When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (books under 200 pages txt) 📗

to continue watching the fireball, but he tore his gaze away from its brightness, glanced backward at the dense forest crowding the shore. Even if the glare of the falling star didn't compromise his vision, he'd be unable to see anything between the tightly packed trunks of trees. What lay beyond them in this foreign place filled with nothing but the unknown remained more of a mystery than the missing days of his life. Heart beating faster, the prince returned his attention to the bright path of light. It closed the distance between itself and the world with incredible speed, its size increasing as it neared. He stumbled back another step, then froze. He looked at his boot; the edge rested the width of the finger from a stretch of black sand.

"Rilum."

Teryk held his ground, afraid to move and topple into the void created where night met colorless beach. He raised his gaze again to the falling star, now as big—if not as bright—as the sun. It didn't light up the sky, but it threatened to blind him. The prince threw his arm in front of his face, blocking the glare while still watching it, impenetrable forest at his back, chasm at his feet.

"Rilum!"

The sailor's rhythmic snore broke apart, punctuated by one loud snort, but then resettled into its natural cadence without further response from the man. Teryk clenched his jaw, lips pressed tight, and swallowed the sudden flood of saliva filling his mouth; it might have been a rock for how it scraped his throat going down. He narrowed his eyelids, lowered his arm.

At the last breathless instant, he realized it wouldn't strike the land across the sea, but it came close.

The ball of light fell to the horizon, its glow reflected on the surface of the water before it disappeared much more abruptly than it began. It did so in silence, as though he'd watched someone blow out a candle at a distance. The tension in his shoulders and legs eased, he inched his feet away from the ominous line between pale and dark, inhaled a lungful of briny night air. Its disappearance extinguished not just his fear, but also an excitement tickling his chest. The land across the sea, stars falling from the sky—here were the clues to prove the veracity of the scroll, proving him to be the savior of mankind. He glanced upward, searching for another, desperate for the validation of more Small Gods plummeting to the ground.

A few heartbeats later, the sound reached him, a crash like none he'd heard before, not even when storm and monster pummeled the Whalebone. The tumult of star striking sea buffeted his ears after being slowed by space and the salty air between them. Distance diminished it from the eardrum-shattering impact it must have been to a rumble, felt as much as heard.

Teryk looked to the ocean. The frequency of waves rolling onto the beach increased, the size of each growing. Beyond, the sea lay black like the night brought to earth, but the horizon had changed, grown darker. No stars hung low in the sky. He squinted, a knife point of concern jabbing into his chest.

From what he made out of it, the top edge of the horizon appeared irregular, the stars above twinkling, some disappearing then reappearing, others winking out and not returning. They simply disappeared.

The first wave splashed against his boots. He glanced down, stared at them, his sleep-deprived mind struggling to cobble together what he perceived as disparate pieces. Another swell rolled up the beach, this one more than kissing his sole. The next struck his foot with enough force to send drops of seawater splashing.

Realization dawned and Teryk stumbled back a step. His gaze returned to the darkened horizon, but now he realized it wasn't the sky empty of stars. A wall of water blocked the heavens from his view. A wave as big as any mountain.

The watery barricade rushed toward land pushing ever-growing waves before it, each successive one finding its way farther and farther up the seashore. The beach rippled beneath Teryk's feet, and he stumbled back a step, forgetting the sharp line between light and dark. When he stole a look down and found his foot crossing onto the black sand, vertigo spun his head. He whirled his arms beside him but couldn't find his balance. He threw his hands out without expecting them to impact anything solid, sure he'd be sucked into the ground instead of being washed away by the monstrous wave.

Rather than disappearing into a void, he landed with the softness of striking his down-filled mattress, chest splashing against the wet sand.

Rilum!

With the falling stars and growing waves, he'd forgotten his companion asleep behind him. He'd neglected the one person who knew where he was, the last of the Whalebone's crew who might help him fulfill the prophecy. Scrambling to his feet, he spun from the sea and lurched back toward where he'd left the sailor, traveling but a single step before stopping.

He stood atop a dune of white sand, the waves washing against its sugary substance without eroding it. Another mound gathered beneath Rilum, lifting the sleeping man up to a level equal to the prince's height.

How—?

A taller wave touched his sole and the sandy hill heaved upward, throwing him off balance, but this time he kept his feet. His head spun, trying to understand what was happening, but through the fog of confusion and sleeplessness, he realized the one thing he needed to do above all others.

Get to Rilum.

Without a backward glance, the prince sprinted for the second growing mound and his companion prone atop it. With each step, he expected his boot to splash in foamy surf, to lose his equilibrium and tumble into the wet, perhaps sucked away into eternal dark. What would it be like trapped in the black powder? Would he