The confusion and vertigo of a dream stole over her as she tried to focus, wanted to yell and scream at the far-away guards on the outer wall, warn them to run, to avoid what was coming. She knew that she was witnessing the present yet nothing could impede the progress of whatever danger crawled toward those gates under the cover of darkness.
CHAPTER FOUR
No warning came, no war-cry to alert the lazy guards, no marching drum to crush the morale of the few defenders there were in Targris.
Arrows struck down the five guards watching the western gate. The first crucial moments of the attack passed in quiet peace. In the streets, people were hurrying home. Merchants packed up their wares.
Those quarantined with the blush slept fitfully, disturbed by terrible dreams and fevered delirium. Only a few saw the western gates open-only a few casually turned from mundane tasks to see what merchant caravan or traveling adventurer sought refuge for the night.
What they saw froze them in their steps; terror overtook them as bestial creatures rushed forward, baring white fangs and jagged blades. Those few witnesses ran and hid, too frightened even to scream out, to make themselves targets. The gnolls passed them by, unconcerned with the meek, determined to eliminate the strong. This strategy they were largely unfamiliar with, but their pack leader Gyusk had excelled in it. The bodies of the guards atop the western gate had barely cooled before Mahgra's incursion fully began. Nearly the entire city watch had been struck down, and no surmountable defense seemed possible to those who watched from windows and prayed for salvation. As his gnolls did their work, Mahgra walked the length of the city walls, lacing them with spells and minor magic, alarms and illusions to ward off attempts at escape. The gates he sealed as they had been in Logfell, though his spells were more effective than those cast from rocking longboats. He relished working his magic and seeing it up close, perfecting the slightest syllables and gestures. Homes began to burn, citizens were thrown into the streets and herded together. A foolish few had been killed trying to defend against the numerous attackers, and those had been grizzled old warriors who still felt the lure of battle. Retired in the shadow of the Qurth and battling only the occasional bold beast that ventured out of its edges, they were unprepared for the assault, lulled into false security by their oracles' visions and the town's lack of strategic or economic value. A group of gnolls began to destroy and burn the gardens around the Temple of the Hidden Circle. They spat on the ground of their enemies-the church had thwarted many such attacks in the past-before entering its sanctuary and continuing their enraged defilement. Finishing his work, Mahgra breathed deeply the smoke-filled air, striding confidently down the main street. His well-kept robes fluttering in the wind, he cut for himself the image of a consummate conqueror. His attack had been swift, well planned, and made easy by perfect execution. That Targris had been an easy mark was of no concern; victims would scream with or without swords in their hands. Survivors would tell tales of the ogre's night of attack in awe and deep-seated fear. He always left a few survivors despite Morgynn's concerns. His mistakes in Innarlith were far behind the Order now, ancient history as new vistas spread before them. One day I might return to that city, he thought, to stand in the court of Ransar Pristoleph and commend his traitorous, smoking remains to Gargauth and the Order of Twilight. Grinning, he approached the steps of a manor near the center of town, the home of some sort of leader, who peered out from behind sheer curtains in a darkened window. As a well-ordered chaos erupted in the streets and homes behind him, Mahgra called terrible spells to his smiling lips and met that fearful gaze behind such fragile and decadent glass. The look in Morgynn's eyes-the sneer on Khaemil's face-their whispers and insults end now, he thought, as anger flared within him. All debts are paid, on my part at least.
Thunder rumbled overhead, the first sign of the storm that came not from the sea as the wind and clouds foretold, but from the forest.
Distant lightning silhouetted flailing branches and illuminated curls of smoke as a long-held peace burned amid yelping howls from gnollish throats.
Sameska was forced to watch as her people suffered the attack. She screamed at the destruction of the temple by beasts and scavengers, but she could not look away. The force that held her was beyond resistance and full of what she felt was the wrath of Savras for her disservice, his punishment for her lack of humility. She pleaded with her god, begging to be shown how to stop this chaos, this betrayal of those who trusted in the oracles. Savras did not answer. Something was wrong, horribly wrong, and she did not know what to do or how to make herself heard. She felt herself growing weak, her body crying out for her return, and she fought the urge to release her spell, afraid that Savras might abandon her completely should she give up. Yet the power that held her, that guided her spell, relaxed its grip on her floating form, and its waning strength eased her will to hold on. Her vision became blurry. Smoke, flame, screams, and bestial howls merged as she limply floated on a phantom wind, losing her magic and beginning the fall that would bring her home. Just as blackness crept into her sight, the shadows parted, and a warrior stepped out of the darkness.
The warrior was shrouded in mist, exuding a bright light but surrounded by ghostly specters. Silhouetted by a winding road of shadows, his opalescent eyes smoldered in the dark. Lightning flashed across the clouds above him, a bright and terrible glow that faded quickly. The image of the almost-translucent warrior held fast in her thoughts as her journey fell away and the weight of her gasping body returned. What was this man? Why had he come, this traveler of shadow roads? She'd felt the inherent goodness in the spectral light that surrounded him, along with the chill of the place he'd come from. She fainted, her thoughts becoming dreams. Nightmares revisited all that she had seen, colored with the horror of what she'd felt, all of it ending with the vision of the ghostwalker who walked the road of shadows.