The Blood King’s Apprentice Read online

  The Blood King’s Apprentice

  Storm Phase Book Four

  David Alastair Hayden

  Contents

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Afterword

  Also by David Alastair Hayden

  The Blood King’s Apprentice

  Storm Phase Book Four

  David Alastair Hayden

  * * *

  Copyright © 2015 by David Alastair Hayden

  All Rights Reserved

  * * *

  Version 4.0 | November 2015

  * * *

  Cover illustration by Leos Ng “Okita”

  Graphic Design by Pepper Thorn

  * * *

  No part of this work may be reproduced or distributed through any means without the written permission of the author, except for short quotations in reviews and other articles. Please purchase only from authorized sellers, and please do not participate in the piracy of copyrighted works. The author deeply appreciates your support.

  Prologue

  The girl only knew how to write one word: her name.

  She set aside her bloodstained war hammer and knelt. On a slab of stone, she clumsily scribbled in demon blood the two characters for her name. She had only learned them a few weeks ago. A boy she loved had taught her how to write. But already she was forgetting. As she wrote her name, she repeated it out loud. It was getting harder to speak it, too. It was only a matter of time before she forgot her name entirely, and then….

  A demon howled in the distance. More were coming. They were always coming for her. But she wasn’t afraid. She understood it wasn’t skill in battle that kept you alive here. It was heart. In this place, you could fight as well as you loved. The problem was the complete isolation, the endless battles and the relentless cold of dying were draining away her memories, and she could only love if she remembered.

  The demons closed in, but there was no point in running. She glanced around. Demon blood stained the ground a dozen paces in every direction, seeping into the gray stone, the scattered ashes and the lifeless soil. She should probably move on after the next battle. It was harder to fight on slick ground.

  She shivered. It was always cold here. Not an icy cold. That she could live with. This life-stealing cold crept through the blue-gray sonoke fur coat she wore and through her sonoke-skin shirt and even through the soft white fur she was born with. She wrapped her arms around her midsection and rocked back and forth, shivering and repeating her name.

  She had thought her homeland in the Ancient Cold and Deep was barren but compared to this place it was a giant oasis teeming with life. Here, eerie mists beneath dark clouds that never snowed draped an endless expanse of ashen earth and bleak stone. Day and night came, though neither the sun nor the moons were ever visible. Sometimes it was as dark as twilight for hours, and she could only see as far as she could throw her hammer. Other times, it was bright enough to see as far as the mists would allow. She had no idea how long she had been here. After the first five days, she had given up trying to tell when dawn arrived. And now…now she didn’t want to know. Time didn’t matter. She would fight until she got what she wanted or until she could fight no more.

  Nothing lived here except the packs of demons that hunted her: lanky ones, stumpy ones, the ones like snakes, the ones like wolves and the ones too terrible to describe, that vanished from memory because the mind couldn’t hold onto the image of them. But worst of all were the ones like men, women and children with twisted features and madness in their eyes.

  The demons would come at her with fangs and claws, horns and fins and spiked tails, or grasping, human hands. And she fought them all, bashing in heads until nothing moved. Her wounds—broken bones, cuts and bruises—would magically heal within a few minutes. And the demon blood would steam off her. There would be a short rest, half a day if she were lucky, and then she’d do it all over again.

  Movement to her right caught her eye. She grabbed her war hammer and jumped to her feet. But it was no demon she faced. A frail goronku woman with a dazed expression smiled half-heartedly and raised a hand—a trembling, bone-thin hand—and waved. The girl relaxed. This wasn’t one of the twisted, demonic people.

  “Hello, my dear.” The old woman glanced around. “What is this sad place I’ve come to?” She frowned. “You know, I can’t even recall now how I got here.”

  “I don’t know what this place is exactly,” the girl said, “but I call it Dying.”

  “Oh,” the woman said. “Of course.”

  The woman had once had white fur, but it had yellowed with age, except around her stunted, almost bearlike snout. Bears, that was what other peoples said the goronku reminded them of—because of their fur and stunted snouts, their beady eyes and round ears—but that did not offend the goronku, for bears were strong and proud.

  The woman smoothed out her simple dress of blue sonoke skin stitched lovingly with gold thread. She combed through the wispy mane of silver that fell to her shoulders. She took a deep breath and relaxed. “So, how long do we—” Her eyes lit up like those of a small child getting a birthday present. “Ah, look! The sun has risen.”

  To the girl it was still as dark and bleak as ever.

  “Laughter! Singing! Do you hear it, child? It’s so beautiful.”

  “Oh yes,” the girl said, lying.

  “You know, I think I recognize some of those voices.”

  “You should go to them.”

  “I think I will,” the woman said. With a smile, she began to fade. “It’s so lovely, dear. Wouldn’t you like to come along?”

  The girl’s breath caught. A bright laugh from nowhere tugged at her. The smell of roasted meat and tanned hides drew her. The music of stitching needles called to her. But she couldn’t let herself be drawn away. The girl focused on the boy she loved. She focused on his laughter and
bravery, on his handsome face and musical voice, on the way a kiss from him made her soul hum. She exhaled and shook her head. The distant call of peace and happiness vanished, along with the old goronku woman.

  She had seen a dozen others like the woman. They never stayed more than a few minutes before vanishing blissfully. Except for one who wandered off blindly without ever saying a word and two who screamed in agony before vanishing. She had wondered why those two didn’t stay in the barren waste like she had, since it was surely better than the hell to which they went. Then she realized that without love or passion, they couldn’t prevent the inevitable. Perhaps that lack was why they went where they had.

  A pack of demons broke free of the mists and charged her. She set her hammer down and casually retied her long, golden mane into a crude braid. A few tears of frustration escaped her eyes. She wiped them away, hefted the war hammer and met the demons head-on.

  She fought to live, to really live. And she fought for the boy she loved, whose name she no longer remembered. She shattered kneecaps, cracked ribs, severed tentacles and crushed skulls until the demons were no more. Lying in a heap, their skin sloughed off, their flesh melted and their bones turned to dust. Within minutes, dust and blood was all that was left of them.

  She had suffered only a few cuts and bruises. This had been an easy pack to kill. She knelt and prepared for what always came next.

  A searing pain burrowed deep into her lower neck at the base of the shoulder. Her face flushed. Her eyes watered. Her body burned as if her blood were boiling. She doubled over and her war hammer rolled from her grasp.

  At the end of every fight, and sometimes randomly, this pain struck her. No matter what the demons did to her body, this was always worse. After a few minutes, it would fade to a dull ache, like a wound mostly healed. This time was no different. The pain was already fading.

  A figure burst into view, pursued by a pack of demons that was easily five times as many as she had just fought. The young, male goronku was incredibly familiar to her. She couldn’t remember his name, but she knew his face. She had known him all her life. They had grown up together in the same village, and she was very fond of him.

  “Kurine!” he shouted. “Kurine!”

  She may have forgotten his name, but he remembered hers.

  When he reached her, he clutched at her hands and smiled. It was strange but comforting to feel the touch of another person again. “Come on!” He glanced back and tugged at her. “We have to run.”

  Kurine shook her head. “I don’t run. I fight.”

  His face creased into a worried frown. “I can’t fight them.” He held out his wide goronku hands. “I don’t have a weapon—” he gazed at her curiously “—like you do. The first time I tried to fight, a pair of demons nearly tore me to pieces.”

  Kurine chewed her lip as she examined him. “You’ve heard the music and the laughter, haven’t you?”

  “I hear it all the time. It’s hard to resist.”

  “I thought so. That makes you weak.” She gripped her war hammer and stepped forward. “Stand back. I will take care of these monsters. Then I will help you on your way to the beyond.”

  She fought harder than she had ever fought before, for the demons were so many and the boy so weak. And no wonder: not only was he hearing the music, but he had three terrible wounds that bled even here. Still, he wasn’t entirely helpless. With his bare hands, he killed a demon that slipped around behind her.

  When it was done, she had cuts and bruises all over and several ribs were cracked, making breathing difficult. One eye was swollen and her right ear had been torn off. She watched the ear fade into the earth and shrugged. It would grow back.

  The real pain began again. She collapsed as fire lanced through her shoulder.

  The boy rushed to her. “Are you okay?”

  “The worst of the pain will pass. It always passes. By the time the next pack of demons comes for me, I will be ready.”

  “You’re not afraid,” he said.

  “Why should I be?”

  “What happens if you die here?”

  Wincing, she climbed to her feet. “I don’t know. But I’m not worried. Demons cannot defeat me.” Wanting to feel the touch of another again, she took his hand. “Come, let’s walk to some place with fewer dissolving corpses. How long have you been here?”

  “Only a few hours…I think. Once I realized where I was, I knew you’d be here, trapped between life and death. I was in another part of the Shadowland a few days ago, you see. Only I was alive then.”

  “The Shadowland….” Kurine shrugged. “How did you find me?”

  “I just thought of you and…and I knew which way to go.”

  “Huh. How did you die?”

  “Three reitsu ambushed us as we neared the gate. They killed Narbenu, too.”

  Narbenu…she knew that name. His face appeared to her and she remembered. He had been such a strong, vibrant goronku. It was hard to imagine him dead.

  “Did he fade to the beyond?”

  “Almost immediately.”

  “Was he smiling?”

  The boy nodded. “I’d never seen him so happy before.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I feel like I should be angry about my death, but I’m not. Weird, huh?”

  “Maybe. But it’s good that you’re not. You don’t want to be angry here. There’s a furless madman in shining armor who haunts this land, slaying demons and wanderers alike. He’s almost a demon himself. I looked into his eyes and ran.” She shivered. “He was so filled with rage. I don’t know why Torment didn’t take him.”

  They stopped walking and sat together on a boulder. She peered curiously at him. Demons howled nearby.

  “More are coming,” he said with worry.

  “They always are. Why did you come looking for me?”

  “Because I love you, Kurine. I always have.”

  “You…love me?”

  “Remember how as children we’d pretend we were married? We always said we’d be together when we grew up. All you had to do was wait until I earned my freedom.”

  His name popped into her mind. “Kemsu!”

  Kemsu let go of her hands and nearly slipped from the boulder. “You—you had forgotten who I was?”

  “Only your name. Names fade quickly here.”

  He frowned. “You’ve been here too long.”

  “I still remember my name,” she said proudly. “I can even write it.”

  He sighed. “Now wonder you weren’t concerned that I had died. I thought you’d be upset about that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “This place is changing you. It’s taking away your emotions.”

  Something occurred to her. Something that had bothered her at first. Something she had let go because she’d had no way of figuring it out. “Kemsu, how did I end up here in the Shadowland?” She couldn’t bring herself to ask how she had died. Somehow, that didn’t seem like the right question.

  “It’s better if you don’t know.” Again he took her hands in his. “Let go, Kurine, and come with me to Paradise. We can be together and it will be better than anything we dreamed of when we were kids, better than anything we could ever have imagined.”

  She squeezed his hands. “We will see each other there one day. I promise. But I can’t follow you now.”

  “Kurine, you were dying and there was nothing anyone could do to cure you, so he put you under a stasis spell to preserve your body. That’s why you’re stuck here, neither living nor dead. But it’s just delaying the inevitable. It would be better if you moved on.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why preserve me if there’s nothing anyone can do?”

  “In his world, there’s a cure that can save you.”

  “If there’s a cure, I should wait.”

  “But he’s never going to get back to his world. He has to pass through three gates—three!—like our Winter Gate, all leading to other realms, in order to reach his own wor
ld. Even if he reaches the first realm—and I don't see how he can stay ahead of the yomon, since the reitsu slaughtered all the mounts—there’s an evil god trapped on the other side. You might end up trapped here, until….” He frowned as his voice trailed off.

  She wasn’t exactly sure who this he was that Kemsu was talking about, but Kurine believed in this he with all her soul. “He can do it.”

  “But he doesn’t even know how to work these gates.”

  “He’ll figure it out.”

  Kemsu shook his head. “Look at what this is doing to you. You’re losing your memory…fighting demons…seeing terrible things. Even if he can save you, by the time he does, what will be left of you that is still Kurine from Aikora?”

  “I’m sure my memories will come back.”

  “But you don’t know that!”

  Doubt crept into her like the deathly cold of this place. She shivered and tried to form an argument but couldn’t.

  “Even if he does bring you back to life, you’ll wake up in a strange land. You won’t know the customs. You’ll be hot all the time because it’s warm there. You’ll be the only goronku in their world. You will be alone.” He scooted close and looked deep into her eyes. “You don’t want to be alone there, do you?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I don’t.”

  “Your body may be trapped between life and death, but I’m certain your soul is free. You can let go. You can move beyond. We can be together forever.”

  “I could let go…if I wanted….”

  There came to her laughter and song carried by a fresh icy breeze.

  Her will faded. She could let go. She could move on. She wouldn’t have to fight demons anymore. She could be happy.

  “We’ll be married in Paradise,” he said.

  Her willpower sparked back to life. She couldn’t marry Kemsu. She was pledged to another. She shifted away from him.

  “I love you, Kurine.”

  “I love you, too, Kemsu. But as a brother.”

  He recoiled. Hurt stained his face with a deep frown.

  “We’re not children anymore,” Kurine said, “and I can’t love you the way you want. I’m pledged to another and I love him with all my being. I had forgotten my pledge but not the love. That love is what keeps me here. That love is what makes me strong enough to fight all these demons and win, time after time.”