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Back Dreams of Steel
Chapters (76)
  1. Title page
  2. Chapter One
  3. Chapter Two
  4. Chapter Three
  5. Chapter Four
  6. Chapter Five
  7. Chapter Six
  8. Chapter Seven
  9. Chapter Eight
  10. Chapter Nine
  11. Chapter Ten
  12. Chapter Eleven
  13. Chapter Twelve
  14. Chapter Thirteen
  15. Chapter Fourteen
  16. Chapter Fifteen
  17. Chapter Sixteen
  18. Chapter Seventeen
  19. Chapter Eighteen
  20. Chapter Nineteen
  21. Chapter Twenty
  22. Chapter Twenty-One
  23. Chapter Twenty-Two
  24. Chapter Twenty-Three
  25. Chapter Twenty-Four
  26. Chapter Twenty-Five
  27. Chapter Twenty-Six
  28. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  29. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  30. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  31. Chapter Thirty
  32. Chapter Thirty-One
  33. Chapter Thirty-Two
  34. Chapter Thirty-Three
  35. Chapter Thirty-Four
  36. Chapter Thirty-Five
  37. Chapter Thirty-Six
  38. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  39. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  40. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  41. Chapter Forty
  42. Chapter Forty-One
  43. Chapter Forty-Two
  44. Chapter Forty-Three
  45. Chapter Forty-Four
  46. Chapter Forty-Five
  47. Chapter Forty-Six
  48. Chapter Forty-Seven
  49. Chapter Forty-Eight
  50. Chapter Forty-Nine
  51. Chapter Fifty
  52. Chapter Fifty-One
  53. Chapter Fifty-Two
  54. Chapter Fifty-Three
  55. Chapter Fifty-Four
  56. Chapter Fifty-Five
  57. Chapter Fifty-Six
  58. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  59. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  60. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  61. Chapter Sixty
  62. Chapter Sixty-One
  63. Chapter Sixty-Two
  64. Chapter Sixty-Three
  65. Chapter Sixty-Four
  66. Chapter Sixty-Five
  67. Chapter Sixty-Six
  68. Chapter Sixty-Seven
  69. Chapter Sixty-Eight
  70. Chapter Sixty-Nine
  71. Chapter Seventy
  72. Chapter Seventy-One
  73. Chapter Seventy-Two
  74. Chapter Seventy-Three
  75. Chapter Seventy-Four
  76. Chapter Seventy-Five

The Prahbrindrah grinned boyishly. That was the game he loved. That was the way to accumulate power. Get the priests to disarm themselves.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

It was a bizarre little parade. At its head was a black thing that could not decide if it was a tree stump or someone weirdly built carrying a box under one arm. Behind that a man floated a yard off the ground, feet foremost, inelegantly sprawled. An arrow had pierced his chest. It still protruded from his back. He was alive, but barely.

Behind the floating man was another with a lance through him. He drifted a dozen feet up, alive and in pain, sometimes writhing like an animal with a broken spine. Two riderless horses followed him, both black stallions bigger than any war charger.

Crows by the hundred circled above, coming and going like scouts.

The parade climbed the hills east of Stormgard, moving in twilight. Once it paused, remained motionless twenty minutes while a scatter of Taglian fugitives passed. They saw nothing. There was magic at work there.

The column continued moving by night. The crows continued flying, formed a rearguard, watched for something. Several times they cawed at shifting shadows, but settled down quickly. False alarms?

The party halted ten miles from the beleaguered city. The thing leading spent hours collecting brush and deadwood, piled it in a deep crack in a granitic hillside. Then it seized the floating lance, dragged its victim off, stripped him down.

A bitter, remote, whispering voice exclaimed, This isnt one of the Taken! when the mans mask came off.

The crows became raucous. Discussing? Arguing? The leader asked, Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from?

The injured man did not respond. Maybe he was beyond communication. Maybe he did not speak that language. Maybe he was stubborn.

Torture produced no answers.

The inquisitor tossed the man into the woodpile, waved a hand. The pile burst into flame. The stump thing used the lance to keep its victim from escaping. The burning man had a bottomless well of energy.

There was sorcery at work here.

The burning man was the Shadowmaster Moonshadow. His army had triumphed outside Stormgard but his own fortune had been inglorious.

The party did not move on till the Shadowmaster was consumed, the fire burned to ashes and the ashes cooled. The stump thing gathered the ashes. As it travelled it disposed of those pinch by pinch.

The man with the arrow in him bobbed in the stump things wake. The stallions brought up the rear.

The crows maintained their patrols. Once a large catlike thing came too near and they went into paroxysms. The stump did something mystical. The black leopard wandered away, absent of mind.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five