by A. C. Cobble
Ben grimaced.
“They were going to feed us to them,” the man added. “I’m sure of it. That’s why they brought us to this place. Who are these people?”
“No one, anymore,” said Rhys. He paused, then added, “If there are hundreds of demons down there, we have to move. They’ll consume everyone in this fortress.”
The smocked man swallowed.
“You said you saw a light and fading script,” interjected Towaal. “Tell me about it.”
Just then, the front doors swung open. A score of the Purple’s guards poured in.
Ben’s heart sank. His friends were worn out and injured.
The guards fanned out across the room. One man wearing a badge of rank stepped forward. He opened his mouth to speak, but a roar of rage interrupted him, echoing from far down the hallways. The man turned white.
“Sir,” called one of his soldiers. “What was that?”
Ben guessed the captain knew exactly what it was. Clearly, his men didn’t. Only the most trusted guards would know what lay in the caverns below the fortress.
“The door downstairs is open,” advised Ben. “We’re leaving unless you want to spend time fighting us.”
“Gather everyone from outside on the walls and go to the central stairwell,” barked the captain harshly to his men. “Guard the hall from anyone, or anything, trying to come up.”
“Sir, these are intruders!” protested his man. “They must have set off the alarms. We should capture them.”
“Go now!” screamed the captain. “I’ll handle these people.”
Ben, his friends, and the escaped slaves watched nervously as the Purple’s guards streamed by. The men eyed their captain suspiciously, but they followed his orders.
When they were out of earshot, the captain spoke. “During an alarm, there will be over a hundred men positioned on the walls. They should buy us a few moments.”
The man spun on his heel and ran out the door.
“I have to find my sister,” said the slave they had been speaking to.
“Find her quickly,” responded Towaal. “As soon as you hear screams on the stairs, you must leave.”
The man nodded and started directing the other slaves to gather food and find missing companions. Then he gave stern instructions to quickly assemble at the front gate. He had the bearing of a leader, a military man, thought Ben.
The man glanced at Ben’s friends. “You gave us a chance, and that is all we can ask. Go now. We’ll be right behind you.”
Ben nodded and turned to leave.
“Can I see it?” asked Milo.
They’d been running all day and finally stopped as the sun set. Ben’s legs felt like lead weights, and he knew that no matter the threat, they simply didn’t have the strength to continue.
Milo wanted to see the staff that Towaal found in the Purple’s chambers. In the mad dash out of the fortress, no one had taken time to examine it.
Towaal eyed the young man suspiciously, then wordlessly passed him the staff.
Ben saw it was fashioned in the shape of a serpent with sharp spikes along its back and a wide-open maw.
Milo walked to the edge of their camp and sat on a broken rock. He turned the staff in his hands, studying the subtle carvings.
Ben strolled over to join him, curious about what they’d found. Miniscule runes were etched in tiny, overlapping patterns, creating serpent’s scales. Milo looked into the open mouth but didn’t turn it to face him. Instead, he eyed it from the side. He traced his fingers along the intricate etchings, thousands of them, painstakingly worked into the pale wood.
“Wyvern fire,” he breathed softly.
“Wyvern fire. What is that?” asked Ben.
Milo jumped and shot Ben a glance. “Something I heard a long time ago. This staff looks like a wyvern, doesn’t it?”
Ben shrugged. Wyverns were mythical beasts as far as he knew. Even Gunther said he didn’t know about them. If that ancient mage didn’t know, Ben assumed no one did.
“It looks like a lizard to me,” suggested Ben.
“What do you know about wyvern fire?” asked Towaal from across the camp.
Milo jumped again.
“Nothing. It’s just something I’ve heard,” he answered quickly. “I think I saw a drawing of a wyvern once in Northport’s library. It was fantastical, probably a children’s story. It looked like this, I think. They spit fire, don’t they, in the stories?”
Towaal walked over and held out her hand.
Milo reluctantly passed the staff back.
“First Mages, wyvern fire. There seem to be a lot of ancient secrets that spill out of your mouth that you just happened across in Northport’s library.”
Milo shrugged. “Lord Rhymer has an extensive collection of old books. I’d thumb through them when the Librarian was busy with his own studies.”
“What is wyvern fire?” asked Ben.
“A legend,” answered Lady Towaal. “A legend from before my time.”
She looked over the staff the same way Milo had. A look of wonder and fear passed across her face.
“Each one of these scales has glyphs carved to form them,” she marveled. “There have to be thousands of them. Tens of thousands. The detail is exquisite. It’s like nothing I have seen before. This would have taken a lifetime to carve. Multiple lifetimes, maybe.”
“What do the glyphs do?” asked Amelie.
“I’d have to study it further, but I believe they gather and concentrate heat,” murmured Towaal, peering closely at a section of the staff. “With this many of them, the fire released from this device would be unworldly. I believe it could burn through doors, walls, melt steel like it was butter. Like what Milo did with the vambrace, but at a scale the size of a town. With this, an attacker could blow a hole through any fortification in Alcott. Even Whitehall’s walls would be like putting a torch to a paper screen. A demon horde would be nothing against this.”
“Should we test it?” suggested Milo hopefully.
Towaal shook her head and frowned at the former apprentice. “I’m afraid we wouldn’t be able to gather sufficient energy to activate it. Even if we could do that, I’m not sure we could control it. It’s too risky. Anyone nearby would be in grave danger if I tried. No, I think we should bring this to Jasper. He’s an expert on devices. He can advise how we can make the best use of this.”
Towaal turned to Ben. “This is what we needed, the reason we came to this continent. If we can make use of this, no swarm of demons can stand in our way. We can’t cover the entire continent, but where we go, demons will fall. In time, I think that will be enough.”
Ben smiled, then lost it when he saw Rhys. The rogue was sitting quietly, ignoring their discussion. He was staring in the direction of the Purple’s fortress. They may have found what they needed, but they’d lost a lot along the way.
The next morning, they woke sore and exhausted. They needed rest, but the brutal terrain of the desert wasn’t the place to do it. They all knew it wouldn’t be long before the demons feasted on everyone left in the Purple’s fortress. Then, they would come looking for more lifeblood. They had to move.
The rest of the day they walked across broken rocks and shifting red sands. They were heading north to Ooswam and the city of Shamiil, the emperor’s city. They would alert him of the threat and then gain passage to Alcott. The track they followed was barely a road, but it wound around the jagged ridges and spines of rock that dotted the desert. It was faster than trying to move cross country.
They plodded slowly. Both Amelie and Towaal were barely able to lift their feet. The two mages had burned their reserves dangerously low in the battle.
Behind them, Ben spied a thin column of dust.
“There’s someone else out here,” he called to his friends.
They kept walking, eyeing the dust cloud.
“They’re moving the same direction we are,” surmised Rhys. “They’re coming from the Purple’s fortress.”
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“It could be the slaves,” speculated Ben.
“Or the guards,” remarked Rhys.
“It’s one of the two,” agreed Ben with a sigh.
For a bell, they kept moving, watching the cloud of dust draw closer.
“If they were guards,” said Ben, “then they are no longer employed by the Purple. They may not be our enemies.”
“All of the mages are dead,” added O’ecca. “Whoever it is, if they left after us, they may have valuable information.”
Ben glanced at Amelie, and she nodded. Her head bobbed loosely. He didn’t think she could go much longer. Strong will only took you so far if your body didn’t have the strength to continue.
“Let’s wait for them,” Ben declared.
They settled onto a group of tumbled rocks at the base of a jagged hill. In a bell or two, the spot would be shaded. Ben hoped they didn’t have to wait that long in the heat. The rock was uncomfortably warm through his pants, but it was worth it to be off his feet.
Slowly, the dust cloud drew closer.
Ben could make out figures marching toward them. They were caked in the red dust of the desert. They could be guards, slaves, even his neighbors from back in Farview. He’d never be able to tell under the caked filth. He looked at himself and his companions and grinned. They were coated in the stuff too. Red dust monsters waiting on more red dust monsters.
A shrill whistle sounded from the approaching group and a single voice called out. “Hold.”
A lone figure broke out from the party and approached.
Ben didn’t realize it until the man was standing ten faces in front of them, but it was the same man who had followed the Purple into the demon pit and spoken to them before they left. Ben nodded, and the man smiled back.
“My sister says you saved her back at the fortress,” he said. “A couple of guards took her and banged her up. She says they would have had her virtue too if you hadn’t interfered. I have to thank you for that.”
“Who are you?” asked Rhys. He dropped off his rock and walked toward the man, staring behind him at the group he’d been leading.
“My name is Crai. I was a captain in Lord Syvann’s guard until the Red Lord razed most of the villages in our prefecture. I ran, along with a lot of others. We tried to make it to one of the fringe cities along the border between Ooswam and Qooten. We thought we could find shelter there. Instead, we found Dirhadji. Bastards took our camp at night. By morning, we were stuffed in a filthy cage and carted across the desert to that awful fortress. They sorted us out when we arrived. Took the pretty girls first, then the ugly ones. Some of the men were sent outside. Fighting men like me got sent deep into the mountain. I overheard them call us ‘fresh meat’. I didn’t know what that meant, until I saw what else was down there. You saved us.”
Ben grunted. “I won’t lie. That’s not why we were there, but I’m glad you got out.”
“Doesn’t matter. We owe you,” insisted Crai.
Ben wasn’t prepared to argue with the man about it.
“Looks like we’re going in the same direction,” remarked Crai.
From behind him, a slim girl emerged from his group. Even under the dust, Ben could see the ugly purple bruise that spread from her nose to underneath her eyes. Both her cheeks were puffy and swollen. It was the girl Corinne had rescued.
“Where is the other girl?” she asked, glancing around Ben’s companions.
“She didn’t make it,” replied Amelie quietly.
“I wish I could have thanked her,” stated the girl. She drew herself up, standing tall and proud. “My life would be one thing, but what they intended for me…” The girl shuddered and closed her eyes. “That would have been worse than death. Your friend saved me. I wish I could have spoken to her.”
Amelie stepped forward and pulled Corinne’s axes off her belt.
“These were hers,” she said, offering the girl the weapons. “Use them well. Use them the way she would have.”
The girl accepted the gift and gave a short bow.
“We’re headed for Shamiil,” stated the man. “We need to tell the people there what happened.”
Amelie glanced at Ben.
Ben nodded. “Very well. We’ll join you on the road.”
That evening, they camped three dozen paces from Crai and his party. Along with the leader and his sister, about eighty slaves had escaped. Many of them had just arrived at the Purple’s fortress the day before, but they’d been hauled across the desert in suffocating boxes before they got there. They weren’t in much better shape than Ben’s party.
Crai and his sister came to join them after the camps were settled.
Towaal tucked the staff they had recovered under her bedroll. Crai seemed trustworthy, but the staff was far too dangerous to pass around. The smaller the group who knew about it, the smaller the chance it would fall into the wrong hands.
Ben gestured for Crai and his sister to take a seat. They had no fire and nothing else to offer them.
“When the Dirhadji came on us,” started Crai, “I expected them to immediately slit my throat. I thought they’d take my sister into the deep desert to join one of their harems. It is what they have done for ages, and a risk we thought we could avoid. The desert warriors trade with the fringe cities and rarely cause disruption near them.”
The man shifted on the sand, slinging a rock away that he’d been sitting on.
“Instead, we were brought to that place. My sister was to be raped, and I was to be fed to those monsters. I have to know. Who were those people? What was that place?”
Towaal nodded to Ben, giving him the lead on how much to tell the siblings.
The man caught the look.
“I owe you my life and more.” He gripped his sister’s hand. “We will not betray whatever you tell us.”
“We are foreigners here,” started Ben. “We came to this continent looking for a way to combat demons, those creatures you saw. They are threatening our homes in Alcott. We thought there was a solution here.”
Crai frowned but didn’t comment.
“That fortress was home to an ancient cabal of mages,” continued Ben. “Mages we hoped had developed a weapon that could be used against the demons. Instead, we found they had built a weapon that could be used against men. We stopped them and destroyed the weapon they created, but you saw what was released. Those demons will be a threat here just like they are to our home. There are thousands of the creatures loose in Alcott.”
“Mages and demons. It sounds like make believe,” mumbled Crai. “These things are stories here. I know what we saw in that fortress, though, and I know what we heard.”
Ben nodded. “The threat is real, but until you have seen it, I understand how it is difficult to believe. In Alcott, no one has the choice anymore. The demons have overrun dozens of towns, maybe worse since we’ve been gone.”
“The girl who saved me,” asked Crai’s sister, “she fought the demons too?”
Ben’s lips twisted into a bittersweet smile.
“All of her life,” he said. “She lived in a city called Northport. From there, she ranged into the Wilds and hunted the foul creatures. There was a huge battle there, which is when we started our quest. She never hesitated about coming with us. She’d seen what horror the demons brought to her home. She was an important person there, but she felt this quest was even more important. She knew what was right and did it no matter the consequences to herself.”
“I know,” whispered the girl. She looked at her brother then back at Ben’s friends. “I want to help. What can I do?”
Ben paused before responding. “You can tell people. At least one town has already fallen in Ooswam, and it will only get worse. If people are not prepared for what is coming, they will die.”
“It will not be easy to convince people this is real,” suggested Crai grimly.
“We have to convince them,” said Ben.
“We want to help, but the petty squabbles of th
e lords are consuming Ooswam,” remarked the girl. “It will take the emperor to stop them and force the Houses to focus on the combined threat. We are common people. Now that House Syvann is gone, we wouldn’t even get to the front stairs of the emperor’s palace.”
“I can,” suggested O’ecca.
“Who are you?” asked Crai with an eyebrow raised.
“Lady O’ecca Iyrron. I’ve seen the ruins of Ayd. The demons slaughtered everyone in the village. I battled that swarm, and it was only twenty of the creatures. What we saw at the fortress…”
They all understood, they’d been there.
“I will make the emperor believe,” O’ecca finished emphatically.
“We will help however we can,” assured Crai.
“There is one other thing,” requested Towaal. “Tell me about the white light and the script you saw when the man opened the door to the demon cavern.”
Crai scratched his head, thinking.
“If the Purple had a way to seal the demons inside,” murmured the mage, “that could be as important as anything else we’ve discovered.”
A bell later, Crai and his sister returned to their camp and Ben and his companions turned in for the night. In the morning, they’d leave the others behind and make haste to Shamiil. Ben and his friends wanted to hurry back to Alcott with the staff and the information Towaal had gotten from the siblings. O’ecca was desperate to tell the emperor what was coming from the desert. She was certain he’d put a stop to the Red Lord and other factions warring within Ooswam once he knew a real enemy was out there.
Ben laid down next to Amelie and squeezed her hand.
“Did you talk to Rhys?” she whispered.
“I don’t think he wants to talk,” responded Ben.
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” responded Amelie. “That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t. You know him. At the next town we find, he’s going to drown himself in ale. You should talk to him, Ben, while he’s still sober enough to hold a conversation.”
“You’re right,” acknowledged Ben. “I’ll talk to him first thing in the morning.”
