Stormcaller (The Age of Dawn Book 1) by Everet Martins

Author:Everet Martins [Martins, Everet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Corruption

“Blackout, for too long you remained beyond the reach of my adoration. Gliding through the endlessness I found you.” –from Necromancy and Wolves: The Veiled Darkness

“Huh? It’s not cursed, you’re just jealous. I understand why, though – there was only one set of armor. It’s okay, I’m sure we’ll find another for you at some point,” Walter said.

Baylan exhaled, shaking his head.

Lillian used the Power of the Dragon to open a large hole to bury the Breden townsfolk. Walter watched her, awestruck. “You’re incredible with the Dragon. Can you teach me?” he asked. He squatted to the ground with ease, absently rubbing an exposed hand in the gravel. Mobility feels excellent, no wonder they all wear these, he thought.

She rolled a frail woman Walter hadn’t recognized into the hole while looking at Walter. “Walter, Baylan knows much more about the world than we do,” she said, pointedly ignoring his question. Next she rolled the gaunt man, who had presumably died from internal bleeding caused by the dagger placed in his abdomen, into the same earthen tomb.

“It’s cursed, Walter,” Baylan said, pressing fingers to his temples.

“What makes you think so?” Walter asked, still unable to see how it could be true.

“Try to remove it, then.”

Walter struggled at the pauldron bindings. “I can’t seem to get my fingers under it. Oh, wait. Here we go.” He had a firm grip on a latch and pulled as hard as he could. “No, no, no, no!” he said, panicking. He looked at Lillian, who was blasting dirt over the townsfolk’s bodies. She flashed him a sad, knowing look. He looked to Baylan. “How do I get it off?” He exhaled, defeated.

Baylan put a hand to his scruffy jawline and scratched the side of his face. “I have a friend in Midgaard who specializes in artifacts. He might have an answer for us,” he said. He sat in front of Walter, dropping to the boy’s level, and closed a notebook.

“Walter, you couldn’t have known this. There are very few who do, besides scholars such as myself. It was written in the Age of Dawn that men who were captured by The Wretched, Asebor’s generals, were put in cursed armor that would warp their minds in exchange for increased strength and speed.”

Walter kept rubbing the sand and small pebbles with an open hand, working it into the shape of a rainbow into the earth. The cool sand-gravel mixture was calming.

Baylan continued, “The consciousness of the wearer would eventually be the subject of control by a Black Wynch. As the armor corrupts the mind, it concurrently corrupts the body. The creatures we fought today were once men,” Baylan said, turning his head towards the hanging Cerumal. His words hung in the air, their weight pressing on Walter. “I suggest we turn back towards Midgaard now to get it removed.”

“No,” Walter said, surfacing from his sand art. “It’s been too long already. I need to go to Breden. For my parents, for everyone,” he said, standing. “I’m going to become one of them,” he brooded, looking with horror at a dead Cerumal.

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