Lord of the Black Tower: A Mega-Omnibus (5-book epic fantasy box set)

by Jack Conner

  “I thought I’d find you here,” Rauglir said.

  Baleron roared and leapt on the wolf, letting Rondthril lead the way. He hacked and sliced. Rauglir dodged aside, laughing.

  He nipped at the prince’s ankles. Enraged, Baleron chopped down, blind to all save fury. Rondthril heard him. It lived for vengeance, for hate. Perhaps that alone could overcome its allegiance to the dark powers’ will, if indeed Rauglir was about it.

  The wolf dashed through the doorway, and Baleron followed. It ran to the balcony and leapt over the railing onto a thick branch, where it turned about. Smiled. Its sharp teeth dripped with the blood of Baleron’s mother.

  Baleron put a hand on the wooden rail, intending to leap over it onto the branch, but hesitated.

  Rauglir laughed. “Can’t do it in your armor, can you?”

  Baleron stepped back. He couldn’t even think he was so enraged. “Why won’t you fight me? Why do you run?”

  “Because I lied,” said Rauglir. “My Master does want you alive, if it can be arranged. And your armor is too strong, I think, if I chose not to arrange it.”

  Baleron tore off his helm and let it fall, exposing the unprotected flesh of his face. “Come,” he called. “Come and kill me if you can!”

  Rauglir laughed again. Baleron detested the sound. He hated this creature above all others—more than Gilgaroth, more than Ungier. Only Throgmar, who’d pretended at friendship and betrayed him, vied with this foul thing for the top position on his list of revenge.

  He wanted to ask Rauglir why it had done this. Why kill the queen? She was not a commander and could never be one. Her death served no purpose. But, of course, he knew. Rauglir had done this, had freed himself from the swords impaling him to the king’s floor and come here rather than simply escape the doomed castle and its grounds—it had come here and slain the Queen—because he knew it would have this effect on Baleron.

  “You want to drive me insane!” Baleron said.

  “Your mind doesn’t interest me, my love. I only want to see your pain. That’s what pleases me. By the way, your mother’s screams were delicious. Her meat tender. Tasty. Juicy. It was an honor to devour her, the mother of ul Ravast, she who bore my dearest lover. She was a good lay, too.”

  “Bastard!”

  Rauglir smiled. He was clearly basking in the moment. “And you are dear to me, Baleron. So sweet, so fragile. The best lover I ever had.”

  Baleron bellowed, a sound of primal hate and pain, and Rauglir drank it up greedily.

  Maddened past the point of reason, Baleron hurled Rondthril at the creature, but Rauglir saw it coming and leapt to the next branch down. Rondthril bounced off the tree and fell to the ground far below.

  The werewolf’s eyes sparkled. “I’ll see you again,” it promised, and jumped to the next branch down, and the next. Soon he was lost to sight.

  When he could see the demon no more, Baleron sank to his armored knees and wept, long and loud and wretchedly. It was the worst day of his life.

  And it was not over yet.

  The roar of the dragon startled him. Tears would have to wait, he realized.

  First he went to his mother’s body to make sure she was truly dead and that there was nothing he could do for her. There was nothing, save to close her staring eyes. He retrieved his helm and climbed down the tree to the ground, where he collected Rondthril and replaced it in the scabbard that had come with this suit of armor, but not before cursing the blade soundly.

  He left the atrium, gasping as he took in the destruction of the castle. It was little more than a huge pile of smoking rubble, flames rearing from it.

  Throgmar the Betrayer, as Baleron would ever after think of him, was flying above the ruins lancing the earth with his terrible fire. Many sorcerers battled him, combining their forces to drive him off. Baleron wondered if the fair-haired mages who’d slain Nebben were still alive, but it didn’t matter, not really.

  Seeing the Great Worm, the prince’s eyes narrowed. His heart twisted.

  “Throgmar,” he snarled.

  It had been the Worm who was responsible for all this. Rauglir was just a slave to the Dark One’s will. Throgmar was his own being, master of his own fate. He had pretended at friendship, or else he’d betrayed it. Rauglir was evil throughout; though he was a thinking being, he was nearly as mindless in his lust for blood and pain as Rondthril. He had no choice in what he was, or very little. Throgmar, it seemed to Baleron, was a different matter. He could’ve chosen otherwise. He could’ve been good. And that made his crime all the greater.

  “You’ll pay for this,” Baleron promised, and meant it.

  With a heavy heart, he re-entered the hedge maze, aware that Rauglir was still on the loose, that the werewolf could even now be hunting him through the labyrinth. Yet the only threats that bothered him at the moment were dead ends.

  Irritated, he hacked his way once more to the white gazebo that straddled the stream and knocked on the trapdoor leading down into the safe chamber. It slid aside to reveal the dirt- and soot-smeared face of Kenbrig.

  “Where’s Mother?”

  For some reason, that caught Baleron by surprise. He had not prepared himself for telling what had happened.

  Unable to speak, he shook his head.

  Shock spread over Kenbrig’s face, and for a moment the two brothers shared an unfathomable pain.

  Kenbrig beckoned him inside, and Baleron descended into the chamber to find only the king present. Logran had gone to fight Throgmar.

  “Where’s the queen?” Albrech asked, rising.

  Baleron told him. Lord Grothgar did not take the news well.

  “So,” he seethed, “your lover killed your mother, and you were too slow to stop it.”

  Baleron said nothing.

  The king’s eyes twinkled maliciously, almost madly. “When I’m done with you, boy, there won’t be much left. Not that there was much to begin with.”

  Baleron felt knots twist in his gut. He had lost all favor with his father. Had lost hope of ever gaining any favor, or even redeeming himself in part. This was worse than after the fall of Ichil.

  His future loomed darkly before him. His life would be bleak. He would be stripped of command, useless against the Shadow. He would be a pariah to his people, an untouchable. All who looked upon him would sneer. He would be a miserable wretch, even more so than he was now.

  “No,” he said.

  “No?” said Albrech. “I will say what happens in my realm.”

  “I won’t be in your realm.”

  “What?”

  “Yes,” said Kenbrig. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m leaving,” Baleron said.

  “Where to?” asked his father. “Where could you possibly go?”

  Instead of answering, Baleron ascended the ladder, ignoring their calls to stay and listen to reason, and closed the cover after him, silencing them.

  Once beyond the labyrinth he searched for the warring mages and the flaming Worm, whom he could see had set fire in his fury to a good part of the city. Castle Grothgar stood on a round hill overlooking Glorifel, and so Baleron could look down into the streets. The sorcerers had driven Throgmar away from the royal quarter and were assaulting him with every weapon at their disposal. Baleron knew that they would’ve killed the dragon by now if not for the traitors among their order, the get of Rauglir.

  He hurried to the stables and saddled up Lunir.

  “Come on, old boy,” he told the glarum. “We’re going for a ride. And we’re not coming back.”

  Lunir cawed in annoyance.

  Baleron needed a sword. He could not just bring Rondthril, that was clear. Thus, after taking to the air, he landed amidst the vast smoking ruins of the castle, attracted to the spot by a glimpse of winking metal—the ruins of the armory. Gratified, he picked the most vicious sword he could find, as well as its scabbard, and a bow and a quiver of arrows. All he strapped to Lunir’s saddlebags, then mounted the glarum once more and
took to the skies.

  The wind whipped him, whistling through the chinks in his armor. It felt good to be airborne again, and Lunir seemed to enjoy it too.

  Ahead Throgmar swept low over a middle-class neighborhood, jetting a plume of fire that set dozens of roofs ablaze. The streets instantly filled with panicked residents, and a bucket brigade formed to fight the fires.

  The core group of sorcerers traveled up the Street of the Gods, Logran at their head. He held not a staff (which was strapped across his back) but his gleaming white bow notched with a long, pearly arrow that seemed to burn it gleamed so brightly. He loosed the arrow. It drove through the air into Throgmar’s flank, penetrating the Worm’s armor. Throgmar screamed and flamed his attackers, but a second mage threw up a shield that deflected the fire.

  Though wounded, the Worm was far from seriously hurt, yet he seemed to see that he could do no more here, not now that the sorcerers had weeded out their wolves-in-disguise.

  “FAREWELL, MORTALS!” he bellowed. “MAY YOU ROAST IN GILGAROTH’S OVEN!”

  Logran loosed another arrow at the Worm, but Throgmar’s wings beat the air and knocked it away. Throgmar turned his back to the sorcerers and winged off. He crossed over the city wall, too high for arrows to reach him, and flew out over the Borchstog hordes and then away, far away.

  None save Baleron pursued him.

  The prince didn’t know where the Worm went, but he would find out, and there he would make the bastard pay.

  On his dark steed and bearing his unholy sword, with his Doom following him and vengeance burning a black hole in his heart, Baleron took up the pursuit and did not look back.

  King Grothgar glanced up when the trapdoor slid away, admitting sunlight into the hidden chamber below the hedge maze. He squinted into the brightness.

  “Come out,” came a familiar voice.

  “Logran?”

  “Yes. The dragon is gone.”

  Albrech emerged into the waning light of day. A chill breeze blew, but the hedge maze blocked the worst of it.

  Albrech’s gaze instantly turned to regard Castle Grothgar, and shock nearly froze him. The castle was no more. All he could see over the green wall of the maze was a thick column of smoke and the top of a mound of rubble. A quick scan showed flames rising from different quarters of the city.

  Something died inside him.

  Kenbrig climbed out, too, and took in the carnage. “Our home ...”

  Logran nodded sadly. “It’s all gone, my lords. But we will rebuild. We will start over. At least the Worm is gone.”

  “The Worm!” snarled Albrech. “I told him it was foul! That traitorous son of mine, that son of a ...” He paused, thinking just who Baleron was the son of, and what had happened to her. Tears rose in his eyes. He felt his iron resolve slipping. For all his life, he’d maintained strict self-discipline, and an unrelenting composure. He’d allowed no personal weakness. It was how he’d kept himself going all these years. And now, after the loss of his wife and his castle, his sons, the torching of his city already under siege ...

  Kenbrig gripped his shoulder. “They will pay,” he swore. “Baleron will pay.”

  “That’s going too far,” Logran said.

  “Is it?” Albrech said. “He’s the cause of all this. He’s the one who brought all this upon us.”

  “He is bound by his Doom. He meant no harm, though I fear harm will come to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Logran frowned. “Baleron ...”

  “He’s dead?” Somehow the prospect did not seem all that distasteful to the king.

  “No. He’s gone. He chased Throgmar from the city. Or, rather, followed him. It looked as though he were ... tracking ... the Worm.”

  “The fool!”

  A strange, inhuman chuckling sound stopped him short. His blood ran cold. All three men spun about to see the dark, bloodstained form of Rauglir in wolf form, coiled and ready to spring.

  “Don’t speak ill of my beloved,” said the wolf.

  Logran, who now carried his staff, was caught by such surprise that he did not immediately bring his powers to bear, and by the time he recovered, Rauglir had already launched himself upon the king.

  Albrech was too startled to dodge or even draw his sword. Everything was going too fast. In a second he would be dead, and all he could think of was that it must be his wife’s blood that matted the fur of his assassin.

  Kenbrig shrugged off his shock. He dove between the leaping werewolf and his father, intercepting Rauglir’s lunge, and his snapping jaws.

  Rauglir bore him to the ground, ripping open his breast and throat.

  A fireball shot out of Logran’s staff and buried itself in the wolf’s side, knocking him aside. Rauglir screamed and crumpled, flaming. As he began to fade, he slipped forms, becoming Rolenya, or at least her body, naked and fragile and dying.

  The king slumped to his knees between his son and daughter, feeling the crack in his mind widen further. His shoulders shook uncontrollably as sobs racked him.

  Logran knelt by Kenbrig and felt the prince’s throat for a pulse. Wearily, he shook his head.

  How can this be happening? It was too much. Much too much. How could one man be expected to endure all Albrech had in such a short amount of time?

  When clarity finally returned to him, he turned to the Archmage bitterly and said, “Do you know what really galls me?”

  “No,” answered Logran dully. The bodies were being carted away, and he had been speaking with the soldiers performing the task. “What, my lord?”

  “Now that son of mine, that incestuous snake—now he is the Heir!”

  Logran blinked. “Dear gods, you’re right ...”

  Before he could say another word, horns blew out over the city, and General Kavradnum hurried over. “We must get to the wall, my lord. Ungier is attacking!”

  Chapter 15

  Filled with wrath, Baleron rode Lunir beyond the borders of Havensrike and crossed over the jagged peaks of the Aragst, the Black Wall that separated Oslog from the free nations that hemmed it in to the north. Images of revenge flashed through his head, drowning out everything else, while far ahead of him flew Throgmar, and Baleron cursed him with every breath.

  At last Baleron passed beyond the Aragst and entered Oslog itself, the terrible waste that was Gilgaroth’s empire. Here the land was largely barren and riddled with fissures and sinkholes and dotted with rotten ridges and black lakes and bubbling yellow pools of sulfur and vast stretches of marshland. Baleron flew over a dark forest that surely held countless horrors, as well as endless blackened plains that looked impossible for a mortal to cross.

  Patrols flew through the air, squads of glarumri, as well as Ungier’s vampires and the assorted other creatures spawned by Gilgaroth and his foul bride Mogra. None of the patrols bothered to intercept a lone glarumril, which they assumed the prince on his crow to be. Likely they thought him a messenger.

  Baleron almost hoped they’d attack. He ached to spill some blood, even if it cost him his life.

  The further he drew into the Wolf’s domain, the more fear gathered inside him. Stories of Oslog had terrorized him all his life. Just the same, he pressed on relentlessly. Sometimes Throgmar would set down and rest for a bit, and his pursuer would do likewise from a distance.

  The days passed. Baleron ate sparingly, having little appetite, and what he took in was caught mainly through use of the bow he’d brought along—small game and the like. He hated to eat anything in this land, but at least it didn’t kill him.

  He wished he had one of Logran’s bows that could pierce the armor of a dragon. That would come in quite handy.

  On the fifth day, he beheld It, and the world changed.

  It, of course, was the Black Tower—what Baleron would later come to know as Krogbur.

  At first he didn’t know what he was seeing, not really. It was merely a black line with a fiery base sticking up from the horizon far away. As he drew closer, he saw
the scale of it, the tremendous, mind-shattering size of it, and felt the evil emanating from it like heat off a midday rock. Awe and dread descended on him, strangling the very breath from him. He’d never seen or heard of anything so grand, so terrible. Its magnitude staggered him.

  The dark tower stretched from the flat, charred ground to and through the black roof of the heavens. Rising from the heart of a terrible inferno, a great pyre that stretched halfway to the clouds, the tower was black and beautiful in its construction, like a piece of sculpted ebon. Like Celievsti it seemed all of a piece, not made of bricks or slabs but one massive thing. Sprouting from it were countless terraces, small and huge, and also long, thick beams that would have seemed to serve no purpose at all had not dragons hung from them by their rear claws, like bats cling to cave ceilings, or by their tails. Other Worms roosted on the huge terraces, dark and glittering. The dragons were mere dots at this distance, yet he didn’t think any were half the equal of Throgmar, who continued to wing toward the tower. Obviously it was the Betrayer’s destination.

  How tall did something have to be to reach the clouds? Baleron wondered. And how could Gilgaroth have kept its existence secret? For Baleron had never heard of the Black Tower in all the lore he’d absorbed over the years about Gilgaroth, and he had absorbed quite a bit. Roshliel was drenched in the Wolf’s mythology. In many ways, Gilgaroth’s history was Roshliel’s; the one had shaped the other. And it was well known that Gilgaroth, the Face of Hell, had always lived below ground in the vast fortress of Ghrastigor, which jutted out from the edge of an abysmal chasm through which rushed a great river of magma. The only towers he frequented with any regularity in his wasteland were those that rose from Ghrastigor.

  But this tower was quite real, and quite massive.

  Baleron marveled at the spire and the great inferno it rose from, the huge pyre that wreathed its lower reaches, the fires leaping about it but not seeming to scorch the tower. The nearer Baleron got to it, the more convinced he became that the fires were unnatural. He could see, or thought he saw, nightmarish shapes ... swimming ... or flying ... moving through them. They seemed to be in pursuit of something.