“He can’t be dead,” Wallice said suddenly. “Not like that.” He sounded as disbelieving as Cowley felt. His brother Eben’s face was twisted with pain. Cowley heard a stifled sob from Gage. Lukas had tears running down his face.
“I don’t see how he could have survived that. Either way, there’s nothing we can do right now,” Strout said, his tone impassive.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cowley yelled at him, suddenly furious with him. “Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you care?”
Strout’s lip curled. “How dare you? Just because I’m not moaning and crying it means I don’t care? Fen was my friend too, whatever you might think. But standing here whimpering won’t help him. We should be figuring out what we’re going to do next.”
“I really hate you sometimes,” Lukas said, wiping tears from his face.
“So?”
“He’s a bastard, but he’s right,” Cowley said, fighting back his sorrow. “There will be time to mourn later. Right now, we need to free ourselves and figure out what we’re going to do next. Fen might still be alive. We have to find a way to help him.”
Chapter 44
Lowellin walked up to the three Ichthalids, noticing as he went that they were already healing. S’nash’s severed arm had mostly grown back. Gnath’s face, while still covered in blood, looked whole. Thresh’s leg was bearing his weight. Their armor had suffered, but they looked as strong as ever. Lowellin’s gaze passed over the three young people. None of them were moving. All were blackened, apparently burned to a crisp.
S’nash turned on Lowellin as he approached. “You said you killed Fen,” he growled.
“I thought I did. You saw the hole. How was I supposed to know he could survive that?”
“He was traveling with us this whole time! You expect me to believe that he spent that much time near you, and you never noticed? How stupid do you think I am?” S’nash advanced on Lowellin as he spoke. Purple sparks crackled up and down his forearms menacingly. Chaos power began to ripple around the other two as well.
Lowellin held up his hands. “Hold on for a moment. I don’t think we should go throwing blame around. Let’s not forget that you didn’t notice him either.”
S’nash glared at him. “You have deceived me for the last time.”
“I did not deceive you. It was an honest mistake. I’ve been a loyal servant all this time. That has to mean something.”
“You have no loyalty,” Thresh hissed.
“Let the ingerlings devour him,” Gnath added.
“I will enjoy watching you die. Slowly,” S’nash said. He raised one hand. Instantly the ingerlings inside Lowellin responded. The pain followed a moment later. Lowellin winced.
“No, wait,” Lowellin gasped. “You still need me.”
“For what? I have the last piece now.”
“I…that is…the Abyss is not yet open. There could be an unforeseen complication, and you might need my help.”
“What complication could there possibly be?” S’nash rasped.
“I don’t know,” Lowellin replied. “That’s why it’s called ‘unforeseen’.”
“Your constant dissembling and scheming have enraged me from the beginning,” S’nash said. “How glad I am to know that I will never have to—”
“I say we let our queen have him,” Thresh said, interrupting him. “It will be a fitting gift to Her, one of the defenders of the key for Her first meal in this world.”
S’nash scowled, considering this.
“That’s a great idea,” Lowellin gasped, bent over now as the pain increased. “Killing me will be like striking a blow at the masters. I’m sure she’ll appreciate that. Besides, shouldn’t freeing your queen be your top priority now? Can’t other details, like punishing a loyal servant who made an honest mistake, wait until that is taken care of?”
“The fool is right about one thing,” Thresh said. “What matters is releasing our queen. Finish the key and open the Abyss. He can be dealt with later.”
“Do you think to order me now?” S’nash said, turning on the one-eyed Ichthalid.
“I recall you to your duty, is what I do,” Thresh replied, not giving any ground. “The last piece is right over there, yet you stand here arguing with one who is less than an insect.”
S’nash looked at Lowellin. “You will wish I had killed you. Our queen is far less gentle than I.”
He stalked toward the still form lying huddled on the ground, the other two Ichthalids following. Lowellin felt the pain ease as the ingerlings settled back down. “I may have miscalculated,” he said to no one, then followed. He’d of course expected that Fen would try to intervene once they caught up to the girl, and he’d planned to restrain him. But Fen had surprised him. The boy was stronger than he’d expected.
Or perhaps he’d allowed Fen to surprise him. He wasn’t entirely sure on that point. Fen wasn’t the only one who’d spied on the Ichthalids the night they summoned their queen. After what he’d seen, he had to admit that he felt a lot more doubtful about the Ichthalids’ claim that once they freed her they would leave this world and go away. Since then he’d been somewhat less interested in helping them acquire the key. If the Queen of Chaos devoured this world, what would become of him? Where would he live?
The girl looked very small, lying huddled on the ground. It was hard to imagine one so small had fought so hard. Would she and the other two have been able to defeat the Ichthalids if she’d been near the sea, where her power was greatest? Lowellin wondered. Not that it mattered now.
S’nash bent over the girl, fished out the last piece of the key, and ripped it from around her neck. Gripping it in one fist, he stood and held it up. It shone like the blood of a dying world. From a pouch at his waist he took the other two fragments.
“Finally, after so long, the Queen of Chaos will be free once again,” Gnath said.
S’nash pressed the piece against the other two. It snapped into place with an audible click.
Ruby-red light flared from the completed key, and it began to hum.
The End
The story concludes in
Power Forged
(available soon)
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About The author
Born in 1965, I grew up on a working cattle ranch in the desert thirty miles from Wickenburg, Arizona, which at that time was exactly the middle of nowhere. Work, cactus and heat were plentiful, forms of recreation were not. The TV got two channels when it wanted to, and only in the evening after someone hand cranked the balky diesel generator to life. All of which meant that my primary form of escape was reading.
At 18 I escaped to Tucson where I attended the University of Arizona. A number of fruitless attempts at productive majors followed, none of which stuck. Discovering I liked writing, I tried journalism two separate times, but had to drop it when I realized that I had no intention of conducting interviews with actual people but preferred simply making them up.
After graduating with a degree in Creative Writing in 1989, I backpacked Europe with a friend and caught the travel bug. With no meaningful job prospects, I hitchhiked around the U.S. for a while then went back to school to learn to be a high school English teacher. I got a teaching job right out of school in the middle of the year. The job lasted exactly one semester, or until I received my summer pay and realized I actually had money to continue backpacking.
The next stop was Australia, where I hoped to spend six months, working wherever I could, then a few months in New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands. However, my plans changed irrevocably when I met a lovely Swiss woman, Claudia, in Alice Springs. Undoubtedly swept away by my lack of a job or real futur
e, she agreed to allow me to follow her back to Switzerland where, a few months later, she gave up her job to continue traveling with me. Over the next couple years we backpacked the U.S., Eastern Europe and Australia/New Zealand, before marrying and settling in the mountains of Colorado, in a small town called Salida.
In Colorado we started our own electronics business (because, you know, my Creative Writing background totally prepared me for installing home theater systems), and had a couple of sons, Dylan and Daniel. In 2005 we shut the business down and moved back to Tucson where we currently live.
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SHADOW HUNTED
Book Five of
Chaos and Retribution
by
Eric T Knight
Copyright © 2018 by Eric T Knight
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover by:
Deranged Doctor Design
Shadow Hunted Page 38