PART TWO
The young Mother of Gadlock had found the book amongst possessions left by Solaria the Dagda witch of Obsidia. It was an Ora'n text but ancient to be sure. Handwritten in a scrawling script and a language that the maunt did not understand. Kristina had been apprehensive when she had given it to her. With her own sight the words had crawled on the page, unintelligible, but now as she looked with eyes that no longer saw the things around her the words stood clearly, glowing softly raised by a golden glow from the papyrus.
Three nights she had chanted the phrases and now the maunts whispered the words in her ears to strengthen her resolve. Gadlock had been raped repeatedly both physically and spiritually by the devourer. She could not let it happen again. Ora would show that it could not happen again.
The young Mother of Dale recited the bloodline once again and Kristina poured herself into the phrases from the book. Fatigue and hunger meant nothing, the pains within her tortured body merely strengthened her resolve. When her voice failed her it became other worldly and sang with the voices of the Great Mother and the Daughters of the Woods, the maunts would later swear that they heard a cacophony not simply the words of the priestess.
At first curious and faithful supplicants had come to see the priestess but as the days and nights merged into one it was as if a growing barrier had developed around the temple. Animals would not cross the line and the people would find themselves kneeling in the grass looking too but daring not to venture to the white stone walls.
On the fourth night there had been a blood moon, dripping red in the sky like the wounds to the land of Gadlock. On the fifth there was no moon at all, and it happened, the names began to fade from the bloodline so that they would be no more. Kristina had not been herself for some time now but as the names on the page began to burn, she herself began to shake with fatigue, her burning skin cooling rapidly and the slick sweat making her palor almost deathly. At once with the faintest wisp of smoke from the pages, the words in the book were gone. The cacophony stopped and the whole of Gadlock it seemed became silent. Her eyes rolling forward again Kristina looked up and around beginning to recognise her surroundings. Her body was gnawing at itself in pain and hunger. Taking a feverish gulp of water she looked at the young Mother of Gadlock. The girl silently nodded her head.
It was done, Atanamir and his kin could hurt them no more.
