Free The Black Tower by Steven Montano Page B

fists, itched to draw on her Veil energies and lash out.
    Soon , she promised herself.
    “We will kill them all,” Cronak said as if he’d read her mind.  Maybe he had – she really wasn’t sure what he was capable of.  She nodded.  In her mind’s eye she saw Dane, his entrails dangling from his torn stomach, used like thin ropes to bind him to a wooden pole.  She saw Slayne, hands hammered to a wall and blood running from his mouth, skin doused in oil so she could set him on fire. 
    She thought of Kyver from time to time, but her memories of him grew more vague by the day.  She was doing this all for him, this trek into a cold and dry hell, but it was becoming more and more difficult for her to think about anything except killing those who’d wronged her. 
    And then, the city.  It was bleak and desolate, a line of walls like broken teeth on the horizon.  Fire smoke rose from the core of the ruins and filled the sky, red and grey and burning with dark magic.  Bodies littered the landscape, and the stench of death was strong.  Soon they stood before the ruins of Corinth, dwarfed by its cracked parapets.
    Tuscars dismounted and drew their shek’taars.  They advanced on the main gates, where they circled like a pack of hungry jackals.  Fan’skar barked orders, as did Rutjack.  Arrows and bolts were exchanged, equipment was taken from the horses, men drew blades and readied for the assault.  They were nearly fifty strong – she just hoped it was enough.
    “He’s here,” Cronak said.  “Slayne is here.”
    “And Dane?” Vellexa asked him.
    Cronak stiffened. 
    “I can’t sense him,” he said.
    “Not to worry,” Vellexa said.  “I have a feeling we’ll see him soon.” 
    She took a deep breath and followed her warriors into the ruins.

Seven
     
    It was hell.
    All sense of reality vanished the moment she and the Dawn Knight fell through the cutgate .  Ijanna felt a brief sense of weightlessness, a moment of peace, followed by a gut-wrenching descent.  There was nothingness, above and below.  Black wind rippled against her body as she tumbled end over end into utter darkness.  There was no sound, no sight of the ground.  They fell through a void, straight into the depths of unimaginable fear.
    Memories flooded Ijanna Taivorkan’s mind, a torrent of images, sounds and scents so vivid she had trouble distinguishing what was real from what wasn’t.
    Her life had been filled with fear.  Her mother died when she was young, and her father understood from the start how cursed Ijanna was.  He made sure she would fulfill her destiny, that she would grow up understanding the pivotal role she was meant to play. 
    Allaji mystics raised her, and that life was harsh.  Buried up to her neck in sand, forced to build and then destroy and then rebuild brick walls, running back and forth on sharp stones in the glaring mid-day sun while wearing a blindfold, repeating tasks over and over until she got them right.  She sat quiet for days in front of the sunset, starved and thirsty, waiting for enlightenment. 
    She was alone, a half-breed, left to fend for herself by her Den’nari father, a hero of the war but a monster to her.  She was different from everyone she met, an outsider with a cursed birth.  They all understood who she was, what she was: a soiled remnant of the Blood Queen’s power, the creature meant to slay humankind so the world could heal. 
    Those memories flashed by.  She fell through black smoke and felt eyes on her, a dire intelligence which probed her for weaknesses.
    And then it found a memory it wanted.  Ijanna felt herself drawn down, sucked into a cold, dark place. 
     
    She’d barely escaped the camps.  Weeks of waiting had finally paid off, and it never would have happened if she hadn’t met the Red Hand and their fanatical leader, Malath Zayne.  Fear iced through her chest at the memory of all of that death – blood-soaked bodies, endless screams, cries for pity,