Storm of Sharks Read Free

me, I’ve no desire to
linger,’ replied the youth, turning his tear-stained face to Whitley. His
red-ringed eyes stared straight through her.
    ‘I’m blind.’

2

Deathwalker
    His bare feet slapped against the cold stone flags, each step bringing him closer to
the tower’s summit. Moonlight reflected off the dark walls of the winding
staircase, the brickwork’s definition growing sharper as he neared the roof.
Weary legs lifted him ever higher, his limbs possessed by a life of their own,
carrying him inexorably towards the star-dappled heavens. The spiralling rope
banister ran through the palm of his blackened hand, skeletal fingers grasping and
hauling him the remaining few steps, out on to the top of the Bone Tower.
    The wind tugged at him, threatening to send him staggering over the edge. The
wizened lightning rod, scorched black by the elements, groaned in its housing where
it was bolted to the parapet. He was aware he was dreaming, but the creaking metal
and sensation of the air rushing around him was sickeningly real. He could smell the
ice on the breeze from the snow-capped mountains, taste the blood and smoke of
battle from far below and feel the cruel, cold caress of the Sturmishelements as the north’s ill winds bit into his flesh. He
stepped closer to the edge, the city of Icegarden suddenly sliding into view as he
came to a halt beside the crumbling crenulations.
    The fires burned to the south, the White Bear’s fortifications tasting the
flaming pitch of the Lion’s army. The battlefield spread across the
Whitepeaks’ slopes, great swathes of icy meadows now turned to rivers of
churned slush as spring’s unavoidable appearance aided the Bastian advance on
Icegarden. Campfires twinkled out in the Badlands, home to Lucas’s mighty
force. Closer to Icegarden the beleaguered camp of the trapped Bearlords huddled,
its fires far fewer, its numbers greatly reduced. His eyes didn’t linger upon
his enemies. They weren’t the reason for his midnight stroll.
    He lifted his right foot into the air,
raising it until it landed on the white stone parapet. The brickwork was rough and
uneven against his sole, the sensation chillingly realistic.
Just a dream,
he reminded himself. Even so, he fought his body’s desire to lift the
other foot, to follow its brother up onto the tumbledown stones. Another blast of
wind buffeted him.
    I’d like to wake up now,
he told
himself, his subconscious mind sharp enough to banish the nightmare when he’d
endured enough. Only the dark dream wouldn’t relinquish its hold on him. His
right leg straightened, and he drew his left up into the air to land beside it on
the parapet edge. He looked down, his toes curling over the top of the uneven stone
block, the void beyond. The vertigo he’d endured as a child suddenly hit him
hard, grasping his heart and squeezing tight. His knees trembled, one more gust
hammering at the pale flesh of his torso, prodding, poking at him, pushing him
forward.
    Then came the whisper:
    I can kill you whenever I wish …
    Hector felt the world turn, his stomach
lurching as something hard hit him in the guts. He was flying through the air, stars
spinning overhead before his back hit the cold hard flags of the Bone Tower’s
roof. Beside him lay the panting figure of Ringlin, chief among his Boarguard. The
man’s arm still rested across Hector’s stomach, the tall soldier’s
quick thinking having caught the young magister. Ringlin had pulled him to safety, his
grasp squeezing the air from his lungs, yanking him back from a fatal fall to the palace
rooftop hundreds of feet below.
    ‘My lord,’ gasped Ringlin,
withdrawing his arm, breathing hard as he crawled onto his knees. ‘The
roof … what were you thinking?’
    Hector lay where he was, staring up at the
twinkling sky, fingers twitching spasmodically as breath steamed from his lips.
    ‘I
wasn’t … 
thinking
. I thought I was dreaming.’
    Ringlin unbuckled the brown cloak from
around