A Thirst for Vengeance (The Ashes Saga, Volume 1) (6 page)

His five friends saw what Angelica had done. They fell to the ground and praised her mercy. For they knew, deep inside, that Rel’s journey had carried him to death’s door.

Later that night, in the largest bedchamber of the tallest tower, Angelica and Rel made love. He impregnated her with his child. Nine months later, the first king of Rel'ghar was born.

That is the founding story of the great city. “Ghar” means, “son of.” The witches named their coven after the man who brought them back to the world, and their magic protected the walls for many years.

Yet darkness lurks in every man’s heart. Of Rel’s five friends, one harbored a tiny sliver of evil deep in his soul. It was so small that Angelica chose to overlook it, for she knew Rel could have found none better.

That man wedded one of the women who came with him. Together, they had a daughter. Years later, that daughter married Rel’s only son.

The sliver of darkness had wormed its way into the royal line at its inception, where it lay latent for many generations, until finally, in the heart of Vontas, it flared to life.

Continuing the tradition set out by Angelica, the kings of Rel’ghar welcomed all those with a pure heart into their city. They did it to keep darkness out.

Little did they know that darkness had been lurking within them the whole time.

Perhaps things would have been different if Vontas had been the firstborn. Perhaps his thirst for power would have been quenched when he inherited the crown.

But that is not the story that is told today.

Perhaps things would have been different if Vontas had been the second son. Perhaps his thirst for power would have been quenched had he inherited command of the city watch.

But that is not the story that is told today.

For Vontas was the third. Like I, he inherited nothing.

His hatred for Rel’ghar took hold when he and his brothers were still children. His father came into their room and sat them down after they had all turned of age. He told them that Lagon, the oldest, would become King. He told them that Avery, the quickest, would become Commander. And he told them that Vontas, the weakest, would become whoever his brother the king commanded him to be.

That awoke a furious sense of injustice within Vontas. Even as his brothers laughed and told him he would rule with them side by side, he seethed. He seethed with the pure hatred only possible in a spurned ten-year-old boy.

He vowed to himself, that day, that he would kill Lagon and Avery before they inherited rule.

But the darkness had not yet consumed the entirety of Vontas’s soul. There was good in him, too. Every time he thought to strike, guilt and remorse stopped him.

Vontas grew into a shell of the man he could have been. He distanced himself from his peers. His inability to act ate away at him as he aged. He hated himself for his cowardice.

His father died the year Vontas turned twenty-five. Lagon inherited the crown. And though Vontas hated Lagon, he was still too frightened to do anything.

Vontas’s loathing poisoned his mind. He stayed in his rooms, coming out to see the sun only once a year. He plotted ways to overthrow his brothers as quickly as he discarded them. He spoke to no one. He slept alone.

The only bright spot in his life was the maiden Isabella. She was half his age. He watched her every morning from the window of his chambers as she woke early and helped her father prepare the smithy.

Perhaps if he had gone out and said a word, Isabella’s kindness would have subdued the darkness in his heart.

But that is not the story that is told today.

No. Instead, Vontas watched as his brother, Avery, greeted the girl every morning. When she turned fourteen, Avery began courting her. They were married within the year.

The morning of their wedding day, as Isabella was woken up and carried away by her bridesmaids, she looked up at Vontas’s window for the first time. Vontas froze as their eyes met. Isabella offered him a shy, sad smile that meant so many things that cannot be described in mere words.

That smile, and the promise of seeing it again, was what finally propelled Vontas to action.

Vontas knew that, if he left the city, he could not return. His true nature would be revealed. But that did not bar him from communicating with those outside.

That night, when the moon was hidden by the clouds, Vontas climbed the city walls. Seeing his brother was the excuse he used for coming up there. In truth, he had written a letter that described Rel'ghar’s greatest weakness:

Rel'ghar was not built on magic alone. It owed half its stature to great architectural feats. It was a marvel that showcased the ingenuity of man. A series of aqueducts fed the city water from the highest mountains. They did not run straight into Rel’ghar, but instead stopped some leagues off, where they seemed to have simply collapsed. Water poured over the edge into a deep crater, never to be seen again.

That drop off was part of the design. Underground pipes caught the escaping water and carried it the rest of the way to the city.

None could suspect the secret of the aqueducts or their connection to Rel'ghar. To passersby, they looked like ancient ruins.

But Vontas knew better. He knew, and wrote of the weakness and cast his letter over the side of the wall, to be carried by the dark ocean of the night. He trusted those who hated Rel'ghar as much as he would discover the communication.

Anxious months passed. Isabella moved to live with Avery after their wedding. Vontas never saw her again.

Doubt grew in Vontas’s mind. Had he been specific enough? Had he trusted too much in chance?

One night, he was awakened by a raven pecking at his window. He opened the glass and let the bird in. It had a message tied to one foot:

Dear Friend,

Tonight is the night we strike. We wish to thank you. At the hour of our moon’s peak, come to the place you spoke of. We will be waiting.

Vontas ran. He ran to the gate where the underground pipes opened to bring water into Rel'ghar. There, he found a great beast cloaked in shadows.

“Open this gate, and let my kin in,” the beast said. “Open this gate, and let your revenge be known.”

The beast’s words shook Vontas. They were not spoken in the common tongue, or in any tongue he knew. Still, through some power of sorcery, he understood.

Vontas threw open the gate and let in the army that would destroy the city.

In minutes, screams pierced the night. Alarm bells rang. The city watchmen ran to their posts, seeking attackers past the walls, not within. They were slaughtered with their backs turned.

The city burned. It burned so bright that the night was cast away by artificial day.

The enemy had a wizard in their ranks, and he hated all witches. Rel'ghar burned from the flames sprouted of the mouth of the dark creature the wizard had summoned out of hell.

By daybreak, none was left alive save Vontas. The culmination of all his desires had come. He stood proudly over the carcass of his brother, the King. He stood proud of the burned remains of his brother, the Commander. And he wept when he found the body of the maiden Isabella.

He wept from joy, not grief. If he could not have her, his hateful heart told him that no other should.

Vontas stood alone as the sole survivor of Rel'ghar, and his weeping transformed into laughter

But the wizard saw the man’s true nature. The wizard, like Angelica, could see into the hearts of men. And he saw that Vontas still ached for one thing.

Vontas wanted to be ruler.

He struck Vontas from behind and knocked him down. The wizard and his army had no use for the ruins of Rel'ghar. They had eliminated the spawn of witches. That had been their only purpose.

And Vontas, however unfaithful to the city, was one of Rel'ghar’s own.

The armies collected all the gold of Rel'ghar and cast it on the ground. They erected a cross on top, and nailed Vontas’s hands and feet to it. The man screamed. His blood poured down and tainted every coin.

“You wanted power,” the wizard said, “and now you have it. You wanted revenge, and now you have it. You wanted the city to yourself, and now you have that, too.”

The wizard turned to the beast beside him and whispered in his ear. A great gout of flame erupted from the beast’s monstrous jaws. It ignited the gold at Vontas’s feet.

The wizard cast two spells that day. The first was a spell that would keep Vontas alive until the last ounce of gold had been removed from the city. The second let the beast’s fire burn for all eternity.

Those were the last Great Spells that this world has seen.

With the witches and their offspring dead or dying, the wizard had no cause to remain in this world. He took his armies and his beast and disappeared forever.

Vontas’s screams endured for two hundred years. They echoed as his blood mixed with the melting gold beneath him.

People all over the world heard of Rel'ghar’s downfall. They heard of Vontas’s betrayal. And they heard of the treasure burning at his feet. They sought it out.

When the last piece of gold was taken from the ruins of Rel'ghar, the curse was lifted. And to this day, when mothers warn their children of greed and avarice, they speak of Vontas, whose screams still carry on the wind, all these centuries later.

***

“And that,” Dagan concluded, “is the story of Vontas and the Marks of Rel'ghar. His treacherous blood poisons each coin, and traces of the wizard’s last spell—” he gestured to the melted metal on the table that used to be a mug, “—remain to this day.”

“Two hundred years, eh?” Earl grunted. “That’s a bloody long time. I wouldn’t believe it, if I hadn’t seen that mark of yours.”

“Two hundred years,” Dagan said simply.

“What happened to the rest of the marks?” Patch wondered. “I heard most of them were lost.”

“Lost, hoarded, or melted,” Dagan agreed. “Only fifty such coins exist in the world today.” He swept his off the table and made it disappear. “Of course, when I received mine, people believed there were even fewer…”

Chapter Nine

The journey to Hallengard took me three days. It was a journey that an able-bodied man could have made in six hours.

My ankle slowed me. So did my hunger. I could not yet hunt or trap. Survival was an instinct I possessed, but not a skill I could call upon in the open country.

The first day, I found a blackberry bush. I feasted on the small fruits until I was stuffed. It was the first time in my life that consumption did not have a hard limit.

I paid for the binge an hour later by vomiting all over my clothes.

From then on, every time I passed a similar bush, I picked only as many berries as would fit in my hand. I nibbled on them as slowly as I could.

I found the city on the morning of the third day. It rose in the distance, the land around it clear of trees for many leagues. I learned later that this was so enemy armies could not approach unnoticed.

Hallengard was a city build atop a mountain. Its walls seemed to rise as natural outgrowths in the rock. As I got closer, I realized that it had not been erected, but carved.

There was only one road leading through the walls. During the day, it was full of caravans and bustling travelers. I looked at my rags and compared them to what I saw others wearing.

They did not match.

I would stick out the moment I stepped into the crowds. The thought of attracting attention made me nauseous.

But I had no choice other than to keep going. I gripped my mark tightly, and, remembering the words the man in the black had told me, joined the steady stream of people.

Relief fell onto my shoulders when I found I was mostly ignored.

If you have never been to Hallengard, allow me to paint a picture for you. It is a city comprised of eighty thousand people. It was built to house a hundred thousand more.

The rich flock to the north of the city. The poor, to the south. That leaves a swath of largely abandoned structures stretching through the middle.

That was the part of Hallengard I found myself in, on my way to the building the stranger told me about, when I was pushed to the ground from behind.

“Well, well, well! Look what we’ve got here,” a surprisingly high-pitched boy’s voice chuckled. I began to twist back, but a boot landed on my spine and kept me down. “A little lost wanderer!”

“What’s he got there, Duke?” a second voice asked. “Look, in his hand! He’s holding suthin’!”

I tried to pull my outstretched hand under my body to protect the mark.

I saw movement from the sides of my vision. A dirty, ragged, little boy, no older than I was, jumped onto my arm and started to pry my fingers open.

My strength was ferocious. The coin was the only thing I had. I would not let it go without a fight.

The boy sank his teeth into my knuckles.

I cried out in pain. My hand opened automatically. The coin bounced over the cobblestone, making metallic clinks as it went.

The boy jumped off and retrieved it. The boot lifted from my back. I scrambled up, and twisted around to see the bullies for the first time.

There were three of them. The oldest, and by far the fattest, was the one who had stepped on me. I took him to be Duke. The other two looked like twins, or at least brothers. It was hard to tell through the dirt caking their faces. They were both as scrawny as twigs.

Duke was the only one who had clothes without any holes. “Whatcha got there?” he called out to the boy who had retrieved my coin.

“It’s gold, Duke,” he answered. His voice carried an awed inflection.

Duke screwed up his face. “It’s not
gold
, you moron,” he said. He held out his hand. “Give it here.”

The boy walked back, cradling the coin in his cupped hands. He extended it out to Duke.

I pounced.

In retrospect, that was probably not the smartest move. But I had a furious possessiveness of that coin. I saw my chance, and I took it.