The Lord of Death (The Age of Dawn Book 2)

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A
sebor drew
a red spiraling line into the naked body of the screaming man. The man’s gray eyes vibrated and his chest pulsed with grating breaths. His labor-worn hands formed fists that trembled in the rusted manacles. The man writhed upon the altar, sticking to the thickening pool of blood that wasn’t all his.

“More,” Asebor whispered, violet eyes glowing in the visage of a bottomless chasm.

“Why are you doing this? Why?” hissed the man, his voice breaking into a scream when Asebor carved deeper.

Asebor paused, staring into the meat encasing this soul. He jabbed a bladed finger into the spot where he had stopped the bleeding spiral, and twisted his hand. The man’s shrieks echoed through the limestone cavern. The four torches surrounding the altar wavered and light fluttered over his body. The Altar of Regret was once amber, like the stone of these walls. It was now a palette of red that spilled over the slab and onto the intricate carvings of men struggling to hold it up.

Asebor’s gaze fell onto the beam of moonlight that lanced the darkness from above, reflecting on the cool waters of the lake behind the Altar of Regret. Shadows danced on the harsh edged rock formations surrounding the placid water.

The scent of fresh blood was warm and sweet, teasing Asebor’s senses. The ruby ribbons of his shredded cape swirled into the air, stretching to the smooth ceiling carved by Dragon fire. A woman stirred in a cage hanging from the ceiling, inching away from the cape’s tendrils. Blood dripped from where she sat, forming a small puddle below.

“You are all the same,” Asebor said, his voice like stones smashing into each other. “Boring, tirelessly predictable, sheep for slaughter. Is there a crime deeming a more severe punishment than boredom?” He removed his sodden finger from the lithe man’s trembling chest, flicking a piece of shredded skin into the crying man’s face.

“Kill me, kill me, kill me!” The man barked between great bursts of breath, mouth forming a snarl.

The thick razor edged chains encasing Asebor’s legs unfurled and rose, flitting about his shoulders like vipers waiting to strike. Each chain was terminated by shimmering blades, whose jagged edges resembled a roaring fire, crystallized in time.

“As you wish,” Asebor said as the chains leapt around his shoulders and slipped under the writhing man’s legs, encircling each one.

Asebor crossed his muscular arms and closed his glowing eyes. The chains coiled around the man’s thighs once, twice and then twice more. Blood seeped from the man’s legs as the razor sharp edges of each link sliced a path through his skin.

Asebor opened his eyes and inhaled a burst of breath. The chains cinching each leg savagely pulled in both directions, ripping and tearing through muscle and bone, severing both legs at the hips. The man bellowed in horror and pain, shrieking as the life pumped from his mortal wounds.

“No Phoenix, no Dragon, no Shadow Realm.” Asebor’s voice boomed over the dying man’s screams.

“No!” cried the man, wild eyes pleading. Sweat dripped from his wrinkled brow.

“Yes.” Asebor grinned, his black tongue caressing sharp teeth. Asebor gently tilted the man’s head back, as careful as a mother holding a newborn’s head. Faces inches apart, he inhaled. Streaks of blue light emerged from the man’s nostrils and mouth, and curled like tar into Asebor’s mouth.

Asebor snapped upright, bright eyes pulsing with renewed intensity. “You are mine forever,” he whispered.

A creature—half human, half something unnamed— limped into the cave’s wide entrance. Its face was a patchwork of the flesh from multiple men, eyes in the wrong place and toothless mouth bent into a sideways grin. The creature held a large glass jar in both hands, illuminated by a bluish light emanating from an angry Ice Spirit. The tiny woman in the jar pounded against her glass prison, her rage too weak to crack the jar.

“M-master, they are here,” the creature croaked, head bowed, eyes lowered.

“Yes,” Asebor said. The slick chains snapped back around his legs and the cape’s tendrils fell lifelessly behind him. Asebor strode down the steps leading to the Altar of Regret and past shelves decorated with ancient books. A sweat soaked young woman’s eyes bulged with dread as Asebor approached her, but he passed by without paying her a glance. She struggled against the leather straps affixing her to a simple table, slick with gore and offal writhing with maggots.

Asebor made his way down a long black tunnel, sparsely illuminated by the Ice Spirit the creature held behind him. The tunnel opened into an expansive cavern, lit by dull amber orbs that hovered in the air. Stone carved stairways crisscrossed through the massive cavern, defying physics as they wound and twisted through the air without bottom support. Pillars carved in the likeness of the Dragon stretched from the roof down to the abyss below. In the center of the cavern was a flat landing where the diverse stairways intersected.

Upon the landing stood a throne carved from gray ice, wisps of fog occasionally drifting from its edges. The icy throne faced a thick onyx table whose legs were carved to resemble men supporting it upon their backs. Around the table stood The Wretched, Asebor’s most favored warlords, quietly whispering among each other.

Asebor levitated above the stairway leading to the main landing, allowing his feet to rest as he approached the top. He stomped up the last few stairs. His presence sliced conversations with a wall of silence.

“Sit,” he commanded with a wave of his arm. They did… with haste.

“Great lord, it is a pleasure to be—”

“Stop your propitiating Hilanda,” Asebor interrupted, barely glancing in her direction.

The swirling black and purple shadows draping over her chest and arms wavered, a stark contrast to her otherwise pale, nude body. She cast her smoking, violet eyes down and nodded.

Asebor set his abyssal gaze on a heavily armored form.

“Darkthorne, what is your progress?” Asebor leaned back in his icy seat, hand resting on swirling shadows that one might call a face.

Darkthorne’s face was a flat mass of indiscernible flesh behind a barred helm that formed a point at the top. He shifted in his chair and bowed toward Asebor, thin armor plates softly sliding against one another. Darkthorne rested his hands upon the table and the sharp points on his steely fingers lightly clinked against it. His forearms and hands were muscle, tendon, and armor entwining together, bonded as one.

“Our numbers grow with each passing night. The old magic has served us well,” Darkthorne said, his voice a hoarse whisper. “It will become more difficult to continue growing at this rate without arousing Tower suspicion. We take vagrants, but their numbers dwindle.”

“The Tower will not trouble you,” Hilanda said coolly. The animated shadows dashed around her shoulders and chest, occasionally revealing slices of flesh. “I have my mouth close to Bezda’s ear and she often finds my advice…” she turned to face Darkthorne and narrowed her smoking eyes “… convincing.”

“I’m sure that is not the only place you have your mouth on Arch Wizard,” a woman wearing a beast’s skull as a crown said.

“We all have needs, Alena,” Hilanda smiled, her mouth drawn out in a thin line. “Some of us prefer the living.”

“Watch your tongue,” Alena scowled, her eyes flashing with a brilliant green.

Terar slowly turned to her, his face shrouded in a dark eyeless mask. Hilanda’s shadows visibly shivered under his stare. Satisfied, Terar ran his bony fingers along the spines that lined the snake-like staff he held. Up and down. Up and down. It seemed to be soothing him.

Dressna, glided across the landing, her four bat like wings folded against her back. A quartet of winding horns emerged from behind her head, beyond her gray face. Her pure white eyes scanned the cavern, head whirling at the tumble of a loose rock, her stance ready for combat. A red sheen of wet stretched from her hands to her elbows. Her leather corset hugged her tremendous bust and flowed loosely over her legs.

“Dressna,” Asebor acknowledged her flatly.

“Yes, master?” she asked, twisting her towering form in his direction.

“What do you have to report?”

“The mountains are quiet,” she said, her voice a low growl vibrating from in throat.

“When the west is controlled, you will go to the Nether with the soldiers Darkthorne provides you.”

“Yes master,” she said, continuing to patrol the landing with heavy footfalls.

Darkthorne started drumming his fingers on the table and released a gurgling sigh.

Alena glanced at Dressna and with pure disgust gestured a hand toward the female being. “Is this—creature necessary?” Alena’s gray cloak had fallen, leaving her body exposed in the scant top and barely there bottoms constructed of leather and emeralds. Dressna wheeled on Alena and her wings sprung open with a hiss. Alena jumped to her feet, hands crackling with bright green electricity. Dressna dropped into a low crouch, dense muscles tensing. The glow of a nearby orb bathed her eyes in orange.

“Have you already forgotten the lessons of ages past?” Asebor boomed, his voice echoing around the chamber. He rose from his seat, fury a bright glow around him. “Have you no memory of how the Tower warlocks imprisoned me? You squabble amongst yourselves, infecting us from within. You become blind to your enemy. You will be your own undoing!” he roared. “I should cut you down where you stand!”

Asebor’s cloak and chains leapt into the air, a blur of scarlet and metal. His hands burst alight with violet flames and danced with lightning. The dark visage of his face transfigured into a snarling beast, his mouth gaping like a Shiv Fang’s. The muscle under his skin tight suit bulged and flexed in astonishing size.

Dressna and Alena immediately fell to their knees, as did the others. Alena crawled on the smooth floor, head lowered, her cheek washing the smooth rock. Dressna bowed her head.

“No great master, I am sorry!” Alena wailed, tears sliding from her eyes. Mercy given? Or mercy withheld? The surrounding group waited for Asebor’s decision.

A sizzling flash of purple lightning forked through the air, piercing both Alena and Dressna. They convulsed and shrieked, rolling in agony as mercy forsook them that day. Screams mingled with the familiar smell of burning flesh, the combination permeating the landing.

The other’s sat frozen, daring to not intervene. Some took furtive glances between Asebor and the writhing women, but said nothing. As suddenly as it began, the lesson ceased.

“Alena, report!” Asebor bellowed, reverting to his previous form. The shadow, which remained in the brightest of light, slid over his face like an extra layer of skin.

“I- I, my forces are being assembled,” she stammered, forcing her mouth to work through spasming muscles. “There are many graveyards south of the Tower, many bodies, many corpses to be resurrected.” Her wrists and hands contorted into claws as wisps of smoke emerged from electric burns. The thin band of emeralds trailing along her hips jingled when she moved.

“You have them under control I presume? No more mishaps?”

“No, I-Yes! I have them mastered. I have found a better way, using a spell the Tower whores cannot counter. You will be most pleased master. For the past ten years I have been training a Death Lord. He is very angry, very hungry… he craves the blood of men,” she stammered.

This got his full attention. “A full Lord of Death you say? You have earned your life on this day. Go.”

Alena crawled towards a set of stairs along the landing, smearing blood in her wake. Dressna shook like a hound and groaned, and then resumed her watch.

“Prepare your forces Alena,” Asebor stopped her with his words. “In one month’s time I want you, the Lord of Death, and your army to test Midgaard’s defenses.”

Alena’s eyes darted around the room. “But we will die.” She cowered as his eyes shone brighter. “Yes, yes master.”

“Girls will be girls,” said a thin man, smirking under the hood of his dark cloak. Around his neck hung a lightly glowing crystal that shone on half of his face, casting it in a bisecting light. He sat with an arm draped over the back of his chair.

“Malek, how is our great king, our protector and savior of the realm?” Asebor’s mouth formed a wicked smile.

Malek snickered and pushed the hood back over his unkempt hair. “Our lovely King Ezra is my puppet, obeying my every whim, a child in my hands, great lord. He was planning to mobilize the Midgaard Falcon to Breden and Bluff’s End.” He paused and lifted his chin in self-satisfaction. “I’ve since convinced him otherwise.”

“Remove Ezra’s head,” Asebor said. “We cannot withstand an assault from the armies.”

“But Lord, he is in my grasp. Ezra will not send the full army,” Malek’s small hands wound into fists.

Asebor’s eyes brightened and formed into slits.

“Yes, yes lord. I will bury Ezra.” Malek said quickly, forehead gleaming with sweat.

Asebor nodded imperceptibly. “What does Midgaard say about our return?”

“They don’t say much. Most think the attacks were bandits, others think it was the Purists. There were a few elderly folk who recognized the descriptions, the ones who remember… well, they’ve been silenced.” Malek twiddled his fingers and a tiny white ball of light appeared in his palm. The dim ball drifted from one palm to the other. Malek blinked and the ball vanished.

“Go on,” Asebor commanded. “Do not waste my time.”

“An old Tower friend brought a curious boy to me who found his way into a set of Cerumal armor. What was remarkable is that he was still quite human after wearing it for two weeks.”

“Impossible,” Darkthorne croaked. Hilanda rubbed at her narrow chin and a pale woman covered in oozing sores shifted in her seat.

“So I thought,” Malek regarded Darkthorne. “This child survived the armor’s removal.” Malek said, scanning the stunned expressions that waved over the group. Asebor’s hand darted to his neck, pressing two fingers on a glowing drop of violet blood. He quickly it wiped on his cape. Malek’s eyes lingered at the spot it left there.