Rise of the Blood Royal

by Robert Newcomb

  The spectators were again restless for action, and they began shouting and stamping once more. The chant “Kill, kill, kill!” started thundering through the arena.

  Vespasian looked around at the decorated arena walls. Choosing an image, he pointed toward a place on the wall just to the right of the Gates of Death. An azure bolt left his fingertips and tore toward it. It struck the stone surface, then flattened out, blanketing the beastly image that Vespasian had selected.

  The creature represented on the wall started to come alive. The sight was terrible, mesmerizing. Crying out in agony as it emerged from the dark stones that seemed to give it birth, the thing took form. On recognizing the beast, the crowd roared in approval. The azure glow faded, and the newly born creature launched itself from the wall to pounce, snarling, onto the arena sand.

  It looked like a giant wolf, except that it stood on its hind legs. Spotted tan fur covered its body. Its teeth were long and sharp, and its eyes glowed bright red. Its hind feet were padded like a wolf’s, but its front legs had five long, taloned fingers. Like the Blood Stalkers, it drooled copiously. Dark armor encased its torso; greaves and gauntlets protected its lower legs and forearms.

  Vespasian looked at Tanjiro. “It’s called a Rustannican Heart Wolf,” he said quietly. “And the heart it wants is yours. You did say that you wanted to see it coming, did you not?”

  Vespasian looked over at the hideous creature and then pointed at Tanjiro.

  “Kill,” he ordered. His menacing whisper reached to the far corners of the arena.

  The snarling wolf bounded in gigantic leaps across the arena. Calmly, Vespasian stepped aside. Knowing that there was no escape, Tanjiro stood his ground. Just before the wolf took him, he gave Vespasian a final, defiant look.

  The Heart Wolf pounced on Tanjiro, pinning him to the sand and disemboweling him in seconds. Eagerly rooting around in the screaming man’s ravaged chest cavity, the wolf latched onto Tanjiro’s heart with its jaws and tore it free. With the Shashidan general dead, the monster devoured the heart and then started gorging on the rest of the corpse.

  As the giddy crowd chanted his name, Vespasian returned to his private viewing box and reclaimed his seat. Persephone gave him an admiring look; Lucius respectfully tipped his wine goblet toward him.

  “Well done, my liege,” the First Tribune said. He turned to look at the Pon Q’tar clerics. Unlike the overjoyed crowd, they sat in stony silence. Lucius barked a short laugh.

  Vespasian called out for the Games Master. The nervous man was at the emperor’s side in an instant.

  “As usual, your highness no doubt wishes the dead bodies to be dragged away through the Gates of Death?” he asked.

  Thinking for a moment, Vespasian sat back on his ivory throne. “No,” he answered. “Let us start another new tradition this day. Bring the next one hundred skeens in, but do not arm them. Have centurions bind them to the corpses and body parts littering the sand—including whatever might be left of their beloved general. For the next fifteen days we will watch them starve to death as they are forced to lie there in the heat, bound tightly to their dead, rotting comrades. As that is taking place, send some centurions into the arena to deal with the Heart Wolf. That should provide some interim amusement for the crowd.”

  “As you wish, Highness,” the Games Master answered. “And if I may say so, your idea about binding the living to the dead is an excellent one. It is a fine new tradition, indeed.” Without further ado, he hurried away to tend to his orders.

  Suddenly pensive, Vespasian watched as the next one hundred skeens were shoved into the arena. The centurions roughly pushed them to the sand and carried out their orders, first binding the skeens hand and foot and then lashing them to their fallen comrades.

  Sensing Vespasian’s mood, Persephone gave him a worried glance. “What is it, my love?” she asked. “All in all, the day goes well.”

  Vespasian turned and looked into her eyes. “It is not this day that bothers me,” he answered cryptically, “but all the days to follow.”

  He looked down at the Heart Wolf greedily feeding on what was left of the Shashidan general. Blades drawn, several centurions were cautiously approaching the beast. As Vespasian watched the wolf rip and tear at the mutilated body, admiration showed in his eyes.

  “That man died well,” he mused. “Part of me wishes that he had accepted my offer of freedom. When my time comes, I hope I can meet death with the same courage that he displayed. They are a tough and determined lot, these Shashidan Vigors worshippers. Often of late, in my nightmares I see us losing this war. Then I awaken, shaking and bathed in a cold sweat.”

  “I know, my love,” Persephone answered quietly. “But we will prevail, I promise you.”

  The crowd cheered again as one hundred more armed skeens were prodded into the arena to face the vicious Blood Stalkers, and the carnage resumed. For a moment Persephone took her gaze from the games and again looked at her husband’s profile.

  It will be a long day and an even longer night, she thought. But most interesting of all will be the meeting that follows the games. It seems that the Pon Q’tar have some explaining to do.

  CHAPTER II

  AS HE WALKED THROUGH THE PALACE, PRINCE TRISTAN of the House of Galland heard his boot heels echo through the largely deserted corridor. It was well after midnight and sleep had not come. Tiring of tossing and turning, he had finally risen from his bed.

  He had quickly donned his familiar black trousers, black leather vest, and knee boots. He then arranged his dreggan, baldric, and quiver of throwing knives over his right shoulder. After running his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair, he left his quarters.

  Feeling his stomach growl, he entertained the notion of going to the palace kitchens to get something to eat. As was often the case, earlier tonight the Conclave had taken supper together in one of the palace’s elaborate dining rooms. The meal had been tasty enough, provided one liked lamb. But he didn’t, and he had eaten little. His twin sister Shailiha had never cared for it either.

  He hoped that eating something would ease his restlessness, but he knew that it wouldn’t cure it. Although the Vagaries finally seemed to have been defeated in Eutracia and Parthalon, the events of his recent visits to the other side of the Tolenka Mountains still lay heavily on his mind. In many ways his amazing adventures seemed to be no more than a series of strange, unbelievable dreams. There had been a time when he would have thought anyone who tried to tell him such tales stark raving mad.

  But these things hadn’t happened to someone else; they had happened to him. And as the Jin’Sai and leader of the Conclave of Vigors, it was his responsibility to see that the mission entrusted to him by the late Envoys of Crysenium was fulfilled.

  As she died in Tristan’s arms, the Envoy named Miriam had ordered Tristan and his Conclave to do the unimaginable. She said that they must somehow find a way over the Tolenka Mountains and into Rustannica—the menacing nation that was home to the Pon Q’tar Vagaries clerics. Once there, Tristan and his followers were to try to contact the mysterious League of Whispers.

  The League was supposedly the secret rebel force of Vigors followers that was trying to unseat the Pon Q’tar and bring down the warlike nation that the Vagaries clerics had created. Not unlike the Mistresses of the Coven, the Pon Q’tar had aeons earlier started a vicious civil war, attracting to their cause many mystics who also believed that the Vagaries should rule as the sole arm of the craft.

  When they had secretly gathered enough followers, the Pon Q’tar had declared a huge part of Shashida to be independent, and named the new nation Rustannica. Then they trained their amazing gifts on the long Shashidan-Rustannican border. Using the craft, the Pon Q’tar enchanted the border area to create a buffer against a Shashidan invasion. Normally beautiful and serene, the newly formed Borderlands could be morphed at will by the Pon Q’tar into various types of desolate, unstable wasteland.

  With the secession of Rustannica, the civil
disturbance that had spawned her soon grew into a monstrous war between the two nations. It came to be known as the War of Attrition, and it had been going on ever since. Untold millions from each side had perished.

  With her dying breaths, Miriam had told Tristan that it was his and Shailiha’s shared destiny to secure a lasting peace between Rustannica and Shashida. But Miriam had sternly warned Tristan that in doing so, he and Shailiha must take care to ensure the continued existence of both sides of the craft. For unlike the Pon Q’tar, the Shashidan mystics believed that if either side of the craft should perish, so would the other. They also believed that if the world was deprived of all magic, it would plunge into an eternal darkness from which it would never emerge.

  Trying to focus on the positive, Tristan took stock of his blessings. So far, he and his Conclave had been victorious, though at a great price. East of the Tolenkas, several savage challenges to the Vigors had been met and defeated. The Sorceresses of the Coven, Tristan’s son Nicholas, and Wulfgar—his and Shailiha’s half brother—had all tried in their own ways to destroy the Vigors in Eutracia and Parthalon. Most recently, the Conclave had thwarted Serena, Wulfgar’s wife, who had vowed to carry on her husband’s legacy. Tristan knew that some of those vanquished foes had been counseled and aided by the Pon Q’tar clerics.

  But the azure pass that had once allowed travel through the Tolenka mountain range was no more. It had been sealed forever by the Pon Q’tar, after the clerics learned about the Envoys and how they were helping Tristan to understand and fulfill his destiny. How he wished that those wise mystics were still alive, so that they might somehow help him in his newly realized mission.

  Instead, he had seen the results of the butchery inflicted on the well-meaning Envoys by soldiers of Rustannica’s Imperial Order. Then he had narrowly escaped the Borderlands with his life, returning to Eutracia just as the pass sealed behind him. With the Envoys gone, no one from the western side of the Tolenkas could help him and the Conclave to cross the peaks into Rustannica, or to contact the mysterious League of Whispers. Clearly, whatever actions he and his allies took must be of their own devising.

  As he walked, Tristan allowed his surroundings to distract him from his worrisome thoughts. The massive palace was a wonder, literally sparkling with beauty and cleanliness. Rebuilt and redecorated by Minion and civilian workers after Wulfgar’s second failed invasion attempt, the structure had risen to an even greater splendor than before the deaths of Tristan and Shailiha’s parents.

  Each hallway corner was guarded by two stern warriors of the Minions of Day and Night. They were the savage winged fighters who had originally been conjured by Failee, First Mistress of the Coven, but now swore allegiance to Tristan. The Minions represented the only standing army Eutracia and Parthalon had.

  As Tristan approached another corner, the pair of warriors on guard there snapped their heels and came to quick attention. Tristan gave them a cursory nod. The warriors’ dark wings were folded behind their backs and their leather body armor shone in the light of the hallway torches. Great curved swords known as dreggans—like the one Tristan carried—hung in scabbards at their hips.

  Tristan much admired the Minions and he had relied heavily on them to help him win many bloody victories, both in Eutracia and in Parthalon. But they were not the massively imposing force that they had once been. At the height of their power they had numbered nearly half a million. But losses from so many deadly battles had cut their ranks to fewer than sixty thousand. It weighed on his heart to realize that the warriors might not be much help as he struggled to fulfill his newly crystallized destiny. Even if a way over the Tolenkas could be found, there simply weren’t enough Minions remaining to confront the vast Rustannican Imperial Order.

  During his time in the Borderlands, from afar he had watched a lone Shashidan force trudging through the snow, only to see it swallowed up by a great chasm that suddenly formed in the earth. To his amazement, the single force had easily numbered one hundred thousand troops. Logic dictated that the Rustannican forces were equally large, if not larger. Moreover, with their dark skin and great wings, Minion warriors would be impossible to disguise, making their use more difficult. It was becoming even more apparent that if Tristan and his followers entered Rustannica, their tactics would have to rely on stealth and cunning rather than brute force.

  But the situation wasn’t altogether bleak, he reminded himself. Many advantages and much craft knowledge had been garnered during the Conclave’s ongoing battles against those who would have the Vagaries triumph.

  Most importantly, the Conclave was finally in possession of the fabled Scroll of the Vigors and Scroll of the Vagaries. The Shashidan mystics had granted to Faegan the formula allowing him to use the precious indices to the scrolls. As the Conclave’s chief craft researcher, the eccentric wizard could effectively search through the scrolls’ vast teachings to pinpoint any forestallment formula the scrolls held. The forestallment could then be imbued into the blood of an endowed person, allowing immediate access to any gift the spell offered. Although part of the Vigors Scroll had been accidentally burned away during Wulfgar’s first attempt to invade Eutracia, Tristan believed that its remaining spells would prove a great help in the challenging days to come.

  Moreover, the Conclave’s newfound ability to change blood signature lean had allowed the rehabilitation of the Consuls of the Redoubt, the lesser wizards who had once fallen prey to Nicholas’ dark influence. The consuls’ daughters, who had been secretly learning the Vigors at Fledgling House, a castle tucked away to the north at the base of the Tolenkas, had also found their way home to the Redoubt.

  Along with the acolytes—the sisterhood of the craft that was the counterpart of the Consuls—the Redoubt bustled with magic students and practitioners of both sexes. Nathan, father of the fledgling Mallory, had been named Lead Consul. And Aeolus, a wizard who had once served with Wigg on the late Directorate of Wizards, had left his martial training school in Tammerland to become a full-fledged member of the Conclave.

  Four of the massive Black Ships used during the recent attack on Serena’s stronghold in Parthalon had survived and were being repaired in Parthalon. Tyranny, the Conclave’s privateer and commander of the ships, would soon bring them home. The small fleet would then be moored at the Cavalon Delta to await Tristan’s orders. Tristan was eager to have the ships return, because he guessed that they might somehow prove instrumental in crossing the Tolenkas.

  Tristan weighed these things and many more as he continued on toward the palace kitchens. Much had changed, he knew. In some ways, the forces protecting the Vigors east of the Tolenkas had never been stronger. But in other ways, especially given the dwindling numbers of Minion warriors, things had never been more worrying.

  Rounding another corner, he saw candlelight framing the edges of the kitchen doors. From behind the doors came tittering laughter. Curious about who else was about at this hour, he pushed open the doors and walked in.

  To his mild surprise, Shailiha and the sorceress Jessamay sat at a great butcher’s table in the center of the room. Shawna the Short was also there, sweeping the floor and mumbling to herself. As Tristan approached, Shailiha and Jessamay flashed him mischievous grins, and Shailiha beckoned him to come and sit with them.

  Removing his weapons and placing them on the table, Tristan took a stool between the two women. He had never liked the formality of the palace dining rooms, and always preferred taking his meals in the kitchen. The notion suddenly crossed his mind that when the Conclave members took their evening meals together, it should be here. Then he realized that Wigg, stickler for royal decorum that he was, would surely protest.

  Fires burned quietly in several large brick wall hearths, their orange-red flames welcoming him into the room. Wonderful smells teased his senses. Dozens of shining copper pots and pans hung from racks set low enough for Shawna the Short to reach them easily. A massive wine cellar lay behind an iron and glass door set into one wall. The cellar
’s thousands of dusty bottles lay in racks, perpetually cooled by one of Wigg’s spells.

  The table was laid with what looked like a feast: roasted ham, sliced cheese, vegetables, and brown bread were piled on trays. Beside them was a stone container filled to the brim with the spicy ground mustard for which the Eutracian province of Ephyra was famous. Two large pitchers of ale sat on the table, along with some empty pewter plates and tankards. Tristan knew perfectly well that this unexpected meal was Shawna’s doing. Gratefully, he built a thick sandwich and filled a tankard. Shailiha gave Shawna a quick glance and slid her stool closer to her brother’s.

  “It seems that we have been found out,” she whispered.

  “What do you mean?” Tristan asked.

  “Jessamay and I decided to come here and get a snack,” she answered. “It seems that she doesn’t like lamb any more than you or I. Anyway, we thought that we’d be clever and raid the kitchen without Shawna’s knowing.”

  Tristan laughed. “There’s never much chance of that,” he answered.

  Jessamay smiled ruefully. “No sooner did we get here than Shawna came bustling in to do some late-night cleaning.” Raising an eyebrow, she looked over at the busy gnome. “Just watching her exhausts me! I beg the Afterlife—doesn’t that little woman ever stop?”

  After taking another bite of his sandwich and washing it down with more ale, Tristan shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen,” he replied with a grin.

  “Anyway, after we put up with her fussing about how we should have eaten more of her lamb, she finally relented and put this food out for us,” Shailiha said. “I suggest that you eat well this time, or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Tristan took another swig of ale, then smiled. “You’re probably right,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve always thought that simple food was the best. And to that noble end I will be as gluttonous as humanly possible.”