It took Parial some time to recover from speaking the word of opening again.    With the door now securely in position and the immediate threat gone, Karol seemed happy to allow everyone to just stop and rest for what felt like the first time in an age.   Even he seemed to relax a little and took his time picking up the akrys rods that they’d managed to bring inside the Sanctuary building.   Only four of them, only four.   And he had no idea if that would be enough for what he had in mind.

Continue reading “Draklyn Storm – Chapter 3” →

The Minister of Prosperity could not go on for much longer, being at the end of his resources of strength and endurance.  For all his expertise and experience he was an old man and this day was the most taxing he had ever lived through.  His legs burned, his knees and hips sent stabling pain into the core of him with every step, and each breath was now a ragged exertion.  More, he feared he would be responsible for the death of the woman whose dutiful care of him had brought them so far.

Continue reading “Draklyn Storm – Chapter 2” →

The city was going to fall. Anyone with any sense knew that. The die-hard optimists and denialists who had refused to evacuate had now abandoned their homes and havens and were jamming up the streets and roads leading westward way from the onslaught of invaders. Yesterday they were die-hard optimists, today they were likely to just die hard. The stark grey stone that made up most of the city’s architecture was now dyed red by the unnaturally crimson sky, the city itself bloodied by the assault. The screams of the terrified, the wounded, the desperate almost drowned out the unholy screeching of the invaders as they advanced inexorably from the direction of the dawn that had not come.

It had been called Vanguard, this city on the edge of civilisation. The name now seemed a hollow boast. First-to-Fall it would be better named. Hopeless. Abandoned. Cut-Off. Not names chosen by some vainglorious imperial official but more true than the name carved over the great stone gateways in the walls that separated the inner city from the outer. The walls protected the nobility of the city from having to see and mingle with the common folk. From the invaders they offered only the illusion of protection and everyone knew it.

Continue reading “Draklyn Storm – chapter 1” →