Passage to Glory: Part Two of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  He left the Shadow Realms, left the world for all he knew, and was to be reunited with his father in the halls of his ancestors.

  Dril’ead watched as Skandil’s body fell backward with a thump, and laid there motionless, lifeless, and he knew not what to do. Around him lay the bodies of all those who had been his comrades. The enemy had come from the shadows behind him, the stalagmite he rested against acting as a shield, blocking him from the sight of their assailants, but those sitting before him had been in clear sight. Now they were dead.

  Yaldaa arose and dashed behind a stalagmite pillar, lifting her crossbow up and firing a dart into the midsection of a figure creeping from one hiding place to the next. She didn’t know who they were, the darkness was too thick and the figure was too far away, but she loaded another dart into the weapon and aimed down the cavern toward a cluster of them.

  One after another the Vulzdagg’s fell, hardly coming close enough to the attackers to use their swords against them, and the darts skipped against stalagmite and ground on their way. Juanna ducked behind a stalagmite, several darts bouncing off its edge as she went, and came up right atop one who had wandered too near. Her swords cut in, slicing the ranger’s throat, and she pushed the corpse aside to get to another as he raised his crossbow. They were Followers.

  Picking himself up from where he had been sitting stone still, shocked and uncertain, Dril slowly unsheathed his scimitars from their scabbards. A dart stuck in his arm, barely breaking beyond his sleeve to poke into his skin, and he turned to where it had come and saw the shadowy figure crouch behind a stalagmite. The second dart came as expected, Dril’ead easily swept it aside with a blade, and he began his approach.

  The ranger arose, realizing he had been seen, and loaded another dart into his crossbow. A dart from Yaldaa whizzed by Dril’s head, hitting another of their attackers as it was slipping from cover to cover toward him, and Dril knocked the third dart up high over his head as it came. Backing up into a stalagmite, the ranger dropped his crossbow and unsheathed his sword, the steel silently sliding free of its case.

  Behind him, the screams of his followers were echoing throughout the cavern, some of pain, others of rage, but all equally daunting to the battered warrior as he stalked toward his assailant.

  “Who sent you?” Dril demanded of the fighter before him. “Where did you come from?”

  The fighter laughed aloud and brandished his blade. “The Shadow Queen wishes you dead!” he replied, “You and all your followers!”

  Enough had been said from the one who had killed his companions, and Dril’ead ducked low beneath the sweeping sword as it came upon him. Once, twice, and three times Dril’ead swept his swords back and forth, slashing the stomach of the fighter above him, and the creature stumbled back and fell against the stalagmite. And then a dart struck Dril’ead in the leg, and another cut passed his hand.

  He fell back behind a pillar of rock, wincing at the pain from the protruding darts, and wondered what poison was etched into their tips.

  The screams of the dying faded, and Dril knew he had lost those who had been following him. To the side he saw someone dodging in and out from behind stalagmites and the larger of the boulders, blades held in either hand, cutting down those rangers who had fallen mercilessly upon them. The swords worked in perfect harmony with one another, he noted, and the wielder spun and ducked with each successive maneuver, felling enemy here and there.

  “Swildagg’s!” cried Juanna, “These are Swildagg’s!”

  Yaldaa fell behind a stalagmite a few feet from where Dril sat, a dart bouncing back from the face of the strange rocklike formation, and she loaded a dart into her crossbow. She looked to him, glancing down the corridor from where the darts were coming, and gestured for him to come.

  Trusting in his allies, Dril’ead rose up onto his feet and dashed across the distance to the Grundagg ranger, and almost immediately the clicks of the crossbows were heard behind him. Darts whistled at his back, but he ducked under the shelter of the stalagmite, and they passed harmlessly by or clicked into the side of the formation of rocklike growth.

  “We need to get out of here,” Yaldaa said to him, and he nodded his agreement.

  “Juanna,” Dril said, nodding his head toward the fierce warrior forcing the Swildagg rangers back.

  “She’ll hold them off long enough for your escape,” Yaldaa told him, her tone even, firm and resolute. However, Dril didn’t miss the slight break in her breath as she spoke. “She’ll hold them off.”

  Dril’ead knew what such statements meant. He nodded, knowing he couldn’t resolve the fate of the determined fighter, and that it was far beyond his power to help her now. He nodded again, realizing Yaldaa would die soon after they were to run out of the cavern, possibly even as they stood, and that it would happen somewhere else if not here or there. He nodded, accepting the shame he would have to bare upon his mentality throughout the rest of his life, but he would use the price of such shame to find his lost brother.

  It was time for him to move. The Urden’Dagg was gone, and the Shadow Queen had taken its place, and her followers would do as she desired without complaint or hesitation. And, as it was becoming more and more apparent, she wanted him, and all those who followed him, dead.

  Yaldaa stared up the corridor at her captain, but her gaze was firm. “Now!” she whispered just loud enough for Dril to hear, and pushing him in the direction they were to run they started off at a desperately fast charge.

  “To Nel’ead Swildagg,” Yaldaa said behind him.

  Dril nodded, but hated the feeling creeping into his stomach, the feeling of fleeing. Why must I run? Why must I turn my back on those who would fight for me and run? I should be fighting, dying, and paying the price for those who are now dead upon the earth! What shame I must hereafter bare!

  Find them.

  Why?

  Find them.

  Tell me why!

  Find them.

  I hate you!

  Dril slipped and fell down onto his outstretched palms, barely catching himself before hitting his face on the ground, and lay there for a moment in silent agony. He heard Yaldaa stop above him, and she reached down and took hold of his cloak to raise him up. And then, from the corridor they had just flown from, in the midst of the chaos surrounding the lone Juanna, an explosion enveloped everything.

  It shook the ceiling of the cavern, the stalactites breaking free and falling, shattering upon the ground. Dril’ead and Yaldaa were left in the silent aftermath of the ruin, dust settling round them, a rumbling echoing further away down the corridors.

  Yaldaa cursed harshly. She crouched beside Dril, leveling her crossbow down the passage into the dust-filled darkness, her eyes narrow and intent. “Some vile demon comes for us,” she whispered.

  Dril rolled onto his side to peer back the way they had come. “Then they come for us,” he said.

  A shadow emerged from the cloud of dust settling in the corridor they had just fled from, and it moved toward them, its pace so even and smooth it almost appeared to be floating.

  Yaldaa fired her crossbow, but the dart was halted by a burst of blue flame, intercepting and destroying it. The ranger, however, wouldn’t relent. She reached to her side and retrieved a second dart, clicked it into place, and raised it to her head. She fired again, and again a burst of light countered the attack, and in a second she had already loaded another dart, but this time stood as she attacked. And then the shadowy form launched its own attack.

  Bright orbs of light appeared round it, revealing its masked form, and danced outward to the edges of the cavern walls. The place was then alight in a yellow glow, and Yaldaa’s crossbow fell from her grasp, clattering to the floor, the ranger throwing up her arms to shield her eyes from the light. But Dril’ead rolled to the side, his eyes tightly shut, and came up onto his knees behind a stalagmite.

  He pulled his cowl up and over his face, its shadow magically enhanced to protect his sensitive eyes from such attacks.
Swords held firmly in either hand, and eyes hid behind a magical barrier of shadow, Dril turned to look round the edge of the stalagmite at the specter. As he did, the light changed, lessoning into a deep red. He jumped to his feet and leaped round the stalagmite, charging as hard as he could toward the specter, his swords held to either side in readiness.

  “Halt!” a commanding voice instructed.

  Dril seemed to run into an invisible wall, his body bouncing back from its flexible surface, and he looked up from under his hood to see the figure standing in the maroon glow of the orbs. To the side Yaldaa knelt, one hand shielding her eyes while the other gripped a lean dagger. She lowered her hand, though, and looked with Dril’ead upon the Swildagg standing with them in the corridor.

  Tyla Swildagg held up her hand, palm facing Dril’ead, and she looked from the Vulzdagg to the Grundagg and back again. “I mean you know harm, Dril’ead Vulzdagg, nor any of your companions,” she said.

  “You killed Juanna!” Yaldaa said pointedly, and she leaped to her feet as if to charge.

  Tyla brought her other hand up to stop Yaldaa, and the barrier kept the Grundagg from getting anywhere near. “Nay,” she replied, “Your friend was already dead when I entered the cavern.”

  Dril’ead shook his head in disbelief. “You’re a noble of Swildagg,” he said, gesturing to her adorned robes of green and blue. “If you meant us no harm you wouldn’t have sent these traitors against us. You’re a liar as well!”

  “Swildagg,” Yaldaa said thoughtfully. “It was your people who turned my people against one another, murdering the most faithful of us!”

  “I gave no order for such things,” Tyla said firmly. “My sister, Alastra, has become mad with want for power of late. Her greed has blinded her form all else, including the lives of those must be eliminated for her to obtain power, the likes of which a Shadow Queen has promised her. Me, and my brother, Nel’ead, know this. You can trust me and him.”

  Dril tried his strength against the barrier, but was held in place as he pushed forward, even slashing outward with his scimitars. “Your brother led me and my followers down her!” he roared. “It was supposed to deliver us from the swords of your people, and yet her you were, waiting for us! He’s a liar like you!”

  Tyla shook her head. “We were not supposed to be here. Our original orders were to march on your city, killing all those who the demon had not, but Nel’ead turned us back when he said that you all had perished.” She paused. “Neither I or my brother could have guessed what would’ve happened next. It appeared that the Shadow Queen herself knew of your whereabouts, and it was only the Shadow Queen who commanded those who killed your comrades.”

  Dril stepped back, giving up his fight against the barrier, and let his scimitars drop from his grasp. He flinched at the sound of their clattering. “But you summoned the demon,” he said. “You summoned that demon of false justice, and now my sister is dead.”

  Tyla hung her head. Slowly she lowered her hands to her sides, letting down the barriers, knowing that neither of the two fighters would come upon her now. “I... I am sorry,” she said.

  “We had already paid the price for our mistakes!” Dril growled, his eyes burning with anger and hatred, “My brother and my father, and now my sister and my mother! What more must I sacrifice?”

  Yaldaa brought her crossbow up suddenly, leveling the tip of the loaded dart at Tyla’s neckline.

  “No,” Dril’ead commanded the Grundagg, shaking his head. “No more death.”

  Yaldaa hesitated, but Tyla made no move to defend herself, put continued to stare at the floor in shame. But the crossbow was brought back to Yaldaa’s side, and the dart put away, for she knew as well as Dril’ead that no amount of killing could fix the wrongs done to them, whether or not it was a Swildagg standing before them.

  “The fall of Zurdagg was my fault,” Dril said. “The fall of Vulzdagg is upon my shoulders, weighing me down into the river, drowning me. I cannot bare the fall of Grundagg and Swildagg as well.”

  “But you cannot abandone Nel’ead to be tormented to death by his sister,” Yaldaa interjected.

  “Neither can I abandone wisdom for insanity,” Dril replied. He turned round and began to walk away, leaving his scimitars where he had dropped them, never wanting to feel the weight of their killing blades again.

  How many times will you turn round and walk the other way, taking on a different path? He asked himself. Was this intended for me?

  Find them.

  He stopped short of a stalagmite he had been walking toward, unknowing of it being directly in his path, and thought over the strange and unexplainable phrase. How many times had he heard it now, answering every question that demanded an immediate answer in his mind? He sighed, shaking his head, and slowly turned back to face the Swildagg and the Grundagg.

  “Tyla,” he said to the mage, “I must find them.”

  22

  The Duel

  Elemni grabbed Razbaar by the front of his brown and black tunic, and pulled him forward just inches from his face. “You dare oppose the Shadow Queen?” he demanded harshly, his breath hot on Razbaar’s face.

  To the side he heard the sound of a dagger being drawn from its leather covering. Elemni was quick, however, and slapped Lamina across the face with his free hand, and the guards immediately rushed forward and pushed the crowd away from their leaders. Lamina was held to the ground by the two nearest soldiers, and they forced the dagger from her grasp and took the other from off her belt, and despite her struggles against their hold she could not escape them.

  The people who had joined with Razbaar and his followers tried against the force of the guards to get back to Razbaar’s side, but the shields and the sharp tips of spears kept them at bay, and they were forced down the steps from the dais of the citadel doors.

  “I asked you a question!” Elemni roared in Razbaar’s face, flecks of spittle hitting his cheeks. “You dare defy our authority here?”

  But Razbaar was not at all daunted by Elemni’s show of strength or rage, rather keeping his eyes set unblinking on the Swildagg’s, remembering that it was this same fighter who had killed Gregarr in front of the entire city… He had killed Gregarr, his truest and dearest friend.

  Razbaar grinned in the face of the wrathful traitor. “I dare to try,” he said.

  “Then you defy reason!” Elemni growled, and he unsheathed his sword, his eyes flashing wildly.

  “Only the reason of madness,” Razbaar replied flatly.

  Elemni threw him to the ground and he landed hard on his back, the wind leaving his lungs. Lamina called his name from where she was pinned to the ground, by only the butt-end of a spear in her stomach answered her, for Razbaar did not move to respond or even get up. She groaned, losing her will to fight, and could only watch helplessly as Elemni raised his sword above his head to deliver the killing strike. Eldrean and the lady of Grundagg stood by, neither showing a hint of emotion, though the lady of Swildagg raised her hand to pause Elemni’s blow.

  “Thus another sacrifice is given unto the might of the Shadow Queen,” she said, and motioned for her son to finish.

  The sword fell, but Razbaar rolled aside at the last minute, the steel of the blade cracking against the ground where he had been a second before. He came up onto his feet, dagger in hand, and faced the Swildagg as he turned toward him. Their eyes met, piercing and full of hatred toward one another, though for separate reasons.

  “I will not die lying helpless on the ground,” Razbaar growled. “I will fight you, warrior against warrior.”

  Elemni grinned. “Then I accept,” he said.

  The people held back behind the spears and the shields of the guards suddenly stilled, a silenced hush falling over the entire area, and even the dripping of stalactites seemed to halt in respect for the moment. Eldrean Swildagg shifted uncomfortably, her hand near her side as she fingered the small knife there, but she did not move to hold either of them back.

  “Yes,” El
drean said in a low, ominous voice, “Give them adequate space. We shall prove to all you faithless fools who is the mightier, that the Shadow Queen may glory in her triumph!”

  The guards around them backed up several paces, and those before the crowd pushed the throng of people away down he steps, giving Razbaar and Elemni comfortable space for their duel.

  Elemni’s eyes were fierce as he glared upon Razbaar. “You die for the Urden’Dagg, then?” he asked in a low, cruel tone.

  “No,” Razbaar answered, “I die for freedom.”

  “Nonetheless, I shall honor my goddess by spilling your blood upon her blade,” and Elemni smiled as he began to pace round him.

  Razbaar raised his dagger before himself and stepped round to the side, keeping his opponent in front, watching for any telltale sign of where the Swildagg would strike. Razbaar had one chance, one split-second of a moment to avenge his slain comrade, staining the edge of his blade with the blood of he who had killed him without mercy. He had one chance.

  The moment was tense. Neither of them seemed to breathe. Those watching didn’t seem to move, and for the two combatants it felt almost as if they were to duel in a ring of stone statues, monuments of their ancient glories, with hollow eyes peering upon them without blinking. But they continued their round, checking one another, pacing round so calmly that it almost seemed they didn’t intend to fight one another. But their finely edges blades contradicted such thoughts.

  Now is the moment!

  They both leaped forward in unison, both blades coming in at a different angle, and then froze in the center of the complete ring they had formed.

  No one could say who had stepped first. They had read one another, linked minds almost, and therefore jumped with readied blades upon the other at the exact same moment. For a split second it was a wondrous sight to be seen for those watching, and a creeping sensation overcame those standing nearby, some even shuddering as they saw that neither gaze had left the other.