A New Reign

by Bryan Gifford

  A New Reign

  Book two of

  The Atonement Trilogy

  Bryan Gifford

  Copyright © 2019 by Bryan Gifford

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher.

  Cover art by Amalia Chitulescu

  Map art by Frank Walls

  Edited by Raven Van Dijk

  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 events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Second Edition

  Visit the author’s website at www.bryangifford.com

  Also available in paperback

  I dedicate this book to my friends and family who refuse to give up on me. Not sure why you stick around, but I’m sure thankful for the company.

  Contents

  Awake

  A New Reign

  Beginnings

  Peace

  Left Behind

  The Acedens

  Seperate Paths

  Liberation

  Familiar Words

  The Black Arrow

  Contents

  The Problem With Promises

  The Heart of Man

  Enslaved

  Broken

  The Perfect Monsters

  Reunion

  Of Blood and Fire

  The Gray Line

  Into the Mountains

  The Blood of Man

  The Rise

  A New Reign

  “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

  —William Shakespeare

  Awake

  War. Remnants of it were everywhere. From the battle-scarred earth to the skies that bled its ash, war was everywhere. Corpses littered the fields around the city of Morven and in its streets like a sea of death, their flesh frozen by an icy hand.

  The smoke from funeral pyres floated into the sky, suspended weightless in the clouds. Their fires gave off the stench of burning flesh, further fueling the mind-numbing reek of death and decay.

  Adriel Ivanne stood before a great pyre, watching its flames lick the bodies of Morven’s fallen. The firelight danced playfully across her face as if in mockery of the carnage. She stood a specter, her white linens and furs fluid in the wind, her skin cold like the death about her. The smoke stung her reddened eyes.

  Eventually she lowered her cowl and turned to the two men near her. “So much death, so much sacrifice. And for what?”

  A giant of a man rose beside her. His broad shoulders and gut threatened to burst from his breastplate, every joint groaning as he moved. He looked down at her and frowned. “You speak as if they died for nothing, Adriel. They died for the hope of peace, for a chance at freedom.” He knelt to the blood-caked bricks and lifted a soldier’s body. “That’s the greatest sacrifice they could have made, and that’s sacrifice enough for me.” He turned and pitched the body into a cart piled high with corpses.

  A second man nodded and pulled a corpse from a pile of rubble. He was tall and strapping in his own right, though dwarfed in comparison to the man at his side.

  “Joshua’s right,” he grunted, hefting the body. “They sacrificed their lives in defense of their countries. Shit, maybe even for all of Tarsha. Abaddon may still be on his throne, but we dealt him a painful blow.” He dropped the body into the dray and signaled for the driver to take off. “It may not look like it, but we’re finally pushing back.” His voice held an edge of excitement. “We’re finally doing some good!”

  The three paused as a frigid breeze tickled across their skin. They turned from the heat of the fire and looked over the city.

  They stood in the middle of Morven’s merchant district, the main market road yards away. At the end of that street, the city’s once great doors lay twisted and battered beyond recognition.

  Nearly every wall, tower, and freestanding structure were reduced to refuse. The few remaining buildings clung to life by little more than threads of dust. What remained of the formerly impenetrable citadel was now a portrait of death, a canvas of scars, of pain; painted by the blood of friend and foe alike.

  Days after the siege, and hundreds of thousands of corpses still covered the lachrymose city. Thousands of soldiers sloshed through the blood and muck, extricating their fallen from the tangled masses, leaving squalls of carrion birds to pick clean the enemy remains.

  “I can’t help but think that one of these bodies could be Isroc.”

  “It’s been three days since the battle ended, Silas,” Joshua said. He rested a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

  Adriel shook her head. They’d searched for days but still hadn’t found sign of their lost friend. There were still thousands of bodies to search through. “We should find Cain,” she offered. “He’s been distant since the battle.”

  Silas smirked. “More than usual you mean?”

  Adriel pursed her lips. “I just hope he’s alright.”

  “Aye.” Joshua swung his massive axe over his shoulder. “Let’s get to it then.”

  The three stepped away from the pyre and worked their way down the rubble-strewn street. They weaved through the masses of andred dead, their grotesque forms frozen in snow and ice. They looked almost human now, save their rotted skin and silver eyes. The bodies of men lay twisted and broken, more than a few ravaged and hollowed out by an arzec.

  The three followed the bodies to the bank of the Alar River that split the city in half. They noticed a shadowed figure standing nearby at the water’s edge. The man remained silent as they stopped at his side.

  “We came to see how you’re doing,” Silas said. He remained silent. “So. How are you doing?”

  Cain turned and looked at them with his dark, piercing eyes. Snow flaked his rugged, chiseled face. “I’ve known better days,” he muttered. He looked down at his feet where a massive two-handed sword lay abandoned in the snow. “I still can’t believe Malecai’s dead… it’s my fault. If only I’d have been quicker, stronger. I could have stopped Alanis.”

  Adriel frowned at him. Cain’s eyes had had the same distant, anguished look since the day she met him. Haunted by his past, his regrets. Something told her he hadn’t always been like this.

  A voice suddenly cried out and they turned to see a man sprinting toward them. His threadbare black cloths and leathers were a stark contrast to the pearly snow around him. He leapt over the bodies, calling their names.

  “What is it, Aren?” Cain asked as the man reached them.

  “They’ve found Isroc,” their friend spluttered. “He’s alive.”

  The group cried out and embraced each other. Aren wiped the sweat from his long face. “Our men found him under some debris near the drawbridge, he’s pretty beat up but he should be fine. He’s in the main infirmary now.”

  The others rushed off after Aren, but Adriel paused and turned to see Cain pick up the abandoned sword and stab it into the snow. Adriel stepped up beside him and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  A chill wind picked up and blew across the snow-covered field. The blade split the wind to send a thrumming ring of steel echoing across the frozen river.

  Two men stood atop a ridge of hills, hooded and cloaked to combat the fierce gale. Snow lashed about them as they strapped a saddle to a white mare.

  With a final word muffled in the wind, one of the men jumped into the saddle and sent his horse plodding through the snow. The other man, clad in white furs, watched him ride off until the snowfall swallowed him wholly.

  He then walked toward a cluster of trees and pulled a gyrfalcon from its roost. He
removed the leather hood from her face and pulled a scroll from his cloak, tying it to a jess on her leg. The man tossed his arm and sent the falcon flying away through the snowfall.

  Cain and his company clambered over the remains of the city until they came to an ornate building beneath the shadow of Morven’s southern mountain. They ascended a flight of steps and crossed the columned terrace.

  They entered through its open doors and came into a long room that formed most of the building’s spacious interior. A flood of people poured in and out of the building. Droves of men and women dashed about in orderly chaos. Several carried wounded soldiers into the room on stretchers, while others guided carts of freshly dead out the doors. Bandaged men filled every inch of the building.

  Cain grabbed a woman’s arm as she tried to rush past. “Where is Isroc Braygon?”

  “He’s by the fountain,” she snapped. “He’s fine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have people who actually need my help.” She pulled her arm from him, readjusted her bloody smock, and bolted into the infirmary.

  The group stepped into the horde of people. They passed row on row of wounded men, their anguished cries barely heard over the turmoil. They soon came to a three-tiered fountain that jutted out of the far wall.

  A cluster of women passed bandages and frantic orders among themselves, worrying over a man with two of his ribs curving out of his chest. Blood gushed from his ghastly wound with every ragged breath.

  Isroc lay nearby at the foot of the fountain. Bandages wrapped his bare, scarred chest and he wore nothing more than ragged leggings. His friends dove over him.

  Isroc’s laughs were smothered beneath their weights. “Am I glad to see the lot of you! I thought I’d never see you again!” He pulled himself up and embraced them fondly.

  “I was pinned under some debris in the battle after the enemy destroyed the bridge; they found me this morning—along with him.” He gestured toward the wounded man nearby. “Bless the High Towers that I didn’t end up as bad as him.”

  “Luck saved your ass again, my friend,” Joshua jested.

  Isroc winced and rubbed his chest. “I sure don’t feel like it. Had a damn mountain of bodies on top of me.” He laid his head back, eyes suddenly distant. “It was horrible.” He shook himself and turned to them. “Where’s Malecai?”

  His friends fell quiet. “Malecai’s dead,” Cain answered.

  “I can’t believe it; he was the strongest of us.” He covered his face with a hand. “He did everything for us, and yet… I said all those things to him.”

  A man in the brown and scarlet armor of Kaanos approached the group. “I had to come see the lucky fool myself,” he bellowed, jarring them from their thoughts.

  The group stood in surprise and greeted him. “It’s good to see you, Armeth,” Isroc grinned up at the man.

  “And the same to you, my friend,” Ethebriel’s adviser replied, wiping his blood-covered hands on a soiled cloth. “That was a battle worthy of songs. You fought well; Malecai would be proud.” The group drew quiet again, listening to the screams of the nearby man.

  Cain stepped forward and gestured for Armeth to follow him. The two moved around the other side of the fountain. It was past time Cain had some answers.

  Armeth watched him for a moment. “I know you wanted me to find something concrete, something that makes sense of what happened at the battle. I can’t find anything in my old texts. I don’t know what happened to you, or what you might have saw, but no one reported hearing a… roar.”

  Cain remembered it vividly. He couldn’t help but run that moment through his mind again and again. Alanis kicking Malecai’s body into the river. That feeling of intense rage and guilt. The blinding column of light. And that strange beast that had appeared from nowhere and killed Alanis in a burst of white, cleansing fire. “It was real, Armeth. I know it was.”

  The king’s adviser sighed. “I couldn’t find anything referencing the beast either. I pored over The Epoch of Ivandar and The Birth and Death of the Alliance, but all I could find were a few vague references to Abaddon’s powers. They didn’t mention anything about this beast of yours at the battle for Andred. I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any help.”

  “Thank you, it was worth the try. But I summoned that creature, even if I don’t know how. That’s how I defeated Alanis; I couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

  Cain unbuckled Ceerocai from his back and swung it out before him. The enormous sword whistled through the air, humming with some hidden power. Its scarlet blade shimmered in the blood about them. “Abaddon’s sword did something that day. I woke Ceerocai from its slumber.”

  “It doesn’t look very awake to me.” Armeth stroked his graying goatee but raised his hands at Cain’s flat expression. “I jest! I jest! But where is this beast now? Why would it show itself only to leave?”

  “I don’t know. But I saw it swallow Alanis in flames and cast him into the Alar. After that, it just… disappeared.”

  Armeth remained silent for a time. “It may not seem like it, but I do believe you, Cain. Your finding that sword in the Tombs of Ivandar is no coincidence. You are destined for great things. But we need proof if we’re going to convince people what happened to you was real.”

  “I don’t need proof. I know what happened.”

  Armeth grabbed him by the shoulders. “Yes, but the rest of Tarsha doesn’t. We need proof if we’re going to convince them that Ceerocai is more than just a lost relic of Abaddon’s power. And more importantly, we need to make sure that proof doesn’t kill the people we’re trying to convince. If you somehow summon that beast again and it kills innocent people this time… well, we have to make certain that that sword and whatever is inside it is on our side.”

  Cain thought on this. Morven had exploded in riots once news of Ceerocai’s discovery had come out. Mobs had even stormed the palace trying to destroy the weapon, and maybe even Cain. It seemed the entire world was divided on what to do with the sword of Abaddon: should they try and find a way to destroy it, or should they use it against their enemy? Cain himself wasn’t sure. It held immense power, that much was clear, but what if Armeth was right? What if Ceerocai turned against him or the people he sought to protect?

  Armeth continued. “Look, there’s a lot of people out there that are calling for your head, simply because of the sword in your hands. You’ll only stir them more if word gets out that you somehow harnessed Ceerocai’s power. Let’s find proof of what you did, but let’s make sure people see it for the blessing it is. If we do that, then we can rally Tarsha under you. You can lead the march into Andred and use it against its master. You can end four hundred years of war with one blow.”

  Cain stepped back, stricken by his friend’s words. He’d contemplated the thought ever since he’d lifted Ceerocai from its tomb, but for the thought to become reality? Could he really be the one to end Tarsha’s suffering?

  “I know it’s probably a lot to take in,” Armeth said, “but this is the moment we’ve been waiting for for generations. Ceerocai, the Alliance, you. It’s all come together. We’ve crushed Abaddon’s armies at our walls. It’s time to strike back, and you, Cain Taran, can lead us to victory.”

  Cain looked down at the sword of Abaddon. Its ruby glowed up at him like a nest of embers, softly stirring, softly growing. It wanted to burst free, to spread forth and consume. Could he set it loose? Could he use it against Abaddon and finally bring peace to the world?

  A strange silence fell over the infirmary, an absence of something that left Cain struggling for words. He turned to the wounded man near Isroc who had fallen silent.

  The group of women around him stood and dropped their bloodied bandages, shaking their heads. They closed his eyes and carried the dead man away.

  White wings fluttered through the dreary Inveiran sky. A woman peered up from a snow-buried street, her cloak and hood sheathed in ice and powder. The night was cold and the streets were colder, so she had them to herself as she followed the lam
pposts to a guard tower near the city’s entrance. She knocked on the bastion’s door and a slot opened. A pair of eyes peered out at her before it closed and the door creaked open.

  The woman stepped into the blistering warmth of the guard tower. The heat from the hearth bathed her in an orange glow and instantly melted the snow from her black hair. She studied the soldiers that lay sleeping or intoxicated about the small room, each man strewn across one of the many chairs, tables, or crates. Their armor and weapons lay abandoned for trays of meats and tankards of ale.

  She turned to the soldier who had opened the door for her. Without a word, he gestured toward a winding staircase. The woman weaved through the inebriated and climbed the stairs to a small room at the top of a tall tower.

  She froze at the entrance, nose wrinkled against the stench of bird droppings and fouled blood. Barrels of arrows and stones filled the room and falconry equipment covered the shelves. Pigeons cooed at her from dozens of cages. A single window lay open, a biting breeze banging the shutters against the brick wall.

  A man sat in the middle of the room, his hulking shape silhouetted against the moonlight. He slept soundly despite the breeze pulling at his cloak, his wide shoulders heaving with every snore. The woman walked toward him and stopped at his side. She kicked the chair, jolting him from his sleep.

  “Damn it, woman. What is it?”

  “Get up, Malleus. She’s here.”

  The man nearly exploded from his chair. “About bloody time!” He lumbered toward the window, filling the room with his immense shadow.