Stormcaller (Book 1) (24 page)

“Inspect more closely, Malek. He’s still there, he has not fully transformed yet,” Baylan said, waving his hand towards Walter. “He’s been fighting the transformation for a full week.”

“That’s preposterous, no man can survive that long without…you’re going to feel a slight tingle, I’m going to examine the curse.” The color of Malek’s eyes returned to a light green. He extended his open hand in front of Walter and a cone of yellow light washed over the boy’s face.

The sensation of burning mixed with rage engulfed Walter as the blinding yellow light entered his eyes. It felt like someone was trying to remove a scab one iota at a time from what he could only describe as his soul. The blackness that surrounded the edges of his vision fought back screaming in his head, swirling shadows manifesting into the monstrosities of nightmares.

The light faded and Walter slumped to his knees with a clank. Malek stumbled back a step and gasped. “I think I can remove the curse, but I’m going to need your support,” he said, looking to Baylan’s blackened stump. “I see you’ve already tried without success.”

“Of course, anything you need. The curse’s ward is very powerful.” Baylan’s light blue eyes grew hard as he gazed at the remnants of his hand.

Malek nodded, inhaling deeply, and shuffled to a claw-footed circular table that took up half of the room. The table was littered with strange trinkets strewn about in no apparent order. There was a cluster of red burning candles melting on a plate, a flask of bubbling purple liquid, a green faintly glowing scimitar with jagged teeth on one side, a few towers of worn books, and a vase set with an eyeball the size of a fist perched atop the opening – these were just a few of the items that drew Walter’s eyes.

“Are you ready for this, Walter?” Nyset asked and rubbed his neck. The silhouettes of incongruous demons raged on the edges of his vision, claws and jaws snapping at the nether.
You are mine, dual wielder
, a hoarse voice that was not his rasped in his head.

“What? No. I’ll never be yours!” Walter shouted, and tightly held his ears as if trying to block a piercing sound. Nyset shot a worried glance at Baylan.

“We’re going to have to restrain you, Walter, the curse will fight us when we start the expungement,” Malek said as he selected items from his laboratory. He absently waved an arm to a spartan bed adjacent to the table.

Walter nodded, regaining control.
In combat, make your enemy flinch and you’ve already won.
Noah’s words, reverberating in his mind, helped to dispel the fear that quivered through his legs. Grimbald helped him walk to the table, taking the load off his shaking legs. Malek handed thick leather straps to Baylan and Grimbald, using them to cinch Walter lying face up on the bed.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Walter said.

Malek leaned over the bed with narrowed eyes. “Do what you can to fight. This will be very painful.” He offered Walter a wooden dowel to chew on and the young man accepted it, clenching it between his teeth.

Malek positioned himself behind Walter’s head with Baylan at his side and started murmuring something indiscernible. In one hand Malek held a shriveled, severed hand of a Cerumal. Walter felt the hair on his neck prickle.
This isn’t so bad, I can handle this.
Baylan and Malek burst alight, both surrounded by bright blue auras. Nyset held onto Walter’s firm grip with two hands, meeting his darting yellow eyes. His gaze softened upon her face.
She’s gorgeous, flowing hair and large doe eyes.
Grimbald stood near his legs, wrinkling his bushy eyebrows.

“What is this magic? What are you doing?” Grimbald said. Baylan’s face tightened and he glared at Grimbald. Grimbald blinked and shifted his gaze from Baylan to Walter.

Baylan reached his hand towards Malek’s. Malek seized it and Baylan’s aura winked out, and then Malek’s intensified, burning like a blue sun. Nyset and Grimbald looked away from the azure tempest. Twirling blue and purple vines spiraled from Malek’s aura and worked their way to Walter. The glowing vines slipped between the dark plates encompassing Walter’s body.

Blinding pain ripped through his flesh. It felt like thousands of cauterizing needles were trying to work their way through his skin from the inside out. He screamed and writhed against the leather bindings, beads of sweat forming on his brow.

Grimbald attempted to hold Walter’s legs, and received a steel boot to the face for his effort. He stepped back, covering his face. He tried again for Walter’s legs as blood streamed from his disfigured nose. This time his powerful hands found purchase and pinned the legs.

Walter compressed his grip on Nyset’s hand. She whimpered and her eyes watered. She seized the Dragon. The pain in her hands withered away to a dull ache as the power pounded through her body. Malek jerked his head at her, then quickly returned his focus to Walter.

The darkness around Walter’s vision grew into an encompassing mass, leaving him just pinholes to look through. His nostrils flared and his hands trembled in Nyset’s grip.

“Fight it!” Malek roared.

Walter’s vision went black and the world grew quiet. The grunting of his friends struggling against his involuntary spasms faded into silence. The sensation of being burned and skinned alive faded.
Am I dead? Is this death?

“No, I will not let you go so easily,” a voice said that sounded like it had spent thirty years smoking a pipe every day. Walter found himself standing on a blood-red plateau, surrounded by an endless abyss and wearing only his smallclothes. The reflecting red stone surface had the appearance of a shattered ceramic plate that hadn’t separated after hitting the floor.

Walter looked up from the ground to see a figure on the opposite side of the plateau. Malevolent, violet eyes glowed from the darkness that shrouded its face. Red swathes of a shredded cape flowed around its form, as if the laws of gravity did not apply to it. It spread its heavily muscled arms wide, each arm covered in spikes that formed razor-sharp tips.

“What do you want with me!” Walter shouted. He felt his heart pound through his chest, and he set his jaw.

“Have you ever wanted to crush an ant that crossed your path?” the figure rasped.

The figure vanished and violence exploded from Walter’s back. He fell to his hands and scrambled onto his back, gasping at the pain and shock of it suddenly so close. The dancing red cape stretched like massive wings into the air around the figure. The spikes on its right forearm were coated in Walter’s bright blood. The cape formed into two thick ropes and encircled Walter’s torso, lifting him into the air. He felt ribs snap, and one jutted through his side, trailing blood down his abdomen. The figure casually walked to him as Walter wept under the crushing force of the cape’s tendrils.

The figure raised a hand and two blades the length of short swords emerged from its forearm and beyond the raised hand. It slammed the bladed hand into Walter’s chest, the tips tearing through his lungs and out the other side. Walter slumped to the ground and the billowing cape retracted.

“Fight, Walter,” Nyset’s concerned voice echoed within the emptiness.

In that agony, something within him shifted. He felt, for the first time in a long time, an overwhelming sense of peace, as if that pain had finally set him free.
Why does this bleeding feel so sweet?
Within his mind’s eye the gnashing darkness was dispelled by light. The Dragon came into view, roaring and blasting gouts of flame into the black. There was something else too. A Phoenix darted around the Dragon, circling it and protecting it from attacks from the shadowy demons.

Walter sprang to his feet, holding a massive two-handed axe of pure white light in his hands, skin bathed in red. He screamed and swung at the figure’s head. It stiffly drew back, but an edge still found purchase. The figure stumbled back, placing a hand on its neck. It pulled the hand away, revealing a small cut that trickled violet blood.

“No, it can’t be!” it screamed shrilly.

Walter sharply sucked in air as reality returned and with it an onslaught of pain. “Where are you?” he yelled, eyes shifting around the room.
Where am I?
Why can’t I move?

“We’re right here, with you,” Nyset said, biting her lip.

The Temple of Meditation, with my friends, Malek, the armor.

He saw Malek standing erect behind him, faintly glowing blue. He nodded crisply at Walter, meeting his eyes. Walter felt a wound on his back knitting together. He felt entirely too much wetness on his back. He saw that the bed was sodden with blood. He shook his head. Some had dripped onto the stone floor, forming tiny pools.

“I thought it was just a dream?” The pain faded to a dull ache.

“No, that was no ordinary dream,” Malek said, waving his glowing hand over Walter’s ribs. “The Armor of Broken Wars, the armor the Cerumal wear, creates a soul bond with Black Wynches, allowing them to dominate the psyche of the wearer. Power always comes with an equal and opposite tip of the scale in the other direction.”

Walter shook his head. “What I fought in there was not a Black Wynch. It had these disturbing, purple eyes.” Malek’s hand stopped for a second before continuing over Walter’s chest, and the blood drained from his face.

Walter laughed shakily. “I’m just glad it’s over.”
He narrowed his eyes at Malek as the blood returned to his olive skin. Grimbald moved fluidly around the bed, removing Walter’s leather restraints.

“The armor, it’s gone.” Walter’s eyes glazed as he stared at his bare arm. The only remaining metal on him was the vambrace, Stormcaller. Intact pieces of gray armor were scattered around the room, some pieces cracked and others shattered into tiny shards.

“You fought well,” Baylan said.

“You sure did,” Grimbald laughed and blew a blood clot onto his vest.

Nyset’s lips curled at the sight. “That’s lovely,” she said and turned back to Walter.

“I can take care of that later, Grim,” Baylan said.

“With magics?”

“Well, yes,” Baylan said. He released his hand from Malek’s and his aura vanished. “Now, however, I am exhausted.” He slumped onto a nearby ornately carved stool and rested his head on his hands. Grimbald grunted.

Walter groaned and changed into the plain blue robe Malek handed him. He sat on the floor and leaned his head against the wall. Nyset sat beside him and took his hand in her lap. He squeezed it and looked into her eyes. He bowed his head and nodded. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much for your help, and for putting up with me.”

Malek organized his laboratory table, setting down the severed Cerumal hand among other trinkets.

“Now you are cleaning? City people are strange,” Grimbald said, crossing his arms. “I could eat a whole hog right about now – who wants to eat?”

“That sounds like the perfect idea,” Walter said, beaming.

**

Juzo’s left eyelid slowly parted, struggling against an unseen weight. The onyx floor sharpened and blurred in rapid succession as his eye worked to focus. Dried, weeks old, caked gore encircled the red cavern that remained of his right eye. His arms twitched, rattling the dark chains suspending them overhead. He groaned and pulled ineffectually against his iron fetters. He spared them a glance, checking them for the one-hundredth time for a vulnerability.

The sound of something blunt intersecting with bone echoed through the torch-lit hall from the blackness beyond. A man shrieked, pleading for mercy. Juzo quietly snickered, staring unblinking at the interlocking black diamond shapes that formed the floor. His eyes traced the handle of the Kris that hung from his abdomen, its waving tip emerging between the ribs of his back.

He lifted his head at the familiar sound of leather robes drifting over the undulating floor. Juzo gazed into a nearby torch, its glow a comfort.
Pain is a funny thing; it’s not something you ever really get used too.
He coughed on the dusty air, starved chest heaving. The Kris shifted and spilled a snaking trail of blood over his trousers.

The dim-light of hope was shrouded as Uglyfuck came into view. Juzo forced himself to look at the eyeless mask of the creature before him.
He’s just a man
. Juzo’s body betrayed his resolve and tremors vibrated through his muscles, the chains around his ankles tinkling.

“Uglyfuck, how nice of you to –” Juzo cut off screaming when Uglyfuck tore the kris from his stomach. The room swirled and darkened as blood ejected from the gaping wound. Juzo relinquished control of his legs.
This is the end, this is death. This is my last breath
. The chains overhead bit into his wrists, snapping into a taught line and preventing him from collapsing.
I let go.

“You are broken at last,” the frail man hissed. He paused, seemingly peering into Juzo’s face. The lithe man raised his hand and dragged a long nail down Juzo’s jawline, tearing skin. Juzo’s unresponsive, quivering body hung limply, twisting in the chain’s clutches.

The pale man rose, bare white chest reflecting the dancing torchlight. He tapped the tail of his spined cobra staff on the floor and Juzo inhaled sharply. A flare of blue light from Juzo’s wound cut the darkness and formed a new thick scar to accompany the other’s lacing his body.

“You will be a good pet?” the dry voice whispered too closely into his ear. Juzo’s mouth hung open with foam lining the corners of his lips. He gradually nodded. The man pushed the flat mask over his head, exposing rows of razor sharp canines. His mouth ferociously latched onto Juzo’s neck, feasting on the blood that pulsed from his carotid artery. Juzo’s eye snapped open and its black pupil became a malevolent red.

To be continued in The Lord of Death – Book 2 of The Age of Dawn coming Spring 2014

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