Jessica Brown
Stories
7
Chapters
1,940
Words
857.1 K
Comments
0
Reading
2 d, 23 h
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Haldrych Ameldan seethed through clenched teeth. His knuckles washed white as their grip tightened on the rail. Oak bit his palms, but the ache hardly measured to the churning in his belly. What was left of Marctinus coated the mountainside where he had retched out his innards. “Steady, man, steady,” Adelmar gripped the young patriarch’s shoulder. “Breath.” “ “Shhh! Do you want to kill us!?” the merchant’s son hissed. He cautiously glanced about the gallery - a rough, weathered thing…
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“The less you remain still, the more it shall sting.” “Mmmmmgh!” Wurhi gave a muffled shriek, grinding down on the cloth wedged between her teeth. Her shattered hand was crawling agony up her arm - consciousness would have long fled had her transformations not inured her to the familiar agony of shattered bone. Every cruel twist of her broken hand thrust her into violent thrashing that withered all reason. Tight bonds gripped clammy flesh like serpents while her ‘healer’ stoically went…
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“Oh…oh no,” Adelmar murmured. Haldrych’s knife dropped into his plate, splashing the meat’s juices upon his face and shirt. “M-Marctinus?” Milos watched him. “We have a belief among the followers of Lycundar: that the fallen allies we consume grant us strength. In this, take comfort that your steed may no longer bear you, but he will now live as your strength forevermore. As Haldrych looked at his plate in horror. “Argh! Aaaaargh!” he wailed as a mother over her slain son.…
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“Hunt-leader! You’re forgetting yourself!” Berard shouted. “He did not have to do it!” Milos glanced to the curtained entrance, his earlier humour draining rapidly. The cold, diamond hardness returned to his eyes. “Excuse me. It seems my other guests are rowdy.” The curtain flew open and familiar figures poured over the nest of carpets. Hunt-leader Jairus lead them - his body contorted in wrath - while Berard followed with the reluctance of a cur about to be scolded. Adelmar and a masked…
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With the fire warming her back, she turned her eyes to the skeleton by the hole to the mountains. It provided a focus, and she dearly needed something to distract her. Vicious teeth spread in the mouth of empty bone. The body had been posed with a paw raised to strike the air. Claws curved on the forepaw that looked able to rend through a ribcage with a single swipe. The beast must have been a horror while it lived - by size alone it would have easily matched one of the manticores. Yet - for all its…
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Kyembe’s mind raced. At any other time, he would have outright refused such an offer. Open favours made for bad oaths: she could demand he do anything from stealing a god’s crown to murdering an entire village’s children for a blood rite. …Or she might ask him to pour her a cup of chilled wine on a hot day. There was his right of refusal to consider, but deals with wizards and demons always bore hidden daggers. The final option was that he could break his oath…but the very idea made his teeth…
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The saint snorted. “Magic of the darkest kind.” “Agreed, but dream-glass itself is by no means light or dark: it is simply useful due to how spiritually porous it is. One can press nearly anything into its being. Then - just as the colour in the glass of your temple stains the light - that captured essence will suffuse any mirage caught within and any illusion that it births.” He looked appraisingly toward the tower through the breaks in the illusionary canopy. “I do not know what they use here…
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The enclave of the City of Glass rose as an ominous jewel over the surrounding temples. An obsidian wall - so lofty that a mastodon would shrink beneath it - protected its grounds with a sinister resilience. The rampart gleamed as a colossal gemstone - eternally polished by things most dared not name - and its sides held an unnatural smoothness that proved too slick for a fly, let alone any human interloper to cling to. Death rose at its top: a forest of jagged ebon glass that would split stone if one…
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Crixus cried out behind her. “What’re you doing!? Get back in formation!” She lowered her centre and charged swifter, screaming with sword poised. For a breath, the manticore froze. Its mind worked to reconcile this small, frightened prey suddenly rushing it. With a growl, Wurhi took up her sword in both hands and - with all the momentum and power her little body could muster - cast it at the beast’s vile countenance. It was a poor throw. The blade wavered as it flew end over end and- His…
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“Stop it!” Agron whirled on her. “Or I’ll cut you down myse-” “By the crowns of kings,” Crixus murmured, his powerful voice hobbled by horror. A massive, tawny paw emerged first. The face of an evil, ancient man materialized, twisted with the countenance of a beast. A crimson mane framed weathered features and a shining stinger flicked back and forth above its bulk. One of the three leonine beasts prowled into the arena, driven by a perverse hunger born of savage instinct and humanity’s…
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