Down the Dark Path (Tyrants of the Dead Book 1)

by J. Edward Neill

  “I never thought we had so many.” Sarik remarked during one storm-riddled eve.

  “Most are from Davin Kal.” Daćin tore at a piece of bread and dipped it into his bubbling stew. “Others are from ships that strayed too close to Morellellus, and from the breeders at Dageni. As the Emperor wishes, so their number increases.”

  “Oh,” Sarik said.

  Feeling charitable, Daćin tossed a hunk of bread Sarik’s way. The black-hauberked boy caught it and stuffed his mouth full.

  “Have you ever been to Dageni?” He raised the question while gazing off into nothingness.

  “No, Sire. Never.”

  “There’re far more slaves in Dageni than here.”

  “They say you are from Dageni, Sire.” Sarik tread with caution. “Is it true?”

  “Very true. Before the Emperor came for me, I was a foreman in the mines. There’s no place like Dageni, boy. The sky is always black with soot, the fires always burning. We had more slaves working in the deeps than all the free souls of Morellellus and Illyoc combined. It was all for the Emperor. The slaves flocked to the mines with his whip at their backs. They filled the underworld, stuffed into the black passages like worms into the dirt. Poor creatures. I almost pity them.”

  Sarik fell quiet for a time. The lad absently fingered the blackened blade of a Furyon spear, a two-tined weapon stacked beside a dozen similar weapons in the corner of Daćin’s tent.

  “Perfect, no?” Daćin gestured at the spear. “From Dageni. None sharper in the world. The Emperor’s men gutted the mines of the black ore and took it in droves to Malog.”

  “Malog?” Sarik shivered.

  Daćin nodded. “They say the forges in Malog never go quiet. They say sorcerers live in the labyrinths below the citadel, weeping fire from their fingers upon our blades-to-be. Many thousands of slaves have gone to Malog, and none returned. Quite a tale, no?”

  “Is it true?” Sarik’s eyes widened.

  Daćin shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. The Emperor won’t let me go.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t say. If word got out that I told you, the Emperor would happily have you quartered. He takes no liberties with his secrets.”

  “Oh.” Sarik shivered again.

  Daćin smiled for Sarik’s sake. He meant not to frighten the lad any worse than necessary. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Worse than Malog and Dageni is this weather. Faraway evils and the Emperor’s secrets will not kill us, but the cold just might.”

  Weeks more of black skies and bitter snows, and winter began to drain away. Chakran remained in his tower, and Daćin waged continual war against the elements to prepare his men for the invasion. Many hundreds succumbed to the woeful winds and bone-biting cold, something that gnawed at his heart. His men were not just soldiers to him, but brothers, dragged from their homes to do the Emperor’s deeds. His days were restless, his nights sleepless, but in the end his mighty army was not so greatly weakened. Even as the storm waxed in power, so too did winter wane and grind to a halt. Bitter snow and pounding hail became naught but rain, miserable but hardly deadly.

  Another week, and the final hours of winter were at hand. The rains slid from the sky in great grey curtains, washing away the snow. A warm wind gusted inland from the sea, creeping into Daćin’s tent, waking him many hours before dawn. He arose, stretching his arms and legs as if waking from a long hibernation. Heedless of the rain, he emerged from his tent and walked toward the shore. Only a few lanterns lit his way, dripping and swaying on their poles. The sea of Furyon tents, their tops as sharp as swords just three month ago, sagged all around him like mourners at their lovers’ graves. No stars, no moon, not tonight. Even the thunder booming in the storm-beaten sky was hardly audible, for it had lasted so long he no longer seemed to hear it. In that loneliest of hours, he savored a last glimpse at the sea. Beyond the Emperor’s ships and the two cliffs jutting from the water, he searched for signs of dawn, but found only darkness. Never-ending, he thought of the storms. The penance for what we do. He turned back the way he had come. Climbing up the beach, he bent his gaze to the looming mountains in the west, where the shadowy shapes of the Crown Mountains were yet veiled by the storm, their tops illuminated only briefly by flashes of lightning.

  Come daybreak, he acquired a mount and rode with his lieutenants to Chakran’s tower. Many weeks had passed since last he had spoke with the Emperor, and he needed Chakran’s blessing to begin the westward march. He entered the tower alone, throwing open its battered door and climbing the spiral stairs. He found his master sagging in a chair in the highest room. Chakran looked not unlike the ships sitting miserably in the harbor. His cheeks sagged like rain-soaked sails, his eyes as hollow in their sockets as the armada’s empty, haunted hulls.

  “My lord,” he announced himself, tucking his helm below his arm and dropping down to a knee.

  “You’re ready? Winter’s ended?” Chakran seemed only half awake. “Of course you are. Of course it is.”

  “Many lives are lost. Many have been maimed by the storm. But we’re ready all the same.”

  “Good.” Chakran wrung his hands. “I’m pleased.”

  “Will you ride?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes.” Chakran lifted his body from the chair as though it pained him. “But not today. Go now and begin your march. I’ll gather what I need and catch up to you in the days to come. You come to my tower this morn, but there’s nothing left for us to talk of. There’s only Tyberia. Go and fetch her for me.”

  It was hardly the sendoff he had expected. Reluctantly, he rose up and retreated down the stairs. Is the Emperor ill? He will never say, and no one dares to ask.

  He stepped out of the tower and into the clearing where the Mormist torch-bearers had been butchered. His boots sank into the rain-saturated sand like swords into dead men’s bellies. “It’s time,” he told the lieutenants awaiting him. “We march now.”

  He and his lieutenants stalked inland. The sky split open above him, pelting him with rain like falling daggers. As the shore fell out of sight and the coastal hinterland opened up before him, a sound came to his ears. It was thunder, he knew, but not from the storm. The earth was darkened in all directions, but not by the clouds. Thirty breaths more of marching, a last ridge mounted, and he came to the forefront of the Furyon horde. They were massed upon the grassless plain, shields and spears at attention, black helms masking their eyes. He stood like a king before them, calling out with a voice that clashed against the thunder of the storm. “Soldiers of Fury, now arise! Your kingdom awaits you! Give the ocean your backs, and the lands of Grae the funeral it deserves! Do as your Emperor asks! Go forth without question, that you might be kings, that you might reign over Tyberia sooner than you dreamed!”

  The legion roared in reply, a sound more powerful than any gathering of men had ever made. Daćin leapt upon his horse and rode between their ranks, brushing their spears with his gauntleted fingers, bidding them to follow. Beneath the rain, he led the legion away from the shore and into a warren of leafless, wind-shattered trees.

  He guided them onto the same path the Three Lords had shown his master, and the Furyons’ footsteps fell upon the earth like the cold waves of an angry ocean, like black hammers upon a hundred thousand anvils.

  The Pale

  The Furyon host marched westward into the glorious realm of the Crown Mountains, where black skies became blue, and where the tempest at the shore did not dare follow. If ever a place in the world was more magnificent, Daćin had never seen it in his life. Spiraling into the sky, the Crown peaks were an aerie for the world’s highest clouds, a sanctuary of stone and mist where he imagined few men ever walked. The mountains’ summits glowed with shades of violet, soft grey, and pure white, while upon their sides shade-giving oceans of evergreens swept, all dusted with winter’s final offering of snow. Uncaring for the beauty surrounding them, his soldiers trampled recklessly, striding over shallow streams and wading through low, cavernous valleys. Even so,
the mountains’ tranquility would not be undone, not even by so many. Our bootfalls are swallowed here, he thought. No one will hear us, and the mountains do not care.

  The army marched onward. The ground became firm and dry, and the ceaseless rains of the far shore became nothing more than an unpleasant memory. A few days in, Chakran and his riders caught up, and thereafter Daćin rode side by side with his master. The two seldom spoke. The Emperor dwelt in silence, his mood as black as the forgotten seas. Daćin set aside any awareness of his master’s behavior. I’ve an invasion to machinate, an army to keep alive, he reminded himself. What turns in my master’s mind is not for me to know.

  For thirty days and thirty nights, the march ensued.

  The Furyons took to paths seldom used, a network of serpentine valleys carved by rivers long vanished. The road mapped by the Three Lords proved true. Mountains were circumvented, abyssal chasms avoided, and streams forded in place of raging rivers. With the highest peaks of Crown falling behind them, the Mormist frontier drew ever nearer. No sign of the enemy seemed at hand. Mormist either knows nothing of our advance or dares not show themselves.

  And then one evening the mountains were no more.

  Daćin led his vanguard through a last valley, where a carpet of springtime blossoms spread out beneath his boots and the shadowy forest at valley’s end marked the boundary of Mormist. Before the night turned treacherously deep, he ordered his men to make camp. This valley is the Mormist frontier, he knew. And these trees are the outliers of the forest called Velum.

  We can’t remain hidden much longer.

  During that cool, restless night, he lingered away from the legion’s encampment. He found a clearing in a copse of grey-trunked trees, the only place of privacy in the entire vale. The evergreens swayed in the twilight breeze, the soft sounds of their woolly branches easing him as he sat and stretched his weary legs. He remained alone in the gathering darkness, his mind clearing like the sky after a summer storm. This was his first moment of peace in many weeks. He was more thankful for it than any of his men could know.

  And then he saw the clouds.

  Eyes snapping open, he glimpsed a gap in the tree cover where neither leaf nor limb hindered his view of the heavens. He expected to see starlit mountaintops, perhaps even a pale glimmer of Mother Moon, but instead he saw darkness advancing. In the east, clogging the spaces between distant peaks, the storm gathered anew. The clouds were torn, but congealing right before his eyes. The flashes of lightning were faint, but no less recognizable. The same storm, he knew. It chases us. He watched it until well after sunset, the clouds swarming over the mountaintops like wave crashing against an unsuspecting shore. A long, dark look at the colonnades of clouds approaching, and he arose, leaving his secret clearing behind. Back to the legion he walked, back to the quiet thousands, and came to the circle of trees where his master rested.

  “Sire.” He knelt before the Emperor, who sat drinking and swearing amongst some twenty of his elite. “Might I have a word?”

  The Emperor grinned atop his seat. Wine dripping from his beard, he shook his cup, and his shadowed elite dispersed into the surrounding trees. “Speak,” Chakran said gruffly. “The night grows old, as do I.”

  “The storm…” Daćin gestured to the sky.

  Chakran stretched his arms above him. His cup tumbled into the grass. His eyes were unreadable in the firelight, smoldering like grey coals in a furnace without bottom. “What of it?”

  “It haunts us. I’ve seen it again, crossing the mountains in pursuit of us. Am I deceived? Is this some natural phenomenon of Graehelm? Can the skies turn against us?”

  Licking his teeth, Chakran dwelled long upon his answer. “The only storm you need consider is the one about to wash over your enemies. A wisp of clouds and a puff of wind is no hindrance to us. You can’t seriously say that you, commander of Furyon’s finest legion, fear such a thing?”

  He shook his head. The Emperor stared at him, his eyes ablaze with the campfire light. “Anything more?”

  “No, Sire.” His mouth fell into a hard line. “There’s nothing.”

  Chakran nodded with satisfaction. “Good. Forget the storm. I command it. Now, leave me be.”

  He left Chakran’s camp, the command still echoing in his ears. The force of his master’s authority knew no boundary, no contradiction. Aware of it now more than ever, he walked back to his tent in a haze. Soldiers near and far called to him, seeking his attention, but he ignored them all, slipping back into his tent, where only loyal Sarik awaited. “Sarik.” He snapped the squire’s name of his tongue. “Are my maps ready?”

  “Yes, Sire.” Sarik bowed low.

  “And is my shield polished, my weapons whetted, and my armor oiled?”

  Sarik gulped. “Yes, Sire.”

  “Then you’re free tonight. Go out and have a last drink with the men. Tomorrow will bring blood, likely rain as well.”

  “Sire?” Sarik hesitated before leaving.

  “Yes?”

  “Is everything a’right? You’ve a look on you.”

  “No,” he spat as he kicked off his boots and hurled his gloves aside. “Everything is not. A black storm trails on my heels, hunting me for sport. The Emperor carries some black manner of sword upon his shoulders, a blade which beckons the wind and makes men howl in terror. The invasion begins tomorrow, and I’m distracted. Everything is not a’right.”

  Sarik stood as petrified as ten thousand year-old timber. His face went white, his eyes betraying his fear.

  “Go, Sarik.” He contained his anger for Sarik’s sake alone. “Say nothing of what I’ve told you, and life will be good for you at the back of the lines.”

  The next morning, under the pallid glower of a sun half-risen beneath a curtain of grey clouds, the lieutenants of Chakran and Daćin gathered in a glade upon a hillside.

  They clustered shoulder to shoulder, a grim ring of black-clad warriors preparing the death of Mormist. Daćin had risen early to lead the gathering, and in the center of the glade he laid out his plan for the felling of Mormist, the invasion of Graehelm, and the resurrection of Tyberia. “…divide the legion into two parts, each equal in strength,” he said near the end of it. “One shall move south, the other west, until the ends of Velum forest are in sight. Once Mormist is within our grasp, both legions shall come together and seal off the borders to counterattack from the west.”

  As he spoke, his palm hovered over a map of the Grae-realm. Thank the Three Lords, he thought. He waved his palm back and forth as if to enact the entire war using only the weathered parchment below. “I shall lead the western force here.” He pointed to the heart of Velum. “Emperor Chakran shall accompany me. In the south, Archmyr will lead. Here and here, he’ll strike.” He slashed his finger across the plains south of Mormist. “By his hand, we shall fear no attack from the Grae forces at Triaxe.”

  And so he came to it, the part of the assembly he least looked forward to. He extended his arm, turning his palm upward as though to reveal some secret clutched therein. His gesture called attention to the creature standing nearby, a soldier lurking in the shadow of an ancient, wide-branched oak.

  Archmyr emerged.

  He was pale-faced and inky-haired, his eyes full of more malice than all the murderers in the world. Many in the clearing shivered when Archmyr stepped to Daćin’s side, and all averted their gaze. Archmyr was no Furyon, but a Thillrian, hailing from the land of long winters and shivering shores. His hair was black enough to be Furyon, but his pallid cheeks, whiplike build, and grey-eyed glower set him apart from all those near. His skin had all the color of a corpse, his black, lank hair framing a face devoid of compassion. When he stepped into the ring of Furyons, his presence fell across them like a mote of miserable moonlike come to haunt a circle of headstones. His greaves gleamed silver instead of black, and his twin swords were not of Dageni make, but of otherworldly sharpness nonetheless.

  The Furyons glared at his presence, but lowered their heads as Ar
chmyr flicked his gaze casually cross them. Of all the men to choose… Daćin closed his eyes. Chakran would bring this one, the Pale Knight, he who is a butcher, and not of our blood.

  Archmyr remained in the ring of Furyons for a span of twenty breaths, only long enough for Daćin to acknowledge him, only long enough to discomfit the Furyon captains. Then, without a word, he drifted back beneath the guarded branches of the old oak.

  As soon as the Pale Knight retreated, Chakran stepped to the center of the ring. “It’s set.” The Emperor’s voice echoed through the trees. “There’s only one thing more. Before we go our separate ways, I’ve something to show you. I bring a gift long-awaited, a small token from Malog. Archmyr will take it with him into southern Mormist. Any advantage the Graehelm armies might possess, it will destroy.”

  What is this? Daćin narrowed his eyes.

  The Emperor fixed his stare upon Archmyr, commanding, “Step forward again, Pale Knight of Thillria. Receive what I’ve brought you.”

  Sullen and pale, Archmyr slid back into the sunlight. Is it me, or does the day blanch at the sight of him? Daćin observed. As Archmyr neared, a wide-bellied wagon drawn by a trio of horses thundered up the hillside and into view. Two of the Furyons hurried to it, halting it with waves of their hands. An immense object lay in the wagon’s hold, an angled thing shrouded under layers of dark red cloth. Daćin was reminded of his black armor, blanketed beneath the same color cloth in his cabin aboard the Exemone. He and the rest gazed upon the wagon, but none dared approach. To all, it seemed as though a dreadful thing were sleeping therein.