Path of Bones

by Steven Montano

  Mazrek Chairos was there, dressed in a grey and purple tunic and a loose black cloak. He was accompanied by a pair of black-clad mercenaries armed with swords; one of them held an empty bucket. Drakanna was also there, her crude mask in place and her crimson-and-black armor stained with gore that Dane knew was his own. She held a cudgel and a long knife.

  “Good morning, Azander,” Chairos said. “I’m pleased you managed to get some sleep. It means you should be well rested for today. ” He stood so close Dane could practically make out his own reflection in the Veilwarden’s perfectly straight white teeth. While it was common knowledge that a Bloodspeaker could be identified by the faint trace of black on and around their tongue, few knew that the tell-tale sign of a Veilwarden was his teeth – only mages were so arrogant and vain that they would drain the world’s life force to fix their smiles.

  Dane tried to speak, but all that came out was a spatter of blood. He coughed violently for a few moments before he could draw air without choking.

  “How…how long…?”

  “Three days,” Chairos said. “Long enough for Drakanna to do some thorough work and for me to assemble my forces. Unfortunately, playtime is over. It’s time for us to tend to business, and for you to prove your usefulness.” His eyes shone with frosted radiance. Dane felt the razor’s caress of the Veil against his wounded chest. “You studied the thar’koon. Now use cher’nag and tell me where to find them.”

  Dane wanted to spit in Chairos’ face, but even the thought of expending that much energy left him dizzy and weak. He tried to Touch the Veil so he could free himself, but it eluded him. Somehow Chairos had control over the flow of magic in that chamber, and he’d shielded Dane so the Dawn Knight’s gift of Seeing was the only thing he’d be able to do.

  Well done, Dane, he told himself. Way to let your cock get you into a world of trouble. Just like the good old days.

  Why hadn’t he been able to control himself? Maybe it was some effect of the Scarlet Lair, or another Veilcrafted compulsion. Either way, it didn’t matter now.

  A jolt of electricity ripped across his chest. Bits of torn skin flaked off and burned.

  “Don’t play this game with me,” Chairos said in a deep and measured tone. “You don’t have the strength to resist. Use cher’nag, and find the thar’koon. Do it now.”

  Dane’s fingers and toes curled with hurt. His heart beat hard against his chest.

  “Fuck yourself,” he said.

  Dane was nearly deafened by the sound of his own screams. Forks of black power jumped from Chairos’ hand and scorched Dane’s stomach, tearing open his old wound. Dane bit down so hard he thought his teeth would break. The ropes cut deeper into his wrists, and his feet slipped in blood and urine.

  The bones in his shoulder cracked. He forced bile back down, closed his eyes and rode the waves of hurt.

  Memories of his childhood flashed before him, his life accelerated, an infant one moment and nearly a grown man the next, half-remembered images of toddling along on the ground at his mother’s feet, eating raisins and biscuits in the afternoon, kissing girls and grabbing their breasts behind the barracks, himself, younger, propelling towards a bright future that never happened, all that promise and fire and passion wasted, because what he grew into was a monster, a murderer, slaughterer of Bloodspeakers and traitor to the realm, now a shadow of himself, wanting death but too weak to seek it out, never to live the life that might have been.

  And now this pain, this suffering, a pathetic and weak husk of human skin so covered in gashes and bruises he was barely recognizable, the once-proud Knight awash in his own blood and filth.

  I won’t die like this.

  He heard wolves howl somewhere far away.

  “Do it,” Chairos said. “If your life doesn’t mean anything to you, then think of your Voss friend.”

  Something took hold of him, a dark presence, molten and wicked like burning embers around his heart. Dane’s blood boiled and his fingers tensed. The pain started to fade, and each breath seemed to invigorate him.

  His wounds were healing.

  He looked at Chairos and imagined ripping free of his bonds and putting his fist right through the bastard’s skull. Dane wanted to tear him in two, and felt that he could. Hunger built inside him, so intense he could hardly see straight. All he had to do was let go, and join the wolves.

  No. Not like this.

  He’d lose Kruje. He didn’t know where the Voss was, and he’d come to think of the exiled giant as a friend. His only friend.

  “All right,” he said, his voice almost a growl. Chairos’ eyes narrowed in surprise at the sudden power and presence in Dane’s voice. “I’ll do it.”

  It proved to be no easy task. Dane was dizzy and in pain, and in spite of the hot night the gelid wind chilled his wounds and painfully cooled against his skin. The brief moment of healing he’d experienced was done, but even though his scars and injuries were still there he sensed they weren’t as grievous as they’d been before, that his body had repaired the worst of the damage, especially on the inside.

  Chairos and his Phage henchmen chose not to say anything about Dane’s spontaneous regeneration. But he knew it was the wolves.

  He’d come close to losing control, and that terrified him. Something was happening – the darkness inside him was very real, and very dangerous. If there was some way he could call it rather than being called, some way he could force that anger to rise at the right moment, it could mean his and Kruje’s freedom.

  But did he want to lose control like that? He’d spent the past three years containing his rage, and it was just his shit luck that losing himself to his anger seemed to be the only way of tapping into this new power so he and his friend could escape.

  What’s happening to me?

  He sharpened his senses and did as Chairos asked, focusing his thoughts and latching onto the Veil’s glacial flow. He sensed the ancient power, that black and primordial energy, and he was dwarfed by its presence. His body convulsed as the Veil seeped through the shields Mazrek Chairos had set, bolts of ebon force driven through the wall of his thoughts. He breathed liquid crystal, and his sight narrowed. Silvered lines of aether bled from the Veilcrafted thar’koon and back to him, slithering like smoky snakes from the destination to the source, tracking in reverse, time inverted in his pain-addled mind.

  Dane saw the thar’koon being created right there in Kaldrak Iyres, in a time before the Skullborn were even born. The weapons had been forged by the Drage and the Voss, twin blades doused in drops of Carastena Vlagoth’s blood. Even Dane had to conjecture at some of the history the Phage held on record, but he understood that when used properly the weapons would lead the wielder to the Blood Queen no matter where she hid. He didn’t want to think about why that meant they led to Ijanna, or the fact that the sword seemed capable of tracking not one woman, but three.

  Focus.

  City to plains to desert wastes. His consciousness crossed realms of blasted sand and crimson dust. Fields of broken rock, dry gulches filled with brackish oil, trees stained with the remains of the fallen. Lands hunted by Razorcats and Runefiends and claimed by cursed natives and barbaric nomads. Black dust and towers of ruined stone.

  A city in the wastes. Toil and blood. A gathering of storms.

  This is only the beginning.

  Dane cried out. Shock pried his eyes open, and the flickering lamp and cold grey walls bled into view. The rune-carved ceiling seemed closer than before. Dane gasped for breath.

  “Where?” Chairos demanded. The air was darker. Dane wondered how much time had passed.

  “Water,” he said.

  Chairos scowled and nodded to one of the mercenaries, and to Dane’s surprise a gloved hand lifted his face and a clay cup filled with cool water was brought to his scarred lips. The contact burned at first, but he greedily gulped it down, drop by drop, until the cup was pulled away and Chairos stepped up and put his hand around Dane’s throat. His eyes bulged as he felt th
e Veilwarden’s grip tighten, and his lungs swelled.

  “Where?” Chairos demanded.

  Dane gasped as he was released.

  “Corinth,” he said. “The blade is in the ruins of Corinth.”

  Chairos watched him carefully, considering. He’d assume Dane was lying, of course, but he knew he had leverage. After a moment he and Drakanna backed away and turned to leave the room.

  “Chairos!” Dane shouted. The Phage lord slowly turned around. “What now?”

  “Don’t worry, Dane,” Chairos said with a smile. “We’ll deal with you soon.”

  The men filed out after Chairos and Drakanna, and Dane was left alone in the dark. He tried to Touch the Veil, only to find its cold presence removed, sealed off once again.

  Damn.

  Fatigue and pain weighted him to the floor. He struggled to hold onto his thoughts. Chairos would be suspecting a trap, which meant there was a good chance he’d send either Dane or Kruje along with his soldiers to answer for it if anything went wrong. Based on what he knew of the Phage’s resources Dane thought that an overland journey was unlikely, as they’d have enough Bloodspeaker hirelings to make efficient use of a cutgate and cross the terrain in an instant.

  Dane figured he was staying put. With the properly Veilcrafted restraints a Voss was just as easily subjugated as a human, so in all likelihood they would take Kruje.

  Now all I have to do is figure out how to unleash this power inside me. Whatever it is.

  Dane was at a loss. Whatever the magic was, it repaired his body and filled him with lust and hunger so overpowering that at times he couldn’t think straight. It was unlike anything he’d ever encountered. Chairos didn’t know what to make of it, either. Dane had seen fear in the Veilwarden’s eyes, uncharacteristic and in its own way extremely frightening.

  It has something to do with those wolf dreams.

  Realization hit him like a bolt from the sky: Black Sun. It had to be that bastard who’d nearly tore him in half before he and Kruje had tried to escape. He never found out who the man was – maybe one of Jorias Targo’s thugs, though that didn’t explain why the same man had attacked Slayne and helped Vellexa escape. Targo had figured out a way to transform his men, making it so they took on human-wolf hybrid forms, some trick of Veilcraft and alchemy.

  Damn it. I’m a werewolf.

  But the curse might have been a blessing in disguise. He felt stronger than before, and even though he’d been battered and beaten his wounds slowly healed. His guts and muscles and the bones in his shoulder had been so torn and twisted he could barely move, but after a while he started to regain his strength, and soon he could breathe without feeling like somebody was crushing glass into his chest. He thought of Drakanna, of all the pain she’d subjected him to, and of Chairos, with his smug smile and his penchant for cruelty.

  When he was angry, Dane healed even faster.

  It made sense. It took a sharp and even mind to Touch the Veil, even one with the limited capabilities of a Dawn Knight, and Dane had spent so much of the past three years trying to keep his emotions in check he guessed that was the reason this lycanthropy was taking so long to affect him. A lesser mind, one without the same mental discipline, would have succumbed already.

  But how long do I have? Will I be able to fight it off, or will the dreams of anger and blood eventually take over my mind?

  Would he transform, as Targo’s men had, and would it be enough for him to escape? And if he did change, would he be able to come back?

  Damn it. Why can’t anything ever be easy?

  He thought about Kruje, and hoped his Voss companion was all right. The giant’s supernatural metabolism would allow him to heal even faster than Dane, but he didn’t put it past Chairos to subject the giant to brutal treatment, and it was in the nature of even sanctioned Veilwardens to experiment with things they were unfamiliar with.

  I’m sorry, Kruje, he thought. It wasn’t as if the Voss were innocent – he was a Voss, after all – but the giant didn’t have anything to do with this mess except that he’d come along to try and help Dane. I won’t have your death on my conscience, no matter what you’ve done, Dane thought. No matter what I’ve done.

  “I swear it,” he said aloud, and he stood there in the dark, his fury building inside of him.

  Forty-Eight

  Kruje hated light. He was a creature of darkness, born and raised in Meledrakkar, and the near-constant glare of torches and lamps he encountered on the surface world pained him. Exposure to direct sunlight was sometimes enough to blind a Voss, and his captors knew it. His dank cell was utterly black, but for roughly an hour each day a solid beam of sunlight cut through the darkness and fell right on his face. It stayed there for what felt like an eternity, and the restrictive bonds ensured that no amount of writhing or twisting on Kruje’s part would allow him to move from its path.

  He kept his eyes sealed when the sunlight fell on him, terrified it would permanently damage his eyes. Whenever it was dark he watched for the light in horror, waiting for it to appear and blanch the room. He heard voices in the sunbeam, lunatic laughter and distant screams.

  The giant tried to attain Kar-Kalled, but the peaceful memories wouldn’t come. Everything he remembered tasted and smelled like a nightmare. He saw his family butchered, Meledrakkar in flames, and humans marching on his home.

  Kruje knew he was going insane.

  He struggled against the chains, pulled, screamed as loud as he could. They hadn’t fed him for days, and his metabolism had slowed accordingly, conserving his body’s energy so he’d go on living even without nourishment. The flesh on his wrists and ankles had scraped raw around the shackles. Dark blood flecked dry on his crusted wounds.

  Dane, if we live through this, I’m going to kill you.

  He heard Zan’s voice, and saw the Sea of Black Fire. He knew it wasn’t real, but it felt real, the night-tainted waters, the gritty poison clouds. The air tasted sharp enough to cut. Zan stood on the far shore, calling for him. Kruje could just make out the flaming city in the distance. Zan had ruined them, but that failure fell on Kruje’s shoulders. It had been his responsibility, his duty to carry them out of the darkness and into a new age, but he’d inadvertently left the Third Iron Crown in the hands of a butcher like his brother.

  He laughed. His head swam with fatigue and pain, and he couldn’t feel his fingers. The charnel stench of dead things in the chamber filled his nostrils with the vile musk of rot.

  He was a prisoner again – Kruje half-expected them to toss him back into the arena. Being humiliated and battered seemed to be his lot since leaving Meledrakkar. He’d been caged and treated like an animal so many times it was beginning to feel normal.

  The J’ann know, if it keeps happening I might actually start to enjoy it....

  Rats nipped at his toes, but they’d taken so many chunks out of his dark flesh he barely noticed them anymore, and their smashed corpses littered the ground where he’d stamped them to death.

  He watched the darkness, waiting for the light.

  When I escape, I’ll slaughter them all.

  The first sunbeams sliced through the darkness just as the door opened. Four humans stormed into the room. Their leader was a tall man in purple and grey clothing and a loose black cloak; he dressed expensively, in the manner of human nobles and aristocrats. The others, two black-clad men and a tall woman in red-and-black leather armor and a grim mask, followed him like pets. The masked female was strange and distant, and Kruje smelled blood and perfume mingled with the musk of her sex.

  The black-cloaked man stepped close and looked up at Kruje, smiling.

  “What?!” Kruje demanded, and sharp pain exploded through his skull with such force his head snapped back. His ears popped and his eyes ached. Thin trickles of blood ran from his nostrils. Just as his sight returned the pain came again, needle strikes in his temples that made him cry out. If not for the chains supporting his weight Kruje knew he would have fallen to the floor.
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  I’m not sure what you just said, came a telepathic voice, so heavy and forceful it drowned out Kruje’s thoughts, but I’m sure it was something rude.

  “Release me!” Kruje screamed.

  The pain stopped, and he opened his eyes. The sunlight slowly bled through the darkness overhead, its shine almost lost in the torchlight of the hallway beyond the door.

  The man watched him quizzically.

  Impressive, the human thought. You had the strength to reply. What’s your name, brute?

  “Kruje,” he said aloud. He wouldn’t play this telepath’s game. The man was clearly capable of using the Veil to translate his words. “Heir to the Third Iron Crown of Meledrakkar. And who are you, little one?”

  Mazrek Chairos, the man thought. Watch that temper of yours, Kruje. It can get you into trouble. The man spoke something in the human tongue, and his dark-clad minions began undoing the chains. They were either releasing Kruje or moving him somewhere new, and he seriously doubted it was the former.

  “What’s happening?” Kruje asked.

  You’re going on a voyage, Chairos thought. Behave yourself, don’t do anything foolish, and you might just live through this. The man made a point to smile. He didn’t bother speaking, instead relying on his telepathic banter. He stared at Kruje. Try to escape, or fight us, and Dane suffers.

  “Where is he?”

  Beyond your reach.

  “If he dies...” Kruje began, but Chairos’ iron-sharp thoughts cut him off.

  Save it. Sound razored through his mind, and the pain sent him to the ground.

  Kruje smelled oil and musk as he came to. He realized he was walking as if in a trance, his bare feet bloody and raw as he stepped on water-slicked stones wreathed in mist and smoke.

  Chains connected his wrists to an iron collar wrapped around the throat of an enormous green-scaled beast, a twelve-legged lizard twice as long as Kruje was tall. The creature smelled terrible, like a combination of urine and burning tar, and Kruje gagged as the monster dragged him along behind it. The lizard darted through the maze of stone hallways with surprising speed, and Kruje had to maintain a good pace just to keep up.