The Ranger's Lament: The King's Ranger Book 6 by AC Cobble

Author:AC Cobble [Cobble, AC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cobble Publishing LLC
Published: 2022-03-31T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Rew shouted at Cinda.

The necromancer looked back at him, her face flat, her jaw set like stone. She wasn’t calm, but she wasn’t cowering before his anger either. She was disinterested.

A small part of Rew noted her demeanor and wondered what it meant, but mostly, it made him mad. Anne had briefly tried to calm him, to reason with him, until she’d understood. Raif just stared dumbfounded, as if he’d wanted to defend his sister, to scream back at Rew, but he was grasping for an explanation, a reason that wasn’t there.

Zaine had disappeared. Rew had seen her. He knew she was alive, but she wasn’t in the command tent. Green-faced and trembling, she’d left, and now, it was just the four of them.

Raif lay sprawled in the corner, dozens of wounds marring his flesh. Anne crouched beside him, quietly employing her empathy. Rew stormed about the center of the room, feeling like a kettle fit to explode. Occasionally, he pointed a finger at Cinda, snapping off sharp questions then pacing again, glaring at her.

Cinda stared back at him, watching, waiting for him to exhaust himself.

“You won’t even try to defend yourself, to reason with this… this madness?”

“Defending myself is what got you so angry in the first place,” replied the necromancer, her tone droll, her face unmoving except her lips and the sparkling emerald green glow in her eyes.

“You killed hundreds of our men!”

“Her wraiths…” muttered Raif loudly. “Her wraiths did it. Cinda, you must have lost control. It was an accident, right? Tell him. Tell him what happened.”

“No,” replied the girl, a hint of sorrow bleeding into her voice. She kept her eyes on Rew and would not look at her brother. “I did not lose control, not entirely. I sent the wraiths on the most expedient route to the Dark Kind. It’s unfortunate there were men in the way.”

“Of course there were men in the way,” snarled Rew. “You called the things right through the center of our camp.”

“That was the quickest path.”

Rew scowled at her, seething.

“I called a dozen of them,” said Cinda. “My control was in place, but it was… loose. I would have stopped them from killing our people if I could, but when they passed so close, it was easier to let them take a life and then move on. I could herd them, not fight them. I knew a few lives did not matter when considering the magnitude of the war we’re in. We lost some men. That’s unfortunate, but it happens in war. It’s no different than when you sent out the scouts. Besides, if it wasn’t for my wraiths throwing back the Dark Kind, all of those men were going to die anyway.”

“Not by your hand.”

She shrugged.

“Cinda…”

“We are at war with the king—and his brother, if what Brian of the Brambles claims is true. Two of history’s most powerful high magicians, men whose souls have somehow survived two centuries apiece. We will not win this fight without taking losses. Terrible losses.

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.