Realms of Valen - Cold Blood (War of the Gods Book 3) Read online

  Realms of Valen

  Cold Blood

  War of the Gods: Volume III

  by Rickk Berry III

  ©2016 by Rickk Berry III

  All Rights Reserved

  Cold Blood, Realms of Valen, and Winter Symbol logos

  by Rikk Berry

  Edited

  by Lisa Marling, Ph.D.

  Cover background art (except blood splatter)

  by Samantha Kross

  Thank you to everyone who

  lent their considerable talents

  and support during the creation

  of this novel.

  Chapter I

  “Why the hell does this have to be up on the side of a damn mountain?” Kaidia asked loudly so she could be heard over the howling wind.

  “You think they'd hire someone like us to get it if it were a walk through a park?” Nadia asked in return.

  “I was being rhetorical,” Kaidia replied.

  The two were climbing a snow-clogged path up the side of a mountain in the northern realm of Auronost. Unlike Haelstross, which had a healthy mixture of both hot and cold weather, Auronost rarely saw temperatures warm enough to melt snow and often saw temperatures cold enough to freeze spit in mid-flight. They were working their way along a path that had likely last seen human feet thousands of years ago. As they rounded a corner and snow started to fall for the sixth time on the journey, Nadia pointed ahead and shouted back to Kaidia.

  “There it is!”

  Kaidia looked past Nadia. The path sloped upward and curved to the left, following the mountain. Ahead, off the main path, and half buried in snow on a flat area carved into the side of the mountain, was the ruin of an ancient temple.

  “Watch out,” Kaidia said as she shouldered past her younger sibling. She held up her hands and let out quick bursts of fire, melting away the snow on the path so the pair could make their way to the decayed building in a more timely manner. Upon reaching the small courtyard outside the temple, Kaidia increased the heat of her flames, melting the snow to reveal cobblestones and a pedestal that had served as the base for a statue in the distant past. Whatever figure had stood atop the pedestal had long since disappeared.

  “Judging by what's left of that building, this place dates back to the late First Age or early Second,” Kaidia speculated.

  “I'd have to agree, Sis,” Nadia said as she glanced around. “Who in their right mind would live up here?”

  “Someone who really liked snow, wind, and the cold,” Kaidia answered with a shrug.

  Both Valengaard daughters were dressed for warmth, wearing furs and leathers. Though they didn't expect trouble, both wore their weapons. There was no telling who or what might have taken up residence in the cold climate. Rumors of a fourth race of elves that loved the snow had always abounded, but no proof of them had ever been found. The usual scary stories that parents told their children at night offered up trolls and great beasts that lived in the cold and snow. Certain cold regions on Valen were home to animals and some of Valen's people that enjoyed the chill, or those that had been exiled from their homes. However, from the looks of it, nothing had been here for untold centuries. Nothing seemed to live this high up on the mountain. In fact, Kaidia couldn't recall having seen a single living creature beyond herself and her sister since they had begun their ascent.

  Kaidia walked across the cobblestones to the temple door. The temple itself was fairly modest. Whoever the people were that had used it had been small in number. The god pushed on the door and the rotting wood collapsed under her touch, falling into dust and splinters at her feet.

  “Well, you just destroyed an ancient artifact,” Nadia teased.

  “Shush,” Kaidia huffed in response. The two siblings walked into the small building and glanced around. Despite the age of the place, the ceiling had, mostly, held up. There were holes that let in shafts of glaring light that were intensified by all the snow outside, making the shadows inside all the darker. Kaidia held up her left hand, palm up, and a flame burst to life in her palm.

  “Don't know how to conjure spheres of light?” Nadia asked.

  “Do you?” Kaidia returned, looking back to her sister with a raised brow.

  “Um, no,” Nadia replied and mimicked her sister's idea, a flame springing to life in her own hand. Kaidia just smirked and returned to her inspection of the interior. There was little to see in the little temple, even with the extra light: a broken altar, upended braziers, and the rotted remains of a few wooden pews.

  “This place is a mess,” Kaidia remarked.

  “Well, it's not like there's a caretaker,” Nadia said.

  “Are you sure your information is correct?” Kaidia asked.

  “Did you see any other little temples on the way up here?” Nadia asked rhetorically.

  “With as deep as some of the snow was, we'd never know if we passed one or not,” Kai said with a chuckle.

  Nadia gave a snort of laughter and walked over to one wall, looking over an apparently empty bookshelf, making sure nothing was hiding in one of the shadowy corners of the shelf. Kaidia walked toward the decimated altar and stepped over one of the overturned braziers. A faint glint from behind the old altar caught her eye. She leaned down closer to the floor, free hand reaching down to shift a deteriorating rug to the side.

  “Nadia! Get over here.”

  “What is it?” Nadia asked as he stepped up beside her sister, looking down to the floor.

  Kaidia didn't say anything, simply grabbed the iron handle in the floor and heaved upward. A trapdoor opened. The door, made of heavy iron and stone, would normally take at least two people to open, but Kai had found her strength had increased quite a bit since her godhood had been awakened. She hadn't really paid it any mind until she'd been made aware of her title. After that, she had looked back over the previous years and she saw, in retrospect, signs that she hadn't been aware of at the time.

  “I think we may have found what we're looking for,” Kai said, looking down into the darkness revealed by the open door.

  “Only one way to find out,” Nadia said.

  “Agreed,” Kaidia replied before carefully climbing down into the hole. An old ladder was mounted to the wall. It was metal of some sort and in remarkable condition, having been protected by the heavy stone door for the past centuries. Climbing down with just one hand made the going a tad slow. Kai raised a brow as her feet hit the floor. She looked around. The room she was in was entirely black. She couldn't see anything despite the flame in her hand. It was impossible to see how big or small the place happened to be. She moved along the wall until a table came into view. Atop the table was a small pile of torches, a few old books, and several sheets of old parchment. Kai picked up one of the torches and lit it with the flame in her palm.

  She clenched her fist, snuffing out the fire in her hand. Nadia appeared at her side and wordlessly picked up a torch herself and lit it off of Kaidia's.

  “Go along the walls. There's bound to be torches mounted on the walls. Light any you find. We've got to be able to see what we're doing,” Kaidia instructed. Nadia gave an affirmative nod then started off the way she had come. Kaidia continued along the wall. As she had predicted, after a few paces, Kai encountered a sconce mounted on the wall with a torch resting in it. She lit it and kept walking, glancing around to see if Nadia was in sight. She saw the light of Nadia's torch across the room, then raised a brow as the light disappeared, blocked by some shape in the darkness. Kaidia kept walking, lighting torches as she walked along.

  Slowly, little by little, the room brightened, and Kaidia could see bookshelves
filled with books, scrolls, and loose stacks of papers. She smiled lightly as she saw Nadia coming toward her. The sisters lit their last torches before meeting in front of a short hallway that was little more than an alcove in the wall with a door in it.

  “It's a library,” Nadia stated the obvious.

  “Aye. Now, we just have to find the book you're after,” Kai said.

  “And, of course, the library has to be several times larger than the building above it,” Nadia grumbled.

  Kaidia glanced back to the now lighted room. It was, indeed, a taller, wider, and longer room than the entirety of the temple above them. Even with all the torches, the room wasn't exactly bright. The center of it remained dark and Kai guessed there was a brazier there, but even if they could light it, they'd need the torches in their hands to search the shelves.

  “Wonder what's in there,” Nadia said with a jerk of her thumb toward the door in the alcove.

  “Might as well find out,” Kaidia replied and pushed the door open with her free hand. The faintest scent of decay wafted over her. She stepped inside with her sister just behind her. Holding their torches high, the sisters looked around.

  The room was smaller than the library, but still larger than the temple. Six beds occupied the room, three against each side wall. Against the back wall was a wardrobe. What caused the sisters to pause silently were the six sets of skeletal remains lying in the beds.

  “That's... odd,” Nadia commented.

  “A little. They've been here so long that it doesn't even stink in here,” Kaidia said.

  “Must be ventilated somehow,” Nadia surmised.

  “Yeah, there,” Kaidia said, pointing to small holes drilled into the wall. “Those are drilled up to the surface. They let fresh air in. On their own, they don't look like much, but there are a bunch of those around the walls in the library, up near the ceiling.”

  “Wouldn't think that would be enough,” Nadia said.

  “Doesn't seem like it, but it works,” Kai replied.

  The two walked along the room, careful to avoid bumping into the beds while they looked for anything of note.

  “Damn, it's cold in here,” Nadia said, her breath visible as she spoke.

  “Let's hurry up and find that damn book, then,” Kaidia urged.

  Kaidia went to the wardrobe and pulled it open. In the light of her torch, she saw what one would expect; clothes. Tunics and pants were folded and piled neatly on shelves. Boots and shoes were sitting in a neat row at the bottom. No sign of any books. She closed the wardrobe and looked around, spotting her sister on the floor, looking under the beds.

  “Checking for monsters?” Kai asked.

  “Shut up,” Nadia retorted. Kaidia laughed and started back toward the door.

  “Find anything?” Kaidia inquired.

  “Just boxes. Probably have personal belongings in them,” Nadia answered.

  “What we're after probably isn't in one of those. If we have to, we'll come back and look through them, but let's search the library first. I'd rather not disturb their things if we don't have to,” Kaidia said.

  “It's not like they'll care,” Nadia muttered.

  “Yeah, I know. And who knows, my curiosity may get the better of me before we leave,” Kai responded.

  Nadia got up, brushed her knees off, and then walked out into the library with her sister. The room, lit by all the torches, was slowly growing warmer.

  “You take one side of the room, I take the other?” Nadia suggested.

  “Sounds good to me,” Kaidia agreed.

  The two siblings split up and began to search the shelves. Nadia had been hired to find a specific book. Kaidia had just come along to see if she could find any books of value. Collecting books was a hobby of sorts for her and she had figured that she'd have a decent chance to find something rare or old or both in this place.

  Nadia held her torch up near the spines of the books on the shelves and began the painstaking process of reading the faded and dusty titles. All of these books seemed to be well used. Likely the only reason they were still around was because of their secluded shelter that protected them from thieves and the elements. Kaidia did the same on her side of the room, slowly working her way along the shelves, peering at the titles. She knew what Nadia was looking for, but her search for books that were worth something slowed her pace considerably.

  Along the shelves the two sisters walked; slowly making their way through the subterranean library. Every time Kai found a book she wanted to keep, she took it to a table that was illuminated by the light of the torch mounted above it. By the time Kai reached the center of the room, she found that her earlier speculation had been correct; there was a brazier in the center of the library. Actually, there were six; all evenly spaced out around a circular table. Upon inspecting them, Kai found them to be empty. She sighed, mildly annoyed by the situation. She raised her free hand and conjured a large sphere of fire, then simply tossed it into the nearest brazier. A flame roared to life in the metal bowl of the brazier. She repeated the process with the other five, lighting the center of the library quite brightly, not to mention heating the room a good deal faster.

  “That helps,” Nadia said from the end of a set of shelves, across the center area from Kai.

  “Yeah, I thought it might. Any luck?” Kaidia asked.

  “Not really. I've found one book I want for myself and no sign of the one that we're supposed to find,” Nadia answered.

  “I've found a few I want... and after we find your book, I may get a team together and move all these to one of the empty rooms I have at home. Can't have too many books,” Kaidia observed.

  “Yeah, a return trip will be easier with a portal now that you know where this place is,” Nadia said, glancing around. “And it's better that these be with someone that can take care of them instead of just passing the centuries away here with the skeletons.”

  “I agree,” Kaidia said before moving off into the shelves again.

  Nadia went off into the shelves on her side again, looking over book spines once more, her eyes beginning to grow tired of the practice. She had seen story books, histories, guides to plants, scrolls that turned out to be maps and star charts. She knew that she was seeking an actual book, but the curiosity of what might be on the scrolls was too great a temptation to be ignored.

  Kaidia and Nadia continued their searching, the minutes turning to hours as they did. Neither woman paid much mind to the passing time. They had nowhere to be. Near the front of the library and nearly out of shelves to search, Nadia's eyes caught a book spine that stood out from the others. Instead of being scuffed, worn, and faded, it was bright, the lettering of the title shimmering in the light of the torch. She reached out and pulled it from the shelf.

  “Cities of the First People,” Nadia said, reciting the title. It wasn't the book she was looking for, but it caught her attention and she decided to keep it. She held onto it and looked up to continue her search. Right beside the empty space where the book she'd just taken had been, was the book she was looking for.

  “Here we go,” she said to herself as she took it as well. She then lifted her voice to be heard by Kaidia across the room. “Found it!”

  The two siblings met in the circular space in the center of the room, where the sorcerous fires burned brightly in the empty braziers. Kaidia took the tome from her sister's hands.

  “A History of the Esmera: Volume I,” Kaidia read the title. “No wonder you're getting paid so much for finding this. It's extremely rare. I've never seen a copy before, just heard about it.”

  “There doesn't seem to be a second volume on the shelves back there,” Nadia said.

  “Because there never was a second volume. The author died shortly after writing this and no one ever bothered to continue his work,” Kaidia explained.

  “But the Esmera have histories of their people in their libraries,” Nadia commented.

  “They do, but the earliest point in those is centuries after
the end of this. Even the Esmera are like everyone else in the world in the fact that there's a massive part of their history that they can only speculate upon,” Kaidia elaborated.

  “Makes sense, I suppose. Though, of all the races, you'd expect the Esmera to be the type to stand back, watch everyone else make a mess of things, and write it all down,” Nadia said.

  “Even they got dragged into the centuries of war during the Second Age,” Kaidia replied.

  “I suppose it's difficult to avoid a fire that engulfs the entire world,” Nadia said thoughtfully.

  “Indeed. Ready to go home?” Kaidia asked.

  “Not yet. I want to go back to the bedroom,” Nadia said, gesturing to the back room.

  “Just can't curb your curiosity, can you?” Kaidia asked with a hint of a smile.

  “Nope. Call it a scholarly interest,” Nadia said and started for the back room.

  “If that helps you sleep at night,” Kaidia said as she followed her sister.

  They stepped back into the bed chamber, the siblings taking sides of the room automatically, and lighting the torches along the way. Once the room was lit up, the sisters pulled the boxes from under the beds, careful not to jar the skeletal remains. Upon opening the wooden boxes, the sisters saw nothing more than either of them expected. Ancient coins, letters, and trinkets. The coins weren't like the ones used now and the letters were written in a language that neither sibling recognized.

  “This doesn't even resemble any language I know,” Kaidia said. Most languages on Valen were connected in some way or another and could be traced back to earlier times. There were a scant few examples of languages in the world that, in written form or in spoken form, didn't resemble any other language known. Kaidia knew of them, could recognize them on sight, and she didn't recognize the language in which the letters were written.

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” Nadia agreed.

  “Someone should recognize this,” Kaidia said as she tucked the letters back into the box she'd taken them from.

  “Well, when I find a linguist who specializes in ancient languages, I'll come back and pick these up for them,” Nadia said.