Read Under A Colder Sun (Khale the Wanderer Book 1) Online
Authors: Greg James
Whereabouts he now stood under the shifting sands of the wastes above, the Wanderer did not know. But he did know that the chill he felt when he walked among the standing stones was now emanating from all around him, not just rising from the ground under his feet. He walked slow, his muscles tense, his heart fast and his breathing shallow. He could taste fear in the air as something sickly lying on his tongue. The toe of his boot struck something soft and meaty in the dark. It let out a cry, it was in the same tone as the wail he had followed.
The Wanderer stepped back and raised his sword, showing light to what lay at his booted feet. And he saw a man, what was left of him; a husk of blackening, corrupted meat that was slowly sloughing off its own withered bones. The man was dressed in the remains of scaled armour and his eyes were white globules sunk deep into his face. A tongue worked feverishly behind toothless, rotten gums, aching to speak.
The Wanderer, wary, leaned in to listen.
And the dying man told him his tale.
*
There were many more such men scattered along the length of the tunnel ahead. Soldiers, nobles, barons and even kings were there, reduced to rotten shades of what they once were. Lowing, moaning and howling, grasping at him with their fetid fingers, begging to tell their woes to the unsoiled Wanderer. He cast them off and turned them aside. The tale of the first of the dying was enough for him. Now he knew what waited for him in the dark down here.
A serpent's smile crept across his ragged lips.
The hall was as he had expected when he came to it. Ruined and empty with a single long table of stone slabs dividing its centre. A crude facsimile of the Eating Hall of the Dead from old legends. Dust, cobwebs and the droppings of cemetery vermin were everywhere. He waited patiently at the nearest end of the table until the light came. It was a warm light, soft and soporific, seeping in from no place he could see. And before his eyes, the filth of the hall evaporated as if it had never been. Every inch of stone suddenly appeared polished and as smooth as once it had once been. And the table was laden with platters of spiced meat, poached fish, sweet fruits and numerous flagons of mead, ale and rice wine. The smell arising from the feast was luxurious and it made his mouth water. He reached out, plucked a ripe, red grape and popped it into his mouth. He bit through the thin skin into the cool, wet, sugary flesh beneath and smiled as he swallowed the morsel.
Delicious indeed.
*
It was some time later that she came into the hall. The Wanderer saluted her with a flagon, slopping mead down his arm and onto the floor. His belly was full to bursting. His mouth was stained and smeared from his hearty feasting; bones from chicken, pig and ox were scattered all around. He made to speak but instead emitted a drunken belch.
She moved on bare feet, making no sound, seeming to drift towards him as would a ghost. But she was no such thing. Her snow-white hair tumbled down over her samite robe and he could see that her figure was full, curved and ripe. Her eyes never wavered from his and they were coloured as the dawn, shifting often between shades of amber, violet and a clear cerulean. He felt her hands upon his furs, then she was prying beneath them, to his flesh, kneading on muscles that had not known so gentle and firm a touch in years.
She smiled at him and led him by the hand out through a doorway he had not seen before into a scented space of hanging silks and pillows that could only be her bed chamber. He imagined her continuing to smile as she turned her back on him to disrobe. He imagined she would be surprised if she saw the sober smile that he allowed to linger for a moment upon his own lips.
*
In the hours after, in that soft, exotic chamber, the Wanderer knew what it was to make love to a goddess and to be loved in turn by her. As with every man who had come here before him, he cried out as her nails raked his back, bit at his lips as she drew hot streams of his seed out with fingers, and tongue until he was spent. Finally, he sighed as he lay back to drown into the soothing darkness of a dreamless sleep.
It was then, through half-lidded eyes, that he saw the change come upon her and the space in which they had slept together. He knew that the words of the dying man had been true. He watched beauty wither and recede away as summer turns to autumn and then autumn to winter. Hair rapidly thinning into torn, frayed strands. Skin mottling over and breasts shrinking in on themselves until they were sagging, empty pockets of decay. Fine fingers and elegant toes that he had tasted were now little more than the straggling twigs of old, dead trees. But the eyes, they stayed the same, they never changed, those tempting eyes of dawn.
She lunged and bit down hard upon his throat, drawing in a deep draught of his blood. He lay there for long minutes, watching her through hooded eyes as she had a feast of her own. When she finally drew away, satiated for a moment, he let out a sigh and rose calmly to his feet. She recoiled with a gasp. Too used to easy and stupid prey over the centuries.
She had not disposed of his blade.
He sprang from the bleached nest that had been his true bed, shuddering at the slick feeling of treading upon the bloodied bones, flesh and faeces of those she had fed upon before. He drew the sword out of the pile she had made of his furs and belongings. She shook before him as he advanced, licking her thin lips clean of his blood, gurgling in her throat. Tears ran down her wasted cheeks as he turned and rested the shining edge of the blade against her neck.
"How can it be?" she asked, "I drained enough from you to bring a man to his knees, yet you walk as if you had not suffered a scratch."
The Wanderer fingered the wound at his throat, feeling the broken skin there beginning to set itself back into place and the flesh beneath being remade. There would be a scar there soon, one amongst the many that criss-crossed his body. Smiling at the creature, he drew the blade away from her throat and displayed it, turning the blade from side to side. She saw how it now shone with a colour that was not colour, none she had ever seen before. It hurt her eyes and mind to look upon it. She knew it. She was old enough to remember. True sobs wracked her and she cowered away.
"That sword you carry is Baro Vane; the sword that screams. It is said to be borne by a man from whom Death's blade turned aside. You are Khale. The one they call End-Bringer. Slayer of Worlds. The Butcher of Life itself."
"I know my own legends," said the Wanderer, "I spread most of them myself."
"Spare me, Master. I did not know. I would not have fed on you if I had known who you were."
The Wanderer approached her, knelt and took her trembling chin in his hand and raised her eyes until they met with his.
"You gave me food, drink and pleasure this night. Three things in which I have not been able to indulge for some time. Know that I thank you for it, sister."
He smiled and stood tall once more. Looking up at him, she began to form a smile, tears of fear began to shine instead with the light of gratitude. Her heart did not beat as fast as it had.
The Wanderer hacked off her head in one swift motion.
Her skull struck the floor with a dull, wet sound and her body fell. As he lowered the sword, the blade seemed to let out a sigh. He redressed himself, leaving the corpse to rot and become food for the rats. Returning to the hall, he found it was once more as it had been when he first entered. With her death, the magic haunting this place was now gone, undone.
As he ventured out through the tunnels, he was no longer harassed by the groping paws of the moaning dead. With her gone, they were no longer bound to the world of the living. As he passed their silent carcasses, the Wanderer wondered what it felt like. To be in such a state of death and life at the same time, rotting before your own eyes, helplessly watching her come out from that nest to gnaw on your bones and pick at the choicest remaining pieces of your flesh. Such pain, such horror, such suffering. It made the sword that he carried sing a low and sonorous song as he left behind the catacombs.
*
The storm was long past.
He ascended the steps of the necropolis and came out into the open air which he breathed in deeply. It was dawn and as the colours of the sunlight shone before his eyes, he thought of her and the dreadful transformation she could only keep at bay by feeding upon the flesh of the living. Drawing out the sword, Baro Vane, he raised it and, for a moment, saw her visage howling back at him from some space beyond and within the rune-scarred metal.
We were not so very different
, he thought,
you and I.
The Wanderer watched the sun rise, and he spoke a few words, a remembrance, for her.
"For each dawn, I die."
END
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading
Under a Colder Sun
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Titles available by Greg James
The Age of the Flame Trilogy
Titles available writing as G.R. Yeates
The Vetala Cycle Series
The Vetala Cycle - A Collected Edition
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their help, support and contributions;
Lora Kaleva – for her love and continuing understanding about my late hours and medicinal caffeine intake.
Henry & Natalie Kaleva – for their encouragement and support over the last few years.
Mark Kelly – for creating a superb piece of art that should be in a gallery as much as on the cover of this book.
Karin Cox – for continuing to be the best editor a writer could ask for and a great friend.
Robert E. Howard and Karl Edward Wagner – two under-appreciated giants of the Fantasy genre without whom Khale the Wanderer would not exist.
Ann Giardina Magee, Dianne Hunt and Misty Jo Hughes for being my beta readers this time around and for being my friends the rest of the time.
To all of my friends, fellow authors and fans – thank you for your support on the journey so far.
Stay grim, stay dark, stay true!
About the Author
Greg James
is a critically-acclaimed and best-selling self-published author. He was born in Rochford, Essex in darkest East Anglia. He studied Literature and Media at university and spent a year in the Far East teaching English as a foreign language. He resides in London where he takes long walks on the asphalt beach, writes late into the night and bathes in the river of night’s dreaming.