“You killed him?” It was Kyre’s turn to be shocked.
“I had no patience for a long boring conversation, Your Grace,” Jonas explained with a deadpan expression. Around them, four of the other guards assigned by Duke Falco also lay dead, with the last holding up his hands in surrender. As Kyre and Jonas spoke, Jonas nodded, and one of his men smashed the last traitorous guard under the chin hard with the pommel of a sword, knocking the traitor off his horse to lie insensible on the ground.
“But you killed him,” Kyre sputtered.
“He was about to kill you,” Jonas pointed to the dead body of Haden. In death, the man’s hand had closed around his knife. “He meant to stab you.”
Kyre saw that Jonas spoke the truth, and nodded, unable to speak.
“Your orders, Your Grace?”
“I, I-” Kyre had no idea what to do. “My father-”
“Joss Haden would not have acted without orders from the Duke,” Jonas shook Kyre’s shoulder, making the stunned young man look at him. “Your father planned ahead to kill you if you disobeyed him, that is why he placed Haden and his crew around you.”
“Then, then my father planned to abandon the Royal Army,” Kyre realized, speaking in a near-whisper, remembering how Regin had told both of his sons they might need to choose between Burwyck and Tarador. At the time, Kyre assumed his father had been warning of an unlikely scenario, but the duke had not hesitated to leave the princess, at a time when the army of Burwyck could make all the difference between Ariana’s survival or death.
Jonas shook the ducal heir’s shoulder again, making the boy look at him. “You father is either a coward or a traitor. Either way, you now lead Burwyck. What are your orders?”
His father was a traitor. He had not merely schemed to gain more power for himself and the Falco dynasty, Regin Falco had sold out his people to the enemy. Kyre looked down at the silver falcon that adorned his tunic, the Falco family crest. It was now the crest of traitors, a badge of shame. How could he fight on, as the son of a traitor? Jonas gave him the answer as the loyal guard looked to the Falco heir. Jonas wanted not only orders, he wanted a way to redeem the shame that tainted everyone from the province of Burwyck. Kyre would not fight for himself or his disgraced family, he would fight for all those who held fast to their oaths, starting with his own guards. Drawing his sword and holding it high above his head, Kyre stood tall in the stirrups. “Burwyck! To me! To me! We can yet win the day!”
Koren was jolted awake when the carriage went over a particularly hard bump. He tried to rub the sleep from his eyes but forgot his hands were chained, and they came up short of reaching his face, making his already sore and bleeding wrists ache. Why the enemy had bothered to shackle him so tightly he did not understand, the dark wizards had cast spells that rendered his legs useless and made him feel constantly tired, sleepy and his head felt like thick fog. The carriage had fairly flown along rough roads through a landscape increasingly grim, gray and devoid of life as they approached the demon. What day was it? Koren had no idea, he had no way of knowing how many days had passed while he rode in the carriage, a helpless prisoner.
Pushing down on the thinly padded seat with his hands as his legs would not respond, he stretched his neck to see outside the window. At first, the windows on both sides had been covered with heavy canvas curtains, blocking out the world beyond the dark, cramped and stinking interior of the carriage. Some days ago, Koren’s slow brain could not remember, the wizard who sat opposite him had torn the curtains aside, unable to stand the stifling hot air trapped in the small space. Feeling the blessedly cooler air, Koren had tried to speak, to thank the wizard, but found himself unable to make his mouth form words. Was that the effect of another spell, he wondered, or had his food and drink been drugged? He was not even allowed to drink or eat by himself, his hands remained chained at all times, the wizard seated across from him held a water flask to Koren’s lips and spooned a flavorless mush at mealtimes, which happened only twice a day. If the wizard slept Koren never saw it happen, every time he was awakened from his foggy dreamland, the wizard was glaring at him with pure hatred.
Through the open window, Koren saw it was morning and the carriage was moving through a wide valley between tall mountains, with hills rolling lower and lower into the floor of the valley. Outside, the ruined landscape supported only low grasses and shrubs clinging desperately to life on the eroded slopes, everything he could see was sickly, stunted, yellowed with disease or from lack of nutrients in the dying and dusty soil.
He drifted in and out, unable to remain awake for long no matter how hard he concentrated. Gradually, he became aware of a disturbing presence probing the back of his mind, he kept pushing it away but it came back, stronger and stronger until it took all of Koren’s will to force the presence from his mind. The last time, he felt a stab of pain that made him awaken with a gasp, and the presence jerked away from him with a howl of frustration.
Now he was fully awake, the fogginess in his brain wiped away by the anguished howl that echoed terribly, making Koren wince and shudder. He sat bolt upright, jerked to a stop by the chains that bound him. Outside the carriage window, a fortress loomed in the morning sunlight, built into a cliff and towering above a ruined city. The fortress itself was grimy and in disrepair, stones having come loose and tumbled down the soot-caked walls. Roofs of the buildings within the encircling wall had fallen in over centuries of neglect, for the demon no longer cared about the physical structure. Crows or buzzards or other carrion-eating birds flocked around the castle, their harsh calls louder and louder as the carriage rushed down the rutted roads toward the gate. Koren’s otherworldly senses could feel the ache of longing filling the demon within, the malevolent presence becoming a pulsing roar as the ancient creature of the underworld trembled with eagerness to finally grasp the prize it had sought for so long. In the seat across from him, the wizard twitched and jerked in agony, unable to withstand being so near the powerful entity within the castle. Wordlessly, the wizard glared at Koren as blood seeped from its nose and mouth. With one last horrible spasm of pain, the wizard’s head lolled forward and it slumped, dead. Shutting his eyes, Koren willed himself to block out the roaring in his head, as the carriage rumbled onto the broken cobblestones of the bridge leading to the castle gate. It was no use, the demon was too powerful. The boy wizard felt his will slipping away, the demon encroaching on his mind from all sides until all he could do was hold onto a tiny spark of himself deep inside. Be strong, he told himself, even though he knew no wizard could stand against the demon. Paedris had been right, without training and before coming into his full powers, Koren stood no chance against the power of the underworld.
Koren’s nerve failed him when the carriage rolled into the castle, and the massive iron doors closed behind him with a reverberating sound. With an ear-shattering screech, the demon proclaimed its victory, and blackness closed in.
“Cecil!” Paedris called out in pain, the strain of fending off the enemy wizards becoming too much for him. He had wanted to challenge their demon enemy directly, but before he and Cecil came within sight of the evil being’s castle, they were set upon by eight wizards. Six wizards of Acedor now remained, and Paedris felt his power ebbing. Being so close to the demon, he had felt his connection to the spirit world becoming tenuous, thin, unreliable as the demon’s presence suprressed his power. “Get away if you can, I can’t hold them much longer!” He staggered as three fireballs seared through the air toward them and he was barely able to block the magic fire, enough getting through his warding spell to splash all around his feet.
Cecil stood his ground, placing a hand on the other wizard’s shoulder, closing his eyes and letting power flow from him into the court wizard. “There won’t be much longer for any of us. I will stay here with you,” he declared as they waited for death. It would not be long now.
Princess Ariana and her bodyguard had been hard pressed by the enemy, even after Kyre Falco disobeyed his own father
and came to her rescue with a third of the confused Burwyck soldiers following the heir to continue the battle while the rest followed Duke Falco in disgraceful retreat. Kyre turned the tide for a hopeful moment, forcing the enemy back with a hard charge that crashed into the enemy lines, breaking up the disciplined wedge of cavalry and turning the fight into a battle of individual soldiers on horseback where the superior training of Burwyck and Tarador began to tell. The enemy was pressed back and Ariana’s guards reformed their lines around her, setting pikes into the ground to deter cavalry charges and drawing their swords.
It was not enough, not nearly enough. The enemy forced their way toward the princess by sheer weight of numbers; horses, men, and orcs dying without seemingly any effect on the enemy advance. Finally, after his horse stumbled and fell with an arrow in one leg, Kyre ordered Jonas to disengage, reform the lines and attempt to break through with one last charge by the cavalry. Kyre himself hopped off his dying horse to the ground to fight with Ariana’s guards. He found himself only a few yards from Grand General Magrane, who was still on his horse and directing the battle even as their strength faded with every soldier who fell. Kyre slashed at an enemy soldier then feinted another slash, dropping to one knee and stabbing upward with the sword point to catch the enemy under the chin. Not taking time to congratulate himself, Kyre stood and kicked the enemy free of his sword, ready for the next of the screeching, surging, fanatical horde. For a split second, he caught Magrane’s eye, and the general lifted his own sword in salute. If he died that day, Kyre might have salvaged some small measure of honor for the Falcos from the wreckage of disgrace. If anyone of Tarador survived to tell the tale.
With ever-smaller numbers her guards had fought to break through the encircling enemy lines, hoping to reach the comparative safety of the Royal Army that was also fighting their way toward their princess. Her guards and soldiers fought bravely and were standing firm even as more and more of them fell to arrows, spears and swords, but the enemy was truly fanatical, under the spell of their demon overlord. Enemy soldiers threw themselves on the pikes and swords of her guards to clear a path for the demon-compelled foul men or orcs behind, forcing Ariana’s dedicated guards to untangle their weapons from the front rank of the enemy before they could engage those in the second rank. Her guards had been slowly losing the fight, Madame Chu and her cohort of wizards fully committed to battling wizards of Acedor and unable to help Ariana’s physical defense. The superior numbers of the enemy in men, orcs and wizards were too much for the most valiant efforts of her defenders. The chaotic fight reached the point when Ariana had loosened the strap of the dagger she carried on her left forearm. If she were about to be seized by the enemy, she intended to stab herself and deny the enemy a prize captive. Ariana Trehayme was not going to be paraded about as an object of ridicule.
Koren awakened to find himself in a dark chamber, lit only by blood-red torches, and he almost gagged on the choking stench of sulphur and brimstone. On a stone bench in the center of the chamber sat a thin, emactiated figure, clothed in a robe that hung in tatters around its bony frame, the gray desiccated skin stretched tight over the rotted flesh within. Sores oozed openly, running down and soaking the filthy robe but the figure paid no mind to the physical discomfort of the ancient body it inhabited, for that body was no more than a vessel to contain its presence within the world of the real, an anchor holding its tenuous connection to the underworld. Even after all the centuries of restless striving and longing, the demon had not been able to strengthen and widen that connection, for all its incredible power it had failed to open a door wide enough for its demon brethren to follow it into the real world.
Beside Koren, Bjorn suddenly snapped to awareness, finding he was no longer bound with chains at all but unable to move of his own will. He knelt on a cold stone floor, his knees squishing in something he did not want to think about. The seated figure in front of them leaned forward slightly, the action causing brittle bones in one leg to snap and protrude through the paper-thin skin, grayish fluid leaking out. “Is,” Bjorn’s tongue moved awkwardly, for he had been unable to speak for many days. “Is that, Mertis?”
“What is left of him,” Koren answered, his tongue thick and slow. He remembered Paedris telling him the demon pulled the life essence from slaves to keep the body of Mertis from collapsing into dust, discarding the bodies of slaves after they were used up. Were the bodies of slaves what the crows flocking around the castle fed on, Koren wondered, for nothing else lived within that desolate valley.
“So long,” the seated figure croaked. “So looooong,” the words came out as a hiss, sending a chill through Koren. Strangely, he no longer felt the roaring in his mind, instead there was something squeezing in on him, pulling at his will, demanding his power. The presence in his mind, dark and cold and unspeakably evil, reached within him and Koren found no amount of asserting his will could force the presence out, nor deny it access to the power within him. “Ahhhh,” Koren grunted.
“Fight it!” Bjorn whispered, unable to speak louder.
“I c-can’t. It is too strong. You can’t imagine its power. Bjorn, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Bjorn found himself surprised by his own words. During the painful, endless ride in the wagon, the former King’s Guard had found he could not hate Koren Bladewell, though the boy had doomed the entire world. Koren was just a boy, no more and no less foolish and recklessly overconfident than anyone else at that age. Koren had not failed, the adults around him had failed the boy. Lord Salva, Captain Raddick, even Bjorn himself were supposed to be experienced, responsible adults, and they had failed to stop Koren from harming himself through youthful ignorance and stupidity.
“I’m s-sorry,” Koren repeated. “I can’t fight it much longer. It is so strong, ah-”
“Giiiiiive it to meeeeeee,” the demon hissed, its dead eyes glowing.
“No,” Koren’s shout of defiance came out as a mere whisper.
“Give it to me!” The demon roared, the sound echoing painfully around the chamber, making the oozing fluid on the floor slosh against Koren’s knees.
Koren knew he could no longer fight, the tiny spark of self deep within his mind was being snuffed out under the onslaught of the demon’s desire. “Y-you want my p-power?” Koren stammered to speak with a jaw clenched in painful tremors, his teeth grinding uncontrollably, tasting blood in his mouth as he involuntarily bit the inside of his cheek.
“Yessssssss,” the demon hissed in ecstasy, feeling its final victory so close at hand.
Koren’s eyes opened under hooded lids, barely seeing but staring directly into the demon’s glowing yellow eyes. “Then choke on it.”
Koren reached into the spirit world, down, down, down into the bottomless depths, hearing the spirits cry out with alarm and ignoring them, commanding them to release power and power flowed, limitless. A sun burst forth from the spirit world, more than a sun, pouring through Koren into the demon and still Koren pulled more and more power until the spirits writhed in terror and tried to flee but Koren held them fast with his will, draining an ocean of raw, searing power through himself into the demon, holding back nothing. The spirits lashed back and forth to break from Koren’s grip and he paid them no attention for they could not escape his indominable will. He needed power, more power, more more more it was never enough it would never end and the spirits drowned in the power surging through and upward out of their realm.
“NOOOOOOOO!” the demon screamed, a hammerblow of sound that assaulted Koren’s eardrums and was ignored. Desperately, the demon tried to break its connection with the boy and found itself trapped in an immovable grip. Power, unimaginable, unfathomable, uncontrollable power flowed from the boy into the demon where it had no place to go. Not even a timelessly ancient being of the underworld could use or withstand such a tidal wave of power, the demon stood on the shore between worlds and shrank in panic from the coming wave that broke over it and smashed it over and over and over. Lightni
ng burst forth from its unworldly form until even the demon could not contain a million suns of power and the demon was overwhelmed, power beginning to flow heedlessly through the demon and scorch the barrier between worlds. On the other side, the hordes of demons waiting there had only the most fleeting moment of glee before the power burning through burst forth in all directions to scorch beings who were themselves made of magical fire. The demons howled in pain and fear, shrinking away to the farthest reaches of their dark realm but the power followed them, seeking them out in every corner until the demons screeched in utterly hopeless terror. The power burned, it hammered through the demons, it tore them asunder and they reacted in the only way they could; with the last of their strength they slammed shut the barrier between worlds, cutting off the lone demon in the real world from them forever.
The demon, alone, abandoned and terrified beyond sanity, forgot itself, forgot who it was forgot it existed forgot everything but the searing white hot fire within and the demon ceased to exist, its essence exploding as a deathless creature of the underworld was ripped apart.
Koren was barely aware of being at the center of a maelstrom of fire whirling around him faster and faster, caught in a bubble while everything around him turned to soot and dust and nothingness. The massive, solid ancient stones of the castle were nothing more than loose sand to the tornado of fire that consumed those walls, sending pieces of the castle for miles in every direction, blasting craters with the mere force of air that hit like a solid wall, punching holes in the ground and washing away hills until the landscape around where the castle had been was scoured by a relentless incoming tide of fire.
Paedris felt the shockwave as it hit the enemy wizards, a truly shocking wall of power rolling over them all, knocking them all to the ground and wiping awareness from his mind. His last memory was of Cecil beside him, the man’s eyes turning toward Paedris in fear, hope and amazement before he, too, was overcome.
Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3) Page 39
