He took the crooked piece of dried wood he had been using for a temporary staff and struck the block soundly on the side, near the shoulder of the figure frozen within.
A vein shot up from the place where the wood had hit. Another ran to the side, and a third whipped around to the front. As the watcher stepped back, the veins multiplied, spreading all over. Within moments, the entire block was scarred and veined.
He raised the staff and hit the first exact spot again.
The block shattered. The Grand Khan Golgren’s body dropped limply to the rough ground. It bounced without mercy onto the rocks, finally rolled onto its back, and lay still.
The shaman Sarth hobbled over to the Grand Khan’s body. He pressed the end of the wood against the stab wound, which immediately began to heal. He then set down his makeshift staff and removed from his kilt the dagger that had been sheathed there. Reaching into Golgren’s tunic, he pulled free the half-breed’s original, mummified hand. Sarth placed the relic on top of Golgren’s chest and set both other hands atop the severed one.
The ancient ogre drew a pattern consisting of circles within circles over the hands. He gently moved aside the left hand and perfectly aligned the two right ones.
Sarth took up the dagger. Testing the edge, he muttered a few words of power before acting.
Golgren screamed. His eyes opened as wide as shields. He stared at his new right hand, which lay sprawled on the ground next to the mummified one.
Even as the half-breed drank in the horrific sight, Sarth took a piece of green-stained cloth from a small pouch he had carried with him and wrapped the end of the stump with it.
Golgren slowly registered the sight of the shaman. “You! Why?”
“Have you seen the blood?” the old ogre calmly asked in Common. “Ke?”
“Ke. Yes … No.”
The half-breed’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed. Neither the stump nor the freshly cut appendage showed any signs of bleeding. Indeed, at the frayed wrist of the hand, there was flesh, sinew, and bone, but no blood, no moisture at all.
“The gifts of the gods must always be questioned,” Sarth muttered, rubbing the tip of his dagger in the dirt even though it was devoid of even the slightest drop of blood. “To see if they are gifts after all.”
“My hand!” Golgren rasped. He grabbed with his left hand for the mummified one.
Sarth watched him replace the lost appendage under his tunic. “To possess is not to own.”
The shaman drew a jagged pattern over the other severed hand. As Golgren watched, the hand shriveled, its fingers folding inward. The appendage continued to dry up, turning crisp.
Sarth brought a bony fist down on it. The hand shattered, the dust left by it suddenly blowing away until nothing remained.
Memories slowly returned to Golgren. He leaped to his feet, turning in search of Safrag and the gargoyles. And the Fire Rose.
“Var inu,” responded the withered ogre. “All gone. Gone long.”
“How long?”
The shaman shrugged. “They are gone.”
Golgren gazed at the landscape, thinking of something else. “Idaria.”
“Trails that must cross will cross, trails that must not will not.”
Sarth’s remark caused Golgren to focus on him as he never had before. “Sarth speaks much and speaks well. Sarth also comes to a place where Sarth would not be expected to be found.” He leaned down, his face very close to that of the shaman’s. “How is it that Sarth comes to be in the vale?”
“How does Sirrion light the sun?” asked the elder ogre casually as he rose. “How does the unborn one survive being born?”
Through glittering emerald eyes, Golgren studied his newly maimed limb. “He does because that is what he does.” After a moment’s more consideration, the half-breed looked back to Sarth. “He-”
The shaman was gone.
Golgren evinced no surprise. He looked around, but although there was no possible manner by which Sarth could have so quickly left his sight, the elderly ogre was gone.
Something caught Golgren’s attention. There were images scratched into the ground, images that could only have been put there by Sarth.
There were three. One was a sun. Below it was a horned symbol that he at first took for an Uruv Suurt, but that he realized was some other creature.
The third could only be the Fire Rose.
The half-breed briefly bared his teeth. One foot shoved dirt over the images, though the images themselves were already burned into his mind. Golgren forgot very little; remembering helped him survive.
“I am tired of games,” he muttered to the empty air. “Tired of yours, Sarth, and of the Titans’. Tired also of those of the gods, and tired of my own.” Golgren bared his teeth again. “And so I shall put an end to all the games, yes. I will take the Fire Rose from Safrag, and I will use it but once more, to rid the ogre race of the sorcerers, gargoyles, and all else in my path.” The Grand Khan raised his maimed limb, admiring its awful appearance. “And even with one hand, if it must be.”
Something drew his attention back to the images he had covered. Golgren’s brow furrowed as one registered. Somehow, its details had escaped his gaze when he had inspected the other two.
It was a tree. He recalled another image of a tree, one that was part of a beautiful, intricate tapestry that hung in the palace. The tapestry had been part of the spoils from Silvanost. Golgren recalled the name for that particular tree, even though he had only seen a real one once, long ago, when in the conquered elf realm. An oak.
“My Idaria,” he murmured thoughtfully.
As he looked up from the drawing, he caught a glimpse of something within the mountains beyond: a single gargoyle descending.
With only his well-honed wits and his one hand as available weapons, the half-breed started for the mountains.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-3ae3f2-7b72-9640-ee8d-97f3-5f44-8ac4f7
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 28.04.2013
Created using: calibre 0.9.24, Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6.6 software
Document authors :
Richard A. Knaak
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The Fire Rose ot-2 Page 30