EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (366 page)

Lee smiled.
“As
much
as
I would
love
to
see
Baltria, I
have business
in
Dantory
that
I
must
attend
to.”

“I
understand,”
said
Jaleel.
Reaching
into
the
pocket
of
his pants,
he
retrieved
a
large
silver
coin
and
handed
it
to
Lee.
On one
side
was
a
skull,
and
on
the
other
a
dagger.
“When
your business
is
finished,
seek
me
out.
Give
this
coin
to
the
Baltrian harbormaster.
He
will
know
what
it
means
and
how
to
find
me.” He
smiled
at
Lyndria.
“That
is,
assuming
I
still
live.”

Lyndria
laughed.
“Who
knows?
I
may
continue
to
spare you.”

They
walked
Lee
and
Millet
to
the
cave
entrance,
where their
horses
and
gear
awaited
them.
They
mounted,
said
a
final farewell,
and
continued
through
the
pass.

“Millet,”
said
Lee.
“From
now
on,
you’re
in
charge
of deciding
what
road
we
take.”

Millet
smiled.
“Very
wise,
my
lord.”

About the Authors

B
RIAN
D.
A
NDERSON
WAS
BORN
in
1971,
and
grew
up
in
the
small
town
of
Spanish
Fort,
AL.
He
attended
Fairhope
High,
then
later
Springhill
College
where
his
love
for
fantasy
grew
into
a
lifelong
obsession.
His
hobbies
include
chess,
history,
and
spending
time
with
his
son.

Jonathan
Anderson
was
born
in
March
of
2003.
His
creative
spirit
became
evident
by
the
age
of
three
when
he
told
his
first
original
story.
In
2010
he
came
up
with
the
concept
for
The
Godling
Chronicles.
It
grew
into
an
exciting
collaboration
between
father
and
son.
Jonathan
enjoys
sports,
chess,
music,
games,
and
of
course,
telling
stories.

http://authorbriandanderson.com/

R
EN
OF
A
TIKALA

David Adams

The Last Prophecy of the Gods

On the final day of the final year of the
Age of Immortality
, the Gods promised they would do something unprecedented and beyond mortal understanding. This collective act was to usher in a new age for all the races of Drathari.

Instead, on that day, the Gods died.

Now prayers go unanswered, prophecies no longer hold, and the ancient magic used to heal wounds, extend life, and return the dead has long passed away. All that remains are the mortal races, struggling to survive and constantly at war.

This is the
Age of Betrayal.

Prologue

The Cycle, Interrupted

I
WAS
BORN
DEAD
.

A living creature had not come back to life in many years. My rebirth must have been a surprising event indeed to those who witnessed it, especially such an insignificant creature as I.
 

A kobold. A creature little more than vermin by most of the world, standing three feet tall and weighing fifty pounds, had crawled back from the grave before even cracking her shell.

In the northernmost part of the world of Drathari in a place known as the Skycrown lay the sprawling underworld caverns that held the kobold city of Atikala. Here, hundreds of the fast-breeding kobolds were hatched every day. An egg was named as it was laid, the names taken from a registry and returned upon death.

We were not the product of two souls in love, nor were they born into caring families as were humans, elves, or the hated gnomes. This was not our way. Instead, just as with almost every aspect of our rigid and inflexible lives, we had a system.

Every wyrmling hatched in Atikala breathed its first breath in the nursery—the cavern that was the deepest, strongest, most protected part of the entire city. We meticulously recorded its parentage in our libraries before it was put to work as a craftsman, warrior, or some other assigned task, reproducing at the age of six winters, and toiling until killed by war, misadventure, or overwork.

This was the cycle. Birth, assignment, reproduction, death. It was a system ruthlessly enforced with unwavering devotion, and our society flourished for it.

However sometimes things went wrong. Sometimes order was not upheld.

For every clutch of eggs the system produced, and it produced many, some were not viable. Those that did not contain the spark of life had their names reclaimed, the dead eggs cast into the furnaces, becoming fuel for the fires that heated the great central nursery and drove the forges we used to create tools and weapons.

So it was for me.
 

My dead egg was cast into the furnace with a dozen or so others; the fire burned around us, and one by one, they were consumed by the flames, soon reduced to nothing.
 

Yet I was not.
 

When the great conflagration died down, my protective shell sat unharmed and cradled in a pile of ash, glowing with a faint golden light.

The first thing I remembered was the glow.

This was a strange event indeed, seen from the inside of an egg, living inside a hardened shell. I remember the light, bright but welcoming, and the sincere feeling of comfort that accompanied it. Then movement. My egg was brought before the high sorceress assigned to watch over the clutch. I remember this moment most distinctly of all. Impossibly oversized claws enveloping my home, and I remember hearing her voice. The voice of Tzala.
 

“You were certain that it was without life?”

Dragons are hatched knowing how to speak. The same is true for my kind. We all know the tongue of our forebearers, and even before I had left my shell, I understood the nuances of our people. It was instinct. A racial memory we all possessed.

Another voice, female, unknown to me. “Yes, Leader. Cold as the stone, it was. I used the wand to verify it; there was no spark. Protocol demanded it be destroyed.” There was a faint shuffling, claws scratching on the stone underfoot. “Am I to report for execution?”

“You followed protocol,” the voice holding me reminded her, “and your duty was clear. You could not have foreseen the egg’s survival, plucked from death’s embrace by fate itself.”

“Very well, Leader. With your blessing I will return to my labours.”

I heard the kobold leave, and my home turned over and over in Tzala’s claws, a strange but not uncomfortable sensation. I felt drawn to her, comforted by her voice. She was known to me. I had met her already somehow, although I didn’t understand it. My earliest memories, however, did not reach any further back than the fading heat of the flames; my second birth in a roaring pit of fire.

“How is this possible?” Tzala mused. “What are you?”

Beyond this, I remember nothing.

Act I

The Only Way to Go Is Up

H
OME
.

T
HE
WORD
HAS
A
special resonance with us all. Great or humble, rich or poor, everyone cherishes their home, and if deprived of it, loses a piece of themselves. We crave the stability of the known, a warm bed that we can crawl into every night, our possessions around us and everything just as it is supposed to be. We fight to defend it. If we are lucky, home is the place where we die.

I remember looking back at Atikala, its ceiling collapsed, the homes of fifty thousand kobolds crushed under unimaginable tonnes of rock and dirt. I wanted to reject that this had happened, to scream to the ceiling until the rock receded, until fate changed its mind and restored everything to the way it was. I thought life could not be so cruel as to take everything I’d known in an instant
—
everything we had all known.

Oh how I now understand that life can be capricious indeed.

It took me many years, but I eventually realised that my species is not so dissimilar to the humans, the dwarves, or even the gnomes. We hate and fear so much and so many, but we are more alike than most know.
 

We all have one thing in common, and that is we love our homes. To lose our home is a terrible thing that pains our hearts like the death of a close friend. Physically a home is nothing more than inanimate stone and wood and nails, but it is so much more when surrounded by friends, by family, and by all the things we love.

I don’t remember how long Khavi and I wandered in the long, winding tunnels at the north of the world. We survived entirely by chance. We were two kobolds stumbling around the underworld with nothing but our patrol gear, weapons, armour, and a backpack full of supplies for a week’s march. We had no plan, only a vague idea where we were going, and nowhere to return to.

It was the single great event that changed my life, and I feel, beyond even the strange circumstances of my hatching and training in the great city of Atikala, beyond discovering my sorcerer’s talent and awakening the spark of magic within me, that this is a good point to begin the story of my life.

There are other stories that I wish to tell, and I will tell them one day, but this story must come first.

The story of how I came to the surface of Drathari and unwillingly traded a life for a life.

— Ren of Atikala

Chapter I

T
HE
DAY
A
TIKALA
WAS
DESTROYED
was a special day for me.

I woke up with a start, the memory of a dream still raw and vivid, every detail seared into my mind. It was another night filled with haunting dreams. This one was a memory, that of my second birth.

I disliked being unable to control my mind while I slept, but sorcerers always dreamed. Our dreams reflected the faint sliver of powerful blood in our veins, a body stuffed with too much soul, the excess spilling into the night hours. It was the price we paid for our arts.

The dreams, sometimes original and sometimes mirrors of my own memories and experiences, stayed with me and refused to fade when my waking hours came. Each one was infused with power and omens, the beating of golden wings, and the comforting yet intense heat as I exhaled a wreath of flame that could melt stone.

But prophecy was dead. There were no portents in my dreams. Nobody had been able to see the future for hundreds of years, to the point that some wondered if such things ever existed. Yet sometimes I wondered, somewhat fearfully, if the memories appeared in my sleep not because they had happened before, but because they would happen again.

I uncurled myself from the cool stone floor of the quarters that served as my lodgings, the simple home of a warrior. I was careful not to let my claws scratch any of the nine others sharing the floor with me, all huddled together around a pile of coals for warmth.

Of those who lived with me, I always awoke first, and always because of the Dreaming. I climbed to my feet, stepping over and around my fellows as I gingerly made my way over to the wooden chest, six inches by nine and six deep, the vessel for all my worldly possessions.

It was rare for kobolds to own anything at all, but the sorcerers amongst us tended to have keepsakes. Memories of our younger years, things to ward away nightmares or to grant nights without dreams. My box held only a red velvet bag. I lifted it, tugging open the string and upending the contents into my hand.

Eggshells. Golden fragments of my egg, still glowing with a faint light after all these winters. They were so small in my palm. I turned them over and over, listening to them rattle against each other. I had once lived completely within this thing. It had been my entire universe, all I knew and experienced, but I had eventually broken free of it and seen so much more.

It was like this city. Few kobolds outside the Darkguard had left Atikala, but I knew there was a much wider world out there. A world of fantastic creatures, of monsters and evil. Was Atikala my new egg? My new existence waiting to be shattered?

I had so many questions but had found no answers. Why had the egg not burned? Why did it continue to glow to this day? Why was I golden coloured when all around me were rusty or black?

“What am I?” I spoke to the broken pieces, hoping the fragments of my birth device would have words to speak back at me.

“Talking to yourself again, Ren?”

Ren. It meant
nothing
. With my name struck from the register after my death, Ren was what everyone called me.

I didn’t have to turn around to know who was speaking. The low, deep voice belonged to Khavi. Khavi was an oddity; he was the only male in our patrol team. Only one in twenty kobolds were male.

I had reached six winters, and Khavi had been the first assigned to breed with me when the season was right. He had successfully bred with another of our patrolmates already and came from a respectable line of strong warriors. There was nothing to dislike about the pairing, but I wasn’t sure about the idea of mating with him. Not that it mattered. I knew I had to do my duty. The numbers of the city had to grow.

“No.” I tipped the eggshells back into the pouch, careful to catch them all, then slipped the string around my neck.

“I’ve heard you talking to that thing before,” Khavi said. I heard him stand, claws squeaking faintly on the stone. “You should throw it away. It’s not healthy to keep talking to it.”

“It’s mine,” I said, turning around to face him, “and I’ll keep it if I wish. Sorcerers are permitted personal effects.”