by Beaux Riley
The other elves, a total of fifteen, had made similar approaches and the migrating pack of gryphons stood near the cavern opening, out of the rain. They stood waiting for Asa to proceed, with Caliya making a fast catch up to him. Asa had stopped dead in his tracks. The familiar look of Kimura's hair, a black armor that the other elves were wearing was filled with holes and a trail of blood was being washed down the stone stairway. Red liquid bathed Asa's boots as the paladin stampeded his way up the small rise in the pathway. He tripped and fell to his knees and crawled to what he didn't want to believe was his teacher. Both bodies that lay next to one another were broken, bruised and cut into.
Asa put his attention first into Kimura. He put his hand on Kimura's neck to check for any sign of a pulse, and found nothing. He felt that Kimura's body was now cold.
Caliya had tried in the same fashion to tend to Lin Kin and found the same result. Wound marks, unlike a sword. It was as though a pike or polearm had impaled them multiple times as the holes were too large for any normal weapon.
"No. We were too late." Asa said as he slammed his closed fist near Kimura's face, splashing water onto the corpse's face. “It wasn’t a trap. It was a slaughter!” He cried out. Caliya stepped over to Asa, only pointing her attention to the other elves to proceed ahead of them while she helped Asa regain his composure.
"We got here as fast as we could. Don't blame yourself for that.” She could see the visible conflict permeating in his mind. “We need to find out who did this. I need your help. We, the Ela'syn need your paladins more than ever now." Caliya said trying to reassure Asa of his importance. She laid her hand on his shoulder and tried to lift him. Asa's disposition changed immediately. He raised quickly and charged ahead, up the ramp and into the temple. Caliya took a moment to remove the robe dressing from Lin Kin and with the length of his robe, she managed to cover both Kimura and Lin's faces. She turned her head up towards Asa, who had caught up to the other elves and then back to Kimura, thinking of their last meeting. She bent down to his now-covered face and whispered calmly to him.
"You didn't deserve this."
A trail of bodies from monks who had defended their assigned positions in the temple, now laid before Asa. Blood was trailing down the entrance and bodies were everywhere. People whom he'd learned stories of the past of Midian from, and those who he'd shared meals with and even the elders were not spared.
"Asa...ASA...ASAAAA!!!" Caliya's voice echoed as she ran up behind him. She was not out of breath, but her cooler attitude was now showing nothing but distraught. "We need to stay together and-" Caliya was interrupted by Asa, who had a sword out, and illuminated the darker parts of the temple that were not lit by candles or fireplaces. As he looked further into the structure, it was eerily silent. There was only about a fifty foot distance from the cobblestone stairway and the inner sanctum of Midian, where the monks had their modest rooms and the places where they meditated. It was scaring him that no one came to see the group of elves that now stand in the middle of a bloodbath.
"We need to scour this place and find any survivors. There has to be someone." Said Asa. Another thought crossed his mind. “Pate should have been back by now. Where is he...did we get here too late? No...That feeling hasn't happened again. We have to be sure he isn't here...”
"I cannot allow us to do this in anything other than a full group, Omni. For your sake and ours, there is a dark force here...or was here. These men died to wounds that we cannot replicate." She knelt down to a man that Asa recognized to be an apprentice monk of Lin Kin, a boy by the name of Rahb Ekk. Rahb had been chosen to succeed Lin upon his eventual retirement. His head had scratches and his dead eyes stared back at the paladin as he sat against a wall with his right arm still clutching a wooden pole that he'd spent months training with. He was torn nearly in two, only stopped at the hip with his arm hanging on by a small bit of skin refusing to allow it to be fully dismembered. Asa remembered that this boy would question Asa day and night about the stories he had growing up in the Zirris. He regretted not telling him those stories now. "This poor boy, did you know him?"
"He was a good kid. I pray we can find any of them here." Asa bowed to Rahb's corpse and saluted him. The other elves lowered their heads in unison, following the paladins lead. He heard the clatter of footsteps down the hall and tried with utter difficulty not to step on the bodies of his former friends in the process. Asa had a short sword ready in his left hand and his right hand began to glow furiously with the Light as he called out to the sound. "Announce yourself! Friend or foe!" Asa could not think of anything to say besides that.
"Neither." Said a voice he immediately recognized to be Zerick. The older monk was clutching his side as his robes were a deep and almost frightening shade of red. "I…" Zerick coughed and a small amount of blood trailed down his face, onto his graying beard. "…told you..." He coughed again harder. "…paladins from the beginning...keep your war from this peaceful land." Asa was taken back by this.
"We had nothing to do with this. We came here to save you. We came trying to intercept Pate, but now…now I realize he hasn’t arrived yet." Said Asa. "Kimura died from whatever caused this...Lin Kin...they all died…" Asa was choked up.
"No...If not the Char your teacher spoke of...then what? What has brought death to Midian?" Zerick had tears in his eyes, expecting an answer. Asa shook his head. The paladin didn't know. Whether it were the char or not, would be extremely obvious. There was no fire, no charred flesh.
“You didn’t see it happen?” Asa asked as he tried considering what would cause this. Zerick slumped down against the wall, beginning to succumb to his wounds. Caliya pushed Asa aside and brought out a green vial. As Caliya tried to apply it to Zerick’s stomach, the old man stubbornly pushed the elf aside. Caliya frustrated, attempted to help the monk, only to have him cough blood right at her face. She was horror struck as his head fell on her chest.
Asa dropped to one knee beside Caliya and helped Zerick’s head up, seeing that the old man had passed out from the blood loss. Now free to assist him uninterrupted, Caliya opened her vial and applied its contents to his stomach. “Perfect, only witness to this situation and we’ve no answers.” Asa rose back up, scratching into his hair with both hands.
“It would seem that we are indeed at an impasse.” Caliya paused for a moment. She had finished bandaging Zerick and laid him on his back. The old monk was sleeping in a stable condition, though the loss of blood would mean he wouldn’t be waking any time soon. The elves who’d travelled with Asa and Caliya had formed a secure circle around them as the Princess tended to the monk. She called over two of the guards to watch over Zerick as Asa began to pace back and forth, clearly contemplating what to do next. “Listen to me for a moment, Asa.” She called out to him.
“What is it, your highness?” Said Asa, as he stopped dead in his tracks, trying not to look at the bodies of his former friends strewn about the temple. She looked hard at him, silently deciding how to speak to him.
“Let’s…clean up here. I’ve counted at least two of my guard that didn’t arrive. I presume they were held up along with Kilo.” Said Caliya as she stood. Asa didn’t make eye contact with the Princess as she proceeded over passed the guard’s circle.
The elves took that as a signal to carefully gather the bodies. Asa took a mental note of every single monk who he had taken time to know while learning under Kimura.
Lin Kin, Rahb Ekk…
Two bodies sat beside one another, less mangled than most. These were two promising monks who had taught Kilo how to use her staff. Their heads hung down near their knees, still clutching their weapons.
Sang Lee…Garn Vare…
The lines of dead men and women brought Asa spiraling down. He had to breathe. His old home was destroyed and lost. Caliya instructed her guards to give the paladin time to think as they helped clean the grounds of bodies and lined them as best as they could. She watched as Asa descended the stairway, out into the pouring rain.
As he made his way back down the dark stone stairway, he came back on Kimura’s body. The rain continued to fall, much as it had been and still failed to show any signs of ending soon. The storm above cried out with thunder and lightning. He chose to bring Kimura out of the rain and near where Zerick was resting, giving the old man enough room from his fallen friends and family. Nearly one hundred bodies, including Kimura’s, were placed in lines alongside the right rise of the stairway, overlooking the entrance to Midian. Caliya had taken the time to find blankets to cover each of the bodies.
Asa sat with the elves on the steps as they considered their next course of action. He would occasionally look over at Zerick, whose breathing became easier as the salve had begun mending his insides. He watched the gryphons huddled right where they had been dismounted this entire time, about thirty or so yards down the stairway, right under the cave exit. The clutch of four-legged birds were tightly together, trying to avoid the rain and keep warm. Asa realized that those avian brought them here without a second thought and kept together. He appreciated the unity they had, not straying, even in the weather like it was. Now it came down to them. Asa wondered what the best course would be now, waiting for Pate or the elves to give them the all clear to proceed next to Imrosyn, or move ahead himself.
“Your concerned looks have us believing you’ll do something reckless.” Said Caliya. Asa stared at her for a moment. Everyone was drenched to the bone in their armor. Asa was still in the clothing that the other paladins wore from the previous night. His black and gray jacket was dripping right down its buttoned sleeve. He looked at his fingerless gloves, seeing that most of the blood he’d come into contact with had long since washed away after bringing Kimura back with the other bodies.
“We didn’t wait and saved Zerick…” Said Asa, jumping down from the ledge overlooking the gryphons. He could almost hear Caliya wanting to call out for him to wait but she held back her words. “We could lose your friends and mine if we don’t go back for them. Leave who you trust…” Asa looked back and saw a now standing Zerick, clenching his side, looking a bit more alive.
“We tried to stop him from moving, but the old man is more stubborn than your father, Princess.” Said an elf behind the monk. Zerick approached the end of the staircase and made eye contact with Asa.
“What are you waiting for, Omni?” Zerick asked softly. He looked at the reddened blankets, putting the act that the Ela’syn and the lone paladin performed.
“A signal, a sign or something to let us move back to the others and prepare for the invasion.” Said Asa. “Pate is still out there and I worry for him as much as I am about Kilo. She still hasn’t arrived an hour after we got here.”
“I’ve been out that long then…” Zerick felt his side and realized there was no pain. The stab wound in his right side was impressive for any human sized weapon, as Caliya had seen. But now a long elven bandage was wrapped around his waist and a greenish tint could be faintly seen emerging, bubbling on occasion as he was being healed by elven magic. Zerick contemplated and finally spoke. “I will await his arrival. For your respect to our dead…that is the last kindness you’ll receive from me. Leave Midian, do not return here.” Zerick turned his back and proceeded passed several of the elves that were previously watching over him, into the inner sanctum of the temple and closing the doors behind him.
“I think it best we leave.” Suggested Caliya, raising a hand to the others to follow, back out into the weather. The disgruntled looks of getting wet again did not sit well with any of her followers, but they didn’t say a word nor make the notion of complaining. Caliya came down to where Asa had jumped and followed him back to the gryphons. Asa made a quick haste to get to the cavern exit as quickly as he could. The sloshing of boots against the stone stairway splashed puddles everywhere, occasionally catching him in the eye. As he reached one of the birds, realizing it might not have been his own that he’d initially taken, he turned back towards the temple for the last time and then mounted his new bird. He saw for a brief moment, the image of a girl standing in all black, looking at him right from the top of the stairs. He wiped the rain from his eyes and saw nothing, pushing it off as a figment of his imagination and road off.
Chapter 12- The City of the Dead
Kilo continued to hear the sounds of bone being crunched and the body of the bird being torn apart in the darkness of the city. Impatient and aggravated, Kilo imbued her hand, bringing to life an orb about the size of her head in diameter and threw the ball of energy in an underhand to overhead motion into the darkness, illuminating a portion of the city's entrance. It floated slowly downward. To her horror stood a giant made entirely of stone, colored the same as the entire city. It was devouring the bird between what she assumed were teeth made of the same rocky texture. The giant was at least thirty feet tall and had to crouch only a slight bit to not hit the city's roof interior. Its body was not smooth. Its appearance looked as though a child clumped mounds of clay together and stabbed in two red beads for eyes.
As the giant finished its meal, it paid little attention to its would-be attackers. Kilo was stuck between falling off of the edge of the bridge that was now gone, or facing this monster. The elf who still remained with her was awe-struck. She was behind Kilo, with a bow drawn, though she had no arrow readied.
The illumination orb faded and the red eyes returned to being the only sight they could see. Kilo pulled her arm back around the elf and whispered quietly.
"This thing...it's stupid in nature, but if we move, it will attack." Said Kilo. Just as she finished speaking, what looked to be an orb of red and orange appeared on the giant's shoulders, right near its two red eyes.
"That would be true..." The voice called out. "If it weren't under my control."
Kilo witnessed the orb disappear and the giant focusing its gaze at Kilo. She conjured another Light orb and threw it high up. As the giant grunted, it raised its massive palm and began to drop it at an incredible speed. Kilo thought quickly to herself and used the power of the Zephyr to force a gust of wind to push the elf and Kilo at each side of the room, now within the den of the beast.
"HIDE! I can handle this!!" Yelled Kilo to the elf, when she saw the girl drop her bow and raise her hand. Kilo had no time to react, as she was about sixty feet away and neither elemental power could reach her in time. The elf girl's hand was pointed right at the giant and the same Light emerged from her hand. It surprised Kilo that this girl was doing exactly what Kilo had learned. The same hand placement, palm open and directed as though she were going to stop a punch with her open hand, it illuminated violently and erupted from the small girl's palm. Light struck the giant immediately and harshly tore it apart right at its right shoulder. The giant's right arm fell and became a lifeless ash as it grunted and tried to strike her with its other hand.
The elf managed to dodge but rammed herself right into a wall. She was saved from an unfortunate death thanks partially to her reaction speed, but more so for her black helmet that concealed nearly all of her features. She fractured the helm in such a way that it broke in two, and fell unconscious for her mistaken reaction.
Kilo threw up several Light orbs as she darted across the stone floor, making enough noise by the otherwise silent room and caught the attention of the giant once again. It cried out in frustration and with a closed fist, tried to crush Kilo, and failed horribly as she forced a gust of wind to throw it back into the dead city. Kilo had moments to move the girl and saw that in the Light-illuminated room that it was not an elf at all. It was a half elf, just like Lizoke. She recognized the girl immediately now. Her very short sun bleached blonde hair was the first giveaway. A visitor to Midian while they trained to become paladins, this girl was frequently speaking to Kimura privately. Kilo had to know who she was and in her fast thinking, she looked about. She saw a corridor right between her and the golem that threatened them, now rising back up. Kilo proceeded to pick up the surprisingly light girl and threw her body down in an empty roo
m, while she returned to face the giant.
Kilo spoke out to the monstrosity, not expecting it to understand her. "You ever wonder what happens when you mix two aggressive forces?!" She considered a trick that she'd only ever used while training with Asa, a mixture of the elements. It proved unpredictable and deadly, and that is what she needed now, more than ever. She summoned a gust of wind in front of the giant, causing it to look confused at the small growing tornado. She opened her palm at her creation and allowed the Light to fire at and envelope the growing wind. The Light was being thrown about by the tornado at speeds faster than Kilo could ever produce with her arm alone. Pieces of the city were broken by the elemental light crashing into its structure. She prayed a lucky chance happened and her Light would aim properly and be released from the wind's embrace. The giant attempted to stomp the strange winds out and was thrown extremely hard against the outer walls of the city. The Light erupted and blew the giant's stomach as it was quickly forced away from her unusual power, leaving it less than half of its initial bulk. "You get uncertainty." She said defiantly.
The red and orange orb landed on the giant's chest, and formed into a person. She had jet-black hair, in the few moments that Kilo was able to see her before it became dark again. Kilo readied her hand and with much force she illuminated her hand, brightening the room. The woman had come the distance of a hundred feet, only a few yards away from Kilo, in such a short time.
"Now why would you hurt my baby?" The woman said, musingly. She walked in a slow and methodical way, with her hands behind her back. The woman wore all black, similar to Kilo, and had a slit in her dress that allowed for free movement in her legs. Kilo scoffed, readying her staff.
