Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

One of the ghuls was behind the bulk of the charging ogre, but the other was swinging wide, like a wolf encircling prey.

“Brighter!” Milo bellowed to the skull cupped in one hand, and a trio of intense green beams shot forth.

The ghul hissed and recoiled under the light, one hand still holding the club while the other covered its eyes. Its steps stuttered and slowed as it wilted in the lamp’s brilliance. It called out to its companions in its sinister language and pointed with its club as it staggered to almost a complete stop, pinned by the stabbing illumination.

Milo knew he wasn’t going to get a better shot, so he leveled his Luger.

The cracking pop of the weapon seemed almost effeminate next to the roar of the Gewehr, but all three rounds found their mark in the ghul’s narrow chest. Thick dark blood bubbled out of its wounds, glistening on its breast, and with a wet gasp, the ghul pitched over.

The thrill of success lasted until Milo saw that the huge ghul had reached Ambrose.

Despite nearly a half-dozen bloody wounds, the monster moved with frightening speed and power, bearing down unerringly on Milo’s bodyguard despite its lack of eyes. Its arms swept wide, it leapt forward even as Ambrose dove to the side to escape the fatal embrace. He was still bowled over by the sheer mass of the beast.

Ambrose rolled one direction across the floor and his Gewehr clattered in another, the man and his rifle separated by a roaring monster. By the time he sprang to his feet, he’d drawn a knife, a butcher-bladed Seitengewehr with a saw-edged spine. Ambrose didn’t wait for the larger opponent to come for him but leapt forward, dagger flashing.

For all his bodyguard’s ferocity, Milo wasn’t sure what a third of a meter of steel could do against something so massive, but he was spared the consideration because in the spectacle, he had forgotten about the other ghul.

He swung his pistol around a fraction of a second too late and only managed to send a round whining off the stone floor as an engraved femur smashed across his shoulder. Milo staggered sideways, reeling from the blow and desperate to keep his grip on his Luger. Spinning, he tried to bring the blinding lamp and his sidearm to bear, but the knobby pommel of the bone cudgel crashed across his jaw.

Milo was thrown back and landed hard on his rump. He tried to raise the pistol, but hard claws seized the weapon and gave a cruel twist. Milo fell back and screamed as his trigger finger gave a gristly pop, then the pistol was out of his hand and skittering across the floor. Throbbing, thought-destroying pain surged from his mangled hand, and more by instinct than artifice, Milo kicked out, planting his foot in the belly of the ghul.

Common ghuls seemed to be viciously fast, unnaturally strong, and grotesquely resilient, but for all that, they were stooped, thin creatures. With his back braced against the unyielding floor, Milo’s agony-fueled kick sent his attacker tumbling back and bought him a few precious seconds.

As he forced himself to breathe, Milo knew he couldn’t even form a fist to punch with his right hand, and the ripples of pain were making it hard to think. Beneath them, he felt a bone-deep lethargy almost like a sickness threatening to well up and drag him into unconsciousness. Milo raged against the unnatural stupor, feeling a malign will press against his own before he finally shook it off like a clinging parasite.

Gritting his teeth as he drew and expelled hissing breaths, Milo hefted the only thing left to him: the skull lamp. Unsure if he would try to blind his enemy like the last ghul or just smash it into the thing’s face, Milo gingerly gripped the horns with both hands.

Milo’s gaze swung up, and he saw that the ghul was on its feet again and coming for him. He was doomed. He was a few bludgeoning strikes from that unholy bone smashing his face in.

Then he felt the trembling powers within the skull and remembered another element of Imrah’s demonstration.

“There are variations and improvisations available. What should heal could turn to poison in an instant.”

Marshaling himself despite the pain of his broken finger, Milo called out to what lay within the skull.

“BURN!” he commanded.

The light vanished for a single heartbeat and the ghul sprang forward, club ready to deal the fatal blow.

With a snarling rush, venomous jade flames rushed out of the outstretched skull. They struck the ghul in the chest and enfolded it like the tentacles of a hungry sea demon. The ghul staggered back, weaponized femur falling from its fingers, and threw its head back to scream. The greedy tentacles of flame enclosed its head and swam down its throat, drowning its shrieking in their crackle. Milo’s attacker staggered back one more step before sinking to its knees and pitching onto its side. The witchfire quickly lapped across the body, eagerly devouring it.

Milo turned, skull still clutched in his throbbing grip, as he heard a bullish bellow behind him.

Like an enraged bovine, the huge ghul twisted and bucked, sometimes on all fours, sometimes standing. Gelatinous strands of ichor flew, and for a second, Milo couldn’t tell what had possessed the brute. Then with a great crashing heave, the creature threw itself to the floor, and Ambrose flew off the monster’s back just in time to avoid being rolled on.

The big man tumbled across the stone floor toward Milo and was on his feet in an instant. His bayonet blade was still in his hand, slick with the dark, stringy blood that also covered his hands and the sleeves of his coat up to the elbows. The strained buttons of the coat had finally failed, and it flapped open to reveal an undershirt smeared with ghul blood. The tectonic slabs of his powerful chest flexed as the coils of muscle banding his wide