Free The Lord of Lies: Strange Threads: Book 2 by Sam Bowring

himself jostling with others, reluctantly being pushed closer to the middle.
    ‘… is where I came from,’ came the voice, now clearer. ‘This is where I was made! I belong with you.’
    ‘You are an outsider!’ someone screamed.
    ‘Nay! Nay!’
    There was a mighty boom and Unwoven fell back.
    Salarkis clambered up onto a mound of crumbled bricks and finally caught sight of the speaker. The man faced away, his brown robe dusty, his grey hair flying about his head. He did not have the blanched skin of an Unwoven – he was human! What poor fool was it who had wandered into such an awful predicament? How had he managed to get this far?
    Around him stood a ring of Unwoven warriors looking very much like guards, snarling at anyone who got too close. The human had his arms raised, having evidently just performed some kind of threading. As he turned, Salarkis could not believe the face he recognised, contorted as it was by madness.
    Mergan.
    A loneUnwoven between crowd and guards picked himself up out of the dirt.
    ‘You think,’ he shouted, ‘that your tricks impress us? Threaders’ bodies break as easily as their mouths moan.’
    ‘Impudence!’ roared Mergan. ‘You think just because you have lived leaderless so long you have every right to continue? Look at you, milling about without purpose, like a bunch of dogs licking at each other’s scabs! Is that my will being served? No. The cracks widen, yet you stand idle!’
    ‘We will know when the time is right.’
    ‘You know nothing! You are not worthy to call yourselves my slaves.’
    One of Mergan’s guards, a stoic looking Unwoven with a scar across his brow, stepped forward.
    ‘Do you not recognise our lord?’ he asked. ‘Are you who journeyed to the Peaks to pay him tribute so dull of memory that you do not know the face from behind the tomb’s veil?’
    A stir went up and travelled about. Salarkis was dumb-founded – what strange path had brought the best of the Wardens, once so wise and kind, to this point?
    ‘For too long I have been imprisoned,’ said Mergan, ‘but finally I have returned! Ungrateful doubters, hear me now. Without my touch upon you, you would be as fearful and weak as the untarnished living outside our realm, not empty and strong, as you are!’
    Voicesrose.
    ‘It
is
him.’
    ‘Look, look at his face.’
    ‘Has he returned to us?’
    Mergan’s accuser, his enmity seemingly completely forgotten, smiled widely.
    ‘Lord, I did not understand! Forgive my stupidity.’
    Laughter broke out, and jubilant cries, and kissing.
    ‘First things first, my children,’ said Mergan. ‘An interloper stands amongst us.’
    His eyes came to rest on Salarkis, who froze where he stood in icy fear. An influence he was not prepared for gripped him suddenly, and he screamed as the knot at the centre of his chest was violently wrenched undone. His old pattern sprang back into shape, his grey skin taken over by a flood of pinkness, his ropey muscles losing definition as the flesh around them grew soft. A moment later he stood undisguised in the midst of a thousand Unwoven.
    ‘Kill him,’ said Mergan.

UNMASKED
    Surrounded byglowering Unwoven fast converging on him, Salarkis knew there was no hope in standing and fighting. He had to flee, but how? Where? The main bulk of the crowd blocked the way towards the Pass, so the only direction worth considering was up the Dale, back towards the Spire.
    He flung up his hands, and all around jets of dust sprayed upwards into nostrils and eyes. As the figures around him reeled and coughed, he bolted through their midst, swirling a protective bubble of air about himself to keep his own way clear. A grey hand broke into it from the gritty air outside, and he dodged, only to charge headlong into another Unwoven’s back. It stumbled, and Salarkis bounced off in a slightly new direction, all the while sending out more gestures to open fissures and shoot up more dust. The cloud that hid his progress grew larger,