Path of Bones (38 page)

But did he
want
to lose control like that?  He’d spent the past three years containing his rage, and it was just his shit luck that losing himself to his anger seemed to be the only way of tapping into this new power so he and his friend could escape.

What’s happening to me?

He sharpened his senses and did as Chairos asked, focusing his thoughts and latching onto the Veil’s glacial flow.  He sensed the ancient power, that black and primordial energy, and he was dwarfed by its presence.  His body convulsed as the Veil seeped through the shields Mazrek Chairos had set, bolts of ebon force driven through the wall of his thoughts.  He breathed liquid crystal, and his sight narrowed.  Silvered lines of aether bled from the Veilcrafted
thar’koon
and back to him, slithering like smoky snakes from the destination to the source, tracking in reverse, time inverted in his pain-addled mind. 

Dane saw the
thar’koon
being created right there in Kaldrak Iyres, in a time before the Skullborn were even born.  The weapons had been forged by the Drage and the Voss, twin blades doused in drops of Carastena Vlagoth’s blood.  Even Dane had to conjecture at some of the history the Phage held on record, but he understood that when used properly the weapons would lead the wielder to the Blood Queen no matter where she hid.  He didn’t want to think about why that meant they led to Ijanna, or the fact that the sword seemed capable of tracking not one woman, but three. 

Focus.

City to plains to desert wastes.  His consciousness crossed realms of blasted sand and crimson dust.  Fields of broken rock, dry gulches filled with brackish oil, trees stained with the remains of the fallen.  Lands hunted by Razorcats and Runefiends and claimed by cursed natives and barbaric nomads.  Black dust and towers of ruined stone.

A city in the wastes.  Toil and blood.  A gathering of storms.

This is only the beginning.

Dane cried out.  Shock pried his eyes open, and the flickering lamp and cold grey walls bled into view.  The rune-carved ceiling seemed closer than before.  Dane gasped for breath.

“Where?” Chairos demanded.  The air was darker.  Dane wondered how much time had passed. 

“
Water,” he said. 

Chairos scowled and nodded to one of the mercenaries, and to Dane’s surprise a gloved hand lifted his face and a clay cup filled with cool water was brought to his scarred lips.  The contact burned at first, but he greedily gulped it down, drop by drop, until the cup was pulled away and Chairos stepped up and put his hand around Dane’s throat.  His eyes bulged as he felt the Veilwarden’s grip tighten, and his lungs swelled.

“Where?” Chairos demanded.

Dane gasped as he was released. 

“Corinth,” he said.  “The blade is in the ruins of Corinth.”

Chairos watched him carefully, considering.  He’d assume Dane was lying, of course, but he knew he had leverage.  After a moment he and Drakanna backed away and turned to leave the room.

“Chairos!” Dane shouted.  The Phage lord slowly turned around.  “What now?” 

“
Don’t worry, Dane,” Chairos said with a smile.  “We’ll deal with you soon.”

The men filed out after Chairos and Drakanna, and Dane was left alone in the dark.  He tried to Touch the Veil, only to find its cold presence removed, sealed off once again. 

Damn.

Fatigue and pain weighted him to the floor.  He struggled to hold onto his thoughts.  Chairos would be suspecting a trap, which meant there was a good chance he’d send either Dane or Kruje along with his soldiers to answer for it if anything went wrong.  Based on what he knew of the Phage’s resources Dane thought that an overland journey was unlikely, as they’d have enough Bloodspeaker hirelings to make efficient use of a
cutgate
and cross the terrain in an instant.

Dane figured he was staying put.  With the properly Veilcrafted restraints a Voss was just as easily subjugated as a human, so in all likelihood they would take Kruje.

Now all I have to do is figure out how to unleash this power inside me.  Whatever it is.

Dane was at a loss.  Whatever the magic was, it repaired his body and filled him with lust and hunger so overpowering that at times he couldn’t think straight.  It was unlike anything he’d ever encountered.  Chairos didn’t know what to make of it, either.  Dane had seen fear in the Veilwarden’s eyes, uncharacteristic and in its own way extremely frightening.

It has something to do with those wolf dreams.

Realization hit him like a bolt from the sky: Black Sun.  It had to be that bastard who’d nearly tore him in half before he and Kruje had tried to escape.  He never found out who the man was – maybe one of Jorias Targo’s thugs, though that didn’t explain why the same man had attacked Slayne and helped Vellexa escape.  Targo had figured out a way to transform his men, making it so they took on human-wolf hybrid forms, some trick of Veilcraft and alchemy.

Damn it.  I’m a werewolf.

But the curse might have been a blessing in disguise.  He felt stronger than before, and even though he’d been battered and beaten his wounds slowly healed.  His guts and muscles and the bones in his shoulder had been so torn and twisted he could barely move, but after a while he started to regain his strength, and soon he could breathe without feeling like somebody was crushing glass into his chest.  He thought of Drakanna, of all the pain she’d subjected him to, and of Chairos, with his smug smile and his penchant for cruelty. 

When he was angry,  Dane healed even faster.

It made sense.  It took a sharp and even mind to Touch the Veil, even one with the limited capabilities of a Dawn Knight, and Dane had spent so much of the past three years trying to keep his emotions in check he guessed that was the reason this lycanthropy was taking so long to affect him.  A lesser mind, one without the same mental discipline, would have succumbed already. 

But how long do I have?  Will I be able to fight it off, or will the dreams of anger and blood eventually take over my mind? 

Would he transform, as Targo’s men had, and would it be enough for him to escape?  And if he
did
change, would he be able to come back? 

Damn it.  Why can’t anything ever be easy?

He thought about Kruje, and hoped his Voss companion was all right.  The giant’s supernatural metabolism would allow him to heal even faster than Dane, but he didn’t put it past Chairos to subject the giant to brutal treatment, and it was in the nature of even sanctioned Veilwardens to experiment with things they were unfamiliar with.

I’m sorry, Kruje
, he thought.  It wasn’t as if the Voss were innocent – he was a
Voss
, after all – but the giant didn’t have anything to do with this mess except that he’d come along to try and help Dane. 
I won’t have your death on my conscience, no matter what you’ve done,
Dane thought
.  No matter what
I’ve
done.

“
I swear it,” he said aloud, and he stood there in the dark, his fury building inside of him.

Forty-Eight

Kruje hated light.  He was a creature of darkness, born and raised in Meledrakkar, and the near-constant glare of torches and lamps he encountered on the surface world pained him.  Exposure to direct sunlight was sometimes enough to blind a Voss, and his captors knew it.  His dank cell was utterly black, but for roughly an hour each day a solid beam of sunlight cut through the darkness and fell right on his face.  It stayed there for what felt like an eternity, and the restrictive bonds ensured that no amount of writhing or twisting on Kruje’s part would allow him to move from its path. 

He kept his eyes sealed when the sunlight fell on him, terrified it would permanently damage his eyes.  Whenever it was dark he watched for the light in horror, waiting for it to appear and blanch the room.  He heard voices in the sunbeam, lunatic laughter and distant screams.

The giant tried to attain Kar-Kalled, but the peaceful memories wouldn’t come.  Everything he remembered tasted and smelled like a nightmare.  He saw his family butchered, Meledrakkar in flames, and humans marching on his home.

Kruje knew he was going insane.

He struggled against the chains, pulled, screamed as loud as he could.  They hadn’t fed him for days, and his metabolism had slowed accordingly, conserving his body’s energy so he’d go on living even without nourishment.  The flesh on his wrists and ankles had scraped raw around the shackles.  Dark blood flecked dry on his crusted wounds. 

Dane, if we live through this, I’m going to kill you.

He heard Zan’s voice, and saw the Sea of Black Fire.  He knew it wasn’t real, but it
felt
real, the night-tainted waters, the gritty poison clouds.  The air tasted sharp enough to cut.  Zan stood on the far shore, calling for him.  Kruje could just make out the flaming city in the distance.  Zan had ruined them, but that failure fell on Kruje’s shoulders.  It had been his responsibility, his duty to carry them out of the darkness and into a new age, but he’d inadvertently left the Third Iron Crown in the hands of a butcher like his brother. 

He laughed.  His head swam with fatigue and pain, and he couldn’t feel his fingers.  The charnel stench of dead things in the chamber filled his nostrils with the vile musk of rot. 
             

He was a prisoner again – Kruje half-expected them to toss him back into the arena.  Being humiliated and battered seemed to be his lot since leaving Meledrakkar.  He’d been caged and treated like an animal so many times it was beginning to feel normal.  

The J’ann know, if it keeps happening I might actually start to enjoy it.... 

Rats nipped at his toes, but they’d taken so many chunks out of his dark flesh he barely noticed them anymore, and their smashed corpses littered the ground where he’d stamped them to death. 

He watched the darkness, waiting for the light. 

When I escape, I’ll slaughter them all.

The first sunbeams sliced through the darkness just as the door opened.  Four humans stormed into the room.  Their leader was a tall man in purple and grey clothing and a loose black cloak; he dressed expensively, in the manner of human nobles and aristocrats.  The others, two black-clad men and a tall woman in red-and-black leather armor and a grim mask, followed him like pets.  The masked female was strange and distant, and Kruje smelled blood and perfume mingled with the musk of her sex. 

The black-cloaked man stepped close and looked up at Kruje, smiling.

“What?!” Kruje demanded, and sharp pain exploded through his skull with such force his head snapped back.  His ears popped and his eyes ached.  Thin trickles of blood ran from his nostrils.  Just as his sight returned the pain came again, needle strikes in his temples that made him cry out.  If not for the chains supporting his weight Kruje knew he would have fallen to the floor.

I’m not sure what you just said
, came a telepathic voice, so heavy and forceful it drowned out Kruje’s thoughts,
but I’m sure it was something rude. 

“
Release me!” Kruje screamed.

The pain stopped, and he opened his eyes.  The sunlight slowly bled through the darkness overhead, its shine almost lost in the torchlight of the hallway beyond the door.

The man watched him quizzically.

Impressive,
the human thought. 
You had the strength to reply.  What’s your name, brute?

“
Kruje,” he said aloud.  He wouldn’t play this telepath’s game.  The man was clearly capable of using the Veil to translate his words.  “Heir to the Third Iron Crown of Meledrakkar.  And who are you, little one?”

Mazrek Chairos
, the man thought. 
Watch that temper of yours, Kruje.  It can get you into trouble. 
The man spoke something in the human tongue, and his dark-clad minions began undoing the chains.  They were either releasing Kruje or moving him somewhere new, and he seriously doubted it was the former.

“
What’s happening?” Kruje asked.

You’re going on a voyage
, Chairos thought. 
Behave yourself, don’t do anything foolish, and you might just live through this. 
The man made a point to smile.  He didn’t bother speaking, instead relying on his telepathic banter.  He stared at Kruje. 
Try to escape, or fight us, and Dane suffers. 

“
Where is he?”

Beyond your reach.

“If he dies...” Kruje began, but Chairos’ iron-sharp thoughts cut him off.

Save it. 
Sound razored through his mind, and the pain sent him to the ground. 

Kruje smelled oil and musk as he came to.  He realized he was walking as if in a trance, his bare feet bloody and raw as he stepped on water-slicked stones wreathed in mist and smoke. 

Chains connected his wrists to an iron collar wrapped around the throat of an enormous green-scaled beast, a twelve-legged lizard twice as long as Kruje was tall.  The creature smelled terrible, like a combination of urine and burning tar, and Kruje gagged as the monster dragged him along behind it.  The lizard darted through the maze of stone hallways with surprising speed, and Kruje had to maintain a good pace just to keep up.