Empire of Blood Read online

  In the minotaur realm,

  a new emperor sits on the throne,

  beholden to his mother

  the High Priestess of the death-cult

  of the Forerunners.

  The escaped slave Faros,

  legitimate heir to the throne,

  must overcome his personal demons

  and lead an army of outcasts

  into the heart of the empire.

  The battle between rebels and dark forces

  will determine the future of the throne,

  the minotaur race, and all Krynn.

  Volume

  I

  NIGHT OF BLOOD

  Volume

  II

  TIDES OF BLOOD

  Volume

  III

  EMPIRE OF BLOOD

  EMPIRE OF BLOOD

  ©2005 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

  Dragonlance, D&D, Wizards of the Coast, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Cover art by: Matt Stawicki

  Map by: Dennis Kauth

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6187-0

  For customer service, contact:

  U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice

  U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: [email protected]

  Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: [email protected]

  Visit our websites at www.wizards.com

  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  To my brother, Win,

  Sister-in-law, Lisa, and their children—

  Megan, Brandon, Austin, and Katie!

  And not to forget Jason and little Riley, too!

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter I: Obsession

  Chapter II: Lord of Vengeance

  Chapter III: Ambeon

  Chapter IV: The Downturned Axe

  Chapter V: Betrayal by Blood

  Chapter VI: Morgion’s Kiss

  Chapter VII: F’han

  Chapter VIII: Blood on the Jewel

  Chapter IX: The Hands of Gods

  Chapter X: Fateful Messages

  Chapter XI: Demons in the Night

  Chapter XII Blöten

  Chapter XIII: Specter of the Storm

  Chapter XIV: Death at Sea

  Chapter XV: Dark Designs

  Chapter XVI: Zeboim’s Cradle

  Chapter XVII: Duel

  Chapter XVIII: Gaerth

  Chapter XIX: Broken Alliances

  Chapter XX: Morgion’s Gift

  Chapter XXI: Return to the Empire

  Chapter XXII: The Blessing of Morgion

  Chapter XXIII: The Gathering Darkness

  Chapter XXIV: Through the Chain

  Chapter XXV: Battle and Betrayal

  Chapter XXVI: The Black Tide

  Chapter XXVII: Darkness Ascendant

  Chapter XXVIII: The Gates of Nethosak

  Chapter XXIX: Children of Destiny

  THE STORY THUS FAR …

  THE NIGHT OF BLOOD

  The island empire of the minotaurs is changed forever by the “Night of Blood,” a coup by the ambitious General Hotak that assassinates the rightful if despotic emperor and massacres the clans loyal to him. Assisting Hotak’s rise to power is a new and powerful religious cult, the Forerunners. They are led by his mate, the enigmatic high priestess, Nephera, and Hotak’s eldest son, Ardnor, who commands their fanatic warriors, the Protectors.

  Some escape the Night of Blood. General Rahm of the Imperial Guard is one of the leaders who shapes a rebellion. Faros, the fallen emperor’s nephew, is mistaken for a servant and sent to the brutal mining camp, Vyrox.

  Rahm attempts to assassinate Hotak but fails. Nephera uses her dark gifts and her mastery of the dead to track the rebels. Faros is part of an ill-fated uprising, whose survivors are sold to the ogres of Kern to seal an alliance with the Grand Lord Golgren for a deal that will support the upcoming invasion of the elven realm, Silvanesti.

  TIDES OF BLOOD

  Hotak’s son and heir, Bastion, hunts down Rahm. The rebels fall into chaos. Bastion’s sister, Maritia, leads the assault on the elves, her legions crushing the defenders of the ancient realm. Faros escapes the ogres, then wreaks vengeance on them at the head of a growing band of slaves. Jubal, an old friend of Faros’s father, tries to convince Faros to join the rebels but fails.

  Just as all seems to go well for Hotak, treachery befalls his empire. Struggling with an assassin dispatched by his jealous brother, Ardnor, Bastion vanishes at sea. Hotak’s growing rift with the Forerunners and Nephera leads to his “accidental” death. Ardnor assumes the throne, wielding his increasingly militaristic Protectors to crush any resistance.

  Back in Kern, Faros faces imminent destruction by Golgren, only to be saved by Jubal’s rebels. However, Jubal is slain by the Grand Lord. Faros severs Golgren’s hand, but the ogre leader escapes. The action gives the minotaurs time to flee to their ships. They sail away, along the way picking up a half-drowned mariner who, unbeknownst to them, is the son of the emperor—Bastion.

  As Maritia—seeking to realize her father’s dreams of expansion and conquest—secures the empire’s hold on Silvanesti, the power of the Forerunners grows ascendant, and a startling event turns the world on its head. Nephera, her powers without warning stripped from her, is among the first to understand its implications. The stars, especially those forming the constellations, are once more in the night sky after years of absence.

  The War of Souls is over, and the gods have returned …

  As dawn broke, the two armies spread out, spilling over the jagged, parched landscape. The dry morning wind ruffled fur and added a mournful wail to accompany the constant clink of metal and the grunts of the warriors. The first rays of light reflected ominously on weapons poised for blood.

  The differences between the amassed minotaurs and ogres were quite distinctive. The former formed well-trained, cohesive units that moved into position along the upwardly-sloping earth. Although they were huge, brown- and black-furred beasts with heads akin to those of bulls, they were among the finest, most disciplined fighters in all the world of Krynn. The legionaries’ gleaming silver armor and rippling banners spoke of pride and experience. Their broad swords and twin-bladed, leather-gripped axes were honed sharp. Under wide, open helmets designed for use by a race that often boasted two-foot high horns, thick-browed eyes often tinged with crimson peered warily ahead. Plumed officers riding massive, muscular steeds, bred for generations to carry the bulk of an armed minotaur, bellowed commands.

  Determined and practiced minotaur crews snorted lustily as they maneuvered gargantuan wooden catapults and other siege devices over the chaotic ground of Kern. Mountainous dust clouds rose
behind the horned army, as if their very movement stirred the world. A musky scent pervaded the air around so many heated bodies.

  In contrast, the gray-furred ogres maintained the barest modicum of order. A head taller than the seven-foot minotaurs, the ogres shambled rather than marched, often dragged rather than carried their huge, well-worn, stained clubs, swords of varying length and condition—some rusting—and ten-foot long spears. The ogres stank and their fur was matted and infested with microscopic armies. Their faces had glimpses of human or elven background but were squashed flat, with heavy brows overhanging black, animalistic eyes. Ogres barely had noses, although, despite their own rank odor, their sense of smell was fairly keen. Their brutish demeanors were made more so by huge mouths filled with sharpened yellow teeth and their two tusks that thrust up at the sides. Like the minotaurs, many wore breastplates. However, where the legionaries’ glittering armor advertised the black warhorse symbol of their late emperor, the ogres’ were not only devoid of emblem but dented, dirty, and mostly ill-fitting.

  What discipline there was among the ogres was maintained by leather whips applied to backs. Occasionally, the huge, sandy-green reptiles called meredrakes—the hounds of the ogres—had to be used to separate fighters concerned more with their private feuds than the upcoming attack. Monstrous creatures the size of a horse, guided by leashes, a meredrake could make one snap of its long, toothy jaws and sever the leg of even the hardiest ogre. Their curved, dagger-like claws could shred flesh and sinew with little effort. They competed with their handlers when it came to stench, and their breath especially smelled of rotting, half-digested meat. The constantly slavering beasts peered left and right, their noses aloft, tasting the air as they waddled along. They sensed the carnage to come and eagerly awaited the feast.

  A full legion of minotaurs and twice that many ogres had journeyed to this dismal, mountainous region—the sun baking their backs every inch of the way—but at last their objective was in sight. The ruined structure perched on one side of a squat but pointed peak called Mer’hrej Dur—The Claw of the Meredrake—had once served as a temple, but had been forgotten long before the god to whom it had been raised had himself been forgotten. Carved from the very rock face, the jutting edifice spread across the peak. With high, toothy walls, a pointed crest, and only two visible, circuitous paths leading upward, the rust brown temple looked more suitable as a fortress.

  That was exactly what those within were using it for now …

  Faros eyed the approaching forces from the cracked and crumbling battlements. Carved into the walls behind him, towering figures more beautiful than elves revealed the builders of the temple—the perfect, glorious High Ogres—offering wondrous gifts to the horned god Sargonnas. Such grand images were lost on the scarred, former slave. Where some among his followers, Grom especially, marveled at the artifacts of the past, the light-brown minotaur saw only the ruins’ practical uses.

  “The legion to the north, the ogres to the south,” Faros muttered.

  Deep brown eyes veiled, he turned to face the others. While some of his followers wore breastplates in addition to their knee-length, leather kilts, Faros typically left his upper torso unprotected. His thick mane hung loose, touching his shoulder blades. A myriad pattern of crisscrossing scars left by countless brutal whippings and vicious battle wounds bore witness to the ferocity of his life over the past few years. He had lived as slave, thief, and rebel. Gone were all traces of the privileged youth, the spoiled wastrel, who had once been nephew to Chot the Terrible, emperor of the minotaurs until the Night of Blood.

  Faros had not boasted any connection other than lineage to his uncle, but he had paid a heavy price nonetheless. First he had been cast into the savage mines of Vyrox—located in the foreboding, ash-covered lands shadowed by Mithas’s volcanoes—there condemned to toil for the glory of the usurper, Hotak. After an aborted revolt, he and the rest of the rebel slaves had been sent to a place that made Vyrox a paradise by comparison—the ogre mines in mainland Kern. There Faros had learned the true depths of cruelty. There he had forever changed.

  Thus he had returned to Kern, not the empire, with a vengeance.

  “Just as you said,” remarked a darker brown fighter who quickly made the sign of Sargonnas. Grom’s father had been one of the god’s last priests, and Grom had always believed in the deity’s guidance, despite the fact that the gods were known to have abandoned Krynn decades ago. His beliefs had only grown stronger after recent rumors that Sargonnas and the other gods had returned. “By the Horned One, this is certainly a sign—”

  “A sign that Ardnor’s generals have little more imagination than his father’s,” Faros retorted with a snort. His gaze shifted to a black-furred figure standing apart from the rest. “What say you to that?”

  “Whether led by a hero or a fool, the legionaries will give their all,” the slimmer minotaur responded.

  “And if your brother himself is riding at their head?”

  The other’s coal-black eyes narrowed. “If Ardnor were among those below, I would be the first to seek his horns. You know that.”

  Faros nodded grimly. “That is why I let you live among us, Bastion.” He suddenly stalked passed his most trusted followers, heading deep into the dusty labyrinth that led into the inner temple. “The others should be ready. Time to welcome our pilgrims … and guide them with our blades into the afterlife!”

  The ogres and the legionaries believed they would be well-rewarded for this victory. Emperor Ardnor, who had ascended to the throne but months before, following the death of his father—an “accidental” death, it was always stressed—had placed at the head of many of the legions his own fanatic Protectors. Those generals served him and the Temple of the Forerunners first and foremost. They kept an iron grip on their subordinates, ruthlessly punishing any malcontents. The destruction of the rebels, especially the new leader, was their current priority and much wealth and status had been offered to those who brought Faros’s horns—and the rest of his head—back to the imperial capital, Nethosak.

  The ogres were also vying for that prize and other rewards. Their orders came not from the nominal leader of Kern, the Grand Khan, but from the true power of Kern and the other ogre kingdom of Blöde. The Grand Lord Golgren had decreed that the rebel commander should be brought first to him, preferably alive, but his head and hide if necessary. The Grand Lord had a personal score to settle. Faros had already cost him his right hand, slicing it off in battle. It itched horribly, that invisible hand.

  The commanders of the two forces kept only the barest lines of communication open between them. They would not interfere with each other, but neither would they harmonize. Old racial hatreds still dominated, despite the pact made by Hotak with Golgren and the ogres.

  Leather war drums beat among the ogres. The wind picked up. Meredrakes began to hiss eagerly, straining at their leashes. Warriors raised their weapons, barking at the distant enemy.

  The ogre’s war leader growled, thrusting a sword at the temple.

  Roaring, the horde charged. To the north, however, the legion commander elected to keep his troops in check, waiting.

  A wicked whoosh filled the air. Dozens of ogres tumbled back, bolts through their necks and chests. Blood splattered the dead and living as bodies twisted wildly before collapsing. Screams rose from every direction, but despite an initial heavy toll, the horde of ogres pressed on.

  Rebel archers perched in and about the temple face fired again, sending scores more to grisly deaths. The archers launched a third barrage, but finally understanding the obstacles, the ogres made for cover and only a few arrows caused injury.

  Barely a breath later, huge boulders savaged the ancient edifice, tearing apart with great accuracy those areas from which the defenders had fired. Taking advantage of the ogres’ impetuousness, the legion general had let them draw out the rebels for the benefit of his catapult crews. Each strike sent thunder echoing through the region. The exploding rock face killed scor
es. Tons of rock collapsed upon the defenders. Archers plummeted to their deaths. With a low, long groan, one tower that had stood for centuries slumped earthward, landing not all that far from the legion, which had begun its advance.

  A triumphant roar went up among the legionaries. Battle horns sounded. Both elements of the attack moved forward again.

  The catapults began an incessant barrage. Under the protection of the siege machines, the soldiers closed ranks. Behind them, legion archers prepared to fire. To the south, ogres versed in the bow did the same.

  Despite the carnage caused by the catapults, the rebels continued to shoot their arrows and toss spears down. Wherever they materialized, they came under an onslaught.

  A soldier bearing the legion banner—a sinister red scorpion on a field of brown—materialized near the base of Mer’hrej Dur, waving the flag for all to see. The foot soldiers had reached the tower. Immediately, trumpeters blared a new, high-pitched note. The catapults ceased their fire, the crews turning them toward fresh targets.

  Archers from both forces pushed in, harrying any figures they spied among the rocks and ruins

  Like the quickening of the warriors’ hearts, the drums beat faster, insistently. The battle horns cried louder. The lusty roars of minotaurs and ogres alike filled the air.

  Then, from the very bowels of the earth itself, shouting rebels rose up and fell upon the ogres’ unprotected rear.

  Bastion led. The black minotaur dove into the battle. He sliced through the chest of an ogre with his sword then buried the blade into the throat of another.

  The shocking turnabout left the ogres completely dazed. Their broken-tusked war leader perished in the first seconds, a heavy axe buried in his chest. Bastion slew the next who sought to assume command. The ogres fell into disarray. Swiftly becoming a wild mob, they followed their most base instincts and charged their attackers with no thought of working in unison. They cracked skulls, leaving life fluids spilling on the hard earth.