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)
The Fulcrum is a towering churn before me, a horizontal band of storming energy that stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions. Tall as the sky itself, it circulates to the right, and the dull roar burrows into the mind. The marvel is not actually made of the bleached particles that have been trapped in its twist. Rather, the ground has been dehydrated and sucked up into its circular force, thrown free at the top and drawn back in at the bottom in an endless cycle that’s been going on for centuries.
I have seen this marvel only a handful of times before, and a shiver goes through me, my body reacting to the electric charge. The Fulcrum is pure magic, all of the elemental energy that remained after the Dark King rose to power and took control gathered by the Savior and concentrated here during the Great Containment.
To hold the evil and its army of the undead in.
Except something is terribly wrong.
In the midst of the swirl, a black contamination has weeded through the pale waves. Bands of the rot have threaded into the entirety of what protects us, and it’s from these that the black snow spins off.
The milkman is right. The Fulcrum is failing.
And inside of it, the Dark King and his demon soldiers are poised to—
At first, the cacophony to my left doesn’t register over the hum of the Fulcrum and the horror of what I’m seeing. But then my ear locks in.
Shouting.
Someone is in trouble.
Eight
An Evil Comes for Me and Thee.
As I scramble forward, my soft shoes struggle for purchase in the sand and my cloak slows me down even after I grab its folds and yank them out of the way. The high-pitched sounds of yelling get louder as I track them along the face of the Fulcrum, and I worry about the women, whoever they are. Who would be out this late and this far from the village? At least here in the open, there is a little more light left—
From the corner of my eye, I see a shadow coming at my head, and I duck so that the bird of prey doesn’t get me. Except it’s not a bird. Stumbling off balance, I pitch face-first into the loose ground and roll over just as a black arm-like extension from one of the Fulcrum’s bands swipes at me and then retracts into the swirl.
Whatever it is comes at me again, and I shove myself back farther, kicking up sand, not knowing how far the reach is.
Fates, the contamination is alive and prescient, a predator made of black magic, and it throws off more of the black snow, flurries of evil falling all around.
“Forsake thee!” I shout as I make the sign of the crescent moon over my heart.
I glance at the ragged tree line, but then the screams pierce my consciousness again. Bursting into more paddling movement, I refuse to give in to my own fear as I go round the curvature of the Fulcrum—
The tableau that’s revealed makes no sense, and the components become apparent in a series of focal points—the first of which is that it’s not women or girls. It’s a trio of young boys, aged about ten and two. And they’re not in danger.
They are the tormentors.
A dragon is down in the sand, its iridescent scales dulled to a sickly white, one wing twisted at a bad angle, its long snout open and gray tongue lolling as it struggles to breathe.
“Again!” one of the boys shouts. “Throw another!”
The blond-haired of the three goes over to a dead cangjas, tears off a branch, and advances in a kind of dance, bouncing on the balls of his leather boots. His friends cackle as the dragon jerks back and its muzzle twitches.
“Do it! Do it—”
The boy moves fast, rushing for the great beast’s head. With a savage blow, he hits at its eye. There is a wince of pain, a groan, and the dragon paws weakly at the sand—
“Stop it!” I yell. “Right now!”
The boys wheel toward me, and instantly the guilty shock on their faces is replaced with the disdain they’ve been taught to have for me.
“She’s no bother,” the blond one says. “She’s just poxed!”
The other two fall into a singsong taunt I’ve heard before. “Poxed, you are, poxed, you are, ugly and poxed, you are, you are—”
I march toward them, rage making me forget who I am in the hierarchy. “If you hit that dragon again—”
“You’ll do what?” the blond boy taunts. “Give me the Pox? My father will put you in the stocks!”
Flushed with excitement, he dances around the dragon, hitting the creature again and again with the stick, until it no longer flinches or twitches. It just lies where it’s fallen from the sky, dying slowly, circled by a fly that degrades its last moments.