Roc Isle: Tempest

Novels

The Antpod Faction

Roc Isle: The Descent

Roc Isle: Tempest

Please see the back of this book for more details on my stories!

Map

Twenty years after The Descent

Prologue

Vik Ortho was swimming frantically from the band of raiders. She put one arm in front of the other, and gasped as she took huge breaths to keep moving forward. The mounted raiders were coming closer and would soon be at the river. Tangles of weed and plant got caught in her mouth, which she choked on, and made her falter in her movements.

She was only submerged for a moment, but it was enough to make her panic and slow down. She tossed her arms about madly, trying to repossess her movements. Her feet were stuck in the soft mud lying at the bottom of the oddly deep river. Wet mud and parts of plant covered her arms. Her hair was everywhere, clouding her vision as the strands continued to stick in front of her eyes.

She reached the other side and held fast to the edge. She could hear the horsemen behind her gallop, before they suddenly halted and communicated new instructions.

She managed to pull herself up onto the river’s edge. She was doubled over as she tried to work out how she was going to escape from here. Blood was dropping from her to the sand below. She struggled to get up, but once she did, she bounded across the plains.

She pushed her legs harder, wishing they were longer. She didn’t look back, only focusing on the few tropical trees ahead and the small cliff protruding in the distance. I’m nearly there!

She felt a spike on her head, but she ignored it. And from there she lost sequence of what happened next.

***

Vik Ortho woke up among numerous men with yellow gowns. They were the cultic priests of the Yellow-Rider Clan – the same people she had been trying to escape from.

It was dark now and she was tied up and on her back, staring at the looming dark clouds blanketing the starry sky above.

‘She’s awake, your highness’ some fool pointed out.

The figures regarded her with malice. The looks were of dominion, not of triumph. They hadn’t won by having caught up with her – it was as if catching her had been expected. They regarded her as inferior to them.

She gave them defiant glares, but they sat unperturbed. The leader tended to the fire, plonking down some of the smaller pieces of wood that were next to him onto the top of it, and then prodding the fire with a long stick.

She tried to recollect her last memories before she woke here, but she found it difficult.

Her head ached and she was sure she had thorns in her arms.

‘I hope your little adventure was exciting, for it ends here’ the leader, a bald-headed high priest with pale-blue eyes remarked in a menacing tone.

‘You think you’ve won, but you will never win so long as my soul is my own.’

‘What do we care for your soul?’ some wit said, amid grunts of approval.

She desperately attempted to shuffle free of her bindings, but they were tight, as if stuck to her skin. She felt so helpless. The forms she could make out could not easily be distinguished. They were like ghosts, indecipherable and unreal … demons.

‘I’m going to kill you all!’ she screamed.

‘And how are you going to do that? You cannot run to Marticallus; you’ve had your one chance. Besides, Lord Azure will soon be dead, along with everybody else in the north. They fight an impossible war.’

‘He has already been the victor of an impossible war’ she retorted.

‘He was meant to win that war…’ the high priest laughed.

The others in his company found this information very funny indeed.

‘We can tell you anything because you, like most people, are doomed … expendable’ the high priest said calmly.

‘What are you?’ she blurted in confusion.

‘We are the Yellow-Rider Clan’ he solemnly admitted.

‘The Yellow-Rider Clan would never dare such treachery. My father will have your head!’

‘We are the new Yellow-Rider Clan. We will soon form a new clan over the dead remnants of your father’s clan. You don’t realise that all is lost. The Great God Nagaminshu shall have his vengeance on the old world, and only those faithful to his plans will prosper.’

‘You’re in liege with the Trade Lords’ she understood.

‘Clever girl … but we’re not in league with all of them.’

‘What are you going to do with me?’

‘Sell you. A pretty girl like you can’t just be killed you see. We need to make a profit somehow, and what better a way than to make it from your enemies? We are not given alliances and privileges for free; we must work for them. And this means tribute.’

‘Sacrifice?’ she shuddered.

‘Yes.’

‘Who are you going to sacrifice me to?’

‘Our Master and Confessor – Ja Ono. Only he has the power to communicate to Nagaminshu. We are bound for Distungai lands. But we have yet to pick up a few more girls.’

‘I hate you! I hate you all!’ she said, screaming and writhing.

They think they are so powerful and clever taking a person’s life. But I’m going to get my own back on them all. They’re going to pay for their crimes and violations. The Yellow-Rider Clan; her clan; would have its revenge!

Ja Ono – Lord of Demeu and Overlord of The Harbingers of Doom

Chapter One – Annakis – Distungai lands

Ja Ono was complete. He had fully formed into a material person again. The obsidian ring sat on his middle finger on his left hand. He had used the sorcery of amulets, the God’s own sorcery, to be reborn. It was a feat that no other mortal on Roc Isle could accomplish, and he revelled in his evident superiority and his plans for the future.

Lord Azure would attack Deluge City tomorrow; even though it had already been lost nearly a week ago by some sort of preliminary attack. He didn’t have all the details yet but it seemed that the Garrison had been raided and burnt, as well as the Administrative Offices of the Trade Lords.

Ja Ono had been back for a week and had not had much time to rally the Distungai peoples to his purposes. The entire plan that would be the undoing of his father’s trading empire had not properly begun. True, he had murdered the leading members of the Trade Lord Confederation and had desecrated the people at his father’s funeral. But he had not bent the peoples of the south to his will. This was not his war. It was the south’s war. Luckily, Lord Azure had successfully managed to make sure most people in Distungai lands opposed him. Lord Azure’s capacity for provoking cultures and clans that differed from his model was extraordinary.

This meant Ja Ono did not need to be responsible for mobilising his lands for war. Indeed his new plan was to allow everybody to perish, enemy and ally alike, before he would use his God powers to impose his will and unify Roc Isle.

In the week since he had returned, nobody was surprised to see him. They had not known what he had been up to up north, and nobody but that treacherous scoundrel Darchimede had known he had died, and even then the dog may not have known Ja Ono’s fate, even if he had left him to it. Ja Ono would deal with him later.

Ja Ono had since attempted to make a few new allies. He had, with his show of sorcery, managed to convince groups within the Yellow-Rider Clan to defect. They had come to accept his God Nagaminshu as real after they had witnessed his spectacular display of power. Despite the Trade Lord Confederation’s numerous attempts to encroach on Yellow-Rider land, they had previously been unsuccessful. This was why The Black Council had been formed. It had been set up by the Trade Lord Confederation members to evaluate Roc Isle and to utilise resources to benefit the Trade Lords and make sure the Yellow-Rider Clan would be the subject of war; to fight against the Azure-Cloud Clan. But it had failed. Lord Azure and his dignitaries had seen through the plan and had linked it to The Black Council, and were now marching on the Trade Lords.

Instead of the destruction of the Yellow-Rider Clan, the army of the Azure-Cloud Clan had diminished; and Ja Ono had finished off the population of the Azure-Cloud Clan in his scourge of the land weeks back.

The Black Council had managed to infiltrate and betray the Green-Peace Clan and the Ruby-Flame Clan to their inevitable destruction. True, the remnants had fought with the Azure Army, but they forget that the population of these clans twenty years ago had severely decreased. Although there were rumours Lord Azure was promoting population growth, Ja Ono did not think it likely the Azure-Cloud Clan would succeed against the Trade Lords.

Duke Ono, not Ja Ono, had been behind the majority of these plans, and had led the Trade Lords to their doom. The Trade Lords now had two enemies; the Yellow-Rider Clan, and the variety of northern peoples – the White Kingdom.

The White Kingdom would not be able to overcome the Trade Lords, but if they fought alongside the Yellow-Rider Clan, it would be another story. But even if the Trade Lords were abolished, it would be doing Ja Ono a favour in his quest for domination.

Ja Ono was known as the most ruthless lord in Distungai lands after the massacre at his father’s funeral and the murder of the officials of the Trade Lord Confederation. Folk uttered his name rarely, and if they did it was with great anxiety and not a little terror. One question plagued everybody’s mind these days and that was who is pulling the strings? Nobody knew, not even Ja Ono. The capital of the Trade Lord Confederation was Annakis. But although Ja Ono had murdered the leading officials, he was sure they would have been replaced, and that business would continue as usual. The thing about injustice and culpability was not that any one group of people were to blame over others, but that the entire system was one that bred inequality and atrocities. There were classes that held positions. Some were born into positions, but some moved from class to class, ascending in some cases.

Society was too complex and populated for anybody to have any semblance of true control. It was all about trade interests, which were governed by many people at a time, and were innumerable. Some people did hold the highest positions but the entire system was mired in a notorious and infuriating secrecy that even Ja Ono found it difficult to penetrate. This was what had made Duke Ono, his father, valuable. He had been able to navigate the obscure channels and see interests for what they were. Ja Ono would not begrudge his father this ability, be it derived from experience or talent.

And what was it Ja wanted from the future? He wanted clarity. He wanted an end to the innumerable and conflicting interests. He wanted an end to the bickering and deals and profiting for the sake of it. He wanted to serve the greater powers on Roc Isle and that meant worshipping the Great God Nagaminshu and using his sorcery to affect control over the lands. He would kill hundreds, thousands if he needed to. He would rip civilisations from the ground up, and scorch dozens of settlements of innocents if it meant purity and sanity could be preserved. He would not allow one side to win the war only to become what the Trade Lords were … to become what his father had been.

What tools did Ja have at his disposal? He had a few sects of the Yellow-Rider Clan – worshippers working for him. He had his Household Guard and the many housekeepers, servants, and slaves at Demeu at his disposal. The Trade Lords had taken everything else his father had owned, but what was ownership when everybody was going to die anyway? Ja Ono had lost every sorcerer of The Harbingers of Doom save Darchimede, who he had yet to confront. But one of the most important weapons at his disposal was fear. Folk all across Distungai lands feared his name … and so they should.

He didn’t have too many current plans. Although Darchimede could train new sorcerers and co-operate with the Trade Lords to confront the Mystic Enclave Sorcerers, he would do so at his own peril. Ja Ono had infiltrated the Mystic Enclave twenty years ago and seen first-hand how easy it was for his sorcery to navigate the Tower and to be among several hundred enemy sorcerers without their knowledge. Ja would wait to see how the war would pan out, but he would not interfere until it was certain who the victors were. Then he would annihilate all sorcery and dangerous trinkets; like that ruby-stone thrown by the ash-haired warrior; the Counter-Element Ja had been reading about recently, among his numerous scrolls.

After he was sure he was the only potent force remaining, he would slowly manipulate the survivors of Roc Isle and bend them to his will.

Nothing can stop me!

***

The corridor was very dark. Ja Ono silently paced down its length. He could not allow such deceit to survive. He prodded open a door on his right and strode through. There, at the desk was Darchimede, his dark hair slicked in sweat and sprawled all over his head. He had finally gotten rid of that ridiculous hat.

Ja Ono smiled languorously and raised his hands. Darchimede stuttered.

‘But, my lord you must understand…’ he babbled.

Shards of lightning shot forth from the ends of Ja Ono’s fingers and encompassed the space where Darchimede had been. But the shards found empty air. Ja Ono turned around but could find no trace of the wily worm of a man.

He is a cunning fool.

Ja Ono stepped back into the corridor and swept his gaze across the dark surfaces.

I smell you!

Ja Ono walked forward, taking his time. Hasty moves would mean certain death against a sorcerer as highly trained as Darchimede. He had been a purple-streak, the rank below Ja Ono’s.

Ja Ono idly threw his gaze across the empty rooms as he continued walking down the dark long corridor. He was in a nondescript building. He had found the traitor using the sorcery of spirits. There was no place to hide when eyes could roam across the land and perceive everything. Yet it was Ja Ono’s sense of smell that had led his sorcery gaze to this building.

The coward was running again, Ja Ono could tell. Ja Ono charged upward and broke the ceiling above him in an avalanche of raw material. He stood in another corridor and there the snake was – Darchimede leering below him, waiting to attack. The vision of seeing him escape had been a ruse, Ja Ono realised.

‘That’s very impressive Darchimede. I have clearly underestimated you.’

Darchimede stepped back into the corridor and seemed to blend in with the shadows. He was silent – all the fool’s concentration was bent upon surprise and sly movements.

Ja Ono walked patiently forward.

‘Your skills are still no match for me. Despite what you have learnt, you were only ever taught standard techniques by my father, and my father knew but the fundamentals of using sorcery. Why did you remain loyal to him?’

Ja Ono’s voice fell on deaf ears, as he had assumed it would. For no obvious reason Ja Ono started to run forward. He raced down the corridor, as if striving to catch something that was about to escape. There was light at the end of the corridor coming through a patterned window. Ja Ono reached out and smashed the glass with his right fist as his feet came to a stop. When he clenched his fist, he had caught hold of a fabric – Darchimede’s cloak.

He dragged the fool down the corridor, away from the window. He stood on top of the body and pinned it. It wasn’t Darchimede. It was an uncanny puppet of him. Ja Ono was being tricked again. He had underestimated Darchimede on too many occasions already. The sorcery of deceit was causing Ja Ono to run in circles. Ja Ono was behaving exactly as Darchimede had anticipated.

Ja Ono raised his arms high; his palms open to the ceiling; and brought down the power of the heavens. There was a screech of a wind at first, and then a winding echo through the recesses of the building. The floors above came crashing down. Ja Ono already had a shield of flame covering his body to protect himself. The entire building shuddered – a few mosaics on the walls crashed through endless floors. Ja Ono found he was gliding downward as the floor gave way. Pieces of wood and building were stopped by his shield of flames and were transformed into little glittering sparks when they came in contact with the flames.

The night sky outside was illuminated by stars; the broken buildings around him were illuminated by sconces. There was a massive pile of rubble where the building had been.

Ja Ono suddenly had an intuition about where the fool was. He glided higher and higher with his back to the dial-tower. A bolt of lightning whooshed past his head, but he had anticipated it and turned around to grasp the invisible strings that controlled every human body. Darchimede shuddered and struggled as his body had left his control.

‘Puppets manipulated by a combination of deceptive tricks, and tainted with the mark of sorcery so that it would make me blind to the more subtle patterns emanating from this location … ingenious!’

Darchimede was frothing at the mouth and attempting to writhe against Ja Ono’s control.

‘It was such a pity. Your talent could have been mine, but instead you must die. I see the core of your skill now – you use the mind to set the stage for the tricks you do. That is why your sorcery is effective. But I am not stupid, and am far beyond any sorcerer!’

Ja Ono reached out with his hands and then, while he was still gliding aloft in the air, he rapidly wrenched them apart, tightening his fists. Darchimede gurgled and spluttered blood. He then sunk into a skin of useless flesh on top of the highest peak of the dial-tower.

Ja Ono lowered himself to the ground. He already sensed a number of sorcerers closing in on him – Darchimede’s new acolytes. He had been quick to train them.

There were six striding towards him, eating the ground up with their purposeful steps. Ja Ono used elemental sorcery to throw a large block of building onto the sorcerer to his far left. There was no struggle, just a dull thud of death.

The other five sizzled and crackled with blue lightning; they unleashed it and continued their advance. Ja Ono suffused his right arm with lightning bolts and blocked the force of their attacks with his right forearm.

He then used elemental sorcery to throw a few sorcerers back. He put his arm down when the sorcerers tired of their attacks and drew his sword. Ja Ono bounded into their midst, slicing limbs off and slitting throats. Using the sorcery of death he became invincible when he fought in melee; super-fast and efficient. It was a technique he had not mastered when he had fought the ash-haired warrior of the Knights of The Roc.

Sword arm outstretched and eyes closed, he stood among the rotting corpses. He could smell the scorched flesh and feel the missing auras where their life had been – dull voids of lifelessness. He opened his eyes and grinned in triumph.

‘Only I can make sorcerers!’ he admonished the corpses as he gently paced out of the clearing and into the shadows.

Chapter Two – Caparison Arena – South-West of Demeu – Distungai lands

Ja Ono sat among the thousands of spectators. There were raucous cheers and a great celebratory mood around him. He glanced at his wrist-dial, but then decided not to worry about his other obligations. He wanted to enjoy himself.

It was a blazing hot day and the sky was almost impeccably clear but for light smog at each end of the horizon. The chariots bounded across the marked lines in a race, each rider attempting to stab the other with a spear. When they reached the end of the track they would turn their chariots around and, racing alongside, they would continue to thrust their spears until one fell and died.

There was blood all over the track, smearing the chalked white lines that marked it. The sand was dusty and gritty, tanned brown by all the blood spilt on it over decades.

The majority of the spectators were middle-class merchants and traders placing bets or coming for a day out with their friends. The arenas allowed folk to escape the daily rituals of their everyday lives to have a social day out. Beer and ale was spilled everywhere from tankards. Boisterous shouts and cat-calls came out like thunder from the crowds on the seating stands. Ja Ono was alone, but he intended to head back to the Demeu Estate later to handle some important domestic affairs.

One of the men riding the chariots had managed to skewer the other onto the end of his spear. The skewered man faltered and his body slapped to the ground, amid a wave of dust and sand. The crowds booed.

Ja Ono saw some