Wrath of Kerberos by Jonathan Oliver

Author:Jonathan Oliver
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Twilight of Kerberos
ISBN: 9781907992360
Publisher: Abaddon
Published: 2012-01-16T13:00:00+00:00

EMUEL BARELY HAD time to scrabble onto Calabash’s back before the dragon took to the air. Below them, Piotr sniffed at the ground where the last of the orcs had been destroyed, before following them. The dragon kept its distance, however, as though not wanting to intrude on Calabash’s grief. And was this what the dragon was feeling, Emuel wondered? Was this why the creature did not respond to his touch? He felt sure that he couldn’t know the mind of a being so alien, but he thought that he sensed a certain tension in Calabash, a certain heaviness in the way it held its head.

They followed the light of the setting sun as it retreated before them, and Calabash put on an extra burst of speed, as though trying to outrace the night. The temperature quickly tumbled as the stars wheeled above them and Emuel tried to pull his cloak closer about his shoulders. The wind that tore at him made this a far from easy task, and at length he had to sacrifice his cloak to the wind, lest he also lose himself. In shirtsleeves and tunic the cold bit deep, but though he shouted at Calabash to land, to seek shelter, the dragon flew on.

Emuel could see nothing below them now; there was only the dark, featureless plain. Kerberos hung low to their right and Emuel offered up a prayer to the god to intervene: to remind its creature of the passenger that clung on even against the gales and the cold that assailed him.

When Emuel lost the feeling in his hands, he gripped even harder with his knees. He found himself reminiscing about the mines he had worked in as a boy. How absolute and shocking the darkness had been the one time his lamp had run out of oil as he’d been operating a trap; the stink of guano and the small soft sounds of movement close by; the tickle of insects as they crawled across his exposed flesh...

Only when a brilliant flash shone through his eyelids did Emuel realise that he had fallen asleep. He snapped open his eyes and jerked upright, almost losing his hold on his mount.

Ahead of them a burning ball of rock was spiralling towards the earth, a tail of black smoke trailing from its rear to entwine the dragon and the eunuch. Emuel gagged on the stench of sulphur as the smoke rushed against his face. Calabash wheeled to follow the meteor, dipping its wings as it went into a dive, calling out to Piotr as it went.

The roar of the meteor grew louder as they followed it into a steep-sided valley, violet and emerald flames erupting from fissures in the rock, washing the scene below them in a strange, frenetic light.

Emuel could well guess at what lay within the heart of the burning stone, and Calabash and Piotr sang it down to the earth as it streaked low over a desert landscape. They landed almost at the same

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