Chapter 1
Book Two: Call of the Bloodstone
The Song of Contempt
Written by B. Powell
“When the Rider sounds the horn of war, Death spreads his ebon wings.
When the Rider sounds the horn of war, the Serpent coils in the grass.
When the Rider sounds the horn of war, the rivers run red with blood, and the Tides feed.
When the Rider sounds the horn of war, the Lion roars.
When the Rider sounds the horn of war, Dusk answers, casting her shadow of loss and despair.”
—The Storm Gathers, by Nerithan Fallow Konradic, Warcaller of Lord General Rechiar Godegisel, commander of the First Legion, the Iron Wolves.
Chapter One
From the towering spires to the battle-worn ramparts, from the gilded keeps to the shadowed alleys, banners of black and gold whipped defiantly in the western trade wind. Across each, the words Cutha, Devar, Meshkar stood bold and unyielding:
Blood. Iron. Throne.
Kell’dashar. The greatest city in Augusta, perhaps all of Loreth, a city where obedience means survival and loyalty can be bought. In dim chambers and vaulted halls, the lords and ladies of Kell’dashar carved wealth and power from the land and lives, in a game no one wins.
From the towering heights of his sanctum above the Black Altar, Ozreg Bylark, High Scepter of Rule, sat in brooding silence, his fingers drumming against the arm of his chair as the black-cloaked priest before him spoke in a hushed yet urgent tone. The man recounted, with evident unease, the rising tide of prophets, these so-called Truthsayers, who had begun to spread the word of a new god, a one true god, whom they called Exldir, the Truthbringer.
“…Their numbers have swelled to at least thirty, but it is difficult to say for certain, for each dawn brings more converts into their flock. The faithful multiply unchecked, and worse still, there are whispers that even some of our own have begun to waver, drawn into this heresy, forsaking the will of Rule.”
Ozreg dismissed the priest with a simple wave, his thoughts already turning inward, his mind a forge of cold calculations. He rose from his seat and strode toward the great arched window that overlooked Kell’dashar, laying bare the empire’s heart beneath his gaze, though not today, for thick, snow-heavy clouds veiled the heavens, blotting out the sun like a funeral shroud.
His expression darkened at the sight of the endless cold, his mood as bitter as the winter that refused to relent.
With a furrowed brow and a low sigh of irritation, he returned to the desk of bone-white ash, its surface engraved with the black hand and scepter, the unholy symbol of Rule. There, in the dim glow of flickering oil lamps, he settled into his high-backed chair, his frame as solid as the granite-hewn countenance that defined him.
Ozreg was no frail bureaucrat, no scholar with ink-stained fingers and a scholar’s stoop; he was a man of action, a man of war, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, with callused hands from a life spent bending lesser wills to his own. His long white hair fell in loose waves over his black robes, the mark of a man untouched by time’s weakness.
They called him the Thumb, though never in his presence, nor within earshot of his agents, and not for his hands.
Summoning his scribe, a thin, nervous youth who reeked of parchment and candle wax, Ozreg dictated his decree with measured words, his voice a cold blade against the silence.
“Any man or woman found practicing this heresy is to be publicly lashed and fined one crown. Should they be caught a second time, an appropriate number of soldiers shall take residence within their home. If they are found guilty a third time… they will rot in the death cages.”
It was the measured response, the practical one, the means by which the infection could be contained, cauterized before it could fester and spread beyond control. A purge, however satisfying, would only drive them deeper into the shadows, where faith becomes a weapon and martyrs are forged.
Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Ozreg scoffed at the words as they slithered through his memory, a sermon once preached to him by some soft-handed cleric of Justice, a man who had, in his foolish arrogance, sought to turn him from Rule, from his path, from his truth. The thought of it still amused him. In response, Ozreg had crushed the man’s skull with a brick.
Yet even as his orders were put to ink, something within him soured, a boiling rage rising beneath his ribs like a tide of molten lead. His fingers twitched. His breath quickened. Suddenly, with a feral snarl, he snatched the parchment from the scribe’s hands, tearing it to ribbons with his teeth, grinding the paper between them before swallowing it down like carrion.
His voice thundered through the chamber, echoing against the vaulted stone.
“No! Kill them! Hang them from the ramparts! Turn the river red for all to see! I will show them who rules! I will show them who speaks for the Tyrant! I will show them who the fuck I am!”
The decree spread like wildfire, its words carried upon the lips of soldiers and magistrates, screamed in the streets, and was posted on bounty boards and guild houses. The prophets fled from the public squares, retreating into cellars and backrooms, their gospel whispered by candlelight, their faith now tested in the crucible of persecution.
The Black Riders of Rule, crusaders of the Tyrant, swept through the city like a plague, dragging the faithful from their beds, from their homes, from the arms of their weeping families. They were hung from the walls, their corpses left as warnings. They were cut down in alleyways, knives in the dark, ensuring that no last words escaped their lips. They were burned in the streets, their screams devoured by the roaring flames.
But tyranny is a poor executioner of faith.
Instead of breaking beneath the boot of Rule, the Truthsayers grew bolder, their convictions hardened by the crucible of suffering. If Ozreg Bylark sought to prove them wrong, then why had their god’s enemies moved so swiftly to silence them? Why had the false gods sent their butchers to stamp out the name of Exldir?
Their proof was written in blood and fire.
And so, in the blackened ruins of shrines once dedicated to the Watchers, the faithful of Exldir took up arms. The streets ran red, not just with the blood of the faithful but with the lives of their oppressors, as Truthsayers rose against the Kell’dashain and the Black Hand of Rule.
And as the city churned beneath the weight of its own brutality, Ozreg Bylark watched from his tower, his hands stained, his orders obeyed, and yet something stirred within him, something he refused to name.
For though the river had turned red… it had not yet run dry.
***
Having left Kane and his companions to brave the trial halls beneath the ruins of Emniwix’s once-illustrious school, the wizard Domingo turned his attention to a different battle, one fought not with swords and sorcery but with secrets, shadows, and whispered truths. The cult of Exldir festered like an untreated wound, spreading its influence through the city like a sickness, and Domingo was determined to unearth its roots before it consumed Kell’dashar and then Loreth.
It had been only a handful of days since High Scepter Bylark had declared war upon the Truthsayers, but only one since Domingo himself had sealed the entrance to the dungeon behind Kane and his allies. Yet already, the city’s gutters ran thick with the blood of the faithful and the damned alike, their bodies left to rot in the streets as warnings to any who dared defy the will of Rule. Hundreds lay dead, and still, the flames of faith refused to die.
No stranger to the twisting machinations of zealots and madmen, Domingo felt his concern deepen with each whispered rumor, each half-heard sermon carried through the alleys like smoke on the wind. It was not just the cult’s rhetoric that troubled him, but the power behind it, these so-called Bloodstones, relics imbued with something ancient, something divine. If Maerda’s warnings to Kane held any truth, then someone, or something, was deliberately seeding the very blood of a god into the hands of mortals. And if the unnatural strength wielded by the prophets of Exldir was any indication, then whoever was behind it had no intention of wielding such power gently.
Domingo, wrapped in rags, his usually pristine robes replaced with filth-stained layers to better blend with the forgotten souls of the underbelly of Kell’dashar, shadowed a group of men as they stumbled from a tavern, their hushed voices thick with the slurred conviction of drunken heresy. He had listened from the corner, hunched over a wooden bowl, feigning the feeble tremors of a beggar as they spoke of a gathering, a place where the Truthsayers met unhindered.
He followed through the labyrinthine streets, keeping to the fringes, never too close, but near enough to watch, listen, and wait. The night had long since swallowed the city in its cold embrace, the streets sparse, with only a few travelers who braved the dark moving quickly, heads low, shoulders hunched against both the wind and the unspoken dangers lurking within it.
His quarry came to a halt before a two-story house, its boarded windows dark, its door sealed like the lips of a corpse long since forgotten. No lanterns burned behind the wooden slats, no warmth bled through the cracks, only silence, heavy and watchful. The four men glanced around, hands tightening on the hilts of their weapons, eyes sweeping the streets for unseen threats before slipping down an alleyway, vanishing into the shadows like rats into the walls of a rotting house.
Domingo did not follow.
Instead, with a quiet tap of his staff against the frozen earth, he folded into himself, his form twisting, shifting, melting. Feathers sprouted where flesh had been, his limbs contorted, shrinking, his mouth reshaping into a barn owl’s curved, sharpened beak. The world exploded into sharp clarity, his newly golden eyes drinking in every flicker of movement, every rustling shape below, every heartbeat pulsing through the city walls like a second song beneath the wind.
Lifting into the frost-laced night, Domingo soared, the snowfall swallowing the sound of his wings as he circled above the dilapidated house, searching its surface until his gaze found a rotten hole in the rooftop, a breach just wide enough for his new body to slip through.
Inside, the air was heavy with dust and whispered prayers, the rafters trembling with hushed desperation. Mice scattered at his arrival, tiny shadows darting into unseen sanctuaries, but he paid them no mind. He focused his attention on the assembly below.
A tall figure stood at the center of the room, his silver hair catching the dim candlelight like woven moonlight, pale blue skin, long, sharp ears, his white robes pristine, untouched by the filth of the world around him.
He raised his hands, spoke with a smooth and controlled voice, and wove his words through the air like a snake winding its way into the ears and hearts of those who listened. An amulet hung from his neck, the open book of the Truthbringer, a symbol of their faith and resistance.
Before him, a crowd of peasants huddled, knelt with their eyes wide, hands clasped, their breath held in silent reverence.
Mothers clutched their children, fathers bowed their heads, and the weary, the broken, the hopeless, all leaned into his words, seeking solace where none had been given.
And the preacher fed their hunger.
“The dead rose from their tombs because of them!” he declared, his voice shaking with passionate fury. “Those who call themselves ‘heroes’ are the very reason we suffer! They dug into cursed tombs, plundered sacred places, awoke the horrors of the past, and now we are the ones who must pay the price!”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the gathered faithful, their nods slow, their gazes dark with resentment and contempt.
“They call themselves righteous, yet where were they when our homes burned? Where were the Eternal Watchers when orcs pillaged our caravans? Where were they when bandits murdered our loved ones in the night? Where were they when the dead rose from the earth to feast? Where were they when dragons came, demanding tribute in flesh and gold?”
His words coiled around them, tightening with every question, every wound he reopened.
“I will tell you where they are.” His tone dropped into a hushed, dangerous whisper, each syllable worming into their hearts and minds.
“They are in their palaces, fattened on your sacrifices. They sit counting their coin, bathing in gold while your children starve. They indulge their urges, drinking deep of your suffering, merry in your wanting, all while telling you that ‘justice’ will come in the next life. But why wait?”
The murmurs gave way to shouts of agreement, rage, and conviction.
“The Watchers have abandoned you. The Kings have abandoned you. The gods themselves have turned their backs. But Exldir does not forget. Exldir does not forsake His faithful. Give yourself to Him, and you will be rewarded, not in death, but in life.”
And so it began.
A god for the broken. A lie for the desperate. A fire stoked in the darkness.
And Domingo, perched above, knew that this war had only just begun.
Listening closely, Domingo almost missed the hurried footsteps echoing in the street below. A heartbeat later, the front and back doors burst open, wood splintering, and the crash of boots on stone filled the house as soldiers poured in, their armor clanking like the march of an iron tide.
Panic seized the gathered faithful. A man clutched his young daughter to his chest. “Teacher Ourri, what do we do? There’s nowhere to go, they’ll kill us all!”
“O Exldir! Save us, strike them down!” wailed a woman, falling to her knees, hands held in desperate prayer.
The prophet, Ourri, raised his arms. His voice cut through the panic.
“The Truthbringer will protect us! Exldir will guide our hands and hearts! Have faith in his righteous might, take up arms and defend your homes, your families, your very souls!”
With a sweep of his hand, two dozen swords shimmered into existence, steel gleaming in auras of gold, swords that hadn’t been there a moment before. Gasps filled the room.
“You know what must be done,” Ourri intoned. His deep voice rang with conviction, with power. “Do not let them break your spirit. Fight the servants of the false gods!”
Silence, a heartbeat of hesitation.
The gathered faithful exchanged uncertain glances, searching for someone, anyone, who would be the first to seize a weapon. Then, the prophet stepped forward and laid a hand on a young woman’s shoulder. Domingo watched as the gemstone in the preacher’s ring pulsed with light. The young woman’s breath hitched; her eyes lost focus and clouded over for an instant. Then, her face hardened.
She marched to the rack, seized a sword, and raised it high. "I won’t let them do to me what they did to my mother!” she cried.
The others hesitated no longer. One by one, they took hold of the weapons, determination replacing fear. The sound of boots thundered up the stairs, growing louder with every second.
The door thudded once, twice, then splintered apart. Soldiers poured in, their commander barking for surrender.
“Exldir protects us! The Truthbringer saves us!” the young woman shrieked, surging forward.
The gleaming steel of her sword plunged into a soldier’s chest. He gasped, stumbled, and crumpled to the ground, blood soaking his tabard. A stunned silence froze the room before it erupted into chaos.
“Kill them!” The command rang out, and steel clashed in a violent, desperate flurry. It was no battle; it was a massacre.
The Kell’dashain soldiers, trained for war, cut through the unskilled
men and women with ease. Swords, axes, and maces met flesh, tearing through cloth and bone. Cries for justice turned to pain, then to gurgling gasps, and then nothing, still with death.
The commander prowled through the blood-soaked wreckage. Where is the Truthsayer? he wondered, kicking aside a lifeless hand that had been reaching for salvation.
“Bylark wants his corpse,” he snarled.
His soldiers searched the dead, turning them over with their boots, twenty-four dead, eight of them children, and no preacher.
Someone cursed aloud. The weapons were gone. One of them pointed with a shaking hand.
“B-But, sir… she killed Ogdo. The sword, it’s vanished.”
The commander felt a chill creep up his spine. He would soon be explaining to Bylark that another prophet had escaped him.
Outside, unnoticed in the darkening sky, Domingo flew from the window. He had seen it all. The violence, the blood, the power that had shimmered in the preacher’s hand before it spread to his followers like an infectious fever. And then, he had seen the Truthsayer disappear as though he had never been there at all.
Below, the city muttered to itself, beggars pleading, thieves stealing, rattling wagons and bleating animals, the usual evening hum. But to Domingo, it was a requiem. The people inside the house were dead, and if the priest lived, then their deaths must not be for nothing.
A ripple in the air. A flicker, a shadow moving where it should not be.
Footprints appeared in the mud.
The form of a man emerged from the night.
The Truthsayer.
Domingo swooped lower, his wings soundless as the prophet strode through the city with unnatural confidence. Beggars and street peddlers shrank from him as though they sensed what he was, but he paid them no mind.
At the door of a candlelit house, the man raised a hand. A faint glimmer flickered from his ring, and the door creaked open by an unseen force. Stepping inside, he let it close behind him, sealing off the cries of the dying and the shouts of soldiers.
Domingo perched unseen on the edge of a rooftop. He would not let their deaths go to waste.
With a silent flap of his wings, he followed.
The silence of the empty house was a blessed reprieve from the ceaseless, mewling masses, always pleading, constantly demanding that he save them from themselves. Their desperation was exhausting.
With a weary sigh, he sank onto the edge of the bed, kicked off his buskin shoes, and stretched his legs. A bottle of liquor drifted through the air from a nearby cabinet, settling into his waiting hand. He took a slow sip, savoring the burn as it slid down his throat.
Tilting his head back, he gazed toward the rafters, speaking to the unseen. “I pray this is worth all I endure. The sacrifices made tonight will not be in vain. More will flock to our call, give thanks for your wisdom, and march under the banner of justice. They will pay any price for the gifts bestowed.”
Another swig. A deeper breath. With a snap of his fingers, a fire sprang to life in the hearth, its glow flickering against the cracked walls, casting restless shadows that swayed in time with his thoughts.
He lay back against the down-filled mattress, letting exhaustion claim him.
Then, a rustle of feathers.
His eyes snapped open.
A low, melodic warble echoed in the stillness. He sat up slowly, gaze shifting to the far end of the room.
A large barn owl perched on the back of a wooden chair, its vast green eyes gleaming like polished emeralds. They bore into him, unblinking.
The preacher scowled. “Go away,” he muttered, voice thick with liquor. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and belched. “Stupid bird.”
The owl did not move.
Annoyance flared. He lifted the bottle, ready to hurl it, but froze when the creature spoke.
“Stupid, am I?” the owl cooed, its voice as smooth as flowing water.
The preacher lurched upright, his pulse hammering. “What in the,”
Panic seized him. He threw the bottle with all his might, but the owl remained unflinching as the glass sailed past, shattering against the wall.
“What is this? Who, what are you?!” he barked, staggering to his feet.
The owl merely tilted its head. “I come seeking answers.”
“Answers?” He scoffed, running a trembling hand through his disheveled hair. "I must’ve drunk too much. Arguing with a damned bird... ridiculous.”
But the owl persisted. "Tell me, who is the Truthbringer?”
At the question, he dropped to the floor, eyes turned to the heavens, “Spare me, Exldir!” he choked. “Even the birds cry out for salvation!”
He crawled to the dresser, searching for another bottle. His fingers closed around the cool glass, and he yanked it free, wrenching out the cork with his teeth. Wine sloshed over his white robes as he drank in fevered gulps, trying to drown out the voice, the eyes, the impossibility of it all.
Then, the bottle was yanked from his grasp.
He gasped, blinking in confusion.
The owl was gone.
In its place, a tall figure loomed. A greying wizard, his presence commanding despite his age, stood with one hand wrapped around a black staff. A dragon perched at the top, its talons gripping an orb that swirled with shifting colors, colors that seemed to whisper of powers beyond mortal understanding.
The preacher could only stare, wine dribbling down his chin.
The firelight gleamed off the wizard’s piercing gaze as he studied him with quiet intensity.
“Where did you come from?” he mumbled, his fingers twitching toward the bottle. His gaze flitted between the owl, gone without a trace, and the imposing figure before him.
Domingo’s grip was firm as he seized the preacher’s wrist, his eyes narrowing at the ring, dark stone, pulsing veins of purple, set in a simple gold band. “Where did you get this?”
Ourril yanked his hand back, but the wizard’s hold was ironclad.
“Do not let him take me!” A voice hissed in his mind like oil sizzling on a fire. Ourril flinched.
Domingo’s gaze darkened. “Who is Exldir?”
The words spilled from Ourril’s lips like a breached dam, as an undeniable force compelled him to answer this man with the truth; after all, how could he betray his good friend? “The cursed Watchers banished the Truthbringer from his celestial kingdom. But he is the only true god! The others are liars, deceivers! When Exldir is free, we shall cleanse the world of their corruption. We will tear down their idols, and the faithful will rise from the filth. A golden age will dawn, and,”
Domingo’s grip tightened. “I’ve heard enough of your ranting. Now… where did you get that ring?”
He lifted Ourril’s trembling hand, the gemstone throbbing in its gold setting like a living heart.
As Domingo examined it, the preacher recoiled. He let out a pained hiss, and his fingers clenched into a claw as if to rip the ring from his own flesh.
A voice, not his own, curled through his mind, a terrible hiss of oil and acid.
“Do not let him take me! He will steal your power and break you!”
Ourril’s eyes snapped wide. Panic flooded his expression, twisting into desperate resolve.
He wrenched himself free with a cry, stumbling back against the wall. A finger stabbed at Domingo, and a vile curse tore from his throat.
A roaring inferno exploded around Domingo, engulfing him in a sphere of searing flames. The fire scored the wooden floor, licked at the ceiling beams, blistered the paint, heat rolling off in waves.
Ourril bared his teeth, expecting to hear screams of agony; instead, silence.
As the flames flickered and died, Domingo still stood. Unscorched. His robes as pristine as if they had never been touched. A glow rose from the dragon’s orb, illuminating his chiseled face with an eerie light. His expression was calm, almost disappointed.
Tsk, tsking, he tapped the tip of his staff against Ourril’s chest. Tendrils of scarlet enchantment wove around the preacher’s body like ivy.
Ourril’s eyes widened in horror as he went rigid, frozen in place, his mind trapped beneath the weight of unseen forces.
“I am no simple-minded fool, easily dispatched,” Domingo said coldly. “Your tricks will not save you from me, nor from the weight of what you have done. You let innocents die to save your own skin.”
Ourril wanted to recoil, to shrink away from the wizard’s piercing gaze, but the enchantment held him firm. He couldn’t even blink.
Domingo grasped his wrist, fingers tightening around the ring.
“Worthless! Pathetic! You shall know only torment before you die!” hissed the Bloodstone.
A searing pain erupted in Ourril’s gut. It twisted and spread, burning through his veins like molten iron. His silent scream echoed only within his mind as the agony devoured him from the inside out.
Domingo pulled the ring free, stepping back just as Ourril collapsed. His body convulsed violently, then began to dissolve. Flesh blackened, liquefied, and sloughed away in steaming rivulets. Acid ate through muscle and bone, reducing him to a bubbling puddle that sizzled against the wooden floorboards.
Domingo exhaled, staring intently at the Bloodstone in his palm.
It was more than a tool.
A murmur stirred at the back of his mind, low, insidious, like distant whispers before a gathering storm. The fine hairs on his neck rose.
His grip tightened, and he dropped the stone into a pouch, securing the cord with a firm knot before tucking it inside his vest pocket. Not in the enchanted ones. He would not risk it slipping into another plane of existence where its influence might fester unseen.
It wasn’t just magic; the stone had a mind of its own. An intelligence that had turned on its own wielder to keep its secrets. The same intelligence that had driven the boy Pyter mad.
Daring not to polymorph, lest the transformation make him vulnerable to the stone’s influence, Domingo slipped through the back door instead.
He wrapped himself in illusion, his fine robes melting into the ragged garb of a beggar, his staff appearing as a walking stick. The scent of sweat and filth clung to him as he melded into the night, moving unnoticed past the paupers and rogues.
He made his way toward Lughun’s, steps steady, mind swirling with the knowledge that he now carried something far more dangerous than he had anticipated.
High above the Black Altar, in the shadowed heights of his tower, Lord Bylark seethed.
The Truthsayers were not breaking. If anything, they were growing stronger, emboldened by resistance. Killing them, it seemed, would not be enough.
No, they needed to use them as examples.
His gauntleted fingers drummed against the armrest of his throne as he issued new orders. Take the preachers alive. He needed answers, desperately.
The followers he had already spoken with had yielded little beyond the usual fanatical nonsense. Promises of salvation, deliverance from eternal damnation, hollow words. He wanted the truth. What drove this so-called altruistic deity? What power lay hidden beneath its veil of righteousness?
Ozreg followed Rule, and Rule’s cruelty, self-indulgence, and hunger for domination resonated in Bylark’s own heart.
The Watcher of Tyranny and Dominion was not a forgiving master.
Nor was Bylark, High Scepter of Rule, the Overlord, the Black Tyrant, the Cudgel.
