The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) (7 page)

She strained with every muscle to listen through the house’s windows, wincing at the slight hissing coming through her nose. It was taunting her, forcing her to wait for the threat to emerge. Someone said something near her and it was just noise in her ears. She knew it was there. Her heart was ringing so hard in her head it felt like it might push her eyes out of her skull. She tried to crouch down into the cobbles, blading her body and making herself a smaller target. Her eyes were fixed on an opened window, dark inside.

Another groan came from the wood and Nyset’s fingers flared with fire. Burning discs sprung to life around her head, crackling and smoking in the mist. Her fingers pressed into her palms and the warmth of the Dragon spread up her arms.

There was another creaking step. She took a long, stinging breath, her chest filling out with it. Time stretched on and on. How much longer would it take for him to reveal himself?

The boards and nails groaned, rubbing together. A crossbow slid into view, the bolt gleaming death. A head followed, black and hooded. Yellow eyes burned like coals in the swimming blackness. The eyes found hers and spread apart like evening moons.

She grinned and her discs had already bridged half the distance. One chopped below the window through the wall where its body should have been. The other cut through its dark face, releasing a squawk. The top half of its head rolled over the windowsill, painting it with a wide streak of blood. The crossbow followed, clattering on the stones. The bolt loosed into the sky with a twang.

Time came rushing back, screams roaring in her ears. She realized it was her own voice. She let out the rest of her air and let the Dragon melt from her chest. Claw and Senka were on the ground.

Senka cowered away from her, shielding her eyes, robes streaked with dust. “Please, Mistress.”

“Pretty.” Claw murmured, still clutching Senka’s wrist and staring at Nyset.

Nyset strode towards the house’s door, parted open. What would have Bezda done? She had to make an example of assassins. She kicked open the door and turned left at the foyer. The small entry room stunk with mold and the walls were coated in dust. Shafts of light cut crosshatches through the gloom between the wall boards.

She found the body of the Skin Flayer there, slumped back at the wall opposite the window. The top half of its head smoked with exposed brain matter. She wrinkled her nose and held her breath, keeping the stench from further infiltrating her nostrils. Air sucked from the hissing slice in its chest. She reached under its arms, dragging it to the door. It was heavy, straining her upper back and burning her legs as she dragged it out into the street. She fought not to gag, dropping it beside its brethren. Its fingers absurdly intertwined in its lap as if in deep conversation.

She wanted to say something, but found her voice wasn’t working. She put the back of her hand against her mouth and gasped at seeing it was covered in blood, not hers. She spat and wiped her arm on the back of her sleeve, tongue prickling with the taste of rotten meat.

Nyset was supposed to be a stately picture, surrounded by mystique. She felt like a drowned cat, one who had almost been slain by an assassin’s bolt. Her silks clung to her body, soaked all the way through. She was showing more of her form than she felt comfortable with in public. Thunder rumbled and roared through her chest, followed by a spark of lightning cutting through the sky. The clouds were getting on with it already, parting with their payload and raining in earnest.

Nyset looked from Senka to Claw and groaned. “Thank you, both of you. Not sure I’d still be alive without you.” Fat, warm rain droplets struck her cheeks.

“The gods sent me to watch over you, Mistress,” Claw muttered. “They did.” He tilted his head back, closed his eyes, opened his mouth and stuck his scarlet tongue out. “Death waits for us all, no doubt about that. No excuses, no exceptions, no guarantee to live forever.”

Ny still wasn’t sure about having a madman following her around.

Senka made circles with her wrist and flexed her fingers opened and closed. “The Scorpions have always served the interests of the Tower. If you’d have me, I would pledge my life to you, to carry my oaths.”

It was a bizarre thing to hear. It was only six months ago her mother had been screaming at her to clean up dinner. Now the last member of an ancient people wanted to serve her. It was no choice at all. Had she ever truly had a choice in all of this? “I accept your pledge, Senka, and welcome your oath.” She hoped she said the words right and hadn’t offended her.

“My edge is yours.” Senka bowed.

“Thank you for finding me.” Nyset nodded and squeezed Senka’s shoulder. She was small, but her muscles were like clumps of iron. She wouldn’t forget what she had done to the Skin Flayer. There was a savagery in there, behind the soft exterior.

Nyset’s posture sagged. The weight of exhaustion was pressing on her, urging her to sleep for days. She still felt like she hadn’t recovered from fighting the Death Spawn at the Silver Tower and didn’t think she ever would. Using the Dragon now had re-opened that partially healed scab.

“It’s like my wrist is a child’s. Fresh and new. Thank you, master Claw.” Senka held a blade now, twirling it.

“Master?” Claw chuckled.

“Claw, your next task is to go to the city’s main gates and put their heads on a pike.” Nyset sniffed, sloughing water from her brow with the back of her hand. “Would you do that for me?”

“Command me,” he whispered, his eyes glowering.

“Do it.” She shrugged, unsure. She had to command. Was he teaching her?

“Of course.” Claw grinned. He squatted down and wadded up their violet cloaks in his fists, dragging them through the mud.

“Come, we need to get back to Vesla.”

“
I
s anyone still alive
?” Walter roared into the lake. “Juzo? Grimbald?” He took a few staggering steps and his toes stabbed into something soft. He looked down into an unrecognizable face protruding from the red, gaping wound splitting it from temple to jaw.

“Nyset?” he whispered, eyes tight and jaw sore. “Where are you?”

“Hey, you!” A man trudged out from the shadows, dragging a limp leg. He wore the armor of the Falcon, dented in the chest plate and split apart at his abdomen. Walter thought he could see his organs forcing their way out of a grisly wound, a few slivers of flesh keeping them at bay. “You’re the dual-wielder, aren’t you? Walter, right?”

Walter nodded, feeling the beginnings of a smile forming. “I’m Walter. You’re alive. Is there anyone else?”

The man shook his head and winced. “All I remember is running and running.” The man sucked in a wheezing breath. “The fatigue caught up with me. I somehow made my way here. By the Dragon, what is happening here?”

“I wish I knew.” Walter rubbed at his stomach, scratching the spot where the man was wounded. He was glad it wasn’t him. “Nice to find someone else here.”

“It’s like were in some sort of living nightmare. This can’t be real, can it?”

He wanted to say it was a nightmare, but the wounds wracking his body said otherwise. “I’m not—”

“Something’s wrong,” the man stammered. His head started vibrating, eyes bulging unnaturally from his sockets.

Walter snatched a dull long sword from the lake, standing up at an angle. He took a step back, grinding the ball of his barefoot into gravel below the blood. Bones, it felt like bones. “By the Dragon,” he swallowed.

There was a pop and one of his eyes leaped out of the socket, blood rolling down his face. The man screamed. “No, no! Arrgh!” The other eye followed and rivulets of blood streamed down from his nostrils. The man’s jaw yawned open and bony claws wrapped around from the inside of his mouth, pulling at his lips. Blood poured out from his lips as they were split apart at the corners, ripping up his cheeks. A cobra with tiny arms, body lined with spines, tore itself free from his throat and out his jaw. It splashed into the blood, rose up hissing and poised to strike.

“Die!” Walter roared, stabbing down with the sword. The snake darted away before it could land, winding through the blood and fading in the shadows beyond. Ripples spread out as it fled, interrupting the still blood. “Damn it,” he breathed. He leaned on the sword, resting his arm against the crosspiece. He stared down at the mangled wreck of the man’s head. It looked like an overinflated water skin that had popped.

From the corner of his vision, he saw someone else. The man stared down at him from the steep slope of skulls. He spun towards the figure, instantly recognizing his friend. “No— Baylan!” He wrenched the sword free and took a step towards him, blood streaming from its edge.

Baylan’s body was rigid as a corpse, shoulders and thighs blooming red out from under his azure robes. His eyes were closed and his jaw was slack. His arms and his legs squelched away from his body, severed and thumping down the hill. Baylan’s limbs tumbled into the lake, stopping on top of another corpse. His dismembered body followed, splashing down beside it.

“Damn you!” Walter screamed at the wall of skulls. The creature that had been chasing him before leapt down from the top of the hill, blood blowing out in waves. He closed his eyes and mouth to keep the blood out. Its head was inverted, mouth gaping open. The snakes on its head snapped at him.

“Damn you!” He roared again, his voice hoarse. His sword cut vicious arcs, tearing through two of the snake heads and sending them rolling. The beast was relentless, uncaring for its wounds. The snakes with missing heads whipped from the monster’s body, spraying bloody gouts through the air. Blood was nothing to him now, no different than a passing rain.

Walter chopped and slashed, blocking fangs and hacking into sinuous bodies. The beast let out an angry growl, snapping at him with its massive mouth. He stabbed at its mouth and it caught Walter’s sword in its flat teeth near the guard. He tried to jerk the sword free, but its mouth was a vice. As he pulled the sword, it cracked in half and he fell back, narrowly avoiding a darting snake bite.

He threw the stub of sword into its face, then turned and ran. Beasts plopped down all around, splashing down into the lake and forming a circle around him. They were the contortions of nightmares, bodies gnarled, eyes in the wrong places, mouths everywhere. Limbs whipped and snapped in the air, topped with claws, spikes, and horns.

There was something different about them, something he’d missed before. They all held onto the bodies they had captured, men and women writhing and screaming in their grasps. One chewed on the ankles of a man dangling from its mouth, reaching his tiny fingers into its enormous jaw. A woman wearing the robes of the Dragon was snared in a tentacle, blood leaking from her closed lips. An armsman was impaled on the horn of a wiry beast, quietly groaning.

“What do you want?” he screamed.

A soft, feminine voice replied, everywhere and nowhere. “They are the twisted hearts of man and feed upon your fears. Your violence, the wars of men, only serve to make them stronger. When men in the world of the living don the relics of Shadow, these beasts are offered a conduit to the shell of a man’s soul. They take his flesh. Their bodies are corrupted and their flesh changes.”

“The Death Spawn,” Walter whispered.

“The brand on your neck marks you as sustenance for my pets.”

Walter felt the brand on the back of his neck burning again, recoiling at its touch. His eye caught a familiar face in a demon’s clutches, one that twisted his guts at the recognition.

It was his mother.

She was nude. Her limbs were pulled apart and stretched out by dark tendrils of flesh.

“Fuck you all!” he roared, the Breden short sword whispering as he jerked it out from its scabbard. He ground his teeth together, a molar cracking from the pressure. He spat the tooth fragments that prickled at his tongue and the sides of his cheek. His blade was an extended limb, fused like Milvorian steel in his hand.

He lunged towards her, and the cobra that had last evaded him leapt in his path. Nothing would stop him. In one fluid motion, he feigned an overhead stab, then brought it low in an arc, then up in a wicked thrust, hacking through the cobra’s neck.

“Mother!” he screamed.

“Walter?” Isabelle said, her voice echoing as if from in a cave.

He was almost there, a step away from her. His arm was raised high to chop into one of her snares when something seized him by the ankle. He was yanked back and onto his face. His grip wound tighter on the broken sword as he fell. It was his candle in the dark. His hope in the madness. He caught himself on one arm and something in his wrist clicked. The ground was heaved away from him, the world inverted.

He reached up for the tendril around his ankle, hacking through it with a groan. The tentacle rained blood over his chest and up his neck, dropping him. He fell onto his neck, pain lancing up his spine. He rolled over, unraveling the limp flesh entwining his ankle. He winced with pain, crawling. His eyes searched for his mother.

He met her arctic eyes and warmth bubbled in his chest, radiating through his limbs. “You’re alive,” Walter roared as pain ravaged his back, tentacles slashing him from shoulder to hip. With each crack, they tore open his skin leaving red streaks.

“Walter,” she croaked. She was spread apart, her sex open to the world. A tendril savagely wound around her neck, her face ever reddening. They seemed to snap with tension, jerking her arms back and pushing her chest out. Another snapped around a breast, winding around and around, bright as a tomato.

“We saved her for you,” the voice from everywhere said. “She fought hard. The Dragon was strong in her when she arrived in my domain.”

“No,” Walter said through gritted teeth. “Bastard!”

A long talon, glistening white, slid up from below the mass of creatures, inching between his mother’s legs. The pallor of her face became an apparition’s and she started shrieking.

Walter forced himself up, felt the hatred filling his limbs with fire. As he stood, the blows smashed his back harder and faster, peeling the skin away from his muscles. Only death itself would stop him. With each lashing he screamed louder, felt his anger welling through his body, fueling his tireless vengeance.

Before he could take a step, something snagged his free hand, preventing him from moving. He gave his arm a yank, thought he felt something tear. He looked back, eyes bulging at seeing his forearm clamped between a row of jagged teeth. The pain hit him now, like lightning burning up and down his arm. His blood rolled down the beast’s lips, who was flatly regarding him with a fat yellow eye. He gave it a slight pull. Agony responded.

“Shit!”
No, no, no.
He looked back at his mother, the talon creeping towards her groin an arm’s length away. He hammered his broken blade into the beast’s teeth, clanging off like a wall of iron with each strike. He tried to work the sword between the teeth to lever its jaws apart. Its bite pressure only seemed to increase. He slammed the blade down harder and harder, each strike useless.

“
D
amn you
!” he screamed at the impassive creature. He tried to wriggle his fingers to rip at its tongue. They didn’t seem to be working right. His blood streamed down the monster’s chin, pattering into the lake.

He knew what had to be done. He didn’t want to face it. Tears rolled down his cheeks, cutting through drying blood. He raised the jagged blade behind his head, quivering in his grip. He took a great breath of air into his lungs. He had to make the decision now. His blade came down with ferocity, not into the creature, but into his own arm.

He screamed a hoarse and cracking thing, rage blended with agony. He raised the blade and stabbed into his arm again.
Love.
The blade chopped in again.
Hate.
And again.
Rage.
Again and again, his ruined blade tore ragged chunks from his forearm.

When a person has experienced the most severe suffering one can bear.

It was the voice in his head again. The one that sounded like his, but wasn’t. His blade thudded against his bones, squelching through his muscle.

They split from their original concept of the self.

He roared, the scream ripping at his throat, bone snapping as he split one of his forearm bones in half. He wailed, thrusting his head back into the dark sky.

Their empathy and compassion dies.

He lifted his sword arm and brought it down with all the strength he could produce. The final bone cracked in half, freeing him from the monster’s bear trap mouth.

He was running on wobbly legs for his mother, a torrent of blood streaming out from his ruined arm, the blade gripped in the other. He would save her. He wouldn’t fail again, wouldn’t tuck his tail and run. It felt like his legs were moving too slow. The roaring all around crescendoed, the sound seeming to stretch for eternity in his ears.

The talon was in her now, blood trickling down from between her legs. All of their eyes watched him with their twisted shapes and prismatic colors. He was a few steps away, blade raised up, re-living the same moment again. Something dense as stone wrapped around his head, forcing him to the ground, his legs like a child’s against the vast power.

No. I can’t fail again. I can’t.
He drew in air before being forced into the lake of blood. His vision swam, the world swathed in red. He managed to push his head out from the blood and one of the talons gripping his skull slipped over his forehead and into his right eye. His neck was jerked back and cracking. He screamed and screamed, tried to blink but his eyelid caught on the talon lodged there. He knew what they were doing. They were forcing him to watch as his mother was defiled.

She writhed and pulled against her snares, her lithe muscles trembling. The blood was welling out of her now, winding around her porcelain legs like red snakes. There was a strange mark above her breast, a figure-eight like the one he saw on the soldier earlier. Much like the same brand on the back of his neck. “No! You Bastards!” he roared. “Why are you doing this?” His mind raged at making sense of the nightmare.

“Your gods are false. Long dead. I am the one true god now. Bow down and worship me and you will be granted unlimited power,” the silky feminine voice said.

“What?” Walter stammered. His neck let out a series of pops and sparks of pain danced over his neck, across his face. The talon emerged from his mother’s loins, the tip pink and white with its gelatinous seed mixed with her blood.

“No,” he whispered, guts dropping. Failure would be his namesake. Failure was how he would be remembered.

The tendrils around Isabelle unfurled from her limbs. She crashed into the lake as if her bones had become dirt. Her humerus protruded out the front of her shoulder socket. Her lower leg bent the wrong way at the knee.

A booming bellow of horns sounded, giving the demons all around pause. They ignored Walter now, looking up to the sky, towards the blood moon. He couldn’t help but do the same, like a moth to candlelight. The beast pressing down on his skull relented, extracting its dark talon from his eye and padding away from him.

His breath was panicked, icy weakness pulling over his mind. His skin felt cold. He thought the blood lake was warm before. Warm. He laughed, tongue circling his lips and tasting the blood from his eye. “I will not break,” he whispered. “The Shadow god is the god of lies.”