From the Ashes by Gareth K Pengelly Read Free Book Online Page B

the sunny sky, squinting in the brightness. “It was him who sent the Khrdas. My best friend died at their hand. And by extension, his. I dreamt of getting revenge on him, or at least venting my frustrations. Arbistrath had the courage to. Yet now I’ve met him…”
                  Gwenna nodded in understanding, feeling the same conflict within herself that he did, that everyone did.
                  “And now he’s here you find him so likeable, so easy to get on with. And you feel like it’s doing disrespect to the memory of your friend.”
    Marlyn grunted in quiet agreement as they walked together, the soldier and the shaman, feet sinking in the rich and fertile grass. They sat down on a low wall.
    “It’s as though all those tales,” he continued, “a century of bloodshed, a Kingdom built on fear and power. It’s like they’re all about someone else. It’s as though Stone and Invictus are different people, even if they share the same face.”
    He turned and looked to the girl sat by his side, struck once again by her quiet beauty as the gentle breeze blew her ringlets of red hair across her face. She brushed them aside with her hand, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny.
    “Wrynn told me something, once, a long time ago. Before you arrived here in the valley, back when he first unveiled his plan to us.” Her green eyes shone in the sunlight as she recalled the conversation. “Stone wasn’t always Invictus, he told me. Prior to rising to the throne of the Barbarian City, he was a shaman, studying under Wrynn himself.”
    Marlyn frowned.
    “But that must have been a hundred years ago. Wrynn can only be, what? Fifty?”
    She laughed, gently, not mocking.
    “Wrynn looks exactly the same today as he did when I was a child. As he did when the eldest inhabitants of the Retreat were children. But I digress, this story’s not about Wrynn. Did I ever tell you that I’m descended from the Plains People?”
    “No. I find it hard to believe, with your hair and eyes. I always assumed you were a northerner.”
    She smiled as she explained.
    “I am, on my mother’s side. But my father was a descendant of the Plains People, a line stretching back to the very village where Wrynn used to be a Shaman. The very village where Stone studied under him.”
    “Wow.” Marlyn looked suitably amazed at the revelations. This would explain the familiarity between the two, the Master and the Immortal. Though, of course, it now transpired that they were both immortal…
    “Wow indeed. It was in those days that Stone became known as the Nagah-Slayer; a title he’d earned after saving the village Chief’s daughter from a vicious beast. He was a hero among the people. He was their protector. He was their future.”
    “So what happened? Why did your ancestors move up here? And why didn’t Stone come with them?”
    A pained look suddenly crossed her face; not physical pain, but the pain of memory, the pain of sad tales passed down through the years.
    “One day the forces of the Barbarian King attacked the village. Burned it to the ground. Few escaped, following Wrynn’s instructions to make their way North, to here, where they could begin anew. Among them, my ancestors.”
    “And Stone…?”
    “Stone was away when the Barbarians struck. By the time he returned, the village was ash, the people dead or taken.”
    Marlyn hung his head, lost in thought, lost in the memories of another people, another time. It made sense now. His grief, his pain at losing Daveth, his friend; sometimes he’d wondered whether he could bear it. Sometimes, even now, a year later, the tears would come unbidden as he stopped, suddenly, in the middle of his task, stunned once again by the fact that he would never see him again. It never got easier. To think, an entire village gone. All his friends, possibly even loved ones, slaughtered and taken while he wasn’t there to help.
    “That’s enough to send any man over the