The Scorched Earth

by Drew Karpyshyn

  PRAISE FOR

  Children of Fire

  “This intricately layered adventure breathes realism and overshadowing menace into ancient mythic archetypes, exposing the pain and wonder inherent in magic and the mingled hope and cynicism of modern fantasy.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “From the first page of Children of Fire, Karpyshyn captures the reader’s attention with his excellent, intricate storyline.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A great new epic fantasy.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Children of Fire stands on its own as a thoroughly entertaining tale. The book strikes a perfect balance between character driven storytelling and rich world building.”

  —Roqoo Depot

  “[Karpyshyn] is truly a master of world building.… I would recommend [Children of Fire] to any fan of the genre.”

  —Among the Wreckage

  “Compulsively readable, wildly entertaining.”

  —A Girl, A Boy and A Blog

  “Children of Fire is engrossing, and full of characters that are modern.… I thoroughly enjoyed Children of Fire and look forward for the next two books.”

  —FANgirl Blog

  The Scorched Earth is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Del Rey eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Drew Karpyshyn

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-345-54936-5

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54989-1

  www.delreybooks.com

  Jacket design: Scott Biel

  Jacket art: Stephen Youll

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Prologue

  HE PEERS OUT from atop the battlements of his castle across the small, squat buildings of the city. The empty streets are cramped and twisted, lined with single-story hovels built from brown mud and gray stone. Dwarfed by the magnificent castle, they huddle against the high walls, stunted and misshapen. There are no other structures on the bleak horizon.

  After seven hundred years in exile the number of his followers has grown tenfold, but the city has not. The land of their banishment is a nether realm—an empty shell of a world. Resources, even simple stone to build with, are scarce. Most of his subjects now live in the subterranean caves and warrens that dot the landscape like pockmarked scars.

  There are no animal herds wandering the ashen plains, no flocks of birds in the sky. His followers subsist on a barely edible sludge concentrated around a few scattered underground pools of dank, stagnant water. Storms are frequent, the gray sky turning black in an instant to unleash a torrential downpour. But the rain is as foul and polluted as everything else in this forsaken land.

  None of his subjects remembers the glorious wonders of the world left behind. Unlike their God-King, the mortals are countless generations removed from those who originally followed him: descendants of descendants many times over. Stories passed down tell of rivers and oceans, of hills and fields and forests brimming with life. But to his followers these tales are little more than myth and legend; the beauty of what was lost has faded over centuries in exile.

  As has Daemron’s own power. Trapped for centuries in this nether realm of his own creation, the divine spark of Chaos that sustains him has slowly petered out. Now only a flicker of his past glory remains.

  Even an Immortal can die.

  But he is not dead yet. And once the Legacy falls and he reclaims the Talismans—if he reclaims them—he will be reborn. The power of the Old Gods still burns strong within the artifacts: he can feel them in the distant land he once ruled. First came the Crown, a beacon calling to him across the Flaming Sea, guiding the spell that sent Orath and his other Minions into the mortal world.

  The Ring has also been found. Only days ago he felt its fury unleashed, a storm of magic so terrible it summoned dark clouds and scathing rains that fell over Daemron’s kingdom.

  His subjects felt it, too. They know the time of their possible return draws near. And he knows some of them doubt whether their God-King will live long enough to see it.

  They might not be wrong. Eventually, he will run out of time, and there are many questions still unanswered. Why and how has the Ring awakened? Was it the actions of one of the Children of Fire? Have the seeds from the ritual so many years ago finally borne fruit? Or was it the work of Orath and his ilk?

  He has not heard from his Minions since he sent them into the mortal world. The ordeal of that ritual drained much of what was left of his power. Trying to reach across the Burning Sea to communicate with Orath again might be too much for him now. He must be patient. Bide his time. Conserve his strength.

  He slowly turns away from the battlement, his serpentine tail swishing softly as he extends his massive, batlike wings and rolls his shoulders, frustrated with what he has become.

  Once he was fearless. Champion of the Mortal World. Bold. Brave. Even reckless. He dared to challenge the Old Gods themselves … only to be cast into exile when he fled the final battle like a coward.

  But he survived, and they did not. Now he is the last of his kind, the only true Immortal left. His life is too precious to risk in a fool’s gambit.

  He walks slowly toward the heavy wooden door leading back into the depths of his castle, his cloven hooves scraping over the rough stone wall. He reaches out a clawed hand but pauses before opening the portal.

  Someone is lurking on the other side.

  He can sense the dim spark of Chaos that exists within all living things. Like the Talismans, it calls to him. Narrowing his focus, he concentrates on the space beyond the closed door. Three of his subjects but none he immediately recognizes.

  Trespassers. Assassins.

  As rage rises within him, he steps back from the door and lifts his hands to the sky. Tilting back his horned head, he whispers words of dark power. A second later he throws his arms down to unleash the spell and the door explodes inward.

  The force of the detonation sends a deadly shower of sharp wooden splinters into the stairwell beyond, rippin
g, slicing, and impaling the flesh of the assassin standing closest to the door, ending his life before he can even scream.

  The other two hesitate only a second before rushing forward, weapons drawn. They carry short blades marked with arcane runes: relics forged in the mortal world, passed down from generation to generation in exile. The magic daggers have enough power to wound or even kill him, but the same cannot be said of those who wield them.

  They are more canine than human: wolves with prehensile paws clutching their weapons. Brother and sister, united in their desire to slay the despot who rules them. Brave enough to strike against a God. Bold enough to die.

  Growling and snarling, they attack with reckless desperation: a savage blur of fur and fangs and enchanted daggers. But he is their God, and they are nothing before him.

  He meets their charge head-on. One clawed hand slaps aside the sister’s blade, the other wraps around her throat. The brother is impaled by the barbed tip of Daemron’s tail, lashing out to puncture his heart.

  The brother falls to the ground, blood pouring from the gaping wound in his chest. The sister struggles in his grasp, feebly stabbing at his arm with her dagger as he slowly tightens his grip.

  Ignoring the cuts and slashes to his arm, he carries her to the edge of the battlement, supporting her weight effortlessly in one hand. At the edge he flaps his wings several times, struggling with the extra burden of his would-be assassin. He only manages to rise a few feet into the air, but it is enough.

  With a flick of his wrist he casts the sister over the edge. Her scream sounds like a howl as she falls, until the sound cuts off with a distant, wet thud when she strikes the ground below.

  His arm is bleeding from several deep wounds, but none is serious enough to give him concern. Instead, he returns to the brother’s still-breathing corpse. He doesn’t speak but pauses to look into the dying eyes, and he sees sheer terror as the full understanding of what they have done dawns.

  The rebels dared to strike against him. They tried to kill a God and failed. Now it is not just their own lives that are forfeit. Their allies; their friends; their families—all will suffer for what has happened here.

  Satisfied the failed assassin realizes the terrible retribution that will fall upon all those he cares about, Daemron raises a heavy hoof and brings it crashing down on his skull.

  Chapter 1

  FERLHAME WAS IN ruins. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Danaan were dead; burned by fire, or crushed beneath the crumbling debris of the great wooden towers that had once lined the streets. But there was only one casualty that interested Orath.

  He’d entered Ferlhame alone, ordering Gort and Draco to wait in the forests outside the city. In the gloom of the night, Orath could pass for one of the Danaan—the men and women running through the streets were too shocked by the carnage to notice the batlike features beneath the shadow of his hooded cloak. The same could not be said for his companions.

  The dragon’s corpse had been obliterated by the power of the Ring, the beast blown into a thousand pieces. Gruesome chunks of gore-covered flesh were scattered among the corpses and debris, and everything within a hundred yards of where the dragon had fallen was covered in a warm black ichor.

  The remains of the Chaos Spawn still trembled with magic. He could feel it as he wandered the dark streets. It lingered, like the acrid clouds of smoke that choked the night air. Even dead and ripped apart, Orath could sense that the dragon had been magnificent.

  And what did that say about the mortal who had defeated it? Orath had assumed that once he and the other Minions located the Talismans they could simply take them by force. But the gruesome aftermath of Ferlhame forced him to reevaluate his plan.

  Their victory over the Pontiff and the others at the Monastery had given them a false sense of superiority. The Chaos had still flowed in their blood then; they had been strong. But in the weeks since that slaughter, Orath had felt his power fading.

  Here, on the other side of the Legacy, it was much harder to unleash Chaos. The barrier that kept his master trapped in exile also thwarted his efforts to draw on the magical fires from the Burning Sea. The longer he and the other Minions stayed here, the weaker they would become.

  After so many centuries cut off from the power of Chaos, is it any wonder the Pontiff and his followers were so weak and helpless?

  Yet not all among the mortals were weak and helpless, he reminded himself. A handful had been marked by Daemron’s spell: the Children of Fire. Touched by Chaos, they could unleash the true power of the Talismans … power enough to destroy a dragon. Or a Minion.

  Did Raven learn this lesson at the cost of her life? Is that why she hasn’t returned with the Crown? Have our numbers dwindled even further?

  Had his powers still been at their peak, he could have cast a spell to contact her, even across the entire distance of the mortal world. It might even still be possible. But Orath wasn’t willing to try. Every incantation, every spell that he unleashed whittled away some of his strength. He had to conserve his energy; he needed to hoard the lingering remnants of Chaos in his blood for as long as possible.

  Are the others aware of this? Have they sensed the slow, subtle ebbing of their power?

  If not, there was no need to warn them. Not yet. Not when he could still make use of them.

  In the wake of Raven’s disappearance, he’d sent the Crawling Twins after the Crown. Individually they couldn’t match her strength, but as a pair they were more than her equal. And what they lacked in intelligence, they made up for in savage instincts and unwavering loyalty.

  But what if Raven had been destroyed by the mortal bearing the Crown? If that was the case, would the Crawling Twins fare any better? More importantly, would he?

  He still might be strong enough to take the Ring by force. But strength alone wasn’t why Daemron had anointed him as the leader of those he sent into the mortal world. Orath was cautious and cunning. Even though he could sense the Ring’s presence moving steadily eastward, he had no intention of rushing off in pursuit and suffering a fate similar to that of the dragon.

  Turning down a side street, he spotted a man in uniform, barking out orders to half a dozen others as they ran about the carnage to and fro.

  These mortals have their uses, he thought, using the tiniest bit of Chaos to wrap himself in an aura of power and authority.

  “You, there!” he called out. “I must speak with your ruler!”

  “I beg you to reconsider, my Queen,” Andar pleaded, his voice a low whisper, as if he was afraid the one waiting in her private council chamber might somehow overhear them.

  “If you didn’t want me to meet with this Orath, then why did you tell me of his request?” Rianna demanded, not bothering to turn her head as she marched purposefully through the castle halls. “Why bring him into the castle?”

  “I was afraid to leave him wandering the streets unchecked,” the High Sorcerer admitted. “And you have a right to know what is happening in your kingdom,” he added as an afterthought.

  “I also have the right to decide what is best for my kingdom,” she countered. “We are in crisis. Our capital is devastated; our people are in mourning. We have need of allies. Powerful allies.”

  “Orath is an abomination,” Andar warned. “A creature twisted by Chaos.”

  “The Order would say the same thing about us,” the Queen reminded him.

  As they rounded the final corner on their journey, Rianna pulled up short. The heavy oaken door of the council chamber was closed. Along the walls on either side stood a half dozen of the Royal Guard, faces grim and weapons drawn.

  “Is Orath a guest or a prisoner?” she asked.

  “He is dangerous, my Queen,” Andar insisted. “Even with the Royal Guard in the room, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

  “Then the Royal Guard shall wait outside,” Rianna insisted, raising a hand to stifle Andar’s inevitable objection.

  “Open the door,” she ordered.

  Th
e guard nearest the door obeyed her command, hesitating just long enough to cast a brief glance at Andar before he did so.

  Have I already been brought so low? Rianna wondered, though she understood his reaction. She had failed to protect her people from the dragon and the Destroyer of Worlds. Thousands of her subjects lay dead in the streets, and her own son had become a traitor to his people.

  I was weak with Vaaler. I foresaw the danger in my dreams, but instead of ordering his execution, I chose to banish him. I acted like a mother instead of a Queen. I put my son’s life ahead of my people.

  It was a mistake she wouldn’t make again. Her heart was hard now, her resolve steeled.

  Even so, she balked when she saw what was waiting for her beyond the portal. Andar had warned her that Orath was neither Danaan nor human: he called himself a Minion. But that name had done nothing to prepare her for his unsettling appearance.

  He was tall and thin, his frame bordering on skeletal. His clothes were black, as was the long cape draped behind him—a stark contrast to his alabaster skin. His face was long and narrow, his head hairless. His features were vaguely batlike: his pointed ears were too small and pressed close against his skull. His nose was sunken, his nostrils two diagonal slits in the center of his face. His eyes were yellow, the pupils narrow and dark, and his lipless mouth was lined with too many sharp, pointed teeth.

  But even more disturbing than his malformed visage was the aura of magic she could feel emanating from him. Chaos enveloped him, surrounded him like a cocoon. The same power that had wrought destruction on her city.

  What good is the gift of prophecy if I lack the conviction to act on it?

  Taking a deep breath, Rianna entered the room. A second later, Andar followed. The Queen waved her hand without looking back, and behind her one of the guards closed the door, sealing the three of them in together.

  “I am Rianna Avareen, Queen of the Danaan,” the woman declared.

  Her voice was strong and confident, but Orath could sense her revulsion, just as he had sensed it in the High Sorcerer when he first presented himself. He could have cast a spell to hide his appearance, a simple illusion to make him appear to be one of the Danaan. But it would tax his power unnecessarily. And he wanted the mortals to know he was not one of them. He wanted them to understand he could offer them things no other could.