BOOK 12: CHAPTER 1: WAR

1 – War

Victor leaned on the gray metal parapet. It was cool and damp, but the metal wouldn’t rust. He had no idea what it was made of, but he knew it was tougher than steel and impervious to any sort of decay. The scene beyond that parapet was almost too much to grasp. His command tower was ten stories high, so the people below looked small, and he could see for miles, so the sheer number of things going on was hard to take in.

Beneath the gray, smoke-filled skies, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were arrayed. Some were entrenched around his tower—his forward war camp. Others stood or marched in lines and columns beyond the fortifications. Still further afield, toward the chaos of the undead warrens, his soldiers fought. Flaming orbs, flung from his trebuchets, flew through the air, ten thousand voices screamed, and just as many bodies clashed against one another, weapons clanging against armor, flesh, and bone.

Victor wanted to be among them, to stand amid that horde of undead and lay waste around himself, but he had to be cautious; he had to keep himself in reserve. He didn’t want to display his strength right there on the doorstep of one of the Great Masters—the first that his people had encountered. No, here was the home of one of the five original undead lords who’d come to Dark Ember from Earth—a being who’d been powerful for thousands of years before he came to this world.

Victor’s fists clenched, and he shifted his gaze past the battle to the warrens—dark, twisted vegetation that had grown into vast, winding hedgerows. The thorny, leafless growth had tangled with itself so thoroughly that it blocked off access to the center of the plain in a ten-mile circle. At the heart of those warrens grew a tree that stretched more than a thousand feet into the sky. Victor corrected himself as he had the thought. The tree wasn’t still growing; it was lifeless—a thousand feet of dark, leafless trunk and broken, dead branches.

A million wolf-sized bats lived in those branches, and inside the dead trunk was an undead host that numbered in the millions—or, it had. Victor’s army had worn them down over the weeks and months that they’d been there. “Months?” He scoffed at the thought. They’d been there for years now.

Victor walked along the parapet, scanning his encampment. A broad, cobbled boulevard ran just to the west of his fortifications. It stretched from the front lines all the way to the empty fields behind the army’s support personnel. He watched as a wagon of undead corpses trundled by, then he turned and followed its progress to the south, where, in the distance, he could see a dozen enormous bonfires burning. Every day, they built new pyres, and every day, they sent thousands of corpses to their ancestors.

“They come and they come,” Arona said, coming to stand beside him. Victor glanced at her, squinting his eyes as the sun reflected off her mirrored breastplate.

“There has to be a limit. I can feel the pressure growing smaller every day.”

“The miasma?”

Victor shrugged. “The death Energy, yeah.” He turned toward the colossal tree in the distance, peering up into its dark branches. “Such an army—absurdity.”

Arona chuckled, but it was a humorless sound. “That’s how they fought with each other—him and his neighbors.”

“I remember all too well.” Victor grimaced, images running through his mind—armies of zombies and ghouls that numbered in the millions. They’d faced three such forces as they’d worked their way south on the peninsula, liberating the coastal cities. That conquest had brought them to their current target: the stronghold of the Great Master, Dragomir Veselov.

He’d yet to see the undead lord, but he’d heard plenty from rescued thralls and captured vampires. He ruled the eastern edge of this continent—Gor. The thralls also maintained legends about that great tree. Supposedly, it had been alive and green when the undead came to Dark Ember. Victor had confirmed as much from lesser lords that he’d thrashed. He’d kept a few alive to answer his questions. Some who cooperated sufficiently and made the right promises had been allowed to flee the world. Most failed to convince Victor of their ability to reform, and they were now serving his ancestors on other planes of existence.

How many? The question came to him often when he remembered the slow march of his armies across the darkened world. At first, he’d had to move between his armies to face the lesser vampire lords. Lesser, they may have been, but they’d still been veil walkers. His steel seekers and the hero iron rankers from Sojourn and Ruhn hadn’t been ready for those fights. In those early months, Victor had racked up a dozen kills. As his people grew stronger, though, and they learned to work together, they’d begun to face those lesser lords on their own.

Victor had come up with that term on his own—lesser lord. They were like Fausto, technically veil walkers, yet lacking the refinement and concentrated strength of a being who’d gained all their power under the tutelage of other veil walkers—or the System. Typically, they had a lot of Energy and some powerful abilities, but very little nuance and minimal experience battling equally powerful foes. No, as Arona had mentioned, these dark lords enjoyed having their minions fight their wars for them.

Now and then, they’d come to a city and it would be apparent that the lord there was something more—a stronger veil walker who’d either learned or lucked into some method of advancement that took them to greater heights. So far, only Victor had been able to kill those lords. He’d lost one of his “strike squads” to a woman like that. Her trick to power had been her bloodline—some kind of monstrous spider lineage that was straight out of a demonic horror film. How long ago had that been? Three years?

“How long have we been here?” he asked Arona. She looked up at him, her blue, gem-like eyes glinting with inner light. She’d certainly gained a lot of power since coming to Dark Ember. How many levels had she gained chasing her steel? Not as many as Victor, but a lot. More than twenty, certainly.

“Nineteen months since we encircled this lair.”

“No, I mean on Dark Ember.”

She sighed, shaking her head. “More than four years. How long since Rellia declared war on the Ridonne? She did that when we’d been here two…”

“So, yeah. That was more than two years ago.” Victor turned toward the battle again. It was almost over for the day. The surge of undead was waning. Soon, his troops would be free to commence burning and smashing the warrens. They made a little progress every day, but it was tedious, difficult work. The ancient, dead wood didn’t like to burn, and it had a way of regenerating despite its lifeless nature.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. Just wondering if I made a mistake coming here. I don’t think I figured it would take this long.” Before she could answer, he turned and walked through the archway into the domed chamber atop his tower. At the center was a broad, circular table on which one of his aides had painted a map of Dark Ember. He gestured to the map. “Look.”

Arona moved to stand beside him, peering over the tabletop at the expansive map. There were four continents and a dozen large islands surrounded by blue- and green-painted oceans. The largest continent was shaded with lines of blue on the eastern half, all the way from the icy, landlocked north to the southern beaches. A large peninsula-shaped piece of land jutted out from the bottom edge that reminded Victor a lot of Mexico on maps of North America.

The blue lines continued south onto the peninsula to its southernmost point, where a red, star-shaped metal figurine sat. It indicated Victor and his army. Other icons were located further north on the peninsula, stretching westward, where his other armies were confronting lesser vampire lords and their cities. Lesh was leading one of those armies, and Bryn the other. The blue shading indicated the lands that they’d conquered thus far, and if you took in the map as a whole, it only represented about twenty percent of the landmass.

“I understand your point, Victor, but it’s not like we haven’t had this discussion a hundred times. What do you want to do? Leave?”

Victor growled, shaking his head. “You know I don’t. I’m just venting.” He tapped the map, indicating the second-largest landmass—a roughly circular continent about a thousand miles to the southeast of where they stood. His scouts hadn’t been able to travel to its center—the malaise of death Energy, and the flocks of ravenous bat-like creatures made it too risky. Still, he’d gotten a look on more than one occasion, pushing himself past comfort to peer at the enormous city and the pyramid at its center. “I just wonder if we could speed things along.”

“You’re so sure that’s where he is?” She was talking about Xelhuan, of course, Chantico’s son, and the main reason Victor was on Dark Ember. Was that true? How many people had he liberated? How many had he given peace by releasing the bonds of death Energy that held them on this plane of existence?

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“Yeah, I’m sure. No other place in this world holds the weight of the miasma that that city does.”

Arona nodded. She’d not yet made the journey to the heart of that dark continent—only Victor had proven capable thus far. He supposed that was a good test, a way to show that they weren’t yet ready to face Xelhuan. How could they if he couldn’t even bring his army to bear? “You want to move against him? If we establish a foothold on his shore, perhaps we can fight against the miasma.”

Victor nodded absently, but his mind had begun to drift down a tangent. Her words had triggered his own musings. If he could just break through the veil… If he could do that, he was confident that he’d be able to use his aura and domains to push the miasma back, to protect his army and give them a fighting chance on those shores. He tapped the map again, staring at the continent where Xelhuan lurked, and absently called up part of his status sheet:

Name:

Victor Sandoval

Race:

Nascent Primordial Titan - Legendary 5

Mantle:

The Mountain's Grim Peak - Epic

Level:

154

Breath Core:

Primordial Class - Epic 4

Core:

Spirit Class - Legendary 9

Breath Core Affinity:

Abyssal Magma - 9, Nullfrost - 9

Breath Core Energy:

67000/67000

Energy Affinity:

Hope 9.4, Fear 9.4, Rage 9.1, Unattuned 3.1

Energy:

411548/411548

Strength:

2176 (2276)

Vitality:

1372

Dexterity:

380 (625)

Agility:

403 (648)

Intelligence:

612

Will:

2095

Points Available:

980

How many levels had he gained since coming to Dark Ember? He honestly couldn’t remember if he’d broken past 100 before arriving or not, but whatever the case, he could confidently say he’d gained more than fifty on the undead world. Fifty levels, thousands of attribute points, countless iterations on his mantle, and he was still a steel seeker. Was it fair to call himself steel-bound? He didn’t think so—not after only a handful of years.

Even so, his mantle was driving him mad. He’d thought

he’d made quick progress and that things were going to be far easier than he’d anticipated. No matter what he did, how complicated he made his weave, he couldn’t break past “epic.” Regardless, he was growing in power. His strength and will had reached incredible heights, and he was sitting on enough free attribute points to tremendously shift his power if he were to focus them all into another attribute. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with them, though, and something in his gut told him to wait—that he’d be glad for those points when he perfected his mantle.

What was perfect, though? Was he so sure he could create a legendary one? He scoffed at the thought; when he’d first started experimenting, he’d been confident of finding something beyond legendary.

“What’s funny?”

He glanced at Arona. “Just thinking about my mantle.” A tremendous boom echoed out of the north from the battlefield, and Victor looked out the open archway, scanning the sky. Just as he’d suspected, one of the great branches of the dead tree was aflame. “They hit one of the bat nests.”

“Good. A few more and we’ll be able to mount aerial attacks.” Before Victor could comment, she switched back to the other topic. “My mantle is frustrating me, too.”

“Still nothing epic?”

She shook her head. “Advanced.”

“I know this is shitty to say, but I’m glad it’s not just me.” He chuckled as she narrowed her eyes. “I mean, honestly, you’re a damn sight better student than I am. When you hit steel seeker, I half expected you to pass me up within a few months.” Despite what he’d just said, he’d tried to give Arona pointers from what he’d experienced, only to learn that the old words of wisdom from Dar and others—that one person’s experience would vary vastly from another’s—were all too true. Arona’s “skein” and “frame” were, apparently, nothing like his.

Even her “threads” impacted her differently. Where Victor saw his life’s experiences in those threads, Arona saw lines of text in her mind’s eye. While he could combine threads and create different colors and Energy influences, Arona wove different phrases and words into sentences, poems, and even songs. It was strange, considering her usual taciturn, reserved nature, to think she interacted with her skein in such a manner, but the more he got to know her, the more it made sense.

Arona was a woman of deep thoughts and philosophical leanings, but she’d been trained to keep those thoughts to herself by her father and then her mentor and abuser, Vesavo. Over the last few years, though, she’d begun to come out of her shell. She’d even created a spell of light and music that unraveled the bonds of death Energy in the undead who heard it.

“I understand your sentiment, fear not.” She grinned almost evilly. “Often, I encourage myself by imagining your face if I manage to breach the veil before you do.”

Victor chuckled. “Evil.”

Arona’s eyes drifted to the north and the great tree of the undead. “We know where the evil lies in these parts.”

Victor nodded. “I think my time will be here soon. Can you feel it?”

“The reduced pressure?” She shook her head. “Strange as it may be, I’m not as sensitive to it as you are. Perhaps it’s due to your Spirit Core.”

“It definitely is. When I Spirit Walk, I can taste the death Energy in the air. I tried to approach that tree on the spirit plane, but it's like swimming through tar. It pulls and claws at me.”

“Aye, Victor. You’ve told me. I wish I could go with you.”

“You could.”

“I’d be helpless, however. I mean, compared to a Death or Spirit Caster.”

Victor nodded. She was right. There were things on the spirit plane surrounding Dark Ember, and if not for his powerful Core and prodigious will, they’d overwhelm him. “Still, it’s breaking. The tide is flowing out.”

“Will you be ready?” Arona’s voice was quiet, and she didn’t elaborate, but Victor knew what she meant. Was he ready to face a “Great Master?”

“I’d better be, huh?” He grinned at the way she clicked her tongue and inhaled. She wanted to scold him, but only because she wanted him to be serious. He relented and added, “I want to be done here. I want to put this pendejo down and see what I can gain from the encounter. Maybe I’ll gain some insight into my mantle. Regardless, I want to evaluate our plans. I’d like to explore the idea of forming another army. Lesh is a steel seeker now, and he’s already killed a handful of minor lords. Olivia—”

“Olivia has gone back to Fanwath. She and Morgan are standing against the Ridonne.”

Victor chuckled and nudged her shoulder. “I know. I was going to say Olivia did a hell of a job building that Elementalist brigade. Their numbers are swelling, and I think we could split them into two units.” He shook his head, waving a hand. “I’m getting ahead of myself. The thing is, I want to make a quick trip to Fanwath. I want to see this Ridonne thing resolved.”

“You can’t get involved in the fight, Victor. The protection agreements—”

“I know,” he said again, chuckling. “I want to visit Fanwath, and then I want to go to Sojourn. Every few days, I get a new message from Rellia. Too many people are dying, and there’s no damn good reason for it. The Ridonne are too secure, too insulated. I want to see what I can do to remove some of their support.”

“Vesavo…”

Victor nodded. “I know. He’s on their side, but I have a card I haven’t played yet.” He glanced at his status sheet again. “I think I’m ready to do it. I just wish I could pierce the veil first.”

Arona smiled slyly and pointed toward the distant battlefield. “You’ve some time. Perhaps you ought to spend a little time in your spirit space.”

“Smartass.” He chuckled, but, in truth, he knew she was right. He’d been avoiding his skein, his threads…his mantle. With a resigned sigh, he stopped laughing and nodded. “All right, you brat. I take your point.” He motioned toward the stairwell leading down. “Come and get me if something happens, yeah?”

“You can count on me.”

Victor looked into her eyes and nodded. “I know I can, Arona.”

She smiled, and it changed her entirely. She went from severe and coldly beautiful to radiant, and then she began to glow—literally. A soft solar aura surrounded her, and she lifted off the floor, hovering toward the open archway. “I’m going to join our troops until this wave is gone. I have an urge to unleash some destruction.”

“They’ll love that.” Victor shook his head, suddenly intensely jealous. “See if you can burn a path through that damn warren yet.”