by Philip Blood
Screaming in pure hatred, and shaking from the hate bottled up inside, Gandarel charged toward the two Togroths. He arrived with such speed and power, that his first cut with the sword took the first Tog's head off at the shoulder. The headless body staggered for a moment, shooting yellow blood over the walls, before falling twitching to the stone. Whirling through the fountain of blood, with hate induced berserk speed; Gandarel jammed his sword clean through the heart of the second Tog until the hilt struck its chest with force. Without pause, Gandarel ripped the sword free.
Screaming in hatred, Gandarel charged out into the dark. He sought pain and death for all, and quick as an adder, the Dreadbeast Betrayer followed. It kept enhancing the hatred of the berserk boy.
Katek stood panting in stunned silence for a moment, but he shook himself and started back toward Lor. He wanted to see if there was anything he could do, but after one look, he knew she was mortally wounded, her blood was pooling around her and she would soon be gone.
Aerin was falling, but he was at peace. His friend would escape this dark place and become a NexLord to fulfill his destiny. The pain of Death's grip was gone, and Aerin didn't know what had happened to the fell beast, but he didn't really care. He had seen it go past the ledge with him before it lost touch.
Aerin was just starting to wonder if there would ever be a bottom to this endless fall when his body struck the floor. It wasn't with the impact he had been expecting, and he slid across the floor more than ran into it. Momentarily dazed, Aerin looked around, and felt vertigo, he had seen this very scene once before in his life. Torches lit the area, illuminating the soldier and Tog bodies that were strewn across the stone floor. Fearing, but knowing what he would see, Aerin turned his tired head and saw Dono kneeling by a body. Katek was hurrying toward Dono.
Dono turned and there was anguish on his face.
"Get Mara, I need her help!” he called desperately.
Katek, his arm bloody, spoke, and his voice held pain, "Don't you remember... Death came for her and she's gone."
Aerin stumbled to his feet and ran to Dono's side, where he knelt down by Lor's body.
Dono looked up through tear filled eyes, "She needs help, Aerin!"
"I... I there is nothing I can do, she's dead," Aerin said, his voice echoing strangely in his head from the memory of the words and the repeating of them happening at the same instant. At that moment, Yearl came running into the Chamber and went quickly to the small group huddled around Lor.
"Where is Gandarel?” he asked Katek in a hurried voice. Yellow and red blood were mixed in stains on the Willowman's purple clothing.
Katek answered. "He came out of the wall and went berserk; he killed two Togs and ran off into the dark, with that councilman Enolive chasing him. I couldn't stop him."
"We MUST find him!" Yearl said desperately. He started to turn when he finally noticed the tableau of Dono and Aerin crouched over the smaller body of Lor.
Yearl knelt down and took a quick look at the situation. There was no chance to save Lor; the wound was too great to survive, but as he started to rise he saw an incredible sight, golden chain marks encircled Aerin's wrists.
Quickly Yearl knelt back down and grabbed Aerin's hands. He pulled them up before the dull eyes of the grieving boy. "Look, do you see these?"
"What?" Aerin asked dully.
Yearl released one hand and slapped Aerin, hard. "Pull yourself together, young NexLord, your friend needs you!"
Aerin's expression was brighter, but he still didn't understand Yearl's statement.
"You might be able to save Lor if you are willing to give her your life," Yearl stated.
That got through to Aerin. "Save her? Then if that is the price, take my life," he said, pulling a dagger and handing it hilt first to Yearl.
"Not that way, this could kill you both, or save her, I'm not sure. I've never heard of a bonding happening when a Bondsman is mortally wounded, but if you are willing, you might be able to save her."
"Anything," Aerin said desperately. "I don't care about the risk."
Yearl looked into his eye for a moment and then nodded. "You understand that you will be bonded forever, and you will put the keeping of your life into her hands."
"Yes, do it, hurry," Aerin said, looking at the pale face of Lor.
Yearl grabbed him, "You must do exactly as I say, and it is going to hurt, here," he said, pointing to Aerin's chest.
"Just tell me what to do."
Yearl turned to Lor, "It starts with her. She has to have enough strength left to begin the bond. Lor…" he said, leaning down near her face, "Aerin needs you, he is asking you to become his bondsman, for life… will you do it?"
Lor's eyes fluttered and she opened them slightly, "Aerin? You're alive!"
"That's more than I can really say for you," Aerin said through tear-filled eyes.
"Damn Togs, I wasn't so nimble this time," she noted.
Yearl broke in, "Hush, you must repeat the words written on the wall, Lor. And you have to mean them. They will bond you to Aerin, for life."
"Servant?" Lor said, a little of her old fire in that one word.
"No, friend," Yearl promised.
Lor sighed, "It won't matter either way, but if it is important."
"It is, say the words," Yearl requested.
"I don't remember ‘em," Lor complained, her eyes starting to close.
"LOR wake up, you must fight for this!" Aerin demanded and then added, "It’s just like a girl to give up."
Lor's eyes opened and she feebly tried to slap him with her right hand.
"You'll pay for that," she promised.
Yearl had Dono prop her up and face her toward the words written on the wall. Fresh blood poured slowly from the long cut in her chest."
"I share with you, my friendship;” she paused and licked her bloody lips, then continued, "my loyalty and all that I am without qualification." She paused again and her eyes closed, Aerin thought she was gone, but a moment later she opened them again, and she continued, but there was a hint of Lor's old fire as she read the next line, “I give you my life, and I would die for you." She gained strength and the last line was delivered strong and clear. "Will you accept my bond?"
Yearl showed Aerin how to hold her hands. They gripped wrists, right-to-right, and left-to-left in a cross pattern over Lor's propped up body. "Read the NexLord's verse," he prompted when they were set.
Aerin immediately read his part, “I offer in return my life into your hands. I swear to never betray your bond, on forfeit of my life. It is in your keeping from this moment forth. With this commitment, I share with you all that I am. I accept your bond and give you mine in return. These chain marks signify the sealing of our bond, where the weakest link measures the strength of our fellowship."
Two things happened: Aerin and Lor both felt a cold sensation on their wrists, and Aerin gasped in pain as blood erupted out of his chest.
"Aerin!" Lor cried out while trying to hold her friend up, she suddenly felt a lessening of pain and more strength.
Aerin felt as though a hot iron had been dragged across his chest, and he was suddenly weak, he collapsed next to Lor, though he was still holding onto Lor's wrists.
"What's wrong?" Dono demanded, horrified at the new blood.
Yearl nodded. "It's what I expected, Lor's wound is now less, but Aerin shares it with her, but fear not, they may both survive the wound now, and they will heal faster than normal. Now that your friend is out of danger I must go, Mara is in dire need and I have stayed too long. I will tell her what has transpired here, and we will find Gandarel."
To Dono and Katek he said, "Bind their wounds and get them out of this chamber, as soon as you can! Get into the maze and hide. If we don't find you soon make your way out; Aerin will know the way. Go to the capitol, and Mara will find you there. May the trees bless you with good health, my friends," he finished and was suddenly gone.
Gandarel was sticky with yellow Tog blood, and still
the hatred was unsatisfied. He was a demon that could not be stopped. The more he butchered, the more he hated, and the more powerful he became. He cut a bloody path through the halls, but no matter how fast he ran, the Dreadbeast Betrayer was with him. When they emerged into the night, at the entranceway to the caves, they found the vast majority of the Tog army, waiting outside to take all who tried to escape.
The hate filled boy stopped, and the creature he had known, as Enolive, stepped up behind him again and placed his bony hands on the boy's heaving shoulders.
"Do you hate them, young master?" Betrayer asked, enhancing Gandarel's hate through his hands.
"With all my soul, I want to kill them all!" Gandarel replied and his voice shook with lack of control, and spittle flew from his lips.
"Feel their fear as they die, take it and turn it back on them," the Dreadbeast counseled, and through their flow of hate, he slipped into Gandarel's mind and showed him how.
Three Togs spotted Gandarel and charged.
He leaped and his hate fueled body blurred to meet them. As they died, Gandarel's hatred bathed in the feeling of their fear and turned it outwards.
Ten more ran at him to attack, but they flinched away in fear when they neared. Gandarel laughed, it was easy, he channeled their new fear back and they were repelled as if a wall of fire stood between them and Gandarel, and then they fled.
The feeling of their fear increased his power and Gandarel's hatred reveled in it, he advanced with Betrayer at his back. The more Togroths that ran, the more fear he channeled. Soon the whole Togroth army was in rout as they fled the young human in abject terror. The mass of their terror fed his power like a torrential river, and the boy reached a new level of raw fear. It called a waiting power, attracting it and pulling it from afar. From the east, a pulsing shifting ball of energy came streaking toward him, drawn like a fly to sugar. It sped up and slammed into Gandarel's chest, and his mind expanded to heights and powers that he could hardly fathom.
He turned and the nearest fleeing Togs died and fell skidding to the ground. The fear of the others swelled and Gandarel's power waxed on. An accelerating circle of expanding death cut down the fleeing Togroths, who fell dead as the wave of building fear burst their hearts in their chests.
Enolive's body suddenly shifted in shape, and swelled into a large, yellow-scaled demon, with red eyes. "Behold!" Betrayer cried in rapture, "The Dreadmaster reborn! Never has there been a Dreadmaster in this world to match you!” the Dreadbeast's voice was gleeful. "The prophecies are met! A NexLord is the Dreadmaster and the world will fall under his power, forever!"
Gandarel was still killing the Togs, when the demon stepped up next to him, "Master, leave one Tog alive, we will do unto it worse things than death."
Gandarel complied and all but one of the army of fleeing Togs died in their tracks. He left the last one shaking on the ground. Abject terror kept it huddled in a fetal position.
"Make us a steed, master! Use the power within you to change the Tog into your vision!"
The boy's body, that stood there, was both Gandarel and the Dreadmaster. Thoughts from other men, who had held the power that was the Dreadmaster, warred in his mind. He was the evil Maugh, and then he was Logan, and then both. Dead men's thoughts, that made up pieces of the ancient power, warred with Gandarel’s personality for dominance, and neither one triumphed, yet a melding was achieved.
Out of that mixed bag of insanity, Gandarel pulled the image of a Dragon and held that form in his mind. He combined the power of fear from the eight hundred Tog deaths he had just absorbed with a large portion of the power that had come to him from the east and pushed it into the body of the Tog on the ground. Gandarel willed it, and the power flowed through him and into the cowering body. Dead Togroth bodies lying near the quivering living Tog were pulled, like metal to a magnet. Wings sprouted and the Tog's body swelled. The dead bodies melded into the living Tog, as their mass swelled and changed him into something new. He swiftly grew larger. The Togs arms changed to legs, its hands to claws. More bodies dragged across the ground and pooled themselves into the growing beast. Its skin turned to scales and became bright green. A long sinuous neck sprouted and then a dragon’s maw formed with long curved teeth. When Gandarel was through molding his creation, a green dragon, with a forty-foot wingspan, stood before the Dreadmaster reborn and the Dreadbeast Betrayer. The dragon waited for its master's commands.
Betrayer went and climbed onto its wide scaled back, and Gandarel joined him on the new dreadbeast. At a command from Gandarel, the dragon lifted from the valley floor and winged off into the east, carrying the Dreadmaster Gandarel and his new teacher toward the wastelands.
Chapter Seventeen
"It was terrible. We stood before the Dreadmaster's fortress in the wastelands of the east, and the hoard came forth by wing and foot. They bore down upon us, like a landslide toward a child, and I did nothing."
- From the Prophecies of Doom
Lying in the Chamber of Stone with a deep cut in his chest, Aerin could do little but wait as Katek bound his wound with cloth torn from a dead man's shirt. Aerin turned his head and gazed at the dead Guardsmen, Bluecoat soldiers and Togroths lying on the floor. Red and yellow blood mixed in pools of swirling color, marking another place where hatred and fear had feasted.
Aerin felt helpless; any second the Togs could come out of the dark and make short work of his friends. Where was Mara? He remembered the vision that had come to him back in Strakhelm of Lor dying and of Mara being dead. He raised one of his arms before his eyes and saw the two intricately detailed golden chains that went around his entire wrist. The first was larger than the second, and both were almost three dimensional to his eyes. Without warning, as it had that night at the east wall, Aerin's world suddenly shifted into a strange vision.
He saw his wrist before him, but instead of two chain marks, now there were five. The fourth mark was identically shaped to the others, but where the others were brilliant gold, this one was solid black. His gaze came up and he found himself in a strange place. His vision was again that strange in and out of focus view he had experienced once before. Desolation lay around him, black rocks and beige sand dunes, that had numerous bleached white bones laying about or sticking out like arrows from a corpse. A massive fortress rose up from the dunes and black columns of smoke billowed upwards from huge fires burning on each of the multiple corners. The walls sloped inwards slightly from the base, and within them was a structure that soared to even greater heights.
Deep, booming drums beat a slow tempo, that was felt as much as heard.
Aerin looked right and saw a magnificent female warrior. She was young, with raven hair and various pieces of armor strapped to her sinuous body. Weapons bristled everywhere around her, and when she turned the fires on the walls reflected in the bloodthirsty grin she gave him. He didn't know her.
Her words chilled him to the bone, for she was almost gleeful in their delivery, "It's time to die!"
Suddenly the drums stopped and a hoard of Togs poured out of the open gates, like a burst damn; large creatures took wing from the battlements. It was a sight that would have made the heartiest veteran of battle quell in fear, but the warrior girl just laughed.
Time returned to normal and Aerin found his gaze on the twin chains of gold around his wrist. He knew he had seen another glimpse of the future, and it terrified him. He wondered what terrible events could bring the young son of a scholar before the battlements of the Dreadmaster, and he wondered about the black chain mark he had seen on his wrist.
Against all of Mara's prophecies, he was a NexLord. It was all so confusing to his tired mind. What was he supposed to do? NexLords were the great leaders of battle, the heroes of legend, not young boys picked by mistake. What were the powers of the Nexus? Now that he had bonded to Lor, what did that mean? He knew the answers to these questions must be discovered if he was to survive.
His last thought, before drifting off into a fitful slumber, was
that if he was going to keep having these visions, he better start writing them down; visions of death, visions of battle and visions of black chains.
"The story of the NexLord Aerin and his bondsmen will continue in the second volume, NexLord: Black Chains."
* * * * *
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Without Wax,
Philip Blood
