Lord of Vengeance by Thomas Cardin

Author:Thomas Cardin [Cardin, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: DeadPixel Publications
Published: 2013-03-27T13:00:00+00:00

chapter 11

ANATHEMA TO LIFE

Last Day of the Moon of the Thief

-upon the Vestral Sea

Lorace met the eyes of his wife, then wrapped his arms and spirit around her. “I hide us from whatever it is that guides the blight. Possibly, it is the Devourer, but I am not sure. It is behaving intelligently, withdrawing from our light and staying clear. I spent time last night watching and studying its movements, and I saw something else that I thought it best to obscure us from.”

Iris frowned. “What is it?”

“Birds,” Lorace answered. “Thousands and thousands of birds warped and twisted into flying horrors by the blight. It rounds them up into an enormous black flock and I believe it means to set them upon us.”

“The blight controls them?” Iris’s eyes grew huge. “It does not just kill what it touches?”

“Yes and no,” Lorace answered, sharing his tranquility until her alarm soothed away. Be calm, my love. “I do not think the birds still live. They move and fly now, animated by the blight as the dead were. Their eyes glow with a baleful intelligence and their feathers have become scaled and hooked. I am certain that a similar change has overcome every living creature the blight has descended upon. It is building an army of everything that once lived on Ousenar.”

Iris rose to her feet. “I think we should share what you have seen.”

They joined their comrades at the bow where he described the flock of monstrous birds again.

“It still appears to be holding its position over Ousenar,” Lorace concluded.

Oen frowned. “I cannot believe that is all it does. There is malevolence to its darkness. Share your sight of it with Lehan that we may benefit from his gift.”

Lorace nodded and reached out to Lehan’s deep violet spirit. He opened up his sight to an encompassing view of the blight’s entirety from high above. Lehan cringed at the black mass of vile spirit. The priest’s eyes narrowed as he focused his truth seeking gift, but he immediately shuddered and fell back.

The bite of pain flashed back through Lorace’s link, bringing gasps and jolted cries all around before he could pull away. He ducked in apology as they shook the residual crawling sting from their limbs. “That is what happened to me when I tried to push on the blight. Just looking at it seems to be safe, but we have to be wary of any other contact.”

Oen clasped his brother’s hand. “Could you tell anything at all?”

Lehan’s eyes rolled wide and he lurched toward the bow to bend over the rail. “The blight watches us,” he said. “It knows exactly where we are.”

Iris groaned as she too looked over the rail, “Whatever you do, do not land us in that.”

The sea below them was a boiling mass of black fish-like shapes swiftly keeping pace with them just below the surface of the dull gray sea.

Lorace shared his sight again and lowered his awareness down into the sickly teaming depths. Fish, serpents, and large tentacled creatures from the depths swarmed beyond counting.

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