The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (9 page)

Walter sucked in the warm air, blood rippling down his throat. “I will destroy all of you.” His voice was ragged, eyes deadly slits. Their souls were spoken for, their names etched in his spirit. He would not rest until they bowed before him.
Lies.
They would tremble beneath his boots.

“The dual-wielder’s rage fuels my princess!” the Shadow god squealed.

He forced his eye open. He forced himself to watch Asebor pounding away at his beloved, the Shadow god looking on as if observing a tavern game. Something changed underneath his ribs and a strange warmth filled his limbs. A manic smile tore across his lips.

They split from their original concept of the self.

“Their empathy and compassion dies,” he whispered, finishing the words of the voice in his head.

In his mind he heard a crack like shattered glass, eyebrows bobbing up in surprise. The Dragon sprang free, roared in his chest, tunneled through every cell in his body. It was a tidal wave of rage, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. His body spasmed with enough anger to shatter the world. Chaos reigned in his soul, muscles singing with fire. He started laughing at its glorious return. The Phoenix was there too, buried deep, a star in the Dragon’s roaring furnace.

A few demonic eyes peered at him. The rest were engrossed in the main show.

“Die!” Walter roared. His eyes burst alight with white Dragon fire, a thick jet of flame blasting out from his mangled arm. He laughed as he cut white lines through the demons, blood pouring out from them like black rain. He gripped his ruined forearm with his other hand, every ounce of his being fighting to control the torrent of flames.

“The false gods cannot touch this domain,” Asebor hissed, as if by stating a thing would make it true.

“No! It can’t be—” The Shadow god cut off as she threw herself into the blood, avoiding Walter’s whirling death. Her hair-snakes pressed themselves against her neck, hissing. The few snakes that had stood in defiance were cut down, their heads plopping into the blood like pebbles. The Shadow god shrieked, her hand reaching towards the severed snakes.

“You are
not
a god!” he screamed.

The Shadow god vanished in a puff of smoke, briefly warping the air. His white fire cut a diagonal line through the giant’s arm jutting out of the lake. It screamed like thousands of rusted hinges as the arm started sliding apart.

The Shadow princess vaulted into the air, screeched like a dying pig as her wings created a gentle breeze.

Asebor turned on him, shadowy prick glistening and bulging with winding purple veins. Walter stared at it and a jets of flames erupted from his eyes. “Bastard!” He bellowed. “Burn!”

Walter saw the twinge of fear, then shock touched Asebor’s eyes for the first time. It was a moment he would never forget. Asebor rolled through the blood, which was now a puddle, his chains sprouting to life in the air. His twin beams of fire burned a pair of holes through a fish-headed creature behind, slumping into the bones.

A beast like centipede rose up, tall as the Midgaard palace. Walter directed the endless torrent roaring out his arm up, cutting a vertical slice through its towering body. The beast shrieked as it was torn apart, bursting into flames. The acrid stench of its roasting flesh only made him laugh harder. The scent of agony was intoxicating, sucking it in hard through his nostrils.

His laughter pounded in his skull, swelling with the radiant warmth he felt at watching their flesh burn. Their pain fueled his hatred. Wherever he pointed the torrent, fiery death followed. They would come to know pain, know it like he knew it in his arm, eye, back, mouth, knees and soul. That blind rage freed him from fear and caution.

He saw Asebor’s chains in flight, moving as slow as a sunrise. His neck prickled at their gleaming blades. He wondered for a second where his lightning quickness had gone. Was this a trick? He welcomed the great emptiness now.

He opened himself to the full strength of the Dragon. The rage and chaos of the world burst through his flesh, skin splitting apart like desiccation cracks. The Phoenix spiraled out from his center, patching up his broken skin with its magnificent light.

He thought he might have been screaming, but couldn’t hear his voice. Only the bellowing fire of a furnace reached his ears. He was as white as the sun, a ghost in the middle of its glow.

The demons shrieked and screamed as they burned. Those standing too close to him had their flesh turned to ash. Those more intelligent had already fled, seeking colder prey.

Asebor’s chains still came, the razor edged links reflecting the white of his fire. Walter spread his fingers, directing jets of flame out his fingertips. Some collided with Asebor’s chains, others through his dark flesh as if it were never there.

Asebor screamed, vibrating shadows erupting with glowing violet blood. He pressed his dark hands on the worst of the wounds.

A few skulls thumped on Asebor’s head and bounced from his shoulders. The top half of the hand in the lake boomed as it rolled apart, about to crush the demon god. Asebor became a gray mist as the hand crushed him, dissipating the mist into spiraling eddies.

Walter knew he couldn’t sustain this. He felt the rage starting to melt out of him as quick as it had started. He snuffed the Dragon down a bit, let the peace of the Phoenix take its place. He started to summon a portal, to where he didn’t know. A blue line of light cut the abyss, endpoints wonderfully rotating and revealing the world beyond. The land of man, they had called it. It looked like a world of rock and dirt. It wasn’t here, and that was beautiful.

A bold demon slashed at him with a lash-like appendage, singing through the air, reddening as it came within a foot of his fiery aura. He looked at the beast, its tendril retracting into its oval body, the only one unwise enough to have not yet fled. He imagined where the beast was in space and snapped his fingers, willing the Dragon to be there.

The monster’s single eye twitched. Its flesh split apart from the inside, chunks of flesh blasted through the dark and squelching into the bloody bones. The fire had become the shape of the Dragon, its wide maw clamping down in the air, then drifting into wisps of smoke.

“Don’t forget my promise!” he shouted into the dark. He took a breath and stepped into the portal, pushing through the wall of crumbling earth. Walter left the Shadow Realm behind. The land of pain, the world without rest.

T
wigs snapped
under the Cerumal’s iron boots, spooking a group of saffron birds hiding in a bush. His patrol mate squawked at them, muttering nonsense in their harsh tongue. The birds darted into the upper branches of an oak, their appraising eyes staring down at the beasts.

From behind, the Cerumal were identical in Juzo’s eye. The only differentiator being their choice of weapon. One carried a scythe across its back, wood gnarled and dark as night. The other had a long bow and a curved sword hanging without a sheathe on its hip. It was a miracle it hadn’t opened itself on the blade yet.

They weren’t the most intelligent of animals. Though they were men once, weren’t they? It didn’t matter, they were just skins filled with blood now. The one with the bow was dragging a screeching hog along, snared in a hemp net. It had coarse brown hair and madly thrashed as it was dragged over a section of tangled roots. They must have been satisfied with their prey and seemed to be making their way back to the Tower, or what remained of it.

Shafts of morning light dappled through the trees and cut a line down Juzo’s face. He peered up at the giant trees, boughs reaching for the sky. Some might have been as tall as the lower Tower spires. Back when the Tower still had spires, before being ravaged by catapult stones.

He was in the forest, its name unknown to him, north of the Tower. It was about a two-hour ride from Helm’s Reach on horseback, or a one-hour run for him. One sack of blood for him, one for his surrogates. They were probably getting hungry now. He didn’t think he’d be able to carry back more than one of the ugly bastards.

He had been watching these two for the past hour, checking if they had friends before striking. He wouldn’t want to have to negotiate through unwelcome surprises. They stopped and slumped against a mossy stump, whispering in their gibbering tongue. He stretched his neck around a tree, stealing another glance at them. One sipped from a waterskin and handed it to the other, slapping it into its chest plate. Bright yellow mushrooms bloomed at the base of the stump, feasting on the decaying wood.

Juzo took a humid breath through his nose, started inching his great sword from its scabbard across his back. The soft rasp of metal against leather was a lover’s whisper in his ears. His heart thudded in his shattered eye socket, mangled skin throbbing. He grinned as his fist wrapped around and sunk deep into its soft leather hilt. His teeth glinted murder in a sun ray. He jerked the sword from its sheath and spun to face his quarry.

The hog was first to see him. Its black eye met his and it started screaming and frantically biting at its netting. The hog was the wisest of the three. The Cerumal rose off the rotting stump, one tilting its head at him and the other dropping its opened waterskin, water glugging out into the earth. Glug, glug, glug was all he heard for what felt like a minute.

A Cerumal squawked and Juzo lunged at the one with the scythe, fumbling for it at his back. Too slow and too weak. His spitted it through the chestplate, the point driven through where he guessed its heart might be. Its mouth, far too much like his, bit the air before bubbling out with dark blood. The hog, now freed, tumbled head over ass before righting itself and tore off shrieking into the wood. Its net trailed behind and it faded with a rustling of shrubs.

The other started to draw its wicked blade, growling at both him and its fleeing meal. Juzo abandoned his sword in the first. His hand snapped around the Cerumal’s big wrist, pushing it down and preventing it from drawing the blade. He drove his other hand into its helmet, putting a dent into the side. He smashed it again and again, hammering it flat, feeling the fragile bones in his hands cracking. He had pushed the metal into its face, blood running down its jaw. He gave his hand a rest and resumed hammering the same spot with his elbow, cracking and crunching through the helm.

He enjoyed fighting Death Spawn. He liked the lack of formality. There was no need for speaking or exchanging petty words. Just unadulterated violence. He saw he and the screaming creature were the same then. They both understood each other. He just happened to be on the predatory end of the draw today.
We’re the same you and I, and this is why I must split your face in half.
He was laughing now, maybe crying, it was hard to tell. The two ends of the emotional spectrum felt all the same to him.

Juzo howled, grabbing one of the helmet’s horns and twisted it around. The twisting helm cut a deeper and longer wound channel across its face. Its armor had become its undoing. The Cerumal snarled and spat, trying to get the sword out. Juzo pulled himself close, using his body to prevent it from being drawn. He drove his knee into its leg, its knee crunching out of place.

The Cerumal vanished, Juzo’s elbow striking only air. It was floundering on the ground, dragging itself drunkenly towards the refuge of the forest. Juzo raised his heel up high.
Just like a lizard.
His heel came down like a sledge on the back of the Cerumal’s neck and a crack sliced the air. One of its scaled feet twitched and scratched at the dirt.

Juzo snorted, wiped the damp in his eyes on his sleeve. He had forgotten what an ugly business this was. The Cerumal he ran through had fallen, arms and legs out stretched. He gripped his sword, standing up through the spitted Cerumal, yanked it free with a bloody squelch. He wiped it on the mossy stump and sheathed it. The Cerumal blinked up at him with its obsidian eyes.

“Fuck.” He flinched. Its eyes were hanging onto life by strings, fighting to stay open. “Glad you’re still kicking though.”

The Cerumal hissed its dying rage, flicking out a bloody forked tongue.

“Don’t do anything you might regret. See what happened to your friend there?” Juzo nodded at the motionless Cerumal, sprawled out on its face.

It snarled in response, blood wheezing out from its punctured breastplate.

Juzo licked his lips and kneeled beside the Cerumal. Thick saliva flooded his mouth and his stomach rumbled. He wrapped a firm hand over its forehead, tilting its head back, exposing its neck. He brought his head close, could see its purple arteries jumping with anticipation. Its skin smelled like a moldy rag. He thought he could hear its heart pulsing and thudding. Juzo parted his lips, bladed mouth an inch from skin.

“No,” the Cerumal whispered.

“What?” Juzo snapped his head back. They didn’t speak common, couldn’t. Juzo grabbed its shoulders and violently shook it. “What did you say?”

“No. No, no,” it whispered, voice soft as a breeze.

“Can you say anything else?”

“No.”

“Shit. You’re just repeating yourself. Don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

“No.” Its eyes closed and tears welled out from under its eyelids.

No
, his mind echoed. He liked it better when they were mindless animals. It didn’t matter. They killed Walter. Juzo’s head pulled back like a viper, then darted into its neck, teeth sawing through its leathery skin. Warm blood filled his mouth, dribbled over his chin, smeared on his cheeks. His tongue found its hammering artery, wrapped his lips around the thin tube of flesh spurting life into his mouth. When its heart beat, he sipped. Sipped and sucked until it became just a trickle.

He rose to his feet, gut bulging with liters of blood. He wiped his scarlet lips on the underside of his blood rag, what others may call his coat. He left a great swathe of red down it. He rubbed his distended stomach and forced his mouth closed and fought the roaring urge to vomit. He let out a mighty burp. “Ah, that’s better. Now for you,” he said, eying the other Cerumal. Another roaring belch pressed through his lips and with it a glob of blood. “Damn it.” He muttered. “Is it too much to ask to look presentable once in a while?”

He pulled an empty sack from over his shoulder and rubbed his fingers along the inside lined with heavy leather. The tailor had assured him it would be waterproof. The blood wouldn’t be fresh for the others, but it would do for now. “Gotta make you a bit easier to carry.” His sword rang from its sheath. “And have to clean this again.” He frowned. His blade rose up high and came down through the Cerumal’s shoulder, chopping through chainmail and sending metal ring bits flying. Dark blood pooled out between the mail and plates. He inhaled, exhaled and chopped again, severing its arm in a ragged cut.

“That’s one. Three to go.” He stuffed its arm into the bag and got to work on the others.

G
rimbald worked
the saw back and forth, hewing through the gnarled timber. Sweat glistened off his arms, sawdust tickling and sticking to them. A hemp bag sat beside the cuttings and gleamed with the brightness of newly forged nails. Footprints danced all around the sawhorses, leaving deep impressions in the mud. His fingers and palms were raw, no longer conditioned to this manner of work. His callouses from the dark work were only built up under his knuckles.

“I think this land will work well for us,” Juzo said, surveying Grimbald’s progress.

“Yeah.” Grimbald slowly nodded.

“It’s good we’re outside the city. It’s a bit of a mess in there with so many people, packed in so damn tight.”

“Where were you? You were supposed to be here to help me this morning.”

“Had something to do.”

“Hope it was important.” Grimbald grunted.

“It was. I assure you.”

Grimbald saw Juzo had a thick wad of bandages wrapped around his knuckles, red blooming from under it. “What happened to your hand?”

“I was being stupid, tripped and caught myself on a boulder of the most jagged sort.”

Grim supposed Juzo’s honest streak had ended. “Huh,” he muttered. “Looks painful.”

“Nah, it’s nothing. Almost healed and ready for working.”

Grimbald’s Pa taught him never to trust a man who can’t keep his promises. He liked Juzo, but this infraction bothered him. Everyone deserved second chances though. The Dragon knew he had more than his fair share. “A man would go through life with few friends if he didn’t give out second chances,” his Pa had also said. Grimbald’s brows narrowed. His Pa’s advice was starting to seem like a series of contradictions.

Juzo held a gleaming plank at his side, painted with an expensive lacquer.

Grimbald had thought Shipton was bad during the rainy season. The rain from yesterday had continued through the night, leaving the ground in a thick mud. There was a clinging slop that had become the road leading into Helm’s Reach. Everyone waded through it, in and out of the city, taking their chances with their boots getting sucked off their feet. Brown mud showered from wagon wheels to absurd heights, blasting the city walls and every living thing near them with its muck.

The mud worked its way into his boots, up his pants, and leeched into the wood, feeding the mold. It was hard to find good wood around here. There were also thoughts clinging like mud in his mind about so many wizards in one place. It seemed that everyone in the city could touch the god’s powers. He wished he understood magic, but it was as thick to him as the ground pulling at his heels.

A wretched woman strode past, stumbling and barely catching herself before falling. She coughed, snorted, and spat a white glob of phlegm into the mud. She inverted her pockets, searching for something, squares of rubbish fluttering to the ground. She saw Grimbald and Juzo and flashed them a murderous expression. She scratched at her face lined with dark stubble and tugged at a rotting shirt. “Bah.” She waved, produced a flask from her pants and took a glug before staggering away.

“The location is stunning,” Juzo said, grinning.

“Beautiful,” Grimbald replied.

“Not so far from the city, but not so close either. I like it.”

The only problem was the sense of lawlessness out here away from the watch of the city guard. There seemed to be no end to the number of drunk criminals seeking someone they could easily rob. Luckily, most had found Juzo and Grimbald unworthy of the effort. Maybe it was Corpsemaker lying beside the timbers. Maybe Juzo’s pallor of the dead. Nyset’s plot was rife with villains and mud, that was certain.

There were other ramshackle houses surrounding the perimeter of the city. There were dubious smiths, wild pubs, eateries, fur traders, tobacco shops, whorehouses, lawyers of the most despicable sort, and someone selling spelunking equipment most likely to break on you in the worst possible time. Why Nyset had decided to build here was still a mystery to Grimbald. It was as if all the worst people in the realm congregated around the city. You can’t always choose the situation you had to deal with though.

“I had a sign made,” said Juzo, rubbing it with adoration.

Grimbald wiped his brow. “Ny will love it.”

A dog with three legs hobbled over to a turd and gave it a sniff, then urinated on it and stumbled off.

The sign was painted in black, gleaming with specks of metal in the paint. It was inlaid with silver and read:
The Silver Tower.
It was immensely superior compared to most of the signs, looking hand scrawled by someone likely inebriated. There was a whorehouse Grimbald had seen proclaiming:
Cum Here.
He couldn’t deny laughing at it.

“Took all the marks I had in sewn into my pocket,” Juzo frowned, patted at his duster. The bottom third of it was heavy with drying mud.

“Maybe you can come over here and help me with the building to hang it on.” Grimbald said, tossing him a hammer.

“The sign!” Juzo snatched the hammer from the air, protecting the sign with his body.

“Oh. Right, sorry about that.” Grimbald felt his cheeks warming.

Juzo walked over to the bag of nails and put a few in his pocket. “You know how to build a house, I see?”