Free Embers of a Broken Throne by Terry C. Simpson Page A

struck down beast after beast. But as Irmina fought her own desperate battle she saw the situation was hopeless.
    And then Ancel appeared in the thick of the battle, Etchings aglow, streaming light like some god. His longsword left fiery trails in the air, and any shadeling it touched burst into ash. His shortsword hewed through flesh and bone, driven by the force of the hand behind it.
    Charra fought beside him, a white blur of hardened bone hackles. The wedge of cartilage at the end of his tail was a spear that skewered, darting out to pierce foe after foe. Blood stained his fur black and red.
    Bolstered by their leader, the Pathfinders found their way to Ancel’s side. The Dagodins rallied behind him.
    With them as her shield, she resorted to single bursts of fire or arrows of light, picking off any shadelings still trying to reach Ancel. He had to be protected. If he fell, they all fell. Not far from her, the Ashishins copied what she did.
    As she sent Forge after Forge into the enemy, she watched in awe of Ancel’s prowess as he switched from Stance to Stance while attacking with various Styles. It was as if he thought it was a dance. But what she witnessed was pure carnage, limbs lopped off, creatures slipping inside his guard succumbing to fists or knees hardened like steel, shattering bone, punching through chests.
    Of Ryne there was no sign.
    The battle continued to rage, the cries of the dead and dying crashing over the sound of steel, the roars of men and monster adding to the din. She was no fool. Eventually Ancel would tire, so would the Pathfinders. Faced with numbers this superior, there could be but one outcome.
    No sooner did she have the thought than the shadelings fell back. But it wasn’t so much a retreat from a rout as it was a systematic withdrawal. A few Dagodins made to chase, but Mirza’s yells held them in check.
    Men began to clap each other on the backs in celebration. Some laughed. Others collapsed, finally succumbing to their wounds or to weariness, the rush of battle gone. The wounded and the dead littered the ground, their blood staining the air. Swords gripped tight in his hands, Ancel was staring after the shadelings as they’d retreated perhaps a thousand feet across the plain, but now turned to face them once more.
    A horizontal slash some fifty long appeared behind them. It twisted upright, opening into a portal twice as wide. In its translucent surface she caught a glimpse of a mountain range, then something black and enormous blotted it out.
    A keening wail echoed, pitch increasing until it sounded like metal grating against metal. It made her skin crawl. She knew the call too well. It had given her nightmares in Eldanhill.
    A vasumbral.
    The shadeling flowed out from the portal, angling higher into the air, an undulating mass of thick black skin on a body so long it seemed to continue forever. An eyeless worm with a hundred vertebrae joining separate sections.
    Seeing it now pricked a memory. There was something she should remember about the creature, but the harder she tried the more the recollection teased her, staying just at the edge of her grasp.
    The Ashishins drew in Mater, great gobs of it. Light and fire essences swirled around them, heating the air. They had linked and whatever Forge they were attempting built to a tangible pressure.
    A warning jolt emanated from her zyphyl. In the same instant the vasumbral stopped, sudden. One moment it was gliding and the next it stood still, a dark snake against the mounting gray mass of clouds. From eyeless head to pointed tail, its two hundred foot length split down the middle like a gutted fish. Thousands upon thousands of feelers wriggled, sampled the air. The pink maw for a mouth opened.
    The prick of memory became recognition.
    “No!” she screamed. “Don’t Forge.”
    But it was too late. The vasumbral had found its meal, had discovered that which it craved the most. Mater. Forges.
    Lightning tore down from the clouds,