Crown (The Manhunters Book 3) Read online

  He reached the door at the end of the hall and pushed it open. She was sleeping but her fighting edge was honed, and when he stepped into the room, her eyes popped open.

  “Rayph, you came.” She did not sound weak. She sounded like herself, and her color was good. Rayph looked at her spear sitting on the table beside her. He grinned.

  “You look ready for work,” he said. There was no chair, so he conjured one. He sat beside her bed and took her hand. He heard a rattling of chain and he stared, horrified. She had been bound to her bed. She was strong, ready to fight, and they had tied her down. Rayph let his anger roll off his back. Let the church of her religion care for her in any way they needed to. This was not his fight.

  “Did it work? Do you have Shiv?”

  “Yes, it worked perfectly. Fanhon is a genius. His trap was art. We have fought Blade again, and this time Dran walked away the worse for it.”

  Dissonance gasped and squeezed Rayph’s hand. “Is she dead?”

  “She is not. Dran survived, but she took a claw swipe to the face. I cannot heal her and Trysliana is out of potions. We have stitched her up but it will scar. Her face is striped for life.”

  “I needed to be there. If I had been…”

  “I would have had you saving children.”

  “Saving children?”

  “It was an ugly battle. Right now, I just need you to focus on getting better. We need to get you up and ready for fighting.”

  Dissonance looked at the bed below her. She shook her head. “I’m out, Rayph.”

  Rayph’s heart sank. He trembled and he shook his head. “You will be fine. You will not turn. You will be blessed and dangerous again. I can wait. This is not permanent.”

  “He is gone, Rayph,” she said with tears in her eyes. “He is gone from me.”

  “Who is gone?” Rayph asked, but he knew. He braced himself for the worst of it but knew there was no protection for him. He was raw here. The priest had seen to that. Rayph was teetering on the brink of darkness. Nothing could save him.

  “Cor-lyn-ber has turned his back on me. I cannot feel him with me anymore. It happened the moment those teeth sank into my flesh. He pulled away in horror and has not come back. I am a servant of Cor-lyn-ber no longer. Now I am nothing. Now I stay here,” she said. “They will not let me leave this place ever again. I will die here after suffering for decades I fear.” Her tears pattered on the coverlet they had afforded her. Rayph reached to her and wiped her tears away.

  “I figured I would die serving under you. We did too much, went into too much darkness not to get torn down. Most warriors of Cor-lyn-ber fight the good fight for a while before they retire to a church to defend it for the rest of their prime. When they are older, they either teach or sit. That was the life I was looking at. Usefulness for a while before being put on a shelf. I was just trying to do as much good as I could before I retired. But then, you and Smear found me.

  “I was so angry after father’s death. So bound up in rage. I came at you and tried to kill you, and you put me to work instead. It was a dark path you placed me on, but in the seven years I have been with you, I have done more good for the world than any other warrior of Cor-lyn-ber I have read about or met. We took out 57 villains in that time. No rest, no stopping. The things you have done with this group are beyond comprehension. I decided on service long ago. I never imagined I would do this much good in my life.”

  “You are not done yet. You can learn to control it. Can teach yourself how to harness the rat and–”

  “Rayph, without Cor-lyn-ber, I am a girl. My weapon is useless to me. My faith is all I had. It’s gone now. Everything is gone now. This is my prison. They will feed me and house me and let me live in comfort, but I will never see the sun again. I’m done.”

  “Where is your fetish?” Rayph asked.

  “They took it.” She smiled and nodded. “It is all gone.”

  “It doesn’t belong to them. I will come for you. I will find a way to help you,” Rayph said.

  “You will regret sending me after Radamuss for years to come. Don’t. It was the right call. I was the only one to fight him. You will be hard pressed to control him after this. Don’t suffer under the weight of your shame. You have none. We are at peace. I am at peace.”

  Rayph nodded and wept. She held his hand while he did. Even in her pain, she was a comfort to him.

  The Spawned

  Rayph walked through the shattered building to the broken stairs. He climbed into the tunnel and entered the darkness. His third eye opened and he followed the currents of air that brought him to the small room. As soon as he entered, the room lit with fire and revealed a small basin on a half pillar sitting in the center of the room. Rayph poured water into the bowl and the door opened. As he went in, his surroundings changed.

  He entered a high-ceilinged room with black marble and golden pillars. Before him stood twelve thrones with a larger throne carved in the image of a dragon in the middle of them. The table sat decorated and beautiful. Though he stood in a throne room of splendor, Rayph could not enjoy it. He felt beaten down, drained of everything that made him him. He needed to hide for a while, needed to get away, but he had been summoned by the Council of the Spawned. This was not a council to ignore.

  Five figures covered in golden robes with black hoods entered. They all carried staves save one, who carried an ancient scepter. They sat in certain thrones and the one sitting on the dragon-backed chair threw his hood back.

  Rayph had fallen in love with the clear face of the boy before him long ago, and now that he stood here before this council led by King Thomas Nardoc, Rayph nearly wept. The darkness of the past few days drained from him and he stared up at Thomas with glowing eyes.

  “Five hundred dead in the city of Dragonsbane in a single day,” Thomas said. “I heard this and I didn’t believe it. I told myself Rayph would never do that. Rayph would do anything in his power to avoid such wanton waste of life.”

  The happiness and joy he felt in Thomas’s presence disappeared. He stared at the boy with growing fear.

  “How many of those lives were town guards, Rayph?” Fir-Lak asked. From deep in the folds of his hood, his face was black and terrifying. Fear rose up in Rayph and he beat it back down again.

  “Dran took control of the town guards when she got there,” Rayph said. “She started losing them shortly after. We did not know exactly where they had gone, but after a while it became clear they were rushing off to their Chaos Syndicate masters that had cajoled, bought, or intimidated them into loyalty. At least two hundred town guards were loyal to Chaos. They joined into a battle between two street gangs and they were a problem. I had Dran in the wings in case this very thing happened and sent her in. She brought seven hundred with her. There were heavy casualties.”

  “How many?” Medey asked. His face tattooed into war paint seemed to glow in the light of the flames that danced on the table.

  “All together we lost four hundred guards before the soured ones could be taken into custody.”

  “Where are they now?” Thomas asked.

  “We have caged them and placed them in the mayor’s mansion. They are all in a huge room bound to the walls. They are fed and cared for. They will be brought justice when this battle is over.”

  “War,” Dorf said.

  “Excuse me?” Rayph asked.

  “War. It is a war, not a battle,” the man said. “You have waged war on the streets of Dragonsbane. Blood runs the gutters. The citizens hunker down in fear. Darkness rules all.”

  “Yes, it is a war. I tried to make it anything but and could not. A war is being fought with an unkillable force with ultimate power at their command. They are smarter than me, they are more powerful than me, and they are dug into the city. I stand with my back to a wall and a pit at my feet. I am losing people and I am at odds with myself. I just lost my holy warrior. I am almost desperate. But I am almost done.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Thomas asked
.

  “For seven years, I have been fighting this evil. For seven years, I have chased down the worst criminals this nation has ever seen. Now I have my boot to their throat. Now I have them nearly destroyed.”

  “You are out of time,” Dorf said.

  “I cannot walk away now,” Rayph said. “Darkness will know no end if I do.”

  “We are disbanding your group. The body count is too high. Too many good people have died,” Soother said.

  Rayph dropped to his knees. He fought back his tears and looked Thomas in the eye.

  “You can’t do this,” he said. “Give me a few more weeks. Give me until Chaos is destroyed. Then I will walk away. Then I will step down.” He looked to Medey, the greatest warrior this nation knew. He shook his head and heard the plea in his voice. “I beg you. Let me take this crew down. The Stain will not survive it.”

  Thomas looked at the other members of the council and he spoke. Rayph could not hear the words coming out of their mouths. It was a spell Rayph had cast upon their cloaks that allowed them to talk in front of anyone without being heard. He cursed himself for casting it and tried to read their lips.

  “No more dead children or I will hold you personally responsible,” Soother said.

  “Fine.”

  “Those guards are to be cared for well and not harmed,” Medey added.

  “Done,” Rayph said.

  “When this evil has been dealt with, will you give up your power and come home? Or will you make me call upon The Rider?” Thomas asked. “I love you, Rayph. I see you as a father, but this nation cannot be allowed to fall in the hands of its most powerful heroes. Tell me you will disband and walk away, and I will let you finish what you started.”

  “I will step down. I will not fight you,” Rayph said. “No more dead children, no more dead guards.”

  “Very well. Bring this evil to heel and close out this chapter of Lorinth’s days,” Thomas said.

  Rayph hated the words coming out of the young king’s mouth, but he was so proud of him for speaking them.

  The Castle of Chains

  Roth looked at the great building from the room in the Scribe’s Tower in Mestlven. The window he gazed out of was narrow and high, but from where Roth stood, he could see most of the mammoth structure. It was built by the yern, a race that had conquered the nation of Tienne so long ago.

  The race had been gigantic, averaging fifteen feet. They had been masters of stone workings, and as a tribute to a mighty member of their race, they had built what was now called the Castle of Chains. Carved from the center of the building, rising high over everything, stood a massive likeness of a yern. In his hands he held chains. The stone chains extended to many human figures that stretched out in the direction of the wings of the building. These human statues made up the outer walls of the castle, and the looks on their faces were dead and defeated.

  The structure still stood over forty thousand years later. Yern magicks held the building strong, and though the human population tried to destroy the building after the yern left, they had been unable to. So strong was the yern magic. No force imaginable had been able to so much as chip a link in the chains. The structure stood now as a testament to the enslaving of the human race. It was a symbol of the horror the yern had inflicted on the humans of this city and this nation at large.

  Every lord the city had ever boasted, every mayor who had held this place before Tate, had made some sort of vague promise to destroy the building or in some way rid the public of the shame it brought. In forty thousand years, no man or woman had ever delivered on that promise.

  “I gave them my word,” Tate said. Roth turned away from the window and looked back at the office Tate had made for himself. “Told them I would see to its destruction.”

  “You gave them your word?” Gale said. Tate did not like the idea of Gale being in this tower and had made many suggestions to Roth on ways Gale might be left out of the meeting, but Roth had smacked them all away. Gale was a master of the Collective. He deserved a place at this meeting. “I am not sure giving your word about this was a good idea,” Gale said as he finished his mug of wine. He set it down very carefully, and Roth wondered if the man knew on some level he was unwanted at this tower, if Gale fully understood the wrath Tate held in his grasp for the man.

  Thrak shook his head. “No, I’m sure it can be done.” He grinned at his brother Ithyryyn. “If you had to destroy it in order to live, how would you do it?” Thrak looked at Tate. “How would you? There is no one act that cannot be completed with planning and ingenuity. That is the very premise this Collective was built on. So, we have to do it or we die. What do we do?”

  “No amount of blasting has ever made a dent in this building,” Ithyryyn said.

  “They have gathered holy tools, have worked with the gods’ blessing, have employed the most devastating of war machines on this building,” Tate said. “Nothing.”

  “Looked it up before we came here,” Thrak said.

  Roth laughed.

  “How did you know what I was going to ask you about?” Tate said.

  “Had a hunch,” Thrak said. “When the yern were leaving—”

  “Why did they go?” Roth asked. He knew he read it in a book somewhere but he could not summon up the information.

  “They were chased away by a force called the Great Pursuer.”

  “What in the name of the gods is that?” Ithyryyn said.

  “No one knows for sure,” Gale said. “I was born in Tienne and I have never heard a satisfactory answer. Maybe a race. Maybe a disease. I have even heard that it was one creature the yern ran from. But they did run, and never came back. Histories do not speak of what happened to them after they fled north and reached the sea.

  “Before they left, a yern stonemaster took his tools and tried to destroy the Castle of Chains. He was unsuccessful. Finally, he gave up and apologized to the people. He called it indestructible, said it was not like their other monuments. Claimed the yern hero it was built in honor of protected it from harm.”

  “So as I see it, it cannot be destroyed,” Gale said. “Quill, do you have something?”

  Roth noticed it then. Quill had not said one word the entire time they had been talking about it. Even now, she stared dumb at the portrait of Roth’s mother over Tate’s desk.

  “She was a thief,” Quill said.

  “My mother was many things, Quill!” Tate said. “I will not have you judging her in her own home.”

  Quill lifted a hand to silence him. “I was trying to think like her.” Quill stood. She smiled at them. Roth grinned. Thrak laughed and Tate stepped in front of her.

  “You have it, don’t you?” he said. Roth could hear his brother’s excitement in his voice.

  “We can’t destroy it. How about we steal it?” Quill said.

  As a group, the Collective laughed.

  Two days of spell-writing. Three days of touring the structure. Thrak had heard a distant rumor in a book he had not read in over ten years about a hidden chamber in the castle’s cellar. After a few hours of searching, they found it. It radiated down into a massive room under the castle. Thrak did not take the time to explore it. They simply sealed it, deciding to search its secrets later. Ithyryyn wrote all over the outside of the structure with mathematical equations and other calculations. Gale checked the street under the castle and found the sewers under them. He walked them carefully and wrote along the walls.

  Tate talked to the people and had his city guardsmen enforce a curfew. The blocks surrounding the castle had to be cleared. No one could get in or near them. He needed an evacuation of an eight-block radius.

  When it was done, Roth stood on a building near it, looking at the spot of ground that ran along the eastern side of the castle. Tate hovered over the castle proper, with Gale on the western side, Thrak on the north, and Ithyryyn on the south. Since it was her plan, Quill would serve as the conductor of it all.

  She stood under the castle in a dungeon they
had sealed off from the city. Roth could not hold back his fear that she would get crushed if things went wrong. He fought back his panic and focused his mind on his part.

  “When the command is given, the detonation will begin. I need those explosions to come fast, and I need your portals to open instantly when they are done,” she said. “I will give you a countdown.”

  Roth held his breath as Quill spoke again. He could hear the fear in her voice.

  “Collapse in five...

  “Four...

  “Three...

  “Two.”

  Roth held his breath, and in that brief moment, he forgot the entire plan. He forgot his spell. He forgot all of it. His heart seized up on him and he suddenly couldn’t breathe.

  “One...

  “Now!” Quill shouted.

  Roth felt his body return to him as soon as the words were spoken. He summoned up his most devastating spell and unleashed it. The spell had been a mistake. Gale had crafted it for battle. A simple impact spell, meant to hit opponents and knock them back. Gale repetitively increased the power but the spell had still been ineffective. In frustration, he overshot the intended result and had created a spell so powerful that to use it on a living being was far too much. Roth released it now, the sheer magnitude of the spell rushing from his body.

  The power that ripped through him was so intense it busted the blood vessels in his arms. The spell collided with the street before him and the effect was instantaneous. The ground ruptured with an explosion that tossed rock and dust into the air. The ground gave a belch and a cloud of grit rose before him.

  Roth closed his eyes against it, summoned the power of his ring and threw his portal out.

  Thrak talked of a time when the Collective had been able to, with the team effort of Thrak, Gale, Quill and Ithyryyn, open a portal half a mile wide and twenty feet tall. With the addition of Roth and Tate to that effect, the portal had swelled to a point they knew they would never need.