Soulbreaker by Terry C. Simpson

Author:Terry C. Simpson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Game of Souls, Sword & Sorcery, Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Soulbreaker, The Cyclic Omniverse, Soul, Coming of Age, Fantasy, New Adult & College, the Quintessence Cycle, Epic, Genre Fiction, Literature & Fiction
Publisher: Golden Arm Press
Published: 2014-06-07T23:00:00+00:00

19

Price of Arrogance

Grimacing, Thar leaned against the wall of the ruined building behind him, pressing his hand to the wound in his side. His fingers came away sticky and wet. Pain lanced up his leg, and his free arm hung limply. He had made tourniquets to cover the three holes, one in his leg, one in his arm, and the other in his side, but the blood still flowed. The cold added to his misery.

Stupid, stupid man. Why didn’t you follow your first instinct?

He knew the reason even as he asked. Arrogance. Arrogance and stupidity. A lethal combination.

Hands trembling at the unusual sensation of being wounded, he thought back to the events that led to his current predicament. Occupied with the pursuit of his leads, he paid little attention to the clangor outside the room, thinking it part of the preparation by Tomas’ men to join the others in the foothills of the Whetstone Mountains. By the time he took heed of the screams and the clash of weapons, and Heart’s warning growls, the Blades and Farlanders were breaking down the door to his room.

Soul magic flew, firesticks thundered. Metal balls blazed a white-hot trail of pain through him. He was uncertain how many of the enemy had died to his barrage of lightning. For an added distraction he’d manifested versions of himself and set them attacking wildly. When he ran into the hall, some of the Red Beggars still fought, but one by one they were cut down. He’d fallen to the ground, drawing on lumni, the seventh cycle, expelling the majority of his soul from his body to give an appearance of death. Moments later, he’d fled deep into the Undertow, blood streaming from his wounds, his assailants not far behind. In the chaos he lost track of Heart.

Arrogance and stupidity. He’d forgotten some of the first things he learned as a Blade. No matter how good you are, how strong in soul magic you might be, someone or something might be better. Defeating the strange Dracodar had left him too confident. No. Arrogant.

He was paying for it now in pain-filled spikes. As if the holes from the metal balls aren’t payment enough. He winced. How was it that the projectiles ignored soul enhanced by tern? The combination should have deflected them. And the balls had punctured his scales, treated them like paper. Since his evolution, only soul blades or weapons crafted from Dracodarian-forged steel, had ever duplicated such a feat.

Clutching his side, he peeped around the corner of the ruins. The hunters appeared to have turned back. Praise the Dominion. He doubted he could continue much farther. Even as the thought crossed his mind, his leg buckled, and he sunk down to the hard, cold ground.

Get up, you fool. Up. Get up.

With a hand on the wall for support he struggled to his feet, the scrape of his boots and his breathing loud to his ears. This part of the Undertow was not a place to be caught alone.

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