Quest of the Dreamwalker (The Corthan Legacy Book 1)

by Stacy Bennett

  Table of Contents

  Also by Stacy Bennett

  Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Map

  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

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Son of Anubis

  Mask of Innocence

  Releasing in 2017

  Cover design, interior book design,

  and eBook design by Blue Harvest Creative

  www.blueharvestcreative.com

  Quest of the Dreamwalker

  Copyright © 2016 Stacy Bennett

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Indigo

  an imprint of BHC Press

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  2016952685

  Print edition ISBN numbers:

  ISBN-13: 978-1-946006-04-2

  ISBN-10: 1-946006-04-1

  Also available in trade softcover

  Visit the author at:

  www.stacybennettauthor.com &

  www.bhcpress.com

  For my mom

  who always wanted me

  to follow my pipe dream.

  And for my dad

  who never quite managed to realize his own.

  This one’s for you, Dad.

  BEYOND THE WALLS that defined her world, the tundra burst to life in fierce swaths of lavender and white. The sorcerer’s daughter both welcomed and dreaded that springtime awakening. It quickened in her a longing, an ache from deep in her bones that drew her to the highest parapet. Here, she could breathe in the heavy scents of saxifrage and moss. She longed to touch the greening scrub and walk the spongy lichen-covered rocks, but she was a creature of the Keep and that vibrant world was forbidden.

  Tonight, the ache was particularly strong.

  She often wished she could walk through the gate and roam the tundra. But such wishes were foolish, little wisps of thought without substance. She’d had opportunities to leave each time Father went south to get supplies, but had never even opened the main gate. Something held her back. Perhaps she feared she would fade beyond the black walls, like mist in the afternoon. Perhaps she lacked courage. She told herself it was loyalty—a daughter’s loyalty to the complicated man who’d raised her. In darker moments though, she suspected something more insidious.

  She’d always had a sense for the rightness of things. She knew when Father’s sledge bears or message birds were unwell. She read his ever-changing humors as easily as he read his dusty tomes. Over the years, she had learned to trust her gift. And it was this intuition that told her long ago she was broken. Stunted. Crippled. She’d never possess the strength to cross that threshold.

  Sighing with resignation, she turned her attention to the sky where wild hawks dove out of the wan sunlight to snag their unwary prey. She lingered like an errant child atop the western parapet. The arctic wind played in her long white hair and tugged playfully at her clothes. Though the days had begun to lengthen, a frigid breeze stung her bare fingers that roved the smooth hollows of the Keep’s black stones. Winter’s lingering chill seeped through her tattered cloak to prick at her skin. But the cold wasn’t the reason her insides quivered.

  The last blaze of sun sank below the horizon, setting the landscape on fire with gold and orange. She turned to find the moon, full and rosy pink, cradled in the peaks of the Black Mountains. The Keep was built at the foot of those dark summits. They loomed over her like hunched, somber old men, their craggy frowns admonishing her wayward thoughts. The time for lingering was past.

  Turning away from the peaks, she wrapped thin arms around herself as if that could melt the ice that clutched her heart. She descended into the Keep, padding on soft slippers through the empty stronghold and climbed up the eastern staircase into the highest tower: Father’s tower.

  The circular room at the very top was dominated by a stone altar encircled by a ring of symbols carved into the floor. Blood-rimmed manacles hung from each corner of the altar. Braziers blazing with eerie blue-green flames sent stuttering shadows across the walls. On the pedestal at the foot of the altar waited her father’s most prized scroll held open with crystals of green and amber. She paused at the threshold wishing there was another way.

  “There you are,” rasped a voice behind her.

  Startled, she turned to find Father behind her, his aged cheeks as craggy as the mountains. He was ill again. She sensed it in his bent frame, shriveled and gaunt inside his voluminous robes. The ebony damask brushed against her arm as he shuffled past, raising the hair on her neck like a cold draft. She shivered at the feeling of wrongness that surrounded him.

  “Hurry now. Take your position, Daughter,” he said, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Daughter” was what he called her. It wasn’t a real name, but he’d given her no other. She rubbed the chill from the back of her neck and walked to the table, her eyes following him to the pedestal.

  That her gift said he was unwell made no sense to her. She couldn’t see anything wrong with him. Nevertheless, she felt it, whatever it was. It gnawed at him, depleted him until he performed the ritual and returned to himself for a while.

  Her heart pitied him sometimes, chained as he was to that scrap of paper on the pedestal.

  He perused the scroll for the thousandth time, though she was sure h
e’d memorized the liturgy, having repeated it so many times. However, the spell had to be recited precisely as written. How often had he muttered about the dangers of miscasting a spell? Not to her in particular but to himself as he checked off the requirements one by one each time in the same order: the sigils, the braziers, the stones, the scroll, and the subject. Tonight, the subject was her; other nights, when he had need, he would use one of his many guests.

  She slid up onto the waiting altar, tucking her threadbare skirt around her legs. She ignored the bloody chains. Reluctant she might be, but he wouldn’t need those. There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the altar itself, only a thick layer of dust that coated her hands and clothes with the familiar scents of magic and death.

  The dust of a hundred lives.

  She quickly pushed the thought away. The others were not her concern. Wiping her hands on her clothes, she swung her feet up and laid herself down on the stone.

  Her muscles tensed as his gravelly voice began the guttural singsong incantation. She didn’t understand the words, but she could have repeated the sounds from memory.

  Tendrils of fear curled in her belly as she prepared herself for the pain. Though her body was never marked, the scroll’s magic stretched and twisted her inner being, tearing it away and funneling it into Father’s unseen wound. Everything she was would pour into him, filling him and leaving nothing behind. She’d survive, waking in a day or so, but while she was in the grip of his spell, it felt like she was dying.

  She stared at the vaulted ceiling, at the arches sweeping up into darkness. Heat gathered in the room. Beads of sweat prickled along her hairline and under her arms making her long for the stinging breeze of the tundra. Energy hummed between them. His need was a ravenous thing that sought her. In the end, she’d have no choice but to surrender to the spell and vanish into the darkness. But until then, she sought sanctuary inside her mind.

  There was a lush woodland in her dreams. Whether it was a real place somewhere far away, or only a fear-induced delusion, she didn’t know. But when she imagined herself there, the pain lessened. Calming her breath and closing her eyes, she painted the landscape in her mind, drawing it in meticulous detail. She focused on the sights and sounds of that place until she could no longer feel the stone slab beneath her. Instead of dust and death, she smelled damp earth and new growth. Her ragged linen robes became a leather vest and leggings. She inhaled deeply as she stood in her night-clad forest, its warm air caressing her cheek and night birds hooting in the trees. She knew this place as well as she knew the Keep, maybe better.

  Father’s chanting intensified, intruding on her peace. Her connection to the forest wavered; reality threatened to pull her back to the tower and that tearing pain. In fear, she pushed her mind back into the dream and ordered her legs to run. Each thudding footfall, each stinging branch kept her mind focused on the forest. She ran hard, her lungs working like bellows. Eventually, though, the magic was too strong and she tumbled, disappearing into the void.

  THE SPARSE FOAM dissipated quickly from Captain Khoury’s ale as he struggled to remember the last time a death had truly touched him. Today he’d been furious with that bastard Ranceforth and his cowardly tactics, but he felt no grief for those who’d died on the battlefield. Years of service as a Sword had numbed him to such losses, yet he found his apathy unsettling. When had he become a stone-cold killer?

  He drank the quiet ale, letting the cool liquid soothe his roughened throat. The lull of day’s end washed away his irritation until only the clenched muscles of his jaw hinted at his inner discontent. He leaned heavy elbows on the small table in the corner, watching his lieutenant sort coins with sure fingers.

  An uncommon mercenary, Violet Meade was as good with money as she was with a blade. The coins slid and clinked on the polished wood surface without interruption even as she glanced at the wound on the side of his head.

  “You should get that looked at,” she said. Her voice was girlishly sweet though he’d heard her unleash a torrent of expletives that would blister a man’s ears.

  He touched light fingers to his temple and, seeing no blood on them, sniffed dismissively. The blow had knocked his helm from his head and left his ears ringing, but he’d been too angry to care. Besides, the ale had already taken the edge off the dull throb behind his eyes. Forcing a half-smile, he said, “I’m fine. Keep counting, Vi.”

  She pursed her lips in irritation but returned to her work. He watched her for a moment, her battle-smudged fingers flicking the coins to their respective piles. Her thick black hair, cropped unfashionably short, had been left in spiky disarray by her helm and a florid bruise temporarily marred her smooth fawn-colored cheek. He was lucky to have her in his corps but he didn’t like her fretting over him. Archer was bad enough.

  A gangly warrior, all elbows and knees, stumbled up to the table and saluted. “C-C-Captain Khoury, sir.”

  “What is it?” Khoury asked, looking up. Shocked by the warrior’s youth, he found himself searching for a darkening of scruff on the smooth cheeks. Surely, he hadn’t led this boy into battle today.

  “Um, you wouldn’t know me, Captain sir, but Ellis. Roger Ellis, that is. I mean, Lieutenant Ellis sent me to gather the coin. For the other Swords, that is.” His head bobbed like a nervous goose as the youth’s slender fingers twisted the edge of his stained cloak.

  Khoury didn’t ask the youth’s name; he didn’t want to know. “Did you fight today?”

  The young warrior’s eyes darted nervously. “Yes, yes sir, I did. Killed t-two of the bastards. All on my own.”

  Khoury’s eyes narrowed.

  “Well, actually. I did have a little help. With the one.” The young man looked down at the twisted cloak in his hands.

  Was I ever that young? Khoury marveled.

  “Good work,” was all he said, making the young man straighten with pride. “Tell Ellis I’ll send the money when we’re done counting.”

  The lad bobbed his head a few more times to take his leave and then scurried out the door. No doubt he’d be telling his drinking buddies how he’d met “the captain.” Khoury sighed and finished his ale as his other companion returned.

  The bulky Northerner with tawny eyes, a ginger beard, and auburn hair dropped heavily into the only other chair. Grinning, he slammed three brews down on the table, sloshing ale across the stained wood, the stacked coins, and Khoury’s arm.

  “Damned sloppy drunk.” The captain scowled, shaking the ale from his hand.

  The Northerner’s name was Reid Tarhill, but he insisted everyone call him Archer. In a profession rife with haunted pasts and best-forgotten deeds, it was common enough for a man to choose a new name. Khoury knew that better than most.

  “Better sloppy than morbid,” Archer said, fixing the captain with a pointed stare. “Cheer up, you old sourpuss.”

  Violet stifled a chuckle, and the captain’s scowl deepened.

  Archer ignored Khoury’s displeasure, sliding one mug to the captain and the other to Violet. “Anyone looking at you would think we got drubbed good and proper,” he said. “But we got paid, didn’t we?”

  “That we did.” Khoury eyed the gold glinting dully on the table. Blood money, he thought. Nothing but blood money. His ghosts would be ashamed.

  “A quick battle it was, too,” Violet added.

  Not a battle—a slaughter, he added to himself. The peasants’ frightened faces as his horsemen bore down on them broke through the comfort of his alcoholic fog. Damn Ranceforth! And damn the gold, he thought. But if Khoury was angry at anyone, it was himself. Old Khoury had taught him better.

  He chased his anger with more ale, drinking deeply from the new mug, his lip curling at its rancid taste. “Where’d you get this goat piss?”

  “From the pens out back,” Archer said with mock innocence. “It was cheaper.”

  Violet laughed out loud and put her ale down untouched. “Guess I’m done for the night.”

  “When I was someone’s sec
ond,” Khoury said, “I’d buy my captain the good stuff.”

  “Did you?” Archer asked. “Well, today I think you owe me the good stuff.”

  “How do you figure? I’m the one that bled Ranceforth.”

  “You’d never have gotten to him without me covering your reckless ass. What were you thinking?”

  Archer had a point. Khoury had been reckless, but anger tended to blunt his common sense. “You saw their faces,” he said. “They were just peasants.”

  “Rebelling against their lord. Who hired you, meaning us,” Archer said, sweeping his finger to include all of them.

  “That was no rebellion, Archer,” Khoury spat. “A man fighting for his own freedom doesn’t show that kind of fear. That was Ranceforth staging a coup.”

  “We’ll never know for sure, boys,” Violet said evenly, “since he’s dead.”

  “If they were so ill-trained,” Archer said in a rare flash of anger, “we could have taken them without losing a single man. And there’d be no need for you to race into the thick, leaving your guard—and me—behind.”

  “Let it go, Archer,” Violet warned, giving the Northerner a hard stare. Then, she turned those eyes on Khoury. “Captain, you were hasty. And careless.”

  “Even Vi agrees with me on this.” Archer leaned back and crossed his arms with a look of defiance.

  “Don’t get used to it, Northerner,” she shot back.

  “Enough,” Khoury growled at them. He was tired of talking about the battle, tired of thinking about it. “It was my decision. I wanted to end it quickly. And I did. There’s the door if you don’t like it.”

  Violet and Archer looked at each other in the uncomfortable silence.

  “Now, if you’re done griping about my methods,” the captain said, “you can take the money to Ellis at the Oak and Acorn.” He pushed the largest of the leather purses toward Archer.

  Khoury knew he should have been giving out the wages himself. There had been a time when he had crowed from the rafters as raucously as his men were doing right now. But he didn’t feel like crowing anymore, and his irritation would only ruin their good time.