Page 74 of Of Empires and Dust (The Bound and The Broken #4)

Chapter 70

The Belly of the Beast

20 th Day of the Blood Moon

Marin Mountains – Winter, Year 3081 After Doom

Arden ripped his Soulblade from the Urak’s chest, letting the beast drop. He twisted and caught another creature in mid-jump, his armoured fingers wrapping around its throat. Twice he drove his Soulblade into its gut before tossing it aside and unleashing a primal roar.

Shouts rose, hands pointing towards a tunnel on the other side of the cavern. The words were muffled in Arden’s ears. He charged forwards into a group of Bloodspawn. All he saw in his mind’s eye was Lyrin’s face, and the only sound that echoed was his fallen brother-knight’s voice.

He blocked the downswing of a massive black sword, green light bursting from the collision, then planted his boot in the wielder’s chest and sent the creature careening into an open chasm in the ground. He swung back his elbow, feeling a crunch as the plate of his Sentinel armour shattered bone. One backstep, one swing, and the creature was opened from shoulder to hip.

Arden twisted as a black spear thrust at his abdomen. He released his Soulblade and grasped the Urak’s head with both hands and rammed his helmet into its skull. As the creature staggered, Arden slammed his boot into the side of its knee, blood spraying as bone splintered. He ripped the spear from its arms, spun it, then drove it into the howling Urak’s neck, blood spurting around the shaft.

He left the weapon in its place. He pivoted and summoned his Soulblade in the same motion as he cleaved another beast in half, innards slopping onto the stone, blood glistening in the green light.

Arden heaved in laboured breaths, his blood on fire. Lyrin had died because of his choices. He had died because Arden had separated from the others. He would not allow that to happen again.

The sound of crunching rock caused Arden to spin. He released his Soulblade and caught a falling sword with his open palm, the steel clanging against his Sentinel armour.

The Urak before him roared, blood-red eyes wide, spittle flying. Arden grabbed its throat with his free hand and roared back. He jerked his right hand, twisting the beast’s wrist so that it lost its grip on the sword. Drawing all his strength, he drove his right fist into the Urak’s gut, the power of his Sentinel armour snapping bones, and still he roared. The beast clawed at him, howling.

“Is that all?” he screamed. In his mind, memories flitted from Ilnaen to the ambush in ?lm Forest to the battle of The Glade. These creatures had been at the heart of his darkest days. They had taken his closest friends, one after another.

He would not wallow in what he had lost, but neither would he forget them. He would use their memories as fuel. He would tear these beasts apart, and he would paint his vengeance in blood.

Arden placed a closed fist against the Urak’s skull and summoned his Soulblade. The creature went limp in a burst of green light.

He turned just as a monstrous weight slammed into his chest and sent him hurtling across the ground. His head rang from the impact, and it was by pure instinct that he threw himself to the side as a clawed foot crashed down where he had lain.

Arden dragged himself to one knee, a Bloodmarked staring down at him, the runes in its flesh billowing black smoke.

A green Soulblade burst through its chest from the back while a second cleaved its arm at the elbow. When the beast fell, Brother Kevan and Sister-Captain Ruon stood in its place.

Ruon offered Arden an arm and hauled him to his feet. “Not the time for it. Focus.”

She needed no more words. They had spoken at length in the Tranquil Garden. She knew his burdens, knew his loss.

“Yes, Sister-Captain.”

“I need you to lead, Brother Arden. There are many new souls within our ranks this night. You are now a veteran of our number.”

“Yes, Sister-Captain,” Arden said again.

“Forward!” Kallinvar’s voice echoed like thunder, and Arden turned to see the man charging through three Bloodmarked, a score of knights around him.

The other knights moved about through the enormous cavern, their Soulblades blending with the light of the hundreds of gemstones set in iron sconces fixed to rock. The entire knighthood bore down on the Urak hold – a decision Kallinvar had made after Ilnaen.

So many brother and sister knights had fallen since the Blood Moon had risen. He’d lost count. As one fell, their Sigil was granted to another, and so on, and so on. Brother Galvar and Brother Turilin of The Third fell to a Shaman the same night they had lost Lyrin in Ilnaen. And Brother-Captain Darmerian of The Fifth as well. They were stronger together, fighting as one.

Many of the knights Arden fought beside now were faces he had not known a month before, or a week, or even a day. And it was clear in the way they moved in their Sentinel armour, in the way they wielded their Soulblades. Arden had been given two years before he’d been sent on task from the temple. Many of these men and women had been given little more than a day. They had been warriors in their past lives and so were well acquainted with death, but to be a Knight of Achyron was something different entirely. They no longer faced other men and woman but demons of Efialtír himself.

“Come, brothers,” Ruon said. “Let us pray to Achyron this is the night we find it.”

Kallinvar had said the convergence of the Taint in this Urak hold was the largest he had sensed since the Blood Moon had risen. They had spent hours carving their way through, trying to push towards the source. Six knights had fallen already, and many were injured.

As they drove further into the hold, the oily poison of the Taint grew thicker in the air, shifting in pulsing waves. It probed at Arden’s mind, scratching over his skin and setting his hairs on end.

They came to a fork, the tunnel diverging. The core of the Taint lay ahead.

“Olyria, Ruon, Armites, Gandrid,” Kallinvar called out, pointing his Soulblade towards the tunnel mouth on the left. “Take your chapters to the left. Reach through the Sigil if you find anything.”

Ildris and Sylven pulled in beside Arden as the knighthood split, Sister Intara and Brother Endan alongside them. It was a strange thing to feel the pull of Daynin’s and Mirken’s Sigils but to know other souls held from Heraya’s embrace were beneath the helmets.

Uraks flooded from side tunnels, howling and roaring, wielding their blackened steel, gemstones glowing red in the weapons’ hilts. Arden carved through them with a fury, his Soulblade slicing flesh and bone alike. The further they pushed down the tunnel, the harder the Uraks fought and the greater their numbers. But Arden never stopped moving forwards, the others falling in behind him, Ruon, Ildris, and Varlin.

The tunnel opened into a small chamber with many levels rising upwards through the rock, connected by staircases of rough-hewn stone. Iron sconces and braziers stuffed with gemstones bathed the cold rock in crimson light, causing Arden to feel as though he had walked into the void itself.

Arden had never before seen the inside of an Urak hold. He had never even thought of where the beasts slept, where they ate or lived. In his mind, they had been akin to wild animals, sleeping in caves and surviving only for the sake of it. But this place had been carved over centuries, constructed with thought and care. This was their home. Rough-hewn benches of stone and iron were scattered about, along with chairs, baskets of half-rotted fruit, and buckets of salted meat. On the second level, deer carcasses hung from iron hooks alongside those of pigs and sheep – likely stolen from the farms nearby.

But any illusion that these beasts were anything other than monsters was shattered when he looked a little higher and saw the flayed bodies of men, women, and children hanging from more hooks.

A cacophony of roars echoed from the upper levels and the branching tunnels. Within a heartbeat, Uraks were leaping from above and swarming through the tunnels.

Before Arden even had the chance to move, a Bloodmarked crashed down onto the newly-inducted Brother Endan, its obsidian claws skewering him through the chest. The beast roared, and a pulse of Taint burst outwards, its runes igniting with crimson light.

Black fire swirled about the Bloodmarked’s arm and through its claws, consuming Brother Endan. His screams lasted only seconds.

It was Brother Kevan who reached the creature first. His Soulblade carved through the Bloodmarked’s arm, the runes blazing and smoke billowing. But the beast caught him with a backswing and sent him crashing into a group of Uraks.

Arden’s feet moved even before his thoughts had fully formed. He charged forwards and leapt onto a rock before throwing himself into the crush of beasts that fell upon Brother Kevan. He summoned his Soulblade and drove it down through an Urak’s back as he landed, releasing the weapon as the creature crashed to the ground. Arden rolled, freeing himself of the beast’s lifeless body. Rising, he once more summoned the ancient weapon, green light bursting from his fist.

The Soulblade came into existence just in time to catch the downswing of a jet-black axe that had been destined to remove Kevan’s head from his shoulders.

Arden swung his blade up the steel, then snapped it back down, severing the Urak’s arms at the wrists. Without missing a beat, he twisted at the waist, threw his weight onto his back leg, and swung the light-wrought blade up through the creature’s jaw in a burst of blood.

He reached back, felt a hand wrap around his forearm, and pulled. No words passed between Arden and Brother Kevan. The two knights stood back to back, Soulblades ignited in their fists. Together, they cut down anything that came close. Where Uraks moved, green light shone and bodies fell.

“Brothers!” Brother-Captain Armites strode through the thick of bodies, carving a path, six of his knights fighting beside him. They cut their way to Arden and Kevan, leaving a momentary stillness around them.

Arden released his Soulblade and grasped Brother-Captain Armites’s pauldron. “Thank you, Brother-Captain.”

“Don’t thank me yet, brother. There is plenty more time to die. Though, the Bloodspawn look to be retreating.” He glanced about at the emptying chamber. Any Bloodspawn that lingered were being cut down left and right.

“They’re not retreating,” Ruon called out as she approached, Ildris, Varlin, and Sylven with her. The new recruit, Sister Intara, knelt by Brother Endan’s body.

Ruon pointed to a large tunnel mouth on the left side of the chamber, three levels up. “They’re falling back. The Taint pulses from that direction. Whatever they are defending so ferociously lies there.”

“I will summon the Grandmaster,” Armites said, inclining his head to Ruon.

Ruon held up an open palm. “Not yet. This entire hold reeks of Efialtír’s touch, and the Essence of stolen lives illuminates the very chamber we stand in. I would not call him until we are certain.”

“Brother-Captain Gandrid,” Ruon called, “Sister-Captain Olyria, take the rearguard. Armites and I will lead the way.”

Olyria pulled her blade from the chest of a dead Bloodmarked and gave a sharp nod.

“Knights of The Seventh, form up!” Gandrid roared. “Nothing gets past us.”

“Yes, Brother-Captain!” the knights answered.

Ruon lifted Intara to her feet, then knelt over Endan. “We will find you in his halls, brother,” she whispered, her helmet receding as she looked down upon the man’s blackened corpse. “Drink well.”

She rose slowly and let out a soft sigh before pulling her gaze from the body of the man who had been called to serve The Warrior for little more than three days. “Whatever this place is,” she said, her helmet reforming, eye slits glowing a vivid green, “none of these monsters are leaving it.”

Ruon and Brother-Captain Armites led the knights of The Second and The Sixth to the third level and into the wide tunnel that sank deeper into the mountain.

“Knights of Achyron!” Ruon’s voice echoed, and Arden looked ahead to see the tunnel opening and a tide of Uraks filling it, leathery skin glowing from the red light of the gemstones. “Pain is the path to strength!”

Even as Arden echoed the cry, he was charging. Ildris, Varlin, Sylven, Kevan, Ruon, and Intara matched his strides, the knights of The Sixth mingled between them.

Each step thundered through him, rattling his bones. But so too did each step bleed iron into his heart, solidifying his resolve.

“For Lyrin,” Arden whispered as he slammed his shoulder into the wave of Uraks. Bone crunched. He leaned back, creating space, then thrust his blade into a beast’s throat, blood sluicing as he ripped it free.

He fell into a rhythm, his Soulblade cleaving bones, rending flesh, and spilling blood. Knights died around him, his Sigil burning with each loss, his heart growing harder, his soul resolute. He would not allow Efialtír to destroy this world. Not while there was air in his lungs and blood in his veins.

“Ildris!” he roared. “Push!”

“Go! We’re with you!” Ildris answered, taking an Urak’s head from its shoulders as he did, blood splattering Intara’s Sentinel armour.

Arden lunged forwards and swept his Soulblade in a wide arc, bone and flesh yielding to the might of a weapon wrought from the soul of a god. They needed to reach the chamber ahead. The Taint surged from it, like an overfull barrel of oil that leaked from a hundred cracks.

Forwards, he pushed, his Soulblade the guiding light and the vengeful hammer.

“For Achyron!” A wave of righteous fury overcame him, and for a moment he thought he could feel Achyron’s will flowing through his body, The Warrior’s voice resounding in his head. “No mercy, my child. You are my sword in the mortal world. Give them no ground.”

As the knights pushed and the Uraks fell and the chamber grew ever closer, a brilliant red light shone from within.

A surge of pain swept through Arden’s Sigil, and he felt two knights of The First fall in a single heartbeat – Brother Sangwen and Sister Helka. Beside him, Sister Intara fell to one knee, her Soulblade vanishing from her grasp. No cracks split her armour, no wound marred her flesh that he could see.

“Get up,” Arden roared, grabbing her under the arms and hauling her upright. “Pain is the path to strength, sister.”

“I can… I…” Her voice trembled. “I can feel them die… I felt Endan die?” She tapped the Sigil on her chest, her helmet turning to liquid metal and receding, her eyes raw and red, tears streaming.

“Recall your helm!” Arden snapped.

“I could… it… I… I can’t do—” A black spear punched into Sister Intara’s exposed face. The black steel ripped at her flesh and shattered her cheek, then burst from the back of her skull in a mist of blood and bone. Arden’s Sigil once again burned with a fury.

He stood there for a moment, watching as the Sentinel armour that encased Intara’s body turned to liquid and flowed back towards the Sigil in her chest.

His heart aflame, Arden turned and charged. “Knights of Achyron, with me!”

A chorus answered, and the knights surged forwards, forcing the Uraks back into the chamber beyond. The crimson glow of the gemstones was so bright it was as though, there, thousands of feet within the mountain, they fought beneath the light of the moon.

The chamber was massive, stretching off into the distance in all directions, the ceiling tall enough for ten men to stand on each other’s shoulders.

Arden barely looked. He swung his Soulblade like a man possessed, cutting down everything that moved. An Urak axe skittered off his pauldron, and he swung his blade, leaving the beast’s face dangling, jawless.

“Shaman!” a voice called out.

Arden snapped his head around to see a robed beast clutching a black staff, a gemstone pulsing at its top. A score of Bloodmarked stood alongside it.

Black fire surged from the Shaman’s staff, and Arden’s Sigil ignited once more as Brothers Inavor and Horun of The Third were ripped from the world.

Ruon cried out and charged, her Soulblade glistening. She slid on her knees and ducked the swing of the black-fire níthral that formed in the Shaman’s hand. Rising, she cut a Bloodmarked’s legs out from under it before spinning and carving through its thick neck.

All four chapters descended on the Bloodmarked and the Shaman. The Taint crashed through the chamber in waves, surging from the Shaman and from a pit at the chamber’s centre. The oily tendrils scratched at Arden’s mind as he fought, more Uraks pouring in from the connecting tunnels.

It was like nothing he’d ever felt, almost as though a voice whispered in the back of his mind. “They’re not brothers… They are your slavers. They keep you from your kin…”

Arden pushed the thoughts back, shielding his mind.

“Do not listen!” Ildris shouted, his voice a distant echo. “Efialtír’s whispers are poison!”

A burst of green light erupted in front of Arden and Kallinvar charged through the Rift, Soulblade ignited, the remainder of the knighthood at his back.

“For Achyron!” the Grandmaster bellowed.

Sister-Captain Emalia swept past him like a force of nature, The Tenth at her side, and the Uraks fell before them.

In what felt like heartbeats, the fighting was over, hundreds of bodies littering the ground.

Grandmaster Kallinvar held the Shaman by its throat, both of its arms severed, the bones of its right leg shattered a thousand ways.

“Where is it?” Kallinvar growled.

The Shaman spluttered and choked, the blood that dripped from its wounds as red as its eyes. “We have failed…” The Shaman’s voice was akin to a stone dragged across rusted iron. “But… he will cross, and you will die.”

“It’s like Ilnaen,” Olyria whispered. Arden followed her gaze to the pit at the centre of the chamber. Thousands of gemstones were piled at the centre, glowing with the light of a red sun.

“Strike them down and gain your freedom,” a voice whispered in Arden’s mind. “I will protect you.”

“Get out of my head,” Arden whispered, clenching his fingers into fists. He dragged his gaze from the pit. It was as though the entire chamber was submerged in the Taint itself.

“You hear it too?” Brother Kevan grabbed Arden’s wrist. “Shut it out.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Arden snapped, yanking his hand away. He turned towards the far edges of the chamber. Water glistened in the red light, streaming from small passages in the rock into pools carved into the ground. He could still hear the Shaman choking, Kallinvar’s voice harsh and cold.

“Don’t be an idiot.”

“What did you say?” Arden whipped his head around and stared at Brother Kevan.

“I didn’t speak, Brother Arden.”

“He thinks you a fool,” the voice whispered.

Arden clenched his jaw and turned away from Kevan. He looked towards the rock pools. They lined the entire left wall, stretching onwards to the depths of the chamber’s far end.

As he stepped closer, the Shaman’s screams echoed, harsh and guttural.

“Tell me where it is!” Kallinvar’s voice boomed.

Arden looked down into the nearest rock pool to see the water ran pink, tarnished by blood.

“What is it?” Sister-Captain Olyria asked, moving to Arden’s side.

“I don’t know…” Arden trailed off as his stare moved to a mound on the far side of the pool. The closer he got, the clearer it became. Bodies piled atop each other, tiny and fragile, the birth cords still attached to their navels. “That can’t be…” He swallowed, his heart quickening. “That’s not what I think it is.”

“Don’t go closer, bastard ,” Olyria said, resting a hand on Arden’s chest.

“What did you call me?”

“I didn’t.” Olyria’s helmet receded, her eyes narrowing in confusion. “I told you not to go closer.”

“I…” Arden recalled his helmet and pressed a hand to his temple.

Olyria’s expression softened. “Don’t go closer. The sight is not one you want etched into your memories. Trust me.”

Arden nodded vacantly, still staring at the mound of tiny bodies. They were so frail, their skin grey, eyes empty and white.

A shriek let Arden know that the Shaman had drawn his last breaths. He looked back just as Kallinvar roared and threw the broken corpse to the rock.

The Grandmaster stood over the dead Shaman, his Soulblade ignited, the crimson light of the gemstones glinting on his Sentinel armour.

“The Heart is not here,” Kallinvar declared, staring down at the body. “They tried to create a crossing without it.” He gestured towards the pit in the centre of the chamber.

“And sacrificed the lives of their young to do so…” Sister-Captain Airdaine of The Ninth whispered, just loud enough for Arden to hear. The realisation in Airdaine’s voice sent a shiver through him, and he looked back towards the bodies.

He had known the Bloodspawn harvested Essence from those they slaughtered to give life to their young – a need birthed by a curse that befell them long ago. Though the Watchers and the priests said it was a curse set by Efialtír himself.

“Lies, lies, lies!” the voice screeched in Arden’s mind.

Arden pushed it back, focusing on the bodies. He had known why they harvested, but… something felt wrong. Those bodies were not Uraks, not the beasts he knew. They were babies, innocent and gentle… betrayed.

A blinding crimson light filled the air as Kallinvar swept his Soulblade through the gemstones in the pit, shattering them with each swing. More knights joined and made short work of it until it was nothing but a hole filled with broken shards.

With the gemstones destroyed and the Essence released, the Taint all but evaporated from the air and the voice scratching at Arden’s mind vanished.

“We return to the temple,” Kallinvar called out, the Rift opening before him. “We will find new Sigil bearers, and we will strike again. Efialtír does not rest, and so neither will we.”

“Pain is the path to strength,” a voice answered, others joining.

A hand rested on Arden’s shoulder – Ruon’s. “Come, brother. There is no peace to be found here.”

Arden nodded, then turned and walked with his captain back through the Rift.