The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “Yes, sir. At the pace they were marching, he should be back a few hours after nightfall.”

  “Good. We’ll prepare a feast in your honor and invite all the militiamen who fought with you.”

  “That’s very generous of you, m’Lord. Thank you.”

  “No worries, Frederick. Now, I think it’s time we quit talking and you go check on your family.”

  “Yes, please do. Tanya can’t deal with any more stress in her condition,” Peyton asserted, now that the talk of war was complete.

  Frederick bid them farewell and began walking toward the entrance of The Keep. During those first few steps, his mind tugged at a string trailing from the storyline. It had registered when the sentries said the army split in two, but he’d overlooked it then and almost did again. He turned and strode back to where the Traxx’s were still standing, talking softly.

  “Frederick, what is it?” the king asked.

  “You say that the Vulture army split in two yesterday?”

  “Yes. That’s why we attacked this morning. Why?”

  “We’ve spent the last two weeks tracking the savages through the countryside, m’Lord. When we stumbled into the men cutting down those trees, we thought it was the men we’d been after.”

  “Hmm…” the king puzzled through the statement before glancing at Peyton and back to Frederick. “That means you either found the men you were looking for and the force that left here is still out there, or…”

  “I think we stumbled on the force from here, sir. It makes sense. The group we’d been tracking wouldn’t have known about the need for the battering rams to get past the gates.”

  Garrett Traxx came to the realization slowly as the elation of their victory faded. “How large was the force you were tracking?”

  “Based on the size of their campsites and the clues left along the way, our scouts estimated it looked like about two thousand, sir.”

  He staggered slightly before recovering. “Garrett, are you alright?” the queen shouted, causing several of the Guard to come running their way.

  “Yes, I’m fine. I was just… Just taken aback, that’s all.” The king held up a hand to tell the Guards that he was fine, but he gestured for one of them to continue over to them.

  “Yes, My Lord?”

  “I need you to tell Rylan that the danger isn’t gone. We need to triple the sentries and keep the quarters open for families from outlying hamlets,” Garrett told the Guard.

  Rylan, the deputy commander of the Traxx Guard, was in charge while Nicholas was in the field and would likely shift the focus away from burning bodies to security. The dead would still need to be disposed of to avoid disease, but it would need to be accomplished almost exclusively by townspeople.

  “Good work—again—on seeing the hidden danger, Frederick,” the king told him. “Given our losses already, we have less than half the number of trained militia and Reserve forces as those lunatics out there. The city is still in danger.”

  Frederick agreed with the king, but they were forced to go on the defensive. The two battles had devastated the militia. The Reserve wasn’t trained as well as the militia, so they couldn’t afford to go out on a hunting expedition again. The king knew it as well.

  “When Nicholas returns, we’ll work up a plan to clear the Vultures from the countryside,” Frederick said.

  Garrett Traxx nodded his head in agreement. “We’ll focus on defense and training until the time is right, then we’ll get rid of them once and for all. Those bastards have been allowed to threaten this family for far too long.”

  “Yes, m’Lord,” Frederick acknowledged.

  “Now, go comfort my daughter. The time will come soon enough when you won’t have time to do so.”

  Frederick left the king and queen, running into The Keep. He took the stairs two at a time, bounding upward until he reached Tanya’s suites on the sixth floor. The Guard outside her door greeted him and knocked the special sequence they’d developed.

  “Yes?” Clarissa asked from behind the locked door.

  “It’s Frederick. Open the door!”

  The sound of the deadbolts twisting and security chains falling away filled the hallway. It meant that his family was still safe and that they would be together once again. Clarissa let him in and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek in greeting before continuing into the suite.

  “Tanya! Tanya, I’m back.”

  “Frederick?” her voice called weakly from the bedroom.

  He found her, lying in bed with the twins, who were napping. Piles of books lay on the nightstand, telling him that she hadn’t left the room in days. Her skin was pale, so much so that he could see the blue veins underneath the skin in her neck and arms. She tried to sit up, but her expression told him that her stomach muscles weren’t working, so he rushed to her.

  She hugged him fiercely from her seated position and he let her hold him as long as she needed. Tanya cried into his shoulder for so long that his lower back began to tighten up from being bent awkwardly at the waist.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay. We feared the worst,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes against his shirt.

  He ran his fingers through her hair. It was dirty and unkempt. She hadn’t bathed since he’d taken to the field. “I’m back. Safe and sound,” he soothed. “You didn’t need to worry so much about me.”

  She pulled back and tried to smile, but it came across as a frown, made macabre by the smeared blood on her face from his clothing. “My father never should have sent you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “I’m fine,” he tried to tell her, but she wouldn’t hear it.

  “You’re not fine. You’re covered in blood. I don’t know if it’s yours or someone else’s, but you’ve obviously been in a fight and I can’t take that. The baby can’t take that,” she amended, roughly patting her protruding stomach to emphasize her point.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “Well you did. I—” she stopped and fretted with the sheets around the children. “I was just worried about you,” Tanya continued in a calmer tone. “I’m happy that you’re back, I really am.”

  It was his turn to smile. “I know that. You were worried, I understand.”

  Ridges appeared along the bridge of her nose. “You smell horrible. Is that…poop?”

  He glanced down at his pants where the dried brown mud from the battlefield reached almost to his knees. At one point, he had the intestines of a Vulture wrapped around his spear that he’d needed to unwrap, so it was shit on his clothing. “Probably. War is hell.”

  Tanya rolled her eyes. “Stop reading my books.”

  “It’s not from—”

  “Clarissa!” Tanya called in a practiced tone, meant to be heard by the maid, but allowing the children to sleep through it.

  “Yes, My Lady?”

  “Please have a bath drawn.”

  “Oh, thank the gods. Not bathing is unhealthy for the baby.”

  “Ugh… Okay, you’re right. We’ll do two. The first bath is for Frederick, though. He needs it far worse than I do and I don’t want the twins catching some strange illness from his filth.”

  “At once. Does this mean that you’ll eat as well?”

  Tanya nodded and watched until Clarissa disappeared. “She’s such a worrywart.”

  “She’s right. You need to take better care of yourself. It’s not good for you or the baby.”

  She pushed him lightly. “It’s your fault I’m like this. If you could control yourself, I wouldn’t be pregnant.”

  He leaned in and kissed her softly. “Then quit being so beautiful all the time and maybe I could do my job of being your bodyguard instead of your ‘Stud for Hire’.”

  “Oh gods, not that again.”

  *****

  The high priest sawed the athamé along his thigh, up underneath his robe where no one would be able to see it. The ceremonial blade had visited his skin often these past few years. “Why have
you abandoned me?” Grobahn pleaded before the wooden statue of Gaia. “I have sacrificed my blood for you, what else must I do?”

  The goddess hadn’t spoken to Grobahn in several years. He faked it for the others, using his charisma and quick wit to keep the Coven’s congregation believing he still communed with Her. Everything was going well until the acolytes began to have visions of that bitch, Freya, and the Mother’s promise that she could help bring about the healing of the earth.

  It was Grobahn who’d created the idea that she was the earthly incarnation of the Mother. What a ridiculous notion, but the People ate it up. Gods, they needed something to believe in and he’d given her to them. Pathetic.

  He’d studied the notes of his predecessors, carefully recorded over the past two hundred years. The previous priests—especially the earlier ones—were scientists and they knew about the war and what had happened. By their estimates, it would take hundreds of years to restore the balance of nature after the damage that had been done by old world weaponry.

  Somewhere along the way, the goddess began to speak to the priests, promising them that she would send help to the Dominion and heal the earth. Grobahn used to hear the singsong voice of the Mother, far back in the nether regions of his mind. With her help and guidance, he’d maneuvered himself into the top of the Coven’s hierarchy.

  In time, a different voice spoke to him, promising to elevate him to the highest position. He knew the new voice to be Gaia’s stronger identity; the part of Her represented by Earth, not the Air. It wasn’t the same soft, musical voice, this one was more harsh and directive, never speaking in full sentences, just snippets of words that he had to grasp for and derive the meaning of. With the sudden death of Harth—an accidental drowning at the baths—Grobahn was elected as the High Priest of the Coven. Once he’d been elevated to the position of high priest, the softer voice of Air stopped talking to him. At first, he thought she’d ceased speaking to everyone, but through careful questioning, he’d learned that Gaia still spoke to the others.

  “Why have you abandoned me?” he repeated his mantra and made another cut as an offering to the goddess. Surely, the blood would make her hear him, surely—

  “Is that it, Mother? Do you require more blood? What’s that?” He cocked his head as the darker voice of Earth spoke to him.

  He’d heard this voice before. It was Earth who’d told him how to kill the high priest before him and make it look like an accident so he could be elevated to the position. “More blood is the answer? That’s what you need to heal the land?”

  The mutterings intensified in the recesses of his mind, convincing him that it was the way to appease the goddess. She would come back to him. She’d been hurt so often by man that she needed retribution for their sins against her. The Mother demanded blood and sorrow from humanity and Grobahn knew how to achieve it.

  “Grobahn!” the Summoner of the Coven shouted on the opposite side of the door to his chambers.

  Goddess damn him. He was close to a breakthrough. The high priest wiped the athamé against the inside of his clothing to clean away the blood, and then placed it on the tabletop before pushing himself to his feet. He rearranged his robes to ensure that they hid the gash in his thigh before opening the door.

  “Yes, Brahm? I am praying, what cannot wait until tomorrow?”

  He bowed his head slightly to stare at Grobahn’s bare feet. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to intrude on your reflections, but we have had a vision!”

  “A vision? Of what? Who had it?”

  He smiled at the high priest. “I did! Several of the other elders shared their same vision with me. Surely, you have had a vision just now as well.”

  “Yes, I did. I saw the way to heal the earth,” Grobahn replied. It was only half-false.

  The smile spread wider across Brahm’s face. “Then you saw the girl?”

  Girl? “Of course I saw the girl, Summoner. I have been having the visions of her for weeks, but you know that the laws of the Coven state that we can’t act on one person’s divinations alone—that’s how cults are formed. We must take pride in the fact that we work together as a group.”

  “Yes, of course, Father. We must send the Watcher for her.”

  “The Watcher? Yes, Thistle must go on this quest immediately to find the girl.” He twitched his leg involuntarily. The blood had begun to tickle his leg as gravity carried it toward the floor.

  “So we are in agreement to send him to the Home of the Lakes to rescue her from the flesh eating birds?”

  “Why do you question me, Brahm? Didn’t I just say that we would send Thistle to rescue her?”

  “Thank you, Grobahn.” He grasped the high priest’s sleeve and took a deep breath, holding it for a moment.

  “Be careful of the sin of pride, my son,” Grobahn cautioned.

  The Summoner let out his breath. “You’re right. Thank you for helping to keep me grounded. I’m just so excited that we’ve finally had a vision of how to heal the earth!”

  “There is a long way to go, with many steps between here and there,” Grobahn cautioned. “We must be careful we don’t act alone without seeking counsel from one another.”

  “I would never do that, Father.”

  “Good. Now, send Thistle on his way. I must pray further on this matter.”

  “With bright blessings, Grobahn.”

  “With bright blessings,” he responded and shut the door solidly behind the Summoner.

  He turned slowly to the statue of Gaia. “What are you up to, Mother?”

  INTERLUDE

  The house was cold, causing the skin bumps to ripple along Scratch’s arms. He’d need to get a fire started soon so he could warm up. The day’s journey caused him to be chilled and he was through being cold, living like an animal in the dirt or occasional cave as they traveled the countryside to find the cursed Traxx.

  Scratch turned to one of his slaves, who hovered on the periphery of his vision. “Fire.”

  The man nodded mutely. All of Scratch’s slaves had their tongues cut out. He thought it helped to keep them in line since they couldn’t communicate well with each other.

  He sat on a rough, wooden chair that the previous occupant must have built out of wood from the forest surrounding the home. Where had the owner gotten off to? “Bring me the man who lived here,” he ordered.

  Another slave walked quickly out the door. As he opened it, Scratch glimpsed cooking fires already burning outside. The men deserved them. The day’s movement had been excessively long as they tried to outdistance the pursuit. It turned out that they hadn’t needed to go quite so far, though. Bear’s forces had attacked the Traxx soldiers who’d pursued them.

  His scouts hadn’t been able to tell him who won the battle. But, the sheer number of dead meant that neither side really won. Add the defenders who’d likely died at the city and Bear’s ill-advised, outright disobedience had taken a massive chunk out of the Traxx numbers.

  Bear, the one-time second in command of the Vultures, had challenged Scratch’s leadership by defying him and taking more than half of his people to attack the Traxx city before they were ready. Reports said that the men who’d followed Bear were now dead, jeopardizing his plans.

  The Vultures had half-heartedly tried to track the Traxx family for almost seventy years and now they’d found them. Their destruction would be Scratch’s legacy to the new world. His predecessor, Robert, had been one of Starr’s original pupils before the group splintered and sent Sangelo, the city of the Vultures, into chaos.

  Starr dedicated her entire life to trying to rebuild the losses suffered at the hands of the treacherous Traxx. By the time she died and Robert took over, there were enough warriors that they should have sought out and destroyed the Traxx. Robert delayed, content to allow them to exist and the Vultures broke up into rival, petty groups, fighting amongst themselves behind Sangelo’s walls. His legacy was the elimination of the rival factions until there was only the one, true Vulture clan, w
hich Scratch now led.

  Eradication of the Traxx was one of the basic principles of the Vulture clan and Robert hadn’t done anything to further the cause, allowing them to establish their city on the lakeshore. Scratch changed that, creating renewed fervor amongst the people and convinced them to leave the city of Sangelo to find the Traxx. Now they’d found them and Bear had almost destroyed his plans before he’d begun.

  Scratch’s plan was to eliminate the Traxx support network and make them tremble in fear. By destroying the small outlying villages and farms, the towns that supported the Traxx, it would cause a slow, inevitable panic to set in as the residents of the city realized that they were going to starve to death. Then, his forces were to surround the city and make them beg. They would have gladly given up the Traxx family in exchange for their lives and he could have finally wiped them off the face of the earth.

  Now, with half of his force, including Bear, dead, Scratch’s timeline would have to be extended. He still planned to continue the psychological assault, picking away a little at a time, but he’d have to take it slower than he’d promised his followers. For now, he knew that he still controlled them, but how long would that last if he didn’t produce the results that he’d assured them?

  A commotion at the door announced the arrival of the previous homeowner only seconds before Scratch’s slave opened the door. The owner’s massive shadow darkened the doorway for a moment before he was shoved through, landing hard on the floor. His hands, bound behind him, didn’t stop him from hitting his head on the concrete. He cried out in pain and began to sob uncontrollably.

  Scratch appraised the Traxx follower with scorn. He was easily double the size of most of the Vultures, a lifetime spent at hard labor on the farm had added slabs of raw muscle to his frame. Most of the men—and more than a few of the women—that they’d found out in the surrounding hamlets were built like the man cowering on the floor. By contrast, the Vultures were much thinner. They valued stealth, speed and skill with weapons over brute strength.

  The differences in personality were just as stark as the physical differences between the Traxx and the Vultures. The residents they’d encountered so far were mentally weak. When the Vultures appeared, the people on the farms would try to hide or barricade themselves inside their homes—torches usually worked to bring them back outside. Very few of them tried to fight; they wanted to talk, or cried for mercy—like the worm on the floor now.