Embers of a Broken Throne by Terry C. Simpson Page A

connection. A surge of hate and desperation made her recoil. She sensed the revulsion for the very thought of the shadeling, of any shadeling. After a moment, the emotions abated enough for her to get her message through.
    “Now,” Ryne said, voice distant.
    Through the zyphyl’s sight she took in Mirza’s fall through the portal. His sword reflected the meager sunlight. He pierced the vasumbral in the middle of its eyeless head.
    The creature screeched, a long prolonged echo. Its black, glistening skin grew to a dull gray pallor, spreading from the head on down. And then it began to break apart in gigantic ashy mounds.
    Flailing wildly, Mirza fell through the air, his body bursting through the ash. A portal opened under him and next to Ryne. He flew through it amid remains that swirled like sooty snow. A cushion of air caught him and set him down. The rush of battle energy in his eyes, breathing fast and hard, he stood a dozen feet from them and felt all over his body. When certain he had all his limbs, he peered up at the falling clumps of the vasumbral’s corpse.
    “Amuni’s balls, that … that … that was …”
    “Frightening?” Irmina finished.
    “Incredible.” Mirza grinned, white teeth showing. The grin grew to a chuckle. And then a laugh. Within moments they were all laughing with him.

C hapter 10
    T hey spent the night trying to put as much distance between themselves, the town, and the battlefield. When they finally slowed to a walk, the encounter replayed in Ancel’s head with vivid clarity. Although they had won it didn’t feel like a victory to him. A cohort of over four hundred had been reduced to forty men and women. He’d lost three Pathfinders. The Seifer and Nema warriors were dead, their pets with them. The one blessing was that Mirza suffered only minor wounds Ryne was able to mend. His own lack of serious injury was more the cause of the protection his aura offered than his own skill. He’d been reckless in order to rally his men.
    Worse yet was he doubted anyone but Ryne knew how close they’d come to death. In Forging the construct army, he’d used a great deal of his Prima. During the fight, he’d almost called on the voices within Mater to assist him, accepted their power. He shuddered to think what might have happened then, of being corrupted by them.
    “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he muttered to himself. Losing Kachien in Randane should have taught him better.
    “You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Ryne said.
    Ancel glanced over. So mired was he in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed Ryne’s approach across the frost-covered terrain.
    “Why shouldn’t I?” Ancel asked more bitterly than he intended. “People died because of me, a lot of them, many essential to our cause. And for what? My ego? Because I wanted to set an example to future deserters? I may have acted as if this was about saving them, about crushing the shadelings and Amuni’s Children, but it also concerned my wish to dissuade others, my word that I would make those who stole from us pay.”
    “Sometimes examples are needed.”
    “Not at this price.”
    “Then take it as a lesson, and find the positives.”
    “I don’t see any,” Ancel said.
    “Because you’re not allowing yourself to. Your emotions are in control rather than you.”
    Closing his eyes for a moment Ancel submerged himself into the Eye. He pushed his anger outside, and replaced it with calm. When he felt as if he stood in the middle of an undisturbed pond, he analyzed recent events.
    He opened his eyes. “We stopped some shadeling creation, destroyed what they might have added to their numbers already, and we discovered how our group can kill vasumbrals. It also makes me think they are those among us who aspire to belong to Amuni’s Children.”
    Ryne looked at him askance. “How so?”
    “They used me. It was common knowledge what my response would be if any dared steal and desert us again.”
    “Perhaps you’re not as