Christopher Golden & Thomas E. Sniegoski - Outcast 04 by Wurm War

Author:Wurm War [War, Wurm]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-01-07T12:57:11+00:00

Black smoke rose from the ruins of the settlement of the Lake Dwellers, drifting across the sky like the dying exhalations of a thunderstorm. The stilted huts that had been built rising up out of the lake had burned and collapsed into the water, leaving charred posts jutting from the surface. Of the houses that lined the lake, however, nothing remained but embers and smoke.

And most of the Lake Dwellers were little more than ash and bone.

Grimshaw stood on the lakeshore and stared at the smoking ruin, much of it still glowing with dying fire. Perhaps two dozen Wurm flew overhead, circling the lake and the destroyed settlement. Raptus had sent at least that number north and westward as scouts. The rest of his army were spread out around the lake. Some of them were bathing in the water, some were resting, some were simply talking low among themselves about their triumphant march across Sunderland.

The others were herding prisoners.

The Lake Dwellers who had been in the water or on the shore at the time of the attack had escaped the immolation of those who had been indoors and had suffered the rain of fire from the Wurm. Some of them had tried to fight. Those had been attacked more directly. The Wurm all had rudimentary magic, and the Lake Dwellers were no more skilled, but when the dragonkin swooped down from the skies with their jaws wide and talons slashing, the Lake Dwellers had stood no chance. It had been a massacre.

The few Wurm sorcerers had remained in the sky, watching over the entire proceedings, as though they wished to conserve their strength for more important battles ahead. It was good strategy. Precisely what Grimshaw would have done.

But he would not have slaughtered the Lake Dwellers. They had been his allies and faithful servants of Alhazred. He looked forward to seeing the same sort of carnage visited upon the Parliament of Mages, even the entire city of Arcanum. The fools had betrayed him and succumbed to the influence of the accursed Timothy Cade.

The stump of his severed arm itched. The magic that he could manifest into a new arm, a purplish black tentacle of arcane power, always made the scar tissue there tingle. The Parliament had stood by and watched the Wurm, Verlis, bite that arm off at the command of the Cade boy, and they had done nothing. Grimshaw had been the one punished.

He wanted vengeance on them for the insult and for their stupidity. But he had never wished for his allies by the lake to come to an end as horrible as this. Grimshaw set his jaw, grinding his teeth, as he watched the remaining Lake Dwellers pushed together in a group in the midst of the carnage and wreckage of their encampment. The Wurm seemed to be enjoying their role as shepherds, belching gouts of fire or slicing the air with their talons if any of the Lake Dwellers tried to resist.

Out on the lake, perched on a charred and blackened beam from the home of the Lake Dwellers’ chief, was General Raptus.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.