The Light of Kerrindryr (The War of Memory Cycle Book 1) by Davis H. Anthe

Author:Davis, H. Anthe [Davis, H. Anthe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: H. Anthe Davis
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

*****

The feeling hit so hard that Sarovy quailed in his saddle, jaw sagging, heart stopped for an instant of sheer mindless terror. Wingbeats drummed in his head: the pinions of some horrible, titanic raptor to which all life was a helpless feast.

Then the horse bucked beneath him and he clung instinctually, shaken from his shock. The presence remained, a traumatic weight, but though his pulse thundered in his ears he managed to think, Control yourself. You are not an animal.

All around him, the road had dissolved into chaos. Cart-horses thrashed in their traces, frenzied packbeasts broke from their cringing handlers, wagons swayed and smashed together and spilled their contents onto the cobbles. Poles snapped, spilling the frenzied masses into the down-Rift side. Behind him he heard the harsh cries of his men and the clash of shod hooves on stone as their war-horses, though hardened, succumbed to the wave of fear. His own steed lurched and reared wildly, forward momentum arrested by the need to turn but the lack of space, and he gripped the saddle-horn and twisted with its movements to avoid being dashed against the stone wall that loomed all too close.

This was not the first time. The fires in Jernizan had sent the horses mad. Each close encounter with a grass dragon and its long, poisoned fangs had been much the same. His armor hindered him and as he fought the whiplash of the horse’s crazed movements, he felt muscle wrench and sinew fray. But he refused to be thrown. Not with the hooves, the wheels, the claws and panicked feet that threatened to crush all who fell.

He saw ahead in streaks and flashes. Trevere’s horse was on the upper walkway somehow, dancing madly. The girl-prisoner flew from hers and hit a wagon side but managed to rally; in the next sweep he saw her on the walkway chasing the black shape that was Trevere while his horse fled in the other direction.

And far, far up the road was the cart they had pursued all this distance, driving straight up the path that had been cleared for it somehow through the chaos. In the back sat their quarry, his head slumped down. On the bench was—

He could not even look at it. Primitive aversion forced his eyes away, made the skin of his shoulders crawl, made him duck his head as if the sky itself would grow claws and tear him away into its thunder-bruised nest. No details, not even a shape, just a single impression.

White wings.

Holy Light, he thought.

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.