Take the Darkness...: Epic Fantasy Series (12 page)

Chapter 25

Goldie was marched into the tent of the Duchess at sword point. He’d never seen the woman up-close before and was half expecting the Duke to be standing next to her. She was pretty in the way of Pellosi women, shorter than him, skinny, long blonde hair and fine bones. Weak looking, which they called attractive. Still her eyes held some fire and grit; she wouldn’t look away from killing, and he knew she was the risen dead and was a blood drinker.

‘Well now, who’s this fine fellow you’ve brought? A Northman?’ She asked in a refined voice. Goldie stood with the Bastard’s sword at his back. The man had said it was a formality only and he believed him. He was hardly going to just stroll in and sit down.

‘Well, hello, Dierdra, good to see you again. I apologise on your husband’s capture, but we do have the means for getting him back easily. This fine fellow is Goldie and he’s Seth’s second in command.’ As he said the words he dropped the sword blade and sat himself down in a nearby chair, putting his feet up on another.

Dierdra just smiled at him. ‘Betrayal? Or a betrayed?’

‘I can speak for myself if you prefer, Duchess,’ Goldie said smoothly.

‘Why, of course, please tell me why I shouldn’t have you killed.’

‘Because I’m here to help you. We’re weak, we only have three hundred men in that Keep, or less now if you’ve been doing anything in these last few days. I’ve been asked to hire the Red Bastards to come and save us, which I have done. Now, instead of them betraying me, as they work for you and are surprisingly loyal, I’d much rather be on the winning side and come out with a chest of gold rather than a chest filled with dagger holes.’

The Duchess stood up from the desk and actually clapped. ‘A good performance, and very unlike your man Seth, aren’t you. He’d rather die than live in shame.’

‘There is no shame in choosing not to die. It’s a stupid Northerner concept that dying for no reason is noble,’ he said in return.

‘But you’re a Northerner,’ she said.

‘I was born in Cravoss, my mother was Northern and my father was a Cravossi trader. I’m as much part of him as her.’

‘Well, this is interesting, so I suppose you have it all planned out do you?’

‘I do, if you’ll indulge me.’

‘Please continue,’ she said, then yelled: ‘Guards, food and wine for my guests. Please!’

‘The Bastards come up over that roadway with me at their side, and we have a little skirmish, you decide it’s just too much work and you leave the field of battle. The Keep throws open its gates to welcome its saviours, me leading them of course, and we have a nice celebration. When they are all making merry and drinking, we kill them all. It’s simple.’

‘And why don’t I just kill you now and work without you? This plan doesn’t need you – the Bastards and I have done this many times before.’

‘My people will not trust the Bastards unless I’m with them. Grimm is still in there and he’s far from stupid.’

‘Well it sounds good enough, but why would you betray your people? There needs to be a reason other than saving your own skin. I know you Northmen love a noble death.’

‘The Guild. I want in.’ Goldie said with passion. ‘I’ve seen what Seth has, what you have, and I want it.’

The Duchess started laughing. ‘Well, that’s something I can believe. Fine, Goldie is it? We’ll do it your way, but know this: if you betray me, you’re going to wish you had picked the noble death.’

She’d gone from a humble archer to a trusted member of the Black Rock war council, and now she sat with a Duchess, a captain, and one very angry Northman hanging off of her words. They sat in Elizebetha’s private study on the fine leather couches, and had been for the last few hours, just talking it over and over.

‘Tell me again, exactly what he said and did,’ said Grimm, taking her hand with force. He just couldn’t let himself believe Goldie had turned his cloak.

‘We went to recruit the Bastards and he did. He found them easily enough, but he made another deal with them instead. They will come and pretend to fight, and once the Dukes force is gone from the field and we open the gates, they will take the Keep themselves.’

‘But then he killed the captain who was a spy for the Duke? Why would he do that? And why would he say ‘that depends on what I’m planning?’’ Grimm muttered almost to himself.

Dagosh spoke up. ‘It matters not, didn’t you hear her, that captain said they were in the Duke’s pocket anyway. Even if he didn’t betray us, they would have.’

‘That’s true,’ said Elizebetha. ‘This at least buys us a few days. They will play out their charade and we’ll just stay behind our walls, at least they will be replacing a standing army of loyal soldiers with a bunch of mercenaries. It’s better to fight one than the other, let alone both.’

Grimm started laughing a deep belly laugh that kept going ‘til there were tears in his eyes. ‘Don’t you see, Goldie has not betrayed us at all. He knew they were crooked and now he’s playing them. The Duchess will take her proper army and replace it with men paid only to fight for a few weeks. We just have to play along with it and we can win.’

‘We can’t trust it. If we open those gates, they will kill us all,’ said Elizebetha.

‘No, we can trust in Goldie, he would never ever betray us: he’s loyal, I believe in him,’ said Grimm with passion.

‘But you didn’t see him, Grimm, he’s not the man you think he is,’ Josette said desperately.

‘No, he’d never betray us. We’ll play along with it and we’ll take our ques from him.’

‘Well, if he hasn’t betrayed us, he’s playing a very dangerous game, so what do we do now?’ Dagosh asked. ‘Sit here, wait and be in the same exact position in a few days?’

‘How can they have a fake battle? We’d see it for what it was, wouldn’t we?’ Josette asked.

‘They’ll do it at night and far from the Keep so all we hear is sounds of swords and screams.’Grimm said. ‘But that’s our first chance.’

‘Chance to do what?’ Asked Elizebetha.

‘Thin the herd,’ said Grimm. ‘Dagosh, can I borrow Josette and fifty of your best?’

‘What are you going to do with them?’

‘Put my stolen Twin Plains uniforms to good work,’ he said back.

Chapter 26

‘So we need to rescue her from these monsters,’ said Seth.

‘
No, we need to find the sun and raise it. There are thousands of them and there is no way we can defeat them all in open battle
.’ It said back firmly.

‘But they’ll kill her, they are evil,’ he insisted.

‘
Our little Princess is the strongest of us three, so don’t fear for her safety. She has a lot more strength than she knows.’
It said back.

‘Then what?’ Seth asked.

‘
You need to find the sun
,’ said the Wolvern. ‘
Your burn mark will guide you, just try.’

Without knowing what he was doing, but guided by an instinct, Seth closed his eyes, reached out with his right hand in front of him, and held it palm up. Slowly turning his feet in the snow, he turned his body around in a full circle, waiting to feel anything. As he did, he thought of his own memories of the sun. Times as a boy running with his brothers in the family fields. His journey with the boys from Pelloss and the hot sun beating down on them. Slowly as he turned, he felt a heat growing in his hand, but then it died. He turned back until he was facing the very direction that Seraphina had been taken in. The feeling was as if a small child’s hand was in his hand, and was pulling it towards the south.

‘I think it’s this way,’ Seth said.

The Wolvern raised its head and howled with anger. ‘
It looks like we will be fighting a thousand of them after all.’
And it took off running through the snow at a rapid pace. Seth stood for a moment and then took off after it. His feet hit the ground hard and he ran with more speed than he’d thought a man could. His body felt strong and powerful, as if the sun was there just burning beneath his skin. He felt such a desire to reach his goal, as if there was someone waiting for him at the end, someone he hadn’t seen in so long, but needed to.

Within a few minutes he had caught up to the Wolvern as it bounded along with force, and it laughed in his mind. ‘
You’re stronger than before, boy.’

‘I can feel it in my body; it’s growing.’ He said, and he wasn’t scared, but more elated. It was like the feeling of the taking. When his body was infused with the strength of another and his very muscles and bones felt like they were radiating strength.

‘What I don’t understand is what you mean by ‘raise the sun’? Where is it now?’

‘I have no idea and I don’t know why we need to go towards them, but they have to be the ones who did this. Before they came, this place was different’.

‘Stop!’ Seth shouted suddenly.

He ducked down into a roll in the snow and came up perfectly still. Looking around at the wasteland of snow, Seth felt something pulling him from beneath it.

The Wolvern stopped and came back to him. ‘
We don’t have time... what is it?’

‘There is something beneath the snow.’ Seth said, and dropping to his knees he started to dig in it. The Wolvern pushed him aside with its huge furred muzzle and started to dig like a household dog, snow flying up behind it as its huge paws pulled the snow aside. As it dug, Seth felt the feeling growing stronger and stronger, and he pushed it back aside and dug with his hands. Then he found it, the pale hands of a person, just visible. A body buried deep in the snow. He took it by the hand and it closed around his own: it was cold and dead. He shook it free and kept going.

‘
Sometimes the dead sleep too long and get buried too deep to raise themselves
,’ the Wolvern said. ‘
Just leave it, or you’ll just have to kill it again if you dig it free.’

Seth kept clearing the snow and soon he saw there were literally tens of them. It was a mass grave of sorts, but the victims were alive. As the snow cleared from them, they began to shriek and raise themselves up. Seth thought he heard the Wolvern actually sigh as they stood back and watched as the host of human dead began to claw their way to freedom and food.

The original hand was female, as the snow cleared, Seth took it again and with a strong pull, brought her free from the snow. The face was that of a young woman with black hair, but dead. She looked as they ever had. Black lifeless eyes, wicked teeth that didn’t fit in her mouth properly, and a hunger in her very movements. She lunged at him as he pulled her free. He thought they would be changed. On instinct, Seth reached his hand out and placed it on her forehead while holding her back from biting him. Her snapping shrieking face was just inches from him. She stank of the grave and the battlefield.

‘
Just kill her’
, the Wolvern said.

Seth felt something in his hand that held her back. Like a flicker of life deep in her mind. ‘Take the darkness!’ He shouted, and the sun symbol in his hand pulsed with hot light and burned itself into her forehead. She fell back into the snow. Then the rest of them came. Seth tried to ignore their snapping faces and lunging hands, and placing his hand on each of them, said the words. They all fell back with the power of it.

He looked to the Wolvern, but it had no words for him. He went to the side of the young woman and looked at her. As he did, he saw her slowly starting to change. Much slower than the infusion of blood, but her skin began to turn more pink and her teeth became normal again, and even the way they must have been in life, some crooked and less than perfect. She opened her eyes finally and they were brown, no longer black and dead.

Seth laughed out loud when she spoke to him. ‘Who are you and why are you holding my hand?’ She asked in a thick Pellosi voice.

‘I’m Seth, and I hate to say it, but you’re dead.’ He said softly.

She stood up and looked around at the other people in the motley group of ten or so. They were all so different and had just wandered here together.

‘I thought so, I was sick for so long, and I think I just wouldn’t wake up. But then there was just darkness and cold, but now I have to go... I feel it.’

‘Where do you have to go?’ Seth asked.

She pointed in the direction of Seraphina. ‘I need to move on, I feel it.’

‘We’re going there as well, so you can come with us if you want,’ Seth said.

‘You feel the calling as well? Yes, we’ll go, but I need a sword,’ she turned to the group of risen dead and spoke to them. ‘We’re going south.’ Most of them just nodded, but some spoke and said ‘yes’.

‘Why do you need a sword?’ Seth asked her.

‘The silver ones want to stop us, but they can’t be allowed to anymore, we need to reach the shores.’

Seth started to lead the way south, and within moments the Wolvern had fallen in beside him.

‘
You’ve brought them back to the way they were, but we have no idea of what we’ll face when we arrive’,
it said.

‘The general had a saying... when in doubt, bring an army.’

Chapter 27

She led Josette into her study and had the girl sit down. She looked tired and worn, and it seemed doubtful that she’d eaten in the last few days, or slept either. She had dark rings under her eyes and felt a pit of hunger in her gut that she tried to ignore.

Elizebetha took her hand. ‘You’ve done so well, but I need you to do even more, and I have a way I can help you.’

Josette knew they were in for a hell of a fight, and any edge they could gain was good; she didn’t feel like she’d been much help so far, as she’d let herself slip up with the Captain of the Guards and done nothing to sway the Bastards to their side. Still, she just nodded. ‘Of course, just tell me what you need me to do.’

‘It’s not so much what I need you to do, but who I need you to be,’ she said, and stood from her couch. ‘Follow me.’

They walked from the study and, following the Duchess, Josette walked though the Keep until they came into the main library. It was a huge empty room but lit with a fireplace, and a large number of books lined the walls. ‘My father was the leader of the Gatherers, and I thought that meant this,’ she said, pointing at all the books, ‘but it turns out they were gathering much more.’

The Duchess went to the wall of books and, pulling a volume from the shelf, snapped it down. Josette heard a deep rumble of gears within the wall and the bookcase slowly swung inwards.

‘You people do love your hidden passages,’ she said with a laugh. She was nervous, but tried to make light of it.

‘With good reason as you’ll soon see.’ The Duchess said, and taking her hand, led her down the stone staircase that was inside the doorway. They walked down and down until a large stone room opened up. It was lit with torches in the walls and she could see the lady had spent a few hours in here only recently.

‘The Dark Guild and the Gatherers are at cross purposes. They kill and take power, but we gather and protect it. I never knew just what this meant until a few days ago.’

She lit a few more torches and Josette saw they were in what looked like a huge wine cellar, bottles and bottles of red wine glinting in green bottles in rows on shelves.

Josette laughed, looking around at the bottles; ‘not what I was expecting,’ she noted.

The Duchess just smiled at her and, taking up a metal goblet that stood on a small table, went along the racks of bottles and poured a little from a few different ones, mixing them. Josette didn’t know much about wine, but that seemed a good way to ruin the flavour.

‘This isn’t just wine, dear: its blood wine, the alcohol keeps the blood pure so it can last for hundreds of years. The Gatherers would take the blood of exceptional people, for a fee or for the cause, and in this way they would hold the memories forever,’ she said.

‘What, you just drink it and become stronger?’

‘It’s not that simple... you need the right words and ritual, but yes,’ she said quietly.

‘And you want me to drink it?’ She asked with apprehension.

‘I do. If I could become the person I need, I would, but cannot. I have drunk some, and have learned some of my father’s tricks, but also I know I’m not a fighter. I want to help you survive what’s coming and this is the best way.’

‘So I’ll be like Seth?’ She asked, the lust for that power finally coming to life.

‘Not as strong, this is a pale shade of that, but I want to help you survive what I need you to do.’

Josette smiled back. If she’d have to drink some bloody wine to help Seth and the Duchess, she would. Magic didn’t scare her now, and she knew her new Northern gods wouldn’t judge her for using it. She looked at the Duchess. ‘Okay, let’s get drunk.’

Josette put the cold metal goblet against her lips that were just starting to stain red and drank it down. She felt the warmth of the liquid in her mouth and travelling down her throat, filling her entire body with a warm glowing strength. As she did, Elizebetha sat next to her and taking her hand, started singing songs in Pellosi. Josette knew it was part of the ritual, but it made her feel safe and protected nevertheless. She knew that the last thing in the world this woman wanted was to be doing this, but really she had no choice. On either side, she was surrounded by enemies or worse, friends with dubious motives, she needed the one person on her side to be something more than she already was.

This was her third draught in an hour, and her head was reeling, not from the alcohol but from the memories that the blood wine held. She hadn’t experienced what Seth had in his first taking or the other, but she found it hard to believe it was stronger than this. Now, she was drinking the memories of the Gatherers themselves. They’d travelled the realms and collected samples from what they called the special people. People with talents and skills honed over years of practise and hard work. They’d rewarded the people with money, favours, or by bringing them into the Gatherers, but these were the actual memories of the founders. Elizebetha wanted her to know what they were facing, and she was learning it was a lot more than just the battle outside of their door that they were fighting.

She drank in the memories of Elizebetha’s father and almost cried as they found her. Her own life had been free from love, especially love from a parent to a child. She’d been sold at age eight by her own parents, and now she saw the tender devotion he paid to his own daughter. He had a son, as well, but there was some fear in that relationship. The boy was hateful and cruel from a young age, and while good at pretending to be sweet, his father saw through it. He’d tried to shield him from their true life, knowing the power would only corrupt him.

Memories of a young Elizebetha, came to her, sitting in her father’s study on his knee as he would read to her the histories and legends of other places and peoples. He travelled a lot, but when he came back he saw her smiles and love for him, and it was like a salve. Josette got to see his true life, that even Elizebetha didn’t truly know. Of the struggles he had had against the Dark Guild and the weapons he’d used against them.

One memory stood out strongly in her mind, and she knew it was the one he was trying to share. Elizebetha’s father stood in a room, and chained to the floor was a young man wearing the Gatherer robes. It was a plush room in a manor house and around him were other hooded people, who stood in silence watching. She’d never expected to see this man with so much cold determination on his face. He was younger, but still looked like a scholar and not a fighter. He stood above the man and simply said, ‘I’m sorry’.

‘Please don’t do it, I’ll stop, I promise I’ll stop, don’t take it!’ The man cried.

He looked away from the man, but started to sing in a language she didn’t know, though she thought it sounded like something of the desert people. As he sang, she saw the young man on the floor start to shudder and shake, and then he began to scream out loud. The man she knew as Elizebetha’s father kept up the song and ignored his cries. Within moments, it was over, and the body on the floor had changed. It was no longer a young man, but that of a seventy year old who was now huddled on the floor crying.

‘I’m sorry, Jacob, but you broke the rules: we don’t take, we gather, and they were never yours to have,’ he said, trying to make himself cold.

He turned to the waiting men. ‘It’s done, I’ve finished the severing. Bring in the next one.’