Fire and Ice
Page 16
The boy suddenly let out a cry of pain and fell forward onto his hands and knees. Scorching burns immediately blistered along his skin.
“Oh, curses,” Gerathon hissed, a weirdly calm voice coming out of a face contorted with agony. “This pathetic little costume isn’t going to be much use to me for much longer. Perhaps I should call back his buzzard to carry him away.”
“Ah,” Kovo said. “That’s how you got him up here.”
“Yes. We chose the smallest human and bonded him with the Bile to a giant bird,” she answered. Kovo squinted at the sky and saw large wings circling — not Halawir’s, for once.
The boy collapsed completely, and the sizzling smell of burning hair filled the air. “Ah, well,” Gerathon went on, “this one’s almost dead. How boring of him. I suppose this is good-bye for now, Kovo.”
“Wait,” he growled, clutching at the antlers. “How much longer will I be stuck in here?”
“Next time I see you,” she hissed, her voice fading as the boy’s eyes closed and the life drained from his body, “we will both be free.
“And then . . . all of Erdas will be ours.”
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Map illustration by Michael Walton Conqueror
dummy art by Erika Scipione
Cover design by SJI Associates, Inc. and Keirsten Geise
First edition, July 2014
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