Out on the dry, grassy plains of Vatra men and women of different creeds, different Skills, and different kingdoms assemble. In this clear, bright morning their armor is clean, and their tools, their swords, their axes, their crossbows, and their bows shine, sharp and purposeful in the sunlight. High above them, casting long shadows, the zeppelins loom.
Standing at the bow of one, Aren Dost scans the horizon, adjusting her broadsword on already tired shoulders.
Aging, she rues, is not for the weak.
To her side, Ruben stands, lost in thought as he always is, and on her other is the Paragon, clad in dark red armor and equally silent, a hand pressed to the inside of the other arm. She watches their troops advance on the plains, thinking, if Dost could hazard a guess, about the trickier path laid ahead for her.
A Beast-caller signals below to a good landing spot just behind the rear guard. The Chieftainess stares at it for a moment before she nods.
It'll do, Dost decides.
For Hiran Baulieu, perched in the antechamber behind her, something clicks along his bones, something he doesn't quite understand, but he feels—uneasily. It's like a bug crawling along unseen skin, like the slide of something pale and unknown in dark waters. Something is beckoning out in the dark, waiting.
Beside him, Finn is but a pale ghost now, all luminous eyes and hollow cheekbones, and Hiran wants to tell him even with this undiscussed, last minute choice from the Paragon he'll be fine—for god's sake the kid can freeze people with his mind, how can't he, at least, be fine?—but something is clicking, clicking.
Tara can feel it too. Her hands twist on her bow and she paces in their room, glancing again, and again at the red horizon, looking out there for something unseen.
Something is wrong.
The suns blooms crimson on the mountains' rim. Up, at the sandstone city perched on the mountainside, the gates open and a sea of black, scuttling specks pour out.
Dost holds up a fist and, as they descend, down below the catapults have already begin to launch.
And, as if in return, something rumbles deep in the earth, beneath all of them.
YOU ARE READING
Prodigal - Book III
Fantasy*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below. It...
