by Tom Liberman
The First Rider looked to Odellius who nodded his head with one quick motion and then to Jon who smiled, “What do we have to lose?”
“Our lives,” said Sorus as he looked to the dark cloud.
“That goes without saying,” said the First Rider a grin on his face. “All right, Tenebrous,” he said. “I am First Rider Vipsanius Coppercoin and we will follow you to the Staff of Sakatha.”
The black cloud became silent and immediately began to flow down the corridor in the direction in which they were already headed.
“At least I picked the right direction,” said the First Rider with a shrug and a smile as his short little legs followed after the dark shadow. “Spread out and follow me.”
Sorus went second, Jon third, and Odellius brought up the rear. Tenebrous led them down a series of corridors and then suddenly halted in the middle of non-descript hallway.
“What’s wrong?” said Vipsanius as he came up behind the creature.
“I must calibrate myself to travel with fleshy creatures,” said the shadow and paused for a moment. “I can move through a certain thickness of solid material and did not consider that when leading you. We must go around.”
“How thick?” said Odellius as he came forward to where the duo stood.
The shadow said nothing and floated in front of the stone wall for a long moment.
“I said,” said Odellius moving to within a few inches of the thick cloud, “how thick is the wall?”
“Perhaps a foot,” said Tenebrous as his form wavered in the strange shadowy light cast by the stones.
“How long will it take us to go around?” continued Odellius as Jon moved forward and put his hand on the wall with a speculative touch.
“I’m not sure,” said Tenebrous the thick voice slowed down even more than usual. “I did not calculate your presence in my original plan.”
“Limestone,” said Jon with a nod of his head and a sudden kick at the wall that sent a small spray of rocks in all directions. “With picks and a sledges it’s a ten minute job at most but we’ll have to use our weapons. It could take some time.”
“Wait,” said the shadowy voice. “Back aways, there is an old storage area with digging equipment. No more than a hundred paces.”
Vipsanius looked to Sorus and Odellius, “Go with Tenebrous and bring what we need; Jon, you and I will start working.”
With that Tenebrous led Sorus and Odellius back the way they came and left Jon and Vipsanius alone. Jon began to kick at the wall which knocked off little showers of rock while the First Rider used the hilt of his sword to dig holes.
“Can we trust him?” said Jon, jamming his heel into an indentation in the rock as they worked at the stone wall.
“Of course not,” said Vipsanius as he dug a hunk of rock out of the wall, his short, powerful arms flexed at the effort, “but that isn’t going to stop us from following him.”
“We can’t fight a creature like that,” said Jon, “not without magic. If my brother was here, maybe, but I’m not sure. My blade has some effect against creatures of that nature and I’ll try if it comes to that,” he finished and then yelped in pain as he kicked a particularly thick part of the rock.
“Don’t hurt yourself, Jon,” said Vipsanius as he carefully cut out another hunk of the wall. “Just make small little indentations here so that the picks have a place to grab when Sorus and Odellius return.”
Jon nodded and began to work more carefully, “Have you decided what you’ll do if we manage to recover the staff?”
“Not yet,” said the First Rider as a little piece of the wall fell out at his feet, “but I’ll let you know when I do.”
“I appreciate that,” said Jon with a smile just as Odellius and Sorus returned. The big knight of Elekargul carried two large picks and a heavy sledge hammer while Sorus managed to juggle two shovels tucked underneath his sling and held hard against his body. They dumped their bounty on the ground; the First Rider grabbed a pick in one hand, and began to hammer at the wall with quick, steady bursts that sent stone shards flying in all directions. One of them caught Jon in the brow and he spun around with a curse.
“Sorry about that,” said Vipsanius as he continued to pound away without pause. Odellius grabbed the sledge hammer and began to match swings with the much smaller First Rider. The little man with the powerful chest managed two knocks for every one of the rotund warrior and the rocks began to spray out of the wall in great showers. It took them less than five minutes of steady work to break through to the other side and another minute to clear enough of a hole for them all to pass. By then Odellius’s breath came in great gasps and sweat covered his brow. On the other hand the First Rider breathed normally and only a few smudges of dirt on his face indicated any work at all.
“Which way,” said Vipsanius to the dark shadow and the creature immediately flowed forward and took them deeper in the caves.
“Not much further ahead is where I last saw them,” said Tenebrous. “The darklings helped me up to this point but I suspect that we cannot count on them anymore.”
The group went forward a few hundred meters and then the shadowy form stopped again. “I must go forward alone for the moment,” it said with a deep voice. “I will return when I find the children of dragons.”
With that the creature moved ahead into the darkness and immediately vanished.
“What happens when we find them?” said Sorus and looked to the other three, his young eyes darting back and forth and his good hand twitching at his side.
“We should have a plan,” said Odellius with a gasp as he put his back to the wall and slumped to the ground.
“Sorus, you can’t fight,” said the First Rider as the boy started to object but Vipsanius raised a hand to halt him. “Sorus, you find where the staff is and try to grab it as soon as you can. The rest of us will try and create a distraction and defend you. Follow Tenebrous wherever he leads.”
“Do you think we can trust him?” said Sorus, shaking his head no.
“We have no choice,” said the First Rider. “It’s that or just go home and forget all this happened.”
“I’m not totally opposed to that,” said Odellius with a smile, his face covered with dirt and sweat.
“If you want to go back, I’d understand,” said Jon as he looked at Odellius. “This is my fight, not yours. I’ll go on alone.”
Odellius smiled and laughed out loud, “What do you think the chances of that are?”
Jon smiled back at the huge warrior, “None at all.”
“What kind of a distraction did you have in mind, Vipsanius?” said Odellius and turned to the First Rider, a wipe of his brow with the filthy sleeve of his jerkin only managing to spread the dirt around.
The First Rider tossed the pick in his hand aside and drew his sword, “Lay into them like knights of Elekargul,” he said with a smile. “Once Sorus grabs the staff we’ll cover his retreat as best we can and follow if possible.”
“What do I do with it if I get out of here and … and you’re not around?” said Sorus his face pale in the dim light of the stones.
“That is your decision to make if I’m not there,” said Vipsanius as the smile left his face and he looked at the boy with a steady gaze. “If you make it to the surface alive then take the thing to our warriors, or give it over to Jon, whichever you think is best. You’re a knight of Elekargul, a Nightwalker now, Sorus, but you have no commanding officer other than me.”
“Yes, First Rider Vipsanius,” said Sorus suddenly standing up straight and giving the salute of his people. “You can count on me.”
“I know,” said Vipsanius and patted the boy on the shoulder just as the dark shadow suddenly coalesced out of the darkness.
“It is up ahead,” said Tenebrous, “not more than five hundred paces. You should put away your light stones except for one and mask that. The reptiles have gathered for a ceremony. Thantos and some darklings observe them. I am uncertain as to the length of the ritu
al but it cannot be long. The region ahead is of white marble and the magic is extraordinarily potent. It disrupts me to some degree and my ability to aid you will be limited.”
“I’ve never seen a white marble ruin,” said Sorus with a look to the other three, who in turn looked to one another, their faces expressionless and their eyes hardened.
“You will know it when you see it,” said the First Rider with a glance to the boy. “Just remember what we talked about and do your duty as a knight of Elekargul,” he said and handed his light stone to Sorus. “You carry this for now but wrap it in cloth to dim the light. The reptiles are not underground creatures and need a light source, so we won’t need ours once we get there.”
Sorus took the stone in his good left hand and then looked down at his right arm in a sling, thought about it for a moment before he placed the stone in his right hand, and fished around under his jerkin to find something with which to wrap the stone and dim its light. After a few seconds he pulled out a small pouch filled with a leafy green material which he dumped out. He put the light stone inside and its glow was enough to penetrate the thin material of the bag, although made sight more than a few feet ahead all but impossible. “Good enough?” he said and began to walk forward behind the lead of Tenebrous, who all but vanished in the gloom.
“Careful,” said Odellius as Jon bumped into him from behind.
“It’s too dark, I can’t even see a giant bulk like Odellius,” said the young knight of gray with a chuckle, “and Tenebrous is completely gone.”
“Be quiet,” ordered the First Rider without a look back as he stayed right behind Sorus and the light. The boy continued to do his best to follow the black shadow but in the diminished light the creature was all but invisible.
“Tenebrous,” he hissed when they reached a fork in the narrow passage, “I can’t see you. Which way did you go?”
The deep voice intoned from nowhere and everywhere, “Over here.”
“That doesn’t help,” said Sorus and looked down both passages with no clear idea from where the voice emanated.
The three men following closely behind all chuckled and even the deep black voice seemed to laugh albeit in an ominous fashion. A dark tendril of smoke came out from the passage to Sorus’s right, licked over the boy, which caused him to jump back and straight into the First Rider with a crash. “Don’t do that!” he said in a loud voice as his body shuddered. “That is creepy.”
“This way,” said Tenebrous, barely visible in the gloomy cave with the limited light source, and gave sort of a waving motion to the boy. “It’s not much further. You should be able to dim your light soon.”
Sorus looked ahead and could make out a faint glow from up ahead and beyond a curve in the passage. “We’re close,” he whispered back to the others, “try to be quiet.”
Jon looked at Odellius and Odellius looked at Jon and then they both looked to their heavy chain armor and massive feet and barely managed to avoid a laugh. “Good luck,” they whispered to each other at the same moment.
The First Rider looked back at them, shook his head but smiled, and brought his finger up to his lips, “Shhhh.”
With that all four, and the black shape of Tenebrous, moved forwards towards the light. As they rounded the corner Sorus first glimpsed the white marble temple of the Old Empire and stopped dead in his tracks.
After miles of dank cave walls the dazzling white of this area blinded him for a moment, and he shut his eyes and put his hand in front of face. Murmurs and chants of a strange language emanated from somewhere up ahead although its exact location remained elusive. The cave was not a particularly massive chamber with a ceiling only ten to fifteen feet high with a great stone circle at its center. Each stone was of perfectly cut white marble and stood six feet tall, about three feet wide, and another foot in depth. There were perhaps a hundred of them in all and they cut off Sorus’s vision of the interior of the circle, but that was undoubtedly from where the sound came.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the brightness he spotted a group of the small darkling creatures at another entrance to the chamber, with their swords pulled out as they watched the stone circle intently. Sorus pulled back with a start. “There are darklings up there,” he whispered back to Vipsanius, “in a passageway to our right. I can’t tell how many.”
The First Rider nodded his head as his body tensed and he quietly drew his sword from its scabbard. “We’ll wait until Tenebrous tells us or the darklings make their move,” he whispered to Sorus and then looked back at Jon and Odellius to make sure they heard.
“I don’t see Tenebrous,” said Sorus in a low voice and peered back around the corner. “It’s awful bright in there with those white marble pillars. I can hear chanting or something but I can’t see anyone, there are too many stones in the way.”
“Just keep an eye on the darklings,” said Vipsanius. “They are waiting for the lizards to get the staff and then they’ll move.”
Sorus nodded his head and went back to peer around the corner. At that moment the sinuous black form of Tenebrous materialized behind Odellius at the rear, although it took them a few moments to realize the creature’s presence.
“I cannot get close enough to see what is transpiring,” said the deep voice. “The region is too well illuminated and I will be seen.”
“What about the darklings,” said Vipsanius as he looked over his shoulder quickly but then turned to watch Sorus. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, “You’re doing fine. Just keep watching and don’t worry about anything else.”
“I cannot approach the darklings either,” said Tenebrous. “Thantos is with them and he would recognize my presence immediately. I cannot tell you their precise numbers.”
“So you can’t tell us much of anything then,” said the First Rider in a low whisper.
“I’m afraid that is an accurate assessment,” said the shadowy shape. “It should be apparent when the dragon children complete their ceremony and gain the Staff of Sakatha. That is when Thantos and the darklings will strike. Once that happens you must act.”
“I understand as much,” said the First Rider, his hand still on Sorus’s back. “We’re going to send Sorus forward to grab the thing while the rest of us distract or disable the others. You lead him back to the surface and my people,” he went on and suddenly turned and gazed intently at Tenebrous, “if you do not safely guide this boy I’ll want a personal explanation as to why not. Is that understood, Tenebrous?”
The black cloud coalesced for a moment into a humanoid shape something like a man with two great horns on its head and massive wings sprouting from its back. “I understand, Vipsanius, First Rider of the people of Elekargul. I pledge that I will honor my part of the agreement.”
“I think they’re moving,” said Sorus as he noted several of the little darkling creatures move into the open. They were followed by a massive furred beast of the same variety he fought earlier. One of the little creatures got his foot under the large creature’s clumsy gait and shouted out in pain.
“What was that?” said Vipsanius and leaned forward and over Sorus’s shoulder.
“Clumsy,” whispered Sorus back to the First Rider. “I think, yes, the lizards heard it as well. I think there’s going to be a fight. Should we go?”
“Wait and see what happens,” said Vipsanius. “Maybe they’ll battle themselves out and we can strike from behind.”
“What if they take the staff out some other entrance?” said Jon from the rear.
Vipsanius looked to the dark cloud of Tenebrous, “Tenebrous?”
“It is possible the dragon children know another exit from here,” he said, his form darkening. “They have full access to the dreams of the Toxic One and I do not.”
Sorus watched as a darkling horde spilled out of the side passage with two more of the great furry creatures as well as half a dozen ghoulish monstrosities, their flesh rotting and decayed. Soon the sounds of battle echoed throughout the chamber for al
l to hear.
Odellius moved up next to the First Rider, “I do not like to stand and wait for the stronger side to emerge.”
“I agree,” said the First Rider, “but we’ve no sign of the staff.”
“The reptile men are coming out from the center of the circle and I can’t hear chanting anymore,” said Sorus in a normal tone of voice. A sudden explosion sounded from past the corner and the boy turned to look.
“Enough waiting,” said Vipsanius. “Odellius, Jon, with me; Sorus follow. We’ll head toward the stones and try and get to the middle.”
With that Odellius, Jon, and the First Rider burst out from their hiding place and immediately shuttered their eyes as the brilliance of the white marble reflected even the dim light a thousand fold. It took them a few seconds to adjust to the brightness; fortunately, the creatures embroiled in conflict were either too busy to notice them or did see them but were unable to react.
A dozen darklings lay scattered on their ground, their bodies burnt by some fiery spell while one of the big furry creatures lay on its side, a great blackened mass of flesh that emanated smoke. Near the closest of the white marble pillars three reptile men lay on the ground either dead or near death while half a dozen more, all in priestly robes, fought on against twice their number in ghouls and darklings.
Jon Gray’s massive strides took him toward the rear of the darkling creatures, although Vispanius kept up with his own little legs churning like spokes in a wagon wheel and Odellius quickly fell behind, his rolling gate no match for the other two. With one sweep of his massive stone sword Jon sent three of the creatures straight to oblivion, and the First Rider cut into another two with precise sword strokes through their necks.
Odellius, who brought up the rear, attacked the second of the huge furry beasts and drove his blade into the thing’s lower back at an upward angle, and his forward momentum caused him to crash into the creature. The sword burst out of the thing’s chest as it sprawled forward on top of a reptile man with upraised arms and crushed him to the floor with a terrible splat.
