The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two

by Gail Z. Martin

  “I don’t know if the magic will let me return. Neither Hadenrul nor Gustaven were summoners. I’m also sure that it has to be a mortal wound, willingly sustained. A blood sacrifice. That’s why the blood of combat doesn’t work, or blood shed from assassination, like Donelan. If the power requires blood but it doesn’t take my soul, I may be able to use my magic to come back. There isn’t anything in the legends about a summoner working this magic.”

  “You’re asking us to murder the king,” Fallon said incredulously.

  “Aye, that he is.” It was Alyzza who spoke, but in this moment, her eyes had lost their madness. “It’s old magic he speaks of, very powerful. He’s right that the Obsidian King lusted after it, but not enough to risk himself. Only a king’s blood can work the magic.”

  “Drive the blade straight into my heart,” Tris said levelly, meeting Soterius’s eyes. “Leave Nexus in the wound. It holds a shadow of my soul; I saw that when I walked among the Dread. That may help me find my way home. Fallon and Esme can put a preservation spell on my body, at least for a little while. With any luck, my magic and theirs will bring me back.”

  “This is madness,” Soterius protested.

  Tris saw fear and confusion in Soterius’s eyes. “Ban, we’ve been together since we were boys. I’m asking this as a friend. Please don’t make me order it as a king.” Reluctantly, Soterius accepted the sword.

  Tris removed his helmet. Coalan stepped up to help Tris remove his cuirass. Tris could see that Coalan’s hands were shaking. Tris stripped off the chain-mail tunic and the linen shirt beneath it. Finally, he was naked to the waist, and he closed his eyes and then took a deep breath, centering his magic and forcing away his fear. He opened his eyes and met Soterius’s gaze.

  “I’m ready.”

  “Goddess, forgive me,” Soterius murmured, as he grasped the hilt and drove the sword between the ribs, deep into Tris’s heart.

  Tris gasped at the pain and caught a ragged breath. Fallon and Esme were both chanting under their breath as each grabbed a shoulder and helped Tris fall gently onto his back with Nexus still impaled between his ribs. He caught a glimpse of Soterius’s ashen face and knew what loyalty had cost.

  Blood poured from the wound, first with a gush as his heart tried to beat, and then more slowly as his heart quivered and went still. Breath ceased. Dimly, he heard Fallon and Esme finish their preservation spell, but by then, his spirit was seeping with his blood deep into the ground.

  Unlike the many times he had left behind his body to travel in the Plains of Spirit, this time, Tris felt the blue-white strand of his life thread unravel, felt his body recede from his reach. Yet the blood that seeped through the ground around him gave him warmth and held his power and his essence. But more than that, Tris could feel the power that emanated from the blood sacrifice, felt it swell like a wave out over the battlefield and knew that the mages and the Dread could turn that power to their advantage as Scaith had drawn on the carnage for his own purposes.

  Sacred Lady of the Eight Faces, hear me. I have made the sacrifice of king’s blood. Grant me deliverance for my people.

  In the Nether, Tris could feel the energy of the men, monsters, and spirits that moved above, in the realm of the living. Nexus, able through its magic to be present in the world of the living and the places of the dead, felt solid and real in his hand. To his surprise, Marlan the Gold’s talisman had also followed him into the Nether, as did Talwyn’s amulet.

  In the Nether, Tris’s summoner-magic seemed heightened as never before. The life energy of the soldiers, locked in mortal combat, pulsed around him, surging and vibrant in its desperate intensity. All around him, souls fled the mangled bodies of the dead, and Tris could sense the magic that fed on the energy of their death and the carnage of the battlefield.

  The Nether flickered and glistened. Tris recognized the signature of power before the form could take its full shape. Scaith. He didn’t wait for the figure to solidify. Tris sent a blast of magic, disrupting the shimmering cloud. Tris felt Scaith’s power crackle around him, as the cold magic of the dark summoner slammed against Tris’s own shields. Scaith’s power had lost its iridescent shimmer. Now, it roiled like storm clouds in the Nether. Tris readied for another strike, but before he could act, a tendril of power lashed toward him. It cut across him, an agonizing touch that staggered him. Though he possessed no physical form in the Nether, Tris had learned through bitter experience that injuries were no less real on the Plains of Spirit than in the world of the living. Where the tendril struck, it left a trail of pain and a momentary depletion of his magic.

  Another tendril lashed toward him. Tris blocked it with Nexus, and the ghost sword flared as the blood-red tendril sought to wrap itself around the blade. Nexus grew brighter and brighter, until the tendril blackened and withered.

  “Show yourself!” Tris shouted to the storm cloud. “You’ve fought this war through proxies. If you would take this kingdom, be man enough to show your face!”

  The storm clouds roiled again, growing darker and more ominous.

  “I’m not impressed with parlor tricks,” Tris shouted, barely dodging another crimson tendril. “Are you too much a coward to show your form?”

  A man’s image began to take shape amid the dark clouds. Scaith stepped from the shadows. Dark hair was shaved to stubble on his head, and runes were both carved into the skin and shaved into the hair, encircling his brow like a crown. He wore a white robe, the Temnottan color of death, and both his hem and sleeves were stained crimson with blood. Tris could not guess his age. One eye was green and the other nearly black, but there was no mistaking the madness and rage in Scaith’s mismatched eyes.

  “You’ve cheated me out of my prize.” Scaith’s voice was the dry rasp of old bones grinding together. “I had your execution planned. It would have been slow and painful, to savor every gobbet of power that drained with your life.”

  Two more of the power tendrils cracked like whip strikes toward Tris. He dodged the strike that sought his sword arm, but the tip of the other tendril lashed across his chest and left arm with immobilizing pain. Tris gritted his teeth and lurched forward with Nexus, aiming for Scaith’s heart. He saw Scaith gasp in pain as Nexus’s glowing blade severed the crimson tendril like a hot iron through tender flesh.

  “You took your own life rather than face my sword.” Scaith’s eyes were alight with fury and anticipation. “Your son eluded me once, but not again. When I bend his power to my will, nothing will be able to stand against me, not even the Dread.”

  “Not in my lifetime,” Tris said as he swung once more. This time, Nexus’s tip slipped between the fiery tendrils to score against Scaith’s shoulder.

  “Your lifetime is over. I will rule Margolan. Your crown, your sons, your queen are forfeit to me.”

  Tris felt Scaith drawing on the life energy of the Temnottan troops. Behind him, the clouds grew even blacker, crackling with stolen energy as Scaith drained his troops for a final strike. Tris felt Scaith pull suddenly at the energy, felt a rush of power, and knew that hundreds of soldiers had fallen dead to bolster Scaith’s power. Strange magic crackled along the bond, and Tris knew that the death magic had also called the power of the Nachele to Scaith’s command.

  Tris stretched out his power, reaching to the Flow and to the blood that had worked its magic, strengthened by the sacrifice of a king and from the life blood of thousands of soldiers who had gone willingly to their deaths for crown and kingdom. This time, as the power arced around them, dozens of fiery crimson tendrils snapped out toward Tris. It was impossible to avoid them all as they snaked and moved, and while Nexus’s blade blocked and cut through tendril after tendril, more of the crimson whips sliced into Tris’s spirit form. They struck with blinding agony, each one a drain on his energy. He staggered as the pain lanced through him, and he knew he could not withstand much more.

  “You are defeated. I am the new king of Margolan,” Scaith exulted. “I am the true lord of the dead.” />
  Each of those soldiers pledged you his life. They would willingly die for you. Soterius’s words rang in Tris’s mind as he fought the onslaught. And in that moment, he understood.

  I am a dead man on the Plains of Spirit. I belong here. Scaith splits his power between the place of the dead and the lands of the living. The advantage is mine. With all of his remaining strength, Tris sent his magic down into the Flow and out among the living, where the life energy of the souls of the Margolan army thrummed with the frantic pulse of blood and breath. It was that energy he tapped, channeling it, not to snuff it out as Scaith had done but to feel the living tide of those souls couple with the raw power of the Flow. Tris’s left hand reached up to clasp the talisman of Marlan the Gold, remembering what the king’s ghost had told him. If your offering is sufficient, Marlan’s ghost had said, it will open the power of your fathers.

  Focusing on Marlan’s talisman, Tris called to the spirits of the ancient dead, to the bones and souls of all the fighting men who lay buried beneath Margolan’s soil. The Nether trembled, and Tris felt that power yield to him, sustaining him. Another power added itself to the rush of energy, power that trod the gray line between the living and the dead, the magic of the Dread.

  Knowing he would not have another chance, Tris focused his magic in Nexus as his athame and charged at Scaith. Tendrils lashed and cut him, making each step forward agonizing. But as the whip welts of the crimson tendrils stripped away his essence and lashed at his soul, Tris’s consciousness remained focused on the white-hot tip of Nexus’s blade.

  Tendrils wrapped themselves around Tris’s sword arm, snaked around his legs, and lashed around chest and waist, sending ripples of blinding pain through him, drawing him into Scaith’s deadly hold. Nexus thrummed with power as he gripped its hilt two-handed. The runes on its blade became a river of fire, sending arcs of flame streaking from the steel to burn away the tendrils that tried to hold Tris back as he pressed its tip closer and closer to Scaith. Tris wrested one more surge of power and sent his magic toward Scaith, binding him to the Plains of Spirit even as Tris lunched forward, spending the last of his magic to drive Nexus’s glowing blade into Scaith’s chest.

  “I am lord of the living and the dead,” Tris said, as Nexus sank hilt deep into Scaith’s form. The power that tied them together began to hum, and the pitch rose until it was a shrill scream. Tris could feel Scaith’s magic still bound to the spirits of the Temnottan soldiers. Steeling himself for what he must do, Tris stretched out his power. I am the Son of Darkness, heir to the one they called Blood-Sower, Slaughterer. Let me reap these souls, and if damnation comes, let it be on my head alone.

  Tris flung his power wide. He slashed through Scaith’s bond to the Temnottan soldiers, severing his hold over them. At the same time, his magic called to the souls of all the hollowed and stolen spirits Scaith had enslaved. Tris let his power sweep across them like a wind through a bank of candles, setting them free. Impaled on Nexus’s blade, Scaith began to tremble, his mismatched eyes wide with fear and pain.

  “Go to the Abyss,” Tris whispered, as he wrenched the blade to the side. The tendrils withered and blackened, dropping away from where they had wound themselves around Tris’s form, smoking and smoldering as they fell. Heat surged through Nexus’s blade, and Scaith screamed in agony as the white light burned through him from the center out, until his body charred and his screams ended, and the great Temnottan dark summoner fell in a rain of ash. Tris fell to his knees. He steadied himself on Nexus, quivering with the pain of Scaith’s attack. Though the tendrils were gone, he felt their burn. Nexus’s glow faded to gray steel, and its fiery runes became mere script. Tris was utterly spent, as if the massive blast of power that channeled through him had left an empty shell.

  Even if Nexus still holds a whisper of my soul, I don’t have the power to return to my body. I’m going to die here. Grief washed over him, for Kiara, for Cwynn, for the son he would never know.

  The Nether shifted around him, and he found himself kneeling in the cold, wet sand of the ocean’s shore, on the rim of the vast Gray Sea. A figure was coming toward him through the mist, and even at this distance, Tris’s magic recognized the power of the goddess. The figure blurred in the mist, but as she grew closer, and Tris saw which of the Aspects came for his soul, he trembled. The shape that emerged from the mist was not the Mother, to whom he had paid homage all his life, nor Istra, the Dark Lady, patron of the outcast, nor Chenne, the warrior. Hunched and gimping, it was the gnarled figure of the withered Crone that emerged from the mist, the Aspect in whose cauldron souls were rendered in payment for misdeeds.

  Stand before me, Martris Drayke, Summoner-King. I require an accounting of your soul.

  Tris staggered as he struggled to his feet. His battle wounds still burned over most of his skin, and the wild magic had blasted through him with such force he felt charred within. Death, an end to pain, would be a mercy. Tris managed to stand and square his shoulders, raising his chin and meeting the unforgiving gaze of the Crone.

  “I have done the unforgivable. I have forced living souls into dead flesh, no matter that the souls begged for me to do so. I accept the consequences. Punish me as you will, but spare my people.”

  You are indeed the Son of Darkness, Lemuel’s true heir. He, too, used his summoning to draw power from blood and death. Yet you did not grasp this power for yourself. You made the sacrifice that Hadenrul and Gustaven paid to me, the price of blood. You have fought the Shrouded Ones and won.

  “How so? I fought only Konost, and I won back my son’s soul not by my magic alone, but with the help of the Dread.”

  The Crone gave a harsh laugh. Peyhta is the Soul-Eater, the harvester of the spirits of those who fall in battle. Shanthadura is the Destroyer, She Who Bathes in Blood. You stole Peyhta’s harvest and Shanthadura’s tide and turned blood and spirit to your own ends, for your kingdom’s sake.

  You have done well, Martris of Margolan. Yet for your deeds, you must still be judged. Hear my words. I judge the soul that stands before me. Regardless of intent, you have used magic that is forbidden. You must pay the penalty.

  Tris had steeled himself for the verdict, yet its reality sent a surge of mortal fear through him that, for a moment, overwhelmed the pain. “I accept your verdict. My soul and my life are forfeit.”

  Perhaps not. The Crone’s gaze was wily, and her thin, pressed lips quirked in something of a bitter smile. I have not judged the whisper of your soul that remains with your body. You did not gain by your forbidden magic. You were prepared to sacrifice all that you held dear for the sake of your kingdom and your vows. You set the souls of the Temnottan soldiers free, as you freed the hollowed and stolen spirits. You paid the blood price, and you have returned to me the passage token that was given long ago. The Crone gazed at the talisman of Marlan the Gold, whose spectral shadow hung on a chain around Tris’s neck.

  Marlan’s spirit was given a choice: to bring me this passage token and stand for judgment when he, too, made forbidden use of magic, or to walk the tombs for eternity. A thousand years I have waited, and he did not return. But his blood runs in your veins, and it was the coin of your offering.

  Hear my judgment. I will honor the whisper that remains. I will grant passage for you to return to your body. But you must pay a price for the magic that was forbidden. Decide, Martris of Margolan. Ten years of life is the penalty. You need not pay with your own life. Will you give me those years from the life of the next summoner, your son, Cwynn?

  At the Crone’s words, it seemed as if his spirit self took on flesh and blood. Tris could feel his heart beating and breath filling his lungs, feel the warmth of the sun on his skin and hear Kiara’s distant laughter. He felt the life that thrummed through every sinew, every vein. It was a cruel reminder, here on the shores of the Gray Sea, of how much he loved life itself.

  Tris met the Crone’s eyes. “No. Not Cwynn. Send me to the Abyss. Refuse to let me cross the Gray Sea to my rest. Just leave my s
on alone.”

  The Crone’s black eyes glittered. It is not yet your time to cross the Sea. Your work is not complete. But payment must be made. Hear my judgment. Ten years of your life is forfeit. I will claim your soul before your body would have yielded to time. And know this: The power of the king’s blood can be paid only once. You cannot walk these paths a second time.

  Exhaustion swept over Tris in an overwhelming tide. Even if I had the energy to try, I don’t know how to find my way back from here. Then he felt heat against his chest, and raised his hand to find Talwyn’s amulet, warm and glowing.

  It will guide you in dark places, Talwyn said when she had given him the amulet. Tris closed his fingers around its stone and metal, hoping for a sign.

  A new presence joined them on the shore. Here in the place between life and death, the being that appeared by the Crone’s side was not immediately familiar. Hidden partly by the mist, it had the silhouette of a broad-shouldered warrior, head held high, wrapped in a billowing cloak. The mist parted, and one of the Dread emerged.

  My servant will lead you back along the paths of spirit to rejoin the whisper of your soul. Farewell, Martris of Margolan. Know that we will meet again.

  The Crone vanished into the mist, and the cold, damp clouds closed in around Tris. In an instant, the Gray Sea was hidden from view. The dark silhouette of the Dread stepped out from the mist, and its black tendrils wrapped around Tris. It took all his will not to flinch away, remembering the torment of Scaith’s crimson fire, but the Dread’s touch was as cold as dead flesh. Everywhere the Dread touched him, the pain of his wounds faded.

  The mist parted, and Tris stood with the Dread back on the battlefield, aside his pale body. His body lay on its back where he had fallen, in a pool of his own blood, Nexus still protruding from his chest. Thin red welts, like the lashes of a whip, covered his arms and chest, mirror images of the wounds Scaith had inflicted. Fallon and Esme knelt beside him, chanting through their tears. Coalan knelt a distance away, weeping, and would not be comforted. A man’s voice joined the chant, and Tris saw that Pevre, the Sworn shaman, stood a short distance away. The candle with the tribe’s mingled blood burned at his feet. In one hand he held a flask of vass, and in the other, a bowl of tepik. Beside Pevre stood another of the Dread, an imposing figure, silent and still.