Death to Kings: The Chronicles of Shan, #2

By Stephen Leo

Shan escaped from Cala and the Priests of the Old Gods! She freed the one-handed girls from the Oronno, Lord of Thieves! She escaped from Vondura, the mad New God, with the misshapen men!  Now, Shan and her friends find themselves captives in the Desert Kingdoms where they are made to fight each other to the death for the amusement of the Desert Kings. 

 

Having lost her home, her parents, and her hand, what else will Shan lose in the fight for freedom and survival?

 

Death to Kings is the second book in The Chronicles of Shan. Look for book three: Against Gods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Out of Chaos
• Release date: Jun 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798227155023

Stephen Leo

Stephen Leo is @INerdius on YouTube,

Book preview

1.

Ring of steel

Hurrah!

Crack of bone

Hurrah!

Scream of agony

Hurrah!

Splatter of blood

Hurrah!

Hiss of death

Hurrah!

Laugh of triumph

Hurrah!

Roar of the crowd

Hurrah!

Hurrah!

HURRAH!

#

The creature stepped out from the shadows and into the bright sunlight that made the sands of the arena burn like hot coals. It screeched like something from a nightmare, with rage and power, followed by a loud, ringing clash of steel as the wickedly curved swords in its eight arms each struck its opposite as one.

Shan knew what she faced, although at first she could not comprehend it. It was something out of the distant past, a creature of ancient legend: A Stith. It had never occurred to her there might be more than the one her ancestor, Shan Th’Lyera, had fought and killed two thousand summers earlier, and that some of those might still exist.

Perhaps she should not have been so surprised, though, considering all that had happened to her since leaving the home of her birth.

Shan was well aware that she wasn’t her legendary—some would say mythological—ancestor. She was now probably just sixteen summers old, although according to the stories Shan loved, Shan Th’Lyera was already considered to be the greatest warrior among her own people by that age. That Shan of long ago had been raised in a warrior culture, taught from a young age to fight with sword, spear, bow and arrow, staff, knife, and her bare hands and feet. The current Shan had never been taught to fight; she’d had to learn on her own just to stay alive. As well as her lack of training, she was missing a hand. It had been chopped off by Good King Emedon in the Jade Keep.

Shan wasn’t the only girl with one hand facing the Stith in the arena, though. There were five others just like her: each a girl about her age, each without a right hand, although each had a weapon of some kind affixed to the stump in place of that hand. The girls were arranged in a semi-circle around the Stith, while all around them on benches arranged in an ellipse, on terraces up to five floors high, cheered the denizens of the Desert Kingdom city of Kamanth, there to watch a spectacle of death. Shan had the iron head of a double-sided ax attached with leather straps to the stump of her right arm. It didn’t give her much range, and it was heavy. She tired out quickly using it, as she’d discovered during the brief moments of practice she and the other girls had been allowed.

The Stith came straight down the middle towards the girl on Shan’s left. Lia was her name, a girl who’d spent her entire life happy in the capital of Calasaar, the canal city of Cala, until her hand had been severed by orders of the King. Not long after, the Queen ordered the deaths of all one-handed girls in the kingdom in the hopes that Shan would be among those killed, for Shan had killed the Queen’s favorite, and youngest, son, Gareth.

Lia stood her ground, despite her diminutive stature and lack of armor, save for a leather forearm guard above her stump, with a short pike attached by tightened leather straps to the stump. The Stith came at her quickly, and Shan and the girl on the other side of Lia, Lexan, rushed towards the Stith from two sides.

Now! Shan yelled as the Stith prepared to stike. Lia backpedaled frantically, as Shan and Lexan struck at the Stith. But the Stith easily blocked their attempt, and continued after Lia with single-minded purpose. There were three other girls in the arena, and they were on the move coming at the Stith from behind.

Now! one of them yelled—Shan didn’t see which one—and Lia stopped retreating before the Stith and, instead, charged directly at it.

As the Stith raised two of its arms to strike Lia, the three other girls struck at it from behind, but their weapons glanced harmlessly off the Stith’s armor. It paid them no heed, and brought two swords down on Lia. She tried to knocked one aside with her pike, but the sword deflected off the pike and bit deeply into her right shoulder, and the other came down to cleave her in two from the left shoulder down through her midsection. As if to add insult to injury, the lifted Lia’s body up into the air, ripped it in two and flung both halves aside like two pieces of rotten meat.

Lia was dead; Lia, who had survived the massacre of one-handed girls in Cala by leaping into one of the putrid canals, where monsters lurked that ate small children, to swim across and pull herself with her one hand onto a dock on the other side. Dozens of one-handed girls were murdered by the Queen’s Guard, but Lia had survived, and had joined others who banded together and escaped first the city and then the kingdom.

The Stith turned to face Shan now.

Now would be a good time to call forth the Sword of Primordial Fire, Shan! Lexan yelled to her.

I’m trying! Shan yelled back. The Stith lurched towards her, as the other four girls arrnaged themselves to try another attack.

Go for the legs! Lexan yelled. She had already survived two fights in the arena, but she had not yet faced a Stith. None of them had, until now.

Shan tried with all her willpower to call forth the Sword of Primordial Fire, but nothing happened. The Stith bore down on her as she backpedaled, but this time she would not do as Lia and charged it head on. It raised two arms to strike, and she quickly scrambled to the right. Another girl, Chay, not much taller than Lia, but stouter, was there with a spiked mace affixed to th stump of her right arm. She smacked away one of the Stith’s curved swords and ducked beneath another to bring the mace down on the creature’s right foot.

It screeched in what sounded like pain, and sliced at Chay, who had already rolled though the gap between the Stith’s legs. It spun to strike at her again, and this time Shan rushed in, now on the Stith’s left side, and Lexan rushed in on its right side. Shan dodged one of the Stith’s curved swords and raised the double-sided ax, intending to slide towards its legs and bring the ax down on the already damaged foot. But a second curved sword seemed to come from nowhere and she barely brought the ax up to block it. The force of the blow slammed the ax into her face, and the sword caught under a hooked point of one side of the ax. Had she simply been holding onto the ax, it would have yanked it from her hand easily. But, it was all but part of her body, and the sword lifted her into the air and flung her away as easily as it had flung Lia’s torn body.

For moment, she felt herself weightless, as if floating in the air, and saw the ever-present, cloudless blue sky with the bright burning ball of the yellow sun overhead. And then she slammed into something that knocked the breath of her, rattling her bones, and her vision blurred, and then everything went black. The last thing she remembered before blissful nothingness was the shriek of the Stith and the gleeful roar of the appreciative crowd all around her.

#

Shan was not among the one-handed girls when they encountered Oronno. Instead, she  had been brought to the land of the insane New God, Vondura by Higga, the spawn of the Old God. She’d helped escape the Slumbering World via her dreams and bile, and he had acknowledge the debt, and paid it. But Higga was long gone by the time she found herself a plaything of the Desert Kings, whose only purpose in their eyes was to amuse them on the burning, bloody sands of the arena.

It was in the dungeons beneath those hot sands that she heard the collective story, as well as the individual stories, of the other one-handed girls, the ones who were not her, nor her childhood friend, Ruan. They were frightened,tired, hungry, weak, and many of them suffering painful infection from their badly-dressed stump. They were easy prey for the highway brigands and their leader, Oronno, the Bandit King, who sold them to the Desert Kings.

Shan remembered Oronno, of course. She was nearly abducted by the legendary King of the Bandits, and perhaps her fate would have been better than what happened later. She was given by her parents to the Priests of the Old Gods to be sacrificed in order to awaken and free them from the Slumbering World, to return to the Waking World and rule it as they once had thousands of summers before.

Shan saw her Uncle Tromb murdered by his own brother, her father. She was assigned an immortal Watcher, a dwarf named Dungin who could not die no matter how many times, nor how, he was killed—he always returned to watch her, and that’s what the sum total of his existence comprised, at least for as long as she lived. It was annoying, to say the least, but it did not prevent her escaping the Priests of the Old Gods, with the help of her friend Ando, who’d once tried to kiss her, and Prince Kemmon, who did kiss her (and she kissed him back, and it was the most amazing feeling she’d ever had), and the Princesses Anada and Adrea—Anada, whose whereabouts were unknown, and Adrea who’d also had her right hand cut off, and had been sold to the Desert Kings with the others.

#

It was a young one, Shan heard Adrea’s voice say.

Shan opened her eyes, and saw the lumpy, uneven stone ceiling of the dungeons above her.

She’s awake, said another voice, this one belonging to her childhood friend, Ruan.

Don’t move, Shan, Adrea said. She came into view on Shan’s right side, while Ruan came into view on her left.

I’m alive, Shan said.

Amazingly, yes, Ruan said.

The others, Shan said. Are they?

Ruan and Adrea both looked somber, and Ruan looked down while Adrea shook her head.

The Stith killed them all, she said. Lexan was the last.

Shan sighed.

She wounded the Stith twice more before it was over, Ruan said

She was tough, Shan said.

That she was, Ruan said.

Lia, Chay, and the other girls who’d died that day, and the three dozen or so who’d died since their arrival in Kamanth, had all been tough, as well, Shan thought. Lexan, though, had been one that had inspired all of them with her fierceness.

How do you feel? Adrea asked.

Not good, Shan replied. What happened? She remembered the Stith’s sword hooking her double-sided ax, lifting her into the air, seeing blue sky and bright, yellow, sunshine, and then nothing.

You hit your head pretty hard when you hit the sand, Ruan told her. It knocked you out. It looked like you were dead from where we were watching.

The one-handed girls could watch the fighting through the bars of their holding area, where they waited to find out if they would be sent out next.

That’s what saved you, Ruan continued. The Stith thought you were dead, so it didn’t care about you anymore.

Luckily you landed on sand, Adrea said. Otherwise you probably would be dead.

Like the others, Shan said, sadness in her voice.

Neither Adrea nor Ruan said anything. They felt it, too, the deep sadness at seeing their friends die for the amusement of the Desert Kings and their affluent citizens.

You’ve been given time to heal, Ruan told her. By His Benign Benevolence King Akzarian, Closest to the Sun, Favored of the Desert. There was poison in her voice as she uttered the official name of the king of the tiny kingdom—tiny compared to Calasaar, anyway—of Kamanth. There were a dozen such kingdoms in the desert, most of them ringing a central oasis called Heart of the Desert, claiming the edgelands as theirs, while the smallest, and richest, two kingdoms were composed mostly of oasis, and the best sources of fresh water.

Kamanth was the southernmost of the Desert Kingdoms, hence did the bulk of the trade with the southern ‘barbarian’ lands, as the desert peoples regarded all who dwelled outside of the desert. Oronno was a well-known and beloved figure amongst the people of Kamanth, with tales of his exploits had been passed down from generation to generation. He was considered to be a figure apart from the New Gods, whom the Desert Kings did not worship. They did not worship the Old Gods, either, although they were acknowledged and their return prophesized, just as the demise of the New Gods was prophesized and would be welcomed.

Shan wondered how Ando was faring. Aside from Ruan, he was her oldest friend, really her only friend from her time in Cala before meeting Prince Kem and Princess Anada. He’d helped her escape from the Queen, and had been taken to Vondura’s land. She’d torn out his tongue and turned him into a bird-man, part giant raven and part boy. He could fly, so perhaps he’d managed to fly his way to freedom. She hoped so. She had heard nothing about him since their capture in the desert.

Shan also wondered how Mies and Cook were doing. They were her friends from the land of Vondura, playthings of the insane goddess who had re-formed each individual into an utterly unique speciman, freakish to behold, like Cook, who was mostly one large head with three faces, or Mies, who was made as tall as two men and as thin as a reed. Vondura had turned the women and girls of their land into statues of silver glass, and cursed her playthings to eternal life for her private amusement. Upon Vondura’s overthrow Mies and Cook and their countrymen were anxious for the peace of death that Vondira had denied them. Shan convinced them to join her as a makeshift army to march to the Desert Kingdoms and rescue the one-handed girls, promising them the glory of dying in battle for a righteous cause.

Shan had led them in an attempt to cross the desert, but it had turned out to be futile. Sandstorms and raiders made it impossible, and eventually they were too exhausted and weak to continue, and that was when the forces of Kamanth had descended on them and, in short order, took them all as prisoners.

Now, they too, like the one-handed girls, were made to fight in the arenas of the Desert Kingdoms.

Shan tried to get up, but the attempt resulted in searing pain in the back of her head. She settled back down with a moan.

You must rest, Ruan said.

Okay, Shan said.

The metallic clank of heavy chains sounded.

Food, Ruan said. I’ll bring you something.

I’ll stay with her, Adrea said. Ruan nodded and went off.

When Shan had tried to sit up, she saw that she was in one of the common areas that had been set aside for the one-handed girls. These were in buildings that surrounded the arena complexes and connected to them by underground tunnels. Aside from their time fighting on the hot sands, they were not permitted to leave, and so never saw the outside world save through thick iron bars in the upper portions of the commons areas, and these provided only the smallest opening for the sights and smells and sounds of outside world to gain admission, and always at ground level.

Shan heard the low growls and grunts of an ogre guard as the chains clanked again.

While it had not been completely unheard of for ogres to be seen in Calasaar, the combatants for the arenas of the Desert Kings were guarded exclusively by ogres, and guarding them was the only job permitted ogres, who were essentially prisoners as much as those they guarded.

Shan remembered that her ancestor, Shan Th’Lyera, had freed an army of ogres from the Stith they’d been forced to serve, by killing the Stith, and then had saved the ogres from slaughter by the populace of Cala, who were bent on revenge. She had hoped the ogres might remember that Shan, and indeed they did; they revered her, but also regarded as more myth than historical figure. When Shan told them she was Shan Th’Lyera’s descendant, they hadn’t laughed, but they also didn’t quite believe her. They required proof, and when she told them of the Sword of Primordial Fire that she’d been able to call forth where the stump of her right hand was, they decided that was the proof they needed. She told she would want to them to join her in freeing the one-handed girls and the playthings of Vondura, and they said they would gladly follow one such as Shan Th’Lyera, if one such as Shan Th’Lyera could be found and verified.

Unfortunately for Shan, and for her friends who were dying bloody deaths on the arena sands, she had not yet been able to manifest the Sword of Primordial Fire, and she didn’t know why. The other one-handed girls seemed unsure of whether to believe her or think her mad, but Ruan had seen her kill Nall, one of Vondura’s creatures, a man made of metal, and who was otherwise indestructibe. Were it not for Ruan, the one-handed girls would have likely stopped listening to her at all.

Of course, many of them had encountered individuals from her army of Vondura’s freaks, sometimes in combat upon the sands where they’d been made to fight each other. So they knew that part of the story had to be true.

Shan’s musings were interrupted by the return of Ruan and a big wooden bowl of boiled long grains specked with peas and crunchy bites of crisped lizard tail, all made palatable by the fragrant spices that were the main exports of the Desert Kingdoms. They came from the north, which was the direction that Shan believed led to the tiny kingdom of Shan Th’Lyera’s origin. At least, that was what her Uncle Tromb used to tell her when he recited the tales of Shan Th’ Lyera to Shan and (as often as not) Ruan as children. That was before her uncle had tried to rescue her from the Priests of the New Gods, and his subsequent murder by Shan’s father.

Shan, you’re not eating, Ruan pointed out. Indeed, Shan had been staring at the bowl of food, with a wooden spoonful paused halfway to her mouth.

Sorry, Shan said.

Thinking, Adrea said. Always thinking.

Shan could feel her face reddening. She had acquired a reputation for mind-wandering. She knew she did it, but it was her way of trying to figure things out, trying to unravel the mysteries of the present moment, especially why she did not seem capable of calling forth the Sword of Primordial Fire when she had done so several times before. It didn’t make sense to her that she couldn’t do it all of a sudden, so in some respect her mind-wandering was her way of trying to solve the puzzle.

It was hard to explain that to her friends, though, who lived in the moment because survival demanded that they do so.

Shan continued eating, although the food wasn’t all that inspiring. It was good enough to eat the entire bowl, though, and that she did. Ruan took the empty bowl and her spoon, and brought them to the bucket where all were washed by the girls, and collected for the ogre guards to take away.

Facing the Stith had been Shan’s first time in the arena; for some reason she’d been passed over time after time, whereas Lexan had been chosen several times. No more for Lexan, though, alas. Most of the girls who’d been chosen to fight had died in their first fight, some twenty or twenty-five them, so far. The arena was used for combat once every seven suns, as the Desert Kings marked time. At least this gave the one-handed girls time to recover, to prepare, and to train as much as was possible. Some of the ogre guards had actually taken to instructing some of the girl, perhaps out of pity, or perhaps out of a desire to make the fights in the arena more sporting, or perhaps a little of both.

Neither Ruan nor Adrea had fought, yet. At least Ruan had taken part in the fight that Shan had against Nall in the shattered Garden of Tears at the base of Vondura’s impossibly tall Spire. Ruan had also been involved in fight against the monster that had attacked them while crossing the straits that separated Vondura’s lands from the ruined lands. Adrea had fought against Onorro’s brigands, as hopeless as that was, according to some of the other girls who’d been near her during their capture.

Shan hoped they wouldn’t have to fight a Stith, or an ogre, or one of Vondura’s playthings.

The Desert Kings had many, many captives that were fated to die on the sands of the arena. Most were citizens of the Desert Kingdoms, criminals, or captives from the battles the Desert Kings often fought against one another. Others were captives from raids beyond the Great Desert, many who had come to raid the Desert Kingdoms, which were renowned far and wide for their wealth. The Desert Kings also purchased interesting specimens from farther afield; the deadlier and the more bizarre, the better. And, there were even citizens of the Desert Kingdoms who volunteered to fight in the arena for the glory, or for coin to help pay debts.

Shan had always believed that the stories her Uncle Tromb told about the Desert Kingdoms were so farfetched as to be unbelievable, but now she realized they were mild compared to reality. She decided he’d never actually been to the Desert Kingdoms, although he had probably traded with their agents at the edge of the desert.

The heavy iron chains clanked and rattled again, and the door squeaked when it opened. Shan raised herself up on her elbows to look, and saw a tall woman enter, wearing a red robe over a white dress. The woman looked around until she saw Shan, and walked towards her.

Ruan and Adrea immediately blocked her way.

I am a healer, the woman said. The language of the Desert Kingdoms wasn’t very different from that used in Calasaar, although it sounded odd to Shan, with different enunciations and pronouncations. I can help her.

They’ve never sent a healer down here before, Ruan said, suspicion obvious in her tone of voice.

No, said the healer woman.

Why now? asked Adrea.

The woman looked past them, at Shan.

She has a sponsor, she said. Then she allowed a lopsided grin. It seems someone with money likes her.

What does that mean, someone with money likes her? Ruan asked.

No one had ever survived against a Stith before, the woman said. She did, by accident, yes, and now there are many bets being made against her survival the next time she faces the Stith.

Next time? Ruan and Adrea asked in unison.

Yes, of course, the woman said. My employer, however, has placed a very large wager on her to survive against the Stith again. It is a foolish wager, but then who am I to judge?

Who is this employer you speak of? Ruan asked.

I do not know.

How can you not know who your employer is? Adrea asked.

The woman laughed.

Do you know who your employer is? she asked.

We’re prisoners, Adrea replied. We’re forced to fight in the arena. One may choose to work for an emloyer or not, and we don’t have a choice.

Don’t you? the woman asked.

Ruan, Shan said. Adrea. Let me speak to her.

Ruan and Adrea reluctantly allowed the woman to pass. She walked elegantly up to Shan.

You have loyal friends, the woman said.

Yes.

That is good, the woman said.

I think so.

Can you sit up? the woman asked.

I can try. Shan raised herself up to a seated position, though it took a massive effort, and it resulted in an even more massive headache that caused her vision to blur. She tried not to let that show.

You have a lot of pain, that is obvious, the woman said.

It’s not too bad, Shan said through clenched teeth. She was starting to feel nauseated as the woman’s fingertips felt around the back of her head.

You are very strong, the woman said. And also stubborn. This is very bad. You will need twenty-one suns to rest and recover before you can fight again. I have brought something for you to drink. It will help you sleep. One sip only, at each dark, and you will sleep well. Sleep is healing. You must sleep, therefore you must drink. Understand?

Yes, Shan said.

Time, Shan, someone called out. Shan looked over to where a makeshift sandclock had been set up. A moment later, Dungin the dwarf, the eternal Watcher that the Priests of the Old Gods had assigned to watch Shan until her death, appeared.

No sooner did he, looking as smug as ever, than a sharp stick was thrust at him. He blocked that with his curved knife.

Now, now, he said, but then another sharpened stick suddenly protruded from his throat, from behind. He gagged, and then disappeared.

And that? the healer asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

He appears every three suns, Shan told her. And he will until the day I die.

I have heard tales of such things, the healer woman said. But I confess, I never believed them.

In this world, Shan said. "The harder something is to believe, the stronger