It was early when Keth roused the Dahken for their morning exercises. Dahken Rael would always wake him first, because he knew he could rely on Keth to get the others moving while Rael set a small breakfast and made sure that a practice area was available. He was the eldest of those Lord Dahken Cor had saved from the Loszian Taraq’nok, and he had immediately taken on a sense of responsibility for the younger children, starting with the flight from Losz. It felt like so long ago, but it had only been a few months.
Keth was a Westerner whose parents were slaves in the Loszian Empire, slaves to Taraq’nok himself. The Loszian had of course found it advantageous to have the boy born right under his nose and allowed him to live and grow as a slave. Eventually Taraq’nok came to fear the boy would be discovered by other Loszians, and he put Keth’s parents to death. He then forced Keth to drink a vile potion. Keth awoke mere hours before Lord Dahken Cor avenged himself upon the Loszian.
Keth was sixteen years old; at least that’s how old he was when his parents were murdered, and he had no way to know how much time had passed. He was a few inches shorter than Cor and Rael, standing about five foot eight, and he had been that height since he was twelve, so he figured he was done with growing. Keth’s body was made well enough; a slave and the son of slaves, he had toiled hard in the fields alongside his parents, and that built a degree of hardiness into one’s body. He had a thick mane of light brown hair that curled after it had grown a few inches and large dark brown eyes framed by a wide, gentle face.
All of the Dahken save Cor slept in rooms that branched off of one main corridor in the eastern wing of the palace. Queen Erella posted guards at the entrance to this corridor presumably to assure that no one could access them without first having to face Rael. Keth was sure it was actually to keep an eye on the Dahken. Through these rooms Keth moved one by one, awakening the Dahken, excluding of course the infant. He always saved his hardest battle for last.
Geoff was a year younger than Keth, and though younger, he was actually a couple inches taller than Keth. He had an oddly narrow frame with long legs, arms and fingers, to the extent that some wonder if Geoff had any Loszian blood in him. Keth didn’t know Geoff’s background, and to his knowledge, he hadn’t ever discussed it with anyone. The younger boy had jet black hair and hard gray eyes just like Rael, and he had a face made of hard angles with a hawk nose, sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. He had constant dark rings under his eyes, giving them a sunken in look; combined with the pallor and coughing fits that all Dahken shared, it made Geoff look even more like one of the walking dead. He spoke little, but Keth knew he saw all.
Geoff almost never wanted to rouse himself in the morning, at least ever since they reached Byrverus and Dahken Rael showed up. In the flight from Losz, he had been very helpful, even responsible, but now he undertook every task asked of him with lackadaisical effort, if not grumbling disdain. Keth was sure it had to do with the training; Geoff had shown no aptitude at swordsmanship at all and had no success with using his blood, as opposed to Keth, who advanced nicely to the point that he and Rael now fought with live steel, under the watchful eye of Western guards.
Keth had no doubt that Geoff resented him.
“It is time,” Keth said, merely poking his head through the crack between the door and its frame. He knew Geoff was awake, though the boy lay on his side facing the wall. “You need to get up.”
“Why?”
Keth sighed, “Because it is time. Dahken Rael wants a short training session, and have you forgotten? Today we leave for Fort Haldon.”
“I’d rather just stay here, and I don’t much see the point in having Rael bleed me some more,” Geoff responded as he rolled onto his back and sat up. He lay naked in his bed, and Keth saw dozens of small scars on the boy’s arms and chest, most of them fully healed. A few were fresh.
“Geoff, its there, its in you. You just have to find it.”
“Maybe I couldn’t care less. Did anyone consider that?” Geoff asked, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed.
“I don’t have time for this today,” Keth said. He pushed the door all the way open and turned to leave, but thought better of it for one moment. “Remember, Cor freed us from Taraq’nok, and he gave us the choice to come with him and learn. I am sure the other choice is still open to you.”
Geoff watched as Keth stalked off down the hall. He clenched his jaw as he sat staring at the cold stone floor of his room. He should just leave; no one would stop him, but then he would probably spend his entire life running from Loszians and Westerners for the power they thought he had but didn’t. Geoff closed his eyes and sighed, slumping slightly. He then pushed himself up from his small bed and dressed himself.
* * *
Keth burst shouting into Cor and Thyss’ room in the late morning. Cor almost never slept late, as Rael typically would not allow it, but today was their last day in Byrverus. Thyss had kept him up late, well past midnight, in a furious session of lovemaking. While she chaffed at the inactivity over the last several months that had kept them well into the winter, Cor thought she would miss the plush pleasures of Queen Erella’s palace soon enough. Not that she would ever admit it.
“Lord Dahken!” Keth shouted as he charged into the room, startling the couple awake in their bed.
Cor bolted upright, inadvertently yanking the warm down blankets off of Thyss’ naked body, who only growled and rolled over for the trouble. Keth stood doubled over with his hands on his knees, gasping and trying to catch his breath while his eyes fixed inadvertently on the bare skin of her back. It seemed he had sprinted a good distance.
“Keth, what’s wrong?” Cor, also naked, slid out of the tall bed to plant his feet on the cold floor, and Keth yanked his eyes away from Thyss.
“You must… come see… Geoff in… in the practice yard,” Keth wheezed out.
Cor yanked on a cotton tunic and breeches, the same he had discarded at the foot of the bed the previous night. He ran from the room, leaving Keth gasping and coughing as Thyss slowly crawled from the bed without any sense of modesty before the young Dahken.
Rarely would Thyss move hurriedly in the morning hours, and Cor knew she would move especially slow with the knowledge that she would soon be in Rael’s presence. The two had no use for each other ever since a recent incident, and it put Cor in an aggravating position of balancing the two and their idiosyncratic personalities. Generally, he thought it would be best if they stayed away from each other.
In very little time Rael made it clear that he disapproved of Thyss’ very presence. He considered her a distraction and said that she would only disrupt Cor’s attempts to rebuild the Dahken. The older Dahken said that like all women, she was too prone to emotional outbursts, especially since she mirrored the mannerisms of irrational and unpredictable gods. Thyss took exception to his comments to say the least.
“Once you have gotten everything you want from him, you will leave. And what will you leave him with?” Rael had said. “You are just another whore.”
Thyss had drawn steel in a practiced move meant to take Rael’s head clean off. A seasoned warrior, the Dahken avoided the maneuver, and the two set to fighting in earnest. They would not listen to Cor’s shouts for peace, and he had to insert himself between his companion’s blades to make them stop. Rael was stoic and seemingly emotionless, but his jaw was set and his eyes hard as steel. Thyss seethed, and Cor knew she restrained herself with only the greatest effort.
“Rael will watch the wagging of his tongue, or I will burn it to a crisp within his mouth,” Thyss growled. She sheathed her sword and stalked away angrily. Rael merely nodded quietly under Cor’s angry glare and went his own way.
As he ran through the halls, Cor’s mind raced as to what could cause Keth to behave so; the boy was only a few years younger than he and always very respectful. It simply must be bad. Rael gathered all of the Dahken, even the small children, early in the morning to practice fighting and help them learn to feel their blood. It h
ad been slow going; none of them seemed to be able to tap into it as easily as Cor had, but Rael had said that was normal. Rael seemed generally unconcerned.
Except with Geoff. Keth and Geoff were the two eldest, and Keth seemed to be learning at a pace that satisfied Rael. Geoff on the other hand had been completely unable to accomplish anything, and he was a fairly poor fighter. As he ran through the palace toward the practice grounds, Cor genuinely feared the boy had been seriously hurt or worse.
The practice grounds consisted of a large flat area, open to the sky, but wholly contained within the palace. Only the Queen’s Guard, the elite of Aquis’ warriors, practiced here typically, but Queen Erella had made an exception for Cor’s Dahken. It suited their needs, but no doubt helped her to keep an eye on them. The grounds were roughly fifty yards across and over two hundred wide with archery targets at one end. There were also several rows of practice dummies, really just tunics stuffed with straw and stuck on a stake in the ground; they reminded Cor of limbless scarecrows. Racks of weapons were scattered about the grounds, many containing real, battle ready items, while others held wooden practice swords, blunted arrows and the like.
At the far side he saw the Dahken gathered in an area bounded on either side by two racks of weapons, both live and practice. All of the children save one hid from the disturbing scene, watching from behind the weapon racks. Cor could see Geoff on the ground unmoving, and Rael stood perhaps twenty feet away with his sword and shield readied. Between the still Geoff and battle ready Rael stood a thing the likes of which Cor had neither ever seen, nor even imagined.
The thing was easily seven feet tall, towering over any of the Dahken including Rael and Cor. It was relatively lanky in appearance, but nothing like a Loszian; it was thin of limb and body, but not stretched and narrow. The monster, for Cor could think of no other word for it, had no muscles of any kind that he could discern, nor joints, nor even a face. Cor could make out no fingers or toes, and it had no ears on the sides of its head. With no details at all, its shape was completely smooth and fluid, and as far as he could tell, it was made purely of blood. It held a huge, six foot long two handed sword, also red as blood though it glinted in the late morning light like steel.
Realizing he had stopped in his tracks upon entering the practice grounds, Cor started to sprint the hundred or so feet that separated him from Rael, garnering a sidelong glance from the older Dahken. As he ran, Cor reflexively reached for Soulmourn and Ebonwing, only to find he left them above in his room. He was close, less than twenty feet from the scene, when the thing suddenly jumped several feet to its right and stood with its legs slightly bent to lower its stance. The quick move made Cor stop his run, coming to a skidding halt next to Rael, and he swore he could see the creature’s chest rise and fall as if it breathed heavily.
Cor momentarily diverted his attention to the unmoving form of Geoff on the ground some feet away. A small wooden buckler shield was strapped to his left arm, and a shortsword lay on the ground near his right hand. The boy had three shallow wounds on his legs that were no longer bleeding. In fact only a small amount of blood showed around the boys wounds, already growing sticky and dry. Why Geoff was unconscious, perhaps near death, and what this thing was, Cor had no idea.
Rael sheathed his longsword and held his hand out to Cor to indicate silence. Cor didn’t speak; in fact, he worked to control and slow his breathing.
“This is a blood ghast,” Rael said softly. “I have never seen one before, but I have read of them. It is a rare gift, and the first of whom to manifest one was Lord Dahken Drath.”
“The one Tannes sent into the north,” Cor said, remembering the Dahken history he had read what seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Indeed. For all purposes, Geoff’s body is dead as we speak. His essence is in the ghast. I can only explain it as saying that it is the manifestation of Geoff’s true Dahken self,” Rael continued; the blood ghast stood on the balls of its feet as if ready to strike, still appearing to breathe heavily, but it did not move otherwise. “That thing is as deadly a warrior as exists. If you strike it, you will wound Geoff, and its attacks will become more deadly. If it wounds you, it will feed your strength back to him, making it stronger and healing his wounds. Do you see that Geoff’s wounds do not bleed?”
Cor could only nod.
“There is no blood in him now, but if the ghast returns to him before the wounds are healed, they will begin to bleed again.”
“What if I deal the ghast a mortal wound and it returns to Geoff?” Cor asked.
“Then he would likely bleed to death,” Rael answered.
“What is the point?” came a female voice from behind them; it seemed Thyss decided to dress and follow Cor down. “Couldn’t I easily slay the boy now? He is vulnerable.”
The wraith’s head snapped to the side when Thyss posed her question.
“I do not know for certain,” replied Rael, “but I imagine the blood ghast will immediately attack anyone who attempts to harm Geoff or the wraith itself. What matters is this - Geoff must learn to control the ghast. He must learn to transfer his consciousness to it and return when he wills it. As it is, the thing manifested without warning.”
“How long do you think it will last?” Cor asked. As he did so, he slowly approached the ghast with his hands open, palms up in front of him. The blood ghast allowed Cor to approach within a few feet of it so that he could look more closely. Cor had the odd sensation that it was doing the same thing, even though it had no eyes of which to speak.
“I cannot say, but I do not think long.”
Fortunately, Rael imagined correctly. He collected the others and left the practice grounds for the purpose of finding a snack, leaving Cor and Thyss in quiet regard of the blood ghast. Somehow knowing that neither was apparently armed, the ghast wandered back to Geoff and stood over him silently, but it seemed no less ready for battle.
After close to an hour, the thing dissipated. Its skin, for lack of another word, started to bubble and then boil, turning into a translucent pink vapor that swirled in the air around it, not unlike the dust devils Cor had occasionally seen on the farm as a child. Eventually the ghast’s entire body had boiled away into this vapor, a seven foot tall swirling mass that could not be seen through and was more red than pink. A tendril broke away from the blood tornado and snaked its way to Geoff’s nose, followed by another to his ears and yet a third to his open mouth. Several others made their way to his open wounds. The tendrils of blood thickened as the swirl became shorter and narrower and began to lighten. After a few seconds, there was nothing left of the swirling vapor, and even the tendrils disappeared, leaving nothing but a light trickle of blood out of Geoff’s left nostril.
The boy, only three or four years Cor’s junior, opened his eyes as the wounds Rael gave him began to bleed.
“What happened?” he asked when his eyes cleared.
“By Hykan, that was fucking incredible,” Cor heard Thyss say behind him.
“Lord Dahken Drath was the obvious choice to head into the unforgiving Northern Kingdoms,” Rael later explained. “Tannes selected him purely for his ability to spawn the blood ghast. It allowed Drath to search those frozen lands when he felt a Dahken born, as it was common practice among the Northmen to leave them out to die in the elements. The Northmen viewed our pallor and coughs as weakness, an affront to their sensibilities. Drath could sustain his blood ghast for days at a time, even a week, and no one ever defeated him in battle. It was said that he knew how to use his mind to communicate with others through the blood ghast.”
For his part, Geoff felt extreme relief; just this morning he wanted to quit Dahken Rael’s teachings, to run away. All he knew was that before this morning, he had failed at all of Rael’s attempts to teach him anything. He failed at wielding any weapon put in his hand, and he had failed at “feeling his blood” as Rael so often called it. He had the scars to prove it. Now he knew he wasn’t a failure, and he knew that he was more powerful than Ket
h, who had shown great promise. Over time he would become more powerful than Dahken Rael; for the way Rael spoke about it, the blood ghast was nearly indomitable, and Geoff took quiet pride that one day he may even be more powerful than Lord Dahken Cor.
8.
Larnd managed to get his man into a minor foreman’s position so that he could plan the assassination. The plan was simple. They would strike the night the targets arrived shortly after they fell asleep, as they would be exhausted from their travels. By all accounts, their targets were extremely dangerous, deadly warriors that also wield magic, and it would make sense to minimize their readiness as much as possible.
Lord Dahken Cor and his people would reach Fort Haldon very soon, and they would need housing, as the construction of the planned keep would take at least three years. Most of them could be pushed into temporary tents with cots, the type an army on the move would use. However the Lord Dahken slept with the bitch from Dulkur; they and also his second, the middle aged man, would need something a little more substantial.
The new foreman asked to be assigned the task of building two small shacks, one for the man called Rael and the other for the Lord Dahken and his wench, that one obviously larger. It was a simple squat design, nothing special or particularly inventive, but each building had a false ceiling about two feet tall inside with a nearly undetectable access point near where the bed would be placed. One man could hide in Rael’s quarters and two in the other. All he had to do is make sure his murderers slinked their way into the ceilings after Cor’s group arrived, but before they retired.
If they waited until their prey slept soundly, it would be a quick and easy job. Larnd was always good to him; the jobs were dangerous and required more discretion, but they paid well. It was a simple plan.
* * *
It was a long, cold ride back to Fort Haldon, taking nearly two weeks longer than the reverse trip had taken months earlier. Queen Erella, though she hadn’t seen them off, over tripled Cor’s retinue with everything from accountants to cooks, and while Fort Haldon already had such support staff, more layers would need to be added to support a legitimate castle and its lands. A small number of citizens also came along and more would follow as the families of Fort Haldon’s men came to join their husbands and fathers that were now part of a permanent garrison. The short days combined with the simple amount of time it required to get four score persons, half of whom were women and children, up and moving slowed them substantially. The winter storm that hit them halfway there made the going even slower.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 02 - Fire and Steel Page 8