The Seat Of Storms
It’s Thursday, Ok technically it’s the 4th Thursday, but there are 5 this month and the first Thursday was the 2nd of the month so that hardly counts +-_^
I assure you I am still crafting stories for Junction City but I felt this time we would take a step back and I’d show you a little piece from Al’rashal’s and Urkjorman’s history. This piece takes place between the stories “Meeting Of Monsters” and “Faith And Blood”. Both due out next year. I’ll probably be showing some stuff from my Urban fantasy series in October. However that is for the future. Today, however I have a little treat for you so I hope you have something warm to drink and are ready to brave the storm.
***
The Seat Of Storms
Wind tore sound from the air and dragged it down the slope of the mountain to be buried in the ice and snow far bellow. The broken remains of syllables made it to one of Urkjorma’s large bovine ears and though he couldn’t piece the fragments together into words he felt the meaning of them. Al’rashal wondered how much further they had to go. Urk waited for the winds to ease a fraction before bellowing, “not far!”
Al tried responding but her words were drowned in a wall of white.
Urk pointed ahead in answer, to a churning wall of frost and lightning that looked less like a storm cloud and more like a wall of fury.
Al nodded and continued following him forward, using Urk as a wind break.
As they drew near the sound of howling winds was overcome by the collision of thunder. Urk could feel Al’s hesitation more than see it. Moving through the gale had been difficult enough, but now they would surely be blind and the strokes of lighting writhed through the cloud like hungry snakes.
Urk looked back to the heap of furs covering his mate and extended a hand. “Do you trust me?”
Urk doubted Al heard him over the tempest but she reached forward just the same joining their hands together. Urk gave the slim cool fingers a squeeze and pressed forward.
Two bolts of lighting collided over head, fracturing into a riot of light and a sound like boulders breaking to powder but Urk did not slow his march into the unknown, and neither did Al.
Urk could not trust his eyes, for the cloud was thicker than sea water. He could not trust his ears for the thunder was louder than canons. So he trusted his nose, though not his real nose. His nostrils were as filled with the scent of lightning as his ears were filled with the quaking of the sky. However he had another sense, an ability to smell magic, a talent awoken or granted to him during his tutelage. His father explained that it was an “other” sense and different people understood it in different ways. For his father it was a touch not on the skin, for others it might be a color foreign to the world, and for Urk it was scent. He could smell the magic of Kurgen’Kahl before him. It smelled of ice and cold, of glacial frost, of sea water and lightning and though all these things were present about him now the scent of he followed was some how purer than all that. As though the tempest about them was a muted reflection of the magic Urk followed.
Step. Step. Sniff. Step. Step. Sniff.
Slowly, like a hound unsure of the trail Urk edged forward until the lightning grew distant, the winds eased and finally the clouds thinned to reveal open air.
“Wow,” said Al, voicing what they both felt. Wonder.
Behind them was a wall of rolling clouds that arced away to the left and right putting them at the edge of a cylinder easily a mile wide. Beneath them was a frost covered bridge of stone, barely twenty feet across with no guard rails or walls to prevent the unwary from falling down the mountain slope. Above was the bowl of the sky, a perfect blue circle clearer than glass, and ahead of them was the temple they had come so very far to find.
A silver citadel sat atop the mountain like a crown. Walls that could have been mirrors reflected the ragging tempest about it so that it looked crafted of storm clouds. As Urk watched ropes of lightning danced across the citadel’s surface and sprang into the air embracing the sky.
Urk was awestruck, unable to move or think until he heard th sound of snow saturated furs and wraps sliding to the ground. Pulling his eyes away from the temple he looked at Al’rashal as she discarded the last of the wet clothes and cast her obsidian mane back hurling droplets of water into the cool air. Her golden coat glistened with perspiration and she took a long time to stretch out her four legs and stomp her hooves on the stone bridge as though to work feeling back into her limbs.
Sometimes Urk wondered how he could have fallen in love with a centaur, now was not one of those times.
“What?” asked Al’rashal.
“Enjoying what I see.”
Al swatted his arm as she drew along side him, “which looks better, me or the temple?”
He paused as though he needed to consider the question. “I do not sleep with the temple.”
Al swatted him again before pulling the wet garments from the ground and bundling them.
Urk just shook in place, twisting arms and quaking muscles to hurl the excess water and ice from his thick brown fur. He looked to the temple, then to his own hooves and could not bring himself to take another step forward. “I … I do not know if I can … “
It took Al a moment to process Urk’s words. “Don’t be stupid. Of course you can! You walked halfway up a mountain, blind.”
“I do not know if I am worthy—”
Al cut him off by grasping his horns and twisting his head about so he looked down into her sapphire eyes. “Listen to me Urk, you big dumb idiot, you are worthy. You know it, I know it, your god knows it and your father knew it.”
Silence drifted between them before Al pulled the iron ax from Urk’s hip, lifted it, with some difficulty, and placed it in Urk’s hands. “Your father would not have trusted you with this if you were not.”
Urk wrapped his fingers around the haft and felt the tingle of ice and lighting roll across his fingers. “You are right my love. How did I earn the favor of one so wise as you?”
“Something about killing orcs and studding better than a stallion, not that I’m keeping score.”
Laughter burst from Urk’s lungs and all at once his hesitation was gone. He pressed forward, lifted her chin and took her lips with his own.
Al pulled away, slowly, “I don’t think the bridge is a good place for this.”
Urk grinned, “it is not. I will find you a place to rest, overcome what tests I must to prove my faith and then bring you to bed.”
“Sounds very well planned,” mocked Al with a rye smile.
“Yes, I agree,” responded Urkjorman offering his hand.
Al’rashal took it, and together they proceeded to the Seat Of Storms.
***
I do hope you enjoyed that my dear readers and in time you will see the stories about it and maybe, just maybe the trials Urk has before him now.
Until then, take care and God bless;
~S. Wallace