Read Online 3 Weaver of Shadow by William King - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: William King
Tags: fantasy novel
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had perhaps loved and the Order he had served, and he knew it was all a distraction to keep him from thinking about what he had to do and what he had to face next.
He thought about the Great Tree surrounding him, not dead yet, trying to extinguish the last remnants of its life and consciousness in order not to fall to the Shadow it hated and feared.
A sense of futility settled on him. Mayasha was older than many of the kingdoms of men, had seen generations of long-lived elves come and go, had in its time been as powerful as any living being on the face of the world, and even it, in the longest of runs, had fallen. What chance did anything as tiny as a man have of opposing the Shadow?
He entered the chamber he had been shown in his vision. Ahead of him lay a huge mound of coins, helmets, carved objects, like a heap of offerings piled in front of the altar of a wicked god. Atop the pile lay a familiar scabbard, thrown there by those who had captured him. He raced forward and picked up the weapon, breaking all custom and training by drawing it, to make sure it was his own weapon. He felt the familiar weight of it resting in his hand, looked upon the glowing runes and knew them to be true. He felt whole again.
A long time ago as men measured their lives, if but an eye-blink to the gods of Shadow, he had taken up this weapon and he had sworn an oath. While he lived he would keep it. He had spent his lifetime walking into the dark with this sword in his hand. He was a Champion of the Sun. Whatever he could do to oppose the ancient evil here, he would do.
Ahead of him, deeper in the chamber, the green glow intensified, a vast bulk shifted, a demon woke.
Kormak stepped forward, deeper into a vast cave-like chamber. The walls seemed to be made of an interlocking tangle of roots, covered in a carpet of sticky webbing. At its centre, was a stump of wood that looked like any other save that it was covered in a pulsing, brain-like nugget of fungal growth. Next to it, watching it like a dragon watching its hoard, was the largest spider Kormak had yet seen. It was big as a house, bloated and evil. It considered him with glittering green eyes from which shone boundless hunger and boundless malice and an ancient inhuman intelligence.
The body was so huge that he doubted that even its massive columnar legs could have supported it without the aid of the vast cables of webbing that suspended its body from the ceiling. It lay on a carpet of broken bones and shattered skulls. Its mandibles looked big enough to decapitate a bull. A swarm of smaller spiders scuttled around it and over it, tending it, picking small parasites from its carapace, grooming the furry hairs of its abdomen, feeding her morsels of something.
How long had this thing been down here, Kormak wondered? How long had it been growing bloated on the power of the Shadow and the flesh of the living?
The stench of rot was strong. The oily taste of the Shadow’s presence was on Kormak’s tongue. He met the spider’s gaze and felt an immediate sense of contact, of a hungry alien presence trying to force itself into his mind. The Elder Sign burned on his chest. He muttered prayers of resistance to the Shadow, and worked the rituals of cleansing. A wave of nausea passed over him and was gone.
The ground shook as the Queen spider raised herself up. There was a creaking sound as if her legs could barely support her weight. A flick of her limbs scattered bones and sent a skull rolling to Kormak’s feet. It looked up at him mockingly with empty eye-sockets. Smaller spiders tumbled off the greater one as it moved; some regained their balance, some lay on their backs, spindly legs kicking in the air.
Kormak stood sword in hand, waiting, like a small boy confronting a maddened mastodon. The thing dwarfed him and made him feel almost powerless. It came to him that there was still time for him to turn and run.
The Queen’s mandibles clicked. A sound like a wheezing roar emerged
He thought about the Great Tree surrounding him, not dead yet, trying to extinguish the last remnants of its life and consciousness in order not to fall to the Shadow it hated and feared.
A sense of futility settled on him. Mayasha was older than many of the kingdoms of men, had seen generations of long-lived elves come and go, had in its time been as powerful as any living being on the face of the world, and even it, in the longest of runs, had fallen. What chance did anything as tiny as a man have of opposing the Shadow?
He entered the chamber he had been shown in his vision. Ahead of him lay a huge mound of coins, helmets, carved objects, like a heap of offerings piled in front of the altar of a wicked god. Atop the pile lay a familiar scabbard, thrown there by those who had captured him. He raced forward and picked up the weapon, breaking all custom and training by drawing it, to make sure it was his own weapon. He felt the familiar weight of it resting in his hand, looked upon the glowing runes and knew them to be true. He felt whole again.
A long time ago as men measured their lives, if but an eye-blink to the gods of Shadow, he had taken up this weapon and he had sworn an oath. While he lived he would keep it. He had spent his lifetime walking into the dark with this sword in his hand. He was a Champion of the Sun. Whatever he could do to oppose the ancient evil here, he would do.
Ahead of him, deeper in the chamber, the green glow intensified, a vast bulk shifted, a demon woke.
Kormak stepped forward, deeper into a vast cave-like chamber. The walls seemed to be made of an interlocking tangle of roots, covered in a carpet of sticky webbing. At its centre, was a stump of wood that looked like any other save that it was covered in a pulsing, brain-like nugget of fungal growth. Next to it, watching it like a dragon watching its hoard, was the largest spider Kormak had yet seen. It was big as a house, bloated and evil. It considered him with glittering green eyes from which shone boundless hunger and boundless malice and an ancient inhuman intelligence.
The body was so huge that he doubted that even its massive columnar legs could have supported it without the aid of the vast cables of webbing that suspended its body from the ceiling. It lay on a carpet of broken bones and shattered skulls. Its mandibles looked big enough to decapitate a bull. A swarm of smaller spiders scuttled around it and over it, tending it, picking small parasites from its carapace, grooming the furry hairs of its abdomen, feeding her morsels of something.
How long had this thing been down here, Kormak wondered? How long had it been growing bloated on the power of the Shadow and the flesh of the living?
The stench of rot was strong. The oily taste of the Shadow’s presence was on Kormak’s tongue. He met the spider’s gaze and felt an immediate sense of contact, of a hungry alien presence trying to force itself into his mind. The Elder Sign burned on his chest. He muttered prayers of resistance to the Shadow, and worked the rituals of cleansing. A wave of nausea passed over him and was gone.
The ground shook as the Queen spider raised herself up. There was a creaking sound as if her legs could barely support her weight. A flick of her limbs scattered bones and sent a skull rolling to Kormak’s feet. It looked up at him mockingly with empty eye-sockets. Smaller spiders tumbled off the greater one as it moved; some regained their balance, some lay on their backs, spindly legs kicking in the air.
Kormak stood sword in hand, waiting, like a small boy confronting a maddened mastodon. The thing dwarfed him and made him feel almost powerless. It came to him that there was still time for him to turn and run.
The Queen’s mandibles clicked. A sound like a wheezing roar emerged
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