Eclipse Of The Forsaken - by Otherworldly Sage

Chapter 1: “The Hollow Mountains” * * *The wind howls through the Hollow Mountains, a jagged graveyard of petrified demons. Kael Arcanis, a disgraced assassin with a necrotic right arm (cursed by sorcery), drags himself through the blizzard. His mission: retrieve a “Soulwell Shard” buried in the mountain’s heart; a relic that could resurrect the Necromancer’s Keep. * * * The blizzard screamed like a dying god. Kael Arcanis dragged himself through the snow, his breath ragged, his right arm burning. The bandages wrapped around it had long since soaked through, the necrotic flesh beneath pulsing with a sickly green light. The whispers slithered up his spine, hissing in a language that made his teeth ache. “Liar,” the arm murmured. “Coward.” He gritted his teeth and kept moving. The Hollow Mountains loomed ahead, jagged spires of black stone, their peaks lost in the storm. Legends claimed they were the corpses of ancient demons, petrified in their final moments of agony. Kael didn’t believe in legends. But he believed in the shard buried somewhere in those mountains. The Soulwell Shard, a sliver of the abyss itself, capable of resurrecting the dead or damning the living. And damnation was all Kael had left. * * * Flashback: “You had one task,” the High Inquisitor had said, his voice dripping with venom. “One. Cut the Demon Lord’s throat. And you failed.” * * * Kael remembered the heat of Vorthax’s throne room, the stench of burning flesh. He remembered driving his dagger toward the Demon Lord’s neck, and then the searing pain as Vorthax caught his wrist, the curse slithering into his veins. “You’ll serve me in death, little assassin.” Now, the curse festered. And the Church had sent their cyberhounds to finish what Vorthax started. KRZZT-KRZZT The mechanical whir of augmetic legs crushing snow. Kael dropped behind a boulder, his breath fogging the air. Three figures emerged from the storm, Church Cyborgs, their faces hidden behind chrome masks engraved with scripture. Seraph-7 led them, her voice a synthetic rasp. “Heat signature detected. The fugitive is nearby.” Her lieutenant, a hulking brute with a rotary blade for an arm, snarled. “Let’s carve him apart. The Inquisitor wants his head.” Kael’s fingers tightened around his dagger. “I should run. But running never saved anyone.” He struck like a shadow. The brute died first, Kael’s dagger found the gap in his augmented neck, severing the spinal cord. The man gurgled, his mechanical limbs spasming. Seraph-7 whirled, her plasma rifle humming to life. “Heretic!” Kael ducked, the shot searing past his ear. He lunged, his cursed arm twisting on its own, fingers elongating into black talons. They punched through Seraph-7’s chest plate, crushing the mechanical heart within. She gasped, blood bubbling between her lips. “The Witchwood… is watching you…” Then her optics dimmed. * * * Author's Note: I decided to start a new journey with Kael; with the choices he has to make and the choices in life we have to make, it may look like things aren't out for us, but there's always something worth holding onto. I am a fan of blending genres, and I decided to try this out on the book Eclipse Of The Forsaken. This series will be posted once a week (on Saturdays). This day one is different since it's a start, but subsequent chapters will be posted on Saturdays weekly.Please, walk with Kael into the shadows; what you find there might just surprise you.

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