Read Stormed Fortress for Free Online Page B

dark.
    Its ringing, sweet pitch snapped out of nowhere and sliced the unravelling thread of stark terror.
    Another note followed, then another, cascading into a seamless run of ineffable, scalding purity. The graceful progression burgeoned into a chord that engaged formless dread, and from nothing, raised a bulwark of shimmering harmony.
    Suspension ensued, upheld by a steadfast commitment that denied the chokehold of despair. Hope danced, forged into melody that rejected insidious dissolution. Where abased torment reigned, beauty unfurled the adamant fire of will.
    Lifted free, Sulfin Evend wept without sound, while the cry of the other man ' s heart refigured itself in the soaring majesty of music. Fingers wrought light out of silver-wound strings and invoked exaltation through Ath ' s gift of unvanquished freedom.
    Peace returned. What darkness remained had been cleansed of all stain, reduced to mere shade cast by moonbeams. The master musician laid down his last line. Exquisite, his closing chord faded. The quietude, after, still gleamed with raised power, even when he damped off his strings.
    Left with a fragile, cathartic scar to offset an experience of lacerating separation, Sulfin Evend heard the sigh of stirred air as the superb instrument was set aside. A whisper of fabric described movement. Senses torn raw caught the near-soundless step that approached. Through drug haze and dull sickness, the shock of encounter carried an unbearable clarity: the looming fierce presence of the sorcerer took pause, brought short by belated discovery. An explorative touch traced the mantle that masked Sulfin Evend ' s prostrate shoulder.
    ' Dharkaron Avenge! ' swore the Spinner of Darkness, sharpened to startled annoyance. ' A bound prisoner? What uncivil trick left you here? '
    The robe draped over Sulfin Evend ' s gagged form was grasped, then snapped away.
    Since nightfall left the cave dark as pitch, the initiate mind would use mage-sense: the Master of Shadow surveyed what lay at his feet. Wide open still, sensitized by his music, he exclaimed in shocked anguish, ' Ath ' s mercy forgive! You ' re the same one who maimed Jieret! '
    Talented Sight and narcotic trance brought the past to collide with the present: still snagged into unwitting rapport, Sulfin Evend was hurled back into grisly recall, as a red-haired victim ' s hot blood splashed from the vengeful cut of his dagger.
    He curled on his side, retching, while his enemy recoiled above him.
    Barraged, caught stripped of defences as well, Arithon sucked a fast breath. He owned the strength of training to wrestle his unleashed emotion, but not the gush of a far-sighted talent, run irretrievably wild: for he was not yet healed. The traumatic assault on him by dark necromancy still faulted his natural barriers. The breach entangled his crown gift of empathy with flaring aggression and rage.
    No less volatile, and just as viciously mirrored: he matched an antagonist also unstrung by deranging hallucination.
    Equanimity shattered, Arithon gasped, staggered by the blazing ferocity that reached for instinctive revenge. Brute discipline triumphed. He did not strike to kill. The curbed stress discharged into his auric field and released as a burst of gold light.
    But the stripping exposure laid his face bare to the force of his unassuaged grief.
    Then darkness resettled. Sulfin Evend braced for a knife in the ribs, or a fist, as such a fury of towering, unexpressed pain triggered reflexive violence.
    No mangling blow fell. The stilled, charcoal air gave nothing back. Not a sound, or a breeze, or a footstep. Unable to fight, unable to speak, unable to vent through his helplessness, Sulfin Evend shut his eyes. Strapped hand and foot, teeth clamped against nausea, he feared to breathe lest the tension should break him in pieces.
    The touch, lightly trembling, grasped his shoulder again, to a ragged line spoken in Paravian. Met by a flinch, the Teir ' s ' Ffalenn cursed. Then he said,