A Gleaming Path

by Jeffrey Pawlak

  Alamor could not bring himself to face Baldaron again. His eyes were frozen to the alleged bodies of the Spiritcasters.

  “If such an injustice has ever existed in our time, it is that a young boy who once revered the Sages like Ralu and Xogun saw his family killed and his home destroyed, while the people who served as their most devout followers were the ones to slay innocent beings,” Baldaron continued. “Even after I fled my ruined home, I prayed—pleaded—to the Sages, begging for their protection, but neither they nor their Serenity granted me any form of solace. I only found that when I swore myself to the magic that my uncle showed me—magic that the Spiritcasters across Tordale denounced as being ‘impure’. The Sages and their myths are lies. You, boy, and all Spiritcasters are a living lie to follow in their footsteps.”

  “Don’t listen to a word he says, Alamor,” Tridian implored through barred teeth. “He’s only deceiving you with his twisted accounts.”

  “Why is it that you think your father never told you about any of these soldiers, Prince Tridian?” Baldaron asked. “Why is it that you think his subjects have never spoken about them long after his death? That is because there is no deception that passes my lips. The atrocities that these warriors committed were tied to your father’s ambitions, making their sins his own. Your father surely died with tremendous guilt wracking his mind. He chose to leave this world holding onto that bloody secret so that his children’s conscious’ would never suffer the same way, nor would the name of the Hokara royal family be stained for its bloody campaign.”

  “You lie!” Tridian exclaimed, his features taut with rage.

  Baldaron finally forged a smile, and turned toward Tiroku. “If I lie, then ask your wise master as to what the truth is. Or, perhaps, simply ask him why he has not disputed anything I have said inside this chamber.”

  Alamor, Raissa, and Tridian all looked to Tiroku, but the Champion of Light could not seem to meet their desperate gazes. He kept his ashen expression averted from them, his grim eyes staring into the floor, as if he had been defeated by Baldaron’s words.

  “No…” Raissa gasped, her appalled eyes widening.

  A moment later, Tiroku finally stirred. He aimed his sword in Baldaron’s direction, and a wall of blinding white light suddenly sprang up in front of the man and his Wraithlings. The curtain of pure Serenity concealed them so quickly that Alamor could not even see if Baldaron reacted to it.

  Tiroku dashed across the chamber and took Raissa by the hand, promptly turning back toward their exit. “We must leave, now,” he said to them, his voice hoarse and commanding.

  Although they were still in shock over Baldaron’s disturbing revelation, Alamor, Tridian, and Raissa followed Tiroku this time. They sped out of the room as fast as their legs would allow them, not daring to look back at any part of the burial chamber.

  “That spell I cast to barricade them is very powerful,” Tiroku explained as they raced through the sun-drenched doorway that led them outside, “it will hold them off, but I cannot maintain it for very long without depleting my Serenity, entirely. We must make haste for the mountains.”

  They hurried out of the Sandstone Mausoleum, feeling clean and fresh air envelop their bodies. After spending so long inside the temple’s murky halls, all of them aside from Hinton and Pauma were momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight. The Bachus, with their eyes being accustomed to drastic changes in light after living underground for all their years, could see with little issue, and apparently discerned which direction they needed to move in to rejoin their other companions.

  Once Alamor’s eyes began to readjust, he saw that they had stepped outside into a tall and wide path within the ridge, like a cut within the base of a mountain. The walls were steep and uneven on one side, naturally formed over the ages, while on the other side was the articulate and ornate exterior of the Sandstone Mausoleum, expertly carved down to the very inch by ancient masons of long ago.

  As they ran through the pass, Alamor began to hear a number of sounds reverberating along the rock that told him a battle was nearby. Shouts, cries, and the ringing of metal clashing against metal grew louder with each stride he took. They eventually came to the foot of an incline within the pass. As they ran up the steep slope, Alamor was certain that they would reunite with their comrades.

  His intuition proved true, but their comrades were also joined by waves of Wraithlings, all of them coming together in a widespread melee across a flat, sprawling portion of the ridge. Baldaron’s forces encircled Alamor’s companions and attempted to overwhelm them, but thus far had been thwarted. As Alamor briefly surveyed the carnage, he saw many of the armored suits lying limp and motionless, while it appeared that not one of his companions had been felled by the ghostly soldiers.

  He found himself in awe of the way that his comrades fended off their lifeless foes. The Aesur soldiers who had accompanied Elisstriss fought with rhythmic grace, their slender limbs granting them speed and agility that it made it almost difficult to follow their blinding movements.

  Alamor could hardly believe the way that those Aesur who wielded spears struck so deftly. They swung the long weapons as though the spears were weightless. He was also amazed by the Aesur who fought while wearing the talon-shaped blades upon their wrists and ankles. Those soldiers looked like living weapons as they danced throughout the chaos, each punch and kick that they hurled at a Wraithling proving to be as deadly as any sword stroke. The strikes were quick and precise, but they also carried enough force that they regularly floored an armored soldier in just a single blow.

  Still, it was Elisstriss who drew Alamor’s greatest awe. She stood above the widespread battle, casting her magic into the very air beneath her and commanding it to levitate her body ten feet over the ridge floor. It was not all that she used her magic for. As she hung in mid-air, she continued to conjure her abilities and use them to hold off many of Baldaron’s soldiers. With a wave of one arm she would command a gale of unthinkable strength to lift an enemy off its feet and hurl it away as if it were a pebble; with another gesture, she would emit a rush of furious air that was powerful enough to overwhelm several Wraithlings at once and send them skidding across the ridge floor. She chained together spell after spell, each new motion in her arms acting as a prelude to a new and vigorous manipulation over the air that Baldaron’s troops were helpless to withstand. Some of the Wraithlings attempted to shoot her down by hurling their weapons at her, but Elisstriss was always aware of their throws and deflected each projectile with another gust of wind.

  Ausmus and Dayneth were directly beneath her, relentlessly fending off any Wraithling who set their sights on Elisstriss. They attacked with even greater speed and ferocity than any of the other Aesur warriors. Ausmus’s bladed talons and Dayneth’s bladed rings flashed through dark mail with nearly every motion of their bodies.

  Tiroku eventually leapt into the carnage and began to push his way toward Dayneth and Ausmus, with Alamor and the others following him. Alamor and Tridian surrounded Raissa and cut down any Wraithling who strayed too close to the Princess of Tordale, while Hinton and Pauma each tossed a blast orb into the largest cluster of soldiers that they could spot. When they joined Dayneth’s and Ausmus’s sides and began to fend off the remaining troops near Elisstriss, it allowed the Aesur warriors their first moment of rest since the battle had begun.

  “You’ve come at the perfect time,” Dayneth said as she caught her breath. “I don’t think we can hold off this horde for much longer, even with you all here.”

  “Has anyone been lost?” Tiroku asked, as he sliced an armored soldier in half with his searing sword.

  “Not yet,” Ausmus answered. “But if we remain here much longer, it’s only a matter of time. Elisstriss is becoming especially weary; she’s summoned a tremendous amount of her magic already. Before, she held off an entire swarm of soldiers nearly this size. If she continues to fight, her body and spirit will eventually fail her.”

  Dayneth turned her eyes
to Raissa, her gaze settling onto the Radia of Hope. “If we’ve obtained what we’ve come here for, Tiroku, we need to retreat before it’s too late—for all of us.”

  “Then we will move out at once,” Tiroku decided, and looked up at Elisstriss. “Come down!”

  Elisstriss heeded Tiroku’s command and ended the spell that granted her levitation. The moment that her feet touched the ridge floor, she swayed and nearly collapsed. It was only when Ausmus took her in his arms and held up upright that she began to steady herself.

  “Forgive me, but I do not know if I can use my Airtaming any further,” Elisstriss said, bringing a hand to her head and trying to regain her composure. Her voice was filled by the fatigue that must have weighed down her entire body.

  “You have no reason to apologize, your Swiftness; you fought more admirably than any of our own warriors here today,” Ausmus said to her. “Will you be okay to move?”

  Elisstriss nodded with a wince, but she then straightened. “I will need some help, most likely, but I’m certain that I can manage at least that.”

  Tiroku appeared to have listened in on their exchange. The moment that Elisstriss finished, he spun around and started to move through the battle, this time in the direction of the Tower Mountains. “Then let’s get out of here!” he yelled as he began to cut through several armored soldiers that blocked his path.

  Rawner and Joth, who had been nearby, quickly rushed to Tiroku’s side. “Allow us to lend some help, Master Tiroku!” Rawner said. They added their efforts to Tiroku’s and soon cleaved their way through the Wraithlings, primarily through Rawner’s immense strength. Each time that the big man swung his poleax, he sent two or more of the lifeless foes hurtling through the air and out of their way.

  Behind them, Dayneth rallied the Aesur soldiers to move out. They wasted no time in breaking away from the melee, and soon their entire group was retreating from the Sandstone Mausoleum toward the Tower Mountains.

  Tiroku and Joth continued to guide their party as they raced over the ridge, but Rawner fell back through their numbers toward the rear. Baldaron’s forces had not hesitated to pursue them, and there were several Wraithlings that came mere strides away from the back of the group. Rawner placed himself at the end of their formation and held off every armored being that stepped too close to their party, often breaking the animated suits apart with a mighty blow from his poleax.

  He succeeded in removing the threat of those swiftest among Baldaron’s forces, but his efforts only vanquished a fraction of the enormous horde that chased after them over the ridge. This grim truth became painfully evident to Rawner and the others as the ridge floor gradually rose beneath their feet throughout their escape and eventually gave them a long view of the rocky slopes below.

  All of Baldaron’s forces that attacked the Sandstone Mausoleum had come together as one, growing from a horde into an army. From afar, they looked like a giant wave of pure blackness that slithered up along the slopes. The countless armored suits ran tirelessly over the ridge’s gritty floor, showing no signs of slowing down as they mindlessly pursued the group of mortals that challenged their master’s conquest.

  In time, the ridge floor leveled again, and they came to a wide, flat expanse that seemed to run off for miles into the distance as the land morphed into the Tower Mountains.

  But it also wore a massive gash in its sandstone makeup, a rift that stretched so far in both directions that it was impossible to determine where it may have ended. The canyon was at least fifty yards across, and far deeper. When Alamor looked down over the edge, he only saw a drop that led to sheer darkness along the rock walls.

  A lone bridge comprised of rope and worn timber appeared to be the only way across, but it was narrow, and could likely fit no more than one person in a line.

  Still, with Baldaron’s army closing in on them, they were left with no choice but to chance it.

  Raissa was allowed to go first, the Bachus following directly behind her. Dayneth, Ausmus, and Elisstriss went next, the younger of the Highfeather’s daughters clearly pushing herself as much as her remaining energy granted so that she did not slow their advance over the bridge.

  Alamor was about to go next, but just before he stepped onto the bridge, the first of Baldaron’s soldiers ascended onto the flat plane of the ridge and charged toward them. The Wraithlings had caught up to their party quicker than Alamor or any of them anticipated. Now, not only was there the threat of being overwhelmed by Baldaron’s troops, but there was also the danger of the armored soldiers cutting down the bridge before they all crossed it. Or, while some of them still stood on it.

  Rawner was seemingly ready to avoid that at any cost. “Everyone keep going,” he said, his huge fists wrapping tightly about his poleax while his expression hardened. “And don’t stop until you get to the other side!”

  The big man stormed ahead to meet the Wraithlings. The moment that he came to them, he swung his mighty weapon and threw several of them aside. Those that avoided his attack launched their own offensives, but Rawner was fast to react and fended off their blows before once again hurling more of them away. His brave charge managed to halt their advance, and in doing so, he allowed his companions to continue crossing the bridge unmolested.

  Alamor nearly ran to join Rawner in holding off Baldaron’s troops, but Tiroku and Joth stopped him and forced him onto the bridge.

  “Listen to him!” Joth hollered. “We have to make sure that you get out of here safely!”

  Part of Alamor wanted to argue, and even push past Joth and Tiroku to run to his friend’s aid, but once he was upon the bridge, he realized that he had to keep moving forward. He began to hurry across the wooden pass, silently praying that Rawner would be able to turn and follow them soon enough.

  Yet, any time Alamor glanced over his shoulder, he saw that Rawner still faced Baldaron’s oncoming soldiers and fended them off. Even when Alamor was halfway over the bridge, Rawner remained behind, battling furiously to hold back the wave of Wraithlings.

  Alamor eventually reached the other side of the canyon, but he did not run on as Raissa and the others ahead of him did. He stepped out of the way, and as all of the others behind him cleared the bridge and pressed forward toward the Tower Mountains, he set his terrified gaze onto his friend in the distance. Alamor’s eyes hardly blinked as he watched more and more Wraithlings throw themselves at Rawner, slowly pushing the man back until he was just inches from the bridge.

  “Rawner, hurry up and run!” Alamor cried in desperation.

  Each and every Wraithling suddenly came to a halt at the same exact moment. They backed away from Rawner and lowered their weapons with mechanical movement, ceasing their offensive as if they had been commanded to do so. Their numbers parted, the great horde splitting apart and forming a path between themselves.

  Baldaron emerged amid the many armored soldiers. The huge man calmly strode over the path that his lifeless minions granted him. He stopped once he was in front of their numbers. Rawner was the only thing standing between him and the bridge.

  He set his gaze upon the Captain of Geldiar. A sickening measure of cruel delight swirled within his sunken eyes, like a predator studying its prey before striking. Aside from when the desert’s howling wind blew aside his jet locks and his cape, he did not move, nor did Rawner. The two men simply stood in silence, staring at one another; a sinister grin reaching over Baldaron’s face, while a fiery glare exuded from Rawner’s eyes.

  A minute passed before one of them finally stirred. Without any kind of warning, Rawner turned and swung his poleax. In one clean cut, he seared through the rope railings that clung to the supports on that side of the canyon, and the bridge fell away.

  Time slowed for Alamor as he watched it sink into the abyss. The bridge swung to his side of the canyon and slammed into the rock wall, most of the timber planks shattering on impact and then plummeting into darkness.

  Rawner glanced back at Alamor, showing him the same jolly grin that R
awner had shown him so many times over the years. The man then turned back to Baldaron. He fastened his hands about his poleax and planted his feet into the stone floor, readying himself for battle.

  Baldaron’s voice rang out over the ridge. “What lies behind you presents a far more pleasant death than what stands before you. But if you are intent to challenge me, then I have no issue with demonstrating to your friends what fate holds for them by defying my conquest.”

  Baldaron threw his arm out to his side, and a great weapon materialized within his grip. It was a massive broadsword, at least four feet long from the tip of the blade down to the pommel. The black blade looked like it was forged out of onyx, and an eerie, blood-red aura shone around its edges.

  Rawner showed no fear of the weapon, or the man who wielded it. He charged and loosed the first strike, throwing his poleax in a deadly swing toward Baldaron’s head.

  Baldaron lifted his sword and blocked the attack with ease. Rawner pulled his poleax back and struck again, only to be parried once more. The Captain of Geldiar continued to assail his foe with looping slashes, but Baldaron intercepted each one without effort.

  Alamor could not fathom Baldaron’s physical prowess. For being such a huge man, who wielded a gigantic weapon, no less, Baldaron moved with deftness that rivaled the Aesur soldiers. His pliant arm twisted and curled with blinding speed to deflect each of Rawner’s attacks, always able to move in place just before Rawner’s poleax met his black armor. At the same time, his strength was frightening. He never flinched any time he blocked one of Rawner’s strikes. Any other living being would have been staggered, if not hurled backward from the force of the blows.

  Baldaron eventually seemed to grow tired of toying with his opponent, and lashed out with a slash that Alamor’s eyes barely followed. The blade flew past Rawner’s defenses and scored through his chest plate, nearly bringing the Captain of Geldiar to his knees.