The Defiance of Vim (Catalyst Book 4) by C.J. Aaron (graded readers txt) 📕

banes, the larger beasts behind the leader,” he called to the young lord.

Fay nodded his head in assent, yet said nothing, his mouth still agape at the sight that loomed before him.

The massive Horde took one lumbering step forward toward the Pining Gates.

“What about that?” Fay gasped.

Step after step, the gigantic demon approached. Ryl could feel each thundering footfall as it shook the ground. The excited calls of the Horde around it swelled. He could feel their anticipation grow as they sensed the bloodshed soon to come.

The thud of every footstep echoed through his body. Each rumble sent a stabbing lance of pain through his left arm. He shot a glance downward at the tattoo of the burning sun on his arm. The clear skin of the interior of the ball of fire seemed to pulse with every shot of pain. The edges curled inward. Probing streaks of black nearly pierced the speckled center.

Ryl watched as the massive Horde kicked aside a harrier that was unlucky enough to be still in its way. The shattered body hurtled through the air, splattering as it smashed into the stone face of a building that lined the avenue. It raised the mighty cudgel that it carried in its right hand, resting the shaft on its muscular shoulder.

The details of the creature became startlingly apparent as it neared. It towered over the lanky harriers, which scurried from its way. The beast dwarfed the solidly built bane that followed in its wake.

Like its brethren, the monstrosity was hairless, its skin a red so deep it appeared black. Unlike the harriers, with their lean bodies and lanky legs, this creature was more proportionally comparative to a human. Its legs and torso were nearly equal height, though they were each likely at least a meter taller than Ryl.

That was where the comparisons to humans ceased. The demon’s arms were longer, its hands ending almost at its knees. The muscles that rippled as it moved were impossibly large. It was built like a mountain, though he could see not an ounce of fat. Suddenly, the impervious wall of the palisade didn’t seem so stout.

Ryl looked back at his friend, who’d finished barking out orders to the captain.

“If that creature makes it past, then the gate and the walls will fall,” Ryl admitted.

“What are you going to do, Ryl?” Fay asked.

Ryl grinned. It was a pained, pitiful attempt, yet it was all he could muster.

“Reason with it on its level, I suppose,” he added. “Andr’s taught me a few tricks in his days.”

He turned his head back to the approaching monstrosity. The beast pushed past the line that had stalled after his last assault. Banes filled in the space behind.

“You should leave, my lord,” Ryl added. “The kingdom will need your leadership.”

“I’m not leaving you, Ryl,” Fay responded as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Then one way or another, we’ll see this through.” Ryl nodded. “Thank you for everything, my friend.”

He darted along the top of the wall, skipping between crenulations with little concern for the dizzying drop off one side. Moments later, his body floated through the calm of the afternoon air. The day was young, yet blood already clogged the gutters of many of the streets. Ryl reached the courtyard only moments later.

He walked purposefully to the center of the clearing, though he pushed a few meters closer to the entrance of the square. Though the buildings, now tombs for the Lei Guard, had been decimated by the blast, the opening was riddled with loose debris and clogged by the buildings on either side. He was undersized, yet he’d have his preference of fighting. He’d not be bullied into open combat with both the massive Horde and the banes that travelled in its wake.

The ground shook with every footstep as the beast neared the courtyard. The mammoth head crested the gentle rise in the avenue, followed rapidly by the massive club slung casually over its shoulder. Ryl let the wind swell around his right arm.

His body cried out; his stomach churned with anxiety and doubt. Every fiber in his being pleaded for his retreat.

He could not comply.

An army of death approached. He was the only thing standing between the Horde and his friends. Though he feared not for the tributes, for Andr, for the remaining phrenics secreted away in the Erlyn, he feared for everything that he’d stood to defend.

The scenarios ran rampant through his head as he struggled with the doubt. Had he brought the phrenics, they’d have likely all died together in the face of insurmountable odds. Though few of the Vigil remained, the path to Vim was long and fraught with the threats of the Horde.

Had he remained in the safety of the woods, had he not sought Kaep and her captor, they likely could have slipped over the wall and through the scattered forest beyond. In all reality it would likely be another several days before the last of the tributes was ready to travel. Kaep was lost now. Fay and his troops would have been slaughtered senselessly, fallen prey to either the Horde or the king’s army.

In all the scenarios that coursed through his mind, it seemed there was but one constant.

The tributes.

In all, they remained, for the moment, unmolested. Though the cast of characters around them would change dramatically, they would slip over the wall, disappearing into the remains of the Erlyn Woods that hugged the mountains forming the northern border to the Outlands.

Ryl sighed as a sense of relief flowed over him. A burden that had been forced upon him evaporated at the thought. Though his fight was far from over, he felt free from the weight of prophecy. The words Da’agryn had repeated echoed through his mind:

The phrenics will balance on a blade’s edge, clinging desperately to their ideals, teetering on the verge of oblivion. On this precipice, one will come with active blood. This one will be the catalyst. The wind behind our sails to push us