The hero turned to run, but the sight she caught out of the corner of her eye nearly stopped her heart. The halberd's glow returned weakly to the damaged crystal. She turned and saw the weapon rock free of the crumbling fingers of its former wielder and rise high into the air. Myranda's eyes turned to the ground as lighting cast three shadows. One was of the halberd. The second was that of a twisted, unnatural mockery of a human gripping the weapon. The third was that of a young child that had foolishly ventured into the courtyard from his hiding place. Myranda called out to the boy.
"No! Stay away!" she urged, but she could not hear even her own voice. Surely the boy could not either.
She looked to the sky, searching for the twisted form Myranda had seen silhouetted below, but there was none. The halberd hung alone, yet a second flash of lightning revealed the three shadows again as the halberd swept to the child's side. She summoned a bright light, prolonging the shadows as she tried to rush to the child. The twisted figure existed only in shadow, but it suddenly grasped the shadow of the boy. The child shook as if struck.
Myranda watched helplessly as the boy's shadow was somehow torn free. The boy dropped to the ground, then slowly rose as the twisted shadow replaced the stolen one. The boy reached out and clutched the halberd. Instantly, the look of innocence and fear was replaced by the look of cool, disconnected intellect that Epidime had worn. Indeed, he still wore it.
In a smooth, practiced motion with the halberd, Epidime summoned the swirling black form she'd seen Demont step out of. He guided his stolen body through just as Myranda reached it. Before she could do anything, the void in the air snapped shut, releasing a wave of black energy that knocked her to the ground.
Deacon was beside her in a flash, helping her to her feet. The air was still ringing in her ears, her vision returning slowly, but what she saw told her that she could delay no longer. People were now flooding out. They did not know what had caused this, why their town had been ravaged. Fear, anger and confusion filled their heads. It was a potent mix, and it needed an outlet. If she and her friends lingered, the townspeople could not be blamed for what they did.
Deacon and Myranda rushed to the edge of the town. There, Lain had discovered the horses that they had ridden in on and loaded Ivy onto the back of one. Ether was atop the other, and clearly out of her element.
"The sheer idiocy of using one body to control another . . ." she muttered as she struggled to determine how to guide the horse.
"I'll guide the horse, you ride behind me," Myranda said, climbing to the saddle as Ether grudgingly agreed.
Deacon climbed to the saddle of the mount that Ivy had been entrusted to. In truth, he displayed nearly as much difficulty handling the steed as Ether, but he managed, and a moment later the group as a whole was off, Lain trailing slightly behind on foot. The clearing clouds were shedding the light of the rising sun upon them, and they could ill afford to be seen. Worse, the rain that had spared the town and offered the means of striking down Epidime had soaked the heroes to the bone. In the bitter cold of the north, that was a swift road to death. Shelter would have to be found--and fast.
After nearly an hour, shelter was indeed found--in the form of a dense stand of trees tucked in a slight valley. Wood was gathered, a fire was started that Ether quickly took advantage of, and in short order Lain had managed to track down enough prey to provide a meal. As warmth slowly returned to frost-nipped limbs and it became clear that, for now at least, they had not been followed, Ether could hold her tongue no longer.
"Explain yourself," she ordered.
Myranda stared pensively at the ground.
"I think perhaps Myranda needs a few moments. I would be happy to--" Deacon offered helpfully.
"Are you a Chosen One?" Ether asked.
"I am not, but--" Deacon attempted to explain.
"Then do not speak in our presence. Myranda, answer," Ether again demanded.
"It was for nothing . . ." Myranda said, shaking her head.
"What are you mumbling about?" Ether snapped, unaccustomed to being so blatantly ignored.
"He was just a man!" Myranda replied angrily through clenched teeth, tears in her eyes. "Arden and Epidime were not one and the same! I killed the man, but Epidime still lives. I killed him for nothing! Nothing!"
"The weapon--the halberd. It would appear it houses some manner of entity. It was this entity that was your foe. This Arden fellow was merely the host," Deacon explained.
Lain watched from the other side of the fire, a knowing look in his eye.
"I've never taken the life of a human before. Never. And now I do so and it achieves nothing. That poor man had to die because I was too foolish to see the truth," she continued, her voice quivering.
"Yes, yes. I am sure it appears to you to be a terrible tragedy, but save your emotions for another time," Ether dismissed. "I require an answer."
"At the risk of angering you further, my esteemed Chosen, I feel that perhaps I could indulge your curiosity while Myranda--" Deacon attempted.
"I've warned you once," Ether stated sternly.
"It's all right. I owe them an explanation," Myranda said numbly.
#
And so she began to recount the tale, a tale that it is my great hope shall find its way to you as well. It begins where the others believed that Myranda's life had ended, in the lowest level of Demont's personal menagerie. Had I the strength, I would not rest until every last word was recorded. But, alas, the years weigh heavily upon me. You have my word. When next my stylus is put to work, all that remains will be revealed. The truth is too important to be lost to the ages.
###
That’s it for the second chapter of The Book of Deacon. There is still is plenty more to read in this anthology, but if you’d like to be kept in the loop on future installments to the series, sign up for the newsletter! And for books in other settings, check out the complete bibliography at the end of this anthology.
The Battle of Verril
The Book of Deacon
Book Three
Joseph R. Lallo
Foreword
Although it is almost always the third book of mine that people have read, The Battle of Verril is technically the fourth book I published. After publishing The Book of Deacon, I hadn’t seen many sales and I supposed that people might not be interested in reading a long story by an unproven author. Thus, I wrote a novella called Jade and published it second, predating even The Great Convergence. This was admittedly a bizarre choice on my part, as it is set well after the events of the trilogy, and thus gives quite a few insights into things which might or must happen in The Great Convergence and The Battle of Verril. For better or worse, very few people actually read Jade, and most of those who did, did so after The Battle of Verril. Thus, logic has prevailed and you are treated to The Battle of Verril before Jade in this anthology.
Chapter 1
Chronicling the tale of the Chosen is a monumental task, and one that cannot and must not remain half done. If you have read the volumes already written, then you know well the trials that heroes must face. Already, there have been triumphs and there have been tragedies. Friends and allies have been pulled from the jaws of doom, while others have not been so fortunate. Despite these adventures, the truest tests of the Chosen still remain to be told. With these final pages, I shall set that right.
To do so, I must begin where my last account ended. Myranda, a young and dedicated wizard, had returned. Believed dead by the other Chosen, she swept in to snatch her friends from defeat. When all had been brought to safety, and for a moment things seemed calm, she agreed to share the events of her absence. They began where the others believed that Myranda's life had ended, in the lowest level of the personal menagerie of Demont, a general of the Northern Alliance. The devilish structure, filled with nightmarish creatures, was quickly consuming itself in out of control flames. She held the burning fort together with the strength of her will until she felt her friends escape, then relented, re
ady for the whole of the structure to collapse upon her, ready for fate to claim her. Fate, it seemed, had other plans.
#
The boards beneath Myranda's feet gave way just as the remaining ceiling over her head did the same. She dropped down into some sort of recess into the floor. Scrambling backward away from the very fort that was coming down on top of her, Myranda’s desperate hands found their way to a metal handle. It was attached to a low door, seemingly carved into the stone of the ground. With only moments to spare, she pulled it open and dragged herself into the blackness beyond. The roar of the structure collapsing on itself rumbled all around her as she clawed her way down the pitch-black tunnel. As she did, the rumble became more muffled, debris settling in above her. She pushed aside the thought that it was burying her alive. So too she ignored the concerns of what this place was and what she might find here.
The only thought on her mind was survival--get away from the fire, from the collapse. The rest could wait.
The fire had taken a greater toll on her legs than she had realized, as several attempts to stand failed. The sound of buckling stone behind her convinced her that it was better to crawl now than to die trying to walk. The smoke from the smoldering debris that had tumbled in behind her continued to burn at her lungs. She crept every inch of distance her body could offer before collapsing. The rumble and roar drifted away as Myranda's body finally reached its limit.
Perhaps hours, perhaps days later, Myranda's eyes opened to the blackness. The smoke no longer stung at her, but the air was stifling and stale. She coughed and sputtered as she rolled to her back. A sharp pain prompted her to pull something free that was jabbing her in the shoulder blade. As wakefulness fully returned to her, the stillness permitted the concerns she’d brushed away to rush back in. What was this place? If the monstrous creations she'd seen inside the fort were any indication, she shuddered to think of what kind of beasts might be kept in the catacombs beneath. In darkness such as this, her eyes may as well have been closed. Desperate for some form of information, she listened. Nothing. The silence was eerie, oppressive, and complete. Her nose and tongue told only of the acrid residue left from the burning wood, so she was left with touch alone. What it told her confused her.
The floor was . . . tile. A complex pattern of it, she felt, and skillfully made. She rolled to her stomach again and felt for the wall. It too was of the same intricate tile. Then her fingers came to something smooth, like a strip of metal or glass along the wall. As she ran her fingers against it, there was a white-blue ember of light that silently faded in, terrifying her at first. But as the soft glow of it spread along the strip, splitting and winding across what revealed itself to be an arched ceiling, she realized that she sensed nothing powerful, threatening, or purposeful behind the light. It must have been added simply to illuminate the walkway. Bathed in the glow of the curling ribbon of light that swept and wound its way down the tunnel, she caught her first glimpse of what she'd been feeling.
It was a mosaic, one that sprawled across every surface of the tunnel, spreading backward as far as the caved-in ceiling behind her, and onward into the depths of the tunnel, further than her dry red eyes could see. Irregularly-shaped pieces of white and black tile gathered together into forms. Some forms seemed to be composed of the black tiles, others of the white, such that every inch of the masterpiece was some part of a creature, interlocked and entwined like pieces of a puzzle, locked in some struggle or dance. The beasts depicted varied greatly, from horses, birds, dragons, and other creatures she knew, to beasts that had no eyes, no legs, nothing that she knew a creature should have. Yet, she knew it was a beast, that somewhere this completely alien form lived.
With considerable effort, she raised herself to her badly burned legs. Next to where she had been laying, the object that had jabbed her in the back was revealed to be the broken head of her staff. The rest was nowhere in sight. She scooped it up, immediately wishing it was whole again, as she badly needed something to lean on--for now, the wall would have to suffice.
As she moved painfully down the tunnel, the images of the mosaic began to seem more familiar. The creatures that had been borrowed for Demont's purposes appeared again and again, changing slightly each time. The dragon she had seen where she awoke began as white and, as she moved on, it appeared again and again--each time with more black mixed in, each time more twisted. Finally, the dragoyle was all that remained. Worse, the shape of a man began to recur, slowly making its way toward the nearmen that she had fought so often. The images chilled her to the bone. To see something she knew corrupted so was one thing; the truly disturbing thing about it was that each successive form was so subtly changed, she might not have noticed the shift at all if she hadn't seen them so close together.
Dark concerns about the same thing happening in the world around her began to emerge in her mind. There were so many nearmen, fiendish creations that masqueraded as humans. By now, surely the bulk of the army was composed of them. Yet she had only learned of their existence so recently. Did the other soldiers not realize? Did they not care? What other parts of her world were being twisted before her eyes so gradually that she was blind to the change? What were these other creatures?
Before long the burning in her mind was as unbearable as the burning in her legs. Ahead was a door; she hurried as best she could toward it.
When she reached the door, Myranda paused. It bore no lock, no markings. Nothing secured it at all. It was not the way of the D'karon, her enemy, to be so careless. Something was on the other side of the door, something secret enough to bury it deep underground. Surely there was some measure in place to protect it. Of course, none of that mattered. The way behind was blocked. The only choice was to go forward.
Carefully, cautiously, Myranda pushed the door open. The instant that she did, all of the light behind her vanished. A warmer, orange-yellow light, like that of a torch, took its place. The room before her became illuminated. It took no more than a glance to guess who owned this place. Just as in the laboratory that had fallen behind her, the room was immaculately kept. Thin, leather-bound books lined shelves along the wall in neat little rows. Sketches of this creature and that were pinned to boards and hung with care. A cabinet stood, filled with vials labeled in a placeless language. Everywhere, sheets of paper, neatly lettered with the same unnatural runes, sat in meticulous piles or organized files. If the fort above had been the laboratory of General Demont, craftsman of the horrid creatures, then this must have been his study.
If it were another time, she might have been fascinated by it all, but she was weary, wounded, and certain that if she remained in this place, she would be discovered. The room was not a large one, and there was but one other door. Best of all, a telltale draft whistling beneath it told her that beyond it lie the outside. Without the wall to support her, Myranda had difficulty navigating the room. She paused briefly to attempt a spell to heal at least some of her injuries. It was a futile gesture. The strength she'd spent holding the fort together long enough for her friends to escape would take days, perhaps weeks to recover, and this was no place to rest. The best she could hope for was to reach her friends. With them by her side, she could at least rest knowing that she would not face the next threat alone. If she was to join them again, she would have to hurry.
When she reached the door, again she found no security to speak of. She sensed no magic protecting it, though her recent ordeal had dulled her mind at least as much as it had her other senses. She pulled open the door and stepped outside, into the icy wind and biting cold of the north. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of light as she crossed the threshold. The door jerked shut behind her. She threw herself against it, hoping to stop it from shutting tight, but the force of the slam threw her to the ground. She placed her hands on the frozen ground and tried to stand.
A clicking sound on either side of the door that had ejected her drew her attention. Two alcoves, one on each side of the door, slid open. From each recess
strode a beast that could only have come from Demont's twisted mind.
The creatures were long and lithe, their bodies not unlike that of a panther. The head, though, looked at best like a collection of cutlery grafted onto the beast. Two pairs of great serrated mandibles clacked together menacingly in the place where a face should have been. A jagged, blade-like horn jutted from the "forehead" of the creature, though the lack of eyes, ears, or anything else that a creature should have robbed the area of any resemblance to a head. Cutting edges ran like stripes along the creature's hide. The beasts could not truly look at her, but each most certainly had its formidable weaponry pointed in her direction.
Desperation and fear momentarily allowed her to ignore the state of her legs, and she lunged aside as the first beast dove at her. The second galloped off, away from the door. As Myranda rolled to her knees and tried to stand once more, the beast quickly recovered from its missed attack. The two creatures moved as quickly and surely as the cats their form had been cruelly adapted from, and it was mere moments before the first creature was ready for a second attack. The second creature had put a fair amount of distance between them, and now turned, bursting quickly into a full sprint.
Myranda gathered together the frayed remains of her mind and threw up a meager defense. A pulse of mystic energy fazed the nearest creature only slightly as she sidled over to the door and heaved herself against it. It would not budge. She turned her eyes to the nameless beast that faced her. Jagged, unnatural blades clacked expectantly. She raised her broken staff, but it was a futile gesture. Her spirit was drained. Defeat was at hand. What little strength her aching body could offer was poised to make the victory a costly one. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her heart pounded in her ears. As it had so often before in the heat of battle, time seemed to slow to a crawl. Her mind was burning with fear. Her skin tingled. With each passing heartbeat, the sensation grew. This was not fear. This was not anticipation. This was something more.
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