The White Towers by Andy Remic Read Free Book Online

frowned and saw Lorna lick her lips with her quick, darting tongue.
    “Who is born?”
    “The King,” whispered Lorna, “The Soul Taker,” and then refused to say more. She closed her eyes, cuddled under her blankets, and was asleep once more before Haleesa had even crossed the room back to her own cot.
    Haleesa lay for a long time in the darkness, listening to the wind sighing outside, and wondering what Lorna had seen in her dreams. In her nightmares?
    Haleesa shivered, and closed her eyes, praying for the morning.
     
    They sat on the hilltop, overlooking the Palkran Settlement. Their seat was an old, lightning blasted log, and despite the snow the sun had come out and there was no wind. Haleesa felt the weather was very pleasant and she allowed the warm rays to lick across her aged, wrinkled face.
    “Where is my mother’s house?”
    Haleesa pointed, to a conical adobe with a straw roof. As they watched, Gwynneth, once more pregnant, emerged holding the hand of a laughing, golden-haired girl. Haleesa shifted her gaze to watch Lorna, but the deformed girl’s eyes and face were impassive, unreadable.
    Gwynneth and the child disappeared between other houses and were lost in the bustle of people. It was market day, and the Palkran Settlement was a hive of activity despite the snow.
    “I will try to pull the fire energy once more,” said Lorna suddenly.
    “What fire?” asked Haleesa.
    “The sun,” said Lorna, and before Haleesa could stop her the child had transferred her gaze on the glowing copper orb squatting low in the heavens. Haleesa surged to her feet, panic giving her movements urgency and she reached out towards Lorna–
    “No.”
    The word was a command and Haleesa rocked to a halt. She knew that to focus on the sun would tear a human, even a Shamathe , physically apart. And yet… yet…
    Haleesa felt the flow. It surrounded Lorna with a warmth which radiated and Haleesa sank to the ground, ignoring the cold of the snow in her bones as her eyes widened and she stared at the young child before her… a child performing the impossible… the channelling of the sun’s direct energies…
    Lorna laughed, a truly joyous sound from such an ugly shell.
    “It feels wonderful,” she breathed. “It tickles!”
    “You must stop.”
    Lorna’s gaze suddenly snapped to Haleesa, and the old woman saw the child’s eyes had turned from deep iron to a soft copper.
    “You must stop,” cried Haleesa.
    “I will never stop,” whispered Lorna, and her eyes glowed, then faded, and the ugly little child smiled. She stepped towards Haleesa, but the old woman scrambled away across the snow.
    “What you did, child… it was impossible.”
    “Nothing is impossible,” said Lorna. The child turned her gaze back down on the village. Gwynneth was there once more, returning to her hut with her golden-haired young girl, and waddling with the awkwardness of her internal passenger. Haleesa wondered what was going through the mind of her protégée.
    “Let us go home,” said Lorna. “I am very hungry.”

CATACOMBS
    Kiki, captain of the Iron Wolves, led the way into the subterranean gloom under Desekra Fortress. Her face was grim, hand on the hilt of one short sword, her bobbed brown hair tied back into a tight pony-tail, her iron eyes grim, hard set, and scowling. Her instinct was to turn around, face King Yoon – her King, the King of Vagandrak, Chief Warden of the North, Defender of the Skarandos… and hack her sword into his fucking head.
    Dek padded up close behind, and she half-turned, seeing his grinning face in the flickering light from the brand she carried. “What are you smiling at?”
    “It turned out okay in the end,” rumbled the broad-chested, badly tattooed pit-fighter. “Didn’t it, Keeks?”
    “Hmm. That’s one way of looking at it, Dek. If it hadn’t been for Narnok snapping those ropes, we’d be dangling corpses over the mud-orc killing ground right about now. And all thanks to that insane,