Wrath of the Forgotten: Descendants of the Fall Book II by Hodges, Aaron (good english books to read .txt) 📗

This time her legs gave way completely and she pitched face-first into the rocks. Pale fingers clawed at the stones as Cara twisted on her side. Her eyes were wide, pupils dilated, becoming huge black circles amidst the amber depths. They darted around in her skull as she looked up at Erika.

“Why is it getting dark?” Cara whispered.

Heart clenched, Erika reached for the Goddess, but before she could reassure her, Cara’s back suddenly arched, a scream tearing from her throat. She started to thrash, arms and legs and wings hurling stones, forcing everyone back. Another cry rattled from her throat before she stilled, on hands and knees now, sucking in great mouthfuls of air.

“Erika…” Cara’s voice was barely a whisper now. “Something’s…not right.”

The Goddess’s face was a terrible grey when she looked up and sweat beaded her brow. Erika moved quickly, kneeling beside Cara and placing a hand on her shoulder, but the act seemed to offer little reassurance. With a final moan, Cara crumpled back to the stones.

“What’s happening to her?” Maisie whispered.

Swallowing, Erika glanced at the spy. She was about to say that she had no idea, when her eyes alighted on the breakfast bowl lying nearby. A sudden suspicion touched Erika and she swung around, searching the faces of the gathered soldiers. All stared at the Goddess with looks of confusion—all except one.

The young man that had served their breakfast stood at the rear of the soldiers, eyes wide, his face pale. He stared in horror at where the Goddess had fallen, a soft keening sounding from the back of his throat.

Without thinking, Erika leapt to her feet and rushed the man. The man cried out and tried to flee, but her hand was already coming up, the gauntlet bursting into life. Her victim screamed as his legs crumpled beneath him.

Enraged, Erika stalked towards the fallen man, palm extending, magic still pulsing from her gauntlet. On the ground, the soldier thrashed, mouth wide, veins bulging from the flesh of his throat. Reaching the thrashing body, Erika did not relent. Teeth bared, vision stained red, she thrilled in his suffering. He must have slipped poison into Cara’s food when they hadn’t been looking. Now he would pay…

“Erika!” Maisie snapped, catching her by the arm and dragging it away from her victim.

The soldier collapsed to the stones, gasping as though his lungs had just been released from a vice. Shaking herself free of her anger, Erika looked at Maisie, then the soldier. Blood ran from his nose, ears, and nostrils, turning his face to a scarlet mess. He lay on the ground moaning, unable to move, to see, probably even to hear. A few moments longer, and he would have succumbed to her magic.

A lump lodged in Erika’s throat as a sudden horror touched her. It had been so long since she’d used the magic, she’d almost forgotten the thrill of its power, the call to use it against her enemies.

“I’m sorry.” A whisper rasped from the man’s throat. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please!”

Looking at his pitiful form, listening to his pleas, Erika felt her anger rising again, but Maisie moved faster. A knife appeared in her hand and she crouched beside the soldier and placed the dagger against this throat.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

“I’m sorry,” the man repeated. He blinked, as though struggling to clear something from his vision, but the whites of his eyes had been stained red with blood. He would likely never see again. “The queen…she made me.”

Erika’s heart turned to ice at the man’s words. The queen? She couldn’t possibly be here, could she?

Before any of them could question the man further, a horn sounded from above. Swinging around, Erika watched as thirty men leapt over the ridge above and raced down the slope towards them.

25

The Soldier

Lukys sat in the courtyard looking up at the starless sky, a pint of ale before him, the laughter of his friends all around. He joined in with them every now and then, if only to keep up appearances. Watching their merriment, it occurred to him that he was no longer their leader, that the authority he’d built as Romaine’s right-hand man had slipped away as he sat alone in the darkness. Lukys found he did not miss it.

A week had fled like the snow before the breath of spring. He and the other recruits had been put to work, though that was often no more than sitting on the riverbanks with a fishing pole.

The most strenuous of activity came when they cleared the buildings yet to be occupied by the Tangata. Thankfully any dead had been removed from the city long ago, but many houses were worse for wear after close to a year of unoccupancy. Coal stoves had cracked with the invasion of winter’s cold and had to be removed, while vines were busy invading through cracks and windows. At times the Perfugians were even asked to attempt basic repairs on shutters and rooftops. Then they would be joined by groups of Tangata who watched their actions with interest, Lukys assumed to learn from their human captives.

If that was the case, though, they were sorely disappointed, as the recruits had few such skills. They hadn’t been sent to the frontline to die because they’d been useful to Perfugian society.

Maybe that was why his friends laughed now, why their smiles seemed so genuine—they had finally found a place in society, even if it was amongst the strangest of people. They even seemed able to communicate with their Tangata through notes and actions, despite their obvious limitations.

Watching his friends embrace their new life, their new lovers, it left Lukys feeling excluded, as if there was something wrong with his resistance to Sophia. It wasn’t that he did not find her attractive, in a lithe, Tangatan manner, or even that he did not like her. She had surprised him with her