JOURNEY OF THE SACRED KING II

by JANRAE FRANK

  "No dark rites, half-a-mon," Troyes whispered with a sly sneer and then laughed at the joke. "But there will be fresh blood and a full meal for me."

  A boy led them into the inn through a back door.

  Isranon's expression tightened, his lips thinning, his eyes narrowing to slits as his shields slid into place. It would be another night of ghosts most likely; for what Troyes meant by "full meal" was that he would be eating a human, draining him to death – expensive fare, but Troyes was a noble's eldest son who probably had more than enough gold to pay for it.

  The ghosts came more frequently of late. Isranon wanted to feed and sleep. That was all he wanted. Please! Please let there be no ghosts tonight!

  "Shall we dine together, Isranon?" Troyes asked.

  "No."

  "Why not, half-a-mon? Are you that afraid of death?" Troyes asked, his tone sliding sensually along Isranon's awareness, taunting. "Dine with me." He ran his finger down Isranon's cheek.

  Anger flared suddenly in Isranon. "The only way I would dine with you would be to dine on you." The dagger leaped from its sheath, coming up to rest at the hollow of Troyes' throat before the sa'necari would react. "Don't touch me again."

  "You intrigue me, Isranon. You have become an endless source of speculation ever since the Prince found you and your sister. Pity about that one. Was she mad, half-a-mon who will not step into the dark? Did she really burn herself? Or did you burn her?" His nostrils flared and his head lowered until his chin nearly touched his chest, that tiny sneer smile playing about the edges of his mouth, his voice low, almost a rough rumbling purr deep in his throat.

  Isranon neither moved nor answered, holding the blade steady at Troyes' throat, waiting as if he were made of stone, yet calm and still and his muscles loose, ready to move.

  "Masters? Is there a problem? Your rooms and meals are ready." The boy had returned to the little parlor. He glanced from face to face, but his eyes kept returning to the blade.

  Isranon stepped back, returning the dagger to its place at his hip with a quick flick of his wrist. "I will be dining alone in my rooms."

  "As you wish," the boy said. "Nibari only. A male and a female, light meat. Plus a full dinner for three." It was clear from his tone that he thought it odd, that a sa'necari would want to feed the nibari as well as feed on them.

  Isranon smiled at him. "I'm keeping them all night. A party. I'm a very strange sa'necari." He reached into his pouch and pulled out three silver pieces, putting them in the boy's hand, and then he flashed a fourth piece and added it to the rest. "That's for you."

  The boy whistled. "Whatever you need, lord, I'm Rutili. At your service!"

  Isranon followed Rutili to his rooms, turning his heel sharply to show his disdain of Troyes. He had deliberately asked for one of each; he wanted Troyes to understand that it was not his masculinity he objected to but the mon, the creature himself.

  * * * *

  "What are they like?" Isranon sat on the couch in the generous room that had no windows. The male still slept, but the female had awakened and curled next to him. Her head rested on his shoulder with her neck turned to the proper angle to expose the favored vein, showing that she had been well trained. The nibari, the human cattle of the sa'necari, were compliant creatures.

  "Who lord?"

  "The Sharani." Isranon thought of Margren's sister, Aejys Rowan, remembering the paladin's face as they dragged her to the Chamber of Hecatomb to rite her. Despite having been tortured, even knowing that she was about to die, the paladin had had a kind of quiet defiance, almost serenity, which bespoke her complete faith in her liege-god. It had moved Isranon. He knew almost nothing about the Gods of Light beyond a handful of names. He hungered for that kind of faith. But no God of Light would ever want him, nor would the nethergod, Hadjys. His kind belonged to the Hellgod, Bellocar, whether they wish it or not. Bellocar's servants had created the sa'necari.

  "But surely you know. You've just come up from Shaurone as I hear it."

  Isranon shook his head. "I mean the ones who have not been touched by the darkness. The only person who had not been touched by it in all of Dragonshead was Juldrid and she was from Norendel, not Shaurone. What are they like?"

  The nibari shook her head. "I wouldn't know. We're not allowed to speak to them. They segregate us. Don't want them knowing we exist. Where do you go from here?"

  "It's better that you not know." Isranon sighed, realizing he should not have mentioned Dragonshead either. He hated what he was about to do, but would be as gentle as he could. So he kissed her, filled her thoughts with the dreams of flowers in spring, and swept away the conversation, trying hard not to damage anything else as he did so. She fainted. "Forgive me."

  * * * *

  In the morning they moved on again. Isranon wished he dared to have gone out into the markets and seen what the Sharani were like. Isolation ate at him. To have a world out there and be afraid to touch it lest the Sharani discern the monster within the mon. Living among monsters had begun to take a toll upon his heart and soul, like a sustained drought slowly withering a once healthy sapling. He had felt it more keenly on this long, lonely ride with just this single monster at his side than when he had more concerns to occupy his mind. That would change once they reached Claw's farm, but for the moment it was a maddening roar. He tried to stay focused on their destination and not give into his emotions.

  Half a day's ride further they crossed a sturdy covered bridge over a deep cataract and were no sooner on the other side than seven gigantic wolves burst from the thick underbrush to confront them. A tall craggy faced man with a long scar that ran from his forehead across a twice broken nose and split his upper lip, made by a kenda'ryl knife – one of the few metals that could scar a lycan – stepped out before them. He saw Isranon and nodded, then turned to Troyes without so much as a greeting.

  "These are the rules," he said in a harsh, raspy voice. "There are no full meals to be found on Clan Red Wolf lands. From the Eirlys River," he pointed at the cataract, and then indicated the direction of the rest of the landmarks, "to the piled boulders and six pines, north to the caves and south to the broad meadows and place of fallen trees. You ask permission before feeding; otherwise you are our guest and take your meals with the rest of us so long as you guest at our chieftain's house. The other homes and farms on clan land you enter only if invited. You hunt game only if invited. What you do beyond our borders is your affair, but you are warned not to bring your troubles here. If the Sharani should pursue you to our borders we will kill you. We are law-abiding citizens of the occupied zone. These are the rules."

  Isranon dismounted, walking up to the scarred lycan. "Nevin!"

  Nevin relaxed, threw an arm around Isranon's shoulder, and started off with him, leaving Troyes to follow with the others. "And how have you been, Isranon? Merissa has missed you. And so has everyone else."

  All the tension and stress melted out of Isranon. He had come home.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A TASTE FOR DEATH

  Mephistis Waejonan, youngest prince of Waejontor, had taken refuge in a mountainous area thick with caves and tunnels a day's ride from Dragonshead. A week before he had crept into Geoa Odaren's camp by night with four of his sa'necari and stolen Aejys from beneath their noses. The paladin had been in an alcohol-fogged sleep after learning that he had murdered her daughter and na'halaef – mate – Ladonys. Easy prey. He gave Aejys to his beloved Margren, her sister. He would always savor the joy and exultation he had seen in Margren's face that day when he returned with Aejys. Margren tortured her for days before opening her stomach with a blade and leaving her to die in a rite of mortgiefan.

  Somehow, Aejys' people knew about their citadel at Dragonshead and came after them. The assault had been led by Tagalong Smith and an unknown Shardith, bond-mate to a great shadow hound. They would never have found the secret entrance to the underground citadel if not for the hound and a treacherous tribe of catkin who had pretended loyalty to him and th
en betrayed him. He should have expected as much, for although he had not known about the Shardith, he had been aware that some catkin tribes served a yuwenghau – a young rogue god – Dynarien, twin brother to Dynanna, God of cussedness. His only comfort lay in the knowledge that Aejystrys Rowan was dead.

  The cave where he waited for his companion, Bodramet, to rendezvous with him was small, dark, and stank of the dry muskiness of animals that had once laired there. It had two natural chambers with a narrow waist between them. Mephistis crouched before a small fire, shoving twigs into it, staring into the flames climbing the meager fuel. The fire could not warm him; he could not build it large enough, for fear the smoke would be seen. The chill worsened the pain of his wound. He had taken as much blood as he dared from his surviving acolytes to heal himself, before ordering them to scatter in pairs and make their way to the last remnant of free Waejontor. It would take much more blood to complete the healing for Kaethreyn's, Aejys' blood mother's sword thrust had torn his internal organs and intestines. Had he not been sa'necari, the living embodiment of the undead, with willing blood available, it would have killed him. Kaethreyn materialized on the altar of hecatomb just as he had been taking mortgiefan on Aejys' dying body, his seed ready to explode inside her at the moment of death. The act would have shattered her soul and he would have absorbed part of it, thus enhancing his magical energies.

  His beloved Margren, who shared his taste for death, had not been at Dragonshead when it fell and been left behind. Mephistis tried several times to contact her mind to mind through their link. When she did not answer, he knew she had been slain. So he sent Bodramet, his companion, to try and recover her body before someone could take her head and heart. So long as her body remained whole, it would rise undead and return to him. For a time Mephistis prayed in silence to the Hellgod, Bellocar, for Margren and Bodramet's safe return.

  He found himself thinking also of Isranon, praying that the Sharani had not caught him. While he loved Margren, he trusted the youth far more. Isranon, with his Dark Brothers sense of honor, devotion, and duty, was not like the other sa'necari: his loyalty did not depend upon Mephistis' strength and patronage to ensure it. And yes, Mephistis admitted, I love him also.

  Mephistis would never forget seeing the somewhat scrawny boy, who had not yet begun to fulfill the promise of his broad shoulders, break from cover in front of him in full flight from a pack of hunting sa'necari. Mephistis had mistaken him for a lycan, since they were on the edge of Claw's valley. He snatched him up with a hand to his collar and a spell, thrown him across his saddle, and stopped the hunters with a slash of dark power. But when his hand had brushed the fourteen-year-old's cheek, Mephistis had recognized Isranon as sa'necari.

  "Be safe, Isranon. Be safe."

  Finally he rose, pulling his cloak tighter around him, and moved to the cave entrance to stare at the sun rising through the treetops. "A day," he muttered, his darkly sensual, almost feminine face twisted in worry. "It's been a full day... Where are they?"

  He hungered, but dared not go out after a victim until Bodramet returned: the Sharani were hunting him. They knew what he was, maybe even who he was, so the hunters would be paladins, priests and mages strong enough to have a chance of taking him in open battle. He remembered the exquisite taste of Aejys' dying body as he pushed into her, moving in rhythm to the struggling beats of her failing heart. So close. He had been so close to taking mortgiefan, to shattering her soul and drinking it in. His member rose in response to the memory, deepening his hunger. His nerve endings burned and his muscles ached for the taste of her.

  A flash of color among the trees jerked him from his reverie. He retreated a short way into the outer cave, watching. A single figure on horseback, something large and blanket-wrapped tied before him: Bodramet had returned with Margren's body.

  Mephistis emerged, seizing Bodramet as he dismounted and embracing him. "You found her."

  "Indeed, lord," Bodramet answered. "She and the others were cut down in the great hall as they celebrated her victory. Kaethreyn is dead. The lineage of Rowan is ended."

  Sadness swept through Mephistis, remembering the last time he saw her alive. She had been happy and afire with passion, telling him to come to her bed later wrapped in Aejys' blood so she could lick it off him. He had been eager to do so. But that nameless mage had somehow opened a gate directly onto the altar, ending all their dreams and plans. There had been too many unknown variables in his equations; variables he had never dreamed existed. Where in Hell's name could Aejystrys Rowan have found a mage with such terrible power, Mephistis had never imagined that anyone like that could have existed without his knowledge, his spies were everywhere, even in Charas, the city of magic itself. With the Rowans decimated, only the Asharen and Danae bloodlines remained to threaten Waejonan's lineage and he would find a way to destroy them also. Then his people would retake their lands and strike out across the world. But what of this mage? With Rowan gone, would this mage come after him?

  Together they took Margren's body down. Mephistis knelt in the snow, unwrapping her face. Her skin was blue, her eyes still staring in that last moment of shock as the blade went in. Mephistis kissed her lips, her face as if to take away the pain he saw there.

  "They will pay."

  Then he lifted her in his arms, carrying her to the inner cave. Bodramet lingered behind, taking two stuffed saddlebags from the horse. Throwing them over his shoulders and leading the animal, he followed.

  * * * *

  Mephistis laid her body in the small inner chamber, unwrapping her completely. He found a single wound where a skilled thrust had put the blade directly into her heart. Her death had been quick. That comforted him. He felt the torn fabric, stiff with her blood, then ran his fingers along the lips of the wound. When she woke the wound would still be there, but with several feedings it would close, the color would return to her skin as stolen blood awakened her heart and she would pass for living. She would be able to do anything the living could, except reproduce: her body would never again give life.

  That turned his thoughts to Juldrid and the children she carried. He and Margren had deliberately raped and terrorized Juldrid after shoving their children inside her. One of his surviving acolytes reported seeing Juldrid fall beneath a hail of Valdren arrows. He had not been able to find her mind. His link to her had always been tenuous at best, because she fought it fiercely. So far as he could tell Juldrid and his children were dead. He would make more children... but they would not be Margren's.

  "Fetching her may not have been wise, My Lord," Bodramet said, pulling an object from his pocket and dropping it on Margren's body. "She died by her own blade... She'll rise as a revenant."

  Mephistis gasped as he saw the broken empty hilt of the Blade of Nine Souls. "I can control her..." Mephistis said. "She'll come to herself in time with several feedings." Having died by her own baneblade, all the power from the souls she had stolen had been released. She would still be strong, but not as she had been and that grieved him. He had made her powerful, been mentor as well as lover to her. He would pay them ... oh yes, he would pay them for this.

  "If she doesn't kill us both first."

  "Get out. Leave us alone," Mephistis snarled.

  "As you wish," Bodramet gave a curt vow, set a pair of the saddlebags down, leaning them against Margren, and withdrew to the outer chamber.

  * * * *

  Mephistis kissed her cold blue lips and they yielded slightly to his touch: rigor was passing. He shoved his hand deep into her wound, closing his eyes, searching her corpse with all his necromantic senses. The first stirrings of undeath, the reawakening of the muscles, moved through Margren's body, while her captive soul in its prison of chill flesh slept, dreaming of blood and freedom. Mephistis pulled his hand out, drew his dagger, cutting his arm. He let his blood flow into Margren's wound, then wiped his arm across her lips, smearing her face, speaking the first rite of binding, making her his again. This would weaken him further, slow the
healing of the wound in his side, but he would feed before the day was out. Mephistis cut her tunic open enough to reveal her nipples, dark against the blue skin. He cupped her torn left breast, fondling her nipple with his thumb. He could feel the undeath stronger now.

  His lips closed on her nipple, sucking and biting lightly, tenderly. Tears started from his eyes, dripping onto the corpse. "Margren ... Margren."

  He cut the lacings of her trousers; fumbling as he tried to push them down, then simply cut the crotch open. He fingered the lips of her vagina, moving his fingers until they were deep inside her, manipulating the cold flesh as if it lived and he could give her pleasure. Mephistis grew hard caressing her and opened his trousers, lifting himself out. Her chill, clammy flesh closed about him as he entered her. He wept with his face pressed between the mounds of her breasts as his rhythmic thrusts moved deeper and deeper within her, desperately seeking a response that could not come.

  When he had spilled his seed, he lay for a time atop her. Then he noticed the saddlebags. He opened them, finding several golden preserving bottles, all full. He unstoppered one, raised it to his lips, and drank. The bottle's magic had kept the blood as warm and fresh as if it were newly come from living veins. He drank it all. His wound no longer ached. He opened a second one and a third. The wound closed. His powers rose, renewed to fullness. His fear of the Sharani searching for them faded to nothing. One on one, there existed only a single mage who could seriously challenge him: the nameless mon who had opened the gate into Dragonshead.

  * * * *

  Mephistis stepped into the outer chamber so softly the younger sa'necari did not hear him and watched Bodramet unstopper a bottle, taking a long swallow from the thick crimson fluid. His eyes closed, intense bliss suffusing his face like a long deprived alcoholic who finds a bottle of two hundred proof. Bodramet wiped the back of his hand across his mouth to catch the remnants, then licked his hand before taking another long pull. From the look on his face, it had to be exceptionally potent blood.