by Edwin McRae
Executioner
Reign of Blood
Edwin McRae
Executioner: Reign of Blood is Book II in the Chasms of Corruption duology.
Copyright © 2019 Edwin McRae. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is fictionalized or coincidental.
For any inquiries about this book, please email: [email protected]
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Editor: Rachel Rees
Cover art: Rusharil Hutangkabodee
Typography: Kim Dingwall
To Thoth, for being my fellow ape at this typewriter.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
About the Author
1
[Karina]
Karina drummed her long nails on the arm of her chair, just to get under the soldier’s tattooed skin. She was doing a passable job of masking her frustration, but the inquisitor noted the slight tightening of the muscles around the soldier’s eyes.
The inquisitor offered a final “thrum thrum” for good measure and then made a point of inspecting those same nails, turning them this way and that to see if there were flaws in the paintwork. Her assistant had done well this morning. The man must have stayed off the booze last night, as instructed. He’d be hanging by his hands for an entire day otherwise.
The soldier rocked back and forth on her feet and cleared her throat a little, as if that was going to nudge Karina towards making her point and letting the woman go. No, no, that would never do. Karina was in control here, not this platinum-haired ox with her muscles and tattoos. Karina eased her own plump form deeper into the chair. The brawny bitch needed to remember her place. She was a soldier and Karina was an inquisitor. And never the twain should meet, at least not eye to eye.
“So let me get this right,” ventured Karina, keeping her voice low so that the soldier had to strain to hear her. That was another trick of the power trade. Never demand attention. Make others work for what you have to say. “You’ve had a dozen casualties in as many days and you are no closer to breaching the temple grounds?”
The soldier’s frown deepened as she nodded.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Yes, Madam Inquisitor. Twelve casualties, twelve days. The creatures living in that temple, well, they’re territorial as fuck.”
Karina tapped her index nail against the table. “Language. You’re not speaking to your fellow grunts here.”
“Apologies, madam,” muttered the soldier without an ounce of sincerity.
“You’ve tried a concerted push?”
“Yes, madam. Day three accounted for half our losses.”
“I see.” Karina sighed her disappointment.
She knew it wasn’t the soldier’s fault. Karina had seen the beasts with her own two eyes. Strangely humanoid yet with more limbs than they had any natural right to possess. Tails equipped with potent stingers. Fangs, claws and heavy scales that offered ample protection from archers. A peculiar hybrid of primate and scorpion. She would very much like to capture a few for study and experimentation, but that would have to wait. First they needed to get into that temple. By all accounts the Altar of Khorlvah was in there and she intended to have it.
“In that case, time to put the demon to work. Bring him into the courtyard.”
The soldier’s frown deepened so much that she looked almost comical, like she had just taken a bite out of a lemon. “I’m not sure we can-”
“Is this because of the warlock?” Karina interrupted her, keeping her voice deceptively soft, like she was expressing some sort of sympathy for the other woman.
Karina watched as the soldier swallowed hard, her tension obvious in the muscles of her neck. “Yes, madam.”
“Are you afraid of our demon?”
The murderous flash in the soldier’s eyes was brief but telling. “No, madam.”
Karina eyed the woman for a long moment, summoning the soldier’s stats as she did so.
Sergeant Maribella of Credence
Class: Reiver Warrior - Level 6
Progress to Level 7 = 735/1000
Body: 18
Body +2 Class Modifier: 20
Mind: 11
Spirit: 11
HP: 120
EP: 66
Skills
Blade of Doom (Tier 4)
Horse Riding (Tier 4)
Authority (Tier 2)
Vigorous Healing (Tier 4)
Sword Storm (Tier 2)
Karina had personally believed every word of Captain Serik’s endeavors, the Helm of Supremacy and Garland’s pet warlock. It all made perfect sense based on what she knew of both the Barrens and the workings of the Garland druids. But one had to be thorough, just in case the subject forgot to mention something important. And yes, that lovely combination of high health points and Vigorous Healing had made Miss Maribella quite the delightful subject indeed. Karina fought the urge to lick her lips. She didn’t want to give the sergeant mixed messages.
“You should be afraid of him. Were it not for that collar of mine, he’d butcher us all like chickens in a pen.” She dismissed the sergeant with a flick of her fingers. “Make sure he’s well fed and watered before you bring him in. And give him a bath. He’s easier to deal with when he’s been pampered a little bit.”
The sergeant saluted, turned on her heels in one crisp motion and strode stiffly out of the room, her scarred left hand resting on the pommel of her sword. The reivers flanking the doorway both saluted, even though the woman wasn’t an officer. That bothered Karina, truth be told. As did the woman’s Authority Tier 2 skill. The sergeant commanded a good deal of respect from the soldiers. In the long run, she was a threat to Karina’s own authority. For now she was useful, being one of the few reivers to survive a sojourn into the Barrens. But once her usefulness came to an end, Karina had plans for the resilient Sergeant Maribella.
Karina dwelled on that enjoyably dark thought for a moment as she stood and stretched. She made a point of never standing while in close proximity to Maribella, nor anyone else of that height and stature. Being a head shorter and several heads wider, Karina carefully avoided any mistaken perceptions of power based on physicality. Meat was meat at the end of the day, plentiful and consumable. Mind and Spirit, they were the only attributes worth nurturing, and those she had in abundance.
She smoothed her black robes and gave her hair a quick once-over in the mirror, tidying away any loose strands. Then she practised her iciest glare a couple of times. The demon was likely to get mouthy and she would need to put
him back in his place. A cold stare and tweak of his collar should do the trick. Karina took one last look at herself and was pleased with what she saw. An inquisitor from head to foot. A figure to be feared, even by demons.
2
[Arix]
The pain clasped him around the throat and billowed over his body like a barber’s gown soaked in acid. Arix raised his hands in supplication.
“Fine, fine, you win!” he wheezed through the collar’s searing stranglehold. “I’ll delve your fucking dungeon!”
You have received the “Bloody Devotions” quest.
Secure the Altar of Korlvah for Inquisitor Karina. Clear the area of hostiles. Reiver soldiers must be able to remove the altar from the Bloodstone Temple without casualties.
And when I’m free of this collar, Karina, I’ll be showing you some right bloody devotions. The thought was a deep red splash across his mind, one that dripped slowly down the inside of his skull like the opening titles of a b-grade horror.
“There’s a good demon.”
The pain stopped as his gown of agony dissipated. The woman’s plump-lipped smile was as frosty as her pale blue eyes. Arix could feel those eyes boring into him, drilling, poking, daring him to meet them in defiance. He knew better. Instead, he looked at the sergeant as she dumped his gear at his feet and backed away.
“Anything real special you want me to fetch, Madam Inquisitor?” he asked. Arix was testing to see if she’d seen the quest notification too.
Karina smirked and tapped her smooth neck with a long fingernail. “We both know what I want. Clear that temple of nasty creatures and you may consider yourself in my good books.”
“You’ll let me go, yeah?”
The woman’s laughter was melodious, even pleasant. Karina sounded like she had a good singing voice. She was probably a soprano in the Virgins of Vigilance Junior Choir before growing up to become a professional sadist.
“No, my darling demon, but I promise not to kill you slowly just for the fun of it. Not tonight, at least.”
Arix focused on doing up buckles rather than dwelling on what Inquisitor Karina had put him through these past few days. She had managed to turn a simple respawn into a source of sweaty, gut-churning dread.
He secured his black leather armor, hooked his bolt case into his belt, and clipped his crossbow into place on his back. Arix then picked up his battle axe and gave it an experimental twirl. It didn’t matter that he was doing it under duress. It felt good to have a little adventuring to do.
He turned to Karina and snapped off a sharp salute. “If everything goes tits up in there, madam, would you be so kind as to have your minions grab my gear?” He gave the sergeant a lascivious wink. He knew it was a good one, that wink, because he’d practised it to perfection in his web cam. “You want me to stay all sturdy and potent for you, yeah?”
Pain pulsed through the collar, driving him to his knees. It lasted only a moment but it was far sharper than before.
“What the fuck you do that for?!”
“Don’t distract the help.”
With the few shreds of dignity he could muster, Arix got to his feet and turned towards the ancient ruin. It loomed over him, a mass of corrupted stone and time-worn reverence. He rested his axe on his shoulder and walked into the temple’s lengthening shadow. He didn’t look back or offer any parting witticisms. His captor clearly wasn’t in the mood for chitchat today, and if he was honest with himself, neither was he after several days of servitude and the kind of debasement that even his Tube Trolls would struggle to put into words. Not to mention that he’d searched his digital ass off to find this Reign of Blood Easter Egg, only to get clapped in irons the moment he stepped through the gate. Yeah, he was in the mood to seriously murder some shit.
The first candidate obliged by dropping from the roof with a hiss and roar. Its fang-filled maw was drenched in blood and it still clutched a tattered human leg in one claw. Arix had interrupted lunch. Judging by the boot on that severed leg, reiver was on the menu.
The creature crouched down on all fours and Arix watched with morbid fascination as a segmented tail rose up from the thing’s hindquarters. He waited and watched the patterns of muscle tensing and contorting at the edges of the tail’s armored plating. He identified the telltale twitch of impending attack and spun to the right. He held his axe close on the first revolution, then extended and braced it on the second. The wide blade crunched into the fleshy gap between two of the creature’s bone plates and he felt a brief resistance before the axe sliced clean through. Arix then used the remaining momentum for a third revolution, redirecting slightly so that the blade of his axe was buried in the side of the monster’s skull even before its dismembered tail hit the dirt.
You have killed a Level 3 Tomb Tyrant.
Your XP reward per party member = 15 XP
Your party currently has 2 members.
The thump of limp meat upon clay almost covered the light scuffling of approaching vengeance. Not for the first time since his arrival into Reign of Blood, Arix thanked his passive Fox Ears skill. Without looking, he knew there were three of them, all Tomb Tyrants, coming at him from different directions. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and listened, focusing on the increasing volume of each scuffle. Two were ahead of the third. It would probably escape the initial onslaught, but even a glancing blow would make it falter long enough for him to follow up with a killing blow.
He waited a fraction of a second longer and shouted, “Clean Slate!” The axe did the rest, sweeping in a perfect circle like the big hand of a clock, using his body as the dial. He opened his eyes to enjoy the ribbon of steel light that always followed his axehead whenever he cast this spell. He savored the explosion of blood and viscera as the blade disemboweled the first beast, took the reaching claw off the third and buried itself between the ribs of the second. The tomb tyrant’s bone-festooned hide offered as much protection as a piece of cold toast to Clean Slate.
Arix ignored the tortured screeches as the first monster tried to retrieve its entrails from the clay floor. He yanked his axe free of the second creature and raised it just in time to block the descending stinger of the third. Using the full power of his legs against the monster’s heavily-muscled tail, he shoved the stinger aside and reversed the axe into the creature’s snarling face, driving the punch-spike into one of its red-rimmed eyes. The tomb tyrant shivered as the spike skewered its brain and then it dropped to the ground like a fresh-born calf.
He put his boot against the dead beast’s skull and wiggled the spike free. It came away with a squelch and Arix was happy to use it one more time to silence the nerve-scratching howls that ‘Misery Guts’ was still producing.
You have killed three Level 3 Tomb Tyrants.
Your XP reward per party member = 45 XP
Arix wasn’t sure what fucked him off more. Was it the fact that Karina could use the collar to kill him where he stood, no matter where he was? That she controlled his resurrection point so that he always returned to her like a smack-addict to his dealer? Or was it that the collar made him permanently partied with her so that she was always leeching off half his XP?
He shoved those fuming thoughts aside and forced himself to survey his surroundings, keeping his breathing low and soft so that Fox Ears could do its thing. For the moment he was alone and standing in what looked to be the Bloodstone Temple’s entrance hall, a dull red vestibule where devotees once gathered before shuffling into the main chamber to worship. While relatively intact, the decorative statues were distorted in unnerving ways. A winged woman reached up out of a pit of raging fire. Human figures gathered around her. Their misshapen stone bodies reminded him of the melted chocolate santas he’d tried to save by putting them in the freezer. Their faces looked frighteningly like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. To him it didn’t look like the statues had been carved that way, rather that the stone had indeed melted a little before mysteriously resetting in its new and warped shape.
The devs w
anted this supposedly ancient city to look like it had suffered a cataclysm. It was all bollocks, of course. About as real as instant coffee. Arix eyed the winged goddess one more time. Well-made bollocks though. He’d give them that.
A gaping archway led into the gloom-drenched chamber of worship beyond. Arix wondered if there were more tomb tyrants in there, or perhaps something a bit meatier. He would dearly love to drive his axe down the middle of that inquisitor cow, chop her into halves like a butcher bisecting a carcass of beef. He touched his fingertips to the metal collar and winced as it sparked, sending a painful warning through his fingers and neck. Through the collar, Karina could pinpoint his whereabouts at any time. If he tried to run she’d simply strangle him to death and he’d resurrect back at the reiver camp. He’d pay just about anything for an anti-curse or nullify magic spell right now. He wasn’t holding out much hope, but perhaps he’d find something in this temple.
Arix crossed the chamber to the archway but stopped just before the threshold. Something wasn’t right. The inside of the arch was decorated with symbols, hieroglyphs almost, and the air within the entranceway had a peculiar weight to it. As an experiment, he returned to the scene of carnage behind him and picked up the severed tail. He crossed to the archway again and lobbed the tail into it. The air within the archway flashed once, like the beam of a flashlight passing over a dusty mirror. There was a sharp hiss as the tail blackened and exploded into dust.
