Darkness Rising: Disciples of the Horned One Volume One (Soul Force Saga Book 1) (14 page)

D
amien parted
ways with his sister and her squad and headed toward the sorcerers’ tents. As he walked he considered how best to approach whoever was in charge. He’d be polite but firm. Damien wanted to help and he had the power to make a difference.

The six blue-dyed tents looked pretty near identical to those used by the rest of the army. Unfortunately that made it hard to figure out which one was the command tent. A dark-haired girl in her mid twenties with no visible soul force dressed in a dark-blue tunic and pants left one of the tents.

Damien sighed and jogged after her. “Excuse me.”

The sorcerer turned back to face him. “Yes?”

“I’m looking for the commander. Can you help me out?”

“Who are you?” Her gray eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen you around camp.”

“Sorry, I’m Damien St. Cloud. I arrived with my sister an hour ago. General Kord sent me to check in.”

Her narrow eyes went wide. “You killed the demon. I didn’t realize you’d been assigned here. The commander’s tent is there.” She pointed at a tent a little ways down the row. It had a plaque with a black tower carved on it above the flap. How had he missed that?

“Thanks.” He left the gaping sorcerer where she stood and jogged over to the command tent.

Some tents had a board outside for visitors to knock on, but not this one. He shrugged, brushed the flap open, and ducked inside. A pale woman with white-blond hair sat at a table with two male sorcerers. The woman looked like the master that had served as Sig’s second in their duel. They fell silent and looked up at Damien.

“Hi. I’m Damien St. Cloud. General Kord sent me to check in.”

The men muttered amongst themselves and he picked out the words demon slayer. Was that the first thing everyone he met would say? The woman hissed and the men fell silent. “Why are you here?” she asked.

“I thought I could help. I’ve fought with my sister’s squad before and we did good work. This seemed like an opportunity to do that again.”

The woman’s pale lips turned down in a frown. “My sister spoke of you. You embarrassed my lord’s son in a duel. For that insult alone I should send you back to the tower.”

“I saved Sig’s life,” Damien said. Annoyed by the woman’s attitude he went on. “He thought he knew how to fight. With his meager skills he was liable to get killed in a real fight. I showed him the truth. Where’s the insult in that?”

She stood up; the woman was easily as tall as Jen, with a slender, boyish figure. “You have no mentor and no place here.”

Damien walked deeper into the tent. If she thought he’d just walk away on her say-so she’d miscalculated. “I don’t have a mentor because none of the more experienced sorcerers have the guts to take on an apprentice more powerful than them. I’ve been sitting on my hands for four months waiting to find someone with the stones to work with me. Now there’s a war on and you want me to go home and sit around some more?”

She stepped around the table and soul force gathered around her. “What do you think you can do that we can’t?”

Damien gathered his own power, enough to make the tent shake. “Nothing, but since when is having an extra set of hands a bad thing in war? I’m not planning to sit around camp getting in your way. I’m going out with my sister in the morning. Just pretend you never saw me. Every ogre I kill is one less for you to deal with.”

She spun away from him and released her power. “Do what you will. I don’t care.” She dismissed him with the back of her hand.

Damien reclaimed his power, bowed to her back, and left.

W
hen they crossed
the border it felt like the temperature dropped twenty degrees. The wind blew waves of loose snow, obscuring their vision beyond forty feet. The Ice Queen’s magic controlled the weather, hindering her enemies and aiding her own forces. Only a dragon had that much power. The kingdom was fortunate she’d never come against them herself. If that ever changed he feared for their survival.

They’d been running at a brisk pace all morning, Damien’s power allowing them to travel on the surface of the snow. They’d seen no signs of ogres or ice trolls; the general’s information looked good. If he was right about the locations of the supply depots it would make their jobs a lot easier. Hunting around in a blizzard would be a miserable process.

“Can anyone tell where the hell we are?” Talon asked.

“I’m not sure.” Jen squinted into the wind. “But we’ve got to be within a mile of the first depot.”

“Want me to see if I can find it?” Damien asked.

Jen nodded and Damien conjured a remote viewing construct. Instead of a bug this time he conjured an invisible sphere and sent it flying in the direction they believed the depot lay. The rest of the squad gathered around to watch. For several minutes the only images the sphere sent back were white and empty. As Damien guided it through the empty terrain he passed something dark.

With a thought he moved it back. The dark object turned out to be the head of an ogre. Beyond the ogre several large tents sat in a clearing free of wind and snow. The orb circled the clearing revealing seven more ogres guarding the tents. They had found the depot. Jen clapped him on the shoulder.

Following the link to his orb, Damien led the squad to their target. They crouched forty yards away from the clearing. It looked like someone had set up an invisible wall blocking the storm.

It wasn’t fair.

Still, the blowing snow made for good cover, allowing them to approach without the ogres noticing. Jen used hand gestures to direct her squad to surround the depot.

“What should I do?” Damien asked.

“Wait here and keep your eyes open. We can handle eight ogres. I just don’t want anything sneaking up on us.”

She waited a full minute, let out a shrill whistle, and charged, drawing her sword as she went. Damien stepped out of the storm to better watch. Before he got clear of the wind the first ogre lay in two pieces in the snow, staining it red. Their speed and strength enhanced by soul force, the warlords finished the guards in less than a minute. It was an impressive bit of work. The power of a warlord never ceased to amaze Damien.

He ambled into the clearing in time to see Jen flick the blood off her sword and slip it into the sheath on her back.

“How did it work?” Damien asked.

“Like a dream. It cut through them with hardly any resistance.”

Talon slashed open one of the tents, revealing rows of heavy spears standing upright in wooden racks. The next tent held slabs of meat—no one wanted to inquire too closely about type—hanging from what looked like a clothesline. They tore open the other tents and found either weapons or food in each of them.

“What now?” Edward asked. “We can’t exactly make a fire out in the snow.”

“I’ll handle it.” Damien conjured bubbles around the tents and yanked them together in the center of the clearing, merging the bubbles into one. He drew a heavy portion of soul force and squeezed. The bubble shrank to the size of a large boulder, crushing everything inside and fusing it together in a solid mass. The bubble shifted, turning into a catapult with the crushed supplies as the stone. Damien launched the mass out into the storm where it vanished.

He dusted off his hands, reabsorbed the leftover energy, and grinned. “All done. Where’s the next depot?”

They set out for the next target but it was too far away to reach before dark. They made camp in the storm. Talon found a stand of spruces that cut the wind a little and Damien augmented it with an invisible barrier that blocked both the wind and the light of the little fire they made from dry branches broken off the nearby trees.

Damien reclined on a bed of soul force while Rhys fixed them a warm meal, the savory scent of simmering meat mixing with the smoke from the fire. It was nice, feeling like part of a group. His solitary studies at the tower and later spending months alone forging Jen’s sword had denied him that camaraderie. He hadn’t realized how much he missed being part of a team.

Jen came over and he conjured a replica of the couch in their quarters for her to sit on. She sprawled on it, one leg hanging over the arm. “You have a thoughtful look, little brother.”

“Just enjoying the moment. I never realized how much sorcerers did alone. I think I prefer being part of a team.”

She nodded. “That’s left over from your time at The Citadel. Warlords are trained to fight for the person beside them. When you’re alone you have no one to fight for.”

“I suppose. I—” He sat up. Something powerful was nearby.

Damien scrambled to his feet, trying to locate the source. He moved around the camp, ignoring the confused looks from the others.

Where was it?

The power felt defused rather than focused like a sorcerer’s conjuring. He stopped.

There!

East and a little north. It wasn’t too close, but it wasn’t that far either.

“What is it, Damien?” Jen stood beside him, squinting into the storm outside their shelter, trying to see what he saw. She could strain as hard as she wanted. What Damien sensed wasn’t visible to anyone besides a sorcerer.

“Power, lots of it. Headed toward our lines. It’s still a ways out, but in a day, maybe two, it’ll reach our people, assuming it doesn’t change course. I can’t get a fix on it. We need to check it out.”

“It’s dark and there’s a blizzard. We’re more likely to get lost than find something in this storm. Let’s wait until morning and if you still sense it we’ll investigate.”

Damien wanted to argue, but Jen made a good point. They’d be able to tell more in the morning, though she was wrong about them getting lost. He could follow something that powerful blindfolded.

T
hey were
up and moving at first light. The storm had let up during the night, the blizzard dying down to flurries. Apparently even an immortal dragon couldn’t maintain a storm of that power forever. Damien hoped the Ice Queen would need a nice long rest; being able to see where you were walking made a nice change.

They’d planned their route to the supply depots carefully so as not to waste any time, but the power Damien felt last night lay well off their chosen path. Whatever was generating the power had stopped some time during the night, before resuming its slow, steady progress at dawn. The others grumbled about abandoning their mission, but Jen pointed out their mission included scouting enemy movements. Whatever Damien sensed almost had to be something to do with the enemy forces.

“How much further?” Edward asked.

Damien shook his head. “It’s moving again. Not as fast as us, but steadily south. If whatever it is doesn’t speed up we should catch it in an hour, two at the most.”

“It better be worthwhile,” Talon said. “We could have reached the second depot by now.”

They continued on in silence. Whatever they thought about going off course, the squad members were too professional to give their position away to a potential enemy.

An hour and twenty minutes later they reached a snow and ice covered ridge. The power he’d felt earlier screamed in his head and all around them flecks of bright-blue soul force streaked the air. It wasn’t far now.

Damien motioned the others to stop. They gathered around and he whispered, “It’s right over the ridge.”

They eased up and poked their heads over the crest of the ridge. In a valley below them a column of thousands of ogres and ice trolls marched shoulder to shoulder. None of them gave off much power individually. Damien saw nothing that looked like a sorcerer or warlord, though ogres and trolls all had stronger soul forces than normal humans. It was what accounted for the ogres’ great strength and the trolls’ rapid healing. Even so, it wasn’t enough to account for the power that emanated from the army below. The question was, what did?

They ducked back down and Jen pulled a rough map of the territory out of her tunic and unfolded it. She touched the map and said in a low voice, “We’re about here. There’s nothing on the map to indicate a valley exists here. Nevertheless that’s a third army and judging from its direction of travel it’s headed for the unguarded pass. We need to warn General Kord he’s going to have company.”

“I can get the message to him if you have pencil and paper to write on,” Damien said.

Rhys rummaged in his ever-present satchel and pulled out a stubby pencil and a two-inch square of parchment. Jen nodded her thanks, scribbled a note, and rolled the paper up. Damien conjured a bird and when Jen held out the note, had it grasp the rolled-up parchment in its beak. The bird raced into the air, far faster than a flesh-and-blood animal.

Damien conjured a rectangle so he could see through the bird’s eyes and guide it. Ten minutes later the camp came into view. He guided the bird to the general’s tent. The two pages standing outside the tent gaped at the bird hovering in the air in front of them.

The pages looked at each other, then back. One of them must have noticed the note gripped in the bird’s beak as they pulled the flap open for it. The bird flew in. The general sat in a camp chair eating a bowl of something that steamed in the cool air. Damien guided the bird to land on the edge of his bowl.

That might not have been the best idea as the general sucked in a surprised breath and choked on his breakfast. When the coughing subsided he took the scrap of paper and unrolled it. A few seconds later his eyes widened.

Damien had only linked his sight to the construct, but he was good enough at reading lips to know the general asked if the information on the paper was accurate. The bird nodded its head. General Kord ran out of the tent, his food forgotten.

Damien let the construct dissolve. He’d done everything he could for now.

T
he little group
crouched in the snow above the monster army, their message successfully delivered. Whatever else happened at least the army wouldn’t get caught by surprise. Whether they could defeat a third army was another question altogether.

“We should follow them,” Jen said. “If they change course or join up with another force we haven’t yet seen we have to be able to warn the general.”

“I agree,” Damien said. “If we’re in position I might be able to break their charge and give the soldiers a better chance to hold the line when they attack.”

“Do you really think there might be more of them?” Alec asked. Damien had never met a nervous warlord, but the youngest member of Jen’s team came close.

Jen shook her head. “I don’t know, but we need to be ready for the possibility. No one has any idea how many monsters live in the Ice Queen’s territory. Some people speculate the reason she attacks every decade or two is to keep the numbers of her army at a reasonable level rather than to try to conquer the Northlands. I think that’s bullshit, but we’re all just guessing.”

Quiet from over the ridge brought their conversation to a halt. They peeked over the edge and saw the end of the column marching out of view. The squad jogged along, never letting the back of the column out of sight. Trailing the enemy force was slow, tedious work, but they kept at it until the sun hung low in the sky and the army stopped for the night. The enemy force set up tents made from fur-covered hides. They made no fires, but passed around what looked like gobbets of raw meat and ate them cold.

Damien shuddered. How did anyone live like that? The monsters were little better than animals, slaves to be pointed south to kill and die on the whim of an indifferent mistress. He would have pitied them if they weren’t on their way to murder people he’d sworn to protect.

One ogre, a big, blue-skinned monster wearing nothing but a loincloth and standing a head taller than anything Damien had seen up to now, moved a short distance from the camp, a club of carved ice slung over his shoulder.

That had to be the commander. Commander might be too generous. He was probably the one that pointed and roared when he wanted them to attack.

“We should make camp and get some rest,” Talon whispered.

Before anyone could reply a dragon’s head made of ice rose up out of the frozen ground. The soul force Damien sensed gathered around it. This was the source he’d been tracking. It wasn’t the Ice Queen. As overwhelmingly powerful as this beast was, it wasn’t strong enough to be her. This must be one of her sons. The books Damien had read suggested she had at least two, though she hadn’t sent one against the kingdom in over one hundred years. The dragon’s eyes glowed bright blue, the same color as the soul force swirling around everywhere. It stared at the big ogre who looked back at it, mouth agape.

They ducked down out of sight. “Where the hell did that thing come from?” Edward asked.

“It’s been there all along,” Damien said. “The dragon’s power is what I sensed, I just didn’t realize it.”

“Are there tunnels under the snow where it travels out of sight?” Jen asked.

Damien shook his head. He’d read everything in the library about dragons. “Dragons are nothing but energy bound into matter, ice in this case. It can send its energy through the ice then rise up, forming a new body as it goes. That’s why they only attack the kingdom in the winter. There’s no ice in the summer and it reduces their strength to have to maintain the integrity of their bodies outside their element.”

Jen’s eyes went wide. “They mean to surprise our forces. No one will know the dragon’s there until it’s too late. We have to send another note.”

Rhys already had parchment and pencil out. Jen jotted down a quick note and when she finished Damien had a bird ready to go. It clamped on to the paper and flew off. His construct hadn’t gone more than a couple hundred yards when it shattered, shards of energy scattered everywhere, the note disintegrated.

“What happened?” Jen must have seen the bird explode.

Damien was about to explain when Talon said, “Guys?”

Damien had never heard a tremor in the arrogant warlord’s voice. He and Jen inched up the slope to join him. When they peeked over the dragon’s glowing blue eyes were staring right at them.

“Shit!”

They slid down to rejoin the others. The beast must have sensed Damien’s conjuring and raised a barrier to stop the message from going through. The scrabbling of claws on ice reached them a moment before a bluish-white face, its lips peeled back from a fang-filled mouth, scraggly black hair trailing down its back, appeared over the slope. A reflexive burst of soul force from Damien blew the ice troll’s head to bits. A second later half a dozen more popped up like gofers on the plains.

Damien blasted two more, but the rest made it over the ridge and charged, claws raised to slaughter anyone that got close. Behind the first wave, more trolls appeared, and behind them yet more.

It looked like a troll avalanche and the six of them were about to get buried.

Jen cut the arm off one and gutted a second. “Can you fly us out of here?”

“No.” Damien conjured curved blades of dense soul force and sent them flying into the mass of trolls. The spinning blades decapitated half a dozen in the first pass. “If we break cover the dragon will turn us into frozen treats. I’m not strong enough to shield us all from something that powerful. Plus I don’t know if I can get through its barrier.”

Jen chopped the head off a troll attempting to reattach its arm to the oozing stump on its shoulder. “Damn it! I guess we’ll have to run.”

“I can hold the trolls off, go.” Damien guided his spinning swords into another clump of trolls and sliced them into bloody chunks.

“I can’t leave you here alone.” A troll clawed Jen’s arm, but failed to penetrate her iron skin. She punched it in the face, crushing its skull and driving shards of bone into its brain, killing it instantly.

“I’ll be fine, trust me.” Damien raised a golden wall between the squad and the trolls. “Go!”

Jen gave him one last look, concern plain on her frowning face, and then she and her squad sprinted away in a cloud of snow.

Good, now that they were clear he didn’t have to hold back. Damien dropped the wall and shaped the energy into a bubble around him. Trolls raced toward him, foot-long purple tongues hanging out of their mouths, spit flying and freezing on the side of their faces. Ugly things, no doubt about that.

The first pair of trolls reached his bubble and scraped their black claws against the impenetrable barrier. More trolls gathered around until nothing but rough, pebbly skin, claws, and fangs filled his vision.

He waited another minute for good measure then conjured a pair of twenty-foot-long blades, one on either side of the bubble, and set them spinning as fast as he could. In an instant he ground over a hundred trolls into so much fertilizer, spattering the snow red for fifty feet in every direction.

It looked like a butcher shop had exploded.

A quick look around revealed no more trolls and the dragon’s power moving away. It must have decided to push on through the night. That wasn’t good. If the army reached their line before Damien and the others warned General Kord about the dragon it would be a slaughter.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.