Blade of the Avatar/Blade of Midras/Chapter 27

Epiphany

Chapter 27: Epiphany

Excerpt

General Karpasic pushed his way through the group of confused and listless satyrs. He choked suddenly, coughing from the dust that filled the corridor from the collapsed wall he had just climbed over. He had ‘liberated’ a lantern from one of the cities shops earlier in the evening. He now held it high over and to the side of his head, trying to pierce the darkness of what had been an enormous, elegant hall.

It had taken the greater part of the day to break into the citadel. The flood of warriors into the city through the open and broken gates had, predictably, resulted in considerable chaos for the first few hours; as such discipline that had existed dissolved into cutthroat greed. They poured into the abandoned buildings of Opalis all along the Muse Way and down into the back alleys among the smaller shops and homes. The warriors spread over the city like locusts devouring a field. The crashing sound of ransacking each building grew with each moment.

That sound was soon followed by a growing howl of anger and betrayal. There was gold and and even a few gems to be rutted out here and there among the buildings, but the legendary wealth of Opalis was not evident in the shops, stalls or homes of the city. The scavengers washed back and forth within the walls of the town like water in a bucket suddenly jarred, desperately seeking the hidden trove that would make their hardships and spilt blood worthwhile.

It was just before evening that the the focus of their frustrations fell on the towering citadel near the middle of the town…

Trivia

• In the original Blade of the Avatar, prior to the additional chapters added for The Sword of Midras, this was Chapter 23.