Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

Chapter 16: Touched by Shadow

It was unseasonably cold that morning, a chill that seeped off the lake to lazily coil around the sleepy city. Holding her cloak tighter around her body, the soldier assigned guard duty on the south-facing Autumn Gates shivered and tried to fight the icy fingers that were pushing through her heavy tunic, past her chainmail shirt to trail over her skin. And, in doing so, she took a half step away from the brazier atop the squat guard tower turret and happened to glance southward. What she saw there made her forget the cold as if it didn't exist.

"Officer of the watch!" she screamed.

"How long has he been unconscious?" Alric asked, reaching down to touch Jerald's pale and hollowed face, pinched with pain even in sleep. He had to walk fast to keep pace with the two quada warriors and two grim Sapphire Griffons that carried Jerald's stretcher deep into the Royal Infirmary, part of the complex atop Caer Aslan. Striding behind the stretcher, a look of concern on her flawless face, the quadan mystic Falon shook her head.

"Three days," she said in a low, tired voice, clearly worried and frustrated that her magic, as powerful as it was, couldn't revive the stricken monarch. "Since we passed your settlement at Tal Vorus."

"The poison works in his soul," Tromn, who strode step for step beside Falon, rumbled, his proud visage a mask of pain and concern. "Beyond the reach of any magic to heal."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Jorge grimly declared from where he strode on the stretcher's other side. "Captain, I want Master Cor here, now!"

Sped by Jorge's taut command, one of the quartet of Sapphire Griffons guarding a sobbing Jeorgina, took off at a dead run, intent on fetching Cor Halin, master druid and the Royal Healer. As he ran off, Jorge turned to the quada and Jeorgina.

"I'm not quite ready to give up on my brother yet!" he flatly grated.

Darkness had descended by the time Jorge slipped into the small room deep in the Infirmary's heart that evening. He was just in time to see Master Cor step back from Jerald's bed, slowly shaking his head with frustration.

"The darkness," he husked exhaustedly, the short, wiry healer, dressed in the soft gray tunic and breeches of his order, scrubbed his hands through his short shorn black hair. Blue tracings tattooed on his face marked him as kevan. He turned bright blue eyes, the color of new ice, towards the Ironstorm prince who he had sensed coming into the room.

"I'm sorry, your Highness, but I cannot do anything for the king. What poisons his soul is beyond my skill and art to overcome."

"Then it would appear he has fallen back into my jurisdiction," Alric commented softly from where he stood behind a sitting Jeorgina, the queen on a simple stool near Jerald's head, cradling her husband's face with her hands.

"I will beseech the Creator for aide and strength."

"See that you do, druid," Jorge ground out tightly, frustration at his inability to help his brother warring with a growing thirst for vengeance against the rebel leader who brought this calamity down on him. It was nearly beyond his ability to restrain himself from marching to the dungeon beneath the Tor and strangling a chained Urud to death with his bare hands.

"Talemon is at war and she needs her king!"

A frowning Tenne, a thoughtful Kent and a grim Tromn were waiting for Jorge as he stepped outside the small room, lit and warmed by a number of braziers and filled with sweet-smelling incense that Cor had ignited to assist his healing. The three ignored the swirling haze that slipped out the door behind the dark prince to focus on Jorge's hardened face.