INBORN (The Sagas of Di'Ghon)

by Lawrence, J.

  In spite of what she knew had to happen Lisella found that she liked this little girl’s grit.

  A tear ran down the soldier’s eye but still, he said nothing. There wasn’t any need. His eyes said it all. She was as much a monster as the dra the Caller had brought to them. She knew he was right. Not everyone could do what was necessary to lead. Not like this.

  It took steel to forge greatness. She needed as much cold hard steel in her heart as would be wielded on the fields of battle.

  This had come to her. She hadn’t gone looking for it. The Code chose her. The book told of past Ontars who did not find the courage to see the blood reborn. None ended well. She would see it through, no matter the cost.

  Steel.

  Lisella hardened her gaze and nodded to the soldier to finish his duty. He ground his teeth, heaved the purple faced girl into the air, and surged forward. With her feet still dangling frantically for purchase and her hands grasping at the rope, she didn’t know she had been thrown through the small chain flap until she lay gasping for air beneath the foot of the dais.

  Lisella Ontar reined in her resolve for the thousandth time and forced herself to watch. She wanted to ignore the absolute terror in her eyes as the little girl realized where she was, but Lisella already knew she’d remember how the little girl’s face drained of all color at the sight of the dra.

  The creature hissed.

  The girl’s little mouth opened to scream. Perhaps she had. But if sound came out Lisella didn’t hear it, and, she was thankful for it.

  The dra struck.

  With a speed that would intimidate lightning it leaped across the chain walled chamber and raked the girl with talons as long as daggers. Entrails tumbled from her belly like writhing oily snakes. The little girl found her voice with a wail so soul piercing that it no longer sounded human. She was screaming before she hit the ground and when she did she thrashed like she didn’t have a backbone.

  The dra backed away, head tilted and low. Its twitching muscles coiled tight, ready to leap again.

  What was it waiting for?

  Battle hardened soldier’s boots shifted everywhere, all of them seeing the same thing. Before their very eyes the girl’s wounds, long gashes across her entire midsection burst into blue smoky flame. She thrashed, rolling over her own guts, in a vain effort to extinguish her flesh.

  Lisella choked as greasy smoke filled her nostrils, hot tears nearly blinding her.

  “Help her!!” Lisella screamed. She was grasping the chain wall before she knew what she was doing. The creature hissed and its head swiveled, leveling its pupil-less blue orbs on her. Lisella flinched as Irkhir’s big hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality and away from the chain.

  If they heard her command, none of the men moved. It was no use anyway. The girl was dead already. Lisella couldn’t tear her blurry eyes away as the lines of blue flame advanced mercilessly across her body. In mere seconds the little girl was transformed into a smoking charred black statue.

  The second the flame had done its work, the dra pounced. Hissing, purring, tearing, snapping, and crunching were the only sounds Lisella thought she would hear for a long time. Thankfully it spread its wings, blocking the sight from view as it devoured every bit of her.

  How the dreaded book’s images had tormented her as a child… Yet not one of her childhood nightmares came close to comparing to the real life scene she’d just beheld with her own eyes.

  Lisella swallowed back more bile as she realized that the real price of glory would not only be the lives of a few slaves and some of her men. The real price just might be the sacrifice of her very own soul. Suddenly the little girl’s last words, damning the Ontars to the nine hells, took on an entirely too real meaning.

  Chapter 22

  Bloodborn

  Lisella stood spellbound, staring at the last spot she saw the girl’s charred body. The dra devoured every bit of her. It even licked up the charcoal smear she left behind. The creature raised its head, its solid blue eyes fastening on her with hungry intensity. It took a step toward her and Lisella backed away a half step before she remembered there was no way the dra was going to be able to get out of its steel prison.

  Its wings folded in and muscular forelimbs extended out in one smooth snap. It shook its head as if trying to flick off something stuck to it. It leaned to one side precariously. The creature’s blue head lolled a bit and it uncharacteristically lost its balance. It slammed into the unmoving dais and rolled into the wall of chain. She rebounded to unstable feet, a sharp grating sound echoing across the chamber as its long lethal talons scratched on the smooth stone in a frantic effort to right itself. The desperate creature swooned in confused, almost drunken circles. As if it didn’t trust the ground, it flapped its wings and leapt into the air. The dra slammed into the chain ceiling and crashed back down onto the hard stone. Sounding too much like a baby bird calling its mother, it crooned at the sky on the other side of the bars and chain. Then with a thud, its head flung back against the stone and a rush of air fled its lungs.

  “Move! “ Irkhir barked.

  Although the beast would be unconscious for hours, men snapped steel chain mail socks over the long talons just in case, being very careful not to touch them. The book explained that the razor sharp claws were covered with a deadly substance. The ancients named it brim. One scratch from those talons meant sure death. Once the blue fire started there was no stopping it.

  Lisella watched the dra’s scale covered chest rise and fall in slow rhythmic purrs. The sound resonated throughout the huge chamber. Irkhir growled at how slow his men secured the dra. They grunted with renewed effort of draping and anchoring heavy chain blankets over the creature. When they were done every one of them was covered in a slick sheen of sweat.

  When they first captured the dra it was bright blue. The deep summer sky color was its natural healthy hue. According to the ritual requirements outlined in the Prophecies of the Code, the beast needed a steady diet of evergreen. Yet, when its nourishment was withheld, even for just a day, its’ beautiful hide would begin to fade. That morning she had dulled to just the right shade of pale blue.

  Now that the she had taken nourishment of a different sort the dra’s transformation was well underway. As they watched the sleeping beast with rapt attention the dra began to change. Before their very eyes every bit of its color returned and then some. Emanating from her hide, a pale cerulean glow lit the faces of the men around her. It wasn’t nearly as bright as the arches had become when Thaniel called her, but the eerie shade was identical.

  Irkhir caught Lisella’s eyes in his. He held a small hammer in one hand and a sharp thin spike in the other, ready to move at her command.

  “Now.”

  Irkhir didn’t hesitate. He set the spike against the beast's flank and gave it a quick rap with the hammer. Another soldier moved in and slipped a cup under the wound before he pulled the spike out. Lisella watched as the bright red blood ran from the wound, filling the cup quickly. In seconds the soldier stepped back, cup in hand, as another took his place.

  Lisella kept her face a mask of calm resolve. Once the last man filled his cup she nodded approvingly.

  So far everything had happened just as the book said it would. The Caller lit the door. The door opened, exposing a chamber so vast that it was hard to believe no one had found it in untold centuries. A boy in love kneels on the dais and calls the dra. Now, as gruesome as it was, the beast had done exactly what the book said… All of that to bring her to this moment.

  Not only was every word in that horrible book true, but it was her destiny. Whether she liked it or not she was the Ontar. She met the eyes of the men around her with the unwavering gaze they would expect from their Mistress, the woman who would yoke their strength to stamp out the injustice that had plagued the people of Arth since the last time her ancestors ruled the world.

  She regarded each of the thirty men that stood around the sleeping dra. Each of them held a cup
that would change the course of history.

  “The First of the Bloodborn.” One man at a time she proclaimed the title on each and every one of them until every man held the cup raised, ready to drink. “Irkhir, as leader of the First, will drink before all else.” She announced.

  Irkhir removed his wolf’s head helmet and passed it to a man behind him.

  “Bloodborn.” He echoed and traced two fingers across his forehead before he drained the cup in one long pull. He looked up at Lisella with red stained lips.

  Nothing happened.

  Lisella’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Had it all been a monstrous joke? Her mind raced through the details. The instructions were laid out in such a simple fashion that she couldn’t have gotten them wrong.

  His arms flung wide. The cup clanked to the stone floor. His back arched so far that Lisella thought the man might break in two on the spot. Irkhir screamed and fell to his knees. He writhed in pain. His body twitched spasmodically. Men everywhere took a step back.

  “Bloodborn!” His scream transformed into a roar.

  Lisella Ontar felt her eyes go wide.

  Already taut from years of wielding the heavy axes at his sides, Irkhir’s muscles flexed and bulged, then somehow began expanding. His back widened, shoulders ripping through his crimson weave. Armor straps creaked against his expanding bulk. One by one, the heavy leather ties ripped, letting his highly decorated shiny plates fall down. They hit the stone with a series of clangs. When it was done, Irkhir rose up at least a foot taller. His clothes were in tatters. Nothing more than strips of red cloth stretched over rippling waves of muscle.

  Irkhir picked up his two huge axes, both of which looked considerably smaller now. He thrust them into the air with a blood curdling roar. Most of the men raised their cups right then. Those that hesitated paid for it. Irkhir cut them down in a blur of whistling axe blades. They didn’t have a chance. Heads, arms, legs, torsos, all flew from the top of the tower and landed in dull wet thuds a hundred feet down.

  Lisella Ontar watched as one by one the remaining twenty-six all began their transformation into the Bloodborn. In the ancient tongue, when the Ontars ruled most of the known world, the name for the First was “lom-i-nef”, meaning literally blood-of-kings. Lisella had a hard time imagining any one house ruling for a thousand years. The book called it “The reign of peace”. Mankind forgot what it was to wage war. Many of the great cities of the world were built in that age, parts of which still stood today.

  Over time the dra disappeared. Races and tongues blended. The strength that ruled the world slowly faded into legend. Even their name became something else. They were reduced to bedtime stories of giant monster men called the bloody kings. Nef-i-lom.

  She would keep the name. The Nefilim were still spoken of in whispers. They were the monsters that came in the night to whisk children away from their beds. They were demons among men. Giants.

  “My First. My first Bloodborn.” Lisella intoned. She raised her hand and extended it, waiting patiently as one by one they all knelt forward and kissed both sides, their pledge of undying love for her on their lips.

  Lisella stiffened as the young soldier, whose eyes betrayed his hatred for her at having to feed the little girl to the dra, approached on one knee.

  “Forgive me, My Mistress.” He was draped in torn crimson weave. The blood had transformed him into a massive weapon of a man. He would serve...

  “My Mistress.” Came another.

  “My Mistress.”

  “My Mistress.” Eyes looked up at her, from beneath a long white scar that ran from one temple to the other. Keriim knelt, almost still meeting her eye to eye. She had sliced him only minutes before and now, after the blood, he was completely healed. The man smiled at her and rose, letting another take his place in the procession of murmurs and kisses.

  She gazed at the first twenty six. Every one of them stood over seven feet tall. Masses of lithe muscle. With such strength, there wasn’t an army in the world that could stand against her.

  Ontar would rule for a thousand years.

  Chapter 23

  Lingering

  Tristan knelt on one knee not ten feet away.

  Lisella Ontar, soon to be Regent of the Anwar Region, stood on trembling knees as her heart raced. She forced herself to breathe.

  By the grave look he wore as he passed through her two door sentries and entered her chamber Lisella knew whatever he was going to say wasn’t good.

  “Mistress.” Tristan intoned with all the respect her station demanded. His voice was strong, unwavering and deep, without the usual gruffness associated with a soldier in command. The sound of it wafted over her, caressing her soul with fingers of memories she had tried so hard to put away. Lisella let out a slow breath, furious at how it quavered with the hammering of her heart.

  “Captain.” Her tone left no doubt about her not being pleased to see him.

  His lips, cracked from the ever present wind on the wall, were set in a straight line, not betraying a hint of feeling. His silence spoke volumes. Lisella refused the urge to swallow at the dryness growing in her mouth. It had to be this way. Sacrifice was both the price and responsibility of nobility. He stood slowly, way too smoothly, and pulled out a piece of paper from the folds of his spotless crimson weave. His armor, polished to gleaming, carried little flickers of stretched candlelight as he moved close enough to hand it to her. When their fingers brushed as she took it from him, a jolt shot through her as if the man was charged with some magical power. Lisella snapped open the paper with a sharp flourish.

  “What is this? Who are these women?”

  “Victims.”

  Lisella Ontar looked up from the letter, alarmed.

  “Of what? Some accident or something?”

  “I wish.” Tristan’s eyes rose. He took her into his gaze, letting his eyes take hers in an embrace. “There is a murderer in Ontar.”

  “A what? Impossible.” Lisella studied Tristan’s face, taking in the tiny changes the years brought. He was still Tristan, the wiry youth she had known all those years ago. Yet, time had masterfully chipped away the boy and replaced him with a chiseled man. As he shifted on his feet, obviously uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say, Lisella didn’t miss that underneath the gleaming armor and impeccable crimson weave moved the hard muscle of a warrior...

  “One of my men found an old cinder woman stuffed in a closet right here in the hold. She’d been there a little while. She was missing a finger tip.” Lisella Ontar stood very still as a slow shiver worked its way up her spine.

  “A lot of people are missing fingers. What makes this one so special?”

  “Only that she was raped and beaten so bad we couldn’t recognize her.” Tristan took a step forward and tapped the name at the bottom of the list. “The only way we found out her name was when someone came to us complaining she hadn’t been seen.”

  “Jilted lover?”

  “We thought so at first but the finger… He ripped off a finger after he was done.”

  Lisella grimaced, eyes narrowing.

  “Exactly.” Tristan threw up a casual hand, waving it just like he did when they were young and needed to explain something to her. The familiar gesture pushed her further off balance. The memory of long talks, their backs on the balcony wall, as they shivered in the cold, warmed her soul. Damn him.

  “Anyway. We ruled out her man. Kind of hard to kill someone when you're three months in the dirt yourself.” Leather creaked as Tristan shifted on his feet.

  “What are you not telling me?”

  “When the men were asking around they dug up a rumor.” He shifted again, as if whatever he was going to tell her wasn’t spoken of in public. “The bodies of bizarre accidents have been turning up for years down in the village.” He paused to lock her eyes with his. “They’re all girls. All missing a fingertip.”

  “All of them?”

  “It turns out folks think there’s a rat down there
with a taste for girl’s finger tips.”

  “Maybe there is. The Creator knows there are plenty of rats in the village.”

  “Maybe, but it didn’t add up right. Too many coincidences... Before this last one all the others were found in alleys, at the bottom of stairs… All tragic accidents. They were all young, blonde, and every one of them from the village.” Tristan’s lips twisted. “This one was very different. This was no accident. Nobody gets themselves accidently stuffed in a closet. Also, she was old. The others were young. It happened in the hold, not the village. And if it was some kind of accident somebody tried to cover up, why the finger?”

  “No rat then.” She smirked.

  “Not even a bite mark.” He shook his head. “The finger was ripped off.”

  “So you’re telling me there is a madman in the village? Find him and kill him and be done with it.”

  “He’s mad but not stupid. He’s been finding a way to rape, torture, kill, and mutilate the bodies of women right in front of us for years.”

  Lisella’s heart throbbed in her chest as an icy droplet of perspiration ran down the base of her spine. The peculiar mix of revulsion at the subject and the pull of Tristan’s presence was more than unnerving. It had been years since the man had been here in her quarters. Far away on the wall, he was easy to look at. To dream about. Yet here he was. Here in the flesh, standing in resplendent gleaming armor. Right in front of her. Another drop trickled down the small of her back. Too close…

  “You have a theory?”

  “You know me too well, Mistress.” He smiled.

  The simple statement sent all kinds of emotions running like a river through her body.

  “He killed the others down in the village.” Tristan went on. If he noticed how uncomfortable she was, he was good enough not to say anything. “Making them look like accidents took some planning. Something must have happened to set him off.”