Blade of the Avatar/Blade of Midras/Chapter 6

Desolis

Chapter 6: Desolis

Excerpt

The hornunculus known as Monk flapped its wings with determination as it rose higher and higher above the Midmaer Plain. It had left the arm of Aren, its master, from the edge of the Midras ruins two days before and had been making its way eastward beneath daylight and starshine ever since. The homunculus was not a rapid flyer or, for that matter, a very good one, as its wings had been shaped by magic rather than by nature and were barely sufficient to support the miniature, humanlike body suspended beneath them. The barbed tail provided insufficient directional control even in the slightest crosswind. But for all that, the homunculus could unquestionably lay claim to two solid Virtues. Its wings, poor as they were, would never tire, and it was single-mindedly relentless in performing its assigned task. The homunculus would die before it would fail.

Monk flew eastward from the still burning ruins toward the Shadowed Hills that led to the western slopes of the Spectral Peaks. It might not have been the most direct route to Monk’s objective, but within Monk’s altered and engineered mind, the homunculus knew that the rarefied air at the crests of those mountains would not support its flight or permit its aerial passage. Had Monk been capable of it, it might have felt frustration of the knowledge, but instead its red eyes caught the bright ribbon the River Pashal shining far beneath it in the rays of the morning sun, and the creature wheeled on its wings northward to follow it. Before the sun had set on the same day, Monk had reached the confluence of the Pashal and Shimano Rivers. Just to the northwest of the confluence, the homunculus could see the burned-out ruins of a small town, its stockade walls shattered and charred. The ruins were cold; the fires had long since gone out, and no smoke rose from among the dead. The homunculus did not care; curiosity was not part of its current mission. Its only concern, if the term could properly be applied to the creature, was the building storm clouds to the northwest that were moving with uncharitable swiftness toward it. Monk turned eastward climbing higher as best it could with its eyes on a dark line on the fading horizon, known to its masters as the Sentinel Forest—the boundary between the plains of Midmaer and the Grunvald Prairie.

Monk pushed on through the sky, the storm gaining upon the creature with every beat of its wings.

The tempest overtook the creature in the night. Monk’s eyes were more efficient in the darkness—reading variations in heat was far easier for the hornunculus than the visible spectrum of light—but the turmoil of the conflicting wind gusts, the torrential downpours of cold rain, and the almost constant veins of lightning crackling through the cloudy blackness made it impossible for him to proceed. The homunculus descended, but even in the caution that it took, the storm still managed to hurl the creature through the upper branches of the hardwood trees and slam it with painful force against the trunk of an oak tree. The homunculus clambered for some purchase with its clawed hands and feet across the wet bark, and managed to arrest its fall within a few feet. There, with the ground an unseen distance beneath it, Monk clung to the tree as the storm raged around it in the darkness. The homunculus rocked itself slightly through the night, trying to comfort itself as it was caught between its unquenchable need to fulfill its master’s command and the storm that made its progress toward that objective impossible to fulfill.

The rain was still falling at midmorning when the homunculus took to the skies once more. It had crashed the night before on the western edge of the Sentinel Forest. Who had given the forest that name or why was of no concern to the creature. All it knew was that the storm was moving off toward the south so that it might exhaust itself against the Spectral Peaks. That meant that the skies would be clearing above the forest and gratefully permit the homunculus to continue.

The leathery winged messenger flew high above the treetops of the Sentinels through the rest of the day. By the time the sun was once again setting to the west, Monk was leaving the eastern edge of the forest behind him. The great, billowing clouds piled up around the small monster as it flew eastward, but through the occasional breaks, Monk caught glimpses of the Eylo River to the east.

Trivia

• This chapter is additional chapter added exclusively to The Sword of Midras.