Blood and Madness

Chapter 3

3

KERADOC

Gathered in a grim circle around the table, my most trusted war generals and elite guards stared up at me, their collective breath drawn and held tight, no doubt awaiting my inevitable eruption.

I felt it simmering inside, churning from the depths of my soul and aching for an outlet.

But as deeply as my muscles trembled with the effort of holding back, I couldn’t erupt. The news was too shocking. Too deadly.

The general in charge of the southern outpost held my gaze, his warnings echoing through the cold room like one more illusion cast by the vile goddess herself.

The Dark Goddess Melantha has found a way to reverse the banishment spell and return to Midnight… She’s brought the Army of the Dead…

My hands clenched into fists at my sides, aching to wrap around his throat and choke him for his vicious lies. Perhaps watching the life drain out of those mud-brown eyes would mute the other images seared into my brain—my blood witch on her knees, bared to the night air, thighs spread over her gargoyle’s bearded face. Her head tossed back with careless abandon, the breeze caressing her long hair as her mouth parted on a sweet, decadent moan…

For him. All for him.

My jaw cracked from the pressure of clenching my teeth, the audible pop snapping me back to the present.

War council. Melantha. My general.

I swallowed the rage. I could no more kill him than I could convince myself he’d lied to me. The look in his eyes was too grave, too terror-stricken for his words to be anything other than the truth.

With a wave of my hand I dismissed him, allowing him to take his seat among the others. His relief was palpable.

My relief, however, was non-f*****g-existent.

“How long?” I asked, my voice stone-cold, hands still fisted at my sides. “How long until she reaches our borders and unleashes her wicked ghouls on my city?”

Squaring his shoulders, the general whose life I’d spared cleared his throat and said, “We’re working with very limited intelligence at this time, given the difficulties of entering the Boiling Glass Sands. Our men at the southern outpost have been working with our dark witch allies to track her movements through spellcraft, but it hasn’t been easy. Melantha is moving quickly, never lingering in one place too long.”

“Is she in her true form? Or has she taken the shape of another?”

“Neither, sir. Our scouts don’t believe Melantha has physically manifested—not fully, anyway. At this point she’s merely an entity—a magickal field, so to speak. But it’s only a matter of time. Every moment she spends on Midnight soil is another moment she’s leeching its magick, channeling it to her own dark ends.”

Bitterness churned in my gut. Stealing magick—that had always been her modus operandi. For a long time, the leaders of the past had let her get away with it too. All part of the deal.

But I wasn’t them. Wasn’t him. And I would be a dead man in the moat before I let her use the magick of my city—my f*****g realm against us.

I leaned forward, my fingertips pressed so hard against the table they turned white. “How. Long.”

Clearing his throat again, the general said, “Assuming she’s able to draw enough magick to both manifest and continue working whatever protective spell is allowing her to travel through the Sands, she’ll likely clear the desert in a few weeks—that’s if luck is on our side. Otherwise we’re talking about two weeks, maybe ten days at most.”

“If luck were on our side,” I said, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What of her army?”

“They’ll follow her in any form, sir. As long as Melantha is present—fully manifested or no more than a whisper in the air—the dead will march on the orders of their queen.”

The dead. I practically scoffed. Such a common, everyday name for her mystical, otherworldly beasts.

Melantha’s soldiers weren’t like the ghouls of Beggar’s Moat—weak and festering, strong only for short bursts when riled by their prey. The Army of the Dead was relentless—the vicious dead, resurrected and animated by the darkest, most ancient magick imaginable, driven by a singular purpose:

To consume everything in their wake.

And she wielded this power not only through her own army, but through any corpses she happened upon, in any realm, no matter how long ago those poor souls had passed on. Melantha had the power to call upon them all—including my own ghouls—bending them to her will and turning them against us.

“Darkwinter invades from the north,” I said, pacing the dark chamber. “Melantha and her gruesome army from the south. Rebels eat a million tiny holes in the realm like a f*****g cancer. One by one, the dead of Midnight—our dead—will answer the call of the dark goddess, and we will become nothing but fodder for the…” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, willing myself to pull it together. As hopeless as our situation appeared, it would do no good for the generals and guards to witness a breakdown. Now more than ever, I needed to be strong. A leader. A tyrant, if that’s what the situation called for.

I was close—so f*****g close to achieving all that I’d set out to achieve. The realm was within my grasp, and I would not let these vile enemies waltz into my home and unravel decades of planning. Of sacrifice. Of pain.

“Who beyond Vanderham’s Wall still has the courage to fight?” I asked, my voice cold and impassive once more. “To stand with the armies of Midnight? To stand with their commander?”

After a brief commotion of comparing notes and ruling out the factions we absolutely couldn’t trust, the generals came to a consensus.

We were, in a word, f****d.

Oona named a handful of factions whose loyalties hadn’t yet turned, but they amounted to little more than an army of renegade demons and weak humans who’d do anything to commute their sentences in Midnight. We also had the ghouls of Beggar’s Moat, bound to serve their commander for eternity, but what good would they do against Melantha’s forces? Even with constant feeding, my ghouls wouldn’t last more than a handful of minutes against the true Army of the Dead. And though we hadn’t yet been tested, there was a good chance that if the dark goddess called upon them, they’d answer, turning on me in an instant.

“What of the gargoyles in Stone City?” one of the other generals asked. A fair question, as most of them had remained somewhat politically neutral, making themselves available to the highest bidders as needed.

“Mercenaries,” Oona confirmed. “Most of them can be bought, but they won’t come cheaply. Not for such a dangerous task. And if Darkwinter decided to make a better offer, they’d easily turn.”

“We need more allies,” I said. “Fighters. Not riffraff and mercenaries.”

A shuffling of feet. A clearing of throats. A general murmur of agreement, yet none of my generals offered any viable solutions.

How could they? They hadn’t risen to their ranks by spoon-feeding me lies and wishful idealism.

“We will reconvene tomorrow evening to review any new intelligence we can gather,” I announced, a sudden bone-deep weariness gripping me from head to toe. “Tonight, I want all of you to return to your posts at once. Apprise your troops of the news about Melantha, as well as the ongoing threat from Darkwinter. All of us must work together to recruit as many others as we can to this cause, by conscription, coercion, or any means necessary. Our realm—our very home—is at risk. If we fail to defend her now, then…”

I glowered at each of them, every single soldier and hired guard positioned around my table, ensuring they understood exactly what was at stake.

They didn’t need me to speak the words.

A shudder rippled through the room as all of them undoubtedly contemplated life under the reign of Melantha—an unhinged dark goddess with an army of ghouls at her command. In the face of such a gruesome alternative, the vile acts perpetrated by the legendary Keradoc of Midnight looked like mere party games.

Certain they understood, I dismissed the room, gesturing for just one of my advisors to remain—Oona, my Lieutenant General. My most trusted.

The warlord’s daughter, always eager to serve her father and homeland both.

The old guilt churned anew.

Ignoring it, I said, “Give me your honest assessment. Are there any in Midnight still willing to risk their lives for the realm? Soldiers, mercenaries… hell, at this point I’d enlist mothers and children if I thought they could help.”

Oona’s eyes flickered with something that looked a lot like frustration. Like anger. I’d never seen it in her before, and the sight of it sent fresh worry blazing through my chest.

“You know this realm better than anyone,” she said, her jaw ticking, her eyes fixed on me. “Do you honestly think there are others? People willing to fight and die for us? For you? After—” She bit off her words, shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe the gods had damned her to this fate. To this bloodline.

To me.

“Speak plainly, Oona,” I commanded. “You weren’t raised to shrink in the face of conflict.”

She met my eyes again, her own steely and unflinching. A sight to make any father proud.

“Our armies—your very generals and personal guards—are no more loyal than the factions sniffing around the wall willing to trade a lifetime of servitude for safe harbor in Amaranth City. All of them are forced to do your bidding under threat of torture and death—by the wilds of Midnight or by their commander himself. You cannot possibly rely on soldiers like that to defend us. To truly defend us. If you don’t see that by now, then neither I nor your other generals can help you. Sir,” she added with a belated salute.

I glared at her, shocked at her newfound audacity.

But glad of it nevertheless.

We watched each other in tense silence for another beat before I finally allowed myself a thin smile. “No, daughter of Midnight. We cannot rely on soldiers whose only loyalty has been forced or bought.”

The woman didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Didn’t show an ounce of softness.

She was strong. Stronger than I’d given her credit for.

I didn’t know whether to be glad of it or… or defeated by it.

Oona deserved better. But better was not her lot in life.

“Then my path is clear,” I said finally. “There is but one final option. One final faction upon whose quest for blood and vengeance I might be able to rely.”

Her eyes widened, her jaw going slack as the realization set in. “Sir, you… Father. You can’t be serious.”

“I fear I have no choice.”

Some of the steel melted from her eyes, her shoulders sagging under this new weight. “But they’re… they’re nearly feral. All traces of humanity eradicated. Fighting for us? Risking their lives when… No. They wouldn’t. They simply wouldn’t. It’s an impossible request with nothing but disappointment and death as the answer. How can you even consider it?”

“Because, daughter.” I stepped close, so close she had to tilt her face up to hold my gaze. Her violet eyes held a lifetime of suffering, a sight that threatened to bring me to my knees with rage and regret in equal measure. Tucking a finger beneath her chin, I said softly, “In a war with no possible path to victory, we must seek out the impossible and hope—against the most devastating odds—it shines its light on another path.”

I withdrew my touch and headed for the exit, hoping she would do the same.

Hoping, against more impossible, devastating odds, she might find some peace tonight.

“What new orders, then, sir?” she asked, still so eager to obey. To serve. “What would you have me do before your journey?”

“Send word to Gem and my fugitives that the production schedule has been moved up. I want that product packaged and ready to distribute in two days’ time.”

“I’m not sure they’ve completed the testing. We don’t know how potent or effective the new formulation—”

“I care not, Oona. We must move soon if we’ve got any hope of weakening Darkwinter and the other factions working against us.”

She nodded once. “Very well, sir. And the blood witch? Any orders for her?”

The blood witch…

A fresh barrage of images assaulted my mind, each one more torturous than the last.

Haley Barnes kneeling in the moonlight. Haley Barnes crying out as the pleasure took hold. Haley Barnes, her entrancing beauty haunting my dreams and nightmares both, making my blood boil, my heart race, and my c**k stiffen painfully.

I closed my eyes, allowing myself the briefest, darkest indulgence…

The things I would do to that soft, sweet little mouth…

“Sir?” Oona pressed, breaking the fantasy’s hold.

Just as well. I couldn’t afford to be sidetracked by foolish notions of pleasure. Notions of her on her knees for me.

“Inform Gem about the schedule change, Oona. I will deal with the witch myself.”