Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“Stop it, right this moment—”
“You can’t make us!” one of the others says as he goes for a branch and joins his friend.
The two run laughing around the dragon, the magnificent beast closing its eyes with resigned exhaustion—
Riding a piercing fury, I put my right palm out. “You will leave him alone or I will curse you!”
All of the boys freeze, even the blond instigator who’s by the dragon’s wounded wing. And as they stare at me in total shock, I lower the tone of my voice, some other part of me breaking free and attacking.
“You know who I am,” I growl. “You know what I do. Leave the dragon alone.”
The branch falls from the blond boy’s hand—
From out of the Fulcrum, one of the contaminated bands whips free. Before I can warn the child, before the other boys see it, the blond tormentor is wrapped in a fist of black sand and plucked from the ground like a weed.
With a high-pitched scream, he flails against the hold, his arms and legs spinning in the air, the sound he’s making akin to what had called me to him and his friends, except now it’s what I’d thought it was:
He’s in mortal danger.
And he continues to beg for help as he’s drawn higher and higher, not as the miniature man he was trying to be, mimicking the worst expression of male aggression, but as a bairn of his rightful age—
“You’re a demon!” the boy who’s stayed at the tree line yells at me. “I’m going to tell them all! This is your doing!”
As he runs off, the other friend tries to help and gets too close. He’s caught just as the blond boy is swallowed into the black sand like a meal, those rippling screams fading into the roar as the next victim’s start.
Bolting forward, I skate by the dragon, and jump up to grab the remaining boy’s foot. Locking on with both hands, I hold on for everything I’m worth, and am slung around like a fish on a line, my cloak blooming out as it catches air.
“Heeeeeeeelp!” The boy’s tortured pleading is the stuff of nightmare. “Help me! Help—”
“I’ve got you, Fergus!”
We have history, he and I, even if I’m the only one who knows this. After he was born, he struggled for his breath, and I’m the only reason he’s lived long enough to die here at the Fulcrum.
And die he’s going to.
I lose my strength and his shoe comes with me. In the instant we part, my eyes go straight to his, and the electrical bolt that sluices through my body precedes a pain I’ve never known before. Searing, tearing, penetrating— I writhe as I plummet to the ground and he’s pulled into the black band.
My landing is hard, the breath knocked out of my lungs, my head kicking back such that there’s a ringing impact at the base of my skull. There’s no time for recovery or to try to race off. The evil comes for me next. A black spool of sand licks out at me, and I kick at it as I crab-walk backward for the tree line, my hood sloping forward so I can’t see. If I can get among the dead cangjas, I’ll have those trunks to hold onto—
My leg is snagged and I’m dragged toward the Fulcrum. I paddle for any kind of grip on anything, but sand slips through my grasping fingers and then I’m off the ground again.
That’s when I see the horned face in the black band.
Something horrible stares at me like it knows me.
Sorrelllllllllllll …
As my name wafts out, I scream and know there will be no getting free of this.
The evil is claiming me as if it’s been waiting for the chance.
Nine
The Dragon and the Knight.
A flash of the sun saves me.
Just as I’m being consumed, my cloak twisting around my body and locking me up tight, my feet sucked into the Fulcrum with the rest of me certain to follow, a gleam of gold flies by my face. Then there’s an unholy screech that’s so loud, it registers as pain in my ears instead of sound.
The Fulcrum’s grip on me slips for an instant.
And then there’s another golden flare. Another blaring screech.
Now I’m falling again.
I slam into the sandy ground once more, this time landing face down with my hood flopping over my head. As I pull in a breath, I get a mouthful of sand, and through the coughing and wheezing, I try to understand why the sun itself has taken human form—and is defending the likes of me.
Then I turn my head and see … what surely must be a myth. A dark-skinned knight in golden armor on a blinding white stallion is battling the black band with his golden sword, the blade glinting like fire as he defends me. He is both grace and strength, subduing his warhorse while he wields his weapon, parrying and jabbing—