Banished: A Katrina Baker Novel 01

by D. L. Harrison

  He asked, “Promise?”

  I couldn’t help it, I laughed, which drew another dark look from the guard outside my cell.

  I said, “We can go now if you want, or wait for dark. Right now I think I can get us out without killing anyone, but the streets are packed, and it’ll be impossible to sneak.”

  He replied, “Fine, we’ll wait, unless one of us gets tortured, hopefully they’ll want us to sweat it out for a while and imagine horrible things. Eventually they will torture us for information though, and then most likely kill us.”

  “Sounds like a good idea, avoiding the torture I mean. When we escape we’ll head north as to the plan. Everyone will be expecting us to run south back to Trelin.”

  I could feel him ponder that for a while, and he eventually agreed. It wasn’t like we had much choice anyway. It was my first quest, and I wasn’t about to give up because of a few setbacks. I was fairly confident we could escape, but we had to do our best not to kill anyone, that would just make it worse, I didn’t want to start a war between Trelin and Jendas.

  I just hoped it wasn’t already too late, I supposed it depended on just how bad the political climate was between the two kingdoms. I didn’t know enough to be sure either way.

  It was a long wait, and outside of being leered at by the guard, and he may have adjusted his package meaningfully a few times, nothing at all happened. I was pretty sure his lewd threats were just a way to make me panic and want to talk later. Then again, he may really want to rape me. I didn’t look into his mind to find out. The only minds I’d been in were the guards that handled our stuff, so I knew exactly where everything was, including Stormy. It was just a matter of waiting.

  When darkness fell I sent out a telepathic punch at all the guards in the dungeon at once, there were only eight, and they all passed out. Then I removed my chains, and unlocked the cell door. I walked over to Gerard’s cell, and as soon as I could see his chains, they too fell off as I opened his door.

  “Hi my love,” I said softly as I pushed him against the wall and kissed him. Goddess, I’d been wanting to do that all day. Why the hell would us being captured get me so hot? I had no idea.

  He kissed me back for a moment, and I wickedly considered following through on my earlier promise right there, but now really wasn’t the time, so I reluctantly stepped back and broke the kiss.

  “This way,” I said softly, and we maneuvered up the stairs and over to the guard room upstairs where four guards were asleep. All our stuff was locked up, we freed it. Then I walked over to one of the guards and reclaimed my gold. I wanted to teach him a lesson for thievery, but left well enough alone.

  I was careful, and tried not to act arrogant, but it was almost too easy. They really should have left a paladin or two to watch us, I couldn’t have taken paladins so easily, but they had no reason to think it would be necessary. I knocked every guard unconscious on the way to the stable as we left the dungeon, walked out of a side entrance to the castle, and made our way to the stable. There were only a few guards, and it was in the dark of the night. We saddled our horses, and mounted up.

  After that, I sent calming thoughts to both horses.

  “Hold on Gerard, I hope you like flying, just don’t panic and fall off.”

  I raised us all a few hundred feet into the air, and took off north as fast as I could, which was very fast. Just five minutes later, we landed at least ten miles north of the city. I felt a little fatigued, but not as bad as I’d thought I would. Maybe I was getting stronger? I was still just eighteen after all, and had only really learned control over the last couple of weeks I’d been on this world.

  Gerard seemed to take it well and got the tent set up, a good night’s sleep sounded like a good idea. It wasn’t that late, we’d gone right after sunset.

  Gerard echoed my thoughts, “We should sleep, and be ready to move fast at daylight.”

  I nodded slowly, but my voice was a little sultry, “Sleep sounds good, but I have a promise to keep first…”

  I smiled as his eyes widened, and I pushed him gently inside the tent…

  The following day there were no signs of pursuit, although we still had to leave the road a few times when soldiers or other groups of people passed. We didn’t want to take the chance they’d spread the word and others would recognize us by chance. Mages could communicate over long distances so it was a valid concern.

  Regardless, we came into sight of Newacre in the early afternoon. It was the last town before the mountains that the Shadowhall was said to inhabit. We weren’t sure exactly, but James seemed to think we’d have to travel at least two more days to reach it from here when we’d planned it out. I just hoped the manuscript had been correct about that, all of it really, even if it was rather vague.

  Gerard said, “I’d love a bed, but we should camp out of sight, and sneak by the town in the early morning, and up into the mountains.”

  I frowned in thought, he was probably right. If we could avoid being seen at all anywhere the rest of this trip, it would be better all the way around.

  It was still early in the afternoon, so we set up the tent, and talked away much of the afternoon, and we played around a bit too. Sometimes I thought I liked that part of our relationship a little too much. It was hard not to, not when I could feel his love, and even share in his pleasure with my empathy… added to my own it just made it all that much better.

  Before we went to sleep, Gerard said in a serious voice, “I love you Katrina. I just wanted you to know how much before we face whatever is up there in those mountains. Will you marry me when we get back to Magehaven?”

  I swallowed a lump in my throat as my mind blanked. Marry him? My first thought was I was only eighteen, and I’d only known him two weeks. But I’ve also never known anyone like him, or as well as I knew him. We’d been together almost constantly, and honestly I couldn’t imagine being apart from him anymore. Still, it was a surprise, and it took me a moment to formulate the simple one-word answer.

  “Yes,” I said in a soft shocked voice, still not quite believing that he’d asked, or that I was so eager to do so. I wondered if I was nuts.

  He kissed me softly and we made love again before we went to sleep for the night.

  Chapter 18

  We woke up to another earthquake, this time much stronger. It was almost dawn, so we decided to get going and packed up our camp. It was simple to sneak around the village, they weren’t guarding anything and most of them were asleep, or distracted by the earthquake.

  Either way, we flitted up the trail into the mountains and traveled at a slower pace than usual. The path was treacherous in places, and we didn’t want to lame one of the horses. Even when the sun rose, we stayed at a slow steady pace. The good news was we didn’t run into a soul all day, the people of Jendas had no reason to come this way, Newacre was as far as the kingdom extended.

  I supposed in a way, we were no longer in Jendas.

  When we stopped for lunch, I used the create food and water spell for the first time, and the food was actually very good. We never should have went into Castlehaven in the first place. Then we put on the cold weather gear, and continued up into the mountains. Not much of anything happened, we just chatted and followed the trail. We knew it had to go somewhere, and according to the document James read us it shouldn’t be hard to find.

  Although for that first day I couldn’t identify the four peaks I’d seen in my dream. All I knew was is I’d scream if it turned out to be in Chilik. No, it had to be here, I recognized Newacre as the second flash in my vision. Burned to the ground with no life, but it was definitely the same place.

  We stopped when the sun went down, and set up the tent and had a quick meal. It wasn’t that cold yet, but I did use my pyro-kinetic ability to warm it up a little bit and take the chill off. I hoped we just had one more day of travel, and after we ate we settled down for bed as the sun went down.

  It was just a few minutes later that my holy symbol started to
glow.

  Gerard cursed under his breath, and drew his sword, which also started to glow. I prayed the magic weapon spell, which imbued my dagger. We left the tent to find a large group of skeletons, and a few zombies with flesh falling off their bones. I sent a telekinetic strike against a group of skeletons which crushed their skulls into dust.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t stop them.

  Gerard lunged forward, and his holy sword seemed to kill them in one strike. I could have pulverized the whole skeleton, but that would have been a major drain, so I used telekinesis to guide my knife, and killed them one by one as quickly as I could. I wished I had a magical weapon like Gerard, but the goddess spelled dagger seemed to be doing okay so far.

  I was also ready to fly if I had to, but Gerard was fierce, and didn’t let any of the undead close with me at all. A short time later we were surrounded by bones and rotting corpses. Gerard had taken a few hits to his armor, but neither of us had been injured.

  “Where do I get a sword like yours?”

  Gerard chuckled, “They’re very rare, you could always ask Arella, she might set you a quest to find one, or make you one herself.”

  I sighed, maybe later, I was too busy saving the world right now.

  I used telekinesis and moved all the bodies into a pile, and set it afire. We just started to relax and considered going back to sleep, when more skeletons appeared.

  It went on like that all night, except now that I had a great big fire I just used telekinesis to pick up several undead at a time and drop them on the pyre. Fire worked fairly well for undead I found out. Still, by the time daylight came I was exhausted, mentally and physically.

  I blurted out, “We need to travel at night.”

  Gerard looked at me and raised an eyebrow.

  I shrugged, “It will be safe to sleep during the day. We can also use a light spell to find our way at night since there aren’t any humans up here to see us, and we can just kill the skeletons and zombies as we move. I suppose we can move in the afternoon and evening as well, just as long as we get a good day’s sleep.”

  He nodded in agreement, “You’re right, I’m ready to pass out anyway.”

  I moved the new bodies that Gerard killed, killed again? I moved them to the fire, and we retired to the tent, finally safe from the undead in the light of day, we fell asleep quickly.

  The next night worked pretty much to plan, except it was slower going than I’d first expected. The only good part was we’d woken up fairly early in the afternoon fully rested, which meant we got a good five or six hours of daylight to make good ground. The biggest problem was not being stationary, I kept having to create new bonfires.

  It was probably around midnight when I recognized the snowy peaks ahead, although I couldn’t see Shadowhall yet, it was night and the thing was supposed to be black.

  Gerard suggested, “Let’s wait here, and get rest at dawn and go in midday. I want a safe place in the sun if we’re forced to retreat from whatever is in there raising all these dead.”

  I smirked, “I like the way you think.”

  We were cautious for the rest of the night, but it was almost easy now. We had a system as we fought back the undead until dawn’s light, and I had a nice large bonfire going as well. It was very tiring too, but we held out until the sun rose. I took a minute to look at Shadowhall, and was a bit surprised. It was a small castle without any walls surrounding it, but it was made entirely of black obsidian.

  I frowned and looked up at the peeks that seemed to be mostly connected, and I felt a shiver run down my spine as my home world knowledge of volcanology kicked in.

  Holy crap.

  The four peeks were just the highest part of what used to be a caldera, and we were literally standing on a volcano. I wondered, or rather I hoped that the volcano wasn’t waking up, it could just be settling with all the earthquakes. I took a deep breath through my nose, and I didn’t scent any sulfurous fumes.

  Well, volcano going off or not, I realized it was probably the earthquakes that broke whatever seal was put on this evil long ago. Now it was out, and probably wanted revenge. Like completely destroying Jendas and then Trelin. That kind of revenge.

  “What is it?” Gerard asked in a concerned voice, “You look… disturbed.”

  I smiled softly, and then explained my theory. He didn’t seem to know much about volcanos, but took my word for it. I shook off the mood, and we went to get some sleep, either way this would be over later this afternoon.

  Chapter 19

  I felt a sense of foreboding as we moved toward the entrance, which had obviously been breached very recently. I could also feel evil emanating from the small castle of obsidian, and when we stepped across the threshold I gasped and moved back. My holy symbol had turned cold, and the warmth and presence of the goddess that I’d barely realized had always been with me until that moment, had been taken away.

  I frowned, that meant I probably wouldn’t be able to cast spells once we got in there. I prayed for magic weapon, and I knew it would only last about forty minutes, I hoped that was long enough. Gerard’s sword kept glowing on the inside, and I wished again that I had a holy weapon of my own.

  I shivered as I stepped back inside, and we moved down the corridor. It was suffocating, the evil coming off the place, and I was cut off from Arella. Truthfully, I wanted to flee this place, and never come back.

  We made it to the first cross corridor, when I heard a loud click, and the floor opened up beneath us. There were about thirty skeletons jammed inside a room below us, with no room to maneuver, and I also saw some fairly fresh corpses below.

  I said softly, “We’d be in trouble if I couldn’t fly.”

  Gerard snickered, “I love you.”

  I winked, and we flew over the pit toward the walkway.

  Gerard said, “Wait, look at that,” and he pointed down.

  There were several corpses down there, it looked like a large group of paladins. I wondered if maybe this was the group that the Jendas king had sent to take care of this problem, if so it was up to us. But that wasn’t what he wanted to point out, from this angle I could see a glowing weapon.

  I’ll admit, a little avarice flowed through me as I reached out with telekinesis, and snatched the glowing weapon. It was a longsword, and for a second I’d wished it was a dagger instead, and then almost laughed at myself for being so picky. It was a holy weapon.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  He nodded, “A cursed item wouldn’t glow with a holy aura like that, can’t you feel it?”

  I nodded slowly, “Yes.”

  It was ugly, but I used telekinesis to snatch the dead paladin’s scabbard as well, I hoped if he was watching from the afterlife he wouldn’t mind the thievery. I’d still keep my dagger of course, and I could telekinesis the sword just as easily, it would just be a pain to wear it. Still, I was sure I’d get over that. Maybe one day I’d even ask Gerard to teach me to use it, even if only to stay in shape. With telekinesis I doubted I’d ever risk actually going sword to sword with an enemy.

  I strapped the sword on and felt a bit ridiculous, but at the same time, I also felt a lot safer.

  We continued down the hallway, and evaded two more similar pit traps, and eventually came to a stairway going both up and down. I could feel the evil was stronger below us, so we both shared a look and then headed down the stairs.

  The stairway opened up into a room that made my eyes go wide, and also continued down. Inside the room there were piles of neatly stacked gold coins, weapons, art, and other treasures. I admit, I was tempted as hell to grab some, but I figured we could look on the way back. Plus, it was just a little suspicious, I mean shouldn’t this stuff be locked up?

  Gerard touched my arm and mouthed, “Trap.”

  I nodded back in agreement, and we continued down the stairs another level to the bottom.

  There was a long thin corridor with a couple of doors on each side, and then double doors at the end. We wal
ked forward, and could feel the evil in front of us, something that radiated dark magic, and was probably responsible for the undead coming back to life. We ignored the doors, we could check them out on the way back out if we wanted. I curbed my curiosity and we continued forward to the double doors, and pushed them open.

  The room was about thirty feet wide by forty feet long, and in the center there was a large obsidian crystal with a two-foot diameter, sitting on an obsidian pedestal that cradled it in a setting of crystal. It was what was radiating the feeling of evil, and the magic.

  There were also several zombies, apparitions I hadn’t seen before, either specters or wights, I wasn’t sure which, along with a man dressed in red robes with a bloodless face and a cruel smile on his lips.

  “Two?” he asked derisively, “It took hundreds to entomb me here, and they only sent two?”

  I asked Gerard in a pleasant voice that I didn’t feel at all, “Is that a lich?”

  The lich laughed, “Yes, and I’m going to destroy you and add you to my army, but first tell me about the world above.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, “You want to talk?”

  The lich shrugged, “Wouldn’t you if you were entombed for three thousand years with no one to talk to? We’ll get to the screaming and dying soon enough.”

  Gerard growled, “We’ll find your heart and destroy you. Abomination!”

  His sword glowed in agreement.

  The lich shook his head, and then patted the crystal, “Fool, it can’t be destroyed, it’s inside this artifact. Others have tried before, and all have failed. It’s why they desperately sealed me away, nothing on this world has the power to destroy it.”

  I almost giggled, it couldn’t be that easy could it?

  I reached out with my telekinesis, with the intent to shred the heart within the obsidian artifact.

  Nope, apparently it wouldn’t be that simple. Damnit, my telekinesis power was blocked.