Lord of the Inferno - Chapter Two

This week’s episode features a chapter from Lord of the Inferno, Volume Two of War of the Fathers. War of the Fathers is available as a free ebook if you sign up for the Dan Decker Newsletter. Here is an excerpt from the show: 

A piece of gravel crunched under Adar Rahid's foot as he twisted and scanned the town square while looking for Hunwei through the smoky yellow haze that hung in the air. It was starting to dissipate in most places, but it was still dense where the Hunwei had been congregated before the tower had done its work and burned them to death.

Adar spotted a mound of Hunwei where they had collapsed on to some people. He looked away without examining it too closely. It wasn’t a pretty way to die and had likely been quite painful. He tried to avoid thinking about how many people had died in that spot but found he couldn’t help wonder if there had been children in the still burning mass.

He frowned, a low growl rumbling in his throat. He supposed he should have been glad for the people who had been saved by the tower, but it didn’t make the thought of those that had died any more palatable.

When the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, the smoky haze gave the area below it a brownish tint, causing him to squint. The burning mass wasn't the only such pile of Hunwei and humans.

Movement from a pile of dead Hunwei caught Adar’s attention. One of the dead Hunwei’s legs had moved. The body lay on the ground, but the leg had twitched.

Another Hunwei lay next to the first. It was easy to see by comparison that the first was considerably smaller.

Humans in Hunwei armor, Adar thought, I thought I was prepared for anything, but I never considered this. He didn't know what to call these humans, but he supposed they were as much Hunwei as those who were a couple of feet taller. Still, he wanted to distinguish between the two.

Turncoat was as good of a word as any. It was difficult to think of the turncoat humans as Hunwei, but he’d get used to it with time.

The implications of these turncoats were still beginning to dawn on him. He guessed these traitors to humanity were descendants of those whom the Hunwei had taken captive. A thousand years was enough time for the Hunwei to raise a whole society that had been turned to their side. He clenched his hands at the thought, wondering if any of his ancestors had been among those who were kidnapped.

The turncoats would likely have a hard time blending in with other people or even communicating. Their language had to have become corrupt during the intervening time, but he figured it was best to act as if they did know how to communicate until he knew otherwise.

In the area surrounding the turncoat, Adar saw other dead Hunwei. He could tell by the size of their helmets they weren’t human. He figured the Hunwei turncoat’s armor must have protected the turncoat from the flames of his fellow Hunwei as they had died.

The turncoat moved again, this time lifting up its head.