Gods in the Lianreida - Part 7 of 15

Beneath him, the muscles of his mount grow tense. It crooked its head around, regarding him with one eye, while observing the forest ahead with the other. Again, its tubular tongue touched his cheek and this time Larias sensed apprehension.

“It will be all right,” he told it. “This time I won’t be seen…”

He stopped, suddenly aware that he had been seen when he had not wished to be, and that he had felt the arrow’s touch even though it had exploded into fragments before piercing his chest. Now that…

There was a sudden cry of fear from the trees ahead. Larias frowned. Warriors did not cry out like that, no matter what race claimed them.

In spite of his fear for its safety, he nudged his creature forward, urging it to the edge of the place the elven fortress stood. At the edge of the clearing where it should have stood, Larias turned his mount sideward so that he sat at the very edge. What he saw made his stomach turn.

Dark creatures descended from the skies, their once-feathered wings now scaled by advanced pinions of hollow bone; their talons extended into scythes as they opened their beaks to scream.