That only left south, and the trackless wilderness beckoned to Lucius, promising anonymity and safe hiding within its empty expanse. Having no real plan for where he was headed or what he would do when he got there, he simply pointed his horse south and trusted to fate.
The World’s Ridge Mountains, still many, many miles away, began to rear up in front of him, and he imagined that perhaps he could find some small village in their foothills, a place cut off from the schemes and politicking of city people, inhabited by those who bore no allegiance to Vos or Pontaine. He could turn his hand to anything, and such a place would surely welcome such a multi-talented individual once he had proved himself. Or maybe he would carry on travelling, and explore the furthest recesses of the world, seeing things no one had set their eyes on before. Perhaps he would find a secret pass through the impenetrable World’s Ridge Mountains and be the first to stagger though their rocky trails to discover what lay beyond. Maybe it would be a strange but wonderful new world where there were no separate nations, and all men lived in peace.
Well, he could dream, surely?
His good mood remained throughout the evening and night.
Making camp, he felt wonderfully alone as he chewed his way through the dried meats he had packed. Sleep came quickly that night and, for the first time in a long time, it was peaceful and unbroken. Lucius woke as the sun started to rise over the mountains and immediately felt wide awake and alert. Putting it down to having escaped his problems or possibly just the fresh breeze that blew down from the mountains, he discovered he was hungry. After walking the horse a short distance to give it a new patch of vegetation on which to graze, Lucius jogged away from his camp, eyes scanning the middle distance as he watched like a hawk for movement. There!
In the lee of a small rise, a colony of brown-furred rabbits had already spotted him and were all staring in his direction suspiciously, trying to gauge what threat he might represent. Lucius purposefully turned side on to them and then walked slowly, appearing to keep his distance but actually spiralling inwards, closing the range by an inch with each step.
The rabbits went back to their own grazing, but soon became alarmed at Lucius’ behaviour as he began to circle them. He saw one sit up on its haunches and sniff the air, while another hopped a few feet away from him. Then another started hopping.
Seeing his chance slip away, Lucius turned towards them and broke into a run, mentally gathering the flow of magic around him as he fashioned a spell.
His quarry ran as soon as he started running, white tails flapping as they crossed the uneven ground at a pace he thought amazing for creatures so small. Barely breaking his stride, Lucius squinted his eyes as he aimed, and then threw a hand forward. A small ball of green fire leapt from his palm and sailed unerringly towards one of the rabbits. As it struck the target on the back of the neck, it flared briefly, causing Lucius to shield his eyes.
When he looked again, the rabbit lay still on the ground, smoke rising from its singed fur.
Lucius regarded the dead creature for a moment before he stooped to pick it up. No, hunting with magic was never fair, but he was hungry and no huntsman, and a man used what tools he had. After the dried meat of the night before, he very much liked the idea of roasted rabbit.
The sun continued its climb into the crisp morning sky, and Lucius found himself rather enjoying the skinning and gutting of his meal, as unskilful as he was.
He laid with his back on the grass, staring up at the sky while listening to the sound of his horse snatching at clumps of grass and his rabbit beginning to sizzle over a fire. Inhaling deep the fresh morning air, Lucius smiled to himself, but the breath stuck in his throat. Frowning, he sat up and looked around, trying to work out what was wrong. His eyes floated over the camp fire, grass, horse, mountains, and then settled on the Guardian Starlight, as ever tucked into his belt.
Lucius held the artefact up in front of his face. He began to feel its magical aura pulsing, sweeping over him as he stared, trying to work out what it was doing, or what it was trying to tell him.
Suddenly, his vision went blank, the grasslands and mountains disappeared to be replaced with the threads of magic running through the world as he perceived the arcane power he drew upon. Streaming around him, the threads spun round the Guardian Starlight like tightly wound cords, drawn into it and through it, gaining a vivid vibrancy as they streamed out of the artefact. Then his perception twitched and he was aware of other forces pulling on the magic of the world, strong, powerful forces that were loaded with deadly intent.
One shone like the sun, repelling several threads of magical energy as it pulsed. Adrianna, Lucius thought. She is looking for me still. It was clear she was getting closer to him all the time.
His attention was drawn to two other entities, and he knew they were looking for him also. One was studious, disciplined, and measured, throwing off pulses of magic that rippled down the threads towards him, rebounding upon his touch and flying back to their point of origin. Was that the baron’s wizard, he thought, using some spell of seeing?
The third had a wild, desperate edge to it, a feeling Lucius was coming to know well. There was nothing subtle about this point of power as it too pulsed. He could feel the raw ambition and blind faith behind it, and knew he was looking at the Preacher Divine.
Lucius came back to the physical world with a jolt, gasping for breath, a trickle of cold sweat running down his temple.
The baron’s wizard, the Preacher Divine and, worst of all, Adrianna. All three were not just vainly searching for him, they knew exactly where he was, right there and then.
With a start, he bolted up straight, and kicked earth onto the fire, smothering it quickly. The horse looked up from its grazing in surprise as Lucius flew around his small camp, gathering up what few belongings he had managed to steal in the city. Without breaking his pace, he threw himself up onto the horse’s back and gave it a kick.
Once again, he was on the run.
IT TOOK ANOTHER two days of mad flight to reach the rocky foothills that lay beneath the World’s Ridge Mountains. Neither the baron’s wizard, the Preacher Divine, nor Adrianna made an appearance, but from time to time, he would feel the urge to reach down and grasp the Guardian Starlight.
The artefact would give him a brief flash, as though a warning, of the effect all three had on the threads of magic. They were obviously getting closer.
It seemed to Lucius that these flashes were beginning to get more frequent, and he wondered if the Guardian Starlight was somehow trying to communicate with him. Was it intelligent? Sentient?
Dreams of a quiet mountain village nestled between the peaks soon gave way to a reality of broken and craggy land, strewn with boulders and with only the meanest and hardiest vegetation finding sustenance enough to grow.
During his moments of communion with the Guardian Starlight Lucius began to feel it was not just warning him of nearby threats, but also drawing him onwards, encouraging him to take the path he was travelling. He took some encouragement from that, but could not help wondering whether the artefact had been subtly guiding him since he had left the city.
The horse stopped abruptly, almost shaking Lucius from its back as its head jerked up, ears flattening against its skull. He leaned forward to stroke its neck.
“What’s up, boy?” he whispered to it. “You smell something bad?”
He looked about, trying to see if a mountain lion or some other predator was lurking among the rocky terrain, but saw nothing. Dismounting, he staked the reins to the ground, and padded ahead, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
A faint grunting, like swine, came to his ears, and he frowned. A herd of boars, perhaps?
Keeping his footsteps silent, Lucius inched slowly towards the summit of the rise, edging closer to the source of the noise.
As he looked down into a small valley, he saw a large camp, comprising what must have been more than a hundred... beings. There was no other way he could describe them. They w
ere not human, of that he was sure.
The creatures were brutes, heavy in build, stocky, and muscular. They moved with a strange gait, as if stooped or crippled, but, despite their posture, each stood at least as high as him. Their skin was a light brown, leathery, as if beaten into a hard surface by the rugged environment. Few clothed their nakedness with anything more than a fur wrapped around the waist or torso, and many were armed with heavy clubs. Just a few carried battered swords and shields that looked man-made but had obviously seen better days.
There was a grunt louder than the others and of a slightly higher pitch. Too late, Lucius realised how exposed he was, silhouetted against the sky atop the rise, and cursed himself for poor judgement. One of the creatures had spotted him, and one by one, the entire camp was turning to look up at him.
For a moment, there was complete silence as man and beasts stared at one another. Lucius saw their faces were just as malformed as their bodies, some sporting terrible growths sprouting from their chins or cheeks, while others had lop-sided tusks jutting from their jaws. All had the same beady black eyes that contained no emotion at all.
Then one screamed, a bestial roar that galvanised the others. A rock flew past Lucius’ head with stunning speed, and it was quickly followed by more.
Backing away, Lucius fled, racing for his horse. Already, some of the creatures were beginning to scale the rise behind him and he could only marvel at their agility and raw, physical power.
Yanking the reins from the stake, he flung himself on to the horse’s back in one fluid movement. The horse needed no further instructions, and he gripped tightly to its mane as it bolted. A small group of the creatures ran to one side to try to head him off. One, a particularly ugly brute with a face pock-marked from some plague, leapt through the air to seize the horse’s neck.
Lucius lashed out with his leg, his boot catching the creature under the chin. It grunted and fell, but as he flashed past, he saw it already beginning to rise and give chase.
One threw a spear, a crude weapon with a bent shaft and stone tip, but hurled with enough force to fly straight. Ducking at the last moment, he felt the force of air whip past the back of his neck as the spear sailed over him.
More creatures appeared ahead, running from behind a pile of boulders. They spread out along his path, bracing themselves as if they were strong enough to halt his horse in its tracks.
Not willing to find out if they could, Lucius conjured a short but powerful spell that sent a ball of fire spinning past the horse’s ears. Crackling as it flew, the fire landed in the centre of the line of creatures, immolating them immediately.
Near crazed with fear, the horse almost veered away, but Lucius drew hard on the reins, forcing the animal to keep running straight. Its hooves churned up blackened dirt as it galloped over the smoking earth where the creatures had stood just seconds before.
Seeing his way clear, Lucius kicked the horse to run ever faster, looking over his shoulder to see if they were being pursued.
It was quite some time before he felt relaxed enough to allow the horse to slow its mad rush.
CHAPTER TWENTY
FLANKED BY SQUARE buttresses, each the width of a typical townhouse, the archway had been concealed by the folds of the mountainscape, and Lucius had not been aware in the slightest of its presence until he rounded an ancient pathway and gasped as it appeared before him.
Now deep within the World’s Ridge Mountains, Lucius had, with some regret, abandoned his horse days ago and proceeded on foot, drawn on by a growing conviction he felt emanating from the Guardian Starlight. He had seen more of the brutish creatures he encountered before, and they seemed to congregate in immense tribes. The chances of his horse surviving with those savages marauding were low.
Once, he had seen a creature very similar to those misshapen beings, but this one had been a real monster. Standing at least ten feet tall, so far as Lucius could tell while trying to avoid its notice, it had the same hard, leathery skin as the other creatures, the same stooped gait, but was far more muscular. Its arms, thighs and chest bulged with power, and Lucius had no problems imagining the monster uprooting a tree or tearing his arms from his body with brute force. Fortunately, it had not seemed very attentive to its surroundings, and he had been able to sneak past without provoking it.
As he walked cautiously under the arch, Lucius noticed that strange writing was carved into its stone frame, some script he could not decipher. Looking up, he saw it continued far above his head, perhaps up to the very tip of the arch. This simple entrance could have swallowed one of the towers of the Citadel, and still have plenty of room to spare.
Lucius had already guessed the Guardian Starlight had led him to an ancient dwarf stronghold, and he felt the architecture confirmed this, having the same form and function as the structures he had seen in his dreams. Everything the dwarfs had built seemed to have an air of indestructibility about it, a sense of permanence.
The darkness inside the archway was soon broken by a spell of illumination as he held up an open hand upon which danced a pale blue flame. It revealed a wide hall bored into the mountain. He could feel the emptiness around him, the sense of being in a wide open space, and he fed more magic into the spell until the blue flame shone with a brilliant radiance.
It did not help greatly.
Peering into the gloom, Lucius could make out the shadowy form of one wall to his left, but its opposite was still shrouded in darkness and he could only guess at how far above him the ceiling lay. It was as if the dwarfs had built everything for people a hundred feet tall.
Not even the sounds of his footsteps echoed within the hall, any such noise hopelessly swallowed by the immense interior.
A slight tug pulled at his magical senses, a familiar nudge he had long ago associated with the Guardian Starlight. It had led him to this place, that much was clear, and he had at first thought it was leading him to safety. Now, as the feelings dancing at the edge of his arcane vision grew stronger and more persistent, he was not so sure. It was as if there were a great weight threatening to press down upon him, hidden yet obviously there, much like the ceiling of this great hall, millions of tons of rock supported by a barrier invisible to him in the darkness. Quite what that weight was, he did not know, but its presence had a sense of destiny to it, a final end.
Whether it was for him or the Guardian Starlight though, he could not answer. Lucius was content to follow its directions for the moment as it had not led him astray yet and he was all too aware of the magical wrath incarnate that was Adrianna not far behind him.
As he walked further into the mountain, Lucius began to realise that, while covered by the dust of ages, the hall was otherwise remarkably clean. The archway had borne no door or barrier, and he had expected to be fighting his way through more of the savage tribal creatures, but there was no evidence they had ever ventured inside. There was no nests, bones or bodily waste scattered about. It was possible they had never found this place. Possible, but unlikely. He guessed they knew every inch of their environment. Which begged the question, why had they not used this place as shelter?
One hand on his sword’s pommel, the other never straying far from the Guardian Starlight, Lucius continued down the hall until he reached its end. There he saw a sight more incredible than any he had witnessed before.
HANDS SPLAYED ACROSS the rock, Alhmanic pulled himself forward to get a better look at the figure walking cautiously into the immense archway. His staff had led him this far, and he was sure the man he now followed was the same Shadowmage that had attacked his camp. He could not see the other, far more dangerous one, but that was fine as far as he was concerned. It would make the next step all the easier.
The Preacher Divine was dishevelled, filthy. He was exhausted and hungry, but all thoughts of discomfort fled the moment he saw his quarry.
After the Shadowmages had left the site of the elven ruins, Alhmanic had scoured the surrounding area for a horse, then had ridden, hard, south
wards, led by the rumbling vibrations his staff emitted as it tracked the elven artefact, as a hound fixates on a fox. He had ridden his horse harshly, cruelly, and with all speed until its heart simply gave out.
A nearby farm had supplied another mount, requisitioned in the name of the Anointed Lord, blessed be those who give her succour. Throughout the Territories and into southern Pontaine, Alhmanic had requisitioned, bargained, and bullied common folk for their horses and whenever that had not worked, he flat out stole them.
It was all for the greater good, he reminded himself. Those farmers and craftsmen eking out an existence away from the cities were doing God’s own work by providing him with a horse. Even if they did not realise it until after the fact.
All the time, he chased the elusive Shadowmage who had disappeared into the darkness of the huge archway, a brief blue light flaring up from within as he cast a spell to help him see. Alhmanic needed no such tricks, having learned long ago that faith alone could make a blind man see. Well, faith and an enchanted staff.
Alhmanic unlimbered his weapon and felt its power course through his hands. He felt that it knew he was close to journey’s end, that the artefact was within his grasp.
No more almost this time. He would enter that archway and claim his prize, or die in the doing.
HITTING THE GROUND hard, Adrianna tried to roll with the impact but her limbs would not obey her commands. The impact forced the breath from her body and, for a moment, she lay still on the stony ground, chest rising and falling as she drew in air. Eyes closed, she rested both body and mind. It would be a battle, she was sure. Lucius had to know that she would not take his betrayal lightly. He had to know there would be a terrible price to pay.
She had not yet thought exactly what course her retribution would take. Maybe, just maybe, if Lucius surrendered and handed over the Guardian Starlight, she would spare him. The wretched thief had had his uses in the past, after all.
The Shadowmage Trilogy (Twilight of Kerberos: The Shadowmage Books) Page 69
