Second Excerpt From My First Book (Brother's Wyrd)

Been having a bit of trouble focusing on writing over the past several days but I did manage to put in some good revision time tonight and I thought I'd drop another excerpt for you guys. This is a first draft, so there will be some grammatical and spelling errors throughout.

Enjoy!

And P.S... Feedback is more than welcome! Comments please!

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White rays of the morning sun popped in and out of view with the swaying of the branches overhead, but Morin was not paying attention to the beauty of the day. Grumbling under his breath he set the packsaddle on the mule Kalima somehow managed to keep hidden in the forest along the lip of the ravine. He stooped over to cinch the girth, then stood and dusted off his hands while he eyed the crude enclosure she’d fashioned for the animal. Crude it may have been, but the three sided rectangular structure seemed sturdy and functional enough. It had a bucket for feed and a small trough for water. He was finding the old woman nothing if not resourceful.

The witch herself scratched lovingly at the underside of the beast’s chin, cooing unintelligibly to it before leading the mule to a fallen tree. Stepping cautiously atop the dead trunk, she climbed onto the mule’s back to sit awkwardly among the packs. He couldn’t hold back the snort of laughter that escaped lips.

“You find somewhat funny, hmm?” she asked, swaying precariously atop the animal as she urged it into motion.

He only looked at her, self-satisfaction blatant upon his face, but he did not dare reply.

“You know, deary, I could always use another mule,” she said as she passed where he stood.

That gave him pause. Caught off guard, he could only stare at her for several moments before he finally jogged after her sputtering.

“You don’t mean to say that…. That is, the beast you have there…. That wasn’t a…?” he trailed off as she turned her blind gaze to him. Her expression dared him to finish the question.

“A what, dear? Go on.”

He swallowed hard and shut his mouth, but just then heard something moving through the underbrush several paces behind them. More than one ‘something’ actually—a great many of them judging by the subtle rustling of the low lying foliage.

“They’ll not go much further,” she said, but there was a hint of concern in her words.

“More fae?” he asked, but she didn’t reply.

Now and again, a clawed hand, a wing, or some other bit could be seen jutting up from the brushwood for a moment before plunging back down, but at the times when he could make out a head it was always turned away from them, always looking back as if the fae themselves were being followed.

Still moving forward, Morin kept an eye behind them, watching the small forms darting in and out of cover. The forest floor rippled with their motion, and it was growing faster.

Just then, back along the northern ledge of the ravine, beyond the trailing fae, Morin caught sight of a larger black shape moving through the brush. Much larger, and it didn’t just move. It was stalking.

“Kalima.” Morin said in a voice very near to a whisper while pointing back toward whatever was out there. She reined in the mule and looked in his direction.

“I told you they’d stop before—”

She cut off when she saw that the fae did not stop. Instead the small horde split around them, loping and leaping almost frantically through the thick undergrowth at their feet. The larger shape sped up, as if in chase of the faelings.

“Something is dreadfully wrong,” she said in a voice that sounded unnerved for the first time since. “They should have stopped at the cliff top, and I have never seen them afraid of anything.”

Her eyes followed his still-pointing finger, though he began stumbling backward until his heel caught on a root that sat him down hard on his backside.

Fifty paces back the direction they had come the underbrush seemed to erupt as an enormous three headed mastiff burst from the growth, its long fur whipping around it as it leapt a good twenty paces through the air to land upon one of the trailing fae. Its victim let out a strangled screech that was quickly cut short as the beasts heads took turns bearing down upon it, savagely tearing at the body. Bloody bits of flesh and bone were thrown about as the monster tossed chunks into the air only to catch and swallow them an instant later.

“The caerbaras!” Kalima breathed out the word in terrified awe. “Oh sweet Ladies of Fate!”

Morin quickly regained his feet and began tugging on the mule’s straps as he hoarsely whispered, “I don’t give a bloody rats ass what it’s called! Run!”

“We can’t outrun all three of them, lad,” she said in grim resignation.

“All three? It has three heads but only four legs, witch! Run now while it’s distracted!” He drew his shortsword and continued unsuccessfully to try and pull the mule around while the three-headed dog ate the last of its meal and rose to its full height. “Blood of the Norns!” Morin swore. The thing was fully the size of the witch’s mule!

He stopped trying to get the stubborn ass to budge and let the strap slip from his hand as he looked the caerbaras over. The beast’s long, glossy, black fur was still moving—no, not moving…. Writhing. What he had taken for fur were actually thousands of small black vipers covering the thing.

It lifted its three enormous heads then, jaws dripping saliva and viscera as the red eyed gaze of each one settled on he and Kalima. To its rear, rising from where a tail should have been, was a long, sinuous, three-headed albino snake, hissing menacingly as it hung above the creature’s back.

“Stand aside and be ready,” the old woman commanded as she lithely jumped down from the mule with a grace and effortlessness that should have been impossible for her age. Instead of using her stick for support she held it up in a two-handed grip, slowly spinning it in a wide circle above her head. The motion grew faster and faster as she began to chant rhythmically in Aldish.

“Selafaigere sa’hudanna,” she sang in a voice that sounded years younger than it had moments before, and as she sang all three heads began to snarl and snap threateningly. The knobby tip at the end of her short staff began to flicker with flame as she spun it ever faster.

The two flanking heads each began to pull away from the others, the entire creature seeming to melt then as the one larger creature became three slightly smaller beasts that fanned out before them. Any one of them was still the size of a normal mastiff, though each now had the head of only one dog on its shoulders, and only one snake at the end of the slender white tail. The body of each, however, still swarmed with small black serpents.

“Selafaigere sa’vodeire,” Kalima sang repeatedly, still spinning the walking stick in quickening circles above her, the tip now flaring into a perfectly round, fist sized orb of fire.

Morin watched, transfixed by what was happening around him, stunned by the uncertainty of what he could do against such things.

“Selafaigere ah’thine o’feire!” Finishing her incantation, she brought the staff down and held it before her in both hands, a cudgel with a tip of fire.

The twisted dogs formed a line just about a dozen paces away now, the two on the ends spreading out wide and advancing to either side. The mule bolted in the direction the fae had gone, but the things paid it no mind. Morin edged closer to Kalima, intending to fight side by side with her, but the woman appeared to have other plans it.

With the speed and agility of a far younger woman, the seer ran straight for the middle beast, screeching out in an incoherent battle cry as she closed the gap, but Morin never got to see what happened. The other two creatures both launched themselves directly at him from opposite sides.

He threw himself forward onto the ground and rolled to his back in time to see the animals collide with one another. Both fell to the ground in a sprawling tangle of legs, wriggling snakes, and gnashing teeth.

“O’feire!” he heard Kalima cry out behind him. The words were immediately followed by the sizzle of intense heat and the loud yelping of a dog in pain.

Meanwhile, the snake-tipped tail of the nearest prone beast lashed out at him as the creatures got to their feet. Bringing his shortsword around in a wide arc, he cut cleanly through the body of the snake, sending the disembodied head flying harmlessly by him while the beast it had been attached to howled in pain and turned to lunge for his neck. Acting on instinct, he smashed the pommel of his sword into the side of the animals head, but as he did his hand and forearm were suddenly awash with sharp stabbing pains as several of the small black vipers bit deep.

The dazed beast landed beside him and he rolled away from it and struggled to his feet, but his vision was already blurring from the venom. His breath began to come in shallow rapid gulps and he pitched forward onto his knees, sword slipping from his slackened grasp. In front of him, the second of the two dogs that had attacked him slowly stepped over its still reeling companion to come face to face with him. He could do nothing more than waver before it, staring helplessly into its blood red eyes.

The sound of footsteps came from his left and the dog turned to look in that direction.

“O’feire!” Morin heard Kalima cry out in Aldish again.

The woman’s cudgel flashed into view, striking the animal squarely between the eyes with enough force that Morin heard the skull cave. The orb of fire atop the weapon seared the animal harshly as she leaned her weight forward, driving the thing to the ground as the smell of charred meat filled the air.

Deep shadows began to creep in at the edge of his vision, threatening to steal the light of day. He blinked in a vain effort to shake away the growing darkness and fell over backward to land among the scrub.

Heavy…. He felt so very heavy. As if he would sink into the forest floor at any moment.

The thickening darkness hurried to pull consciousness away while from somewhere nearby he heard the very distant sound of Kalima’s yell. The cry was followed by the same sharp crack of splintering bone and hissing of fire he had heard twice before.

Then there was nothing.