Savant & Feral (Digital Boxed Set): Books 1 and 2 of the Epic Luminether Fantasy Series

by Richard Denoncourt

  “Why do they slow?” Ruk asked him.

  “The broadbacks can’t go any further,” Oscar explained. “The water’s too shallow.”

  “My warriors cannot swim,” Ruk said.

  Oscar lifted an arm to call their attention. “These creatures will help us the rest of the way,” he said, then motioned at the dolphins. “I will ask them for help.”

  He set about trying to establish a mental link, but something wasn’t right. One of the dolphins was watching him with a very determined, almost human, expression.

  Help me and my friends, Oscar told it. Please. Pull us to the shore.

  The dolphin shook its head.

  Strange. How did it know what that gesture meant?

  The creature disappeared into the depths. Oscar searched for it, and then he saw its silvery body shoot upward, breaking the surface with arrow-like speed. It curled and flipped through the air, radiating a majestic, sun-speckled spray.

  The spray exploded outward as the creature transformed mid-air.

  “Whoa!” Oscar pulled back in shock, shielding his face.

  A human woman, dressed in a plain brown uniform, dove expertly back into the water. When she appeared again, she smoothed her hair back, blinked water from her orange eyes, and stared at Oscar, brows furrowed.

  “Who are you?” she said. “Speak! And why do you bring these monsters toward my land?”

  “Your land?” Oscar said. “Wh-who are you?”

  She studied the Orglots, who were now brandishing weapons, giving her their most intimidating stares. Oscar motioned for them to relax. They did, but only slightly.

  The woman noticed this. When she looked back at Oscar, her expression changed to one of pure wonder.

  “You can—command them?”

  “I’m their Speaker,” Oscar said. “I can connect with their hearts and minds.”

  She squinted at him in silence, treading water as easily as if she’d been raised in the ocean. Oscar tried to explain further.

  “It’s a mental bond. A link. Like with these whales.” He shook his head. “How it works is not important right now—just know that your people are safe. We’re headed toward…” He stopped himself. What if she was a spy working for Kovax? “We’re just looking for land, to—to…”

  “Stop right there,” she said, her eyes widening. “I’ve seen your face before.”

  “That’s not possible,” Oscar said.

  She was staring intently at his eyes. “One orange, one brown. I know you. You’re Oscar.”

  “What?” Oscar froze, speechless. “How did you know that?”

  “I saw you in a drawing. I’m with the Forge, and one of the other soldiers—a girl…” She swam closer to him. “A girl I know drew your face. She told me about you.”

  Is everything all right? Ruk’s voice spoke in Oscar’s mind. Should we kill her?

  Oscar ignored him. He leaned toward the woman, excitement tickling the insides of his chest. “Her name… Was it…?”

  “Calista,” the woman said.

  Oscar nearly fell into the water. He held on as if for dear life. “She’s my friend. Is she alive? Is she okay?”

  “Hold on.” The woman climbed onto Oscar’s whale. She knelt in front of him, and as she spoke, her orange eyes smoldered with an intensity that frightened him.

  “My name is Athenara,” she said, “and you must listen to me. There are patrols out here, on the water and in the sky. You’re lucky I found you first. We must get you to land. We must hide this army.”

  Oscar held back the questions burning at the tip of his tongue. He simply nodded, then stared in amazement as Athenara did a backflip off the whale and phased mid-air into a dolphin again.

  With Athenara’s help, Oscar was able to convince the dolphins to drag them to shore. The Orglots grabbed their silvery bodies and were pulled across the water, Oscar eyeing the sky in case of patrolling enemy carriages. They made it without raising any alarms.

  Athenara met him on the beach.

  “What now?” Oscar said.

  “You want to know where Calista is?” Athenara said, a hard look in her eyes.

  Oscar nodded eagerly. “Yes.”

  “She’s there.” The woman pointed at the towers of Jasparta. “And she’s in trouble. You, my friend, came just at the right time.”

  Oscar turned to Ruk, who was soaking wet and panting.

  “The time has come to battle,” he told the elder, using the Orglot language.

  Ruk straightened. He looked over his warriors. Then, placing his fist against his chest, he peered down at Oscar and nodded once.

  “We are ready, Speaker,” he click-grunted. “But there is one thing.”

  “What is it?”

  Ruk pointed at Athenara. “Who, in the name of the old ones, is that?”

  CHAPTER 27

  C alista winced at the sudden shriek of the alarm.

  They had found Walthos’s corpse. This wasn’t good. Calista ducked behind a stone seat, one of thousands encircling the arena, where ancient crowds had once gathered to watch Feral gladiators fight to the death. Growing up in Peleros, she had heard countless stories about the violence that had taken place here. There would be more of it tonight, though now she wasn’t so sure how much longer she could dodge it.

  “Do you see the tower?” Artemis asked her.

  “Yes.”

  The Tower of Dusk loomed over the open central space, its unfinished tip glowing a hellish red from the blood crystals packed inside. It might poison her if she entered. Even more disconcerting were the Berserker and Pestilent guards standing post around the base. How would she get past them to plant the creeper?

  “Tell me your location,” Artemis said. “I have something for you.”

  Calista tried her best to describe where she was. “Four of the benches around me have been crushed. From here, I can see three makeshift huts with their backs to me.”

  “Where they keep the slaves.”

  “Yes. Right in front of me.

  A Berserker guard reached into one of the huts. He gave a violent yank, and out came a chained procession of Feral men, women, and children—a dozen in all. He pulled them toward a metal gate built into the side of the tower. When they arrived, another Berserker standing there threw open the massive door, and together they shoved the screaming slaves inside.

  The crystals brightened as the tower turned its prisoners into ash.

  “Gods,” Calista said. “He’ll kill all of us.”

  “Don’t think about it. Listen to me. I’m having Tad and Simon drop something into the arena. It should land right next to you. Keep your eyes open.”

  Calista looked up at the sky. The Null Sphere made the clouds appear to vibrate. Two blurry shapes passed overhead, and a moment later, Calista heard the thud of a heavy, padded object landing a short distance away. She darted over to retrieve it. Long and narrow, the item had been wrapped in many layers of towel to deaden the sound of its landing.

  She unwrapped it to find her sword.

  “Wind,” she said.

  “You’ll need it. And the key, too. It’s for your collar.”

  Calista found the pistol-shaped key tied with twine to the sword’s hilt. She used it to unlock her collar, then tossed the metal band aside, tucked the key into her belt, and ducked as a floating orange sphere passed nearby, scanning the seating area. She had avoided it just in time. There were dozens of them searching the area for intruders.

  “You’ll find Xanthus inside that tower,” Artemis said. “It’s where he and his mages have been powering the Null Sphere. Destroy the spell engines keeping the spell alive, then fly out of there as fast as you can. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “How do I get in?”

  Down below, soldiers poured into the arena from various side openings. They filed through the aisles and spread across the seating sections. Calista ran in a crouch toward the tower.

  “Status?”

  “Running. Hidin
g.”

  “Keep hiding. Don’t let them see you. There’s an opening on one side of the tower used to vent the inner chambers where the mages work. It’s secured by the same locking mechanism as your collar. Still got that key, right?”

  “Got it.”

  “There’s no place for a person to stand. You’ll have to grip the key in your talons and fly over.”

  Calista slipped out the key and placed it on a seat. Taking a deep breath, she phased into her hawk form, making sure to initiate the spell that would keep her clothes, Wind, and the transmitter tied to her human self. She waited for a sentinel orb to float away before lifting off, the key tightly gripped in one of her talons.

  Using her sharpened hawk sight, Calista scanned the surface of the tower as she flew around it. The stench of the undead laborers inside sickened her. The blood-ether mist stung her eyes. Her hawk shell made everything seem more real, more intense, more dangerous.

  Finally, she found it—the grate Artemis had described. Key thrust out like a weapon, Calista swooped down at an angle and grabbed on. Shiny spots stood out at regular intervals along the edges, clearly the areas she had to touch with the tip of the key. The only problem was her lack of fingers to press the trigger button.

  Her talons fumbled the job. She succeeded in making the key spark against several spots, springing out the bolts, but there were so many of them. Seven down, five more to go…

  It was taking too long. The men below would see her.

  Finally, the last of the bolts popped out. Calista held on to the grate, nearly plummeting from its weight. She flapped her wings extra hard, lifting herself just high enough to toss the key inside. The grate had to be tilted and slid at just the right angle to fit in.

  She squeezed herself into the dark opening. At the other end was a fan made of disembodied blades that swirled in a rotating current of blood ether mist. It served to suck fresh air into the structure, but it could also shred her to pieces.

  She slipped and found herself sliding on soft feathers toward it. Beating her wings didn’t help. She panicked and flapped and twisted as if caught in a snare.

  At the last second, before the fan blades could tear her apart, she came to an opening where the vent branched in another direction. She clung to the edge with her talons, beat her wings as hard as she could, and pulled herself into the adjacent tunnel.

  Feeling tiny and helpless, Calista took a moment to steel her nerves. Then she entered another tunnel that curved along the tower’s wall. There was light at one end coming from another grate, one that allowed a view into an enormous room with no visible ceiling—at least, not one she could see from this angle. The floor was actually a suspended platform with an abysmal drop beneath it. In the center of this odd-looking place, a thick metal tube ran vertically from the bottom of the abyss to the ceiling, like a spine supporting a body.

  The fine mist rolling off its surface told Calista there was something very hot inside, and it didn’t take her long to figure it out. The tube contained blood ether from the slaves that had been consumed by the tower.

  Surrounding the tube, on the metal-grate platform, were a dozen blinking consoles. A low mage dressed in a black robe appeared from around the corner and stood at one of them. Taking a deep breath, he wiped sweat off his brow and tapped a blinking light.

  A hologram shimmered to life, revealing another man dressed in a robe with the hood pulled up around his head. Calista could only see the lower half of his face, but it was one she had seen before.

  “Explain the alarm, Xanthus,” he said in a voice as cold as ice. “And make it quick.”

  The face—pale, emaciated, and more sour than usual—belonged to the man responsible for the death of her family.

  Kovax.

  CHAPTER 28

  With Athenara gone to share the news of Oscar’s Orglot army with the Forge, Oscar took a moment to raise yet another fleet of allies.

  He shrieked a birdcall into the air and, facing the direction of the forest, was pleased to see a hermon shoot up from the trees. It spread its wings, forming a shape against the sky like an emblem, before diving down to meet Oscar.

  Landing in front of him, the hermon threw its head back and gave a loud shriek. Its wings fluttered expansively, each one twice as long as Oscar was tall. The feathers were as brown as dirt but edged with a bright orange color that gave the creature a fiery appearance.

  “Good morning to you,” Oscar said.

  From his mind, he extended a warm greeting that made the hermon dip its head in reverence.

  “A friend?” Ruk asked him. “Like the ocean dwellers?”

  “More than just a friend,” Oscar said, noting the perfect symmetry of the creature’s piercing eyes, its deadly orange beak. “A fellow warrior.”

  Ruk approached the creature, dwarfing it. The hermon looked warily up at him. Oscar had to soothe it to keep it from biting Ruk’s outstretched hand, which he placed gently on the creature’s neck to stroke its feathers.

  Call your friends, Oscar told the creature. Tell them that today we fight.

  The hermon tipped its body upward, snapped its wings open, and shrieked.

  An entire flock appeared from around a cliff rising over the coast. The sky filled with their sharp cries as they answered their leader’s call. The sand darkened beneath their swarming shadows.

  “How fast can Orglots run?” he asked Ruk.

  “Faster than a boulder tumbles down the side of a mountain.”

  “Good.” Oscar pulled himself onto the hermon’s back. “Try and keep up. We’re going to break down those walls. The Forge will meet us there. Two armies against one.”

  The hermon squawked angrily.

  “Sorry,” Oscar said. “Three armies against one.”

  Moments later, riding the hermon as if he’d practiced all his life for this moment, Oscar looked down to see the Orglot army running up the coast with Ukril and Ruk at the lead. They kept up with him just fine.

  CHAPTER 29

  X anthus drew his cloak more tightly against his body as Kovax battered him with insults.

  “I understand, my lord,” Xanthus kept saying.

  “And you say a slave girl brought this upon you?”

  “Yes, my lord. Walthos should have been more careful.”

  “Spare me your excuses,” Kovax said, spitting the words. “I never authorized slave harems.”

  “The mages were overworked.” Xanthus joined his hands in a gesture of pleading. “They demanded it.”

  “So you brought outsiders into the premises without screening them first—because our mages felt themselves to be in heat, like beasts? I knew this assignment would be too complex for a man with as little foresight as you have shown me in the past. Kill all the females at once. Feed them to the tower. I’ll have no more failure from you, Xanthus Wolatheryn, son of the impotent Malius, who also wasn’t worth a damn.”

  Xanthus stiffed. “My father invented the Null Sphere spell, my lord. He was a genius.”

  Kovax grunted. “You have five days to get this tower operational. If you’d like me to free your father from his cell, then you had better deliver my weapon to me before I have to come to Valestaryn and do it myself.”

  Xanthus bowed his head. “Jasparta will lie in smoldering ruins when I’m finished with it. You have my word.”

  “Five days,” Kovax said, “or your father rots.”

  The hologram blinked off. Xanthus eased himself to the floor, leaned against the console, and mopped sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his robe.

  “Father, if only I had your strength to resist men like him,” Xanthus said. “I’d be in that jail cell with you, but I wouldn’t be a coward.”

  Listening, Calista placed her talons against the grate. This one snapped into place and wasn’t bolted like the first. She threw herself into it, popping the grate out and sending it sailing to the floor, where it rang with a harsh clatter.

  Xanthus flinched at the sound, then raise
d his arms protectively around his face in terror as Calista swooped toward him. She phased back into her human form mid-air, but she did it too quickly to summon Wind properly and landed without the sword. The weapon rolled dangerously close to the edge and would have dropped into the abyss below, but Calista dove in time to catch it.

  Her ear suddenly felt empty. She touched it and realized the transmitter had been dislodged. There was no time to search for it now.

  Xanthus opened his mouth to cry out, but Calista darted toward him and slapped a hand over his lips. With the other, she held Wind to his throat.

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  His eyes widened behind his glasses.

  “You scream and I’ll gut you,” she said, lowering the blade to his belly. “Just like you and your men did to my village.”

  Xanthus trembled, and his mouth emitted saliva that was warm against her palm. Calista held firm. Having killed Walthos in cold blood, she didn’t doubt her ability to take a man’s life while looking him in the eye. Yet, she hesitated. She pulled her hand off his mouth.

  “You won’t do it,” Xanthus said. “You’re j-just a kid.”

  Calista bared her teeth at him. “Was I just a kid when I killed Walthos?”

  “That was you?” He sounded defeated. “Go ahead. Do it, then. I’m not afraid.”

  “I won’t let you off that easy. Turn off the sphere. Let us destroy the tower before more people have to die. Do it for your father. Prove you’re not a coward.”

  Xanthus gaped at her in disbelief. “I can’t. I-I would be signing my own death warrant—and my father’s.”

  Calista raised herself over the man with the blade leveled at his neck. “I heard you and Kovax talking about Malius.”

  Xanthus looked away at the mention of his father’s name.

  “I know about his imprisonment,” Calista said, “and I know that he is no longer alive.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  She shook her head slowly. “I’m a soldier in the Forge. We have eyes and ears on all the continents. We know when men like your father are killed. We consider it a victory.”