Free The Sword of Sighs (The Age of the Flame: Book One) by Greg James Page B

her feet, her wet hands raw on the worn wood of the axe. Her eyes passed from one shape to the next, watching, waiting. One sprang to life again. It came at her, lunging forward. Sarah raised the axe. The blow of the sword shattered the haft and sent her tumbling back down onto the ground. Sarah saw a smile form in the shadows of the creature’s pale face, a drawn rictus under its stark, glaring eyes.
    “I know you,” Sarah said.
    And she did. She could see the familiar face there, though it was starved of life and worn so thin.
    “Trianna!”
    Sarah felt frozen. She remembered the last time she had seen the girl. Trianna had been holding her down. Her eyes went to the other four shapes. Were they Geneva and the others? How could this be? How could they be there? And what had done this to them?
    She looked back to the thing that wore what remained of Trianna’s face. There was no remembrance in those empty eyes, but it had stopped when Sarah had spoken the name. Frozen again, as before. She got to her feet, her heart racing as she took a step forward. “Trianna? Can you hear me? I know ... we weren’t friends ... before ... but—”
    Sarah was cut off.
    She screamed as a dark blade pierced her side. Black hatred twisted Trianna’s fading face as the sword was driven, hard and deep, into Sarah’s flesh.
    He said I wouldn’t be alone, Sarah thought, but I am. I’m going to die alone here.
    Lightning flared again and Sarah fell to the ground. The world grew dark and then burned with light, roaring and screaming around her. She heard words shouted over the noise of the storm that was breaking inside her head.
    "Shadows, shades and blight! Begone! Five Shadows, begone! Leave this place! Go!"
    The rain ran into her eyes and her fingers felt the warm wound in her side. She looked up and saw him standing there with a great white horse at his side. The man from her dream, his one eye shining bright. He wove lightning and blue fire from the air. The screaming from the shadows grew louder. She could smell something bitter and bad burning. Colours swam over darkness and sound dissolved into static. She heard the one-eyed man’s voice for a moment before she was taken under by the blackness.
    “… too late … let me not be too late for her...”

Chapter Ten
    Warmth, dryness, soft sheets, and the smell of home.
    Momma...?
    Sarah’s eyes flickered open. She yawned, and winced at the pain that darted though her limbs. Sitting up slowly, wiping grains of sleep from her eyes, she looked around. Mom wasn’t there, and she was not at home. She didn’t know where she was. The room was small and plain with wattle-and-daub walls. A sole window let in the deepening shades of evening through its lattice framework. Sheets and blankets were piled over her to keep out the cold, and an oil-fed storm lantern was set on the bedside dresser to light the room. She was wearing a crumpled, cream-coloured shift that was much too big for her, and there was a great aching in her right side. Throwing aside the sheets, she rolled up the shift so she could see what was there. A raw wound that looked like a large burst boil, surrounded by bruise-purpled flesh. It was red and tender, but Sarah could see smudges on the skin where ointment and balm had been worked in.
    She touched it with a fingertip.
    And she remembered: Woran, Barra, the black shapes, their shadow-swords, Trianna’s bilious face, and the searing pain from being stabbed. Sarah got to her feet and felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, sending her crashing into the wall, where she leaned for long minutes, staring into the middle distance, catching her breath.
    The door opened.
    “You should not be out of bed, Sarah.”
    It was Ossen, the Wayfarer, just as he had appeared in her dream.
    And he was there in the clearing at the end, after I fell, she thought.
    “You ... were there. You saved me.”
    His one eye blinked. “Yes, but I was too late to save you from being