Caleb Wachter [Seeds of Human Revelation (epub)

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.“We could let Dancer face it,” he replied in kind.I shook my head.“Dancer’s needed here on the walls,” I replied.“When the flyers come in, he’ll be needed to keep Master Antolin safe.Besides,” I added, “don’t you think that thing’s just a little out of his weight class?”Aemir shrugged.“I doubt he would shy away from the challenge,” he replied in his thick accent.“Incoming!” yelled the commander of the soldiers posted to our section.I turned just in time to see another projectile hurtling toward our position.This one sailed directly over us, missing my head by about five feet.I turned to watch as it hurtled toward the castle’s Inner Wall.It impacted on the slick, black stones which formed the inner wall—but rather than bouncing off or shattering, it stuck there with a sucking sound and immediately began to shamble up the smooth surface, leaving a thin trail of dark ooze behind.The soldiers on our wall ignored it, while the soldiers atop the eighty foot tall gothic inner wall moved quickly to bring buckets of hot oil to bear.The shapeless mass began to writhe as it climbed, and soon tentacles, claws, and beaks emerged from its shifting, amorphous form.The soldiers manning the Inner Wall received their commands from the High Sheriff, who was stationed on the inner wall as was apparently customary during a siege, and they carefully poured the oil down the wall and onto the monster.The first buckets scored direct hits, and they were immediately followed by flaming arrows, which ignited the substance as soon as they made contact, causing the thing to scream wordlessly before plummeting almost seventy feet, having nearly succeeded in scaling the massive wall.“Flyers!” came the cry of a spotter stationed nearby.I whirled to see them coming toward us, and I felt my heart go cold.They were bigger than even the largest man and had legs like great birds of prey which ended in talons nearly a foot long.They flew on wings that were shaped like a bat’s and each one had four long, bony arms ending in roughly human hands with even more vicious-looking talons than those on their avian feet.But their faces were distinctively human, except for the fact that their eyes glowed with the same sickly green light as the missile-hurling juggernaut—and one of them was coming directly for me.“Down, Lord!” yelled Aemir, moving himself to intercept the hellish creature.He apparently thought little of my protective wards, and frankly I couldn’t blame him at that particular moment.The ‘flyer,’ as the locals had labeled them, came directly at me and seemed not to notice my Champion standing in the way.I reached into my robe hastily, but dropped what I had reached for as soon as I had pulled it from its pocket.It was too late by then and the flyer was on Aemir, who greeted it with a pair of quick, criss-crossing slashes with his broad, curved scimitar, opening up great gashes in the beast’s chest.Then I saw the most fearsome part of the creature come to bear: a ten foot long tail which would have been an exact copy of a scorpion’s, were it not for the fact that this tail could apparently move in any direction.The massive stinger stabbed straight at me as Aemir fought to keep the monster from getting close enough to grab anyone.I failed to react in time, and the stinger drove for my chest before being deflected by the barely visible force field which surrounded my body like an invisible egg.I felt the impact drain my energy reserves a little, but only enough that I noticed it.I drew a breath, realizing I hadn’t done so for long enough to make my lungs burn, and dropped to my knees to find the object I had failed to retrieve.I found it quickly enough but my nerves were starting to go—and the battle had barely begun!I grabbed the smooth, metal disc and fitted the leather straps affixed to it around my hand.I had already learned that using it was risky, but there was little choice in the matter.Even among lifelong warriors Aemir was an outstanding swordsman, but no swordsman could hold off such a monstrous foe indefinitely.After I had fixed the disc to my hand, I closed my eyes to focus my mind more completely.It took precious seconds to banish the panic I felt at the situation, but I found what I was looking for: in my mind’s eye there appeared a huge, ethereal construct composed of swirling letters, numbers, and geometric bands of cascading energy.I willed my hand into being in this mental landscape and it appeared instantly, complete with the metal band strapped to it which glowed a bright, white color in my mind’s eye.Now was the hard part: timing the insertion of the key strapped to my hand into the construct to achieve the desired effect.I had seen once previously just how devastating improper timing and sequence could be.After what seemed like an eternity (but what I knew cognitively had been no more than two or three seconds) I found my opening and thrust my hand forward into the constantly shifting form of equations and energy.My mind’s eye and reality overlapped instantaneously, and for a brief moment I could see the ten foot ethereal construct of my spell appear between myself and the flyer, which had already wounded Aemir with its huge talons.Summoning up just the right amount of energy was the final part of the process, and I was still very unfamiliar with this particular device, having only successfully used it twice in this particular manner [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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