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

of her. For a moment, only her familiar irritation was present, then her eyes widened with fear.

“You need to get out of here,” she rasped, her human voice edging toward gravelly buzz of ghul tones. “Now!”

“We all do,” Ambrose said, shoving his remaining bandages back into his pack. “Nice work, by the way, Magus.”

“Can you stand?” Milo asked, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder for support.

“You don’t understand!” Imrah wailed, twisting away from his touch. “You need to get out of here! Just leave me and go!”

“Not going to happen,” Milo said firmly.

From somewhere up by the ridgeline, there was a piercing scream.

“You don’t understand,” Imrah repeated, looking from one to the other. “Oh, Iblis, please just go! Now, before it’s too late!”

“What are you talking about?” Ambrose asked, the first edge of suspicion sharpening his tone. For the first time since they arrived, the air was not being rent by mortars, and even rifle fire was slackening. Ambrose rose from his crouch to survey the enemy positions.

“Milo, please!” Imrah moaned, one human hand and one ghul talon gripping his open surcoat. “You need to run!”

Milo looked down at her and saw a struggle of guilt, fear, and anger writhing behind her mismatched eyes. His stomach sank toward his heels.

“I called to it,” she gasped, her gaze beginning to twist slowly toward the ridgeline. “When I first came under attack. I’m sorry.”

“What are you talking about?” Milo demanded, yanking her hands off his coat.

“Mon Dieu!” Ambrose gasped, and by instinct, Milo heaved to his feet to see what was going on.

Sweeping across the ridgeline and flowing down the rockface toward the eastern slope was a vast undulating tide. Its muddy gray surface glistened as it rolled down over the hillside, rippling layers speckled with discolorations across its filmy membrane. Dark patches at varying depths in its translucent form bore the shapes of men, horses, and things less recognizable. It rolled down from the saturated ridge to lap across the enemy line. Men vanished, screaming beneath grasping, smothering waves.

On the air was a heavy clinging stink of stale sweat and burnt ammonia.

“Come on,” Milo shouted, breaking the spell of the horror’s appearance as he hauled Imrah to her feet. “We need to run!”

Ambrose shook his head, tearing his gaze away to stare numbly at Milo for a second before giving another whiskery toss of his head and nodding. He slung his rifle back over his shoulder and snatched up his carbine with a seamless economy of movement.

“Imrah, move!” Milo shouted, pulling on her arm, but she wrenched back, nearly knocking him over.

“No, it’s too late,” she cried, reaching up to dig at the ragged edges of her rent skin coat. “Just stay here.”

“What’s wrong with you?” he bellowed, pointing up the slope to the slime flood scouring the eastern slope. “We need to get out of here.”

“Just stay here and be quiet,” she instructed, turning toward the gelatinous horror. With a sickening, wet wrench, she tore the skin-coat off her head so the vacant remains of a woman’s face hung like a hood from her shoulders.

“Milo,” Ambrose rumbled at his shoulder. “We need to get out of here now.”

Milo nodded, his mind freewheeling even as he watched his teacher advancing toward the monster, arms outstretched.

“Okay,” Milo murmured, something twisting hard inside his ribs. “You’re right.”

They turned to run, but their feet refused to comply as nerveless fingers gripped their ankles with dead weight. The dead soldiers at their feet tightened their grip, curling around their legs, even as more rose from the ground to stagger forward, hands outstretched.

“I told you to stay put,” Imrah called over her shoulder as she kept advancing toward the eastern slope.

To Milo’s and Ambrose’s horror, the foul tide turned and rushed down to meet her.

24

A Gambit

Milo waited for the living sea of filth to sweep Imrah away, determined to witness her last moments before his own time came.

Yet, just as the cresting wave of caustic jelly was about to swallow the ghul, it halted before her. A glistening wall of murky protoplasm rippled and shone as its previous victims, men and horses, twisted and rolled lazily within its depths.

“Kimaris!” Imrah cried, raising her arms over her head. “Commander and master of legions, I call you to treat with me!”

The gelatinous depths heaved and wriggled, and then from the quavering wall of jelly emerged the bile-gnawed faces of the slime’s prey. Most were human, some were ghul, and a few were horses, goats, and dogs, all in varied states of digestion. The wall of dripping heads opened their mouths in unison to raise a sodden, quavering chorus.

“BEHOLD! BEHOLD!” they cried in choking, trembling ecstasy. “THE PRINCE ARRIVES!”

Imrah stood motionless as the center of the expanse before her grew convex. The forming bubble swelled, then with a wet pop, it collapsed, revealing a figure within.

Tall and slender, with an androgynous aesthetic of elegance, the figure seemed to be composed of the same substance as the sea that birthed it, but shaped and hardened to a glassy smoothness. It might have seemed an impressive sculpture, but floating within its polished form were bits of viscera, meat, and bone. Turning its smooth face to look down on the ghul before it, the figure gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment.

“BEHOLD THE PRINCE!” the chorus cried. “THE PRINCE BEHOLDS YOU!”

“You have served well,” Imrah said, to which the figure raised its chin. ”Now I bid you return to the deep and wait for my call once more.”

The figure turned its head to one side, then slowly turned and pointed at Milo and Ambrose.

“THE ENEMY IS UPON THE FIELD!” the gnawed faces warbled excitedly. “THE PRINCE RIDES TO WAR!”

Pseudopods of slime crept forward on either side of Imrah, inching toward the corpses that held the magus and the bodyguard in place.

“Imrah!” Milo shouted in warning.

“Kimaris!” the ghul princess snarled, turning a withering gaze on either side of her before glaring up at the figure. “I am the one who freed