City of Scars (The Skullborn Trilogy, Book 1) Read online

  They’d never considered turning back. It would be treason and blasphemy, and there was too much at stake. The only thing to do was keep going, even if the way forward meant death.

  What horrors he’d seen. Men who shot fire from their eyes. Heads ripped from bodies at the whispered commands of black warlocks. War machines fueled with blood. Everyone knew tales of foul Arkan sorcery swallowing up towns, Tuscar war beasts bigger than sea galleons, cruel Vossian siege fortresses secretly constructed beneath human cities. Corgan believed every one of those tales as surely as he believed in the One Goddess herself, for he’d seen proof of many of them, and he’d seen other things, darker things.

  Things no man should ever see.

  Somehow the united forces of Jlantria and Den’nar had held their ground against the Blood Queen’s hordes in the south while also contending with her Galladorian allies to the north. Now, after a decade of fighting and with Gallador’s unexpected fall, they’d finally managed to drive the Blood Queen’s forces back into the Heartfang Wastes. There was still hope.

  It’s just hard to believe it when you’re walking through this.

  “It’s almost over,” Corgan said, his eyes straight ahead. “There’s no way to know how anyone will fare at Chul Gaerog.” I just know we have to try.

  “Yes, Colonel,” Merrick said after a moment. He looked disappointed, but more than that he looked embarrassed.

  “It’s all right, son,” Corgan said.

  Merrick nodded and fell back in with the others.

  A low howl rang out from the distance. Dripping red clouds hung low in the sky. They walked in silence. Another howl came, and then another. Silver Company marched on, their eyes glazed, their feet as heavy as stones. They eventually stopped to bury the bodies of Carak and Turvan.

  They were careful not to overwork the horses. Sweat slathered across the beast’s necks and flanks, and though there was little fluid to spare Corgan ordered they be watered regularly. Someone’s life could depend on them later.

  Corgan walked ahead of his men. Pain pulsed up his shins with each step, and his shoulders ached like someone had strapped lead weights to his back. Every fiber of muscle in his body begged for rest as he marched across the ebon landscape. Dull sunlight pained his eyes.

  He needed sleep. The sight of his men shuffling along and holding their blades like they didn’t know how to use them filled him with dread, but Corgan moved through the waking nightmare with grim resolve. There was, after all, no way to wake up.

  Jonas fell in time beside him. Corgan hadn’t seen him approach, but he rarely did. Jonas’s face betrayed no emotion, and of all of the men of Silver Company he showed the least signs of pain or fatigue. He was a bit thinner than when he’d first come under Corgan’s command, but aside from that the ranger appeared no worse for wear. The Den’nari people were like that – their soft words and mystic ways concealed what a hardened folk they truly were.

  “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” Corgan said, so quiet that at first he wasn’t sure if Jonas had heard him, but after a moment the other man nodded, so Corgan went on. “We won’t make it out of the Wastes. We’re too far in. I was hoping we’d run into some of the other Companies by now…” Corgan ran his gloved hand over his face. He had to stay awake, stay alert. “Maybe we’re the only ones left,” he laughed.

  “I doubt that,” Jonas said.

  “It was a joke,” Corgan sighed.

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  That itself almost made Corgan laugh. “I want to go home,” he said, and he regretted it almost instantly. That wasn’t something to be said in front of one of his men, especially not to an outsider who didn’t even share his religious beliefs. “She has to die,” he said. “The Blood Queen has to die. Otherwise it will just start all over again, and sooner or later she’ll win.” He took a drink from his water flask. His lips were cracked and grimy.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” Jonas said stoically. His voice almost sounded approving. “The men will do their best. They’re tired, they’re afraid, and they have their doubts, but they’re only human. And that’s what this is all about.”

  Jonas quickened his pace, and left Corgan alone.

  Corgan thought of Ral Tanneth.

  The waters of the Grey Sea softly collided against the distant shores, and the shadows of birds soared low through the silver sky. The city’s domed rooftops glittered copper and gold; arched bridges ran between the towers. Robed citizens wound their way through the streets, going about their business without any knowledge of the Blood Queen or the war, because none of that had happened yet. The only fighting was on the far side of the Empire, minor border skirmishes or maritime engagements against Gallador or Den’nar, nothing on the same level of devastation and loss that would follow in the next few years.

  The memory was vivid. Corgan smelled berries and heard the music of strings, felt the warm sun on his face and the cool and misty air. That was how Ral Tanneth had been, before the war.

  Corgan had also been different. He saw a younger version of himself, with a full head of black hair and a proud posture, his face chiseled and clean-shaven. What a sight he must have been now. He hadn’t shaved in months, and he bore several ugly scars, but beyond those physical differences he was a different man now, worn thin and beaten by the hammers of war. He saw it in the others, as well, especially Merrick, who’d once shone so bright he might have been chiseled from the sun, but who now held the look of someone trying not to see what lay directly ahead, whose eyes always searched for something that wasn’t there.

  Corgan had been in love once, to a girl named Tyrene from a small village north of Irontear. At least it felt like love, but they’d never really said the words. They hadn’t been able to spend much time together thanks to Corgan’s constant duties, but they made what time they had count: sitting by the stream, making love in inns or by the river, walking long walks and talking of little things.

  I miss you so much.

  He hadn’t seen Tyrene since the war began, nearly a decade ago. For all he knew she was dead, just another one of the countless casualties.

  Corgan silently damned the Blood Queen, with her cabals and armies and monsters. Jlantria and Den’nar might only temporarily hold the advantage over her and her demonic brood, but it was the first glimmer of hope they’d possessed since the fighting had started.

  He just prayed he’d live long enough to see her die.

  The day wore long. Corgan lost track of the hours as they marched.

  The clink of armor and barding filled his ears. Corgan gazed through drifts of red smoke and watched the vacant horizon. He smacked his lips in thirst. He was just about to reach for his canteen when a tremor shook the ground. It might have been thunder.

  A wide patch of dark soil collapsed under a half-dozen soldiers. Screams of panic filled the air. In moments the open space where they’d stood was filled with dirt and blood.

  Corgan, Jonas and a few others ran to help, but they only made it a few steps when the earth around them erupted in blasts of scarlet mud. Loose bits of metal and flesh fell like grisly rain.

  Mandibles emerged from the ground, jagged ebon chitin greased with blood. Ominous clicking sounds echoed up from the depths. A glistening black beetle easily ten feet wide rose from the rain-soaked earth with surprising speed. Its dark shell looked like iron.

  Corgan drew his double-length blade from its scabbard. “Careful!” he shouted, but it was too late. Locke charged the beast’s flank, and the insect turned and impaled him on one of its pincers. The boy wasn’t dead – blood spurted from his mouth as he futilely stabbed at the beetle with his short sword, unable to reach the insect’s body. Arrows bounced from the creature’s carapace. A pair of men moved in with axes and hacked at the spindly legs.

  Locke flailed and screamed as mandibles pushed through his back with a sickening crunch. Corgan watched in horror as the boy was stuffed into the beetle’s gaping maw like a wad of wet parchme
nt. Blood and bits of bone sprayed from the sphincter-shaped mouth.

  Corgan ducked beneath the beetle’s mandibles and drove his blade into one of its black eyes, splattering it like dark jelly. He cried out as his arms were caught between the pincers. The beetle’s maw was inches from his face.

  Jonas’s raak’ma severed a mandible and sent it to the ground. The beetle convulsed, and Corgan ripped his sword free. Black ooze ran down his chest. He brought the point of his blade lower and threw his weight behind it. The gooey flesh between the beetle’s sclerites popped.

  The beast’s body sank to the ground. Fatty black liquid covered Corgan’s armor. The pain and exhaustion of the past several days came rushing back at him, and Corgan had to lean down and steady himself before he fell over.

  “Nek’dool,” Jonas said.

  Corgan had heard tales of the giant insects, creatures made large and powerful by the corruptive magic of the Heartfang Wastes. He took a step back and shook his head to clear it of muck.

  “Do they travel alone?” he asked.

  “No. The Tuscars use them as mounts.” Jonas quickly surveyed the area. “They were guarding something…” he said. “Look! The runes!”

  “What…?”

  Corgan looked down. Faint black markings spiralled across the ground, a dizzying explosion of semi-concentric rings crudely arranged into the semblance of a jagged claw. The runes hadn’t been carved into the ground so much as burned, a scar tarnishing the landscape.

  “What the hell is it?” Corgan asked.

  A surge of panic worked its way through the ranks. His men looked around, ready for another attack.

  “Corgan…we’ve found something…” Jonas said. Corgan had never seen the Den’nari so animated. The expression on his leathery face was a mix of exhilaration and terror. “We may have found the key to beating Vlagoth!”

  “What are you talking…?”

  Corgan was cut off by a shrill scream. Weapons rang from their sheaths. Mud and dirt blasted through the air.

  More nek’dool rose from the ground. Mandibles snapped and great legs cleaved into crusted earth. Their black eyes reflected the faces of Corgan’s terrified men.

  Figures crouched low in leather saddles strapped to the beast’s back. As each nek’dool rose its rider cast off its cloak. They were tall and broad-shouldered humanoids with grey-black flesh and boar-like tusks. Their large white eyes had no pupils, and their mouths were wide, almost simian. Each Tuscar yielded a shek’tar, an iron spear with one side of the shaft set with a long and razor-sharp blade. They angrily beat the backs of their weapons against the chests of their dirty bronzed armor as they bellowed out monstrous roars.

  Though outnumbered the Tuscars fearlessly guided their massive insectoid mounts right into the Silver Company’s ranks, trampling and hacking men down.

  Adrenaline rushed through Corgan’s veins. He howled at his men to rally. Their final battle had begun.

  Corgan fell to one knee. He floated in a storm of steel and blood. Armored men and Tuscars crashed into each other. Metal shattered and gore rained down. His ears rang with the sound of blades and dying men. Corgan parried another blow and shockwaves from the impact rippled down his arms.

  He battered a shek’tar aside, dove forward and grappled a Tuscar with one arm around its waist. They crashed to the ground, clawing and stabbing at one another. Weapons fell. The Tuscar’s fangs hovered over Corgan’s face. He smelled rancid cold breath and stared into eyes like angry moons.

  The Tuscar slammed its knee into Corgan’s back. Pain shot up his spine. Corgan ripped his curved dagger from its boot sheath and drove it into the Tuscar’s stomach, again and again. His strength faded as ebon blood flowed over his hands. It took the Tuscar far too long to die.

  Corgan groped around, found his sword and rose to his feet. Tuscar howls and clanging weapons echoed through his skull. Red sunlight faded in and out as he spun around in a circle and tried to get his bearings.

  More Tuscars leapt over their fallen as they closed in for the kill. Bodies were everywhere, crumpled and bleeding. All of the nek’dool and horses were dead, and his men used the corpses as cover while they fired on Tuscars with their bows and javelins. Other men from the Company valiantly held their ground and took on their attackers man-to-man. They were a handful against a legion.

  Jonas brought a Tuscar down in a whirl of razor steel. He paid his wounds no heed as he charged back into the fray.

  An iron sphere flew past Corgan’s head. The Tuscar who’d thrown the missile wound another into a long leather sling, but before it could release the shot one of Merrick’s throwing axes took it in the back of its head. The lad only had a moment to draw his larger crescent-bladed axe before another Tuscar rushed at him. Two more charged at Corgan, their shek’tars soaked with blood.

  Where are they coming from? Perhaps two dozen Tuscars had initially rose from the ground on their nek’dool mounts, but he and his men had battled three times that many, and still they came.

  Corgan scanned the area every chance he had. He looked at the pits the nek’dool had created, but they were empty, and didn’t seem to actually lead anywhere. There was no apparent origin to the endless hordes – they just appeared from nowhere, wave after relentless wave.

  He ducked beneath the razor-edge of a shek’tar, swung his blade and took off his attacker’s leg at the knee with a sickening squelch. Another Tuscar crashed into him, and a spear tip buried itself in Corgan’s shoulder. Darkness and pain swam over him. He grabbed the blunt side of the shaft in his off-hand and cleaved the monster’s skull in two.

  The shek’tar came out of his shoulder easily enough, but the left side of Corgan’s body was numb. Jonas dealt with another pair of the barbarians, but three more came at him. Five more soldiers from the Company fell, but Merrick and another man whose face was so drenched with blood Corgan couldn’t even recognize him quickly exacted revenge.

  Corgan turned and saw a Tuscar appear from thin air, right at the far edge of the runes on the ground. The creature charged at him from out of nothingness.

  There it is. Corgan sliced the Tuscar’s head clean from its shoulders, cried out in rage and charged at the point where the Tuscar had appeared. After ten paces the air shivered around him, lost its form and became fluid. Corgan passed through a molten reflection of where he’d stood. Liquid rubbed against him, but his skin remained dry. The world bled.

  He took another step, and was gone.

  A girl’s face. An angel of blades. The tree.

  “This is only the beginning.”

  Corgan fell forward and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Every muscle strained with effort. He pushed his body up from the ground with his one good hand; the other had been smashed to a pulp. One of his eyes was sealed with blood and swollen skin. His guts dangled and scraped against the ground.

  The world turned bright as Corgan passed back through the bloodstorm barrier, away from the halls of Chul Gaerog and into the Heartfang Wastes.

  Something pressed down on his back and buckled his knees. His body and mind swam through pulsing waves of hurt. He pulled himself closer to the light. Blood pooled on the ground.

  The weight on his back released as his vision faded. He heard a voice. Fire and thunder crashed through his mind. Presences tugged at him like dark hands in the water.

  Something turned him onto his back. The echoing voices from the dark were still there, distant sounds from the nadir of some black well.

  “…happened to him?”

  Whoever spoke was close.

  “Corgan?” Was it Jonas? “Colonel? Can you hear me?”

  Corgan tried to speak, but all he could do was cough. More blood burst from his mouth.

  “Goddess,” Merrick said, “I can’t stop the bleeding…”

  “Hold it tight!” Jonas yelled. Corgan sensed them leaning over him as he lay there. There was no other sound but the steady trickling of his blood. “Hang on, Colonel.”

  “Where did
he go?” Merrick asked Jonas.

  Corgan tried to remember, but it was so difficult to think. Horrors flashed before him.

  A girl’s face. An angel of blades. The tree.

  He slid closer to a cold black place from which he’d never return.

  “This is only the beginning.”

  “Dead,” he managed to cough.

  “Not yet,” Jonas growled. “Hang on.”

  Corgan opened his good hand and showed his trophy from Chul Gaerog – a clump of fine golden hair mottled with blood.

  “She’s dead,” he coughed. “The Blood Queen is dead.”

  The war was over.

  One

  (30 Years After the Rift War)

  Den’nari coin wasn’t welcome at the Red Witch Inn.

  Wonderful, Dane thought. That’s the perfect end to my day.

  “Do you have any Jlantrian coin?” the innkeeper asked. The man was Drage, a descendant of the all but extinct people of Gallador. He bore their signature bronze skin and black eyes and stood only four foot tall and half that wide, a stout wall of beard and muscle. The innkeep stood on a wooden pedestal running behind the length of the bar, lending him the illusion of height.

  “No,” Dane said. Drops of rainwater still ran through his short blonde hair and slicked his scalp. “Look…is there a moneychanger in town? A bank? Even a market bazaar? There has to be some place I can exchange currency…”

  “I’m afraid not,” the innkeeper interrupted. “Empress’s law. No foreign money is allowed in the city of Ebonmark.”

  Dane tapped his fingers on the bar. “That makes no sense,” he said. “So basically the city is just turning away foreign trade?”

  “No one ever said laws have to make sense,” the Drage said with a nod. His voice was deep and scratchy, like broken glass. “They seldom do.”

  “Since when did Ebonmark become Jlantrian again?” Dane asked.

  “You should know,” the Drage replied. “You look Jlantrian. Now…are you going to buy something or not?”

  Azander Dane cursed under his breath. He’d entered the city through Ebonmark’s seldom used East Gate, and from there he’d made his way straight to the Red Witch Inn. Though he’d passed a handful of White Dragon troops patrolling the crooked streets he hadn’t seen anything to indicate the city was actually under Imperial control. Dane’s black and gold chain shirt, the signature armor of the Dawn Knights, was so layered with grime and dust from the Bonelands it was barely recognizable for what it was, which was probably the only reason he’d escaped notice. His Order had long since been disbanded and disgraced, but Dane continued to wear the armor out of stubborn pride.