by Paul Yoder
Into The Press of War
Gripping his sword hilt, powering the blade to tear through the rest of the corpse’s torso, his sword burst through the rest of the body, entrails spilling out of the hollow half of the fallen enemy.
In a wide stance, curved sword threatening any who dared to come in at him, he held his longsword back and to the side, warding off another flanking formation, nostrils flaring, slanted pursed lips hissing air violently in and out.
A sharp pain dug into his arm, causing him to drop his longsword, two more arrows bouncing off harmlessly along his breastplate.
The soldiers who had been waiting just out of attacking distance piled in, rushing him, and this time, he had to retreat, the press of dozens of flailing weapons quickly threatening to overtake him.
Lords of the Deep Hells Trilogy, Book 1
Shadow of the Arisen
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Copyright © 2016 Paul Yoder
All rights reserved.
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ISBN 9798631048072
For Nikki, my wife,
Who has supported, loved, and stood by me in both my brightest days, and my darkest nights.
Paul Yoder
Lords of the Deep Hells Trilogy
Book I
Table of Contents
1 Starlit Dunes
2 The Debt
3 Introductions
4 Company For The Road Ahead
5 Death’s Cellar
6 Expanding The Senses
7 The Ancient Chambers
8 Reunion
9 The Soul in the Ring
10 Jadugarmok’s Finest Spirits
11 Lurkers Under the Sand
12 Into The Worm Hole
13 The Little Farmhouse
14 Deliberations of Sainthood
15 Eyes in the Dark
16 Face of the Enemy
17 Servant of Ash
18 Blessing of a Saint
19 Headquarters and Deployments
20 The Expansive Grounds
21 Undone In The Dark
22 The Old Man In The Painting
23 Fading Light
24 Knock at the Door
25 The Last Light of Day
26 Jaws at the Door
27 Into the Press of War
28 At a Dagger’s Distance
29 Hell’s Crucible
30 The Broken Band
31 A Renewed Purpose
32 The Desolate Rift
33 The Climb
34 Trust and Sacrifice
35 Night Coach
36 A Royal Audience
37 Rearm
38 The Trail Back
39 At the Gates
40 Acid in the Dark
41 Dark Reunion
42 Grim Rendezvous
43 At Death’s Door
44 Requiem Knell
45 Window of Rest
46 Plaudits and Egress
47 Lingering Darkness
48 Solidarity
49 The Open Road
From THE AUTHOR
1
Starlit Dunes
The metal rattle of gear against armor mixed with the entrancing sound of leather flapping from the violent wind droned on for what seemed to have been hours now. The lone traveler hunkered down in a dune depression in the middle of a vicious desert sandstorm with no shelter to protect him from the sting of the harsh pelting sands but a large, suede leather cloak he had wrapped around his body.
He was one no longer known by name, but by title, ever since he had left his homeland to the Far East. Since that time, others had just referred to the wanderer as “Nomad.”
Though his gear seemed adapted to be suited for life in the desert, it was culturally an oddity among the arid nation he currently was traveling in.
Kneeling there at the bottom of a dune to take as little abuse from the storm as possible, he retreated into his subconsciousness, leaving his outer senses, mentally melting away.
In his meditative state, space, time, cause, effect, energy, all became one, his meditation bringing him closer to eternity, slowly drowning out any outside stimuli, leaving his consciousness in an endless space of both repleteness and nothingness—an equal measure of light and darkness.
Slowly, just after reaching his portion of meditative eternity, he began to come back to the physical realm. Though it had seemed as though he had just entered his trance, what was day before his meditation, was now night, and though the sandstorm was dying down, a peek outside of his cloak that was wrapped around him like a small tent, revealed that the unrelenting desert winds were still patrolling the endless dunes.
Listening a moment, something instantly felt wrong. He put down his steel helm’s visor, sliding two notches on either side of the eye holes, two crimson-tinted glass lenses closing the gap. With his face protected, he unwrapped his cloak and stood up, his cloak now wildly flapping behind him.
It didn’t take him a great deal of concentration to single out what possibly could have pulled him out of his trance early—a sharp clang of steel on steel rung off over a distant dune, slicing through the din of the storm. He knew that sound so very well. It was the deathly beautiful interplay of weapons in the hands of combatants.
Sprinting in the direction of the clash, Nomad made his way up one dune and then another, stopping just at the crest of the second dune. Halting to listen again, he quickly determined that the fight was indeed over in the next valley.
By the sounds of it, the battle was a retreating one, and he guessed there to be only two combatants, the resounding steel sounding very similar each time and only sounding off once every few seconds.
Satisfied he wasn’t going to be facing an army upon revealing himself, he marched over the dune’s peak, exposing himself to an unconcerned duo, fighting through the harsh Tarigannie sandstorm.
The pair, though completely different in appearance, wore similarly heavy armor, both appearing as knights of differing factions. The oppressor, or advancing knight, wore full plate mail armor, tinted black, and the banners and robes that hung down out of the slits and joints of his armor were dyed a dark pitch, with the hems being a rich mahogany.
With the oppressor turned to its prey, Nomad could only see the oppressive knight’s back, but he could tell that he only wielded a large greatsword.
The prey seemed to handle herself confidently enough, but the fact that she was backing away from her opponent belied her conviction to the fight.
She was very beautiful—long, light-blonde hair parted to the side of a symmetric, clear-featured face. She seemed to be human, just as he was, though she was fair skinned, only lightly tanned, which was not a common skin tone in the harsh, sunbaked desert region of Tarigannie.
Her armor, in contrast to her opponent’s, was a polished steel. A white tabard stretched its way down her middle over her armor, clearly displaying
the mark of her faith, which Nomad recognized instantly as belonging to followers of Sareth—a rare, exclusive cult centered on the Goddess of virtue and justice. Though their ways were a mystery to nearly all, and their presence unknown to most, Nomad had seen their influence, even as far as his distant homelands.
“A saren knight,” Nomad whispered in wonder to see the recondite, elite holy warrior of Sareth standing before him.
The dark knight struck again, coming down hard with an overhanded strike, the saren bringing her large shield up just in time to deflect the blow off to the side, thrusting her long seax into the arm opening in her opponent’s armor, sinking deep.
Nomad, who had been advancing to assist the saren, halted, seeing the deathblow just dealt, then watched in awe as the dark knight gripped the entrenched, sizeable blade, broke the grip the saren had on the hilt, and casually tossed it off to the side, lifting up its greatsword, beginning to advance once more.
Nomad began to race towards the two, seeing now that the saren fought against someone, or something, more formidable than perhaps even an elite saren was capable of dealing with.
She blocked another blow from the dark knight with her shield, unlatching a flail from the back of her belt as she did so. The blow forced her to her knees though, and the dark knight took the high ground opportunity to lay into her with successive hard-hitting attacks, sword banging off of her upheld shield.
Allowing for one final slam of sword and shield, the saren flung her opponent’s sword hard left with her shield, causing the dark knight to pause momentarily to steady himself for the next attack, but that moment was all the saren needed.
Bringing her flail in a wide arc, throwing all the force she could into the blow, the spiked, chained balls slammed hard into the dark knight’s head.
The ferocity of the attack sent the knight’s helmet flying off. The slam spun the knight halfway around, stopping just in time to meet a charging cloaked man who waited to draw his sword until the last possible moment, thumb releasing the curved sword from its sheath.
Nomad’s sword came indiscernibly fast, slashing a crescent pattern across the dark knight’s armor, clanging off steel the majority of the blow until the blade found purchase in the elbow joint of the knight’s armor covering its arm.
A limb fell to the ground, the heavy gauntlet thudding into the sand. The attack had taken Nomad far past the knight, placing him next to the saren who was justifiably stunned at the new addition to this private battle of theirs.
The last few attacks had happened so quickly, that the battlefield stilled for a moment as all three combatants tried to catch up to what had just unfolded, and that’s when Nomad and the saren simultaneously noticed something very concerning about their foe.
Under the whipping mop of black, ratty hair was nothing but bone—a skull atop a barren spine. The creature they faced off against was no man or other common race, but was strung together and animated like a macabre marionette.
A grounding, though brief, glance at one another, Nomad and the saren established their immediate alliance against their now unified foe. Both came in at the dark knight fast—Nomad striking first.
Nomad’s curved sword went high, aiming for the knight’s unprotected head, but the knight bobbed just in time, the sword only lopping off a small slice of bone, dried skin, and hair.
The saren’s attack however came in at the knight’s blindside, pounding the knight back, this time off balancing it completely, toppling it to the ground.
“Allow me,” the saren commanded, for the first time revealing her voice, which, to Nomad, was so stern that it seemed to disagree with her fair, youthful appearance.
Nomad stood watching as the saren walked up to the downed foe, lifting her flail, ready to deal the deathblow.
Before the flail could fall, the knight shot his hand up, spoke in a profane tongue, and shot a green cloud of gas directly in the saren’s face.
The saren stumbled back, the gas causing immediate respiratory fits as she choked her way out of the lingering gas cloud. Nomad sprang into action, seeing the knight working on getting back up.
The knight crouched over when an unbelievably sharp, curved sword sliced once, separating the top half of the knight’s cranium, and then again after coming back around to decapitate the vile marionette.
The dark knight stayed down this time, and it appeared that with the decapitation of the skull went all ties to animation it once had.
The rush of thumping blood from the battle slowly handing back his senses to reason and awareness, Nomad began to notice violent coughing and wheezing behind him. Looking back, he could see that the saren was in a horrible state, grasping at her throat, fighting with everything she had for breath.
Kneeling by her side, Nomad could already tell the saren was not consciously aware of her surroundings. Her mind was wandering some distant corridors of pain.
He took out a tin container from one of his side pouches. Unclipping her tabard, he found a breastplate underneath. Undonning her armor, gently turning her over, he lifted up her undergarment to expose her back. He popped open the lid and dipped a finger in a gel-like substance, drawing a symbol in both areas over where the lungs were located. Concentrating for a few moments, he hummed in a trance-like tone, speaking in a language only his eastern kin would understand, caressing his middle finger over the now dried gel, igniting it in a faint green glow, heavy black fumes seeping from the flame.
Sitting there, his healing ritual complete, he swept the flames out in one motion and covered her back again with her undergarment.
“This is a sickness I cannot heal. Not completely at least.”
Sitting her up, holding her head steady, there was a visible difference between her state of body and mind before his treatment and after. Her coughing had now completely gone away, and her eyes no longer receded up into her skull.
“Saren, can you understand my words?” he asked, knowing his heavily foreign accent probably made understanding him that much more difficult.
Luckily, she slowly nodded, indicating that she could hear him.
Beginning to shake violently now, dark colors were seeping into her complexion even as they talked.
“We need to get you to the nearest town. What direction is that?”
“W—west,” she was able to chatter out.
By now, the sandstorm had died even more so than before, and it only took Nomad a momentary glance up to orientate himself and locate a westward heading.
“Good. Try to stay conscious. If the mind wanders aimlessly through poison too long, there may not be much of your mind left after a cure is administered. I’ll collect your weapons and we will be on our way,” Nomad said as he got up and started to search for the discarded seax, shield, and flail, finding them all without too much trouble.
He sheathed her blade for her and strapped her flail and shield to her back, then hefted her over his shoulder and began to trudge to the nearest hill traveling westward—the direction he hoped the nearest town was in.
2
The Debt
Nomad gave a clear knock on a private chamber door at an inn in the small desert town of Sansabar. He gently shifted the saren’s weight on his shoulders, waiting for someone to answer his beckons when, after a few moments, he finally heard footsteps on the old floorboards making their way to the door.
A lock latch slid and the door opened inward, revealing an utter mess of a room with all manner of scientific devices, papers and books, and specimen of all kinds locked and caged throughout the small chamber.
At the door was a short man, barely reaching past four foot, with nubby, pointed ears and a frazzled mop of light-green hair. Though Nomad hadn’t seen many folk of the little man’s race, he knew the man to be a praven—a curious, and often unwittingly mischievous sort of people.
“Yes, can I help you?” the praven asked in a rushed tone.
Nomad, a little taken aback, expectin
g to find a healer of some ilk, stammered out, “I was told someone in this inn might be able to cure my friend’s sickness, but perhaps I was misled. Sorry for interrupting your work.”
Before Nomad could turn to go, the little man held up a finger and asked, “Sickness? What kind of sickness?”
Nomad turned back and answered, “She was poisoned by a dark knight—who was without flesh.”
“Well now, that is interesting,” the praven said, pausing for a moment to contemplate on Nomad’s description of the knight, then added with a beckoning hand, “Come in, come in, please. You weren’t misled. I’ve been known to cure poisons from time to time. I’m quite an accomplished chemist, and toxins definitely fall under my area of expertise. Determining what a toxin is composed of is no simple task; and beyond that, finding out if, or how, to construct a cure for the inflicted host is no small feat, I can assure you that.”
Nomad had entered the praven’s room, standing in the middle of it with the saren draped over his back while listening to the high-pitched voice continue to speak with little to no pause between statements.
“Ah, yes. Where to put the subject,” the praven said, rapidly tapping his fingers on the table he was momentarily resting upon.
“Patient,” Nomad corrected, a bit of worry seeping in at the practitioner’s odd character.
“Yes, yes. Patient, subject, host—they’re all quite the same. A problem manifests itself to us in this fine body we have before us, and it’s up to us—well, me—to find a solution to that problem.
“Now, don’t bother me with trifles further. We’ve got a job to do after all. I’ll grab a table to lay out our subject—I mean patient—on.”
With that, the little praven zipped off down the hall, continuing the one-sided conversation, yelling from the next room over.
“My name is Jadugarmok by the way, but most here simply call me Jadu. I didn’t catch your name. By the look of your facial structure, accent, and skin tone, you don’t appear to be local. From the Far East, perhaps?”
