Reeling from the battle at Carris, the young king Gaborn Val Orden finds that he has lost the powers that enable him to protect his people. As he struggles to rid his land of reavers, he discovers that the creatures are more resourceful and terrifying than he imagined. Desperate for any weapon that will aid him in this battle, all of his hopes come to rest upon the nine-year-old girl, Averan, the Wizardborn apprentice to the earth wizard Binnesman. Despite her fears, he must convince her to lead him in battle against the reaver lord of the underworld.
Meanwhile the ailing Wolf Lord, Raj Ahten, learns that a reaver horde is decimating his own homeland, there he confronts his enemy, and finds that he must choose to strip himself of all humanity or face ultimate defeat...
1: Tongues of Lightning
Truth is stronger than many armies, and the wicked shall
fall before it.
Night had fallen in earnest while the Brotherhood of the Wolf rode south, but when the warriors reached Carris there was light to see by. An inferno blazed in a stone tower, its roof and inner chambers incandescent, as if it were a giant torch. Watch fires licked the city walls.
Lightning split the night on the southern horizon, like the flickering tongue of a serpent that spoke words of thunder.
The riders let their horses race the last two miles, harnesses and armor jangling. Of the forty lords in the retinue, only three had brought lances. They rode point, lest they should come upon a reaver in the darkness.
Ash mingled with rain so that mud pummeled them from the sky with the weight of mercury. It oozed through Myrrima’s cloak.
As the riders crested the hill above the Barrens Wall, the men around Myrrima gasped in amazement. ‘See there!’ one cried. He pointed to the yawning pit from which the world worm had risen. It looked like a small volcano – a cone two hundred yards across and three hundred high. Steam billowed from its crown.
