The Book of the Rune Read online

  The Book of the Rune

  Eric R. Asher

  Also by Eric R. Asher

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  The Steamborn Trilogy:

  Steamborn

  Steamforged

  Steamsworn

  The Vesik Series:

  (Recommended for Ages 17+)

  Days Gone Bad

  Wolves and the River of Stone

  Winter’s Demon

  This Broken World

  Destroyer Rising

  Rattle the Bones

  Witch Queen’s War

  Forgotten Ghosts

  The Book of the Ghost

  The Book of the Claw

  The Book of the Sea

  The Book of the Staff

  The Book of the Rune

  The Book of the Sails*

  The Book of the Wing*

  The Book of the Blade*

  The Book of the Fang*

  The Book of the Reaper*

  The Vesik Series Box Sets

  Box Set One (Books 1-3)

  Box Set Two (Books 4-6)

  Box Set Three (Books 7-8)

  Box Set Four: The Books of the Dead Part 1 (Coming in 2020)*

  Box Set Five: The Books of the Dead Part 2 (Coming in 2020)*

  Mason Dixon – Monster Hunter:

  Episode One

  Episode Two

  Episode Three

  *Want to receive an email when one of Eric’s books releases? Sign up for Eric’s mailing list.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Also by Eric R. Asher

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Note from Eric R. Asher

  Also by Eric R. Asher

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 by Eric R. Asher

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Smashwords Edition, 2020

  Smashwords Edition License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Laura Matheson

  Cover typography by Indie Solutions by Murphy Rae

  Cover design ©Phatpuppyart.com – Claudia McKinney

  ~

  Some truths are hidden until you’re ready.

  ~

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I’m not nearly drunk enough for this kind of nonsense,” Neil said as Kat plunked down two steins of honey mead.

  “Another ale?” Kat asked, looking to Ward as Calbach and Neil both drank deeply.

  Ward nodded. He watched Neil drain his mead and shout to Kat for more. The day wasn’t exactly going as planned. The surprise visit from Foster, and Shiawase’s revelations, hadn’t left him in a good mood.

  He didn’t blame Neil as the fairy took a new stein from Kat. Neil had seen shit that would leave most men a puddle of goo in their boots. Ward knew the fairy was almost as fierce a fighter as Foster, but sometimes a drink was all that helped in the aftermath. Ward sipped at his ale.

  “I don’t think Neil’s going to be much use in the streets.” Calbach eyed the lilting fairy as Neil slammed his drink home.

  “I can still walk,” Neil said. “That means I can still fight. You tell them, Ward. Tell him how we fought that basilisk. That was a good fight.”

  Calbach groaned. “Not this story again.”

  “I don’t think I’ve heard this one,” Kat said. She filled an empty stein, and then pulled a chair up to the side of their booth.

  Ward took a long pull from his ale and leaned back into the worn leather cushions. “It’s been a few years now, and it was the end of the necromancer known as Ezekiel.”

  * * *

  The brilliant explosions of light and sound cascading in a dome overhead would have been beautiful if Ward hadn’t known what it meant. Falias was under attack, and in a way thought to be impossible. Many creatures had tried to breach the walls in the past, but he’d heard no tales of those that came from the sky.

  It was clear something was crashing against the city’s shields, but try as he might, Ward couldn’t see so much as a shadow hitting them. He could hear the cries of the Fae in the nearby coliseum, and the welling panic made a distinctly different sound than masses watching an event, blood sport or not.

  Ward hurried toward the edge of the city, wanting to know what was coming for Falias, and wanting to figure out if he should be getting himself and his apprentice the hell out of its way. Halfway to the wall, Ward raised his Sight, and his steps faltered.

  One of the massive blue trunks that formed the webwork of ley lines through Falias was … broken. There weren’t things attacking the dome of the city, there was only power. And it was tearing the fabric of the shield to pieces. Bursts of orange light and sickly red floated into the ether as lightning strike after strike eroded the dome.

  Ward sprinted through the crowds as best he could. Heather would be back at the hostel near the courtyard. He needed to get to her, and fast. He weaved through the frozen Fae caught staring into the sky like living, breathing statues. He clung to the walls of golden brickwork where he could to avoid any unwanted attention, catching the sleeves of his cloak on more than one artfully roughed up cornerstone.

  He’d almost reached the hostel when the first blast breached the outer wall of Falias, and a city untouched by outside attacks in a thousand years felt the wrath of a god.

  Black fire like a cannon shot broke through the dome, cutting through a finial deeper inside the city only to blink out of existence a second later. The damage was done, and in slow motion, that tower leaned to the side, dust and debris hissing out from the cracked structure before it gave way in earnest.

  Ward’s steps faltered. The city took a collective breath as the stone picked up speed, and the earth shook with the impact of the massive tower. Clouds of debris raced down the street as tiny pebbles bounced and pinged across roofs and Fae alike.

  A glance over his shoulder showed Ward the towering beast at the wall. The pointed ears, corrupted flesh, and the long snout of a creature that shouldn’t have been real. Ley lines arced up into the thing, bent to its will as it gathered more power.

  Someone ran into Ward, breaking his concentration. He turned in time to choke on the thick cloud of dust
and stone as it hurtled past, leaving the world caked in a cloak of yellow.

  He charged forward, tripping over Fae and animals and stalls before reaching the hostel. It was still standing, but something else crumbled in the distance. Another burst of blue light fractured into a black fire.

  Ward skidded to the staircase and took them two at a time, calling out to Heather even as he fumbled with the crystalline key in the door. The hinges whispered open, silent in the rumble of another falling building.

  “Did you see it?” Heather asked, her long brown hair hanging past her jaw as she carved something into a square of gray metal on the table before her.

  “You need to get out of here,” Ward said. “That thing is beyond you. It may be beyond all of us.”

  “It’s Ezekiel,” Heather said. “You told me he’d come here. You were right.”

  Ward stared hard at the runes Heather was carving into the metal. “What are you doing?”

  “Changing it.”

  He almost snarled as he traced the twisted runes in his mind. “You cannot use that magic, Heather. The cost is too great.”

  “A handful of lives to save a city.” Heather’s voice betrayed no emotion, and she did not look up from the carving blade she was etching with.

  “No,” Ward snapped, reaching for the gray disc. Electricity erupted down his arm, almost throwing him to the ground.

  “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” Heather said, glancing up and showing the disappointment in her narrowed blue eyes for only a moment. “It’s a means to an end.”

  Ward climbed back to a knee and let out a long sigh, his words quieter. “It’s a path we cannot return from.”

  “You did.” She traced the outer circle that would close the magic, allowing the magic to take its price.

  “Get out of here!” someone shouted behind him.

  Ward turned to find the small Fae man who cared for the hostel. He wasn’t the most pleasant of beings, but he didn’t deserve this. Gray cracks raced across his flesh. He gaped at his hands in confusion, trying to form words that wouldn’t come.

  The gray disc glowed in Heather’s hands as she lifted it. The circle of eight tridents, each with three strikes through the staff, would have been a beautiful sight if not for damned runes set between each. A corruption of an ancient symbol of protection.

  Ward regained his feet, catching sight of another tower collapsing in the distance outside an arched window. If Falias couldn’t stop Ezekiel, no one could. He glanced back at Heather. He’d once shared her view, that the ends always justified the means, but sometimes the price was too high to pay.

  “Are you going to fight me?” Heather asked, her fingers hovering above the tattoos on her left arm.

  Ward stared into her eyes, and watched the darkness stir. A darkness he’d hoped she’d left far behind. “No, Heather. Never.”

  “Never is a long time, old man. Watch your back out there.”

  And with that, his apprentice walked into the hall, leaving him to the silence of the room, and the screams of a dying city.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Heather’s approach had been twisted, but she’d given Ward another idea. He sat down at the same table and etched furiously on another of the gray metal discs. A great deal of the magicks that weren’t tattooed on their flesh started with Nordic and Icelandic sigils, with some dating from a time before men remembered.

  The irony of Ward using a sigil, often a witchcraft repellant, didn’t escape him. But the original purpose could always be twisted. He finished the circle and the knot within before adding runes of power inside each of the loops and closing the entire etching in a larger circle.

  He’d made a shield once out of a similar pattern, but this was something more. This should be able to handle the power leaking out from a broken ley line so he could harness it himself without burning up in a tower of blue fire.

  Of course, testing it meant he had to get in front of that black fire, and then it wouldn’t much matter if he was wrong.

  Another blast shook the building. Ward gathered what he could into an iron safe and locked it. If the building survived, he could come back. If it didn’t, or if he didn’t, at least no Fae would be getting their hands on arts they shouldn’t have.

  By the time Ward exited the hostel, some of the dust on the streets had cleared. Debris hung in the air, making it difficult to see at a distance. Ward made for the gates, heading in as straight a line as he could to intercept where he’d last seen the shadowy giant.

  Ward didn’t bother shutting down his Sight, as the ley lines were their own kind of map to Falias. That’s the only reason he saw the flow of the magic falter like a failing light bulb. He watched slack-jawed as another line broke, and an unimaginable force erupted into the air.

  This wasn’t the same as what he’d witnessed earlier. This was a deliberately isolated break, and the city above it simply vanished. A volcano of electric blue and violent power bathed a housing district in terrible light. And then it was gone—the buildings, the ley line, and every soul who had dwelled there.

  Ward understood then why Ezekiel had been able to claim himself a god in the past. He might have twisted a power, corrupted it, but he could wield it with a skill Ward had not witnessed before.

  He looked down at the disc in his hand and made his peace. With the light of the ley lines showing him the way, Ward hurried deeper into what he soon realized was a battle with more than one foe.

  He had been following the ley lines so closely he hadn’t noticed where he was in relation to the wall. He walked boldly into the edge of an exposed courtyard. Once, it had been protected by the walls of Falias, but a large stretch of that wall was now gone.

  A cluster of short Fae stood back to back, surrounded by three black-cloaked forms. Another form lay on the ground, the face within the cloak crushed beyond recognition by one of the war hammers in the iron-touched’s hands.

  A shadow loomed far beyond the group, and Ward had little doubt it was Ezekiel. With enough time, and luck, Ward might be able to strike them all down and still focus the full force of his attack on Ezekiel. But as the dead began to twitch around the circle of Fae, Ward knew time was short. And now he understood…

  The men in front of him were necromancers.

  “Come on, you fucks,” someone slurred from an alleyway. Black and white wings twitched as a fairy stumbled forward. The fairy raised a wineskin to his lips, frowned at it, and then slammed it to the ground. “I’m not done with the rest of you.”

  Ward cursed as the shouts drew the necromancers’ attention in his direction. Whoever the drunk was, he was about to get himself killed. It wasn’t until the Fae tripped on an elevated stone that Ward saw the fairy’s face.

  Neil, one of the soldiers ejected from Nudd’s guard. For drinking, if Ward remembered correctly.

  The iron-touched didn’t miss the chance. There was no roar. No battle cry. There was just a distracted necromancer, and then a dead necromancer. A warhammer caved in the necromancer’s head, sending blood and viscera to spread across the stones.

  The other necromancers turned their focus back to the iron-touched, and Neil charged them. It only gave Ward a moment to align the disc with the broken ley line at his feet, but his blind following of that dimming light had paid off.

  The time it took him to set things straight and ignite the wards beneath his fingers was long enough for one of the iron-touched to die. That ethereal scream of the decaying fairy was met with the roar of magic Ward unleashed.

  Light blinded Ward. Electric blue power singed his fingertips where he held the disc. He felt the tattoos on his arm warm. They were the only thing that kept him from bursting into flame. He channeled an unbroken line into the broken one, mimicking the power he’d seen earlier, only on a much smaller scale.

  The cylinder of line energy punched a hole through the nearest necromancer, singed the beard of one of the surviving iron-touched, and crashed into the shadow of Ezekiel.


  That shadow screeched and folded in on itself before stumbling and shrinking to nothing. Ward wasn’t sure what had happened, but he was fairly certain he hadn’t killed Ezekiel. Any being who could summon that sort of power was unlikely to be destroyed by a lesser art.

  The disc shattered in Ward’s hand, the raw energy finally too much for the metal, as the broken line returned to a molten pool of power. The last surviving necromancer ran. His undead minions engaged Neil and the iron-touched, but they were no match without the presence of their master. Flesh and bone were reduced to ash and gore in short order.

  Another boom sounded in the distance as yet another building collapsed. But the eruptions of raw power dwindled to the point Ward was sure they’d stopped. At least for the time being, Ward and the others could take a breath. And stare at the ruin that had been brought against Falias.

  * * *

  Ward looked upon the world and wanted to wipe the darkness from his eyes. As the smoke cleared, it was easy to see much of the city had been lost, blackened by fire and magic, buildings crumbled across the streets. Fingers of steel and blades of glass glowed with the dying fires. Chasms scarred the earth, broken by necromancers and their demons.

  One man had shattered the defenses of the hidden cities.

  “Damn you, Ezekiel.” Ward kicked at a pebble, sending it careening into a fountain filled with more blood than water, the severed bits of the necromancers’ puppets strewn around it.

  Twenty-five years. Ward stared at the broken man at his feet, at the hole scorched through his chest and face. His own family wouldn’t recognize him now, and it was Ward’s doing. Twenty-five years since he’d last killed a man. Ward clenched burnt and bloody fingers into a fist.

  The soles of his boots scraped through the gravel as he turned away. Iridescent fairy dust floated in pockets, slowly dispersing. The dead Fae had already been siphoned away by the ley lines in the area, leaving ghostly clouds behind, silhouettes of their dying moments.