by Tiger Hebert
“It took you so long, I thought you’d died,” she said with a whimper.
Confusion crossed his face. “What do you mean? I was right behind you.”
Duroc spoke up. “Time is not equal in all places. It’s something I’ve discovered in my travels between the worlds. It appears that time in this place passes much more quickly than in ours.”
“Wait, do you mean we are in another world?” asked Theros as more blurred images started to come into focus.
“Aye,” said Duroc.
“Then where in the nine hells are we?” he asked warily.
“I don’t know just yet.”
Theros still struggled to see, but he could tell he was surrounded by sand.
We’re either in a desert or the seashore. Then he listened for a moment, and realized that there were no sounds of waves or seagulls. The desert, damn.
He tried to scan his surroundings again, but his eyes still blurred and distorted images as they struggled with dilation. His distorted vision couldn’t hide everything from him, though. His vision settled upon two blurred figures just a few feet away. At first it was hazy, and all he could make out was the silhouette, but as he drew in his focus, his heart sank.
There on the dusty chalk-like ground he saw the lifeless body of a young man. Nal’drin’s pale body lay there in the shade of a lone outcropping of rock. Someone had covered the wound that had proved to be fatal. That someone, he guessed, was the young woman who quietly grieved at his side. As his eyes slowly drew into focus, he confirmed it was the red haired beauty that knelt at his side. Tears silently washed down her dirty, swollen, and blood smeared cheeks.
“Poor lass, she’s been like that for hours,” said Dom as he wiped a fresh tear from his eyes.
The realization that Nal’drin was dead hadn’t sunk in yet for Theros. He was still on the other side of the portal when the boy drew his last breath. The sudden finality of the young man’s lifeless body was all too real. The sting of death ambushed him, driving the air from his lungs and replacing it with a deep, penetrating ache. An ache that had become far too familiar. Theros turned to Dom as his vision blurred and tears filled his eyes. Dominar was wrecked. Tears continued to stream from his bruised and beaten face.
Sharka embraced Theros again, and squeezed him tight before letting go. Even her touch couldn’t soften the sting of loss. He leaned close and kissed her on the forehead, before stepping away. Theros gingerly made his way over to Kiriana. She didn’t look up, so he sat down on the sand next to her. She finally returned his gaze but she didn’t say a word. She just fell into his chest. He put his good arm around her and together they wept for a time.
Theros turned to Dom. His friend’s face was still swollen and covered with welts. Theros knew all too well how they ached, Dom got the worst of the demon’s assault, but his body was covered with the welts too.
“Dom, you sacrificed your life for us.”
Dom didn’t look up.
Theros said, “Every one of us owe our lives to you, my friend.”
“It didn’t save him,” Dom’s gentle voice cracked as new tears came.
Kiriana looked up to Dom. “We were all dead in those chains until you came. What you did gave all of us a second chance at life. Nal’drin loved you, and he chose to use his second chance at life to protect you. There’s no shame in that.”
Dom couldn’t say anything, he just let the silent tears fall. The pain would linger as a constant reminder, but the tears did eventually stop—for a time.
Theros studied his surroundings. They were thankfully hidden from the desert’s unrelenting sun. Strange rocks stretched up and out of the sand like the grasping fingers of some long forgotten titan. Beyond their shaded hiding spot, rolling dunes of chalky sand stretched as far as the orc could see.The barren landscape was a vast and undulating sea of sand that was only occasionally dotted with small outcroppings of two or three haggard trees that were hunched over, bent, and broken under the weight of the oppressive conditions. They looked more like brambles or tumbleweeds that had yet to break free from their bondage than trees.
Theros watched as the persistent desert wind nipped at the distant low rolling hills of the tanned desert, casting wisps of chalky sand into the air, and whispering a promise of freedom to the trees. Theros continued to scan the horizon. He found that rock formations like the one they now huddled beneath must have been scarce or non-existent, because he didn’t see any others. Call it a blessing or just plain dumb luck, but the orc realized just how thankful he should be for having a shaded place to rest. Even during the short time they’d spent in the shade, the savage heat gnawed at him. He could barely imagine life beyond such shade.
“So what do we do now?” ask Sharka.
Theros replied, “First we will give our friend a proper burial, then we start moving. Has there been any signs of civilization at all? Any smoke, sounds, or anything?”
“Nothing yet,” replied Duroc.
“Any signs of water?”
“No,” replied Duroc.
Theros asked, “Okay, how much water do we have?”
Dom tried to rummage through the few packs of supplies that they had managed to grab as they escaped Duroc’s Refuge, but the swelling of his face limited his vision. It was difficult and slow. Sharka helped, counting the waterskins for him.
“We have three full bladders and a fourth with a few mouthfuls left,” she guessed.
Theros nodded and asked, “What about food?”
Dom didn’t have to look in the packs to know the answer to this one. “We’ve got enough for a week. If we ration well, maybe ten days.”
Theros nodded before slowly rising to his feet and was immediately reminded of the injuries to his left arm. The orc winced and grunted as a dagger of pain stabbed at his arm.
“We’ve got to take care of that,” said Sharka.
Dom hovered close as he examined the orc’s swollen and discolored forearm. “It’s not pretty, but it could be a lot worse. The bone is displaced, but nothing broke the skin.”
Sharka turned to the redhead. “Kiri, can you heal it?”
Kiriana looked at the orc’s broken arm. “Uh, I don’t know how. I want to, but nothing’s happening.”
“Try with one of the stones,” suggested Sharka.
“Good idea,” said Kiriana as she grabbed one of the stones. Nothing happened. “Hmm, yeah, I can’t feel anything.”
“Then we’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. We can splint it, but we’re going to have to set it first,” said Dom.
More pain, lovely. Theros grimaced at the very thought. He grunted his understanding.
Dominar’s stubby fingers were surprisingly nimble as they felt out the damage. Once his findings confirmed his assumption about the bones, he set the orc’s arm. Theros howled as the pain bit deep. The bone was set.
“Sorry,” said Dom with a sympathetic wince, “But if we splint it and let it heal up, it’ll be as good as new in no time.”
Theros sat there sour faced, but nodded in ac-knowledgment. Then a thought struck him and he asked, “Hey, earlier you said something about me being gone for a long time and that Kiriana had been there for hours. I don’t understand this whole time acceleration thing.”
Dominar shrugged and turned to Duroc.
Duroc said, “I don’t know if time acceleration is an accurate or even an appropriate term for what happens when you travel between worlds, but time change is a factor in nearly every journey I’ve made. I have some half-baked theories as to the nature of such things, but in its most basic sense, time does not pass equally in all places—though it does so undetected by those that exist solely in that temporal existence.”
Theros raised an eyebrow. “What the hell did you just say? In the common tongue please.”
Duroc sighed. “In the seconds it took you to retrieve the packs and the Elder Stones, we sat here for hours. In the space between Sharka’s arrival and yours, hours passed.”
&
nbsp; Theros’ expression left no doubt as to his amazement. “How?”
“As I’ve already said, I have theories, but I’ve never been able to establish a proper study of such things. As it is, we’ve got more important things to worry about, like where the hell are we and how are we going to survive this place.” The irritation in Duroc’s voice became plain.
A fierce spark lit in Kiriana’s eyes and she snapped. “We’re not going to survive this place, you are going to use those damned stones to take us home!”
Theros looked from Kiriana to Nal’drin’s corpse. “She’s right. We’ve all lost enough. Take us home.”
Duroc threw his hands up in the air in exasperation and shouted. “It doesn’t work like that! You all think that magic is just... that I think up what I want, snap my fingers, then poof there it is. I’ve tried to explain to all of you that it doesn’t work like that. Without the Qarii, you have nothing. Not to mention that although the stones can be used to open pathways and portals, there has to be knowledge of the path! Just like the path that I created for us yesterday. I had to spirit walk to discover the path. Without that, the path wouldn’t have worked.”
Sharka raised an eyebrow. “If you needed to know the ‘path’ to get us here, but you don’t even know where ‘here’ is, then how did you open this portal?”
“Because it wasn’t me...”
Theros said, “Wait, what do you mean?”
Duroc looked him in the eye. “I’m not the one who opened the portal.”
Sharka asked, “Then who did?”
“Hmm, I might have an idea who,” said Dom.
Theros and Sharka nodded in understanding, and the group fell silent for a moment.
Kiriana spoke up, “Duroc, you can get us home, though, right?”
“You’re not listening, deary, I can’t do anything right now.”
Desperation filled the redhead’s cracking voice, “But you know where we need to go, you know Aurion.”
Duroc replied, “Yes, of course, but I’ve still no clue where we are at the moment. So how could I possibly know which way is home?”
“But you’ve traveled to different worlds and even different realms, why can’t you do that now?” asked Theros.
“The Qarii always guided my path. Through their revelation, I always had the map that I needed.”
“Then call upon your damn Qarii now!” demanded Kiriana as she clutched at his robes.
Duroc stood defeated. His head hung low and his shoulders slumped down. “I have been... ”
“For how long?” asked Theros.
“If the sun passes over the land anything like it does back home, at least eight hours.”
“And?” prodded Theros.
Duroc looked the orc in the eye and said, “They’re not answering.”
Thanks for reading The Halls of the Fallen King!
I hope you’ve enjoyed the continued voyage into the Beating Back the Darkness series. Our heroes’ journey will be continued in Beating Back the Darkness, Book 3.
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Acknowledgments
The amount of work that goes into creating a work of fiction like this is tremendous, and it cannot be done without the help and support of friends and family. Publishing The Halls of the Fallen King was no exception. With the multiple revisions it took to get it right, I have many people to thank.
People offer support in many different ways. Some are encouragers, some are beta readers, some are arc readers, some are editors, and some even offer financial support through Patreon. Some of my biggest supporters are Marcus Ryder, Jamie Downing, the Downing Girls, Joshua C. Chadd, R.J. Batla, Robert Mullin, S.A. Gibson, Garrett Weaver, and Peter Younghusband. Thank you for all your support in all the shapes it comes in!
To beautiful wife Alaina, thank you for your undying love and support. This doesn’t happen without you. To the babies, thanks for always asking me when the next dragon book is going to come out. To God, thank you for giving me an ability to do this writing thing. It is an honor and a priviledge that I don’t take lightly. I commit to working to improve my craft with each and every book, may it all honor you.
About the Author
I am many things, but first and foremost, I am a Jesus follower. I am fortunate to be married to an amazing woman. We are outnumbered, and occasionally overrun by our three children. Life is full and busy, and it's great! I'm also a veteran. To all the men and women who are serving or have served, thank you.
I was born and raised in the beautiful state of Maine, so naturally I am a huge fan of the outdoors. We now live in North Carolina, and I am eager to get out and explore the countless mountains and waterfalls here. I am an avid reader, and a mostly reformed gamer, and a fan of all things sci-fi & fantasy—from books to movies and shows.
I love to get to know my readers, many of whom I have become good friends with. So, come stop by my facebook page, say hi, and tell me a little about you.
Book List
Beating Back the Darkness Series
The Chronicles of Aurion (Prequel)
Dragon's Fire (Book One)
The Halls of the Fallen King (Book Two)
Book 3 - TBA
Book 4 - TBA
Book 5 - TBA
