Read Online The Last Guardian by Jeff Grubb - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeff Grubb
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, adventure, Fantasy fiction, Fantasy, Fantasy Fiction; American, Games, Video & Electronic
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plummeted toward the armed darkness below.
Four
Battle and Aftermath
The air rushed out of Khadgar’s lungs as he struck the ground. The earth was gritty beneath his fingers, and he realized he must have landed on a low dune of sandy debris collected along one side of the ridge.
Uneasily the young mage rose to his feet. From the air the ridge looked like a forest fire. From the ground it looked like an opening to hell itself.
The wagons were almost completely consumed by fire now, their contents scattered and blazing along the ridge. Bolts of cloth had been unwound in the dirt, barrels staved and leaking, and food despoiled and mashed into the earth. Around him were bodies as well, human forms dressed in light armor. There was an occasional gleam of a helmet or a sword. Those would be the caravan guards, who failed their task.
Khadgar shrugged a painful shoulder, but it felt bruised as opposed to broken. Even given the sand, he should have landed harder. He shook his head, hard. Whatever ache was left from Medivh’s spell was outweighed by greater aches elsewhere.
There was movement among the wreckage, and Khadgar crouched. Voices barked back and forth in an unfamiliar tongue, a language to Khadgar’s ears both guttural and blasphemous. They Page 27
were searching for him. They had seen him topple from his mount and now they were searching for him. As he watched, stooped figures shambled through the wreckage, forming hunched silhouettes where they passed before the flames.
Something tickled the back of Khadgar’s brain, but he could not place it. Instead he started to back out of the clearing, hoping the darkness would keep him hidden from the creatures.
Such was not to be. Behind him, a branch snapped or a booted foot found a chuckhole covered by leaves, or leather armor was tangled briefly in some brush. In any event, Khadgar knew he was not alone, and he turned at once to see…
A monstrosity from his vision. A mockery of humanity in green and black.
It was not as large as the creature of his vision, nor as wide, but it was still a nightmare creature.
Its heavy jaw was dominated by fangs that jutted upward, its other features small and sinister.
For the first time Khadgar realized it had large, upright ears. It probably heard him before it saw him.
Its armor was dark, but it was leather and not the metal of his dream. The creature bore a torch in one hand that caught the deep features of its face, making it all the more monstrous. In its other hand the creature carried a spear decorated with a string of small white objects. With a start Khadgar realized the objects were human ears, trophies of the massacre around them.
All this came to Khadgar in an instant, in the moment’s meeting of man and monster. The beast pointed the grisly-decorated spear at the youth and let out a bellowing challenge.
The challenge was cut short as the young mage muttered a word of power, raised a hand, and unleashed a small bolt of power through the creature’s midsection. The beast slumped in on itself, its bellow cut short.
One part of his mind was stunned by what he had just done, the other knew that he had seen what these creatures could do, in the vision in Karazhan.
The creature had warned the other members of its unit, and now there were war-howls in return around the encampment. Two, four, a dozen such travesties, all converging on his location.
Worse yet, there were other howls from the swamp itself.
Khadgar knew he did not have the power to repulse all of them. Summoning the mystic bolt was enough to weaken him. Another would put him in dire danger of fainting. Perhaps he should try to flee?
But these monsters probably knew the dark fen that surrounded them better than he did. If he kept to the sandy ridge, they would find him. If he fled into the swamp, not even Medivh would be able to locate him.
Khadgar looked up into the sky, but there was no sign of either the Magus or the gryphons. Had Medivh landed
Four
Battle and Aftermath
The air rushed out of Khadgar’s lungs as he struck the ground. The earth was gritty beneath his fingers, and he realized he must have landed on a low dune of sandy debris collected along one side of the ridge.
Uneasily the young mage rose to his feet. From the air the ridge looked like a forest fire. From the ground it looked like an opening to hell itself.
The wagons were almost completely consumed by fire now, their contents scattered and blazing along the ridge. Bolts of cloth had been unwound in the dirt, barrels staved and leaking, and food despoiled and mashed into the earth. Around him were bodies as well, human forms dressed in light armor. There was an occasional gleam of a helmet or a sword. Those would be the caravan guards, who failed their task.
Khadgar shrugged a painful shoulder, but it felt bruised as opposed to broken. Even given the sand, he should have landed harder. He shook his head, hard. Whatever ache was left from Medivh’s spell was outweighed by greater aches elsewhere.
There was movement among the wreckage, and Khadgar crouched. Voices barked back and forth in an unfamiliar tongue, a language to Khadgar’s ears both guttural and blasphemous. They Page 27
were searching for him. They had seen him topple from his mount and now they were searching for him. As he watched, stooped figures shambled through the wreckage, forming hunched silhouettes where they passed before the flames.
Something tickled the back of Khadgar’s brain, but he could not place it. Instead he started to back out of the clearing, hoping the darkness would keep him hidden from the creatures.
Such was not to be. Behind him, a branch snapped or a booted foot found a chuckhole covered by leaves, or leather armor was tangled briefly in some brush. In any event, Khadgar knew he was not alone, and he turned at once to see…
A monstrosity from his vision. A mockery of humanity in green and black.
It was not as large as the creature of his vision, nor as wide, but it was still a nightmare creature.
Its heavy jaw was dominated by fangs that jutted upward, its other features small and sinister.
For the first time Khadgar realized it had large, upright ears. It probably heard him before it saw him.
Its armor was dark, but it was leather and not the metal of his dream. The creature bore a torch in one hand that caught the deep features of its face, making it all the more monstrous. In its other hand the creature carried a spear decorated with a string of small white objects. With a start Khadgar realized the objects were human ears, trophies of the massacre around them.
All this came to Khadgar in an instant, in the moment’s meeting of man and monster. The beast pointed the grisly-decorated spear at the youth and let out a bellowing challenge.
The challenge was cut short as the young mage muttered a word of power, raised a hand, and unleashed a small bolt of power through the creature’s midsection. The beast slumped in on itself, its bellow cut short.
One part of his mind was stunned by what he had just done, the other knew that he had seen what these creatures could do, in the vision in Karazhan.
The creature had warned the other members of its unit, and now there were war-howls in return around the encampment. Two, four, a dozen such travesties, all converging on his location.
Worse yet, there were other howls from the swamp itself.
Khadgar knew he did not have the power to repulse all of them. Summoning the mystic bolt was enough to weaken him. Another would put him in dire danger of fainting. Perhaps he should try to flee?
But these monsters probably knew the dark fen that surrounded them better than he did. If he kept to the sandy ridge, they would find him. If he fled into the swamp, not even Medivh would be able to locate him.
Khadgar looked up into the sky, but there was no sign of either the Magus or the gryphons. Had Medivh landed
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