Betrayer Of Blood

  Copyright © 2016 C. Greenwood

  Edited by Victory Editing

  Formatted by Polgarus Studios

  Cover art by Michael Gauss

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Excepting brief review quotes, this book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, real events, locations, or organizations is purely coincidental.

  BETRAYER OF BLOOD

  CATALYSTS OF CHAOS, BOOK TWO

  The time of chaos is approaching. While the dark sorcerer Rathnakar expands his undead army and schemes to obtain a scepter of power that could change the course of the future, the oracle of Silverwood Grove moves to thwart him. But all her plans for the protection of Earth Realm lie in the hands of three unlikely champions.

  Fleeing from the newly fallen Asincourt seclusionary, Eydis and Geveral struggle to protect the refugees in their charge. But as they journey through the icy mountains toward the safe haven of a dwarven city, a mysterious wizard works toward their destruction.

  Orrick of Kroad has narrowly escaped death at Asincourt, only to be pursued for the price on his head. Notorious as a betrayer, his attempts to elude capture draw him into a web of further treachery where he learns even those seemingly on his side are not to be trusted.

  Can the three catalysts unite in time to combat the coming darkness? Or will the deception of their allies be the undoing of Earth Realm?

  * * *

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Eydis

  Reaching the top of the snowcapped rise, Eydis paused to let the others catch up. Her panting breath came out in white puffs, the cold mountain air tingling in her throat and lungs. Ahead of her spread more rugged mountains, dotted with boulders and snow-dusted pines. And beyond those, still more rocky peaks stretching as far into the horizon as she could see.

  She heard the others behind her, laboring their ways to the top. If these past few days traveling strange and rough terrain had been difficult for Eydis, they had been even harder on the adherents and the dwarf children in their charge. They had escaped the attack of the undead army on the Asincourt seclusionary, only to be forced to flee into the Arxus Mountains. They were unequipped for a journey like this, but what else could they do with the enemy behind them and the tunnels leading into the mountains as the only path of escape?

  “Eydis, the children are tired,” said Geveral, panting as he crested the rise. “They’ll need a rest soon.”

  Eydis hardly recognized the young dryad beneath the layers of winter clothing and thick cloak. His face was red from cold and exertion, his fur-lined hood pulled forward as a shield from the stinging wind. He carried one of the dwarf children on his back, the small girl’s arms clamped tight around his neck.

  “Soon,” Eydis promised them both. “We’ll push on for another hour and then look for a place to shelter and rest.”

  She knew as she said it that the suggestion of shelter was a false hope. The best they could hope for was a stand of pines thick enough to block out the worst of the gale. The wind was always blowing up here and always icy.

  They had scarcely seen any sign of human life since the first day out of the escape tunnel, when they’d broken into daylight to find themselves in the foothills. There had been a lone cabin where a local trapper and trader had sold them all the provisions he had to spare. But the fur-lined coats and boots did not go far, shared among a party of sixteen. Geveral was the only adult male of the group, Eydis the only female who was not a full adherent. The rest of their party was made up of old or middle-aged women who had spent the entirety of their lives within the walls of a seclusionary. With them came the half dozen dwarf children who had been boarded and schooled at the seclusionary.

  They stretched out before Eydis now, a string of figures struggling up the side of the rise. Eydis scrambled to the edge to offer her hand to those just clambering over the top.

  The last to reach her was Jula, the senior member of the group. The aging adherent had taken charge of the rest ever since leaving the tunnels behind. She always stayed in the rear to help the others. Her eyes were worried as she accepted Eydis’s hand to assist her over the lip of the ridge.

  “One of the children is missing,” Jula said. “I can’t find Keir among the others.”

  Keir. Eydis tried to remember which one that was. “I’ll go back and take a look,” she said, scanning the rocky incline below. “Geveral, you lead the rest on. I’ll find the child and catch up.”

  Alone, she started down the rise again. She remembered who Keir was now and was unsurprised he was the one who had gotten separated from the party. The boy was always hanging back, setting himself apart. Since first laying eyes on the child, Eydis had known there was something unusual about him. And not only because one would have to be blind to miss the physical differences between him and the dwarf children.

  At around twelve years of age, he was not much taller than the rest. But where the others looked healthy and thickly built, this boy was painfully skinny. His face was especially lean, his cheekbones sharply prominent. Where the skin of the other children was smooth and unflawed, his was leathery and patterned with rough, scalelike patches around his cheeks and forehead. With his long fingernails, his hands reminded Eydis vaguely of claws.

  She had never seen anyone like him. The only thing she could be sure of was that he was no ordinary dwarf child for all he had lived and studied alongside the others back at the seclusionary.

  A shifting movement below caught her eye, a dark cloak fluttering in the wind. Was it the boy?

  Before she could get a clearer look, the child moved behind some trees and was lost from view.

  “Keir,” she called, quickening her pace as much as she could without risking losing her footing on the steep path. Rounding the trees, she found the child in her line of sight again. But not for long. He slipped through a large crevice between a pair of boulders and disappeared once more.

  Eydis shouted his name again but received no answer. Following the boy, she entered between the giant boulders. Here the rocks leaned together to form a kind of cave where the daylight was dim and the wind whistled and wailed through the cracks between rocks.

  There was no sign of Keir. He must have continued out the other end. Before she could go after him, Eydis’s attention was drawn to the shadowed walls closing in around her. Odd shapes had been etched into the weathered stone, perhaps the ancient runes of some long-ago civilization. A shiver crept up Eydis’s spine. This cave gave her a strange feeling, the like of which she had only experienced in one other place. The pool of the oracle at Silverwood Grove. She sensed somehow that this spot was as sacred and powerful as that other.

  Pressing her palm against the cool rock, she felt its magic ripple through her. Suddenly she was no longer in the physical realm but transported to some other world, fixed between this and the next. She felt no fear, only peace, as she floated, weightless, through the ether. Twinkling specks like stars danced around her, and she reached out to touch them only to find she lacked hands. She had no physical form at all. There was only her spirit and the drifting lights.

  Gradually she became aware of another presence. Of a voice. It spoke from no mortal mouth, whispering to Eydis the secrets of earthly and immortal realms. Filled with knowledge, Eydis’s thoughts expanded until she could no longer tell herself apart from the ether, the lights, and the voice. Then suddenly it was all torn away. The voice abandoned her. The lights faded into darkness. Awar
eness shot through her body again, and she felt the cold of the wind and the roughness of the stone beneath her hand.

  Her legs had forgotten how to hold her up. In a rush of dizziness, she collapsed into the rock wall. She squinted against the harsh lights and colors of the world she had returned to, clinging to consciousness, breathing deeply and growing accustomed to being within her own body again.

  The echoes of the voice still filled her mind, but she could no longer remember what it said. Only one piece of her newfound knowledge stood out clearly. The voice had spoken of the Tears of the Mother. Of Eydis’s duty to protect them.

  Her still-clumsy hands fumbled into an inner pocket of her cloak to touch a knotted kerchief she carried there. In her mind’s eye she relived the escape from Asincourt, the dying words of the Head Hearer, who had pressed this bundle into her hands.

  “Take treasure…,” the dying woman had gasped. “… The Tears of the Mother… The way to the scepter…”

  Inside the bundled kerchief, Eydis had found a pile of glittering crystals. The origins and purpose of these crystals were a mystery. But their value, it seemed, was great.

  “The voices spoke to you,” someone observed from nearby.

  Eydis started. She had been so caught up in the moment that she had forgotten all about the missing child. But here he was, watching her with a golden gaze that was unsettlingly knowing. It seemed to Eydis that the child’s eyes were much older and wiser than his years.

  “What do you know of the voice?” she asked.

  He shrugged narrow shoulders beneath his oversized cloak. “Do you think you are the only one who hears them?” he asked. “These voices have guided me through many lifetimes. Where they come from is one of the unknowable mysteries of the universe, like the fixing of the moon and stars. I simply accept them and do not question.”

  It was not natural talk, even for an overly imaginative child.

  Eydis wrinkled her brow doubtfully. “Are you claiming you have lived more than one life?”

  He hesitated, the uncertainty passing over his face making him look his proper age again. He said, “My memories come and go, scenes from former lives surfacing and sinking back into the depths of my mind. But I have always known something of my past and destiny. I’m not like the other younglings. I have been reawakened to a mortal existence so that I may finish something I failed to do long ago.”

  His tone was sincere, and somehow Eydis sensed he was telling the truth about his incredible origins.

  She asked, “And voices like the one in this sacred place aid you along your path?”

  He shrugged. “They might all be only one voice. Or they might belong to many. I cannot say. But you look unsure of my words. Why is this strange to you when so many magical threads make up the weave of our world’s pattern? I am not the only eternal to walk the earth. Perhaps not even the first of your acquaintance.”

  Eydis thought of the ghostly White Lady who had once helped her save Geveral’s life. But she did not speak of that, asking instead, “What is this quest you believe you have been rebirthed to carry out?”

  “It is not yet fully clear,” he admitted. “But it becomes more so each day since I have met you. I was placed in your path for a reason. You carry out a great task of your own, defending the world from the darkness of Rathnakar, the Raven King. Somehow, Catalyst of Chaos, I will help you fulfill that mission.”

  Startled at his knowledge of her mission and identity, Eydis was about to question him further. But a cry of alarm in the distance demanded her attention.

  “We must get back to the others,” she said quickly. “It sounds like our winged enemy has returned.”

  * * *

  Scrambling to join the rest of her party at the top of the ridge, Eydis’s heart sank at finding her suspicions confirmed. The now-familiar form of their flying adversary was again on the horizon, approaching with speed. Eydis had first seen the half-eagle, half-lion creature some time ago in a vision, wherein it had guarded a granite tower inhabited by a wizard.

  The griffin had crossed over from the realm of dreams into that of reality a few days ago, when she and the others had entered the mountains. It had appeared intermittently to harass them ever since. Sometimes it clutched giant boulders in its claws to drop down on their party as it flew overhead. Other times it swooped low, attempting to drive the group over the sides of steep cliffs. It showed no interest in devouring them, so exactly what it wanted was a mystery.

  Searching for a plan to stave off the creature’s attack, Eydis looked around for cover. The ridge they stood atop dropped down a steep gradient to a stand of trees far below.

  “What’s the plan?” Geveral asked, coming to join her. “What are you thinking?”

  “That we are painfully exposed up here,” she said quickly. “It could knock us off this ridge with a single swipe of those broad wings. We’ll stand a better chance if we can reach the trees down there. It’ll have less room to maneuver.”

  Agreeing, Geveral shouted at the adherents and children to make for the shelter of the trees while he and Eydis hung back, weapons drawn, to defend their rear.

  Watching the frightened adherents and dwarf children stream past, Eydis was relieved to see Jula had Keir in hand and was hurrying him down the hillside along with the others. After his talk of destiny, she had feared that, even as young as he was, the lad might put up a fight to stay behind and defend against the griffin. Barehanded if necessary. But he appeared to realize this was not the time. He ran after the rest without a backward look.

  Eydis spared a glance toward Geveral to be sure he had his pike at the ready. His rusted pike and the pair of knives in Eydis’s hands were the only weapons they had been able to obtain from the trader in the foothills. Geveral often seemed oddly reluctant to use weapons. But he held the pike now, a look of grim determination on his face.

  The whoosh of wings overhead announced the arrival of the griffin. With a chilling scream that was neither the roar of a lion nor the screech of an eagle, it descended on them, sweeping low to rake its claws through the air.

  Eydis and Geveral leapt in opposite directions, Eydis rolling through the snow to slam into a rock. Ribs throbbing from the impact, she scrambled to her feet to see the griffin wheeling to come at them again. She had no real desire to engage a creature of such size. Her plan was merely to keep it busy long enough for the others to make their escape.

  Geveral seemed to be of the same mind. This was not their first such ploy against the creature.

  When the griffin made its second pass, aiming for Geveral alone this time, the dryad stabbed swiftly at the beast’s exposed underbelly. On missing his target, he then dove beneath the animal’s outspread wing, narrowly avoiding its clutches.

  But the creature was angry now, and it came to a rough and abrupt landing, digging its claws deep into the snow-covered ground. The earth shook beneath its weight. Swinging around, it snaked out its thickly muscled neck and struck at Geveral, who barely managed to dodge its sharp beak.

  The creature had never attacked them from the ground before. Eydis quickly realized her friend was in trouble. A quick glance told her the adherents and children were safely clear. So as Geveral avoided the griffin’s plunging beak, Eydis leapt onto a fallen log just uphill from the pair.

  The log was heavy and settled deep in the snow. But she used all her strength to rock it back and forth until it broke free. With a groan, it began to roll downhill.

  “Geveral, look out!” she shouted.

  Her friend looked up, surprise flashing across his features for an instant, and then he hurtled himself out of the log’s path. The griffin evaded the rolling log as well, flapping broad wings and lifting off from the ground at the last possible moment.

  Eydis wasted no time waiting to see what he did next. She raced down the steep incline, Geveral rushing after her. The safety of the trees grew closer as they neared the bottom. Eydis’s blood pounded in her temples. Her breath came in painful gasp
s. But she couldn’t slow down even if she wanted to as momentum pulled her forward.

  The whoosh of wind from the griffin’s beating wings stirred a flurry of ice crystals all around, signaling the closeness of pursuit. Not daring to glance back, she made the last several yards and plowed into the shelter of the trees. A crashing sound through the underbrush to her left told her Geveral had reached cover at the same moment.

  But another, greater crash came immediately from behind. The griffin had followed too close and, unable to reverse its flight, smashed through the saplings, knocking over the young trees. The trunks snapped, and branches rained down all around.

  Eydis and Geveral ran on until they left behind the thrashing noises of the griffin. They caught up to their companions, who were waiting anxiously. The women had made the children lie down in a hollow in the ground at the base of a boulder. Eydis saw no choice but to stay where they were and hope the density of the forest would prevent the griffin coming any further. They didn’t have long to wait before the sounds of the griffin’s struggle in the distance faded away. The creature must have freed itself and abandoned pursuit.

  Having reached a sudden decision, Eydis took Geveral aside. “We cannot continue on this way,” she told him. “We’ve been lucky in evading the beast this long, but it’s only a matter of time until it prevails.”

  Geveral’s silver eyes were troubled. “What choice do we have?”

  “Just this. We split up,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about this since the creature first appeared. I can’t explain how I know it, but I believe the griffin is only after me. It has no interest in the rest of you.”

  Briefly she remembered the scene from her dream where the wizard in his granite tower plotted against her. The griffin was his creature. It stood to reason the beast hunted her at its master’s bidding. She continued, “If I separate from the rest of the party, I can draw the griffin off, leaving the rest of you to continue untroubled. Take the most direct route through the mountains to Runehaven where you will be safe.”