Free The Evermen Saga 01 - Enchantress by James Maxwell Page A

Templars mediating a peaceful solution."
    Thunder boomed out. Ella shivered.
    "No, war on this scale was devastating. Plains flooded. Peasants dying in their tens of thousands. Famine and disease running wild. Dead bodies bloating in the sun, left unburied. Whole divisions consumed by the worst weapons our lore could devise.
    "I once came across a town, a small village really, on the edge of Torakon. A builders’ village, the locals only interested in getting their license to build. There were tall cathedrals devoted to the Lord of the Earth, impossibly high, their lore allowing them to build taller than you or I would think possible.
    "A brigade of elementalists had been routed. Though Torakon was their ally, they had passed through this town before us."
    Brandon paused, and tilted his mug at his mouth, but it was empty.
    "They had played with the townsfolk, Ella. Tortured them. At first we thought it had been to find the essence, but that was when we found the children."
    Ella wished he would stop.
    "Scores of children. They are mad in the head, those Petryans. They used the elements on them. I saw a girl, she couldn’t have been older than five, taken by elemental water — drowned on land. Another child had been filled with elemental air like a balloon until he exploded into tiny pieces. His head stayed intact. Another child had been burnt to a pile of ash. Such a tiny pile."
    Ella thought she would be sick. "Please, Uncle. Please, don’t tell me these things. I just want to know who killed my parents."
    "Your parents were killed by the Emperor, girl." Brandon gestured around, at the weak light cast by the nightlamp. "And here we are. We’ve been on essence rationing ever since. Now the Emperor’s called a Chorum, and who knows what evil we can expect next."
     
    ~
     
    E LLA entered the small house, closing the thin door behind her. Brandon still sat on the wooden porch; he had asked her to leave him there, alone in the darkness.
    She leaned heavily against the wall and slid slowly down until she rested on the floor, her head on her knees.
    Her mind was in turmoil, thoughts running back and forth in her head. On the one hand she felt guilty for dredging up such painful memories; on the other she felt angry with Brandon for holding so much back for so long.
    It was a comfort to know that her father had been a man of honour; a man who had fought for a cause. Brandon hadn’t said, but she sensed that her mother had loved her father, and that she had been loved in return.
    Who knew what would have happened if High Lord Serosa had never been betrayed by Tessolar; if Serosa had forced his decisive battle? Perhaps the other houses would have joined them in rebellion against the Emperor, and she would now be laughing with her parents, Brandon promoted to some comfortable position.
    It was pointless to worry about what could have been.
    Ella’s thoughts turned to Miro. She didn’t know how she was going to do it, but she would force a confrontation between him and Brandon. He needed to hear what she had just heard for himself.
    Poor Miro! He thought his parents had some guilty secret and didn’t have the courage to ask and find out the truth.
    Sitting against the wall, emotionally exhausted, Ella began to slip into sleep, thinking about her parents, about the past.
    In that stage between wakefulness and sleep, Ella’s memory cleared for the briefest instant. She felt the soft touch of her mother, heard a gentle lullaby.
     
    ~
     
    E LLA woke from horrible dreams. Men with faces of fire were throwing children about Sarostar. The Sarsen in her dream had been replaced with a river of molten rock, the fiery lava overflowing the banks and burning its way through the town, buildings and people exploding in its wake; sounds of screaming.
    The rain had stopped some time in the last few hours. She had fallen asleep leaning against the wall. Her back ached from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position. She stood and it made a