Sons of Ironstorm: Book 5 - Griffon's War

Shards of Fate

Damdalis looked at the shadow sanctuary where, at this moment his abysslord brother, the mad Furis, was buried in an attempt to restore some measure of his power, lost in contact with this plane of light. Then, with a grimace, he turned away.

He could feel all of them failing, his brothers and sisters in shadow. The shadow sanctuaries, fonts of Abyss energy meant to stave off the degradation, were only partially successful. They had slowed the decay, but didn't stop it. Only a return to the depths of the Abyss would do that, another lingering gift of their Master, a creature unwilling to die in the darkness alone.

Without warning a ripple in the cosmos around him made the restored abysslord pause. He looked around himself for a brief moment then, with a gesture, summoned a quick scry of the space inside the mortal-built fortress in front of him.

For good reason: the only creatures nearby that could affect the state of the cosmos other than themselves, were the human Wielders of Weapons of Power. If something had radically changed, they needed to know if they could take advantage of it.

The restored abysslord's eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he looked at the curved vertical plane hovering in the air in front of him. Thanks to the energy shield the ancient builders had imbued the fortress with, his scry didn't show him any details. But it did show the shifting blobs of light that marked the Wielders.

Three signals relatively unchanged, as expected. The Wielders had predictably dug in, waiting for their efforts on all points of the compass to bring reinforcements and relief. Damdalis' expression tightened.

Ironically, so were they, needing the Tactician to finish consolidating in the east to bring those forces to bear. Hunkered down in the shattered human city that was once the Wielder of the Tree's capital, Calandris also seemed prepared to wait. Unfortunately for them, the only abysslord benefiting from the wait was Damdalis himself, his rebirth on the Plane of Light enabling him to gather energy from the cosmos instead of degrade.

A thin smile touched his lips at that point. Calandris will be ready to strike almost at the same time that he'd have recovered enough of his old self to wrest the leadership of the abysslords back from his weakened brother!

'Go ahead and wait, fool,' he thought with grim satisfaction, folding his arms as he returned his attention to the human fortress before them.

'Wait all you like!'

****

Buried under layers of woven blankets and furs against the cold of winter outside, he should've been comfortable even with the banked coals in the pair of braziers in his sleeping quarters giving off little heat. But Lawrence Ironstorm, King of Talemon, Scion of the First House, Wielder of the Sword of Aesthegon, and Wielder of the Tree Staff, was anything but comfortable.

His stolen strength a lingering weakness that slithered through his awareness like a viper, he found himself locked in a dark, dreary dreamworld even as his body stirred restlessly in the waking world. As he walked through blurred images of what looked like Tal Morun and the Storm Keep, Lawrence kept seeing Aine Tod in the distance, glowing with life in contrast to the dark, shadow-filled space all around him. Yet, when he tried calling out her name, his voice was little more than a barely audible croak.

And when he tried running to her, his feet felt like they were stuck in mud. The eldest Wielder would take a couple of agonized steps and look up to see where she was in front of him. Only to discover she had disappeared. More steps and she would appear in the distance to his right and again would disappear before he could reach her.

Time and time again, Lawrence tried to reach the beautiful Tod princess. Only to have her disappear before his very eyes, filling him with frustration, anger, and, strangely enough, fear.