by A. Evermore
Contents
Join The Ravens
Title
Acknowledgements
Maioria Map
Chapter 1 - Demons
Chapter 2 - Into The Past
Chapter 3 - To Be A Coward
Chapter 4 - Marakon Returns
Chapter 5 - Demon Trouble
Chapter 6 - The Elders' Visions
Chapter 7 - The Daily Brawl
Chapter 8 - Beneath Doon's Light
Chapter 9 - Friends Of King Thaban
Chapter 10 - Freydel Returns
Chapter 11 - Raven Messenger
Chapter 12 - Against All Odds
Chapter 13 - The Witch And The Seer
Chapter 14 - Not A Moment Too Soon
Chapter 15 - Hunting Her
Chapter 16 - Creating From Memory
Chapter 17 - Dreaming Of Home
Chapter 18 - Project Dread Dragon
Chapter 19 - The White Owl's Prey
Chapter 20 - The Wizards Arrive
Chapter 21 - Maggot
Chapter 22 - Remembering The Prophecies
Chapter 23 - The Shores Of Home
Chapter 24 - Seat Of A Lost Land
Chapter 25 - The Battle Of Wenderon
Chapter 26 - The City Of Rivers
Chapter 27 - Old Friends
Chapter 28 - The Soul Knows
Chapter 29 - Demon Dreams
Chapter 30 - Powerful Men
Chapter 31 - The Vote
Chapter 32 - Into The Storm Holt
Chapter 33 - The Wizard's Reckoning
Chapter 34 - Demon Light
Next In The Series
Afterword
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STORM HOLT
The Prophecies Of Zanufey
Book Three
A. Evermore
Copyright © 2016 A. Evermore.
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Jessica Allain
Published by Starfire Epic Fantasy
Kindle First Edition
ISBN-13: 978-99920-3-073-8
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Jon and John Jarrold for their excellent editorial work and advice. Thanks to Jessica Allain for her wonderful digital art. Thanks to the Cosmos for making this work possible. I would also like to thank you, the reader, for continuing the adventure.
For Fortitude
Chapter 1
Demons
ISSA cradled the raven talisman in her lap. It glittered even in the darkness of night. Ehka dozed beside her, and together they sat alone by the stream. There were no moons tonight, and above the forests of Southern Frayon, the overcast sky blocked out the stars.
‘Light,’ she commanded.
The talisman responded and a soft indigo glow pushed back the darkness. It would respond to simple requests such as light, much like Freydel’s orb and staff, but nothing else. Holding it in her lap did no more to reveal its powers than leaving it wrapped up and tucked in her blacksmith’s belt.
She couldn’t sleep, despite being exhausted. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Ely’s face, ashen and lifeless in death, and then the pain and anger came. Finally she’d given up and left the others sleeping, telling Palu’anth - who kept watch - that she would be by the stream if anything happened. That wasn’t likely, since they were hidden deep in the forest with only small animals busy in the night.
‘It must do more than that,’ she murmured, inspecting the glimmering stone closely. Ehka ruffled his feathers. ‘Some help you are,’ she said. He snapped his beak. She smiled. It was touching that he chose to come with her, rather than roost in the safety of a tree bow back with the others.
‘We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?’ she whispered, and tickled his neck. He made a crooning sound.
She yawned. Maybe she should go back to the others and lie down, at least she could just rest. But Ely’s face would still be there to haunt her.
She looked back at the raven talisman. If it helped her enter the realm of the dead, perhaps it could also help her reach the sacred mound, where she might find answers about its powers. What harm could trying do? She had to learn how the talisman worked somehow.
‘I have no spell to say aloud, Ehka,’ she said, turning the talisman over in her hands. Without thinking too much, she closed her eyes and imagined clearly the sacred mound. Instead of seeing Ely’s face, the familiar ancient stones appeared before her. The entrance to the mound itself was pitch black and mysterious. She placed the talisman against the raven mark on her chest and spoke clearly.
‘Take me to the sacred mound, the place I see in my mind.’
Her chest tingled and the talisman turned so incredibly cold, that she gasped and nearly dropped it. Is it really working? She flicked open her eyes, and found herself sitting on the rich green grass with the talisman. Ehka was no longer beside her. She was still dressed in her undershirt, and the windless air was cool. The sky above the trees was a soft grey, as if it were dawn or dusk, like it always seemed to be when she came here.
‘Ha-ha. Great goddess, it worked, I’m really here.’ She stood up grinning. Maybe with the talisman she could reach the sacred mound whenever she chose, rather than only when it came to her. It would take practising. She stepped towards the mound, and peered into its dark, mirror-like entrance, straining to see beyond her own reflection. Gripping the talisman, she took a deep breath and stepped forwards into the cold liquid surface.
Freezing blackness engulfed her, so cold she couldn’t breathe for a moment. Then it was gone and she stood in the dark, shivering and completely disoriented. She blinked into the black as the cold receded. Though she could not see the stone steps that led downwards, she knew they were there. Carefully, she stepped down them one by one onto the paved floor.
Light normally would have come by now, but it was still dark. What if it hadn’t worked properly? What if she were somewhere else? How would she get back? Cursing her impulsiveness, she turned back towards the door, but then realised she’d never left the sacred mound by going back through the liquid doorway. She walked up the steps, and reached for the space where the door should have been. Her hands found only hard stone. She felt around the area with increasing haste, but there was no door. Her breath came faster. She gripped the raven talisman.
‘Light,’ she commanded.
Indigo light again emanated from it. She breathed a sigh of relief, and leaned her forehead against the cold stone. Moments later, brightness pulsed from behind her. She turned around. A yard away, a spinning vortex of energy formed in the blackness. It was a mass of swirling blue, white and grey energy, a whirlpool of storm clouds suspended in mid air, about a foot wide and two feet tall.
Lightning flared erratically within it, but there was no sound, which she found strange given the ferocity of the moving energy. She could feel the Flow alive all around her, but it was in turmoil and moved in a wild, unpredictable manner. If she entered the Flow, perhaps she could calm it, or perhaps it will break me. Even now she dared not enter the Flow, not after almost losing herself in it on Celene. She was still so weak, and it was too dangerous. All she could do was observe and feel its chaotic movements.
The vortex began to grow, coming closer as it increased in size. She stepped away from it until her back pressed against cold stone. The vortex filled her vision and ballooned until it was only a couple of feet away. It had to be at
least a yard wide now, and twice as tall. The frantic energy within it began to take on a magnetising effect, drawing into it the energy of the Flow and the light of her raven talisman.
She could feel it begin to pull on her. She reached behind, searching for some nook or cranny to hang on to, but there was nothing. Hopefully it would pass . . . its chaotic energy would soon burn itself out . . . it had to. She closed her eyes against the flickering spinning light barely a foot away from her face. She was being pulled towards it. She groped the wall again and tried to wedge her fingers between the tight fitting stones, but they slipped free. She clung to the talisman, hugging it to her.
‘Make it stop,’ she commanded, but nothing happened.
She closed her eyes and focused on where she had been by the river with Ehka, but she couldn’t recall the details to form a clear picture because it had been so dark. It didn’t matter anyway, the panic forced the concentration from her. Desperately she reached for the Flow, but that too slipped from her grasp. The very effort of trying exhausted her. The Flow could not help her, the talisman was a mystery, and even if she’d had her sword it would be useless here.
The pull of the vortex increased, its static energy brushing her arm and making her hairs stand on end. Her feet began to slip and she struggled desperately for balance. She lost the battle and screamed as she was dragged into the maelstrom.
If it had been silent before, then it was deafening now. She was spinning in the eye of a storm, lightning flashed everywhere and flickered all over her body making her judder. Thunder boomed in strange sonic waves that echoed forever or ended abruptly. Her ears were filled with the increasing noise of rushing wind and her own screams. A hundred different forces were trying to tear her body and mind apart. She curled up into a ball, hugging the useless talisman as she spun through the vortex.
Everything stopped, the noise, the wind, the spinning vortex. Silence. Light came. An unknown world appeared, one illuminated by a strange green moon. A massive plane of nothing but dirt and rock spread around her for miles, with not a blade of grass to be seen. Ahead was a towering spike of black rock that thrust over a thousand feet into the green-tinged sky. The air was hot and sticky. She released her death-grip on the raven talisman.
Her eyes fell upon a glowing white spear lying beside her - the same one she had seen in Zanufey’s hands. The long haft was plain, and looked to be made of platinum. The spear tip was also white, and moulded into a beautiful but deadly sharp leaf-shape. What was it doing there lying in the dirt? She touched its surface. It was smooth and cold, but did not feel like metal, it felt more like crystal. At her touch magic flowed within it - a low, harmonious, ringing sound. The talisman grew warm in her lap. Then another sound echoed, blotting out the chime.
A deafening grinding noise came from the black spire. Her heart began to pound. She squinted and saw the base of the spire opening, as if there was some giant door. Black shapes poured from the opening. To Issa they looked like a plague of insects spewing out. Blood-curdling howls filled the air and she broke into a cold sweat. The black shapes flooded in her direction, and she leapt up on to shaking legs. Some of the things coming out of the spire flew, whilst others ran. They moved fast.
Demons.
She turned to run in the opposite direction, but faltered as she was greeted with another sight, a rising dust cloud of swiftly approaching riders. The ground shook under the pounding of the horses’ hooves, and their neighs filled the air alongside the demons’ howls. The were a dozen white horses, each carrying a heavily armoured knight, moving at break-neck speed towards her. She turned back to the demons. Though both they and the knights were a long way away, they were quickly closing the ground between them.
Are they coming for me? Or the spear? She looked back at where she’d left it. It was glowing furiously. She couldn’t leave it there for the demons. She ran back and picked it up. The spear and the talisman pulsed in her hands, as if trying to tell her something, or perhaps in response to the approaching knights and demons.
The demons were close now, especially the flying ones. She could clearly make out their hideous faces. Long black snouts, mouths filled with fangs, eyes gleaming hungrily for death. Some of them were huge, their bodies several yards wide and their wings casting a dark shadow on the ground below.
She tore her eyes from them. Why was she here? What was she supposed to do? The sound coming from the spear became louder, latent power flowing within it, and its pulsing sent increasingly strong shock waves up her arms. It was becoming painful to hold and look upon.
‘Why am I here, I didn’t choose to come here,’ she cried, her voice lost in the din of the ringing spear.
The knights and demons showed no signs of slowing. The knights won’t hurt me, I know that. Surely they can see me? But if anything the knights came on faster, spreading themselves into one long line of charging horses. The man in the centre drew his sword and shouted. The other knights unsheathed their swords at his command, the sound of metal sliding easily against metal rang in the air. She whirled around to see the demons closing in. They too had spread themselves wide, a mass of hellish creatures coming straight for her.
It was too late to run, they would be on her in seconds. But surely the knights would avoid her? She whirled back to face them, but they didn’t seem to have seen her at all. Sweat beaded on her face. She clenched the talisman and the spear, whirling to face the knights and then the demons. They would reach her at the same time, and she would be trampled or eaten alive.
They were only a hundred yards away - the pounding of hooves, the howling of demons, the shouts of the knights, and the ringing of the spear were deafening. She closed her eyes and screamed, slamming the raven talisman against her chest in a last desperate action.
Chapter 2
Into The Past
‘WHY did you not take me through the Storm Holt?’ Freydel shook the Orb of Death, desperate for an answer. Dark energy from the orb swirled with the pink energy from his hands. Nothing was really solid in the astral planes, but certainly life existed there, albeit in a less dense energy form.
He was somewhere in the astral planes of Celene, but it was hard to recognise the place when everything was immaterial and made of energy. The landscape looked like a painting drenched in water, so that all the colours ran into each other and mingled. He was not alone. All the time he felt eyes upon him from every direction - it didn’t matter whether they were real or imagined, he still felt them. He was lost in a moving sea of energy and he felt sick, he’d felt permanently sick since he’d been trapped here. His physical body was suffering in this unnatural place.
The orb remained silent.
‘I wish I knew how to use you fully.’ He raised his voice and it echoed around him. Echoed off what, exactly, he couldn’t be sure. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled, which told him it was time to move and hide. Anger and frustration seemed to draw more attention from whatever existed in the astral.
He saw the hazy outline of dense trees ahead, and walked towards them. His consciousness moved forwards and he had the strangest feeling that his body was following, but lagging behind, as if there was a gap between his mind and his physical body. The trees were not distinct like in the physical realm, but took the form of semi-solid energy. He moved between the flowing trunks and stopped, drew his energy close around him and became still. The attention he had felt before was no longer there. I cannot do this forever, either he will find me or my physical body will dissolve into pure energy in the astral planes.
Why had the spell to take him to the Storm Holt failed? Something had happened, but what? He remembered falling through the vortex and escaping Baelthrom’s grasp. The Storm Holt gateway he hated and knew so well had appeared before him, and he had entered it. Then his tower on Celene had appeared, and destruction filled the air. But how was that possible when there had been nothing but peace and calm when he’d left. How long had he been gone? All he had done was recite the spell to c
all the Wizards’ Circle. Barely minutes had passed as far as he could tell. He stared at the orb deep in thought.
‘Time moves differently…’ he breathed, stroking its surface. ‘But I had been gone only minutes.’ Half an hour at most. In the dream state, entire dreams often took only seconds. But maybe in the astral planes, like the dream state, time was not so linear. Could it be that the orb had travelled forwards in time in the astral? One thing was for sure, the orb’s power was purer here, unfettered by the constraints of the physical realm, and more powerful.
Freydel tugged on his beard, trying to ease his desperation to get out of here. The Storm Holt was the gateway to the demon worlds. The Murk was first, and it was one dimension below the physical plane of Maioria. The astral dimension was thusly two planes above the Murk. Ahh. No wonder it didn’t work, I was two dimensions away rather than one.
His brain hurt. Understanding what had happened was at the limits of his intellect and power. He was treading the unknown, no wizard had ever been physically trapped in the astral. Or at least been trapped in the astral and survived to return and tell anyone about it. But had they ever pondered the time link? Time was of utmost importance. The longer he stayed, the weaker his physical body became and the less likely he would ever get out. It was all about time.
He peered between the tree trunks. There was nothing but blackened scars raking the land where Dread Dragon fire had seared. Smouldering black patches and rubble were all that remained of a village in the distance. Celene is destroyed. The goddess knows where the people are. But his sadness was numbed knowing his own survival was at stake. He was limited by magic and knowledge, and Baelthrom was hunting him and the orb.
The orb will do what it can to survive, perhaps this is how we have become trapped and moved in time. He had a thought and held up the orb.
