Hi everyone! So in light of the Plans For the Future! Update, there shall be much waiting involved until I can get on the schedule to get Chains That Break(New Title!) edited.
So in the meantime, I'm already coming up with many ideas for continuing the next chapter of this saga. I'm a few thousand words in already, and thought I'd just share another glimpse of what I'm working on.
WARNING: There'll be some small spoilers in this, but nothing that'll ruin the plot of the first book or anything. I'll be careful about sharing those kind of scenes specifically. :)
Thanks and hope you like it! ;D
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A Pact of Bones and Carrion
Aslan lifted his head toward the endless dune sea on the horizon. He watched the fiery skies of the dawn meet the starlit firmament. In a sudden blaze of sunlight, Sirius crested the dunes over yonder and showered the Golden Desert in radiance.
Such was the brilliance that even Aslan, a devoted Child of the Sun, shielded his eyes behind the cloak of his robe and chainmail.
Aslan gazed ever onward with exhausted eyes of amber, equally weary of death and life in all of their myriad guises. He was always the Lion of War. An All-Conqueror. Erasyl’s Favored Son. Titles once chanted from sunrise to sunset by ten thousand voices interwoven in a proud chorus.
What had befallen the Sons of Qarth? What sin was committed before Sirius and all of the Qarthite Pantheon that would see his entire army of brothers and sisters cast into makeshift graves of sand and craggy rock? Why would a father betray his children and cast them from out his sight?
Questions that haunted Aslan since the fate of Zar’bau was forever sealed. He searched for answers that he would never understand or comprehend even in death. He could not grant the thousand Zarquin Warriors that followed him from the annihilation of Zar’bau any solace of a genuine and meaningful answer.
Aslan watched Sirius crest over the horizon and considered the winding column of warriors marching by him. He craned his gaze away from the rising sun and toward them as a proud father watched his children.
The Brotherhood had endured many moons on the constant march. Not even Aslan knew how any of them kept one foot ahead of the other for an entire day. Each hour felt as if a lifetime without a glistening oasis or bending river to sustain their long journey. Such reservoirs were once plentiful, but the farther his brotherhood ventured from Qarth, the chances of stumbling upon such a treasure grew slimmer by the hour.
Aslan searched each of them for signs of weakness. Each of them was unkempt of hair and beard, matted with sand and dirt and sweat and blood in equal measure. The chainmail that they donned over themselves was scarred and rent from countless skirmishes even after the Battle of Zar’bau. Of the crimson and cream robes that they wore over their armor, Aslan could no longer discern his veterans from the filth-encrusted cut of their cloth.
“Warn the men not to stray too far from one another.” Aslan scratched his scraggly beard grown over the course of this seemingly endless exodus. “I fear that if we stray any nearer into the southern reaches of the Golden Desert, the skies shall burn as fiery as crimson…”
Magar’s warhorse shuffled restlessly beneath him as if it could sense the foreshadowed omen in Aslan’s words. Somehow, Aslan’s Second managed to break into a genuine grin and laughed.
“Not in all the years that we have known each other Lord.” Magar recalled with some contentment. “Have you ever shirked from the glories of Sirius. You are a child of the Sun God. You are his avatar on the field of battle.
“Always undefeated. Always triumphant in the face of greater odds imposed upon your brothers by lesser men… I am not frightened to journey further south if it’ll deliver us quicker from out of this damnable desert.”
“Forgive me, Lord.” Jaleh stated in hushed tones. Aslan spared her a brief side-long glance and caught a glimpse of her sunken stare and sluggish facial movements. “Proud are your forces. Your defiance pushes them onward further and farther than any would have thought possible… What remains of the Immaculate Host shall crumble into the dunes if we do not discover shelter or water soon.”
Aslan glanced again in Jaleh’s direction, more deliberately this time and nodded.
“Your words cut to the truth of the matter, my Seconds.” Aslan confessed. “Our warriors march on the fumes of their stomachs and the adrenaline left in their veins after Zar’bau. None of us shall last for much longer. Avedis has yet to return to us, nor any of his scouts.”
“Avedis too ventured further south in search of a haven.” Magar insisted. “If he returned with good news, then we’d have no choice.”
“Hellfire upon the earth.” Aslan sighed and dismissed him with a weary haphazard wave. “Some of his scouts may return from the north or west. Have some patience and due faith, Magar. Trust me, you would not want to venture any further south of this Golden Desert.”
“Truly?” Magar arched his brow even as Aslan made to resume his march alongside his men. “What lies beyond all of this golden sand? All I can see before me is a great spire in the distance… and our safe haven if the tidings are good.”
Aslan heard Jaleh suppress a chilled shiver and craned his head in the direction she where she watched the horizon. Against the radiance of Sirius’ holy light, the very atmosphere around the bleak spire in the distance seemed to bleed all vibrant color until only the drab shade of crimson surrounded it.
Aslan narrowed his gaze in a vain effort to clarify the features of the solitary tower. In the end, he was left with only the impression that a massive death’s head was staring back at him from the lower reaches of the spire. Leagues overhead of the Obsidian Spire’s highest reach, Aslan was uncertain if he saw multi-colored hues swirl under the firmament in a storm the likes he had never seen before.
“Come.” Aslan called out. Jaleh and Magar shook themselves out of their reverie and made to follow in his footsteps. “Perhaps you speak the truth, Magar. Warriors of the Brotherhood—former or no, never shirk from the light of the sun.
“We’ll venture farther south briefly if Avedis confirms your suspicions. My only command is that we do not linger or idle in this place. Call it superstition. But I’ve conquered kingdoms and crushed armies by adhering to much lesser suspicions.
“The feeling that I have for this Golden Desert is ominous and haunts me from sunrise to sunset. Something dreadful lies here in this desert. I shall not be one to awaken Alastrine’s wrath. So quit staring and maintain the pace.”
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