Free The Swords of Corium by B. V. Larson Page B

them, his voice cracking in the cold air as the ship slid into the black mouth of the port.
    Only Therian stood apart from the celebration. He stood on the aft deck with one hand on the tiller and both eyes gazing somberly out over the ocean. The sun was setting in the west, turning the skies pink, the ice blue and the sea an inky black.

-17-

    The city celebrated as it had not done in a century. Fireworks lofted over Corium to hang and glitter in the sky, shining more brightly than had the aurora borealis the night before. Reflected by the silvered roofs of the towers and the sea beyond the walls, all who saw the display marveled at its beauty.
    Gruum drank more than he should, and in his final hours of consciousness, he sought out old Tovus to have a toast with him. The other was of a similar mind, and together, they mounted the walls and stood above the gates along the parapets. Evidence of the battle was apparent. The walls had taken great punishment that day, but remained standing.
    “I thought she would buckle, I did,” said Tovus, running his hands over the crenulated stonework. Blackened, chipped and even melted in spots, the battlements crumbled at his touch.
    “Did you stand here as the breath struck?”
    Sir Tovus shook his head. “I had walked this length no more than an hour before. I patted their shoulders—the men who were about to die.”
    “Who were these men?” asked Gruum. He put a hand onto the walls and felt them flake away. Stone had been turned to ash here.
    “Archers for the most part. Fine men, who peppered the attackers with volley after volley. But then the Breath came, and they were gone. Look here, I see a final bit of one archer at our feet.”
    Tovus leaned down with a heavy grunt and lifted into view a buckle. Blackened and twisted by extreme heat, the buckle was barely recognizable. Tovus put the remnant into Gruum’s hand and closed his fingers over it. He swayed and looked at Gruum intensely.
    “We should take that down and give it a proper burial!” he said. His drunken eyes were bloodshot and bulging.
    Gruum nodded and gave a gentle snort. “We’ll do that, I’m sure. Let’s head down. I think it may be time to call it a night.”
    Tovus threw off the hand Gruum had gently placed on his shoulder. He reached out and snatched back the buckle. He leered over the walls down at the guttering fires of the enemy, who still camped there, trapped at the foot of their walls. With their fleet gone, they had no supplies and no hope.
    Tovus lashed out with his arm, throwing the buckle into space in the direction of the enemy camp.
    “Tomorrow,” Tovus said, swaying and staring, “we’ll ride out there and butcher the lot of them. Filthy wretches.”
    “Perhaps we can capture some and ransom them back to their cities.”
    “Ha!” roared Tovus, wheeling around. “The ones that die under my blade will be the luckiest. The rest we’ll feed to dogs and Dragons alike, in bits and pieces. Will you ride with us, Gruum?”
    Gruum thought for time. Truthfully, he had seen enough of murder and mayhem for the rest of his days. “My place is at the King’s back. Remember?”
    Tovus nodded and clapped him a blow upon the shoulder that staggered the smaller man. “Right you are! Well said! And you did right with that traitor Bryg, as I heard the tale. Let’s go down now, I need to pass out, and this would be a poor spot to do it.”
    The two men climbed down from the burnt battlements together. They soon found safer places to rest.
    As he passed from consciousness into sleep Gruum hoped fervently that he would have no dreams this night. He was disappointed in the deep hours of the darkness when his dreams were filled with bloodshed, screams and dead things that moved.

    End of Hyborean Dragons, Book #4

BONUS Excerpt:

    The Sorcerer’s Bane
    (Hyborean Dragons #5)
    by
    B. V. Larson

    -1-

    The ice surrounding Hyborea did not begin breaking up until early summer. By that time, the people of