Realmgate Wars Omnibus: Volume 2 by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-25T08:26:22+00:00

CHAPTER THREE

The Manticore Dreadhold

They said goodbye to their dead upon the dawn. There was little ritual to speak of; a score of tribespeople slain in the raid were carried out of the town to a cluster of flat-topped rocks stained a vibrant green with moss and lichen. While several of the elders droned a deep, sonorous prayer, the bodies were laid gently upon the stone, hands crossed over their hearts and eyes open towards the sky.

As the funeral party made their way back to town, the carrion birds began to descend, in a flock thick enough to blot out the early morning sun. They whirled and circled, a murmuration of black and grey specks that was oddly beautiful despite its predatory intent.

‘There’s a savage sort of poetry to it,’ said Knight-Heraldor Axilon, glancing back. ‘Though I’m not sure I would choose to be devoured by crows upon my death.’

‘Death feeds life,’ said Alzheer, priestess of the Sky Seekers. She still wore her leather armour, and carried a curved blade at her hip. ‘We return our bodies to the sky, and begin the circle anew.’

‘I am sorry for your losses,’ said Lord-Celestant Mykos Argellon.

‘They would be much greater if you had not been there to defend us,’ said Alzheer. ‘We will not forget this.’

‘I wish I could promise your people more than further battle and bloodshed,’ said Mykos. ‘I wish I could say that the armies of Azyr will pour into this realm and make it safe for humanity once more, let you hunt the plains and grow your crops in peace.’

He shook his head, and lifted his war helm. It was the first time he had done so in her presence. His skin was a rich, dark black, almost perfect in complexion, unmarked at all by the many batt­les he must have fought. He had a round, boyish face, topped with a strip of shaved hair that ran down the centre of his skull.

She looked upon him, and for a moment she was surprised that she pitied him. His fight would never end, she knew. There must be uncounted realms that were equally stricken as this one, endless, shattered remnants of humanity praying desperately for relief from the long darkness. Mykos and his warriors would likely never see their task completed. How could even warriors as brave, as skilled as this defy so great an evil as the shadow that lay across the world?

‘I can only promise that the Celestial Vindicators will make our enemies pay,’ he said, and there was a fire in his voice that she had not heard before. His stark brown eyes bored into her. ‘We will seek them wherever they hide, in their fort­resses where they think themselves safe from justice. We will tear down their walls, and we will put them to the sword. They will die as their victims did, begging for a mercy I shall not grant them.’

As quickly as it had flared, his rage was gone. He blinked and swallowed, and looked almost surprised at his own vehemence.

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