by S L Gassick
The guards nodded and dragged the ex-Delay away screaming and moaning, leaving Shui by himself. He thought back to what just happened and laughed. Then he realised what time it was and wondered if the trap in Norheath would have worked.
Even if it didn’t, it didn’t really matter. Dark Clan members from far and wide had joined the fight and it was starting to become more troublesome finding where to put all these new troops in his battle plans. There was no denying it, along with the army of Undead, there truly was no stopping them. He grabbed an apple and started chomping on it, something sweet after something so savoury. He leaned back in his chair and giggled to himself.
“Well, that was exciting!”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Balius stared back into Milius’s face. The young boy was pale, even in the moonlight, and his eyes held wide open in fear. Balius thought this was his final moment on the Earth, until he realised who was sticking the knife against his throat. “Milius?”
“Balius?” Cyrene had caught up with them but Milius remained pinning down the large kid with a knife against his throat. “Milius, let him go.”
“It could be a trick. He must be the mole. I’ve been given orders to kill the mole, Cyrene. Whoever it may be.”
Suddenly the fear returned into Balius’ eyes. “Please!” he gasped.
“By Gaea, Milius! What on earth are you doing? He’s just a child!” Cyrene pleaded.
“What’s going on? What are you doing talking to Colum?” Milius shouted.
“Stop it!” Cyrene said and ran up to him. Milius swung around with the knife pointed at her.
“Shut up!” Milius ordered, “Colum might still hear you.” Balius was trying to struggle and get away, but again the knife returned to the boy’s neck. “Now listen,” Milius whispered to him slowly and with a steady calmness, “I’m going to take the knife away and get off you. By no means are you to try and escape because I will kill you. You are to sit here and tell me everything you know, and the truth, or I will kill you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Milius got up. Balius started rubbing his neck where a small speck of blood had appeared. Cyrene had never seen this side of Milius before and quite frankly, it scared her. She wondered what he had seen on the battlefields in his service as a knight that could turn him into this, and against a child.
Balius took a deep breath and began. “It all started with my mother. She is extremely sick you see and no matter how much I looked after her, she was nearing death. We all knew it. That’s when I received a note that if I wanted to save my mother, to meet a man at Horukum Bridge at midnight. I did and it was Colum.
He told me that if I was to do as I was told, a friend of his would come and make my mother better, but that if I told anyone, she would die. That is why this must go no further you see!” Balius pleaded.
“Just keep going.” Milius replied, emotionless.
“I was to leave food out for Aslo and hide nearby. He usually eats scraps you see. But the food contained a sleeping drug so when he would eat it at night, he would sleep like a log for the entire night. I crept into his room and sure enough he was asleep, snoring quite loudly. I took his keys and went inside where the Kalad was kept, Colum told me where it was. I waited for the guard to pass, I took the coin, crept out, replaced Aslo’s keys to his pocket and went back to my hiding place within the Valhalla. I was to give it to a hooded man at the edge of the Valhalla in the morning and sure enough, lurking in the shadows where Colum said he would be, was a dark, hooded stranger.
His breathing was deep and horrible, he smelt funny and I could not see his face. I gave it to him and he staggered off but I guess something went wrong as he ran into Nayakax. Colum wanted to meet me tonight to make sure I hadn’t told anyone, he keeps threatening my mother will die if I do.”
“Is that it?” Milius didn’t move. He stared intently into Balius’s eyes.
“Well, then later that night I was feeding my mother her supper when there was a knock on the door. As I opened it, there stood an elderly man, stooped over with a large hunchback, clinging onto a wooden stick. His hair and beard were long, white and messy - it covered most of his face. His skin was almost yellow and his clothes ragged like he was a homeless traveller.
He did not utter a word and crept into my mother’s room. I tried to enter but he shook his head and closed the door on me. After a half hour, he left without saying a word. The next morning, my mother was awake, smiling yet still weak and every day she grew stronger.
Although I could feel a change had come over her, she seemed like a shadow of her former self. It was only yesterday she first came out of bed, she looked at me like she recognised me but yet she’s not herself, I know it!” Balius broke down and cried. Cyrene was going to go to comfort him until she saw Milius stir. He got closer to the crying boy until his face was directly opposite his.
“I don’t care about your mother,” Milius stated, “you’ve doomed us all.”
With that, Cyrene watched as Balius broke down even further into tears and Milius walked off back towards Colum.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nayakax was awoken by Lirilius and Hemero arguing.
“I was awake, I tell you!” Hemero shouted.
“Then what happened? How did I fall asleep? I don’t even remember coming into the room!” Lirilius spat back.
“I don’t know. You were out of it.”
“This Frederick must have put something in my drink or pipe or something. Where’s Rose?”
They all rushed into Rose’s room to see nothing but an empty bed.
“Damn! Please not again…” Lirilius pounded against the wall with both his fists, threw open the door and ran outside the house.
“ROSE!” Lirilius shouted clutching his head, tearing at his long hair. “ROSE!”
“What do you mean, again? What’s happening?” Phin asked.
“I lost them - my daughters. I lost them. We all did.”
“Who?” Nayakax asked, “who did?”
“My daughters. Don’t you understand? I couldn’t help them. They were taken from me. I never saw them again. They came in the night and took our children, our daughters, my little girl.” Lirilius broke down and grabbed Nayakax. “Someone knew about it. Someone did. They had to. They couldn’t have got away with it like that. There’s no way. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill all of them. Rose! ROSE!”
But no answer came. From anyone or anything. They were surrounded by dead silence.[DG37]
“What are we going to do?” Phin began to cry and sat on the floor. His mind began thinking of all the awful stories he would hear about children going missing. He knew coming to Titan territory was a bad idea.
“Not sit here, that’s for sure,” Hemero shouted whilst running back to Rose’s room in the house. Being alone in the room, Hemero felt ill at ease and just wanted to run back out. He took a deep breath and looked around him.
Nothing. There was nothing here that suggested a struggle, nothing to say whether Rose had been killed. It was as if she had just disappeared. Like she was never there at all.
“It must have been the window.” Nayakax was standing in the doorway. Hemero walked up to it and saw that it was shut from the inside.
“Impossible,” he stated.
“Then it could only be a kyu power I’m unaware of.”
Hemero had to find something. He had sworn back in the classroom to defend her with his life and he would not let her down. He looked around until he spotted something in the corner of the room. He moved closer to it.
“What is it, Hemy?” Nayakax approached. Hemero got even closer to it until Naya held him back. “It could be a trap.”
“It’s not. Look.” Hemero touched what looked like a dark shadow in the corner of the room. At the end of his finger was a dark, green slimy substance. “This…”
“Came from that Frederick,” Naya interrupted, “he clearly spiked Lirilius’s drink. So what else are you suggesting?�
�
“Typical Nayakax. Don’t look at my finger,” Hemero stated, “look to what I’m pointing to.”
Nayakax followed the direction Hemero’s finger was pointing towards to see a small hole behind a chest of drawers leading to the outside. It would have been just big enough to get Rose through without much effort.
“What disgusting creature plans such a thing?” Nayakax asked.
“I’m sure we’re about to find out,” Hemero answered as he crawled through the hole. It was damp and dark for a few moments until they reappeared on the other side.
As he stood up, he saw that they were in a thick, thorny bush that had covered the hole from the outside. As their skin got cut and stung, they made their way out to see Lirilius on his knees, his head in his hands, sobbing. Phin was beside him with one hand laid upon his back. It was a strange sight to see from a strong Knight of Gaea and it worried Naya.
For a while now, the composure of Lirilius had been slowly falling into question and looking at this man sobbing with hard, uncontrollable contortions, this man of bravery getting upset about a small girl, this man whom was doing nothing but wallowing in pity, they had started to wonder if they should be following him at all. Was this the man to lead them?
Nayakax watched Hemero bound up to the knight, his naïve blind loyalty in Lirilius reminding him of a foolish dog. No sense of foreboding, no sense of weakness and yet surely this is what makes him a trustworthy soldier? Shouldn’t it be himself, Nayakax, that is the trustworthy soldier? Nayakax could feel the questions leaving a set of shameful answers upon his mind. But he knew one thing, Rose will not last long if they do not hurry.
“Lirilius, the culprit has left a trail of slime. Look.” Hemero showed him [DG38]what they had seen and they all raced around the back of the house to find the hole again. The green slimy substance left a mark, much like that left of a snail, leading up behind the hills from which they had seen someone looking at them last night.
“The trail leads up there,” Hemero announced and they all looked up, wondering what darkness lay ahead of them behind the rolling green hills that stole Rose away, and what Lirilius feared most – perhaps losing another child.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Milius could see that Colum was clearly no longer home. There was a part of him so angry he could have torched the place down where it stood if not that it would threaten the rest of the forest. He also had to stay under cover in case Colum was still out there watching him – the hunter becoming the prey instead.
Milius hid in the shadows of the forest and searched around looking for a trail but Colum was nowhere to be found. There was nothing for it but to return to the Valhalla.
During the long walk thoughts crashed around inside his head. What are Colum’s intentions? Was this clever scheme thought up by such a brute as him? But his mind kept returning to one thing: Cyrene’s horrified face as he tried to get the truth from Balius.
If it had been Colum, it would have been more acceptable, but there was more at stake here than trying to impress his girlfriend. Is that what she was now? He had never been in a real relationship before but had never cared for someone so much, so quickly. He started to remember what his father had said…
“For the love of Gaea Milius, don’t fall in love!”
His father shifted on his seat at the bank of the river and continued staring at the end of his fishing rod.
“I don’t understand, why not?” Milius asked.
He took a heavy sigh and looked down at his feet before returning his gaze to the open river in front of them both. “Because you are well on your way to becoming a Knight of Gaea, and there can be nothing to distract you from your duty. Love is something that clouds the soul, it can drive a man crazy and so if you want one piece of advice, it is to not fall in love.”
“Don’t you love Mum?”
“Yes. Which is very much the point! I settled down with her to have a family, which I do not regret in the slightest.” He continued as he rubbed Milius’s head, “you and your brother are the best thing to ever happen to a foolish old man like me! But you are something special. You could become the greatest knight Norheath has seen in a long time! The last thing you need is a woman messing that up for you! At least it better be a woman!”
“Huh?”
“Nothing… forget I said that. Where are all the fish today? We haven’t caught anything yet.”
Don’t ever fall in love.
Milius pondered over whether this had unknowingly happened. His life had always been on the battlefield, and women to him and his friends were nothing but a source of amusement. What a horrible way of things. But to the older knights, whoever lived long enough, women became a reason for fighting. A reason for dying. A reason for staying alive. He could now begin to understand why. “I’m going to see this through and then take a long break somewhere, and I’ll ask Cyrene to join me,” he thought. But then her horrified face returned to his memory and he wondered whether she could even look at him again in the same way. He kicked the dirt as he started to approach the clearing near the Valhalla.
As he drew nearer the gates, he could hear a commotion inside the walls gliding over the still darkness, which from this distance meant there must have to be a huge noise being made. He sped up his pace until suddenly the large doors slowly opened and out emerged at least a thousand horses and riders with flames burning bright like stars in the night sky. Their hooves and cries sounded like a storm erupting over the tranquillity of the sea.
Milius could only stand and watch as the last rider dashed into the darkness. He grabbed one of the guards; “what the Hell is going on here?!”
“Sir, there’s been an attack. An order was given.”
“By who …”
“Theus, sir.”
Milius let go of the guard and rushed inside the Valhalla to see Theus sitting in the main hall, smoking his pipe. The old Headmaster took a sigh and another puff from his pipe as Milius stepped forward.
“What is this order? I needed those men!” Milius shouted, his voice reverberating off the walls as he strode up to the pale, frail figure in the darkness. Theus breathed in and the burning leaves in his pipe revealed dark eyes hidden under his large brow.
“There has been an attack on the people of Caldon, Milius. You did not consider them when you drew up your plans. They will be doomed. And do you forget who you are speaking to?”
“Sir,” Milius drew in a short breath of air, “the people of Caldon were evacuated days ago in preparation for such an attack. There is nothing there.”
“Then,” Theus mused, “why was Colum so intent on leaving?”
“I think I can tell you, Sir. But we have precious little time if we are to save those men.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Rose awoke in the pitch black with a startling headache. She then realised that she wasn’t in a bed and instead was on top of a dirty, muddy floor in what she could only guess was some sort of cave or hole. Had she fallen somewhere? She started to fumble around trying to get up, until from a short distance away came a noise like someone crying. She wondered if she was still asleep and if this was just a dream. “Hello?” she shouted into the darkness. After a moment the sobbing stopped and there was a reply.
“Hello. You have awoken then?” The voice was young and female; it sounded friendly but Rose couldn’t be too sure. She crawled to where the voice had come from, feeling her way, until she stumbled upon a small, warm body.
“Hello? I can feel you,” Rose said. Then the voice came from slightly further away.
“That is not me,” replied the voice, “it is best you don’t touch what is in front of you there, walk towards me from the other side. Are you here yet?”
Rose followed the voice until she was in front of whoever was talking.
“Who are you?” Rose asked.
“My name is Clem, and who might you be?”
“I’m Rose of Delaniford.”
“Pleased to meet
you Rose. I am sad we could not have met in different circumstances.”
Her voice sounded young, yet there was a mysterious maturity to it. A sad melancholy that no child should have.
“What exactly are the circumstances?”
“We are in a cave in the depths of some abandoned mines used eons ago beyond where my house once stood. You must have fallen into contact with one of the Slithers.”
“Slithers?”
“They are a small group of wild Titans. A group who believe that sacrificing humans preserves what they believe is everlasting life. They have taken advantage of the chaos wrought by the Undead. The Titans at the gate were evacuated and moved further away from the trouble areas where the Undead roamed, but the walking corpses found us regardless and attacked. They killed my family – well when I say kill… you know what I mean, they did not stay dead for long.
I was alone and lost until a group of Slithers picked me up. You see, not all Slithers are bad and it is wrong to judge any kind of living creature with such prejudice, but still I should have been more careful. They kidnapped me and used me as their slave while they picked up other young people, preferably girls like us, and sacrificed them to their Gods. I think I am their back-up choice because I am… not easy on the eye. But I do wish it was me being sacrificed. I cannot bear to tell you what I have been through, and what there is ahead for both of us…”
“Then we must get out of here. There must be…”
Just then a light shone like a huge, powerful torch from what must have been a door on the other side of the room and within it stood a slimy, green figure. It was Frederick, with a grin on his pig-like face.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The messenger Milius had sent must have been killed en route. It was the only explanation for his disappearing act. A full day had passed and had it not been that Milius had to re-organise the men, he would have ridden out himself to see the trouble.
