Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga

by Regina Watts

  Was this transmission because of Al-listux, I wondered on our long journey to the surface? Thanks to the intervention of Valeria’s guard, the spirit-thief did not long have its tentacles in me. At the time I saw a pulsing flash of that awful hivemind, but I then thought no more on the matter because I had been preoccupied by escaping El’ryh and hunting Valeria’s would-be assassin. This second time, however, I recognized it straightaway—and sensed that, even with so little exposure to the direct control of the spirit-thief, the hivemind of those hateful squid-headed beings now had some insight into my consciousness.

  In the time it took us to emerge from the Nightlands, I managed to tell myself all number of things—that I was being paranoid, absurd. That I was ascribing to a far simpler dream the will and intercession of an interloper when I had no real evidence that such things were possible. What did I know of magic, though? I had met many magic-users of many different kinds, but only those whose spells were related to prayer made any real sense to me. I had no head for arts described in grimoires, and in fact I confess I then maintained a certain suspicion of such crafts. Even Valeria’s prayers to Roserpine were, strictly speaking, heathen magic that was engaged without the permission of the Church…but, as previously mentioned, I have never taken offense to the veneration of lesser gods. Their worship did not empower them; certainly not enough to mitigate Weltyr’s glory.

  Similarly, there was a part of me that did not wish to ascribe any power at all to the despised enemy of sentient life on Urde, the hateful spirit-thieves. It were as though, in admitting to myself that brief contact with Al-listux had done something to me without leaving behavioral evidence behind, I would be the bearer of some black mark. Some unlucky and uncomfortable brand many more times more painful than the one upon the back of my shoulder, now healed and scarred over in record time thanks to the potion the ladies gave to revive me for a second time.

  We arrived at the surface after two blooms and two darks, and in that time precious little was discussed for fear of drawing monsters to us. We had no wish to test the limits of the lantern’s kindly ward; and, as we journeyed farther from El’ryh, that became an increasing possibility.

  “There are all sorts of hideous things through here,” our guide deigned to tell us, his hushed voice all the lower for the obvious fear he had of this subject. “You’d think things would be more dangerous the deeper you went, but in my experience it’s the other way ‘round. Closer to the surface is where you find creatures of the types that prey on lowly adventurers without the expertise to make it too far down.”

  “When I was coming down here by myself this time,” said Branwen, arms folded while she walked as part of the column formation I tailed, “I saw a thing or two that was very strange…one awful thing, a creature that was just a mass of flesh dotted with gibbering mouths. Like something from a nightmare.”

  I arched my brow. “And the other thing?”

  “Oh,” she said, “only these funny little creatures like gnomes, or so I thought…but I happened to see them from nearby while I was in hiding to let them pass without trouble. They looked like little dragon-men!”

  “The gimlets,” said our guide with the most genuine levity he’d shown in our whole journey. I suppose that, because Branwen was not an aggressor in the extermination of his family, he felt more comfortable with her. I can’t say I blame him, but it was certainly good to hear him laugh for once. He continued, “Ah, I love them! What merry little fellows. Not very well-organized, and a bit skittish—always on the defense—but in spite of this, really rather charming. Once they get to trusting you, they’re exceedingly loyal.”

  “Like dogs,” muttered Odile, drawing a sharp look from Adonisius and a displeased little sniff as he turned his head away again. “What? It’s true…there’s something of a dog about them, you can’t deny.”

  “I suppose, if you must. Perhaps you find them that way because of their voices…they don’t have the vocal range to speak the common tongue, nor any other known to mankinds, so there will always be a language barrier to overcome. But there are other means than speech to communicate in this world…decency is universal.”

  This, I am sure, is the only reason why Adonisius did not lead us to our deaths. Over those two days we gradually climbed to the surface by way of inclining tunnels, claustrophobic crevices, and sometimes frightful cliff-faces that Valeria in particular struggled to scale. We were tired, aggravated, and uncomfortable. Thanks to the food taken from the bandit den, we were not famished. We only once ran into difficulties with monsters, the magic lantern keeping at bay all things but a slime creature that Indra wanted to show us. She recognized it with great excitement spread out on a wall and dashed off to poke it with one of our pilfered scimitars. While explaining a bit about it—like, for instance, its nature as a dormant mold until it was touched, at which point it sought out and consumed all organic materials it could absorb—Indra scurried away like a girl for the security of the lantern’s halo. As she giggled, the brainless beast formed itself into a great cube and slowly oozed after her. I admit, I was quite astonished to see its like!

  It was then that we learned another valuable lesson—that the light of the lantern had no more sway over brainless entities than over highly intelligent evils. The sweating cube wriggled into the light and kept coming for us, its digestive body dirty with the filth of the Nightlands and visibly full of matted fur along with dissolving bones. Strife, much to my dismay, merely severed the cube in twain and produced two writhing, shivering jelly creatures. Indra suggested lighting a fire.

  “Maybe that will scare it off,” she cried, her crossbow raised out of habit rather than effect while Valeria began conjuring her wisp flame.

  “It’s the only way to kill one of these things,” agreed Adonisius while backing along the tunnel down which the cube lurched. “Fire, lightning, some kind of elemental spell.”

  “Good idea,” called Branwen, pushing past me with one fine hand braced upon my shoulder. The other outstretched toward the beast. The air around the druid seemed to glow; it certainly gathered a thick charge of static. She had braided her hair into comely twin plaits that draped over her shoulders, but this summoning of nature’s lightning revealed that in the time of our journey many little hairs had come undone. They floated, even her very braids levitating as light leapt from her fingertips and jolted down the tunnel to burn the malicious slime.

  The durrow all cried out and covered their sensitive eyes. A terrible wet spurting noise, like the tearing of organ meat, flopped fluidly through the tunnel. The cubes, reduced in size and no longer capable of maintaining definite shape, reformed into one quivering mass and retreated back down the tunnel to let us go along our way.

  Aside from that, we encountered nothing else. No giant spiders, no gibbering sacks of flesh, no curious gimlets—just a long, exhausting hike during which I had time to think of two things incessantly. That dream, and what we were going to do once we were on the surface.

  That one flash of lightning from the tips of Branwen’s fingers made me consider an important point. Durrow eyes were extraordinarily sensitive. Once aboveground we would have to travel mostly at night. In fact, even if we managed to lay hands on some dwarfish welding goggles or colored scholar glasses effective enough to protect their eyes, night would still be the most prudent time to travel for social reasons.

  I had seen men and women of all colors and creeds in my time growing up of the surface of Urde. There were countless travelers from all countries who came through Skythorn on business or pleasure. Humans aside, dwarves and gnomes and elves and even sometimes half-orcs had come to the Temple to be baptized or to simply observe a ceremony. I had met all manner of people on the surface of Urde.

  But I had never seen a durrow until I ventured into the belly of the Nightlands.

  Now, of course, I understood some reasons for their secrecy. I also understood that this scarcity of their race aboveground would draw attention to us…and not always des
irable attention by any means. Yet, to Valeria, the risk seemed worth it—and, at any rate, she trusted I would find a solution for her in one way or another.

  To the former Materna of Roserpine, I must have seemed a fairy tale savior. If she was to be believed—and to look at her, I could not help but see honesty in her features—she had dreamed of me since she was a girl. Dreamed that I would free her from El’ryh. Dreamed that I would show her to the surface.

  And here we were.

  I am not sure how I knew we were near the surface. Perhaps I picked up on some change in the dirt or some alteration of echo that my conscious mind did not catch. There is part of me, though, that suspects I knew we reached the end of our subterranean hike not because of the echo or the air current, but because of Valeria’s trembling. She quivered while we drew higher, drew nearer to release. When I brushed her hand, she jolted as though she had seen another monster like the shivering cube. Valeria looked at me then, her delicate features an intermingling of fear and excitement. As I held the Materna’s hand I felt Branwen’s blue eye on us, and I hoped she knew I would have done the same for her had she needed me to.

  At last, once we had clambered up the sharp edge of another cliff, the misshapen for whom such things were much less taxing watched us help each other to our feet.

  “This is where I leave you,” said our guide, once again speaking primarily to Branwen. “I am not welcome on the surface. The end of this tunnel opens to a mountainside cave in Cascadia. If you descend, you should easily enough find the highway, or so I am told…you can follow that to a small village, Soot. Although, which way one might go to find it, I am not sure.”

  I nodded, knowing he would not accept the shake of my hand and leaving it at a slight bow of my waist. “Thank you for assisting us, Adonisius, even after all we’ve done against you.”

  “You’ve done plenty for me, as well as against me.” After tapping the helmet Valeria traded him in exchange for guiding us to the garden of the mysterious Nightlands shape-changer, he admitted, “I’m not so sure I will be able to return to that home and sleep again, but I may be able to make use of the property in some way.”

  He turned to leave, but Weltyr urged me onward. I reached out and touched his arm, pained to think of the perception this good and quiet man should have of me after what I had done to his kin. He winced, deepening the sorrow I felt, but as our eyes met he clearly saw there was no malice for him in me.

  “Whenever you offer Hamsunt libations or gold or whatever other gifts you devote to him,” I bade the Nightlands guide, “pray for my forgiveness, please, Adonisius. Even if you are unable to forgive me, pray that your god will.”

  Though somewhat taken aback, the misshapen turned this over in his mind. As I released him, he nodded earnestly. “I will. I will do that, Rorke Burningsoul, Paladin of Weltyr. I’ll pray for all of you—for your wellness, and safe travels. Be careful…I’ve heard it said that there are stranger and more terrible things on the surface than any I have met in the Nightlands.”

  And, with one more brief genuflection of his spider legs, Adonisius scaled back down the tunnel system through which he had guided us.

  “Onward,” I said, my hand resting upon Strife’s pommel while I led the way to the surface.

  The final passage of our journey was a long and dark one. Now I could definitely tell we were close to the surface just by the smell of the air. To describe the Nightlands as foul or even stuffy would be perhaps inaccurate—surely these effects were psychological. I am a tall man and broad-shouldered, and confined spaces have always left me somewhat ill-at-ease. To have a cavernous roof over my head rather than sky therefore produced in me a certain psychological tension; an oppressive dreariness that came on so steadily I had not even noticed its insidious arrival until, with proximity to the surface, it lifted. Free of this shroud, my step hastened just slightly, and my heart sped with anticipation to breathe the fresh air of Urde.

  My companions, meanwhile, seemed to experience similar invigorating effects. The journey had been tedious and, with grim Adonisius leading the way, sometimes uncomfortable. We had not been able to discuss much more than harmless matters of small-talk—the flora and fauna of the Nightlands, the food of El’ryh, and the prior adventures of Indra and Odile were our main matters of discourse until our guide left us. Now, in a straightforward exit of the tunnel system with little in the way of danger, my elfin companions chattered away in delight and relief.

  “I’ve never been to the surface, Odile!” Indra in particular burst with excitement, her words bubbling out of her with girlish glee. “What will it be like?”

  “Bright, mostly…but beautiful.”

  I glanced back at that. “What did the people of your colony do to protect their eyes when traveling on the surface during the day, Odile?”

  “They didn’t. Mostly we went about our business in the nighttime, and a few sympathetic humans or other surface-dwelling people helped us with what we needed during the day. There was a man in my village, a musician, who managed to spend more time on the surface than any of the rest of us. He used colored glasses to protect his eyes from the light…but not even those were sufficient, and after quite a few years of doing this, he ended up almost blind.”

  With a grimace of sympathetic pain, I said, “Perhaps we’ll travel at night until we come up with a solution, then…lucky us, it seems like it must be nighttime now.”

  It was, indeed—perhaps even later than I had anticipated, the lack of sunlight being disorienting as it was to my sense of time. In fact, the night was already so black that I did not realize I was looking at the end of the tunnel until Valeria’s breath seized in her lungs. In a move so sudden and therefore uncharacteristic it almost startled me, she bolted past me. She somehow even found the energy to sprint down the tunnel. I called after her, as did Indra; after glancing back over my shoulder at the other ladies, I took off at a jog to catch up to her. Branwen, Indra and Odile ran after me, each wondering in her heart what it was Valeria could have seen. At long last, we broke free of the tunnel and skidded to a halt in open air.

  Indra and Odile gasped; Branwen and I cried with delight.

  Valeria, eyes full of tears, stood with one hand over her mouth and her face turned toward the stars.

  “I can’t see them,” she whispered, laughing, blinking, the soft white plumes of her hair blowing wild in the night breeze of that cold mountainside.

  “What’s that, Valeria?”

  I placed my hand on her shoulder and she laughed all the harder. She shut her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks, and flung her trembling body into my arms. While I pressed her to my heart, she gasped out, “The stars, Rorke—I’ve waited so long to see them, and now after all this time I can’t see them because I’m crying too much.”

  I laughed very gently, my hand keeping her fragrant head against the throbbing rhythm of my heart. “There we are, my queen, good Materna of Roserpine—there are your stars, Valeria. They’ll be there still when your tears have dried, I promise.”

  “Not if I cry all dark.” Laughing, Valeria wiped a finger beneath her eye. Then, clasping my hands, she gazed up at the sky and smiled to herself in awe.

  Indra managed the same feat without weeping—though, to my great surprise, the same was not true of Odile. The seasoned rogue glanced up at the stars, stared for a handful of seconds, then turned her face away, to the base of the mountain, with a guarded sweep of her hand over the curve of her cheek.

  I pitied her immensely just then. She had told me once of the terror of her colony’s extermination at the hands of the Order of Weltyr…the very same protectors of the Temple who raised me, and the establishment of knights I was on this journey to join. Just to think of them, the odious dream-vision from our stay in the den returned to me again.

  You are being lied to, Eradicator.

  The voice pulsed in my brain, once more taking the same paths intuition took within my consciousness. I gritted my teeth and let my heart
fill with a prayer to Weltyr—an expression of my gratitude to be led out of the dark terrors of the Nightlands. To show my thanks to the watchful god, I looked around the world he made and took in everything I could.

  Adjusted as my eyes were by then to the darkness of the subterranean Nightlands, I had little difficulty making out the state of the terrain around us. Not beneath that densely starry sky. If I had to hazard a guess, this entrance was one utilized by travelers and merchants from the town Adonisius had called Soot. This village’s soft lamps glowed through the night in the distance to the north, natural gold rather than the blue wisps that hovered about the durrow to keep them warm.

  Valeria’s own floating faerie light had dropped near her feet so she might see the sky without its interference. The tips of her fingers resting upon the edge of her lower lip, her eyes trailed wildly over the sky. She marveled, “There are so many more colors than I was told…bursts of purple and blue and red…and so many stars!”

  “They have names…some of them make pictures or even stories. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about any of them. Oh! Well—wait, that fellow there, do you see those three? That’s Urio, the hunter. He’s supposed to be fighting a bull somewhere around here…who knows where that is.”

  While Valeria laughed along with my poor description, I smiled over at Branwen. The high elf, looking quite relieved, herself, looked away from the stars that had been helping her get her bearings.

  Her attention caught, I asked, “Could you show our friends a few basic constellations, Branwen? Help them orient themselves?”

  “Oh,” she said, pleasantly surprised and somehow pleased to have been called upon to teach the durrow anything at all. “Well, sure—first, you find the North Star…”

  As she pointed up and the dark elves gathered around her to follow her explanation, I looked around the area. Trees were not abundant at this altitude, but they were around, and a small cluster of pines marked the curve of a workable path down the edge of the mountain. How long it would take that path trod by merchants and wanderers to develop into more harrowing terrain, I was not sure. I thought it good to explore the issue somewhat.