The Name of Death Read online



  The Name of Death

  Thrice Nine Legends

  Joshua Robertson

  Copyright © 2017 by Joshua Robertson

  Published by Crimson Edge Press, LLC

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2017

  Cover art by Winter Bayne.

  There once was a time when the gods were gods without question. When men were men without example. When heroes were only the frivolous dreams of lurid mortality. It was a time when truths and untruths were indistinguishable, hatred and love were equally excusable, and life and death regaled all of humanity in the same breath. Myths of old were realized and legends were born from the very dust man was formed of, to be told and retold until the grace of time altered them beyond knowing or forgot them completely. Still, some tales were preserved deep within the hearts of mankind, for reasons that could not be fathomed. Perhaps bearing the fruit of some profound truth or kept alive merely by the strength of the men who lived them. Some tales would never be forgotten.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  Thrice Nine Legends Saga

  ANAERFELL*

  The Kaelandur Series

  MELKORKA*

  DYNDAER*

  MAHARIA**

  Short Stories

  STRONG ARMED*

  WHEN BLOOD FALLS*

  THE NAME OF DEATH*

  Additional Works

  The Hawkhurst Saga*

  Grimsdalr*

  The Prince’s Parish*

  Jack Spratt*

  Blood and Bile**

  Hiraeth**

  *Published by Crimson Edge

  **Forthcoming by Crimson Edge

 

  The Name of Death

  Thrice Nine Legends

  Joshua Robertson

  Month of Ripening

  Fifth of Warmth

  1351 CE

  Chapter 1

  Drada Koehn’s armor-clad knees sank into the soft mud on the eastern bank of the forked river. Undried by summer’s heat, a hundred miles from the war and hundreds of miles more from home, the mud was cool in the far-reaching shade. Drada relaxed, balancing on her knees and toes, while carefully reattaching the veil to the bottom of her helm, hiding the lower half of her face.

  The thick, tannish cloth heated her cheeks and anchored her breath while she kneeled under the canopy of the concentrated treetops. Never had she seen trees as wide and high as those in the Dyndaer Forest. The trees from her homeland, beyond the mountains in Haemus Mons, were admittedly sticks in comparison to these tall woods.

  Wrylyc, the skittish Kras, had claimed the Dyndaer was unfit for travel with beasts and barbaric men to boot. His forewarning had not scared Drada, and even now, with Eryet dying, she had little concern. Kras were known to be a jittery race—afraid of their own shadow as much as they were anything else—and besides, Uvil did not fear death. In addition, no one had asked Wrylyc for his advice, let alone for him to come on this quest.

  She drew in a breath, redirecting her attention, and touched the arm of her war-brother, Eryet Petrie, son of Ergred. His short, squat figure lay near the water’s edge, bleeding heavily from his split gut. The stained bandages, covered with pus and remnants of healing herbs, had been unraveled to quicken his inevitable passing. Drada had uncoupled his veil from his silvery helm minutes ago, laying it to rest against his dislodged shoulder guard. His lips were swollen and bloodied beneath his wide nose. The last two days had been less than pleasant for him. She impassively stared at his beardless, blue-hued face, a shade lighter than her own. If not for his faint breaths, Drada would already think he was dead.

  Birds fluttered from somewhere in the forest. She mentally noted the abrupt change in the environment, but physically ignored the sound. Wrylyc likely was returning to camp. He had gone to scout ahead an hour ago, while she stayed to watch her war-brother and fulfill her duty. She would contend with a threat if and when it emerged from the hedge.

  Her training had taught her not to worry over intangible thoughts until they had fully materialized. An imminent battle did not threaten death; though, an axe lodged between her breasts might.

  Eryet suddenly wheezed, straining for breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, and parted his lips. “Drada…” he faintly whispered.

  She leaned further over him and waited for him to find the strength to continue.

  “You…cannot be afraid.”

  Drada’s response was full of air. “I am not afraid.”

  “When I pass through the veil,” Eryet went on, “I will go to our people and tell them how far we have come. But you must keep going.”

  She shook her head. “I hadn’t planned on doing otherwise. Do not worry about my path, Eryet. Listen for the whispers of our ancestors. Listen for the name of death.”

  “I…” He stammered and groaned. He turned his head away from her, having no strength to hold himself upright.

  She waited.

  “It…is time.” Eryet finally choked out. His insipid, blue skin was etched with black veins. Drada remained stone-faced. The poison lacing the cleaver that had split Eryet open had finally reached the full purpose of its crafting.

  Surprised by her own resolve, Drada grumbled in her throat with understanding.

  “My quoin…”

  Drada wasted no time, grabbing the leather cord with the iron token with the inverted V from around Eryet’s neck in her gauntlet. With a jerk, the cord snapped with ease. She slid the ornament from the cord into her hand. His quoin.

  Following the sacred tradition of the Uvil, she pushed the token into Eryet’s gaping mouth and into the back of his throat. Forcibly, she covered his mouth to help him swallow the round coin whole. Without consuming it, Eryet would be transformed into the hideous, undead preta, to roam the world without honor.

  Eryet sputtered and convulsed against Drada’s hand as the token clogged his throat. He harshly swallowed, over and over again, his tongue brushing against her hand, and in short time the token was downed. By the time she lifted her hand, he was dead.

  Drada scowled under the cloth covering her face. His last breath escaped his lungs and no words with it.

  “Did he tell you?” Wrylyc moved so quietly, she had not heard him approach, but his high-pitched, excitable squeak was unmistakable.

  “No. Our journey continues.” Drada exhaled. Scooping up her hooked sword, she stood to face the red-skinned creature. Wrylyc hunched against a thick tree under his wool cloak. The black coals of his eyes were barely visible in the dark slits on either side of his angular nose. The Kras was likely the ugliest creature she had ever seen. Changing the topic, she asked, “What lies ahead?”

  “Trees. Lots of trees,” Wrylyc said offhandedly, tilting his head away from the unbending bark of the tall wood. His face scrunched up with confusion. “Are you not going to bury him? Burn him, maybe?”

  Drada cleared her throat. “Why? He has consumed his quoin. He is dead.”

  “But he fought bravely against the Anshedar.”

  “Fighting humans doesn’t require bravery. They are weak,” Drada replied, picking up her shield to examine it. A depression near the center caught her eye. The shield had been damaged a month ago during the siege at Raybin; she had meant to have it mended or replaced. Though, the Uvil recently had been in short supply of extra armaments. Some of the humans had acquired
the weapons and armor of the Uvil, either from battle or while raiding supply camps, and not surprisingly, their possession of Uvil steel had balanced the odds of the war.

  Humans were cunning, she admitted, but still weak. She tossed the shield to the ground, and went to fetch Eryet’s undented guard for herself.

  “Weak humans killed him,” Wrylyc argued with a crooked grin. “One actually.”

  Drada frowned. “The wanderer slew Eryet with a venom-coated cleaver. Where is the honor in poison?”

  Wrylyc scooted forward, holding his smile. “Honor does not win wars.”

  “We were not at war with the wanderer. He was a frightened coward,” Drada said, leveling him with her eyes.

  Wrylyc stopped. After thinking for a moment, he shrugged, and grinned the wider.

  “You are at war with the Anshedar, which the wanderer clearly was,” he said, advancing. The spindly Kras was a head shorter than her, and with the lacking muscle, was about as intimidating as a flea on a donkey’s ass. Yet when Wrylyc talked at her as though he held authority—an attribute he only aired when speaking about history, or humans, or Maharia—he appeared greater in size. Drada turned away and tried to ignore him, placing Eryet’s shield on her back.

  Wrylyc persisted, “How did you expect the man to act when two Uvil came parading through the forest? I mean, the Ariadneans are right south, and those from Ariadne pride themselves as being hero-warriors. Not only do they fight directly on the battlefield, but every living thing in Aenar knows the Uvil and Anshedar are at war.”

  “You disagree with our incursion?” Drada asked, trying to make sense of his little speech.

  Wrylyc laughed out loud. “I do not have any opinion on you invading Maharia. If I had, you may have heard about it during the last many months, but opinions on armies and politics are not my peoples’ way. I simply watch.”

  “I don’t believe you can have no opinion.”

  Wrylyc tilted his head at the simple accusation. “The humans took Maharia from the Svet. I can only imagine the Svet took it from some other race before the humans crossed from Kalamaar. Surely, someone was destined to eventually take it from the humans,” Wrylyc said. “The world must change or we wouldn’t have history.”

  “That is what interests you? History?” Drada asked with a shake of her head, trying to understand the strange creature. “What use is history if you never apply what you’ve learned?”

  The Kras crumpled up his hooked nose, expanding his nostrils most unattractively. “What makes you think we Kras don’t?”

  “Don’t the Kras stay in mountains and caves, and claim nothing?” Drada reasoned. “They have nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Wrylyc smacked his lips with delight. “The Kras do not suffer from futility, as those who seek riches, or land, or power,” said Wrylyc, wriggling his eyebrows. “We all die no matter what we possess.”

  With a sigh, Drada latched her sword to her belt. “Why are you here, Wrylyc? I did not invite you along, and Mariek gave you no order.”

  “Someone should record what happens here,” Wrylyc talked with his hands, moving them wide from his hips in slow motion. “General Mariek had agreed,” he pointed a finger at her, “which is why he allowed me to stay at your camp.” The odd Kras spun on a toe. “And like I said, the Uvil are interesting. You have traveled hundreds of miles because one of your people—”

  “The Speaker—”

  “Yes, yes.” Wrylyc went on, still spinning. His wool cloak circled around his knobby knees. “He claimed your dead ancestors said the Uvil would defeat the Anshedar. He said a new world would be born.”

  Drada crossed her arms and dipped her head with acknowledgement. “He did.”

  “Do you not find that fascinating,” Wrylyc squealed, suddenly coming to a stop.

  “No,” she muttered.

  His dark eyes flashed with mischief. “How does this Speaker talk to dead people?”

  Drada huffed through her veil, ignoring the question. “I am not the only one who left the camp at Raybin.”

  “No…” Wrylyc agreed, wrinkles forming around his eyes with confusion. “You were not.”

  “So, why are you here with me? Why didn’t you go with another pairing?”

  Wrylyc shrugged his little shoulders. His eyes shifted to the dead body behind her before answering. “The Kras called the Dyndaer home for a long time. And I thought you might need a guide. The others went further into the desert or toward the Shade Fells. I know little about those places.”

  “Then stop with all your twirling and bouncing, and guide,” Drada said. “I need to find the name of death.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” Wrylyc said.

  “Prophecy is not meant to be known until it has already happened,” Drada said, “but if we can find death, we can unearth its name. Somewhere in the Dyndaer, death must linger.”

  Wrylyc’s mouth opened wide, revealing the rows of his crooked teeth. “Shayol Domier. I will take you to Shayol Domier. We will find plenty of death there!”

  Drada let the words linger for a moment, and then nodded. “On with it.”

  Waving the Kras onward, Drada followed Wrylyc into the deeps of the darkened Dyndaer, never looking back at her fallen comrade. Somewhere within this ancient forest, dusky as the grave, she must find death’s name. She had her duty. She had her honor. She was Uvil.

  The midday sunlight barely penetrated the intertwined, dense branches of the tall woods. The foliage at their feet was abundant, slowing their progress tenfold than what they may have traversed at the southern end of the continent. Even the tropical Masura Jungle, south of Dauthaz, did not match the breadth of the Dyndaer.

  Drada squinted into the murky world among the trees. A hazy fog swirled around her feet, overlaying the moss and muck. The rotten air seeped through the veil covering her face. Clearly, the mountains and desert were a distant memory.

  “The forest smells like death.” Drada sniffed, stumbling awkwardly behind the light-footed Kras. Wrylyc effortlessly danced over the tousled roots and strewn brushwood. “How are you moving so freely in this light?”

  “I do not see the darkness like you,” Wrylyc said.

  “You have eyes like the Lilitu then,” Drada said. “You can see always as though it is daylight.”

  Wrylyc nodded. “The Kras lived underground for centuries, digging for precious stones, before we were yoked by the Anshedar. The darkness is as familiar to us as breath.”

  The weight of her foot snapped a branch in half. The crunching sound ricocheted between the trees, countered by a heavy snort and the clacking of teeth.

  Wrylyc jerked back with wide eyes. “A simargl.” As quick as the words were uttered, the Kras’s body evaporated into thin air. By some inexplicable magic, Wrylyc had disappeared from sight entirely.

  “Wrylyc!” She hissed, spinning around in the smoky forest.

  “Hide.” She heard the weakling answer from an unseen place among the trees.

  “Uvil do not hide,” Drada replied, retrieving the shield and hooked sword. She squinted into the dark, hearing the beast rustling toward her.

  Drada stood motionless as the wolf-like creature, a head taller than she, with webbed wings, black as pitch, growled and moved between the thick tall woods. The animal was massive in comparison to her stout body. Her eyes captured the protracted claws extending from a lifted-and-falling paw—as long as her forearm—and then the pinpointed teeth, twice that length, protruding from the grimy, ruddy chops.

  She remained motionless. The beast was a shadow among the shadows.

  The simargl narrowed its gaze on her and growled.

  “Come on,” she hissed through bared teeth. She crouched and balanced on her toes as the bundle of muscle and fur barreled toward her, the wings tucking against its body. Her breath remained steady behind her veil; her heart evenly beat in her chest. Without a clearing, Drada was certain she held the advantage over the oversized beast, even in the murky light.
r />   The simargl stopped inches in front of her and snapped at her head. Calculating her movement, Drada stooped low and circled behind the closest tree, the creature clamping its jaws around nothing in the space where her head had hung. Staying on her toes, Drada skirted around the thick trunk and jutted her sword into the broad side of the animal. The blade dug into the pelt, secreting a half-whimper, half-bark from the animal’s gullet.

  The blow was anything but a death wound. The simargl twisted fast, ripping the sword from her hand and leaving it buried in its flesh. Drada withheld her cry, snatching the shield from her back in time to connect with the beast’s second attack.

  The strength of the simargl was immeasurable, striking the shield with its snout and knocking Drada across the dampened brush. She rolled over and over, her metal armor clanging against the rutted roots.

  “Run!” Wrylyc screamed, still hidden somewhere among the tall woods.

  Drada was back on her toes in time to see the simargl amble toward her, whipping its head back and forth, and ignoring her sword still budding from its gut. Blood oozed from the wound, coloring the black fur. Yet the cut was not deep enough to lay loose its insides.

  Keeping her shield steady, Drada stepped back, digging in her toes. She had been raised in the barren lands of the desert and the under-earth of the mountains. Her balance felt off in the grassy terrain, but the animal was injured. Even without her sword, she had the upper-hand.

  Out of nowhere, a bolt whistled through the trees and was buried into the simargl’s shoulder. The animal bellowed in pain.

  Before Drada could react, a cavernous bellow rung unintelligible words from behind her. She barely twisted her head before a creature—half-man, half-horse—stomped next to her with heavy hooves. Drada, in shock, stumbled as the centaur, called a Svet by the northerners, raised the crossbow to fire another bolt.

  The simargl droned with a muffled rumble, the projectile catching the beast in the neck.

  Already, the Svet was re-arming the weapon. Behind him his companion—an Anshedar—wearing a leather tunic and carrying a sovnya, a five-foot wooden pole with a curved blade erected from the end, emerged from the tall wood.

  The human ignored Drada, hurrying to face the simargl, eagerly jutting his blade into its throat. The simargl gurgled and fell.

  As the human stepped back, Drada eyed her hooked sword still sticking from the animal’s side.

  The human tore the sovnya free, and spoke to Drada. “I am Seigfeld Brecher, son of Stelghar, from Hleduk,” the human said, raising a blonde eyebrow with scrutiny after cleaning his blade on the carcass. He nodded toward the Svet. “This is Farthr of Brannan. Now, why is an Uvil so far from the war, here, in the Dyndaer?”

  Drada peered up at Farthr with sharpened teeth nearly as threatening as that of the wolf demon. His fawn ears on either side of his long black mane twitched. He snorted air through his enlarged nostrils, as though he was picking up her scent.

  “You aren’t going to kill me?” Drada asked.

  The man’s face creased as though he were holding back a smile. “I suppose that depends on your answer. Do you plan on killing us?”

  “No. I have no orders to fight you.” She returned her shield to her back. She replied honestly, “I am Drada Koehn, daughter of Vrayda. I am going to Shayol Domier to discover death’s name. Peacefully, if I can.”

  “Death’s name? Alone?” Seigfeld asked. The human warrior remained strangely unruffled by her response, which sounded strange even to her. If she had not known any better, she would have thought he had expected the answer.

  Drada replied, “My war-brother died on the road. And unless the Kras has disappeared for good—”

  “Of course not,” Wrylyc said, suddenly materializing from thin air at Drada’s side. “Wrylyc Titchen, son of Gard, son of Potap.” He crossed his arms with a sudden sense of entitlement, wiggling his eyebrows.

  “I thought I smelled something odd,” Farthr said.

  “Hush, Farthr,” Siegfeld ordered. He then spoke to the Kras. “And you are also looking to find death’s name?” Seems a bit far-reaching for a Kras.”

  Wrylyc raised his shoulders and sheepishly smiled. Drada suspected he would turn red if he were not already colored crimson. “I am here to record the plight of the Uvil.”

  “I suppose you will be interested to know our story as well then,” Seigfeld said, a crooked smile forming on his lips. He brushed a blonde strand of hair from his eye without hurry.

  The Kras’s offset eyes lit up, widening on either side of his hooked nose. He bobbed his head, no bigger than a child’s, and said, “I might.”

  Seigfeld gave a knowing look. “Tales of dark spirits inhabiting ruins, including Shayol Domier, have reached the folds of the Crimson Sun in Tamarri. I have been tasked to investigate the rumors and shed some light on their truth or falseness.”

  “You are also heading to Shayol Domier?” Drada asked.

  Siegfeld nodded. “I am.”

  “So, you will not kill me, although my people are at war with your own?”

  Seigfeld took a step closer, his soft boot nearly soundless against the soil. “Like you, I too have no order to fight in this war. I have heard of the honor of your people, Drada, and if you had been commanded to slay the Anshedar, I suspect you would have already attempted to kill me.”

  “I would have,” she confirmed.

  Seigfeld dipped his head with respect. “I propose we travel together to Shayol Domier and see what we can see. It stands to reason that your quest for death’s name and my enquiry of demons have an eerie likeness.”