The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (17 page)

“That’s brilliant Grim.” Nyset clapped her hands, then pulled out a notebook and scribbled down something with a stub of charcoal. “Walter, remind me of your plans again.”

“First, we’ll visit Midgaard and see if Grim can get men from King Ezra to help us. Then we’ll head to Shipton, and then Breden on our way to the Great Retreat.”

On our way to fight the demon god who killed me once already. Seeing your enemy once thought dead, riding up to fight you again would be a fearsome sight. Life isn’t fair. There is no distinctive pattern to death’s scythe, it seemed. How many of this lot wouldn’t make it back? Everyone thought they were special, the one who would return in one piece. No one was special. It was something that everyone knew, but a precious few believed, embraced the reality of it. Most think when the great redeemer comes knocking, there will be a lesson in the end. Thought there had to be something more than just choking on your own blood. There isn’t. Just more blood and pain.

There will be no songs, no stories worth repeating in the great march of time. Death is a tired businessman, with more orders for his product than he can deliver. Death made no estimates, had no opinions on whose turn it was to go. There was no mind expanding bliss before you slip off into the great beyond. It sticks a knife in your neck while you try to take your morning piss.

Walter’s fingers traced the gnarled scars on his neck, pinching a rounded bunch between thumb and index finger.
Death was swift and wasted no time on formalities.

“Walt?” Nyset said, tugging on his cloak.

“Huh?”

She smiled up at him. “Thought I lost you there for a second.”

“Oh, no. Just thinking about the plan,” he said, smiling back.

“Please send word as soon as you can about my parents,” she squeezed his bicep. “And do be careful around Juzo’s surrogates. Keep a watch on them if you can.”

Grimbald let out a displeased grunt. “I know I’ll be keeping my distance from them.”

“Don’t trust Juzo?” Walter raised a brow at her and then at Grimbald.

“It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s his uh… new children I don’t trust.”

“Sums it up,” Grimbald added.

“Don’t worry. If they become a problem, I’ll just burn them out of existence.” Walter crossed his arms, peering over at Juzo’s group of shambling surrogates.
Burn them to bloody ashes, adding their souls to the Shadow god’s clutches.

“Walter, those were men just weeks ago. Tell me you’re joking.” Nyset frowned at him. “I forbid you from killing any of them without my authorization.”

“Your authorization? They’re not men anymore. They’re Death Spawn,” he said coldly. He exhaled, trying to soften the hardness in his voice. “Don’t worry. It’s not even going to come to that. Why are we having this conversation anyway?”

“You brought it up,” Nyset snapped.

“Really? I brought it up?” Walter growled.

Grimbald grunted, gave his donkey a few nudges and it trotted off towards Juzo, then stopped mid-way to bend over a particularly delectable weed.

“Well, I have a busy day ahead of me. I should be going. The others are meeting me for morning supper and today is the day I have to run my first apprentice training class.”

“By all means, Arch Wizard. Don’t let a commoner such as myself keep you from carrying on with your business of the most noble import.” He gestured towards the new Tower. Its sign reflected with a pink twinkling in the morning sun. The house was built with two stories, almost as big as some of the neighboring taverns. It was about the size of Walter’s thumbnail at this distance.

She huffed and turned to go. “Farewell,” she said, her face all regal impassiveness.

“Wait,” Walter said in his most cutting voice. “This is how you want to leave this? As I march for war?”
She has no idea what I’ve seen. She doesn’t know what I was forced to watch
.
Doesn’t know the tremendous pain I endure just to stay here, in this body.

She turned on him, one of her eyes twitching. “And you think fortifying the city, building an army, keeping the people from killing each other is a summer’s dream?”

“No. Of course not,” he stammered.
Try fighting demons, watching your mother raped by their claws.

“Maybe if you weren’t such a fire breathing Dragon’s ass—” she snarled.

“Fire what?” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Maybe if I hadn’t died—”
Isabelle would still be there, suffering as they waited for me.

“Maybe if you had stayed with me at the Tower!” she screamed, the bottoms of her eyes glistening with wet. “Instead of always trying to be the damn hero.” Nyset’s voice dropped.

Fire burned his chest, blood beat in his skull. His skin prickled as his pores opened with beads of sweat. “What? You’ve changed, Ny. This—” he rode up beside her and tugged on her silks. “This is changing you, making you into a regular bitch.”
There, I said it. No going back now.

“Yeah, and you’re nothing but honey candies and warm elixir.” She sniffed. “Goodbye, Walter. Maybe after the next time you die you’ll come back as a nicer person.” She narrowed her eyes and gave her gelding a hard kick, sending it trotting off into the fading gloom.

A cloud of dust twisted up behind her as he watched her ride, waiting for her to turn around and look at him one last time.
Look back, damn it.
She rode, swallowed in the ambers and pinks of the rising sun.

“Fuck.” He breathed. It would be all right. He didn’t need anyone, at least that’s what he told himself. He couldn’t think about her now, he had a duty to fulfill. Lives could be in danger if he spent more time worrying out his trifling issues. He growled and stuffed all his scorn for himself down deep inside his chest, some place he hoped it wouldn’t emerge again anytime soon. He had to stay focused. It wasn’t a useful emotion and all he needed now were useful things. He spurred his mare and reigned it in towards Juzo.

As he came upon Juzo’s group of ghastly white skinned men and women, he started to make out Juzo’s words. “Bite sideways, not up and down. If you go the long way along the neck, the blood will come out too quick to drink, and you’ll waste a lot of it on the ground.” His surrogates nodded, their ruby colored eyes all on him.

“What the fuck, Juzo,” Walter muttered.
Teaching them how to kill?

Walter drew closer and a wiry man sprang up from the ground, eyes wide and mouth gaping open. His lips were tinged with shades of red. Walter felt the Dragon, reminding himself it was still there, but didn’t open himself to its fury. Something in his gut told him that embracing the raging Dragon now would be like pulling out the pebble supporting a dam. He feared he would be unable to control it again, that it might try to burn him alive if he couldn’t release it all.

“Down,” Juzo commanded. The man dropped to the ground as if all of his muscles stopped working, collapsing like a sack. “Sorry about that Walt, still working on training them to be obedient. Did I tell you I really like your eyepatch? Where did you get it? I’d like to change mine—”

“Shit, Juzo.” Walter dismounted and grabbed him by his arm, dragging him away from his pale-faced friends. “Remain,” Juzo shouted over his shoulder at them, legs stumbling, his hair dangled over half of his face.

Walter dropped his voice to a whisper. “You
do
have control over them, don’t you?”

“What’s your problem? By the Phoenix, you’re almost as bad as your girlfriend.”

“Yes or no, Juzo?”

Juzo shrugged his arm out of Walter’s grip. “Well, it’s a work in progress, but on the whole, yes.”

Walter stared at him, feeling his eye trying to worm its way out his eye socket.
Nyset was right… this was a stupid idea. I should burn them all now while they’re together.
He relaxed his jaw, noticing that his teeth were aching from the pressure.

“Trust me, damn it. After all we’ve been through, you still can’t fucking trust me?” Juzo’s hands wound into fists, his ruby eye glowing with a hint of light. What was the source of that glow?

Walter turned, scanning the rabble of mercenaries for other things he might have to worry about. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Juzo. It’s just that if things went wrong.” He exhaled sharply.

Juzo rolled his eye, pulled his hair back and slipped it over his ears. “What’s that on the back of your neck?”

“Huh?”

“There’s a strange shape there, looks almost like an odd cow brand.”

How could he have forgotten? His fingers slowly reached for the mark that labeled him a sustenance for the demons. “Still there,” he breathed, fingers caressing the scar in the shape of a figure-eight.

“You know what it is then?” Juzo peered over his shoulder at his group of Blood Eaters, who were starting to disperse. They pulled in close together like they were trying to keep each other warm. “See? They’re very obedient,” he winked at Walter, but he didn’t notice it.

The scar burned and Walter cringed, his teeth grinding together.
You should not have been able to escape us. We will reclaim you,
a feminine voice like grinding millstones said in his head.

“No, you won’t,” he croaked, his breath exhaling as the burning subsided.

“Walt? What’s happening?” Juzo was in front of him, peering into his eye.

“I… I’m sorry I didn’t stop you from touching Blackout. Sorry about your eye. It was my fault it—” Walter wasn’t sure why he had felt so compelled to tell him that. It all just spilled out. It had to eventually, things could only stay bottled up for so long.

Juzo’s hands clasped his shoulders, squeezing them and shaking his head. “Walter, it’s not your fault. I wanted the blade. I wanted it to… to feel strong.”

“But if I had done something, you’d still have your eye. Terar wouldn’t have—”

“No!” Juzo cut in. “You tried to stop me. I remember it. I didn’t listen to you. You did all you could have.”

“But—”

“Look. If it makes you feel better, I forgive you, but there’s nothing to be forgiven. I’m just glad you’re back, in fact amazed by it.”

Walter pushed a long held breath through his nose. “Thank you, Juzo. It’s good to be here.”
In the land of the living.

I
t was
a futile hope that traveling discretely would be possible with hundreds of horses. They kicked up towers of dust so high they could be seen for miles all around. Walter had hoped their numbers would give any Death Spawn patrols a measure of fear. It didn’t. A pair of wandering Cerumal had screeched and attacked them mid-day, quickly slaughtered by a score of Scab’s men. They were stupid beasts, but what they had in abundance was courage and mindless rage.

Scab’s men, many of whom hadn’t yet seen Death Spawn, milled around their corpses for far too long. Some spat on them, others looked like they saw into the eyes of the reaper, fighting to prevent the contents of their guts from spilling out their mouths.

The sun was casting the last of its rays, creeping shadows taking their places in the crags of the volcano to the north. The squat shrubs had started yielding to pine saplings as bits of the forest fought to reclaim some part of the desolate land. The Wall could be seen in the distance to the west, like a streak of frosting reflecting the fading reds of the wounded sun. The Wall was the oldest relic still standing and still maintained over the years. It was constructed long before the first seal marking the Age of Dawn was created to bind Asebor in a Milvorian tomb. Midgaard was a white dot on the horizon behind it, just another day’s ride away.

Walter had expected traveling to go slow with so many men, but saw first-hand why it hadn’t. Scab didn’t like stragglers in his gang. An older fellow who wasn’t keeping up due to having to stop to piss too much was cut down by Scab’s own blade. Scab was a cruel bastard, no doubt, but efficient. Walter wanted to stop him, had the chance to, and found he couldn’t. He had watched Scab say something to the old man before his blade tore a scarlet smile through the man’s neck. The graybeard was dead weight and belonged in the ground. There was no room for the weak in this war. Water was a precious resource and couldn’t be wasted on those who should have stayed in the comfort of their homes. It was just another scar in the dozens of his ruined heart. Did one more make a difference? He reckoned not.

Blades hissed on whetstones by flickering fires. Laughing split the air and groaning mercenaries rolled casks of beer from carts. Music was bellowing out from another fire, songs poorly sung by drunk men about the men they’d killed and lied about killing. Dark figures settled in around fire pits after finishing putting up tents, drinking to nothing but being alive.

The clang of hammers rang out from the edge of the camp, showering sparks through the enveloping night. Walter caught the broad form of a smith, lifting a burning red horseshoe into the air for inspection. They had been working all night making repairs for neglected horses and pitted weapons. It had been a long time since Scab and his crew had seen any type of real resistance. The Death Spawn they encountered today drove home the reality of their enemy and Scab spurred the smiths to work. People often forgot about the hard work that goes into creating implements of death. Walter used to like watching the Breden smiths work, finding the whole process meditative. He’d always thought if farming didn’t work out, becoming a blacksmith would be a good alternative.

Walter threaded his way further away from the camp, between fires and shuffling men. The shriek of a whetstone ground at his ears, seeing it stropped on an axe glinting firelight. He’d never understood why most men preferred blades over lashes. The lash gave you distance, allowed you to kill without getting your hands bloody, not that he minded a little blood. A lot of blood was another matter entirely.

He needed to find some space to think, a place where the din of merry drinking would be at least somewhat muted. After that, he’d sleep, something he’d been craving since he woke. He hadn’t had much time to himself since he’d been back in this realm, excluding the weeks he spent sleeping. Somewhere around here, he saw a small cave—

A boot scraped on stone and he narrowed his eye over his shoulder. Two shadowy shapes stumbled through the dark, devilish faces gleaming in the light of a fire for a second. Somehow, deep in his gut, he knew they were staring into the dark for him. Those were the faces of predators on the hunt.

He walked a little faster, knowing what would come next. Someone was likely about to die and he really didn’t want this now. Was it too much to ask for a measure of peace?

“Shit! Where is he?”

“I don’t know. I don’t see him.”

“You said you saw him?”

“Fuck.”

Walter slipped into a natural alcove of knobby trees, hidden in shadow. Their footfalls stomped down the path, twigs snapping and leaves crunching under careless feet.

There was sucking and snorting. “Sh. I can smell him. He’s close.”

“Remember, Juzo said to cut sideways across the neck.”

Walter’s skin crawled as one of the voices produced a lantern, the torch light finding the glint of edged weapons. Walter pressed himself against a tree trunk, his throat tightening and exhaling with a drawn-out breath. His legs felt unsteady. It had felt like ages since he had to defend himself.

“Put that away, idiot!” one of the voices hissed. “You’re giving away our damn location.”

Cold earth penetrated through the soles of his boots. Pebbles nibbled at his heels and a root had curled around his ankle. A twig popped and the lantern was snuffed out.

A pale hand reached into the alcove, becoming a pale arm, followed by a white face. Walter stared at the face from the recess of the sliding shadows, black smears of dirt on one of his cheeks.

“See him?” a voice hissed from behind.

Earth and blood would look identical in lantern light. Who were these men before they met Juzo? Did they have ambitions, dreams, hopes, people they cared for? They might have had bedtime stories to tell children. Their tales of adventure would be cutoff, never to be told again. The unsung hero’s prize.

The lantern stabbed further into his refuge and Walter closed his eye, sucked in a hard breath, then opened it. He punched with his left, all tendrils of Stormcaller blindingly bright in the dim. The man’s eyes pulsed with a red glow as Stormcaller snapped around his neck.

“What is that?” a voice said frantically.

Walter gave a hard yank on his arm and the man’s head was gone. It thumped onto the ground, warm blood droplets spattered onto Walter’s cheeks as he collapsed, his lantern rolling over onto its side.

“Death comes for all,” Walter said, rising up from the alcove. Stormcaller’s lines of fire cast half his face in its glow.

There was a great hissing and a shape soared through the darkness. Walter side-stepped and something hammered into his gut, then his back, hard as stone. Stormcaller faded out as his concentration broke. Whatever this was, it had no fear.

“Do not resist me!” a voice snapped from above. “Don’t make this more difficult that it has to be.” He hadn’t realized he had fallen, hands clawing into dirt as he started to rise up. Thorns and nettles tugged at his hair.

“You should go now, before I give you the same smile your friend has.” Walter croaked. He saw the white flash of a blade in the lantern light. He twisted and it hissed into gravel, grabbed at the hand, slipped free and stabbing again. He caught the wrist with his and the man’s other arm grabbed his own wrist, driving the dagger down and down, ever closer to his face.

Walter stared at that gleaming tip, wondered for a second if it could even hurt him. The Dragon was there, begging to be unleashed. Walter wanted to fight, wanted to struggle, wanted the pain. A wicked grin spread across his lips as the man groaned and struggled, sinking all of his bodyweight into forcing that tip into his chest.

Walter released his grip on the man’s wrist, letting the dagger slam between his ribs up to the guard. A spike of pain seared across his chest as it entered his lungs. He drove his thumb into his attacker’s scarlet eye, pressing it in, forcing it back into his skull. Hot blood welled out around his thumb, trickled over his palm and down his arm.

The man shrieked, both hands latching onto Walter’s and trying to free it. He used his stump to wrap the man up in a lover’s embrace, gritted his teeth, and drew the blade from his chest. A beam of white light lanced the darkness as his wounds healed, Phoenix going to work to stitch his lungs together.

He fumbled the dagger in his wet hand and almost dropped it as the man squirmed against his chest. Finally having a good grip on the blade, he held the man tighter, felt his panicked breath on his neck. Walter brought his arm back, rammed it under his ribs from the back. The man squealed, teeth flashed and Walter jerked his neck back, barely avoiding his bite. “You tried to fucking bite me!” Walter screamed in his face.

The man abruptly stopped writhing against Walter. His face twisted as though Walter had delivered the most grievous of insults, rather than having stabbed him. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all,” he muttered.

Walter thought he imagined the words for a second. The world had truly gone mad. “Afraid I’ll have to agree with you.” Walter’s jaw clenched down tight. He drew the dagger out and hammered it again, again, and again around the soft flesh below his ribs. His fist thudded into his back with each strike, his indicator to pull and stab again. He ran him through at least ten times before he started sagging like a doll in Walter’s arms.

Walter let him slump from his shoulder to the ground, dragging his limp arm down Walter’s cloak and smearing his own blood on it. He forced his sore fingers to uncurl, sticky wetness grabbing at his palms. The blade fell and stood up at an angle beside a black puddle of blood.

Walter caught his reflection in the dark pool, a demon in the guttering lantern. Demons swirled in from all around the edges of the pool. Horns, claws, hundreds of eyes, and glinting jaws shone in the flickering light.
The brand on your neck marks you as sustenance for my pets,
the Shadow god’s voice echoed in his head. Something burned on the back of his neck as if someone had jabbed him with a hot poker. He cringed his neck back and slapped his hand over the brand. He raised his boot and stomped his heel into the puddle of blood, dispersing the demons, sending out a shower of spattering droplets. The burning slowly faded, but the brand remained, a raised scar in the shape of a figure-eight.

He let out a breath that he felt like he’d been holding for longer than should have been possible, air desperate and heaving like bellows in and out of his chest. He felt a chill at the night’s bitter cold settling in, wishing now he’d brought something warmer. He wrapped his cloak tight around his body, knelt down and snatched up the lantern. He took one more breath and got his legs moving a few steps back towards the camp. A trickle of blood ran down his hand and along the lantern’s sooted and cracked casing. He started walking and light spilled over the trees in waves as the lantern swung in his hand.

“Juzo… fuck. What am I going to do with you?” he whispered. His scanned the dark for other shapes, other killers on the prowl. “Not good, not good at all.”
So much for having control of them. I expected more from you, Juzo.

“What’s that?” A voice snapped in his ear, and Walter felt something stab at his back. It was icy and unexpected, not painful, but not enjoyable either. It took a second for him to understand what it was. As he did, all his desire for scolding Juzo drained away as if the tip of the dagger had already punctured through his kidney.

Walter didn’t much like getting stabbed, he realized at the second stabbing. The Phoenix would heal him he knew, but it did nothing to numb the pain. All it took to wash away the sand castle of pride was a knife trained on your back.

“Turn to the right, down yonder.” The point probed at his back, nudging him and drawing a bead of blood. Walter raised his arms, his hope for getting some sleep tonight fully abandoned. They were Blood Eaters. He should have known from fighting by Juzo’s side that a few knife wounds wouldn’t be enough to stop them.

The fires were only about a quarter mile away, light flitting about half-lit faces beyond the thicket, looking like ghastly masks. He thought he might have been able to hear the clatter of dice, followed by disappointed mutterings.

“And where are we going?” The real question was… where had the man planned to bury him.

“You’ll see,” he gruffed.

“Why don’t you tell me now? I don’t like surprises.” Walter sniffed.

“You’ll see
when
we get there.”

“Doesn’t feel good to get stabbed so many times, does it?”

“Close your maw and get moving.”

“Why are you doing this? Do you know who I am?”

The man snickered as though someone had just cracked a good joke. “We’ve been watching you for a long time. Watching and waiting, watching and waiting.”

They marched deeper into the forest, black trees towering over the mix of stars and black clouds, drowning out the fires beyond. There was hardly any light as the lantern sputtered on what little oil remained.

Walter could’ve summoned the Dragon at any time and turned this man into the brightest candle the world had ever seen. His curiosity was piqued and he really didn’t want to get stabbed again. If Walter was going to get out of this without getting cut, he’d have to wait for the opportune moment. The man could’ve already slit his throat ten times over. Why he hadn’t was what Walter wanted to know.

The path wound on, twisting down a gradual slope. He kept his eyes on the ground, picking out snaring roots and toe grabbing stones. He listened to the labored breathing of the man at his back, enjoying hearing him struggle. The path finally opened up to a cleared field. Across the darkened plot of barley, the trees fanned out again, swallowing the light.