Read Online Call Of The Flame (Book 1) by James R. Sanford - Free Book Online Page B

fluid leaked from the empty socket.  Grinning with an insane mouth, he
raised the shard of the mystic crystal and tried to push it into the empty
socket.  It didn’t quite fit.  He pushed harder and it popped in, a grotesque
imitation of a glass eye.
    A bell clanging wildly in a nearby courtyard shook Sorrin
from his daze.  Casting his bow aside, he reached down and took a sword from
the hand of a fallen knight.
    Cauldin unhooked the helm from his belt and thrust it onto
his head.  Both hands on the grip, he held his sword ready in a high guard.
    Sorrin attacked — spring toward him, quick steps, extend,
blades clash, rush past, stop and turn.
    Cauldin spun to face him.  His sword shone coldly, and misty
ghosts flickered along the edge of the blade.  Behind one rectangular slit, a strong
light came from within his helmet.
    “Do not try to stand against me, Sorrin.  You did not
destroy the Pyxidium, and this half that I hold is giving me a strength you
cannot imagine.”
    The bell no longer sounded.  Sorrin motioned toward the open
doorway.  “All the knights of the order are coming.  No man is an army.  And
for what you have done, there is no redemption.”
    Cauldin leapt forward with a furious two-handed slash. 
Sorrin jumped back, and the air whirred with the blade’s passing.
    Sorrin saw the opening and stepped up, blade flashing, but
the move had been a ruse to draw the attack.  Cauldin returned his swing
backhanded and his sword clove Sorrin’s blade like an axe through a brittle
twig.
    Sorrin closed with him, to use the broken blade like a
knife, but Cauldin seized his throat with one hand, lifted him off his feet,
and shook him.  Gurgling, legs flailing, Sorrin stabbed wildly.
    Cauldin bellowed, a cry of agony and surprise.  The broken
sword had sunk deep into his chest.
    He threw Sorrin aside, slamming him into the wall.  Then,
growling with each tug, Cauldin worked the blade from his torso.
    As Sorrin staggered to his feet, the war cries of a dozen
knights echoed in the corridor outside.  Cauldin lurched to the doorway, then
through.
    Sorrin took a step, wobbled, and had to hold himself against
the wall to keep his feet.  Moments later the knights burst into the room.
    “Where is the enemy?” shouted one of them.
    “Fled,” answered Sorrin.  “Is anyone guarding the gate at
the bridge?”
    “An entire company.  We thought that there was an attack
from the land.”  Then the knight saw the murdered sages.  “How?  Who did this?”
    “Listen to me,” Sorrin said to all of them.  “The Pyxidium
is now divided.  By my arrow it was split.”  The arrowhead lay at his feet,
melted into formless slag, its enchantment undone.  “After attending the
injured, search this chamber well, for one half is here, somewhere.  The other
half was taken by Cauldin, who is now our enemy.  I shall pursue him.  But
remain watchful — he may still be within these walls, or he may return.”  And
he strode quickly from the room, taking up his bow as he went.
    In the corridor, he felt Cauldin’s presence receding. 
Galloping into sight from around a bend in the passageway came a long-limbed
youth, wearing the peasant shirt of a candidate of the order.  “Master Sorrin,”
he said, sliding to a halt, “Master Sorrin, a tall man all in black is stealing
one of our boats.”
    “Do you know the way to my cell?”
    “Yes.”
    “Go there, fetch my sword and my quiver, and meet me at
quayside.  And hurry.”
    The young man nodded and dashed away.
    Sorrin went to the gate above the harbor.
    The ground fog, beginning to clear, blew in wispy tufts
across the waters of the tiny port.  The wind came lightly, but Cauldin had
already passed beyond bow shot, completed his last tack, and now ran for the
open sea.  Sorrin leaped into his own boat and began to make ready.
    The lanky youth, breathless, stumbled through the shifting
mists to give Sorrin his blade and arrows.
    “Well done,” said