Heart of the Maiden: (Lords of the Deep Hells Book 3)

by Paul Yoder

  Nomad gladly did. For the first time in days, the burning in his mind began to subside.

  16

  The Blood Eye

  “Watch…over me,” Sha’oul wheezed out, taking a knee as he struggled to lay himself on the ground, the night’s travel having sapped him of what strength he had left from the fight the day before.

  Nomad, in his comatose state, did not respond, but stood idly watching the horizon, struggling with urges that fluctuated between complete obedience to the man, and drawing his sword and murdering him in his sleep. He remained frozen, not able to make any progress with his compulsions in either direction.

  Sha’oul remained oblivious to his servant’s internal struggle as he fell into a deep slumber, his consciousness going into a long, silent blackness devoid of thought, his body aggressively at work knitting itself back together, his deep wounds mending at a quickened pace.

  The night wore on, and Nomad had drawn his sword many times, looming crazily over Sha’oul as he slept, shaking his head of murderous thoughts through the haze of exhaustion he had been riding, having had no sleep, food, or drink for many days, the only thing keeping him sustained at that point being his fealty to his new lord, the Ashen One, which hounded him in the waking moments, and more so in his slumber.

  The dead of sleep was broken instantly, and Sha’oul shot up, his nostrils filling with soot as he rose out of a field of ash, grunting through the sting of a landscape he had long-stretching memories of—very few of which being fond ones.

  He snorted out ash and composed himself, looking up to see an angry red slit in the sky high above him, a shadow titan, blurred by the distortions within the altered realm looking down upon him.

  He could see no eyes, or even features of the blurred being, but he knew its attention was upon him, and he knew who had called him to the realm, at least in spirit through the dreamworld—Telenth-Lanor, the Lord of Ash himself.

  He kneeled, his face resting inches above the ash bank he was in, waiting for his lord to commune with him. The wait was long, and he trembled, knowing full well of his recent failures. He knew the fate that awaited those that failed with their respective callings.

  The ground shook, and millions of voices called down from the rift in the sky, speaking as one.

  “Like the ash you wade in, so is your fate.”

  “No!” Sha’oul cried out, the large man cowering in the presence of the faceless god as he stared silently down upon him.

  “I was betrayed! Denloth is not faithful to our cause!”

  “He is not faithful to you. You alone are responsible for his failure,” the ominous conflux of voices said, their words worming in through his ears.

  “Allow me a final chance to prove I am worthy! My army is at the ready, we shall still take Rochata-Ung, and from there, all of the Southern Sands. Allow me this!” he pleaded, desperate to steer the threatening imminent retribution away from him by his merciless god.

  “Silence,” boomed from the rippling warp in the sky, the psychic wave blasting down on him so harshly, Sha’oul sagged as his body tried to decide if it was going to fight to continue to sustain him.

  “You offer excuses. You have failed. If you were to attack the pitiful desert city in your current state with your army of dead, you would see defeat. It matters not to me. You think our plans hinge on your mission? Your ego and ignorance know no bounds. You are but ash and blood, fuel for the quickening of our designs.”

  Sha’oul remained silent, as ordered, waiting in agony through the rumblings of the heavens above as his god deliberated over him.

  “You may yet serve one final purpose. Though you lost my favor and your reward this day, you may still serve me that I might lessen your punishment.”

  Sha’oul bowed low in the ash, laying himself prostrate before the deity, weeping in open relief and sorrow.

  “You will take your army and camp before the ruins of Solstice to the west. Here you will find an arch. Call forth to me from there, performing all the rites necessary to see here the opening of the mouth of hell. Old and broken may the ruins be, but with the sacrifice of blood may this once great gate open wide to the heavens and hells once more. Few in Una still know the old magic, but I will guide you. I will be with you this one last time.

  “Fail me upon this task, and all is lost for you. The Deep Unseen will be thy place of eternal torture, until all is rendered to blood, and then to ash. And only after every soul, thought, and even god has been reduced to ash shall the Unseen be released from their hidden grave beneath the scorching sea to behold the endless grey, released from their tortured existence to be the last ones to render to ash in despair and relief to know that now, all things have ended.”

  Sha’oul’s mind had been drilled into during the speech, so much so that he had lost his sanity for a time, driveling nonsensically. Telenth ravaged his brain; millions of psychotic voices licking his mind raw with their barbed tongues, eating at his innards as he beheld a portion of the awful glory of his god.

  He was lost in consciousness, wandering the discordant halls of painful uncertainty for an unknown amount of time.

  He lay curled up in the fetal position, scratching at his skull, ripping the flesh from his scalp in an attempt to rid himself of the mind worms that riddled the insides of his head.

  A hand roughly shook him, and in an instant, he heard his name, someone calling to him.

  “Sha’oul!” Denloth shouted, recoiling slightly as the large man’s eyes shot open from his terrible nightmare, the fear still raw in his unusually distressed expression.

  He sat up cautiously, looking around at his surroundings. The nomad was there, hand on sword hilt, standing at ready to slash Denloth down at the first sign of hostility towards his master. The desert sun had begun to rise, the youthful pink of the morning still casting its precious hue to every dune and rise in sight. Denloth kneeled beside him with one of his Oathbound standing at his side between him and the nomad, the two ready to go to blows at any moment.

  “You practically scratched your scalp off,” Denloth announced, still not sure what the strange behavior from his master meant, treading lightly as his master seemed in a terrible way from when he last left him.

  “You traitor,” Sha’oul spat, trying to stand, but falling on all fours as his brain attempted to properly reconnect itself to his body.

  “The Sun Room was exploding. Surely you didn’t mean for me to remain there and die in the explosion?” Denloth asked, fearing to offer the large man a hand up as he clearly was attempting to stand in order to do him harm.

  “I expect my servants to stand firmly by my side in battle!” he hoarsely barked, infuriated with it all, his carefully laid plans, years—centuries even—in the making, falling pathetically apart so quickly over the course of one day—one fight.

  He admitted, he had been careless with the little man with his invisible dagger, but if Denloth had not bolted at the first sign of the turning of the tides of battle, they would have completely wiped the trite resistance band out that day, and he would not have been so badly injured. Injured enough to fall into deep sleep—the one place Telenth could hound him freely. The one place Telenth had the most power in all of Una.

  “You do not know what you cost me back there,” he said, clenching his fists so tight that his sharp fingernails gouged deep red lines in his palms.

  He released the tension in his hands and fell back to the desert floor, looking into the sky as the morning light began to burn his skin.

  “You have no idea…,” he said, calmed now, the bout of rage passing as he accepted the fact that what had happened, was done, and killing Denloth at that point would simply lose him another ally in the one mission left to him that lay ahead.

  Telenth would not accept a failure on his part. Though he had already fallen from his lord’s graces, there was more, much more, he could lose if he did not fulfill this final command flawlessly. Denloth could be useful to him still, and he needed to put
aside his petty grudge he had with the man now and move forward with a clear head. He could reflect upon Denloth’s torturous death after all this was over—but not now.

  “Sha’oul. I tried to return immediately, but the broken rifts warped the Seam. It took me a good deal of time, and much risk, to find a path back to this region. I lost an Oathbound in the attempt. I did not mean to leave you there alone,” he whispered, kneeling beside his resting master, sincerity clear in his voice.

  “Do not leave me again,” Sha’oul spoke. “Too much is on the line. I need my allies resolute—loyal.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Denloth readily committed.

  “The Ashen One himself came to me in a vision. He has new orders for us,” Sha’oul said, sitting up, his strength and coordination returning to him after a time.

  “We have an important task ahead of us, and our minds must be clear. There will be no room for error,” he said, trailing off momentarily, lost in thought, tasting the fresh memory of ash in his lungs.

  “I require a great number of lives. We will produce a slaughter that will fill the sands for miles around with blood. We will open a rift larger than either of us has ever seen, and Telenth will guide my hand in its making,” he announced as he stood up facing Denloth, meeting his eyes intensely, full of purpose.

  His back was turned to Nomad, the thrall being a forgotten detail. Nomad’s eyes were locked upon the man, his face placid, but his eyes screaming of murder as his glare had not once left Sha’oul the whole night through.

  17

  The hoarish Nightmare

  Lanereth’s prayers went unanswered, and though she waited for a long while in pain, reaching up to the clouded sky, only the soft crack of distant thunder returned.

  She whispered into the crystal tip of her staff, Malagar assuming that she was making an attempt at a spell, but nothing came of it, and she recalled the staff to its travel size, reducing into a small, marbled cylinder.

  “Sareth does not hear me. My spells are useless here,” she drearily announced to Malagar who had already suspected as much.

  She shivered, reaching out to Malagar, and he took her hand, thinking that she needed support, but as soon as she made contact with him, he realized that she was performing a healing on him instead, his open sores and raw skin patching over before she released him.

  “I thought your spells were no good here?” Malagar asked, amazed at the small miracle of health she had bestowed upon him.

  “A saren’s ability to perform a healing is not dependent upon Sareth. She gave us this blessing from birth. It is the one light from her that can never be revoked, even in the depths of hell,” she tiredly explained as she began to work a healing on herself, recycling her skin’s health with that of her blood.

  For a less experienced saren, the maneuver to heal oneself was a reckless and dangerous one, but she was one of the most practiced at the art in all the region. She worked with precision focus to take just enough from the blood and her vitals to mend some of the worst parts of her boiled skin.

  The healing took time, and the toxins that polluted her blood now sickened her, causing her to tremble to the core, but at the least her skin was not flayed, and that was an exchange she gladly took.

  She took the hemp and leather jerkin and gingerly put it on, Malagar helping to cinch the sides to fit snugly to her torso as she deposited her compacted staff in a leather side pouch.

  His suede obi belt had held up well against the rain and he secured it around her, ripping off the edges of the hemp underneath that had begun to soak in the corrosive moisture.

  He started to loosen the lacing of his gauntlets, but she placed a hand on his, stopping him.

  “This is more than enough. You need protection too,” she said, already concerned that the two articles of armor he had given her now put his core at great risk, leaving him bare chested, no protection offered if even a light drizzle of rain happened to catch them off guard again.

  “As you wish,” he said, strapping the gauntlets back on, lacing them up.

  “The Planes of Ash, you said?” Malagar asked, looking up into the mustard-colored sky high above the canyon walls.

  “I—believe so. What other planes of hell would the avatar of Telenth have access to? Besides,” she added, pausing a moment to catch her breath, a wave of exhaustion hitting her, “from my studies—this fits his realm to the T.”

  “Is there a way back, or are we simply doomed here, destined to live out our days in this hell with no escape?” Malagar asked, a tinge of frustration edging in at their predicament.

  Lanereth clutched her pendant, looking off in thought for a moment before admitting, “I know of no likely escape.”

  “The air and rain itself are enough to kill us before nightfall. How are we to survive in a place not meant for mortals? There must be a way out, back to Una!” Malagar said, pacing along the canyon’s walls.

  “You’re right,” Lanereth hazily said, considering his statement further. “The air was killing us.”

  Malagar stopped pacing, looking to Lanereth, confused at her odd restatement.

  “It’s not now, though. The air is much more breathable here, don’t you think?” she asked, looking to him for an answer.

  He took a deep breath in, a little too deep, the spice of the air triggering him to cough a bit until he could recompose himself and answer, “Maybe slightly more breathable. Still, barbs seem to be in the air.”

  “Yes, though still not pleasant, the deeper we got into this canyon, the easier it was to breathe now that I think of it. Why is that do you think? Is it the elevation?” she asked.

  Malagar thought for a moment and shrugged, inspecting the bones morphed into the wall he was next to.

  “For all we know, it could be this weird rock formation,” he said, scraping his finger along it, “or this pink slime.”

  He pulled his hand quickly back, wringing it out as he hissed through a wave of pain.

  “What happened?” Lanereth asked, confused as she had not seen anything that would have caused such a reaction.

  “That pink stuff,” he said, rubbing his finger off on a dry piece of fabric along the scraps he had patted them down with. “Don’t touch it—it stings.”

  “Here, let me see,” Lanereth said, approaching the man as he picked up his idle pacing once more.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, shrugging off her concern, looking up to the ledge that led up the canyon further.

  “Give me your hand,” she said, more forcefully, having seen how clearly the sludge had stung him.

  He relented, Lanereth grabbing him by the wrist, turning his palm up.

  “Your skin, it’s eating away,” Lanereth whispered, a calming white glow coming to her hand as she rested it over his, the wound healing up quickly.

  “Well…now we know the sludge is even worse than the rain. Better be careful to avoid it,” Lanereth said in a matronly warning voice, almost scolding Malagar for his carelessness.

  “Aye, that we should,” he responded, grateful to the woman who had healed him twice now, quietly taking note of how the process drained her.

  A muted crack warped the sky above, and they both looked to the rolling clouds overhead, both moving to get under the shelf in the canyon room they were in, doing their best to avoid the rusty slime that coated the walls.

  Though the rains came quick, ripping through their spot in the canyon within moments after they huddled under the shelf, the downpour did not last as long as the first, and after a few booms of thunder, the cloud drifted past, the remaining drops of rain running into streams along the lowest point on the canyon floor, draining into the holes scattered throughout the canyon.

  “At least we have air to breathe and shelter overhead,” Lanereth uttered, the last drops of acid pooling together, draining down the canyon as they watched the weather pass them by, thankfully dry this time.

  “But to what end?” Malagar sighed out, looking up further into the canyon past th
e wall of bones before them.

  “I have a bit of water and morsels, enough for a snack, in that leather pouch in that jerkin,” he said, nodding to the armor she now wore. “What of us after that?”

  She clutched her amulet but had no response to the bleak question. The air stung, though not as badly as in the foothills, but the fresh rain vapors had stripped their eyes and throat of moisture.

  Rain came down in the distant areas of the canyon, but just around the bend came a clacking sound, as if stones were pecking off the floor.

  “Do you hear that?” Lanereth whispered after a moment, drawing Malagar close.

  The two listened, and the sound returned, though this time, Malagar was able to identify the noise.

  “Hooves,” he whispered in her ear, eyeing the corridor, trying to guess how close the cloven animal was to rounding the bend.

  A loud snort sounded, and the two could tell that it came from a creature with a large lung capacity.

  “We need to go,” Malagar mouthed, pulling Lanereth by the wrist, leading her to a section of the shelf that blocked their path that wasn’t covered in slime.

  Holding his hands together, he gave her a boost as she scrambled to latch onto the ledge, slowly pulling herself up as the creature’s hoof steps sounded clear as it rounded the bend.

  A large head with a damaged set of antlers, ten feet off the ground, peeked around the corner. Malagar looked back to catch a glimpse of the beast, its wicked slash of a mouth open, showing rows of horrid teeth, its empty reflective eyes shining brightly as it narrowed in on the two.

  Malagar leapt high up the wall, getting a hold on the ledge as Lanereth reached down to grab his free hand, pulling him up and over as the creature came charging from around the corner, its hooved feet clacking loud off the basalt floor as it rushed to the two.

  Malagar tumbled on top of Lanereth as he came up and over the lip, and the two watched as the human-like torso of the beast reached out with its long arms, grabbing up over the ledge, snatching at the pair.