The Humbled (The Lost Words: Volume 4) by Igor Ljubuncic

Author:Igor Ljubuncic [Ljubuncic, Igor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2015-09-09T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

“You need blood,” Tanid said. “Fresh blood.

”Ewan looked around him. All he could see was wet grass.

On the far side of the valley, a few miles south of Bassac, a large, muscled arm of the enemy army was milling. One might almost think an early snow had fallen and clad the hillslopes in soft powder. But the illusion went away the moment the large patch of white moved and shifted and spread tentacles.

Tanid’s eyes were glazed with grim determination. “We need a corpse then.”

Only they did not have a corpse. Tanid’s eternal eyes spoke, We will have to create one.

Ewan stared at the god who called himself Gavril, and did not like him very much right then. If this war was only about him, Ewan would have left him to his own devices and random twists of luck. But it was more than just that. It was about the people of the realms, and for some strange reason, Ewan felt a need to be their champion. The same people who had shunned and feared him.

Human sacrifice sounded wrong, no matter what, even if it meant providing munition for the bloodstaff. The sleek rod was empty. Ewan still had not fully figured out how its magic worked, but the blood part was rather simple. You needed regular supplies of warm red, or it would not fire. The fields around the town were littered with old, bloated, and half-eaten carcasses of both livestock and refugees, but they were not fresh enough, it seemed.

A tiny part of him was excited to see the ancient weapon in action. He wanted to see how it behaved, what kind of damage it could render, what range it had. He was imagining it spewing wild bursts of crimson fire; he imagined it shaking violently in his arms, straining his muscles. He imagined the sound of thunder, great, splitting peals, and a whoosh of air flattening the grass stalks around him and raising a ring of dust. He imagined its red arrows fleeting in a shallow arc halfway across the battlefield and mowing down enemy troops with indiscriminate lack of emotion.

But until he fired it, he would not really know.

“We need a corpse,” Tanid repeated. He looked behind him, below the crest of the hill, where his two constant companions were waiting, the surly ax wielder and the big, shy boy, who seemed to be another Special Child, much like himself.

Scouting missions normally fell on the shoulders of the common troops, hardly the leaders and their hive of trusted guards. But Tanid had wanted to glimpse the movement of the Naum army himself and goad Ewan into using the bloodstaff against the enemy.

Apparently, witnessing the bane of the realms in the flesh made people go beyond logic and healthy precaution. The two Sirtai wizards were there, too, trying to keep their odd islander excitement at bay. The blue-faced man was not trying that hard; the mask of old ink hid his emotions well.

In just a few short

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.