Absence: Mist and Shadow by J.B. Forsyth

Author:J.B. Forsyth [Forsyth, J.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-01T22:00:00+00:00

Meld

Kass hobbled after the guard, calling upon him several times to slow down. For the most part the citizens of Irongate were locked tight in their homes and only the weak light that shone out from the edges of their doors and the corners of their windows gave them away. The shops and taverns were completely dark and their black windows seemed to gobble their reflections as they streaked by. Near the market quarter the smell of smoke strengthened and they were soon passing rows of burnt out houses. Distant shouting amplified with every step and before long they could hear smashing glass and splintering wood.

He arrived at the old barracks to find it awash with lamplight and teeming with the dispossessed. The drill square out front had been appropriated by the Trader’s Guild many years ago and furnished with dozens of makeshift markets stalls. Many of these were now part of a ramshackle structure that had been erected next to the barracks to accommodate those who couldn’t fit inside. There were perhaps sixty people in the square now and to a man they were frozen in place with their heads tipped back; all looking at an enormous spirit. It had been revealed by dozens of fieraks and they were buzzing around it excitedly, feeding on its energy.

The spirit’s face was gaunt and feverish and its skull deformed; covered with knuckles of bone that had ripped through its hairless scalp. Supporting its head and in sharp contrast to its emaciated face was a thick neck and a set of broad shoulders that tapered away to a snaking body of spectral smoke and flame. If the spirit really belonged to one of the fifteen exorcists Izle took into the Wilderness, he had changed so much he was unrecognisable.

In one clawed hand it held a man by the ankles. The man’s features were bludgeoned to a pulp and his body kinked by a myriad of fractures that made him hang like dough. Kass stared at this vaguely human form with horror, realising only when he spotted a pulsing mist stone that it was Djin. The spirit had used him to smash the market up and in all likelihood, a loud crack he had heard before turning onto the square had been his skull, impacting one of the broken stalls.

Lord Beredrim and a dozen city guards were braced shoulder to shoulder; their weapons raised instinctively, but uselessly against it. Hayhas stood in front of them and as he approached he could feel his draw. It was a respectable draw for a veteran, but it was having little effect. The spirit was rippling under its influence, but it remained fixed in place.

‘Shut down your degenerative draw old man,’ it roared in a voice like distant thunder, ‘and send for Kass Riole.’

Kass pushed his way through the crowd. ‘No need. I am here!’

The spirit’s eyes widened with glee. It threw Djin’s broken body over its shoulder and swatted Hayhas away with a contemptuous backhand, sending him crashing into a stack of boxes.

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