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Chapter Twenty-Six
"The skin of a Nykoran is sometimes covered in small scales called `anbiari.' They can be blue, green, black, purple, pink, or gray in color. Their teeth are no longer humanoid in resemblance. Rather, they are sharp and scissor-like and quite deft at cutting raw meat from bone. Furthermore, the Nykorans have an extra digit on their hands which serves as a second opposable thumb," Paulina said, turning the page in the heavy tome, The Races of Wynwrayth.
This particular volume was the result of an extensive collaboration between two churches: Eilustriel (the goddess of beauty) and Chagidiel (the god of sexual appetite and cannibalism). The whole was bound and distributed through the Guild of Bards and Sages.
"Alexi," Paul said, "are you paying attention?"
Alexi lifted his head from the papyrus scroll on which he kept a running list of things he wanted for his dwelling in the ruins. He sighed, thinking that he'd promised Ziggy water from the Well of Zanda and would have to go back soon. The shadow drake still hadn't clarified why it needed the water but insisted that it just did and that all would become clear in time.
"Alexi?" Paul asked one more time.
"What is it?" Alexi responded, turning his head to stare at his friend. This is when Alexi noticed that there was something different about Paul. In fact, he looked rather pretty in his maroon petticoat, and his hair had been styled so that it fell in mahogany waves about his throat. It was at this time that he noticed that Paul's Adam's apple had virtually disappeared and that his chest looked genuinely fuller and rounder. "Milbar's beard," Alexi swore, "are you taking the drugs for transition? Did you have the surgery?"
Paul's faced blanched, and he looked around the room but they were still alone in this corner of the school's library. "Shhh," Paul whispered. "Don't say that so loud. I've been taking the drugs for weeks now, and I had the surgery for breasts almost a month ago. It's taken that long to heal, not that you noticed. Rowena's right. Our only chance for a good life is to accept we're different. I'm transitioning, and so should you."
"Rowena wants to be a woman. She makes excuses for it. You don't," Alexi said.
"How do you know what I want?" Paul asked. "I want to be comfortable and taken care of. Life's hard for boys like you and me, but it's impossible in a place as awful as Zanda City."
Alexi couldn't argue with any of this. Day by day he felt he didn't belong but as graduation loomed his anxiety about both his sexuality and the consequences that awaited him for expressing it grew.
"You're still a boy then?" Alexi asked. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer. It didn't make him uncomfortable to think that a boy could become a girl or vice-versa through the Flesh-Crafting guild of Chagidiel. No, the Flesh Crafters of Chagidiel had an incredible reputation with the ability to remove or add sexual organs. Some aristocrats with very particular tastes had extra orifices installed in their bodies so that they could have sexual pleasure in just about any particular spot they desired. And the idea of rich "aristocrats" paying for this kind of thing was not coincidental. The Flesh Crafters of Chagidiel charged a lot of money for what they did, because a lot of it relied upon organs stolen from slaves they purchased in the market. But their work was indisputable, and oftentimes the Flesh Crafters did their very best to procure items that physically matched the host's skin tone. He'd seen some that did not, and those botched jobs usually received some kind of discount, even though there was an entire black market for sex slaves with strikingly different colored penises, tits, and other body parts. No...what bothered Alexi was the fact that a friend of his could elect to have this kind of work done, not because he wanted it, but because society demanded it for him to be happy.
"The drugs have made it small," Paul replied, "but I still have it. I could stop taking the drugs, and I could have the implants removed. But I'm not going to, Alexi. You'll have to face the fact that very soon I'm going to be a real girl."
Alexi nodded and then walked over to his friend and gave him a hug. "I'm sorry. I'll try to be supportive. As of this moment, I'll make sure to always call you Paulina."
"You can still call me Paul in private company. I-I'm not fully transitioned yet and don't quite feel comfortable in the head about it unless I'm in the `act' you know? It's going to take some time before I schedule that final surgery."
"Did it hurt?" Alexi asked.
"I was out for most of it," Paul admitted. "And the guild is rather chilly and the walls, floor, and ceiling of the place look like rusted iron. I saw a lot of strange things in there, Alexi. There were these huge glass vats filled with body parts, and I swear I heard screams echoing down windowless corridors. I saw men and women strapped to metal gurneys with black leather belts and my doctor introduced himself to me wearing a white apron stained in blood. He'd modified his mouth so that he had no lips...just this huge red grin full of teeth. But I'm happy with what they gave me, and the bruising's all gone. There's only a scar along the bottom. The doctor told me it was an incision line, necessary for the procedure. And my tits are filled with nerve endings, Alexi. I feel everything, even the wind blowing past them. Sometimes it makes me so hard, I can't stand it."
"There shouldn't have been a scar at all," Alexi said. "There's a simple spell for that. You cast it as you're dressing a wound."
Paul frowned. "Maybe they didn't know it."
Alexi sat down on a cushion with a floral-patterned on it and gave Paul's hand a reassuring squeeze. "I don't want to bring this up, but in case you regret taking this path, I've figured out where I'm going after graduation. If you want, you can live there too. I think I know you well enough that I can say this decision came from fear. It's fear that you'll have to return to your bigoted parents if you don't find a way to survive here in Zanda. A lot of it's fear that people will resent you for your gift, and that they'll never accept the fact that you're attracted to men. A lot of it's fear that you'll bring shame to your family if the secret that you're a transvestite is disclosed to neighbors and people who knew you as a boy. And a lot of happiness in this god-forsaken country depends on finding a boy willing to marry you, because it's a patriarchy despite the fact that the predominant religion is ruled by a woman. Maybe because she's also a demon changes her from a sympathetic character to a power-hungry despot. So our choices are slim. One choice we do have is to escape the border to ply our trade as a necromancer abroad. But that costs money, and after our families spent all the tuition to send us here to just get an education, they likely aren't going to have the resources to smuggle us out of Zanda. And then there's the fact that we might not ever see them again, and there's no colleges of necromancy in any other land so we'll never improve our abilities. But if we did escape we'd probably make some kind of living abroad, but you know as well as I that the necromancy gift in boys is usually sub-par to that possessed by girls."
Paul nodded and looked at the cover of his book. "Daphne is so much more adept than I at certain things. Did you know she can bring a squirrel back from the dead? She's working on creating fire stones now, but thus far has failed."
"Paul," Alexi said, "I controlled an undead ogre." Paul's chocolate eyes narrowed and he pursed his red lips for a moment and then pulled his hand back from Alexi. "You're serious?"
Alexi nodded and then told Paul all about his laboratory, his run-in with the horde of zombies, and even about the shadow drake, Ziggy, and his adventure at the Well of Zanda last night. Paul listened to everything with wide eyes.
When Alexi finished, Paul was quivering with excitement. "Now I see why you're distracted from our final exams. I was quizzing you about Nykoran terminology, and you've been putting together a whole secret lab, and you've been controlling dead ogres, and even taken a trip through the ethereal plane? What the hell is that, exactly?"
"It's how we—Ziggy, myself, and Dudley the ogre—stole the things we needed from the washroom. It turns out that the shadow drake can open a path into this other dimension that's invisible to those living here, but we can see through the curtain into this dimension...only everything looks indistinct and foggy," Alexi said. "You should see the place. I've got a mattress now from a store we robbed using Ziggy's trick. And I've stolen oodles of books from the restricted section of this library...tomes that will take me years to read."
"How many?" Paul asked.
"Probably a couple hundred. The restricted section is stacked full of books that go on for aisle after aisle. They won't be missed, trust me," Alexi said. "And I've set up a washroom. The place used to be a really nice wing of some palace. It's run down but nothing that my ogre and some undead slaves I've yoked for just such a purpose haven't been able to fix."
Paul swallowed nervously. "Can I see it?"
Alexi nodded. "I'll come and get you at ten o'clock tonight. I've got some medical supplies I want to pick up down in Slippery Squib. You know...a doctor's bag and such. I want to start delving into real necromancy, and I'm going to need scalpels, bandages, and all the implements Professor Goering has in his operating room here at the academy. I want to make a war ghul, Paul. I want to do it all by myself and not with a team of lesser necromancers. Ziggy's mad at me for not bringing back the water I promised him from the Well of Zanda, so he's refused to help me steal any more things until I fulfill my word. So I'm just going by myself."
"He's mad at you even though you almost died?" Paul asked.
"Yes," Alexi replied. "He thought the encounter with Hunter was interesting, but it was no excuse to drop the vial."
"From your description, this Hunter sounded very sexy," Paul said with a grin. "I wish I could have seen him."
"I wish the light was better. Gods, I don't even know if he's a man, but the lines of his armor sure indicated that he was. Milbar's beard, Paul, I'd never felt such strength nor seen such dexterity. His armor looked poured on; his physique unearthly. While he held me, I ran my fingers down the front of his cuirass and there were so many bumps it felt like a washboard. But I've no idea what he actually looks like. Just thinking about those strong fingers grabbing me makes my dick hard," Alexi said.
"Was he hotter than a Timeron knight?" Paul asked.
"Think of the hottest knight you've seen and set that memory to ashes," Alexi said. "That's how hot he was. All I could do was stare. I'm so glad it was raining because I might have drooled. He was so tall, Paul, and he had these broad shoulders that I could just imagine acting as foot rests. His bubble butt was rock hard and perfect, and his thighs had a finger's width of gap."
This made Paul giggle. "Foot rests. Now that's funny."
"One can dream, right?" Alexi asked.
"So that term," Paul said, "the one you heard the other day while we watched the death knight talk to the headmaster."
"Golden galactorrhea?" Alexi asked, eyes still dreamily thinking of his savior at the Well.
"That's the one. I know what it means, and it's in this book that you should be studying along with me."
"What does it mean?" Alexi asked, clearly intrigued.
"The short answer is that it happens to a man going through transition—someone like me—that has sex with another man whose body can produce royal jelly. It's extremely rare and there's a lot of specific sexual things that have to happen for the condition to set in," Paul said.
"What kind of specific things?" Alexi asked.
"Off the top of my head, the swallowing of lots of semen, the consumption of sweat, and the absorption of royal jelly-infused cum by the intestine. It also involves a powerful necromantic spell that grows a temporary uterus in the upper intestine. But the thing is, the spell's been lost to time. The only thing that's known is that an actual egg needs to be harvested from a living woman. Growing the uterus takes a few hours and then the man that's transitioning gets impregnated by the other man whose balls can produce royal jelly. A fetus gestates but dies because the uterus isn't real. It's flushed out the colon along with the uterus in a kind of bloody mess. The side effect of this pregnancy is that the transitioning man's nipples start producing milk for the aborted fetus. It's this milk that's called golden galactorrhea, and it has many useful magical properties. Some are quite powerful."
"That's a lot to take in," Alexi said. "No wonder Kahket is offering so much money for just a little bit. If we could get our hands on some, we'd be set for life. A half million gold pieces would allow us to live in any country in the world like kings."
"Or queens," Paul said with a sheepish smile. "I haven't decided yet, but I'm glad you told me about your plans. It seems doable and it makes me realize I've a lot more to think about. Life isn't easy for those of us stuck in the precarious position of pretending we're something that we're not."
"Hey, after I show you my place tonight, will you go over those notes you've made in your book for the exam on racial traits?" Alexi asked, as he gathered up his belongings in a school satchel.
Paul nodded. "I'll be ready at ten. Don't forget. I'll leave the door unlocked to my dormitory and wait for you in the common room."
Alexi left for his own room, which was in the girl's dormitory across from the lecture halls devoted to healing. Necromancy as a discipline was an umbrella study that covered a variety of topics that had one common thread. A lot of it had to do with the reanimation of dead things, controlling those things once they were reanimated, and destroying things by reducing them to their ultimate natural state. But the common thread was always life. So in a way, necromancy was the study of life and to fully appreciate this, the girls were required to become doctors and surgeons in their own right. This also afforded many who did not possess strong innate talent for necromancy another path to follow as doctors and surgeons were always in need.
Alexi set down his books and exam papers on his makeshift desk. Then he grabbed a map of Slippery Squib he'd pilfered from the library archives. Choosing his path carefully, he put the map away, grabbed a cloak and headed for the school gate.
Because a Timeron knight by the name of Skellhaundar Romax had killed the rampaging Abaddon demon a few days ago, there were no guards at the gate to the school and girls were free to come and go as they pleased once more. When he reached the bottom of the hill on which the sprawling academy grounds rested, Alexi hailed a carriage and gave the driver directions.
"I need to go to the Apothecary's Guild in Slippery Squib. It's between the Guild of the Five Fishes and Omar's Imports," Alexi said, handing the driver a single silver coin.
The pudgy driver put it away and said, "It's late, miss. Slippery Squib is dangerous without a man at your side to protect such a dainty thing as yourself. The last sun's only got about an hour left is all. Are you sure you want to go there alone?"
"I am," Alexi replied. Then he climbed into the carriage; soon the creak of the wheels gave him comfort that they were well on their way.
A half hour later, Alexi arrived at the outside of the Apothecary's Guild. By then, the skies had darkened prematurely with more winter storms. The clouds looked angrier than normal, and roiling purple clouds flashed with distant lightning that grew closer and louder by the minute. Thunder pealed from the sides of buildings and almost spooked the horses. Alexi gave the driver another silver coin and said, "Please wait for me, sir. I shan't be long."
The man looked afraid, glancing at the long shadows which choked the narrow street. Plenty of people were out and about, but they looked a swarthy and hungry crowd, many sporting smocks stained from working the butcher houses, the tannery, or the anvils. Others watched the approaching storm with passing interest, tossing the leftovers from evening meals to wild dogs that roamed the alleys. A gang of hirsute men at the end of the street harassed some tired-looking prostitutes gathered under a lamp post. Even from here, Alexi could smell their perfume.
Alexi regarded the outside of the Apothecary's Guild with wonder. It stood three stories, and it looked dilapidated. The boards had been whitewashed a number of times, but none of it recent. One of the windows was completely covered in hard water stains and old spider webs. The sign hung directly over the entry, gold letters on red and the image of a mortar and pestle prominent in black paint.
Next to this building on the left, the caravanserai called "Omar's Imports" stood open to the public. A single portal large enough to permit heavily-laden beasts stood greeting the street. Alexi could see the place was crowded with stalls, bays, niches, and chambers accommodating merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise (which was for sale). Everywhere men and women wandered. Some examined swords, others spices, and yet more took to fingering baubles and trinkets of blown glass imported from around the world. He heard a hundred different accents and languages pouring forth from that door, and the entirety of it intrigued him.
However, he had business to attend to so he went into the Apothecary's Guild and spent an hour gathering up all the things he wanted. Alexi spent the last of his money here, and happily gave it to the man behind the counter while grasping his "doctor's bag." By the time he finished, it was snowing in the streets, and Alexi exited only to find that his driver had abandoned him. He thought about going back inside the Apothecary's Guild and asking them to send for another carriage, but they locked for the night. At Omar's Imports next door, all the stalls had been shuttered, and the merchants were gone for the night.
"Fuck," Alexi said under his breath, feeling afraid and vulnerable.
It was then that he heard voices coming from inside the caravanserai. They sounded heated, and soon the ring of steel on steel sounded from within.
Alexi just had to see what was going on.
Carefully, he crept around the corner, making certain to keep as close to the stone wall as possible. When he found a suitable hiding place from which to observe, he took it. There a hundred feet beyond a stack of crates stood two giants. They both had onyx black skin and powerful frames. Alexi had seen the male warrior before riding at the head of a column of Nykoran soldiers and wearing resplendent ring mail. The other was a woman, and she too wore knee-high leather boots pulled on tight over blue steel plate armor, forged in a ring pattern. Not quite as tall as the man, they both towered over Mr. Hunter who stood right between them with one foot against a pine coffin. Alexi knew how tall Hunter was, and yet the man that saved him last night only came to chest height on the woman.
"Milbar's beard," Alexi swore, shaking his head in a double take.
Hunter stood with twin wrist blades of cibrian metal gleaming in the snowstorm. In his other hand, he held a powerful runeblade that glowed red in the dark.
"This ends here, Cirumoghel," Hunter warned through his helmet. "You can't have Eph."
Who's Eph? Alexi thought. Is he in the pine box?
The death giant warrior tightened his grip about the huge soul-reaping cadel. As if on cue, his ghostly shawl started moaning and Alexi saw mouths, eyes and faces materialize in the mist clinging to his massive shoulders. Beyond this fight, Alexi saw other humans looking on. But just like Alexi, they gave these three at least a fifty-foot berth.
"You should have fled the country, small one! Now when you die, no one will mourn your life," Cirumoghel said. "Kahket gets what she wants. And right now, she wants the Valion knight in that box."
"Then come and get him, if you can," Hunter taunted.
To everyone's surprise, the female death giant attacked first. She ran at Hunter who interrupted the downward swing of the soul-stealing cadel full-on with the edge of his magical sword, but the force of her stroke drove him to his knees which produced a loud "crack" as he hit the stone floor of the caravanserai.
Sparks flew from Hunter's cibrian blade like fireworks on Silverspring night. A warrior unused to battle might have backed off, but this death giantess wanted to kill her victim without mercy. She hacked at Hunter with swings so fast she might have been hitting at flies with a willow switch. But the cadel was no mere stick, and blow after blow sang against Hunter's blade like the blacksmith's hammer rings over an anvil of glowing steel.
Hunter fell back and caught his weight on his left palm where he spread his fingers to provide him with greater balance. With speed that could only come from years of executing such maneuvers, Hunter lifted his body and kicked the giantess's feet out from under her. He performed the maneuver perfectly, but her sheer size and strength didn't make it easy and Alexi saw the strain on Hunter's back muscles (even through his armor!). Only then did she topple and fall.
The blow was so loud Alexi thought a lightning bolt had struck a building next to him. Ridiculous, Alexi thought. That strike from Hunter could have shattered the femur of an elephant.
Then the snow started to whorl in a huge vortex and a great emerald dragon swooped down from the sky, its mouth open and cackling. "And to think, I once feared this pathetic thing," the dragon taunted. "Now it shall feel the sting of my breath!"
Hunter rolled to his feet and translocated, but this time to the diving dragon. Hunter appeared out of the sky and behead the huge beast with one swing of his sword. The dragon crashed into the ground, its tail whipping through a dozen stalls as it rolled to a stop. The head of the great emerald beast fell onto the pine coffin, shattering it open so that Alexi could see the body of an unconscious knight inside. It still laughed and showered the clearing with blood that steamed as it struck the snow. Then the dragon's eyes grew dark.
Hunter landed in a crouch and Cirumoghel was on top of him almost immediately.
Hunter tucked and rolled and swung again at the giantess. He looked to try and finish her at the neck but grasping hands from her floating cape ripped at his skin-tight armor and threw him into a block of stone. Launching himself off it, Hunter landed on the balls of his feet (more graceful than any cat) and crouched in a defensive stance. One more time he avoided Cirumoghel with a teleport. Yet when he reappeared again more ghostly claws grabbed him just short of the giantess's neck. This time, however, she leapt to her feet and hurled him into the cobblestone street with a simple gesture of her hand. Hunter screamed in pain, and the giantess snatched her cadel from off the ground.
Hunter whirled with his magical sword firmly grasped in the palm of his hand. The giantess caught him by the wrist and slammed his hand into her knee. As loud as the blow sounded, Hunter didn't release the blade. Then Hunter dropped into a strange martial arts stance that reminded Alexi of water. Hunter repositioned himself using only his feet and his torso, which also served to loosen the grip the giantess had on his wrist, if only for a second. She grunted, trying to maintain the hold, but Hunter managed to break it in the next instant. Then he followed through across her middle with the edge of the magical sword, and cut her through both armor and flesh clean to the rib bone. He finished off her right arm by leaving it a bloody stump.
The giantess fell in a shower of blood.
"Scream bitch!" Hunter yelled as he stood his full height over her prone body. His sword rained crimson in thick rivers that cascaded from the fuller and made the snow sticky.
He swung at her neck, but she rolled away from him, grabbed her arm, and reattached it to the stump.
"Fuck me..." he cursed.
More souls burned inside her cape, and she rolled backward. The giantess came to her feet even as her armor re-knit itself over newly formed onyx skin.
Hunter teleported again and pierced her through the back and drove his sword through her until it came forth in a spout between her massive tits. Black blood fountained from her mouth and she dropped onto her knees, placing her neck at Hunter's shoulders. She laughed and tried hitting Hunter with her massive elbows. But the lithe assassin gritted his teeth and cut her in half with the runesword. He kicked her legs forward and punched her torso to the side as blood showered the ground.
Cirumoghel laughed and Alexi stared in horror.
The giantess's soul cape reached out and grabbed a hold of her legs and pulled the pieces of her together.
"Bloody fucking shit fuck cock damn!" Hunter screamed in anger. Then he kicked at the snow.
Cirumoghel grabbed Hunter about the throat with one hand and lifted him into the air. Then he made a fist and punched Hunter in the ribs so hard it knocked him thirty feet into the second story wall of a four-story complex. Alexi half expected Hunter to teleport. When that didn't happen, he knew the giant had caused some serious damage. Hunter fell to the ground, sword clattering. Then Cirumoghel was on top of him, hammering him with kicks and punches. He threw Hunter into a granite column, and even from where Alexi crouched, he heard the snap of bones.
"You don't look so great now," Cirumoghel uttered with absolute contempt.
He grabbed Hunter's leg and tossed him next to the Valion knight's unconscious body. He pressed his huge foot on Hunter's throat. Nearly as wide as the assassin's head, Hunter fought back by using both hands to push up with all his strength just to keep the giant from cutting off his windpipe.
"Do you realize how fortunate you are?" Cirumoghel asked. At his back, the female giantess had reassembled herself and was just now getting to her feet. "I've led armies that have crushed nations under their heels. A thousand slaves have licked my boots clean. And yet, you seem so unappreciative of my greatness." Cirumoghel turned his boot so that the side of it forced Hunter's head to the left. This way he could use his heel to dig into the assassin's neck. The sole of Cirumoghel's boot flaked mud and snow all over Hunter's helmet.
Why doesn't he teleport? Alexi thought. His power must have limits, like if he's restrained by something.
"Fuck you!" Hunter grunted painfully.
"We haven't been introduced," the giantess said. "I'm Mara Kano. Now, how many of the knight's friends are here in Zanda City?"
"I'll...never...tell...you," Hunter said with much difficulty.
She grabbed Hunter's gauntleted hand, and he tried to form a fist to resist her but the giantess possessed untold strength. "I asked only one question," she said. "For that reason, I take only one finger." She easily pried Hunter's hand open in a matter of seconds. Then she bent his middle finger back at the knuckle. A second later, there was an audible snap as she broke it in half.
Hunter cried out, and Cirumoghel motioned for her to let him go and obediently she dropped his arm.
The huge death giant reached into a pouch and then pulled out some unusual black shackles. Alexi realized in the next moment that they were made from Abyssal stone. No! he screamed in his mind.
"Bind him in those," Cirumoghel said. "Kahket will want to question him."
"My lord," Mara Kano said, "He can escape any bond. He's a Black Dragon Assassin...they're the best killers in the world."
Alexi blinked trying to think if he'd ever even heard of the words: Black Dragon Assassin. Up until now, he hadn't.
"The best?" Cirumoghel asked. He laughed again. "If he's the best then it shall be easy to destroy Tethyr's church when the time comes. And for your information, Mara, nothing can escape those shackles."
Mara Kano nodded and then fastened the collar around Hunter's neck. Then she shackled his feet and hands and threaded them with a chain. While she did so, she put her knee on Hunter's chest and dug the toe of her boot into the assassin's groin. The entire time, Hunter screamed; Alexi had never heard anything so blood-curdling. Despite his incredible armor, smoke curled upward from Hunter's neck, wrists, and ankles.
He was literally being burned alive.
"Please," he begged, "this hurts. Please, take it off."
"It won't kill you through that armor," Mara Kano said. "For a Black Dragon Assassin, you're a pitiful weakling. I thought you could withstand pain."
From over Alexi's left shoulder came the clomp of multiple hooves; shortly after a contingent of Timeron knights rode into the plaza. Alexi counted seven; all of them mounted on huge nightmares: black warhorses with big cloven hooves and eyes of pure fire. In place of manes and tails were thick plumes of ebony smoke. At their head rode the infamous general, Skellhaundar Romax and at his side a diminutive priestess with long black hair, light blue skin, and yellow eyes. She wore the robes and vestments of the Queen of Demons and small golden horns sprouted from her forehead.
Skellhaundar took a look at the death giants and dismounted. "I'll say this once. Turn over your prisoners to me, and I'll spare your lives."
The death giants looked at each other and tightened the grips they had on their soul-reaping cadels.
"We take orders only from the Dreaded Irtemara. If you want these men, you'll have to come through me," Cirumoghel said, his soul cape stretching out behind him and his weapon ever at the ready.
"Skadeshai!" the cleric said, raising her hand. At her command, the giant's soul cloaks filled with red lightning and tore themselves apart. A second later, the spirits that the Nevrenachtur lords had so painstaking harvested over the years drifted into the ether and vanished beyond the veil of the snowy night.
"Do you really want to fight me here?" Skellhaundar asked. "I do hope that you say yes."
Alexi shook his head, looking at Hunter who rolled around on the ground in pain. I've got to do something. He saved my life.
Alexi stoked that ball of necromancy that resided deep within his gut, and it responded to his call with more urgency and power than he had ever felt. He directed the full force of all that necromancy at Hunter's bonds of Abyssal stone. The manacles vibrated for a moment, but no one noticed. Alexi tried again, hurling even more power at the bonds...he extended so much from within that he literally felt his own life ebbing with the effort.
Milbar's beard...please...I've got to break them.
Fine filaments appeared in all of the manacles. These in turn became cracks. When Hunter saw this he struggled with all his strength and broke free of the collar. In an instant he snapped the manacles and kicked himself free of the chains that held him.
"He's getting away," Cirumoghel said to Mara Kano, who whirled on Hunter. But she was too late.
The dexterous assassin had already gotten to his feet (albeit weakly) and retrieved his magical runesword. Then he vanished into the night. When Alexi saw Hunter didn't reappear, he grabbed his doctor's bag and fled the caravanserai on foot as fast as his heels could carry him.
The complete novel is now available to read at http://slckismet.blogspot.com/p/discussion-board-for.html under the label "The Orb of Winter" if you care to read ahead.
Are there any artists out there willing to draw some pics for my story? If so, please email me. There is an "Orb of Winter" map now in both the NEWS section of my website and in the FORUMS of my website.
If you go to my website directly from this posting, you will want to begin with "CHAPTER NINETEEN."