Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy)
Read Revelation (Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy) Online
Authors: Caleb Wachter
Revelation
(Seeds of Humanity: The Cobalt Heresy Book I)
by
Caleb Wachter
Copyright © 2014 by Caleb Wachter
All rights reserved.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. Respect my electronic rights because the money you save today will be the book I can't afford to write for you tomorrow.
Other books by Caleb Wachter
SPHEREWORLD NOVEL SERIES
SPHEREWORLD NOVELLAS
SPINEWARD SECTORS: MIDDLETON’S PRIDE
SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVELLAS
Admiral's Lady: Eyes of Ice, Heart of Fire
Books by my Brother:
Luke Sky Wachter
As of 06-07-2014
SPINEWARD SECTORS NOVEL SERIES
RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVEL SERIES
RISE OF THE WITCH GUARD NOVELLAS
Follow me at
Seeds of Humanity Facebook Group
Join
www.PacificCrestPublishing.com
.
Be sure to stop by the blog at
blog.PacificCrestPublishing.com
for updates.
Table of Contents
Chapter III: Aftermath and Reluctant Allies
Chapter IX: Reflections and Foreboding
Chapter X: Formal Introductions
Chapter XII: The Whole Nine Yards
Chapter XIII: Surveying the Damage
Chapter XV: Bitter Memories and Guarded Secrets
Chapter XVI: Return to Coldetz and Hard Goodbyes
Chapter XVII: A Cold Reception
Chapter XVIII: Honoring Bargains
Chapter XXIV: More Answers Means More Questions
Chapter XXV: Knights and Tempo
Chapter XXVI: Queen’s Gambit Accepted
Chapter XXVII: Agreement, a Reading, and a Very Small Dilemma
Chapter XXVIII: An Unwanted Ally
Chapter XXX: Leaving on a Jet Plane
Chapter XXXI: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner…
Chapter XXXII: An Imaginary Revelation
Chapter XXXIII: Decisions and Consequences
A Sneak Peek of The Price of Enlightenment
A word (actually…519 of them, not counting this line) from the author:
Chapter I: The Siege
This story is probably larger than any of us will ever know, so finding a ‘correct’ place to start is impossible. But this is
my
part of that story…and this is where that part began.
The ramparts to my left exploded in a shower of razor-sharp black shards and though I knew that the shimmering blue field I had erected would prevent even the largest of them from harming me, I ducked instinctively.
The soldiers manning my section of the wall were afforded no such magical protection, and a brief chorus of screams erupted as they reacted too late to avoid the deadly shrapnel.
The shower of stone sprayed two of them with fatal results. One had his helmet blasted off, and under the full moonlight it was clear to see the lines of blood streaming down his face. The other died instantly as the incoming projectile deflected off the wall and into his torso, carrying his lifeless body off our position atop the Middle Wall. He careened toward the castle’s Inner Wall before plummeting fifty feet to the section of cobblestoned pathway between the innermost walls of the castle’s fortifications.
The projectile had not yet completed its charge, however. Upon landing on the cobblestones below, it erupted into a writhing mass of tentacles and claws with no apparent logic dictating its biology. The abomination lashed out at the soldiers surrounding it, but they were prepared for it and used their black-tipped long spears to stab it repeatedly from a safe distance until it was reduced to little more than a puddle of thick ooze the color of dark red wine.
I returned my attention to the origin on the foul missile and knew that something had to be done to prevent similar weapons from breaching the walls. That last one was too close, and the enemy would find their range quickly enough.
Unfortunately, it was unlikely to be a simple task.
The origin of the roughly two foot diameter, nightmarish ball was not a catapult or any other form of conventional siege weaponry; instead it was at least thirty feet tall and roughly humanoid. Its features were difficult to ascertain in the black of night—except for the area in the middle of its head which burned with a malevolent, pulsating green light. Its deliberate, lumbering steps made a deep, ominous, thumping sound with each stride, and it was clearly readying another delivery for us.
“Aemir!” I yelled. My Champion turned sharply toward me and wound between the dozens of soldiers separating us.
“My Lord?” Aemir replied in his thick accent when he found my side, saluting with a nod of his head. His long, wavy black hair was tied up inside his turban, and his nearly foot-long, tightly braided beard had been fastened with a pair of red, stone rings.
“We have to harry that thing,” I said, pointing at the hulking figure which was preparing to send another demonic missile our way. “Ideas?” I asked sarcastically.
Aemir’s face contorted in that now-familiar cross between a grin and a sneer. “We could let Dancer face it,” he replied in kind.
I shook my head. “Dancer’s needed here on the walls,” I replied. “When the flyers come in, he’ll be needed to keep Master Antolin safe. Besides,” I added, “don’t you think that thing’s just a little out of his weight class?”
Aemir shrugged. “I doubt he would shy away from the challenge,” he replied in his thick accent.
“Incoming!” yelled the commander of the soldiers posted to our section.
I turned just in time to see another projectile hurtling toward our position. This one sailed directly over us, missing my head by about five feet. I turned to watch as it hurtled toward the castle’s Inner Wall.
It impacted on the slick, black stones which formed the inner wall—but rather than bouncing off or shattering, it stuck there with a sucking sound and immediately began to shamble up the smooth surface, leaving a thin trail of dark ooze behind.
The soldiers on our wall ignored it, while the soldiers atop the eighty foot tall gothic inner wall moved quickly to bring buckets of hot oil to bear. The shapeless mass began to writhe as it climbed, and soon tentacles, claws, and beaks emerged from its shifting, amorphous form.
The soldiers manning the Inner Wall received their commands from the High Sheriff, who was stationed on the inner wall as was apparently customary during a siege, and they carefully poured the oil down the wall and onto the monster.
The first buckets scored direct hits, and they were immediately followed by flaming arrows, which ignited the substance as soon as they made contact, causing the thing to scream wordlessly before plummeting almost seventy feet, having nearly succeeded in scaling the massive wall.
“Flyers!” came the cry of a spotter stationed nearby. I whirled to see them coming toward us, and I felt my heart go cold.
They were bigger than even the largest man and had legs like great birds of prey which ended in talons nearly a foot long. They flew on wings that were shaped like a bat’s and each one had four long, bony arms ending in roughly human hands with even more vicious-looking talons than those on their avian feet.
But their faces were distinctively human, except for the fact that their eyes glowed with the same sickly green light as the missile-hurling juggernaut—and one of them was coming directly for me.
“Down, Lord!” yelled Aemir, moving himself to intercept the hellish creature. He apparently thought little of my protective wards, and frankly I couldn’t blame him at that particular moment.
The ‘flyer,’ as the locals had labeled them, came directly at me and seemed not to notice my Champion standing in the way. I reached into my robe hastily, but dropped what I had reached for as soon as I had pulled it from its pocket.
It was too late by then and the flyer was on Aemir, who greeted it with a pair of quick, criss-crossing slashes with his broad, curved scimitar, opening up great gashes in the beast’s chest. Then I saw the most fearsome part of the creature come to bear: a ten foot long tail which would have been an exact copy of a scorpion’s, were it not for the fact that this tail could apparently move in any direction.
The massive stinger stabbed straight at me as Aemir fought to keep the monster from getting close enough to grab anyone. I failed to react in time, and the stinger drove for my chest before being deflected by the barely visible force field which surrounded my body like an invisible egg. I felt the impact drain my energy reserves a little, but only enough that I noticed it.
I drew a breath, realizing I hadn’t done so for long enough to make my lungs burn, and dropped to my knees to find the object I had failed to retrieve. I found it quickly enough but my nerves were starting to go—and the battle had barely begun!
I grabbed the smooth, metal disc and fitted the leather straps affixed to it around my hand. I had already learned that using it was risky, but there was little choice in the matter. Even among lifelong warriors Aemir was an outstanding swordsman, but no swordsman could hold off such a monstrous foe indefinitely.
After I had fixed the disc to my hand, I closed my eyes to focus my mind more completely. It took precious seconds to banish the panic I felt at the situation, but I found what I was looking for: in my mind’s eye there appeared a huge, ethereal construct composed of swirling letters, numbers, and geometric bands of cascading energy. I willed my hand into being in this mental landscape and it appeared instantly, complete with the metal band strapped to it which glowed a bright, white color in my mind’s eye.
Now was the hard part: timing the insertion of the key strapped to my hand into the construct to achieve the desired effect. I had seen once previously just how devastating improper timing and sequence could be. After what seemed like an eternity (but what I knew cognitively had been no more than two or three seconds) I found my opening and thrust my hand forward into the constantly shifting form of equations and energy.
My mind’s eye and reality overlapped instantaneously, and for a brief moment I could see the ten foot ethereal construct of my spell appear between myself and the flyer, which had already wounded Aemir with its huge talons. Summoning up just the right amount of energy was the final part of the process, and I was still very unfamiliar with this particular device, having only successfully used it twice in this particular manner.
But I kept my focus and imagined a barrel attached to the construct, and when it appeared in my mindscape I poured energy out of myself and into the receptacle. The container filled quickly—too quickly in fact, and I had to release it before it overflowed and started a catastrophic chain reaction.
The effect was as I had hoped and more. My hand recoiled, taking my arm with it as the shock was too much for me to contain and I felt my shoulder pop with the tremendous amount of force I had just unleashed. Sharp pain exploded through my right arm as it snapped backward, but I kept my eyes locked on the target.
A bolt of pure, white energy erupted from my palm and struck the creature squarely in the torso, sending it careening back away from the wall with a foot-wide hole in its chest. The shock was too much for it to deal with, and before it could regain its senses it crashed into the ground fifty feet below where it almost instantly transformed into a puddle of maroon-colored ooze.
I could feel how much the effort had drained me, but I still had plenty of reserves left. I looked down the wall and quickly found the eyes of Magos Antolin Wiegraf, Primarch of House Wiegraf—
my
House. His expression was difficult to read, but I knew that he would demand an explanation for how I had summoned the spell after the battle was concluded.