by Dante King
“Is there something I can help you with, Anna, or do you just pop into armorers’ workshops for the hell of it?” I asked, grinning.
Ever since I’d come back to Brakith, Anna—the former ugly duckling tomboy turned sensual stunner—had been trying to find any excuse she could to be around me. Her intentions were obvious, and I sure as hell wouldn’t have minded some alone time with her, between the sheets, on a kitchen table, on the rooftop of my castle… but I just hadn’t had the time. Being a Death God and a lord meant fulfilling two very busy vocations.
Anna laughed—way more enthusiastically than my weak attempt at humor justified—and flashed me a smile that made my balls ache.
“I just saw you passing by on the street, Vance,” she purred, “and, since I hadn’t yet opened my store, I thought I’d come say hello and ask if you might be interested in dinner with me tonight… alone… just the two of us… with a few bottles of wine. We could have such fun, alone in my manor, with nobody to disturb us.”
A rush of hot blood to a very specific part of my anatomy immediately screamed out “hell yeah” to this proposition of hers, but my brain, that asshole, the fun-spoiling organ, overrode this keenness.
“I’d love to, Anna, seriously, but I can’t. Not tonight.”
“Well, that’s fine. Surely, though, you could spare some time tomorrow night, or the night after that? I guarantee you, I will make it very much worth your while… over and over and over again, throughout the course of whatever evening you give me. You’re a god, Vance, and you deserve to be worshiped, and believe me, I’m a girl who knows how to worship.”
If my cock could have, it would have started kicking the shit out of my brain at this point. Hell, most of the rest of my body was raring to gang up on the ol’ fella between my ears too, for forcing it to turn this vixen down.
“That sounds like an amazing time, Anna,” I said, my shoulders slumping a bit, “but I can’t. Not tomorrow night, and not any night after that.”
Anna wilted with disappointment, looking like a gorgeous flower that some uncaring oaf had just crushed underfoot.
“But… but why, Vance? Is it me? Am I not—”
“Trust me Anna, it’s not you. I’m leaving Brakith at first light tomorrow, and I’m not sure when I’ll be back again.”
She let out a gasp of shock, and her beautiful face fell with sadness.
“B—but this is your home!” she protested. “You’ve only been back for three months! Why are you leaving again so soon?”
“There are things I have to take care of, important things. Things that could affect all of Prand if I don’t.”
“It’s about the Blood God thing, isn’t it?” she asked with a sigh.
“Yeah.”
Her face lit up. “Well… I could help you! I mean, sure, I’m no fighter, but I’ve got Lucielle’s Mirror! You’ve seen how useful an item it is. And, and I could use my makeup skills to help disguise—”
“No, Anna,” I said gently but firmly. “I’m flattered that you’re so eager to accompany me, but where we’re going, it’s no afternoon stroll in the hills. We’re heading off to the frozen Wastes of the North, and fuck knows what we’re going to run into along the way. All sorts of ancient evils are being awoken, and things seem to be getting crazier by the day. I can’t risk your life by allowing you to tag along.”
“But, Vance—”
“I’m sorry, Anna, it’s just too dangerous. You can’t come with me. Sorry.”
“But—”
“No. And that’s my final word.”
She looked as if she was about to burst into tears. Without another word, she turned and dashed out. Having the attention and adulation of so many gorgeous women was sometimes far more trouble than it was worth.
“Another of your female admirers, m’lord?” the old armorer asked with a chuckle as he shuffled into the room. “You do have plenty of ‘em, you do! Haha!”
I smiled at the man. “You can never have too many women.”
“Anyway, m’lord, I’ve just finished the helm, so the suit of armor is ready to go. Take it at your leisure, m’lord. It’s been an honor creating this piece for you, I must say. Some of the best work I’ve done in all me years, m’lord.”
“It’s fucking stunning.”
“And strong, m’lord! It’s not just pretty, oh no! This is the finest steel in all of Prand, and I’ve heat-treated it more times over than any other armorer would. No axe or sword, save for a powerful magic weapon, will get through this. And see here, m’lord,” he continued, pointing out a number of subtly hidden sockets he’d worked into various pieces of the armor, “slots in which you can fit magic gems so that you can enchant the armor and give various parts of it extra powers.”
“You’re a true master of your craft. Thank you. This is indeed a worthy suit of plate armor for the God of Death. I’ll send a servant from the Keep to pick it up later, my good man. And I’ll send around an extra bag of coin as a bonus for such exceptional work.”
“Thank you, m’lord!” he exclaimed, a broad grin splayed across his wrinkly face. “You are most kind.”
I shook his hand and then left the armory and headed over to the castle stables, where my giant zombie lizard Fang was being kept. We’d had to cordon off a whole section of the stables for him and the undead horses. Understandably, the living horses weren’t too fond of them, and they also kind of spooked the grooms and stable hands.
Fang’s glowing, yellowy-green eyes lit up when he saw me; this man-eating lizard was just like a big puppy when I was around… unless I wanted him to chomp people’s heads off and rip their torsos in two with his monstrous jaws. He let out a deep rumble, and I walked over to scratch him behind the ear holes on his massive, blood-red head.
“Hey buddy,” I said, “you’re going to get the chance to stretch your legs again. I know you haven’t been too happy cooped up in these stables these last few months. Well, don’t worry, because tomorrow we’re hitting the road again.”
I needed to get to my zombie harpy too; I’d told Rami, who was also Xayon but still Rami—yeah, it could get confusing—that I’d send the harpy out to find her when I was ready to leave Brakith. That way, she could meet up with me on the road to the Wastes, hopefully with an army of Wind devotees following her. The harpy would need to cover a good distance, so I needed to send her out this morning; she might end up flying for days before she found Rami-Xayon. So that it wouldn’t be like searching for a needle in a haystack, Rami-Xayon had given me a piece of a small Wind trinket before she’d left. She’d kept the other half. It was a minor magical bracelet, with no real power or use, but if I gave the harpy my half, it would be like a homing beacon, drawing the harpy to wherever Rami-Xayon was.
I was about to leave the stables and head over to where I kept my harpy, in the top of one of the Keep’s towers, when a piercing shout shattered the silence.
“Battle stations!” one of the sergeants on the battlements yelled. “Guards, soldiers, battle stations! Crossbowmen and archers, ready your weapons!”
Suddenly, shouts were flying from all over the place. Soldiers and guards raced around, grabbing spears, bows, crossbows, arrows, and swords.
“What the fuck is going on?!” I stormed out of the stables and whipped Grave Oath out of its sheath, ready to fight if necessary.
One of the guards on the battlements saw me and tossed a rope down for me.
“Quickly, my lord, get up here!” he yelled. “You need to see this, my lord!”
I gripped Grave Oath between my teeth as I clambered up the rope, and I shoved the guard out of the way as soon as I got up onto the battlements. Immediately, I realized exactly why everyone had fallen into a panic. There, coming down the road from the distant hills, was the dark mass of an army, fast approaching Brakith.
Chapter Three
I watched in grim silence as the army slithered slowly toward Brakith like a vast black snake. Who were these soldiers? Was this my uncle Rod
rick and his army, come to retake Brakith from me? Was it a division of the Splendorous Army, sent to capture Rollar? Was it servants of the Blood God, come to destroy me before I got powerful enough to take him on?
They were too far away for me to tell at this point, but I knew how I could get a good look at them long before they could get a good look at me. I closed my eyes and sent my mind into that of Talon the harpy, melding my senses and motor functions with the beast’s.
I sent it up into the air, and even though I wasn’t flying, I could feel—with as intense a sensation as if I were one with the body of the creature—the wind rippling through my wings, the currents of air buffeting me as I soared up hundreds of feet above the ground. And, closing my eyes, I saw through the harpy’s eyes, as clearly and vividly as if they’d been my own.
As many times as I did this, I never got tired of it, and it never lost its exhilarating thrill. As far as I knew, I was the only man in Prand—hell, the whole world, surely—who had ever experienced, and I mean truly experienced, flight. Down below me, the land beyond the city walls looked like a patchwork quilt, colored in various hues of green and brown, with huge trees looking like mere florets of broccoli from this height. People and sheep and cattle in the fields looked like miniatures, and huge wagons like children’s toys.
But enjoying a leisurely cruise among the clouds wasn’t the reason I’d sent my harpy up there. I flew it straight toward the army, staying high enough so that I’d be out of reach of their archers and crossbowmen.
As I drew closer, I began to feel something unexpected, and it was most certainly coming from the advancing army. There was a pulsing in the air, a humming vibration. Most people would have regarded it as a strange vibe, an uncanny feeling. I, of course, was no ordinary man. I was a god—and this eerie energy that the advancing army was radiating was pretty damn familiar.
It was Death energy.
Either there was another Death God somewhere in Prand, and he’d sent an army to attack Brakith, or it was something else. Some old friends had come to visit, perhaps?
Controlling Talon with the finesse of an expert puppeteer, I sent it swooping down low over the army. When they caught sight of it, they did not draw their bows or raise their crossbows. Instead, they cheered. I was flying low enough now to get a clear look at the army and to pick out individual faces. Two familiar ones glanced up. Their presence cemented the fact that this was a force of allies, not enemies.
There, at the head of this force of black-and-gray-clad people was the crooked-toothed, squint-eyed, pockmarked visage of Cranton, in all his gangly-limbed, former-greenfoil-junkie glory.
The prodigal priest had returned, and he was riding an expensive-looking stallion. I guessed he’d made the right choice when he took up my offer to become the first priest of the Temple of Necrosis, which, judging by the impressive size of this force, was growing in popularity in leaps and bounds. That was excellent news for me.
Behind Cranton was another familiar face: Grast, the cheerful old wine-sot of a wagon driver. His cheeks and nose were as red as beets, and in his hand was a wineskin, no doubt filled with the ol’ fire-in-a-bottle, Yorish brandy, a drink that could knock an ogre out after a couple of shots. Grast, however, sucked it back like it was warm milk.
He’d upgraded his wagon, though; no longer was it a standard wooden vehicle, covered with a rough tarpaulin. Instead, it seemed he had hired a master woodcarver to do a very detailed job. The wood had been cut away, polished, and smoothed, then painted over in white, black, and gray, as though it were made entirely of bones. A brilliant touch, and perfect for the Temple of Necrosis.
“Nice work, boys,” I murmured. “Very nice work indeed.”
I’d seen all I needed to for now, so I flew Talon back into Brakith. I yanked my consciousness out of the harpy’s head, snapping the invisible strands back into my own brain like a stretched bowstring.
“Stand down, guards and soldiers!” I yelled. “These are friends approaching, not foes!”
“Are you sure, my lord?” a sergeant asked from a couple of yards away.
“One hundred percent certain,” I replied. “That force that’s advancing toward us is an army of Death. They’ve come to serve me, not to fight me.”
“As you say, my lord.”
He then cupped his hands together and bellowed out a command to all the other troops to stand down and abandon their battle stations. There would be no battle in Brakith—at least not today.
It was going to take the approaching army a good while to get to the city gates, so I figured I could take care of a few more things before they arrived. I left the battlements and headed back to my chambers, where I imagined Elyse would be awake now, having been roused from her slumber by all the commotion out here. I also needed to have a word with Isu, who would likely be skulking around the castle crypts. The townsfolk were creeped out by her; as stunningly beautiful as the former goddess was, she did have unearthly eyes, a strange hue to her skin, and uh, two horns coming out of her head.
The feeling of dislike was mutual; Isu looked up at the citizens of Brakith—and, indeed, pretty much any people, anywhere—with contempt, referring to them as “mere mortals,” even though she, as a being stripped of her status as a deity, was just as mortal as any of them. As a necromancer, she still felt a powerful connection with the dead and all things concerned with death, and the place where such energies were most concentrated in Brakith was in the crypts of the Keep, where the bones of my dead ancestors had been interred for over a thousand years.
I’d go talk to her later though. First, I wanted to let Elyse know that we’d be leaving Brakith at dawn tomorrow.
I headed up to the top of the Keep, to my personal chambers. Elyse had been sleeping in the room next to mine, but, more often than not, had ended up sleeping in my bedchamber. So much for her vows of chastity. She kept saying that the Lord of Light would understand. I doubted that, but whatever. It all worked out fine by me.
I had to admire the fact that she had managed to restrain herself from being too clingy; it had been something that I’d been quite worried about, with those puppy dog looks she gave me, and the other things she did for me that made it obvious that her feelings for me went way beyond mere animal attraction. She understood that I couldn’t be tied down to one woman, and even though I knew that this was a hard thing for someone like her to accept, she did accept it, and quite graciously.
I knocked on the door before entering my chambers; yeah, I could have barged right in, but I had been brought up to have at least some manners.
“Vance, is that you?”
Her bell-like voice always sent a ripple of pleasure down my spine; her posh accent made her seem like even more of a bad girl when she shed her Church of Light robe and got down and dirty.
“It is, and I’m coming in.”
I opened the door and saw that she was up and, unfortunately, fully dressed. I wouldn’t have minded getting one more glimpse of that glorious figure, tanned all over; she took worshipping the Light quite literally, sometimes sunbathing naked on the roof of the highest turret of the castle, where nobody (except me) could see her.
She ran up to me, a broad grin brightening her beautiful face, and threw her arms around me, planting a long, deep, and passionate kiss on my lips, with delight sparkling in her big blue eyes.
Energy surged through me as our tongues danced, and an urgent heat stirred in my loins. But as much as I would have enjoyed a romp right now, there were many other matters to attend to.
I disengaged from the kiss and gently took her arms off my shoulders.
“I’ve got some news,” I said.
“And what might that be, Vance?”
“As comfy as this castle is, and as great as it’s been sleeping in a real bed after all that time on the road, we have to leave. Tomorrow at first light.”
She sighed with disappointment but gave me a nod of understanding. As someone with responsibilities of her own—being the
Bishop of Erst—she knew that this little sojourn in Brakith couldn’t have lasted forever. She understood as well as I did that the threat of the Blood God wasn’t just going to go away and that every day we delayed our quest against him and his evil followers was a day we allowed them to grow in strength. She was as committed as I was to blowing that blood-drenched piece of troll dung off the surface of this planet forever.
“I knew this day would come,” she said wistfully. “I had just hoped that it wouldn’t arrive quite so soon. And I was so enjoying these nights with you. I knew that it was an impossible fantasy, of course, but I was hoping they wouldn’t have to end.”
I knew that the passionate lovemaking sessions we’d been engaging in weren’t the only reason Elyse was saying this; she’d enjoyed having me all to herself for a while, without having to share me with Rami, or Isu, who’d been quite the recluse in recent weeks beneath the crypts of the Keep. Then there was Anna, whose advances had been quite persistent. And it hadn’t been that I didn’t want to get to know the gorgeous raven-haired beauty a lot more intimately, but she and I just hadn’t had the time to fit in the kind of activities that we both wanted to engage in.
Neither of us said it directly, but we both knew that this period of exclusivity to Elyse was coming to an end. I knew that she’d be upset about it, even though I’d always been clear from the start that I wasn’t ever going to be a one-woman guy. Rami-Xayon would soon be back, and Isu would be around me all the time too, now that we were about to head back out onto the road and she couldn’t spend her time lurking in the shadows of the crypts anymore.
“I’ll start packing my things,” Elyse said with a sigh, trying (but failing) to disguise the sadness in both her eyes and her voice.
“Dust off that mace of yours,” I said. “Stories have been coming in from all sorts of traders and merchant caravans about new dangers popping up on the roads. I have a feeling that our journey won’t be an easy one, and you’re probably going to have to bust some heads open before we reach our destination.”
