Legends of Marithia: Book 2 - Darkness Rising (3 page)

Vengeance could not bring back what he
had lost and his pain only worsened.

Shindar turned on the gods that had
granted him his life, breaking into Marithian churches to wreak
destruction on their statues. He screamed blasphemously into the
clouds above, blaming the gods for the death of his innocent wife
and unborn child.

“
You should have protected
them! After all I have done, you let them take my family from me!
All of you just watched it happen, damn you all!” he
yelled.

The gods heard him and condemned him
for his treachery. They banished him from Marithia and he would
never again join them in the higher plane. He was struck down by
bolts of lightning and awoke reanimated in the underworld, where he
vowed to take Marithia back from the hands of the gods and make
them answer for what they had done to him.

He had a new purpose that he would
devote his life to; a purpose that would carry on throughout the
ages.

When vampires were discovered in
Marithia, the people, forsaken by Shindar, renounced their
religion. The books and priests had no answers, no help for the
Marithians in ways to protect themselves from the Forces of
Darkness that now infected Marithia like a plague.

Marithia fell into chaos and was
quickly divided, drowning in various beliefs and gods. People
fought amongst themselves in the name of their gods or
greed.

There was a change in the underworld.
Motivated by his thirst for blood, Shindar commanded his monks to
cast a spell that enveloped Marithia. Deaths, whether natural or
violent, would result in being reanimated in the underworld under
his control. Some Marithians even chose to pray to him in hope of
protecting themselves against what may await them when they died
and arrived in the underworld.

Shindar’s army and power grew with his
lust for vengeance and his thirst for blood could never be
quenched. His heart beating with hate, he ruled the underworld with
an iron fist, and worst of all… he provided evil souls with what
they needed most, a common enemy.

Shindar paced angrily around the outer
wall of the resurrection room in his dark tower, mumbling to
himself in an ancient language incomprehensible to the many ears
surrounding him. He stopped in his tracks and turned his gaze on
Kassina.

“
I sent her to Marithia,
and I told her to wait until the time was right… and
what
does she do?!” he
growled to himself before kicking a jar of blood which shattered
against the nearby wall.

Shindar was a tower of a presence, but
more monster than man. Like a fiery demon enveloped inside
human-like flesh. He never slept and spent most of his time
training in combat and magic. His body was strong, but his real
strength could be seen in his eyes, if anyone dared to look into
them.

Erratically, he would bark orders at
skeleton warriors bringing in fresh additions to the underworld.
Screaming in terror, the victims were dragged into the resurrection
room, before mercilessly having their throats slit open. They were
strung up by their twitching feet and the sound of them choking on
their own fluids slowly subsided as their blood drained into the
growing pool below Kassina’s body.

Their fallen vampire queen lay naked
on a bed of bones floating on the expanding blood pool, the heat
from the wall’s torches made beads of sweat form on her
skin.

“
Kassina, you
fool
! Why? It is a
wonder in itself that I found your body in Greenhaven and brought
you back here before any Marithians found you!” yelled Shindar,
crunching his fists so tightly that it sounded as if he were
crushing his own bones inside them.

Kassina’s groans escaped her full lips
as her mind struggled to find consciousness. Her body was quite a
sight to behold. The moving light from flames appeared to lick
their way around her flesh.

Shindar’s monks focused on mixing the
ever growing blood pool, would be foolish to lay lustful eyes on
her in the presence of Shindar. Three monks stirred the blood to
keep it fresh and joined ten more monks who chanted the powerful
spell that was to return Kassina to the underworld. Three monks in
each corner of the triangular room were rhythmically beating giant
drums.

In the shadows of flaming torches,
dark souls circled violently above them. Their whispering pleas
heard by everyone in the room.

Free me… Give me life and I
will grant you power…

Shindar grimaced as he
turned to Kassina and shook his fist at her as he continued in
rage. “Do you know how valuable you are to me? How could you take
such a foolish risk by casting a spell like that? The power of
displacement is
not
to be used lightly and you must at all times make sure your
body is safe and guarded. Did I not tell you that countless times?
Countless times!”

Staring at her face, he remembered
Angeline. Kassina’s features closely resembled Angeline’s and kept
painful memories fresh in his mind, driving his fury. Seeing his
beloved Kassina weak and vulnerable pushed a portion of his anger
aside.

I will not let them take
her from me again
, he thought.

Pausing in his tracks and
pondering another angle of thought with his head cocked like a
bird, his face morphed quickly from a look of intrigue to an evil
smirk. “I suppose you did manage to invoke the prophecy and word
will quickly spread of your apparent death in Marithia… that
could
prove
useful.”

Shindar thought back to when Kassina’s
parents were brutally murdered. She was so young and innocent. He
had saved her life, and she promised herself to him in return. So
much has taken place since then, but she would always be the child
that was brutally stolen from him.

He got down on one knee in
desperation, shaking his head beside the growing pool of blood.
“I
will
restore
your power, but I will make sure that you never make such a
reckless mistake like that again! What good is ruling all of
Marithia in darkness without my child to share the glory with
me?”

One of the chanting monks stared at
the emotional Shindar on his knees and involuntarily laughed at the
lord of darkness. Before the monk had a chance to realise his fatal
mistake, Shindar launched at him like a pouncing tiger catching his
prey. His movements blurred and jilted to the monk as Shindar
lifted him from the ground by his neck like a weightless
ragdoll.

He frowned as he stared
down the monk with a deadly gaze. “You
dare
laugh… at me?” his growl filled
the room with such ferocity that Kassina’s eyes twitched before he
pounded the monk into the marble ground with all of his might,
smashing his head wide open like a split berry. Another monk
hurried into the room to take his place.

The flames flickered and the dark
souls moaned as the spell neared its completion. Without warning,
they were ripped from the safety of the shadows and tore into
Kassina’s body.

Kassina thrashed violently as if
possessed by demons.

Shindar hit the nearby monks across
the back of the head in annoyance. “Protect her you
fools!”

The remaining monks moved quickly,
leaping into the pool of blood, they made their way to restrain her
wrists and ankles, grunting with the strength required to hold her
down. Souls within her were fighting for their own existence and
were in their last moments of battle against the spell, whose claws
gripped them tightly. Kassina screamed from the burning pain within
and her eyes shot open before her body went limp in exhaustion at
the spell’s completion.

The room fell silent as all waited to
see if the vampire queen had returned. A whisper sliced through the
silence with the power of a shout, “Shindar?”

Kassina sat up with a look of
confusion, speaking softly. “What is happening? Why am I here? And
why am I unclothed?”

Her confusion turned to fright when
she saw the monks standing over her, saturated and dripping with
blood. She frantically scanned herself for injuries. The monks
quickly looked down to avoid gazing at her body.

“
Kassina! You are back in
the safety of my tower, but you almost died! I brought you here
before you completely faded. It has been quite some time and I have
had to sacrifice countless souls to rebuild your strength,” he
said, reaching for her with open arms.

Kassina launched off her bed, clearing
the bloody pool, to land on all fours like a panther. She slowly
extended upright and casually disrobed a monk with a flick of her
finger. Catching his heavy robe, she covered her milky white flesh
and embraced him tightly.

Her lips quivered and eyes
sparkled as she spoke through a raspy voice, “Thank you for saving
me
again
. I don’t
know what I would do without you. How can I
ever
repay you?”

Shindar felt his anger draining out of
his body as he held Kassina in his arms once more.

“
I have missed your
presence in the underworld and it has been so long since you
returned to these lands. I cannot let you return to Marithia until
our numbers have been replenished,” he replied.

Their losses had been heavy at the
battle of the Elven Woods, and although there were still enough
skeleton warriors in Kassina’s tower, Shindar didn’t want to send
her back until he felt that she would be adequately protected and
understood that such risks were not to be taken again.

He held her hand, walking toward the
corridor with her. As he went, he waved off the skeleton warriors
who had been leading more captured souls to the blood pool and
dismissed the monks. He didn’t need them now that his prized
possession had finally returned to him.

The monks nodded and formed a line
behind him, reciting spells of protection for their queen as they
followed closely behind.

“
Kassina. You fought
bravely, but our enemies are far more powerful than we anticipated.
We have a difficult journey ahead of us, and cannot run blindly
into battle underestimating them,” he said.

“
I understand,” began
Kassina before groaning and leaning over in pain. She spat up some
dark blood on the floor before wiping her mouth with her
robe.

He picked her up easily, and continued
walking with her held closely to his chest.

Approaching her door, Shindar bent
down to lay a kiss on her forehead and his voice softened. “My
Kassina, you are in dire need of rest. The spell of resurrection is
not commonly used on someone whose body survives but that no longer
matters. It worked like our monks told me it would. I distinctly
remember holding you like this, so many years ago. You were just a
child then, but I will never forget that day.”

Shindar turned sharply to look at his
followers and growled, “Why is the door not open?!”

One of the monks bowed and ran ahead
to open her door before they all continued a slow march back to
their quarters.

He lay her down gently onto the soft
covers of her bed. “Your chambers are exactly as you left them and
I have longed for the day of your return. Relax now and I will have
a servant bring your favourite tea infused with the blood of
virgins.”

Kassina looked around the room and
remembered with affection the countless hours she spent inside its
cold, sleek walls. She closed her tired eyes, their lids heavy and
difficult to keep open. Shindar’s voice filled her mind, humming a
lullaby from her childhood.

Rubbing her eyes, she yawned with
exhaustion and mumbled, “Perhaps I’ll have the tea later.” She was
home again, and her last thought before she drifted off to sleep
was of revenge.

Wherever you are Vartan… we
will meet again and next time, you will not be so lucky.

Chapter 3 : A Knight To
Remember

“
What do you do when all
you know is lost and what gives you comfort disappears? How do you
find solace when you have nowhere left to turn?

How do we deal with the losses of so
many of our loved ones?