INBORN (The Sagas of Di'Ghon) (14 page)

Its wings folded in and muscular forelimbs extended out in one smooth snap. It shook its head as if trying to flick off something stuck to it. It leaned to one side precariously. The creature’s blue head lolled a bit and it uncharacteristically lost its balance. It slammed into the unmoving dais and rolled into the wall of chain. She rebounded to unstable feet, a sharp grating sound echoing across the chamber as its long lethal talons scratched on the smooth stone in a frantic effort to right itself. The desperate creature swooned in confused, almost drunken circles. As if it didn’t trust the ground
, it flapped its wings and leapt into the air. The dra slammed into the chain ceiling and crashed back down onto the hard stone. Sounding too much like a baby bird calling its mother, it crooned at the sky on the other side of the bars and chain. Then with a thud, its head flung back against the stone and a rush of air fled its lungs.

“Move! “ Irkhir barked.

Although the beast would be unconscious for hours, men snapped steel chain mail socks over the long talons just in case, being very careful not to touch them.  The book explained that the razor sharp claws were covered with a deadly substance. The ancients named it
brim
. One scratch from those talons meant sure death. Once the blue fire started there was no stopping it. 

Lisella watched the dra’s scale covered chest rise and fall in slow rhythmic purrs
. The sound resonated throughout the huge chamber. Irkhir growled at how slow his men secured the dra. They grunted with renewed effort of draping and anchoring heavy chain blankets over the creature. When they were done every one of them was covered in a slick sheen of sweat.

When they first captured the dra it was bright blue. The deep summer sky color was its natural healthy hue. According to the ritual requirements outlined in the
Prophecies of the Code
, the beast needed a steady diet of evergreen. Yet, when its nourishment was withheld, even for just a day, its’ beautiful hide would begin to fade. That morning she had dulled to just the right shade of pale blue.

Now that the she had taken nourishment of a different sort the
dra’s transformation was well underway. As they watched the sleeping beast with rapt attention the dra began to change. Before their very eyes every bit of its color returned and then some. Emanating from her hide, a pale cerulean glow lit the faces of the men around her. It wasn’t nearly as bright as the arches had become when Thaniel called her, but the eerie shade was identical.

Irkhir caught Lisella’s eyes in his. He held a small hammer in one hand and a sharp thin spike in the other, ready to move at her command.

“Now.”

Irkhir didn’t hesitate. He set the spike against the
beast's flank and gave it a quick rap with the hammer. Another soldier moved in and slipped a cup under the wound before he pulled the spike out. Lisella watched as the bright red blood ran from the wound, filling the cup quickly. In seconds the soldier stepped back, cup in hand, as another took his place.

Lisella kept her face a mask of calm resolve. Once the last man filled his cup she nodded approvingly.

So far everything had happened just as the book said it would.  The Caller lit the door. The door opened, exposing a chamber so vast that it was hard to believe no one had found it in untold centuries. A boy in love kneels on the dais and calls the dra. Now, as gruesome as it was, the beast had done exactly what the book said… All of that to bring her to this moment.

Not only was every word in that horrible book true, but it was her destiny. Whether she liked it or not she was the Ontar. She met the eyes of the men around her with the unwavering gaze they would expect from their
Mistress, the woman who would yoke their strength to stamp out the injustice that had plagued the people of Arth since the last time her ancestors ruled the world.

She regarded each of the thirty men that stood around the sleeping dra. Each of them held a cup that would change the course of history.

“The First of the Bloodborn.” One man at a time she proclaimed the title on each and every one of them until every man held the cup raised, ready to drink. “Irkhir, as leader of the First, will drink before all else.” She announced.

Irkhir removed his wolf’s head helmet and passed it to a man behind him.

“Bloodborn.” He echoed and traced two fingers across his forehead before he drained the cup in one long pull. He looked up at Lisella with red stained lips.

Nothing happened.

Lisella’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest. Had it all been a monstrous joke? Her mind raced through the details. The instructions were laid out in such a simple fashion that she couldn’t have gotten them wrong.

His arms flung wide.  The cup clanked to the stone floor. His back
arched so far that Lisella thought the man might break in two on the spot. Irkhir screamed and fell to his knees. He writhed in pain. His body twitched spasmodically. Men everywhere took a step back.

“
Bloodborn!” His scream transformed into a roar.

Lisella Ontar felt her eyes go wide.

Already taut from years of wielding the heavy axes at his sides, Irkhir’s muscles flexed and bulged, then somehow began expanding. His back widened, shoulders ripping through his crimson weave. Armor straps creaked against his expanding bulk. One by one, the heavy leather ties ripped, letting his highly decorated shiny plates fall down. They hit the stone with a series of clangs. When it was done, Irkhir rose up at least a foot taller. His clothes were in tatters. Nothing more than strips of red cloth stretched over rippling waves of muscle.

Irkhir picked up his two huge axes, both of which looked considerably smaller now. He
thrust them into the air with a blood curdling roar. Most of the men raised their cups right then. Those that hesitated paid for it. Irkhir cut them down in a blur of whistling axe blades. They didn’t have a chance. Heads, arms, legs, torsos, all flew from the top of the tower and landed in dull wet thuds a hundred feet down.

Lisella Ontar watched as one by one the remaining twenty-six all began their transformation into the
Bloodborn. In the ancient tongue, when the Ontars ruled most of the known world, the name for the First was “lom-i-nef”, meaning literally
blood-of-kings
. Lisella had a hard time imagining any one house ruling for a thousand years. The book called it “The reign of peace”. Mankind forgot what it was to wage war. Many of the great cities of the world were built in that age, parts of which still stood today.

Over time the dra disappeared. Races and tongues blended. The strength that ruled the world slowly faded into legend. Even their name became something else. They were reduced to
bedtime stories of giant monster men called the bloody kings. Nef-i-lom.

She would keep the name. The Nefilim were still spoken of in whispers. They were the monsters that came in the night to whisk children away from their beds. They were demons among men. Giants.

“My First. My first Bloodborn.” Lisella intoned. She raised her hand and extended it, waiting patiently as one by one they all knelt forward and kissed both sides, their pledge of undying love for her on their lips.

Lisella stiffened as the young soldier, whose eyes betrayed his hatred for her at having to feed the little girl to the dra, approached on one knee.

“Forgive me, My Mistress.” He was draped in torn crimson weave. The blood had transformed him into a massive weapon of a man. He would serve...

“My Mistress.” Came another.

“My Mistress.”

“My Mistress.” Eyes looked up at her, from beneath a long white scar that ran from one temple to the other.
Keriim knelt, almost still meeting her eye to eye. She had sliced him only minutes before and now, after the blood, he was completely healed. The man smiled at her and rose, letting another take his place in the procession of murmurs and kisses.

She gazed at the first twenty six. Every one of them stood over seven feet tall. Masses of lithe muscle. With such strength, there wasn’t an army in the world that could stand against her.

Ontar would rule for a thousand years.

Lingering

Tristan knelt on one knee not ten feet away.

Lisella Ontar, soon to be Regent of the Anwar Region, stood on trembling knees as her heart raced. She forced herself to breathe.

By the grave look he wore as he passed through her two door sentries and entered her chamber Lisella knew whatever he was going to say wasn’t good.

“Mistress.” Tristan intoned with all the respect her station demanded. His voice was strong, unwavering and deep, without the usual gruffness associated with a soldier in command. The sound of it wafted over her, caressing her soul with fingers of memories she had tried so hard to put away. Lisella let out a slow breath, furious at how it quavered with the hammering of her heart. 

“Captain.” Her tone left no doubt about her not being pleased to see him.

His lips, cracked from the ever present wind on the wall, were set in a straight line, not betraying a hint of feeling. His silence spoke volumes. Lisella refused the
urge to swallow at the dryness growing in her mouth. It had to be this way. Sacrifice was both the price and responsibility of nobility.  He stood slowly, way too smoothly, and pulled out a piece of paper from the folds of his spotless crimson weave. His armor, polished to gleaming, carried little flickers of stretched candlelight as he moved close enough to hand it to her. When their fingers brushed as she took it from him, a jolt shot through her as if the man was charged with some magical power. Lisella snapped open the paper with a sharp flourish.

“What is this? Who are these women?”

“Victims.”

Lisella Ontar looked up from the letter
, alarmed.

“Of what? Some accident or something?”

“I wish.” Tristan’s eyes rose. He took her into his gaze, letting his eyes take hers in an embrace. “There is a murderer in Ontar.”

“A what? Impossible.” Lisella studied Tristan’s face, taking in the tiny changes the years brought. He was still Tristan, the wiry youth she had known all those years ago. Yet, time had masterfully chipped away the boy and replaced him with a chiseled man. As he shifted on his feet, obviously uncomfortable with whatever he was about to say, Lisella didn’t miss that underneath the gleaming armor and impeccable crimson weave moved the hard muscle of a warrior...

“One of my men found an old cinder woman stuffed in a closet right here in the hold. She’d been there a little while. She was missing a finger tip.” Lisella Ontar stood very still as a slow shiver worked its way up her spine.

“A lot of people are missing fingers. What makes this one so special?”

“Only that she was raped and beaten so bad we couldn’t recognize her.” Tristan took a step forward and tapped the name at the bottom of the list. “The only way we found out her name was when someone came to us complaining she hadn’t been seen.”

“Jilted lover?”

“We thought so at first but the finger… He ripped off a finger after he was done.”

Lisella grimaced, eyes narrowing.

“Exactly.” Tristan threw up a casual hand, waving it just like he did when they were young and needed to explain something to her. The familiar gesture pushed her further off balance. The memory of long talks, their backs on the balcony wall, as they shivered in the cold, warmed her soul. Damn him.

“Anyway. We ruled out her man. Kind of hard to kill someone when
you're three months in the dirt yourself.” Leather creaked as Tristan shifted on his feet.

“What are you not telling me?”

“When the men were asking around they dug up a rumor.” He shifted again, as if whatever he was going to tell her wasn’t spoken of in public. “The bodies of bizarre accidents have been turning up for years down in the village.” He paused to lock her eyes with his. “They’re all girls. All missing a fingertip.”

“All of them?”

“It turns out folks think there’s a rat down there with a taste for girl’s finger tips.”

“Maybe there is. The
Creator knows there are plenty of rats in the village.”

“Maybe, but it didn’t add up right. Too many coincidences... Before this last one all the others were found in alleys, at the bottom of stairs
… All tragic accidents. They were all young, blonde, and every one of them from the village.” Tristan’s lips twisted. “This one was very different. This was no accident. Nobody gets themselves accidently stuffed in a closet. Also, she was old. The others were young. It happened in the hold, not the village. And if it was some kind of accident somebody tried to cover up, why the finger?”

“No rat then.” She smirked.

“Not even a bite mark.” He shook his head. “The finger was ripped off.”

“So you’re telling me there is a madman in the village? Find him and kill him and be done with it.”

“He’s mad but not stupid. He’s been finding a way to rape, torture, kill, and mutilate the bodies of women right in front of us for years.”

Lisella’s heart throbbed in her chest as an icy droplet of perspiration ran down the base of her spine.  The peculiar mix of revulsion at the subject and the pull of Tristan’s presence w
as more than unnerving. It had been years since the man had been here in her quarters. Far away on the wall, he was easy to look at. To dream about. Yet here he was. Here in the flesh, standing in resplendent gleaming armor. Right in front of her. Another drop trickled down the small of her back. Too close…