Death pursued me in the shadows.
I put the spurs to my horse, and the poor beast grunted in pain, anger, and I imagined, as much fear as I felt. The foliage from the dense trees of the forest obscured the light of a half-moon hanging in the cold winter sky, and the light of the lantern strapped to my saddle did little but create chaotic shadows as it bounced madly.
Galloping down the rough road, lathered sweat from the horse’s neck blew back into my bearded face. I knew keeping this breakneck pace would eventually burst the heart of the noble destrier that had served me so well. I also knew that in the near-complete darkness, the steed might break a leg in an unseen pothole, or trip over a fallen tree limb.
I had to trust in his eyes and instinct.
If the thing in the darkness caught up to me, I was sure to die painfully, and my mission would fail.
My mission had been the only reason I took the road through the Stygian Forest. I knew better than getting off the well-maintained and patrolled roads of the kingdom, but the letter I carried had to be delivered directly to King Kulnane, as soon as possible. The document could prevent a war that would tear apart the peace of the Ten Realms, and I felt the burden of that weight bearing down on my sense of pride and patriotism.
The words within the rolled parchment I carried warned of an invasion being prepared against the Ten Realms. They had come from a rogue pirate captain called the Black Rose. This captain and her crew claimed that the pirate kingdom of Myrda had already fallen to these invaders. If I could reach the king before this adversary reached our shores, then the royal navy and the naval power of the Veiled Isle could be brought to bare against the mysterious threat. We could crush them before they ever set foot on our soil.
I had served the king during his War of Unification. I believed in him, and I believed in his vision of one united and peaceful kingdom in the land of Aubroya. My eyes had seen the chaos, bloodshed, and sorrow caused by war. I was a hardened veteran, ready to make the sacrifices needed to keep the peace, so I took a path that all knew to be a dangerous one.
And yet, warrior that I was, I spurred my horse onward in utter panic.
The Stygian Forest mocked my fear. Dark, dank, and remorselessly cold. It surrounded me, seeming to close in on all sides. It squeezed my soul and whispered malignant words directly into my mind. I had heard all of the rumors and old wife’s tales about the black woods. Everyone knew the place was haunted by hags, ghosts, and demons. Not even the staunchest of criminals chose this place as a hideout. Like all good soldiers, I didn’t believe in superstitious nonsense. I believed in cold, hard steel. I put my faith in my king, my mission and my resolute nature, so I had thrown all sense of caution to the wind.
Now, as fear tightened my gut like the grip of a constricting snake, I regretted that decision and began to pray to gods I had never prayed to before.
Whatever chased me, closed in on my horse’s heels.
I hadn’t seen it, but I knew a supernatural horror hunted me. When I first heard it—snarling and guttural— utterly unnatural, I dismissed it as a figment of my imagination. Then I smelled it. It reeked like rotting flesh and hellfire brimstone. Every fiber of my being shuddered in the grip of terror. My warrior’s instinct cried one word to me: RUN!
Gripping the reins with my left hand, I dared to look behind me using a technique I had learned as a scout in King Kulnane’s army. I brought up my shiny dagger in my right hand, glancing at it like a mirror to check my rear. I saw nothing in the deep gloom. Nothing in the reflected lantern light but the scar across my right cheek, glowing red as it did when adrenaline surged through my veins, and the blue of my wide, terrified eyes. But now I thought I heard pounding feet and the unknown creature’s panting breath.
“Faster, boy!” I cried out.
My ride snorted an answer, its tongue lolling out of its mouth like a limp fish flapping in the wind.
Ahead, I saw a break in the trees. Moonlight filtered down and illuminated the last twenty feet to freedom. I had almost reached the edge of the Stygian Forest, and my heart sang out in joy. Surely, whatever monster nipped at my backside, would break off the chase once I rode free of the dark woods. I looked back again, still seeing nothing.
With a triumphant shout, I whipped my head back around as I entered the first faint rays of moonlight. Almost there. Almost safe.
A large, towering shadow suddenly burst upward, seemingly from the muddy road itself, ten feet away, blocking the path.
Too late, I tried to rein my horse in. We kept barreling toward the black hulk in the road. I saw a massive arm lash head went spiraling into the brush, followed by a trail of dark gore. The body of my destrier collapsed beneath me, and I sailed through the air, landing hard and sliding forward in the mud. The air left my lungs, and my left shoulder went numb. I came to a halt, looking up into an impossibly black mass, standing above me. Two fiery eyes appeared, glaring down at me.
I scrambled to free my sword.
A large hand shot out with lightning speed, and ice-cold fingers surrounded my face, engulfing my head. The chill of the shadow’s touch burned into my bones. It froze my soul. I screamed into its hand and went completely rigid. I couldn’t move. The cold sensation was the touch of Death itself.
My world went black.
ٍ ٍ ٍ I awoke, naked and chained to a slime-covered stone wall, my arms stretched so taut that I thought they would be pulled from their sockets. My bare feet swayed over wet cobblestones. Dim light from guttering oil lamps cast flickering shadows around me. Head swimming, I took in the surroundings.
All around me was death and decay. The small, stone chamber looked like a scene out of a hellish nightmare. A rotting corpse lay on a rickety wooden table in the center of the room. The headless body had been eviscerated from crotch to throat, its ribs sticking out like broken angel wings. All of its organs were missing. Across from me, bones with desiccated meat still clinging on them hung in an iron maiden. In one corner of the room, a man—I couldn’t tell if he lived—was chained to an iron chair. His bearded chin touched his chest. The skin of his forearms and thighs had been flayed away, exposing red muscle and sinew. A long gash in the man’s right side seeped dark red blood.
Reality slammed into my mind, and I struggled to free my hands of the heavy manacles clamped around them, or pull the chains free from the wall. After what seemed like an eternity of thrashing against the cold stone, I relented in exhaustion, panting heavily. I wrestled with my panic and fear, willing my racing mind to calm down. Keeping a clear head might be my only means of escape. If I gave into the despair settling in, I was good as dead.
Looking around again, I searched for any clue to my whereabouts and anything that might help me escape. Other than the corpses, and another possible prisoner, I only saw musty shelves lined with old-looking books and various instruments that were either for torture or medical procedures. A single wooden door with no window was the only exit from the chamber. Listening intently, all I could hear was my own labored breathing.
Where in the name of the king could I be?
Had I been captured by some enemy of the state? If so, how would they know that I chose a pathway through the Stygian Forest? And did they know about my mission and the letter I carried?
I had no answers. All I could do was wait, surrounded by death.
ٍ ٍ ٍ At some point, I gave into overwhelming exhaustion and closed my eyes, giving into the welcoming embrace of sleep’s merciful arms.
Squealing hinges woke me. I had no idea how much time had passed, but not much flame illuminated the room as if the oil for the light had run low. The wicking fire from the lamps suddenly flared up as the only door to the chamber pushed slowly open. Wrists and shoulders numb, I tried to chains. Head held high, I prepared to meet my captor with pride and resolute courage.
Through the archway stepped a tall figure in luxurious black robes emblazoned with red silk symbols of an arcane nature. I could not begin to hazard a guess at the meanings of these magical runes. The cowl of the robes hid the face of the jailer as he, or she, gracefully glided across the room to the man bound to the iron chair.
The mysterious being reached out, a sleeve falling back to reveal a pale, skinny arm and a long-fingered hand. The skin on that limb and appendage was so white and tight that it appeared almost skeletal. Ragged, yellow fingernails further impressed upon me that I was looking at the hand of the living-dead. Those fingers wrapped around the other prisoner’s chin with a gentle caress and then pushed the man’s head back. A low moan issued from the man’s barely parted and dried lips, but he did not open his eyes.
“Good,” the robed one said with the surprisingly strong and deep voice of a man. “You still live. I require more of your living skin for my latest experiment. When I’m done with that task, then I’ll let you die, so that I can harvest your organs for more important work.”
The robed one—who for the moment, held my fate in his hands—let go of the other captive’s head and spun quickly to look my way from beneath his cowl.
My voice dry, and raspy, I summoned up as much authority as I could muster in my given situation. “Sir, I do not know who you are, but by detaining me, Grell Germaine, you have made a grave mistake!”
A mirthless chuckle issued from the darkness of the cowl. “Grave? You should choose your words with more caution. You are but mere steps from your own grave, my friend.”
“You have a funny way of treating your friends, sir,” I retorted. “You have detained a man of the king, on an important mission of the state. If you release me now and allow me to resume my mission, you may have a chance to sorceries you practice here. The message I must deliver far outweighs any moral crimes you are committing. It is no overstatement that the fate of the Ten Realms may well depend on the successful completion of this mission.”
The dark man strode slowly forward until he stood two feet in front of me.
“Ahh,” he said, “but you do not understand, my friend, that your mission and my dark sorceries are intertwined like two reluctant lovers.”
I did my best to hide my shock. This was not an expected answer.
“This surprises you, messenger? You do not think it random chance that I had my servant waylay you on your journey?”
“I did not even know that I would take the route through the Stygian Forest, until that path was upon me,” I muttered. “You could not have known I would ride that way.”
“Not without my arts, and the help of an ally who did not wish you to complete your quest,” he admitted. “It was merely good fortune smiling upon me that you decided to take a path through a region where my power is robust. Do you know why the Stygian Forest has a well-earned reputation for supernatural horrors and hauntings?”
He waited for a response, but I gave him nothing, continuing to glare at the shadowed hood of his robes.
“Of course, you don’t. Few truly understand the power that permeates these woods. They’ve just wisely learned to fear, respect and avoid this domain of death. And, this place is truly a domain of oblivion. During the War of the Gods, the very blood of Fynos, the God of Death, rained down from the heavens to soak the soil and the roots of the Stygian Forest. Where those drops of his divine essence fell, the fungi of his magic sprung up. Souls he kept for power rose up from that blood to become shades, demons, and creatures of nightmare. It is said that the very first necromancer was a woodsman who was struck by a single drop of Fynos’s
The robed one stepped closer to me, slowly reaching up both of his hands to grasp the edges of the black cowl.
“What better place for a student of death, nay, a master of death, like myself to call home?”
He flung back the hood.
I stared at a visage of a living man that could easily be mistaken for a corpse. His face was drawn and gaunt, like a cadaver. His eyes bloodshot and yellow with jaundice. Those eyes glared down a hawk-like nose at me. His round, bald head was covered in faded arcane tattoos, and thick, purple veins pulsed on that skull. A neatly groomed goatee of black was the only hint that this man was a living man at all.
“I am Strexis Skinweaver,” he said with a wicked smile.
My gut clenched, and my jaw fell slack. It felt as if my bowls would betray me, and the bold bravado I had mustered seeped away.
Strexis Skinweaver, the legendary necromancer of the Ten Realms, stood before me. The spellbinder of death. The boogeyman mothers told their children about to frighten them into submission. The most potent summoner of demons and undead the realms had ever known had taken notice of me and my mission. Despair ran through my blood like a dark river, drowning my courage and my will.
The black mage studied me, that evil smile never leaving his face. It was all I could do to return his stare. I tried to keep up a countenance of strength and defiance, but I feared he saw through it, just as easily as he saw through the veil to the realms of death.
Turning, Strexis went to a shelf and picked up a slender filleting knife. He held up the blade, examining it in the lamplight. It gleamed, well-oiled and razor sharp. Strexis returned to stand in front of me, brandishing the knife.
“You are like a fly caught in the Black Widow’s web, messenger. Forget your king, your mission and these realms. They no longer concern you. Cherish what little life you have left. I will show you such intensely pleasurable pain, that you store for you. If I let you die a true death, that is. Perhaps, when I am through with your body, I will resurrect it as one of my undead servants. It would honor you, be sure of that.”
Strexis moved to the side of the man in the iron chair. The knife slowly descended to the other prisoner’s forehead. I wanted to look away, but my body froze in terror, ignoring my pleas to shut out this horrific sight. Like a skilled huntsman, Strexis made an incision at the top of the man’s skull. The poor soul suddenly went stiff, rattling the chains as he let out a scream that will forever resonate in my memory. I had often heard the bellowing of the dead and the dying on the battlefield, but this tormented yowl pierced my soul like an ice-cold dagger. Strexis kept carving, and when done, the necromancer slowly peeled the face of the screaming man away from his skull.
The skull kept screaming, and the chains kept rattling as Strexis held up the flayed face, examining his bloody work. Then, the master of death smiled at me before he strode proudly from the chamber, slamming the door behind him.
The flames from the lamps dimmed again.
The skull screamed endlessly.
My screams joined his as terror gripped my heart in its cold, dead hands.
ٍ ٍ ٍ I hung from the wall, my physical pain forgotten as I struggled to pull my head and heart out of the black morass engulfing them.
The man without a face had died with one final, horrendous scream some hours ago.
How much time had passed? I had no idea. How much life I had left… that depended on keeping my wits about me. I refused to wallow in self-deception. My situation was doubted the necromancer’s heart contained an ounce of compassion. But, as most wizards did, I knew Strexis had a brain in his head. I had to find a way to appeal to his intellect. Find some source of connection with his desires and the safety of the kingdom he called home.
Sometime in the hours that had gone by, I had slipped again into an uneasy sleep. In that time, the oil in the lamps had been replenished. I had just begun to ponder who, or what had refilled them when my answer shambled through the door.
Four zombies entered the chamber. They were entirely without clothing, and of mixed races and sexes. More victims that had dared to pass through the necromancer’s forest, I guessed. They moved with sharp precision and an eerie silence. Two of the creatures went to the table and gathered up the rotting corpse there. The other two went to my faceless cellmate, and with surprising dexterity, removed his chains. As the first two dragged the old carcass out of the room, the others hoisted Strexis’s latest casualty onto the bloodstained table. Without even glancing at me with their milky undead eyes, the remaining zombies exited the room.
Strexis entered moments later, going to his shelf full of vile tools, and selecting several of them. He meticulously arranged the instruments around the fresh body at his disposal, ignoring me completely.
I cleared my parched throat. “Lord Skinweaver,” I called out to him. Giving him a gentleman’s title stung my sensibilities, but I wanted to get his attention and feign acquiescence to the wizard.
He selected the same filleting knife he had used to claim the man’s face, and slowly began to work skin away from the torso of the body.
“Good sir, please let me have a word with you.”
Without looking up from his task, Strexis responded. “You may beg for mercy as much as you like, messenger. You may call upon your gods, your wife, and children, anything you such foolish ideas as mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and love. I will not set you free.”
“It is not your mercy I wish to call upon. It is your intelligence. Your survival instinct.”
Pulling away a strip of flesh, he placed it in a jar. Strexis looked up with a smirk on his face. “Nothing can kill me, messenger. Soon, not even Fynos himself can claim my soul.”
“I am sure, as a man of your stature and learning, you have cheated the Reaper many times. But as the kingdom is in danger, so are you. How many years have people whispered of your dark deeds? One hundred years? Two hundred? And how many years have those who call this region home avoided these woods? Thousands to be sure. But these people know better. They understand the dangers of the Stygian Forest and the nature of the mage called Strexis Skinweaver. A new enemy comes to Aubroya soon. An enemy who knows none of these things. Does not fear this forest, or you. This enemy is coming in large numbers that will wash over our shores like a tidal wave. Can you turn such a tide? Can you survive such an onslaught on your own?”
Strexis sat the knife down on the now skinless chest of the body. He came around the table to face me. “Fool, do you not think I’ve prepared for such a situation?”
“I…”
“Who do you think the ally was that informed me that you would be heading my way? Why do you think I would want to intercept you and your letter, if not to keep you from warning Kulnane?”
With all the horrible things I had seen, and the fear clouding my mind, I had forgotten Strexis’s words when he first revealed himself to me; you do not understand, my friend, that your mission and my dark sorceries are intertwined like two reluctant lovers.
“You ally yourself with invaders?” I asked in surprise. “But why would a powerful magician such as you do that? Why
Stepping closer, Strexis withdrew a long, curved dagger from his robes. “Magic is exactly why I ally myself with these newcomers. New magic. Powerful magic like this land has never seen. Blood magic.”
I looked at the wizard in confusion. My knowledge of magic was scant at best.
“You see,” he said, taking another step closer, “agents of my allies have been amongst you for some time. Scouting your lands, your armies, and your resources. They made contact with me. They offered to teach me a new school of wizardry. A method that goes hand in hand with necromancy. Blood magic. The red river that flows through your veins is potent magic, indeed. And so closely tied to necromancy. They needed allies here, and what better ally than such as I? A man with no politics, and nothing I desire more than mastery of life and death.”
Strexis stopped mere inches from me. Hanging from the wall, I looked directly into his cold eyes. In them, I saw the desire for power and knowledge. He had no concern with the consequences of how those things were attained. In those bloodshot orbs, I saw madness. The mage had no nation, no loyalty except to death itself, and no empathy for the tens of thousands that would die and suffer during a prolonged war.
“You’re a monster,” I hissed between clenched teeth.
“Yes,” he smiled, “I am.”
The long dagger slashed out, slicing deeply across my abdomen, sending excruciating pain through my body.
Blood flowed from the shallow wound as my chest heaved up and down, my breath coming in ragged, fearful gulps. The bald bastard smiled at me like a fiend as he moved the blade slowly back and forth, collecting my lifeforce on the knife.
“So much power in this red, red ichor,” Strexis said, a tone of wonder and admiration in his voice. “I have sought the hidden potential in death for so long, but now my eyes have been opened to a secret that had evaded me. Life and death… blood and decay… are intertwined on an inseparable level.”
The necromancer turned from me and strode back to the corpse on the table and picked up the jar containing the strip of flesh. He tilted the point of the dagger down over the mouth of the glass vessel, letting my blood drip over the piece of tissue. Strexis suddenly whirled back around to face me, a maniacal look of joy on his pale face. He held the jar up as if showing it to a large, unseen audience.
“Witness the might of blood magic, fool!”
Strexis Skinweaver began to chant. The words tumbling from his lips were ancient and arcane. They dripped with vile darkness that sent chills down my spine. I could not understand them, but I knew their intent was evil and lecherous.
The blood in the jar began to bubble and smoke. The flesh writhed as if alive. The dark magician kept speaking in evil tongues as he poured the contents of the jar onto the floor. The wriggling skin landed on the cold stones with a sickening moist slap. Sizzling smoke rose up from the now boiling blood, and a rank odor, like putrid, rotting meat turned my stomach. I wanted to look away, but the horrific sight held my attention firm.
Boils appeared on the narrow strip of skin. It started to grow as the blood seeped into it.
“With only a few drops of your blood, behold what I have conjured,” Strexis shouted over the gurgling sound his creation made.
The thing expanded fast. With an explosion of yellow puss, two legs sprouted beneath it. Then two arms followed. Rapidly, it began to take on the rough shape of a man. But, this was no man. The monster that stood before me was a demon out of nightmares. It easily reached ten feet tall, with its long arms falling to the floor, dragging sharp talons across the stone with an unnerving scrape. Every inch of its twisted body was wet with blood, slime, and puss. The head of the but its eyes were cloudy like milk gone sour. The monster’s lower jaw fell slack, revealing jagged, yellow teeth. Its long, pustule-covered tongue hung to one side of its panting mouth.
My heart hammered in my chest so hard that I thought I might die of fear.
“With the magic, my new friends have taught me, I will uncover the secrets of the universe! I will become a god. No other wizard will rival my knowledge and power. I will cause these realms to tremble in awe and terror. I will conquer all I see. I will become the master of Life and Death!”
At this moment, I saw the door to the chamber slowly open behind Strexis Skinweaver. So enamored with his mad creation, the mage did not notice the two figures sliding with quiet stealth into the room.
A tall man wearing a chainmail jerkin that did little to hide his well-muscled physique and a shorter woman in a dark cloak glared at the monster standing in the middle of the laboratory. With ash-colored skin and long, flowing hair of pure white this pair looked so much alike, they could have been brother and sister. The woman held a dagger in her right hand. The man, handsome in bearing, and proud in demeanor, held a five-foot sword in his right hand, and the severed head of one of the zombies I had seen earlier in his other.
“You will be master of nothing,” the woman roared. “But, you will meet Death soon enough!”
The man in chainmail tossed the head into the air. It flipped end-over-end in a lazy arc before it thumped at the feet of Strexis Skinweaver, and rolled to a stop. The necromancer spun to face the newcomers, dagger still in his hand.
“Who are you?” the mage demanded to know.
“I am Kross,” the warrior said. “Slave Kni—” he stopped himself. “No. Free Knight of Serene. This is A’tama.”
“It is good to know who I am about to send to the beyond,” Strexis said. He looked at the beast standing beside him. “Kill them,” he commanded.
The creature turned to face Kross and A’tama. Strexis stepped behind the behemoth for protection. Before the monster could carry out its master’s order, Kross bellowed a war cry and charged, sword held high. A’tama began circling slowly around the table, her fiery eyes never leaving the wizard.
Massive arms reached out for Kross, and he ducked under them, bringing his sword across in a sideways slash aimed at the gut of the creature. The monster bellowed in pain as the blade cut deep, but it kept on coming at the warrior.
Strexis moved closer to me, raising his left hand and whispering a dark spell. A black bolt of light leaped from his fingers, streaking toward A’tama. She lithely sidestepped the bolt, and it slammed into the shelves. They exploded in a haze of splinters, broken vials, and shattered tools.
The woman jumped across the corpse on the table, charging at Strexis, ready to skewer him on her blade. He dodged back another step as the knife almost took him in the chest. A’tama pressed the attack while Kross and the monstrosity fought in the middle of the room.
The dark wizard took another step back.
Adrenaline surged through me. I mustered every ounce of energy and anger left in my exhausted body.
“I’ve had enough of you!” I shouted, pushing my back hard against the wall, and bringing my knees up to my chest. As A’tama kept pushing, Strexis gave more ground.
He came into reach, and I kicked out, encircling my legs around the wizard’s waist, and pulling him back into my chest. Strexis let out a startled shout, clawing at my right leg with his free hand, and stabbing my left thigh with his dagger. I grunted in pain as the blade sank deep into muscle and flesh. I squeezed my legs tighter, and with a scream of primal savagery, I sank my teeth into the top of his clammy, bald it stuck in my leg. Strexis reached up with his long fingers, clawing at my face. His jagged fingernails sliced into my cheeks, drawing blood. I bit harder, like a lion holding onto its prey.
A’tama drove her dagger deep into the necromancer’s chest.
His body went stiff, and his hands dropped from my face. He shuddered as his killer leaned hard into the blade. I watched her look deep into Strexis’s dying eyes. She said nothing as the wizard breathed his last breath. A’tama merely smiled as she watched him die.
I let go, and Strexis’s body fell hard to the floor.
Looking up from his corpse, I watched as Kross delivered the killing blow to the undead abomination. The creature’s slimy innards painted the far wall, and then it too fell dead.
The room was quiet except for the sound of our labored breathing.
A’tama looked at the wound across my stomach. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” I said, somehow mustering up a smile. “Thanks to you two.”
“Kross, help me get him down,” A’tama said.
In mere moments, I was free from the chains I thought I would die in. Legs feeling like limp rags, I leaned on the two strangers for support. The feeling came back into my arms, and they burned as if on fire, but I welcomed the pain. It meant I lived. It meant I could complete my mission, now with more news to deliver; the invaders already had agents operating in the realms. They had been sowing the seeds of war in secret, paving the path of their destruction for gods knew how long.
“I am not sure where you came from, friends,” I said to the two who had saved my life. “But I am glad you are here. I am on an important mission that may save the Ten Realms from the likes of men whom the necromancer called friends.”
“We are aware of this,” Kross said. “This is why we are here, and why we fought through the necromancer’s undead minions to reach you.”
I did little to hide my surprise. “I don’t understand. How?”
“You heard me say that we are from Serene?”
“Yes. By your looks, I would guess that you were once slaves there. Part of the recent rebellion?”
A’tama nodded. “Since that fateful day, Kross and I have been traveling the realms, seeking an understanding of who we really are, and what our place is in this world… and what our newfound freedom means.”
“We discovered something in our travels,” Kross added. “We discovered that the seeds of our rebellion were planted and cultivated by those that intend to invade the Ten Realms.”
“How is that possible?”
“The agents of these invaders infiltrated Serene as slaves,” A’tama answered. “They lived and served beside us, all the while inciting the real slaves to rebel against our masters.”
“I don’t see how that could be,” I admitted. “The Serenians always took their slaves from the same land—” I stopped as realization sank in.
“These invaders,” Kross said, “They are of the same blood as we. They are the Andu.”
“Why would you help the Ten Realms then?”
Kross and A’tama exchanged a guarded look. I could see that they were clearly torn by whatever decision they had made.
“We’ve seen this blood magic at work, first hand,” A’tama said. “We can barely remember the land from which we were taken. We will not let our people bring this dark magic to these shores. It would mean the murder of untold thousands. Innocents that did not make slaves out of us. Women and children who will suffer unimaginable horrors. I for one will stand against those of my people who would work this black magic. Although it pains me, I will fight the Andu. I will
I looked at these two former slaves in amazement. I had no words to help soothe the wounds left by the decision they had made to take up arms against their own kind. Kross looked at the floor, his brow furrowed in frustration. I could tell that coming to the decision to help me and help the Ten Realms, had not been an easy one for the proud warrior.
“To honor this decision you have made,” I said, “we must get word to King Kulnane, as fast as possible.”
“We know of your mission, Grell Germaine,” A’tama told me. “That is why we have come. We encountered a scouting force from these invaders. As he lay dying by Kross’s hand, a blood wizard boasted that you would be stopped, and your kingdom would be none the wiser about their invasion.”
Kross looked at me, his features hard and cold. “We will get you to your king.”
Held upright by Kross and A’tama, I left the stinking chamber behind me. I did not glance back as I crossed the threshold of the doorway.
I had a message to deliver to the king, and not even Death would stand in my way.
ٍ