As night fell, a strange sense of unease filled her. The wolf felt it too because he gave her a low whine and nudged her leg without even touching the two rabbits she’d caught for him. He was hungry, but he was nervous too, very nervous.
“I feel it.” As an elf, Avraniel could commune with nature although the forest didn’t like her much. The only reason it didn’t lash out at her more was because she could – and would – respond by setting the damn thing on fire. “I might have to talk to the forest. I don’t like it, but I need to know what’s going on. This… feeling isn’t right.” Her jaw clenched. “It reminds me of the time I ran into Black Scales, which is not an experience I want to repeat.”
The forest told her a lot, and she barely had to ask. It wanted her to turn back. Something awful was happening at Lord Galterion’s manor. The forest spoke of the currents of magic in the area being twisted and bent, of an ancient evil being unleashed –
Despite her magic, Avraniel’s blood turned to ice.
She could vaguely remember stories she’d heard when she’d been a child and not yet completely fed up with everything about how certain parts of the forest had been used to seal away great evils in the ancient days that even the elves could barely remember. Some things were almost impossible to kill, but the forest’s natural power and connection to the land allowed it to bind things that would have been impossible to imprison anywhere else. But there were ways around the forest’s power. Someone, like an elf lord, would need to know a lot about ancient lore and to have access to the right parts of the forest, most of which belonged to certain prominent families.
They would also need someone with the right kind of magic – binding magic.
Avraniel ordered the wolf to stay put. He’d only get killed in a fight like the one she was in for. Jaw clenched, she ran back toward the manor. She’d spent the whole week keeping that damn brat alive, and she’d be damned if she let something happen to her now. When she got back to the manor, all of the guards who should have been on patrol were already dead, or so she thought. As she approached the gates, one of them stumbled toward her, clutching at a wound that would have killed a less determined man.
“Lord Galterion has lost his mind,” he rasped. “You have to stop him! He’s going to –”
“I know.” Avraniel raised one hand. Fire swirled around it. “I need to cauterise your wound, or you’ll bleed to death. You’ll pass out, so I need to know where he is.”
“In the garden behind the manor… next to the shrine.”
Avraniel seared the wound shut, and the guard passed out. She hoped he lived. He was an idiot, but he was a brave idiot. “You’d better live,” she muttered. “Otherwise, I know this is all going to get blamed on me.”
* * *
Avraniel crept into the gardens, and it didn’t take her more than a few seconds to spot Katarina. The girl had been staked out in the middle of the garden on top of some intricate runes and seals while her bastard of a father and some of his cronies performed a ritual of some kind. A miasma of writhing shadows surrounded the girl, and there were freaky things with teeth everywhere. And by teeth, she meant just teeth. They didn’t even have eyes. They were just… big spheres of teeth. Her fists clenched. She might be a criminal, but at least she didn’t go around using her own children in evil rituals. Fire sang in her veins, and she stepped out into the open. She hurled a blast of flame, but a glowing barrier sprung to life between her and the ritual. Several more blasts of flame blew it apart.
“Why am I not surprised,” Lord Galterion hissed. “You were always making a nuisance of yourself. You have your reward. Leave!”
Avraniel was not in the mood for making her enemies suffer. She just wanted him and the rest of his cronies dead because he was really starting to piss her off. Whatever they were doing to Katarina couldn’t be good. The girl had started screaming, and she showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Avraniel didn’t bother to reply. Instead, she flung her arms out, and fire as bright and hot as the sun spilled outward, consuming everything that it touched. The smell of melting rock and burning flesh filled the air, and Avraniel growled as her magic receded. The cronies and the weird teeth creatures were all dead, but Lord Galterion and the runes and seals seemed unharmed. Katarina was still screaming too. Her brows furrowed. Something was wrong with Lord Galterion. She hadn’t noticed it at first, but it was impossible to miss now. His magic felt different, like there was something crawling around under his skin.
“You’re one sick bastard. You’re not just using your daughter to break the prison of some monster. No, you’re going to make yourself a vessel for that monster too, right?”
The elf lord laughed. “Not bad, miscreant. With my daughter’s life and her magic, I can free the One Who Walks Between! I will become one with him and rule this pathetic world.” Shadows billowed outward, and his flesh twitched and writhed under his skin. Inky darkness bled out from a series of elaborate symbols cut onto his exposed flesh. “Behold my power!”
“Behold your power?” Avraniel leapt out of the way as tendrils of shadows erupted from him, slicing through earth and wood with disturbing ease. “Do you hear yourself?”
More shadows rose up from the ground, and Lord Galterion was lifted upward, held aloft by a spire of gathering darkness. Tendrils of shadow lanced toward Avraniel. She blasted some of them apart but did her best to dodge the others. She had a lot of magic – more than anyone she’d ever met – but if he really had turned himself into a vessel for an otherworldly monstrosity, then even she might not be able to win a battle of attrition. She also had to consider Katarina. The girl was in the midst of all the shadows, and Avraniel couldn’t risk frying her by really cutting loose.
She bared her teeth. What was it with people going insane in their pursuit of power?
Cracks appeared in the shadows, glowing lines of white that burst open to reveal countless opalescent eyes. Those same eyes began to appear all over Lord Galterion’s body. He had become a nightmare made flesh, space and time bent and twisted beneath the unearthly power pouring out of him. Avraniel sighed. This was going to get messy.
She hurled bolts of flame, but curtains of shadow rose to intercept each attack. More shadows ripped out of the ground, and she darted back and forth to avoid them. It was a good thing she’d ordered the wolf to stay behind. He wouldn’t have survived something like this, and it would have been a shame for a survivor like him to die for something that didn’t involve him. A wave of fire dispelled the shadows closest to her, and she frowned. Something was wrong. He had a lot more power than this, but he wasn’t using it. What was –
In that instant, she realised what was happening, but it was too late. The ground vanished beneath her, replaced entirely by his shadows. She jumped into a tree and unleashed an inferno at the ground. The darkness simply swallowed her fire.
“Die!” Lord Galterion roared, his voice a twisted, garbled parody of its usual self. “Die, miscreant!”
The shadows rose up and consumed the world.
* * *
Avraniel let out a derisive laugh. Great. She’d apparently been consumed by some kind of primordial darkness from between dimensions or something and was being tormented by visions of her awful childhood in what she presumed was an attempt to drive her to madness and despair.
Yay.
Her lips curled. What a joke. This thing – whatever it was – had made a big, big mistake. Her childhood had sucked, sure, but she’d accepted it years ago. People were jerks, not all of them but a lot of them. It was that simple. She’d also accepted that she wasn’t perfect either. Maybe she could have compromised a bit more, but that wasn’t how she wanted to live her life. She wanted to live her life the way she wanted without some idiots telling her what to say, think, or do. Visions of her past? Please. She would have died years ago if she couldn’t handle something like this.
But the real mistake this thing had made wasn’t tormenting her about her past. It was much simpler. It h
ad swallowed her whole. She was inside it now, and she didn’t have to worry about Katarina getting caught in one of her attacks. As this thing was about to learn, anyone who messed with her was in for a rude awakening.
Avraniel’s eyes began to glow, turning from amber to molten gold. Beneath her skin, her veins took on a similar appearance, as if molten metal were flowing through her veins instead of blood. Her skin turned translucent, almost crystalline, and she bared her teeth and growled a single word.
“Burn.”
And everything burned.
* * *
“You dumb bastard,” Avraniel said as she stood over the twitching, burnt form of Lord Galterion. “Trying to kill me like that was a mistake. You should have stuck to doing things the conventional way, like cutting me in half or something. Emotional torture, are you kidding me? I’m actually insulted you thought that would work.” She drew an arrow from her bow. “I guess this is goodbye.”
“Wait!” he cried, holding up one deformed hand. His entire body had been horribly twisted by the interrupted ritual. “I can pay you –”
“Goodbye.”
She put an arrow through his eye and then incinerated his body for good measure. It was better to be sure. By the time she was done, there wasn’t even ash left. With the bastard out of the way, she went to Katarina. The runes and seals had vanished, but she still melted the ground where they had been to glass once she had carried Katarina a safe distance away.
“Hey, kid. You’d better be alive.”
“Avraniel?” Katarina’s eyes fluttered open. Her voice was still hoarse from all of her screaming. “I – my father!”
“I put an arrow through his eye and reduced him to even less than ash.” Avraniel pointed to the scorch marks on the ground that hinted at his fate. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that he lied about legitimising you to get you out here for this ritual of his.”
Katarina nodded tearfully. “Yes.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, he was probably in a lot of pain before I put him out of his misery.” Avraniel could sense other elves approaching. She recognised some of them from their magic alone. “Listen, kid, I’ve got to run for it, but you’ll be fine. There are other elves coming, ones you can trust. Believe me, at least two of those bastards would play by the rules even if their lives depended on it. They’re jerks, but they’re honourable jerks, which is why I can’t be around when they get here.”
“Wait!” Katarina cried. “I’ll tell them what happened –”
“Save your breath, kid.” Avraniel chuckled. “They’d never believe you anyway. They might believe your father was up to no good, but they’ll never believe I wasn’t simply looking for an excuse to kill him. We were enemies for a long time.” She gave Katarina a smirk. “I’ll see you around. Even half elves live a long time. Let me know if you’re ever in my neck of the woods again. This… well… it’s been pretty fun, all things considered.”
It would be years, many, many years, before they saw each other again.
* * *
Katarina followed the zombie through the winding corridors of Black Tower Castle. For a place that was built atop lightless chasms of infinite horror and woe, it was surprisingly hospitable. Sure, it had a menacing, eerie aura, but it was the home of a Grand Necromancer. She would have been disappointed if it wasn’t at least a little bit odd. However, she’d already seen that it was well maintained with excellent plumbing and ventilation to avoid many of the problems associated with old castles. The servants she’d met had been a tad unusual. She could have sworn one of them moved more like an assassin than a maid, but they were attentive and polite.
A small smile crossed her lips as she thought back to one of the most important periods of her life. She’d been saved by a pyromaniac elf, and she’d learned some very important lessons too. It was all well and good to hope that someone would save her, but it was far better to be strong enough to save herself. Besides, how could she help other people if she couldn’t even help herself?
After the debacle with her father, she had become a cleric. In fact, she’d become more than a cleric. She had risen to become one of the chief instructors in the Order of the Blessed Dawn. She had even played a key role in the education of the current Supreme Cleric, one of the most powerful people in the world. She sometimes wondered who would win if Avraniel and Vicky were to fight. It would certainly be a fight worth watching, albeit from a distance because there was bound to be a lot of property damage.
It had been so long since those days in the forest. She’d only been with Avraniel and the wolf for a little over a week, but she’d done her best since then to be worthy of the effort the elf had put into keeping her alive. Oh, Katarina still looked to be a woman of about thirty, and she’d stay that way for several more decades before she began to age at a more noticeable rate, but time had changed her.
Blind idealism wasn’t something she did anymore. Avraniel was living proof of how wrong it could be. Her father, an elf lord, had been willing to kill her to bring about the apocalypse, but the elf version of the bogeyman had been the one to save her. Recently, an opportunity had arisen. Vicky, her old student, had mentioned that one of her friends was pursuing a pardon. Katarina had asked if a similar offer could be extended to Avraniel. War was coming, and Avraniel was perfect for war. Moreover, she sincerely believed that Avraniel might, just maybe, take the offer if someone like Timmy was the one making it.
She’d only met the necromancer a few times when he’d been attending the same academy as Vicky, but she’d seen something in him then, and Vicky’s words about him over the years had only strengthened that belief. He was a Grand Necromancer, but he was also a good man. The Council had ordered him to find and recruit Avraniel, and he’d somehow managed to pull it off.
So much had happened since then. Timmy and his group had proven to be extremely effective, and Katarina had finally found the time to pay her old friend a visit. It would be the first time she’d seen Avraniel since the elf had saved her and run off before the authorities could show up.
The zombie led her to a large courtyard, and Katarina found herself grinning from ear to ear. A young dragon was wrestling with a three-headed dog the size of a warhorse while Avraniel shouted words of encouragement and advice. All three of them stopped and looked at Katarina when she stepped into the courtyard. For a second, Katarina was worried that Avraniel wouldn’t recognise her. It had been more than a century, and she’d been only a child then. Avraniel, of course, hadn’t aged a day.
“Well, well, well.” Avraniel grinned. “I recognise that magic. You grew up, kid.” She looked Katarina up and down. “And going by those clothes you’re wearing, you became a cleric too. You must work for the idiot’s friend, right?”
“You haven’t changed,” Katarina replied. “Still calling people names.” She smiled. “Would it be all right if we talked? We have a lot of catching up to do.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Avraniel waved at the dragon. The reptile was waving his shorty, stumpy tail around enthusiastically as he darted over to Katarina and sniffed at her clothes. “Don’t worry about, Spot. He’s checking to see if you have any food.” She walked over and scratched the dragon behind the ears. “Go off and eat with Chomp, Spot. I’ll be over here talking.”
There was a half-eaten cow in one corner of the courtyard. The dragon bounded toward it while the three-headed dog followed at a more sedate pace.
Avraniel snorted. “You’d never believe it, but Spot there eats way more food than Chomp. He’s a growing dragon, I guess, but I still don’t know how he fits all of it into his stomach.”
Katarina sat down on a bench near Avraniel. “We have a lot to talk about, but I’ve been wondering for a long time… whatever happened to the wolf?” She caught a glimpse of someone flying through the sky over the castle. It was the girl she’d seen when she’d first arrived. Timmy’s apprentice bore a more than passing resemblance to how she’d looked as a child. “And
do you still make a habit of saving kids when they’re in trouble?”
“The wolf hung around for a few years. He ended up founding his own pack, actually. Last time I checked, they were doing okay although that was years and years ago.” Avraniel’s lips twitched. “He and his pack moved on not long after his first pups were born. The squirrels threw a party. The little bastards never liked him.” Avraniel followed Katarina’s gaze. “Are you wondering if I ever had to save the twerp? She didn’t need saving unlike someone I know.”
Piracy
(Set After Two Necromancers, a Dragon, and a Vampire)
Jake watched the imperial merchant ship sink beneath the waves – minus its cargo and its crew – with a deep sense of satisfaction. Given his history with the Eternal Empire, namely its numerous attempts to kill him and his crew after wiping out their towns and villages, he could hardly be faulted for his reaction. He wasn’t running a charity either. He was a privateer. Relying solely on the goodwill of his employer was not an option. He needed to get results. Fortunately, he was very good at getting results, and getting results happened to be very profitable. Any imperial goods or funds he seized were split between him and his crew, Timmy, and Everton.
Unlike the Eternal Empire, he actually cared about collateral damage. His grudge was not against the merchants whose ships he raided and sank, so he did his best to minimise casualties. The merchant vessel had promptly surrendered after finding itself up against a dreadnought, and he’d ordered its crew onto a longboat with enough supplies to get them to a nearby island. It wouldn’t be a pleasant trip, and no small number of the merchant ship’s crew had complained. The merchant himself had made an awful ruckus, wailing about the horror and indignity of it all, much to the dismay of the more pragmatic crew. Jake had silenced him and all of the other complainers by calmly pointing out that he could, if he wanted, simply loot their ship, lock them below decks, and open fire with his dreadnought’s mundane and magical weaponry. The gods themselves knew that the Eternal Empire would have done it if their positions had been reversed, but he liked to think he was better than his enemies.
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