The Black Road

by Mel Odom

  Numbly, Darrick turned and spotted the rectangular hole that opened in the sewer ceiling above the pile of rubble. Peering closer, he realized it wasn’t a door that had opened but rather a large section of rock that had been lifted up and out of the way. Light shone on the rubble and the water below.

  A man shoved his head through the rectangle. “Darrick Lang,” he called.

  Shifting his lantern, Taramis brought the man into view.

  Staring into the burned wreckage of the man’s face, Darrick didn’t believe for a moment that help had arrived.

  “Darrick Lang,” the burned man called again.

  “He knows you,” Taramis said at Darrick’s side. “Who is he?”

  Shaking his head, unable to recognize the burned man’s features in the shifting of light and shadows, Darrick said, “I don’t know.”

  Ye know him, Mat said. That’s Cap’n Raithen. From the pirates what was at Tauruk’s Port. Ye fought him aboard the pirate ship.

  Amazed, knowing somehow Mat was speaking the truth, Darrick recognized the man. “But he died.”

  “He looks like he did,” Taramis agreed in a quiet voice, “but he’s offering us a way out of certain death. He’s certainly mastered close escapes.”

  “This way,” Raithen said. “If you would live, hurry. That damned demon has sent more people into the tunnel after you, and now that they’ve seen me open this one, they’re likely to check up with the maps and figure out how I got here.”

  “Come on,” Taramis said, taking Darrick by the arm.

  “It’s a trick,” Darrick argued.

  No, Mat said. We’re joined, the three of us. Joined in this endeavor.

  “We stay here, and we’ll die like fish in a barrel,” Taramis said. He shoved Darrick into reluctant movement.

  As they neared the debris pile, the rats scattered, and quarrels struck the stones and sometimes the rats, but luckily the warriors all got through.

  Raithen shoved his hand down toward Darrick. “Give me the sword,” the pirate captain said. “I’ll help you up.”

  Before Darrick could move the sword, Raithen reached down for it. As soon as the man’s fingers touched the sword, they hissed.

  Raithen yelped and yanked his hand back. Fresh steam rose from his burned fingers as he retreated into the tunnel above the sewer. He cursed and broke two more rocks free, enlarging the space so the demon hunters could more easily gain entrance.

  Taramis went through first, clambering into the smaller tunnel above them. Dully, Darrick followed, taking care to watch the enchanted sword.

  After introducing himself, Taramis offered his hand. The pirate captain remained out of arm’s reach and ignored the hand. His gaze focused on Darrick. “Has your dead friend been in touch with you?” the pirate captain demanded.

  Darrick looked at him, unwilling to answer. If anything, Darrick was ready to put Hauklin’s sword through the pirate captain’s heart.

  A cold smile framed Raithen’s lips. Cracks opened in the burned flesh, and blood beaded his mouth. “You don’t have to answer,” the pirate captain said. “There was no other way you’d be here if it weren’t for your meddling friend.”

  Meddlin’ friend, is it, then? Mat demanded. Why, if I could put me hands on ye, or take a good length of steel up to do battle, I’d have the head off yer shoulders for that, ye mangy swab.

  “He’s still with us, I see,” Raithen said.

  Surprised, Darrick asked, “You can hear him?”

  “Whenever he’s around, aye. He prattles on constantly. I just thank the Light that I’ve only listened to him these past few weeks.” Raithen’s gaze dropped to the sword in Darrick’s hand. “He told me you’d come bearing Hauklin’s mighty blade. Is that it?”

  “Aye,” Darrick replied.

  The other warriors clambered into the small tunnel and milled around. Taramis issued quiet orders, getting men on either side of the opening in the bottom of the new tunnel.

  “And that will kill Kabraxis?” Raithen demanded.

  “So I’ve been told,” Darrick replied. “Or at least drive the demon from this world back to the Burning Hells.”

  Spitting blood onto the tunnel floor, Raithen said, “I’d rather we gutted him and threw him to the sharks, then watched them carry him away a bite at a time.”

  “The church guards are coming,” Palat said. “We’d best be on our way.”

  “Running through this tunnel with them on our heels?” Raithen asked. He grimaced, and the bloody froth at his mouth made him look demented.

  He is demented, Mat said. What Kabraxis did to him has nearly taken his sanity.

  “What are you doing here?” Darrick demanded of Raithen.

  The pirate captain smiled, and more blood flecked his lips. “The same as you, I expect. I came to be free of the demon. Although, after hearing of your friend’s death and knowing what’s happened to me, I’d have to say that you appear to have gotten better treatment than any of us.”

  Darrick didn’t say anything.

  Splashing sounded in the sewer below.

  “Those church guards aren’t going to wait for you two to finish palavering,” Palat said.

  Raithen stepped back and pulled a barrel from the wall beside the opening. As he yanked on the heavy barrel, the skin covering his hands split and bled. Crimson stained the barrel as Darrick and Palat lent hands, pushing the barrel toward the opening in the floor. Yanking the lid from the barrel, the pirate captain revealed the dark oil inside.

  “Pour,” Raithen commanded.

  Together, they poured the contents of the barrel into the sewer water and over the rocks below. Rats scampered from beneath the dark liquid, and the guards held their positions warily.

  Two crossbow quarrels flew through the opening in the floor. One of them splintered through the side of the barrel, and the other sliced through Raithen’s right calf. Cursing with the pain, Raithen reached back to the wall and yanked a torch from the sconce there. He tossed the torch through the hole in the floor and onto the pile of debris below.

  Peering cautiously over the side of the hole, Darrick watched as the oil caught fire. Flames spread over the pile of rubble, chasing the rats from their hiding places and onto the guards and into the water. The oil floating on top of the water caught fire as well. Carried by the slow current of the sewer, flames floated toward the guards, forcing them to retreat.

  “That will buy us some time,” Raithen said. He turned to the left and hurried along the tunnel.

  “Where are you taking us?” Taramis asked.

  “To the demon,” Raithen said. “That’s where we’ve got to go.” He ran down the tunnel, pausing only long enough to take another torch from a sconce farther on.

  The passageway was smaller than the sewer below, only wide enough for three warriors to jog abreast. Drawn by the urgency that vibrated within him, Darrick took the lead position among the demon hunters, joined quickly by Taramis and Palat.

  “Who is that man?” Taramis asked, eyes locked on the fleeing figure ahead of them.

  “Raithen,” Darrick replied. “He is—”

  Was, Mat assured him.

  “—was,” Darrick amended, “a pirate captain in the Gulf of Westmarch. A year ago, Raithen worked with Buyard Cholik.”

  “The Zakarum priest who opened the gateway for Kabraxis?”

  “Aye.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He was killed by the demon in Tauruk’s Port,” Darrick said, knowing how strange it sounded as they watched the burned madman racing before them.

  “He’s not dead enough to my way of thinking,” Palat said.

  At the same time Raithen was killed, Mat said, Kabraxis also cast the spell to raise the zombies an’ skeletons to pursue us. The magic pervaded Raithen’s corpse afterward, causin’ him to rise again. After ye freed the sword, I was drawn here to him. I found I could talk to him as I talk to ye. The three of us are bound, Darrick, an’ in our bindin’, we present
the way to end Kabraxis’s reign here.

  “He’s dead,” Darrick explained, giving the details that Mat had given him.

  “The prophecy of Hauklin,” Taramis said.

  “What prophecy?” Darrick asked. They trailed after Raithen, following the pirate captain around a bend in the tunnel.

  “It was said that Hauklin’s sword would never be taken from his tomb except to unite the Three,” the sage said.

  “What three?” Darrick asked.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  “One lost in death, one lost in life, and one lost in himself,” Taramis said. “One trapped in the past, one trapped in the present, and one trapped in the future.” A cold chill of dread filled Darrick.

  “Your friend Mat must be the one who is trapped in death, unreleased by his death in the past. Raithen has to be the one trapped in life, unable to die and doomed to live out the way he is through the present.” He gazed at Darrick. “That leaves you.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?” Darrick asked.

  “Because not all prophecies are true,” the sage answered. “All weapons and artifacts have stories that are told about them, but not all of those stories are true. When you drew the sword from Hauklin’s body, I thought the prophecy was false.”

  Taramis’s words hammered Darrick.

  Aye, Mat said inside his head, ye’ve been the one lost in yerself. But them sad times is behind ye. Just like Hillsfar an’ that stable behind yer father’s butcher shop. Just ye keep that in yer head, an’ ye’re gonna be all right. I’ll not desert ye.

  “The prophecy goes on,” Taramis said. “One will lift the sword, one will provide the way, and one will face the demon.” The sage stared at Darrick. “You couldn’t lift the sword at first because your friend wasn’t with you then. You couldn’t lift the sword till you heard Mat’s voice.”

  Darrick knew it was true, and in a way it made sense with all the events that had transpired since.

  “And he shows us the way,” Taramis said, pointing at Raithen still running before them. “That leaves you to face the demon.”

  “Beside the sage,” Palat snorted derisively.

  Darrick’s face flamed in embarrassment, knowing the warrior didn’t believe him strong enough or brave enough to confront the demon even with Hauklin’s enchanted sword. And truth to tell, he didn’t feel strong enough or brave enough himself.

  Worthless, his father’s voice said.

  Cringing inside, Darrick desperately wanted out of the course of action left before him. He was no hero. At best, he would have made a decent Westmarch naval officer; perhaps—but only perhaps—he might have made a decent ship’s captain.

  But a hero?

  No. Darrick couldn’t accept that. But if he left, if he walked away from this confrontation to save himself, what would be left of him? Cold realization flooded him, and his footing nearly faltered. If he backed away from the coming battle, he knew he would be everything his father had ever accused him of being.

  And if he did that, he would be as trapped between life and death as Mat or Raithen.

  There’s salvation in this for us all, Mat said.

  Even if I become a martyr? Darrick wondered.

  “We got men behind us,” Clavyn called from the rear of the warriors.

  “It’s the guards,” Raithen said. “I told you they’d find us. This tunnel is one of the newer ones. They use it to bring supplies into the church. Secret passageways and tunnels honeycomb these buildings. Over the last few weeks, I’ve ferreted out most of them.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Taramis asked.

  “To the central cathedral,” Raithen answered. “If you want to face Kabraxis, you’ll find him and Cholik there.”

  Only a few feet farther on, the pirate captain came to a halt under a slanted section of ceiling. The door was as slanted as the ceiling, fitting into it.

  “Guards sometimes wait here,” Raithen said. “But they’re not here now. They went below to help trap you in the sewer, not knowing the way the tunnel overlapped the sewer as I did.” He pulled himself up and peered through a slit.

  Darrick joined the man, keeping his sword naked in his fist. Taramis stood on the other side of him.

  Gazing out through the slit, Darrick saw Buyard Cholik standing on a platform on top of a huge stone snake with a flaming face. As Darrick watched, the snake bobbed and weaved above the expectant audience. The way the audience beseeched and cried out to the snake and the man atop it left a sick knot in Darrick’s stomach. He knew a few of the worshippers might know they prostrated themselves before evil, but most of them didn’t. They were innocents, praying for miracles and never knowing they were being preyed on by a hell-spawned demon.

  “There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people out there,” Palat said in wonderment as he crowded up to the viewing slit as well. “If we step out into that, we’re going to be outnumbered.”

  “The crowd will also give us a means of escaping,” Taramis said. “The church guards won’t be able to seal off all the exits and keep the crowd under control. Once we kill Buyard Cholik, there should be confusion enough to cover our retreat. After that, we’ll spread the truth about Kabraxis through the city.”

  “You can’t kill Buyard Cholik,” Raithen said.

  Darrick looked at the pirate captain. Aware of the pounding boots echoing down the tunnel, Darrick knew they didn’t have much time.

  “What do you mean?” Taramis asked.

  “I tried to kill the bastard,” Raithen said. “Weeks ago. I was part of the audience. I slipped a handheld crossbow past his guards and put a quarrel through his heart. I know I did. Yet a few hours later, Buyard Cholik gave another of his services. My attempt to assassinate him only made his fame grow even stronger.”

  It was Kabraxis, Mat said. The demon saved him. But even the demon can’t save him from Hauklin’s blade.

  “We can’t stay here,” Palat said. “And retreat is out of the question.”

  Darrick swept his eyes over the demon hunters, marveling again at the small group of men who had been brave enough to walk into the church against such insurmountable odds. If he’d been asked to do such a thing, instead of being chosen by an enchanted sword and accompanied by the ghost of his dead friend, he doubted he would have accompanied them. He had no choice about being there, but they did.

  Ye had a choice, Mat said. Ye could have walked away from this.

  The sour smell of the hay in the stable behind his father’s butcher shop swirled around Darrick. He could almost feel the heat of the day press against him, trapped by the small crawlspace among the rafters where the hay was kept. And where he’d lain while waiting to die or be killed the next time his father beat him.

  No, Darrick told himself. There had been no choice.

  Worthless, his father’s voice snarled.

  Steeling himself, drinking in air to keep his muscles loose and ready and energized, Darrick tried to ignore the voice.

  “What’s above us?” Darrick asked.

  The thunder of the approaching guards’ boots sounded closer, louder.

  “Steps,” Raithen said, “but they’re counterweighted. Once I release the lock, the steps will rise.”

  Darrick looked at Taramis, who glanced at his men.

  “If we stay here,” Palat said, “we’ll die. But out there, even with that stone snake moving around, we’ve got a chance.”

  Taramis nodded. “Agreed.”

  All the warriors readied their weapons.

  “We make the attempt on Cholik,” Taramis said, “then we get out of here if we can. We hope the demon will reveal himself. If not, we plan again.” He glanced at Darrick. “Hauklin’s sword is our best chance to get Kabraxis to come out of hiding.”

  “Aye,” Darrick said, taking a two-handed grip on the sword hilt. He gazed out at the cathedral again, noting how the circular area beneath the shifting stone snake resembled an arena. The flames around the snake’s snout blazed. Atop t
he serpent’s neck, Buyard Cholik rode the platform with calm assurance.

  “Do it,” Taramis ordered Raithen.

  The pirate captain reached beneath his robe and brought out a handheld crossbow. Along his burn-blackened hands, thick, crusty scabs cracked open and leaked blood. A madman’s grin fitted itself to his bloody lips as he reached for a small lever overhead. He gazed at Darrick. “Don’t fail me, sailor. I crossed blades with you before, aboard Barracuda. Be as good now as you were then. And be everything your little dead friend said you could be.”

  Before Darrick could respond, Raithen tripped the lever. In response, the hidden doorway built into the steps swung upward as light as a feather. Light from the cathedral invaded the small tunnel.

  Taramis led the way out, his orange robes swirling.

  Stepping out of the hiding place after the sage, Darrick was almost overwhelmed by the cacophony of sound that filled even the huge cathedral. Thousands of voices were lifted in praise of Dien-Ap-Sten, the Prophet of the Light.

  Church guards occupied a raised area to the right. All of them spotted the secret door opening. One of the bowmen lifted his weapon and drew an arrow back to his ear. Before the guard could properly aim his shaft, Raithen extended his hand with the crossbow in it and squeezed the trigger. The small bolt left Raithen’s weapon and pierced the guard’s Adam’s apple, nailing it to the back of his throat. The guard toppled from the raised area into the crowd, inciting a small riot and starting a wave of hoarse shouting and screaming.

  The guards erupted from the checkpoint, and the demon hunters ran to meet them. Steel rang on steel, and Darrick was in the thick of them.

  On the platform attached behind the stone snake’s head, Buyard Cholik brought the beast to a standstill even as the great, flaming mouth opened and disgorged a small boy who was swept up in the arms of his father.

  Stand ready, Mat said into Darrick’s mind. What ye’ve been facin’ so far is about to turn worse.

  “We can’t hold this position,” Palat said. Blood streaked his face, but not all of it was his own. “We need to run.”