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  THRONE OF SCARS

  TEN TEARS CHRONICLES

  BOOK 3

  BY: ALARIC LONGWARD

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  THRONE OF SCARS

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

  GLOSSARY

  MAP OF ALDHEIM

  PROLOGUE

  BOOK 1: BESIEGED

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  BOOK 2: THE PURSUIT

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  BOOK 3: DARK WATERS

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  BOOK 4: SCARDARK

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  BOOK 5: THE DARKEST NIGHT

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  EPILOGUE

  The text and the story copyright © 2016 Alaric Longward

  (www.alariclongward.com)

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Markus Lovadina

  (http://malosart.blogspot.fi)

  Design by The Cover Collection

  (http://www.thecovercollection.com)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  - Dedicated to those who keep believing in me. And the old gods, of course. -

  A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR

  Greetings, and thank you for reading the book. The follow up to this book, The Horn’s Fate will be out in 2017. There is a sister series to this book, the Thief of Midgard and the first book, The Beast of the North, is available. I humbly ask you rate and review the story in Amazon.com and/or on Goodreads. This will be incredibly valuable for me going forward and I want you to know I greatly appreciate your opinion and time.

  Please visit

  http://www.alariclongward.com

  and sign up for my mailing list for a monthly dose of information on the upcoming stories and info on our competitions and winners.

  OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:

  THE HRABAN CHRONICLES – NOVELS OF ROME AND GERMANIA

  THE OATH BREAKER – BOOK 1

  RAVEN’S WYRD – BOOK 2

  THE WINTER SWORD – BOOK 3

  THE SNAKE CATCHER – BOOK 4 (COMING 2016)

  THE GERMANI TALES

  ADALWULF

  GOTH CHRONICLES - NOVELS OF THE NORTH

  MAROBOODUS - BOOK 1

  THE CANTINIÉRE TALES – STORIES OF FRENCH REVOLUTION AND NAPOLEONIC WARS

  JEANETTE’S SWORD – BOOK 1

  JEANETTE’S LOVE – BOOK 2

  JEANETTE’S CHOICE – BOOK 3 (COMING LATE 2016)

  TEN TEARS CHRONICLES – STORIES OF THE NINE WORLDS

  THE DARK LEVY – BOOK 1

  EYE OF HEL – BOOK 2

  THRONE OF SCARS – BOOK 3 (COMING 2016)

  THIEF OF MIDGARD – STORIES OF THE NINE WORLDS

  THE BEAST OF THE NORTH – BOOK 1

  QUEEN OF THE DRAUGR – BOOK 2 (COMING 2016)

  GLOSSARY

  Able – a French Ten Tear and Albine’s brother.

  Albine – the French girl and one of the Ten Tears and Able’s sister.

  Aldheim – the jewel of the gods, home of elves and the First World of the mortals, Aldheim is a beautiful world full of adventure and uncanny beauty.

  Alexei Donskoi – a Russian Ten Tear, Dmitri’s, and Anja’s brother.

  Aloise Bardagoon – wife of Almheir Bardagoon, the Regent’s wife, a lover of music and a lady in dire need of Shannon’s help.

  Anja Donskoi– a Russian Ten Tear, Alexei’s, and Dmitri’s sister.

  Asfalon Bardagoon – son of Almheir Bardagoon.

  Baduhanna – an Aesir general in Midgard

  Ban – the svartalfs king who follows the Masked One.

  Bilac – a Fury Whip of the Dark Clans, jailor, and teacher of the Ten Tears.

  Cerunnos Timmerion – formerly the Regent of Aldheim, the defender of the land.

  Cherry – a strange, mute member of the Ten Tears. Guardian of Shannon.

  Coodarg – a raised arch-mage

  Cosia – a Fury Whip of the Dark Clans, jailor, and teacher of the Ten Tears.

  Dana Crowther – utterly powerful member of the Ten Tears and Shannon’s driven sister.

  Danar Coinar – lord of the House Coinar, devious and driven.

  Dancing Bay – the waters of Freyr’s Tooth and Spellcoast. Dangerous and pirate ridden.

  Dmitri Donskoi – a Russian Ten Tear and Alexei’s and Anja’s brother.

  Draugr – raised dead with magical skills

  Elder Shannon – Shannon’s grandma, and a priestess of the old ways.

  Eris the Old – Queen of the Gorgons

  Euryale – the snake headed native of another world, Euryale is the captor of humans of earth, the creator of the Dark Levy, the mistress of her house of gorgons, and she has many devious plans. One of the First Born, just shy of the gods.

  Eye of the Crow – Hel’s eye, her sole contact to the lands and beauty she once knew, before forced to be the caretaker of the dead and the rot.

  Famine – the dagger of goddess Hel

  Ferdan – Elder Shannon’s overly religious friend.

  Filling of the Void – the beginning of everything, when ice of Nifleheim’s rivers and molten bridges of lava mixed in the void.

  Fanged Spire – once the palace of Cerunnos Timmerion, now home of Euryale.

  Freyr’s Tooth - the northern part of the elven kingdoms.

  Ganglari – servant of goddess Hel, shape shifter, and a lord of Helheim.

  Gjallarhorn – god Heimdall’s fabulous horn, used to open and close all doors.

  Gray Downs – once the island seat of House Timmerion, ruined by the Lord Cerunnos in the year of Sundering.

  Gutty – human mercenary and thief of Itax

  Hand of Life – goddess Frigg’s gift to the quarrelsome elven lands of Aldheim. Also called the Second Light, counselor of the Regent. Hand of Life was always thought to be an elven female, but Shannon proved the theory wrong.

  Heartbreaker – Kiera’s sword

  Hel – goddess of the underworld, keeper of the dead.

  Hel’s War – the war goddess Hel unleashed at the theft of the Eye of the Crow

  Himinborg – the great city of House Safiroon, close allies of the House Bardagoon. Himinborg guards the only land route to the Freyr’s Tooth and the noblest lands of the elves and hosts the sundered Gate of Svartalfheim. Lord of the House Safiroon is Talien Safiroon, an ancient, masterful Spell Lord.

  House Bardagoon – led by the Regent, Almheir Bardagoon, they rule over the majority of the holiest elven lands of the Freyr’s Tooth.

  House Coinar – the southern house and fourth in Aldheim, fabulously rich of trade and raids. Foes to the north.

  House Daxamma – the Holder of the Southern Passes, the high elven house commands more land than the other four great houses. The house stands in the mountain range to South Aldheim, where few elves venture
since the Sundering. Often considered savage and less noble than houses of the Freyr’s Tooth and northern Spell Coast, Daxamma are deeply distrustful of the Regent and the other higher houses. Enslavers of humans, Daxamma use them freely in their armies and are ever the arm and muscle of House Coinar.

  House Safiroon – The second house of Aldheim, they hold the southern half of Freyr’s Tooth, the holy continent just north across straights from Spellcoast. Himinborg is their fabulous capital.

  House Timmerion – formerly the first house of Aldheim, the house fell into ruin in Hel’s war.

  House Vautan – the third house of Aldheim, they command the northern tip of Spellcoast and are allies of the Bardagoon’s and Safiroon’s.

  Itax – the Under Lord, a thief king of Scardark

  Ittisana – a gorgon with confused loyalties.

  Jotun – ice or fire, the giants hate the gods.

  Kallista – a svartalf Queen

  Kiera – the daughter of Almheir Bardagoon, and the undead servant of Shannon

  Lex Cyburn – one of the Ten Tears, the conciliator, and the one who loves Shannon.

  Ljusalfheim – home of house Bardagoon, the first house in the northern half of the elevated continent of Freyr’s Tooth. There stands the Hall, Freyr’s Seat.

  Maa’dark – Gifted Hands. Spell casters who can see and use the power.

  Marxam Daxamma – lord of House Daxamma, uncannily tall and less wise than other of the five, nonetheless a lord of much power.

  Medusa – Euryale’s and Stheno’s sister. Lost in Midgard.

  Morginthax – a dragon with honor

  Nifleheim – land of primal ice, home of the nine frozen rivers and Hel rules the land, in addition to Helheim that is located in this land.

  Nött – the goddess of the night, Queen of Svartalfheim

  Ron Cyburn – one of the Ten Tears and a thug. Saa’dark – Dead Hands. Sacrifice of worth to gain power.

  Scardark – the great city of Vastness

  Serpent’s Run – the sea-lanes near Vagabond’s End, rumored to host a great serpent.

  Shannon Crowther – the human Hand of Life, healer, and a miracle in Aldheim.

  Shinna Safiroon – the eldest child of Talien Safiroon, Shinna is to one-day rule Safiroon holdings. She is to marry the eldest of house Bardagoon, Asfalon Bardagoon, to cement the alliance between the two houses of Freyr’s Tooth, the noblest of the elven houses.

  Silver Maw – armor of the Hand of Life.

  Skills – the power of creation often grant those humans entering Aldheim skills that are not spells.

  Spellcoast – the vast continent of the elven nations.

  Stheno – Euryale’s sister.

  Svartalfheim – the land of the dark elven and dwarven races.

  Talien Safiroon – as old as Almheir Bardagoon and Danar Coinar, Talien has ruled the southern half of Freyr’s Tooth for thousands of years, shrewdly navigating the schemes of House Coinar and Daxamma, guarding the north for the Regent and his allies to the south, House Vautan. He is the father of four elven boys and one daughter, Shinna Safiroon.

  Thak – a fire jotun, a giant.

  The Dark Levy – a levy of the troubled of the earth to travel bi-yearly to another world, where they discover who they really are. A device of Euryale seeking for something specific.

  The Gates – the ways gods built to cement the Nine together. Lost since Hel’s war.

  The Houses – elven lands are divided into thousand houses. They compete fiercely and challenge each other into a game of power. The top five command the loyalty of the rest and this division makes up the power division of Aldheim.

  The Nine – the nine worlds the gods claimed at the time of the Filling of the Void.

  The Sundering – the tumultuous event of the closing of the gates during Hel’s War.

  The Tenth – the land of the Timmerion, our earth, the world elven houses tried to make for themselves, hoping to be like the gods. Home to the Dark Levy, humans whom the Timmerion’s once manipulated so they could touch the power.

  Trad – house Vautan’s fabulous capital on the Spell Coast.

  Ulrich Cyburn – an Austrian member of the Ten Tears, foe of Dana. Vagabond’s End – pirate islands of the Dancing Bay.

  Vanir – gods and goddesses allied with the Aesir.

  Wild’s Coast – after the Sundering, the eastern Aldheim was thrown to anarchy. Few know what is taking place in the formerly glorious elven kingdoms.

  .

  MAP OF ALDHEIM

  PROLOGUE

  This is the story of Ulrich’s journey to regain the Gjallarhorn, the Lax Guardian’s lost treasure, Heimdal’s key to the Nine Worlds, and the one artefact that might restore the gods to the Nine Worlds. It is a story of friendship, as Ulrich supports Shannon, the undead Hand of Hel seeks to give the mighty horn to her mad goddess Hel, who would bargain for her freedom from the plague of being the Queen of Helheim, the caretaker of the dead and the charge she hates.

  And yet, Hel might be in no hurry to do so.

  She has ages of suffering and pain to pay back, and the war she once released on the Nine Worlds is once again burning through the lands, after Shannon released the Seed of the Dead.

  And so it is also Ulrich’s desperate quest to save his friend the undead Shannon, the Queen of the Draugr, the Hand of Hel, from the evil pact she made with goddess Hel.

  To do this, he must brave Svartalfheim, the Dark World, the land of the dark elves and wondrous beasts, and risk the unfathomable brutality of the land. He must endure the terror of what Shannon has become, and seek a way to keep his own humanity. He has to gain the Horn for Shannon, and he has to find Dana, Shannon’s rogue sister. To do so, he must defy gorgon Stheno, the ruler of Scardark. She is a First Born, the mighty gorgon sister of deceased Euryale, who was once their mistress. And there is also the Masked One, the mighty dragon, who wants the Horn for his own unknown ends.

  How will Ulrich fare with his quest? Will his loyalty to Shannon endure?

  Listen.

  BOOK 1: BESIEGED

  “There are high and mighty kings in that city, powerful and beautiful queens. But only one Throne of Scars.”

  Ittisana to Ulrich

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a dreadful sight. It filled one with loathing, unreasonable fear, shortness of breath from the reek of decay, and denial they could even exist.

  But they did.

  The draugr. The stinking dead. They did exist. There they flowed, past us. The night could not possibly hide their sinister, inhuman nature. They walked, but there was nothing human or elfish in that deathly gait. The shadows could not cover the oddly efficient, crude stomp of their march. And it was not only the march. It was more. Their multitudes, the black heaving mass below was partly shrouded by the fog that pushed up from the Straits, but one could see the pale, gleaming eyes, the rotten wounds on some, the drying, decaying features of the once powerful, beautiful elves, and even the men who had fallen in the Shining City the day everything changed. Their weapons were lifted high, their armor clanked like any army’s, but their movements were different. Everything they did was smooth, uncannily fast, and effortless. No, I thought, purposeful. Where the living fidget and waste energy in needless movements, the draugr do not. A draugr could sit still for a week, more, looking down at you, and I knew Shannon had many such dead keeping an eye on us—the few living servants in her besieged dominion—in the Citadel.

  I looked around and tried not to cringe at the company we had.

  There were many kinds of dead. Hel’s Seed, that Shannon had released in the midst of the horrible battle in the Shining City, had twisted the dead, torn their souls back from Helheim, from Asgaard and Vanaheim, wherever the dead go, and it had corrupted them.

  They were rotting, and yet able to hide their nature under a mask of the living. They were magical, able to tap into the great molten fires that cascaded from Muspelheim and mixed in the Filling Void with the ice of Niflh
eim. They could release spells, some better than others. And they were frightfully intelligent, driven by their desires and goals, both from the time they had lived and after they had died, and all were rebellious. Only Shannon’s will held them in line. They had some sort of hierarchy, a chain of command that forced them to obey, and it was very, very hard for them to resist.

  Shannon was their Queen.

  My Shannon. My friend.

  I took a deep breath and kept staring at the dead. The draugr I could see. I knew they were there, masked or not, hovering around the northern Himingborg. Other dead, few, but still there, we had seen glimpses during the night the Seed spread. They were spirits, evil to their core, terrible to behold. They scattered across the lands, shrieking their joy of having been released and they never served Shannon. They would plague the land, nay, the lands, all the Nine Worlds, since Hel’s Seed had torn through them, and even the closed Gates could not contain that spell. It was Hel’s curse on the worlds the gods cherished, even if she finally had regained her stolen Eye, thanks to Shannon.

  Now she wanted the Horn.

  She wanted to be rid of Helheim, to be the First Born girl, happy and innocent, beautiful as the stars. She wanted to be that young thing that danced in the fields of the Nine Worlds, trekked in the untouched mountain woods singing her happy songs. She wanted back what she had lost, though I, a simple human, was willing to wager she would never forget the punishment of Odin, the High One, the lord of the Aesir who cast her to Helheim and made her a rotten, ugly and mad demi-god, as a punishment to Lok.

  The draugr chanted below. It was a chattering voice, one to answer their officer’s commands, and they readied and checked their weapons. They were protected by the armor they had died in, so it was very hard to kill one, unless you caused massive damage. Yes, the armor still helped them. The weapons they took meticulous care of. They could wound a god.