Kenneth moved with the practiced grace of a man who had spent a decade fighting on uneven ground. He ducked under the swipe of a claw that would have opened his chest and drove his blade upward. The steel, etched with protective runes by the Company’s healer, bit deep.
"Sir," a voice rasped. It was Varit, a veteran whose face was more scar tissue than skin. "The ropes won't hold in this gale. If we go down, we’re just adding more meat to the pot."
Kenneth stood for a moment, his breath coming in ragged plumes. He wiped the black ichor from his sword and sheathed it. He turned to the girl, who was staring at him as if he were a god himself. "Can you walk?" he asked, his voice softening. She nodded slowly. "Good. My men are waiting." [Filetracker.PL] Robert M. Wegner - OpowieЕ›ci z...
As Kenneth moved toward her, he felt a sudden, sickening pressure in the back of his skull. The air turned foul—the smell of wet fur and ancient, stagnant water.
Kenneth didn't pray to the gods; he knew they rarely listened to soldiers. Instead, he remembered the oath he’d sworn under the red banners of the Empire. The creature lunged. Kenneth moved with the practiced grace of a
The silence hit him first. Above, the wind howled; below, the mist swallowed sound. He reached the floor of the ravine, his boots crunching on shale. The wagon was a splintered wreck. Nearby, the girl sat huddled against a rock, her eyes wide and silvered with shock. She wasn't crying. In the borderlands, children learned early that crying only drew the wrong kind of attention.
Kenneth ignored the superstition. He took the coil of reinforced rope, looped it around a jagged spur of rock, and signaled. He descended into the grey. "Sir," a voice rasped
With a final, guttering hiss, the shadow dissolved into a greasy black smoke that the wind quickly tore apart.