“May the gods be with you my friends. I hope we will see each other again!” he was waving to the leaving team.
“Thank you for everything, Hajrinana!” the group said goodbye.
They began their long and tiring journey through the swamp. The water was steaming in the slightly colder air of the morning, covering the land with fog, but it did not bother the tiny creatures rowing in the endless lake. The journey was mostly calm, it only started raining again, but they were quite used to it.
Will we be able to find the grave among the ruins? What secrets can it hide? I hope we can arrive there before the people of the Nozgold Empire, Corwen was wondering.
The journey was eventless for hours. They were moving forward in narrow and wider water surfaces, covered in water plants and reed. The witch gave the potions, she had prepared the previous day to her mates. Only the sorcerer and the priest/knight did not take it.
“Drink it as we arrive to the ruined town!” she recommended to the others.
“They will help you, if we have to fight.”
“But how exactly?” the captain asked as he wanted to know a bit more about the potions.
“You will see, everybody will experience a slightly different effect,” the witch was smiling mysteriously.
The boats finally reached their destination and they got to the shore. The sun was slowly disappearing behind the land.
“We are here!” the iblorgs were pointing forward.
“You can get to the edge of the ruined town in minutes now. We won’t go there. This is a dangerous land, but we will leave you two boats for the way back. Good luck!” they headed back to the water and slowly disappeared in the distance.
Larianna got out a blurry sludge-like potion from her sack.
“Cheers my friends,” she drank the content of the bottle and grimaced. It was obviously not a delicious drink.
The captain, the elf, the orc and the thief girl, drank the potions received from the witch and experienced a similarly bad taste.
The Ertonfellian warrior felt his motions even faster and more precise than before. The mold green skinned orc felt like he was given the power and bravery of the ancient souls. The little thief girl and the captain did not experience anything strange, but the beautiful witch ensured them that they would feel the advantageous difference during a fight. Led by Corwen, the group headed towards the ruins, menacingly standing out from the swamp.
*****
Coming closer, the living dead were surrounding the men of the Nozgold Empire. The sorcerer with an obsidian gemstone in one of his eyes summoned the power of the stone and it began sparkling. The approaching skeletons with rusty weapons in their hands stopped and started to back.
“Go back to your graves. You have no business with us!” Morquol shouted at them.
The rotting bodies obeyed him and disappeared from their eyes, sinking into the swamp.
“We have to find the cemetery as soon as possible. The grave of the hero cannot be far from here.” The sorcerer was frowning.
“I believe it should be at the Western end of the town,” the ash gray-skinned elf warrior suggested.
“Sounds like a good idea, let’s go there right now!” the sorcerer encouraged his horse.
The followers of the dark empire, headed to the West among the ruins. There were destroyed walls, ruined stone towers and sunk houses around them as long as they could see. This city was lively a thousand years ago, but now it was surrounded by death and the waters of forgetfulness.
Suddenly a strange creature jumped in front of them, from one of the decaying houses, approaching them menacingly, grunting. At first, it reminded them of a giant wolf, it had a long face covered in scales and it had huge incisors. Its brimstone yellow small eyes were flashing angrily. It had thick, rough mane on its back and its skin was covered in dark, irregular stripes, it had sharp claws on its muscular legs. It had a lizard-like tail ending in a curved sting.
The Faceless grabbed their weapons and pointed it at the sneering enemy. They jumped off their horses with acrobatic movement.
“What kind of beast is this?” Vardo asked the sorcerer.
“If I’m not hallucinating, it is a chaos beast. One of the creations of the sorcerers of the ancient world, who are still alive. It is a dangerous monster!” the magister of the Black Tower explained.
“Great, let’s see how dangerous it is,” the shadow elf was smiling.
They pressed their curved blades to their arms and approached the beast with strange, dance-like movement. The monster quickly threw itself on one of the approaching masked warriors. The assassin, jumping above the creature, avoided the attack with a spin and wounded its back with his blade. He arrived to the ground easily and quickly faced the opponent. He was not fast enough though and he missed it.
The stingy tail hit him and it pierced deep into his neck. The assassin grabbed his neck, the sting hit the pulse and blood was pouring out from it. A pound of blood surrounded him, as his heart pumped the blood from his body. He silently sank to his knees, fell on his side and never moved again.
Vardo frowned his eyebrows behind his mask. Finally a dangerous trophy. Now my turn, chaos beast, he thought.
“Faceless, we cannot make mistakes anymore, this is a ruthless enemy, we cannot give it another chance! Let’s do a Teidron style attack now! Get ready for my signal!” he commanded his men.
Meanwhile the chaos creature was looking for another victim and he chose the shadow elf to attack. He jumped up again with its claws open.
Vardo was faster and sliding on his back. He cut the monster at its chest, who missing its swift opponent and it started howling out of pain. The valor got back on his feet and gave a signal to the others. Breathing out air from their lungs, they began the perfectly harmonized attack.
The beast had to back out to avoid the fatal blades piercing its body. He tried to bite the attackers fiercely and wounded one of their shoulders.
Vardo jumped up in the air while the others occupied the beast. Spinning above it, he pierced the monster’s skull with its blade. The perfect cut wounded the chaos creature fatally and life lefts its brimstone yellow eyes and it gave itself to death forever.
Another perfect victory for me, thought the shadow elf smiling under the mask.
“Our mate underrated the opponent and misjudged his possibilities. Do not follow his example again!” Vardo explained as he wiped off the blood from his sword.
“Yes, valor!” the assassins replied together.
“It was an excellent teamwork commander, but don’t waste any time. We only have a few days before our troops will attack the North for our Lord’s command,” the sorcerer said.
The leather-armored warriors got on their horses and continued their trip among the ruins. The noise of the battle got the attention of the other unearthly creatures hiding in the shadows. They slowly, but persistently followed the intruders. A few minutes later, the commander noticed the place they were searching for with his sharp elf sight.
“The cemetery is there sir Morquol!” He pointed towards a small hill.
Going closer they could see graves and crypts lined up among the decaying ruins.
“Excellent, we have to find the grave of Orender Teroldo, hiding the key to the relics as soon as we can!” he urged his men.
“Search for the sign I showed you on the walls of the crypts. I feel that we are close. Hurry up!” the magister of the Black Tower commanded the warriors.
This is the finish. Soon we will find the crypt and inside, the hidden key. I will receive a great reward, when I return to the empire, grinned inside the dark mage.
It was getting dark, when one of the assassins shouted.
“I can see a sign here, which is very similar to what you showed us!” he called his mates.
As they assembled, Morquol examined the domed grave with the strange symbol, which was locked down with a carved stone door. He ran his fingers through his goat beard and began talking with
excitement.
“This is what we have been looking for, step back, I will open this door!” he commanded the others.
He mumbled some unknown words and began the magic, pointing at the door with his staff. A few moments later, the thick stone plate moved and slipping at the floor it enabled them to go into the crypt. Narrow, spider web covered, dusty stairs led down to the deep. The obsidian eyed man turned to his giant servant.
“My loyal guard. You will stay here and keep an eye on the entrance! Do not let anybody in, whether it is a living or a dead creature!” he gave the simple instructions to his silent servant.
He grabbed his wolf headed staff and stepped into the crypt with the Faceless behind him.
In the meantime, not far from there, the seven adventurers reached the edge of the ruin town and entered the tendril-covered ancient ruins. It was almost completely dark by then and they lit a torch to see better. There were strange shades above them that slowly surrounded the little group.
“Living dead!” DaMatta cried out.
“I can create a protecting aura around us that can inhibit the creature from approaching us for a while.”
“Do it my friend, or we can only rely on our swords and the power of the magic users!” the captain urged him, grabbing his weapon.
The priest/knight held the sacred symbol of his god and murmured prayers to him. A few moments later an invisible aura with a ten feet radius appeared around the heavy armored man. The decaying corpses smelling of death suddenly stopped around them. They were clenching rusty weapons in their hands. Some of them had shattered armors hanging on them. They started to back because of the magic and let the group move forward. However, they were following them persistently from a distance, rattling.
“This magic comes very handy now DaMatta,” the panther man said.
“I cut all of them no problem. I am not scared of walking dead skeletons!” the orc clenching his battle-axe cut in.
“Still, it is easier this way, don’t you think Tusk?” the almond-eyed girl asked the warrior who just grunted.
“Let’s stop for a second, I see fresh horse steps on the ground!” the elf tracker was examining the ground.
“How many riders were here Lowarien?” the captain asked.
“Let’s see. I see six. Yes, there were six horse riders and a giant creature, who can be really heavy, based on the depth of its footsteps,” the Ertonfellian fighter was rubbing his chin.
“These are the men of the Nozgold Empire then, who killed the Night Blades in the mountains. Damn, they got here first. However fast we were!” the captain was swearing.
“The footsteps are fresh. They cannot be so ahead of us,” the elf said.
“Let’s follow them and see where they lead us. I hope we can catch up with them before it’s too late,” Corwen said with hope.
A little later, the footsteps towards the West led to two corpses: a masked man in a dark leather scale and a terrible beast.
“This is an assassin from the Nozgold Empire. I recognize his weapons,” the elf warrior said.
The ginger-red haired beauty leaned down and examined the body.
“They are close my champion. The corpse is still fresh.”
The orc was poking the terrible beast with his weapon.
“So disgusting. What could this be?” Everly looked over the corpse with disgust.
“Some kind of ancient beast, and it can be very dangerous. If it could kill one of the assassins of the empire,” their mate in the full plate mail armor replied.
“Let’s go forwards and hope they haven’t found what they are searching for!” the captain said.
The footsteps soon led them to a large cemetery on a flat hill. They split up among the graves, but soon led to domed vault. Its marble door was open and it was guarded by a silent robust creature in a coat and a hood. There were destroyed skeletons all around it. The living dead were no opponent to the strange guardian. Even Tusk could have been jealous of his size. Noticing the arrival of the group, he turned to them with a metallic creak.
“Be careful, this is a dangerous opponent, a guard golem! Weapons cannot even harm it, not even magical ones!” the rour warned his mates.
“Fire and ice in turns however can wound it,” he looked at the witch.
“Let’s lure it from the door and I will attack with ice! Are you ready Larianna?”
“Of course I am ready, Al Sarran. Let’s do it!”
The rour pointed at the robust creature with his staff as glazes of ice struck out of its peak into the opponent’s body, making it cold.
The witch was up next. She created a human-sized, flaming creature that glid above the ground, hitting the golem with a huge explosion. His coat and other clothing burned, revealing his real form.
The body looked like a statue made after a muscular man. On his angular, unfinished head, only the two eyes were carved out. Its surface was covered with magic signs and figures. The attack made it furious. It started moving with creaking loud noise towards the group. The fighters surrounded it, but did not attack since it would not have made any difference. They could avoid his hits with its arm briskly.
“Can you tear that tower on it?” DaMatta shouted, pointing at the dome of a ruined building nearby.
“Lure him under it!” the rour shouted.
“We will take care of the rest with Dergo,” he was backing quickly.
The steel monster was not so smart and the group could trick it to go to the right place. Then Al Sarran created an explosion at the bottom of the tower and the ancient building fell apart and shattered, burying the creature with stones, who did not move anymore.
“We destroyed it!” Corwen shouted happily.
“I hope so too captain, but we cannot be completely sure!” the panther man said, worrying.
A few moments later, smaller and constantly growing pieces of rocks began to roll down, from the mound and a steel hand appeared from it, followed by a head, as the golem slowly climbed out from under the rocks.
“This cannot be real! How can we destroy this creature?” Larianna shouted angrily.
“We only have one possibility left. We have to break the magical sign responsible for its movement. It looks like the letter “K” but it is always hidden to a hardly visible place. Around the armpits for instance. However, if we manage to break the drawing we can paralyze it,” the sorcerer shared his knowledge about the weak point of the golem.
“Occupy it for a while and Lowarien and I will break the sign!” the thief girl shouted, getting out her throwing daggers.
“We will really have to fight it then goddamnit!” the captain was swearing.
The golem had already managed to escape from the pile of stones and was approaching him with long steps. Tusk, DaMatta and Corwen were waiting for the opponent with their weapons in their hands. They began fighting with the dangerous magical creature. Their blades could only scratch the metallic surface. They tried to avoid the powerful hits of the steel arms that made the whole land shiver, when they hit the ground. The elf tracker and the olive skinned young girl were watching them silently, waiting for the right moment.
“I saw something under its left arm, that’s the sign Al Sarran was talking about!” the elf shouted, holding his stretched bow in his hand.
Hearing the golden haired elf’s words, the captain spun to the left side of the opponent and cut the metallic surface of the body, to encourage it to attack him.
It lifted its arm high to kill Corwen with a hit. At that very moment, an arrow and a throwing dagger crossed the sky and hit the palm-sized sign, with fatal precision under the armpit. With a little explosion, the arm of the golem was paralyzed and stopped moving.
“Nice shots my friends. Finally we managed to brake the magic sign!” Al Sarran was delighted.
Everly and Lowarien winked at each other appreciatively, after the crucially precise shots. They all sighed with relief, since one hit of the golem could have killed any of them.
“If everyone is fine, let’s go into the crypt!” Corwen said.
Chapter Ten
They rushed back to the grave, with the door open and spider webbed, dusty, marble stairs leading down to the dark. The captain entered the vault with a torch in his hand and the others followed him. The stairs soon turned to the left and they ended in a spacious room.
There were torches lit around the wall, covered in beautifully carved embossment. It depicted the glorious battles of ancient times, when they defeated the demons. There was a marble coffin in the middle, with an ornately carved warrior with a sword on the front board.
There were five people standing around it. In the middle, there was a goat bearded elderly man, in a burgundy loose leg-length coat, with a skillfully carved staff in his hand that ended in the skull of a wolf-like creature. There was a black obsidian gemstone for one eye. He had wrinkled face and baggy eyes. It was not caused by years, but by the use of dark magic.
The warriors were pressing slightly curved blades to their lower arms. They were had black, full body leather armors and they wore dark masks, covering their faces. One of them had ash gray skin and pointy ears like the elves’ and he had sparkling turquoise eyes, burning with a dangerous flame, that could make anybody shiver, who looked deep in it. He had shoulder-long, messy milky hair.
“So you are the ones making the noise outside,” the older goat bearded man in the middle said.
“I suppose you passed my servant guarding the entrance, which is impressive. I am Raduem Morquol, magister of the Black Tower and these are the Faceless, the elite assassins of the Nozgold Empire,” he pointed to the men surrounding him.
“Before we kill you, I would like to know who you are and how did you get here?”
“I am Venuri del Corwen, guardian captain form the Dukedom of Eregorn and these are my loyal friends. If I am right, you are the deputies of the Nozgold Empire, who murdered the Night Blades, after you had no use of them anymore.”
“It was an unfortunate event, but we had to do it, to avoid anyone else knowing about the location of the relic, but as I can see, we were not careful enough.” Morquol replied.
Legend of Fire and Ice Page 12
