Rhune Shadow

  Rhune Shadow

  by Vaughn Heppner

  Copyright © 2017 by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.

  -Prologue-

  Zarius Magonid groaned as blood dripped from his lips. An arrow had pierced a lung, the steel point sticking out of his back. Every time he breathed, air hissed past the wooden shaft.

  Zarius wore robes of state, although he panted on hands and knees in an undignified posture. Sweaty white hair hung lank around his face.

  Boots pounding in the nearby hall grew louder. Mailed killers hunted for him, hoping to finish their murderous task.

  With a whispered oath, Zarius crawled across the floor to a chair. He used it to lever up and climb to his feet. He swayed where he stood as his eyesight blurred and he fought to remain conscious. The searing agony of another breath was his reward for the fighting.

  As his eyesight cleared, a terrible grin stretched Zarius’s bloody lips. He stumbled to a table, swept aside its scrolls and clamped a scarred and bloody hand onto a staff. A golden dragonhead topped the staff. Tiny glinting rubies gave the head fiery orbs for eyes.

  Behind him, a door slammed against a wall. Zarius shuffled around. Heavy-breathing barbarians, Gepids, tramped into the spacious chamber. They had long red hair and blue-tattooed faces. The hatred in their eyes spoke of the sorcery controlling them.

  Instead of bear furs and wolf-skin mantles, each tall warrior clinked in the mail of a temple guard. They grinned savagely, murderers all. Several gripped long-swords, their favorite weapon. The rest hefted round shields and wicked curved blades. Their weapons were gore-spattered with the blood of Zarius’s slaves, with the blood of his wife and his sons! They fanned out under the high arches and slowly advanced. Despite their bloodlust, they still had enough wit to fear his magic.

  “Your head is all we want!” the clan leader shouted. “Himilco Nara is gifting double its weight in emeralds to the one who thumps it onto his counting table.”

  At the mention of the traitor’s name, rage washed across Zarius’s features. Himilco’s sorcery drove these killers.

  “There are no treasures in Hell,” Zarius whispered.

  The clan leader spat on the marble floor and raised his long-sword. “Let’s cut him down, lads!”

  The others shouted a barbaric cry and charged.

  Zarius’s eyes blazed. He held a talisman of power now, one fashioned in the name of the Lord of Dragons. His bloodily scarred hand clenched it as he shot his arm into the air. He uttered fierce hissing words, and the rubies in the golden dragonhead glowed with a demonic emanation. Their red light bathed the chamber, shining upon the swords.

  The clan leader, a champion among his men, held a long-sword over his shoulder so he could swing it like a scythe. No doubt, he intended to earn glory by detaching the suffete’s head with a single blow. As the warrior rushed across the chamber, his sword quivered with unholy life.

  The tattooed Gepid leader glanced up. The metal of his sword blurred and transformed into a hissing cobra. The cobra’s head flared and the reptile whipped down. Its fangs pierced the warrior’s neck. Venom pumped into flesh as the clan leader bellowed with pain. With magical speed, the wound festered, blackened and shot dark strands of evil into his body.

  The champion crashed to the floor and writhed in agony until he curled like a scorched bug, dead.

  All around the room, the eerie light spread from the golden dragonhead. Long-swords and curved blades transformed into serpents that attacked their shocked bearers.

  One warrior, spitting rage even as black lines like cracks spread across his face, launched himself airborne. Zarius barely shuffled aside as the warrior crashed to the floor. This Gepid had incredible vigor. He whipped his muscled arm, grasped Zarius’s ankle and shuddered with a groan as he died.

  Zarius kicked his ankle free as the eerie red light faded away. All around the chamber, the cobras blurred once more. They returned to sword iron, but as hideously twisted metal.

  Zarius shuffled backward until his thighs bumped against the table. Carefully, he levered himself onto a chair. There were more Gepids. He heard their discordant horns echoing through the palace. The noise was said to call the attention of their war god so he would notice their courageous deeds. From the proximity of the sounds, the barbarians must be in the lower courtyard. Himilco must have sent the entire temple guard to slay him.

  Zarius’s magical staff hissed as the golden dragonhead worked its fanged jaws. Using the staff’s power had awakened the head to simulated life. If he used the staff too much or for too long, the head would not only live in a parody of life, but it would venomously attack him.

  Zarius shook his sweaty head, flinging greasy droplets onto the floor.

  Keep your focus, old man. Reach Bel Ruk’s inner sanctum. You can still bargain with the god and save the city from Himilco’s greed.

  Zarius clenched his teeth as he heaved himself onto his feet. He’d have to don the Gauntlet of Ice again. He flexed his scarred hand. It was dotted with blood as if he had the pox. He’d already sent myriads of the bewitched killers to a frozen death. But it had hurt him. Each polar blast caused the glove to jab spikes into his hand. The blood powered the magic. It was a brutal weapon and, for obvious reasons, one he seldom used.

  Zarius snarled. He’d found his wife…and seen the things the killers had done to his sons. He had gone mad for a time. Before the arrow had pierced his lung, he’d hoped to save his hand. Now he wondered if it was possible to save even his miserable life.

  From a cord around his neck dangled the oddity, the gauntlet that seemed to be made of shards and planes of ice. It tinkled faintly when it moved. It was ice, but reputedly not of this world.

  Zarius thrust the magic staff through the purple sash he wore in lieu of a belt. He steeled himself and gathered his shreds of sorcerous potency. Then he assumed a spell-casting stance and shoved his scarred hand into the gauntlet. There was pain as its spikes pricked his bloody flesh. He clenched his gauntleted hand into a fist, clamping down on the sensations of pain and weakness. He had done likewise a thousand times before, had long ago hammered his senses into obedience to his will.

  Nearing horns blared in the outer corridors. Gepids howled like maddened wolves. One of them shouted that the suffete was in the upper chamber. There was a rush of metallic jangling, pounding boots and the thump of shields. The sounds avalanched toward him. Then the next wave of tough northern warriors burst into the chamber.

  Zarius chanted. The Gauntlet of Ice blazed blindingly as if a gigantic sun shined off it. Zarius howled at the agony of the spikes growing into his flesh. He raised the gauntlet as frosty tendrils of liquid ice smoked between his fingers.

  More Gepids pushed into the chamber. The foremost seemed dazed at what they witnessed.

  “Attack, you dogs! Don’t give the sorcerer time!”

  The Gepids shouted battle cries and charged.

  Zarius chanted and pointed at the nearest. A crystalline shard sped arrow-like at its target.

  The icy shard exploded against the Gepid’s armored chest. It blew the barbarian backward as frost spread over his armor. That sent a chilly puff of white billowing toward the chamber’s stone ribbing.

  Zarius targeted others. With lethal precision, he blew down barbarian after barbarian. Blood showered in globs and Gepids bellowed maddened oaths. Others just bellowed as they twisted on the floor.

&nb
sp; Himilco had bewitched them. Therefore, they didn’t break, even though barbarians often fled when faced with sorcery, even barbarians who had been trained in civilized fighting tactics.

  With grim determination, they kept attacking as more poured into the chamber. Zarius no longer had time to target individuals. He threw the raw bluish substance that appeared on the gauntlet. A barbarian’s arm shattered like ice. A shield broke into shards. Fog billowed as icicles grew on the stone arches above.

  Then out of the fog, a howling madman appeared before Zarius. The old sorcerer slapped his gauntleted hand across the warrior’s face. Searing cold whitened flesh. Crackling lines appeared on the frozen skin, spurting blood. Silently, the Gepid slashed his knife across Zarius’s thigh. Then the warrior died.

  Blood pumped out of the thigh wound and poured down Zarius’s leg. The suffete had no time to worry about that. Another Gepid had reached him. This one bore a gaping hole in his stomach, its outer edges covered with frost. The staggering Gepid clutched a sword and snarled like a demented wolf.

  Zarius grunted as the barbarian drove the blade into his shoulder, cutting tendons and scraping bone. For critical seconds the gauntlet billowed with the frosty substance created by blood magic. Then the gaping wound overcame the Gepid. He crumpled at Zarius’s feet.

  The remaining Gepids bayed like wolves and charged with enchanted hatred. The bewitchment of their senses so enflamed their rage that little could frighten them. Yet it also stole their fighting wits, and that gave Zarius a chance.

  The last Gepid thudded dead upon the carpet less than three feet from him, his entire body covered in frost and frozen blood.

  Afterward, a terrible stillness filled the chamber; the only motion drifting tendrils of a gelid fog, and the only sound the drip of melting icicles. A nauseating stench rose from the heaps of dead and dying.

  Zarius attempted to tie a tourniquet around his thigh. His gauntleted hand refused to respond. Fear chilled his heart. He’d created too much of the awful blue substance. Not even the gauntlet could protect him from that. Given enough time or cold, frost killed flesh. The flesh became gangrene. It turned black. Zarius stared at his wrist in horror; it was black. That meant—

  Like a piece of rotted meat, as though his thought were the impetus, his hand tore away from his wrist and dropped. The bone had become brittle and his frozen wrist shattered into a thousand individual shards. The Gauntlet of Ice, with his spiked hand inside, clunked onto the bloody marble floor.

  Zarius crashed to his knees and cradled his ruined arm. The stump of his wrist…it was frozen. Mechanically, hardly aware that he was doing it, Zarius chanted with the last of his sorcery and kept his wrist frozen. When it finally thawed out, he would bleed to death or die of shock.

  He might die of shock or blood loss as it was. With his left hand and the right stump, he twisted the tourniquet around his thigh but had no way to tie it.

  Then his highly developed senses warned him. Zarius raised his head and swiveled it toward a hidden door. Someone stood behind it.

  The heavy stone door slid open. His daughter rushed out of the secret corridor. Behind her, the stone door closed. Elissa was almost a young woman now. She had piercing dark eyes and long brown hair. Horror twisted her features.

  “Father!” Elissa knelt and grasped the blood-slicked tourniquet, tying it for him.

  In the distance, more horns blared in the lower courtyard. Why couldn’t Himilco see that the besieging nomads had merely been boasting? The appearance of the Tyrant’s fleet must have changed Himilco’s mind. The construction of the siege towers outside Karchedon’s walls—

  “Lie back,” Elissa said. “I’ll give you graybloom. It will make you dizzy for a time.”

  Zarius Magonid squeezed his eyes shut, squeezed harder and then opened them wide. He felt nauseous and dizzy, as if his spirit was busy detaching itself from his flesh. He would die soon. Himilco Nara the traitor would win. His wife, his sons, they might never be avenged.

  “Take the Gauntlet of Ice,” he wheezed.

  “If you’ll just—”

  “Listen, daughter!” he hissed. “Take. The. Gauntlet. Don’t let Himilco touch it. Use your Rhune training. If anyone can escape the city, it’s you.”

  “What about you?” Elissa asked, as she used a bag to lift the Gauntlet of Ice and tipped it to let the blackened remains fall out. Then she rolled the gauntlet into the bag, choosing not to let emotion wash over her, and tied the bag to her belt.

  Nearing horns and clattering equipment meant that yet more Gepids rushed toward their deaths.

  “Come with me,” Elissa said. “I have a few tricks left. I’ll draw the arrow, staunch the blood—”

  “Go!” Zarius said. “I order it. Survive. We’ll meet again, someday.”

  Elissa hesitated.

  “Now,” Zarius said, and with the vestiges of his iron will, he struggled to his feet.

  Elissa dashed to the hidden door and looked at him searchingly. Her lips quivered, which amazed him. Of all his children, Elissa was the toughest and the strongest, if one counted guile and will. She must know that she would never see him again. She stepped through the door and allowed it to close with a heavy thump.

  It was time to die. Yet, he would fight for as long as he could in order to give his daughter time to escape.

  With his left hand—his only hand now, he thought with a wry grimace—Zarius lifted the dragon staff. He hissed malevolent words of power. The ruby eyes glowed. The original Gepid weapons, those he’d twisted into hideous shapes, seemed to melt and re-transform. Once again, they become cobras of varying sizes, and they slithered into ranks, ready for the next band of barbarians.

  Almost without warning, they dashed into the room. They attacked ferociously, charging the swaying suffete of Karchedon.

  The cobras struck with sickening speed, pumping sorcerous venom into the barbarians. Warriors screamed in agony. A few hacked at the snakes. One champion dodged with impressive nimbleness.

  Zarius raised the staff, willing the magic dragonhead to work one more time. He was too weak. His body failed him.

  The long-sword swished with brutal speed, and Zarius Magonid, suffete of Karchedon, thumped dead onto the floor. The great sorcerer-ruler of the richest city in Dai Sai had at last lost his throne, leaving his people to the mercies of a traitor and a mad Prophetess from outside the mighty city walls.

  PART I

  KARCHEDON

  -1-

  With tears streaking her face and with a knotted stomach, Elissa moved with cat-like stealth through another hidden corridor.

  She swallowed the sobs trying to free themselves from her throat. She didn’t want to give in to despair. She mustn’t. She needed cool concentration now more than ever. She needed to survive…if for no other reason than to avenge her father.

  She felt her way through the darkness, guided by her sharpened instincts.

  She was slender and her skin dusky-tinted, much different from the other Karchedonians. She was the only offspring of a dalliance between her father and a visiting Rhune princess. The princess’s entourage had been amazed that an outlander—even one as powerful as Zarius Magonid—could have possibly impregnated one of The Blood.

  Rhunes had exalted views of their importance, perhaps with good reason. They were an ancient race that had lived apart for many centuries. They cultivated what many considered strange habits. They were secretive, lived in a land of shadows, and had become akin to the panthers that infested their moonlit gardens. Rhunes believed themselves above the worries of what they considered the lesser races.

  Several years ago, Elissa had learned that it had been politically impossible for her mother to return to the Land of Shadows impregnated by an outlander. Therefore, the princess had remained in Zarius’s apartments, giving birth here and soon thereafter departing for home, never to return. Growing up, Elissa had climbed everywhere as if she were a lemur. Her half-brothers had teased her about it. Later, they had be
come muscular young men given to skirt chasing and drunkenness, while she had become reserved.

  Then a Rhune troubadour had appeared at the palace. He’d been tall, always wearing a hood as if the sun were his enemy, and he’d never smiled. The troubadour had long fingers and an exotic spider-ring. A tiny piece of jade had seemingly dripped from the spider’s carved mandibles.

  The troubadour had explained to Elissa’s father that he’d journeyed to Karchedon to instruct the young half-Rhune in decorum and other civilized skills. Elissa had wondered at her father’s unease. Only later had she come to realize that her father had suspected that the Rhune had come to test her. If she had been found wanting…the usual Rhune practice was to poison those who failed.

  The Rhune had taught her what he called essential doctrines. That included the rudiments of poisoning, a subtle form of unarmed fighting and the proper employment of knives. He’d approved of her habit of climbing—unusual for a Karchedonian young lady. He’d also shown her several tricks employing silk ropes and padded hooks. As far as Elissa could fathom, decorum for a Rhune meant a placid demeanor even if a pack of Molossian hounds was savaging you or even if you vomited out your life because someone had slipped you a packet of cluthe or graybloom.

  Naturally, throughout her training, Elissa had peppered him with questions concerning the Land of Shadows. He had deftly fended them until he’d finally informed her that she must stifle her curiosity. She must never enter the Land of Shadows on pain of an excruciating death. She was a half-breed, a terrible embarrassment to her mother.

  On hearing that, Elissa had fled to her father. Perhaps that had been the teacher’s intent. The Rhune had departed the next day with a haughty word to her, saying she barely ranked above the animals. However, since she could spew the Yellow Death and had learned the spider’s crawl, technically she’d passed her mother’s requirements for life. Thereupon, the Rhune had doffed his hood for the first time, bowed with an exaggerated flourish and touched his forehead with three fingers. Elissa had never seen him again.