Blue Words - Part I Read online

he quickly slipped it into his pocket. Distant screaming echoed through the tunnels, drawing his focus back to the present and he ran after George and the Inscribed.

  The underground facility was much larger than he had originally thought, but eventually after moving through room upon room he found himself back at the stairs. The screams still echoed from the ground level above. Gudrik emerged from the hatch to see George screaming and furiously punching a grey that she had managed to slap awake. His hands were merged with the concrete, clearly Dorian’s doing. Other sleepers were beginning to stir as well.

  “Pull her off,” grunted Gudrik. Dorian dragged George away kicking and screaming.

  “Where’s my daughter?” she screeched repeatedly at him. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “Take her outside please Dorian?” asked Gudrik. He paused a moment until George was out of earshot. Gudrik stooped down staring into the eyes of the young grey. The dust on his face was streaked with trails of blood, sweat and tears. His teeth were gritted so hard that they were on the verge of shattering. “I know your pain is great. I have experienced it myself. The fact you are still conscious demonstrates how staunch you are. For that you have my respect.” Gudrik paused and dropped his head in a bow. “As a man of battle I am sure you would never beg for your life, so I will not humiliate you by offering it. What I will offer you is a warrior’s death, rather than the mournfully slow one which lies before you.”

  “I-don’t-want, ugh, anything from you,” he strained out, “The Forsaken Guardian will wipe your filth from the planet.”

  “She had to choose one that actually believes in the cause,” thought Gudrik. “Your Forsaken Guardian is dead I am afraid.”

  “Drake may be gone, but this is not over, as-as-long as you live others will take up the charge.” Gudrik ignored his rhetoric.

  “This is the last time I will offer my bargain. Tell me what became of the girl and I shall help you in your passing.”

  “She is gone, just as the rest of your twisted followers will be when the Heir--/.” Gudrik drove his left hand into the young grey’s mouth and stretched his tongue out. Using his free hand Gudrik snatched the wand from his wrist scabbard and sliced the tongue free.

  “Die in silence then.”

  Gudrik looked up to Kahn, the young grey still rolling on the ground beside him. “What meaning do these characters hold?” he asked, painting Kyran’s final word onto the concrete in the young grey’s blood. Kahn’s face went very pale and he looked horrifically at Gudrik.

  “They say ‘dead’ Gudrik.”

  “I feared as much,” he whispered breathlessly. Gudrik pulled the trinket from his pocket and showed it to Kahn. One tiny pink bow, the corner stained with one small drop of blood. A single tear rolled down the Warlock’s cheek as he returned it to his pocket. Kahn reached out to embrace him, and in a very out of character action, Gudrik accepted, if only for a second. “We had better tell George,” he said, wiping the moisture from his cheek.

  Kahn walked to the doors and signalled for George to come back in. She walked up to Gudrik and he embraced her. The Warlock leaned in close and whispered into her ear. “Kyran told me what happened to Tabitha before I ended him.” George pulled back a little so she could see Gudrik’s face. A hopeful glimmer sparkled in her eyes, not the reaction he had intended to draw. What had to follow would be all the more difficult now.

  “I am sorry. She’s gone,” he said quickly drawing her into his chest as she erupted with grief.

  “No!” she spluttered. “No, no, no, no!” Her cries grew louder. She pushed herself away from him suddenly. She looked around erratically, finally focussing on the Warlock before her. “This is your fault!” George screamed punching him across the jaw. “You have ruined my life and cost Tabitha hers.” He stood expressionless, a tiny blue trickle dripping from his lip. “Look at you. You don’t even care. Mr. Immortal, a trail of grief and death at your feet, but you just stomp from life to life unaffected. We’re worthless to you. Aren’t we!?” She paused, as if waiting for a response which didn’t come. “Stay away from me!” she raged, stepping back from him again. “This blood is on your hands.” She pointed accusingly at Gudrik, her tears torrents streaming down her cheeks. “Svanjanus vindiktsus!” George yelled. As she collapsed into the void George’s eyes pierced Gudrik deeper and more painfully than any blade had in his expanse of days.

  He stood sullen in the sudden silence of the warehouse. Kahn approached him. “She doesn’t mean it Gudrik, it’s the grief. She knows how much you loved Tabitha.” Groggy men began to stir around them, their eyelids fluttering.

  “No she’s right, it was my fault. There’s no denying it, Tabitha is gone because I entered her life. The hatred will help to soften her grief.”

  “True, but what about you Gudrik. This loss is yours too. If you continue down this path her hatred will grow and fester. You will lose George forever as well. I know how you feel towards her.”

  “I cannot attach myself emotionally. For men of endless days like us it only ever leads to…,” he paused briefly, scratching his stubble and considering his words, “….difficulty. Know that I count you as a brother Kahn and I am eternally grateful for all you have done. Consider your oath fulfilled. Should you ever need anything, you need only seek me out.” Kahn simply nodded in response and put his hand on his shoulder.

  “Take care of her,” the Warlock said before plunging Kahn through the void.

  The distant thrum of helicopter rotors filled the air. Some of the sleepers were now climbing to their feet. Dorian walked over and placed his hand on Gudrik’s shoulder. He said nothing, but the softness of his touch spoke a thousand words. “You will make a formidable leader,” said Gudrik as he returned him home.

  Gudrik walked out of the shed. He looked around at the foreign land he found himself in. The lights from a fleet of helicopters were closing in and some of the sleepers were now wandering with hazy awareness. He closed his eyes and fell into deep concentration. “Qrixtsus,” he whispered.

  A deep rumble shook from below and tiny rocks danced and jittered on the fractured concrete slab as the tonnes of blood trapped within tanks became stone and buckled their supporting legs. One of the stumbling soldiers groggily raised his gun to Gudrik. The Warlock gave him a stern, stone-faced glance, sprouted his wings and took to the skies. He was a single, solitary figure soaring west, towards the arid, red heart of the land. 

  I am Kyran

  I write the following as a declaration, as an assurance that my intentions will never be misunderstood after my sacrifice is made. I have been called many things in my time, monster, tyrant, guardian, madman and hero. I would be lying if I said that all weren’t titles I have earned. But like everyone, my life is not so simple as that. There is so much I need to say. I guess I should just start as all things do, at the beginning.

  I was a sickly child, strong of mind but weak of body. My mother gave her life to bring me into the world, a level of sacrifice no man could ever dream of equalling. My father raised my brother and I, Kyranus the Blessed Dragon, a knight dedicated to protecting the innocent. Kyra meant dragon in the dialect of my father’s village. He was named after a famous beast of legend, as was I and my brother Kyrark. His beliefs were strong. “When you do god’s work even demons themselves cannot stop you,” he would say.

  When I was ten, my father left on a crusade to reclaim holy lands lost for a generation to godless heathens. My brother and I travelled with him and his army, a band of knights whose honour and loyalty was iron clad. They fought battle after battle and won one victory after another. I worshipped them, believed them invincible, but our day of reckoning inevitably came. It was a day which still sends sparks of rage prickling along my spine.

  On that day, I saw my father and his band of brothers decimated. Not in a glorious battle against a noble foe, no there would have been honour in that, glory. He and his army fell against a solitary man, no creature. The heathens had signed a blood pa
ct with a Warlock, Gudrik of The Twelve. He laughed and revelled mercilessly in the barbaric slaughter. By the end he was red with the blood of my family.

  I ran, my eyes streaming with tears, death filled the air. Amongst the carpet of fallen, I came upon my brother. He was eight years my senior, still only a teenager himself. He lay twisted and broken, a distorted look of anguish frozen across his face, a look so distraught that I could feel it myself.

  More than anything I wished to collapse beside him. I was laden with grief, though anger also burned within me, an anger which soon took hold outweighing the sorrow. I scooped up my brother’s sword and struggled to hold it up as I charged screaming at the monster. It simply grunted and slapped me aside as if I were nothing. I tried to threaten it, abuse it, chastise it, but no sound came out. I was weak, frozen, and craven. In fact I was so pathetic the beast simply took to the skies and left me to starve on his field of slaughter.

  I sat for a time beside the body of my father, broken and brooding, waiting for death, all the while terrified of it coming. After two days it had not arrived. I decided I had been spared; it must have been for a reason, perhaps a greater purpose. I took my father’s dagger; it was like a sword in my small hands. I took his tunic; it was warm, but