the thin ranks of survivors. He fled from that pull with an urgency that outweighed any fear he had of the stalking and pouncing demons.
The setting sun dropped below the dark layer of impending storm to burnish the waterfront in an amber glow. Its light made silhouettes of the tangle of vessels clogging the harbor, struggling to escape to the open expanse of the Vestral Sea. The Killer’s keen eyes fell upon his target just as the man gained the wharf, his long shadow stretching toward him like a beckoning finger.
The target picked his way along the docks to jump aboard one of the last remaining vessels, a large, square-rigged caravel. Her sails already bellied in the wind, but she remained secured to the dock to permit the last wretched survivors to board. The Killer put on a display of breathless panic as he too climbed aboard. He ducked from the familiar white robed priest and slunk across the deck to hide among a separate group of cowering people.
The Killer kept his eyes on the prey. Though no guild remained alive to pay him his due upon completion of his task, he would finish the hunt. Whoever wanted the target dead was merely another weighty soul dragging a demon back to Nefryt, but that would not stay his blades. In this he was every bit as relentless as the horde now scouring the city for hidden prey.
As the first blood-splattered demons arrived on the wharf, a command was yelled and ready axes chopped through mooring lines, releasing the ship to heel away. The sailors made all haste before the wind, navigating their vessel out past the breakwater and into open water. Soon after, the storm broke, lashing the Vestral Sea into a churning maelstrom that tossed them northward. Before the huddled people could appreciate their succor from the demons, the storm blasted the ship hard over, washing the deck with a new mortal danger.
The Killer clutched the low rail and caught a final glance at the rain obscured forms crowding the end of the dock before Zed vanished completely. Any other vessel to escape the fall of Zed was hidden by the sheeting rain and falling darkness.
The sailors reefed in the sails at the first mate’s shout, almost indistinguishable above the sounds of thunder, wind, and wave. The masts continued to groan under the strain. Only the protective wards on the ship, shimmering blue as they discharged their magic strength, held it together under the storm’s wrath. The ornate glyphs, carved into every major timber of the ship, pulsed with a blue light with each wave that crashed against her. It was the rarest of ships that could afford such protections. The Killer gave a nod toward his prey for his choice of vessels.
While many passengers were getting noisily ill from the pitching and yawing movement of the ship, the Killer remained steady. The cloaked man trod the tossing deck like a worthy seaman himself, lending assistance to several of the struggling sailors. Often he spoke with the sailors at length, casting gestures fore and aft. At one point, he went to the helm and spoke with the captain who argued and shook his head. When the target threatened the captain with physical violence, opening his cloak to show whatever weapon it was he carried, it silenced the captain’s complaints immediately. This evoked a merry grin from the Killer which he hid from the stricken stares of his huddled fellows.
Shortly after his exchange with the captain, the target took up a position at the bow, looking into the storming darkness ahead. None were near the target, and the tight canvas of the reefed sails obscured much of the bow from the rest of the deck. With the ship diving down behind one swell then climbing sickeningly up the next, the Killer slipped from his clump of refugees to move forward.
He slunk along the deck, any sounds he made lost to the snapping canvas and crashing waves. Throughout his advance, the target never altered from his vigil at the bow. When the Killer entered striking distance he spared a look behind. There stood the priest, clutching a thick hawser to keep his footing as he yelled a warning above the blast of the storm.
The Killer drew the curved daggers hidden within sheaths at his back then whirled toward his target only to meet the point of a massive sword leveled at his breast. The man was turned half toward him in a swordsman’s stance, face still shrouded beneath his black hood. The sword glimmered dull silver in the storm shadowed night. The Killer dropped his shoulders in feigned defeat before he slid to his left and swept the flat of the sword aside with his right hand blade.
The sword tip reinserted into the Killer’s line of attack faster than thought, forcing the assassin back a step. The minimal fluid movement of the man allowed the wind to catch hold of his cloak and flip it back revealing a flash of chain armor. This was no wealthy buffoon with a pretty sword, he faced a trained warrior. A fresh grin came to his lips. He accepted the new situation and began plotting his next move.
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nbsp; The deck of the caravel dropped out from beneath them as the vessel plunged into a deep trough, throwing the Killer toward the sword. Dropping to his knees and arching back, he slipped beneath its razor edge. He stabbed for the back of the warrior’s knee as he swept past, but his blade met only wind. The fighting man had leapt to come down hard on the deck behind him as the vessel struck the bottom of the trough and runes blossomed everywhere in bright blue. The Killer sprang to his feet and spun to face the leveled sword again.
He gave a low growl at the sword that continued to separate him from his prey while the fighting man retreated down the deck, pushing the wide eyed priest protectively behind him. As the bow began to ascend the next wave, the Killer howled his rage into the storm. He pressed forward with a flurry of stabbing strikes which availed him nothing. Changing styles to match the swordsman’s fluid grace, he reversed his grip on his daggers, their blades curving back toward his elbows. But not once again could he strike aside the warrior’s blade as it snaked in and out of his sweeping arms, only to return to threaten his heart and drive him back.
A vast gap in the storm opened above their vessel, through which evening stars sparkled. The heavy seas died down along with the wind, and the caravel’s wallowing ceased. With his free hand, the target reached up and tore his cloak free, revealing long golden hair and a short beard shot with gray. On his black surcoat was the stark white emblem of a sword pointed upwards toward a four pointed star. He hollered in a stentorian voice for the crew and passengers to abandon ship, “The Lady calms the storm. She will watch over you. Take to the boats now!”
Gifts of Vorallon: 01 - The Final Warden Page 2