Demon Lord IV - Lord of Shadows Read Online Free PDF

cannot find him. The
blue mages hide on hallowed ground, out of my reach, and the Grey
God eludes me as Drayshina did. What is the tar'merin doing? I must
know! I want him dead, so that I may destroy his soul. He is a
mortal. An arrow through the heart will kill him."
    "Perhaps if
you torture the goddess, he will come to her aid," a mage
suggested.
    "He will not,
you fool, he is not stupid. He is up to something, I can feel it.
You must find him!"
    Vorkon turned
and marched back into the temple, leaving the mages to stare at his
retreating back with bleak expressions. For them, finding Bane was
a death sentence, and they knew it.
    Vorkon walked
past the Source, enjoying the cool, refreshing touch of its power,
and continued towards the back of the temple, where a shallow pit
housed the flesh creature. Drayshina lay gripped in its many hands,
and several of its misshapen legs were chained to the floor,
anchoring it, and her.
    Vorkon stopped
at the edge of the pit and stared down at her. Her serene
expression irritated him as she lay, apparently relaxed, her eyes
closed. A blue nimbus surrounded her, testament to the vast amounts
of dark power within the temple. He had taunted and tortured her,
but neither had brought him anything other than the satisfaction of
doing it, for she refused to speak. Her screams had been pleasant,
but the threat of the tar'merin had distracted him from his
enjoyment of them. The fact that his enemy still lived infuriated
him, and that he was hiding so successfully, blocking Vorkon's Eye,
annoyed him even more. The destruction of one of his armies and
several of his mages soured his mood further, and all in all, apart
from capturing Drayshina, things were not going well since the
tar'merin had appeared. That would change, however, as soon as one
of his mages, hounds or demons found him, of that, he was certain.
Then the upstart traitor would die, and his soul would be destroyed
forever.
     
    Shevra
crouched in the gutter beside the road, shivers racking her in
gut-wrenching waves. Two days of walking had brought her to this
desolate spot, but then, everywhere was bleak. After she had left
her devastated home, the skies had darkened again, and she had
paused often to gaze back at the grey spot in the clouds behind
her. Eventually it had darkened, and she had trudged on, hungry and
tired. Pools of water in the gutter had provided her with something
to drink, although it was foul and muddy. She had dampened her
skirt and wiped the ash from her face and arms, brushing it out of
her hair to try to get rid of the stench of death that still clung
to her.
    The nights
were terrifying, dark and cold, and the shadows had seeped into her
while she lay in the gutter. She woke often, shivering with terror
and cold, her stomach a tight knot. Now that she knew that the dark
creatures were real, and had seen their horrific forms, she dreaded
that they would find her and tear her apart. Without flint and iron
she could not make a fire; her talent did not include creating it.
She wondered at the wisdom of leaving her town, where there was
some shelter and perhaps even a little food. The survivors would
have to go to a city, and she could have gone with them. She
followed the road that the supply wagons used, which had to lead to
a city, and anyone else from her town would use the same track, yet
she had seen no one. Perhaps they were behind her, and if she
waited, they would catch up.
    The sound of
voices made her stiffen in alarm, then raise her head to peer over
the edge of the gutter. A group of about a dozen ragged people
walked along the road towards her, but they were heading in the
direction from whence she had come. Even so, they were a welcome
sight, and she did not care where they were going. She crawled out
of the gutter, and the group hurried towards her with exclamations
of concern. A thin, bearded man crouched beside her and gave her
clean water from a flask, and a plump, motherly woman put a blanket
over