Twilight was deepening
to full dark as Kachire lead his limping horse to the edge of the
village that lay just six miles west of Lindsfaran and the coast. He
did not know the name of the village and did not care.
He stopped on the road,
alone, and waited for the Dark Moon to rise.
The air was still and
cooling fast. The early stars twinkled bright in the empty sky as the
fading light failed before the onslaught of the night. His breath
misted feint tendrils as he spoke the dirge of his people, a curse
for the empty hourglass, and a prayer to the bound power he served
still.
The dark moon, both
embodiment and symbol of the binding of the dark powers of the world,
rose before he was done. He drew the sword that was the focus of his
calling. As he came to the last lines he gave salute to the Dark
Moon. He laid the blade against his forearm and allowed it to cut
him, an acknowledgement of a covenant still in force between him and
the first sword, which he alone knew he bore, a relic of the bound
power he served.
Once, before the
binding, any sword might be dedicated to the service of his fell
master, but now the power resided only here.
“I fulfilled my
contract,” he said aloud, speaking in the human tongue, knowing it
made no difference which language he used, “and the last of those
committed to your glory and honour are now dead. Only I remain.”
His head bowed with the
weight of his words.
Now I am truly alone.
He directed the thought to the sword he held.
The bronze blade seemed
to stir restlessly in his hand. Bound to this one blade, the power
struggled endlessly and in vein for the freedom that had once been.
“I am the last
mercenary,” he told the sword, sadly. “Almost the last Orc. When
I am dead, who will serve you?” Who will I curse with the gift of
you? He asked himself, silently.
Black flames flickered
fitfully along the edge of the blade and consumed the few drops of
the blood he had sacrificed. Kachire knew a minute fraction of his
soul was also consumed. He could feel it, a lingering discomfort in
his mind, heart and body.
He hissed a sigh.
Well, he thought as he
had so many times before, my soul will grow back. It is not as though
I am dying of the wound.
A dog barked and his
mount shied away from the sound. He snatched hard on the reins, to
bring the beast to heel. At the same time he looked up and scanned
the quiet village, a single row of houses with a few scattered
cottages behind. An inn on the opposite side of the road. And a
church to the empty hourglass, the god of stability.
Gone are the days of
change, he thought. Long gone. “Strange how stability feels so much
like decline.”
The horse stamped a
hoof and snorted in rebuke for his harsh treatment, but it had
obeyed. The blade stirred once more in his hand, dissatisfied by his
seeming lack of purpose.
He sheathed the blade,
careful to keep his curse from his lips. I will seek another contract
soon, he thought. Maybe the last. And maybe that was not such a
terrible thing.
He stepped forward on
the cold, deeply rutted road and lead his limping horse into the
village under the darkening sky and the rising of the dark moon.
shasqa
Without haste, he
brought the horse to the back of the inn and tied it to a hitching
post. The sounds within were only those expected, tired conversation
and forced good cheer. He ignored it as he methodically stripped the
beast of saddle, which he dumped on the back stoop. He pulled the
blanket from the beasts back and sniffed the exposed hide. He smelled
no infected sores and decided that was good enough. The beast would
carry him tomorrow as far as he needed to go, and that was all it
needed to do. If it died on the last step it matter nothing to him.
The back door of the
inn opened and a boy came out into the square of light that made
Kachire half close his eyes and curse under his breath. His night
vision was excellent but the transitions were always slow and
painful.
The boy stood gaping
and Kachire glared back at him through slitted lids. “What?” He
growled.
The boy stood rigid,
eyes wide and face pale. He stammered as he spoke. “Sorry to stare,
sir. It's just I never thought to see an Orc,” he dropped his gaze
and flushed crimson.
“Well, you'll likely
never seen another,” Kachire told him without malice. The battle in
the north was won but it had cost him the last of his followers. Save
only himself, the Mercenary Nidus had none left to give sacrifice,
further diminishing it's already limited influence. Only his wife and
son remained, estranged though they were; she dedicated to another
waned power and the boy too young to be dedicated.
“The horse needs
tending,” he threw the blanket to his shoulder and grabbed the
saddle as he took the steps up to the stoop where the boy almost fell
in his anxious attempt to move aside as Kachire set himself to walk
through the boy of he did not move. “And the beast has thrown a
shoe,” he said as he passed. “Make arrangement for that, also.”
The boy edged away as
Kachire passed him. “I will.”
Of course you will,
Kachire thought as he crossed the threshold. That is your purpose,
just as mine to fight in other peoples wars to no gain save coin. We
do what we do, and I've no doubt you have the best of that.
The common room of the
inn was poorly lit. Two lamps hung from the ceiling and tallow
candles burned at each occupied table.
Farmers, Kachire
thought with contempt as he scanned the crowd. The room was more
empty than full, the humans clustered near the fire or the bar, each
depending on what they considered their greatest need. Every eye was
on him, each man and woman curious as to see the rare traveller and
hope for some sport from the outsider. The talk about the inn
stuttered to a stop. A curse fell on his ear in the moment before a
maid gasped and skittered back, her skirts flying, the tankers she
carried slopping beer to the floor.
Face set, Kachire swept
the room with a long glance as he took in each face and found none he
considered a meaningful threat until his attention came to rest on a
grey robe that bore the empty hourglass stitched upon its breast.
Kachire was not the only one whose attention rested there. The priest
was the natural spokesman of the village of browbeaten peasants.
“Orc,” the priest
spat the word. “What is your business here?”
“Priest,” Kachire
matched the other's tone, “I travel under the emperors peace, late
from his generals army in the north beyond the wall.”
A muttering sprang up
all around, the enmity for the messenger swamped by eagerness to hear
the message.
The priest looked
around him, judging the mood.
Kachire's lips thinned.
Despite the ancient edict of the first emperor, supported by every
successor, he was well used to the prejudice of humans. He had soaked
up their hatred and despite for a lifetime, even as he fought in
their wars. It was his nature to fight, and theirs to be ungrateful.
Once, when the Dark
Lord was manifest in the world, we slaughtered your kind in untold
numbers. He fought back a small smile. And by your request, he
thought, we continued to do so, and were paid for it.
The urge to smile faded
as he remembered the recent dead, and all the rest before. In all the
empire only three remained. Himself, she who had been wife, and his
son.
“As you stand here,”
the priest spoke, commanding the attention of the room, “the war is
either won or you are a deserter. Which is it?”
Kachire gave a snort of
derision and strode toward the bar. Men shifted to make way for him.
“Your war is won,”
he told the priest, “to great slaughter of the northmen. The
general marches south along the west coast,” he went on as he
pointed to a barrel, reminding the barman of his duty, “and it is
his plan to leave the isles and take with him one division of the
three that were stationed here.”
“The sands preserve
us,” the innkeeper muttered, his low voice all but drowned by the
hissing intakes of breath and subdued mutters of the rest.
Kachire drank in their
discomfort like a fine wine. The emperor's man had come with five
divisions. He had gathered the three stationed here, and what men he
could raise, and had put down the enemy in the north. But now the war
was done, he would leave the isles less well defended than they had
been before.
The innkeeper put a
full tankard on the bar and Kachire took it up, gave it a testing
sniff, and took a deep swallow.
“And is he taking the
rest of your kind with him?” The priest inquired, his tone torn
between contempt and hope.
Kachire swallowed. “My
people were in the thick of the fighting, as we always are,” he
remembered the human reserves holding off until he and his were
nearly overwhelmed. “I am the last.”
“Praise the invisible
sands,” the preist intoned, “that creatures of cursed magic pass
more from the world.”
Kachire snorted.
“Except the elves,” he muttered, knowing that truth would burn
the priest almost as much as it enraged him.
“Their immortality is
an affront to the invisible sands,” the priest sputtered, almost
purple with rage.
“And to me,”
Kachire muttered into his drink.
When light and dark had
battled in the world, before the binding of all powers, the elves had
always been for the light. And my kind for the dark, Kachire thought,
his blood stirring with primitive delight at the carnage wrought in
the ancient Dark Lord's name.
If only those times
would come again, he thought as he turned to survey the crowd of
humans and their mealy mouth spokesman. I would joyfully draw my
sacred blade and slaughter every man woman and child here. His blood
sang and he felt the blade stir to the borders of wakefulness in his
own mind.
It was an effort of
will to force his rising blood to discipline.
No coin has changed
hands, he thought, his words as much to himself as the bound mind of
the blade. We are not hired to let blood. He took control of himself
with an iron grip. No contract is made, no cause adopted. He felt
himself return to calm. No humans will die by your edge today. Or by
my hand.
“I will need a room,”
he said.
“No rooms free,”
the innkeeper said, too quickly, “but you can lie down in the barn
with the beasts if you've a mind to.”
The other beasts,
Kachire thought, saying to himself what the innkeeper was to much of
a coward to say.
In the almost mythical
past, it was said the Dark Lord paid the best coin. No wonder we
followed him, Kachire's resentful thoughts flowed on. The Dark Lord
did not discriminate. He would take any who obeyed him.
And I, Kachire thought
as he downed the ale, will follow anyone who pays.
He turned and glared a
challenge at the innkeeper. “And do you suddenly find you have run
out of food?”
The barkeep flushed
angrily and met Kachire's glare with one of his own. “I obey the
emperors law,” he spoke between compressed lips, “and won't have
it said I don't.”
“Of course,”
Kachire grinned. “We are all good citizens who obey the emperor's
laws.”
There was no need to
speak of price. The prices of everything were fixed across length and
breadth the empire and known to all. The innkeeper would charge five
tokens because to charge more brought the death penalty for both
seller and buyer.
Kachire took another
beer and moved to stand at the end of the bar where he could watch
the food prepared through the open door in the kitchen beyond. He did
this to avoid the indignity of eating human spit added to the food
without his knowledge. It would be thin and flavourless enough
without that. He ran his tongue of pointed teeth and swallowed saliva
of his own, anticipating the food as the scents of it's preparation
filled the air. It might be cooked where he would prefer raw, but the
meat was still meat and his hunger would still be sated.
As he waited, the talk
in the bar resumed. Men drifted further away from the bar. The woman
left, taking their half grown brats with them, each with a
subservient word for the priest as they headed for the door.
“By the empty
hourglass,” Kachire heard one man mutter from across the room,
“I'll not stay her and drink with a filthy Orc.”
Kachire judged that the
man spoke softly enough that he was no supposed to hear. The
emperor's peace bound them all, and the priest was here as witness.
Aside from which, Kachire thought fiercly, the emperor's laws permit
a citizen such as myself the liberty of self defence. He cleared his
throat, caught the eye the man who had spoken. Kachire leaned forward
and deliberately spat on the floor.
“At the battle of
Shensar's Crossing, I was in the thick of the fighting,” he said
aloud, as though relating news still. “I slew sixty three men of
the north in the hours of the battle.” He grinned. “I counted.”
And dedicated each soul to the blade I bare and so that they might
feed the bound power it represents, he thought but did not say. “It
was a mighty battle and the emperor's general was victorious,” he
raised his tankard high, “will you not drink with me to the health
of the emperor and his victorious general?”
Kachire grinned to
display the teeth of a carnivore and watched the reluctance to drink
with him war with the knowledge that not to drink the health of the
emperor was treason. Reluctantly they all raised their glasses. The
chorus came out as a subdued mutter. “To the emperor,” they said,
each trying to speak more softly than the next, each trying to take a
smaller sip than his fellow.
Kachire took a good
deep draft of his beer, warmed by the disharmony he had sowed.
He ignored the glares
and mutterings as men drank up and left in two's and threes, paying
attention only to the food that was brought to him.
Only the innkeeper, the
priest and he remained in the room while he ate. He wolfed the food
down, not bothering to chew the stewed meat and trying to ignored the
sliced vegetables that tainted the stew.
The priest grew
increasingly uncomfortable, but at last pushed out the words that he
had been debating. “You are not remaining here.”
Kachire interpreted his
words, knowing they were in themselves meaningless. Of course he was
not staying here. He was an Orc, a mercenary by definition. He would
hardly seek work for his blade in a village. So what the priest
meant, Kachire reasoned, was to ask where he was going.
“I travel to
Lindsfaran,” he gave the truth simply to expedite matters. “Why
do you ask?”
The priest bore down on
his distaste to have his intent be shown to be so transparent. “Dare
I trust you with a message?”
Kachire snorted his
contempt. “Pay me as a messenger and I will take your message.”
Though if someone paid me to sever your head from your body I would
more gladly do that.
“I will write a
letter tonight then, and have it brought to you.”
Kachire shrugged. “And
who am I to deliver this message to?”
The priest frowned as
though reluctant to give that information. “There is a Rangian
trader in the port at Lindsfaran,” he said. “I hear rumour that
he holds relics that belong to the church. I inquire about them,”
he stood as he spoke, “nothing more.”
Kachire stared at the
back of the priest as the old man walked stiffly to the door. You, he
thought, are lying. And I can't help wondering why. Six miles is not
far to send a message and anyone who travelled that way would bare
it. And there ae priests at Lindsfaran who would have hear the rumour
before you and already acted on it.
He resisted the urge to
spit on the floor again. Instead he turned his back and drained his
ale, taking his time so that when he was done the priest was gone.
The innkeeper feigned
to be busy about his tasks so that he would not have to talk.
Kachire gave a soft
snort of disgust as he counted out the tokens and left them on the
bar.
Without a word spoken,
he headed for the door, snagged his saddle and bags as he went.
Alone, he crossed the
yard to the barn and went in to find a place to sleep among the
beasts.
The other beasts, he
amended with a savage grin. Well, in some ways they were not wrong
about that.
#3000 – night,
message (you're a mercenary (The Merc', you might call me the King of
the mercs if you've a mind to be blasphemous, which is why I only say
you might call me that.
Kachire slept in the
hay loft, almost full after the harvest and offering little room for
him. He woke without need three times in the night. He slept with a
warrior's ease. Asleep in moments and fully awake in an instant,
without vexation at the interruption. In an unfamiliar place there
were more unexpected noises to bring to wakefulness. Better that than
that he not awaken at need.
The forth time his eyes
opened, he cast around for what had woken him and found the creak of
a door in recent memory.
He held himself still
and listened. A slight smile creased is face as he heard the nervous
whispering.
Boys, he thought. It
was always the boys, who had not yet learned true fear, who dared
each other to brave an encounter with the frightening Orc, scourge of
the eastern empire, embodiment of stories out of a nightmare past and
a distant present. Kachire had a boy child of his own and had been a
child himself. He knew what they wanted; to be frightened. Well, he
was happy to oblige, though he would have been happier to be truly
and briefly terrifying.
He listened to the
noises of the barn. The mule and cart horses and his own mount move
and shift in their stalls. He timed his small movements to blend with
theirs. Cooled muscles still supple, rested joints still agile, he
shifted bit by bit until he came to his feet.
As he moved he kept
awareness focused on the twittering whispers of the boys below. He
picked out the odd phrase. Go on, one said. He's not here, whispered
another.
He looked down. The
barn door was open, pale light from the natural moon splashed through
the entrance and he picked out the five small bodies effortlessly,
his eyes fully adjusted to the dark. It might as well have been just
a few moments before dawn for all the dark could hide things from
him.
He shifted along a
wooden beam, closing on a position above the open door. The boys
milled hesitantly, edging further into what they surely saw as a
darkened space.
“You lied,” one
hissed. “He was never here.”
“Swear by the empty
hourglass,” one hissed back. “Priest gave me a message for him to
take to town.”
Another snorted in
derision, but softly, keeping his voice to a whisper. “You made
that up too. What call would priest have to do that? Plenty of real
people to take a message.”
Why indeed? Kachire
though as he eased a knife from his belt. Not the sword. He
successfully fought that temptation. To release the sword was the
promise of a sacrament, and not to deliver would be a betrayal that
would later be repaid in full.
Kachire grinned,
shifted another foot and then dropped into the doorway.
He landed solidly after
a twenty foot fall. A man's legs might likely break but he was more
powerful than any man. His feet hit the ground with a jarring thump
that stung the soles of his feet. He bent his legs, powerful muscles
absorbing the energy of the impact.
“Why do you disturb
my sleep?” he growled, but kept his voice low enough not to carry
too far.
The boys screamed,
yelped, or gasped, each according his own nature, and scattered,
running blindly. But none came his way and there was nowhere to run
too. One ran full tilt into a wall, another tripped over a broken
open bale of hay and fell sprawling. Another stopped after a few
paces and grabbed a pitchfork.
Kachire straightened,
threw back his head and laughed. Seemingly of it's own accord, his
hand returned the knife to it's sheath at his waist as he stepped
back to be fully into the doorway. “Behold,” he intoned, “the
scary Orc of ancient nightmares!”.
The horses and the
donkey had all woken and taken fright. Kachire strode into the barn.
“Brave lad,” he said as he passed the only boy who had not
scattered with the rest. “Help me calm these beasts before we wake
the whole village and bring your parents down on us.”
His own mount jumped
and kicked in it's stall and he worried it would hurt itself and
become useless. He had money to buy another but not a horse that
would be willingly parted with for the price law required.
He ignored the boys as
they gathered their composure. He knew what they felt. A cold rush
and relief as they saw he intended them no harm, and true fear as
they realised what peril they would be in if he did.
Well, he thought, be
glad no one is paying me. Else I'd slit your throats a soon as look
at you.
His attention was
mostly focused on the animals as he calmed them. The wild barking of
a dog he could do nothing about, but dogs barked in the night and no
one who woke would likely think much of it, save it's owner perhaps.
Even though his attention was elsewhere, he did not miss the boys who
fled, their bellies light with fear and their minds full enough of
adventure for one night.
Only one remained to
help him. The boy who had not fled. He did his part and helped him
calm the animals, and when they were done and peace had returned to
the a barn, Kachire turned to the boy and waited until he had his
attention.
“You have a message
for me, I guess,” he said, “for you alone had legitimate reason
to be here and that kept you from panic.”
The boy nodded, eyes
wide and face expressionless.
“Give me the message
then,” Kachire held out his hand, “and the tokens for payment.”
Edging closer, the boy
held out a letter. “It's for Hingvist the Rangian to be found at
southgate.”
Kachire glanced at the
folded and sealed paper and read the same message there. “So I
see,” he said. “Your priest makes many assumptions.” Among them
that Orcs cannot read, and are stupid enough to believe any lie.
“Is it true you are a
mercenary?”
Kachire snorted softly.
“The Mercenary, now, and King of the Mercenaries if you like,
though that would be blasphemy, which is why I say only if you like
and not that it is so. That,” Kachire said, “is a technicality,
but I don't doubt your priest would assume I'd know not the word, any
more, as an ignorant Orc who cannot read, would I know any history.”
The boys eyes widened.
“You know about the time before the binding of the powers?”
Kachire grinned. There
wasn't a boy alive who wouldn't want to hear about the time of the
Dark Lord and the great wars that swept across the lands and the
powers of light fought a losing battle against the Dark Lord.
“Before the end of
history? Before the rise of the empire? Before the Empty Hourglass
and it's empty preaching?”
The boy gasped. “That's
sacrilege,” he whispered, enthralled.
“Don't tell me your
instincts don't put the lie to their teaching. The sun rises and
sets, the seasons change, the corn ripens and is reaped. Change is
not only part of life. Change is life. Even a rock is worn away by
the rain, broken by frost. Even mountains are slowly reduced to silt
in rivers and sands on the shore of the seas. Don't grow, don't
change, don't act lest you disturb the delicate balance and once more
fill the empty hourglass with dangerous change.” Kachire shrugged,
saw the boys eyes wide with the fear of hope. “Only a fool would
believe such ideals possible. So, if you want my advice, grow as fast
and as big as you can with every experience you can grasp, because
one day the covenant will be broken and the powers released to bring
forth a sea of change.”
“Chaos,” the boy
whispered, fearfully.
“There is nothing so
certain as change,” Kachire told him, growing bored. “It is when
things don't change that we wilt and weaken and despair. The priests
doctrine is one of the endless dark prison from which there is no
release save death. Worse than a doctrine of death, it is one of no
life first. Peace,” he spat in disgust, “you can have my share
and welcome to it. Now give me the tokens owed and go tell the priest
his message will be delivered, and remember that if you speak else to
him it will be sacrilege coming from your own lips and you will be
scourged.”
The boy twitched a nod
of his head and handed over the tokens, his hand trembling.
Kachire took the coins
and headed for the ladder that led into the loft. He paid no
attention as the boy stole reluctantly away.
A wasted effort, he
thought as he settled himself again to sleep. Still, who knew who the
boy would grow to be? If the covenant was to be broken, there must be
those willing to seek it's breaking.
Kachire closed his eyes
and drifted fast to sleep with one last thought.
Sow seeds wherever you
may. And reap likewise.
#4500
It was mid morning
before he rode out of the village, glad to put it behind him.
The smith had done a
half-arsed job of the new shoe and Kachire had growled at him angry
disgust, even knowing it was only half the ma's fault. The laws set
the price and the price was no more than the iron and the heat of the
forge cost. And the laws forbade him to abandon his profitless trade
because tools needed making and horses needed new shoes. Calling
himself a smith was a legal fiction. Kachire had seen the well tended
field behind the forge and knew the man spent more time there than at
the forge.
The road was empty of
all but local traffic. Why trade when the law as much as forbade
profit? What would a trader work for? Fun? The love of his fellow
man? Kachire leaned out of the saddle and spat on the road. He'd
meant what he'd said to the boy. The cult of Empty Hourglass was a
religion of death and worse than death, embraced by successive
emperors, to the detriment of all within the empire.
The glory of the empire
faded as barbarians migrated across her borders, pushing deep into
the civilized lands. Only Kachire knew the truth. The empire had
already become an empire of barbarians. People migrated from towns to
grow their own food, as that was the only way to survive. Wealth
declined, debt increased, trade faded, taxes fell increasingly on the
wealthy, turning them into paupers in their turn. The empire failed
and faded and would effectively die a suicides death.
As an outsider, Kachire
saw everything with more clarity than those who struggled to keep an
old dream alive without knowing what it was that powered the dream.
“Well,” he spoke
aloud to fill the silence of the road, “let the barbarians come, as
many as will, so long as the Emperor can hire me and...” he cut the
sentence off, his thoughts turned bleak. He rode on in silence and
held the finished thought in his mind where it must haunt him. Me and
mine, he had thought to say, once more forgetting that he had lost
the last of his kind.
Now there is only me.
And Rial, if I can persuade her from her chosen path and have her
join me once more. He still struggled to accept that she had left
him. Still wrestled with the impossibility that she had taken up a
focus of the light and bonded with it as he had bonded with the sword
at his side.
“If nothing else,”
he muttered, “I must persuade her to let me have my son.” There
must be someone to inherit the blade when he died. So long as the
first sellsword could sup a sacrificed soul or two then there was
hope that the Dark Lord might one day break free from the Dark Moon
and rise again. Hope for our kind, he thought, who if things
continued as they were would one day be nothing more than a memory.
Kachire found himself
growling deep in his throat, his teeth gritted against his anger and
his eyes narrowed against more than the bright light of the rising
sun. “One day we will rise again,” he whispered fiercely, “and
the empires of men will wither and fade to dust beneath our
conquering feet. The Dark Lord our glory and our saviour will lead us
to greatness and a resurgence of our kind that will shake the earth
to it's foundations.”
His vision cleared and
his anger calmed as the dream soothed him. Not far ahead a rickety
bridge crossed a narrow river and he decided to stop and drink and
let the horse drink. The animal needed plenty for water if it was to
keep a healthy gut.
He sneered at the
mundane thoughts that had briefly occupied him. One day we will rise
like a forest fire and lay waste the lands of men. Until then, he
thought, I am hired by men to kill men.
Well, things could be
worse.
He slid easily from the
saddle and lead the horse to the river so it could drink. As soon as
the animal was settled, he wandered a few paces away and sat himself
down in the shade of a tree. Some things were best done in shadow,
and with that in mind he drew the Sellsword and laid it across his
knees. Then he pulled the letter from the priest from the small
leather satchel tied to his belt. Three small pouches of tokens
rested there, but these he already understood. The letter was a
mystery, a lie of sorts, and he would know the truth of it, though
the knowledge would cost him.
Pain, he thought. I
know all about pain. All kinds and all degrees and all combinations.
This pain will be
nothing special.
He turned the blade for
ease of access to the edge and let it cut him. The blood burned and
consumed a fraction of his soul. But this time he would use the power
released for his own ends. And that would bring pain.
He shifted his hand
into the flames of the burning blood and drew them back into his
body.
He let out a low moan
as the flames ran through him, burning every cell of his body and
sweeping pain throughout his mind. Fighting to concentrate, he held
up the letter and demanded clarity of vision, demanded the message
hidden within reveal itself. Sweat beaded his brow and his body began
to shiver with the effort of drawing the power through the blade
fuelled with his blood and soul. For an unknown time he struggled and
fought the resisting distant power to respond, pain washing though
his mind and body and muscles and mind trembling with the effort. He
gasped deep breaths as though he had fought endless foes to his own
exhaustion. His body trembled and weakened. And still the pain, the
endless pain burning. His resolve began to waver and for a moment he
thought he might fail as he had once before. The idea was intolerable
and his anger held him focused to the demand, the demand that the
message become clear and visible to is sight even as his vision
dimmed as he began to edge toward unconsciousness.
A brief flash of
ethereal flame danced across the surface of the paper and was gone.
He released the blade
at once and the pain faded away in moments. His breathing eased and
his muscles slowly relaxed. Hot sweat abruptly cooled as the breeze
washed over him. He fixed the message in his memory in the moments
before his mind slipped away from his control and he fell into
welcome unconsciousness.
#
This is a snippet from a fairly advanced draft, but this book is on hold for now, while I struggle with the next Sumto book (the word count rises and falls daily and is not yet advanced enough that I dare guess at a release date) and while I struggle with promotion of the newly released The King's Ward and other works. No one ever bought a book they didn't know existed.
I have this story, but worry that it is going to be very dark indeed. Anyone who has read Prison of Power knows that I can do dark, but this one is going to be seriously grim. I'm not sure about the market for that. In any case, it is on hold for the reasons states... unless lots of readers say otherwise. Feel free to have your say in comments.
