Ash and Bones (City of Sacrifice Book 2) by Michael R. Fletcher

Author:Michael R. Fletcher [Fletcher, Michael R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-31T16:00:00+00:00

Akachi bent his nagual power to becoming a great skyvyrm. Here, in this created reality, it didn’t matter that he had never studied one in a menagerie. It didn’t matter that he had not painstakingly carved a figurine to work as a focus, or that none of the right drugs pumped through in his veins. This was a game of wits and imagination, and this old man had no comprehension of what he was up against.

Darakai studied the colossal skyvyrm, and then thinned the air to the point both men could barely breathe. He increased the pull of the earth.

His vast wings suddenly useless, Akachi plummeted to the ground, crashing into the sands and shattering bones. He squirmed, trying to writhe through the desert to reach the old man, but the skyvyrm’s body weighed too much. Flopping and twitching in the sand, gasping for air, he became a poisonous viper. Though he still felt the pull of gravity, it became less crushing.

Darakai was gone.

He’s invisible.

Akachi laughed at the pitiful attempt and tested the air with his tongue.

Nothing.

No heat of life beyond a surprising number of insects hiding in the sands.

Was that true? Akachi always imagined the Bloody Desert a place of endless death. Did insects live out there, feeding off one another, much as dead gods and demons fed off banished souls?

Surely not!

He’s doing this. He added life to the desert for some reason.

To hide. That had to be it. Darakai must be one of these many insects and spiders Akachi sensed.

Akachi the viper lifted its head above the sands. The desert, it turned out, teemed with life. He felt movement through the scales of his body, heard it through the bones of his jaw. A larger than normal spider dug a hole near where he had last seen the Heart of the Lord of the Root.

Akachi knew that type of spider. It was one commonly studied by nagual due to its size and deadly poison.

Unimaginative.

Normally, Akachi would have turned into a bird and snatched the spider from above, holding it helpless. Between the thin air and the pull of gravity Darakai had written into this reality, nothing could fly.

Thinking of Bihotz Blindatua, his pangolin spirit-animal, Akachi changed the rules, turning his scales into overlapping plates of impenetrable armour. Still wearing the shape of the viper, he approached the buried spider. Something tickled, along the length of his spine. Looking back the length of his serpentine body, Akachi saw several spiders had climbed aboard, as if they sought to ride him. He slowed, frowning. Had he been mistaken about which spider was Darakai?

More spiders scampered onto his back, hairy legs pulling at the plates of his armour. The spiders grew, became stronger, and fought to lever him open.

Startled, Akachi further armoured himself, turning the length of his body to stone so no opening existed. Thousands of spiders scampered onto his back and, for a moment, he laughed at the futility of their struggles. They grew heavier, pinning him helpless beneath their weight.

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.