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  BLADEBORN

  A novel of High Magic

  By Clayton Schonberger

  Acknowledgements

  The following adventures were inspired by a series of discussions I shared with Christopher Lee Wallick during the 1970’s and 80’s. Rest in peace, Chris, wherever you may be.

  This is Book I of the Bladeborn Trilogy. Although most of the story’s key issues are resolved by Book I’s end, it is meant to be read in sequence with Book II, Bladeborn and Nightslayer. A third novel, The Edge of Nightslayer, brings the Trilogy to its completion.

  Early on, Bladeborn becomes a “superhero with a Sword” utilizing powers that raise him to nearly demi-god status…far superior to normal men. As his divine power grows, there are ever-greater challenges he must overcome, each time pushing him to his limit. Bladeborn’s journey is of epic proportions, spanning the two-sides of the world, several planets in the “solar reach” and the alternate dimensions of the Abyss and Hells.

  The primary contributors to the creation of the Bladeborn Trilogy are my father, Richard Schonberger, and my friend, Jonathan Ross Clemons. Throughout the creation of the books, they have discussed, edited, and encouraged. Additionally, I wish to thank Margret Harmon, a successful author who is a close relative, as well as Rhonda Gilliam, a retired creative writing instructor.

  My fascination with science fiction/fantasy began with George Orwell’s 1984 and Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter of Mars, continuing through a period when I loved Robert E. Howard’s Conan (via 1970’s Marvel Comics).

  The accompanying illustrations carrying the adventure forward were made by me. The book’s cover was made by my friend, Bradley John Rinke.

  Copyright 2011, 2018 Clayton James Schonberger

  Other books by the Author:

  Bladeborn and Nightslayer (2012) (Book II)

  The Edge of Nightslayer (2013) (Book III)

  The First Harmony (2010)

  The Telesynthetic Man (2015) (Book I, Telesynthetic series)

  The Telesynthetic War (2016) (Book II, Telesynthetic series)

  All-Night Café (2017) (A Collection of Poems and Drawings)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1: A Stunning Victory

  Chapter 2: Elissa

  Chapter 3: Angres and Agatha

  Chapter 4: The Investigation

  Chapter 5: Bladeborn on His Own

  Chapter 6: The Dungeons

  Chapter 7: Onar the Acolyte

  Chapter 8: In the Arena

  Chapter 9: Bladeborn The Brute

  Chapter 10: Brother Grumrig

  Chapter 11: Thustral the Damned

  Interlude: Dimtreanos, High Wizard

  Chapter 12: Nightslayer

  Chapter 13: Rebellion

  Chapter 14: On the Blasted Plain

  Chapter 15: The Rhinolon

  Interlude: Durg the Despicable

  Chapter 16: Deocarla and the Six Valleys

  Chapter 17: War with the Rhinolon

  Chapter 18: The Six Valleys

  Chapter 19: Vengeance of the Lords of Hell

  Chapter 20: The Pyramid City and Spe

  Chapter 21: The Dwarves

  Chapter 22: The Elves

  Chapter 23: Into the Underworld

  Chapter 24: Within Draconia

  Chapter 25: The Demon Trolls

  Chapter 26: The Greater City of the Dead

  Exterior, “Fortress City”

  On the coast of Draconia’s Great Northern Ocean

  Cut-away view of the 80-story tall “Fortress City”

  Chapter One: A Stunning Victory

  After signing up for the Year’s End Grande Finale event in the Arena of Blood, an accountant by the name of Kandar hurried through lower Fortress City’s grimy tunnel streets, dizzy with desperation. He knew it would be a miracle if he even survived the gladiator match tomorrow, yet he had to come in first place. The lives of his wife and child hung in the balance.

  While he pondered the impossible task before him, a massive, hairy arm snagged Kandar off the main thoroughfare into a dark ally. Terrified, he realized Dokkon Neckbreaker, a gang enforcer, had him pinned to the wall.

  “Where is da money you owe us, little accountant?” Dokkon demanded of Kandar.

  “I-I swear to you, Dokkon!” Kandar said. “I will pay it all the day after tomorrow! Just, PLEASE, give me two more days to pay up!”

  “You know what will happen if you’re lying!” Dokkon said. “We’ll kill ya.…and not just you! Your wife, the preety little Elissa, and yer baby boy Bladeborn will be dead, too!”

  Horrified on hearing that Dokkon knew his wife and son by name, Kandar said, “I promise you! You’ll have it on time!”

  In response, Dokkon slugged Kandar hard in the stomach. Gasping, the accountant fell to Dokkon’s feet onto the mucky stone of the alleyway. Laughing stupidly, Dokkon watched Kandar lay on his side writhing in pain, trying to get some air back.

  Dokkon leaned down and said in Kandar’s ear, “Where are you gonna get that much coin so quick? Maybe I should start taking it outta youz right now…” Kandar was heaving like he had a broken rib. A few citizens stopped to look.

  Dokkon looked up, apparently concerned about witnesses. Shaking his finger at Kandar, the debt collector backed away, hissing, “Two days, Kandar…” Then, Dokkon took off down the alley.

  The crowd grew larger as Kandar lay on the ground, trying to get a breath. None of them offered to help, yet someone must have called the city watch. The two Guards pushed their way onto the scene a moment later.

  Uneasily, Kandar stood up, regaining some air in his lungs. Nothing was broken, but he was covered in street dirt. Dokkon was nowhere to be seen.

  One of the Guards said, “Are you falling down drunk already? Year’s End Festival ain’t till tomorrow!”

  “No, sir, I haven’t had anything,” Kandar replied. “I tripped.”

  “Don’t you lie to me!” the Guard said.

  “No trouble, sir…” Kandar said, straightening up, belly still aching from Dokkon’s punch. Kandar turned and pushed through the crowd, away from the area. He couldn’t afford to miss his next appointment.

  Kandar took the pressurelift to lower City market, then ran down five flights of stairs. Everything depended on meeting a man he knew only as “the Stranger,” whom he had first spoken with months earlier in the Arena bleachers.

  Trying to look past the throng of people in the busy tunnel street on level fifteen, Kandar frantically searched for the

  red-curtained doorway that the Stranger had described. He was supposed to look across from the thieves’ den and gambling house known as the Enclave. Clumsily, Kandar stepped on someone’s foot and was knocked down to the curb into the road dirt a second time.

  “UFF!” Kandar said. A large, strong hand picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and righted him. Kandar, wiping his hands on his pants, looked up and realized the man whose foot he trod upon was the legendary gladiator known as Angres. The three men with Angres stopped for a moment to see what their leader would do.

  Angres, in a deep. gravelly basso, said, “Sorry, fellah, didn’t see you there…”

  “Wow, you’re Angres!” Kandar said to the man who was one of the lower City’s all-time heroes.

  “That’s right,” Angres shot back. “But me and the boys are very busy, so we’ll be a-goin’.”

  As the huge warrior disappeared into the crowd with his comrades, Kandar heard one of the three with him say, “I thought you was gonna take off his head, Angres!”

  Angres replied, “I never have the time to make a new enemy, no matter how small.”

  Kandar wondered if Angres could also be in one of tomorrow’s events. Still a bit in awe, Kandar thought running into Angres wa
s a good sign from Saint Morth of the Heavens. Maybe Kandar’s plans weren’t so crazy after all…

  Kandar found the red curtain hidden behind a large trash pile. There was a short corridor, leading to a small door. He went through into a room that looked like an old morgue—there were desiccated bodies laid out on rotting bedframes and more bones stacked to the ceiling when he went further in. It was unnerving and Kandar wondered, who would locate their temple back here?

  Undaunted, he came across a panel door lit by a solitary red lamp. Beside it was the man he sought. The Stranger sat on a stool at a bar-height table, pipe dangling out of his mouth, head surrounded by curls of smoke.

  Kandar approached the Stranger and said, “I signed up for the Grande Finale event at the Arena of Blood like you told me to. We still have the same bargain you laid out in the bleachers three days ago, right?”

  Slowly, the Stranger rasped, “Why would you even ask that?”

  The Stranger’s statement made Kandar even more nervous. What if he had signed up and the Stranger now went back on his promise?

  “Don’t worry, Kandar. The church still wants to help you.”

  “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, why are you backing me? Why didn’t you pick a great gladiator, like the Mangler or Durban Three-Tines? Why an unknown like me?”

  “Let’s just say there is a person close to you that our order finds interesting. We will find out if our interest is warranted by how well you do in the stadium tomorrow.”

  “And your enchantment is a part of that?”

  “Let me remind you,” the Stranger told Kandar, with an exhale of exotic smoke. “If you ask too many questions the deal is off…”

  Kandar nodded in understanding. He wondered who this person close to him was and why the Stranger’s church was so interested them. He wanted to know how their enchantment would assure his victory.

  As if in answer to his question, the Stranger said, “If all goes as the cards foretell, you will be invincible during your event.”

  “Invincible…?”

  “Just…enter the temple,” the Stranger replied. “Inside, follow the High Priest’s instructions exactly.”

  The Stanger got off his stool and took keys from his belt, then unlocked the wooden door. Kandar went in and the door closed behind him.

  It was different from any temple Kandar had ever seen. The long, narrow room was two stories-high, cast in deep shadows. A few oil-lamps hanging from the ceiling shed a flickering crimson light, unlike the steady illumination from the glow-globes that were common to most portions of Fortress City. A rectangular pit, perhaps meant for some ritual, was set into the floor of the room, with runic writing etched about its interior walls. At the end of the shadowy chamber, he saw a balcony and a spiral staircase, suggesting a second level.

  “Turn around,” said a sonorous voice from directly behind Kandar.

  “HUH?” Kandar spun about. A tall man in a red robe gazed into Kandar’s eyes. It was surely the High Priest. He was completely bald, covered with dark tattoos, and in his hand he held a long, dark staff. Kandar felt fear when he looked at the man…he was wholly unnatural, like an unrepentant murderer.

  “You have a son…one named Bladeborn?” The High Priest asked of Kandar.

  “Why, yes I do, I…”

  “You will be our vessel of revelation,” the High Priest declared. “Through you we shall KNOW.”

  With these words, the High Priest tapped Kandar’s brow with the top of the staff, not a hard blow, but one which sent Kandar reeling.

  Kandar dreamed. He felt an abyss of fire about him where threatening, shadowy vapors coalesced into otherworldly beasts that tore his clothing and gouged his flesh. He wished to scream, but the acrid air he inhaled left his throat so dry he could only gasp, unable to breathe. It was a dream he could not break free of no matter how he tried, and finally, when he thought he had descended into complete madness, he saw what was the most terrifying thing of all—a single, giant, ice-blue eye. The eye held him transfixed in horror for a moment, and then it looked away, as though releasing Kandar.

  When Kandar regained consciousness, he lay in the refuse heap next to the red curtained doorway. He could barely believe what he had been through, a dream of monumental fear. He was so relieved it was over.

  Kandar saw that the City’s glow-globe lampposts had been dimmed, meaning it was very late at night. He had been out for hours, and Elissa, if she had waited up, would be worried. Alone on the street, he got up to hurry home.

  Trying to block out the memory of the all-to-real nightmare was difficult for him. The blue eye seemed to be branded on his memory, like a scar that had yet to heal. Shivers ran down his spine when he considered what the High Priest had done to him. With no other choice, he had trusted going to the Stranger’s church to help win the Arena prize money. It would take all his courage to accept that the church had not cursed him, and that his chance in the Arena was real.

  Kandar was worried about why the High Priest had asked about little Bladeborn. What possible interest could they have in his son? It did not bode well.

  Kandar made it home without further incident. He quietly slipped into his tiny apartment and looked about. By the light of a small glow-globe he saw Elissa was fast asleep on the resting mat under the blankets and his son was sleeping soundly in his makeshift crib. Kandar crawled under the blankets with Elissa and she whispered his name dreamily, putting her arms about his neck.

  “Oh, Kandar it’s so late,” Elissa started to say.

  “I’m here now,” Kandar responded.

  Kandar began to pray to Saint Morth, God of the Heavens for the safety of his family. Tomorrow his fate as well as theirs would be decided. He prayed until he fell asleep…

  Startled, heart racing, Kandar awoke.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, my dear,” his wife Elissa said softly. “I knocked the salt pot off the counter. I’m afraid it broke.”

  Kandar sat up and said, “It’s ok, sweetheart. Look, it didn’t wake up little Bladeborn.”

  Kandar saw Elissa scooping the salt into another dish, fishing out pieces of pottery. He arose and stretched, then got the wastebasket for the broken shards.

  “What time did you get home last night Kandar?” Elissa asked, dropping the fragments in the basket. “They must have had a lot of extra work for you this Year’s End—last minute things and such, I would imagine?”

  “Yes, we were busy until long after dark,” Kandar lied. He couldn’t tell her about how much trouble he had gotten them in.

  “Come, get breakfast,” Elissa said. “There some flatbread and mushroom chutney. I’m sorry the bread is kind of…stale… I cut the bad parts off. I know it isn’t much on this holiday morning.”

  “It’s just fine, sweetheart,” Kandar said.

  Spirits brightening, Elisa said, “You have the day off work! Year’s End Festival begins in the Arena and you are free to watch the gladiators sweat and tussle all afternoon!”

  Her teasing made Kandar smile. “Must you always say ‘sweat and tussle,’ Elissa? There is much more to it than that.”

  “I know. I just love to see the look on your face when I do.”

  Kadar chuckled at her teasing and kissed her. Then he went over to the makeshift crib Bladeborn rested in and picked his son up. Bladeborn yawned, then giggled with delight. Kandar had insisted on giving him a gladiator’s name in the hopes that one day he would become an Arena hero. So far, the boy was strong, healthy, and off to a good start.

  After breakfast, despite feeling terrific dread about his day at the stadium, Kandar bid his family goodbye, possibly for the last time. Kandar got the feeling that Elissa suspected something was wrong.

  As Kandar got ready to go, Elissa cast him a piercing look Kandar had never before seen in her eyes. “You seem different today, Kandar, and not just because it’s Year’s End… Is everything alright?”

  “Everything is fine. This will be a good day,” he replied, kissing Elissa agai
n and patting Bladeborn’s head. “You take care of your mother, son.” Kandar felt that even Bladeborn, only three, could sense the dishonesty in his father. The boy seemed to bristle at Kandar’s touch, pulling back from it, hiding behind Elissa’s legs

  Kandar hurried out of their apartment into the garbage-choked alleyway. “I’ll be home by tonight. Worry not.”

  “Should I be worried?” she asked, puzzled. “You’ve been acting unusual all week, like there’s something wrong! What are you keeping from me?”

  But Kandar didn’t answer her, instead walking with his head downcast, around the corner into the main tunnel street.

  Kandar heard Elissa call again, “Kandar, don’t shut me out!”

  Without a look back, he plodded forward, his steps heavy with regret. He felt terrible for ignoring his beloved wife that way, but there had been no choice. He was going to give his all to make it up.

  Running down the arch-covered throughways, he saw many revelers already standing in apartment entrances drinking traditional gloom-gourd grog. Kandar had to force himself not to think about the deathmatch he had signed up for but he found himself reviewing the unlikely events leading him to where he was.

  At first, the Battlemaster laughed at him when he tried to get in the event, but he was insistent, so they allowed his last-minute entry. The Grande Finale of the day at the Arena of Blood was to be a twenty-man free-for-all, until only one warrior survived. Kandar’s only hope would be to rely on the High Priest’s protection spell, for he had never even held a real sword before.

  Again, Kandar abandoned such concerns, pushing through the crush of people up wide stairways leading to the Lower City Market and the bank of pressurelifts. He jammed onto the lift-pad with a score of others, taking it to stadium-level.

  When the pressurelift doors opened, he saw a massive number of excited fans had already assembled. The Arena of Blood kept the people from going mad in the refuse and filth of lower Fortress City, and it was the focus of much of Year’s End Festival.