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    City of the Dead
    City of the Dead
    City of the Dead
    Ebook316 pages4 hours

    City of the Dead

    By Meyari McFarland

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    About this ebook

    Kennet hated being king. Rudrash was a disaster after his defeat of Mage-King Rihab and Kennet had to fix it. If he could. There was a toxic volcano, not enough food and water, and no safe place for people to live.

    On top of that, his old enemy Elder Danek threatened Kennet's new life from beyond the grave. Come what may, Kennet had to find a home for his people, defeat the challenges ahead of him and maybe, just maybe, find a little peace before he died.

    City of the Dead is the exciting sequel to Artifacts of Awareness that you will be sure to remember for years to come.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMDR Publishing
    Release dateJun 28, 2015
    ISBN9781311711656
    City of the Dead
    Author

    Meyari McFarland

    Meyari McFarland has been telling stories since she was a small child. Her stories range from SF and Fantasy adventures to Romances but they always feature strong characters who do what they think is right no matter what gets in their way. Her series range from Space Opera Romance in the Drath series to Epic Fantasy in the Mages of Tindiere world. Other series include Matriarchies of Muirin, the Clockwork Rift Steampunk mysteries, and the Tales of Unification urban fantasy stories, plus many more. You can find all of her work on MDR Publishing's website at www.MDR-Publishing.com.

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      Book preview

      City of the Dead - Meyari McFarland

      City of the Dead

      By Meyari McFarland

      Other Books by Meyari McFarland:

      Matriarchies of Muirin:

      Tales from the Dana Clanhouse

      Repair and Rebuild

      Storm Over Archaelaos

      Coming Together

      Facing the Storm

      Fitting In

      Mages of Tindiere:

      Artifacts of Awareness

      Transplant of War

      Debts to Recover:

      The Nature of Beasts

      The Manor Verse:

      A New Path

      Following the Trail

      Crafting Home

      Finding a Way

      Copyright ©2015 by Mary Raichle

      Cover Image © Haizul | Dreamstime.com - Mosque Photo

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be emailed to me_ya_ri@yahoo.com

      This book is also available in TPB format from all major retailers.

      Dedication:

      This story is dedicated to, as always, my faithful proofreader and friend Leanne for all her help. Thanks also go to my husband, my mother and everyone who has given me feedback and encouragement as I worked on this and my other stories.

      1. Lava Fields

      Kennet stared out over the lava field, a thick mask made of layers upon layers of patched cotton rags covering his nose and mouth. His clothes were heavy, too, thick cotton covered by heavy leather armor, topped with a breastplate that lay on Kennet's chest like a boulder. Damned thing felt like it weighed half as much as Kennet did. Maybe did weigh as much as Dimi.

      It was Dimi's fault he had the thing on in the first place, as if armor was going to protect him from magic fumes. At least his boots kept the heat of the lava off his feet. Barely. Shimmering blue magic spluttered and fizzed underneath Kennet's boots. Every step he took sent up clouds of steam that mixed with the noxious fumes stalking him. Na'im's magic helped, sure, but it wasn't enough when you deliberately exposed yourself to the worst kinds of twisted, broken magic the world had ever seen.

      Though really, the fumes were worse than the lava, worse than the volcano that grew day by day out of the desert valley. They tore at flesh, making exposed skin crack and bleed. If you breathed the damned stuff in your lungs started to dissolve. Already Kennet had watched fifteen different soldiers and three of the desert wanderers drown to death in their own blood.

      Should have let the dumb bastards die on the lava field, Kennet grumbled as he carefully picked his way back towards the waiting group of soldiers and their horses.

      Neither of us were willing to do so, Na'im sighed in the back of Kennet's mind. We didn't know the price at the time.

      Yeah, yeah, Kennet murmured as he carefully skirted a balefully red glowing hole that let him see down into the river of molten lava under his feet. Had to be less than six inches of brittle black lava between him and instant death. Still should have let them die. We lost good men to those stiff-necked idiots.

      Na'im didn't reply. He didn't really need to, not when his magic wrapped more firmly around Kennet. Not when they both scanned ahead, Kennet with his eyes and Na'im with his magic, to find the fastest, safest way off the lava field. Kennet tugged at Na'im's magic, the action nearly instinctive after living with Na'im inside him for two months, wrapping three more sorts of shields around their shared body.

      The stink of the fumes still got through. Nothing kept the fumes out, not the masks, not spells. They swirled around Kennet. The twisted magic of King Rihab's volcano sought a way through Kennet's shields so that it could tear his lungs apart from the inside out. It was almost as though Rihab and Shihab, Na'im's spell-construct of a brother, were still trying to kill Kennet.

      Hell, for all Kennet knew that was true. Yes, he'd killed Rihab on this very battlefield or at least what had been a battlefield before the lava covered it. And yes, he'd felt Shihab's magical energies unravel like a knitted sock cut and pulled apart by a pack of playful kittens.

      That didn't mean that the malice of that final battle was gone. It could very easily linger here in the lava field where Rihab and Shihab had died. And if it did, that meant that every living thing exposed to the lava, its fumes and its magic, was likely to die.

      Or be transformed into a monster.

      They had more than enough instances of that so far. Kennet's 'horse' was a lizard that had been blown up like child's ball made from a pig's bladder. The thing had been maybe a yard long and now it stood a good nineteen hands high, maybe twenty. Hard to tell given that its shoulders were completely different from a horse's.

      Thankfully, the damned thing liked to eat squash and buckets of fruit, not people, and it was as docile as any horse born. Not like the rabbit hordes they now had to watch out for. Kennet's old dream of going somewhere quiet to raise rabbits was a nightmare instead. The volcano's twisted magic had warped the hares that ran through the edges of the desert into ravenous flesh-tearing predators that hunted in packs.

      We couldn't have known it would happen, Na'im murmured.

      Yeah, yeah, I know, Kennet complained. Mostly in a sub-verbal growl because he didn't want to actually open his mouth until he was out of the stupid volcanic fumes. Still terrifying little beasts. I thought the spiders back home were bad enough. They're at least mostly stationary.

      Na'im's agreement with that assessment was entirely nonverbal, just a soft blue glow that metaphorically bobbed in the back of his head. It was still strange sharing his body with Na'im. Their early agreement to separate, Na'im to be tossed into the ocean and Kennet to his dream-farm somewhere to the north, hadn't survived more than a day of reality.

      Now it looked like they were stuck with each other for the rest of Kennet's life. Killing King Rihab and his bitch of a daughter Tahira had left Kennet stuck with the job of being king even though he had no training for it. Or desire to do it, really. Mostly he let Toma, his lover, help his other lover, Dimi, make the decisions.

      Mostly. Toma was the chief of staff that everyone knew would handle organizational decisions. Dimi with his razor sharp knives and sharper wit was the one that handled diplomacy, policy, the law. And Kennet, as the Mage-King of Rudrash, handled all the weird shit.

      Do I see idiots on the edge of the lava field? Kennet asked Na'im.

      I believe so, Na'im said, his voice going as hard and frustrated as Kennet felt. Their lungs are already starting to bleed.

      Fucking morons! Kennet snarled.

      He drew on Na'im's power and made magic wings of water pulled from the air. A gust of wind dragged down from the highest levels of the sky descended in a blast that made the two mages, because of course they thought they knew better than Kennet what was safe or not, stumble backwards. At the same time the wind caught Kennet's magic wings, lifting him off the ground and propelling him about eight feet off the lava through the air.

      Kennet let the blast of wind go just as he reached the two mages. They stumbled, stared and then flinched as Kennet coasted at them, dropped the wings and then strode straight at them. One of the mages coughed, the sound wet enough that Kennet knew he was already dead. His brain just hadn't realized it yet. The other gasped and then wheezed. His eyes at least went wide at the heaviness that had to have begun filling his chest.

      You're fucking idiots, Kennet snapped as he grabbed them by their shirts and dragged them away from the edge of the lava. I told you outright that you'd die if you got close.

      You were able to walk across it, said the less affected one, Kennet thought his name was Uuruta. Uurutia? Uru Rutia, that was it. There was no reason to tell us to hold back. We can shield as well as you.

      Yeah, well my shields didn't keep the damned fumes out. Neither did the mask, Kennet said. The reason I'm still alive is that my body regenerates. You're fucking dying and there's not a thing that anyone can do. Pretty sure that if Inina herself came down from heaven she couldn't fix your fucking lungs, you morons.

      The other mage, Tuwun, kept on coughing. He shook his head as if he wanted to disagree but the coughing didn't stop. Kennet caught Tuwun's elbow, dragged him towards the horses. Uru followed on his own but his steps faltered way too much.

      Back a good thousand yards away from the lava field, Dimi shook his head. His sunshine-blond hair swept over his back as he did it, drawing Kennet's eyes automatically. Thank fuck Dimi had kept the others back. Kennet couldn't afford to lose any more men. Tuwun and Uru were mages who'd been drawn into Rudrash by the battle between Kennet and Rihab. He was pretty sure they'd come convinced that they would be able to wrest control from Kennet given their 'excellent education' and 'many resources' but they, like the other mages who clustered at Kennet's half-assed version of a capital city up in the hills, hadn't expected what they'd actually found.

      I don't… feel right, Uru finally said when they were almost back to the horses. He stopped, one hand on his throat and the other on his chest as he wheezed.

      Yeah, you're dying, Kennet said with as much sympathy as he could spare. It wasn't much, not with Tuwun coughing up blood in Kennet's arms as his bladder and bowels gave way. No surprise about that. I can end it quick if you want. This is a nasty way to die.

      Tuwun was already too far gone to say yes to that. It was tempting to just kill the man but he wouldn't do that in front of Uru. Kennet didn't think they were lovers. They hadn't shown many signs of fondness for each other. But they had apparently known each other their entire lives from the comments they'd made when they so pompously introduced themselves as the best mages in Egar. As if that was much to brag about. Egar's mages were known to be shit all across the planet.

      We are dying, Uru whispered. Wheezed really. His eyes were far too wide before they screwed shut. Tears leaked out of the corners, just two, but that's all that a man like Uru would allow.

      Yeah, you are, Kennet agreed. Fast or slow?

      Kill him, Uru said, his shoulders squaring as he stood and gazed into Kennet's eyes, strong despite his lungs dissolving inside of him. And then me. We have been together our entire lives. I would not make him wait for me. Nor would I have him suffer.

      Kennet shut his eyes, sighing. Right. One quick movement snapped Tuwun's neck. Na'im's magic crushed the man's brainstem, stopping thought processes in their tracks. It was a relief to set Tuwun's body down. He hadn't been that heavy with Na'im's magic to help Kennet but he'd been heavy enough.

      Thank you, Uru said. He coughed and shook his head. I apologize. I took your crude manners for lack of intelligence.

      Nope, Kennet said as he gripped the back of Uru's neck, not hard, just firmly enough that he could support the other man as he started to cough in earnest. Just never cared enough to be polite and this is my fourth language. Still not that good at it.

      Uru's eyes went wide with surprise so Kennet snapped his neck as Na'im stopped his brain before fear or anger could set in. Better that he die surprised than angry, his magic twisting inside him. They had enough of that already.

      Kennet dropped Uru's body by Tuwun's and then used magic to clean his clothes and face of Tuwun's blood. Dimi would know if people from Egar preferred funerals or cremation. Kennet sure as hell didn't. He'd drag them back the rest of the way, tie them to their horses and then see to it. It wasn't the first time that he'd done it and he suspected that it wouldn't be the last either.

      The walk across the lava had shown him what he'd needed to know.

      Rudrash was dying, just like everyone that got too close to the fumes. The lava cut across the heart of the country, spilling over the biggest roads that everyone had followed for over a thousand years. The western half of the country with its hills and scrubby orchards was cut off from the dry, parched eastern half.

      In a few years at most they'd be two separate countries. A few years after that and they wouldn't exist at all. The volcano's destructive path was headed straight for the high country. At this season the winds blew towards the east but in a few months it would blow west, killing everyone in the high country.

      Their only hope, not that it was much of a hope at all, was to retreat into the vast wastes of the Rudrash Desert that blanketed the northern half of the country with leagues of sand dunes right up into the Rudrash peninsula that was supposed to be utterly barren and completely devoid of life.

      Kennet had dared those dunes before. It had led to meeting Na'im, to becoming the Mage-King, to killing Rudrash with the aftermath of his magical battle with King Rihab. Now it looked like he and Na'im had to find a way to bring life to the sand dunes or everything they'd tried to build over the last couple of months would collapse just like a castle built on a bog.

      2. Growing Pains

      Who the hell put a tent in the middle of the street? Kennet demanded as he wrestled with the makeshift reins of his lizard-mount.

      It hissed and shifted its feet constantly, tongue flicking out again and again as if it smelled something either terrifying or tasty. The thing's brain was so small, so dim, that Kennet couldn't tell the difference from the feelings that came off it. He still wasn't sure if riding the lizard instead of turning it loose or killing it was a good idea. Sure, it was docile and cooperative but it was still a giant lizard.

      The stink of garbage and piss in the streets bothered the lizard more than it did horses. Bothered Kennet, too, but he hadn't gotten a good way to deal with either problem yet. On the other hand, the lizard was much calmer when facing things like hordes of small children dressed in rags running screaming up the street. The lead kid had a melon in his arms and ran as though he expected the entire city to stop him. Might be stolen or maybe not given that no one shouted behind Kennet and the other kids laughed as they ran up past Kennet and his lizard.

      The street wasn't so much a street as a wider path between the welter of shacks, tents, carts turned tiny homes that made up his capital. His capital. As if any of this was Kennet's idea. He still thought they needed to relocate and had long before the dangers of the lava flows had been discovered. This was no place to put a city of any kind. It had barely worked as a place to put a rich noble's retreat. Every day made it worse and worse.

      Being stuck in a 'citadel' that was some rich boy's imitation of a real fortress was worse than having no fortress at all. And now, as people flowed out of the desert and hills into Kennet's 'capital city' it was worse.

      Much worse.

      There was no good supply of water. People had to carry it from the river miles away. The food supply had to be imported because there weren't any good places to grow plants and you sure as hell couldn't keep livestock. Nothing to feed them and no room for them on this stupid hill. Didn't stop somebody's chickens from strutting past Kennet and Dimi, head's bobbing as they eyed Kennet's mount and decided it was harmless.

      I have no idea, Dimi sighed. I thought we'd sent out an order that the streets were to be gridded.

      And you really thought that would work? Kennet asked.

      He shook his head and turned his lizard-mount around, heading back up the street towards a side street that should, if they were lucky, actually lead them onwards towards the citadel where Toma waited. The other men followed suit, most grumbling threats that Kennet knew damned well wouldn't be carried out against the owner of the tent.

      Dimi sighed and then kicked his horse back into walking by Kennet's side. Flighty thing that it was, it hated Kennet's mount with an eye-rolling, teeth-snapping passion that the lizard utterly ignored. Made it hard to ride together but Kennet did want to give the lizard a chance. He had a smoother gait than most horses and that counted when you spent as much time in the saddle as Kennet did.

      Did we find out anything about building sewers? Kennet asked Dimi. Before the idiot mages showed up and demanded information on the volcano, that is?

      I found a very small footnote on the sewers in the Imperial City, Dimi said with a snort of disgust. His glance at the horses carrying the mage's rapidly decomposing bodies, thankfully wrapped in specially spelled bags that Dimi had brought along, was venomous. When I asked the mages about it they said that there were legends of such things but no one knows how they were created. The shorter one, Uru, stated outright that he believes them to be fabrications.

      Moron, Kennet sighed.

      Dimi snorted his agreement. They both knew better. They'd been trained as slaves, separately, in other parts of the world. Kennet was Alliance trained which meant he shouldn't have a will and a mind of his own but Kennet was stubborn and smart and he'd been determined not to let Elder Danek, the man who drove him into slavery, win. Dimi had been even smarter. Trained as a dancer, he'd played the beautiful little toy until Kennet freed him.

      Either way, they'd both seen the gorgeous old sewers that swept waste away into holding ponds that slowly turned it into fine grey ash that made sand bear fruit. Unfortunately, Kennet had never seen one since he got magic and Na'im had never studied the spells so they had no way of creating them for the city.

      Which wouldn't work anyway because the newly born city was on the top of a hill with no water supply. Needed water to make the old sewers work. Needed water to keep the people clean, to cook, to stave off illness and infection. That was Kennet's second problem: where and how to get water to this misbegotten excuse of a town.

      Aqueducts? Kennet asked.

      I found seventeen lovely books on the works of Dritan the Architect, Dimi replied much more cheerfully. Two of them included beautiful drawings of how the aqueducts were created and how they channeled water from one end of the Old Empire to the other. However I can tell you that they will not work here because we do not have a higher source of water. That is the start of it. Our water comes from rivers that lay lower to the city or from the rain.

      Damn, Kennet sighed. Guess I keep bringing more rain in for the short term. Can't keep doing that, though. It's messing with the weather patterns and we'll pay for it later.

      Despite Dimi's little nod of agreement, Kennet could feel that Dimi didn't really understand just how big of a problem it could become. Na'im had shown Kennet in great detail, taking their minds up into the clouds and highlighting the way the air and water moved. If Kennet kept calling down rain he was going to shift the weather patterns so badly that they ended up with either a decades-long drought that no magic could touch or hurricane after hurricane for several years.

      I'm sure we can find a way to make it work, Dimi murmured as they finally found their way around the improperly placed tent and back onto the main road back to the citadel.

      No, not really, Kennet replied. Come on! Move that ox, will you?

      He shouted at the tiny old man slowly leading a heavily laden ox in front of them. Blankets wrapped around sticks draped over the ox's back. Maybe the base of the man's new home, maybe to sell. Kennet didn't know. Didn't care. The little old man waved a fist at Kennet and shouted right back in a dialect that neither Kennet nor Na'im knew. The emotional feeling was one of 'wait your turn, you young troublemaker' so Kennet grinned instead of cursing.

      You are the king, Dimi murmured once they finally had the room to slip by.

      Eh, that's just a job, Kennet said. No different than being a chimney sweep, I think. Gotta take care of all the stuff no one wants to do.

      Dimi laughed. The little old man, finally, noticed that Kennet wasn't any old warrior. He stared at the lizard, then at Kennet, and then bowed his head before shaking fist and, maybe, Kennet wasn't sure, yelling at Kennet to get that thing away from his ox.

      Kennet's laughter carried them up the street. So much better than the idiots up at the citadel. Might have to see if someone could tell him who the old man was. He suspected that he'd get better advice out of the old man than he did out of some of his official advisers. Not Toma or Dimi, of course, but the nobles and soldiers who'd become the core of his new government.

      Not a one of them knew what they were doing, Kennet included.

      They passed a tent where the sides had been lifted. Inside three old women stirred huge pans full of diced eggplant, squash and enough grain to feed forty people. The rich scents of turmeric and cinnamon, onion and garlic, filled the air well enough to drive away the sewer stench that had settled over the city. Off on one side a little old man chopped up what looked like one of the meat-eating hares.

      Ask him where he got that and if it really is one of those damned rabbits, Kennet said to one of the other men following them. I want to know if someone figured out how to hunt them.

      Yes, Your Highness, Abdul-Latif replied with the sort of tired sigh that Kennet still wasn't used to.

      It was as if the man felt that he had no choice whatsoever but to do what Kennet wanted even though he'd heard Kennet curse and lecture at the mages on the way out to the lava fields about just how much he hated that attitude.

      You know it wasn't actually a hare, Dimi said, sniffing the air and nodding appreciatively. The approval disappeared as they rode onwards.

      Probably not, Kennet agreed, but I can dream, can't I? Damned things are almost worse than Rihab.

      True, Dimi agreed. I wonder more where they found the rice.

      Was it rice? Kennet asked as he looked over his shoulder. The old man was shaking his head apologetically at Abdul-Latif so nope, not a hare. Pity. I thought it was grain, like barley or something. Didn't look the same as rice to me.

      Dimi blinked, cocked his head and looked too. He shrugged after a moment. Other than going back and demanding samples, which Kennet already knew would mean the old women would insist on feeding them all despite the fact that it would take food out of their family's mouths, there wasn't a good way to find out.

      Barley would be better than rice, frankly. Took a lot less water and was easier to grow. Maybe there was someplace close that they could grow barley. But no, Kennet had already had Toma check on that and there wasn't a spot that hadn't already been filled with people and tents and Haraldr-damned cess pools in the middle of the street.

      We have got to get out of here, Kennet complained.

      You say that every day, Dimi said. This is your capital city, Kennet. Accept it.

      The hell I will, Kennet complained. "This is now way to run any city. Shit in the middle of the street. Kids running through puddles that are mostly urine. No water, no food, no streets.

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