CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
“Her cry unto the demon kin shall plunge them into night, for dark she shall destroy then, and their weakness shall be right.”
~ The Prophecy of Night
Two-thousand leagues west of Noryk, off the jagged northern coast of Swaria, a storm raged.
Antigonus Leech, High Priest of Moorfain’s Black Temple, stood on a cliff overlooking the violent sea. His fleet of destroyers rocked in the bay below. Metal hulls glittered darkly in the rotating beams from the lighthouses stationed at either end of the harbor.
Though he’d doubled the size of his armada over the past year, Leech grimaced as he recalled the ignominious end of his Allentrian campaign. The Ghoren Islanders had joined the World Alliance, forcing him to abandon ships and concede defeat.
“It matters not,” he growled. Though he’d lost control of the islands, he’d gained ground in the north. He felt confident once more.
Confident, until he thought of that heathen witch. Her white hair, her red-violet gaze, her indescribable aura of power—it haunted him. The Prophecy of Night rang again in his head:
When the female sorcerer of wild soul and eyes
Beseeches the daemonion to sow their own demise,
When the kindred spirits are remembered from the past,
Then shall Moorfain’s power fall and fail them all at last.
Her cry unto the demon kin shall plunge them into night,
For dark she shall destroy then, and their weakness shall be right.
With this eternal sundering shall balance have been won,
And all the bonds of human blood be finally undone.
“I will destroy her,” Leech vowed. “When Keriya Soulstar’s empty shell lies broken on the battlefield before the Shadow Lord, I will land the killing blow.”
Bundling his furs around him, he turned uphill. His boots struck hard against the stone path as he strode along a ridge. Iron lampposts sporting red glowbulbs lit his way, sending shadows dancing in the brittle, stubborn grass that clung to the cliffs.
His people were like those grasses: determined to survive no matter the cost. Moorfain had been struggling for years,
decades
, and he’d gambled his country’s future on the belief that Necrovar could save it from the brink of destruction. Leech’s belief had led him across the Waters of Chardon. He’d brought thousands of troops to Allentria to help Necrovar seize power.
But Necrovar had been bested by the blood-burned sorceress, and the World Alliance had run Leech’s people from the continent a month after the Shadow’s re-imprisonment.
“It matters not,” he repeated, his breath condensing in ghostly whorls. “Tonight, everything changes.”
Cresting the ridge, he stared down his nose at the realization of a year’s worth of work. A plateau stretched before him. It had once been farmlands, but Leech’s army had burned those to set up a makeshift colony. Moorfain had come with fire and thunder, seizing cities along the Swarian coast to rebuild its strength.
Most of his troops were stationed in the glittering ice city to the south, crafting weapons, forging armor, preparing for their inevitable rematch with the Allentrians. Normally, Leech would be overseeing operations. Tonight was different.
He descended the hill and strode toward the ritual grounds. The snow had been cleared from this space, making room for his finest Erudite sorcerers to work. Permafrost crunched beneath his feet as he approached the nearest summoning ring.
A flaming pyre roared in the center of twelve sorcerers. Each sorcerer grasped a holy knife in one hand and a Swarian captive, heavily sedated with soulbane, in the other. Some captives struggled against their poison and bindings. Leech abstractly admired their determination to survive—but unlike him, their determination was folly.
“Everything is in place, High Priest,” said Colvin Bain, lead sorcerer of the first circle.
“Very good.” Leech’s thin upper lip curled in an approximation of a smile. Beyond Bain’s circle, eleven more bonfires danced, each the center of another summoning ring. Twelve sets of twelve sorcerers looped across the plateau, and at the center of these stood the final piece of the puzzle: a woman with empty, pitch-black eyes.
Leech approached her with caution. She was a Spider, one of the creatures whose souls were magically connected to Necrovar. He did not trust the otherworldly power running through her veins, though it would be a crucial part of tonight’s ritual.
“
Frinshir
,” he cried in the language of power, his voice rising over the whistling wind, “
it is time
.”
Nearby shadows rose from their resting places and coalesced into Frinshir, a powerful and cunning daemonion of the Ninth Pavilion. Six red eyes glinted out of her wedge-shaped head, shining in the firelight. Her wide mouth parted, pearly fangs agleam.
“
They await us on the other side,
” she informed him, her skull and spine frills rattling. “
You may begin.
”
Leech scowled. He resented Frinshir giving him permission, as if she were the one in charge. Sorcerers directed their summoned demons, not the other way around.
Frinshir fell into step beside him, her muscular forelimbs and undersized back legs giving her a swaying gait. Man and demon stopped before the Allentrian Spider. The woman looked like a normal human, except for her eyes. Darker than death, they were. The color of necromagic.
“Are you ready to serve your Lord and Master?” Leech intoned.
She lifted her chin in a haughty manner. “I am prepared to leave this world, so my Master may return to it.”
Leech disliked self-assured females—especially those of the supernatural persuasion—but he wouldn’t have to suffer her presence long. He fished beneath his winter layers and withdrew his holy knife. Gripping it in one pale hand, he advanced on the Spider.
“So mote it be.” He laid his free hand against the woman’s cheek. Her flesh may as well have been ice. That made sense, since she was technically dead. Necrovar’s power had reanimated her, granting her a second chance at life.
Now that life would be sacrificed in the name of the Shadow Lord’s return.
Leech pressed his knife to her exposed flesh, drawing the blade across her throat. Black blood poured from the wound, spurting outwards as her dead heart pumped its final beats. She collapsed on the frozen mud, twitching.
A surge of invisible energy blossomed from her corpse. Leech’s own blood seemed to thicken in his veins, drinking in that power. Beside him, Frinshir hooked her scythe-like talons into the hard ground, her grotesque body quivering.
“
Brothers, begin!
” Leech shrieked, thrusting his hand toward the sable sky. No stars were visible overhead, but the red-tinged Bloodmoon glared balefully between the peaks of glaciers on the western horizon.
The summoning rings hummed with motion as each sorcerer slit the throat of his Swarian captive. Leech heard muffled screams and thumps—sacrificed victims fighting to cling to life a little longer.
“
In the name of the holy race of the daemonion,
” Leech intoned, soaking in the magic that simmered around him as mortals perished and released the energy of their souls, “
I call upon their ancient power to widen the Rift. I seek to summon Necrovar, the Prince of Demons, so that I, Antigonus Leech, might serve him.
”
The premise of summoning was the same whether Leech was calling a First Pavilion larval daemonion or the Shadow Lord himself, but more powerful creatures required more powerful summonings. And, unfortunately, it had become harder to summon of late. The energy that had once coursed like raging rapids through Leech had reduced to a mere trickle. Why, it had taken three full human sacrifices to dredge Frinshir out of the Etherworld earlier this afternoon.
Leech wasn’t the only one struggling to command power. Other sorcerers felt it, too. Even the daemonion were weakening.
But this—this was a masterpiece. The heady, rusty scent of blood twined around Leech as Swarians died, one by one. An almost tangible power congealed in the air as souls left bodies. Twelve summoning circles, to echo the twelve elemental powers of the world. If this didn’t do the trick, nothing would.
“
It is working!
” Frinshir’s sibilant hiss reached his ears.
Leech couldn’t see magicthreads, but Frinshir could. If anything was happening at all, that put this ritual miles beyond their previous failed attempts to free Necrovar.
“
I call upon the power of the daemonion to widen the Rift,
” Leech repeated, retreating from the Spider’s twitching corpse, “
and I beseech Necrovar to return. Return to us, Master! Return, and let us claim this world for our own, as is our rightful destiny!
”
The frozen earth heaved beneath his feet. Fires roared. Wind howled. The heavens opened, pouring freezing sleet on Leech and his brethren. This was it—he was certain he’d done it!
CRACK!
Black lightning forked from the low, heavy clouds. It was dark, yet somehow blindingly bright, illuminating the world in negative colors as it struck the body of the Spider. Leech shielded his eyes and cringed away from the point of impact, but triumph thrummed in his chest. With Necrovar returned, Leech would be rewarded and exalted beyond all others.
“Well, well.” A throaty, sultry voice drifted toward him on the wind. He frowned. That was most definitely
not
the voice of Necrovar. “The little flesh-rats managed to do something right.”
Leech gazed through strands of his dark hair, which had fallen into his face. He saw not Necrovar, but Ashétyn, Second Highest of the Severed Six.
Ashétyn crouched over the smoking wreckage of the Spider. She balanced half on her catlike hind legs and half on her leathery wings, knuckles digging into the dirt. A gray-blue mane framed her beastly yet oddly alluring face. Pointed ears swiveled toward Leech as she surveyed him, running a forked tongue over inch-long incisors.
“My lady.” Leech recovered himself enough to find his voice. He bowed so Ashétyn wouldn’t see his disappointment. She would not hesitate to strike him down, though he’d just—apparently—summoned her from the Etherworld. “Forgive me, but you’ve rendered me speechless. We were trying to—”
“I know what you were trying to do, filth!” Ashétyn’s voice was no longer low and seductive—now it was vicious and condescending. He chanced a peek up to see the
necrocrelai
’s sneer. She loomed above him, an overgrown bat with the eyes of a killer.
“You need more power than this to summon our Master.” Ashétyn fixed her empty, pitch-black gaze on Frinshir. “I’d hoped this halfbreed maggot would relay that information to you.”
Ashétyn’s bald, rat-like tail lashed out, striking Frinshir on the snout. Frinshir yelped in pain, cringing away. She had been the go-between, relaying messages to and from the Etherworld for months.
Leech’s throat tightened around shameful words: “Our power is weakening. We’ve tried—”
“I do not want excuses,” Ashétyn hissed, leaning toward Leech. “The Master is pleased with your progress, because He is kind and forgiving. Too forgiving, at times. Too trusting.”
Her tail snaked forward, slithering around Leech’s neck, brushing his cheek. He fought to remain calm, knowing that to betray a hint of fear—or revulsion—would mean death.
“You, descendants of the weakest dragon speakers of old, the result of generations of inbreeding and failures—I am not impressed with your paltry attempts.”
Leech choked as Ashétyn’s tail tightened. Writhing coils undulated against his flesh. He stared into the
necrocrelai
’s eyes, determined not to blink first. She examined him like a viper watching cornered prey.
“We have suffered in the Etherworld, waiting for you impotent clonch-brains to do the bare minimum.” Her voice hummed with rage about to reach its boiling point. Fur bristled around her triangular, stuck-up nose as her features twisted in a snarl. “If it were up to me, I’d kill you all where you stand. Unfortunately, it is not up to me.
“Your mercy is appreciated, Queen Ashétyn—”
“It is my Master’s mercy that keeps you alive, scum, not mine. Although why He thinks you’re useful is beyond me.”
Leech’s feet left the ground. He pointed his toes, struggling to keep his weight on them as Ashétyn lifted him. Her breath smelled of too-ripe fruit. The sickening aroma crowded out the smell of ice and sea.
“Entropy is building on Selaras, making it increasingly difficult for wielders to use their magic,” she informed him. “So we must find a better anchor for the summoning. We will go somewhere—or, perhaps, find someone—tied so closely to the Master that it will provide a strong enough pull to enable his return.”
“D-do such places exist?” Leech wheezed. The world spun around him. He willed himself not to pass out.
An evil smirk unfurled across Ashétyn’s full, leathery lips. “We have options. But we must return to Allentria to access them.”
In his suffocated state, Leech couldn’t disguise the fear that surged across his face. He heard a whine from Frinshir, betraying her displeasure at the thought of return.
“Cowards,” spat Ashétyn, giving Leech a nearly neck-snapping shake before dropping him. “Spineless wastes of space. You fear a girl who’s playing with power that will destroy her long before our Master gets the chance.”
Rubbing his bruised trachea, Leech looked up at the
necrocrelai
. He couldn’t have replied even if he’d wanted to—it hurt to breathe, let alone talk.
“How can you call yourselves men when you allowed yourselves to be driven from Allentria by two children, a lizard with scale rot, and a clawful of overgrown bugs?” she demanded. “There will be no more failures now that I am here. Forthwith, you will address me as your leader.”
Leech shot a sideways glance at Frinshir. The daemonion met his gaze, and they shared a rare moment of understanding: they both prayed Necrovar would soon return.
He didn’t think they would survive Ashétyn’s rule.