Jessica Brown
Stories
7
Chapters
1,940
Words
857.1 K
Comments
0
Reading
2 d, 23 h
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Crickets had begun their song through the trees. “I hate this place,” Wurhi groaned, her leg muscles tight and burning. Saplings and twigs crunched beneath her feet. She made sure to step on the saplings. “I hate this place! Everything hurts! I want to make a fire! I want to sleep!” she complained futilely, looking at her companion. “You found a proper place for your little plan yet?” Kyembe trudged ahead of her, a miserable slump in his shoulders. He sighed. “Nowhere has been wide enough,…
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A storm of violence had exploded in the clearing. Red drenched the earth and gore painted the foliage. It dripped from vines to fill bloody footprints. Mutilated body parts were strewn every which way, some hanging from branches. Most were partially eaten. The more intact corpses were posed in warning. “By the Three,” Eppon groaned, slightly sick. “I thought your magic stopped the ogres from finding us, uncle!” He eyed the towering trees nervously despite the vast army stretching around him. Most…
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“Kyembe!” Wurhi shrieked. The monster mauled his arm, pulling him from his feet with hideous strength. The other darted behind him to grasp his throat as he struggled to pull a knife from his belt. Wurhi went for her own short sword to use against the brute, but dismissed the small weapon immediately. Drastic measures. Reaching deep into herself, she let the animal haze consume her mind. Then came the agony. Her bones split and knit back together, altered. A shriek of rising pitch burst from her…
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“My sons!” Overlord Avernix roared. The camp was in chaos. Warriors ran to and fro, eager to make themselves useful lest they catch their sovereign’s wrath. The air was thick with the tang of blood. Light rain pattered on Eppon’s tent’s roof and a great line of standing crosses beyond. Upon them hung the crucified bodies of Avernix’s sons’ personal guard. After so great a failure, the overlord had no use for them. Had Lukotor not been engaged, he would have had him feed them to the…
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Now the night’s merriment had ended. Bonfires had died to cinders, replaced by the cold of a northern Garumnan night, and Avernix’s fur-clad warriors snored under the sky in various states of inebriety. Clay bowls and drinking horns were scattered haphazardly, and the two southlanders stepped with care, lest an ill-placed foot shatter one. The laboured voices of those who had continued the festivities in more private manners drifted from surrounding tents. Wurhi dreaded finding such sounds coming from…
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The tent flap was dragged open, admitting moonlight, a chill autumn wind and the pavilion’s owner. Eppon the Bear-Breaker stumbled in with belly swollen on mead and spirit fatted on revelry. His muddy prints tracked on the piled furs and woven Zabyallan carpets - once fine, now faded from many months of such abuse. He groaned, shedding his loincloth and lifting free his neck chain. He’d hung upon it a strange ring that he’d taken a liking to. Its forged skull was fierce while the horned woman’s…
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Kyembe and Wurhi broke into the dark, slipping through the shadowed rivulets between the fires, skirting the poles lest one of the captives spot them and cry out. The captured masses spread endlessly. Most looked of hardy Garumnan stock, but there were also olive-complexioned Olphoenians and Olubrians whispering curses against their captors, dour-faced Cymorillians brooding in silence, round-bodied Laexondaelic merchants groaning in misery and a group of bearded, fair-braided Skjernans who watched their…
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Kyembe the Spirit Killer jolted awake. The stench of unwashed bodies, blighted wounds and filth struck his nose, carried by a damp wind that goose pimpled his burnt umber skin. The Sengezian’s crimson eyes opened painfully, squinting into the gloom, his vision swimming. The creak of rope and wood met his pointed ears. His mouth felt drier than the Ahari Desert when the fire-winds roared and his belly churned ominously, the stale remnants of the previous night of drink lurking on his tongue. Such was the…
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Lukotor the Wise had bartered his decades for this hour. Toiling beneath the mercurial attentions of his master, he’d remained by her side until he’d reaped enough of her knowledge to abandon her. Departing deep in the night, the old woman’s wet cackle had long followed him into the dark. He’d gathered power. Slipping through icy northern seas to the volcanic isle of Eldvioi, he’d stolen an ember from its dreaded pyromancers. Mastering its fire magics, he used that to wrest the Vessel of…
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“It had come from beyond time. Without sight, light mattered not. Without touch, matter was nothing. Adrift in an infinite void, the weight of eons passed while it dozed. Until it learned to feel by way of captivity. The Wizard-King Gergorix had risen in the north of Garumna, plundering the secrets of the earth and crafting them into spells that made demon lords shudder. He found On his edict, thousands fell beneath the sacrificial knife; feeding rituals that bound That Which Hungers within a…
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