Free Broken World Book Four - The Staff of Law by T C Southwell Page A

through the massive trunks, the vast
leafy boughs overhead blotting out the sun. The brooding atmosphere
amongst the trees sent shivers down Talsy’s back, and the distant,
weird screams that echoed through it made her hair bristle. She had
long since shucked the velvet dress, and was clad once more in her
tough, practical leather trousers, sturdy shirt and bodice. Kieran
had also reverted to his black outfit and armour, and his hand
lingered often on the hilt of the Starsword at his side. The horses
grew restive and nervous in the forest’s menacing dimness, sidling
and prancing, their eyes white-ringed. Everyone sensed it, and the
soldiers’ eyes darted amongst the trees while the drovers’ hands
clenched on their reins.
    The first
night, Orland posted a guard of thirty men rotating at four-hour
intervals, and the next night he increased it to fifty. On the
fifth night, while Talsy sat beside the campfire she shared with
Kieran and Orland, the gloom erupted with a horde of wailing black
chaos beasts whose banshee screams froze her blood. She crouched
beside the fire, her heart hammering. Soldiers burst from their
tents with drawn swords to battle the creatures, whose front legs
were armed with razor claws and whose long, matted fur, the men
discovered when their weapons clanged off it with little effect,
concealed chitin armour.
    The monsters
poured from the shadows in a dark tide, their eyes aglow in the
torchlight, fangs bared. Kieran laid about him with the Starsword,
its fire making the creatures explode, splattering the
surroundings, and everyone within range, with globs of gelatinous
flesh. The fallen monsters’ stench made Talsy ill, and she clutched
her stomach and retched while the Aggapae surrounded her, ready to
take on any beast that broke through the defenders. The battle
seemed to last for an eternity, and the moon had set by the time
all the chaos beasts were dead.
    Trueman
casualties were high, and Kieran went amongst the wounded with the
Starsword, healing all he could with the army doctor’s aid. When he
finished, dawn’s first faint glow filtered through the forest.
Talsy had moved upwind, her eyes averted from the twisted dead,
eager to quit the glade and its horrific contents. She did not want
to contemplate what manner of beast had attacked them, their
grotesque forms defied analysis. Orland moved on as soon as the
last of the injured was healed, leaving the fallen to whatever
scavengers inhabited the woodland.
    The forest
unleashed its true horror upon them two days later, and their
journey became an ordeal Talsy wished she could forget. Howling
horror filled the nights, when hordes of shrieking beasts swarmed
around the camp. The creatures ensured that no one slept with their
blood-curdling screams, and occasionally charged from the darkness
to slay a hapless soldier, vanishing back into the gloom too
quickly to be killed. Days of anxious walking followed the
sleepless nights, waiting for the next ordeal to reveal itself.
    The chaos
beasts attacked with the mindless fervour of the insane, erupting
from the ground or dropping from the trees to slay as many as they
could before they died. Orland soon learnt the folly of sending out
scouts when he encountered their torn and mangled bodies impaled on
trees beside the road. There were nights when the campfires gave no
warmth, and other times when the air became difficult to breathe.
Soldiers fell to strange illnesses that killed them in mere
moments. Some went mad and fled into the forest, where their howls
could be heard from time to time.
    The troops’
discipline broke down under this endless onslaught, and they became
dishevelled and unshaven, too tired to ride in ranks or wash their
filthy clothes. The forest unleashed vile atrocities in the form of
worms that crawled up the horses’ legs and devoured steed and rider
alive unless driven away with fire. Men turned on one another in
the night and slew their comrades while in the grip of