Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 38

Avalyn, the Wielder of Chains, may have dragged him out of Draedona's realm, but the reek of death never left Pertheran. It travelled in his wake like the virulent power of a corrupt God, roiled and twisted like foul smoke rising from burning flesh. It grew so strong, sometimes he would check himself before a mirror, to see whether the sorcery keeping his immortal soul trapped in his corpse was coming undone-- wishing to make sure whether the horrid stench was his own or those he killed.

Another day of offering mortal sacrifices. He did not know whose corpses did the captain and the Royal Sorceress plan to raise in exchange of those sacrifices, but it was not his job to ask questions as such.

Rope-bound bodies lay in macabre rows across the dungeon floor, torchlight dancing in the river of blood which poured from the headless corpses. The stone-hewn altar in the middle of the room stood like a lone sentry amidst the crowd of bodies.

No remorse should grip him, Captain Reylan had said, for the sacrifices were criminals, sentenced to death by the Drisian law, unfortunate enough to be sent to Calbridge rather than to the gallows. Reylan's mercy was worse than a bag covering one's face and a noose tightening around the throat.

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"Fascinating what sorcery can do, isn't it?" The Captain always had a look of awe in his eyes when he would look down upon those bloody corpses. "Cleaning filth off this world's face, and creating warriors at their cost? A soul well spent, I say."

Yet how many times had there been people other than criminals at the altar of sacrifice? People who had angered the Captain, the bandits he'd hired to help with commander Karyk's abduction, people who protested when he painted eight of his own soldiers as renegades when the Midaelians accused him of breaching the treaty-- the list went on.

"But why me for this job, of all people? Anyone can offer sacrifices," Pertheran had asked.

True, the captain had loads of other people who could do it. Executioners, torturers, his whole cadre of Vasaeni.

"Anyone can do this job, but not everyone is Pertheran Durinford, am I right? The first Vasaen ever created in centuries, whom I marked with my own hands. Asked the sorceress so I could keep you for myself. That's because you are special. There's always something special about the first one of a kind," the captain told him. "Anyway, how's your little sister doing? Eryna, was it?"

A leaden weight had settled in his stomach. "--Why? Why do you ask?"

A look of hurt crossed Captain's face. "You speak as though I would want to hurt her. I only ask because I have heard that you are trying to get her some proper education...something that is well beyond your wage to afford."

Pertheran nodded. "Aye, sir."

"Should've come to me sooner, then. Well, you have nothing to worry about from now on, for I will take full responsibility for her schooling. She will be sent to the best academy at Glasswolf-- and all expenses will be mine. All you have to do is obey my orders and keep your mouth shut." A pause. A slow smile he knew he could not say no to.

"Can you do it for me, Perth?"

A bribe. He was offering him a bribe and binding him with something stronger than sorcery-- chains of debt. His sister's smiling face swam in her vision.

Would he crush her dreams for mere conscience, when money was so hard to get by?

Bony hands clasped his shoulders tight, the captain's blue-grey gaze boring into his eyes. The amiable look in his eyes had vanished.

"This is not a request, but an alternate option for you to consider," Reylan said, his voice hushed, "the other option is...this."

He waved the ring in front of Perth's eyes.