Many Hidden Rooms (Cerah of Quadar Book 2)

by S. J. Varengo

  “Damn,” Cerah cursed. Immediately, she held her hand to her mouth and turned to her father. He smiled at her.

  “Cerah, I think the time for me chastising you for swearing has past. Do not misunderstand; I am still your father. But you are an adult now and one with a burden and responsibility that eclipses anything I ever felt raising you all in the Softer.”

  “I’m just so angry that there is so much about this fiend that we don’t know. His army is nearly as large as ours.”

  “Larger,” said Jerund. “The creatures that clawed their way out of the women, your poor sister included, were probably close to ninety thousand in number.”

  “So how is he moving them? And from where? How long before we arrived did they depart?”

  “A week, nine days at the most. The passage of time in that place was muddled.”

  “Which means they may have been somewhere on the Frozen South as we were climbing Mount Opatta. Obviously, they didn’t depart from where our ships were anchored. They would have easily overtaken the scant force Renton left to guard them and could have used the ships to sail to their destination. The Frozen South is vast. They could have moored their conveyance a thousand miles from where we were and we would have never been the wiser. Damn, damn, damn!”

  “I wish I could tell you more,” Jerund said.

  “No, it’s alright, Father. You’ve told me much, and for my part I wish you didn’t have to think about it at all. I need you to heal and rest.”

  “And I am,” he said. “We all are. But know this: when we reach Niliph and you decide what your next move will be, I will be numbered among Slurr’s army. For all of my life my greatest desire has been to provide for you and your brothers and sisters. Now all I want in this world is to drive a blade through the bodies of as many of those vulgar creatures as I can reach. Give me a sword, and I will serve the Chosen One!”

  “Be careful, boys,” said Slurr as two groups of twenty men each pointed their spears at a raging snow beast. The hunters approaching from the left were attempting to bait the monster into charging at them so that the men on the right flank could strike. But the snow beast was not falling for the trap. Instead, it turned its head back and forth, taking swipes at both groups and keeping them from getting close enough to plunge their spears into its body. More men stood farther back, spears ready, should they need to fill in the embattled columns.

  Waleen, the wizard who had accompanied Slurr’s party, rode his dragon, Keera, between the two groups of spear-carriers, and the big blue trumpeted loudly, trying to draw the creature’s attention himself. The sight of the great dragon was obviously upsetting the beast, who snarled ferociously in its direction. Waleen moved close enough so that Keera could lunge his head toward the white monster, withdrawing it just as rapidly as the animal swung his huge clawed hand in the dragon’s direction.

  “Now!” shouted Slurr, as the snow beast took a step toward Keera. The hunters attacked from both sides at once. Several spears dug deep into the creature’s flesh as it let out a horrid howl. As the men moved to strike again, the snow beast grabbed one of the spears and pulled the hunter in toward him. It slashed the man across the throat. “No! Not too close!” Slurr called. The men moved slightly, then struck again. Again, the beast bellowed in pain. This time, however, it fell. The men continued spearing it until they were sure it was dead.

  “Excellent!” said Slurr, then: “Waleen, tend to that man.”

  The wizard hopped down off of his match-mate and ran to the wounded hunter. He quickly cast a mending spell, closing the gaping wound on his neck. The man’s eyes fluttered, then opened. “He’ll make it,” Waleen said.

  “That is our eighth kill,” Slurr told the men. “It’s time for us to head back and meet up with the other parties.” He was grateful that his interpretation of Cerah’s uneasy feeling while passing through the foothills had proven correct. The bluffs were crawling with snow beasts. The group had tied ropes to the freshly killed monster and began to drag it out to where the other seven were similarly bound. Slurr had at last found one positive thing about being within this huge desert of ice: it made it easy to haul the gigantic cadavers along the ground. They slid easily over the sheer surface.

  Even so, it took five hours to make their way out of the hills and back to the flat plain that characterized the vast majority of the Frozen South. As Slurr’s party moved toward the wind-whipped red banner, he saw that three other units had already arrived. When they had gotten close enough, he could see dozens of slaughtered snow beasts piled, bound, and ready for the long hike back to the shoreline, where the majority of the remnant were waiting.

  But Yarren and his group had not yet returned. Slurr looked toward the western hills. To his great displeasure he could see that they were blanketed in clouds. A rare storm was clearly covering them. “I thought it only stormed on the mountain,” said Waleen.

  “Parnasus said that the mountain made its own weather, and that the ice plains were largely immune to storms. It would seem the hills, however, are not. That looks like a very bad blizzard.” They decided to wait to see if Yarren’s group would return by night. Night! Slurr thought. Not much difference between the night and the day in this perpetual gloom. The sun barely creeps above the horizon, then sets again two hours later. The rest of the time it’s stars. He judged from Antera’s low perch in the East that they would have about four hours to wait.

  When those four hours had elapsed, Antera had made its way well into the sky, and Yarren had not returned. Slurr considered the situation. The soldiers waiting back at the coast would be running low on provisions. They still had a four-day march to get back to them, and now they had the burden of the dead snow beasts to deal with as well. But he was not about to abandon the young wizard of whom he had grown so fond, nor the brave soldiers who had accompanied him. Finally, he made a decision.

  “Waleen, lead the men back to the coast. You are in command. I am going to look for Yarren and his party.”

  “General,” said Waleen, a concerned expression crossing his wide, round face, “it is not a good idea to head into that storm alone. We killed many snow beasts, but not all of them.”

  Slurr patted Gorshinda, sheathed at his waist. “I will deal with that situation if and when it arises. No more discussion. Get marching. The men are waiting for their snow beast steaks!”

  Without another word he reached into the pocket of his molute breeches and withdrew his floppy green hat. Jamming it onto his head, he began marching to the west. As he did, he heard Waleen call from behind him, “All hail General Slurr!”

  “Hail!” came the response from the eight hundred men. Slurr halted briefly, turned, and gave them the raised fist salute, then continued on his path. The troops, grudgingly following Slurr’s orders, turned and headed back across the ice.

  Two hours later, Slurr reached the hills and headed into the heart of the storm.

  As Renton had hoped, the dark clouds they had seen two days before had moved on, leaving the skies clear. He had kept them under close observation as they gradually faded. While he was certainly glad that they were gone, he did not like the way they had looked. He had seen far more storm clouds than he cared to remember, but he did not recall any that had looked or acted quite like these, for they had seemed to linger in one place far too long, before finally moving rapidly away.

  The farther they had sailed from the Frozen South, the brighter the sky had become. Seeing the sun again buoyed the spirits of men and wizards alike. And now the continent of Niliph was in sight.

  They sailed into the harbor of Roo in the early hours of their fifth day at sea. Immediately, Cerah could see that something was wrong.

  No one waited on the docks as the first ships of the massive fleet made their way in to moor. In fact, not a single person was visible anywhere. As Cerah and Tressida flew to the shore and touched down, she noticed the sky was full of thousands of black surilla birds.

  “Those birds are scavengers,” she
said to Tressida. “Carrion eaters.” She slid off the golden dragon’s back and made her way into the city. The sight that greeted her was horrific.

  Bodies lay everywhere, bloating in the early morning sun. Many were riddled with arrows. Others had been torn apart, a sure sign that Silestra had been there. Gradually, she was joined by other wizards and the first of the humans to come off the ships. They walked through the streets of Roo in total silence.

  Everywhere they turned they found corpses. Hundreds of bodies littered the avenues in the vicinity of the harbor. Thousands more were found the farther they moved into the city. Cerah saw evidence of armed individuals and realized that the defensive force had done their best against the onslaught but had been overwhelmed. Men, women, and to Cerah’s horror, children lay dead in the cold sunlight. Even the city’s animals had been slaughtered. Only the birds, flying from one meal to another, remained alive.

  “He’s killed them all,” Cerah said at last. “Just as we realized that this was the closest land to his home, he chose Niliph and headed here.” She turned to Parnasus, who stood by her side. “We’re too late, Elder! What a fool I’ve been! I was so sure that we would trap him that I did not leave nearly enough of our army to mount any kind of defense. He will be able to do this again, wherever he heads next. I’ve not saved Quadar, I’ve doomed it!”

  “No, Cerah,” said Parnasus. “He has not won. Quadar is a large planet. The ten continents are spread out over its surface. He has to transport his foul army the same way we must move ours. We can still find him. We can still oppose him!”

  Cerah fought for all she was worth not to lose control. Over the past months she had grown immensely in both power and confidence. But now that poise was being shaken to the core. She had had the audacity to Go Within for the sole purpose of taunting Surok, of telling him that she was coming. She was sure that they would arrive in time. How had he gotten free? Her last view of him had shown his legs still encased in Opatta’s blue crystal almost to the calves. It had taken centuries to erode to that point. How could the rest have fallen away in just a matter of weeks?

  Instead of striking fear, Cerah had merely alerted him. He knew the time had come to begin his assault. He had come to Niliph and had wiped out the city of Roo, slaughtering every living thing that walked upon the ground. Armethia, she was sure, had suffered the same fate. And now he was moving on to a new target.

  As devastated as she was, Cerah drew a deep breath, and set her jaw. She turned to Kern, who had joined Parnasus beside her. “Send the riders to every one of the ten continents. We must locate Surok before he does this to another city. Parnasus is right. He has to move his troops just as we do. My father sensed that the darkness Renton pointed out to me had something to do with him. So foul is he that he must bring darkness with him wherever he moves. Tell the riders to look for that. As soon as he is located, we will follow him. Our ships are swift. We will overtake him, and we will stop him.

  “In the meantime, we will allow the army to recover, and we will continue to nurse the rescued captives. If we can bring them to full health, many can be armed and join in our mission. I’m sure the prospect of having their revenge against the creatures who enslaved them will be a welcome one. Jerund, for one, looks forward to the opportunity with relish.”

  Kern nodded and went to gather the riders. Parnasus remained with Cerah.

  “Twice now, Surok has struck first. I will not permit him to do so again,” she said. “I was too confident, and it cost many of our warriors their lives on the Frozen South. It cost the people of Niliph theirs as well.”

  “It is not the beginning I had pictured for our campaign,” the First-Elder admitted. Cerah nodded gravely.

  “Now I must see that these ships are readied and sent back to retrieve those we left behind. Our forces must be at full strength when we track the demon down,” she said, and she hurried back to the docks. “Tell the people to gather the dead. They must be honored,” she said over her shoulder.

  Two days after the first of the hunters returned to the shore, Yarren and his party arrived as well. Slurr was not with them.

  “What became of you?” asked Waleen as Yarren climbed weakly off of Valosa’s back.

  “We got caught in a wretched storm,” the wizard said. “For nearly a day we were unable to get our bearings. I knew that if we didn’t make our way out of the blizzard quickly we would all be lost, so I told the men to abandon the snow beasts we had killed, and I led them in the direction that it seemed the storm was least powerful. It took us another day, but we eventually made it out. When we did, however, we were miles from the meeting place. We had actually traveled to the southeast and had to double back. We finally found the banner, but no one remained. I figured that General Slurr would not risk the lives of the many, and that he would lead them back here. Where is he?”

  Waleen cast his eyes to the ground. “He went alone to look for you,” he said at last.

  “He did what? Is he mad? We barely got out of the storm alive, and we had two hundred men and a dragon to help one another. He marched into that blizzard alone?”

  “He would listen to none of us,” Waleen said miserably. “He was determined to find you. But the General is strong, and he is resourceful. He may yet find his way back to us.”

  Yarren was devastated. If his getting lost in the storm had cost Slurr his life, he would never forgive himself. And, he was sure, neither would the Chosen One. The thought of returning to Niliph without him was more than he could bear.

  For six days they waited for Slurr’s return. Yarren had sent the wizards back to search for him, forcing the dragons to fly in the frigid air. The strain on them was unimaginable, but they tried repeatedly to locate him. The young wizard had hoped that once the storm ended they would be able to spot the general, but each rescue flight had returned without him.

  Then finally, after several days of failed attempts, the ships returned. When Renton, who insisted on leading the mission to recover the remnant, learned that Slurr had gone missing, he was overcome with grief. Even as he oversaw the loading of the soldiers, he stood on the ice, peering into the distance with his spyglass. He told the wizards of the fate of Niliph, further deepening their despair.

  Eventually, everyone was brought on board. Renton sought out Yarren. The wizard stood by his dragon, his head hung dejectedly. “We have to head back now,” the admiral said. “Cerah needs the army at full strength.”

  “I know,” said Yarren. “The men can remain here no longer. Neither can the wizards. All are needed in the search for Surok.”

  “Very well,” said Renton. “We will set sail at once.”

  “I am not returning with you,” Yarren said. “I will not leave Slurr here. Even if I bring back his corpse, I will bring him back. Tell the Chosen One that one way or another, I will return her husband to her.”

  Renton thought briefly about arguing with the young wizard, but he saw the determination in his tear-filled eyes. “I will bring her your message,” he said.

  Yarren mounted Valosa and gave him a tap with his heels. Straining, the mighty dragon took flight. As Renton boarded the Marta and gave the order to set sail, he watched as the rider vanished into the distance.

  Chapter 11

  Tears of a Newborn

  When Renton stepped off the Marta, Cerah was waiting. She could tell something was horribly wrong by the grief-stricken expression on his weathered face. When she realized that Slurr was not with him, she felt a cold fear rising.

  “What has happened, Renton? Where is he? Where is my husband?”

  “He sent out a hunting party. They were led by Yarren. They got caught in a terrible storm. When they did not return, he went after them. The party eventually found their way back, but Slurr was not seen again.”

  “Lost? Gone?” Cerah fell to her knees, her entire body trembling. She could not catch her breath. She felt her heart pounding within her, as though it would explode. The sky was torn with a hideous scream.
It was Tressida, flying toward her fallen match-mate at breakneck speed. Her claws dug deep trenches in the ground as she skidded to a stop by Cerah’s side.

  “What is it, Cerah? What has happened? You feel to me like you are dying!”

  “Slurr has been lost!” she screamed aloud. “He went to find Yarren and he did not return.”

  At the sound of the Chosen One’s cries, several wizards came running to see what was wrong. One of them was Russa. She had heard Cerah mention her betrothed. She turned to Renton. “You speak of Yarren. Where is he?”

  “He refused to come with us. He said he would not return until he found Slurr.”

  Now Russa’s cries joined with Cerah’s. The two women turned and fell into each other’s arms. For many minutes they were inconsolable. Cerah cared not that her followers saw her despair. This was more than she could handle. Even the Chosen One had her limits. From the moment they had walked into the abandoned Ice Cavern to find Surok and his army had gone, Cerah had begun to feel the weight of guilt upon her. She had led them on a fool’s mission, losing untold lives in the process. Then they had come to Roo, only to find the people there had been massacred. And now both Yarren and her rock, her beloved Slurr, were lost! As she wailed in Russa’s arms, she felt that not only had she failed her followers, she had sinned against Ma’uzzi. Instead of defeating Surok before he could strike the Green Lands and the Free People, she had, in her unforgivable hubris, acted as an accomplice to the demon of the Frozen South, essentially handing Quadar to him on a silver salver.

  But then, in a sudden flash, something happened inside of Cerah’s soul. It was a feeling she recognized but could not at first identify. After a moment, her head snapped up.

  “He lives!” she shouted. “The Greater Spark reveals it. Slurr lives, and Yarren is with him!” The guilt and blackness of transgression against her God had not gone, but her dread at losing Slurr vanished.