Torrent of Evil by Remi Black

Author:Remi Black
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sword and sorcery, witches and wizards, elemental magic, desert, action adventure
Publisher: Writers Ink Books
Published: 2022-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

~ 6 ~ Lethal Poison

What does this baron need to know? What can I omit?

To explain elemental power would reveal its limitations, especially that Inkeri needed a source for water before she wielded it. The Water element wasn’t like magic, tilted toward wizardry or sorcery by the evoked spells. She didn’t need more than a drop to spark power, but without that drop she was powerless.

Should I tell him that?

What will that wizard tell him about elemental power?

Before she could decide how to answer the baron, a man screamed.

She whirled, starting toward the man before she knew what was wrong. The scream shrilled upward, into a shriek, and a dark omen coursed her spine.

Lord Rhodren matched her run to the campfire.

Several soldiers had settled on rocks around the fire, yet they had leaped up and away from the screaming man. He stood near the flames, his arm outstretched. Something dark and spotted gold dangled from his hand.

A speckled lizard. It clung to his hand, teeth imbedded in flesh, claws scrabbling at the air.

Inkeri sprinted the last feet. The men gave way for her and for their lord, falling further back from their comrade. She spit onto her hand and sparked power from that. Blue light flashed, became an orb of glacial light. She flung it on the lizard. The sphere encased it.

It writhed then dropped away. The sphere kept it from scurrying into hiding. Inkeri snatched a knife. The remaining spit in her hand turned to glacial light encasing the weapon. She plunged it into the sphere, into the back of the trapped lizard. It thrashed for several seconds then died.

She flipped it into the fire then turned to the man.

His hand had ballooned. Around the bite, the flesh had reddened, blackening at the pierced flesh. Red streaked across his hand, up his wrist, to his forearms, revealed by his rolled-up sleeves. The poisoned streaks disappeared under the drab linen.

“It hurts! It hurts!” he screamed. Then his eyes rolled back, showing the whites, and he collapsed.

Inkeri jumped back as he fell, stumbling into Lord Rhodren. He steadied her as he turned to the other men.

“Check the rocks. Check any fallen logs, in the bushes. Roust out any other lizards.”

They leapped to obey.

“Why did he collapse?”

“Fear, I think. Pain.” She knew little about the lizard’s poison. No one had ever studied the sand-dwelling reptile. She didn’t think anyone had ever attempted to cure someone infected. They wouldn’t have time to attempt a successful cure.

“You told us to avoid the speckled lizards,” he said, voice quiet.

“Their poison is lethal. It works too quickly to stop. You see.”

“Aye. Can do you anything?”

The man lay with eyes closed, his breathing labored, his body shivering. “The wizard might know a cure.” She looked around.

The screaming had brought Almandis along with the marshal Gaulter. They stared at the fallen man. Gaulter looked prepared to grind rocks. The wizard’s eyes had widened at the size of the man’s swollen hand and the streaks of red and black.

“What happened? Did a snake bite him?”

“A lizard,” Inkeri explained.

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