The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two

by Gail Z. Martin

  The three ghosts stood before Tris and bowed. “We have offered you our fealty,” Dagen said. “Legions of our spirits lie beneath these fields. Your men grow weary. We can fight against the living if you call to us with your power.”

  “I accept your offer. If your dead will rise in spirit, we would be grateful for their help.” With his right hand, Tris touched the talisman he had taken from the tomb of Marlan the Gold. He held out his left hand to the three ghosts, who each in turn clasped his hand and bent to kiss the signet ring of the House of Margolan. As each of the ghosts touched his ring, Tris let his power flood through the connection, down into the hard ground of the battlefield, to the mass graves of long-forgotten soldiers.

  Vitya was the first to kiss the ring. His soldiers lay buried beneath a millennium of soil, their bones now mostly dust. Tris’s magic touched the jumbled bones that lay together in trenches, buried long ago.

  “Rise and fight. The lands of Marlan the Gold are under attack.” Tris knew that the language of these long-dead men was not the same Margolense that he spoke, but saying the words aloud enabled him to focus his power. As he had done in the crypt with Marlan, Tris sent images to accompany the words, letting the ancient dead see the battle that now unfolded above their battlefield tomb. Vitya called to them in a language Tris did not understand, but by Vitya’s tone and gestures, Tris could guess well enough at the meaning. After a millennium, Vitya was calling his fallen soldiers to arms.

  The spirits responded sluggishly to Tris’s touch, but they knew the magic of Marlan’s talisman, and they rose to meet the call. Row upon row of the long-dead soldiers rose as spirits, empowered by Tris’s magic. Vitya shouted to them, raising his spectral sword over his head. Vitya’s soldiers replied in a war cry that was unmistakable in intent, and the ancient spirits swept into the fray. Tris spared a flicker of magic to make the advancing horde visible to living soldiers. They did not need his magic to fight. Fueled by vengeance long denied, the ghosts rose with a fury, sweeping across the battlefield toward the Temnottans. While their swords and daggers would pass harmlessly through their enemies, the ghosts themselves could also step through living flesh, chilling the unlucky soldiers to the bone and stopping a beating heart. A weak-willed soldier might find himself possessed, forced to turn on his own comrades. Vitya and his men would be avenged.

  It took a moment for Tris to gather himself after the first working. He swayed and nearly fell. Fallon reached out a hand to steady him.

  “Once is enough,” Esme said sternly. “If you raise the dead of all three, will you have the power to sustain it?”

  Before Tris could answer, he heard a high-pitched, chilling wail. It came from the deepest shadows at the edges of the battlefield, but Tris felt it in his magic like a sudden winter blast. As he and Fallon looked out over the field, shadows like a thick black fog began to swirl toward the Margolan army. Tris knew that the dark fog was hollowed spirits. Darker shapes streaked through the fog, and even at this distance, Tris could feel the power of dimonns, called at Scaith’s command. Margolan’s fire mages sent volleys of flames at the hollowed spirits and the dimonns, which twisted and swirled out of the way.

  “What choice do I have? Something is feeding Scaith blood magic power. Let the dead battle the dead and the dimonns. We don’t have enough soldiers or mages to fight both the living and the dead. I’d rather spend myself to a husk and go down fighting.” Tris saw the concern in Fallon’s eyes and knew that she was right to worry, but it did not change what he had to do. Reaching out to the Flow to steady his magic, Tris held out his hand to Estan.

  Estan’s soldiers lay deep within the ground, but not so far beneath the surface as the ancient dead. These men had fallen in battle four hundred years ago, and their bones and rusting armor were still intact. “Armies of Margolan, rise and fight.”

  Tris heard his voice echo through the Plains of Spirit, touching the dry bones of the dead. These spirits understood his words, even though Estan seconded the command, adding a familiar voice to the edict of a new king born generations after these soldiers’ death. By tens and then by hundreds, the spirits struggled clear of the land that had entombed them. Estan gave a curt salute and faded from his position beside Tris, to reappear at the head of his army of revenants. Estan’s soldiers swept down the battlefield to place themselves as a gray line of defenders between the hollowed spirits and the overwhelmed Margolan troops.

  This time, it took longer for Tris to rally. He waved off help from Fallon and Esme, and he drew once more on the power of the Flow. If I keep this up, I’ll be as dead as the kings that Vitya and the others served. Yet the howls and screams that rose from the battlefield gave Tris no choice. He took a deep breath and extended his hand to Dagen.

  Dagen’s soldiers lay only a few feet beneath the battleground. The death and turmoil of the weeks of war had already roused the recently dead from their slumber. Only sixty years dead, these spirits were intact enough to have sensed the threat to their homeland, and they rose with a surge of energy and anticipation at Tris’s first call.

  “Army of King Larrimore, my father’s father, rise and defend your homeland.” Dagen did not have to translate Tris’s call. The signet ring grew warm on Tris’s left hand. These spirits were not as weakened by their slumber as the ancient dead, and much to Tris’s relief, they required only his call to rise from their graves, barely needing any of his magic to make themselves visible.

  Dagen wore a predator’s grin as he turned away from Tris. It didn’t matter to the ghostly general who the invaders were. To him and to his army of the dead, this battle was an opportunity for redemption, a chance to rewrite the ignominy of their long-ago defeat for the glory of king and crown. If he survived this battle, and that was looking far from certain, Tris promised himself that he would make sure Royster chronicled the heroics of the dead as well as the living. If I live through this, I’ll make sure Carroway writes a ballad or two about the old battles, to give the dead their due. Let’s just hope that what he writes for me is a victory song and not a requiem.

  Amid the smoke of the torches and the haze left by the burning catapult missiles, Tris saw a figure dancing toward them. The figured neared, and Tris recognized Alyzza. Alyzza’s mage robes were ripped and bloodied, filthy with the muck of the battlefield. She swayed to music only she could hear, seemingly deaf to the screams and death cries of those around her. But even at a distance, Tris could feel the wild magic that streamed in waves from Alyzza, once one of Margolan’s most powerful sorcerers.

  Alyzza lifted up her hands as she sang and chanted, like a child dancing in the rain. But it was lightning, not raindrops, that fell at her command. With uncanny accuracy, streaks of lightning cracked down from the sky, striking only amid Temnottan soldiers. Men screamed and fled to the cheers and catcalls of the beleaguered Margolan army. The air around her was heavy with power, as streak after streak blazed to the ground, leaving shallow, burned holes in their wake. Alyzza threw off the power with apparent effortlessness, and the lightning struck with mad unpredictability. More than once, Tris saw Alyzza’s mage lightning send the dimonns and hollowed ghosts fleeing.

  “ ‘What shall be done with all the dead, m’lord, when the crypts are full to bursting and the ground will hold no more?’ ” Alyzza’s singsong voice carried across the noise of battle, and Tris recognized the words from a play that was popular on Haunts.

  “ ‘Consign them to the sea, and let the fish feed on their marrow,’ ” Tris replied, making an effort to remember the words to the play. A reaction headache throbbed with blinding intensity, and it was difficult to think. When Alyzza was lost in the madness, normal conversation was impossible, and only the words to a play or song she currently remembered reached her. Tris wished with his whole heart he had paid more attention to all of Carroway’s storytelling.

  “ ‘What now, when blood and iron no longer serve and darkness mutes the day?’ ” Fallon asked. Tris glanced up sharply to see Fallon step forward, and
he was grateful that she remembered another line from the play.

  Alyzza brought down a streak of red-tinged lightning just behind the nearest Temnottan line, and the ground shuddered beneath their feet. “ ‘If iron and salt can hold the tide no longer, ’tis only the red blood of kings ’twill stem the flood.’ ”

  Alyzza’s words brought the edge of a memory to Tris’s mind, but before he could grasp the full memory or its significance, a cry went up from the soldiers behind them. Tris, Fallon, and Esme turned to see what was enough to turn the men from battle. Tris caught his breath. Through the haze of smoke that hung over the battlefield, Tris made out the fast-approaching forms of beings that appeared neither human nor undead. Grotesque, misshapen forms moved with frightening speed toward the Margolan army, which now found itself caught between Scaith’s army and a new horror. Balls of blue and red light floated in the smoke and then took shape into creatures that were the stuff of legends and nightmares.

  Voices shouted up and down the battle line as the commanders rushed to redeploy their men. Tris and the mages fell back, but caught between the approaching force and Scaith’s army, there was nowhere to go.

  Alyzza gave a shrill laugh and raised her hands as if she were welcoming the first rains of spring. Fire, not water, came at the call of her magic, striking amid the advancing figures. They avoided the lightning, but it did not deter them, nor did the white-hot bolts seem to instill any fear. Some of the beings stalked upright on two feet, while others slithered or crawled, an infernal bestiary of beings Tris might have said belonged to the fevered visions of a mystic or the terrors of a child. Their strange and frightening silhouettes were oddly familiar, and Tris realized with a start that he had glimpsed many of the same twisted visages and taloned profiles in an illuminated manuscript of dimonns and beings of the Underrealm.

  “What are those things?” Fallon’s voice was an awestruck murmur.

  Tris felt the ancient magic, and it chilled him to the bone. “Nachele,” he said. “We’d better hope the Dread are planning to show up, or this battle won’t be ending in our favor.”

  Until now, Senne, Soterius, and the other generals had managed to keep their harried soldiers in position despite the onslaught of dimonns and hollowed spirits. The Margolan soldiers stayed at their posts, even when reinforcements came in the form of revenants. But at this new horror, men dropped their weapons and fled, although the advancing Nachele cut off any hope of retreat, pushing the terrified soldiers closer to the line of Temnottan attack.

  Estan, Dagen, Vitya, we need your men here! The ghost armies materialized amid the chaos of mortal troops that scrambled to fend off the new attack. The dead commanders saw the Nachele and gave Tris a curt nod of acknowledgment, understanding their new orders. Three legions of the dead massed in front of the living troops as the Nachele closed the distance with long, predatory strides.

  The Nachele stalked forward as if the mass of spirits and men meant nothing to them. Their long, clawed arms and lashing barbed tails swept through the spirit soldiers as if they were nothing but smoke. Yet everywhere the Nachele touched, their power burned, so that even the dead writhed. Linked by magic, Tris sensed the rending power that drew the essence from the revenant soldiers, until they winked out into nothing, their souls extinguished.

  Senne’s soldiers were the front line of mortal fighters, and Tris guessed that Senne had left Soterius with the task of holding back Scaith’s soldiers. Archers launched flight upon flight of blazing arrows toward the approaching Nachele. Where the arrows hit, they stuck, still burning in the Nachele’s flesh, as if they represented nothing more than gnat bites. Tris had no illusions about Senne’s soldiers being able to hold off this new assault.

  Around him, Alyzza rained down bolts of lightning and Fallon’s magic called to the winds, trying to hold the Nachele at bay. Tris mustered his magic and let a shadow of himself slip into the Plains of Spirit. He sensed the approach of the Dread.

  When you called to me, I came and I met your challenge. Help us, as you aided Marlan the Gold. We can’t fight these things alone. Long ago, you also made a pact with Marlan, whose blood flows in my veins. Honor your blood bond.

  Power stirred the air. The hair on Tris’s arms stood up, and the back of his neck prickled in warning. A sound like a hundred thunderclaps rolled across the battlefield as the ground at their feet tore open. Soldiers staggered back from a crevice that quickly widened to a chasm. From the maw of the chasm rose the massive, dark silhouettes of the Dread. Tris had seen the Dread in the spirit realm. Here among the living, their appearance was quite different. Swirling black shrouds covered the huge beings, but as Tris watched, he realized that the dark fringe was moving, a covering of tendrils that bent and reached.

  Some of the Nachele had broken away from the others. Tris saw dark shapes moving to intercept, and he knew that Trefor and Kolja had interposed the vayash moru and vyrkin to slow the Nachele’s advance. Men screamed and scattered at the approach of a new horror. Even the dimonns and hollowed ghosts fled before the Nachele, or wilted beneath the Nachele’s deadly touch. The valor of the vayash moru and vyrkin, Tris feared, would not be enough. It did not seem to worry the Dread that some of their quarry had wandered free. Time means nothing to the Dread. They may be confident that they can defeat the Nachele, but we may all be dead by the time their victory happens.

  “King Martris!” Tris turned at the unexpected voice. Coalan had hailed him, and the young man was breathing hard as he climbed the ridge. Coalan was covered in dirt and blood, as if he had fought his way to the hilltop.

  “You’ve got to do something,” Coalan panted. “Uncle Ban’s troops can’t hold out much longer. It’s bad down there. Two of the catapult crews have been wiped out, mages and all. The camp is a shambles. If there’s anything you can do, now would be a good time to do it.”

  Alyzza danced closer to Tris, her face alight with madness. “The blood of kings, a sacrifice. King Gustaven knew what you must learn.”

  Tris met her mad gaze, and a memory clicked into place. The Obsidian King had written about Hadenrul and Gustaven, kings who died in battle. Tris had seen the mural in Hadenrul’s tomb that showed the Formless One requiring the king’s heart in exchange for victory. But now Tris realized where he had heard Gustaven’s name. A play at the Haunts feast day about a long-ago battle had told the tale of King Gustaven. And while it had been years since Tris had thought about that play, he remembered its ending clearly. Gustaven hadn’t fallen on his sword out of cowardice. He had invoked an ancient, powerful magic that required the most potent and precious ingredient for success: the life blood of a king.

  Not all magic that involves blood is to be feared, my son. Blood can damn, and blood can redeem. It is the first magic, and the strongest. Tris could hear the voice of Hadenrul’s ghost clearly in his mind, and with a growing sense of certainty, the words began to make sense.

  “Go fetch Soterius,” Tris said to Coalan. “There’s no time to lose. Bring him here. There’s one more thing I can do, but I’ll need his help.”

  The moments slipped by as Tris waited for Soterius to return. He refused to answer Fallon’s worried questions, even as he mustered his own courage for a desperate bid for victory. Alyzza hummed and sang to herself, paying no attention to them. Tris had learned in his first battles how to shield himself from the part of his magic that saw the souls of the battle dead rise from their corpses, but exhausted as he was, that shielding did not hold. He looked out across the battlefield and saw a cloud of newly riven souls floating above their sundered bodies. With a flicker of his magic, he sent those that were willing back as revenant fighters, while the others he freed to pass over to the Lady, eliminating the possibility that Scaith might force their spirits back into their corpses to be used against their comrades.

  A candlemark later, Coalan and Soterius returned to the knoll. “By the Whore, Tris. We’re in the thick of it. This is a bad time for a meeting.”

  Tris met Soterius�
�s gaze. “We’re losing, aren’t we?”

  Soterius took a deep breath. “It’s slaughter. Senne is dead. The troops are barely on their feet. There’s no strategy except individual units trying to stay alive. It’s a rout.” He shook his head. “We’ll fight to the last man, but we can’t hold off what Scaith’s thrown at us.”

  “I believe Scaith has been drawing his power from the other battle fronts,” Tris said. Fallon and Esme listened in worried silence. Alyzza danced closer to hear. “I think that’s why he’s had the huge surge of magic to call the dimonns and the hollowed spirits. It’s what’s giving him the ability to draw the Nachele. We can’t win this unless I find the same kind of power.”

  “What do you need from me?” Soterius replied. “Whatever it is, take it. Just find the power to keep Scaith from conquering Margolan.”

  Tris paused and glanced at the Telorhan guards who surrounded them. “Captain,” he said. “Leave us.”

  “But, Your Majesty—”

  “Leave us.”

  When the guards were gone, Tris looked back to Soterius and Fallon. Alyzza danced closer. “I know why the Obsidian King was obsessed with Hadenrul and Gustaven,” he said quietly. “They both worked very old, very powerful magic to win their wars. Magic that has only one source. A king’s life blood.”

  Soterius’s expression was a mixture of horror and disbelief. “You can’t possibly—”

  Tris withdrew his sword from its scabbard. At his touch, the runes along Nexus’s blade flared into life, realigning themselves. Heir of blood and power, the runes read in a fiery, swirling script, just a flicker of the magic that thrummed within the sword. He offered the blade, hilt first, to Soterius.