The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4)

by Everet Martins

  “Good. I promised you a quick death, now kneel before your master.” Dressna’s wings fanned open, spreading wide as a hut.

  “Scorpions do not kneel,” Sinred said, his voice as soft as death’s kiss.

  Dressna’s arm was a viper, her hand wrapping around her father’s neck and lifting him into the air. Her other hand punched into his ribs and out his back, his bones cracking like split stone, his blood splashing out like a gutted hog. It was all too fast. Sinred reached under his arm and slammed a dagger into Dressna’s forearm. Senka knew the scent, Grim Flower, sweet as nutmeg. In seconds, Dressna would be paralyzed, weak as a new babe.

  The wall had crept up against her back, feet melting into the stone and immovable. She watched her father’s lifeless body crumple to the ground. He turned his head towards her. “Run,” he choked. Scarlet pooled out from his body, filling the mortared stone channels.

  Something dark was zooming for her head and she ducked on instinct. Dressna’s arm cracked stone and vibrated through her soles. Senka ran with everything she had, white fires blurring in her wet eyes. Dressna shrieked. “Get back here you little cunt!”

  A rock dinged from an exhaust pipe beside her, the searing heat of the furnace bathing her skin in sweat. She could hear the beast running now, taking leaping steps, booming through the cavern. Dressna should’ve stopped now, slowed at least. The Grim Flower wasn’t working. Senka panted, sucking in the sulfurous air singing her sinuses. She slid boots first beside a furnace, putting herself between it and Dressna. As she rose to a knee, her cheek bumped against its molten walls, stifling the scream that wanted to explode from her lips. The patch of burned skinned bubbled up like a mushroom on her face. Her mouth trembled and she wiped the tears hot on her eyes so she could see. Her fingers snatched an Acontium needle from her bracer, grabbed at the blowpipe under her robe and loaded it with quivering fingers.

  Dressna slowed, head whipping side to side, horns stabbing into the shadows. “I know you are here, child. Do not waste my time. Come and die honorably like your daddy.”

  Senka, quiet as the wind, crawled around the furnace and faced Dressna’s back. She steadied her breath, ignored the pain blooming on the side of her face and took aim. She took a deep breath and held it, straining into the dark for the moment when Dressna’s leg pressed against her skirt. Dressna took a step and the time was now. The needle hissed from her gun, saw its glinting tip hanging from her thigh.

  “No more games!” Dressna’s arm hammered into the pipe above her, deeply denting it.

  Senka’s heart was like a smith’s hammer, beating so hard she thought the monster had to have been able to hear it. Her father had said to bottle up the fear, save it for later. She could be afraid after she lived. She controlled her breath, slowing it to a steady whisper. She grabbed at her other needle, slipping from her fingers and falling with a tinkle. She reached for it and something yanked her from the ground, her robe cutting into her armpits.

  Senka released a ragged breath. “No!”

  “Yes.” Dressna breathed into her face, her breath stinking like spoiled eggs.

  Senka drew a dagger and stabbed at Dressna’s neck, but the larger woman’s other hand caught Senka’s wrist with ease, clamping down. The dagger tumbled from her grip, clattering on the stone far below. Her hand was like a giant’s from the stories. Senka let out a primal scream as her wrist was crushed, feeling the bones in her wrist turning into dust.

  Dressna’s hand loosened around her wrist. “What have you done to me?”

  Senka fell, ground hurling up and dropping into a deep squat, spreading the energy through her muscles. Dressna’s head spun with confusion, her hands reaching for support and finding only air. The beast fell like a tree, smashing onto its face and cracking off the tip of a horn.

  “Acontium.” Senka gripped her shattered wrist in one hand, which was flopping over uselessly as pain lanced up her arm. She could hear the squawking shadows now and see their torches far down the earthen tunnel. She limped her way to the back of the cavern, pressed the block that would release the hidden locking mechanism. The door rattled and groaned as it opened, revealing pitch black behind a wall of cobwebs.

  She trudged into the cottony webs, matting themselves onto her face and her clothes. She kneeled, pressed the cobble on the floor to close the door behind her. She could hear the gears grinding in the wall, inching the door shut as the shadows emerged into the cavern.

  The oaths had been broken. The shadows have discovered the Dragon forges. She had to tell someone.

  * * *

  Asebor gasped, his head snapping back at the surge of white mist tunneling into his nostrils. He clutched an opalescent dagger in his dark hand, the tip hammered into the shape of a jagged mouth. He could feel the artifact’s drained energy in his legs, his arms, infusing them with another trickle of the Dragon. With each artifact he drained, he grew in strength, forging his bond with the Shadow god in Milvorian steel.

  He flung the artifact, now rendered benign, clattering into a barrel of other drained artifacts. The barrel was spilling over with spears, swords, figurines, dirks, all dull and lifeless with their energy sapped. They would be melted down by the smiths and forged into new weapons. “Hilanda did not mention how many artifacts the Tower whores had accumulated. No wards. A few untrained guards. Confidence undermines even the cockiest of villains.”

  Alena punched a gauntleted fist through a window, the glass tinkling down upon the marbled floor. She worked her arm around the frame and freed the remaining glass. Her gauntlet reflected torchlight, mirror bright gold, studded with emeralds the size of pigeon’s eggs. “She had a lust for power that rivaled Darkthorne’s. It does not surprise me in the slightest.”

  “And you have no predilection for power?” Asebor’s oiled chains clinked as he reached for another artifact from the oaken shelf.

  “I only live to serve, great lord.”

  “Of course.”

  There wasn’t anyone he could trust during his last reign. Why should he expect this one to be any different? The past was like a Dragon eating its own tail. This time the Tower whores would not imprison him. ‘The Wretched,’ his generals called themselves, a name to scare children, maybe. He needed help though. Men did not bow so easily in this age. Asebor loathed to admit to himself that the task couldn’t be accomplished alone.

  It was surreal for him to be in the confines of his sworn enemies’ place of refuge. This incarnation was already starting to grow boring and awfully tiresome. Was it too much to ask to want a mountain to climb? The dual-wielder boy, he proved to be interesting, though a lamb for slaughter. Much like the others, weak and untrained.

  Alena wore heavy spotted furs falling around her shoulders, secured with a thin Milvorian chain. Her chest was bare, her round breasts puckered with gooseflesh in the cool hall of artifacts. Her bottoms were made of soft leather wrapped in gold wire, securing glowing emeralds in various sizes. She drained an artifact, the emeralds on her hips jingled against her quivering muscles. She flipped her head back, her luminous black-pearl hair draping over her backside as she sucked in air.

  “You have done well, Alena. I have dreamed of this day since I gave my soul to the Shadow god. In exchange, she granted me this mortal form to execute her will.”

  Alena rolled her shoulders and wiped a trickle of blood from her nostril. “I think I’ve had more power than I can handle. This,” she coughed, waving her pale arm at the floor to ceiling figurines and weapons. “This is why I serve, great lord. I do not deny I desire power, but I know my place, master. I know it by your hand.”

  He levitated towards her, the tips of his boots hissing along the polished stone, closing the few paces between them. “You please me, Alena.” He saw the terror in her eyes, the sick she forced back down her throat. He didn’t care. Even a god has needs. “Do not displease me now.”

  He brushed the back of his shadowy hand along her arm, scratching her with his metallic spikes. He couldn’t fe
el the touch of a woman or a man. That was one of the many prices to be paid for immortality. His loins still swelled with pressure over time and needed to be relieved. It took a savage effort now. She forced a smile on her thin lips, baring perfectly aligned teeth. Alena’s eyes were downcast, the tiles reflecting their grassy glow.

  “Great lord.” She whimpered, knowing full well what was to come. She winced as his bladed finger slipped between her skin and bottoms, cutting through the leather and golden filigree. An angry line of blood welled from her hip as gold and leather crumpled between her legs.

  Asebor felt no lust for her, no longing. Just a task that needed doing. Even gods had needs. He took Alena the way he always had, from behind. His clawed hands dug into her small shoulders, trickles of red streaming out from where his blades held her. He jabbed himself into her without warning. His stiff leather pants slapped and scratched at her pale ass like a drum. Alena cried out, a mix of pain and ecstasy. His barbed hands found her tits, gripping them like handles, her scarred flesh turning purple.

  He felt the mounting pressure buried deep in his abdomen, yearning for release. The wet squelching of his cock stabbing into her echoed through the empty hall of artifacts. Her screams carried up the spiraled staircases, through the decimated gardens, up the broken spires, and high into the starry sky. One day she commanded an army of animated dead, the next his plaything.

  Everyone had a master, even Asebor.

  The color of Asebor’s world faded, darkness creeping in like spilled ink. The ground became a world of gray cobbles, each identical underfoot.

  Everything changed.

  A figure of violet smoke and light emerged from the black. Its enormous mouth yawned open and burned with violet fire, roaring it into Asebor’s eyes, painting the world in its sulfurous fury. The smoky light started swirling together like a cyclone. Its form shifted and congealed into that of a hairless woman, nude from head to toe.

  Asebor stared at the Shadow god, her mouth closed and pressed into a grimace. The woman’s eyes were pits of violet fire, crackling like the skin of a roasting fowl. Asebor lost himself in the Shadow god’s eyes, a sea of tortured souls trapped in those pits, forever burning.

  He remembered the fires, the misery without end. Asebor prostrated himself, feeling his cock growing limp, the cobbles cold against his face. Time stopped and the vision took control.

  “More witches remain,” the Shadow god drawled, her neck cracking as she tilted her head.

  “I’ll find them.” Asebor didn’t dare look up from the cobbles, lest he be wracked in pain. Everyone had a master it seemed. Who was the Shadow god’s master?

  “Find them.” The Shadow god’s eyes flared and pulsed, seeming to digest the thought. “I have made you. What can be made, can be unmade.”

  “I will not fail you again, master,” Asebor rasped.

  “Destroy, my son.”

  The Shadow was still as a corpse, fires burning white as an eclipse in her eyes. An arctic breeze swept through the great emptiness, disintegrating the woman’s body like a pile of loose dust. The wind stopped as soon as it began and the air grew still. The absence of sound in his ears lanced his chest with a spear of panic.

  The inky world fell away, color returning like the opening of a morning eye. He was back in the hallway, his hips hammering away against Alena’s as if they were someone else’s. He fell back into his body, regaining his senses, overwhelmed with the torrent of it all and releasing his seed inside of her. He threw his head back, roaring at the sweetness, for a second penetrating all the rage that plagued his mind.

  He stumbled away from Alena, bent over, crashing into the wall and splitting a wall tile. He let out a ragged breath, bloody talons pressing on his head. He watched her pulling on her bottoms, her inner thighs streaked with blood, and secured it with a knot. She moaned and limped towards the end of the hall, one arm using the wall for balance.

  “You have pleased me once again, Alena.”

  She looked at him over her shoulder, her scowl becoming a smile, revealing bloody teeth. “I live to serve, master.”

  Chapter One

  Starting Again

  “Dragon Eyes: When embracing the Dragon the caster’s eye color will glow with the colors of fire. It grants the wielder enhanced visual acuity. This includes low-light vision, enhanced night vision and an increased sharpness to the world.” -The Lost Spells of Zoria

  Nyset held the gelding’s reins loosely in her hands, the soft leather riding gloves covering the scars inflicted at the Tower. Her hands had apparently been burned by someone’s Dragon fire, leaving her with mangled flesh from fingertip to elbow. She worked her left thumb around. It still didn’t move the way it once had. She had broken it and hadn’t felt the pain of it until hours after their fortuitous escape from The Silver Tower. The slaughterhouse. The butcher’s block. She wasn’t sure which name she liked best yet.

  She wore sky blue silks trimmed with shimmering gold that flowed around her body and down over her riding boots. She had to admit they were not only beautiful, but also wonderfully comfortable. They kept her feeling cool in the heat as the gentle air moved easily through the overlapping layers and over her skin. They were more valuable than anything she’d ever imagined wearing. As the new Arch Wizard, she had to look the part. People expected boldness with a dash of ostentation and she delivered.

  Over her skirts, she wore a sword belt studded with small rubies. The hilt of her short sword was wrapped in new chestnut leather, soft in her light grip. She frequently found her hand there, either caressing the crosspiece or white knuckling the grip. She had to remind herself it was there. If she ever lost touch with Dragon again, she would not be defenseless. Never again.

  The scrubland outside of Helm’s Reach was choked with thorny bushes and weeds clinging to dry rocks. Occasionally, the gelding’s hooves spooked a violet lizard from the open and into its den, usually a hole under a rock. The clouds stretched out like torn cotton, the air torrid in her nose.

  She shielded her eyes in the sun, peering out at a plot of land the Earl of Helm’s Reach had granted them. In the middle was a patched tent of canvas bags, discarded cloth, and moldering trash. The makeshift tent flap cracked open and a muffled groan came from within. A yellow arc of liquid shot out, spattering onto a thorny shrub. The arc lost steam and became a steady dripping onto the tent’s edge. Apparently, the Arch Wizard of the Tower had lost some respect here over the years.

  “Lovely.” Nyset’s eyebrows bobbed up at Grimbald, saddled on his scarlet Blood Donkey.

  Juzo stood beside him, arms crossed and his eye a red slit. His gray hair had grown, flapping in the sighing wind and finally settling between his shoulder blades. “Want me to get rid of him?”

  “I suppose we’ll have to.” Nyset cocked a brow at the house. It sat in shambles about thirty strides from their land. The door, window frames, and roofline were all in skewed angles. The whole of the house seemed to be leaning sideways as if pushed by the wind. There was an ancient block used as the foundation, seeming square, speckled with dead lichen. Maybe they could salvage that.

  Grimbald leaned over his saddle, following her eyes. “The new Tower will surely have to be built better than that.” Nyset wasn’t one to cringe at a blade, but the massive axe Grimbald always wore over his back was a terrifying instrument. Corpsemaker he had called it. It seemed to be designed to split men in half. It had the marks of hard use, each curved blade chipped in spots. He had recently had a few additions made to it along with the smith’s repairs. Along the flat side of the axe now were a series of four menacing spikes glinting out on either side. The unadorned pommel was replaced by a steel skull, grinning at the sun. She’d watched him use it in battle before. She was glad he was on her side. “Does the weather get bad here?”

  Nyset tapped her lips with an extended finger. A chill wind blew in from the Far Sea, wood creaking from the dilapidated building. She sincerely hoped no one was putting their life under that structu
re. She supposed not, given the tent.

  “Certainly don’t want a Tower that will wash away in the next rain.” What sort of Tower would that be? “It will be hot most of the time. It’ll have to be able to withstand the rainy season, when the floods come.”

  “I know some carpentry. Helped my Pa with the Hissing Gooseberry. I think that with Juzo and the help of the other survivors, we’ll be able to make something nice. My men should be here shortly with building materials.”

  “At what price?” Her father’s instilled negotiating skills bubbled to the surface of her mind.

  “Price? Do your friends normally charge you for help?” Grimbald raised a bushy brow and grinned at her. His bald head reflected the bright of the sun into her eyes.

  She smiled back, resting her minuscule hand on his rocky shoulder. “Thanks, Grim. We’ll need all the help we can get.” Nyset puffed her cheeks out, tendrils of worry once again creeping in at the formidable task ahead. She had to pretend to be a leader of the most respected authority in the realm. Or perhaps formerly respected, she thought. Her gaze fell compulsively to the east, the dark remnants of the Silver Tower stabbing into the sea-foam horizon.

  Juzo clicked his tongue against his savage teeth. “I know how to use a hammer. We’ll get it done, Ny.”

  A woman stumbled out from the patchwork tent, tearing off a piece of thin cloth from the flap. She wore a threadbare shift and squatted down. A puddle of wet formed from between her legs and crept under her bare feet. She wore a loose fitting leather belt around her shift. She then unsheathed a knife half the length of Nyset’s arm that dangled from it.