Book of Kinsey: Dark Fate (The Dark Fate Chronicles 2) Read online

  DARK FATE

  Book of Kinsey: Volume Two

  by

  Matt Howerter & Jon Reinke

  Copyright © 2014 Idea Forge Publishing, LLC

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art, design, map illustration and formatting by

  Matt Howerter

  Website

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic or physical editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Dedicated to Earl.

  Dark Fate: Book of Kinsey

  Jacket Blurb

  A spirit warrior.

  A failing king reborn.

  A nation poised at the edge of war.

  Kinsey travels to Mozil, mountain kingdom of the dwarves. There, he is to meet his last living relative who may unlock the key that will help him harness the raging power within, lest it destroy him and everything he holds dear.

  All is not well in the dwarven homeland. Those who seek power for their own ends threaten the balance of unity that will be sorely needed to survive the dark days ahead. Tempers flare and Kinsey’s newfound talents and companions will be pushed to their utmost as an all-consuming doom draws near.

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  PINPRICKS of starlight grew on the eastern horizon as dusk approached. Steady winds from the mountains to the west pushed away the ever-present fog and mist from the marshlands of Skelris, leaving the air crisp and clear.

  Maharuke watched the pathetic goblins scurry about, building cook fires for the stirring horde. The mewling squeals of the small furry creatures the goblins were spitting amused him. He considered shoving aside the cretinous goblins to skewer the still-living rodents himself but grunted in distaste at the slaves’ work. It was beneath him.

  The army of his kin sprawled around him in a chaotic jumble of lean-tos, lounging bodies, pack animals, and slaves. Tens of thousands strong, they had marched nights and slept during the hateful light of day once they had left the sheltering mists. The unveiled sun was harsh on the skin and eyes of his kin. Their cultivation over centuries in the dark and fog-shrouded places of Skelris had made them strong and savage, but the sun had never been a friend of the horde.

  A slobbering, harsh voice drew his eye back to his companions.

  “You’d have us split our forces, Maharuke.” Harn pointed a heavy, clawed hand at the hobgoblin overlord. “Not wise, I say!”

  A grumble of agreement came from many who had gathered around Maharuke’s fire to consult on the horde’s path from this point forward. They sat at the southern tip of Long Lake, near the spewing mouth that fed the Wetlands below. Maharuke would see them divide and travel north on either side of the freshwater ocean. The dimwitted fools sitting before him found solace in each other, but none would challenge his decision alone.

  Maharuke leveled a steady glower at the slouching, overly fat second-in-command. All the chieftains but Maharuke himself were crouched around the campfire.

  Harn dropped the gnarled hand he had been pointing. His ragged nails disappeared into the folds of flesh below a filthy loincloth as he scratched at his crotch and continued to stare with discontent. Harn’s face had been decorated with piercings made from the finger bones of enemies who had fallen before him. Once, Harn had been mighty, but now he had become a flabby, whining dog.

  It was likely that Maharuke would have to kill him soon. He allowed his lips to twitch as he pulled them over his tusks at the thought. He slapped his thick arms and asked, “What’s it you fear, Harn, the lack of my strong arms to protect you?”

  Howls of laughter went up around the campfire, and Harn leaned forward, baring his pitted teeth in rage. “The oomans know we come for them. You weaken us with no cause!”

  Maharuke dismissed his second’s words with a wave. “We knew they would discover us. It means nothin’.” Jutting his jaw northwest over the lake, he continued, “The mountain moles have fields of food planted in the Lowlands. We needs that grub, unless you wants to eat goblin when we reach the Stone.” Maharuke aimed a kick at one of the pathetic little creatures.

  The goblin dodged and cringed away from the blow, dropping its scraps and bones. The others around the fire nodded in agreement with their overlord, and this time even Yunn, the high shaman of Harn’s tribe, tilted his head in acceptance. Harn toyed with the piercings along his jawline, attempting to find a fallacy in Maharuke’s logic.

  “We needs to commune with Mot,” Harn’s ragged shaman proclaimed suddenly, while his tribe leader sat in puzzlement. “His guidance will show us the way.”

  Maharuke glanced at his own shaman, Barkon. His eyes gleamed with the fading sun as he cut his glance toward Yunn, but he said nothing. Instead, the gangly hobgoblin settled back on his broken log, content to watch.

  “Mot don’t speak without sacrifice!” Harn’s chins rolled as he growled. “We gots no time for that!”

  Voices rose again as the tribe leaders began to bicker about the way to choose the course ahead, but Maharuke turned away. In the end, they would do as he told them to. They knew the price for refusal—at least, some of them did.

  He watched the purpling sky’s reflection in the clear water of Long Lake. Maharuke was fascinated by the water. Nothing in the Wetlands was so pure or clean. Beauty in the swamp was all too often a lure for the unwary, veiling poison and death.

  Maharuke had longed to possess the lands of the north ever since his childhood. Before he had seized his freedom, he had already traveled to the rich northlands on many raids. Even as a slave, he had understood the potential fruits that were there for the taking. He knew in the darkest pit of his heart that one day he would return to claim them.

  The giant hobgoblin overlord had been born amongst the nomadic human tribes of the Savage Lands: the product of a human blood sport that ended with his hobgoblin mother being raped by his ogre father. From his birth, Maharuke’s parentage had given him great strength and fortitude, but for the first two decades of life, it won him only servitude. The Nomads of the Savage Lands had used him for a beast of burden and as a plaything in their blood sports until the day he had bartered his way to freedom with murdering hands.

  After his master lay dead, Maharuke had fled to Skelris, where his size and strength served him well. The skills learned amongst the humans in their games of death and manipulation had made it an almost simple matter to rise to mastery in the tribes. No matter his station amongst his kin, however, he never stopped yearning to return to the North. Now, after a lifetime of waiting, his time had come. The Mistress, Selen, would see his dreams fulfilled.

  Selen had been the one to bring the bickering goblin tribes together centuries ago. Under her hand, the violent predilections of the goblinoid races had been shaped and directed; and they
had grown. The world was unprepared for them, he knew. Under the sheltering and refining mists of Skelris, the “horde” that the nations of men believed they knew had become a horde in earnest. More, they were directed in a way that they never could have been without her dread influence. Selen would dominate the northlands, just as she had done with the tribes, and Maharuke would rule them for her.

  The hobgoblin overlord smiled at the thought and ripped off another chunk of horseflesh from the leg bone held in his broad hand. He chewed with pleasure on the tough meat while watching goblins scoop water from the pristine lake until Harn’s thick voice drew his attention back to the bickering.

  “We can take the oomans’ grub on the way to Stone Mountain,” Harn was saying. “No need for the dwarf grub!”

  Maharuke turned away from the lake to focus on Harn once more. “Stupid!” he growled. The hobgoblin overlord threw the horse leg at his second.

  The bone tumbled through the air, end over end, until it connected with Harn’s forehead. The meaty drumstick bounced off the fat hobgoblin’s skull with a loud thunk and toppled to the ground. Harn blinked, stunned.

  “You said yourself, they know we’re comin’!” Maharuke shouted over the ensuing howls of laughter, cutting them short. “You think they just gonna leave them fields for us?!” He shook his head angrily. “No. Stupid. They gonna burn ’em. They gonna burn everything before we gets to it! Them moles is different. They won’t burn nothin’.”

  The fat hobgoblin began to get to his feet, his pierced features twisting in rage.

  Screams from the goblins behind Maharuke interrupted whatever Harn had been about to say. As one, Maharuke and the other tribe leaders spun around in surprise.

  Broken body parts dangled from the jaws of a gigantic crocodile that had lunged from the still waters of the lake into the group of laboring slaves at the water’s edge. A deep-throated rumbling presaged another plunging snap of the beast as it tried for more of the scrambling goblins. A hiss of frustration bled from the massive maw after teeth closed on empty air. The tiny, terrified minions scattered in every direction, leaving precious few morsels to distract the monster. The rumbling growl came again as the luminescent orange eye fell on the campfire and the large bodies surrounding it.

  The croc was enormous, dwarfing even the deep-swamp pythons that commonly grew to more than forty feet in length. The swinging head was ten or more feet of jaw by itself. The tiny goblins trying to rush away looked like terrified mice fleeing from an enraged cat. Huge claws speared and crushed bodies into the mud as the giant body slid entirely out of the water.

  Maharuke laughed as the other tribe leaders scattered. He grabbed hold of Harn as the fat hobgoblin attempted to rush by, anger forgotten. “Coward!” Maharuke bellowed as he twisted Harn’s arm behind his blubbery back. The hobgoblin overlord then wrapped a muscled forearm under Harn’s multiple chins.

  Harn squealed in pain. “We do as you say. Let go! We do as you say!”

  “Yes, we do as I say,” Maharuke roared. He twisted Harn’s arm until it snapped under the pressure.

  The fat hobgoblin screamed and flailed at Maharuke with his free hand. The giant croc was gaining momentum as it charged the campfire. The tail thrashed wildly as it came.

  Maharuke’s lips peeled back with a chuckle of wicked satisfaction, and he shoved his second in command into the path of the charging monster.

  Harn stumbled forward, screaming in panic. His broken arm dangled uselessly as he tried to step out of the crocodile’s charge. The croc’s jaws split wide and twisted slightly to engulf Harn’s tottering body. Harn’s panicked screams turned to howls of pain as the massive jaws closed upon him, crushing his ribs.

  Maharuke bellowed with laughter at the sight of the blood streaming from his former companion’s face. It had been far too long since he had had a good fight, and Mot had favored him with the reminder that even here, beauty often heralded danger.

  Maharuke unsheathed a mighty two-handed sword. The wickedly barbed blade glinted in the reflected light of the campfire and the last gasps of the dying sun. Black runes inlaid through the runnels drank in the combined light and gave back nothing. He had received it from Selen’s own hand when he proved himself worthy of leading the host. He had waded deep in the blood of others to provide that proof, and he would gladly do it again.

  The crocodile had halted its rush as it consumed the broken body of Harn. It worried the corpse as the jaws worked at the blubbery flesh. The croc was huge, but Harn had been better than thirty stone of muscle and flab. Wet snapping rolled from the giant jaws as the croc reared its head high to move the meal into its gullet.

  Maharuke lunged under the huge head and twisted his body in a fierce two-handed swing.

  The edge of his broad blade bit deep into the lower jaw of the giant reptile, severing it from the beast’s body. The scaled jaws dropped at Maharuke’s feet with the mangled remains of his erstwhile second, and the croc reared away from the pain, coughing violently. The beast’s expulsion of breath mingled its blood with Harn’s, and Maharuke reveled in the warm, sticky feel as it coated his body.

  Maharuke pressed his attack, rushing toward the croc as it thrashed away from the sudden pain. He leapt high and brought the enchanted blade down in a two-handed thrust, spitting the long snout of the crocodile just in front of the eyes. His weight and momentum slammed the sword entirely through the armored skin and bone, skewering the head to the packed earth. Agonized hissing escaped the throat of the beast, and it desperately tried to roll away from the pain.

  Maharuke slid to the ground, leaving his weapon to pin the beast, and drew almost two feet of steel from a sheath at his side. Ebon runes like those on the sword had been etched into the blade of this knife as well. The flat black of the inlay drank the meager light hungrily. Maharuke held the knife in one hand as he vaulted over a clawed forelimb that was attempting to roll the massive body.

  The crocodile’s thrashing exposed the pallid underbelly of the beast to the orange glow of the failing day. Maharuke sank the blade into the flesh and began to run down the length of the body, pulling the knife along the scales as he ran.

  The monster’s skin parted as easily as cloth under shears. Offal spilled out onto the ground, and the stink of it swept up to envelop Maharuke.

  He backed away from the thrashing body and watched with smug satisfaction as the monstrous croc played out its death throes. “There be your sacrifice,” Maharuke roared at Harn’s shaman, who cowered behind the other leaders that had finally stopped running. Maharuke gestured at the mangled forms of croc and hobgoblin alike.

  It had been a satisfying fight, but too short. The chieftains and their shamans had barely had a chance to run for shelter before it was over. The group shambled back as the giant crocodile shuddered its last and lay still.

  If Harn’s death had disturbed Yunn, the shaman hid it well. He glanced at Barkon as if seeking guidance or permission. Barkon inclined his head but made no move to rise. Yunn began mumbling a prayer as he hunched over his former chieftain’s body with a ceremonial dagger drawn. He carved symbols into Harn’s bile-covered forehead and sang out to his god of death, Mot the Destroyer.

  Yunn’s body convulsed and his eyes rolled back. The singing faded to an indecipherable gabble, and he began to twitch and drool. Maharuke and the others watched as Yunn’s body settled and his eyes rolled back into place to focus once more on the world around him. He looked at Maharuke with eyes reminiscent of the dead croc’s and spoke. “We divide as you say. Tell us how we be splittin’ and it’ll be done.”

  Maharuke’s grin deepened, and his yellow eyes turned to regard the lake that had once more settled to placid beauty. The sun had failed completely, leaving the water like black glass. These lands will be mine.

  Erik limped in the wake of the small troop of dwarves as they made their way to the pack animals that had been promised.

  The last thing that he could recall before waking to the disturbingly pale visage
of the “Master” was the brief struggle in the deep jungle. He and Sacha had been dragged into the depths of the undergrowth and bundled into sticky webs by something as men died around them. He shuddered at the thought of Mason being impaled on otherworldly spikes. The dying man’s screams had filled his ears until the threads that cocooned him deadened his nerves and blackened his consciousness.

  Mason and the others had been no friends of his, true, but still Erik had wished them no malice. Bale had given them a job to do, and they were intent upon fulfilling it. Even Mason’s “offer” of a quick death had been made not with a wish to kill him but in the sure knowledge that Erik would die soon. The effort Sacha was demanding would have cost those that survived dearly; Erik’s death was just a reasonable transaction to the soldier.

  How much time had passed since their capture Erik didn’t know. The Master had not answered his questions. Enough time might have passed that Princess Sloane could have already married Prince Alexander. She seemed to wield some authority back in the clearing, or feel she did. He cursed his still-muddled thoughts. At the least, he could have asked Rouke for news of the trip. There remained so much that he still didn’t know.

  What he did know was that his injuries had been miraculously healed–well, partially healed anyway, he amended as a loose stone threatened to upend his unsteady stride. Erik was no surgeon, but the potential consequences of a collapsed lung were no mystery, and that was before the rough treatment of the river. The two bolts he had taken should have been the end of him.

  Grousing like Kinsey, he thought, watching his son’s body sway in its litter. Kinsey would have been hot about the remnants of pain in Erik’s gimpy leg and asking why this pale stranger had acted on his behalf at all.

  Kinsey’s suspicion about the motivation of others could be tiresome, but in this case Erik himself wondered about the motivations of this Master character. More importantly, he wondered whether the man was trustworthy or even technically a man at all. There had been a very strange presence to the pale figure that made Erik’s elven ears twitch. Most likely, we are best served to be away, he thought.