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  BLOOD RAIN

  A Song of Death

  HELIX PARKER

  Copyright 2019 Helix Parker

  Kindle & Print Edition

  License Statement

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy.

  Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.

  For death’s icy hand touches all, save love

  ― Book of Idols, 12:16

  1

  The voices of dying men filled the air.

  Edgar Stall ran through the burning village, the screams of the dead and dying echoing in his ears. They stuck to him and weighed him down, but he didn’t stop. A large man on a horse was chasing him with a broadsword the size of a tree.

  His assailant screamed and swung. Edgar hit the dirt and closed his eyes against the dust churned by the horse’s hooves. He was surprised to open his eyes and find himself still alive and in one piece. For the first time ever, he was glad he was a dwarf and presented a small target.

  He rolled over and ran to one of the huts, keeping an eye on the giant who had just ridden past him. The big man was already focused on other, easier targets and had just cut the head off an elderly man and was laughing as the man’s daughters screamed over his corpse. Farther down in the village, a group of raiders were raping a young woman even as she begged for them to kill her.

  Edgar stepped inside and closed the door of the hut and looked around for a place to hide. A bed of straw and cloth was laid out in the corner. He slid underneath it.

  Outside, he could hear the neighing of horses and the screams of women, the groans of men, and the cries of children. The raiders spared no one. Too stupid to take the women and children as slaves, they would rather have the momentary pleasure of slaughter than later profit.

  Edgar rose after a few moments and brushed himself off. His hands were trembling, and he tried to calm one with the other, but it didn’t work. Walking to a window, he stared out at the chaos. Hell. There was no other way to describe it.

  The huge, filthy raiders rode horses that were painted red and black. They wore furs and covered their faces with animal skulls. He couldn’t tell what types of animals they were, but whatever they were, they weren’t like any animals he had ever seen.

  One of the raiders, out of nowhere, turned to him, and smiled.

  Edgar gasped and moved to the side of the window.

  The raider turned toward the hut and slammed his heels into his horse. Edgar ran from that side of the hut and was nearly to the other when the entire wall collapsed as the monstrous horse barreled through it. The roof creaked then crumbled.

  Something hit Edgar on the head, and the world went black.

  At first, Edgar felt nothing but a hazy sensation of floating, then the sky came into focus. He sat up with a pain-filled grunt. Shards of glass and wood covered his body. He was coated in a gray dust and appeared almost hidden in the rubble of the hut. He touched his head, and his hand came away sticky with blood.

  The fires had died to glowing embers in the twilight. He climbed to his feet, holding his sore ribs with one hand. The smell of burnt wood hung heavily in the air, but beneath that was a sour odor, like rotten vegetables that had been cooked over a fire. It took him a moment to recognize the stench of charred flesh.

  The village, once boasting three hundred souls, was no more. Only cinders and rubble remained. He walked to where the cottage door had once been. No, there had to be more. He refused to believe that the gods had chosen only him to survive.

  Walking down the dirt lane, he came to a clearing in the center of the village. Several blackened bodies were piled up in the middle, with remains all around the pit—mostly bones and skulls. Some feet and various organs had mixed with blood and dirt and become a disgusting meaty pudding. Edgar’s stomach churned, and he had to look away. On the far side of the area, two charred logs were sticking out of the ground—a spit. The raiders had eaten the survivors.

  Edgar walked until his feet hurt, circling the small village of Elders Creek several times. He was overjoyed to find a young boy alive. He ran to the stream to fetch some water for the child, but by his return, the boy had passed away.

  Edgar looked at his village, the center of his world, and took in the desolation. In one swoop, they had destroyed everything he had known.

  A cough came from somewhere nearby.

  Edgar turned, fear sending an icy chill up his back, and saw one of the raiders lying on the ground, spitting up blood. A spear protruded from his belly like a candle in a candelabrum. Edgar cautiously moved closer.

  The raider was sucking in air like a fish left on a bank. He spotted Edgar and attempted to speak but instead went into a fit of coughs before vomiting a horrid mixture of blood and gore.

  “You killed them all,” Edgar said. “Why? We had nothing here. What did you want from us?”

  “We want… the same for all men… for you… to die.”

  The raider gagged, then grasped at his own neck. Edgar stood and watched as the man slowly choked to death and the light in his eyes was extinguished.

  FROM THE BOOK OF IDOLS: Verse 1, Chapter 1

  And Helios sang of his joy, and in his joy, he created the heavens and the earth and the underworld. He planted seeds which grew to trees and roses and fruit-bearing plants. And upon this land, he spread grass and mountains.

  And Helios sang of the joy of life. And his two sons were there—Chedes on his right side and Rain on his left.

  And Rain looked upon the land and said, “Father, shall we not place something here? For the land is exceedingly beautiful.”

  And Chedes said, “But Father, this land is exceedingly beautiful. Shall we not leave it in peace to remain beautiful forever?”

  And verily, the High God Helios said that Rain was correct, and he breathed life into the dirt.

  And from the dirt rose man. And man grew exceedingly strong and his skin shed dirt for the form of the god and his sons.

  And Helios saw man and was pleased.

  2

  Leon stood in the field and eyed the Adorian bull. Fever or mountain wolves had taken his two others the past year, and only the one, a stubborn old bastard he had named Stones, remained.

  Stones was ill. Leon could see it in his eyes. The last bull in a herd of six cows, he was in constant pain. Leon would hear him groaning by the light of the moon. He would have killed the animal long ago except for his young daughter, Star. She was attached to all their animals and would not allow any harm to come to them. She had even stayed up one night, staring out the windows, hoping to catch a mountain wolf in the act so that her father could then go out and “scare” him.

  Stones gruffed and hawed a few times, pawing at the grass. Leon bent at the knees and mumbled, “Easy.” Their eyes locked, that single sparkling moment before an attack.

  The bull charged. The bull was fast, but not as fast as a young one, and he telegraphed his intentions. Leon ducked low, pretending to give it an easy target and then, at the last moment, sprang into the air and caught the bull by its curled ivory horns.

  Stones thrashed and moaned and spun in a circle. Leon hung on, trying to twist the horns in a way that would snap the animal’s neck. But he just didn’t have the strength. He tried to ease off, but the bull swooped his head
down then jerked it up and flung Leon into the air.

  Leon flew a dozen yards and hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath out of his chest. He lay on his back, looking up at the sapphire sky and trying to calm his heart. He remembered a time when he could have spun that bull around in one movement and killed it. But he was middle-aged and felt the weight of time on his body. Youth faded a little more every day, like grains of sand held in a child’s palm.

  He sat up and saw Stones grazing farther down the pasture. The bull casually looked back, barely curious, and then returned to his grass. Leon decided Stones would live to see another day.

  Walking back home, Leon noticed the sun was directly overhead and shimmering off his many windows. He had built the house when he had married, and it stood as testament that a lot of perseverance and only a little talent could accomplish much.

  His wife was picking vegetables out back in their garden. He went to the wooden fence and leaned against it, watching as she bent and pulled at a tomato. She turned to him with a smile, and his heart skipped a beat. Her skin was milky white, her teeth like pearls, and her crimson hair came down in curls over her shoulders. She walked over and kissed him on the cheek.

  He placed his hand on her protruding belly. “How is my son today?”

  “You’re so certain it’s a boy. Would you be so disappointed at a girl?”

  He grinned. “How is my child today?”

  “Feisty. I think he and his mother are hungry for beefsteaks.”

  He kissed her then bent and kissed her belly. “I’ll get a fire started.”

  On the way to the nearby woods, he saw the small bump in the ground where he had buried something long ago. The sight brought a bad taste to his mouth, like warm copper. The taste of blood. Images of broken bodies lying at his feet as empires quivered before him flooded his head, and he had to stop and close his eyes.

  It had a draw on him, what was buried there, and he wished he had thrown it into the sea. But it was too late to dig it up because he didn’t want to hold it, to feel it in his hand.

  “We’re hungry, love,” his wife called out playfully. “Can you not do your philosophizing after dinner?”

  He smiled and continued to the forest to gather wood.

  3

  Edgar looked at the remnants of his village one more time. Night was upon him, and he couldn’t see much more than husks of buildings and bodies, but he stayed for a bit and just quietly gazed upon them. He thought they were due that small respect at least.

  He had gathered what he could from the village: a few extra pairs of trousers and shirts, a dagger, some food. The most important item was tucked away in a leather pouch against his body—a sack of the gold and silver the village elders had wisely hidden away for a time when the community needed it. Dwarves sometimes lived to be as old as two hundred, and that age brought with it a wisdom and foresight that Edgar hoped he would have as well. Another possibility that he had seen in Elders Creek was that he would become a bad-tempered old drunk. Perhaps living too long would make anyone so.

  He turned away from the village and walked down the dirt lane until he came to the path that led to the King’s Way, the main thoroughfare for the Kingdom of Vaul. Though he had lived in Vaul his entire twenty-nine years, he had almost never left the village. He could think of only one time in recent memory when he had to go to an apothecary in the nearby town of Port because of some bleeding from his ears that would not stop, but that was so long ago, he didn’t remember if he had been a young boy or a man. The bleeding had remained a mystery. The apothecary told him the cure was to bleed him with leeches and stuff animal dung in his ears to pull out the corruption in his head. It hadn’t sounded pleasant, and Edgar had passed. The bleeding eventually just stopped on its own.

  A wagon cart passed him on the road, and he caught the most wondrous scents of lavender, frankincense, and strawberry thistle. Perfume was hard to come by in the territories of the kingdom, and they fetched a good price in the markets of the larger towns and cities.

  He stopped the salesman, an old man with a pink bald head that looked burnt to a crisp from too much sun, and ran his hand over the various red, blue, green, and purple bottles. He picked up a few and breathed in the soft aromas that reminded him of open wheat fields, the fruit his mother sliced before supper, and the forest after a hard rain.

  He finally chose one with the scent of fresh cotton. “How much?”

  “A silver piece each.”

  “I’ll give you two coppers.”

  “Silver each, half-man.”

  “Since you were rude, one copper.”

  The salesman moved to start his cart rolling again. “Move along if you’re not going to buy.”

  Edgar pulled a copper piece out of his sack and flipped it into the air. The salesman grimaced as if he were about to stick his hand in a pile of dung, but he snatched the copper as it fell toward him.

  “Take it and be off, half-man.”

  Edgar tucked the perfume into his pocket and resumed his walk along the road. Out of sight of the salesman, he dabbed a bit of the liquid on his sleeve so he could take a whiff every few paces. It reminded him of the days his mother would wash their clothing, and the smells of soap and wet cotton and wool would fill their little hut. She had passed away several years ago, and he had inherited charge of his father, who was dying of consumption. When his father died a year later, Edgar only had his village. And now that was gone, too.

  King’s Way soon widened. The road was well paved and maintained. Crews of upkeep workers were sent out every day to the far reaches of the kingdom for repairs wherever they might be needed. The king always wanted his roads well preserved. Probably because that’s how he got troops to the far corners of the realm to defend against the wild savages always prodding the borders for weaknesses.

  The next town was Mert, a small place founded on the backs of sheep herders. The ones with the best land eventually hired workers to herd the sheep for them and then got into the wool business on a grand scale. Currently, four families controlled all of Mert. They ran the gamut from wine peddlers to administrators to priests and managed to keep a tentative peace by stealing anything from the poor that wasn’t nailed down. There were no gates, just the road leading into the town that turned into the main street.

  Edgar walked briskly as the sun was soon to set. He found a good tavern not far from an inn where he anticipated spending the night. The tavern was the type of place he had only heard about from the older dwarves—stinking, damp, dark, and filled with men who had nowhere else to go or nowhere they wanted to go. Though instantly uncomfortable, he thought it as good a place as any to find out who had destroyed his village.

  He got a few glances but not many. Dwarves had become a common enough sight that no one paid notice, which was lucky because he had heard stories telling of drunken fools using his people for all manner of degradations, not least of which was target practice. When the king had granted dwarves full citizenship, things had improved vastly. Before that time, dwarves could be robbed and murdered on sight, and the law would do nothing to help.

  Edgar approached the bar then changed his mind because the stools came up to his forehead. He found a table and sat down. The crowd grew wilder with more drink. If anyone deserved a drink, he did, but he declined. He needed a clear head.

  Some young men finally entered the tavern after night had fallen and took up a back table. Edgar counted four of them, each more handsome than the next. One of them had a scar running down his neck, clearly from a blade, and another had a sword strapped to his hip.

  Edgar approached them. “My dear friends,” he said as politely as possible, “I was wondering if I might have some of your time and ask some questions.”

  The one with the scar said, “We came to drink, half-man. Find someone else to pester.”

  “I would of course, in exchange for my questions, buy your wine as we spoke.”

  The boys looked at each other. “You have
a deal, half-man,” the boy with the scar said. “Two pitchers.”

  He ordered two pitchers from the serving wench then pulled up a seat. He smiled confidently and placed his hands on the table. “This morning, my village was attacked. We are no more than half a day’s walk from Mert, and not a single lawman was sent to help us. My village… does not exist anymore, and all my people are dead.” Emotion welled inside him, but he swallowed it. Dwarves were nothing if not composed in the face of tragedy.

  The young man with the sword asked, “Who attacked you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them before. But they were bears of men, covered in furs with animal skulls on their faces. They rode horses without saddles.”

  “Were their horses painted red and black?” one of the other young men asked. “Huge horses, tall as houses?”

  “Yes.”

  The young men were silent as the wine came. Rather than the rambunctious young men that had rolled in looking for drink and trouble, they were solemn and poured their glasses and drank in silence.

  “What is it?” Edgar asked. “Do you know who those men were?”

  “You should leave it alone, dwarf,” the one with the scar said, “and count yourself lucky that you’re alive.”

  “I count myself confused. We sent word to Mert and to Lopsom, and neither town sent a single person to help defend us. As citizens of the kingdom, we are entitled to the king’s protection.”

  “The king?” The young man swallowed his wine. “Who do you think sent those raiders to your village?”

  4

  After their meal, Leon and Cassandra sat on the grass near their home and watched as the sun fell from the sky and the moon began to rise. The sky itself appeared to be twisting and turning, contorting to the wishes of the two heavenly bodies. Light intertwined with light, and eventually, the needlepoints of stars began to sparkle.