Heroes or Thieves (Steps of Power 2)

by Sherwood, J. J.

  Jerah shook his head, pushing off the ground. It didn’t understand. He would have to go to the city by force… He had to! He moved at the creature suddenly, reaching a taloned hand for Wratherus’ throat, heart seared with pain at what he had to do.

  But a blast of fire slammed into his face and shoulders, knocking him to the earth, singeing his flesh and hair. He leapt up again, swinging out a wing to block the expected onslaught of flame. This time the earth erupted beneath him, tossing him high above Wratherus.

  Jerah twisted his body in the air and landed on his feet. With a terrible roar that made Wratherus retreat a step, Jerah pushed off the ground once more with all his force.

  And then a tremble seemed to shake the air around him. His entire body burst into flame and with it, the creature vanished from view. Jerah collapsed to his knees, dropping his hands to catch his weight. The flames instantly extinguished, but he could smell the fumes of charred flesh and see the smoke rising off his chainmail-covered chest. Pain rippled through his body and Jerah let himself fall forward, rolling once onto his back.

  There he lay sprawled, eyes staring blankly up at the void above. This was it… “If I do not kill tonight… I die,” he begged.

  “You do not kill again. You will not die,” came Wratherus’ calm reply. The creature was close, its voice soft and consoling.

  Jerah clenched his fist slowly to stop his trembling. He would die. He would cease to be. An endless cycle of nights locked within the cellar would engulf him, but he would never be free of it. He would never rise to see the torch in the void again.

  And yet, a calmness began to settle over him. The pain his chest felt when he saw the breath die in the sleeping males in their beds or the elves passing quietly on the streets…

  That would die with him.

  He would not kill tonight. And tonight, neither would he feel that pain that made his stomach knot and his chest hurt. He blinked back the stinging in his eyes as relief settled over him.

  Perhaps, this was a good death.

  He bit his lip hard to fight back his fear.

  Yes, this was a good death.

  He felt a warm hand come to rest upon his clenched fist. Wratherus did not speak, but its touch brought peace to Jerah at the end. Jerah turned his head slowly, eyes locking with the steady gaze of the creature. Where before they had remained vacant of emotion, now they were filled with compassion and strength. Jerah’s fist loosened and the creature’s fingers wrapped into his palm.

  There were no words spoken between them. Jerah watched as the white torch made its journey into the west while the yellow torch began to glimmer from the east. Higher and higher it rose, vibrant orange and red rays filling the void, banishing the darkness as it came.

  And soon it rose above them, beaming in all its brilliance and fire.

  And Jerah lived.

  ‘How can this be…?’ Jerah sat up slowly, eyes widening in wonder as he regarded the melting frost around him. He turned his head toward Wratherus, lips parted in confusion.

  He could see a faint crease at the corners of the creature’s eyes, and it drew its hand away. With a soft grunt, it pushed off its knees and twisted its head to the side with a loud crack.

  Jerah rose to his feet beside it, inhaling heavily. “I am alive…?” he breathed. He put a hand to his chest, feeling the steady beating of his heart beneath it. ‘I do not need to kill to live…’ A pain twisted his stomach as his mind flashed to those he had already killed. ‘If I do not need to kill on the surface… then Master… then Master lied to me…’ The thought made his chest tighten, his muscles stiffen. ‘Master wanted me to kill… and told me I had to so that I would fear this place… and return to him. He wanted me to fear the surface…’

  But he didn’t. No, Jerah did not fear the surface any longer.

  He threw his arms up, letting out the sound he had once heard his master and his company make so long ago. Jerah did not know what it was, but his chest was filled with strength and excitement. He ran forward a few steps, turning in circles as he went. He inhaled heavily, taking in the salty scent of the sea blowing in from his left and the icy forest behind him. “Wratherus, we can go anywhere!” he spoke, turning toward the creature. “We do not need to travel by city—we can see the whole world of Ryekarayn!”

  The creature’s gaze had been fixed to the distant forest line, but Jerah’s words seemed to recall it from its sudden gravity. The corners of the creature’s eyes creased then, its body otherwise rigid and carefully composed. “Yes,” it replied simply.

  Jerah spun around toward the distant mountains of the south, those pale gray shadows against the blue void, and took long strides forward.

  Ryekarayn was waiting for him.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  The sun was brilliant in his midday zenith; he had shoved the clouds aside and sat enthroned in the great blue canvas, eager to see the bloodshed of his enemies and the triumph of his heroes. All across the battlefield, the humans cried out to him, “FOR ZEPHEREUS!” while it was the king they fought and died for.

  And died they did. When Zephereus had stretched above the midday sky, the armies surged through the thawing snow and clashed in a clatter of metal and the soft squish of steel through exposed flesh. The ill-equipped front line dropped in scores, but a raging sea waited at its flank.

  Even the finest of Lord Barister’s rebels could not repress the waves. As the front line shattered, the king’s main force swept in, slicing through the kinks in the defenses and plowing toward the middle where Barister hid entrenched amongst his own men. There was no doubt in Navon’s mind that the rebel’s chest was swollen with regret. He possessed Saebellus’ wealth, but not his military genius. Every rebel Barister had managed to scrape together with gold—the farmers, the bandits, and the mercenaries—all fell the same to the king’s forces. Soon Barister would join the dead.

  But not Navon. Through the chaos of battle, his necromancy writhed at the forefront, a wild, twisting cloud of black smoke that devoured the enemies with screams of delight.

  If the army was the sea, then Navon was the kraken.

  Not far to his right, Galter was stumbling about in the fray, his large body protected by a dented breastplate he had managed to scavenge from a newly fallen corpse. His thick hand clenched the hilt of his sword while he hacked furiously at the enemies surrounding him. It was a pathetic sight, but Navon had little attention to spare.

  He raised his hand, fingers creaking in the cold, and a wisp tightened on the ankle of Galter’s opponent, sending him toppling into the snow. Galter lunged and chopped haphazardly at the man’s exposed flesh.

  Then Navon spun away, azure eyes falling to the sprawl of Barister’s forces. All those corpses that still needed counting. A delighted grin slipped across his pale face. ‘Better equipped but so few in number…’ it was hardly an entertaining fight. His hand flicked forward, a twisting chimney of black spiraling up from the ground. Armor and men scattered, screaming in their struggle to free themselves from the clawing hands.

  Navon’s eyes narrowed, his grin fading into a cold and calculating grimace. They would not escape him. He jerked his hand backward, and as though one with him, the grasping, smoky hands latched onto the nearest foes and dragged them inward, bashing their bodies together and plunging for weaknesses.

  And it felt so good. Navon could feel a swirl of delight in his gut with every spell he cast, joined as one with the clash of voices—a freedom that laughed and screamed to taste the fresh winter air. There was an ache too, an ache through every fiber of his soul as he sliced off a portion and sent it to the gates, disguised for death. But once within, those slivers returned, traveling to and from the Realms of the Dead, yanking souls out to cluster and grovel at his command.

  It was a good ache—like working a muscle that was weak. And Navon felt stronger the deeper the ache grew.

  This was what it meant to throw those legends and heroes aside. This was what it meant to be Navon. Navon w
as not a static, hardened personality, but a collection of all those souls that vied for his favor.

  Navon was one of them, joining and twisting in their ecstasy!

  He let out a cry of laughter that echoed over the battlefield as he raked the boney, skeletal fingers of his magic across the hands of an enemy soldier. He watched as the man flailed in agony and dropped his weapon at his feet. The king’s men fell upon him, thrusting blades wildly into his body.

  Their vigor impressed him. These humans in their haphazard gear… THEY knew how to fight!

  Navon watched as his victim stilled and the tendrils plunged into the body, feeling the release of the soul. The spirits about him cackled in delight and their glee sent a shiver down Navon’s spine. He felt them fill the crevices of his empty personality with their rich pain and ample greed.

  There was a sudden wave of heat on his left and Navon instinctively vaulted backward and away into the icy field. Still, the oncoming fire seared him, scorching his arm in a mix of burning flesh and leather.

  The smell was so sweet and familiar that Navon felt another rapturous thrill… He could feel the saliva building in his mouth and he spun in search of this new opponent.

  ‘I’ll have your soul as well,’ he whispered gleefully as his eyes landed upon his foe.

  The man was dressed in unmarked gear, black leather armor, and polished steel gauntlets—too well equipped to be a farmer and not well enough to be one of Barister’s own men.

  ‘A mercenary, like me,’ he thought, and the personal challenge returned his grin in all its force.

  The human’s dark eyes faltered, his lips—tinted purple in the cold—curled with focus.

  And fear. Navon could taste his fear—sweet and tangy—like the bile the man withheld against a lurch of terror.

  The mage raised his hands again and Navon felt the tendrils of smoke curl and twist to defend him. There was a buzz through the air, like the prickle from a bolt of lightn—

  Navon’s eyes widened in a split second of realization and he rapidly attempted to shield himself with the nearest corpse; it failed to leap forward in time to absorb the blow. Navon was jolted from the ground, thrown into the air like a child’s rag-doll. He smashed into a row of soldiers behind him. His insides trembled and moaned, his mind flashing through a thousand conflicting thoughts and feelings as disorientation left him sprawling.

  “Navon!” came Galter’s shocked call of concern. “Are you—?!”

  Navon’s mind steeled as he felt a threatening tremor course through the ground. The call of the next Gate beckoned to him, compelled him to reach deeper for his defense… But Navon ripped himself away, sweeping what souls he could safely gather. The tendrils lashed out and grabbed the nearest enemy soldier, throwing him into the earth before the Helven. The lightning caught the human, causing his body to leap and dance in an amusing caper of his last living moments.

  Then the corpse dropped in a sweet smoldering of cooked flesh.

  Navon scrambled to the side, free of the mage’s most recent attack, and readied his souls for the next defense. He knew what to do now—he was ready for another bolt.

  Across the short battlefield, the human’s hand extended outward.

  ‘This is different!’ he had time to realize before a spear of ice punctured through the snow to drive up into his gut.

  He sneered, contemptuous. ‘And too easy!’ The tendrils beneath twined lazily around his legs, shoving the ice aside as it grew, leaving it to angle wildly to the west.

  And then Navon unleashed the Gates upon his foe. They were his. Opened to him. The second. The third. But he dared no further than the fourth. A dozen fragments of his soul lay ready to ferry souls out and down upon the living world. A red glow burst from his cloud of smoke, hissing in ancient words that Navon did not recognize and yet seemed to comprehend. There was a form twisting in its mass, weathered and old, like the mangled remains of the wraith they had battled in the Pass. A sliver of red swept forward and for the briefest moment, it had the shape of a sword. It plunged through the horrified mercenary, cutting the soul clean in two.

  As the souls were swept into the gate, Navon screamed in triumph. There was no surprise magic in this battle—no reinforcements to materialize from thin air. They did not need such tricks to defeat the rebel: Saebellus’ forces here were no more than a distraction.

  There was a sudden blast of trumpets across the battlefield and as though Navon had been standing in a haze, his vision abruptly cleared. He felt the fragments of his soul fleeing from the Third Gate to return to his body, clawing frantically to slip out before the Guardians realized the fragility of his focus. A soft gasp he recognized as his own escaped his lips as pain erupted and enveloped his arm. It dropped to his side and he clutched at it painfully. The Gates slammed shut. “By Sel’ari, what in Ramul…?!” he cried in confusion.

  The trumpets blew again and Navon saw a flicker of white fabric flutter from somewhere within Barister’s ranks. Or rather, what was left of them. The rebel remnants were stumbling toward the banner, to stand in that last moment as one before they were led off to whatever consequences the human king would devise.

  And Barister himself… he would no doubt be executed for his treason.

  ‘They are surrendering… We won!’ He exhaled in relief, eyes sweeping the battlefield. ‘By Sel’ari… …We didn’t just win… …I annihilated them…!’ It was then that the number of dead about him solidified. Relstavum’s human army lay in heaps across the earth, sprinkled with countless bodies from the king’s first division.

  Away from Jikun… away from the necessity of any other role to play… he had been Navon. And Navon… Navon was… He stared numbly at the soft wisps of necromancy that still lingered near the surface of the snow.

  Navon was victorious.

  Then his head swung back across the field to the crumpled body of the elemental mage. He could still feel the chill of the ice as his necromancy had forced it aside. How easily the experienced human had fallen to the twisted tendrils… His hand tightened over his wound as concern ripped through him.

  “Navon.”

  Navon started, eyes shooting up from the earth to meet the deep, brown gaze of General Bardolph. There was a smile on his face, broad and greedy as it looked down from his mount to the pale, shaking elf before him. “I said if you did well, I’d have a place for you.” The smile twitched once. “And you did well.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The night was clear and crisp, and the starless sky above was unruffled by even the most meager of winds. For the first evening in weeks, the snow and ice beneath Jikun’s boots was hard and dry. Jikun sucked in a deep breath of air in the frosted forest as he tied the reins of his horse to the low branch beside him. The weeks had been fair—no blizzards, no unbearably bitter nights, and no sign of the Brotherhood.

  And now Saebellus’ crowned pawn was but a thakish leap away.

  He allowed himself a smile as Eldaeus pranced in beside him, flinging his reins into Jikun’s hands before dancing off once more into the snow. Not too long ago, the Faraven would have received a good cuffing for his annoyance, but now…

  All his trials were nearly at an end.

  Jikun tied Eldaeus’ reins beside his own and heaved the Faraven’s sack of collected acorns off the rump. “You almost forgot this,” he called to Eldaeus as he dropped the bag beside a tree. “Wouldn’t want you to end up eaten by a werebear… or whatever it is.”

  Eldaeus blew the bag an affectionate kiss from across the clearing and went back to digging in the snow.

  Jikun’s smile remained forcibly fixed. “What are you doing now? I think you have all the acorns you need.”

  The Faraven waved a hand dismissively before hurriedly returning to his inane task. “I am not looking for an acorn right now—oh! I found one anyway!—I am burying my broken fingernail. You know, so druids and shamans cannot find it and put a curse on me.”

  Jikun grunted, his amusement short-live
d. “Eldaeus, go get more wood for the fire. And don’t wander too far. If you make us hunt you down again, I am eating that peapod you gave me. And your rations.”

  Eldaeus gasped in horror. “I told you, a wereboar chased me down! I had to run! That is why I need the protection of those acorns!” the maniacal elf denied, waving his arms about his head as though Jikun’s attention was not already fully upon him. He pointed sharply at Jikun’s pocket. “And when you go to sleep tonight, I am taking that back!”

  “Eldaeus.”

  The male swiftly drew his body into an obedient salute and marched off to duty lest Jikun be forced to prematurely follow through with his threat. The Faraven was fortunately unaware of its destruction at the hands of Makados.

  “Crazy elf,” Jikun muttered as he ducked below the branch and into the clearing beyond. He kicked the sack of acorns aside. “I am willing to wager a few hundred that Eldaeus runs off again. And I just reminded him to take this with.”

  Darcarus did not appear to hear his jests. He had already lit a fire, the little circle of orange glowing brightly in the night to cast warm rays against the trunks of nearby trees. Task completed, he stood preoccupied at the far end of the clearing. His gauntleted hand was extended to the leafless canopy and moments later, his raven dropped from the branches to perch upon his forearm.

  Jikun watched the male stroke her ruffled head and then untie the little scroll upon her leg. He seemed so engrossed by her arrival that he did not notice the Darivalian make his way to the flames or hear him drop their sack of rations beside it.

  “Did you hear what I said before?” Jikun demanded.

  The missive was opened, read, and pocketed, and all the while Darcarus offered no reaction.

  Jikun rolled his eyes and stooped low to pack together a ball of snow. “I asked if you are listening to me, Prince.” He straightened with a smirk and hurled the snow at Darcarus’ back, watching with satisfaction as it splattered against his spine.