Savior of Istara Read Online Free Page A

into
annihilating everything that he’d worked alongside Artemis to
create. Like too many men before him, Ra’Tallah let his pride,
vanity, and ego become his undoing.
    The familiar scene passed
before my eyes with the clarity typically reserved for the most
unforgettable of memories.
    From astride his throne of
bones, dread Darconius, Dark Father of the Underworld, ordered his
eldest son, Nas’r, to steal the sole unabridged version of the Liber Inferum , the Book of the Underworld, from Lady Death
Herself. Nas’r may have betrayed his sister’s trust when he
pilfered Her holiest of holies, but the God of Lies and Intrigue
betrayed all Faltyr when he delivered the source of Eresh’s potent
necromantic abilities into the hands of ruthless, power-hungry
Ra’Tallah.
    An Ireti devil emerged from
behind the guise of heavy-handed peacemaker. With the Liber
Inferum in hand, Ra’Tallah claimed to be the chosen successor
to Eresh, handpicked by Darconius himself to unite the Overworld
and the Underworld in a true Golden Age, one in which death no
longer mattered. His words seduced those grieving for loved ones
lost in the cycle of bloody wars plaguing the mainland at the time.
But they did not realize the sinister implications of his
silver-tongued oratory.
    Within his domain, Ra’Tallah
instituted outrageous policies requiring debtors to provide labor
beyond the point of bodily death, including service to the state in
specialized legions of undead shock troops. While the UNN and the
Churches of the Holy Trinitas protested these decrees and even
threatened military action, none of them were in any position to
remove Ra’Tallah from power, especially with an army of undead to
swell the already impressive ranks of the Ireti
military.
    Revulsion and anger filled
Artemis. Her partner’s actions violated everything the gods of the
Overworld held sacred as well as the laws established by the
compact governing the United Nations of Ny. His abominable deeds
drained her heart of any remaining love or devotion she felt toward
her husband.
    Artemis had grown tired of
his bullish demeanor and insane jealousy long ago; but some element
of loyalty and concern had remained for the man she’d called
husband, lover, and partner. So she beseeched Ra’Tallah to return
the book to Eresh, the rightful ruler over the realm of the dead.
But he only laughed.
    Drunk with power and
convinced of his own divinity, Ra’Tallah had felt invincible. And
he was…until he woke the sleeping dragon within his estranged
wife.
    That proved to be his
undoing.
    Their epic battle played out
before my eyes with enough detail to jar my senses and fray my
nerves. Under the command of Artemis, the last Dragon Empress of
Ny, the weight of the world fell upon the infernal host assembled
by Ra’Tallah in the shadow of the Meshkenet Mountains.
    Drawn into the conflict, I
wept as the best of an entire generation of Faltyr’s peoples
marched off to the slaughter. Men, women, and even children from a
dozen races stood against the tide of terror sent by Ra’Tallah.
They fought to prevent his undead legions from crossing the narrow
neck of the Pelican Gulf into the heartland of the Baax
Empire.
    Ra’Tallah commanded his
troops from an Aethyr-powered airship of his own design, one of
many enchanted vessels to travel the skies of Faltyr during its
Golden Age. Although it provided him with relative safety from the
armies united against him, the craft proved vulnerable to the fury
of a woman scorned.
    Calling upon the powers
granted to her by her mother, Goddess of the Moon, Artemis reverted
to her true form, a silver dragon. And not the miniature versions
known to the modern age, I remind you, but an elder wyrm of
unimaginable size and power.
    As Ra’Tallah struck at her
with tentacles of dark energy summoned forth from the Book of the
Underworld, Artemis plucked the turtleback airship from its mooring
and carried it aloft to the heavens. As her former lover drained
her