Fire’s Shadow

A Rising Knight: Volume 3, Issue 9

There are eyes the dark…they burn. The Wraith has come to keep his promise, all who help the Knight Hunters will die. Simple words in the abstract. But what will he do when confronted by a mother fighting to get back to her family. Will the monster in the dark kill again? Or will he find another way?

Excerpt

She closed her eyes fervently wished for all to just…go away. That was the moment the first explosion shook the building.

Ciara didn’t know what the low rumble vibrating though her chair was at first. For a moment she was tempted to dismiss them as muscle tremors. She wasn't prone to them, but it made sense. Rohr from the office across the way poked his head out and asked if anyone had felt that. Then the screams started.

Three dozen grey clad Hunters burst into the central hall, retreating into the room while firing spell after spell into the garden's only opening. The Brokenbolts dove for the paper thin cover of potted plants and shrubbery kept firing. So many soldiers pouring everything they had into one place made a sound like crackling ice. Except the sound did not dissipate after a moment, it kept going, growing louder by the second.

For a moment Ciara's mind went totally blank. She had been in the army for ten years, but the army no longer taught you what to do in an emergency. Then good sense kicked in and she ducked behind her desk. Small chance it would stop even a weak spell. She poked her head out from the side of the desk. If she had to make a break for it she had to be able to see what was going on.

Into the whirling maelstrom of spell fire stepped a figure in black. No, not in black, of the black. The smoke and dust raised by errant webs* seemed part of the living shadow. Across the length of the garden, through the glass wall of her office, Ciara could see burning crimson eyes. Pinpricks of flickering light in the shadow. Like fire glimpsed through heavy smoke. A name came to her lips.

“Wraith.” The reaper come round at last.