Possessing the Grimstone - By John Grover Page 0,22

the table.

Dwellers of Llewallen Forest, a small, peaceful people, with no real army had sent representatives. They hadn’t fought, but they’d taken in refugees from the Lake Lands.

Representatives from Gwythroth, the Gray City, the most mysterious of the people of Athora, arrived swathed in robes and tribal masks. They were taller than anyone in the city.

Chatter filled the room as people posed question after question and terrified hypothesis after hypothesis. No order had come to the meeting; everyone talked, shouted, and accused. Wild stories were exchanged and compared.

The doors to the room flew open, and all eyes turned to see Drith and his twin brother, Gyrn, from the South, make a grand entrance into the room.

Nachin reached for the dagger in his belt, but Olani put her hand across his arm, halting him. She eyed Drith as he crossed the room, his body and face painted with swatches of scarlet, white, and turquoise. Gold chains pierced his nostrils and stretched to his earlobes, which were also studded with onyx pins. He carried a bejeweled scepter.

Drith turned his head to Olani and nodded to her with a grin. He and his brother, accompanied by a few of their people and some servant girls, stopped at the table.

Finally, Sooth-Malesh appeared. The crimson-robed mage seemed to step from the shadows, themselves, as if they’d woven him there on the spot. His expression was grim.

“Sooth-Malesh,” the King bellowed over the others in the room. “What news of this threat do you bring us?”

“I’m afraid it is bleak, my lord. More of their deathships have arrived on the Red Coast. Their army increases with every passing day. “

Sooth-Malesh pulled a crystal from his robe and set it on the stone table. The crystal spun and spun, moving to the center of the table until a shower of light burst from it.

Everyone took a step back, shading their eyes from the bright light.

A vision appeared: hundreds of thousands of raging creatures with hovering spirits tethered to them marched from the beaches of the Fifling Sea. War machines rolled with fiery quarrels; monstrous reptilian steeds howled and stomped. The crystal scoped the beach, showing the armies marching into many different directions, clubs, axes, daggers, and pole arms clattering against bone-clad armor and shields, stone-like teeth clicking, dozens of mages wielding powerful magic of fire, shadow, and necromancy.

“They have already regrouped in the North, and are cutting a path through it,” Sooth-Malesh said. “They have invaded Bhrungach. The walls have fallen.”

Olani’s head bowed, sadness in her eyes. Drith smirked at his brother.

The old mage continued. “Half of their vast army is marching this way, up the coast toward Cardoon.”

“What of the ghosts with them?” Tolan asked. “These spirits can attack, but cannot be harmed, in return.”

“They’re familiars. They are the spirits of creatures or animals slain in their homeland. They are tethered to them with totems. You see, the bones on their armor are the bones of the creatures they have killed. Their mages have enchanted the bones, thus binding the spirits to their killers. It gives more power to these things… whatever they are. If you break the bond, destroy the bones of the animal, they will be freed, and the master will weaken.”

“What do these monsters want?” Olani asked, her eyes welling.

“Ah, I am glad you asked.” Sooth-Malesh gestured to the crystal and the vision shifted back to the beach on the Red Coast. Among the thousands of tents and barges, a circle of high mages appeared. The horned wizards, twelve or more, wove their clawed-hands over a piece of stone, floating inside a receptacle.

Green-yellow energy swirled around the stone, waves of it rippled off as the mages focused their magic into it.

“They seek the other pieces of the Grimstone.”

“The what?” Nachin asked.

“The Grimstone: the ancient stone that nearly destroyed the First People. Long held as the most powerful magical artifact known to all of Athora. The First People, the Mulcavrii, knew it was too powerful for anyone to master. They tried to destroy it, but it would only shatter into three pieces. They were hidden over a thousand years ago. These creatures have obviously found one of the pieces, and they want the other two. They will wipe out everything to get them.”

“Grimstone?” Olani said. “I have never heard of this stone.”

“Only the oldest of grimoires make mention of it. It had all been forgotten by the people of Athora.”

“We did not forget it,” said one of the emissaries from Gwythroth. He drew closer to