it across the face. “Have you seen her?” he asked again, more forcefully. A movement to the side caught his attention, and he couldn’t have asked for a better chance to accentuate his point, to show the level of his hatred to this ugly, wretched thing. A quick maneuver put him over the squirming talon, the one he had swiped twice in the initial fight, and he promptly shifted his sword tip to the thing’s temple, pinning its head.
“Have you seen my friend?” the half-elf asked calmly, slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Duh?”
With a snarl, Bryan drove his sword through the squirming talon’s skull.
The last of the bunch breathed hard, in terrified gasps, when the half-elf moved again right in front of it. “I’ll not belabor the point,” Bryan said evenly. “I seek a friend, a very powerful friend, and if you do not help me, I shall surely make your death slow and painful.”
“It go to Corning,” the talon blurted suddenly. “The great beast moves to Corning, so travelers say.”
“It?”
“Great beast,” stammered the talon. “Much fear.”
Bryan nodded; it made sense that the dim-witted creatures would view mighty Rhiannon in such a way, and that description was likely to be the best this talon wouldoffer. With a sudden jolt, the half-elf’s shield arm came forward again, smashing the talon’s face, and when it didn’t lose consciousness, Bryan, who showed no mercy to talons, finished the beast with a single sword thrust. He retracted the blade and wiped it on the dying creature’s clothing, then moved back outside the wagon. He entertained the thought of using the cart for a moment, but just for a moment, figuring that he would be far too obvious and vulnerable rolling along the open road, and also far from secure with the temperament of the giant and fierce lizard team. He didn’t dare go near to the dangerous things, even though they appeared securely harnessed. Rather, he stepped back and drew out his bow and shot each of them through the head until they lay dead upon the ground. Then he retrieved his arrows, finished off the one remaining talon, the one he had shot as it fled, and started his run again, this time with a specific destination in mind, a place that Bryan of Corning knew all too well.
She had been here only once, and on that occasion, Corning had been in desperate preparation for an imminent and overwhelming invasion. Yet even that frenzied scene of screaming folk and frightened children seemed far more pleasant to the young witch than the blasted image of Corning now, for even the grip of winter could not begin to erase the visual memory the place revealed: the wake of Morgan Thalasi’s devastating passage. Nearly every building was no more than a burned-out shell, with only its stone walls standing, peaked on two ends, skeletons like the picked bones of the thousands of dead who littered the fields outside of Corning, who littered the streets and the parapets of those few sections of the city wall that had not been flattened. The visual stain ofthe blood was gone, covered by the snow, but the smell remained, sickly sweet, conjuring images of a massacre.
The predominance of elongated skulls, the sloped foreheads of talons, showed the witch that more talons by far had fallen in the desperate battle for Corning than human—or elven, the witch reminded herself, thinking of Meriwindle—defenders, but if that number had been a hundred to one, a thousand to one, the loss of beautiful Corning would not have been worth it. Corning had once been the second city of Calva, behind only glorious Pallendara itself. It was a place birthed in war and built for the defense of the western fields, but in the centuries of peace the region had known before the return of Thalasi, Corning had grown beyond its pragmatic roots, expanding into something far more wonderful, an expression of artisans and craftsmen, a place of wonderful sprawling gardens and decorated houses.
Now it was only a
“Have you seen my friend?” the half-elf asked calmly, slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Duh?”
With a snarl, Bryan drove his sword through the squirming talon’s skull.
The last of the bunch breathed hard, in terrified gasps, when the half-elf moved again right in front of it. “I’ll not belabor the point,” Bryan said evenly. “I seek a friend, a very powerful friend, and if you do not help me, I shall surely make your death slow and painful.”
“It go to Corning,” the talon blurted suddenly. “The great beast moves to Corning, so travelers say.”
“It?”
“Great beast,” stammered the talon. “Much fear.”
Bryan nodded; it made sense that the dim-witted creatures would view mighty Rhiannon in such a way, and that description was likely to be the best this talon wouldoffer. With a sudden jolt, the half-elf’s shield arm came forward again, smashing the talon’s face, and when it didn’t lose consciousness, Bryan, who showed no mercy to talons, finished the beast with a single sword thrust. He retracted the blade and wiped it on the dying creature’s clothing, then moved back outside the wagon. He entertained the thought of using the cart for a moment, but just for a moment, figuring that he would be far too obvious and vulnerable rolling along the open road, and also far from secure with the temperament of the giant and fierce lizard team. He didn’t dare go near to the dangerous things, even though they appeared securely harnessed. Rather, he stepped back and drew out his bow and shot each of them through the head until they lay dead upon the ground. Then he retrieved his arrows, finished off the one remaining talon, the one he had shot as it fled, and started his run again, this time with a specific destination in mind, a place that Bryan of Corning knew all too well.
She had been here only once, and on that occasion, Corning had been in desperate preparation for an imminent and overwhelming invasion. Yet even that frenzied scene of screaming folk and frightened children seemed far more pleasant to the young witch than the blasted image of Corning now, for even the grip of winter could not begin to erase the visual memory the place revealed: the wake of Morgan Thalasi’s devastating passage. Nearly every building was no more than a burned-out shell, with only its stone walls standing, peaked on two ends, skeletons like the picked bones of the thousands of dead who littered the fields outside of Corning, who littered the streets and the parapets of those few sections of the city wall that had not been flattened. The visual stain ofthe blood was gone, covered by the snow, but the smell remained, sickly sweet, conjuring images of a massacre.
The predominance of elongated skulls, the sloped foreheads of talons, showed the witch that more talons by far had fallen in the desperate battle for Corning than human—or elven, the witch reminded herself, thinking of Meriwindle—defenders, but if that number had been a hundred to one, a thousand to one, the loss of beautiful Corning would not have been worth it. Corning had once been the second city of Calva, behind only glorious Pallendara itself. It was a place birthed in war and built for the defense of the western fields, but in the centuries of peace the region had known before the return of Thalasi, Corning had grown beyond its pragmatic roots, expanding into something far more wonderful, an expression of artisans and craftsmen, a place of wonderful sprawling gardens and decorated houses.
Now it was only a
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