16
Family
The tearing sound of beating wings awoke the battlefield. Another thunderous roar echoed over the city. Bravan soldiers retreated to the Castle of Gold while insurgents ran into the streets, seeking cover from what was to come. Jules rushed to Luthan and Berius, who carried Luky, the Royal Claymore still blazing with light. Cayne rejoined them soon after. She looked up, searching for the source of the screech. Her eyes followed an enormous shadow that conquered the sky. It was larger than she had ever imagined dragons to be. Its torn wings stretched like a black veil of thin filaments that could cover the entire castle. Its long neck oozed with a darkness that burned the ground upon impact. When the void dragon reached the Castle of Gold, it latched onto the highest tower with claws that sent shivers down the spines of everyone that saw them. It used its beating wings to stabilize itself while it climbed up to the golden tower. Once the beast reached the top, it arched its neck and unleashed the loudest of shrieks.
Jules could not stop himself from staring. That beast looked precisely as he remembered, down to the smallest of details. The creature that still haunted him in his nightmares. It swiped its head left and right as though it searched for something to kill. It opted for those who ran from no man’s land. The wings opened wide, and the black dragon let itself fall, twisting its neck so its belly would face the ground again. It razed the ground with a blast of funeral flames and flew back into the night.
Cayne ran with Jules between houses and rubble, tailed by the two ljosalfar. She looked over her shoulder, peering for a sign of the beast, running for her life.
“Where are we going?” Jules shouted, almost out of breath.
“Back to the Bastion!” Cayne responded. “We need to fortify ourselves there!”
They ran and ran until they reached the gates of the fortress. Everybody rushed with them, desperate to get inside to protect themselves. Several houses already burned with purplish fire. The echoes of the creature’s roars sent tremors through the capital’s grounds.
The group stormed into the Bastion, looking for clan leaders who had made it back. They needed a plan, some way to fight whatever had befallen them, and they needed to save as many people as they could. Civilians were led into the Bastion, but the entrance hall was already getting too crowded. It became harder and harder to breathe.
Azera stood at the center of the crowd. Cayne hurried to her and took her in her arms.
“Thank the gods, Cayne,” Azera whispered. “You’re alive.”
Cayne rested her forehead against hers, letting relief flow through her in this short moment.
“What’s happening?” Azera asked.
Cayne swallowed before answering, “We’re being attacked by a dragon.”
“An undead dragon,” Jules specified after he had walked up to the two women. “It’s those Mort guys. They awoke a fiend, one we witnessed at the Battle of Orgna.”
“What did you say?” Luthan interjected. “An undead dragon?”
“There’s no time to explain,” Jules barked. “Just take that information and think of something!” Panic gripped him. He wanted Ahna to be here, she would know what to do. Where was she? She went on a quest to find a way to fix this. Why was she not back?
Luthan pointed up. “If that fiend has the power of hauling eternal night with it, what else did it bring?”
It was at that moment that they heard the screams outside. The Bastion’s gates had been closed. Something had forced the Wolf Pack to shut the gates, something terrifying.
“What is happening?” Azera compulsively asked. Her lips trembled with her voice.
Cayne got an idea, and it seemed like Jules did too. They both hurried to the nearest watchtower, climbing the spiral stairs as fast as they could. They reached the roof, out of breath, spinning around, not knowing where to look. The entire city was burning with bright purple flames. Flares erupted out of the sky and crash landed like a meteor shower, as though Bravoure had fallen victim to an unholy reckoning.
What caught their attention at the same time was a vision worse than a bad omen. The city’s gates had already been shut, but guards posted on the north-western walls seemed to be attacking something outside the capital. And Cayne and Jules saw what it was.
They were fast. Faster than Wolves. They ran from further up north and swarmed at the bottom of the walls.
The undead tide.
They both looked at each other, mouths agape, and went back down to the Bastion’s hall.
“Undead!” Cayne shouted. She reached Luthan and Azera again. “There’s an army of undead at the city gates!”
“What are we supposed to do?” Jules yelled.
Luthan pondered on the question, then his frown showed like he had just welcomed a dangerous idea in his mind. “How many clerics are here?”
Cayne did not hesitate. “Ten—twenty. They’re all dealing with our wounded.” She pointed at the opposite side of the hall, where injured fighters rested on stretchers.
Berius stood there by Luky’s body with Sister Giselle. Cayne saw them and paused, realizing that the boy-lynx was not merely just sleeping off a lousy wound. Luky was gone, and she had not yet let that pain get to her heart. She could not afford to do so, but gods, this hurt so much already.
A voice drew her attention back to her companions.
“I have clerics.” It was Anir, the chieftain of the Iskalan tribe. “Shamans who can speak to the dead. They will fight and protect.”
Cayne gave him a nod of acknowledgment. She had no idea what that meant, but she did not have many options. She had to put her trust in anything that would help. Oh, how lucky they were Anir was here. Iskalan beliefs often dealt with spirits and the dead. This was exactly what they needed.
“The undead are attracted to the smell of flesh,” Luthan began in a stern tone. He had never encountered undead creatures, but he knew as much from his studies. “Once they get into the city, they will come here. Unless...” He paused, forming an idea in his mind. There were so many people here—this would be the first point of interest for the undead tide.
“Unless what?” Cayne urged.
“Are there tunnels beneath the Congregation’s cathedral?” he asked.
Cayne rounded her eyes, confused, but nodded nonetheless. “Yeah...”
“We need to get as many people as we can within the cathedral. That’s the only place the undead cannot and will not enter.”
Jules frowned. Nothing made sense to him anymore, especially not that. “Why?”
“Because undead are unholy creatures. And there are two things that undead creatures cannot do.” Luthan counted on his fingers as he spoke. “One, stand in sunlight. Two, walk sacred grounds.”
Cayne did not even question his judgment. She raised her voice to gather the people, telling them they needed to move fast. They would head into the abandoned sewers and take the western tunnels. There was a sewer exit near the Azul river, right at the foot of the cathedral.
“We’ll need to bless the walls,” Anir told Cayne. “Let us move quick.”
They dispersed as many civilians as possible into the tunnels, along with Varkadian clerics and Anir’s shamans. Cayne sent Azera with them and left the monarch no choice to argue or beg to stay. Once she was out of sight, Cayne turned around to check on Jules, but she could not find him. She looked around, at any place she thought he would be. She found him with Berius next to Luky’s body, who lay on the stretcher like he was sleeping. He was not dead, she convinced herself. He was just in a dream and would wake soon. She walked to the two men, refusing to look at the catling because she could not bear to face the truth.
“We need to go,” she said. “Take Luky with you.”
Jules thought he had misheard. Berius looked at her with unsure eyes.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Cayne jerked her hands out as she insisted.
“Cayne, he’s...” Berius started to say, though either the tears in his eyes or Cayne’s v
oice interrupted him.
She stopped him from saying anything else with a firm motion of the hand. “I don’t want to hear it.” She really could not afford to hear it right now. “Take him with you to the cathedral.”
“But he’s—”
“No! If we leave him here, they’ll get to him.” She was panting from the exhaustion she felt. She did not want to acknowledge that Luky was dead, but he was. She could not run away from that. She pointed at his corpse, trying to prevent her gaze from landing on him, or she would burst into tears. “He deserves a proper burial,” she murmured, her voice failing her.
Berius motioned for Jules, who did not move nor remove his eyes from Luky’s body, to help him carry the stretcher. He still had the Royal Claymore dangling in one hand. He returned it to Cayne, who sheathed it and strapped it around her back. They had no time to discuss what in the gods that weapon’s power was. They needed to get out now before it was too late and the undead tide drowned the place.
Thamias entered a room full of cobwebs and distant memories. There was an iron bed, a desk buried in dust, a chest that had not been opened for centuries. The armchair to the left looked rotten. The cupboard to his right had sunk into a crumbled pile of timber. The torch pinned to the wall could not even be lit. Veraniel followed him with a faerie lantern she held with her hands. The blue and green flames lit the entire room, but it was like staring into a bottomless pit no one could climb.
The item that caught his attention was the handmade warg doll laid on the bed. It was as hazy as his memories of this place. How long had it been here? Should it not have vanished from the effects of time? Thamias walked to it, never once turning his gaze away. He picked it up, staring at it in its beady red eyes that had lost their gleam. A memory popped into his mind like a thought one quickly forgets—a name.
“Fenrir,” he murmured.
The monstrous wolf of Dwellunder tales looked more like a ragged doll that had been forgotten. Thamias held it with both hands, examining the doll’s pointy nose and paws so torn, it looked like something had gnawed on them.
“Nothing has changed,” Veraniel said. “Karlus left it just as you did.”
Thamias walked to the window. He wanted to see the outside, see for himself how much it had evolved. He still held Fenrir in his hands.
The Daranak of now looked twice the size of the city of centuries ago. Houses on the outskirts seemed new and shimmered silver in the blue streetlights. He could see the docks in the distance and the Circle’s Tower. The thought of Ahna surged in his mind as he gazed upon the sorcerer grounds. She had better hurry. He did not wish to stay in this place any longer.
“Why have you come here, Thamias?” Veraniel wondered in a timid tone.
“Til adth hyalpa Meriel,” he answered. “She needed my help, so I came.”
The old woman laid a motherly hand on his arm. Her hand was cold, but her touch felt warm. He clasped his own around hers.
“I mean this room,” she clarified with a small smile. “Your room.”
Thamias turned his face to her. He exhaled deeply, doing his best not to lash out and get angry. He had no idea why he was here. Why did she ask such a complicated question? Why did she care anyway? He slipped Fenrir into the satchel strapped to his shoulder and began walking away.
“Biddu,” she called to stop his march. She spoke softly like she knew what her words could do to him. “Thamias, don’t let his presence get to you. You stopped suffering from him long ago.”
What did she know? How much did she know of what he had gone through? Veraniel, their caretaker, had never done anything to stop all Karlus did to them. To him. She had never known. She had been focused on Ahna and her training, never on him.
“Don’t patronize me, Veraniel,” Thamias hissed. “You did nothing then. I don’t expect you to say anything now.”
“That’s not true.” It was difficult for her to speak. She cleared her throat as though she wanted to clear the air. “I did a lot for your mother, more than you know.”
Thamias did not respond. Her words meant nothing to him. He wanted one thing, and that was to head back down and isolate himself in the loneliness of the castle’s throne room while he waited for Ahna. Veraniel was like a distant piece of his past, and she would remain that way. Part of him would have wanted to forget her. Part of him would have never wanted to see her again. But when her brittle hand slipped to the nape of his neck, it felt familiar. A sense of calm erupted from her palm, conquering him like a deep breath. He hated that he felt that way. He hated how much she reminded him of his mother. They looked alike, even. In the past, the two had been inseparable. Veraniel had taken care of him, taught him to speak, while Skaiel spent her time fiddling with Mal politics. He did not want to remember that. Not because it was a painful memory but because it was good. It was his only good memory of this place. And he did not want this memory to make him miss it.
He gently swiped her hand away and emitted a low hum, almost like a growl. He was agitated and wanted to let it show, but he did not want to explode. He passed her without looking at her but took one last glance at the room. He would never set foot here again.
A few stairs down, Thamias rejoined the throne room, where Karlus Von Sharr sat. His posture was expectant like he had been waiting for his son. Veraniel no longer followed.
Thamias entered the hall and sauntered to the throne. Karlus stared at him with eyes too much like his own.
“Look at how strong you’ve become!” Karlus complimented. “I never thought you had it in you, sonur mi.”
Thamias wanted to burst his father’s head open. He despised his tone and the way he had just praised him. Even worse, glee came as a rival to his anger. And it made him sick to the core that these words had just felt like some sort of twisted reward.
“I guess my teachings have proven fruitful, Thamias,” Karlus added.
He should not have said that. This was the last toll Thamias could take. His eyes flared, and the air in the room became hot.
Where should he start? Was it the beating and torture that had made him so resilient to the sight of blood? Was it the endless abuse he had received from Xandor endorsed by Karlus Sharr? Was it the things he had done to earn his father’s pride? How many souls had he bullied to please his father during his military training, to make him see he was not some weakling, to make him accept his youngest son in the House of Sharr?
Thamias flailed his sword in his father’s direction. “Don’t,” he bellowed.
Karlus smiled and waved the gesture. Those disgusting veins that haunted his face pulsed. Thamias wondered, for a fraction of a second, what in Dwellunder fires these could be.
“Do you hate me?” Karlus asked.
Thamias refused to answer. A long silence drenched the room, and no one moved.
Karlus eventually chuckled. His vile grin confused Thamias more than it triggered his rage. “Your mother left because she thought I had become too dangerous. She never expected you to look just like me.”
His words pierced the air like silversteel blades. Thamias looked at Karlus a little closer, realizing what drove him so mad. The more he looked in his father’s amber eyes, the more he saw his own, and the more he hated it. The Sharr’s ambers. The one he had been cursed with and had to face. Every. Single. Day.
“Look at you, sonur” Karlus praised. “The stories are true,” he began, looking down at Thamias. “A Dragonborn hasn’t been seen in our family in centuries. How surprising that you of all Sharr turned out to be the chosen one.”
Thamias responded with an obstinate scowl.
“I taught you resilience, sonur,” Karlus chanted. He stood from his throne and came closer to his son. They were both the same height, yet Thamias still felt smaller. The mere presence of the Duke of Mal had that sort of effect. The fact that it was the man of his ordeals amplified it tenfold. Karlus inhaled deeply, which drew Thamias out of his contemplation. Only then did he realize he had been staring at his father
like he would a god.
“Whatever Meriel does, nothing compels you to do the same,” Karlus said. “You can’t follow her around for the rest of your life.”
Thamias chuckled wryly. “I haven’t followed her in decades, Father. I just came here because she needed me.”
Why did he feel the need to counter his father’s words? Why did he feel the need to prove—to justify himself? Thamias cursed silently. He could not stand this any longer.
“You have a place here, Thamias,” Karlus praised. “Mal will be yours, one day. This has never changed.”
Thamias veered towards him. Enough with the lies. Enough with this feeling of reward. “It changed the moment Xandor died. What is it, Father? Can’t get your daughter under your finger, so you come to me?” The grin on Karlus’s face only made him angrier.
“Xandor was relentless, but he was foolish too. You are strong. I made you strong.”
“You destroyed me!” Thamias pointed a fierce finger at his father’s chest. He pressed right in the sternum and made him feel how much more he could push. “You destroyed Meriel too! What you made us go through has made us the broken people we are now!”
Karlus scoffed. Now, the grin was fading. His eyes became gorged with the blackness of his growing veins. “What you went through was nothing compared to dokkalfar lives. We are kings here. Most people born into squalor stay in squalor. You had the privilege of choice—”
“One Hell of a choice!” Thamias scoffed back.
“You carry the Sharr name, Thamias Son,” Karlus roared. “You needed to be built to hold up to it. You were weak. I made you strong. The pain you endured made you the beast you are today.”
Tempest of Bravoure Page 22
