Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (23 page)

Caleb’s eyelids fluttered open and then closed again.

Rachel was gone.

Benson was gone.

A blinding light pierced his eyelids, but he ignored it.
Am I dead?
he wondered. He tried to move, but his arms and legs would not obey him.

Rachel is gone!

He knew that he was crying. He could sense the liquid squeezing out of his pinched eyelids, but he could not feel the tears course down his cheeks.

He remembered the house burning and seeing Rachel bleeding on the kitchen floor—the ache and indescribable pain and sadness as her life faded away in his arms. He remembered the things that had killed her and the burning, all-consuming rage he had felt as he had cut them down.

They were dead. Gone.

With merciful relief, the thoughtless night welcomed him.

His eyelids flickered open.

Caleb breathed deeply and winced as fire burned his lungs and his ribs creaked. He knew from the blinding pain that several of them were broken. With a groan he closed his eyes again and let the wave of pain wash over him. He was lying down on something soft.

Rachel was gone.

“So I see that you’ve decided to live.”

Caleb opened his eyes and looked into an unfamiliar face. The man’s eyes surveyed his quickly, as if searching for something hidden in the pain-filled gaze. Caleb found the penetrating look every bit as agonizing as the burning in his lungs. The man knew what had happened.

Blinking away tears that came unbidden to his eyes, Caleb glanced over the rest of the man. He wore faded tan military fatigues and Caleb glimpsed the thin chain that he knew bore dog tags. His hair was gray, left longer on top and cropped short on the sides. His face was softly wrinkled, but there was a hint of warmth at the corners of his mouth that Caleb found oddly comforting. Caleb gauged his age at somewhere between 30 and 50.

“Done staring?” the man asked.

Caleb said nothing.

“Your vocal cords were not damaged when that house fell on you.”

“Yes,” Caleb said, his voice raspy from smoke inhalation.

“Good.”

The man held a bottle of water to Caleb’s mouth. He drank in large gulps, spilling copious amounts of the precious liquid down himself.

“You’ve been out for three weeks. I wasn’t sure you were going to make it. I found you about three days after the city-fortress fell.”

Caleb winced. That meant he had been unconscious for almost a month. Rachel and Benson had been dead for a month.

The soldier must have been reading his thoughts. “I buried your wife a few miles from here. I’m sorry.”

Caleb fought back tears, though his mind and heart screamed in agony far greater than the physical pain that coursed through his body with even the smallest movement.

“And my son?”

The soldier looked at him and then glanced away, not meeting his eye. “I didn’t find anyone else there besides the goblin you shot. If your son was there, his body was probably burned in the fires that took your housing unit.”

So he hadn’t imagined it—he had killed three golgent. Creatures from his nightmares had leapt into reality and had killed his wife and son. His brain refused to accept it, but the pain told him his soul already had.

Looking back at the man, who was still not meeting his eye, Caleb realized that the soldier was not telling him everything.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Caleb demanded, though his voice had begun to rasp once more despite the water he’d drunk.

The soldier turned and met Caleb’s eyes. There was a steely glint to them now that sent shivers along Caleb’s pain ridden body.

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Tell me!” Caleb shouted. He struggled to rise, ignoring the fire that lanced through him.

The soldier pushed Caleb down onto his back with a grunt, sending even more pain shooting through Caleb’s body. He didn’t have the strength to resist.

“Tell me!” he demanded again, coughing up blood.

“The goblins usually take the babies with them,” the man said in a flat voice. “The soft flesh is a favorite of theirs.”

Caleb’s heart seemed to burst and he felt the bile rise up in his throat. Suddenly he was vomiting uncontrollably until nothing more came up, tears streaming down his face to mingle with the vomit. He spit out the acidic bile that filled his mouth and coughed spasmodically, sobbing.

“I’m not cleaning that up.”

“Damn you! You—!” Caleb yelled and forced himself onto his elbows and then into a sitting position, unable to complete the expletive. The absolute sting of loss and a white hot anger that rose up inside his chest burned away his bodily pains. His vision swam before him, making the rest of the room blur in and out of focus.

“You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you? By all rights you should be dead. You would have made a good Marine.” He said the last grudgingly.

Caleb stared him, eyes incredulous. His overloaded mind screamed with unfathomable loss, hurt, and despair. Flashes of memories, broken and disjointed, flitted through his mind’s eye in a muddled, foggy cloud that he couldn’t control. He stared at the man, or rather at the center of the three men who swam in his vision. He realized, suddenly, that he was slipping off the cot, face forward. The man caught him just before he hit the ground.

He came awake again suddenly, surrounded by darkness. He turned over to check on Rachel and the shooting pain that ran up his back brought it all rushing back to the forefront of his mind. A single tear escaped the corner of his eye.

“So it wasn’t a dream,” he whispered.

“No it was not. The nightmare is real.” The soldier’s voice was soft, but it sounded like a shout in the silent, watchful night.

Caleb didn’t reply, though he shifted around uneasily, looking for his gun. It was his last thread of safety, his only possession left in the world. The soldier must have recognized the movement because a darker shadow sprung up in front of Caleb’s face and his handgun was thrust into his right hand.

“There’s a round in the chamber,” the man said, his voice expressionless. “Do me a favor though and do it outside. I had a bad enough time cleaning up your vomit last week.”

Caleb was confused for a moment, but then a moment of clarity struck and he realized that the soldier thought he was going to kill himself. In truth, the thought had crossed his mind—more than crossed his mind—but every time he had considered it, his mind had brought up the memory of the promise he’d made to Rachel. Her dying request.

Death would be so much easier than life. It would end the pain, it would end the suffering, it would end the loss and he could be back with his family again. What was easy, though, was very seldom what was right. Rachel had quoted that to him on so many occasions that it had become ingrained in Caleb’s soul, though he rarely enjoyed living it.

“Get on with it already,” the soldier barked. “I’ve already wasted five weeks of my life being your nursemaid!”

Caleb was surprised at the scorn and emotion in the soldier’s voice, as if Caleb’s suicide was a personal affront to the man’s character.

Caleb rested the small gun on his leg and left it there. “I’m not going anywhere right now,” he said.

The soldier—the Marine, Caleb remembered—grunted once in the darkness and then his silhouette vanished.

“What happened?” Caleb asked, not having any desire to return to sleep. He needed something to occupy his mind. He needed to understand so that he could try and process the jumbled mess of thoughts and confusion in his mind.

There was a long pause before the Marine answered. “The dragons attacked your city-fortress and they won.”

“Dragons?” Goblins were one thing, but dragons were something else entirely.

“The hordes of those demons from hell, they’re nothing. There’s dragons among them. Where else did you think those fireballs came from?”

“Mortars.”

The Marine laughed in the darkness, humorless and derisive. “I thought that once too, but I know the truth now. I’ve seen them all with my own eyes. You saw the reports yourself, but you don’t realize it.”

Caleb vividly recalled the chaos of those few months immediately following the cataclysms and the news reports that he had watched on TV, confident that everything would right itself and that the world would return to normal. He had been in denial, he now realized, but it didn’t matter anymore.

He remembered the volcanoes most particularly. Their toxic, ashen clouds had left the carpet of cinders on the ground that had choked off all life, killing millions.

“I remember.”

“That was the dragons entering the world. The goblins, the trolls, and the rest of them just hitched a ride.”

Caleb scoffed. It didn’t make any logical sense to think that the catastrophes that had thrown the world into anarchy and chaos were caused by dragons. He dismissed the thought. What did it matter, anyway? His world was gone. They were dead. The marine’s words only heightened his confusion and left him drowning within a sea of emotions.

The soldier must have known what Caleb was thinking as he said, “It might take you a while to believe it; it took me years.”

Caleb grunted, suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to sleep and escape the agony of his broken and damaged soul.

“The armies are vast,” the soldier said in a faraway voice, as if lost in thought. “I’ve never seen so many soldiers, so many people, and so much death and destruction. They sweep across the land like a hoard of locusts, destroying everything in their path. No one stands a chance; no one can fight against them. They all die. The city-fortresses, the Marine Corps, the armies—all cut down, burned, eaten, torn apart. They all die.”

The voice faded off into silence. Caleb waited for what seemed like an eternity, but the soldier did not speak again and Caleb drifted off into sleep.

*              *              *              *

Caleb woke up with a groan, his head pounding and feeling as if he hadn’t slept at all. He rolled over to complain to Thomas about how early the Marine made him wake up every morning, but his eyes fell upon an empty bed. The blankets were folded neatly and his pack and personal items were missing from their usual places in the room. There was no note, nor any other indication, but, with a sinking feeling in his heart, Caleb knew that Thomas was gone. He was not coming back. Thomas had told him on many occasions that he was restless and uncomfortable staying in one place for too long. He had stayed long enough to leave Caleb with the necessary skills for survival and had then moved on. Caleb couldn’t leave and Thomas had known it. Rachel was buried here; it was his home.

Caleb got out of bed and dressed mechanically, his mind elsewhere.

Thomas, though reticent and often harsh, had been a rock in the unstable chaos of his life over the last few months. He had left Caleb with skills and a purpose, to kill golgent, but he had taken a lot with him when he had left too. Caleb missed him already.

Caleb was not ashamed to admit to himself that he was scared. More than once Thomas’s presence alone had deterred him from simply giving up during those first few difficult weeks. It was true, he had decided once before to go on, to attempt to live, but he’d soon realized that it was a decision that he’d have to re-make every day, every morning when he awoke in tears of absolute sorrow and loss. In a very real sense, Thomas had been his only anchor to reality.

Caleb sighed heavily and sat down at the small table Thomas had scavenged for them a few weeks back. As he did so, he noticed for the first time the thin chain dangling from the back of the chair. It looked just like the chain that had held Thomas’s dog tags, but instead of holding identification plaques, hanging from the chain was a familiar-looking ring.

Caleb gently picked it up off the back of the chair and brought it up to eye level. It was bulky and black, with a ring of nine stars. It was Rachel’s ring.

Caleb had given it to Rachel while they had been dating as a promise ring. She had put it on her thumb and had never taken it off. She had been wearing it the night she’d died. Thomas must have removed it when he buried her and had kept it over these long months, waiting for when it was most needed. Caleb had told Thomas of the promise he had made to his dying wife and he knew that this was Thomas’s way of reminding him of it. His vision blurred and he realized that he was crying.

Thomas would have yelled at him. Tears meant emotion. Emotion meant death.

He let the tears fall.

He pulled the chain over his head and tucked the ring under his shirt. It had once been a promise ring and it would be once more. He had given it to Rachel and she in turn, through Thomas, had given it back to him. He would survive.

Caleb breathed slowly as the group of golgent and men moved by, passing within a few feet of where they crouched, hidden in the shadows of a narrow culvert. The patrol’s steady footfalls echoed for a few more minutes, fading as the patrol passed into the distance, before Lando signaled silently that they could move on.

When the sun had risen earlier that morning, Caleb and Sigvid had met Nepja and Lando at the basement entrance to the passages under the Raleigh city-fortress. From the looks of the tunnel, it appeared to have been made as an escape route for whoever had previously occupied the building. A lot of people had constructed such tunnels when the Breaking had begun to take its toll, and a few had even created underground bunkers like the one where Sigvid had held Caleb prisoner, only smaller.

Lando was thin and wispy looking, at most in his early teens, but there was a seriousness in his eyes and the way he held himself that spoke of an inner iron strength. He was the most adept amongst Thomas’s group at finding his way through the ancient passageways beneath the city. He had wandered into the basement just after the city-fortress had fallen unharmed, but he was so shaken that he had not uttered a word since that terrible day.

Caleb had quickly come to respect the young man’s senses within the tunnel and recognized why Nepja had chosen him to lead the group. The boy carried an arsenal of weaponry as well. He carried a p90 submachine gun at the ready, and he had a small shotgun slung over his back. Ammunition for it was tucked in little loops along the baldric across his chest that held it in place. Several knives and a spare magazine for the p90 hung from his belt, tied down so they wouldn’t swing about and scrape against something in the passages beneath the city.

Even Sigvid had been impressed, slapping the boy good-naturedly across the back and congratulating him on his preparedness.

The wizard was clothed exactly as he had been the evening before, staring at them imperiously from the shadows of his hood as they walked along. He lit their way with the orb in his staff, which he ignited with a word of command.

Caleb had been impressed despite himself, though the magic was simple and Nepja had smiled mockingly at Caleb’s obvious interest.

On several occasions Lando had stopped them for some unknown reason, ordering them to take cover in side passages and culverts with silent commands. Each time they obeyed and moments later they would hear the sounds of a patrol passing through the tunnels. Caleb had joked that Lando must be a better dverger than Sigvid, as the boy could sense the movement of others in the tunnel before even the dverger. It had left the smith in a foul mood though he did not refute Lando’s skill.

“We’re nearing the edges of the city-fortress itself,” Nepja hissed quietly as Lando made a few silent motions with his hands. “The patrols will come more frequently. Be wary and stay close.”

Caleb shivered, whether against the sudden draft that wafted through the passage or because of the wizard’s rasping voice, he did not know. The wizard was an ominous figure in the gloom, almost spectral in the soft glow of the orb in his staff.

They walked in single file with Lando in the lead, the wizard behind. Caleb was sandwiched between Sigvid and the wizard, in the position of greatest protection due to his damaged hands. Lando had offered him the shotgun earlier that morning, but he’d refused the offer. He had Faeranir on his back and was loath to use any other weapon.

They rounded a corner and waited as Lando disappeared down the tunnel, scouting ahead to find the right way. Nepja turned to regard Caleb again, his eyes glinting in the light from the orb.

Caleb looked back defiantly, smiling into the wizard’s cold eyes. Several times during the journey the wizard had stopped and stared at Caleb, his eyes piercing, as if looking for something. At first Caleb had found the scrutiny unsettling, but had come to recognize those moments as opportunities to study the wizard back. He had learned little so far, other than the obvious, but Nepja didn’t seem to care if Caleb studied him or not. For Caleb it had turned into something of a game between the two of them, trying to discover something about the wizard, neither one of them trusting the other.

Lando returned and gestured for them to follow. The boy never spoke, but most of his gestures were obvious and those that weren’t, Nepja readily interpreted.

Caleb found it interesting that the wizard seemed to have a genuine relationship with the boy. Lando was never far from the wizard’s side and only reported back to and took orders from the wizard. It was a sign, at least, that Nepja wasn’t as entirely amoral as he seemed to be. Caleb still thought him unnecessarily cruel and egocentric, but knowing that Lando trusted him was like a small candle’s light in the dark cloud surrounding the man.

They scrambled through the passages for more than an hour, twice more hiding in the shadows as patrols passed. Caleb observed with interest the number of men that were intermingled with the smaller golgent. He had seen a few groups of marauders in the years since Charlotte had fallen, but his memories from that time period were clouded. There’d been men in the attack on the Charlotte city-fortress, but those had become something less than men, unworthy of a place among humanity. Except for the raid he’d gone on with Sigvid where they found that strange woman, he couldn’t remember seeing the two races working together since. He found the thought profoundly disturbing.

Caleb felt a sudden, sharp twinge of pain in his temples as he thought of the raid and he sucked in a breath sharply. There had seemed to be something important about that woman at the time, but Caleb couldn’t remember what. She had run off into the night before they had managed to kill the men and golgent that had captured her. The pain in his temples swelled and Caleb missed a step. His mind went thankfully blank.

“Are you all right, boy?” Sigvid asked in a whisper, reaching out a steadying hand.

Nepja whirled around and made a silencing motion with his hand, his face a mask of cold fury. Sigvid glared back at him defiantly, but Nepja had already turned back around to follow Lando down the tunnel. Caleb slapped Sigvid’s forearm lightly to show that he was all right and hurried after the wizard, his headache already easing.

A few minutes later, they rounded a corner and found Lando waiting for them impatiently, a finger pursed to his lips. His knuckles were white on the grip of his gun and the color had drained from his face. Nepja hurried up to him and whispered secretively as Lando began gesturing quickly. Only moments before, they had passed through a small metal door with a lock that turned on a wheel, entering the passages that Caleb guessed were inside the main compound of the city-fortress. Most of the smaller city-fortresses grew up around evacuation and aide stations. From the faded painted signs and rows of pipes and wiring that ran along the ceiling and one of the walls, Caleb guessed that they were probably underneath an old football or basketball stadium.

Nepja hurried over to them, his face a mask of mixed emotions. Caleb was surprised to see both joy and fear on his face.

“The boy says that we’re underneath the Dragonlord’s chamber,” the wizard whispered in a voice so soft it could barely be heard. “There are some loose gratings in the tunnels we must pass through and the smallest sound will be heard by the dragon. We must be careful.”

Caleb felt a thrill of fear shoot through his spine even at the same time he felt his curiosity grow. He had heard so much about the dragons and the Dragonlords, but had yet to see one.

Nepja glanced at Caleb quickly, his eyes darting away in an instant, but in that instant, Caleb saw a hunger there that sent the hunter within him into frenzy. Alarm bells went off in Caleb’s mind and he reached out and grabbed Nepja by the wrist.

“What are you planning, wizard?” he demanded. His voice rose slightly, though still in a whisper.

Nepja tugged his arm free with a quick jerk, scowling at Caleb. “I plan nothing, human. The die is cast already. Destiny walks apace. I cannot see the who’s or what’s with any certainty, but I do know the
where
and
when
.” His voice was cold and hard, almost bitter.

“What are you playing at?” Sigvid demanded, pushing forward to stand next to Caleb, his axes gleaming.

Suddenly a sound echoed upward from the passageway behind them, a long loud creaking wail as if rusty hinges being forced open. Lando gestured at them wildly to follow as he hurried up the passage away from the sound. Nepja whirled around, his cloak billowing and fanning wide with the movement, and chased after the fleeing boy.

Caleb moved to follow, but Sigvid stubbornly refused to move.

“I’d rather stay here and kill some golgent and men then follow that plotter into a dragon’s nest,” Sigvid growled.

The screech got louder and then cut off suddenly, a loud bang reverberating through the air.

“Come on, Sigvid,” Caleb said determinedly, grabbing a fistful of the dverger’s beard and pulling. “We’ve got no choice.”

Sigvid swatted Caleb’s hand aside roughly, but followed him up the tunnel. They caught up with the wizard and Lando quickly, the latter leading them through a maze of pipe-and-wire-filled tunnels that twisted and turned so much that Caleb was soon completely lost and disoriented. Booted feet echoed noisily in the passage behind them and Lando ducked into a small side passageway half hidden by pipes and the remnants of some old air ducts. Caleb and the others ducked in after him.

Just before Nepja doused the glowing orb, Caleb caught the wizard’s eyes. They burned with an inner fire and seemed to dance maliciously, shimmering with hunger and need.

As the orb went out, a faint strip of light illuminated one side of the small corner in which they hid, cast through a small opening in the ceiling next to where the ductwork entered the wall. Had Caleb been standing, it would have been almost at eye level.

Suddenly, a voice spoke out in the darkness, making them all jump. The faint stream of light flickered as someone walked past it and Caleb realized that the voice was echoing through the ducts from the room above. Caleb felt the others stiffen around him as the voice spoke.

“Mortan-zai is a fool,” it said with an oath. “I wasted all that time with the half-trulgo scum to get the Browns to attack, and now Mortan-zai flies out to attack them himself!”

A deep rumbling chuckle responded, almost seeming to resonate in the air with its volume and depth. Caleb realized with a jolt that he recognized the voice and the half-trulgo that was being referred to. It was the voice of Loran, the golgent who had so easily destroyed the half-trulgo with magic.

Nepja shifted next to him as another voice spoke.

“Sayrin’s own luck is with you. Mortan-zai is lost in his bloodlust and will easily fall. Your men amongst the Dragonlords will help you take command of the Red Dragonhosts after he falls.”

“If all goes well,” Loran replied.

Nepja stiffened and began to shake, a small sound escaping his lips. Lando placed a hand on his shoulder and the wizard quieted.

“I will lead the ritual this time,” a third voice, the one belonging to the deep chuckle, cut in. “And the others of my kind I have chosen will assist me. It is because of you human wizards and your fragility that we are here in this world where we do not belong.”

Loran, obviously rankled by this, snapped. “I lead the Red Fist, not you. Sayrin chose me as His vessel and you will do well to remember that!”

The deep voice chuckled. “Just as He chose the wizard of the Order of the Serpent, or the Night Aylfin on the other side of the world? You are but a piece in His game and this era just another round in the unending cycle. You will do your part because He has commanded it. And I will do mine. He commands, not you.”

“You dragons are all the same,” Loran grumbled. “Jarome, keep your steed in check or you will face my wrath when next we meet.”

There was a faint popping sound and then a moment of silence.

“I don’t see why Sayrin allows him to stay in command of the Red Fist,” Jarome spat, his voice losing its unctuous note. “He’s a fool and knows nothing of what is truly going on.”

“Peace, Jarome. He is but a pawn that thinks he is a king. “

“Loran’s idiocy rankles me. I long for the day when I can cut out his heart.”

“That hour will come, Jarome.”

Caleb didn’t understand much of the conversation other than a vague sense of horror and fear, but he felt himself drawn to the crack from whence the light emanated. Suddenly he was stepping over Lando and pressing his eye up against the small opening. He looked out from one of the lower levels of seats on a basketball court, but his gaze was instantly drawn to the figures closest to him.

A massive reptilian head rested on the ground only a few feet from the tiny viewing hole, golden-yellow eyes the size of dinner plates glinting with a light of their own. The dragon’s body stretched out into the rest of the court and filled it from one end to the other. Massive bat-like wings were folded up onto its broad spiked back and its four large legs were splayed across the ground in a relaxed position. The dragon opened its mouth in a yawn and revealed teeth that could easily have impaled a small elephant.

Sudden terror paralyzed Caleb as the dragon stretched its head backwards and sent a torrent of flames shooting into the air over its head. The flames struck the closed dome of the ceiling and, with a thunderous blast as if from an explosion, tore through the steel and iron to expose the sunlight in the sky beyond.