Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance Read online

  Lord of

  Vengeance

  Gifts of Vorallon III

  Thomas Cardin

  Cover Art and Map by Thomas Cardin

  Copyright © 2013 Thomas Cardin

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

  ISBN: 1482783401

  ISBN-13: 978-1482783407

  DEDICATION

  To Cathy and Roger with all my love

  chapter 1

  THE PRECIOUS FEW

  Twenty-Ninth day of the Moon of the Thief

  -in Halversome

  Lorace awakened to a glimmer of predawn stars trickling through the narrow windows of the Guardian’s Hall, comforted to find Iris snuggled warm against him. The thumping of wooden buckets and sloshing water had drawn his awareness. His sight revealed a young priestess burdened by two steaming buckets of water entering the next room. She emptied the buckets into a nearly full wooden tub before retracing her steps to their chamber door and rapping with the barest of touches on the hard wood.

  The priestess placed her ear to the door and smiled. “My Lady? My Lord? Guardian Oen bids thee rise. I have prepared a bath.”

  Iris sprang from a seemingly sound asleep to standing upright beside the bed at the utterance of ‘bath’. Lorace was not far behind, chuckling at her haste. Her hair floated about her head in a pale tangle of disarray while her spotted nymph’s body was prepared to spring for the door.

  He drew a blanket off the bed and wrapped them both up in it. “Thank you,” he called out. “We are awake.”

  The priestess hurried downstairs.

  “The bath is in the room right next door,” he said as he began walking her toward the door. “It is big enough for both of us.”

  She slipped free of his arms to scoop up his pants and her dress from the floor then returned to his embrace. Together they opened the door and rushed into the next room to the accompaniment of Iris’s chiming giggles.

  “I love baths,” Iris said with a sigh as they lowered themselves into the hot water. “Are they not simply amazing?”

  Lorace answered with a contented groan then grinned as her legs wrapped around him in the confines of the tub. “I still say you are incredibly strong,” he murmured.

  She laughed low in her throat. “I will try to be gentle on you, dear Lorace. You really are quite incredible yourself.”

  They washed each other with a pair of soft sponges until the water began to cool and their fingertips wrinkled. Neither of them wished to relinquish their shared night. Eventually Iris rose from the tub and reached for a neatly folded towel while shadows of sadness played across her face.

  Lorace held up a dripping arm and halted her before she flung the towel over her head. “I want to try something—you trust me, do you not?”

  She looked on him with narrowed eyes and smirked. “Maybe.”

  Lorace gathered up the warm air in the closed room to blow it through her wet hair and across her porcelain skin. He used the air to caress the water from every inch of her body. Iris lifted her arms and laughed again, tossing her head in the rushing wind. Soon her pale silken hair was dry and floating about her face in a drifting cloud.

  “Oh that was wonderful,” Iris moaned the words, her face flush. She drew herself up straight and turned a stern gaze upon him. “You do that for any other woman and I will kill you slowly, my Lord Husband.”

  Lorace laughed with her as he climbed up from the tub. He elected to dry his skin with a towel, for the air had cooled considerably, but he did blow it through his wavy hair until it was dry.

  Iris giggled. “You should see your hair now.”

  His brown mane floated in the air much less elegantly than Iris’s blonde cloud. She giggled again at his futile attempts to brush his hair down with his hands.

  “No, you should leave it,” Iris declared. “Let them behold you and wonder! Or perhaps you should not. If Tornin sees your hair like this, he may never take Falraan to be joined before Aran.”

  Lorace focused his gift with a nod and drew the air out from between his floating strands until his hair lay in a gentle wave across his shoulders.

  “Shall I fix yours too?” he asked with a raised his brow.

  “Not on your life,” she replied. “I will show everyone. That is something they can wonder about in awe. ‘What sorcery is this!’ they shall cry.”

  “I am beginning to think there is little we can do to surprise our friends after the events of these last days,” Lorace said as he laced her back into her dress, readying Iris for the rest of the world, hiding the secret spots on her flanks once more. He slipped his pants on before they returned to their room where they finished dressing. Iris drawing the gold chain of her crystal mirror over her head while he hung his satchel over his shoulder. By then, the smell of food was coming up from the hall below, and a cloudless dawn had lit the sky in pink and rose.

  He let out a long sigh and hugged Iris tight for a few moments. “Our night ends, and Vorallon awaits us. Our lovemaking alone was not enough to cast our foes away.”

  Iris wrapped her arms around his neck. “When you have conquered the God of Undeath, destroyed the threat of the Devourer forever, and put the grand cycle of souls back in its proper alignment, you can try to say that again,” she assured him, pulling his face down for a kiss. “For me, I say right now that the darkness has no chance against our legendary night together.”

  Hand in hand, they descended to the main hall to find the great table once more laden with food. Tornin and Captain Falraan, both garbed in chain armor, were already seated and eating heartily. Tornin stood to bow, while Falraan stared open-mouthed at Iris’s cloud of hair.

  When Falraan and Tornin shared a knowing glance with each other Lorace laughed. “You did it, did you not? You were united by Aran?”

  “Yes,” Falraan said for the blushing Tornin. “Last night, not long after Tornin finished talking and Moyan took up the tale of your conquering of the Zuxran forces. We excused ourselves, and Tornin took me unerringly to the temple—just as he was meant to. Aran’s blessing upon us was beautiful,” she lowered her voice, “as was the rest of our evening.”

  Tornin choked on a bite of baked dough covered in apricot preserves, interrupting Falraan’s detailed account. She rose to embrace Iris, leaving her mate to cough. “Do not mind him, he is a barbarian,” she said with a laugh. “But I think I will keep him all the same.”

  “Keep me?” Tornin gasped out. “I had to call upon my sword for strength last night—twice.”

  “It is not my fault nobody warned you about redheads.” Falraan draped her arms around Tornin’s shoulders with a jingle of chain armor.

  “At least he does not appear to be burned,” Iris said with a conspiratorial wink.

  “What? What does she mean, Fal?” Tornin asked his bride with a tremulous note in his voice.

  Captain Falraan laughed. “Watch.” She gestured toward the cold coals in the braziers along the walls, and they burst into cherry red heat. “My gift,” she laughed again. “Luckily neither of us used our gifts unwittingly last night, Tornin may have been dead twice over this morning, and I along with him.”

  Lorace blushed furiously before the whimsical looks on the women’s faces made him burst out in laughter.

  “As I said, I think I will keep him; he has potential,” Falraan delivered a kiss to Tornin’s cheek.

  Once Lorace regained his composure, he congratulated them then led Iris to her seat. Ravenously hungry, they ate in silence, but shared many smiles an
d furtive looks toward one another. Well into their meal, Oen and Hethal arrived followed by Moyan and the elven and dwarven leaders, discussing the military strengths of their diverse forces.

  Adwa-Ki immediately bent down, wrapping Iris in her slender arms. “I am most impressed with you, lovely Iris,” the elf said, taking note of her settling cloud of hair with a raised eyebrow. “The story of your love will be sung among our people until the true end of days.”

  “Thank you, but I do not understand,” Iris said.

  “When elves love it is forever,” Adwa-Ki said. “Our love cannot wane with age; it must last throughout the long eons of our lives. We wed with the knowledge that we have forever to share with one another. You wed bravely, knowing your time with your love is to be so short. When Oen spoke the fullness of Lorace’s destiny last night, I wept openly for you.”

  Prince Wralka spoke gruffly through an emotion-constricted throat, “I want to apologize to you both as well for my unwitting words. We felt the fools for keeping you two here with us, demanding your stories and tales when you needed to be alone with one another for what time you could.”

  “He will be with me always, as the spirits of his brothers are still with him, with all of us,” Iris said with her eyes lingering on Lorace’s face. “Our time alone together is done. We must depart at once for Blackdrake, and well I know the galleys of Zuxra have no privacy.”

  “Well said, my dear Iris,” Oen agreed as he filled his plate. “Moyan has assured us that everything is ready for us to sail, and Sir Rindal sends his regards. He is down at the docks right now seeing everyone aboard.” Oen leaned down over his plate and breathed in deep. “Take the time to enjoy this meal for I fear our shipboard rations will not be this sumptuous.”

  Lorace, having eaten his fill, stood to address them all. “You now know what lies ahead of us. The Lady has put this destiny before me, but it is not mine alone, it is the destiny of all of us. I have been chosen to lead and so I shall, but it is Vorallon you fight for, not me.”

  He reached out to take his wife’s hand. “I will get us to Blackdrake as swiftly as my winds can take us. There we fight something never before seen upon this world, something so alien to life that the two cannot exist together within the bounds of our universe. I gladly welcome your aid and the aid of your people in combating this threat to the life of Vorallon—the threat to the lives of us all.”

  They nodded with a certainty that made his heart pound hard in his chest. These people had made him, shaping him with their love and friendship, every bit as much as the Ritual of the Forge and the first touch of Sakke Vrang had.

  “My destiny was to be the Lord of Vengeance,” Lorace continued. “I have denied that possibility, but I accept all the responsibilities that role may entail to suit the purposes of the Old Gods and the needs of Vorallon. Additionally, I will endeavor to close the rift between our realm and the realm of undeath. Indeed, I will close any passages that threaten Vorallon, Jaarda, or even Nefryt. This is my world. You are my people, my friends-” with emotion welling in his eyes, he drew Iris into his embrace, “and my wife.”

  The leaders of Halversome, the Keth, Vlaske K’Brak, and the former Zuxrans rose to thank Lorace and swear the service of their people to him. To each of them in turn, he knelt and accepted their oaths before they exited the Guardian’s Hall.

  The high priest of Aran halted before his temple, watching the early morning sun glaze the tip of its apex in a golden glow.

  “This temple was not here when the dwarves first built Halversome,” Oen said.

  Prince Wralka nodded. “We built it there at Guardian Disson’s request, completing it close to nine years ago.”

  “It was my request to Disson,” Oen asserted. “When I shared the existence of Lord Aran with him, telling him of a new power awakened in the world. I was not a priest before Aran appeared to me. I was a warrior, a mercenary as was my brother Lehan. Aran spoke to us, leading us to a large stone which he bade us use our swords and hands to cut and shape into the altar that now resides within his temple.”

  Lorace took up Oen’s hand, sensing something lurking behind the priest’s words, something he was chipping his way toward as surely as the carving he described.

  Oen continued. “Lord Aran said words to me very similar to those you just spoke, asking my service rather than demanding it. I gave it willingly, as did my brother. We put away our swords and armor and took up the white robes he bade us to. This morning, he released me from my oath of service that I may swear that oath to you, his brother. He named you as the Old Gods will name you when you ascend. Do you wish to hear it?”

  Lorace clasped Oen’s shoulder and witnessed an instant of concern on Hethal’s face. A telling sign from the monk, but it did not influence the choice Lorace had already made. “No, my friend, I will take up that mantle when it is time, not before. To you I am Lorace, to all of you I wish to be Lorace, forever. You who know me as a man will always know me as that man. My deeds as a Lord will have to speak for me with everyone else. Those deeds may not be what we would all want of me, but if it means the rescue and restoration of this world, I will do all that I must.”

  Iris pierced him with her emerald gaze. “You mean you will perform the duties of this Lord of Vengeance despite what your heart tells you?”

  “It is the purpose to which I was born,” Lorace explained with a slow nod. “I believe there is a reason behind it, but my brothers know it not—it is a matter I must take up with the Lady and the rest of Old Gods when they awake in the next few days. My brother Bartalus- Lorn, told me I would be free to choose my fate as a Lord, but I am not sure that will be as true as we would wish. Know that I will continue to love you all, and I will continue to love this world, but my task will be to ensure the balance, just as my brothers do the same. Through that balance between light and dark, purity and corruption, the continuation of life on this world depends. So yes, I will do what I must. Though my heart may pay an eternal price, I have at least assured that my heart will remain my own.”

  Iris pulled him close. “You have our love as well, Lorace. Whenever your heart pains you in your tasks, we will be here for you—I will be with you always.”

  Lorace bent and kissed his wife again before turning squarely to Falraan. “Captain, would you see that I have a private word with your brother Micah before we depart?”

  “W- What?” she stammered in surprise before regaining her composure. “Yes, of course. May I ask why? What is it?”

  Lorace smiled to her. “It may be nothing, or it may be everything, but it must remain between him and me.”

  “Everything? You are confusing already and you are not even a god yet,” Falraan said with a toss of her red mane. “I wonder if your brothers and the Old Gods know what they have gotten themselves into with you.”

  “I doubt it very much,” Lorace said with a tight-lipped grin.

  “I will fetch him to meet us upon the docks before we are away.” She bowed and trotted away across the plaza.

  “Her brother is very special,” Adwa-Ki said to Lorace. “I was present at his birth. The priests called me to aid in the difficult delivery. Sadly, we could not save the mother, and it was only through her strong will to stay alive long enough for the child to arrive, that Micah had a chance to live at all. Sometimes the fates conspire in these ways.”

  “Aran had to take her to save the child,” Oen frowned in memory. “It was a fate he could not dispute. Lehan knew it as truth, but it nearly destroyed him to lose Milah. Her loss hurt us all.”

  Lorace spread his arms and lowered his head, commiserating for this past tragedy. “Micah is very special, this I have discovered. He faces no greater risk than anyone will if I should fail, quite the opposite. I can say no more without breaking a sworn oath to the child.”

  Several elves approached Adwa-Ki and removed their red and gold cloaks, passing them to her. “These warriors are going to stay here and lend their aid to the city while we are away. They w
ish to provide you with their cloaks for they will not require them in Halversome’s warm air.”

  Lorace accepted the cloak. Whatever their reasons for volunteering to stay behind, he honored them for their gift with many thanks. Tornin draped an additional cloak over his arm for Falraan. Adwa-Ki and the elves helped secure them about their shoulders with golden brooches. Their lightness and warmth was immediately comforting. The tight weave of the cloth allowed none of the air against his body to escape into the offshore breeze.

  A thin crowd of those who would remain behind lined their route to the great lift. Oen paused many times to share his confidence and love with a clasp of hands or a close embrace. He called each individual by name. Lorace studied each of their unique spirits with his sight, as Oen saw them, memorizing every detail until he too would know them anywhere.

  All too soon, they arrived at the stone housing of the great lift. It nestled beside the roaring falls of the sluiceway. With nothing more separating them from the cliff, the blue of the Vestral Sea stretched to the horizon.

  Oen led them onto the solid wooden platform of the lift, an expanse large enough for a dozen men to stand. A young man, whose spirit flowed upwards in a burnt orange glow, governed its operation. He tugged hard over on a heavy iron bar, pivoting a hooked rod onto one of the huge descending chains. The platform lowered with a clanking jolt; cogs along each side guiding it down a dark shaft cut within the cliff.

  Surpassing the deep thunder of the water, the chain groaned and clattered through the complex gearing of an enormous paddled wheel. The lower loop of the chain descended to another, free running gear, at the bottom of the shaft.

  Shouting to be heard over the rattling din, Lorace addressed Prince Wralka, “Everywhere I turn in this city I am amazed at the forethought and ingenuity that has gone into its construction. Here all is planned out and intelligently wrought. I have especially enjoyed the warmth that rises from the very stones, keeping winter at bay.”