Gods Of Blood And Fire (Book 1)

by A. J. STRICKLER

  Rufio gave a slight bow. “General Strom offers you safe passage from Bandara, if you will leave within the next five days.”

  Havalon’s face began to turn red. Did this bastard think he was going to surrender? He started to speak but the Dragitan continued. “The general also asks for a small tribute to be paid to the Bandaran throne annually for the next five years in the sum of one million pieces of gold for waging war on the Phoenix Queen’s Kingdom.”

  The King could take it no longer, now this girl had the gall to call herself the Phoenix Queen? He jumped up from his chair, face purple with fury. “You tell that inbred son of a gutter rat that I will see him dead and the Abberdonian flag flying above the Queen’s palace before spring. If not for black sorcery, he would be beaten now.”

  The Rufio smiled, making King Havalon even more angry. “General Strom said if you did not accept these terms to tell you that he would see the Abberdonian Kingdom destroyed, your royal bloodline severed, and the lands of Abberdon given to Queen Raygan and the Bandaran people. General Strom also said if it takes his entire life time, he will make this so.”

  The King drew his sword and pointed it at the Dragitan. “Get out of my sight before I violate the flag of truce you … you … filthy bastard.” Spit flew from the King’s mouth as he stammered out his last insult.

  The Dragitan nodded before he was escorted out by the King’s guards. This fool of a general would see what happened when you insulted the King of Abberdon. As soon as Griffyn and Donovan arrived, he would attack.

  K’xarr was waiting at the gate for Rufio when the captain rode in. “Well?”

  Rufio slid down of his horse and saluted. “I want to report that the King of Abberdon is thoroughly enraged. He is as mad as a Viborg berserker, General.”

  K’xarr clapped his friend on the shoulder. “Well done, Rufio, well done. Now the fool will attack before he should, and we will be waiting.”

  ***

  “I have the baby, Master, it is doing well.” Siro waited but the Dark One didn’t answer. The wizard sat at his desk preoccupied with a ring he was looking at. It was large and made of silver with a black stone set in its center. He put it on his finger and held it up so the necromancer could see it. He brushed his middle finger against its side. A large hollow needle shot out of the ring. “I assassinated a man with this in Sidia long ago, it works well, don’t you think?”

  Siro nodded. “Yes, Master, very well, but uh … the babe?”

  “Yes, yes, the babies, are they both thriving?”

  Siro nodded his head enthusiastically. “Yes, both are doing well and the Queen survived the birth of her son, she is resting in the lab below.”

  The Dark One looked up from the ring. “What of the female child? She is more important than the Queen’s baby.”

  “No need to worry, Master, I have taken very good care of the little girl you uh … acquired. She is growing into quite a little beauty.” The wizard didn’t acknowledge Siro’s observation.

  “Do you need me for anything else right now, Master?”

  He waved the necromancer away, gesturing with the hand he wore the ring on.

  Siro bowed. “I will return to my studies now, Master.” The Dark One did not respond, he was too focused on the ring. The little necromancer scurried out the big oak door. He knew when his master was devising a plan, and it was best for him not to be too distracting. He had his own chores to take care of. His undead needed to be fed.

  The air stirred in his study. The wizard looked up, he knew who had just invaded his study. There was only one being who could slip through his wards and magical protection that easy. “Shiavaka?”

  The Goddess of Magic stepped out of nothingness. Her hair was down and he couldn’t see the white streak in it as plainly. Dressed in a simple black gown, she looked much more attractive than on her past visits. “So, you are still intent on this confrontation, I see.”

  The masked wizard only looked at his Goddess.

  She understood his silence. “I see. I believe I have discovered the reason why you’re magic failed to control your creation as you intended. It was not just a random occurrence that he resisted your manipulation.”

  The Dark One’s eyes widened beneath his mask. “And what is that reason, milady?”

  The Goddess’s thin lips curled into a grin. “You manipulated the heart of a great dragon. You cast a reducing spell on it and placed it inside your creature’s chest, did you not?”

  The wizard looked away. “I see you figured out one of my little secrets, that is precisely what I did. I had Siro remove the heart from the fetus of a great wyrm. The magic we used to reduce it and keep the heart from growing would not have work on a heart from a dragon already born, as you well know at birth they become strongly resistant to magic and I had to have that heart, the half-breed’s own heart could not have survived the strain from the transference of panther. The unborn dragon gave him endurance and strength, his blood flows much more powerfully through his body now. Given time, it could give him many advantages.”

  She walked over so she could stand in front of him. “That was quite a feat. I won’t even ask where you got the dragon fetus, though it was a stroke of genius to use one. What I don’t think you realized is besides the physical enhancements he now possesses, it also gave him a huge resistance to magic. As you said, the great dragons are immune to most of the magic of this world. There is no guessing what other effects it will have on the Half Elf.”

  He raised his arms out suddenly, understanding what had happened. “That makes perfect sense. I thought the unborn heart would not ever have that ability. Dragon’s don’t acquire that power until the moment of birth, but after we transplanted it, the heart must have reacted as if the dragon had been born and infused Kian with its natural resistance to magic. No wonder he would not submit to my control.

  “I think we have just learned where the great dragons carry their protection against magic. I should have known. Their heart is the key to their resistance.”

  “No one has ever put a dragon’s heart in anyone before, so how could you have known?”

  He could tell she was being sarcastic. “I guess I will have to rely on my wits when he gets here.”

  The Goddess shook her head. “Without your magic you will be at a great disadvantage when you face it, and as far as your wits go, I am somewhat suspect of those too as of late.” She shook her head sadly and disappeared.

  “There is more than one way to skin a cat, milady,” he said limping towards the door.

  ***

  Her vision was blurry as she awoke. At first she didn’t know where she was, and then pain gripped her before she could gather her senses. Naked beneath a smelly blanket, the Queen of Bandara tried to rise but she was bound to a table with manacles and chains.

  Raygan could tell her baby was gone. She could no longer feel the life that was once inside her. This was the first time her mind had been clear since the masked man had taken her.

  She couldn’t see much, a stone room filed with all kinds of implements and contraptions, and she could hear liquid boiling somewhere inside the room.

  Horror seized her. Where was the baby? Had she given birth while she was unconscious? Her mind began to race, where was she? Who had taken her and why?

  She had to get up, but she was so very weak. Raygan jerked at the chains, causing bolts of pain to shoot through her body. Her hips and groin ached, she must have had the baby. The small woman tried again to get free, but it was hopeless, she hurt too much and didn’t have the strength. The Queen began to cry, it was all she could do.

  Moments later, she heard the creak of a heavy door open and the sound of soft foot falls. She turned her head far enough that she could just see the door. Her tear-filled eyes opened wide she tried to speak but nothing came out, her voice had been stolen by utter amazement.

  There before her stood a young blonde girl with a black patch over one eye, she was dressed in a brown leather jerkin and
riding pants with soft knee high leather boots.

  The girl pulled her honey blonde hair behind her ears and smiled. “Isabella?” the Queen finally got out.”

  “Yes, mistress, it is I. I did not know you were here. I just saw Siro come from this room with a baby and I wanted to see where it came from and I found you asleep. I waited until you woke up to come back. Is that your baby, milady?”

  “Yes, it is. Please, Isabella I don’t know how you got here, but you must free me and help me find my child.”

  The girl looked at her with her one pretty blue eye Raygan could see something in her look. Perhaps it was sadness, she wasn’t sure.

  “I could free you, but it would do no good, he would just find you and hurt you.”

  “Can you at least remove the chains?”

  Isabella nodded and walked over to a small table and picked up a key ring with several large keys on it, she quickly unchained the Queen and gently pulled her up to a sitting position.

  The Queen threw her arms around her servant. “May God bless you, my dear girl, thank you so much. I will see you’re rewarded for this.”

  Isabella took the Queen’s arms from around her neck. “I didn’t release you for a reward, Mistress.”

  “You deserve one anyway. My God Isabella, what happened to your eye?”

  Before she could answer, the door slammed open, the man in the mask stood there like a dark shadow. “That’s all she thinks of you, my dear, a person that must be paid for a kindness, rewarded for a service.”

  He swept into room and right up to the small Queen; she could feel his hot breath on her face. “Did she release you, dear Isabella, when her brother imprisoned you? Was she there in the dungeons of her palace, where beneath her very feet Duke Blackthorn raped you over and over and gouged out your lovely eye?”

  The Queen covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. The revelation of her servant’s fate was almost too much for her.

  The Dark One stepped back to stand beside Isabella. “Was she there when the rats came?”

  Isabella shuddered and closed her eye.

  “No, the beautiful Queen who claims to care so much about you sat in her palace and thought only of her own needs while her loyal lady was tortured and raped under her very nose.” His voice rose to a rasping shout, Raygan thought he was going kill her. She could see the hate in his eyes. It was like a living thing trying to escape from behind his mask.

  “Come, Isabella, you are much too good for this wretched woman. You may be beautiful on the outside, Majesty, but inside you are ugly and repulsive. Isabella and I may be scarred and flawed, but we are beautiful on the inside something you will never be.”

  He took Isabella by the hand pulled her toward the door. The handmaiden gave her a heartbreaking look as the wizard led her out.

  Between her sobs, Raygan noticed as Isabella walked out she carried a thin bladed sword on her side. The Queen had seen it in paintings hundreds of times, it was unmistakable. The girl wore the sword of the Phoenix Queen.

  Raygan sat and wept, could what the masked man said be true? What must Isabella think of her, the girl had been her only friend when she had no one else? What kind of person was she not to have helped the girl; she should have tried harder to find her when she went missing.

  Cain and William Blackthorn would pay if she ever got out of here. They were monsters. First, her father, now poor Isabella, what else had they done?

  The door opened back up and the Dark One came back in alone. He pushed her down on the table hard and put the manacles back around her wrists. She tried to struggle but the pain in her abdomen was too much.

  He finished chaining her back down to the table. Then the wizard leaned on the table, his face right over top of hers. “I should kill you now or at least flay you alive but even that would be too good for you, I was once like Isabella, Majesty, but no one ever came for me. I want you to know I lied before, I’m not beautiful on the inside, Highness. I am dark and empty. I will not hesitate to make you scream for death. Your cries will be like sweet music to me and I will dance to that music, Majesty, and when the music stops, I will cry for more.

  He cackled and did a little spin. The Dark One started for the door then stopped. He spoke but didn’t face her. “What happened to her should never happen to any child, death would have been a much kinder fate.” He walked out and shut the door, Raygan could only whimper in fear.

  Rhys and Endra were making good time, considering the snow, the weather was warmer, and the sun had decided to show itself. “Endra, I think we should press on while the weather is mild.”

  “I agree, we might make the Adorn in a couple of days if we just keep going, we can eat in the saddle, can you make it?”

  The healer raised his eyebrows. “I’m so sore, now it won’t matter if we stop or not.”

  Endra smiled at him. “You are a harder man than I thought, Rhys Morgan. Have you ever thought of changing professions? I’m sure Kian or K’xarr would train you.”

  “Oh no, all that fighting and death, it’s not for me, if I wanted that I could have stayed in Tara. No, keeping people alive, taking away their pain is what I have always enjoyed doing.”

  Endra nodded her approval “A noble pursuit.” She turned in her saddle and saw a column of men. Close to a hundred she guessed, riding towards them from the south west. They flew three banners, the first was a pair of open hands with golden light between them on a silver field, the second a pair of golden eyes on a red field, the third she had seen before, a three-tined crown with a golden sunburst behind it on a banner of white. She turned to Rhys with fear in her eyes. “It’s the Church.”

  Rhys knew there was no point in trying to run and in the snow-covered pasture land there was nowhere to hide. “Let me talk to them. I have had to deal with a lot of priests when I lived in Tara.”

  Endra didn’t argue, she pulled up the hood of her cloak and wrapped a scarf around the bottom half of her face.

  When the column of men got closer, two of them broke away from the others and rode forward. The first was in full armor, a knight of one of the holy orders, Rhys guessed. The visor on his helmet was raised so all Rhys could see was the man’s face. He looked to be in his thirties and was clean shaven and had hard dark eyes. The other man had dark neatly trimmed hair and a waxed goatee. The healer could tell he was powerfully built under his heavy cloak. He wore a red robe with a chain of gold around his neck, on the end of the chain was a golden eye. Rhys knew the symbol the priest was with the inquisition, the investigators for the Church the Eyes of God. He had to stay calm. Rhys knew he wasn’t a very good liar, but he would have to do his best.

  The man in the robes spoke first. “Good day, travelers. I’m Lord Justice Dracen Milara, and this is Sir Oliver Deverall Commander of the Knights of Deliverance.”

  Rhys knew there were many members in the order, but only one Lord Justice and one grand inquisitor, the two true Eyes of God, and one of them sat on a horse right in front of him. This Lord Milara was one of the most powerful men in the Church and his job was getting the truth out of people. Rhys could feel his palms beginning to sweat inside his gloves. “May I ask who you are?” the Lord Justice asked.

  Rhys answered quickly. “Rhys Morgan, a healer from Turill, and this is my sister Rachel, we are checking on some of my patients that live outside the city. Now that the storm has passed, I was trying to make my rounds.”

  The Lord Justice raised his right hand. “You must have patients all over Bandara, my good man. You’re a very long way from Turill.”

  Rhys swallowed hard and tried to answer. “Yes … well I treated them in the city and they moved out here. I just wanted to make sure they were still doing well.”

  “Bless you, Physician Morgan, for all the good you do. This world needs more men like you and of course women like your sister, I take it she helps with the sick?”

  Rhys shifted in his saddle, he didn’t want to say too much. �
�Yes, Lord Milara, she is of great help to me.” The holy man’s eyes looked Endra over. “Odd that a healer’s assistant should be so well armed.”

  “Well, my lord, she also protects me on our journeys. She is far more skilled than I with a sword.” That was at least the truth Rhys thought.

  The Justice gestured with his finger. “Pull you scarf down good woman, and let me see you.”

  Endra glanced at Rhys and pull the scarf down but not her hood. Rhys saw the desire flash into the Lord Justice’s eyes when she revealed her face. Sometimes Endra’s looks were a disadvantage to her. “My God, man, your sister has been blessed by God, now the hood, please,” the holy man requested.

  Endra slowly pulled her hood down and shook her wavy black hair free. The Eye of God said nothing, he only stared like so many men did at the woman from Sorrack. Rhys had seen it before, the Eye of God just fell in love with the young huntress.

  “My lord, we should be going, the light is fading,” the knight commander said without taking his eyes off Endra.

  “You’re right, Commander, we have pressing business.” He looked at Rhys. “Be assured, Physician Morgan, that I will look in on you and your sister when I come to Turill.”

  Rhys bowed his head slightly. “You honor us, my lord.”

  The Lord Justice rode his horse over close to Endra’s mare and grasped her gloved hand. “Till we meet again, my dear Rachel.” He bent and kissed the back of her glove.

  The Commander of the Knights motioned his hand forward and the column moved on, the Lord Justice lingered a moment then followed.

  Rhys looked at Endra as she pulled her cloak back up. “I mean no offence, but sometimes I wish you were ugly.” Endra guiltily nodded back.

  “Did you see that woman, Deverall? She was divine. I must find out who she really is.”

  Oliver looked at the Lord Justice. “I thought her name was Rachel Morgan?”