The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

of the tower, beyond the reach of the Inferno.
Baleron overheard his guards and torturers discussing it. Ghrozm was openly boastful. The forces had been massing for months and their ranks
were still not swelled fully yet. When the army was all gathered, Gilgaroth
would send them and the dragons north to break the sieges at Clevaris and Glorifel,
then to sweep across the whole Crescent, destroying what bastions of the Light
remained, and they were few. Baleron knew he had only to wait until then, to
that unimaginable day, the day when all hope died, when his usefulness to the
Lord of the Tower would surely be at an end.
    One day, Borchstogs led him out
from the pit and down corridors he’d never been down before, and suddenly he
smelled fresh air.
    Outside!
    Excitement coursed through him at
first—he’d lived to see the world beyond Krogbur one more time—but then he grew
uneasy. What now? He steeled himself
to face whatever new horrors awaited him, and Rolenya.
    His captors led him to an outside
terrace, where a red Worm waited. Much smaller and leaner than Throgmar, it was
more serpentine, and it hissed at the prince, lashing its tri-pronged tail.
Nonetheless, it allowed the Borchstogs to strap him into a saddle, while two of
their number strapped in behind him.
    On a nearby terrace he saw Rolenya
likewise being lashed onto the back of a similar dragon. Former brother and
sister looked at each other sadly. Neither knew what was about to happen, but
it could not be pleasant.
    The wind roared and, despite
everything, Baleron enjoyed it as it swept through his hair and over his skin.
He hadn’t seen the outside world in months, and he blinked at its brightness,
even if the sky was covered with storm clouds and all was dim and stark. A
tongue of lightning lanced the ground to the left, and he recoiled at its
brightness, having to mash his eyes shut. The thunder nearly knocked him off
his feet.
    When he could see again, he
marveled at the vision before him, at the mountains in the distance, the
smoking volcanoes, the river of fire off to his right . . . It was so big that
it took his breath away. He’d become accustomed to tight environs.
    As always, hundreds of dragons
circled the tower in neverending loops, screening
Krogbur from unwanted guests. Baleron thought of that day when he’d tracked
Throgmar here. Then he had supposed the moat-Worms had sensed Rondthril and
allowed him to breach their ring, but now he knew the truth, as he’d half-suspected
at the time: the Wolf had let him in. Gilgaroth had, as was his way, been
playing with Baleron.
    Baleron’s mount tilted and he
received an unwelcome glimpse over the side of the terrace. His stomach
lurched. It was a long way down.
Krogbur reached to the very clouds and higher still, and the terrace they
perched on was well above the Black
Tower’s equator. Small
wisps of clouds drifted below. Below that raged the terrible Inferno of Illistriv. Souls,
millions of them, flashing like silverfish, darted through the leaping flames
pursued by nightmarish terrors, the Warders.
    On the ground beyond the fire
spread a restless darkness: the army. They soldiers were too far away to look
like even ants; all Baleron could see was the formations and a myriad of tiny
pinpricks that must be their bonfires. Still, he was struck by the size of the
gathering: it was immense , stretching
off towards the horizon. No might that the Crescent Union could summon could
stand against it.
    The realization shook Baleron. This army, coupled with these hell-Worms, is
the doom of the Alliance .
And when the Alliance
fell, so would all of Roshliel.
    He glanced to Rolenya. She, too,
had caught a glimpse of the hordes, and was staring at them with a tight, pale
face. Nervously, she looked up from them and shared a grim glance with Baleron.
    The dragons bearing prince and
princess took off. Flying in tandem, they spiraled down around the thick trunk
of Krogbur, taking their time. Overhead, the black