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Excerpt from this first book in The Loremaster trilogy:

PROLOGUE

"As far as the eye could see, the dead still lay where they had fallen only hours previously, the living wishing that they were amongst those sprawled out upon the ground.  Warriors herded those taken from the city to the various fires and altars that adorned the battlefield.  Waiting for them, scarlet robed figures with blades, carved with ornate inscriptions and bloodied hands and clothes.  No face could be seen underneath the hoods, their hands covered with so much blood and gore that it could not tell of the owners origins.  So much was the slaughter, so much was there the ongoing mutilation of the living, and the only reason for doing so was the fact that 'they' enjoyed it.  They, 'born of man but yet not of man'.  That is what one of the robed figures had answered just before he ripped the heart out of the Patriarch of the Temple of Ahalas, and licked his fingers afterwards.

The dawn brought silence, even the ravens and the carrion were either gone or dead themselves.  the landscape was blood red, the city a wasted shell, the army that had done so much damage only two days past had gone.  So many warriors; all had gone without a trace.  They had headed north, but there was no one who could tell anybody that news, the inhabitants of the city of Garakson were no more.  In the distance, an army was walking the land in silence."

Copyright © 2009  John R Cattermole.