Twilight falling by Paul S. Kemp

Author:Paul S. Kemp
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy Fiction, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9780786929986
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 2003-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The Twisted Elm

Cale sat in the chair in their room at the Lizard, preparing for communion with his god. Jak and Riven were already asleep in their cots. Cale was to wake Riven before dawn, but doubted he would. He knew he would not be able to sleep that night.

No candle lit the room but Selune's light through the shutter slats cast silver lines on the floor. Cale waited. Though Selgaunt's churches stopped tolling after the tenth hour, Cale knew intuitively when the midnight hour began. A benefit of serving the Lord of Shadows, he supposed.

He calmed himself, and cleared his mind. Time passed. When midnight arrived, a cloud passed before Selune and cast the room in utter darkness. A sign from Mask.

The darkness mirrored Cale's mood. Dark thoughts filled in his mind, violent, bloody thoughts. He reached out his consciousness to his god and requested spells that would harm his enemies. Mask answered. Cale's mind filled with power, the power granted him by the Lord of Shadows.

At that moment, Riven began to toss in his sleep, muttering in the strange tongue Cale had heard him speak previously. For a fleeting instant, Cale thought he understood the words-an ancient tongue once used by worshipers of the Lord of Shadows in the deep of night-but the meaning danced just out of reach of his understanding before dispersing like smoke.

Jak's voice, jarring in the dark, gave Cale a start.

"You all right, Cale?"

Riven's muttering must have awakened the halfling. Jak was sitting up in his cot, looking at Riven.

"I'm fine, Jak," Cale replied. "Go back to sleep."

The halfling nodded at Riven and said through a yawn, "What in the Nine Hells is he dreaming about?"

Cale didn't answer.

"Probably don't want to know anyway," Jak said, chuckled, and lay back down to sleep.

Cale didn't bother to wake Riven for his watch. Instead, he spent the night murdering the last of the butler in his soul. From then on, he wanted nothing in him but the killer.

A steady rain fell, soaking Cale's cloak. The gray clouds turned the dusk of evening into the darkness of night. The surface of the Elzimmer churned in the downpour. Before them rose the High Bridge. Wide enough to accommodate three wagons abreast, the great span had stood for hundreds of years, withstanding countless battles and mage duels. The thick oak footings of the span rose from the river's waters like the legs of giants. It looked as immovable as a mountain, but Cale knew better. The Uskevren had fought a battle there months before against the summoned horrors of Marance Talendar. The magic released during that combat had set the bridge to shaking and nearly brought it down.

Guard sheds stood at each end of the bridge, and a larger barracks complex sat in the center. Pitch torches sizzled in the wind and rain, the flames dancing as though to avoid the downpour. Just outside the near shed stood four Scepters, each armed with poleaxes and dressed in the green weathercloaks of the Scepters.

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.