Crimson Fury

by Mirren Hogan

  Burning Willow Press, LLC (USA):

  3724 Cowpens Pacolet Rd., Spartanburg, SC 29307

  This edition published in 2018 by Burning Willow Press, LLC (USA)

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  ©Mirren Hogan, 2018

  ©Donna Marie West, editor, 2018

  ©Loraine Van Tonder, Ryn Katryn Designs, cover design, 2018

  ©Lori Michelle, The Author’s Alley, interior formatting, 2018

  To Laurie Hicks for always believing in me and magic

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  PRONOUNCIATION KEY

  CONTINENT OF ISSKASALA

  CHAPTER 1

  Thunderclouds crossed the horizon, framed by a corona the colour of flame. Lightning, red as blood, slashed the sky.

  Defying the oncoming storm, the sky directly above Darai was a vivid blue, hot and still. At first, he didn’t even see the storm coming; he was crouched behind a stand of acacias, trying to ascertain the location of his prey. He could hear the warthog snuffling as it trudged through the bush, crushing dried leaves and twigs beneath its feet.

  Darai was still upwind of the hog and knew it was ignorant of his presence. He caught a glimpse of pink and brown mottled hide through the branches of the trees and reckoned it to be a good-sized animal. Good enough to feed the family for dinner, and breakfast as well.

  He lifted his spear and crept forward, bare feet silent on the undergrowth. His were the smooth, trained movements of a hunter. He ducked under a low branch, crouched and paused, listening.

  Ahead of him, the warthog squealed and broke into a lope, heading toward Darai at an awkward angle. Something had spooked it; Darai could see the toss of its head as it drew closer. It had no idea he was there; it was running from something else. Just before it came into the range of his spear, the hog veered to the left and thundered off into the underbrush.

  Darai cursed under his breath.

  Stretching, he got to his feet, kicking aside the discarded husk of a wild maize plant.

  “It’ll be cassava porridge again for dinner tonight,” he muttered to himself. Frowning, he scratched the tight, short black curls on his head.

  He loathed cassava, at least night after night. He just hadn’t been able to catch anything for a week. Bekela, Darai’s grandmother, blamed the sorcerers’ guild as she did when anything bad happened. While it seemed unlikely they were involved, one didn’t directly point fingers at them needlessly. “Unless,” Bekela had added, her voice low, “they wish for magical dismemberment or boils in the worst of places.”

  “Cursed sorcerers,” he muttered. He rested his spear against a tree and moved out into the open.

  Stretching his arms above his head, he froze when he saw the cloud. It already obscured half the sky and was moving forward swiftly, as if driven by a high wind. Yet the air was deadly still.

  Aware that his mouth had fallen open, he snapped it shut, teeth clicking painfully. His arms wound around his form as he hugged himself.

  “This can’t be good,” he said to himself. The air was suddenly cool, but heavy with threat. Even the clearer patches of sky had turned a strange shade of red and fallen eerily dark.

  The darker it fell, the louder the creatures in a stand of nearby trees became. The birds eating the young, tender berries began screeching in the nearby jackal-berry trees. A pair of monkeys and a variety of insects joined the cacophony. The air was suddenly full of moths, all flying in the same direction, following the warthog.

  “I should go home.”, Blood pounding under his hands as he pressed them close to his head. He should have gone, should have taken cover from the storm, but he couldn’t move.

  The sky was obscured now, all but a small patch to the east. Nothing good ever came from the south, according to Bekela. The sorcerers’ guild was to the south, on the far coast of Mindossa.

  Darai cringed as red lightning lit the sky from north to south, tearing the cloud in two before the rising wind blended it back together.

  Then the rain began. Darai had never seen such rain. Deep crimson, with drops both the size and shape of his thumb. He abandoned his ears, moving his hands instinctively to shield his eyes.

  It took minutes of standing out in the rain before Darai realised that he wasn’t getting wet.

  Tentatively, he lowered his hands, his eyes flickering right and left. The rain was still falling, but the ground remained dry. He looked down at his hands, extending the dark brown skin of his fingers, held them out, daring the crimson wetness to settle on them. A drop fell and struck his hands with little more impact than a feather. Almost immediately, the crimson disappeared into his skin. Another followed and another, falling in quick succession, all swallowed like the first, leaving no visible residue; no hint of moisture on Darai’s dark skin.

  With a start, Darai understood. It wasn’t water. It was magic.

  When he was still young enough to sit on his mother’s knee, Ramatulai had told Darai that magic was temperamental. It was used by sorcerers who carefully controlled it and anyone else who could use magic. However, Darai recalled, at times it would resist that control. It would rise like the Sukela River waters after the thaw and flood the world. The Outpouring, or in the southern parts of the continent, the downpouring, was the result of this excess. The magic had to go somewhere and here it was, soaking into Darai.

  By the time he realised he should be scared, it was too late. The magic was beginning to bind him, pulsing through his blood, leaking into his organs, stiffening his muscles, tying them tighter than steel shackles. It started in the very centre of his body, working upward and outward, down his hands to his fingertips, to his toes, up to his neck. His face was last, tightening until every inch of him felt like a stone effigy.

  The magic forced his eyes shut and—remaining on his feet—he passed out.

  ***

  Voices.

  He couldn’t make out the words. Th
ey were muffled, the tones harsh, unyielding.

  Silence.

  Voices.

  Darai could discern his mother’s wailing, his mind’s eye picturing her tearing at her black, braided hair. Another wail joined the first. His sister’s.

  Silence.

  His father’s voice, rough, demanding. Demanding what, Darai couldn’t tell. His tone was insistent, until another voice broke through, resolute, yet as muffled as before.

  Darai tried to open his eyes, struggling to let in only a crack of light.

  “My son will not go with you!” Now his father’s voice was clear, coming from the dark shape to the left of Darai’s blurred vision.

  “You have no choice; he belongs to the guild now.” The blur to the right moved closer and Darai felt a cold touch on the exposed skin of his hand.

  “So full,” he heard the unfamiliar voice murmur, the sound only loud enough to reach Darai’s ears.

  Guild? Darai’s mind churned, his stomach following a moment later. The sorcerers’ guild? How long had he been like this? He gradually became aware that his feet ached, as if from a prolonged period standing vertical. He tried to talk, but no words came from his mouth. Scared, he tried to scream, but made only a squeak.

  The silence fell again. Darai knew the two men were looking at him. Who else was there?

  “Darai?” His mother, from somewhere beyond the blur that was his father.

  “M . . . ” What had they done to him?

  Before his eyes sagged shut, he heard his mother weeping and the blackness reclaimed him.

  CHAPTER 2

  He was moving. No, Darai corrected himself, he was lying on something and that was moving. He opened his eyes, blinking as they began to water from the brightness of a shaft of sun streaming between narrow slats of wood. He rolled on his side, a moment later realising he’d shifted freely. His eyes travelled the length of his body, taking in the rumpled state of his pants, his bare feet and chest; he didn’t seem to be hurt.

  Wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eyes, he glanced down at his palm, paler than the rest of his skin. Half expecting the liquid that seeped from his body to be crimson, he was relieved to see an ordinary drop of clear salted tears.

  Satisfied that he was at least alive, he lowered his hand, touching the wood that rocked beneath his fingertips. The wood felt like the base of a wagon; under that, he could see the road rushing past in a blur of movement. Above him, the wagon was enclosed, the roof more solid than the walls.

  Behind him, he heard the sound of someone crying softly and realised he wasn’t alone. He turned to see a girl a couple of years older than himself, curled into a ball against the side of the wagon. The girl was slender and tall from what he could tell. Her skin, as dark as his, was contrasted by a brightly coloured, patterned cotton dress. She wore her hair in braids like his mother, but hers were in disarray.

  She opened her eyes and sat up, scooting over to the other side of the wagon, pressing her back against it, her brown eyes wide and fearful until a flicker of understanding registered in them and she slumped back down.

  “You all right?” Darai asked. To himself, he sounded scared.

  His question received a look of disbelief, followed by a soft snort.

  “Are you?” the girl asked rhetorically

  Darai shrugged, taking her point. He changed the topic, instead asking, “Where are we?” He didn’t mean the back of a wagon, that was obvious, but where in general, and why?

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I thought you might.” Was she giving him an accusing look?

  He brushed the idea off and frowned, trying to think back over what little he recalled. “The thunderstorm,” he started vaguely, but saw her nodding. “The Outpouring.”

  The girl’s eyes glazed, as she too must have been thinking. “I was too far from home. I ran, but I was too far.” She again dissolved into tears. “Then I couldn’t move. I woke up here. There’s no way out,” she added. She must have seen Darai’s head turn to look.

  Darai turned his attention back to the girl. “He said that I belong to the guild now.”

  She gasped, her dark brown skin paling as much as it ever could. “The . . . the sorcerers . . . ” She shook her head, tears trickling down her cheeks. “Why us?”

  Darai shook his head. He didn’t know, but it had something to do with the crimson rain. “I don’t know.” They’d probably never get an explanation. One thing was certain, the longer they waited, the further away from home they’d be. He resolved to escape and run the moment he got a chance. In the meantime, he’d save his strength.

  They sat in silence, each lost in their own thoughts, Darai running through his memories, good and bad, while the hours and miles passed. What did he really know about the sorcerers’ guild? It was in the south; a glance at the sky between the slats told him that they were heading in that direction. He could have assumed that much.

  He looked at the girl, thinking to ask her, but she looked asleep, her head rocking gently with the rhythm of the wagon.

  Returning to his thoughts, he recalled the tales his mother and grandmother had told him as he sat on one or the other’s knee. Stories, he remembered, that gave him nightmares. He could hear his mother’s voice in his mind, low and almost hypnotic, weaving the words, creating a tapestry of fear, complete with colours and shades.

  “The sorcerers . . . ” The tales always began with those words. “They appear in villages in the dead of night. They don’t need to walk; they’re not there in one breath and appear in the next, only when the moon doesn’t shine. They don’t walk then, inside the village; they glide over the air, searching for children out of their beds to steal them.” At this point, Ramatulai would raise her hand, her long fingers curled inward like a claw, her elbow bent slightly and make a snatching motion at the air.

  “They take them back to the guild and there . . . ” She would always pause here, to add to the suspense. “There, they use their magic to change the children. First, they grow, from the inside, so their bones stick out their skin, and then they change their skin to scales, like the red adder.”

  Darai would always shiver. He’d never seen a red adder, but the stories of the great snakes were as chilling as those of the sorcerers.

  “Then the child’s arms and legs, they shrink, until they’re short, like a skink’s, and their tongue, it sticks out.” She had a long tongue to demonstrate this point. “And it turns red, bright, like blood. And then . . . ” her voice would drop to an eerie whisper. “The child grows wings, right out their back. They now call the child a dragon, a creature made of magic and pure evil, for the sorcerers to ride. They eat only the hearts of men, still beating, hot and dripping with blood. And the sorcerers themselves, they drink the rest of the man’s lifeblood, warm and rich while the man can only lie as he’s sucked dry.”

  Darai shuddered as a jolt brought him back to the present. He leaned his back against the side of the wagon as it struggled over a bump in the road before rolling on. The sun had lowered in the sky, the air muggy as evening began to settle in. He couldn’t shake the ill feeling of his mother’s story, particularly when the last of the sun’s rays shone pink into the wagon, a mocking reminder of the Outpouring itself.

  Just before the sun dipped below the horizon, the wagon stopped. The girl came awake, her eyes darting left and right, settling fearfully on Darai, who could only stare back, knowing as much about their fate as she did.

  He startled, hearing a scraping sound at the rear of the wagon, the noise followed by the backboards falling slowly away, lowering to the ground like a ramp. For several minutes only the darkness was visible, broken by the click of crickets and other nocturnal insects, one of which buzzed through the wagon before disappearing into the night.

  Darai looked at the girl, who shrugged, the tip of a finger between her teeth as she chewed at the nail. He took a deep breath and rose to a crouch, moving toward the ramp in an awkward gait, keeping low. Just as he was con
sidering making a dash for freedom, a tall, angular man appeared at the base of the ramp, stepping out of the shadows.

  The man’s hair and beard were white, contrasting with his dark skin like a chessboard. His eyes were flat and expressionless, although he exuded the air of a man accustomed to obedience. None of this was what made Darai step back into the wagon. Not even the man’s robes, falling to his feet in shimmering black silk, did any more than give Darai pause.

  What scared him was the aura surrounding the man, a nimbus of light covering every inch, down to the staff in his hand, encompassing the staff and travelling down its length, into the earth itself. The aura was crimson, the precise shade of the Outpouring.

  “Sorcerer,” Darai heard the girl whisper from behind him.

  “What do you want with us?” It took a few moments for Darai to register that he was the one who had spoken. He froze in his crouch, legs aching from the effort, his breath held hard.

  If the sorcerer took any offence at the brazen question, he didn’t show it, his expression unchanging. However, the hand not curled around the staff rose slowly, one finger extended, until the sorcerer pointed to himself. “Collector Wutango.” The sorcerer’s voice was soft, but rough as if sand had once scoured his throat.

  He was not Mindossan, Darai heard as Wutango continued, speaking haltingly, in a thick accent. Darai had once met a merchant from Iljosk, the country to Mindossa’s east, and he had sounded the same as Wutango.

  “You want to eat?” the sorcerer asked. “Come out, eat, yes?”

  Darai turned to look at the girl, huddled in the corner. “I am hungry,” he said softly, meaning to speak only to her. No sooner had the words passed his lips than he heard the girl gasp. Following her gaze, his head whipped back in time to see a crimson tendril winding its way from the top of the staff, darting through the air toward Darai.

  He had no time to run or even step aside, before the tendril wound itself around his wrists, tying them together. Reflexively, he shook his hands, but the magic bound him tight, and then began to pull him toward the sorcerer.

  “So you not run,” Wutango explained, crooking his finger to pull the tendril to him.