Dawn of War Read online

  “Leave it where it lay,” Zalee demanded as she drew her sword and edged closer, her tone as sharp as the silvered edge of her blade.

  The rasp of steel stopped Cael in his tracks. He straightened slow, moving his hand away from the relic, his eyes locked on Zalee.

  Uthul glanced to his companion and raised a hand before looking back to Cael. “Where did you find this?” He pointed to the rod, but kept his distance from it.

  “It’s my father’s,” Cael started, his eyes tearing up at the thought of his dad. “Was my father’s,” he corrected. “It’s mine now.”

  The pair shared a look and Zalee returned her sword to its sheath. Uthul gestured to the rod. “Do you understand its use?”

  Surprised by the question, Cael realized Uthul had to know what the relic was to have asked it. He shook his head. “Understand it? No, but I can make it work.”

  “Do you know how it came to be in your father’s possession? Could he use its power too?”

  Certain the pair could take it from them if that was what they wished, Cael saw no point in lying. “My father used it to heal.” He met Uthul’s bright gaze. “Before it was my dad’s, it was my grandfather’s, passed to him by his father. I don’t know how he came to own it.”

  “It was once a gift from the Sha’ree; our people,” Zalee said, the heat of anger still tingeing her voice.

  Cael stared without blinking as the words sank in, but they made no sense. He looked to the relic and then to Zalee, then at last to Uthul. If the relic had come from the Sha’ree, why did they seem so afraid of it? He had never known it to do harm.

  “Have you come to take it back?”

  “No. It is yours to keep, but we seek the bearers of such gifts. It is fortunate tidings indeed that we happened upon you. Will you travel with us?”

  Cael didn’t hesitate to accept. He nodded.

  Uthul reached inside his cloak and drew out a silver pouch and a small, shimmering blue orb. He tossed the bag near the rod and rolled the orb gently over the ground. The orb spun to a stop in the undergrowth and Cael could hear a whispered hum emanating from it as its glimmer grew brighter. Soft white light leaked from its crystalline face and illuminated the forest for ten feet around as though the sun had dawned right there. Despite its impressive brightness, Cael was able to look directly upon it without any ill effect.

  Without a word, Zalee drifted into the trees at the very edge of the light’s domain and disappeared.

  “Use the rod to heal your wound. When you are done, place it in the pouch I provided. Once the pouch is sealed, call to us. Zalee and I shall be nearby, so you will be safe.” He drew back until he was little more than faint silhouette against the darker shadows outside of the light’s range. “Make haste, young one. There is much ground for us to cover.” His voice drifted through the darkness as he too faded away.

  Once Cael could see Uthul no more, he dropped down beside the rod, plucking it from the ground. The cold stings pricked at his fingers immediately. Wanting nothing more than to rid his shoulder of the terrible, throbbing pain that set it afire, he moved his dirty tunic out of the way and pressed the relic to his flesh.

  Once again, the symbols along its length shimmered with green. He willed its power alive and after just a few moments, his arm was once more whole, the pain gone.

  He did as he was asked and slipped the relic inside the silver pouch, pulling the ties tight. Once he was sure it was closed, he called out to Uthul.

  The Sha’ree were at his side within two beats of his heart, appearing like ghosts from the murk of the forest. He jumped at their sudden arrival, holding up the sealed bag to cover the palpitations of his frantic pulse.

  “Good. Now store it away, young one.”

  Cael stuffed the pouch into his waistband and drew the clasp of his belt tight to hold it there. “The name’s Cael.”

  Uthul gave a shallow bow. “We are well met, Cael.”

  Zalee did the same, the look on her face having softened somewhat. “Come, Cael, we must go.” She gestured to the glowing orb. “Take up the light so you may see, but bear it gently in travel. The fire beetle inside might not take kindly to its entrapment were it to be freed.”

  The Sha’ree turned and strode into the darkness of the woods. Cael, not wanting to be left behind, snatched up the crystal orb and was surprised to notice it was cool to the touch. No time to marvel at its power, he raced to keep up to the pair. Though he knew not where they were leading him, he was certain he no longer had to fear the terrors that roamed the Dead Lands.

  For Cael, that was enough.

  Chapter Eleven

  Ellora stared wide eyed as a young boy dashed around the corner, nearly colliding with her. She threw herself against the wall as the boy kicked up a cloud of dirt in his attempt to stop. A few feet past her, he finally skidded to a halt, spinning on his heels to look at her.

  “The watch,” he gasped, pointing back the way he’d come. He drew in a deep breath, his chest expanding almost comically. “The watch is coming.”

  Before Ellora had time to respond, the boy tore off down the road to warn the rest of orphans from the Ninth who were out on the Sixth begging for a few meager coins to make it through the day, or stealing it when the opportunity presented itself.

  Ellora’s heart thumped loudly in her chest as the boy’s words sunk in. While there was no specific law against the orphans being on the level, the watch had made it very clear they were not welcome there. As the levels rose toward the Crown, so did the quality of life for those who lived on them.

  The first two levels were jammed with the poor, the crippled and unwell, those unable to bear their own burdens without help. The level right above those were where the soldiers and field workers lived. Ranking officers, merchants, and the lower nobilities started on the Sixth, where Ellora and her orphan friends often gathered to make their way.

  The Sixth was the perfect place to garner sympathy, its residents close enough to the circumstances of the Ninth to feel pity. Go any higher and the callous cruelty of the noble classes set in. With little patience for beggars, and far less for thieves, to beg on the Fifth or higher was to earn a beating, at the very least. The nobles valued their property too much so to simply give it away and their vengeance was swift upon those caught stealing.

  Ellora dashed into a nearby alley and ducked low behind a haphazard pile of waste that waited to be shipped to the Ninth for disposal. The rank smell filled her nose, but she barely noticed. Compared to what filled the air in the Ninth, its mild stink was nothing.

  She peered out over the trash as the stomp of boots sounded around the corner. Though the watch was often lenient with the orphans they found on the level, doing little more than escorting them back to their rightful place, there had been a number of complaints made against them in recent days. To make matters worse, the soldiers had kicked them off the level just hours before.

  The watch wouldn’t be so lenient this time.

  Ellora’s breath caught in her lungs as the soldiers stomped into sight. She readied to run but knew immediately they hadn’t come to chase dirty orphans from the Sixth. They were about far more important duties.

  She cast her eyes over the group of sour-faced men, led by the watch commander himself. In the middle of the wall of soldiers, shields and spears, a ragged man walked with his chin down, his bearded face turned away from the world.

  Emboldened by the soldiers’ focus on the man, Ellora stood and stepped from behind the obscuring waste to get a better look. She hugged the shadows of the wall and inched toward the street, her eyes never leaving the prisoner.

  He walked like a man destined for the gallows, his strength and will drained from his stride as though he knew his breaths were numbered. Ellora had seen such a walk before; she had seen it with her own father.

  He had gone to the rope for killing a merchant who’d cheated him of his last few silvers. Those coins had meant everything to her father. They were what would have ke
pt food on his family’s table through the cold winter months and wood in the oven for heat. To lose them was the final step off a steep cliff, her father’s pride and wavering hope shoved mercilessly over the edge.

  Ellora was told he had strangled the man so violently the merchant’s eyes had popped loose from their sockets. The watch found her father, his hands still tight around the merchant’s cold, rigid neck, wracked with sobs that wouldn’t cease. They dragged him away in tears only to march him out into the field two dawns later. It was the last time Ellora had seen her father alive.

  She watched as the trap opened beneath his bare and dirty feet. He dropped through it with a surprised gasp, his body dancing as he reached the end of the rope. Though only six at the time, the details of his final moment still shone clear in her mind.

  Grateful for the blackened hood that hid his face from sight, Ellora watched in horror as her father’s bowels and bladder gave way without restraint. Urine soaked the tented front of his wool pants as shit ran in thick rivulets down his leg to stain the ground beneath in a dark, foul smelling puddle that cast off steam in the cold winter air. He twitched for several long seconds and then swung dead on the rope. He swayed back and forth in the wind until the hangman cut him down at dusk. In the darkness of her nightmares, he swung the same from that moment forward.

  On that day, happiness and hope had died alongside her father. Ellora’s mother did what she could to keep food in their grumbling bellies, but with nothing to sell and no skills to trade, she had only her flesh to give.

  Ellora remembered hiding in the shadows of their tiny hut, covering her ears to the sounds of men grunting and sweating overtop her mother just feet away in what had been her father’s bed a mere week before. Her mother’s soft squeals frightened her and she wished herself deaf.

  Though she knew not then what her mother sacrificed to keep warm gruel in Ellora’s bowl, she understood deep down that it was wrong and that it hurt her mother more than she could know. It wasn’t right that her mother should suffer so.

  Ellora pushed away the image of her mother’s weary eyes and empty stare and crept onto the street behind the squad of soldiers that were headed toward the gate to the Fifth. She wished the ragged man well and hoped he had no family that would suffer in the wake of his death as hers had at her father’s.

  There were more than enough parentless children in the Ninth than the streets could provide for. They needed no more at the orphanage. Save for but a few children who’d been taken away by the Royal Guard when Ellora was but a child, the orphans only left when they were old enough to fend for themselves.

  As the soldiers escorted the man from her sight, the heavy stomp of their boots fading away, she saw the rest of the orphans slip from the shadowed alleys and out from darkened corners to return to the street. Their faces were all turned toward the Fifth and the disappearing watch.

  Ellora felt a growing heaviness in her chest at having seen the strange man’s arrival, a sense of foreboding she could not place. For no reason she could explain, she glanced up at the sky and spied the red-orange eye of A’ree staring down upon her. A squirming sickness roiled in her stomach at the sight.

  The moon was a portend of ill tidings to come. She looked away as a chill prickled the skin of her arms.

  Ellora’s father had gone to the gallows under the angry eye of Ree. Her mother too had met her own sad death during the Tumult. Her spirit broken, her flesh ravaged by the diseases borne of her desperate need to provide for her daughter, she drew her last ragged breath as the Iron Ocean raged against the far side of the Fortress Mountains. But despite her effort, that last breath was one of condemnation.

  No one to care for her, Ellora was taken to the Ninth and cast amidst the orphans who fought for space to sleep on the mildewed and cold floorboards of the old orphanage. The king’s meager coppers did little to make their life better, but it kept a rotting roof over their heads and maggot-infested bread in their bellies.

  Ellora’s hand brushed against the hidden pocket sewn inside the waistband of her threadbare pants and sighed as she fingered the two, thin coppers snuggled inside. It had been a poor day for beggars on the Sixth.

  She glanced at the moon once more and cursed it, turning to watch the sun as it dipped below the jagged peaks of the mountains. She called impatient to the other orphans, gesturing toward the sky. It was a long way back to the Ninth. If they hurried they could make it before the shadows swallowed the streets.

  For all the difficulties the orphans of Lathah faced during the day, they were nothing compared to what nightfall would bring were they to be caught out in the dark.

  Ellora shivered and counted heads. Once she was sure they were all together, she rushed them toward home.

  The shining glow of A’ree at her back, Ellora wondered what she could have done to the goddess to have upset her so.

  Chapter Twelve

  The daylight silence of the woods around him exploding with the coming of night, Domor sat low in the raft as the inhabitants of the Dead Lands shrieked in eerie displeasure at their presence.

  He glanced at Jerul and noticed even his blood-companion had sunk lower on the wooden bench. Having rowed throughout the day, save for a few hours when Domor had taken over so the warrior could nap, Jerul’s arms trembled with effort. The purple veins at his cheeks stood out, swollen against the almost glowing pale white of his face. The warrior huffed with each rotation of the oars, glistening sweat running like rain across his broad chest.

  But despite the weariness that seemed to infest his movements and had stolen his voice from him, Jerul’s blue eyes shined with an alert wariness. They darted like angry wasps, flitting back and forth but never lighting on any one thing for more than just an instant.

  Feral howls peeled from out of the darkness, sending cold shivers dancing down Domor’s neck and back. He slunk further into the raft, cursing his long limbs when he could sink no lower. His feet butted up against Jerul’s swords and pack, and there was nowhere for them to rest. The craft had not been built with the gangly limbs of a Velen in mind.

  He muttered a quiet complaint and glanced out over the rail to spy movement at the water’s edge. A dozen red eyes glared back at him, shifting and shimmering in the formless black that devoured the trees. Guttural barks and growls were flung at them as they passed, the eyes attempting to keep pace through the dense underbrush. Muted splashes followed them along as the creatures repeatedly tested the boundaries of the water.

  Higher in the trees, sibilant shrieks cut through the night like the whistle of arrows. Domor searched the dark sky of the canopy each time he heard the droning buzz of an insect whirl by. Tiny tracers of pale green light marked their path overhead.

  Domor’s knuckles ached, having clutched at the hilt of his dagger since he and Jerul sailed into the Dead Lands. He finally released his hold and groaned as he extended his fingers, the knuckles popping like bugs in a fire. He shook his arm to return blood to his hand, tingling pricks dancing amok along the skin.

  Every once in a while, glimmers of A’ree cut through the canopy and seemed to dye the water blood red where it struck, as if opening a wound upon the surface of the river. Jerul drew Domor’s attention to one such beam.

  “Ree watches us in her fury.” Jerul’s voice was raspy, the words harsh whispers.

  Domor grunted and reached into Jerul’s pack to pull a waterskin from within its crowded depths. He tugged the plug free of the valve and squirted a liberal amount into Jerul’s open mouth.

  “I had just begun to believe that Ree had blessed us with traveler’s luck, my friend, keeping the beasts at bay upon the shore, their sharpened teeth far from our flesh.” Domor flopped back onto the deck and took a sip of the water before sealing it and returning it to the pack. “But I defer to your judgment that we’re simply waiting for our doom to descend upon us, and I have only fooled myself into believing we might make it to Nurin alive.”

  A tiny smirk of measured tolerance
flickered at Jerul’s lips. “Ree tempers the good she provides with ill to humble even the most charmed of her children. Your sharp tongue may well strip the skin from fools, but it does little to sway the goddess from her path, of which only she knows. Mock her not lest you draw the attention of her fury.”

  Domor settled back with a wry grin. He and Jerul had danced to this tune many times since their bonding. It was a rousing composition, with much give and take weaved amidst its notes.

  Though born a Velen and raised amongst their pious kind, closest of the races of Ahreele to the Sha’ree, Domor asked questions that his people had no answers for. It was what set him apart, a near pariah amongst the Velen.

  He’d been taught the story of Ree’s awakening and could recite it by rote, even deep within his cups. He knew the power of the magic that spilled from the ground, yet he could give no credence to the goddess’ presence as more than the stone upon which he walked. In all his fifty years, he had never once felt her hand in either guidance or disdain.