by Sean Hinn
The two ran down the hall and retrieved the dead sentries, dragging their corpses into the cell.
“All the way in, now, help me put ’em next to Cindra!”
Jasper complied, confused.
Cindra watched curiously as the gnome and dwarf dragged the bodies near.
“There, yeh know what to do, Lady, dontcha?”
Cindra looked up at Oort.
“Shyla?”
“Gah! Gimme a knife, Jasper.”
“A knife? Why? Oort, we gotta undo them chains–”
Oort yanked a dirk from the sheath on Jasper’s belt and drove it deep into one of the corpses.
“Fury! What’re ye doin’, Oort?!”
“Just shut yer hole an’ watch!”
Oort reached into the dead gnome’s chest and felt for his heart. Finding it, he sawed it loose with the sharp weapon. Jasper backed up against the cell wall in horror as Oort tore the feebly twitching heart from the dead gnome’s body and placed it in the broken woman’s shattered hand.
Cindra Sandshingle lifted her head and peered into Oort Greykin’s eyes.
“Oort.”
Jasper could not see Cindra’s face from where he stood, but he did see the glow bathing Oort’s face in crimson light. Cindra plunged her hands into the chest cavity of the slain guard and began to tremble. Oort slid backwards and stood.
“Oort, I don’t–”
“Just wait, Jasper. Give ’er a turn.”
A horn sounded.
“We ain’t got a turn, Oort!” Jasper moved around Oort and bent to try the keys on the lock that secured Cindra’s chains to the floor. A look from the woman stayed him. She began to moan, in pain or ecstasy; Jasper could not tell. He suspected both. Before his very eyes, the woman’s swollen cheeks began to recede. Her eyelids returned to normal. He swore he could see the bones within her arms writhe – healing, he imagined – as the body of the guard began to desiccate. Jasper was not completely sure of what was happening, but he was fairly certain that the woman was somehow draining the dead gnome’s blood through her very hands.
“Knife,” Cindra commanded. Oort obeyed.
The witch drove the dirk into the second guard and repeated the grim task. She finished more quickly than she had with the first, and without a word, she glanced at the chains around her wrist. The iron vibrated violently for a moment, then simply disappeared.
“How is Thinsel?” Cindra’s voice had returned to normal.
“Well, I hope. Headed to Belgorne.”
“Good. Now I ain’t got much time, Oort. The ceremony is already underway.”
“What ceremony?” Jasper asked.
Cindra held Oort’s gaze. “Who is this dwarf?”
Oort shook his head. “Long story. A friend.”
Cindra smiled and turned to Jasper. “Well, friend, I owe yeh a debt. Thank yeh.” Cindra made for the door.
Jasper stood in her way. “Lady Cindra, we came here to find yeh, on order o’ me Captain.”
Cindra froze. “You’re one o’ his five, then.”
Jasper nodded. “Six, now.”
“So, he be dead.”
“Dead? Lat? No, he’s still kickin’, far as I know. But things be bad, and–”
“Oh! Yeh had me worried there. Brought his axe then, did yeh?”
“We did, Lady. His niece brought it along. She’s waitin’ for us at Shyla’s crevice.”
“Anything special about that axe I oughta know?”
Oort and Jasper nodded.
Cindra shook her head. “Well, one problem at a time. Here.” Cindra handed Jasper his dirk. He wiped the bloody weapon on his leggings and sheathed it.
“Yeh may wanna keep that out, I’m thinkin’. You two, get back to the crevice. Tell the others to get outta G’naath. Now. Head for the Grove, if yeh can.”
The sound of boots echoed in the tunnel.
“Mawbottom!” Oort hissed.
“Yup. Just so.” Cindra stepped into the hall. She motioned for Oort and Jasper to follow. A score of armed sentries approached from the right, still a dozen paces away. She turned to Oort and Jasper. “Go, the two of yeh!”
“What about the axe?” Jasper asked.
“What about it? Try not to lose it. It’s a good axe. Now go!”
Jasper and Oort ran down the tunnel. Cindra turned to the approaching sentries.
“Hello, boys.”
~
Cindra Sandshingle shattered the thick wooden door with less than a thought and entered the summoning chamber. The scent of burning sulfur hung thick in the small room. Within stood the Elders, all save Heina, in arranged positions surrounding a tall, glowing yellow pane that stretched between two stone pillars. They bore an expression of shock on their faces: not so much at the shattering of the door, nor because Cindra had been the one to shatter it. The woman who stood before them was unmistakably a blood-soaked Cindra Sandshingle, but appeared to be no more than thirty years old. Cindra waved a hand, rooting their feet to the floor. They struggled briefly, hurling expletives and oaths at the newly-young witch. Another wave of her hand silenced them. She beheld each in turn, settling her gaze finally upon Shabi Ridge.
“Hello, Shabi. I’m sorry, what’s that? Do yeh have somethin’ to say?” Shabi struggled to speak, but could not. Cindra addressed the room. “Now, I’ll let yeh all speak, but be nice, understand? I find myself feelin’ a bit temperamental just now.” Cindra released the spell.
“Had yourself a little snack, I see,” Shabi jeered, attempting to appear less than terrified. Her wide eyes belied her tone.
“Oh, Shabi, I don’t eat them. Though I may make an exception for you.”
“You’re too late, Cindra. The Communion is complete,” Ky’rl Gypstone stated proudly.
“Then why are yeh all standin’ about?”
“To claim our reward,” replied Rane Sarsen, arrogance dripping from his lips.
“Truly, we have yeh to thank,” Shabi mocked. “The essence of yer exquisite pain was just what we needed–”
“Yeah, yeah,” Cindra waved a hand dismissively. “Shabi, would yeh mind dyin’ for me?”
The vicious Elder collapsed in a heap. The remaining Elders cowered, mouths agape. Kenter Loamknoll moved his hands, possibly to attack the witch with some spell, but found himself disintegrated instead.
“So, yeh were saying, Rane? Somethin’ about a reward?”
“I… ah…”
“Useless. Good-bye, Rane.” His head exploded in a puff of red mist.
Quari, Sledge, and Ky’rl struggled frantically to back away from the portal, but Cindra’s magic held them fast.
“Well, yeh can’t get yer reward if yeh ain’t in yer proper places, can yeh?” Cindra teased.
“Cindra, please,” Sledge pleaded. “I have never done yeh wrong, not me.”
Cindra shook her head. “No, Sledge. Yeh never did, not directly at least. But yeh voted to have me granddaughter wolved, and now yeh traded her world to a devil for yer own… what? Power? Yeh be a fool, Sledge. Look at me. I got all the power a girl could want. Do I look happy to yeh?”
“No, because you are a fool!” Quari screamed. “You could own this world, but look at you! You have nothing. You are nothing. You–”
Cindra made a twisting motion with her left hand. Quari’s mouth continued to move, but no words came out. “Just sit quiet there for a moment, Quari, would yeh? Shh, that’s a good girl. How ’bout it, Gypstone? Anything yeh wanna talk about? Yeh have the floor.”
Ky’rl shook his head. “Just kill me and get it over with, Cindra. As far as–”
“All right.” The senior Elder clutched at his throat as Cindra extracted the air first from his lungs, and then from his very blood. He slumped to his knees and died quickly.
“Back to you, Sledge. Any suggestions on how I end yer miserable life? Haven’t tried fire yet. How do yeh feel about fire?”
“Cindra, please! I beg yeh!” The Elder cowered and crouched in terror.
>
Cindra sighed. “Yeh always were a coward, Sledge. Big bad Elder, gonna end the world, ’fraid of a little fire. Have it your way.” The stone beneath Sledge liquefied, and the Elder slipped within it. A moment later, it hardened again with a faint crunch.
“Now then. Quari. The gnome who led the charge to have my own granddaughter eaten by wolves.” Cindra twisted her right hand. “If yeh have anything to say, say it now.”
Quari trembled, her powers of speech no longer impeded by Cindra’s magic, but quenched by equal parts rage and terror.
“Well, I suspect you’ll have something to say here in a moment.”
Cindra closed her eyes. The corpses of Ky’rl, Shabi, and Rane began to change shape. Hands became paws. Feet became claws. Clothing became fur. Rane grew a new head, but not the one he had worn in life.
Three enormous white wolves growled menacingly. Quari screamed. The three attacked as one. It was over in seconds, and the wolves again became gnomish corpses.
“Hmph. Too quick. Shoulda just made one.”
“IMPRESSIVE, CINDRA SANDSHINGLE.” An impossibly deep and resonant voice sounded from within the portal. Writhing within and around that voice Cindra heard others, some higher-pitched, some mere whispers, some agonizing screams, all repeating the same words in unison. “A SHAME WE HAVE NOT MET SOONER.”
Given time she felt she could isolate hundreds, thousands of voices within that awful speech. The effect was horrifying, but Cindra would not be cowed. “Oh, yeah, a real shame,” she replied. Cindra peered into the yellow portal; she could make nothing out beyond a faint, smoky swirl.
“DO YOU WISH TO LAY EYES ON ME, CINDRA SANDSHINGLE? I AM A SIGHT TO BEHOLD.”
“Only so I can kill you, demon.” Cindra moved around the room, plunging her hands into the corpses of the Elders.
“DEMON? I AM NO DEMON! I SATE MY HUNGER WITH DEMONS! I FEAST ON THEIR EYES! I DRINK THE ICHOR FROM THEIR VEINS!”
“Ah, well, no need to be so touchy about it. So, what are yeh then?” She moved from one corpse to the next. The process of draining a body had become easier with practice. She felt her strength increasing in great surges; the Elders had indeed been granted great degrees of power. Had they known how to use it, she might not have survived this encounter.
“I AM THE ONE, WITCH. I AM THE FIRST TO FALL. I WILL BE THE LAST TO RISE.”
“Too cryptic. Try again.” The power Cindra extracted from Shabi’s corpse was intense; the feeling was exquisite. Clearly the Old One had favored her.
“YOU MOCK ME. SOON YOU WILL NOT. SOON YOU WILL SEE THE POWER I WIELD. SOON YOU WILL FEAST YOUR EYES ON MY CREATIONS.”
“Still not an answer. Scared o’ yer own name? Big bad demon like you?”
“I WILL TEAR THE BONES FROM YOUR FLESH. YOU WISH MY NAME, WITCH? I HAVE MANY.”
“Yup. That’s what I was gettin’ at.”
“VERY WELL. HEAR MY NAME, AND DESPAIR.”
The Old One spoke his name. Cindra shuddered.
“DO YOU WISH TO MOCK ME NOW, WITCH? COME TO MY REALM. WALK THROUGH THE PORTAL. ONLY HERE CAN I BE DEFEATED.”
“Thought yeh’d never ask.” Cindra stepped through the gate.
XXXXV: MOR
A freezing bucket of icy water brought Sartean D’Avers awake.
“You’ll wanna see this, Master of Kehrlia. You’re next.”
Sartean opened one bloody eye, the right one. The left was too battered and swollen. The skin of his arms was burned white with frost. The pain was unbearable, but he was too weak to scream.
Upon arriving on the steps of Kehrlia after the battle with Mila Felsin, the wizard had been unable to open the doors. His hands were frozen stiff. He called to his Incantors. He knew those within had heard him. But none would open the keep. His keep. He sat against the iron doors, waiting for someone to come, for someone to help, but none came. No wizard of Kehrlia, at least. Soon, men came. Angry men. Addicted men. Maddened men. They beat him mercilessly. Sartean had not experienced physical assault since he had been a child. He had forgotten the pain, the humiliation, the terror and helplessness. On the steps of Kehrlia, he remembered.
He now found himself locked in the stocks in the square of the Palace of the People. Before him, through a haze of agony, smoke, snow, and ash, the Incantor saw the people of Mor in complete and total riot. He could smell the burning of buildings. Screams filled his ears. He was so cold. He felt as if he had never been warm, as if the sensation of warmth was a thing he had been deprived of his entire life. He supposed, in a way, that the idea was not far from the truth.
He turned his head to the left as a familiar voice cried out in terror. It was difficult to see; his blinded eye was useless, and he could not maneuver well enough to see the source of the voice. But he knew who owned it. King Halsen.
The loathsome king’s cries lasted for what seemed to Sartean like hours. They became more plaintive, then guttural, then, mercifully, they ended. The wizard could not see much, but he saw enough. The king of Mor had been torn limb from limb at the hands of his subjects.
Sartean tried to swallow, but could not. His head had hung in the stocks too long; the muscles in his neck would not respond. A line of red drool spilled from his cracked and swollen lips as he waited his turn in terror. He struggled to summon some vestige of magic, but the well was dry. He was spent, and would remain so until he rested and healed. But he would surely not live long enough for that.
“Won’t be long now, Sardine Cadaver,” a voice behind the wizard mocked, the same as the one who had doused him. Sartean absently noted a kick to his ribs. “You’re next. Think ya can scream better than ol’ Halsen?” Men laughed.
“I say we take our time with this one,” another voice suggested, a woman. “Halsen got off easy.” Another vicious kick stole the wind from Sartean’s lungs.
He had seen this, his doom. This was his vision come to pass. He had always awakened at this point; he had never seen beyond it. In his frequent imaginations of what came next, the wizard had expected his turn would come quickly now. But it did not. Or perhaps it did. His sense of passing time was all but lost. After a brief moment of anticipation and terror as he fought to draw breath, the barely-conscious wizard began to doubt his sanity. Perhaps even now I am being ripped apart, and my mind simply chooses not to process the defilement.
No, he quickly decided. I would be screaming, and I would know it.
Sartean finally managed a breath, and began to weep. He did not cry for the pain, nor out of fear, but simply in sorrow. If asked, he could not say why he was sorrowful. The feeling was foreign, but profound. He was certain that this was what true sorrow must feel like. A lonely pain, not of the flesh, but of the soul; an ache deep within his chest. An emptiness. A sense of utter despondency. His cries became sobs, shaking his battered body. He sobbed for all he had done. Sobbed for all he had not done. Sobbed for all he would never do. He wished the mob would just hurry up and begin their attack; it could not be worse than the pain he felt then.
His moans abated, but the shaking of his body did not. Sartean found that strange, sufficiently odd to rouse him from his gloom. He opened his eyes and saw that it was not his body shaking; it was the world. Another quake, he reasoned. His knees pounded cruelly against the cobbled street on which he knelt, but he barely registered the new injuries; the rest of his body ached far worse.
The quake subsided quickly; it was not nearly as violent as the previous two. Sartean lifted his good eye to the horizon when the shaking stopped. He could see Fang from where he knelt. The lightning had ceased. Sartean found that odd as well; the strangely hued bolts and flashes had been a reliable sight for many, many days; he had not yet seen them pause for more than a few moments. He continued to stare at the mouth of the mighty volcano. The men and women around him did as well. He noted the murmurs; the tone of the crowd had changed. A man stepped between him and the mountain, blocking his view. He was grateful for the momentary reprieve as the crowd gawked, but knew it would not
last. Sartean turned his gaze to the ground, and waited to die.
Someone behind him spoke. “What in Fury…”
Sartean looked up. The man between the wizard and the mountain had moved off to the right. A black bird flew circles near the volcano. A large bird. Too large. Sartean blinked. The bird appeared to turn towards Mor, growing larger, larger still. Sartean corrected himself. That is not a bird.
Another man stood between Sartean and his view of Fang. Sartean listened to the crowd. The murmurs were replaced first with expressions of confusion. Soonafter, awe. Finally, terror.
A shrieking roar split the air, a dreadful, otherworldly bellow, so loud, so terrible… so hateful. The man in front of the wizard bent into a crouch, just in time for Sartean to lift his gaze and see an enormous pair of black leathery wings stretch to their widest display. A dark shadow passed over the square and an unmistakable scent of decay filled the air as the horrified man turned to Sartean.
“What… what in Tahr was that?”
The Master of Kehrlia flashed the man a bloody grin.
END OF VOLUME TWO
Thank you for reading Tremors of Fury.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The more I write, the more I realize that a book is not merely the product of an author’s imagination, but rather a collaborative production that requires many talented and dedicated people to come to life. To this end, I have so many people to thank.
First, last, and always, I thank my Emily: my hero, my lover, and my friend. Without you, I can do no good thing. With you, all the magic of life is revealed, and even a fool like me can manage the occasional accomplishment. I love you.