The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (22 page)

The image of the well-groomed barber shifted, transmuted into a figure with a metallic head and lightly armored body. There was a bleeding hole in the side of the perfectly smooth sphere of a head, bits of cracked metal around it. This Death Spawn had a small form, like a child hardly in their teen years. “A meta, meta-something.” Grimbald scratched his stubble.

“Metamorphose—a shape shifter. They can take on the image of anyone with enough time.” Walter walked around the pair of bloodied chairs, stopping beside Grimbald. He gave it a quick look, then watched Ezra and Lajoy.

Lajoy followed Grimbald’s meaty finger and swallowed. This wasn’t the first time he’d failed in protecting the king from one of these beasts.

“Nicely done, Walt.” Grimbald grinned at him.

“Thanks, it was… nothing.” Walter said absentmindedly, watching the standoff between the king and his warmaster.

Grim peered down at the body. “Can’t believe that man was this little creature.”

He felt Larissa’s eyes on him. He flicked his eyes to hers, meeting them for a breath. In that moment, thousands of words were spoken. She came up behind her father’s back, placing a blood-spattered hand on his shoulder. He angrily shrugged it off.

“Stop, Larissa,” Ezra shot over his shoulder. His head snapped back to Lajoy. “Why are you still here, you effectual shit? I told you to leave. Now. You know my rules. One mistake is forgiven, but not two, not like this.” His eyes quivered.

Lajoy took a whistling breath and took a big step back, eyes locked onto the king’s. His hand was a blur of shadow as he drew the dagger from its scabbard. The edge stopped at his neck. “It’s been a great honor to serve, my liege.”

Grimbald gasped. Larissa cringed away from the pair of them.

“Wait! No!” Ezra reached for him with a gnarled hand.

He wouldn’t. Not here. Not like this.

The blade carved through his neck from ear to ear, flesh yawning and squelching open. His head flopped back and snakes of blood pulsed out from his carotid arteries. His helmet clanged onto the tiles, freeing his coils of yellow hair. Screams filled the air, a mad echo in a room with such high ceilings. Lajoy’s body crumpled to the floor like his powerful limbs had become straw.

Larissa turned with a hand over her mouth, eyes filling with tears. “No!” she yelled. She ran through an archway, leaving a trail of scarlet footprints behind. Thurber followed, adding his own set of bloody smears on the ornate tiles and priceless gems.

A tragedy. Walter wondered who would be tasked with cleaning up this grisly mess. Most people never gave a thought to the peasants they were shitting on with their selfish acts. You’d think with death lurking all over the realm, people would be better, nicer even. Maybe they would unify, fight together and put their own personal issues aside, but nothing ever changes. Asebor didn’t need the Death Spawn to slaughter men; they’d do it just fine themselves.

“No, Lajoy! Why? You bastard! Why?” The king beat his little fists into the thickening blood on Lajoy’s chest. Walter wasn’t sure if Ezra was more upset about the mess he’d made or his suicide.

“Probably time for us to go, then” Walter said to Grimbald. His voice felt dead. He could have healed Lajoy instead of watching the last of his blood leak out. Maybe even could have saved him if he acted now. It would be a great drain on his stamina and he had a feeling it would be needed soon.

He didn’t care much for Lajoy. Didn’t care much for the way his eyes had stripped Nyset bare. Didn’t care for how he’d treated him on the day they first met the king, like he was shit to be scraped off his boots. It was important to be nice to people. You never knew who would tip the scale that determined whether you lived or died. He was sure the Shadow Realm would welcome him with open arms. He felt the beginnings of a mad grin touch his mouth.

“Yeah.” Grimbald looked at him with sober eyes. “You alright, Walt?”

“Mm.” He nodded, turned away and started walking.

They had made it halfway towards the main corridor when Ezra called out. “Wait.”

They turned and shared foreboding glances.

The king was slumped and swallowed in his enormous chair, uncaring of the gore covering it and the loyal man still bleeding a step beside it. He stared at them for an uncomfortable minute. “Thank you for saving me again.” He gave a weak wave and closed his eyes.

“Will you help us then?” Walter asked. It couldn’t hurt to try again.

“Be gone from my sight.”

They turned and left the king alone, stewing in a fraction of the blood to come.

A
t the bottom
of the horizon was a forest, a dark band of stabbing spears. Above the forest was a sliver of orange light, like someone had smeared honey across the world. Above the orange were gradients of blue going from light to dark in the cloudless sky. A few plumes of smoke rose up from the embers of dying hearths, dancing between the trees. All was quiet in Shipton, except for the piercing crowing of a few roosters.

Charles Landon stirred in his bed. “Damn those roosters,” he groaned. For a minute, while he lay there blinking, he felt good. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and the throbbing pain in his back and his elbows returned with a vengeance, a constant reminder of the fragility of life.

He rubbed his elbows, then his back and rose from his bed. The bedroom was bathed in a gloomy blue, hardly enough light to see by. There were a few charcoal sketches hanging on the wall, drawn by his late wife. There was a polished axe by his bedside table, only used once for dark work. It always gave him a little comfort, made him feel less alone at seeing it.

He snatched a robe from a hook and worked it on. It was tattered on the elbows and fraying at the bottom. He cinched it around his protruding gut and shrugged it over his broad shoulders. He scratched his bald head. When had all his hair left him? “Long ago.” He chuckled to himself. Every day was a new day, one not to be taken for granted.

He peered at the empty bed where Grimbald used to sleep, still made and always waiting for the day he’d return. The bed had been lengthened and widened twice as the boy grew. The legs were doubly reinforced to support his weight. The Falcon would give him leave eventually, wouldn’t they? He missed the help, and truth be told, missed just having him around. It got tiresome waking up by yourself every day.

Grim was a grown man now, no longer a lad swinging a wooden axe. He was out there conquering the world, fighting alongside with the Midgaard Falcon. “Ah yep, that’s my boy,” he laughed. He was glad for him, glad he chased his dreams. Charles had resigned himself to running the tavern long ago and that was all right with him. He got to talk to a lot of people and he liked that.

He made his way down the creaking stairs of the Hissing Gooseberry, the best damned tavern on the west coast if you asked him. The business was good, even with all the ill news coming in of the Tower from the east. At first, he hadn’t believed it, but after hearing the same tale so many times, it’d be only a foolish thing to go on denying it.

He walked over to the hearth and set a log into the sputtering embers, something to cut the morning chill for the customers. He rounded up stray mugs from tables, setting them on the bar to be washed. People always thought running a tavern was easy work. He’d tell them they should open one, then they’d grow quiet and stare into their mugs. He would open for morning supper in a couple hours and had to get the place ready.

He grabbed a cedar bucket in one hand. He lifted the iron bar set across the door, setting it into a notch to keep it from locking while customers were in. He never used to lock the door, but it seemed the prudent thing to do now. He pushed through the front door. He breathed deeply on the cool morning air and started towards the well in the center of the village. “Another beautiful morning,” he said, grinning at the prospect of a profitable day. It was mostly quiet, the kind he liked best. The damned roosters didn’t count though.

He trundled along the dirt path and reached the well a minute later. He placed his hand on the splintered crank when the distinctive shattering of glass reached his ears. In the tavern, he’d be groaning at the sound of marks fading away and patrons sheepishly smiling. This was something different.

He felt goosebumps waving up his arms and the pressing urge to turn and run. That would be silly though. He couldn’t run like a child at an unusual sound. He was a man, a father. But why wouldn’t the feeling pass? He licked his lips, throat dry as cotton.

He peered around the houses and shops across the square, a motley assortment, each designed by an architect with an entirely different style. Propped open windows were shadowy eyes and mouths, gaping open with surprise. Some of the buildings were narrow and tall, others squat and wide like they’d been flattened to resemble a flour cake. Not a single candle burned in a window. He narrowed his brows, peering into bedrooms, searching for the glow of a morning lantern. All was dark and still, bathed in a dark blue before the sun washed away the remains of the night.

The cold rarely touched him, and it didn’t now, yet his skin was still tight, the hair on his arms standing upright. He swallowed and softly set his bucket down. He jerked up at a scream getting cut off before it started. His heavy brows dropped down further, partly obscuring his eyes. It came from a house across the square, where exactly he couldn’t say.

His gut prickled with the sense of danger he knew never to ignore. He turned, shuffling back towards the tavern and abandoning the bucket. The shriek of a woman rang out, then ended just as quickly as the first. Sweat bloomed in the middle of his back. He spared a glance over his shoulder and gasped at what he saw.

There was a figure swallowed in shadow staring at him, one eye red as fire. A dark liquid painted the bottom half of its face. His heart dropped into his guts, eyes bulging out. He let out a surprised moan. “The demons.” He found his voice, for the sake of the others he would. “They’re here! Demons!” Charles shouted into the night.

He ran, more like a hurried shuffling, almost at the Hissing Gooseberry’s door. He felt a burning sensation between his legs. His thighs and fruits viciously rubbed together, scouring off the first layer of skin. He’d let his damned gut get too big over the years. He knew his bodily negligence would catch up to him eventually, but not like this. A rooster let out a babbling crow and pounding steps came from behind, too close, too fast.

He leaped up the two steps before the door, snatched the wooden handle, flung the door open just enough to slip inside. He shouldered it closed and dropped the heavy iron bar across it with a bang. He pressed his back against the door, heart beating against his ribs. A rooster let out a crow that echoed between houses. There was another scream from far off, becoming a muffled gurgle.

“Bloody Dragons. What’s happening?” He panted. Charles wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow on the back of his hand. “Am I imagining things? This can’t be happening. Maybe I’m just dreaming?”

The boards on the landing outside the door creaked. This was no dream. What to do? If he moved, it would know where he was. If he moved, he could get to Lovebleeder, his axe. Maybe he could—

An explosion of shattering wood pierced his ears. He screamed. Tinkling nails and wood splinters shot across the tavern floor. His screaming was quickly turned into a gagging fight for air. Something was tight around his neck. He reached up to find a powerful arm there trying to choke the life out of him.

Charles was considered one of the strongest men in the village, but even with all his strength, he couldn’t move the arm. It was small and wiry. The dark boards of the tavern floor swam in and out of focus. He grunted and jerked, clawed at the arm to no avail. Grimbald. He had to live to see him again.

He spread his mouth as wide as he could, showing all his teeth, and savagely bit into the arm. He ground his teeth into the flesh, trying to rip out as much as he could. The arm loosened its grip, now trying to free itself from his gnashing. He was filled with an animalistic rage and used his meaty hands to pin the little arm. The owner of the arm would pay dearly, this he knew. Pulsing blood filled his mouth, slick over his knuckles and between his fingers. He felt the flesh under his teeth give and he jerked his head to the side, tearing a chunk of muscle and skin free. The flesh peeled away in tattered strips of flesh and cloth. He spat it onto the floor, hitting the wood with a squelch. He released the arm and it wriggled into the hole it had punched through.

He stomped up the stairs, the wood shrieking in protest. He grasped the handrail to drag himself up. His hand tore free, slick with blood. He lashed out with his arm, snaking it between balusters and catching himself before tumbling backwards. “Fuck!” he breathed.

The demon hit the door, rattling the hinges. With each step he took, the demon struck the door. He heard wood cracking, buckling under its tremendous power. It was a heavy door and no man should’ve been able to get through it, not even Grim. The door roared with a final blow, the hinges screeching as they were ripped from the wall.

He reached at the top of the stairs and sucked in a ragged breath. His eyes found Lovebleeder’s curved edge glinting in an amber ray of light.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be old man,” the demon hissed from the bottom of the stairs. His hands were on either side of the rails, its wicked eye glowing, white hair dangling over half his face. Blood pattered onto a stair tread from his wounded arm.

“Leave this place! Now! You’ll be sorry if you don’t, you demon-scum, you bastard.” The words felt weak from his throat, but he wanted them to come out strong. It gave him a chance to be still, to catch his heaving breath.

The demon growled and bounded up the stairs three at a time.

His breath caught and he dashed for Lovebleeder. He reached forward, fingers closing to fit the shape of its haft. He could almost feel it in his palms before he got there, its smooth grain and familiar weight. Almost. A hand caught his wrist, ripped his arm back and spun him face first into the ground.

Charles yelped when he landed, heard something pop in his nose. White pain filled his face and he felt blood pool around his cheeks. He moaned and started to rise. The vice around his wrist jerked him to his feet with unnatural strength, shoulder popping and tearing free from the socket. He screamed in pain, his arm limp as a doll’s in the demon’s alabaster hand. “Wha… what do you want?”

The demon paused at the question, cheeks sucking in. “You know, you’re the first person to ask me that,” he said casually as if having a fireside chat.

Charles’s vision swam. The demon became a ghost, eye glimmering with fire. He became a man again, lips drawn into a bloody sneer.

Charles punched at his gut with his other hand, but the demon blocked it while simultaneously counter-punching. His breath was expelled from his lungs and bile crested in his throat. His legs drained of life and the demon let his arm go, collapsing onto the floor. His legs sprawled out and a muscle twanged in his knee.

The demon started pacing around him, boots scraping on the wood. “That is a nice axe,” he muttered. “A shame you didn’t get to use it.” He picked it up, hefted it in his hands. He raised it overhead and hurled it through a window overlooking the square. Glass shattered and the axe clattered onto stones below. Screams carried in from the square from houses all around. How many others like him were there?

“All my life, I’ve been nothing but the son of a fisherman,” the demon started. Charles flopped onto his side, staring. “I was a given a gift—a curse, maybe. But I have the opportunity to be something more than a fucking cattle farmer or fisherman. Something that matters, been given the chance to matter, to etch my name on the sands of time.”

Charles swallowed, blood spurting out his nose and into the cracks between the boards. Maybe this thing could be reasoned with. “It matters,” he croaked.

“What matters?” The demon squatted beside him, looking him up and down like a piece of butchered meat.

He coughed on the blood collecting at the back of his throat. “Working. Find work you like, it’ll never feel bad. Work hard. Love your family, friends, lovers… that’s all that matters in this life.”

“Love?” The demon scoffed and rose up. “Love is just a fleeting moment in time. It disappears without any notice.” The demon drew a blade from behind his shoulder, its red eye reflected on the flat. “An impolite bastard. It doesn’t ask before leaving. And when it leaves, it never returns.”

“A sad way to live.” Charles coughed and closed his eyes. He thought of Grimbald, teaching him how to use the axe when he was a wee lad. Showing him the proper way to clean a mug, cut wood, and tend to the chickens. Thought of his wife, sitting at her desk, charcoal on her hands and cheeks. There was a stack of sketches next to her of the forest. She loved the trees and their fractal beauty.

The demon sighed and raised his blade. “You seem like a good person. I’ll spare you the suffering I endure.”

As he remembered those he loved, he felt the sword bite into his neck for an instant, heard it thump into the wood. The world faded away. Grimbald’s father’s heart beat its last beat.

J
uzo exhaled
and watched the chubby-cheeked man’s head roll up against the wall. He almost looked happy. Would he be able to smile when death came for him? Would it ever? He ran his palm over his face, sloughing off a mix of dried and sticky blood onto his fingers. His other arm hung down, fingers digging into the leather wrapped sword haft. He jerked the sword from the wood, squeaking as it came free.

He forced his fingers to uncurl and placed the flat of the blade on his shoulder. He walked over to the broken window, boards softly creaking underfoot. Blood pattered from the sword tip behind his heels, maybe on his coat. The glass partly showed him his reflection, a sallow-faced creature needing to be put to the flame. His eye glowed with fiery intensity due to his recent feeding. He listened to the wailing of the dying carrying in the morning air. They were scared now, but they wouldn’t be for long. Once they came into the fold, they would know what it was to have strength, freedom. The ability to make a difference.