The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (10 page)

The edge was immaculate, golden brushed steel, over four feet in length. The crosspiece was forged to resemble feathers and feminine eyes, like little girl angels hiding from each other, or maybe from the wielder. Green silk and braided tassels adorned the hilt, and the pommel was shaped like a partially open hand, round and heavy for good balance. She hummed a melody through her steel, and Angeline followed in tune, looking up to admire the blade of the Gods of the white moon, forged by Vundren, blessed by Alden, and given by the Goddess.

“I cannot speak, Seirena. I know not what to say.” Her cheeks hurt from smiling, her eyes hurt from crying, and her spirit felt some sort of elation she had never experienced. “Thank you.”

“
Arise Angeline of Charity
. Children, I give you Angeline, wielder of Charity! She thanks us, yet it is us who should give our thanks.” Seirena bowed, and as she did, thousands of lights, blades, sprites, and forest maids sang her name in unison and gratitude. “
Sleep now child
, and when you awake, you will travel to the west after the daughter of Lazlette. But first, pass through Harlaheim. You will know what to do when you arrive.
You will see, you will sense your direction
.”

Angeline bowed, feeling suddenly tired, her eyes heavy as the lights began to fade. The warmth of the cavern consumed her, inside and out. She held her blade tight across her chest, whispering her name as she sat in the wet grass and lay down to sleep.
Just a little nap, then we will sing some more, you and I. Would you like that Charity?
Angeline fell deep asleep, smiling.

“
Angeline, Angeline, wake up Angeline
.” A familiar voice, a man’s voice.

“
I am awake. Wait, how did I fall asleep
?” She looked around, the third tree, the banyan. She was lying on the stone floor next to the banyan tree. Yet there was no grove beyond, nor another past that, no lights, no music. Just a stone wall inside the mountain.

“I do not know, were you tired and fell asleep during your meditation? I found you here by the third tree, yet it appears you did not pass it. Are you well?” Larens showed concern, checking to see if she had hit her head or had a fever.

“So none of it was real? The Goddess, the tests, the sword?” Angeline looked to Larens, a lump welling in her throat.

“I do not know, was it?” Larens looked around.

Angeline felt by her side in the dark, a blade, yes, a golden blade with an open hand pommel and an angel and feather crosspiece.

“
Charity.
” She kissed the blade and stood up. “It was no dream, I passed the tests.”

“I know, Seirena told us. Come, you must be hungry. Your brothers are waiting for you, a feast in your honor in Ansharr’s cavern.” Larens smiled, knowing the will of the Goddess was miraculous and mysterious indeed.

Johnas III:I

White Spider Throneroom, Valhirst, Chazzrynn

“You are two days behind schedule and the siege is here. I suggest you hurry your men a bit faster in sealing our tunnels, Vanessa. Lest I leave you to the mercy of Prince Bryant.” Johnas paced, King Mikhail surrounding his port, Prince Bryant with four thousand outside the walls, and no word from Salah Cam on the progress of the war in the west. He had killed two of his own already today. One from an attempt to run and another who thought he was brave enough to take him with the blade and turn him in to the Chazzrynn nobility. He looked into a mirror in the hallway outside the underground throneroom under Valhirst.

“I will be finished within the hour.” Meek words eked out from the burned Caberran girl also known as Sapphire of the East. One of the Emerald Eight, deadly with a blade, had she chose to carry one, deadlier in the arts of the arcane. Vanessa was the appearingly helpless young wizard who was truly an internal spy for Johnas Valhera, her adopted father and master, among other things. With her arcane skills, she continued to meld the hinges of yet another tunnel door into the stone as to make it impassable. Then she would use another spell to color the wood to blend in turn with the stone, and then harden the wood to the strength of steel with yet more magicks. The process was tiring, taking hours for each doorway or tunnel, and there were dozens under Valhirst that led into the sanctum of the White Spider.

The blonde had strands of gray on the sides, he pulled his long hair back and gazed at his wrinkles around the green eyes and forehead that looked back from the mirror. He darted his eyes to his kris shortblade at his side with the dark emerald pommel, it was throbbing again, alerting him to danger. Johnas Valhera looked around, seeing no one but Vanessa Blackflame. “Are we alone, Vanessa?” The Prince drew his enchanted and very conscious blade.

“As far as I can tell, why?”

The Prince of Valhirst and patriarch of the worlds’ deadliest organization of criminals felt it again. An urge, a vibration, a sense from the blade passed down from his mother’s side of the family for generations. His mother dead twenty years or more, he and one other the last of his Valhera line, Johnas felt alone, the paranoia coming. He again looked at himself in the mirror.

“Stop.”

“My Prince?”

He held the blade up near his face in the reflection. “Stop, no one is trying to kill me.”

“Johnas, are you talking to me?” Vanessa paused and looked back toward the throneroom, seeing her master with his curvy blade near his green eyes and glaring into the mirror.

“No, just a conversation with myself. Carry on.”

Knock Knock, Bang, thud, pound, thud, knock
!

The far door, left one into the main chamber was locked and unguarded, yet undeniably someone wanted in. Vanessa drew her wand while Johnas crept behind the door, blade ready.

“Open it.”

“Before we know who is out there?” Vanessa glanced at Johnas curiously.

“More amusing that way.” The Prince smiled.

“You are indeed going insane.”

“I am well aware. Open it, please.”

With a twist of her hand, an uttering whispered in the arcane tongue, and a quick point at the iron bars and locks, red light emitted in a strange ray from the wand and the bars lifted in opposing directions and the locks unlocked without a touch. The doors creaked open an inch, maybe less. Silence.

The stomping of armored boots, a dozen perhaps, began from but a few feet past the door. Suddenly, blue tabards, steel helms, falcon bearing banners and crests followed halberds and blades by men of the royal guard of Chazzrynn. Men under Prince Bryant Salganat, veteran soldiers that had been ruthlessly searching for hidden entrances into the rumored undercity of Valhirst, and now they had been let in. How they found their way past the walls, let alone here, seemed impossible.

“This way men! To arms!” One of the soldiers, a rough man with a black mustache and beady eyes held the rank and charged his men inside as Prince Johnas and Vanessa backed up across the mosaic of a white spider in the throneroom below the throne.

“Johnas Valhera!”

“Here Captain.” Johnas cautiously stepped back more toward the throne of ebony and onyx and emerald.

“You are under arrest by order of---
Aaaahhh!
” the captain fell from sight as he passed through the door on the right, two men following after to a life ending twenty foot fall onto spikes of steel as the floor slid from the weight.

“I never tire of that, no, not ever.” Johnas smiled as nine men paused, stumbled, went left around the hole in the floor.

Each one still dared a glance at the pile of bones and spikes. The moans of the still dying, the smell of the opened shaft, the scattering of rats from the shadowy pit sent shivers up the spines of all nine remaining. Then there were five as black clad swordsmen plunged blades and daggers into the backs of the royal guard. Balric, the Harlian spy, thrust his saber through one then sliced the neck from behind with his shortblade. Fadim, the Altestani known as Crimson of the North, cut a fatal slash, then another, up then down with his curved shamshir and finished him with the curved dagger to the ribs. Oggidan, the one handed boy, thrust his locked gauntlet blade through the back of one man, then feinted a neck slash as his opponent turned. His blade plunged deep into the ribs as his man raised shield high, then his other hand drove a dagger into the throat of the man next to him. Four dropped dead.

“
Niljiavu viaji vaal
!” Vanessa opened her palm to the five left standing, flanked, and confused. Four lifted from the ground, twisting and reaching with their weapons, trying anything in their helpless screams and shouts.

They hovered over the pit, begging, dropping blades, surrendering, yet one boldly threw his sword at Johnas. The Prince stepped to the side and walked toward the fifth man, the only one standing on his feet. The doors shut loudly, the bars and locks only made him tremble more. He raised the kris blade to the man’s cheek. The sword mas matched by others, that of Balric D’vrelle, Oggidan, and Fadim, from every direction.

“Surrender.” Johnas grinned.

“Never.” As he spoke, he heard one of his men ignite in flame, scream as he had never heard screams before, and then be dropped into the pit. Burning flesh, heated rot, and moaning from those still dying from impalement filled the room as smoke issued upward.

“Surrender?” Prince Johnas smiled.

“I will die first, with honor and---“ Green mist shot from the wand of the Caberran girl in black robes. Hazily, as the sweat from the pressure was dripping from eyebrows to eyes, the guard saw the vapor dissolve the flesh from another hovering comrade, then into the pit he went.

“May I suggest something? Surrender.” Johnas took the longsword from the scabbard of his captive and walked to his throne.

“For Alden’s sake, surrender!” his comrades yelled in unison.

“It is true, the spiders are real. Prince Bryant was right, you do exist. I challenge you, Johnas Val---“ Both men were hurled into the pit, already smoldering, dozens upon dozens of spikes lining the walls and floor. The trap door slid back over, smoke trickling in from the cracks with the screams and moans. Moments later, twas quiet.

“Your name please, soldier of the royal guard of Chazzrynn.” Johnas poured himself some wine from a carafe into a golden goblet.

Six blades lay on his tabard over his chain armor, and a wand pointed at him from the wizard girl with the burned face. It was hopeless. “Deidram of Jonsal.”

“Any children, wife, family?” He always asked, knowing solitary men were easier to turn, yet threats to family of a member assured loyalty the same.

“No, not yet.” Deidram trembled.

“Where is King Mikhail heading? His ships are unloading horses and supplies north of my ports.” Johnas drank, then poured another glass of ruby red from south Caberra. His face relaxed from the pleasurable tannins and contradictory sweetness on the tongue.

“West. He travels west to meet with Lord Alexei of Southwind due to the war there that started with trolls and ogre.” Deidram felt the tears of betrayal, hoped his wife and children would never know of this should he survive.

“And Prince Bryant, will he be continuing the siege much longer, or does he tire of my impassable walls?”

“Yes, he is to find you and take over the city. The man that captures a member of the spider band gets a farmstead and deed, the one that captures you gets the lordship of the Valhirst region under Prince Bryant. More gather each day.” The royal guard lied again, knowing many believed the whole spider thing a myth and the support of the siege had been faltering as of this last week.

“And how is it that your men found your way in, might I ask? You were not even disguised, that piques my curious senses for certain.”
Which one, which one of mine consorts with Chazzrynn nobility in secret?
His mind was racing,
had he planned it or was it a genuine breech
, as his eyes looked over the growing present company of killers in his retinue.

“We were twenty that entered a small outpost that led into the sewers south of the city walls. Your men, disguised as homeless, jumped and killed eight of us before we took them and found your hidden passage into the underground.” Deidram lied again, knowing that they had sent a scout to report back what they had found before they continued in on their own.

The blade throbbed again, Johnas could not be sure which of his deadly members it was, and many more were filling the room from the northern tunnels to report in. He was not sure if it was this man Deidram, or another. Balric he knew, but had him enspelled with the magicked necklace and controlling ring from Salah Cam. Fadim, an obvious spy for Altestan, but useful. Oggidan was too young, and Vanessa would never have the courage to finally take revenge.
Must be the guard
. Johnas walked over to the man. “So, Deidram, you know your choices then?”

“Join or die here, I would presume.” Deidram smiled, nervously, this was his chance. He could get in, take it all out from the inside and report back. He would be a hero.

“That is correct, but you must be honest with me, for I will know if you lie. Then, my sword will drink your blood and life. Then we go after your sweet wife and make her one of our whores. After we all take our turns, and she begins to enjoy it, then I take your family and train them to kill for the White Spider.” Johnas looked to his eyes, his cheeks, and saw it. He felt the blade throb again in his hand. The man was lying and could not be turned.