The Black Road

by Mel Odom

  “Do you recognize him?” Kabraxis asked.

  “Yes,” Cholik replied, recognizing the man now. “He was at Tauruk’s Port.”

  “And now he is with Taramis Volken,” Kabraxis mused.

  “They know each other?”

  “Not that I was aware of. For all I know, Taramis Volken and this man, Darrick Lang, met each other in Seeker’s Point last evening.”

  “You have spies watching the demon hunter?” Cholik asked.

  “When I am not watching the man myself, of course. Taramis Volken is a dangerous human, and the quest he’s on pertains to us. If he is given what he seeks at this farmer’s house, his next move will be to come for us.”

  “What is it he seeks?”

  “Stormfury,” Kabraxis replied.

  “The mystic sword that turned the barbarian horde hundreds of years ago?” Cholik asked. His nimble mind searched for the reasons Kabraxis would be interested in the sword and why he would think that the demon hunter would turn his sights on them.

  “The same.” A grimace twisted the demon’s hideous face.

  Cholik thought then that Kabraxis was afraid of the sword and what it might do, but he also knew he dared not mention that. Desperately, he tried to eradicate the errant thought from his mind before the demon sensed it.

  “The sword can be a problem,” Kabraxis said, “but I have minions that are even now closing in on Taramis Volken and his band. They won’t escape, and if the sword is there, my minions will retrieve it.”

  Cholik thought and worked to couch his words carefully. “How is the sword a problem?”

  “It is a powerful weapon,” Kabraxis said. “A blacksmith imbued with the power of the Light forged the sword hundreds of years ago to use against the barbarian horde and the dark force they worshipped.”

  Understanding dawned in Cholik. “They worshipped you. You were Iceclaw.”

  “Yes. And the humans used the sword to drive me from this world then.”

  “Can it be used against you again?” Cholik asked.

  “I am more powerful now than I was then,” Kabraxis said. “Still, I will see to it that the sword is destroyed forever and always after this day.” The demon paused. “But the presence of this other man troubles me.”

  “Why?”

  “I have cast auguries to show the portents of the things we have done concerning Lord Darkulan,” Kabraxis said. “This man keeps turning up in them.”

  Cholik considered that. Spies he had placed inside the lord’s keep had relayed that Darkulan’s mistress was already better and on her way back to a full recovery. Lord Darkulan had visited her immediately after leaving the church last evening.

  “When did you see this man again after Tauruk’s Port?” Cholik asked.

  “Only moments ago,” Kabraxis said. “When I summoned the lezanti and set them upon the hunt for Taramis Volken and his warriors. I had to scry upon the group to set the lezanti upon the scent.”

  A shudder passed through Cholik when he considered the lezanti. He’d always believed the creatures to be truly the stuff of legends and myth.

  According to the tales he’d been told, the lezanti were created by the blending of a human female’s corpse, a freshly slain wolf, and a lizard, creating a fast and ferocious chimera that possessed super-animal cunning, a partially upright physique, and an ability to take a lot of damage and grow limb replacements after amputation.

  “If you’ve only just now seen this man,” Cholik said, “how do you know he was the one you saw in your auguries?”

  “Do you distrust my abilities, Buyard Cholik?” the demon demanded.

  “No,” Cholik replied quickly, not wanting Kabraxis to vent the cold rage that filled him. “I just wondered how you kept him separate from Taramis Volken or another of the warriors with him.”

  “Because I can,” the demon replied. “Just as I robbed time of your years and returned your youth to you.”

  Cholik stared into the pool, looking into the young man’s relaxed face. He wondered how the young man had gotten there, more than a year after the events at Tauruk’s Port.

  “I am concerned because of the magic that was used to open the gateway,” Kabraxis said. “When demons come from the Burning Hells, so, too, come the seeds of their potential downfall. It is a balance that is kept between the Light and the Darkness. But by the same hand, no champion of the Light may burst forth without a weakness that can be exploited. It’s up to the champion which propensity—strength or weakness—wins out. And it is up to the demon whether he stands against the power that would banish him from this plane again.”

  “And you think such power has been assigned to this man because he was there the night you came through the gateway back into our world?” Cholik asked.

  “No. This man doesn’t have such power. And there is a great affinity for darkness in his soul.” The demon smiled. “In fact, were we able to get him here and persuade him properly, I think he could be turned to serve me. There is weakness in him as well as strength. I feel it would be no problem to exploit that weakness.”

  “Then why the concern?”

  “The juxtaposition of all the variables,” Kabraxis said. “Taramis Volken’s discovery of Stormfury is bad enough, but for this man to appear here so soon after the burned man attempted to kill you, I have to consider how threatening our situation can get. The balance between Light and Dark has always been maintained, and somewhere out there is a threat I have to recognize.”

  Staring into the pool of water as the view shifted and pulled back, Cholik watched the sleek forms of the lezanti cluster along the ridgeline around the small house. The lezanti stood hunchbacked and broad-shouldered on two clawed feet and legs that bent backward like a horse’s rear legs. Lizard’s skin hugged the body and shifted colors as quickly as a chameleon’s, allowing them to blend into their surroundings with astonishing ease. Tufts of fur spread over their shoulders, crowned their heads around their small triangular ears, and covered their flanks where a hairless lizard’s tail flicked and twisted. Their jaws were filled with large fangs.

  The church bells rang, signaling the beginning of the morning service.

  Cholik stood, waiting for the order to dismiss and return to the church. “This situation is under your control,” he said. “The lezanti will leave no one alive.”

  “Perhaps,” Kabraxis said. He gestured toward the pool.

  In the image trapped in the water, the lezanti began stealthily closing in on the warriors and the little house in the forest. Hypnotized, remembering the violence the demon-formed creatures were reputed to be capable of, Cholik watched while the cathedral below them continued to fill.

  Darrick sat under the spreading oak tree a short distance from the house and held the deep wooden plate he’d been given in his hands. He wished the house had been bigger or that there had been fewer men. The dark chimney smoke pouring into the air let him know there was a fire inside. He wasn’t truly cold, but a chance to sit by the fire for a few moments to break the chill that covered him would have been welcome.

  The generosity Ellig Barrows showed his unexpected guests was amazing. It was one thing for the old man to have been willing to care for such a large group, but it was even more surprising that he was able to. Breakfast consisted of simple fare: eggs, stringy venison chops, potato mush, thick brown gravy, and fat wedges of bread. But it was all warm and welcome.

  As it turned out, both of Taramis’s scouts had taken deer in the forest and dressed them out to replace the meat they ate from the old man’s larder. There was no replacing the bread, though, and Darrick guessed that the old man’s wife would be busy for several days baking to replace what they’d consumed that morning.

  Darrick sopped up the last of the gravy and eggs with his remaining piece of bread and drank from his waterskin. Setting the plate to one side for the moment, he enjoyed the sensation of being full and off the horse. He pulled a blanket from his pack and wrapped it around his shoulders.
r />   Winter was coming, marching down from the harsh northlands. Soon enough, mornings would be filled with frost and cold that made a man’s bones ache. Darrick kept to himself, watching the other warriors break up into small groups and talk among themselves. As they ate, the warriors also relieved the guards posted in the forest, making sure everyone was fed and rested.

  Ellig Barrows and Taramis Volken talked on the covered porch in front of the house. Each man seemed intent on taking the measure of the other. Taramis wore orange-colored robes with silver designs worked into them. During his travels, Darrick had heard descriptions of the Vizjerei robes, but he had never seen them before. The enchanted robes offered protection from spells and demonic creatures.

  Darrick knew that Taramis sought to persuade the old man to give him Stormfury, the sword from the old legend. Although he’d seen a number of things in his life as a sailor for Westmarch even before he’d seen the demon at Tauruk’s Port, Darrick had never seen anything as legendary as the sword. His mind played with the idea of it, what it might look like and what powers it might hold. But again and again, his thoughts insisted on coming back to why Taramis would believe he belonged with them on this quest.

  “Darrick,” Taramis called a few minutes later.

  Rousing from near slumber, regretting the need to move when he’d finally gotten comfortable against the tree, Darrick glanced at the sage.

  “Come with us,” Taramis requested, standing and following the old man across the yard.

  Reluctantly, Darrick got to his feet and carried the plate to the porch, where it was taken by the old man’s grandson. Darrick followed Taramis and Ellig Barrows into the root cellar built into the hillside.

  The old man took a lantern from the root cellar’s wall inside, lit it with a coal he’d carried from the house, and followed the short flight of earthen stairs down into the small root cellar.

  Darrick hesitated in the doorway. The cloying smell of dank earth, potatoes, onions, and spices filled his nostrils. He didn’t like the darkness of the cellar or the closed-in feeling he got from the racks of foods canned in jars or the wine bottles. For a house in the middle of nowhere along the Frozen Sea coast, Ellig Barrows and his family had a large larder.

  “Come on,” Taramis said, following the old man to the back of the cellar.

  Darrick crossed the uneven floor dug from the earth and covered with small rock. The cellar’s ceiling was so low his head scraped a couple of times, and he kept hunkered down.

  A huge stone surface blocked the other end of the cellar. The lantern Ellig Barrows carried clanked against the stone as he stood next to it.

  “I was given care of the sword,” the old man said, turning to face Taramis, “along with the power to do so by my grandfather, as he was given the power to care for it by his grandfather. I teach this responsibility and power to my own grandson now. For hundreds of years, Stormfury has been in the possession of my family, awaiting the time when the demon would rise again and it would be needed.”

  “The sword has been needed before now,” Taramis said gravely. “But Kabraxis is a cunning demon and doesn’t ever use the same name twice. If it were not for Darrick’s encounter with the demon in Tauruk’s Port more than a year ago, we would not know which one we faced now.”

  “Iceclaw was a fierce and evil beast,” the old man said. “The old stories tell of all the murder and carnage he wrought while he was in our world.”

  “There were two other times Kabraxis was in the world,” Taramis said. “Both times before, Diablo and his brothers sought him out and returned him to the Burning Hells. Only the sword now offers a chance against the demon.”

  “You know why the sword has never been taken from my family before,” Ellig Barrows said. The lantern light deepened the hollows of his eye sockets, making him look like a man days dead.

  Darrick shivered at the thought.

  “The sword has never allowed itself to be taken,” Taramis said.

  “Two kings have died trying to take this sword,” the old man said.

  Darrick hadn’t known that. He glanced at Taramis, studying the sage’s appearance in the lantern’s pale yellow glow.

  “They died,” the sage said, “because they didn’t understand the sword’s true nature.”

  “So you say,” Ellig Barrows replied. “There are mysteries about the sword that I don’t know. That my grandfather before me didn’t know, and his grandfather before him. Yet you come to my house and tell me you know more than all of them.”

  “Show me the sword,” Taramis said, “and you can see for yourself.”

  “We have been responsible for the sword for so long. It has not been an easy burden to bear.”

  “It shouldn’t have been,” Taramis agreed. He faced the old man. “Please.”

  Sighing, the old man turned to the wall. “You take your own lives in your hands,” he warned. His fingers inscribed arcane symbols in the air. As soon as each one was completed, it glowed briefly, then sank into the wall.

  Darrick glanced at Taramis, wanting to ask why he instead of one of the other warriors had been brought on this part of their search. Even as he started to open his mouth, the root cellar wall shimmered and turned opaque.

  Ellig Barrows raised the lantern, and the light shone into the room on the other side of the opaque stone wall. Eldritch energy sparkled inside the wall, illuminated by the lantern light.

  Beyond the wall, wreathed in the shadows of the hidden room, a dead man lay in a niche cut into the hillside. His snow-white beard trailed down to his chest, and he wore animal hides over crude chainmail. A visored helm hid part of the shrunken features that bound the dead man’s head. His arms crossed over his chest, and his withered hands—the yellow ivory of his knuckles showing through—gripped the hilt of a long sword.

  TWENTY

  In the hidden room in Ellig Barrows’s root cellar, Darrick studied the sword Taramis Volken had come all this way to get and found the weapon was in no way like anything he’d imagined since the sage had told him of it. The sword appeared plain and unadorned, hammered from steel with a craftsman’s skill but lacking the touch of an artist. The blade was an infantryman’s weapon, not something that would invoke fear in demons. “You’re disappointed?” Ellig Barrows asked, looking at Darrick.

  Darrick hesitated, not wanting to offend. “I had just expected something more.”

  “A jeweled weapon, perhaps?” the old man asked. “Something every bandit you met would want and try to steal? A weapon so unique and striking-looking that everyone would mark its passage and know it for what it was?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Darrick admitted. But he also wondered if someone had stolen the real sword a long time ago and left the barbaric piece in its stead. He immediately felt guilty for that, because it would have meant the old man’s life had been spent doing useless guard duty.

  Ellig Barrows stepped through the opaque wall. “The smith who forged this weapon did think of those things. Perhaps Stormfury isn’t an elegant weapon, but you’ll never find a truer one. Of course, you’ll only know that if you’re able to take it.”

  Taramis followed the old man through the wall.

  After a moment, Darrick stepped through the mystical wall as well. A cold sensation gripped him as he passed through, and it felt as if he were walking through the thickest forest growth, having to fight his way through.

  “The sword is protected from interlopers,” Ellig Barrows said. “No man may touch it or take it if Kabraxis is not within this world.”

  “And if any try?” Darrick asked.

  “The sword can’t be taken,” the old man said.

  “What of the kings who died?”

  “One slew members of my family,” Ellig Barrows said. “He and all his warriors died less than a day later. The Light is not evil as the demons are, but it is vengeful against those who transgress against it. Another tried to drag Hauklin’s body from its resting place. He rose that time and s
lew them all.”

  Standing in the crypt carved from the root cellar, Darrick felt afraid. Although the caverns under Tauruk’s Port were larger and the huge doorway had seemed more threatening, the dead man lying with the sword clasped in his hands seemed just as deadly. Darrick would have gladly left the crypt and been satisfied never to see anything more of a magical nature.

  He glanced at Taramis. “Why did you want me here?”

  “Because you are tied to this,” the sage said. “You have been since you witnessed Kabraxis’s arrival on this plane.” He looked at the dead man. “I think that you are the one who can take Hauklin’s sword to use against the demon.”

  “Why not you?” Darrick demanded. For a moment he wondered if the sage was only using him, willing to risk his life in the effort to recover the sword.

  Taramis turned and reached for the sword. His hand halted, quivering, in the air several inches from the weapon. The effort he made to reach the weapon corded muscle along his arm. Pain showed on his features. Finally, in disappointed disgust, he drew his arm back.

  “I can’t take it,” the sage said. “I am not the one.” He turned to Darrick. “But I believe that you are.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the Light and the Darkness balance each other,” Taramis said. “Any time power is passed into this world from the Light or the Darkness, a balance must be made. Demons come into this world, and a means of defeating them is also created. If the Light tries to upset the balance by introducing an object of power that can be used against the Darkness, the powers of Darkness intercede to make the balance whole again. Ultimately, the true threat to the balance, whether the Light or the Darkness has the greater power in our world, is left up to us. The people. Just as when the Prime Evils appeared in this world during the time that came to be known as the Dark Exile, the Angel Tyreal gathered the magi, warriors, and scholars in the East and formed the Brotherhood of the Horadrim. Those people would never have come together with such power if the demons had not been loosed in our world. If Tyreal had tried to do this before the Prime Evils had arrived here, Darkness would have found a means to strike a balance.”