The Blood Wars Trilogy Omnibus: Volumes 1 - 3

by T. A. Miles

  The tunnel came to an end. Vlas looked to Vaelyx as the man came to a halt. He kept his eyes on the man as he walked to the gaping mouth at the end of the passage, not pulling his gaze from him until the view demanded his full attention. He found himself standing at the lip of hell’s depths.

  The ledge spilled into a slope, which was rife with pockets and streams of crimson fluid so thick it was at times almost running black. Where it sourced from, Vlas could not tell. In places it seemed to trickle from the wall, forming a sort of network of veins that connected at random natural-appearing bowls along the floor. Larger pools lay erratically strewn throughout what was a vast cavern. Torches were mounted on poles that stood at least twice as high as a man, their arrangement seeming in no special order. The entirety of the place had no sequence or pattern. It seemed to stand in blatant defiance of nature, contradicting order with a dark passion that aptly reflected the Vadryn.

  “Gracious gods….” Vlas murmured. “What is this?”

  Imris only looked at him and he back at her. She had no words for this. It was either as she feared in her childhood nightmares or beyond comprehension at all. The expression she wore labeled it at the very least disturbing and Vlas agreed.

  “This is her work,” Vaelyx said to the other side of Vlas, his tone exhausted and not surprised though there were strong notes of worry there. “This is Serawe’s.”

  Imris moved so quickly that Vlas nearly missed the fact that she had moved at all, but for the fact that she was on Vaelyx, pressing him to the wall with both fists wrapped over his shirt.

  “You helped her to accomplish this!” the constable accused. “You helped her to murder children!”

  “Imris,” Vlas said. He stepped in literally, putting his hands on her shoulders as he wedged himself partly between them. “We don’t know that.”

  In flagrant disregard for Vlas’ assistance, Vaelyx said sullenly, “Yes, we do know that. I’m—”

  Imris shoved through Vlas to press Vaelyx harder and though Vaelyx seemed willing to accept whatever punishment the constable would lay on him, Vlas held her back.

  “Constable Imris,” he said firmly. “This is not our task.” Tipping his head toward the ‘well’, he added, “That is our task. Vaelyx didn’t have to bring us here, but he did. Let that be enough for now.”

  Imris continued to scowl at Vaelyx, through Vlas. When she finally seemed to see and hear him, she released Vaelyx with a taut shove. Vaelyx took it, though in spite of his willingness to accept blame in the previous moments, he did manage to take on a vaguely affronted look while he straightened his shirt and cloak.

  “Hell’s depths have space even for the righteous,” he mumbled to one or both of them. “If you stay around long enough.”

  Vlas held out an arm before Imris could attack the man again if she were inclined to. “Let’s just, all of us, stay calm and give attention where it’s due. The rest can be accounted later.”

  The constable and Vaelyx accepted that in silence and Vlas lowered his arm slowly, then turned to fully face the well once again.

  And now the question was … “How do we dam this?”

  In the moment the question was forming, movement stirred in one of the larger bowls. With a sluggish belch, a great swell of blood rose and burst, raining back down on the pool and the ground that formed a rise around it. Several smaller bubbles occurred afterward, and finally something more solid lifted itself from the pool. The blood drew a layer across the body standing within it, sheathing the form of a woman.

  Vlas drew himself further into the shadow of the entry and urged the others to do the same silently. Imris obeyed immediately while Vaelyx stayed where he was and murmured as if to no one.

  “It won’t matter now. She’ll know where we are.”

  “She?” Vlas demanded quietly, though he didn’t actually need confirmation. As a heavy sensation of dread wound itself tautly inside of him, he knew.

  Vaelyx said nothing, but under Imris’ breath the demoness’ name escaped. “Serawe.”

  “Not Serawe alone,” Vlas said.

  A glow was forming higher along the slope leading into the well. It grew tall and spread open in a telltale fashion, though Vlas couldn’t be relieved by the sight of a Reach portal as several dark forms crawled out of it. He didn’t exactly know how to feel watching a horde of demons physically herald the arrival of one of his own. As the Reach dissipated and Korsten stood in stark white against a gruesome mosaic of blood and stone, Vlas could only stare.

  The Reach did not happen accidentally, but it was almost automatic. Once Korsten fully felt the presence of Serawe, he became spiritually intimate with her through the intimacy the other demons felt with her. Though he did not anticipate it, her attempt to act through Dacia had made for an opportune moment to separate the demon from the girl and enable Ersana to calm her. Hopefully she would, and the three of them including Merran would be safe.

  Korsten scarcely had time to think about them or the crone now. His mind scarcely had the capacity to fit more thought than what was required to comprehend this demon. And it required nearly all of his consciousness to stand against her dark weight. She was massive in spirit, a force on her own. How long had she been here, swelling malignantly with the blood literally surrounding her?

  Her physical form was dressed in blood and nothing more. She made steps toward him that would have been dangerous in an instant to most men. Those susceptible would be intoxicated immediately by her visual offering. Korsten saw only the demon. The seductive smile on her features abandoned her immediately when he performed Release.

  The spell struck her like a hand across the face. She halted, literally turning her face away from it. She stood for a moment, still as if she were willing herself through an internal struggle. In seconds, she recovered, shook the effect off and looked at Korsten again.

  “You would not like me as much outside of this form, mage,” she told him and there was a gravelly discordance to her voice that reverberated through his senses.

  Korsten knew better than to dignify a demon with conversation. He worked a second Release, summoning more will to put behind it. In anticipation of the spell, Serawe shrieked wildly. In doing so, she manifested a spell of her own, one which sent a harsh force across the space between them, shoving him violently back and interrupting his casting. He attempted to roll with the force, but there were bodies at his feet—the bodies of several confused demons—which confounded his movement. He tumbled awkwardly over and around the beasts, which responded with various shrugging or shielding motions as they let their enemy roll past them. He considered that he would have to fight them too, once they recovered from the Reach they’d all been caught up in. That recovery seemed to come all too fast once he hit the ground. All of them looked or turned bodily to face him. The loitering mob of demons shifted as a body of water toward Korsten in the next moment. He recoiled when the first malformed hands reached toward him and then very abruptly and involuntarily shouted at them to stop.

  They did, though Serawe did not. The demoness stalked toward him on her stained human legs. He rose swiftly to his own, but not before she put both hands on his face and placed her mouth hard against his. She tried to follow through with her body, but his sword manifested, impaling her through the breast as it formed.

  The demoness screamed in his face, showing him elongated teeth before she slammed her hand against his sword and knocked it forcefully out of her body and from his hand. Her ribs cracked obscenely in the motion, a piece of them jutting out from her side, along with bits of flesh that immediately began to pull itself back together. She thrust one hand out while it happened and a stream of blood shot out of one of the nearby basins, directly into her skin. She recovered instantly and with a crooked grin that let Korsten know in spite of her display, she felt the process. She felt pain through the body she occupied.

  This situation wa
s no different than Bael, who had the dubious honor in Korsten’s memory of being his first Release. He thought back on it often when faced with a possessed indivudal. The degrees of risk for both the mage and the victim varied, but fundamentally it was all the same. He tried to enforce that to himself and pushed himself fully to a stand, ignoring the acrid taste of blood on his lips. At the very least, the others were not attacking him. Whatever that meant or would mean later, at least he could concentrate solely on this one for now.

  That was what he thought, but then he felt the presence of individuals nearby. Individuals that were not demon, and one of them he knew with stark clarity was a mage.

  Vlas retreated further from the mouth of the well. Imris prompted easily, staying alert and not panicking, which served both of them well. Vaelyx was taken by the shoulder and brought back physically. He was pliable in his state, whatever that may have been.

  “How can we dam the well?” Vlas asked him. When he didn’t receive an answer, he wheeled the man around to face him. “Master Treir, I have need of your knowledge.” It was something he should have shared far sooner, but this was not the time to bicker over any of it. His fellow mage was in direct conflict with a Master demon and Vlas had every intention of aiding him, but first the well had to be at least understood. He’d watched the demoness draw from it once already and apparently, she bathed her physical form in it regularly. It was probably only he and Korsten who fully understood how dangerous that made her.

  Vaelyx seemed to come around. He made eye contact with Vlas. “This place has to come down,” the man said, as one who knew what he was asking may not even be possible. “We have to bury it.”

  “So, literally dammed,” Vlas translated, glancing past Vaelyx at the well, by way of Imris, who was listening.

  She confirmed it by stating, “It was no spell which caused the rockslide.”

  “What was it?” Vlas asked either of them, since he suspected Vaelyx knew better than any of them what was going on in this place.

  “She’s right,” Vaelyx replied. “It was fire tactics.”

  Vlas looked from one to the other, awaiting further explanation.

  Imris provided it. “The people of the Islands have studied fire for generations. They have ways with it that could benefit an army.”

  Vaelyx heaved a sigh of stress and confirmed her statement. “It was one of the assets we hoped to gain when we first began to cooperate. I believed Ceth would be interested in knowing about it.”

  “I’m certain that he would,” Vlas said. “By the sound of it. Tell me more. Can we utilize it here?”

  Vaelyx looked to Imris this time, ignoring her disapproving frown while he spoke to both of them. “Oh, we could. We’d have to find their supply first.”

  “Their supply of fire?” Vlas questioned.

  Vaelyx returned his gaze to him. “Of material to produce fire … more quickly and disruptively than you’d know beyond spell casting.”

  “Can you find it?” Vlas asked next, forcing himself around his natural curiosity. This was something that could be studied later, should any of them survive this.

  “We can find it,” Imris promised, and he very much appreciated her commitment. He wanted to ask her if she and Vaelyx would actually be able to use such tools or materials once found, but he knew her answer would be ‘yes’. Whether or not she had any prior experience, he believed her, that she could find what they needed and make use of it. There were the ghouls to contend with, and Vaelyx, but he had confidence in her to deal with both and without his help. The demons were here and so was another mage. Vlas’ place was here as well.

  “Go,” Vlas said to both of them. “Be careful.”

  Vaelyx went and after an extended moment of regarding Vlas with her mottled eyes and her natural frown, Imris went as well.

  “Thank you,” Vlas said quietly after they’d passed, then looked to the well, where a brood of oddly embodied demons loitered confusedly around the mage and Master. Where was Merran? The question parted as quickly as it had arrived while Vlas set his focus on Serawe and Korsten, and where he could begin to help.

  With Korsten vanished, Merran had no option for immediate distraction. In the periphery of his awareness, Ersana struggled to calm a writhing Dacia. Blood stained the girl’s hair, skin, and dress where the husk of the demon had wrapped around her. The remains of the vessel sat in moist-looking fragments and small deposits of blood after Korsten’s departure and Dacia’s subsequent fall into some manner of fit. Over what, Merran could not be certain. The crone appeared unconcerned with any of it, bent as she was on removing Merran from her presence.

  The Ancient’s unnatural limbs thrashed about in a persistent attempt to connect with Merran. He relied on his ability to anticipate her movements to spare himself damage from her attacks and inserted his own where he was able. Fire seemed her greatest fear, though she tended to laugh whenever he worked a spell against her. Beneath her deep chortles, appendages of the tree she’d become shied from the heat and beat themselves in puddles whenever they caught fire. Merran’s frustration was with the lack of serious or lasting harm the spells did. He would have to find a way to inflict greater damage on the crone, else it would be a matter of who exhausted first. He didn’t have any doubt that one so ancient as her would far outlast him.

  You cannot defeat me. The crone’s voice resounded in his mind, reaching into his senses like narrow roots taking hold, expanding as they attempted to draw life out of him. She was trying to sap his will and thereby his strength; a spell of her own. It would have far less effect on him with his soul shielded by Eolyn as it was. He risked slowing his movement deliberately where he could to have her think otherwise. Her ignorance about a mage would only be an advantage if she remained ignorant.

  Her limbs swept over him in quick succession, as if she were testing his Endurance and the effectiveness of her magic against him. Unfortunately, she was intelligent and unlikely to be fooled for long. He continued with his efforts anyway, ducking down to avoid being crushed. He rose slower intentionally, though as one of the heavier limbs passed even nearer than the others before it, he was forced down by the sheer strength of its wake. He was rolled by the force of its passing and lay on his back for a moment long enough to be caught beneath the light from the ceiling. In that instant he was able to see that it was a large cluster of crystals, held to the ceiling by the roots that had penetrated the softer earth which formed it. Undoubtedly that had been augmenting the crone’s capacity for and use of magic. Still, a fantastic amount had to have gone into the summoning, which Merran presumed was the reason she hadn’t attacked harder yet. She wanted to wear him down while she replenished herself.

  A shadow passed over him. He felt the mass behind it bearing down on him and rolled quickly away. The sensation of the limb’s passing scoured across his back and shoulders and almost pulled him back into the shallow crater its crushing weight formed in the floor. He continued onto his front with effort, and pushed himself to his feet. Drawing his sword, he quickly cast Fire onto it and stabbed the instantly heated blade into the wood. It writhed as if a pinned worm and jerked him roughly forward with its pull away from him. He managed to hold his footing and recover his weapon.

  Taking a moment to locate Ersana and Dacia, he found them retreating to the stairwell. Ersana held the crystal she’d tied around the girl’s neck in place while guiding her with some haste out of the fray. Merran made quick steps toward the main body of the crone. Sheathing his sword, he cast a Barrier in front of himself and held his arms out to bring it forward with him as a shield while he ran. The crone’s assaults threatened to throw him from his course, but he maintained focus on the core of her, pressing his speed. When he drew near enough, he let go the Barrier and drew his sword once more, hurriedly casting Fire onto it. With as much strength as he could muster, he put both hands onto the hilt and swung heavily into the bole. It went in wi
de and deep, embedding itself surely beyond recovery.

  The crone bellowed complaint that bludgeoned his insides with its reverberation. Her smoldering body jerked and threw him from it and his sword, which it quickly claimed with thin but rapidly growing threads of green wood. Merran landed on his shoulder first and felt it give a little before he rolled and possibly spared it from separating. A vine thrashed to life from the floor and wrapped his leg immediately. He cast Fire at a level that would shock it enough to shake it loose, then backed himself up and put down a low wall of heat. His gaze went next to the ceiling and his hands set to work.

  You will die here, the crone assured him, but he barely listened while he focused on the gestures required for a Shroud. The air around them began to quickly darken, dimming the light from the crystal significantly. The crone’s presence fell gradually from him and the crone emitted another deep laugh.

  She said nothing more and made no further attack. Merran rose to his feet. In the same moment, the crystal cracked. The lines radiated outward to the ceiling around it and in the process, water slipped through. What were thin lines of threading drops rapidly swelled to wide sheaves.

  “Master Merran!”

  The shout came from Dacia. Recovered from the demon’s hold, she sounded young and afraid. Merran went to the stairwell, his footsteps hindered by water that was quickly accumulating. Both Dacia and Ersana reached out to him, urging him into the shelter that would be very temporary. All the while the crone laughed, assured of her victory.