WRAITH LORD
Book Two of the Wraith Knight Series
By C. T. Phipps
A Mystique Press Production
Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press
Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Digital Edition Copyright © 2019 C. T. Phipps
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Meet the Author
C. T. Phipps is a lifelong student of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. An avid tabletop gamer, he discovered this passion led him to write and turned him into a lifelong geek. He is a regular blogger and also a reviewer for The Bookie Monster.
Bibliography
The Rules of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #1)
The Games of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #2)
The Secrets of Supervillainy (Supervillainy Saga #3)
The Kingdom of Supervillany (Supervillainy Saga #4)
The Tournament of Supervillany (Supervillainy Saga #5)
I Was a Teenage Weredeer (The Bright Falls Mysteries, Book 1)
An American Weredeer in Michigan (The Bright Falls Mysteries, Book 2)
Esoterrorism (Red Room, Vol. 1)
Eldritch Ops (Red Room, Vol. 2)
Agent G: Infiltrator (Agent G, Vol. 1)
Agent G: Saboteur (Agent G, Vol. 2)
Agent G: Assassin (Agent G, Vol. 3)
Cthulhu Armageddon (Cthulhu Armageddon, Vol. 1)
The Tower of Zhaal (Cthulhu Armageddon, Vol. 2)
Lucifer’s Star (Lucifer’s Star, Vol. 1)
Lucifer’s Nebula (Lucifer’s Star, Vol. 2)
Straight Outta Fangton (Straight Outta Fangton, Vol. 1)
100 Miles and Vampin’ (Straight Outta Fangton, Vol. 2)
Wraith Knight (Wraith Knight, Vol. 1)
Wraith Lord (Wraith Knight, Vol. 2)
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter One
When I dreamed, I dreamed of the days when I was still human. That was two and a half centuries in the past, a different age, and things had been simpler then. Terrible but simpler. The King Below had invaded the Southern Kingdoms with his armies of Shadowkind for the fourth and penultimate time.
Villages were put to the sword, citizens were carried off by the hundreds, and terrifying creatures roamed the land killing with impunity. The roads were crowded with refugees, bandits, deserters, and farm animals.
In many places, those seeking relief from their fellow man were enslaved or turned away. The only hope for these unfortunates was the collected armies of the Anessian Empire and its allies. These forces were a motley collection of conscripts and levies collected by ruthless nobles who hated each other more than they did the King Below’s horrors.
In my dream, I rode on the back of a brown Imperial warhorse, I kept pace with a luxuriously saddled chestnut G’Tay mare. I, Jacob Riverson, rode beside Jassamine, the first great love of my life, across a muddy back road in the Gael Lowlands.
We were near the front of the war, Winterholme and the now-destroyed nations of Chodar and Ren having fallen in the past year. Despite this, I treasured the opportunity to spend time with my lover. We rarely got to see one another in those days, with my recent promotion to Knight Commander and her rising status in the Imperial Court.
Jassamine had been a beautiful woman in her late twenties with olive skin and twisted hair she had pulled up in the manner that befit the Imperial patrician class. She wore a purple toga with a heavy gray hooded cloak. Gold necklaces and jewelry adorned her fingers and throat. A ghostwood staff was attached to her saddle for ease of drawing against potential foes. Desperate men might see her as an easy mark, but such fools would find themselves swiftly overwhelmed by one of the Mysterium’s master mages.
The farmland we were passing through was uninhabited, and had been for weeks, tools abandoned on the ground and crops left to rot. Crows were pecking out the eyes or hanged corpses that had been left to decay long after they should have been cut down for burial. There was no sign these men had been hanged for a crime, and I couldn’t help but imagine they were people mistaken for looters by whatever locals remained.
“In the next few months, the people are going to look at this corn and maize’s decaying remains and wish they had harvested it. People are already slitting each other’s throat in Kerifas and Castule for bowls of stew,” Jassamine said, shaking her head. “The smart men are cooking the dead and selling the meat as such.”
“Farms don’t magically harvest themselves,” I said, gesturing around us. “It takes hundreds of strong backs to plow, reap, and grind this much produce.”
“I forgot you used to be one of these people,” Jasmine said, grinning.
“I still am,” I said, smiling. “I am a shit-stained peasant from hair to toenail.”
Jassamine just laughed.
I was mildly offended, despite the fact she was right to laugh at the idea. I was a Knight Commander of the Shadowguard now, having risen rapidly through the ranks since the war began. I wore a fine black cloak over enchanted scale-mail with numerous runes woven into the plates. My swords alone were worth the price of a small farm, but with them I could kill the King Below’s strongest monste
rs. In the past year alone, I had paid the empire’s investment back many times over.
“Some nobility is inherited and some nobility is earned,” Jassamine said, looking to the horizon. “I think you have more than proven that you deserve the latter.”
“I have no interest in the pomp and ceremony of the aristocrat’s life. I came to the capital to help people and that’s what we’re doing. After this war, I don’t intend to sit upon a throne overlooking a bunch of peasants as they break their backs so I can take their next meal.”
“Even for me?” Jassamine asked.
I looked at her. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Jassamine shook her head. “Come, let us continue our survey. We can get some press gangs together to harvest this territory’s crops along with the other villages we’ve scouted. With the excess food, we can save a few thousand lives this winter.”
“We should consider preserving it for the army,” I said, not happy to say it. “Every soldier who eats is another to fight the King Below’s madness. It won’t do any good to feed those who don’t fight if they’re just going to become fodder for the undead.”
“That is remarkably cold-blooded of you.”
“Another fact of being born a peasant. You know how the world really works.” Truth be told, I’d been making a lot of hard decisions lately.
And they were getting easier.
There was a rustling in the corn around us and I glanced at Jassamine. I’d known there were people moving around through the corn out of sight, perhaps even considering robbing us, but I had hoped they’d be smarter than that.
Apparently not.
A group of almost a dozen of the local farmers moved out, more than I’d expected, armed with makeshift weapons. Men, women, and children who looked haunted in a way even worse than most refugees I’d encountered. Their clothing was ragged and patched but not so much I believed they came from much further than the nearest village. Something had happened to them, though, because I could sense the desperation in their eyes.
Their leader, a tall elderly woman with white hair and a mole on her cheek, pointed at me with a long fingernail. “You two folk will be emptying your purses and leaving your goods on the ground. We’ll also be taking your horses. Everything.”
I looked at her, blinking. “Why?”
“I think they’re threatening us,” Jassamine said. Without drawing attention to herself, she used her right hand to make the mystical sign of the Adaras.
“Oh?” I said to the old woman, feigning indifference.
“Fuck talking! They’re responsible for this! Them and all of their kind!” One of the would-be-bandits lifted a crossbow and pulled the trigger. The bolt sailed through the air only to smack against the newly erected magical barrier around us. The bolt fell to the ground, plopping into a muddy puddle beside us.
That caused three of the peasants to flee outright.
“Cowards!” the crossbowman shouted.
I stared at his weapon, concentrated, and snapped my fingers. The weapon burst into flames, causing him to jump backwards. Almost all the remaining peasants scattered at that. One young woman, braver than the rest, tried to stab me in the back with a pitchfork. The barrier, which covered us on all sides, caused the old, rusty prongs to break. I had to admire her courage and made a mental note to see if she wanted a job in the Imperial Legion.
“Of all the people in the world to rob, it’d have to be two wizards,” the old woman muttered, clearly resigned to whatever happened.
The crossbowman drew his dagger, not yet realizing the fight was over.
Jassamine made several gestures with her hand. The crossbowman then put the knife to his neck and she prepared to make him slit his own throat.
“Stop,” I said. “There’s no need to shed blood.”
Jassamine gave a half-amused laugh. “I believe you are the only one who believes that, Jacob.”
“We can’t stop you; get it done,” the old woman said. “Just know it was my idea and my grandchildren are not responsible for this.”
Jassamine sniffed the air. “That doesn’t mean much in cases of banditry and treason.”
“Treason?” I asked.
“Just adding a bit of spice,” Jassamine said. “Of course, I don’t think these are common bandits.”
“Strong words from a woman who never worked a day in her life,” the old woman said.
“I could speak of the horrors and abuses I’ve endured as a half-caste woman of Natariss, but I have little care to explain myself to those who would rob me,” Jassamine said, glaring down at the woman. “Instead, I must ask you where you got your demon brand?”
The old woman pulled back in horror, covering the black mole on her right hand. The other two reacted as well, covering their neck and oft-hand respectively.
I almost cut them down where they stood.
Demon marks were one of the “gifts” the King Below bestowed upon his followers. They were a means for his agents to identify one another in foreign lands, but had lately been more often bestowed upon those forced to participate in his rituals at sword-point. Because armies could not tell who sincerely followed the Trickster and who had been coerced, most simply put them all to the sword. I encouraged it, in fact.
“It wasn’t our choice!” the young woman behind me hissed. “It showed up a month ago, killing every man and woman who stood against it. We tried to flee but it corralled us back here, killing others. It makes us…do things. Give it sacrifices. It’s why we wanted your horses and gold—we can’t live like this anymore.”
As much as I hated those who willingly betrayed the path, under duress or not, I couldn’t help but ask, “What is ‘it’?’
“A Nuckelavee,” the old woman said.
I cursed under my breath. Nuckelavee were powerful mid-tier demons in the service of the King Below. One this far south meant that the enemy’s forces were already starting to corrupt the local populations. It meant that we had to move fast if we weren’t going to have to destroy everything between us and Winterholme. The Dark Lords and their servants were masters of breaking human will.
Jassamine took her staff and pulled it free, raising it to the sky and bathing the entire area in a brief flash of light. The three villagers stopped dead in their tracks and stared with an empty expression on their faces.
“Tell us—everything.”
They did. It was not a terribly complex story. The Nuckelavee had arrived within the past month with its lesser demons and ghosts. It had killed everyone who resisted and forced the rest to participate in worship of the King Below. That was the nature of demons.
Demons did not leave you a choice save death or pain, knowing most people were not strong enough to resist either. They then set their new worshipers on one another, letting them degrade themselves until there was nothing left of the people they once were. Fighting them was why we fought this war. To bring an end to the King Below’s evil.
“We need to destroy this creature,” Jassamine said, looking down at the three peasants. “If what we’re hearing is true, we can turn this around. The King Below sending its demons so far abroad means the Nuckelavee is isolated and vulnerable.”
I agreed but had other concerns. “What will happen to them?”
Jassamine stared down at them. “They’ve forsaken the Path, the Lawgiver, and their faith. The Grand Temple would have them all burned as heretics. I think that is an appalling waste of life and think they should be enslaved instead.”
I lowered my voice, disgusted with her suggestion. “Slavery is one of the great evils of the world. It is no better than burning, worse even.”
I had grown up in the Borderlands, in what was now the Riverfords, where slavery had never been an accepted practice. My first exposure to it had been slave hunters attacking farms to drag off men, women, and children to become the property of someone else. Even there, it had been a criminal practice performed by ruffians and those blinded by greed.
On
ly when I’d reached the empire had I seen places where citizens treated slavery as perfectly natural. I had even met slaves who found the idea of freedom as alien as a fish might find a world without water. The very concept frightened them.
That had been horrifying in an entirely different way.
“I agree but they have been marked,” Jassamine said. “Would you have each of them cleansed by holy rites?”
The cleansings were expensive, sacred rites, reserved only for the corrupted children of the nobility or priests.
“Better than living with the taint. Better than death. Better than a slave.”
Jassamine seemed to consider my words. “You are a great progressive, Jacob Riverson, as well as very foolish. Every slave chooses life over death. Otherwise, they would find a way out. Still, I shall propose a cleansing for the villagers. We’ll see if it is a trial run. Those who involved themselves in the human sacrifices will have to be killed, though.”
I wasn’t sure I disagreed with her but that was going to get ugly fast. Groups had a way of normalizing monstrous behavior. I’d seen the gentlest of souls cheer as criminals were fed to monsters in the Great Games. “See if you can get the emperor or the Prince to change the punishment for heresy from burning to hanging. There’s no need to be sadistic about such things.”
Jassamine smiled. “My soft-hearted rogue.”
“There’s nothing soft hearted about me. I just blame the King Below for this, rather than his victims.”
“Is it not better to punish ten innocent men than let one guilty man go free?”
“Don’t quote the Codex at me. Come, let us kill this thing,” I said, kicking my horse into a trot toward where the villagers had said the monster rested.
I knew how to do this. Killing was easier than politics.
It took half an hour of moving past abandoned farm houses and empty buildings until Jassamine and I rode into the middle of the empty town square. There, the Lawgiver’s temple had been burned to the ground. The place was deathly cold with little patches of snow on the rooftops and street, despite it being the middle of autumn. Most of the buildings were abandoned and I wondered if that was because the inhabitants moved out further away or the Nucklavee had killed them.
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