The Dark Queen (d-6) by Michael Williams

Author:Michael Williams [Williams, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_fantasy

* * * * *

On his back in the middle of the steaming field, Stormlight pushed the bird away yet again.

His arms were seared by the hot metal buckler he carried, and the smell of sulfur and burnt rock singed his nostrils, rushed down his throat and into his lungs.

Once again, he tried to cry out, but the pain was unbearable, smothering.

So this is the way it ends, he thought, strangely calm, the smoke gusting into his eyes and the hoarse cry of the condor on all sides of him.

The dull, dry shriek of the bird was answered by a call more shrill, and suddenly, miraculously, the sky cleared over Stormlight. He blinked painfully, scrambled to his feet.

Lucas swooped toward the Red Plateau, the con shy;dor glowing and smoldering in pursuit.

Swiftly, gracefully, the little hawk banked in the air, dodging the heavier, clumsier bird with a grace born of a thousand hunts, of a year's reconnaissance in the desert sky. Blindly, furiously the condor fol shy;lowed, the ground beneath the path of its flight blis shy;tering and blazing at its passage.

The hawk flew a wide, looping circle and returned toward the field and Stormlight, the condor picking up speed, swiftly closing the gap until it seemed that Lucas would be caught, ignited, consumed by the fiery monster.

Then Larken, standing on a sloping rise, seeing the danger to her companion, battered her drum loudly, slowly, in the stately Matherian rhythms of high magic. The song began in an incandescence of words, an elvish tralyta that trailed off into a hidden language, into the words that bards speak only in whispers, and only to the gods.

But the little bard gave her song full voice, and at the margins of the lava flow, the red glaze darkened and crusted, cooling so rapidly that the sound of its shattering echoed over the desert.

Still the bard's song rose above the chaos and noise, the words completely unintelligible now, trail shy;ing into birdsong, into distant thunder and the rush of water, into the sound of the wind through^the nearby crystals.

The crystals themselves, at the edge of the Tears of Mishakal, were breaking to shards, crumbling silently to powder.

Lucas soared high above the cooling earth, then dropped five hundred feet through the smoky air, landing roughly on the sand and mantling, his wings spread over him like a tent, a canopy. The condor followed, a trail of flame in its wake, stretch shy;ing its glowing talons to strike.

Then, fifty feet above the floor of the desert, the monster collided with the power of the bard's song. Tanila whirled and shrieked and covered her ears.

For a moment, out of the corner of her eye, Larken saw the dark woman hobble toward the Tears of Mishakal, trailing black dust like a cloud of billow shy;ing smoke.

Then suddenly, spectacularly, the air went incan shy;descent.

The condor splintered into a thousand sparks, slowly raining deadly flame over the parched land shy;scape, the igneous rock, the cowering bird.

Just before the fire shower reached

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.