Doomwalker
Book 1 of the Paladin Trilogy
Kathryn Zurmehly
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2019 Kathryn Zurmehly
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the written permission of the copyright holder except for the use of quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Zachary Tullsen https://www.zacharytullsen.com/
Acknowledgements
Writing, editing, and publishing a book is not done alone. I had a lot of support along the way. My mom gave me a great love of reading and fed my imagination, encouraging me every step of the way as I built new worlds. She also did the first and second editing passes of this book. I’d also like thank my dad, who always wondered where the rest of my short stories were- though he’s sure to be on my case for the next one here, too. My brother Luke’s faith in me has also been a big help. A big shout out to Zachary Tullsen for some great cover art. Last but far from least, my love, Dan, has been endlessly encouraging and without him, I think I would have lost my way in the final stages as everyday life got busier.
Contents
Doomwalker
Copyright
Acknowledgements
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
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17
About the Author
1
There are some forest groves in this world where all the light and life seem to have gone out. Simply fled, like songbirds before a wildfire.
Valen winced as a branch cracked underfoot, a lonely and jarring sound. It was early afternoon, but the light filtering through the branches was pale and weak. It was cold enough for him to see his own breath; in the outside world, it was the middle of spring. It crossed the Paladin’s mind that he should have brought a torch, but it too would have been turned into something sick and dying.
At least the reports on this place were true. He was not chasing another old wives’ tale.
He moved forward through the thick fir trees, trying not to step on any more branches. He kept his right hand on his sheathed sword. If he could find the heart of this corruption—sometimes it was beyond his abilities to do so—he ‘d need to move quickly.
And sometimes, sometimes, words worked better than steel.
Ahead and to Valen’s side, boughs rattled briefly, then halted. He heard what sounded like hooves springing off the ground, then it grew quiet again.
Heart thundering but head clear, Valen turned to follow the sound, picking up his own pace, no longer worried about cracking branches. It was aware of him. There would be no sneaking now.
He caught a face full of pine needles and then halted. It had led him to a clearing. The weak light shone down from a gray sky.
In the center, there was a hole, as if a tree or stone had been violently torn lose. He approached it cautiously. Valen wasn’t like some of his brothers, who were gripped with overwhelming fear of underground places, but that didn’t make him one of those who enjoyed rooting through ancient caverns and catacombs. He kicked a stone over and saw the distinct swirls that marked all elven ruins.
The sound of hooves sounded nearby again. He held his ground, gripping his sword white knuckled.
A great elk, larger than any he’d ever seen, bounded in front of him from out of the dim trees. It was rotting like two day-old carrion. A godshard, a fragmented ruin of the dead elven gods.
“I am Paladin Valen, in service to Lyrica,” he announced to it, “I have come to purge this land of corruption.”
The godshard stared at him with hollow eye-sockets, dark ichor dripping from its loose jaw, then took a shaky step forward.
At that, Valen took a step backward. “Will you yield?”
A chill breeze rushed through. “Immor,” it whispered. Elvish, he could tell from the sound, but he didn’t know enough of the language to tell if it was a name, a warning, or a curse.
“Depart from this world, onto the next,” he directed. It was all ritual rote. “And free this place from your shadow.”
Another unsteady step. He drew his sword.
The thing paused at the action, seeming to eye the blade. In most respects, it was unremarkable except for the sigil of Lyrica on the pommel, but here and now a golden glow emanated from within from the steel, its strength steady and untouched by the grove’s curse.
The sight of blessed blade wasn’t enough to hold the godshard, because it began to move forward again. It seemed confused and uncertain.
He’d seen that often in recent months. Godshards that seemed not only insane and destructive but also utterly lost.
It had made very little difference in whether or not they would kill him, however.
He charged it, eliciting a wheeze that might have been a bellow in a whole beast from his enemy. It met Valen’s slash with its great antlers, flinging him bodily aside.
He kept his feet and circled around it. It might be rotting and eyeless, but it wasn’t weak or blind. It was still but watching him carefully, flanks heaving in what looked like a warning huff you’d get from a live animal, but from this being were only desperate gasps.
He darted towards it, blade catching it in the throat, and then dashed out of a heavy swing of the antlers. He’d laid its throat open, but it still stood. The heartstone was not there, then.
“Immor” the breeze whispered again, rising and dying with the word.
It charged him then, antlers forward. He barely dodged out of the way, then had to scramble back when it pivoted to kick with its hind legs.
In that turn, though, he saw a tiny star flare to dim life in its antlers, so small and so faint it seemed like a trick of the light.
Valen narrowed his eyes. Of course the heartstone was in the antlers, the most likely thing to kill him.
The godshard stumbled two, three times as it strove to recover from its kick. Valen sprinted, sword held high and swung without caution for the nearest antler.
He didn’t catch his target, but he managed to shear through the antler. It crumbled to dust as it tumbled from the godshard’s head. It let loose a deep wail and staggered deliberately away from him.
The light of the heartstone hovered above the thing’s head, unguarded now. It was easy to see it now he knew where it was.
The thing stared at him for a long silent moment. The air changed, relaxing into stillness rather than tense frigidity.
It charged Valen wildly, head down with the heartstone staring at him. The Paladin twisted to the side, swinging for the tiny star.
Hitting it sent a buzzing sensation all through his body. It flared into blazing life for an instant, blinding him…and then the godshard collapsed at his feet before crumbling swiftly to nothing.
The air warmed. The gray sky brightened into blue and the pale lifeless light turned golden.
Valen stood over the crumbling beast, breathing hard. He took a moment to calm his heart and offer up thanksgiving to Lyrica on many, many counts.
He thanked her for the fact that that the godshard had made its wild charge just slow enough for him to dodge and that the heartstone had been so easy to strike this time. He offered up gratitude that he carried a blessed sword. Without it, he’d have been helpless.
He crouched over where fallen godshard. Its body was now a pile of fine d
irt. He shifted through it carefully, until he pulled out the tiny rock that once been the heartstone. He could feel, more than see, the elaborate lines carved into it.
Another bit of the world cleansed and another heartstone to be locked away by the Temple. He tucked the pebble into a specially blessed pouch at his belt and began the short hike back to his horse. It was a few hours ride from here to ride to the town of Lorcial. He’d be back at the inn by late evening, too late for hope of a warm meal. Such was life in service of the goddess.
The reason he’d come here was the cursed grove’s proximity to Lorcial. The locals, even the local clerics, had considered it cursed for decades, though it hadn’t been on the last regional sweep by the Lyrican Paladins three years ago.
As he reached his docilely grazing mare, he mulled over the strange word the godshard had said. What he knew of Elvish had been picked up in taverns and from village elders. It wasn’t exactly something a Paladin learned in training, elves not being the concern of Lyrica’s light. They had never worshipped any god of the Tribunal and their own gods…well, he had just killed a fragment of one.
He glanced back at the grove, offering up another prayer that it had been a godshard. Dark things came into being around heartstones, sometimes, true demons. They were rare, but he’d seen one once, seen the death and destruction it wreaked.
Add to that the squabbling of the Holding Lords and then add to that the rumors of war and the reality of discontent. The world was changing, and not for the better.
He sighed and nudged the mare towards Lorcial. Whatever the world came to, a Paladin was a Paladin, and there were people who needed to know the area had been made safe once again.
✽✽✽
Maryx watched events unfold with sleepy violet eyes, surprisingly unsurprised.
The human Lords’ Council was well past due for this sort of shake-up. The last true Holding War had been thirty years ago or so.
The caravan had come trundling along like drunken beetle up the Great Road and entered Lorcial as the sun began to set, shifting from a trundle to a stately roll. The main carriage was large and elegant, with gilded curlicue railings. Every trimming and every horse, even the fairly sleek baggage carts, were decked out in what Maryx thought was a very pink sort of red. A coat of arms featuring a singing bluebird on a field of golden lilies backed by that pinkish red stood out on the carriage’s side as it rolled past her.
The guards were well-equipped and looked like men who knew their way about their blades and their bows, but they’d relaxed as they entered the town. Lorcial was a sleepy sort of place.
Funny thing, really, considering the name was most of the Elvish word for blood.
The assassins seemed to ooze from the shadows, slipping from under roofs and alleyways to strike.
There were five of them, well-trained and well-paid. Two danced with guards, daggers pricking the horses just enough to drive the animals into a frenzy.
A third made for the obvious target, the carriage, tossing the driver and another guard off easily, but Maryx knew that was not where their prize lay.
Lord Beriskar, the noble with the bluebird crest, had ambitions. He had plans for conquest. Beriskar was an average sort of holding, not as hardscrabble as the northern and southern ones on the edge of the great Ice Shelf, but inclined to pride in its own difficulties. Maryx had not traveled there in many years, though she should make a trip soon. They were preparing for violence. She hadn’t even needed to bribe anyone for news of that.
Beriskar was sending his son off to Crownshold for some reason in this caravan. He was not going to be so obviously ensconced in a carriage. Like almost every other holding lord’s heir, he was travelling in disguise as one of the caravan’s guards. She could pick him out by the very high quality of his sword.
Maryx sighed and watched the violence continue to play out.
The last two assassins darted in and out amongst the rear guard, playing the same game as their brothers at the front of the column. They were fast for humans, but still so slow that it made Maryx wince even more than when one managed to bring the Beriskar heir’s horse down on him.
The same assassin who had managed to trip the animal had his head freed from his shoulders, but unless some Tribunal favor came calling, the boy would be dead before the sun rose.
Maryx stayed long enough to watch the assassin at the carriage painstakingly carve an elaborate line into over the bluebird on the carriage and then hop onto the driver’s seat to drive the horses into a frenzied gallop.
The elf faded quietly back into the shadows of her chosen alleyway, heading for the inn she’d chosen for this trip, thinking.
She had known the assassination was coming, tracking the intrigue from the Lords’ Council seat in Crownshold through to the assassins that she’d tracked here. They were assassin monks, dedicated to the Tribunal death god Alberan, their services secured through a donation to the Alberanite priesthood, and one the Tribunal priesthood’s more elusive secrets.
She knew that. She just didn’t know who had paid.
That sign carved into the door had been a deliberate move. It didn’t look like any symbol of the Tribunal’s fifty-four gods, but it was familiar anyway, a single line knotting around itself. That had some regional association that was slipping her mind right now. Lord Beriskar’s growing military might left him with a lot of enemies among the other lords, so that was no help. Beriskar’s son was a nasty piece of work, too, so no leads in that direction either.
The carving was a clue as to who had been responsible, of course, a very, very obvious clue. Therefore Maryx viewed it with suspicion. They’d find the carriage, soon enough, with that carving on its side.
She made sure her cloak’s hood covered her face and headed into the open square where her inn of choice stood, The Brass Unicorn. The name had amused her and the comfort of its rooms was undeniable.
A good elven scout was supposed to bed down in the woods and fields, far away from human eyes.
Maryx had been a scout for two decades now, and had yet to meet a ‘good scout’. She could and did camp beneath the stars, hunting and cooking her own food. But she’d found that while humans might be short-lived, quick-aging, and foolish, they made wonderful beds and some very good wine.
Maryx settled against the bar. A drink, before whatever storm she’d just witnessed really blew into town.
The barkeep was embroiled in a discussion with another two patrons and ignored Maryx. He probably would have ignored her anyway— that’s what barkeeps did to elves, until silver came into play, anyway.
“—so ol’ Pelson is an crusty, ugly, useless ass,” one of the men said, grimacing at the world over his wine cup. He smelled to Maryx of pine needles and cut trees. “Y’know, if I feel like being nice about it.”
The barkeep nodded sagely. He glanced around the bar like a squirrel looking for hawks before running for an acorn. “Jared is the same.” He was drying off a cup— one which Maryx felt should be full and in front of her right now— furiously. He nodded to the third man. “How does that Dream go? ‘Kill all the shit bosses’?”
“Damn straight.” The third man drew himself up in clear preparation to make a speech. Maryx pulled a silver out of her belt purse and tapped it rhythmically on the bar. She had a room here, too... “Kill all the bosses, says Lord Mulvane, the Voice of the People.” That Mulvane insanity! Whispers of it had been floating around hither and yon, another fool idea to fix everything that was wrong in the world, from stubborn children to bad harvest seasons. By the Seven Dead Gods, she really needed that drink. “That way, a man can work for himself and nobody goes hungry.”
“Can’t be that easy.”
The speech-maker took a hearty swig of his wine and Maryx pulled out another coin to begin tapping. “Nah. We got to make sacrifices, at first, but once everyone joins in the Dream, it’ll be...well, it’ll be right, for once.”
The barkeep sighed, settling back on his heels and looked at t
he carved unicorn behind the bar. “It’d be nice to own this place. Run it right.”
“My friend, if we follow the Voice’s plans, everyone will own everything. All the bosses will get what they deserve.”
“Only the shit bosses, right?” said the other patron, “I mean, Greta Sable, the widow from Tessel Holding, she does right by my sisters. Word is her husband was the same.”
“She owns that villa out east?” The speechmaker thumped his cup on the table. “Listen, that kind of person, they always cheated to live like that. You understand? They got where they are by wreckin’ other people. No matter how fair they seem, they’re really not. And they’ll fight the changes we need to make.” He drew a finger across his throat. “We got to kill them, too. The Voice knows how to make everything right.”
Maryx pulled out a third coin. She tossed it over with her left hand so that it landed with loud thunk in front of the barkeeper. All three men looked over at her and glared.
She raised an eyebrow and held up the other two coins, resisting the desire to flash her pointed canines. It tended to make humans more hostile. “Well, until this oh so wonderful Dream arrives, I assume you need to be paid?”
The barkeep glanced between the coins she held and the one not he bar. He pocketed the close one, then poured wine into the cup he’d been cleaning. She shoved the coins she held across the bar as he placed the cup on the bar. He took them and moved away as soon as he could.
She took a sip. Not awful, but nothing this close to Crownshold would be. Probably not worth three silver, however, not even for a bottle. She’d have to pick up another bounty somewhere along the road after the Beriskar storm had come and gone.
She supposed she should go east to the Aeldamarc border and make a report sometime soon, too, though that wouldn’t pay for anything. Duty was duty, however pointless.
Another man burst into the room, eye wide. “There’s been an attack on a Lord!”
The bartender looked up sharply. “A Lord?”
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