Shadow Born by Martin Frowd

Author:Martin Frowd
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2019-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

TEN: THE NULL ZONE

Glaraz Vordakan strode onto the path that led down into the null zone where the primitives had taken the boy, Zarynn. Battered, bruised and weary after the fight with the lion-Druid and his minions, the necromancer limped as he moved but his determination pushed him onward. Soaked to the skin by the Druid’s weather magic, he squelched with every step, which did nothing to improve his sour mood. Though the rain was gone and the silver moon had reappeared from behind the cloud cover, providing a glimmer of illumination in the dark night sky to light his way, he was still waterlogged and covered in mud. His robes and boots alike felt unusually stiff and heavy, encumbering him as he moved. The Druid’s summoned storm had evidently been confined to the burial mound on which they had battled, for the path was still dry dirt and gravel. This small mercy at least meant he was no longer slipping and sliding in mud as he had been on the slope above.

As he walked, the necromancer took a quick inventory of himself. Though he would likely be bruised and sore for some days to come, his earthbone wards had largely protected him from the most serious harm, making him impervious to spears, claws and teeth during his recent battle and the several skirmishes that had preceded it as he tracked the boy Zarynn. The Druid’s conjured lightning strikes, which had served so effectively against Glaraz’s skeleton and zombie minions, had left the necromancer himself untouched. Was it coincidence, or design? Perhaps the Druid had intended, or hoped, to take him alive.

Patting himself down carefully as he advanced, Glaraz concluded with relief that although his robes were a sodden, mud-streaked mess, all of his pockets remained securely fastened, their contents remarkably undisturbed. The thin iron plates of his belt appeared dented, no doubt from the impact with the Druid in his lion form, but his pouches and flasks remained attached and intact.

Selecting and detaching one metal flask from his belt, the necromancer used his already filthy robe to wipe away the mud, checking the runic symbol on one side of the flask to confirm that it was the correct one before removing the stopper and downing the contents. The alchemical potion blended into a double measure of Rathgar’s dwarven whisky burned like liquid fire as it went down, but the effect was swift and potent. Not a healing draught, as such, but the potion inured him to further pain and fatigue, and granted him a temporary boost to his stamina, speed and reaction times, although he knew he would pay later.

Delving into the pockets of his mud-covered robe, Glaraz extracted a pair of wands. One appeared, to the mundane eye, to be simply a large bone, the length of his forearm. The other one shared the same size, but was a smooth, polished cylinder of pale brown wood, chased with copper wire. Both appeared, to the necromancer’s relief, to be undamaged following his earlier fights.

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