Necrosis (The Omens of Gaia Book 1) Read online

  NECROSIS

  H.C. DAMROSCH

  A tyrant has conquered the land she holds dear; friends and family slain to build a kingdom of despair. Her own faith has fallen into doubt…

  She must escape, no matter the cost.

  Visions of light and shadow beckon from beyond the world’s edge; haunting dreams, waking nightmares, rivers of energy beneath the earth…

  There is a warrior who would oppose death itself to uncover the secrets of his birth.

  Subhuman and superhuman creatures arise to test them; powers of earth and spirit whose revelations shake the very foundations of reality. Is it wisdom to believe, or madness…?

  Only by coming to terms with their own humanity can they defeat the Lord of the Necrow.

  NECROSIS

  The Omens of Gaia, vol. 1

  Copyright © 2017 by H.C. Damrosch

  All rights reserved

  www.thewhatevsblog.com

  Cover Artist: DesignCraftive

  Necrosis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, locations or events is purely coincidental.

  This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This story is dedicated to those who search for truth.

  The world’s mystery is either chaos without value of any kind, or is replete with an infinite significance beyond the reach of finite minds.

  –Abraham Heschel, Man Is Not Alone

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Defeat

  Chapter Two – Escape

  Chapter Three – Flight

  Chapter Four – The Well

  Chapter Five – Across the Border

  Chapter Six – The Iniquity of Xiramin

  Chapter Seven – Into the West

  Chapter Eight – Land of Ancient Forests

  Chapter Nine – The Soul Drinkers

  Chapter Ten – The Fall

  Chapter Eleven – Heart-Bearer

  Chapter Twelve – Goddess of the Sun

  Chapter Thirteen – Harbinger of Heaven

  Chapter Fourteen – The August Monk

  Chapter Fifteen – Perniciem

  Chapter Sixteen – The Cathedral

  Chapter Seventeen – Oración

  Chapter Eighteen – The White Sages

  Chapter Nineteen – Lord of Necrosis

  Preview of Harbinger

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PROLOGUE

  Keren vividly remembered the first time she had seen the Necrow.

  A winter sun shone meekly through the heavens above the mountains, wan light shattered by ice as it reached for the earth. Frost hung like silver beards on the trees. A trail of mist billowed from young Keren’s mouth as she hurried down the path, scrunched inside her winter tunic.

  She reached her family’s barn and fumbled at the frosty latch with her mittens. Slipping inside, she pressed against their cow radiating blessed warmth from her shaggy flanks, somberly munching on hay. The milk made a pleasing plink and tinkle in the pail, steaming like Keren’s breath, only sweeter.

  When she was done, she noticed the water trough was nearly empty. Scurrying outside, Keren dragged the wooden covering off the well and threw her pail down the line. The journey back to the barn took twice as long, and when she arrived she saw the door was ajar. Poking her head inside, she saw a man sitting on the milking stool. The cow didn’t think he was worth taking notice of, but Keren noticed his strangeness immediately.

  His skin was a deep blue-purple, like the color of frostbitten corpses she had once glimpsed by the side of the road. His black hair was short and bristled like a cat’s, and against the bitter cold he wore nothing but a loose brown vest and leggings. A naked hunting knife hung from his belt. In his left hand was a mask the color of bleached bone.

  He was turned away from Keren, gazing with apparent fascination into the milk pail. He did not move as she eased through the door, and the mask seemed ready to slip through his fingers for his lack of attention, so intense was his concentration. The fingers of his right hand twitched ever so slightly, as if yearning to reach out and touch the pale cream, its surface slowly hardening into ice.

  “Excuse me, mister?”

  The man twisted around, and Keren screamed. His eyes stared straight through her – gaping, misty white orbs, devoid of sight.

  Keren turned to run but in an instant the man was beside her, seizing her arms with overpowering strength. She kicked furiously, but he lifted her easily and began to stride back to the house. A group of blue men with white masks were there, Keren’s mother among them. Her father had left only a few days ago for the other side of the river.

  Keren saw her mother and began to sob, struggling against the monster’s grip. Her mother was trying hard not to cry, and reached out with a trembling hand in a gesture which told Keren to stay, to not be frightened.

  The dead men did not want the child, and left her in the shattered doorway of her family’s cottage. Keren ran after them as they cantered away on their shaggy horses, but could not catch up. She collapsed sobbing in the road, scrabbling at the frozen earth.

  That was the last time she ever saw her mother.

  CHAPTER 1

  DEFEAT

  Keren pulled her knees tightly up to her chin, shivering. The plip and trickle of water in the walls made her restless. She was imprisoned: by a dark cell, by despair, by the cold that snapped at her skin and forced her to draw deeper into herself.

  Her neighbors’ breathing echoed harshly to either side; propped against the walls, sprawled across the floor, too exhausted and haunted by whispers to move. Outside, the Necrow paced. Keren imagined she could hear their feather-light steps on the grimy cobblestones, their milky eyes staring sightlessly behind bone masks.

  She would never forget. Keren had sworn the creatures which had taken her mother would never take her. It was a foolish oath to make. The Necrow could go anywhere, penetrate any stronghold, break the will of any rebel force.

  People said the Necrow could not be killed, but that was an untruth. Keren had seen a rebel spear one of the monsters through the heart. Instead of falling to the ground like a real corpse, the body had crumbled into ash.

  Some folk claimed the Necrow were blind, that they were like old hags groping their way across the earth – but that too was foolishness. Keren remembered all too well that although their eyes held the appearance of blindness, they could smell their way about keener than any hound.

  All agreed the Necrow had a feeling of unearthliness about them. Some said they came from the sky, others that they were demons summoned from the depths of hell. Some even dared to claim they were the spirits of their own dead, forced to wander the earth. But Keren had touched a Necrow, and knew they must be something worse.

  They were death itself, given flesh.

  Keren’s mother had been taken around the same time as several other members of their village. A search party led by her father struck out to find and avenge their kidnapped loved ones. They never returned.

  The village took Keren in as yet another child orphaned by fell circumstance. No one had known then what evil spirits walked the countryside, kidnapping good folk, never to be seen again. Keren’s village had hardly believed the tales, until several of their own were taken within the year. After these and the searchers vanished, there was peace for a time. No other undead riders returned to hound them, and the
grievers went on living as best they knew how.

  Years passed with barely a whisper of the undead.

  Keren was raised by one of the elders and his wife, and in time became a young woman. The spitting image of her mother, they said: with long brown hair the color of acorns in autumn to match the hazel of her eyes. Keren did not know if this was true, as she could no longer remember much of her mother. It made her happy to think, though, that part of her mother would always be with her.

  The remainder of her childhood was happy enough. That is, it was happy during the days she was able to forget the aching emptiness smoldering inside her. Whenever it grew to be too much she would run alone through the woods, breathing in the rich scent of the earth, climbing the rugged oaks and wading in the cool fords of the river.

  Keren would wander for half a day in the wilderness where no human voice was heard, and upon her return she was that much gladder to see her village nestled at the edge of the forest. Stout wooden houses clustered around a green square, lanterns burning in every doorway to ward off the approach of night. Tantalizing odors of roasted meat and herbs wafted through the still air. Though her parents were gone, this was still home.

  She got along well enough with the other children, whenever she wasn’t raging at their foolishness. She got along very well with the elders, of course – who wouldn’t, with the threat of a birch rod always hanging over one’s head?

  And then there was Asher. Lean as a whip, he was, with smiling eyes and thick, curling hair. He was one of the cleverest village boys, favored by the elders but not above playing pranks from time to time. In their mock battles he always emerged victorious.

  Where Keren was cynical, Asher was kind. Where she was timid, he was bold. They grew up swimming in the river, chasing each-other with sticks through the woods, dancing around the village bonfire on festival nights. Gradually they came to realize there was more to their friendship than two grubby children could have possibly understood.

  When Asher said she was pretty, Keren believed it. When he held her close as they whirled about the burning embers, she wanted nothing more than to stay in his arms forever. Come the age of her majority, she was certain she would.

  One of the village elders, Malak, was her uncle. At two-score and ten years of age he was rather young for an elder, but was by far the most entertaining. He told the children stories of their ancestors: explorers who had set out from the northern nation of Rhodinia after growing fed up with that land’s corrupt aristocracy. They settled in the land of Herayon, which no other nation coveted because it was so poor.

  There were no natural minerals to mine here except some iron ore in the mountains. There were old forests full of trees, but the nations to the south and west had no need of these. Those nations were full of strange peoples come from across the sea, who built their cities all from glass and stone. ‘Soulless blasphemers’, the elders called them, though they would not explain why.

  After settling this wild land, Malak said, the Herayans created their own culture and religion – one where every man was free to worship his god, and not be held in bondage to the blind and endless cycle of destiny.

  The original families of Herayon had divided and multiplied into independent tribes, each with their own traditions. The tribes rarely spoke to one-another except to trade, and only sometimes to exchange marriage partners (the children giggled and shrieked at this in turns – marriage was a strange and silly affair; but being sent away to live in a foreign village was terrifying and unthinkable).

  When Keren was very young, Malak told them special stories: tales of wise animals that were given souls and designated as guardians of virtue. These animals would sometimes appear in sacred places and grant messages from Heaven to those who were willing to listen.

  The foreign merchants who visited their village often laughed when they heard Malak’s stories. They could not fathom why he put so much stock in things he had never seen. Occasionally these foreigners would incite boisterous arguments with the elders, and in the heat of their debates Malak could often be heard yelling: “Samael be damned!”

  The other elders objected to this language, and so of course Malak had to spend the next hour explaining to the children who Samael was.

  Those made the best bonfire stories, with the light throwing his rugged features into shadow as he whispered of the demon that had set out to work mankind’s destruction since earliest days. “He is not as scary as he seems, though,” Malak would say, after describing the demon’s horrific attributes, “For he only has power over those who choose to do evil. Only sinful men fear him, for it is their sin that gives Samael power over their souls. The righteous challenge him without fear!”

  All of his young listeners would clap and cry together: “God protects the righteous! May all His children be blessed!”

  And so they grew and prospered, and painful memories gradually trickled away like sand in the river.

  After many years had passed, when Keren had not quite reached the age of her majority, new rumors reached their village from the east. A man called Belshazzar had built himself a fortress on the slopes of the eastern mountains and declared himself sovereign over all the tribes of Herayon. He had raised an army of undead ghouls to do his bidding, and it was he who was responsible for the kidnappings years ago.

  At first the tribes dismissed Belshazzar for a liar and an arrogant upstart, and went on about their business.

  That was when the Necrow appeared in force. They were no longer frightening rumors, but a nightmarish reality; foes devoid of both reason and mercy. Weapons rarely harmed them. Dogs did not give warning against their approach. The mere touch of their skin sapped one’s strength and brought grown men to their knees. They wore black cloaks over armor made of animal-hides; masks of bone covered their pitiless features.

  Keren and her kin heard horrific tales from the few merchants who came through their village. Tales of villages decimated in a single night, their inhabitants carried away never to be seen again. On clear days they might see smoke on the horizon, or the debris of farms and the burnt wreckage of homes washed down the river. Later that summer Keren’s tribe sent the younger children, the mothers and the elderly upriver, to the secret hermitages they maintained in the forest.

  Keren was one of the few women left behind to care for what belongings and livestock remained in the village. She was glad. She wanted to be near Asher and the men, and in her deepest of hearts she yearned for a chance at revenge against the monsters that had taken her family from her.

  The men remained in good spirits. God protects the just, they said. The soil on which their ancestors had lived and died would not be relinquished to any petty tyrant, no matter how hideous his minions might be!

  Calamity turned its eye upon them as the autumn leaves began to fall.

  The dogs did not bay a warning, but cowered whimpering in their kennels when the Necrow came like crows out of the night. They fell upon the village like a plague, dark forms leaping from rooftop to rooftop in the half-light.

  Keren heard the screams, saw the torches guttering with the passage of ghastly shapes overhead. She crept through the shadows to the town square where the men were making their stand. Tall figures surrounded them, hooded and cloaked, masks of bone gleaming where their faces should be.

  Any man who confronted the wraiths head-on could not strike a blow against them; the cloaked figures merely slipped aside and laid a deathly hand on their arm. The men collapsed, mouths hanging slack, their limbs weak as a child’s.

  The few women who had remained in the village huddled in their homes, knives and axes bristling at doorways and windowsills. Their defiance only delayed the inevitable.

  There was one who seemed to be having some measure of success; a young man had leapt forward to defend a younger boy against a Necrow’s sword, and was even now fending the monster off with frenzied blows of his spear.

  Keren saw the youth’s face, and gasped.

  Asher! />
  Her beau parried the sword-stroke with the shaft of his spear, then braced himself and flung the Necrow back with a vicious underhanded swing. Crying out in fury, he speared the creature through the chest.

  The undead monster thrashed wildly, reaching for Asher with death-mottled hands. It could not grasp him, and Asher drove the spear-tip clean through the writhing corpse and into the wall behind. The youth glared at the undead monster’s face without fear, and cursed it in the name of Samael.

  The Necrow gave a wretched cry, its body rupturing into a flurry of rust-red ash.

  Asher wrenched his spear free and whirled about, parrying attacks by other Necrow that sought to overwhelm him. The other men of the village who still stood surged forward, yelling encouragement, but they were surrounded by a host of the undead, and one by one they collapsed to the ground.

  Asher fought on, his spear whirring through the smoky air, its tip so bright Keren thought it shone with the light of the stars. He repulsed one Necrow, then another, yelling in triumph as they staggered back, their dark flesh crumbling.

  Several of the faceless ones stepped forward simultaneously. One took the brunt of the spear through its stomach. The others raised their swords together, and smote Asher limb from limb.

  Keren ran forward, her throat hoarse with soundless cries, falling at her beloved’s side. He had died instantly; his eyes no longer recognized her. She clung to him, but the Necrow soon ripped her away and dragged her off with the others.

  Their village burned. What belongings they had not sent with their loved ones into hiding were cast to the winds. The Necrow threw the villagers’ weakened bodies into caged carts originally built for livestock. Their shaggy horses whinnied and plunged ahead with a will, their stumpy legs straining with vigor as they bore their cargo toward the forsaken foothills of the eastern mountains.