The Guardian (The Gods and Kings Chronicles Book 2) by Haywood Lee H

Author:Haywood, Lee H. [Haywood, Lee H.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Free Dominion Publishing
Published: 2015-12-15T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

XIV

TAPER

Demetry cast his gaze longingly over the valley. They had come upon a seemingly endless chasm in the night. A glowing sea of embers lay within, shimmering yellows and reds. Slowly from the depth of night came shapes, and there, nestled in amongst the foothills of the Fir’re mountains, lay the village of Taper, dimly outlined by the flicker of oil lamps.

“Home,” said a voice softly in his ear.

“I have kept my word,” answered Demetry.

There was an unsettling scrape behind him as the rotting feet of a hundred thousand carrions came to a halt. Their leathery hides grated like sandpaper as they swayed listlessly to some unheard cadence. The noisome odor of death wafted about him like waves of heat off a fire. Demetry smiled. I have returned like I came.

When the Yanish Brothers had dropped him off at Taper, he still reeked of death. They had found him in a Caper slum nestling with the corpse of his mother long after the pox had taken her from this world. Try as they might, they couldn’t scrub the stench off of him. For the longest time no one realized he walked about with an undead rat tucked in his pocket. How would they have guessed that an urchin from Caper might channel the Sundered Soul for necromancy at so young an age?

The school headmaster, Brother Rioley, used a meat cleaver to hack Demetry’s little pet into pieces when it was finally discovered. Rioley made Demetry watch, all the while condemning his sinful deviation. “The rat is an abomination.” Thwack! “Your hands are tainted with sin.” Thwack! “The Sundered Soul will grow quiet to you if you continue upon this path.” Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

Demetry felt nauseated as he watched each individual part of the rat take on a writhing life of its own. But the twitching nose was the most horrific. Its frantic contractions caused it to slowly walk across the table. Joshua had placed a knife in Rioley’s gut for that.

“I have no regrets.”

Demetry smiled in gratitude.

The rat was my first, but not my last, thought Demetry grimly, as he glanced over the host that awaited his command. Brother Rioley believed Demetry should have been revolted by the rat’s deathless existence, and for awhile Demetry actually believed in his own damnation. But the Sundered Soul did not grow quiet to him, as Brother Rioley had warned. In fact, what had once been a whisper eventually became splendid music, a divine chorus sent from on high. The simple truth was, Demetry was drawn to necromancy; a sickness, perhaps, but he had long ago ceased worrying about the moral implications of his actions. He took delight in his dance with death.

Still, Joshua was an accident.

Joshua was Rioley’s mentee, and had been kind enough to sneak the remains of Demetry’s pet out of the headmaster’s garbage bin. He was an unhealthy child, undersized, and slow in all matters save the mind. Much like Demetry, he was prone to ridicule by his peers. “Outcasts stick together,” Demetry had told Joshua, as they somberly stood over the rat’s shallow grave.

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