Shadowdeath Wind: Episodes & Excursions: Book 1 by Dan Edelman

Author:Dan Edelman [Edelman, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JChris Publishing LLC
Published: 2024-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

SEVEN

“Fuck me with Future’s steel prick, I still can’t believe it.”

The Emerald Trail was a tan band, waggling eastward through the forest, which spread north and south, a velvety blanket that dwindled to nap and tufts before giving way to the brutal starkness of the Fracture. From that new height, the Fracture’s name was writ large in the scarred faults and volcanic ruins that tumbled out to the horizon. To the west, they could see the wispy dust tail of the Grisail traveling toward the steep switchbacking canyons of Tom’s Key. Below them a churlish sheet of steaming brown water curled like a plantain, further disturbed by a white geyser pumping skyward at one end and at the other, a twisted monolith, spitting flame up its length in furious corkscrews.

“Such poetry, Gallowglass, truly captures the magnificence of Ronan’s work.”

Gallowglass favored Rissa with a blistering glare at which she smiled like a bird-fed cat.

“It’ll take us most of the day to get down,” Orlèan said. “We should leave now and ride through the night.”

“Is Ronan up to it?”

“You can ask me, Rissa,” Ronan said from atop Vampyr, where, instead of the new vista, he watched the three of them. His already-ravaged head and jaw throbbed from his fall, but the disturbing, buzzing headache and queer disorientation had faded, leaving him exhausted. Leaving him trembling. The Telluron, however, continued its heated and irritating drone, singing in Gallowglass’ argenta weaponry.

“I know, I know, it’s just that you are not well.”

“I’m well enough,” he said, though his every muscle felt as if it were trying to take flight, and a black, anxious mood had descended on him. The shaking did not seem to be abating despite Orlèan’s promise. As one of the Sacred, Ronan had grown up around the Witch’s Shiver; it was, for many witches, a natural death. Right now, he quaked like a witch in the final throes of the malady. It took years, not moments, of working the Form to be so stricken. But then, he had just raised a mountain.

The ground continued to quiver and sway, a motion everyone now felt; whether it was the land’s instability or its attempt to stabilize, he didn’t know. So much he didn’t know. He leaned on the pommel of Taylor’s sword, sheathed in a saddle scabbard, and eyed the purple lump on his hand where a falling stone had struck it.

Nowhere in the lore could he recall such a feat; Rissa had found nothing in Grisail Memory. It elated him, frightened him, made him hungry for more, and sick to think about it.

“Well enough?” Orlèan said, smirk flying high. “Let’s go.”

“We must first name this… this place,” Gallowglass said. He leaned too, on a crooked staff fashioned from a tree limb. A small boulder had rolled over his ankle.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“No, Orlèan,” Rissa said, “Jons’ right, such magic is worthy of recognition.”

“Brilliant, so the four of us will know what this monstrosity is called.”

“You need to steady down, Orlèan,” Rissa said, sliding Gallowglass an exasperated roll of the eyes.

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