Empire of War - An Epic Fantasy (The Empire of War Trilogy Book 1)

by Victor Methos

  I woke on a beach and covered my eyes from the sun. It hurt and I rolled to the side and covered my entire face. I tasted something on my lips and knew it was blood. It roused me. I thought I was dead, but I heard the voices of men. They were shouting at each other and I didn’t figure the afterlife would begin that way.

  I opened my eyes and glanced about me. Wooden remnants of the vessels lay on a golden shore, interspersed with the corpses of men. I sat up and pain shot through me. My ribs were broken, as was my arm. I sat still a long time, then I heard footsteps in the sand and saw Gorb standing above me.

  He grunted like a pig as he kicked me in the ribs and rolled me onto my stomach. He leaned down and struck me in the face before two men grabbed a hold of him and pulled him off. He threw them like dolls and attacked me again before an elderly man that I had seen before with Kandarian yelled at him.

  “Gorb! You will stop at once.”

  “She attacked a gorgon, Elfred. A bloody gorgon. She’s no whore. She’s an assassin.”

  “Whatever she is, she saved our lives, boy, and if she is to die that is the decision of the prince.”

  “The prince is dead.”

  “Do you have a body? Did you watch him die? If not, then he is not dead and we must search this island and find him.”

  “Tie her up,” Gorb shouted.

  Two men grabbed and lifted me to my feet and I nearly blacked out from the pain. They bound my wrists and threw me back to the sand. The elderly man walked to me and leaned down.

  “Thank you for your bravery. Now if you would be so kind as to tell us exactly who you are.”

  I looked to Gorb. I saw him in my dreams at night. It was he who had run the sword through my father’s neck and separated his head from body. And then he had laughed, and I have kept that laugh with me. Whenever I wanted to stop in my training or rest, whenever I thought about a husband and children, that laugh would fill my head.

  I looked up from the sand and saw another man there, the one I had found atop the Lady Margaret. He was staring at Gorb and the men but said nothing.

  “Well,” Elfred said, “if you do not wish to tell us then I’m afraid I can’t help you.” He rose and looked to Gorb. “Dispose of her.”

  Gorb pulled out a sword. The other man stopped him and pushed him back.

  “I don’t think I’ll be letting you kill any women today.”

  Gorb stared at him. He was much larger and more fearsome-looking, but something about the calm of the other man was disquieting.

  “Have the whore,” Elfred said. “I won’t risk my best guard getting injured over her. Come, Gorb. We need to begin a search.”

  Gorb didn’t move for a long while and the man whispered, “Your master has called you.”

  Gorb spit on the man and then turned and followed Elfred to the gathering of the remaining men. The man bent down and pulled off the ropes around my wrists.

  “Can you stand?” he said.

  “Why did you help me?”

  “I’ve seen enough death for one day I think.” He lifted me and helped me stand. “I’m Slesh of the island of Ulrik.”

  “Aysta.”

  “I saw what you did with the gorgon. I’ve never seen anyone move so fast.”

  “I was lucky.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of lucky men, and not a one that I recall could move like that. You’ve fought a gorgon before.”

  I didn’t say anything. Instead I turned toward the other men. “How many are left?”

  “Perhaps a dozen, perhaps less. The prince is gone. It is a shame.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “Because I wanted to meet him.” He looked to the men and then back to me. “Gorb is going to kill you the first chance he gets. Probably rape you first. He knows you’re injured and now is the time to strike. When you recover, you will be too much for him and he knows that.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be going near him for a while.”

  “I wouldn’t recommend staying here by yourself.”

  “Why not? We don’t know it’s any more dangerous than any other part of the island.”

  “We’re not on an island.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve been here before.” He looked out over the stretch of beach and to the forest that brimmed it. “This is the Darklands, young lady. And it is filled with horrors you cannot begin to imagine.”

  3

  I stayed on the beach as long as I could but the decision was made to move out and scour the island for the prince. I wasn’t afraid of what Slesh had said. I had not been afraid since I was a child. The Shades were dead. We were taught early that we were nothing but corpses and we accepted our death valiantly. Only by accepting it could we free ourselves from it.

  I followed the men. I could not risk them finding the prince before me and discovering a way back. The prince was mine, and no sea or gorgon or force of the gods would take his death away from my hand.

  The men broke into three groups. Slesh told me I would be coming with him and that it would be just two of us. We waited until the other men had left, then he moved to check the wounds on my ribs and I slapped his hands away. He tried again and I pushed him off.

  “You’re not an easy one to look after you know,” he said.

  “My ribs are broken. There is nothing you can do.”

  “How do you know that? What if I have some knowledge you don’t have?”

  I was quiet a moment and then I lifted my arms. He checked my ribs, lightly touching them and running his fingers across them. “They’re not broken,” he said. “They’re cracked. And there’s nothing we can do for that. But your arm is broken and needs to be set.” He took my wrist and stretched out my arm to its fullest length. “Are you ready?”

  I closed my eyes and nodded.

  He struck me with such force I was knocked to my back. The pain caused vomit to rise in my throat and burst out of my mouth before I could stop it. He retrieved some vine from the nearby forest and a bit of wood. He placed the wood against the arm and then wrapped it in vine and pulled on it until it was taut.

  “You can’t move it or you’ll open the break again.”

  He waited patiently until I had composed myself. Helping me rise, we hobbled into the forest.

  “Perhaps you should stay,” he said.

  “No, I must find the prince.”

  “You care about him that much do you?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “Hm, well, I wish to find him too. Perhaps we will find him together.”

  We walked through the sand into the forest and the vegetation was green and thick. I had been told many things about the Darklands: that plants didn’t grow, that flowers withered and died upon touching the shore, that all the animals and insects were vicious predators capable of killing a man with a single blow. But none of that was true. In the end, it wasn’t any different than anywhere else I had been.

  “How have you been here before?” I asked.

  “By accident the first time, much the same way as I think most people end up here. The Savage Sea is not meant to be crossed, but once you pass a certain point the waves push you here. We seem to have been past that point. If we had not, we would be dead.”

  “If you weren’t here for Lady Margaret you must be here for Kandarian.”

  “You just follow me and try not to die. Once we find the prince, I know a way back from here.”

  “What way?”

  “Down south. Far south. There’s a gap in the land of no more than a short journey of water. You could cross it in one morning on a decent vessel. And it connects to the empire. It’s not something that’s widely known. I think at one point the Darklands and the empire were connected. Perhaps separated by the gods for whatever reasons they need.”

  The air grew hot and moist quickly. Insects buzzed about us and there was one difference I noted immediately: their size. They were far larger than the ones in the Empire and far more aggre
ssive. Even after smacking them away, they would return for more.

  The forest soon turned to a thick jungle that was difficult to push through. I could hear the voices of the other men nearby shouting about the difficulty as well. Gorb had a sword and I saw him cutting through the vines and bushes with no problem. We had no such luxury so we continued to press forward with the plants tearing at our exposed flesh and drawing blood.

  “You’re here for the prince,” I said. “That’s why you want to find him. That’s what you were asking Lady Margaret, was it not?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. But you should know that if you get between me and the prince I will kill you.”

  He turned and looked to me. “That’s what this is then? You wish to kill him as much as I? Clearly, you are skilled. Perhaps more skilled than any I have seen, save one: a man named Corin Nemesh, a member of the Guild of Shades. You move like him.”

  I remained quiet. Knowing anything of the Guild, much less knowing one of its members by name, was unheard of.

  “Do not answer me if you do not wish to,” he said. “But Nemesh and I are old friends. He told me of a female he had taken and the skill she displayed. He also told me of a young boy named Semi that he said was the greatest warrior that has ever lived. Friend of yours, he?”

  “How do you know Nemesh?”

  “We worked together.”

  “The only life that Nemesh has ever had outside of the Guild was as a general during the Wars of Blossoms.” He stayed silent. “You fought with him in the wars. You fought under the emperor’s flag and now you wish to kill his only son?”

  “It was not the emperor we fought for. And you ask too many questions.”

  I didn’t speak for some time after that. I didn’t have the strength. I was hungry and thirsty and my ribs caused such penetrating agony that it was difficult to even catch my breath. Slesh slowed for me when needed; he would wait under the shade of trees for me to make it up to him. He wouldn’t leave my sight even though the other men were not near us any longer.

  “We can eat these,” he said, stopping and pulling out a violet-colored plant. He peeled it and handed half to me and ate the other half.

  It tasted sweet and sour at once but was succulent and contained juice. He pulled out several more and we split them as we ate. We sat on the forest floor. He noticed my blade.

  “Jumeaux steel,” he said. “I once saw a blade of that sort cut through the wall of a castle as if it were roast chicken.”

  “It’s given to all shades,” I said.

  “I’ve never seen a female shade. You must have done something extraordinary to impress a hardened old goat like Nemesh.”

  We heard something then. It sounded much as the flapping of wings of some large bird but as I listened I felt the rhythm in my feet. A slow thumping, like the beating of a heart.

  “Drums,” Slesh said.

  “From who?”

  He rose. “I’ll show you.”

  EXCERPT FROM NECROMANCIA: A HANDBOOK FOR MAGES

  The Death of the Mages

  After Claudius, a witch was discovered in a forest, a hermit of sorts, to have been offering lodging to passerbys and then murdering them in their sleep. By all accounts, blood magik was not involved. This particular witch just seemed to enjoy it and was clearly mad.

  But the Bactrians did not care. Claudius was fresh on their minds and uproar erupted in the kingdom, calling for the death of all mages and witches. The king, a man of great intellect, tried to calm them and stated that the actions of a few could not define the group as a whole. He pacified them until another mage was found to have killed a twelve-season-old boy. He had obtained the journal of Claudius and continued his work; some said he was a son Claudius had hidden away from all else.

  Now even the king decided that enough atrocity had been perpetrated to justify action. He outlawed the practice of magik, and mages and witches were jailed by the hundreds. Many fled into forests where they took refuge as hermits, and for the most part they were left alone. At least, until the king’s death.

  His son then took over. He was, as many children raised in privilege, a sadist. He wished simply to impose pain and he happened to have a group at hand that the public despised. He began public executions of mages on charges that were seldom true, his favorite being treason to the kingdom.

  Those mages and witches that had fled into the forests were hunted and slain like dogs. None were meant to survive.

  And almost none did.

  When the king-boy’s bloodlust was sated at least a little, the world thought he had exterminated all the mages and witches. Soon, they would fade to myth and people would doubt that they had ever existed.

  But, the prince had forgotten to look one place for the mages he so wished to kill: his own palace.

  His father had hired a mage to tutor the boy. Unbeknownst to the prince, his beloved teacher of twenty-six seasons was a mage by the name of Vas; a disciple of Claudius.

  Vas, feigning old age, quit the prince’s service under the guise of needing rest. He then fled the Bactrian Empire over the Bactrian Sea, cursing it as he fled so that no other travelers could pass safely. When he arrived on land, he cursed the land itself so that none could follow. Trees withered and died and flowers disintegrated to nothing (eventually they would grow back but under one of Vas’ progeny).

  Here, in the seclusion of what would later be termed the ‘Darklands,’ he studied his craft and perfected his magik. One day, by happenstance, a ship wrecked on the shore and the sole survivor was a woman of her twentieth season. Vas took her to wife and they bore many children who bore many children.

  The line of Vas continued in this way for centuries, each generation passing down the teachings of Vas and Claudius to subsequent generations.

  One of the descendants was a man named Kleon. A warrior found him once on his travels and Kleon so liked the warrior he let him live. Nearly fifteen seasons later, the warrior returned, and he was not alone.

  He had brought a woman with him, near death. A queen. He wished for her to live. Kleon was the last in the line of Vas. Disease had ravaged his family and he was the last one alive. He agreed to heal the young queen if she would marry him and give him children.

  On death’s door, the queen could hardly be blamed for agreeing. They wed and rumors were that they produced one child, but it is not certain, as Kleon disappeared mysteriously, and the histories were not written again for many seasons.

  LUCIUS KANDARIAN

  I was violently ill on the ship to the point where I could not stand without vomiting. We’d been to sea a day and a half and I had done nothing but vomit. As I could only eat dry bread and drink water, I felt hunger in the few moments of calm I had, but then the vomit would rise again and I would spew into a bucket that one of the maidens would empty out of the porthole.

  “My Prince,” she said, “you must rest.”

  “I can’t sleep in this. Get—”

  She disappeared from view suddenly as the ship spun and I realized I was on the ceiling looking down upon the room and she had flown out into the corridor. The ship was thrown every which way and I held on to my bed as best I could as I continued to vomit. But since I could not eat nor drink, nothing but a thick slime would come out.

  I don’t remember much after that, other than terrible roars which penetrated the air and made my very bones quiver. At some point there was a thunderous crash as wood splintered all around me and then nothing but cold and dark. Bits of wood from my bed were near and I flung myself at one and held on as I was thrown about in the darkness and my lungs felt as if they would rupture. I couldn’t breathe, and I soon fainted.

  When I awoke I was still in the water, but in the shallows of a pool near a beach. I roused myself, clinging to the bit of wood from the bed. My head was spinning and my lips were parched and bleeding. I wetted them with seawater and it stung. The water wasn’t more than waist deep. I pushed asi
de the bit of wood and stood for a moment, looking at the scene before me.

  Corpses littered the beach like bird shite. Some were green and rotted and sand crabs had already begun dismembering the flesh and organs. Wood from the ships was everywhere, but much of it was dry and I knew they were also from many ships before ours.

  I tried to walk and felt faint. I waited another moment and then began to slowly make my way to shore. The sun was so bright it felt as if it were burning me with only the slightest exposure. The water itself was warm and felt silky against me, not like the harsh cold rivers of the Empire.

  I reached the sand and collapsed. Laying my face down, I noticed it was hot and burnt slightly but the pleasure of lying on something that didn’t move was so great it didn’t bother me. I think I slept, though it was hard to tell. When I opened my eyes again, a man’s face was in front of me, gray and partially missing. His mouth opened as a black crab crawled out from inside and picked at his eyes.

  It was fascinating to watch but I pushed myself up in case more crabs decided I would make a decent meal as well. Some crabs were deadly and I had never seen a black one before. Who knew what little monsters were on this island?

  I felt pain in my neck and back as I looked out over a vast expanse of golden beach, and just beyond that a jungle of green and yellow, hoping to see food or water, but none of the crates from the ships had made it. I could perhaps find some fish or something farther in the interior, but the threat of inadvertently poisoning myself was too great. I didn’t know if I could bring myself to do it.

  I took a deep breath and began walking along the beach. I would see if anyone else had washed ashore with me. The likelihood was that if I had survived, others had as well.

  But as I walked my hope grew dim. There were only corpses. One man groaned and I went to him but he had a gash across his chest large enough that I could see his beating heart. I left him there and continued on.