Harbinger: The Downfall - Book One Read online

  With a quick motion, blood sprouted from his throat. She released him as he gurgled, choking on his own blood, and he fell back into the mud.

  “You said we could have him,” the lead mercenary said, “he isn’t worth as much to us dead. Why did you kill him?”

  “No loose ends. Your employers will be just as happy to have his corpse to desecrate,” Gruedo said. “Besides, Smudge is still alive and I am sure they can have their fun with him.” The man nodded and shrugged, showing his indifference. “You remember your part of the deal?”

  The man nodded, “We will tell the authorities that you were a pawn and had nothing to do with the robbery of our employers, and were a victim of their sick hungers.”

  “Why do you work for them if it disgusts you so much?” Gruedo asked, wiping her blade on the back of her dying boss.

  “They pay well.”

  “What if you could have their money without having to deal with their perverted needs? Interested?” She asked as she stepped away from Krendal as his legs kicked in his death throes. The mercenary thought for a moment, smiled then nodded. “Good, I will contact you again soon to discuss a plan I have.”

  The five men gathered the two dead bodies, and Smudge, loaded them into a wagon that one of the men pulled from an alley and headed into the misting rain. Once they were gone Gruedo gestured to the shadows across the street. A young boy in fine clothes and slave collar came out to meet her.

  “Did you see, child?” she asked. The boy nodded.

  “You want your freedom?” The boy nodded again. “I can get it for you; I only need you to do one thing for me. Did you see the men that did the killing? I need you to lure their sick employers into an alley for me, where I can discuss business with them. I will be there to protect you, don’t worry.”

  The child smiled, and nodded with enthusiasm.

  “Always remember,” Gruedo said, “no loose ends.”

  Chapter 3: Things Go South

  “You have to break a few eggs to shake the foundations of the world.”

  Nomed

  5854 – Thon – Jordar –Therin

  Cite woke to the sound of breaking pottery. As he sat up, he saw a table topple on top of the broken crockery. The whole room shook. They had moved him to a different room with a real bed, which now skittered across the floor as the room shook. He had been in a deep sleep, and had lost his dream when he woke. When he tried to stand, he was thrown against the wall and stumbled into a wardrobe.

  The thick candles rolled across the floor, two of them were extinguished, and the third rolling close to the sheet hanging from the bed. Not wanting to lose his only remaining light, Cite staggered toward the lit candle and grabbed it as he was knocked to his knees by the tremors. Crawling and tripping towards the wardrobe, he set the candle on the ground where it would not tip, and pulled down clothes.

  The door burst open and Rogen stomped into the room, five men trailing behind him with Sybia, the stern woman who had treated Cite’s wounds, as Cite was tying his second sandal. The Rokairn kept a steady walking pace, rather than running, and the shaking of the building didn’t give him any trouble. He was dressed in black robes and his many belts with the many pouches that Cite had seen him in before. A hammer hung at one hip, a short double-headed axe at the other and a large axe handle was above his right shoulder. He held a walking staff and an extra belt in one hand. He leaned on the stout oak pole and looked Cite over.

  “What’s happening?” Cite asked as he finished lacing his sandal.

  “No time to explain, son,” answered Rogen. “Suffice to say that your visions, and my fears, may be upon us. We need to go. My people are trained in combat and doing the best they can, but I fear this threat is beyond even their skills.”

  Rogen held out his calloused hand and helped steady Cite and the lad stood. Once the younger man had his feet under him, Rogen passed him the walking staff and the spare belt with pouches and two daggers. “Come. I have supplies packed. We need to get you to a safe place so I may return and secure my city.”

  Cite opened his mouth to ask a question, but stopped as he looked at the Rokairn. Rogen’s stance which spoke volumes. Cite had the odd feeling of remembering something he had not known he had forgotten. Bugs.

  “Bugs? You have a bug problem?” he asked, confused at the thought that insects could cause the earthquake he had just felt. The men behind Rogen exchanged nervous glances with each other.

  “Bit of an understatement really,” Rogen turned and looked up at the boy, “later you will have to explain how you picked that out of my head. Kind of rude, but forgivable, given our current situation.” Rogen guided Cite by the elbow out the door, the entourage parting to let him through. The slave master paused to take a torch from a sconce on the wall. “Carry this. I doubt you see well without it. My advisors have their own. Do not worry about the flame. It is magical and will not burn.”

  They moved through the building, dodging falling chunks of rock, and breathing in dust as it rained down around them. The advisors held onto walls and each other to stop themselves from falling. Rogen spoke to them with the authority of a man used to being obeyed, encouraging them. The shorter, but stronger man supported Cite as they moved through the shaking building. Cite picked tidbits of information out of Rogen’s head. Tidbits like which way to go, what corridors would be safest, which would have people, which would be most likely to have spouts of carnivorous insects erupting through the floor.

  “What? Man eating hordes of beetles?” Cite shouted over the rumbling, stopping in his tracks. Sybia put a hand on the young man’s shoulder to calm him. Cite blushed as he realized his outburst. It was uncommon for the mind mage’s usual calm and even demeanor to waver as it had so often since he arrived here. They began moving again before Rogen say anything.

  Rogen shook his head in disbelief, showing emotion he usually kept hidden under a stony face. “Yes, that is one of the things I have seen, but not everything I have had reported to me.”

  The torch flickered, causing shadows to dance across their path. The air smelled dry and dusty. The Rokairn guided Cite up a stone stairway and into another hallway. People dashed about, going in and out of the doors lining the hall. Many had weapons and headed in random directions. It was chaos.

  The group ascended a flight of stairs into a kitchen area. Large pots bubbled in cooking alcoves and large blocks of stone covered with wooden cutting boards and cuts of meat dominated the center room. Suspended from the ceiling, iron racks with pots, skillets, and ladles banged together. Rogen led Cite through this room, but not before the smell of rot reached Cite’s nose and made him turn and look again. The meats on the cutting boards were solid brown and glistened in the fire and torchlight instead of the red. They crawled with thousands of roaches. The cauldrons hissed as more creatures dropped from the chimneys. The stench of insects burning in the fires as they swarmed over the sides of the pots permeated the room. A man tried to crush the bugs with a metal tenderizer hammer, only to have hundreds of them climb up his arm for every handful he crushed. Then they were past the room, but the screams of the man followed them as he was overpowered.

  Rogen was now pulling Cite along. The younger man’s wound slowed him and Rogen supported him as much as the staff did. Cite saw the door to the outside and doubled his efforts to escape the building. As they came to the door, Cite stopped again. Phaeton muttered something under his breath about the boy and Izreus snickered. It was worse outside. Night still dominated the sky, but the waxing moon gave some light. People covered with bugs ran in all directions. The heavens were streaked with dark swarms of insects. Men stood, armed and armored, attempting to make military formations to combat the invasion, but standard configurations were useless against the sheer number of miniature invaders. Cite watched as men and women went down under black clouds, screaming. People tried to help others, only to have the insects swarm over them as well.

  Cite turned back, away from the chaos of death outsid
e. He felt staying inside would be better. Rogen grabbed his arm, and Cite felt the thought from him, ‘Hurry, run,’ but he could not bring himself to go out there. The rumbling of the ground increased as the stone floor inside the room collapsed into a funnel, and a Phaeton slipped into it. The councilor scrambled for the edge, as suddenly the hole began to fill with black glistening movement that briefly brought oil to mind. Then parts broke away and fist-sized beetles began climbing up the man’s legs. Some did not climb, but tore into the flesh of his calves and burrowed into his legs. Blood mixed with the insects below, sending them into frenzy.

  Cite reached to help the man without thinking, grabbing his hand as he reached for anything to pull himself out of the hole. Izreus backed away, his face pale with terror. Cite’s hand caught Phaeton’s and he shrieked. His cry became a gurgle as a black chitinous form exited from his open mouth. Cite cried out and tried to release his arm, but the man had clamped on to him with a death grip. As the mind mage backpedaled, pulling away from the hole, the arm tore loose and four of the deadly insects scurried out of the torn end and turned to climb up the limb towards Cite.

  An axe suddenly connected to the underside of the amputated forearm, cutting the tendons that held the hand closed, and it dropped to the ground. Rogen grabbed Cite and dragged him outside, his axe still in the Rokairn’s hand, as the creatures swarmed out of the hole. Rogen turned and shoved Izreus backwards into the insects.

  “Join your friend who you conspired with to over throw me,” the Rokairn said, “you will be more use to me there than waiting in the shadows with daggers and poisons, you useless fool.”

  Rogen pulled a stunned Cite into the night, Sybia and the remaining three advisors following. Outside the nightmare escalated. There were swarms of fireflies the size of cats dodging about; everywhere their glowing abdomens touched they left a deposit of shimmering acid. People died screaming as their hair or faces melted, or an arm burned away from their bodies. Larger beetles the size of wagons burrowed out of the ground. Their mandibles tore people in half and smaller insects swarmed to devour pieces that fell. The ground was alive with movement of deadly insects and small rivers of blood.

  Releasing Cite to Sybia’s care, Rogen erupted into a flurry of movement. In one hand was the double bladed hand axe and in the other was his double-headed hammer. Cite followed as best he could, trying not to step on anything that was once human, or that was still moving and trying to bite, sting, or poison him. Rogen danced in and out of the insects, heading straight for the larger ones. His axe sliced cleanly through the antennae of one beast the size of a horse, and his hammer crushing the multifaceted eyes of another. He rolled under one as it reared, neatly slicing its abdomen open, thick white entrails erupting onto the sand, adding to the stench that was thick in the air.

  Rogen tore his robe bottom off, and with two quick flips of his wrist, wrapped it around his forearm. He used it to knock swarms of small insects out of the air, crushing them with the flat of his axe against his forearm, or bashing them against a stone wall, or even the hard shell of a larger monster. He fought in a controlled rage, aware of every movement around him, doing his best to kill or disable as many of the horrors as he could as he worked his way out of the desert city. The cool night air helped, and the insects slowed as the chill deepened.

  The people had organized a little, and the few who had any talent for magics began to use it. Wizards tapped the ley lines to bring the temperature down to slow the bugs. They called upon the element of earth to crush the insects; air to conjure whirling dust devils to sweep them away; or fire to rain flaming pellets down on them. Priests called upon the gods to protect themselves and others from the hordes of insects, it did little for the larger ones, but was some help with the smaller ones. Warriors used large shields to crush thousands of insects at a time. Other men gathered oil and sprayed it about, lighting whole areas on fire. Cite saw two familiar figures, gladiators, a slim lithe one with a shaved head and an older man with a staff, go back to back to help defend each other.

  Cite tried to do more than just follow behind. His chest wound burned, his legs were weak and his mind was confused as it grabbed at too many thoughts that were being forced through the night by the panicked minds of others. He felt the pain of some, the rage of the warriors, and the small glimmering hope of escape. He realized it was not his feelings or thoughts, but those of the people fighting for their lives that were being projected from all around him. He felt helpless and small. He felt violated as these insect horrors devoured man, woman, and child alike. Some small part of him realized he did not see any chains on these people who were slaves, but he would not fully realize that until later when he went back to look at the nightmarish memories. It was the hope from others that drove him forward. It was hope that came to him again and again. Hope from the people around them as they fought on, inspired by the man he followed.

  He was not sure when it happened, but he knew it was there fully when he saw Rogen slip under the charge of what was almost humanoid ant creatures that stood higher than Cite’s knee. The advisor with the shaved head, save for a dark ponytail, charged in to save his master. The insects swarmed over him. The bite of their mandibles caused his flesh to swell, and he began to choke as they cut into flesh. That was when Cite found glowing silver daggers in his hands. Cite pulled away from Sybia and flew at the monsters as he saw Rogen go down under their organized charge. An unseen force threw the beasts back. Cite was upon them, and swung wildly, the creatures went stiff each time he struck at one, and Cite turned away to the next one before the first had fallen to the ground.

  Calleus, Taktak, Sybia, and Talidon saw something very different. They saw a madman rush over their fallen leader as the small insects flew back. As the ant creatures charged again, the man in white robes swung his empty fists, and without even touching the creatures, they would fall over dead. One person saw the truth though. Rogen, from his place on the ground, saw the silvery aura burst from Cite and the ant men thrown back as an almost solid wall of force exploded outward. He saw the silver daggers light the night and stab repeatedly, though clumsily, into the triangular heads of the creatures. No one saw Rogen smile.

  Rogen was back on his feet yelling for Cite to run again. Yelling for all of his people to run. An invasion was a situation that had been planned for, though one of insects had never been considered. All knew there were places to regroup outside the city. They followed the last command many would ever hear from their leader. They ran.

  Rogen walked southeast. The others plodded in silence behind him, Cite leaning heavily on the staff, He almost ran into Rogen as the shorter man stopped. Cite looked up and saw the sun cresting the eastern horizon and dark green leafy ground brush around them. The air was dry and crisp. A few insects could be heard, and a lizard scuttled for shelter in nearby rocks. The rising sun showed a small, capped well with sand bags around it stood in the center of the tiny oasis. Though they had lost Talidon in another attack outside of the city, they had arrived here with a dozen others that had joined them in the night’s march.

  Rogen turned and looked back towards the city that he had ruled for almost half his life, a city he had helped build, a city that had his blood and heart in it. He loved what he had built, and cared for the people as he would for his own clan. He was tired, tired of building something only to lose it. He sighed. The city was little more than a dark rise in the distance. He could still see a dark cloud above it, but couldn’t tell if it was the hell-sent bugs or smoke from fires. Rogen turned to a young officer next to him that had joined them in the night.

  “Corporal Enneick, return to the city when it looks safe,” Rogen said to the man, who nodded. “Till then, circle the city, checking the oases and safe caves, and find others who survived. I must get this boy to a safe place. I do not think it is a coincidence that those things arrived so soon after Cite. I will rest here, and leave with my councilors after the heat of the day has passed. We will take him south and gat
her more information, and decide what to do there.”

  The others unpacked the little they brought with them and set up a camp, digging canvas tarps out of the sand to erect shelters from the coming sun. It was early fall, but the temperatures during the day could still be dangerous.

  He had trained his people well, and they would do what was needed. He had a larger duty now. He looked at the rag tag bunch that had collected here. He saw more people working their way to the oasis, and looked past them to the base of his fallen empire again.

  They trekked through the sand as the early evening sun beat down. They didn’t talk so they could conserve their energy for the task on hand. Rogen scanned the horizon and the sands in front of them for any danger. They were rare in the desert, but could be lethal if you did run across one. The Rokairn was extra cautious because of the threat that they had faced not a day ago. He had extra incentive to be alert. Cite trudged along, his shoulders slumped. Calleus, Taktak, and Sybia trailed behind the other two.

  Rogen and Cite were both used to being apart from others keeping their own counsel, and the Rokairn did so now. Rogen knew the wisdom of keeping councilors to make sure he did not overlook anything, and as a check and balance system. In his experience no one man was infallible, including himself. He would not endanger a whole society based on the arrogance that he was incapable of making a mistake. It also made others feel more comfortable when one man didn’t have all the control. He went over his plan again in his head, looking for things he may have missed and trying to consider every possibility. He thought about his people and how best to begin the rebuilding. He may have to scout out a new location if the last one had been compromised. It wouldn’t be the first time. He had buried two other sand castles, as he liked to call them. Previous men that had carried his name had done the same. Nothing was permanent in the desert, or in life for that matter.