The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7)

by Everet Martins

  THE SHADOW AGE

  Book 7 of The Age of Dawn

  EVERET MARTINS

  Illustrated by

  SEBASTIAN HOROSZKO

  Contents

  DRM

  Zoria Map

  Newsletter

  1. Salvaged

  2. Alone

  3. The Purists

  4. Bezog

  5. Keeping Watch

  6. On the Transcendence of Blessings

  7. Smithing

  8. Plans

  9. Villains

  10. The Champions

  11. Pawns

  12. The Fall

  13. Preparations

  14. Live Again

  15. Reinforcements

  16. New Arrivals

  17. A Black Line

  18. Wretched Arrows

  19. Obliteration

  20. Ramparts

  21. Endless

  22. Termination

  23. A New Place

  24. Drinking

  25. A Few Things

  Newsletter

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  DRM

  The author has provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management (DRM) software applied so you can read it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices. Copyright infringement is against the law.

  To you, for taking this journey with me.

  Zoria Map

  Newsletter

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  ONE

  Salvaged

  “It’s the light I sometimes find more terrifying than the Shadow. - The Diaries of Nyset Camfield

  A line of light cut vertically through the air. The line twisted clockwise from each end, opening into a warbling portal forged from the Phoenix’s gift. The portal hummed as wisps of bluish-white light curled like smoke from its edges, lacerating the sand where its bottom most arc touched the earth.

  Nyset Camfield, Arch Wizard of the Silver Tower, stepped through.

  Her foot sank down to her ankle into the powder sugar sands of the Nether, granules scrambling to climb over the tops of her mid-thigh boots. She could do much with the power of the Dragon and the Phoenix, but one thing she couldn’t do was keep sand from wriggling its way between her toes and under her arches.

  It was a reminder that she was mortal.

  It was a reminder that she, too, could die.

  Being the Arch Wizard— one of the most esteemed positions in the realm of Zoria besides the King of Midgaard— meant she was frequently sought for guidance from travelers near and far, and her word was taken as the voice of the gods. For a time, Nyset was lost in that cloying hubris. She saw it in herself. It needed correction before it consumed her, and she became no better than the bastard, King Ezra.

  Nyset traversed far down the path of humility and into the arms of paranoia after discovering the Shadow Princess’s whereabouts in Tigeria. It was an obsession. She had to fix her mistake, letting the Shadow Princess escape the Shadow Realm after Walter had slain her father, Asebor. Ny’s mistake wasn’t resolved, but at least the problem was known.

  It felt surreal. The Shadow Princess had remained hidden for so long, Nyset had almost started to believe she’d imagined watching her fly away from the Silver Tower during the Shadow War. A ruinous fight gone horribly wrong.

  About three months had passed since Isa and Senka had returned from Tigeria with the king’s sniveling heir, Greyson Rogard. She had managed to emotionally right herself, discarding her worries like a moldy blanket and pulling herself together to focus on the Shadow Princess’s ever looming figure.

  No, Nyset wouldn’t allow herself to once again be swallowed by pride with the constant reminder that she could die. Everything ended.

  She wiggled her toes and blinked away tears birthed of the whipping wind. The wind carried the desert’s acrid air, heated to a horrible degree by the naked sun. The wind ran its burning fingers over the tops of dunes, spiking the landscape with strange vacant notes. She grasped at the loops of the scarlet scarf tugging at her neck and worked the soft fabric around her face, leaving only her narrowed eyes exposed.

  The sand shimmered and glowed like a sea of gold, the backs of dunes cast in forbidding shadows. The desert formed into mountainous waves, not unlike that of a tsunami, engulfing all in its wake. Clouds fled the white sun, shredded into threads in the infinite gradients of blue.

  She stood atop a dune, peering down at the barren landscape. Twin rivulets of sand hissed down its side where her feet disturbed the continuous surface. The valley was dotted with few cacti. Some were short and flat while others were towering and round. All were lined with bright white thorns, and all had their flesh blackened, showing signs of disease.

  Everything was rotting here. No animal prints, no signs of life.

  Among the cacti were a few remnants of shrubs, their leaves long dead and gone, branches wind-worn, their roots choked. As her eyes adjusted to the shadow of the valley, she saw things. There were a few peaks from thatch roofs, likely once huts, perhaps a village, all but buried by sand. She supposed that was a good sign because Death Spawn were not using them.

  Her carmine dress hung from one shoulder, the other bared, flapping in the wind. Nascent sweat was torn away before it could make her dress cling. Around her reedy biceps were Milvorian circlets, one ornamented with carvings of the Dragon and the other the Phoenix. Circling her waist was a belt woven of gleaming silver threads, below it a sword belt carrying her Breden stamped long sword. It was given to her almost seven years ago by Hassan, captain of the Breden guard, as a token of appreciation for helping to defend her home from Death Spawn invaders. She liked it because it reminded her of humble beginnings and because it was a totem that she and Walter received together. It was a way to keep Walter’s memory close.

  Her golden hair was tied back into a bun, secured by a thin diadem. On her fingers were a series of rings, each unique and each a magical artifact imbued with great powers. They once belonged to Malek, a member of Asebor’s Wretched, the name once used for his slain generals. She twiddled her fingers, making the rings click together. One was topped with a long eagle’s talon, another a silver circlet with a fat ruby in the center, another a dull gray alloy that covered her entire index finger.

  Velsa, her assistant, had given them to her as a gift for her station at Nyset’s side. She claimed she found them outside of Midgaard, attached to a pair of severed hands, apparently Malek’s hands. Velsa once worked in the palace and for the king but left Midgaard due to fear of the Purist uprising. The Purists hated all things magic and had grown so brazen that they would rove the streets in groups, assaulting unsuspecting wizards. Vesla found refuge in Helm’s Reach, a safe place for wizards, and was eventually recruited for the Silver Tower by Nyset. She was one of the few apprentices who had survived the Tower’s assault and takeover by Asebor. She fled at Nyset’s side and was there as a witness when Nyset pronounced herself Arch Wizard.

  Nyset had the poise of a queen and the battered flesh of a warrior. She curled her hands into fists, but then made
them relax with a slow exhalation, raising her chin at the lashing wind. The scars running up and down her arms flexed and quivered with the action. Some were pinched from Death Spawn dagger stabs, others long from their claws, some raised from sword slices, and others twisted by ragged burns. She was fortunate that her narrow face had managed to get through it mostly unscathed, save for a few nicks, a notch taken from the top of her ear, and an ugly scar that curled around her throat.

  She peered about and blinked until her tears gave her clarity, wondering if her portal had been woven in the correct location. In the distance about thirty or so feet away from the village’s remains was a hole in the ground taking the rectangular shape of a freshly dug grave. Strands of sand tunneled into that uncertain abyss like a mouth inhaling all that came near.

  She stared at that spot, searching for the footprints that would validate the need for coming here, but found none. Nyset’s full lips pulled into a frown.

  What was taking them so long? She looked over her shoulder and back at the portal, expectant. The sun warmed the side of her face.

  A bald man bearing a distrustful scowl ducked through the other side of the portal and into the desert. His cheeks and nose were pinked from the sun, likely from training yesterday’s new Armsman recruits. There was a menacing axe laid across his giant’s shoulder and loosely held by two fingers with enough strength to crush a man’s skull. Great slabs of polished Milvorian steel shrouded his enormous shoulders, broad torso, and tree-trunk legs. His armor had an opalescent sheen, the breastplate’s center embossed with the Tower’s sigil, an interwoven depiction of the Dragon and the Phoenix.

  Grimbald gave his square-cut beard a tug as he scanned the vast expanse of sand. He stepped to her side to give the others room to come through. “What are we doing here, Ny? There’s nothing here.” His deep voice managed to somehow reverberate in the wind.

  “Hopefully nothing,” she grunted, licking her lips. Nyset turned to face the portal, hands planted on her hips, waiting to release her hold on the Phoenix so she could close it. The longer she held it open, the more of her constitution it would sap. If they found what she suspected they may find, given the state of the surrounding flora, she would need every bit of strength.

  Grimbald snorted and produced a soiled handkerchief, tying it around his mouth as a makeshift mask. He staggered farther away from the portal, sending plumes of sand cascading down the dune’s face. He hefted his wicked axe, Corpsemaker. The flat of it was inscribed with a concentric pattern like ripples produced from a dropped stone. It was a versatile weapon with a broad blade on one side of the haft and a grisly spike on the other. The base of the haft terminated with a grinning metallic skull whose eyes were inset with a pair of glimmering rubies. Grimbald had grown into a fearsome warrior, and most importantly, he was a man she could trust. She couldn’t think of a better person to head the Silver Tower’s Armsman.

  “Couldn’t have picked a cloudy day?” he muttered his distaste.

  Nyset arched a thin eyebrow at him. “You know, you’ve grown awfully cranky for such a young man.”

  Grimbald shrugged, head swiveling about, tongue working at his cheeks. “Twenty-eight name years, not all that young anymore, Ny. Even my knees creak when I get out of bed.”

  She gave the slightest of frowns, forehead creasing. That would make her twenty-six. Time did have a frustrating way of making haste.

  A figure moving with the grace of a dancer and the languid surety of a lion slipped through the portal. He was silhouetted in midnight leather armor. His skin was blanched and stretched over a hairless face that betrayed no humor. On his back was a short sword, across it a short bow and a full quiver, the fletchings shimmering raven’s feathers. Hanging from obsidian belt loops was a dented hatched and a well-used hammer, both seeming to be lined with ancient bits of blood in the crevasses of their leather-wrapped hafts. He was a man entrenched in dark work, capable of doing what few could do.

  “Isa.” Nyset nodded at him, guts briefly clenching with the fear she could never fully stifle in his presence.

  The Swiftshades were a fearsome sect of killers, and he their leader. They were at her disposal and loyally followed her every command. She was glad they were on the Tower’s side. They were a tool she seldom used due to their ruthless efficiency, laying waste to all who stood in the path of their goal. Men, women, children, the sick and dying were seemingly all the same to them. How they remained so cold, their spirits hard as iron was lost to her. She thought perhaps she should try to change that aspect, but thought better of it. They were a tool to be employed when the sturdiest of stones needed breaking and the loudest of voices needed silencing. And for now, there were matters of greater import to attend to.

  “Mistress.” He nodded back, dragging a strip of dark fabric around his mouth, marking his pointed chin and sharp cheekbones. “Please do your best not to die. We have very little water, and the trek back to the Tower spans more than three-hundred miles. She might be able to handle it,” he nodded at the portal, “but not us… and I’ve come to enjoy living.”

  “I shall try my best,” Ny said, forcing her lips to regard him with a genuine smile. Those had finally started to come more easily, the weight of losing Walter lessening by degrees.

  “You know you can still turn back? There would be no shame in it.” Isa tightened the buckle securing his sword, bright cobalt eyes meeting hers then traveling down to openly take in her figure.

  “No,” she said, voice resolute, eyes unblinking despite the wind. “I need practice. The time for peace dwindles.”

  He gave a stoic nod. “The only future for peace—”

  “Is war,” Nyset said over him.

  Isa sucked at his cheeks. “Glad to see you brought your sword. Always pays to prepare.”

  “Never be caught without it, not in a place like this.” Her eyes were once again drawn to the hole in the earth, swimming with casket blacks. A flicker of movement. She slitted her eyes. “Did you…” She trailed off as a soft footfall came from behind her.

  “Mistress, I apologize for the delay. I dropped my dagger,” an apologetic voice said, Senka’s voice. She loved this woman, her loyalty boundless and humility refreshing.

  Senka, like Isa, wore blacks and a mix of well-worn leathers. Over her head was an oversized hood that ruffled with folds below her round chin. Beneath her hood, short jagged cuts of hair swept across her brow. A black mask clung to one ear, opened to show her mouth. Flapping against one shoulder was a thin cape, the other uncovered to reveal a leather shoulder pauldron with overlapping plates. Around her abdomen, forearms, and legs, riveted leather armor was secured by rows of buckles, all likely hiding poisoned needles and a blowgun or two. Hanging from an ornamented belt were two long Dragon headed daggers, their grips metallic and carved with scales. Further along her belt were pouches and vials, their contents unknown.

  “That’s unlike you, Senka. Are you well?”

  “Mhm. I’m well…” Senka nodded, but her eyes slid away from Ny’s, “mostly. I increased my dosage on a few poisons today, I fear I may have given myself a bit too much Windroot oil.”

  Nyset scratched her throat. “Do you wish to return to the Tower? We could perhaps do this another time.”

  She gaped, deep brown eyes widening. “No— no, of course not, Mistress. Working under new stresses is what made us who we are.” She shook her head, pillowy lips pressed into a hard line. “Who we were, I meant. It’s what made the Scorpions so hard to kill, made our reputation spread among the sands. I must carry our memory in my heart, in my blood.” She winced at the windblown sand and drew up her mask, securing the other loop over her ear.

  “I see.” Nyset gave her an appraising glance. Was it just her poison or had she once again fallen into the iron embrace of Angel’s Moss? She didn’t appear sick. Her round cheeks glowed, and her skin was a beautiful shade of espresso.

  Senka, apparently sensing her thoughts, muttered, “It’s not what you think, Mistres
s. I assure you.” Her eyes slitted in warning or worry, Ny wasn’t certain.

  Isa watched Senka’s face as she said it, trying to lip read as her voice was torn away by the wind.

  “I believe you,” Nyset said with a smile. She placed a hand on Senka’s hard shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She plodded through the sand to stand a few steps before the group, allowing her Phoenix portal to close with a sizzle and parting spark. Where the bottom of her portal touched the sand, it became a razor-thin line of glass from its energy, reflecting the sun like a blade of light. “Everyone just about ready?”

  Grimbald dragged his knuckles across his brow and regarded her with a solid nod.

  “Always,” Isa said, widening his legs, and resting his hands on the deadly instruments lining his hips. She wondered for a moment how many hidden weapons were strapped about his body.