Through the Black Veil
Page 43
Somehow, Noah smiled.
“Though I am eager to drink of your valiance, Shardyn,” the Drynn-lord said with a stiff grin, “you fought well. You may choose who I kill first.” The points of his sharp, carnivorous teeth showed themselves in his smile.
In English, Gavin asked, “Any ideas?”
“Harsh language?” Noah offered.
It started out as a smile and changed to a laugh that wouldn’t stop.
“Yes,” the Drynn-lord said, slapping his thigh. He was grinning himself. “Only a true champion could laugh in the face of death. I will be sure to leave a scribe to write of your deeds.” He slapped his thigh again—a heavy rap of bone against metal. “You are my best kills yet. Farewell, Shard—”
A fist-sized purple sphere streaked down from the rider of a Gryphon above and detonated in the Drynn-lord’s chest. Like a trapped Roman Candle the sphere burned and sputtered and ate into the Drynn-lord’s armor. Gavin launched himself at the Lord of Soldiers before he even knew what he was doing, before his body could deny him. Four strides, a somersault and with good timing Gavin snatched his blade right out of the ground, avoided a monstrous foot from descending on his head, sprang up and drove his Quaranai right under his armpit. The purple sphere was still writhing in his breast, sparking and sizzling as he thrashed in pain.
There was the scream of a Gryphon, talons, a lance and a bolt of purple lightning.
When the smoke cleared, the Lord of Soldiers lay face down, scorched, slashed and impaled. The Gryphons landed heavily and on them were two men, Roland the Sorcerer—what a sight for bloodied eyes—and Gryphrider Decurion Rashauk Arkeides. Small world; Gavin knew his cousin.
They’d just saved their lives.
“How badly is she hurt?” Roland asked.
“She’s bleeding out,” Gavin said. “Can you help her?”
“Yes, but not here.” Roland looked up at the sky and then at the grounds around them. “They’ll be coming back. Soon.”
Gavin tried to shut out the sound of tens of thousands of screams. Who knew how many had hidden in the sanctuaries? Now trapped and penned and devoured like cattle. Slaughtered. And all those hearts and brains for Deos...how would they ever stop him?
“Can your Gryphons ride?” Noah asked. Her face was way too pale.
Roland turned to his mounts and asked them. The two wounded, majestic creatures regarded the four passengers warily. They both gave a nod though it was anything but enthusiastic. “Then we must leave now. I will treat her wounds in the air.”
Decurion Rashauk cleared his throat. “To where shall we go?”
Once again, just like always, all heads turned his way, even Noah’s. The dark air around them swirled with the cries of the helpless, the guttural growls of the Underworld, distorted and distant and utterly haunting.
This would not be the fate of mankind.
Even if that meant joining the very people who’d killed his father, hunted down and butchered his brethren and destroyed his homeland. The very ones who’d released the Drynn in the first place.
Everybody was still looking at him.
“We go to Vambrace,” he said. “I have a plan.”
There would be a dawn for Man.
* * *
Cirena lay next to Tarsidion. Her old friend had slipped into unconsciousness. He’d be dead by morning. There was no way to stop his bleeding. Her Wellspring had long ago run dry and her life force was nearly spent as well.
“There are no words in any language that could express our profound admiration and gratitude for what you did for us,” came an earnest, uncharacteristically emotional voice from the last Centurion of the 2nd Legion. Even though he was five feet away from her, he was difficult to make out. The smoke. The darkness.
Cirena could only nod. The only part of her that had not been used in their fight was her tears. They ran down her face, unabashed.
Freely.
“I would offer aid if I had it to give,” the Centurion continued. He was almost dead himself; his left arm was a bloody mess and half of his face had been charred, including the crest on his helmet, leaving only melted stubble. “But we must march on the enemy.”
All twenty of you? Cirena thought but didn’t ask. It was as good a way to die as any.
“Should we live this day, the glory of the Knights of the Shard will be sung as loudly as our ancestors. We are forever in your debt.” The Centurion took a deep breath and addressed the youngest of his survivors, a boy barely older than sixteen who’d fought like a wolverine. “You. Make your way to the 4th Legion at the Kavroks and tell them everything. Everything.”
“Centurion, please, let me march with you to—”
“Do not let my last order be of disciplining a defiant private. Do as I say.”
“Yes, Centurion,” the private said, snapped his heels together and saluted.
“Know this, Centurion,” Cirena said. “The valor of you and of your men will be proclaimed for the next ten thousand years. Go with God.” She hardened her face. “And kill them all.”
There was approving movement in his ranks. He nodded and then turned.
“At the ready!” he called out, and his rag-tag band of survivors formed new lines, crisp despite their exhaustion and pain. “Let it never be said that the 2nd Legion stood by idly as its Mother called. Into the city! Spare not a single Drynn!”
His small army quietly, but passionately, gave him an “ah-ooomp!”
“Legion...march!” And then they were marching away. Toward their deaths.
You have restored my faith in Men, Nu’romians. Farewell.
The eerie silence of aftermath surrounded her. The night was dead. Not a single natural thing stirred. Cirena lay next to Tarsidion and ran her fingers softly through his bloody and sweaty locks. She whispered in his ear.
I won’t leave you. I’ll stay ’til the end.
She then cuddled up to him, spooned with him, pressed her palm against the gash in his side and stomach, kissed his neck and then threw her cloak over the top of them.
With the last of her lifeforce, they disappeared into spirit.
* * * * *
It started with five knights and two men willing to risk it all to kill the Lord of the Underworld.
Find out how it all began in Drynn, book one of Last of the Shardryn, available now!
Drynn
Montana police chief Skip Walkins is hot on the trail of a murder suspect when he witnesses a drifter free the Lord of the Underworld. Seventeen years ago, five knights from Earth’s magical twin, Theia, entombed Asmodeous the Pale, Lord of the Drynn, in Skip’s town. Now that the dark god is free again, he’s anxious to get back home and finish the war he began...to enslave all life. It begins with killing the knights who trapped him.
Deprived of their magic, the knights fight back using whatever they can get their hands on, from samurai swords to assault rifles. Skip gets reluctantly drawn in to their struggle while Donovan Smith, the demi-god murderer whom Skip was after in the first place, plots to find the Lord of the Underworld and butcher him on his own.
Together, these unlikely heroes might just save the world. If they don’t kill each other first.
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About the Author
Afflicted with wanderlust at the age of seventeen, Steve has lived in seven states, served briefly in the U.S. Air Force as a Pararescue Trainee, and has a profound aversion to mint chocolate-chip ice cream.
Steve wrote his first invasion nove
lla on the back of forty-seven restaurant place mats when he was in seventh grade (he still has them, too), has a doctorate in the School of Dungeon Masters and loves trying to balance his intellectual side with his physical side. Along with reading, writing and chess playing, he’s an avid fan of the martial arts, wrestling and anything Rock ’n’ Roll, though he isn’t above listening to any kind of music, even pop, just so long as it’s good.
He currently straddles two worlds—one foot in his hometown of Elmwood, Connecticut, the other in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. He has a great, fat, good-for-nothing but entirely loveable planet of a cat—Jeter (he didn’t name him!), who is a welcome distraction...most of the time.
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ISBN-13: 9781426897511
THROUGH THE BLACK VEIL
Copyright © 2013 by Steve William Vera
Edited by Rhonda Helms
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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