Blood and Steel (The Cor Chronicles Volume I) Read online

  * * *

  Erella, Queen of Aquis, lay fitfully in her luxurious, silk canopied bed. Tonight, as most nights, she retired just before midnight, well after the moon had risen. Usually affairs of state left her drained and ready for sleep, but tonight she was restless. Her mind would wander off while she lay starting to doze only to come screaming back to her, bringing her to full consciousness. In her long reign, she had few nights quite like this one. She was not preoccupied with some matter; there was just a feeling of uneasiness, as if a dark storm cloud hovered on the horizon, just beyond her sight. She could feel a change in the world coming, and such changes were as frightful as they were exciting. The advantage to the status quo, whether good or bad, was stability; things could always get worse.

  The ruler of Aquis, the Shining West’s largest kingdom, also had the distinction of being the High Priestess to Garod, and He bestowed upon her great longevity. Many would see her as a well aged matriarch in her seventieth year, but in fact she had been ruler for nearly a century. Erella’s form had thinned over the last thirty years, but she maintained a healthy appearance, despite having shrunk slightly to about five and a half feet tall. She had nearly waist-length hair, once blonde and now white that had not thinned over the years.

  Queen Erella closed her eyes and opened them again to find herself on foothills overlooking a great plain with gorgeous purple mountains in the distance, the World’s Spine no doubt. The day was dark, the sun obscured by huge gray-black clouds, and the sound of thunder played in the distance. Two great armies faced each other across the plain, one of shining knights, robed priests and armored footmen. The other consisted of thousands of naked, shambling corpses and men who looked like Westerners, but they were a downtrodden lot, with the mark of the whip upon their backs. Behind these men were hundreds of tall figures with unnaturally stretched limbs, many of them cloaked in fine black garments.

  Between the two hosts, Erella gazed upon a lone figure; he was not overly tall, standing about six feet in height. In one hand he held a razor sharp, single edged longsword, and in the other an evil looking fetish. He was clad in a heavy plate hauberk, with chain underneath and chain legguards with plates on the front of his thighs and shins. His helm struck her most oddly; large and bulbous, it did not appear to be made for a normal man’s head, and it had no visor, yet she had no doubt the man could see clearly. Solid black, the armor reflected light off of its high shine as would the body of an insect or spider.

  The two hosts charged each other and met at the warrior with a deafening crash, and men screamed as steel rang, blood and gore flying freely. The warrior stood in the middle of the great battle, cavorting wildly in the carnage as his blade hew its way through armor and flesh from both hosts. Slaves and corpses fell unmoving onto the beaten down plains grass as did armored soldiers as the two hosts endeavored to crush each other and the lone warrior. Dark sorceries of black, purple and red flew from the hands of the necromancers to be met by the white magicks of the priests. The dark sorcerers quickly raised the fallen to their cause while the priests healed their wounded as quickly as they could muster.

  The warrior suddenly stopped his onslaught and raised both arms above his head, sword and fetish pointed to the sky. He ignored all of his foes. A dull roar began to rise in the distance; quiet at first, it gained in power before becoming so loud that even the embattled armies took notice. The combatants slowly ceased their attacks on each other, followed by larger numbers and then finally both entire armies. The roaring sound had become deafening, and Queen Erella saw they all looked at her. It then dawned on her that they actually looked past at something behind her.

  Erella turned slowly, following their gaze and beheld a truly appalling sight; a massive dark tidal wave, a wall of water the deep red color of blood, raged towards the armies. It raced toward her at frightening speed, freezing her in place in momentary indecision before it reached her. It should have crushed her lithe frame with its force, but instead roared past, leaving the queen unharmed. It crashed down onto the two armies with more violence and carnage than thousands of armies could have ever created. It blasted bodies clear apart, totally annihilating both armies, soldiers, slaves, priests and necromancers in mere seconds. As it subsided, the red waves dissipated and the blood spread evenly across the plain forming a shallow lake mere inches deep as it slowly soaked into the earth. At the center stood the black steel clad warrior, both arms held to the heavens, still holding his sword and fetish.

  Queen Erella bolted upright in bed. Sweat beading her forehead, she felt a terror and anxiety unlike any she had felt in decades. A warm, comforting glow appeared in her chamber, overpowering the light and warmth of her fire, and she slowly laid her head back onto her down pillows, allowing the presence of her god to wash over her. The glow faded, and with it went her anxiety leaving her alone in bed.

  The queen, with a deftness and grace that belied her great age, swung her feet over the side of her bed and stood. She glided to the door of her chamber and opened it. The guard outside stood slightly more erect as she opened the door and entered the hall outside.

  “Find me Palius. I need him at once, no matter what he is doing,” she commanded. Her voice was gentle, but there was no mistaking the sound of authority, and the mailed guard quickly saluted and clinked down the hallway, no doubt headed for Palius’ chambers.

  The queen turned and considered her chambers briefly before striding purposefully toward her office, leaving the door ajar. A heavy mahogany desk with an upholstered chair sat in the middle of the room, with a smaller desk and a cushioned stool to one side. A fireplace sat cold and empty on the far wall. Her desk was neatly laden with open affairs of state; she sat and began to write on a blank scroll while waiting for Palius to arrive.

  “My queen?” asked a male voice from the adjoining room. Palius came slowly through the doorway to her office. He was an older man of nearly sixty with a slightly bent back, but he had managed to keep a full head of white hair. He wore a neatly trimmed full beard, also white. His face was haggard with dark rings under his eyes, and he was dressed in a simple robe he had clearly put on hastily. Palius was the queen’s most valued advisor; his sharp intellect and calm wisdom had aided her often in the past.

  “I was uneasy all day,” she told him, “and did not know why. Garod has given me a vision while I slept. A Dahken has been born this night.” She watched as his face turned from surprise to deep thought as the full weight of her words sank in.

  “My queen, I do not doubt your words. What matter is it? The Dahken cult died off nearly a millennium ago with The Cleansing. There is none left to teach this babe how to use whatever power he may have.”

  The queen leaned her back against her plush chair, sighing. “I know we’ve long believed that, but I’ve always had my doubts. Something frightens me about the one I saw; this Dahken may be the most powerful ever. I watched as he summoned a wall of blood to destroy armies of both the Shining West and the Loszian Empire. Do I take it literally, or do I assume the armies represent the West and the Loszians entirely?”

  “Why should we fear this one boy?” Palius asked his queen, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

  “This boy may grow to a man, a man who brings the end of both the Shining West and the Loszian Empire,” she answered quickly. At this Palius quit his tired demeanor and stared at his queen. Referring to her notes for details that were already fading, Queen Erella related her dream.

  “Perhaps,” suggested Palius, “it is not that he will bring about the end of both civilizations. I see many possible interpretations, but certainly we must find this child,” he paused, pinching the bridge of his nose, something Palius did commonly when a thought bothered him. “My queen, what do we do when we find him? Do we slay a babe for what he could be capable of? Do we commit a horrific sin for the greater good?”

  “Any child may grow to lead revolution, seize power and commit atrocities. We
cannot slaughter children for what they may do. Such an act is a crime for which we would pay with our souls.”

  “Then,” Palius continued, “we find him, and we watch him.”

  1.