Pawn Of The Planewalker (Book 5) by Ron Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

fleshy mounds.
    Garrick threw the sword with a simple, overhand motion, and the weapon flew gracefully, looping once before it buried itself deeply into the creature’s chest.
    It was dead before it hit the ground.
    Garrick stood straight to catch his breath.
    He glanced at the city ahead. He was close enough to see it was made of crystalline structures and awkward architectures that were like no city he had ever seen before. Then he looked at the corpse below, and finally at the garish purple and green sky above.
    What was this place?
    He withdrew the blade from the creature and felt the weapon sing. Power surged inside it. The blade twisted and twined as magic healed the wound at his side. He gritted his teeth until the pain faded, then he examined the sword. Though he still could not read them, the runes felt familiar.
    It was Braxidane’s blade.
    That much was certain. And it was somehow tied to the plane of magic. He held the sword and set a gate that fell into place.
    Yes.
    He was right.
    This plane was somehow blocked from Talin’s flow, but the sword bypassed that and gave him a link. Garrick knew Braxidane better than to assume he would play fair and proper, though. The question now was to determine what game the planewalker was playing.
    “What have you done, Braxidane?” he said to the wind. “Where have you taken me?”
    The column of smoke still rose over the city.
    A streak of lighting flashed from within, and a beacon of light encircled him with a mustard-yellow intensity. Ghostly shapes appeared on the surrounding rocks, solidifying to beings that looked like over-large men, each similarly dressed in cross-banded pants and billowing shirts of purple and brown. Garrick’s hunger rose then, firm and strong, and he knew without counting that they numbered twenty.
    “Who are you?” the man closest to Garrick said.
    He was a giant figure, maybe half again taller than Garrick, and seeming taller still as he stood on a boulder that was already above Garrick’s eye level. A ragged cape of animal hide draped over his shoulder and whumped like a sail in the breeze. He wore a helmet made of curved bone. But what struck Garrick most was that the man had three eyes, set in a triangle on his forehead, the pupils glittering like amethyst.
    “My name is Garrick.”
    “You’re a wizard.”
    “What of it?”
    The man waved a hand, and each of the twenty spoke magic.
    Garrick pulled life force up in response.
    Clouds of black and crimson closed in from above.
    Garrick reached to his hunger and took a life.
    The voices of the remaining mages combined, their magic stronger together than it had been apart. The air turned sour. He reached out to harvest more life force, grasping his sword and feeling the heat of runes flaring as he set gates and funneled bursts of magic into the fray.
    Mages died.
    Blackness swirled inside him. But it was not enough. His magic was slow here, and he couldn’t stop the combined power of the three-eyed mages.
    The air thickened with their presence, and Garrick fell to his knees under the onslaught, feeling the pressure of their sorcery with a weight like molten steel.
    The last thing he remembered was the ground rushing at him.

Chapter 11

    Chains bit into Garrick’s wrists. His knees were pressed into the floor, and hard stone dug into the small of his back. His elbows were hyperextended and stiff from having hung unconscious for an excruciatingly long time.
    His head lolled forward, his shoulders twisted back. His feet were bare and numb, and his shirt had been removed, allowing the sweat to trickle down his back and chest in tingling rivulets of torture. His hair hung over his face like a veil, dirty and matted. A trail of spittle dribbled from his slack jaw.
    As he came to his senses, Garrick tried to understand what was happening. He peered through blurred vision and dim lighting to see a hall that was vast and vaguely rectangular. People milled around him as if he was at a bazaar.