Blood Mage

Chapter 1

The spear shaft snapped. I lost my balance, twisted and narrowly avoided impaling myself on the jagged end. I clamped a hand over the wound and kicked the broken shaft over the cliff edge.

“Damnation.” Vanyard recoiled as virulent green blood leaked from my side.

“Give it a minute. You’ll be fine.” Hector gestured with the torch, making the shadows dance.

“Nothing about this is fine.” I peeled my hand back, and a flap of skin went with it. Grimacing, I pressed it back into place.

Hector gave an exasperated sigh and went to examine the Fauldic rune beneath the reborn Mother Tree. Taking the only light source with him, he passed the cairn, causing metal to glint.

Fine droplets of blood pulled itself from the fabric of my pants. Beading like mercury, they defied gravity and sped up my leg. The blood squeezed under my hand and sank back into the wound. The laceration healed, but a demon sign replaced my skin. I ran a thumb over it, shiny, hard as wax, latticed with dark green veins. Justice was right to hate me. All would know me for what I was: an arisen.

I pulled the spear from the ground and returned to digging. I stabbed, loosening the soil around the slab of stone. The blade snapped. “Ramming goat-plowed son of a…” I flung the remains of the spear into the trees. I rubbed my hands over the coarse stubble that covered my scalp and instantly regretted it. Sweat turned the dirt on my hands into mud.

Vanyard grunted, the equivalent of howling with laughter from another man. Unable to look at the traitor, I snatched a replacement spear from those recovered from the fallen. I jammed the blade into the soil and put my full body weight into it.

“Bollocks, man, throw your back into it.” Vanyard scoffed. “You’d think you’ve never done a hard day’s labor.”

The stone came loose all at once, and I fell flat on my ass. I got to my feet and hefted the jagged slab onto my shoulder. It dug uncomfortably into the meat at the base of my neck, but giving Justice a proper burial was the only thing I could do for my daughter.

The metal looked so alien now that it was inert. I tried again to latch the visor, to hide the ruin of her face, but it didn’t matter… just one more way I’d failed my daughter.

I thought back to the day I died, my flesh melting to the insides of my armor, and how I’d relished every moment. She died painfully, but had she taken the same sick satisfaction I had? No. She’d died with integrity; she’d died so others could live. No matter how misguided her beliefs.

Her visor’s fangs glinted in the torchlight as Hector circled Khyber’s god-killing weapon.

What had I done to earn such hatred? My memories were still locked away in the deep crevices of my mind. I needed to reconcile the man I was with Avatar Wrath. But would those memories change me? Or banish me like a bad dream? Khyber must have crafted the old me to be the ruthless tool he required.

I will tear him down for what he did to us.

It was too late to reconcile with Justice and her brother, but my last child… I had to try. Though I couldn’t face her without the context of what I’d… of what Khyber had made me. And giving up, walking away, wasn’t in me. With great care, I placed the final slab upon her cairn, hiding the snarling visage of Avatar Justice.

Vanyard bowed his head. “She’ll find her way to Strothheim.”

“I watched Khyber claim her. She’s there.”

Vanyard placed a sword and shield atop it. “Stand sure upon Strothheim’s battlements, warrior. The Ethereal Battle comes.”

I caressed the stone above her head. “May we meet again in a happier place.”

Hector pulled out his fiddle and began a funeral dirge.

“Stop that!” I snarled. “She wouldn’t want abominations like us weeping over her corpse.”

Hector slung his fiddle over a shoulder, and with a huff, he strode toward the path.

“Aye, Justice was a hard one.” Vanyard clapped me on the shoulder. “Would’ve sent us all to damnation if she was here.”

I slapped his hand away. “And rightly so. You ramming traitor!”

Vanyard gritted his teeth. “That’s right, but you still got your massacre.”

“I never…” But the lie stuck in my craw.

He rolled his eyes in disgust, and the silent rebuke cut like a knife.

Sudden rage filled me, and I shoved him. “You cost us everything!”

He blocked and jabbed me with the heel of his palm. “You brought us here, with your honey words and your callous disregard for anyone but yourself.”

I threw myself at him, but Hector got in between us.

“Enough blood has been spilled”—Hector flung a hand at the row of Fauldic dead not ten feet away—“without you two tearing into each other.”

Whatever power healed ascendants was insufficient to complete the job, leaving him looking ridiculous. Beardless, bare chested, in looted pants two sizes too small. His skin was pink and raw. Scalp shiny bald, save for the remains of his ponytail. The only part of him not scorched by Khyber’s weapon.

“This isn’t over,” I promised.

Vanyard bared an inch of steel and dropped into a defensive stance. “Anytime, demon.”

A deep growl emanated from within my chest, and the thirst clawed at the back of my throat.

Vanyard made the sign of the sword. Nothing happened. He stared at the empty air as if holding the pieces of a shattered heirloom.

A deep, grinding rumble spread beneath our feet. “Fool,” Hector grunted as if punched in the gut. “Run!”

Roots burst from the earth, whipping agitatedly. They coiled around the cairn, encasing Justice’s grave in heartbeats. Metal screeched, stone cracked as the roots constricted.

White-hot anger took me, and I found myself tearing at the roots with my bare hands, desperately prying them away from my daughter. Rowan’s cruel laughter echoed in my skull, mocking my impotence. I took hold of her with my mind, and she threw me off like a bear would a small dog. Stars danced across my vision as if I’d been struck by a physical blow.

A few of the roots had hooked thorns. I grasped one, driving it into my palm. Blood flowed, green and putrid. I poured it over the roots. I reached within and pushed fire through my veins; it seared as if my heart pumped boiling oil. I was too close. I’d be engulfed in the blast. Ram it, I wouldn’t let Rowan defile her. I screamed as the magic ruptured. There was a flash of light, but no explosion, just a plume of white flame that did no more than ruin my night vision.

Hector grabbed me and dragged me toward the path. I stumbled after him, too stunned to resist. He, at least, had the wherewithal to scoop up my discarded pack.

Why, Rowan? Why? I thought at her. She screamed wordlessly, more roots bursting from the ground, groping at my legs.

Just a few hours ago, I had set her free, saved her life and given her the power of a goddess, and now she used it against me. I should have let the sow die. We sped across the plateau. Vanyard waved the torch back and forth, fending off roots that coiled like vipers.

“We’ve overstayed our welcome.” Hector pushed past Vanyard.

“You mean, this isn’t an invitation to tea?” Vanyard backed down the path, keeping the roots at bay. After a few yards, Rowan gave up the pursuit, her roots wriggling back into the soil like eels vanishing into the seabed.

I couldn’t see the Mother Tree—no, Rowan. She was beyond the radius of light, but I could feel her. She was a cold flame burning in the back of my mind. I’d been so consumed with burying my child that I hadn’t noticed how her seething presence had spread. It wouldn’t be long before she had taken over this entire hill. Gods, why had I given such power to a psychotic?

“That was close,” Hector said.

I set off down the trail, reaching the rim of the torchlight, and a vivid memory of falling from these very heights gave me a brief sense of vertigo. Suddenly breathless, I fought the images, leaves whipping past me, and that cold, weightless dislocation of passing through the veil.

I blinked the images away and focused on the three glowing craters amid the allies’ camp to orient myself. The center of each was the angry red of glass fresh from the kiln. Distant figures scurried about, putting out fires, tending to the wounded, reorganizing the tents. The attack had been damn effective.

“Don’t be stupid.” Hector’s voice rolled down the path. “She’ll drag you under too.”

“My squad, they deserve a—”

Hector cut in. “There’s nothing you can do for them.”

The veteran’s face remained impassive, craggy as worn boot leather. His shoulders slumped for no more than a second before he snapped into parade posture. “Guard his realm warriors, stand sure at his gates, the Ethereal Battle comes.” He reached out a hand and started to make the sign of the sword.

Hector grabbed his wrist. “It’s more than your life is worth to spit in her eye a second time.”

Vanyard wrenched his arm free, looked at where his men had been laid, saluted the freshly turned earth and marched past me.

Those had been your soldiers once. I quashed the feelings that welled up and followed Vanyard.