Take My Heart...: Dark Ages - Fantasy (Dark Gods & Tainted Souls Book 3) (19 page)

It does my son, soon none will be able to stand against me, but surely you have a question other than this? Why do you seek my council?
it said.

“A Northman with much power, he has learned the desert ways and seeks to journey to them. I plan on stopping him but I need to know what to do if I can’t reach him in time and he corrupts them,” Renfra said, hoping for the answer he wanted to. They had spent a lot of time and money converting a lot of the desert people to the Pellosi religion. They sent missionaries out to them, with gifts or food and trinkets. It was easy to get a people with no real written language to believe in what was told to them.

He knew the answer but wanted to hear it.

The voice laughed in his mind,
If they will not follow me or the Pellosi gods who are weak and feeble then they will die, kill them all and crush their way of life into the very sands that they once worshiped.

“Yes my lord” Renfra said quietly with a smile on his face.

Renfra stood and stretched his legs. “I think I’ll have some wine,” he yelled to the young captain. No one answered him. Renfra walked to the mouth of his tent and looked out. At either side were his two guards with black and red arrows sticking from them. He looked to see chaos in his camp. Men were running under fire from the darkness. He looked out into the shadows and saw something.

He felt a thud and looked down, sprouting from his chest. He collapsed backwards with the arrow in his heart. Renfra cried in pain and anger. Surely his Lord wouldn’t let this happen to him. He was needed, he was useful. Renfra let the fear of death build in him and it gave the strength, he ripped the arrow from his chest and stood again. Another arrow and another hit him, he fell again.

He stood tall as they kept hitting him and staggered towards the arrow fire. Something was rushing towards him and he saw it was the Northman, he had a huge axe in his hand and he swung it down at Renfra. The bald man raised his leather baton but the axe smashed through it into his chest. He looked at the wound and called out to his lord in his mind, asking him for strength. He could feel it bubbling up in him and the wound started to close.

The man smiled down at him. “You’re a tough one.” He whistled. It was such a sweet sound, it made him just want to rest, to sleep. He knew everything would be fine if he just let go. So he did.

***

He needed help. He thought that he could do this alone and wanted to prove to them all he could but that flash from the Lucky Lady was enough to convince him otherwise. She was still strong and she was just one of three or four who would prove difficult. The girl. Seraphina, had agreed to help him which was good, he was sick of dragging her around like a lost puppy and wanted her to pull her weight. She’d probably get weak again when the fighting started but she’d be useful for a while. The power he was drawing from the land of the dead had reduced but it was still enough, he knew he would still win.

“What are we looking for?” she asked him.

He had been walking up the rows of statues, looking at each of them and trying to find one, muttering to himself again. He had to break the habit of always talking to himself.

“We have to find my sisters, sadly we can’t just will ourselves there this time, oh here they are, aren’t they pretty?” he said.

Before them stood a statue of the three sisters of fury as the mortals called them. The statues depicted the three sisters standing together, with his elder sister in the middle. She was beautiful in the face but stood with a look of rage that distorted her looks. Her arms were feathered and she had the claws of a bird.

He felt a burst of fear from the girl, which thrilled him, this journey should be fun, for her reactions alone.

“Fear not, they aren’t that scary, the sculptors always get carried away, they don’t actually have claws and feathers, it just shows they are fierce,” He said.

Placing his hands on the statue's forehead he took her hand.

“Make sure you hold my hand while we are there. A weak thing like you can’t survive alone where we are going. Normally one look or word from them would kill you, but I’ll protect you. They don’t mean to it’s just they are not for mortal eyes,” he said.

“Why can I look at you?” she asked.

“This is not what I really look like, or sound like,” he said back. In fact this guise he’d been holding was starting to drag at him, he wanted to rip free from it and show her his true glory but that would be foolish, she’d be dead in moments.

“Shut your eyes and we’ll go, fear not.”

He staggered to the floor. He felt a very human pain, something he’d not felt in an age and reaching out with his mind he saw his servant, the man Renfra and the Northman, who killed him. He saw him pushing aside all of his own power and lulling him to sleep and death, it was the power of that stupid little North deer thing.

He screamed in rage and grabbing the girl’s hand, put his other on the hand of his sisters. They would help.

Chapter Thirty-Five.

Seraphina opened her eyes, her hand in his. She felt such a thrill of terror and saw a smile on his face. He seemingly loved it every time she was scared. As soon as she opened her eyes she regretted her decision to help him. Moments before he was screaming in rage but her fear had improved his mood like a drug. He was truly a mad man. Whatever had happened, she didn’t know but she was glad, the weaker he was the better.

“Don’t judge us too harshly for where we live, no choice is given on how you imagine us,” he said. His words made no sense to her, he often spoke on the nature of gods like she should know what it was.

The landscape that greeted her was like the land of the dead when she’d first arrived. The moon hung in the sky and the landscape was dead and barren, thankful there was no snow, it was a desert at night. In the distance stretched a short road and before them was a huge stone keep, it looked like Blackrock. Huge stone walls, the door hung open.

She walked with her hand in his, his hard and firm, he almost crushed her hand as they walked, he was enraged. She almost didn’t want to ask but he seemed to ramble on when in one of his fits.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s wrong that I’m even here. I shouldn’t need help and I wouldn’t have if you’re idiot friend hadn’t found the bringer and brought him back,” he said, again she had no idea what he was saying.

“What’s the bringer?” she asked.

He looked at her like a fool child. “The sun, the sun in the land of the fallen. Who do you think locked it away? And why? I had my own world, a world of so much fear I could draw power from. Now I need to seek help to finish what I started all those years ago. It’s disgraceful.”

They walked up the dirt road and through the stone archway and open gate. Inside it was deserted but the Keep stood open with the orange light of a fire coming from it. At the doorway stood two huge black dogs. They were like the creatures she’d seen in the land of the dead. Large vicious things. Ugly and with sharp feral teeth. Instead of barking or attacking they bounded from the steps and ran at them. She almost laughed when they jumped up on the man and she could see they had tiny stumps of tails which wagged like dogs happy to see their master.

The man laughed and petted them, then with a word sent them running back to their positions of guarding. She was scared again.

“They are yours? They are horrible things,” she said.

“You seemed to think them useful when it came to gaining other people talents,” he said back and led her onwards.

They walked into the Keep and she could hear the sounds of laughter and music. They walked down the hallway which was completely bare of furnishing and hangings, it was just cold stone. They walked into a huge open hallway, which was like a dining room. It took all her strength of will not to run then. Even what she’d seen with Silver and her people couldn’t prepare her for this. Truly she’d chosen the wrong side.

In the room was a huge fireplace. Three women sat at the table laughing and eating. All around them were huge wooden crosses that lined the walls, People were chained to them all facing away from them. Their backs a bloody mess of whip marks and gaping wounds. Some cried softly but others were silent. In the corner stood two fiddlers playing soft music, she could see they were chained to the floor with massive metals cuffs around their feet.

As he walked into the room, the music stopped and the women stood. Clearly guests were very rare. The tallest of the sisters looked at them. She looked exactly like her statue. Her eyes cut deep into Seraphina and she felt it like a pain in her head. She felt the woman running throughout all the memories and things she’d done, the people she killed. The woman looked at her and smiled, her teeth were sharp like the Wolvern and her arms were indeed feathered and had claws like a bird. Her face was beautiful and she was topless with perfectly formed breasts and a long flowing dress that covered only her lower half.

The woman ran to them and embraced the man.

“Hello, brother, free at last, we could feel you coming, so it’s time then and you need our help I’m guessing,” she said. Her voice was fine and sharp, she had no accent Seraphina could pick. But her words were like a dagger in her ears. She held his hand harder and the pain stopped.

“Oh you can let her hand go, we know how to commune with people,” she said and her voice seemed softer.

The man let go of her hand and she was fine. Three women gathered around her and looked at her.

“And what do you have here? A live one in our realm that’s strange, and she came here with another it seems.” She said.

She hated all these things could read her mind like an open book. plus she was feeling very much like these were evil things and now they knew she thought that.

“We do know you think that,” said one of the other sisters laughing. “But we are just as you need us to be.”

“Truly Seraphina,” said the elder sister. “All these men,” and she waved her hand at the ten or so broken souls who stood on the racks. “Needed to be punished, our agents took them in life but they needed to suffer more. Rapists and killers of women everyone.”

“Indeed sisters you all look different what has happened to you,” he said.

The eldest looked at her arms and claws and down at her own breasts. “I think I look quite fetching, every few years my statues get more and more dramatic, too much?” she asked.

“A little bit and maybe put some clothes on, it’s making her uneasy,” he said.

“Oh,” said the sister and laughed. Before Seraphina’s eyes, they all changed just like her own skills. The arms became that of a normal woman and her dress seemingly grew to cover her nudity.

“Better?” she asked.

“Much, now the hounds. I only saw two? They all well?” He asked with what seemed like concern.

“Of course, come and we’ll show you I know what you’re like.”

One of the younger sisters took his hand and led him back out of the Keep. The eldest came to her side and took her hand, it was warm in hers, she smiled as she led Seraphina out.

“Fear not girl, we are not like our brother, you’ll see, we were just like you once. I was a girl myself around four hundred years ago,” she said with a laugh as if remembering something in the recent past.

Seraphina was stunned, now she was a god and she’d once been a girl.

“What happened?” Seraphina asked.

“Oh so many horrible things, men doing horrible things to us, gods playing with us, revenge, blood magic, you know the old story. Our brother as we call him isn’t really our brother, more like he’s our adopted brother, he took pity on us and helped us and now we’ll help him,” she said.

As they walked from the Keep they followed the man and his youngest sister. Seraphina was stunned at the way they were with each other. She held his arm and chatted to him gaily like she would have with a brother if she’d had one. They were monsters but seemly didn’t know it themselves. Soon they came to a vast clearing that was next to the Keep. In front of her stood a huge stone patio area, behind that was a vast forest of tall trees it was the only life she’d seen in this place.

“Where are they?” he asked turning.

“Out running around in the forest,” the lead sister said.

“He gets so worried about the ugly beasts, personally I think they stink but boys love their pets,” she said laughing.

The man put his fingers in his mouth and let out a loud whistle. She felt an apprehension growing in her as she heard the barks and calls in response. Soon came the sound of thundering paws in the hundreds. The man walked out into the vast stone field and waited. Soon they came. She was horrified. First one then, ten, then twenty, soon there were hundreds and hundreds of the huge black dogs filling the field. He laughed at the sight of them as they all fought to reach him. The man yelled a single word and they all sat down.

He turned back to them.

“Oh you’ve done so we’ll sisters, but why so few of them. I thought we planned on more?” he said.

More? How could there be more, there were, at least, four hundred of them. The night was filled with their panting breath and the stink of dog and death. This was his army and they all followed his command. A mindless beast army ready to do whatever he said.

“It’s all that Silver bitches fault,” she said with passion.

“We send them into the land of the dead to feed and now they hardly ever come back, it’s changed brother, it has the sun now and it’s all been ruined, we have no idea why.”

“I know why,” he said looking at Seraphina, “that bloody Druheim, he brought back the bringer,” he spat the word.

“But how could a mortal do that? Even a Druheim, it’s beyond them; she said and she looked genuinely shocked. “I thought it was one of the others.”

“It was him trust me, but it matters not, there is enough and we’ll be fine, are you still ready to help me?” he asked.

“Of course brother, we’ll help you, just tell us who we need to kill and please tell me it’s her,” she said with passion

“Of course sister you can have the Lady, she’s strong still but in a matter of days that will all change, my agents are ready to take her main temple and we’ll lead these against her and the others here.

The woman clapped and laughed, turning to Seraphina.

“You’ll see, we're going to change it all.”