War of Shadows (57 page)

Donna Jernigan

G
AIL
Z. M
ARTIN
is the author of the Ascendant Kingdoms Saga:
Ice Forged, Reign of Ash, War of Shadows
, and
Shadow and Flame
(2015), and the
Deadly Curiosities
urban fantasy series, set in Charleston, South Carolina, as well the Chronicles of the Necromancer series (
The Summoner, The Blood King, Dark Haven
, and
Dark Lady’s Chosen
), and the Fallen Kings Cycle (
The Sworn
and
The Dread
). She writes two series of e-book short stories: The Jonmarc Vahanian Adventures and the Deadly Curiosities Adventures. A new Steampunk series, Iron and Blood: The Jake Desmet Adventures, coauthored by Gail and her husband, Larry N. Martin, debuts in 2015.

Gail’s short stories have been featured in numerous anthologies, including
Clockwork Universe: Steampunk vs. Aliens
;
Athena’s Daughters
;
Dreams of Steel 5
;
The Big Bad 2
;
Dance Like a Monkey
;
Icarus: A Graphic Novel, Heroes, Realms of Imagination, Unexpected Journeys
, and
With Great Power
. Other US/UK anthologies include
Magic: The Esoteric and Arcane, The Bitten Word, Rum & Runestones, Spells & Swashbucklers
, and
The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women
.

Find her at www.AscendantKingdoms.com, on Twitter @GailZMartin, on Facebook.com/WinterKingdoms, at DisquietingVisions.com blog and GhostInTheMachinePodcast.com. She leads monthly conversations on Goodreads (www.goodreads.com/GailZMartin) and posts free excerpts of her work and the occasional free novella on Wattpad (http://wattpad.com/GailZMartin).

If you enjoyed

WAR OF SHADOWS

look out for

SHADOW AND FLAME

Book Four of The Ascendant Kingdoms Saga

by Gail Z. Martin

“From now on, I am your lord. You are nothing aside from what you achieve for me, and if that ever becomes less valuable, you have no existence at all.”

Thrane, the ancient renegade
talishte
better known as Hemlock, pressed a bloody gash on his wrist against his prisoner’s mouth. “Drink, or I will drain your son dry while you watch me do it.”

General Larska Hennoch’s eyes flashed in anger, then his gaze flickered to the pale young man who stood between two guards on the other side of the room. Eljas, his son, strained for valor, though he looked as if he might throw up from sheer panic. Hennoch let out a defeated breath, and parted his lips, allowing the cold, black blood into his mouth.

“It’s not that bad,” Thrane said in a voice meant to be triumphant instead of reassuring. “You’ll heal faster, move quicker,
live longer. Just like Lord Pollard. He’s been Pentreath Reese’s vassal for years.”

Hennoch’s expression made his revulsion clear as he struggled not to gag. Eljas turned and retched, shaking and heaving as if he might pass out. Both of the guards looked equally sickened.

Vedran Pollard watched the spectacle from his place to the right of the ornate wooden chair Thrane used when he held his ‘court.’ Thrane, the
talishte
who brought across Pentreath Reese, had shown up out of nowhere and taken over, claiming Pollard’s stronghold at Solsiden for his own and supplanting Pollard in any substantive decision making.

Pollard winced as Thrane made public his closely held shame, and he knew that shaming him was intentional. Until now, only two trusted confidants had known Reese regularly ‘read’ Pollard’s blood, forcibly taking the information he wanted from a feeding meant to be as painful and demeaning as possible to remind Pollard of his place.
Then again
, Pollard thought,
Thrane relied on such tactics so often and openly that his own secret was unlikely to have remained hidden
.

Thrane released his prisoner’s arm, and the large man dropped to the floor like a stone. Two deep, bloody puncture wounds marked Larska Hennoch’s left forearm. All his military prowess, his thousands of soldiers, his valor in battle did Hennoch no good now, on his knees before a dark nightmare returned from exile.

“Remember this,” Thrane warned, as Hennoch clasped his wounded arm with his other hand to staunch the bleeding. “I can read every memory, every action, every thought from your blood whenever I please. The
kruvgaldur
bond lies between us now, unbreakable except by your death. We are bound together. Your fears, your victories, your dreams—I will know. And if you show bad faith, I will also know, and I will drain
your precious son of every drop and turn him to serve me forever. Are we clear?”

Hennoch nodded, though it was clear from every line of his posture that he fought the servitude. “Clear,” he muttered.

“So good to hear it,” Thrane replied, walking over to where Eljas stood. Pollard had taken the young man captive months before, as a surety for Hennoch’s loyalty. Thrane had raised the stakes.

Eljas was sixteen summers old, no longer a boy and not yet a man. Pollard grudgingly gave the boy credit for having comported himself with dignity during his captivity. For Eljas’s compliance, and his father’s allegiance, Pollard had favored the boy with better treatment, contingent on obedience. Thrane did not believe in leaving anything to chance.

Thrane clapped a hand on Eljas’s shoulder, and the young man winced. Eljas tried to be strong, but his fear was evident in his face and manner. Pollard knew that Thrane relished that fear. “I thought you might want to know I’ve taken your son under my wing, made him my personal servant,” Thrane said, watching Hennoch’s reaction.

“It’s quite an honor,” Thrane continued, enjoying the discomfort he was causing both father and son. “I’m never without his presence. He has served me well.” He ran his hand down Eljas’s arm, turning the pale flesh of his soft forearm upward. “I may extend his service,” Thrane said, deliberately baiting Hennoch, his eyes watching for any reaction. “Create the
kruvgaldur
with him, too. Like father, like son.”

The room was silent, waiting for Hennoch’s reply. “As you wish, m’lord,” Hennoch spat out through clenched teeth.

Thrane smiled, having bent the two men to his will. “Very well. We have an understanding.” He looked to Hennoch. “Go back to your army. There will be more survivors straggling in from what remained of Rostivan’s and Lysander’s armies.
I’ve sent messengers to the north to gather additional soldiers. When the time comes to fight Blaine McFadden’s army again, you must be ready to shatter his defenses and annihilate his troops. I do not hold to half measures.”

“Yes, m’lord.” The words were grudging, but Hennoch knew his duty. He rose to his feet, his hand still pressed against the wound that had been inflicted with intentional, and unnecessary, cruelty. Hennoch glanced to Eljas, and gave a curt nod. The young man gathered what dignity remained and replied in kind. Then Hennoch turned and left the room, followed by the guards.

“Sit,” Thrane said to Eljas, and the young man took up his spot on the floor at the left side of Thrane’s chair like a favored pet. Much as Pollard hated to admit it to himself, there was not so much distance between his own situation and that of the lad.

“I think that went well, don’t you?” Thrane asked, taking his seat once more.

“Quite effective,” Pollard agreed tonelessly.

Thrane held court in the room Pollard had previously claimed for his own office and war room. Solsiden was a stronghold, occupied because Pollard’s family manor home had been destroyed in the Great Fire. Even so, the Cataclysm had not gone easy on Solsiden, badly damaging much of the upper floors. With Thrane claiming the only respectable room as his own, it left Pollard seeing to his tasks out of a small room that had once been a pantry. Thrane made sure everyone around him knew their place.

“Show in my next guests.”

The guards brought in two men Pollard did not know, but he was certain they were
talishte
by the look of them. Both men looked down-at-the-heels, but then again, in post-Cataclysm Donderath, even the nobility could not muster a better showing
than that. One of the men carried himself with the unconscious entitlement of someone of noble blood, while the other moved with the furtive grace of a predator.

“You’re not of my brood, but you both might be useful to me,” Thrane said without preamble. “I intend to raise a puppet mortal government that will never subject our kind to purges again, never drive us into the wilderness, never burn us to quell their own fear. I am assembling an army. This is your opportunity to join me. What say you?”

The aristocrat looked to have been turned in his early thirties, and by his manner, Pollard guessed the man was already well on his way to being a wastrel when his miserable life was cut short. He possessed the bland good looks of a Donderath blue blood, with the horsey face that came from too much noble inbreeding.

“What’s in it for me?” he asked, regarding Thrane with an acquisitive look.

Thrane moved more quickly than Pollard’s mortal sight could track. And apparently, far faster than the much younger
talishte
could respond. In less than the blink of Pollard’s eye, Thrane left his chair, tore off the young aristocrat’s head with a casual jerk of his right hand, pushed his other hand through the man’s chest, removing the wastrel’s heart, and then returned to his chair, blood-spattered but unruffled, before the body could crumple to the floor.

Thrane turned his attention to the furtive one with the clothing of a noble and the manner of a pickpocket. “Now,” Thrane continued calmly, still holding the bloody heart in his hand, “as I was saying. You have an opportunity to join me. What say you?”

The pickpocket
talishte
licked his lips, an old mortal habit, and the look in his eyes was sly and calculating. “Sure thing, guv. You can count on me. My fledges, too. Just say the word. We’re your men.”

“Glad to hear it,” Thrane said with a flat, cold tone that said he was already thinking about the next action to be taken. “I will let you know when I have need of you.”

The pickpocket turned to go.

“Oh, and remember,” Thrane said, with a glance toward the body that lay in a pool of its own black ichor on the floor. “I take promises very seriously. Don’t disappoint me.”

The pickpocket swallowed hard, avoiding looking at the dead aristocrat, and gave a nod. “I won’t.”

The guards showed him out. Thrane regarded the dead body at his feet and looked at Pollard. “What do you think? Have it removed, or let him stay for a bit? We hardly got to know each other.” The heart blackened and crumbled in Thrane’s hand as he spoke.

Pollard guarded his thoughts carefully. At close range, Thrane could read him through the
kruvgaldur
Pollard shared with Reese, Thrane’s get. But because that link was removed a generation, Pollard had discovered, he had a bit more freedom when he was out of Thrane’s immediate vicinity.

“You might as well leave him for now,” Pollard replied, “since we’ll have trouble getting the stain out of the carpet.”

One after another, men came to Thrane. Most had been called to Solsiden to swear allegiance,
talishte
who were either those Thrane himself had turned or, more often, those who were brought across by
talishte
of Thrane’s making. The body of the dead
talishte
, which was rapidly disintegrating into dust, was a warning that tended to cut the conversations short and assure compliance. No one else made the same mistake.

After a few candlemarks, Thrane seemed to grow bored. “I have plans to review with you,” Thrane said, standing and stretching. He walked around the black stain on the carpet and over to the desk that Pollard had once claimed as his own.
Pollard was certain Thrane knew just how how much it annoyed him to have every small trapping of power confiscated, including his stock of whiskey, which Thrane could not drink.

“Can I pour you a glass of something?” Thrane asked, watching Pollard closely.

Pollard pushed down his irritation. Whiskey was an essential tool in surviving Thrane’s occupation. “If it pleases you,” Pollard replied diffidently. He had learned that Thrane enjoyed denying objects of desire. Therefore, affecting a manner of complete indifference was key.

Thrane withdrew a bottle of whiskey from the desk, pouring it into a chipped crystal glass and sliding it across the surface. “It’s been several hundred years since I could appreciate a good whiskey as it was meant to be enjoyed,” Thrane mused, leaning back in what had been Pollard’s favorite chair. “I’ve found that it doesn’t fully infuse into the blood in the same way. Pity.”

The implied threat was not lost on Pollard. He ignored it and sipped the whiskey, taking small comfort where he could.

“How may I be of service?” Pollard asked. He could not allow his pride to get in the way of the longer game he played and the ultimate prize at its end.
I wouldn’t be the first man to survive humiliation and emerge with a crown
, he thought.
And I’ll be damned if I’ll let that fall to someone else. Quillarth Castle is worth bending my knee to win
.

“I’ve called together some of the former members of the council, the ones sympathetic to our cause,” Thrane said, toying with a small, smooth onyx sphere he kept on the desk, rolling it back and forth between his fingers.

“We will convince them to join us, then they will gather their broods—their extended get—and swear their allegiance to me,” Thrane continued. The now-disbanded Elder Council had been comprised of some of the oldest
talishte
on the
Continent. The number of people they had turned during their long existence could be large, and with the extended get, fledged by those first-turned, the numbers could be substantial.

Even with so many
, Pollard thought,
it’s not sufficient to overthrow mortal armies without mortal help
.

“Our space here at Solsiden is limited for such a large gathering,” Pollard warned. The usable space of the ruined manor house was already fully occupied, and the only thing worse than the present situation, in Pollard’s mind, would be being overrun by dozens—perhaps hundreds—of additional
talishte
.

Thrane chuckled, a cold, mirthless sound. “I have no desire to host them on my lands,” he said, and his casual declaration of ownership over the holdings Pollard had claimed for himself was a calculated barb. “Calling attention to our numbers would be unwise, and the number of mortals needed to slake our thirst would place too high a strain on the surrounding area. People would notice. That kind of threat would not be ignored. We are still… vulnerable.”

For all of Thrane’s arrogance, and in spite of his inhuman speed and strength, the
talishte
were still prisoners of their Dark Gift during daylight. Only the oldest could recover from any significant exposure to the sun, and as long as it was light outside, their strength and other abilities waned. During their enforced rest, they were relatively easy marks should substantial numbers of humans launch an effort to exterminate them. Such purges had been devastatingly effective in the past. It was wise of Thrane to remember that.

“The army continues to grow,” Pollard replied. “Our forces should equal McFadden’s soon.”

Thrane made a dismissive gesture. “ ‘Equal’ is not sufficient. He still has allies. Traher Voss’s mercenaries are a powerful fighting force. The Solveigs remain in control of their
lands and their army. And with things as they are, there’s little profit tilling the land or working a trade. That leaves men to be recruited—or pressed—into service on both sides. We have work to do.”

“Agreed,” Pollard said.
Talishte
could not lead armies in daylight, nor could they win the allegiance of those soldiers, and they would never win the acceptance of the mortal population as kings. Those realities were why Thrane still needed Pollard and Hennoch. Pollard suspected Thrane’s frustration over that truth spurred his more spiteful efforts to humiliate both men. It was the only true power Pollard had, and he intended to use it carefully.