The Harvest Wars - Part 2 - Crusade (Reading Sample)

Prologue - Part 6

With a suddenness and violence that made her bite through the tip of her tongue, the hulking warrior jerked Megan off her feet, holding her by her tunic as if she weighed no more than a puppy.

"No, I made it! I made it!" she screamed over and over again, a sense of terrible betrayal forcing the words out.

Keening, she struggled to get free, summoning forth what little magic remained to aid her, yet all efforts ceased as she found herself held up before the helmeted face of the titanic warrior. Green fires burned from within the slits of his ornate helmet, burning into her very soul. Rumbling laughter rose from deep within the chest of her tormentor.

"No, you have not," the juggernaut said, letting scores of refugees sweep past him unscathed. "They have..." Seeing how they got what had been denied her was too much. Tears began streaming down her face.

"Better luck next time ... Back to the pond with you!" the titan roared and with that sent her flying.

Megan screamed, the world becoming a kaleidoscope of colors and movement. Spinning through the air, the wind tugging on her clothes, she tried to concentrate, to summon her magic once more to protect her from the impact.

She could not focus.

It was just too much...

When she came down on the unyielding cobblestones of the street, she felt a sharp pain in her back, then absolutely nothing. She bounced off the cobblestones a few times, before finally coming to rest against the wall of a building. There she lay, silent and still. A discarded rag doll, arms, legs, and even the lower part of her body twisted at odd angles.

Unable to move or close her eyes, her mind foggy from shock, she saw that the silver butcher had hurled her to the side of the corpse mountain. She had come to rest in a nook of the street, where the first buildings merged with the city wall, out of immediate danger of the battle fought at the base of the corpse-hill.

Her mind slowly righted itself, the realization that the fall must have snapped her spine, leaving her paralyzed slowly dawning on her. The horror was too much to bear. She passed out.

As she woke, the battle was still raging. Terrified of what may become of her, she prayed for a quick death.

Yet the reaper was too busy this day...

As time went on, she began screaming inside her head, tears streaming down her bloody face. Her mind conjured up one horror after another. The most terrifying realization was that, should the corpse mountain grow even more in size, she would soon be part of it, buried alive with the dead and undead...

It was this thought that finally drove her mad.

She had to be mad, because stepping into her line of view, whinnying and clubbing the bodies of the men in front of him with hooves and shouldering them aside, was Sirius.

He looked just like she remembered him from better days, her growing madness blocking out the many grisly wounds marring his hide and his empty belly with the torn entrails hanging from it. It was Sirius, her old companion trotting towards her, not some abomination drenched in blood and with milky white eyes.

Just like she remembered him...

Tears of joy streaming down her motionless face, he came to a halt in front of her broken form, softly nudging her, a gentle kiss to start another wonderful day...

She was so happy she could cry...

She did.

As Sirius opened his mouth, he revealed jagged broken teeth streaked with crimson. He must have been eating raspberries again... probably pilfered from a merchant stall. Oh, Sirius, she thought... You are such a hound for a horse.

It was her last thought, for a moment later; the jagged teeth clasp around her throat and with a sharp snap, the world was drenched in darkness and sweet oblivion.

Sirius, such a hound for a horse...