An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3) Read online

  An Emperor’s Gamble

  Book III of Legend of Tal

  J.D.L. Rosell

  Rune & Requiem Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by J.D.L. Rosell

  All rights reserved.

  Illustration © 2021 by René Aigner

  Book design by J.D.L. Rosell

  Maps © 2021 by Kaitlyn Clark and J.D.L. Rosell

  ISBN 978-1-952868-11-5 (hardback)

  ISBN 978-1-952868-10-8 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-952868-06-1 (ebook)

  Published by Rune & Requiem Press

  runeandrequiempress.com

  Contents

  World Maps

  Prologue

  The Forest of Snow and Shadow

  That Which Stalks the Hunter

  A Cold Trail

  Scars and Stories

  The Caravan

  A Dream of Paradise

  A New Master

  The Reach of the Past

  Death’s Hand

  Passage I

  A Warm Welcome

  Supplication

  Confession

  Hunting a Legend

  The Watcher and the Watched

  Damnation

  Redemption

  Deception

  Passage II

  Ash and Snow

  Stone in the Wheel

  A New Legend

  Rebellion

  Fount of Song

  To the Vale of Mists

  A Warlock’s Regrets

  Sorcery’s Shadow

  Cries of Syrens

  The Forest of Giants

  Wise Woman

  Children of Dusk

  Karkados

  Heart of the Flames

  Call of the Womb

  Reckoning

  Passage III

  Debts to Pay

  Flesh, Blood, and Bone

  To Glory

  A Legend’s Legacy

  The Restless Past

  Valankesh Pass

  Oathsworn

  Passage IV

  Sorrow’s End

  Bastion of Empire

  Ava’duala

  A False Smile

  The Red Chamber

  The Shorn Veil

  Truth in a Name

  One Last Gamble

  Epilogue: Destiny’s Burden

  Thanks for Reading!

  Conclude the Quest…

  Books by J.D.L. Rosell

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  If you'd like to download these maps, just click or tap here.

  Prologue

  The Truth in the Pages

  To Your Majesty Aldric Rexall the Fourth, King of Avendor, Steward of the Westreach, Foremost of the Reach Rulers —

  I write to you with a most urgent report. Elendol has fallen into civil war. Two factions — one aligned with the Eastern Empire, the other loyal to you and the other monarchs of the Westreach — fight for dominance over Gladelyl. Who will win control, I cannot yet say.

  I, your most loyal servant, and your royal troupe, the Dancing Feathers, will soon brave the winter storms to return to Halenhol. It may be many months after this message is relayed to you that I report in person, but rest assured I will give a more detailed account upon my arrival.

  For the time being, know this: Tal Harrenfel has revealed himself for the man I always knew him to be, and now flees into the East.

  Yes, it is as I feared; the "Defender of the Westreach" has betrayed his countrymen, revealing his treacherous, murderous, and deceitful nature. He has killed Queen Geminia Elendola the Third, and from her body summoned the demon he was reputed to have slain: the fire devil Heyl, who wrought further devastation among the elves. We are fortunate that others did not long tolerate his creation and banished it back to the depths from whence it came, or perhaps none would have survived the Raze of Elendol.

  The companions he has gathered around himself pursue him on his foolhardy flight — though to capture or join him, I do not know.

  Peer Ashelia Venaliel and her brother, Prime Warder Helnor, were said to be Royalists, faithful to Queen Geminia to the last. But if that is so, they have severely misjudged Harrenfel's character. The rumors that Peer Venaliel and Harrenfel were lovers were all but confirmed when she was witnessed being intimate with him before Gladelyl's civil war began. Further evidence was supplied as her bond, Yinin Venaliel, challenged Harrenfel to a duel.

  Does Peer Venaliel hunt him now as a lover spurned? Or to join him in his misdeeds? Does her brother go to assist her, or keep her from further mistakes, such as endangering the son she so recklessly brings into those hostile lands? Or perhaps he remains aligned with his late Queen, and vengeance is first on his mind.

  The boy whom Harrenfel took as his apprentice, Garin Dunford, I suspect goes to join him, as do his unscrupulous bard, Falcon Sunstring, and Sunstring's improper daughter, Wren. From all their treatment of me during our travels, they are as sneaky and tricksome as their leader, and not to be trusted.

  Kaleras the Impervious is said to journey with them. Arriving late for the Winter Ball, he came just in time to banish Heyl back to the fiery depths from whence it was summoned. I can only assume it is to finish what he started that he now pursues Harrenfel.

  Only of one do I remain convinced of his motives: Aelyn Belnuure, Peer of his House, once the Emissary to Avendor for Gladelyl. All know of Belnuure's near fanatical devotion to his Queen. There can be no doubt that he seeks to bring Harrenfel to justice.

  But not all was lost in the Sanguine City. By the swift initiative of your most loyal subject, I secured an artifact that may be of great interest to Your Highness. It is a book, or rather a collection of papers, but transcribed from its previous form. I believe these pages to be important, for they might explain the deranged and aggrandized beliefs that Harrenfel holds of himself. Written in the Easterners' devilish language — at which I am proficient, lore keeper that I am — this Fable of Song and Blood tells of beings of great power who alter the World by their mere presence. It even asserts the belief that these mythical men might challenge Yuldor for ascendency as gods.

  Drivel on its face, I know — but if we might understand Harrenfel, perhaps we can stop him. And, as the feral hound he is, we might put him to a final rest.

  But I leave such judgment to your wisdom, Your Majesty.

  Until our next meeting, I remain your most loyal and humble servant…

  - Brother Causticus of the Order of Ataraxis; Conveyed message received from Master Fantir of the Ruby Tower

  The Forest of Snow and Shadow

  Far from the comforts of civilization, isolated upon a pine-dusted mountainside, a man trod over newly fallen snow, pulling a flagging mount up the steep incline.

  He did not know what he would see when he arrived at the top, only that he must persist in the effort. Yet even in this, he found his will faltering. His clothes were insufficient for the weather. His elven boots, ill-suited for hard use in snow and ice, were swiftly coming apart at the seams. His tunic and trousers were thin and already sported several long tears. His fur cloak could not keep out the grasping talons of the frigid winds. His stor, pushed to its limits, then unnaturally sustained beyond them, only remained obedient out of exhausted resignation.

  A strand of hair pulled free of the man's ponytail in an errant gust. He tucked it absently behind his ear, too tired to tie it back again.

  It w
as not only the climb that wearied him. Within, his sorcery clamored to be released. He had kept it dammed as best he could, but in the week since it had blossomed such as it had in his days of youth, he had not always succeeded. His failures littered the trail behind him.

  A grove of trees, blackened by fire creeping from his skin.

  A river dried, the ground split by the pounding of his feet.

  Streams of sorcery, blighted as if by disease from his mere passage.

  He could barely sleep, for in dreaming, his sorcery seeped back into his being. And once there, it could not be contained, but only released.

  He raised his head and saw an opening in the trees before him. Collecting together his tattered will, he pushed on until he stood between them, then gazed out over the wide World.

  The landscape was a patchwork of gray and white. Clouds stifled the sky, flat and featureless. Mountains, heaped with snow, rose into the low-hanging gloom, their peaks lost in mist. The range stretched in all directions until it faded into fog and swirling flurries.

  A valley cut through the mountains. There, a road lay next to a river that still sluggishly flowed. The man had walked upon that road in his sojourn, but caution drove him back into the trees and the tiresome work of forging his own path.

  He had no other choice.

  Amid that scene, the man spied something dark moving along the road, only a mile or two ahead. Squinting to see, he sought after his sorcery. A trickle pulled free of the dam to expand and extend his vision. Swallowing against the disorienting rush, the man saw it was not a herd of caribou he'd detected, but a caravan of sleighs, heading up the road from Gladelyl and deeper into the East.

  Blinking rapidly, he repressed the magic and considered his options. His supplies were low, almost nonexistent. His garb and shelter were in terrible shape. His body deteriorated further by the day. Worst of all, he had little idea of where he was heading.

  He needed a map.

  A caravan venturing into the Westreach would be sure to have at least a rudimentary chart. But maps were a precious commodity, likely the most valued item aboard those sleighs. Unless they were merchants of maps, they would not surrender theirs easily.

  His shoulders sagged. Who am I? It always came around, this question that haunted him.

  How far would he go to do what he must?

  How many people would he hurt for a chance to save them?

  With no simple answer in sight, he turned and allowed a tendril of the sorcery to suffuse his muscles. Then he led his wearied mount down toward the caravan.

  Both near and far away, traveling through the same winter-cloaked forest, a youth paused to take in the destruction that materialized around him.

  During summers, the youth's hometown of Hunt's Hollow had often experienced thunderstorms. After they'd passed, the youth and his childhood friends had ventured out to see if they could find lightning-struck trees, split and blackened from the thunderclouds' lashing tongues.

  As he gazed at the pines surrounding the small clearing, they looked much the same as those storm-blasted trees.

  His companions murmured among themselves, debating the directions of the tracks and the age of the small campfire, while the youth strayed to one of the blighted trees and placed a hand to it. As he penetrated the ashy exterior to touch the rough surface beneath, he heard something, sounds that were not present except in his mind.

  Beneath his fingertips, the dead tree was alive with sorcery.

  The youth withdrew his hand and stared at it. Part of him feared what he had done. The greater half reveled in it.

  He was finished with fear, with doubt. The others could follow his old mentor's tracks. But as he had touched the ruined tree, he had felt the sorcerous Song of the World tug him onward.

  Into the East.

  A small, satisfied murmur bubbled up in his mind, then faded. The youth closed his fist and turned back to lead the others away.

  It was long after dark when Helnor called for a halt.

  Garin slid from his stor and rubbed his muzzle before tying him up with the others. The cold seared the inside of his nostrils and burned his lips to scabs, but as he joined his companions by the fire, he still smiled. The pines surrounding their camp cast long shadows against the shrouded forest. Yet as long as he was surrounded by folks such as these, he had no fear.

  "What's the dopey grin for?" Wren asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Garin might have stuck his tongue out at her had he not feared it would freeze. "Oh, nothing."

  "You're smiling at nothing?"

  "No, just at you." He winked at her.

  She groaned. "Fine, don't tell me."

  "Really, it wasn't anything much." Garin stared into the fire, the movement of the flames mesmerizing to his tired mind. "I was just thinking of my family. How we would huddle around the hearth on cold nights like this, and drink hot tea or cider, and tell each other tall tales. Some we made up — you could always tell when Naten lost the thread in his yarn. I was actually getting pretty good at inventing my own last winter. But some of the stories we told were the traditional Avendoran legends. Markus Bredley. Gendil of Candor. Tal Harrenfel."

  At the last name, Garin's eyes slid over to meet Wren's. Her mouth twisted, but not in a mocking way. She moved as if to reach out to him, but hesitated and settled her hand back into her lap.

  "Odd to find ourselves in one of those stories, isn't it?" she muttered.

  Garin snorted a laugh. "That's not the strangest part. For most of the time I've trailed after Tal, I've been uncertain of myself. Worried I couldn't compare. Even when I hated his guts, I still envied and looked up to him."

  He tilted his head back to gaze at the stars. "But ever since leaving Elendol, I feel that, for the first time, maybe I'm not so out of place after all."

  Her punch to his shoulder hurt more for being unexpected. Garin yelped, drawing stares from their companions across the fire.

  He ignored them and glared at Wren. "What was that for?"

  Her eyes gleamed with her golden elven tendrils. "Get too large of a head and you'll tip over, Dunford. If either of us are sung into the legends, it'll be me. Don't go thinking otherwise."

  Garin grinned, but it quickly slipped away at another thought.

  If any of us survive to tell the tale.

  They packed up camp early the next morning and headed further into the mountains.

  They had been hunting Tal for a week. The snow had appeared as soon as they crossed the sorcerous barrier that marked Elendol's borders. Since leaving the Westreach, the landscape had only grown more desolate. A cruel wind blew over them, burning the bared skin of his face and stealing all hope of warmth. Cedar trees lined their way, seeming dark sentinels guarding the Eastern border and watching the intruders with ancient hostility. Even their fragrant scent held the bite of frost behind it. In the silence, broken only by the crunching of their stors' hooves, hovered an ominous waiting.

  The East, from how the older members of the party told it, was a forbidding place. It began with this gauntlet of inhospitable mountains, then eventually filtered into forests and plains where its residents lived, as well as where the capital of the Empire, Kavaugh, lay. But as the Westreach was divided by nationality and Bloodline, so was the Empire. Each of the Eastern races, Kaleras had informed them, kept primarily to their own fiefs. They were held together only through fealty to the Sun Emperor and adoration for Yuldor.

  From all Garin had seen of the Ravagers' raids, it was more than enough to match the Reach Realms' paltry strength.

  In that week, his party had driven themselves to exhaustion. Yet the mountainous terrain conspired against them, for they gained no ground on their elusive quarry. Whatever strength Tal had found in Queen Geminia's throne room seemed to be lasting. Though at first Ashelia had pressed them on until darkness fell, each day, his tracks grew fainter. He was widening the distance between them. Aelyn and Kaleras had bolstered their mounts with spells, but even that did no
t seem to be enough.

  Garin wondered if Tal knew he was being pursued. Why else would he push his stor to death's threshold? Though why the man would avoid his closest allies, he could only speculate, and the conclusions he drew made him too uneasy to long consider.

  On the fifth day, with the components for sustaining charms all but exhausted, Ashelia reluctantly called for a slower march. To catch him now, they could only hope that at some point, Tal would have to stop and rest.

  At Helnor's behest, they often dismounted and walked for hours at a time, giving their mounts a chance to rest. The marches were even more miserable than the rides, but the Prime Warder's will persisted.

  "Stors are made for spring, not winter," he explained more than once. It began to sound as if he was trying to convince himself as much as them. Even Helnor, Garin guessed, was nearing the end of his rope.

  Wishing for some small measure of comfort, Garin removed his glove. Wincing at the stinging cold, he raised his hand into the air.