Crimson Valley

by Hausladen, Blake;

  Crimson Valley

  Part Four of The Vastness

  Blake Hausladen

  Rook Creek Books

  Published 2018 by Rook Creek Books, an imprint of Rook Creek LLC

  Copyright © 2018 by Blake Hausladen

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  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  * * *

  Edited by Deanna Sjolander

  Cartography by Author

  Contents

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Also by Blake Hausladen

  About the Author

  49

  King Barok Vesteal

  The 38th of Spring, 1197

  “We must help Leger,” Fana shouted over the screams of the dead.

  I was sitting awkwardly upon one of the flat road stones. Gern sat limp next to me, and the rest leaned on their knees or against their horses. A few Chaukai lay dead around me, burned and opened like gutted deer. It did not seem real. Not like this. Why did the world ask this of us?

  Fana kept yelling. Evela had hold of my good arm and my face stung as though she’d hefted me up so she could slap me.

  Nothing at all made sense until I heard the sharp clank of metal. Leger was coming apart upon the fiery road below. Something had summoned the dead against us and Leger was losing. He had stopped them but he and the Edonians with him were fading fast.

  “What can we do?” I asked. “This is not the right fight. Is there no song that will sustain him?”

  “None that I know,” Fana said. “Nor would I send your blood down to him. It would strengthen the Zovi as much as it does Leger. Jayme, Evela?”

  The old Sermod lay on her back not far away. Tears streaked her face. She shook her head. Evela’s strong hands clasped my hand and wrist. She looked from the blackened stump of my right arm to bodies of a Chaukai.

  “Whatever power below that has summoned them is the same power needed to entomb souls,” she said.

  Fana shook her head. “No. We cannot repeat my mistake.”

  She was suggesting we make more like Leger.

  I looked Evela in the eyes and said, “This world seems to wish me trained for sacrifice. Do it. Do it before madness or death steals away the chance. I will not lose Leger a second time.”

  Evela was quick. She shimmered as she moved, producing a curved knife. She laid me down and cut the flesh above the blackened stump of my arm and painted Jayme’s mouth. The weathered witch screamed and leapt up.

  “Do not presume to give me power,” Lady Jayme said and punched Evela hard upon the chin, snapping her head around.

  Evela staggered and Blue sparks arched off her wounded face. She spat blood from her mouth and looked ready to stab the old witch. They began to shout at each other until Fana shouted for help.

  She had hold of the body of a dead Chaukai and was dragging him toward me.

  “We dare not make more like Leger,” Lady Jayme yelled. More tears poured from her but the sound of her sorrow was drowned out by the screams of the dead. A wave of heat pushed at us as the burning tide surged further up the road toward us. A blanket of ash washed across us.

  The trio hugged and wiped each other’s eyes before the three mothers turned toward me.

  They painted the dead Chaukai’s flesh with my blood. More of the Sermod were roused, and Jayme led the terrible choir. The syllables of their song filled my battered ears and made my bones ache.

  One of the ghosts in the melee was pulled back from the fight as if tied to a line. The barked syllables hauled the unmoored thing in and bound it to metal his corpse. The dead man howled and leapt up, the flesh inside smoldered as its iron armor began to glow. The stink filled me with rage.

  “Go,” Fana said, and the terrible being charged the ashen melee. It struck the seething mass and the Zovi were flung back. Clever shrieked and Leger lifted his sword.

  “Hold still, Barok,” Evela said with a calm that stole all my misgivings, despite the bloody knife she held. The blue nimbus upon her was warm and friendly.

  Fana brought another body and another iron bound soul rose. It leapt into the seething smoke, burst into flames, and tore at the ghosts surrounding Leger. The Zovi fell away for a moment before smashing them back further.

  Gern tried to sit up. He took hold of his wife’s ankle. She knelt down and embraced him. They wept, bathed in ash.

  Stars began to swirl as Evela and Fana painted corpse after corpse until there were no dead men left. I drifted in and out of consciousness. Heat bathed me, as I felt the terror of a half million dead slash the heavens and the earth with their voices and flames. They pressed Leger and troop of soul-irons back, closer and closer to us.

  “More,” Leger screamed.

  Then Fana and Evela dragged a living man toward me. It was Gern.

  Fana knelt over him, his face in her hands. “Do you consent, my love?”

  A gust of hot ash shot the air above us as Leger tore at the horde.

  “My love, I leave it to you,” she said to him and kissed his lips. “Tell me no, and we end here.”

  “This cannot be right,” he said.

  “It is not, but it is all that is left to us. Decide it my love. Stand with Leger in death, or we all perish here.”

  He whispered to her, kissed her once, and closed his eyes.

  Fana and Evela looked to me. The blue shimmer upon Evela took hold of Fana and each set a hand upon Gern. He took hold of my hand and the glow spread to him and grew until I was bathed in the soothing glow. They closed their eyes and waited for me to decide.

  I did not want to do it. I could set his life aside. Was there nothing the struggle would not take?

  Around is the darkness waited, laughing and leering at us. It would swallow us all.

  I forced away the Yentif ire rising in my throat and gave my consent.

  I did not see the knife Fana used but heard the gurgle of Gern’s blood in his throat. Evela took more of my blood, and Jayme’s choir made the air crackle as she bound his soul into his armor. He sat up, looked to Fana, and reached to her.

  She screamed as red flames began to curl from his eyes and mouth. She fell back, her clothes smoldering. She tore her clothes away, and knocked back those that tried to help. Gern stood up and turned to her.

  “Go,” was her command as the flesh of the man she loved was dashed to black ash. His spear caught fire as he turned, and with a bellow that shook the mountain he charged into the tempest.

  He struck it like a fist slammed into a puddle of black mud. The Zovi were dashed back and Leger’s call rumbled over the din.

  “Order—phalanx forward.”

  A red wall formed and our soul-irons fought the ghostly horde to a halt. The grip of terror faded. Voices rose around me and the choir’s song surged.

  A Chaukai took a knee next to
me. They cut his throat and his body fell as his soul leapt into the iron that encased him. One after another they came, the colored ribbons upon their coats curling and smoldering as their bodies burned.

  “My horse, too,” said one. His horse, bathed in blue light, gnashed its head and shrieked with the fury. He asked it to kneel and held its head while Evela’s knife opened its wide throat.

  I looked into the laughing shadows and spit a curse at the God who besieged us.

  “I will end you,” I said and spat at the darkness.

  Dancing stars began to collide and cloud my vision. Through the swirling din more men and horses came. They became a river of meat, anointed by my blood, to be rendered and remade by the ever-rolling verse. The song warned back the growing night with violent light and a wafting blue mist that glowed as hot and angry as the singer who caused it. On it went, and the Earth’s chosen joined Leger’s army.

  The last singer standing was Lady Jayme when she fell exhausted beside the rest laid out around me. Fana was only person left standing. The glow upon them and the mist lingered.

  I heard Leger call an advance.

  “Prop me up,” I said and she sat down and pulled me into her lap. She wrapped her hands around my opened wrist and I clutched her arm while we watched the battle move down the road.

  Leger and his throbbed and surged forward. The fought as though they were still me, ready lines and spears moving in unison. Their cohesion was telling though, as the mob of Zovi swirled and pattered their thick red line with no effect. The fire and screams of the Zovi began to fade.

  Leger’s entered the long valley and his sword and armor began to glow. He called orders and the blazing formations of soul-iron divided and pursued the last of the Zovi up into the twisted folds of the mountain. The thin forests on those slopes burned while the last of the Zovi fell, and the swirling clouds of black ash held away by the heat of the battle began to settle. As it drifted down around us, I saw a last burning shape tucked deep in the valley. It was taller than a man, egg-shaped, and shrouded in blue flame. Leger shattered it with a single blow and blue flame was extinguished.

  The last of the terror left me, leaving only regret.

  Leger and Gern moved up the road with the rest, dim now but terrible to behold. The clatter of their armor was accompanied by the hissing flames of their entombed souls. The almond eyes of the ghostly Akal-Fell blazed red and they towered over us with soul-irons riding upright and proud.

  I wanted to hate Fana. I wanted to hate them all for what we had done.

  But how could I?

  “Rest, dear king,” Fana said and kissed my forehead, before the friendly and familiar blue stole me away from my hurt.

  50

  Admiral Soma O’Nropeel

  The 38th of Spring, 1197

  The off-colored sheen upon the placid gulf lingered like an untreated wound. The remains of the flotilla and its many thousands had become a slurry of gray flesh and pulverized wood in the becalmed sea. The men of Aneth were convinced that the sea had forsaken us and was given up her dead. They refused to sail, but I had more to contend with than the superstitions of eastern men. A brisk wind, a hundred thousand ships, and a million valiant Chaukai would not have served me that day.

  One glimpse of Dia fleeing west across the ice into Berm had rendered all our efforts as useless as the rotting remains of Yud’s fleet.

  My officers stood apart from me, looking southwest.

  “They are departing now, ma’am,” Tayler said and I moved from one grim scene to another.

  The last of Aneth’s fit men were riding out upon the last of the province’s horses. Kiel’s led them and had gone with a promise to win a way through to Berm to rescue Dia. It was a wasted gesture born of guilt and desperation. Those good men and horses would be spent upon an army of Yud pikemen and the rot would spread from the sea up into the valleys.

  “Barok will have started his move south, as well,” Graves said. His prompt was born of the hope that I would tell them how they could be useful, but we’d become irrelevant. We could not make a move south overland without strong horses, nor could we sail south along the coast against the rest of the Yud and hope to repeat my tactic against the massive flotilla blockading Hida. And even if we could make it ashore there, the armies of Yudyith blocked the route to Berm.

  I’d won the battle I needed to in order to strike again at the Priest’s Home, but there was no one left there for me to rescue. I was too late.

  “I am sorry, Dia. Run, girl, run.”

  51

  Dia Vesteal

  Prelate Setaj

  The iron tang of blood filled my nose as I took in the slaughter. The endless herd of caribou had nowhere else to go. The narrow gap of flatland between Verd’s wide lake and the tall ridge I’d climbed down funneled them to a river where the current was fast and deep. By the thousand they churned Verd’s river, a last terrible crucible, before escaping south into a forest of ancient pine. The weaker animals floundered and were washed toward long piers and a hundred club-wielding men. The carcasses drifted down to the wide, rocky mouth where another group waded through the red froth with hooks and tugged them to butchers in the shallows. The entrails washed downriver where catfish as large as a man gulped it all down. The fresh-skimmed caribou hides went straight onto racks, and the rest was carted farther into the town. It was a passionless slaughter.

  None of these details existed in the epic accounts of Berm’s great hunts. The storybook version of Verd also bragged about sapphire mines and hot springs. One heavy road did run into the hills behind the forest, and white steam rose from some of the dingy town’s more substantial buildings, but the bloody spectacle could not be rivaled that day.

  Normally I wouldn’t have made such a careful an examination of the scene, but there was nothing else for me to do. The herd was as wide as the Bessradi River and stretched north and south to the horizon. Going around was impossible. The ghosts of my enemies would have laughed to see me. My daring escape was blocked until the herd moved on. Geart would catch me and take Clea apart as mechanically as the hunters did the herd. The Ashmari would take control of Zoviya and hasten the terrible magic destroying the Earth.

  I hugged Clea close. “I am sorry, my love. I have failed you.”

  She did not like my fussing and belted out a full-mouthed cry. I had to put her on my breast to quiet her.

  Below us, the near edge of the herd had come to a halt. A thousand white faces and every man with a club looked up at us.

  I march down toward the stampede, even if it was to be our end. It was better, I decided, for our bodies and blood to be trampled into the red wash of the river than to be surrendered to the Shadow.

  Several of the men ran into the town, and by the time I reached the bottom of the ridge, a large crowd had gathered. I lost sight of them when I reached the flat sheet of gravel between the town and ridge. The herd eyed me as it ran.

  They moved too fast to keep track of any one animal and they crashed into the river with all the spray and thunder of a great waterfall.

  There were no bulls in the herd. The detail made no sense until I got close enough to see the shapes of their bellies. Every one of them was with a foal and they were driven by one thought alone—my child must be born where it is safe. They ran for their unborn and would not wait for the bulls that had done their part.

  I unfastened the breast of my coat and withdrew Clea’s bundle. The bright light and biting cold struck her and she screamed with a desperate fury that rivaled the great herd’s thunder.

  I paced on toward the endless pounding of hooves.

  One turned and charged me. A dozen followed her. I could do nothing but continue walking and hold my screaming child for the world to hear.

  The lead caribou skidded to a halt, and the rest lurched to a stop behind her. They bayed, folded their ears back at the sound of Clea’s shrieks, and quieted. I walked passed them and the rest of herd began to shy away.

 
“Sorry, love, but mommy needs you to be loud. Sing for them child, sing,” I said and pinched her ear with my fingernail until it bled.

  And, ohh, did she scream. The piercing cry shocked the herd back from us, and a great baying rose. I paced along the warm stones and all at once the herd along the water’s edge froze. Those in the river continued on, but above, they stood as if glued there, ears pressed back, heads lowered. They licked their lips and bobbed their heads again and again as if asking for my forgiveness. Clea wailed from the pain and the bright light.

  I put one foot in front of the other, while the herd and the hunters looked on.

  The river emptied and the rumble faded. Somewhere to the north, the rumbling grew. The herd would not wait, and Clea could not cry forever.

  I would have run if not for the season of slow walking. I was as calm as a sheet of ice and cared not for the world’s many motives. I walked, and the herd waited for me.

  I reached the far side, turned, and bowed to them. Clea hushed, the white faces rose, and with a flick of ears the herd charged. They struck the river and it broiled anew.

  When I turned, the people of Verd stood as a single crowd. I could not see them all at once though the narrow gap in my hood. They were dressed down to their tunicas and britches, and the only difference I could see between them and those who worked in Enhedu was their rotund features. A small group of priests and Sermod stood out for their fine clothes and the swordsmen that sheltered them from the rest of the crowd. The senior priest came forward and bowed as if I was Bayen reincarnate, while all the rest got down and laid their foreheads upon the smooth rocks. The man wore a white silk robe sewn with sapphires and gold, and the thick red band upon his round hat had a gold fringe and hangers of gems and wolves’ teeth. Verd’s riches were well concentrated.