Sword of Caledor - By William King Page 0,3

used and bound to her will.

Knowing the end was coming, she had prepared for it. She had sought out all manner of forbidden knowledge. She had made pacts with the enemies of her people while the sun still shone and the invasion was merely the tiniest cloud on the horizon. If her folk would not help themselves, the best she could do was ensure her own survival.

It was strange how in all of those tormenting visions she had never seen Aenarion. Perhaps if she had, things might have been different. She might have been different. But she had already walked a long way down a dark road when she met him and it was far too late to turn back, even if she had really wanted to.

He was famous then and mighty beyond all others, a grim, mortal god with haunted eyes. He had believed in her visions too. It was easy then, for they had all come true. And oddest of all, he had not wanted her. He did not abase himself before her beauty. He looked at her and saw just another elf woman.

His indifference had been a gauntlet thrown in her face, a challenge she could not back away from. She had set herself to win him, to woo him from his grief, to bring him over to her cause. And the oddest alchemy of all had been the trick fate had played on her. In pretending love, she had discovered the real thing. In trying to snare him, she had snared only herself.

She laughed at the irony of it. The sweet malice of her voice attracted the attention of her followers. She smiled at them, enjoying the fact that they did not understand, taking pleasure in their pleasure at the sight of her. They thought she was laughing at the oncoming horde, and it heartened them.

She had won Aenarion over in the end, but he had never loved her as she loved him. He was not capable of it. His dead Everqueen and his lost children filled his heart with gall. He was too lost in his own black grief and his dark desire for revenge. It had consumed him in the end. It had threatened to consume the world.

The barbarians laughed now too at the sight of the force they thought opposed them. Their laughter was bright, mad and cruel and it sounded so like the mirth that echoed through the towers of Naggarond that it was chilling. These humans had much in common with the elves of Naggaroth. Their Dark Gods had taught them well.

Briefly she considered the fact that she might die here, that her visions might be wrong, that the lords of Chaos might for their own reasons have decided to stamp on her face and end her immortal existence.

Part of her would honestly have welcomed it. She was sometimes weary unto death of the ways of this world, and longed to see what might wait on the other side of death’s dark doorway. Unfortunately, she had a good idea of what waited for her and those like her. In the endless night of the Realm of Chaos, the daemon lords lusted to devour the souls of her people. She would make a particularly tasty morsel for them, a soul fattened on millennia of sin. No, she was not keen to undergo that ultimate experience just yet.

She called for her mount. It was led to her by nervous grooms, a coal-black, burning-eyed hell-steed with enormous folded wings. Mist emerged from its nostrils, suggestive of the poisonous gas vented by the chasms of this unwelcoming place. It greeted her, eyes blazing with lust and hatred and a curious, twisted love. She stroked its cheek and it whinnied with pleasure from the spells woven into her hands. She vaulted onto its back and rode towards the Chaos horde, her mount becoming airborne after a dozen strides.

She heard her own followers gasp in wonder and fear. Perhaps they thought she was abandoning them to their fate and, for a moment, her malicious elven mind considered it, but she was too wise to do so merely to gratify a whim of the moment. Instead she soared above the oncoming tide of warriors, allowing them to view her half-naked form and luxuriate in the aura of unbridled, wanton lust that she projected. Ancient spells amplified the effects of her matchless beauty. All who looked on her groaned with desire.

She landed her steed defiantly in front of the

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024