Heaven's Betrayed King

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3: The Mountain Path

Kyran's POV

The rhythmic clang of the valley’s brass alarm bell echoed off the high slate cliffs, scattering crows from the dead trees above.

Down in the pit, the remaining slaves stood frozen in the dust, staring at the three dead guards with wide and hollow eyes. None of them reached for a fallen weapon. Years of starvation, iron collars and daily lashings had broken whatever will they once possessed.. they were cattle waiting to see which way the herd would be driven.

Only the scrawny youth who had spoken to me stayed close with his fingers nervously picking at the fraying hemp rope around his waist.

“My name is Ris,” he stammered, following two paces behind as I stripped the bracers from the dead spearman and strapped them over my thin forearms. “We slept in the third bunk of the lower trench, Drax. You came in three moons ago from the southern marches. You didn’t speak to anyone.. you just worked until your hands split.”

“The man who did that died this morning,” I said, buckling the bracer tight. The leather was stiff with sweat but it gave some protection to my wrists. “You know the layout of this camp?”

Ris swallowed hard and nodded toward the eastern ridge. “The quarry is built in four ascending tiers. This is the lowest extraction pit. The second tier holds the ore crushers and the mule pens. The third tier is the mercenary barracks and at the summit sits the stone keep where Malakor keeps the ledger room and the refined vaults.”

“How many men garrison the third tier?”

“About forty foot-soldiers under the mercenary contract,” Ris whispered witb his voice trembling as he glanced up the switchback path. “Plus Malakor’s six personal houndsmen. They have iron-tipped crossbows and broadswords. If we climb the main ramp, they will turn us into pin cushions before we reach the second bend.”

“Then we do not use the ramp,” I said.

I bent down, took the dead guard’s short iron sword, tested its edge against my thumb and tucked a heavy iron skinning knife into my waistband.

Deep inside my chest, the black seed of the Primordial Resentment Core pulsed like a second heart.. it did not offer the effortless and boundless majesty of the divine fire I had commanded in the Nine Heavens but it was relentless.

The fury born of my betrayal fed the core and in return, the core forced dark and viscous mana through this starved vessel’s blocked meridians. The dull ache in my ribs faded, replaced by a cold and coiled tension in my tendons.

“Stay three paces behind me,” I told Ris. “If you see a weapon on the ground, pick it up. If you cannot fight, carry iron for me.”

“Where are we going?” Ris asked, jogging to keep pace as I turned toward the rocky drainage gully running along the sheer western wall of the pit. “The valley gates are to the south!”

“The valley gates are locked behind timber and manned by twenty archers,” I said without looking back. “Run that way and you die in the dirt like a cornered dog. We go up and we cut the head off this camp before they organize a proper line.”

We scrambled up the steep gully, using exposed roots and jagged shale outcroppings for handholds.

A mortal laborer’s body would have given out after fifty feet of such a climb.. the lungs would burn, the malnourished muscles tear under the strain but every time my breath hitched, the dark core in my chest flared, pumping an icy numbing vigor into my thighs and forearms and my fingers bit into the sharp stone without slipping.

We crested the lip of the second tier just behind the ore-crushing sheds.

The stamp mills were grinding empty with their iron pestles thudding rhythmically against stone basins with a deafening rattle. Through the rising cloud of gray dust, three guards were hurriedly organizing a dozen miners prodding them with the butts of their spears toward the lower ramp.

“Move, you wretches!” the squad leader shouted, adjusting the strap of his iron kettle-hat. “Form a barricade at the second gate! If that mad slave gets up here, I will hang the lot of you by your thumbs!”

I did not waste time with challenges or words.

I stepped out from behind the mill wall, closed the distance across the gravel yard in four silent strides and drove the short sword under the squad leader’s raised arm as he turned.

The iron point found the gap between his breastplate and backstrap, sinking clean into his lung.

The man gasped with a wet bubble of blood bursting across his lips and sagged into my grip. Before his body hit the dirt, I pulled the short sword free and swung it in a level backhand arc.

The second guard was halfway through drawing his sidearm when the blunt iron edge slammed into the side of his neck. The force of the strike shattered his collarbone and dropped him to his knees, clutching his throat.

The third guard dropped his spear entirely, stumbled backward over a pile of crushed ore and scrambled toward the barracks stairs on all fours, screaming for help.

I picked up the fallen spear from the ground, weighed the wood shaft in my right palm, pulled my arm back and hurled it with the full torque of my hip and shoulder.

The weapon whistled across the thirty paces of open yard and took the fleeing guard squarely between the shoulder blades, pinning him forward against the wooden staircase.

The enslaved miners scattered into the shadows of the mill sheds like frightened sparrows, hiding behind timber piles and broken carts.

Ris scrambled up the embankment behind me, panting heavily witb his eyes darting between the three dead men and the spear still vibrating in the wooden steps.

“You move like an executioner,” Ris whispered, his voice cracking. “Where did a quarry slave learn to throw a war spear like that?”

“You spend enough time in the mud, you learn where men break,” I replied, walking over to the pinned guard, wrenching the spearhead free from the wood and checking his belt.

Tucked into his pouch was an iron-bound parchment tube bearing an unbroken red wax seal. The wax was stamped with an emblem I had seen a thousand times in the imperial courts.. the twin-headed celestial eagle of the Valtoris clan.

My jaw tightened as I cracked the wax with my thumb, unrolled the parchment and scanned the tight, elegant script written in the courtly dialect of the High Imperial City.

'To Overseer Malakor,'

'The quota for high-grade stabilizing crystal ore is to be doubled immediately. The Supreme Sovereign Drustan requires ten crates of unrefined raw crystal by the new moon. His vessel shows increasing volatility.. the divine foundation requires constant grounding until the soul-lock sets permanently. Work the chattel to the bone if necessary. Any delay will be treated as high treason.'

'By order of the Sovereign’s Inner Court.'

I stood in the dusty courtyard as the meaning of the letter settled into my mind.

Drustan had taken my divine core but the fool’s frail and unrefined spirit could not endure the celestial fire. My stolen power was tearing him apart from the inside like pouring molten iron into an unbaked clay pot. He was relying on earth crystals from mortal mines to suppress the backlash of my own marrow.

A slow and cold smile crossed my face. The traitor was suffering on the highest throne in the Nine Heavens and the very ground he needed to survive was sitting in this filthy quarry.

“Drax?” Ris asked, staring at the parchment in my hand with mounting dread. “What does it say? Are the imperial legions coming?”

“No,” I said, crumpling the parchment in my fist and letting the scraps fall into the blood on the ground. “No legions are coming. Just one man who took something he cannot swallow.”

I turned toward the grand stone staircase leading up to the summit keep.

From the upper courtyard, the baying of hunting mastiffs rolled down the mountainside, accompanied by the clatter of armored men forming a shield wall across the palace gate.

I gripped the short sword until my knuckles turned white, felt the Resentment Core burn like frozen iron against my ribs and started up the final flight of stairs...