An Echo Through The Veil (The Price of Magic Book 4) by Bonnie Wynne

Author:Bonnie Wynne [Wynne, Bonnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Talem Press
Published: 2022-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

FALLEN KINGDOM

The rocks and soil had come alive to swallow the Shatsese guard squadron.

That was Gwyn’s first impression. The figures locked in combat with the guards looked like nothing so much as lumps of misshapen rock, grey and brown and mottled. She caught flashes of tattered cloth, of clumps that might have been ferns or seaweed or … hair?

Realisation came, riding on the back of pure terror. The attackers weren’t made of mud and dirt. They were covered in it. And underneath … human.

Or they had been.

The nearest demon must have sensed her, or scented her. It spun, hissing, milk-white eyes staring in its half-rotted skull. Forgetting the guards, it lunged at her.

Gwyn snatched at the vim – but of course, she was still chained. Only darkness answered.

Before she could do more than shout and stumble back, Lucian was there, bounding ahead of her. He had no weapon, and his hands were bound in the guards’ rope. But his full-bodied kick caught the dead thing square in the face. Flesh squelched, crunched, and the demon let out a gurgling scream before a guard’s whirling sword claimed its head.

No time to think. Another guard lay just outside the ring of torchlight, eyes wide and staring at the sky. Something had torn his left cheek clean off, and white molars winked in the red ruin of his face.

Fighting her rising gorge, Gwyn grabbed his sword from where it had fallen. The pommel was slick with blood and gore, and the weight felt odd and wrong in her hands; much heavier than the practice sword she’d used with Alcide.

She turned back to Lucian. And though they could no longer communicate mind-to-mind as they once had, he seemed to know what she was thinking, because he already held his hands extended, presenting the taut length of the rope that bound them. Gritting her teeth, Gwyn hefted the sword and swung. His hands sprang free, and in an instant, he grabbed another fallen sword and turned to face the attackers.

They were everywhere. Dozens … No, hundreds of dead. Even as Gwyn watched, more poured down the flanks of the hills, out of the tree line. Some ran; others, too decayed, dragged themselves on their stumps and exposed bones.

The Shatsese burn their dead, Gwyn thought wildly. This was the one place this shouldn’t have happened – couldn’t have happened. Where had they come from?

Out of the mountains …

Suddenly, she was back in the emissary’s sitting room, watching Eoghan as he stared into the cold fireplace.

My tribe – the Keleph – were attacked by the Neremet-jur a few months ago. Their tribe was bigger, their necromancer stronger, and I barely escaped with my life.

A demon leaped for her throat, and Gwyn, lost in memory, barely had time to raise her sword and bat it away. With her hands still bound by the silver shackles, what should have been a killing blow merely snicked off a slice of its ear and scalp. Wet flash splatted onto the cobbled road.

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