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Authors: Jack Conner

BOOK: The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3)

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“Thank the gods,” he breathed.

She gazed up at him tearfully. She
must have been having a nightmare, as she looked panicked, frightened. He
stroked her head to calm her.

“Did we . . . die?” she asked.

He shook his head. Tears leaked
out. “Not yet. There is none to claim us. Gilgaroth is dead.”

Wonder filled her eyes.
“Truly?”
When he nodded, she embraced him tightly.
“Oh,
Baleron
!
You
did it!”

“No,” he told her solemnly. “It was—”

The Black Tower
exploded.

With Gilgaroth’s death, the energies
he had stolen to raise and bind the tower were loosed, and
that
coupled with the destructive element of the out—of—control
Inferno . . .

Baleron and Rolenya watched with
astonishment as the immensity of Krogbur, flaming like a torch, flamed suddenly
brighter, then erupted in a shower of fire and molten stone in a line from the
ground to the sky, an immense eruption that showered millions of tons of death
out over the wasteland . . . and the army camped at the tower’s base. Baleron
and Rolenya, even many miles away, could hear their screams. The army that
would have spelled the end of the Crescent was no more. A few dragons still
wheeled about the spire, but as it exploded it took them with it.

As the countless pieces of the
tower smote the wasteland, the earth split and broke, laying ruin to mountains
and fields of ash and filth, burning them all away in a bath of fire and red
hot magma. Baleron never could have imagined the
BOOM
or the shock of the rushing air that followed. He could feel
it in the very land, feel the vibration as the shockwave swept outwards. The
wind of it ruffled his hair, burned his skin.

He and Rolenya huddled tighter as
the devastation drew nearer. More wind howled around them, carrying with it the
spirits of demons and innocents loosed by
Illistriv’s
obliteration, as well as the heat from the Inferno’s fires.

Such a huge cloud of dust and ash
billowed up from the ruin that Baleron could hardly see what happened next, but
he did. All the volcanoes in Oslog seemed to erupt at once, jetting lava into
the sky and sending glowing rivers of the earth’s blood down their black
slopes. Great earthquakes were triggered, and the land was broken again and
again. Lava spewed up from the ground. Old mountains fell and new ones thrust
up. The world was sundered and remade.

Baleron and Rolenya, frightened,
looked all about at the breaking land. The destruction that radiated out from
the site of
Krogbur’s
fall edged closer and closer.
Baleron tensed. It looked as though the ruin would swallow them.

“I love you,” Rolenya whispered,
and held him tight.

The destruction rolled toward them,
closer and closer. He could feel the earth vibrate. His teeth rattled together.

Then, suddenly, miraculously, the
destruction ceased rolling in their direction. The earth continued to split and
quake, but the devastation came no closer to the two lovers. They seemed to be
too far away to be in immediate danger, even though the ground still shook
beneath them, and he could still smell the smoke of the fires.

At last the earth calmed as much as
it could, and the former brother and sister breathed sighs of relief.

“It’s over,” Baleron said. Wind
howled in the silence that followed. “They’re gone.
Gilgaroth
and Mogra.
Dead.
The Black Tower
fallen.”

“We . . . won.” She said it in a
small voice, sounding surprised.

He almost didn’t believe it. For a
moment he was absolutely convinced that this was yet another trick of the Dark
One’s, and that any second all this would go away and he would be back in
Krogbur’s
pits, hallucinating,
Ghrozm
standing over him with a scalpel.

“We did,” she said. “We truly did.”

He winced as a sudden jolt of pain
nearly knocked him over, and he had to hold on to her tightly to steady
himself.

“What is it,
Bal
?”
she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He grimaced again. “I’m dying,
Rolenya. The blood of Gilgaroth . . .”

A look of terror crossed her face.

“I’m sorry,
Rol
,”
he told her.
“So sorry.
After all this . . . and I
desert you now. . .” He was short of breath. His insides were baking.

An odd calmness descended on her.
Her eyes flashed with confidence and surety and her usual prideful
stubbornness. With conviction, she said, “Gilgaroth said once that he had
enough darkness to counter my Light, but he was wrong, and he paid for it. Now
let me prove it once more.”

“Don’t try. You’re still too weak.”

“I’m strong enough for this. Now be
quiet.”

So saying, she pressed her lips to
his and held his face against hers. Her lips were soft and warm and moist, and
he felt he could drown in her touch.

Slowly at first, but then more
quickly, he could feel a strange power coursing through him, countering the
poison of the Shadow. It washed him of the taint and corruption of Gilgaroth,
and he was like a withered plant suddenly given light and water. It seemed to
awaken, if accidentally, the remains of the Flower of Itherin, and he felt a
glow inside him. Renewed energy and vitality rose in him, burning the poison
out.

Their lips parted, and he gasped,
staring at her in wonder.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I feel . . . good.” He laughed.
“Very good.”

She smiled, her blue eyes wet, and
for the first time he contemplated a future in which the two of them lived, in
which
they walked away from this.

She half sat up, and he helped her.
For a while he just held her in his arms, and together they surveyed the
bleakness of the wastelands. A great blaze shot up to the south where Krogbur
had fallen and the Inferno loosed.
Illistriv’s
fires
were dying, but new ones sprang up. The rest was grim and dark. Occasionally,
the earth trembled, and all the volcanoes in the area were erupting like great
fountains, sending the burning blood of Oslog high into the charcoal sky. The
Dark Country was wounded—perhaps mortally. Rivers of fire cut through it, but
the prince and princess were safe for the moment. Just the same, Baleron
recognized the need to move while they could. A hot breeze blew down from the
mountains, carrying the stench of sulfur.

“I hope our homes don’t look like
this when we return,” she said.

“Me, too.”

“Will the armies still be there?
Will the war still go on without him?”

“I doubt it. They’ll turn back and
hide here for another thousand years, and we’ll rebuild.”

“Rebuild? But you have no home. You
have no country.”

“There will still be survivors,
hiding somewhere in the north. I’ll unite them and found a new capital.”

She looked at him strangely.
“That’s right. You’re . . . you’re King now.”

He sighed.
“Of
Ungoroth?”

“Of whatever we make of the ruins.”

“We?”

She took his face in her hands and
kissed him again.
“Of course.”

He reminded himself to be vigilant.
The great army of Gilgaroth might be destroyed, but there were still countless
creatures out there, prowling the waste.
And dragons.
Many, many dragons.
Baleron realized that he and Rolenya
were without weapons, food or water, and had only each other to keep them warm.
It would have to be enough.

They climbed to their feet.

“We have a long road back,” she
said, her blue eyes scanning the bleak, jagged horizon to the north. To the
south, all was ruin: fire and clouds of smoke.

Taking a deep breath, he held out
his hand and she took it.

The sun, he saw, was rising to the
east, a white disc behind jagged black mountains. The storm clouds were
breaking up, revealing the last visible stars. It had been a long night, and he
doubted the day to come would hold much light, but it was more than he had
expected. Many horrors of the night were likely seeking shelter from the sun;
it was probably the first time
Brunril’s
Torch had
been seen in this land in many years. A hot breeze blew.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Wearily, bleeding and barely able
to stand, Baleron and Rolenya left the body of Throgmar where it
lay
smoking on the ground and marched out into the
wastelands, bound for home.

THE
END OF
THE WAR OF THE BLACK TOWER

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:

Jack Conner lives in Oregon.
You can visit him on
facebook
here:
https://www.facebook.com/jack.conner.98

Please leave feedback wherever you purchased
The War of the Black Tower
, and help spread
the word. In fact, to encourage you to leave a review, if you like the novel
and leave a review to that effect on
Amazon,
email
Jack at
[email protected]
and let him know, and he’ll give you a free copy of another one of his novels
or short stories. This offer is good for the first thirty reviews.

Did you spot any flaws?
Typos?
Let Jack know at the email address above.

If you enjoyed The Black Tower Trilogy, be sure to find out
where the adventure began in
The War of
the Moonstone
, a two-part epic fantasy.

You can find Part One of
Moonstone
here . . .

. . .
in
the US:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZX6OLU

. . .
in
the UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GZX6OLU

Turn the page for a complete listing of Jack Conner’s books.
Following that is an excerpt from
War of
the Moonstone
.

BOOKS BY JACK CONNER

Song of the Broken World, an epic fantasy
series

The War of the Moonstone: Part One . . .

. . .
in
the US:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GZX6OLU

. . .
in
the UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00GZX6OLU

The War of the Moonstone: Part Two . . .