Read Online The Brush of Black Wings by Grace Draven - Free Book Online Page B

and
Silhara had bled for it numerous times.
    Shards of lightning crackled from the dark
hollow, and he caught the clanking sound of metal scraping across
stone before a flash of movement twinkled in warning. Quick
instincts and a finely honed sense of self preservation saved him
from impalement. He jerked back as a blade whipped out of the
shadows. It cleaved the air, almost slicing off his nose as it shot
past him to bury the first quarter of its tip in a nearby tree
trunk with a solid thunk.
    The embedded weapon oscillated from the impact
then went still. Cerulean light still bolted down the blade, and in
the woodland hush, Silhara heard the faintest hum—like far-off
voices canting funereal dirges. The sound raised the hair on his
arms, and he approached cautiously.
    Bark began flaking off the tree’s trunk where
the sword stuck, bits and pieces turning to dust before they even
fell to the ground. Wood rotted at unnatural speed, creating a
patch of decay that grew to the size of a dinner plate before
stopping. The gnarled oak, probably as old as Neith itself, visibly
shivered, its leafless branches cascading snow to the ground.
Silhara suspected that were the oak younger, the wound left by the
ensorcelled sword would have killed it. Instead, the trunk’s
ligneous grip, softened by sudden rot, gave way. The sword fell,
landing with a soft thud in a pile of dead leaves that instantly
disintegrated to powder. The wounded oak shivered once more, and
Silhara didn’t imagine the sylvan groan of relief that echoed from
the roots below ground.
    He crouched beside the sword for a better
look. He was neither swordsmith nor warrior. What fighting skills
he had, he’d learned as a wharf rat on Eastern Prime’s docks and in
her dangerous closes. He’d honed them as a rebellious novitiate
during his brief tenure at Conclave Redoubt. He was handy with a
knife, his fists, his spells and a savage will to survive that was
bequeathed to all rats.
    Spells were his area of expertise, but he knew
enough about swords and the type of fighters who wielded them to
find this one puzzling. Whether forged as enchanted or later turned
that way, the blade surprised him. He expected something more
spectacular from a Wraith King.
    The weapon reminded him of his cane knife.
Single-handed, single-edged and guardless, it was more long knife
than sword. Its slender, slightly curved blade was made for
slashing and thrusting instead of cleaving and blocking. The hilt
lacked any ornamentation. The pommel bore the design of an avian
head in profile. Plain like the hilt, its only nod to decoration
was a tiny river stone inset to represent the bird’s
eye.
    He didn’t need a swordsman’s gaze to see the
edge remained sharp—lethal in a skilled hand. Still, this was not a
sword bequeathed to a king or even a nobleman. Far too humble and
unassuming, even with sorcery of the dead and the demonic infused
in its metal and lightning coursing down its fuller.
    Megiddo Anastas. Wraith King, dark god,
commander of demon hordes. Not a collector of the
ornate.
    Silhara returned to the exposed alcove beneath
the steps and incanted another spell. A scabbard usually
accompanied a sword, and his guess proved correct when one rose
from the same spot as the sword before dropping to clatter down the
steps and landed at his feet.
    As plain an affair as the weapon itself and
protected from age and decay by the same blend of dark sorcery, the
scabbard offered no hints to its origin or maker. The smooth onyx
wood was waxed and would have shimmered softly from a fine polish,
even without the help of the eldritch light.
    Silhara pulled the pair of harvesting gloves
he’d brought with him from his belt. They shielded his hands from
the orange trees’ vicious thorns but weren’t much use against
sorcery. He’d enchanted them with protection spells in preparation
for holding whatever artifact he retrieved from underneath the
temple. While the sword’s unassuming appearance