by Jason Jones
“And where are you going son?” Harron looked over his shoulder, assuming the prince had lost his taste for bloodshed and worship in his youth, and since he was not the center of attentions this day.
“I am the Prince of Armondeen, and you are not my father, until king Ian is dead. The words of my mother. So, Lord Amirak, I am taking four hundred men to Freemoore, as those that may have the power to open our cursed lands to the south, are heading there. As I told you both.” Rohne did not wait for reply and slammed the doors behind him.
Andora floated from her throne and made for the door. Harron’s hand grabbed her around the waist, stopping her. Five scimitars drew, five sets of eyes glowed white and red in the dark floor of the Tower of the Talon, and five scraggly barefoot men surrounded Harron in the blink of an eye. The room appeared empty, until Andora was touched.
“Duuthstesi, noest nocht.”
At her command the five Nataloni guards lowered their daggers and curved blades then went back into their corners and melded with the shadows, all but one that stood by the doors in nearly plain sight. Their eyes went from red, to solid white, then to shadow black. They were seconds away from killing the man that had grabbed their mistress.
“Let him go my queen. He has royal guard around him at all times. Nothing will happen to him, in Freemoore of all places. He is nearly of age, sixteen years now, he is spreading his wings is all. Let him go.” Harron kept his grip tight around his beloved.
“I will send five of my twenty two Nataloni with him, just to be sure.” Andora sighed and gave up her struggle.
“Fine, but just five. We cannot watch over him forever, Andora. After Ian is dead, then you and I many years from now, he will be the king of Armondeen, hells willing.”
“Noestra uthdur nava nocht Rohne adruth arti.”
Andora spoke in the tongue of the creatures of the hells and underworld and she felt five of her unholy guard leave to follow her son through the shadows. They would heed her call from any distance, for anything she wished, and protect the heir prince with their demon possessed lives, if need be.
“I told you the things I have been seeing in my dreams, something is not right.” Andora put her hand on Harrons smooth face.
“All will be fine, my queen. We have three legions of a thousand each arriving, and even my brother the bishop is en route. With the royal guard here to protect you, and a reserve army of another thousand, and my personal legion, there is nothing to stop us. They are just dreams.”
“My dreams are never wrong.”
“Then this will be the first time that they are.”
“Whom did you send for, besides your brother Thohne, our supposed Aldane bishop?” Andora began rubbing his chest as the door opened and two young slavegirls were allowed in. They took to their knees, disrobed to just a waistcloth each, and awaited the queen, as they had been instructed.
“Why you feel the need to have such a force, I still do not understand, Andora.” Harron pressed closer, yet whispered his concerns. “It will draw attention, and that we do not need.”
“I told you already, beloved, my dreams of peasants by the thousands heading this way have been coming, every night. Nations allied against us, being revealed, they are repeating in my sleep.”
“And? You have me. And me with five legions and whatever you will be summoning for us in the south could break the will---“
“I know, Harron, but should someone hear of it, should we be exposed, we will need many blades to silence any witnesses. This is not some little murder we are planning. We shall be summoning a very child of the eleven firstborn to consecrate a Nochtilian altar in the curselands, and sacrificing many. It needs to be quiet, protected, and without fault. If the church ever heard of this, every kingdom on Agara would burn us to cinders. Now, who else is arriving?” Her hand stroked his arms up to his neck.
“I sent for only those devoted as we. My brother Thohne of course, Sir Yaelsh of New Aloeste, and---” Harron was feeling under the silk garments when she interrupted him.
“I hate the smiling knight, you realize this? He is unnerving to look at.” Her dark eyes stared into his with disappointment.
“I know, but should we need it, he is a butcher of men beyond compare, as are his soldiers.”
“He has a fetish for murdering elven women, just for the screams. Then he rapes them and takes their ears. Keep him away from me.”
“As you wish.”
“Who else?”
“Sir Orlimane of Vin Barivow and Lord Cetreus of Feldumesh, your cousin.” Harron resumed his groping, knowing it would all be better after some blood was on the floor for them to fornicate upon.
“The shade and the old hangman, good choices. They will keep quiet for certain.” Her hand pulled a drawcord, the curtains and drapes falling from regal indigos to crimson. Then, the statues of demons pleasuring demons, stone fountains held by skulls, and tables that appeared not for dining were revealed. Andora watched as the euphoric young slave women stared at them and the room they found themselves in, the seeds and powders surely dulling their senses.
“You two, yes you, come here, now.”
“My queen, I will get the knives.” Harron, fully aroused, walked by the stand, next to the altar, and opened a box.
“Yes, it is time. Whether they are taken in Freemoore, or head to the curselands, they will open them and pass the storm. Then, we have much to do, so much.” Andora was handed a knife, a girl began kissing her neck, and the ritual began.
“Glory to the eleven firstborn.” Harron whispered then kissed Andora, tongues intertwining as clothing fell and slavegirls touched them with trembling hands.
“Praise Hells, praise Shukuru.” Andora whispered back.
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Shinayne crept around another copse of withered banyans, trying to find a path, a road, anything that would let them travel west with more ease. There was nothing. Hills covered in trees struggling to survive, scrub that had overgrown inbetween, and a canopy of bare branches that prevented the clouded sky from assistance was her only dark trail. The highborn elf had her hands on her hilts, enchanted blades halfway out most of the time, as every step made echo from the foliage that had ceased to live underfoot. After but a day and a half of travel, the land had all but died. Green grasses gone and left with brown and black weeds, gray leaves and sharp thorns blocked their steps, and not a road or path could be found. The sun was covered with gray waves of cloud, circling clouds, ones that would not relent to the sky above.
Curselands, deadlands, stormlands, Shinayne had many a superstition about the west. From floods of divine supposition in the south, to dark sorceries of western lands of Altestan, and simply heading toward darkness the whole day after dawn, elven belief had the highborn wishing they were headed a different direction. This land was dark, unnaturally dark, and something held it as such against what should be.
“Saberrak.” She whispered to her right, knowing the louder steps were his.
“Nothing here, elf. Anything south?”
“No, it is worse, even harder to pass. Try and whisper.”
“For what? I would prefer something to find us, then I could kill it and track it.” Saberrak huffed, a bit louder, on purpose.
“Just find the others then, why I bother sneaking with you and your stomping and snorting.” The elven swordswoman shook her head.
“They are north, this way.”
The gray minotaur crept north, Shinayne at his side, searching for the green light of Gwenneths staff in the shadowed forest light. They saw no sign of Gwenne, the branches without leaves seemed to block every direction, yet ahead they saw Azenairk standing on a rock gazing around. Everything drab, everything gray, as if this land stole the color of life from those that dared walk it.
“Ye find it, a path, anything?” Zen looked ahead to James and Gwenne in the western distance, then back to them, pulling his beard in lost frustration. Everything was hued in ash from
tree to sky.
“No, nothing for half a day but hills, thick dead forest, and---“ Shinayne drew her blades at the sound of running coming their way. James emerged from around a hill under a crag of black moss covered rock. She relaxed, the depravity and stillness had her on edge.
“We found something, come on, this way.” He smiled and waved them toward him, then turned and marched back west and north.
Gwenneth was looking back over her shoulder, staff of Imoch aglow from the green gem, then she pointed with her left hand. Her feet were hovering a foot above what looked like an old bridge, covered in dead vines, yet there was nothing but a ravine beneath the dilapidated stone and brown wood, the river, great as it may have once been, was long gone.
“What is it Gwenne?” Shinayne stepped up to the edge of the bridge.
“There, buildings, on the other side of that valley. One with smoke rising from it.” Gwenneth put her hand out in front of the elf as she went to sneak ahead. “Wait.”
“Finally, some answers. I am sure it is fine---“ She passed by onto the bridge.
Not two steps in, the black dead vines erupted into a swarm of fast moving tangles that whipped all around Shinayne. Her arms were constricted, her legs tied by more than three, even her waist was being crushed as the vines began to pull her off the bridge to whatever was underneath.
“Hiviastre jureth!” Gwenneth focused the staff toward her friend, forcing her up in the air against the pull of the vines.
Saberrak dove in, swinging at the black plants and chopping them apart. Then more appeared and began to quickly wrap around the minotaur from under the bridge. James slashed his blade through the searching foliage that was reaching for Saberrak, hundreds of black writhing vines now surrounding them all.
Zen lowered his shield, seeing Shinayne struggling to cut at her captors some twenty feet in the air, and ran down the ravine. More tentacle-like vegetation slapped at him, yet he kept low behind the Thalanaxe shield and charged into the darkness under the old bridge. He peeked over his steel defense, and saw a twisting mass of black roots and a grinning maw of green fangs in the center of a moss covered trunk. Three green eyes opened in the bark and stared at him as the thing hissed in warning.
“By Vundren, what demon tree is this?!”
Shinayne got her left arm free with Elicras and began to slash at her restraining vines, barely able to breath in air from being squeezed. Saberrak cut away through more as his legs were now fully wrapped. James was swinging wildly now, being lifted off of the bridge into the air by a dozen or more. The vines were neverending, hundreds, long as a twenty men and as thick as tree branches.
Gwenne focused harder, holding her three friends in place against the pull of the vines. She was sweating, staff in hand glowing bright yellow now, matching the force of these things with arcane might and not letting them be taken to whatever was below. She backed up, as some of the vines began to slither closer to her feet, they could sense that something was interfering here, something watched from afar.
Azenairk slammed his blacksteel warhammer into an eye, hitting mostly bark, then again, dodging vines as he swung at the face in the wicked tree. He raised his shield just in time, then noticed the creature wince its green eyes as a shimmer of light reflected off his shield from Gwenneths staff above.
“Light! Give me light, now!” Zen yelled up to Gwenneth, seeing his friends over him on the bridge fighting while being held in midair. He did not wait, yet tentacles began to wrap his legs.
“Vundren eth edrith vun vast!” He threw his hammer hard into the creatures face and grabbed his hammer and moons symbol as he pointed to the three eyes of the demonic tree writhing in vines.
“Tarrim tetha nuali!” Gwenneth rose up in the air, still holding James, Shinayne and Saberrak from the pull below the bridge with telekinetic arcane force, and illuminated through the staff the entire ravine with blinding golden light.
“Reeettthhhsss! reeeethhhhsss!”
The vines shrunk and slithered by the hundreds, dropping their prey fast. The three eyes closed as the creature roared in terror from the blinding white light the dwarven priest unleashed into its face the same moment. Its appendages withered and withdrew having been burned by Gwenneth’s light above and its roots scrambled quick as it shambled south down the ravine leaving an echo of screams and hisses, and a green trail of sizzling slime.
James slowly floated down to the ground from the enchantments upon his ancient shield from the dragon Ansharr. Saberrak reached with one arm and caught the side of the bridge before he fell to the bottom of the ravine. Shinayne screamed, falling nearly forty feet, just as Zen ran and held out his arms to catch her. A foot above the dwarf, she stopped and hovered. They looked to each other, then to the minotaur hanging by one arm, then to James who drifted like a feather down to the bottom.
Gwenneth held her hand out, holding Shinayne from impacting ontop of Zen with arcane force, and she levitated to the ravine floor.
“Next time I say wait, wait.” She smiled, then snapped her fingers and let Shinayne fall the last foot into the arms of Azenairk. She had sensed something below the bridge that was using a raw form of dark arcane to mask its presence.
“Well next time, be a bit more specific.” Shinayne dusted herself off, wiped the green blood from the vines off on her cloak, and sheathed her blades.
Saberrak dropped from his deadarm hang on the bridge and landed to his feet with a loud thud. He looked south to the trail of green, he thought of following, then thought otherwise as he and his companions saw what Gwenneth had found on the other side of the ravine.
“I smell something, a fire.” Saberrak nodded to Gwenneth and Zen, then turned to the west. “We heading that way?”
“Aye, but watch out for three eyed tree trunks then.” Zen chuckled.
“There is a sign ahead, let us see what it says.” Gwenneth hovered ahead to where there was a large post of wood and a crossboard with writing upon it. She looked at the words in old Agarian, written ages ago it would seem. She read it aloud.
City of Estivar
Temple Way
Kingdom of the Crescent Moon
They all looked to each other, to the sign, then to the ruined old buildings across the bridge. Despite the dark canopy overhead that cast the ruins in shadow, they knew they were on the right trail. A small city of homes and structures without roofs nor life sat quietly in the overgrowth of dying trees. Once yellow walls, now covered in mold and vine, beckoned and warned with but a look into the dreary outer battlements of a place long abandoned.
“You know of this place, from your books, priest?” Saberrak huffed.
“Naye. But, Kingdom of the Crescent Moon, that was mentioned then, heard it and read of it, a few times. Tis the right road we are one, supposedly.” Zen nodded.
“Cautiously this time, stick together, and stay ready.” James Andellis walked ahead, shield raised and sword drawn.
Shinayne drew her matching blades of the whitemoon, Saberrak his axes, Zen his warhammer, and Gwenneth floated behind with the staff of Imoch watching and glowing green which only added to the eeriness of Estivar.
Past a gate with an iron portcullis raised and rusting like its chains, beyond the outer sandstone walls speckled with browning molds in search of the sun, the ancient dwelling was no more inviting on the inside. The tallest building still standing was only two stories at best. The windows were bare, the doors lay face down in decay on the streets, and a single plume of smoke from a small house was all that moved anywhere in eyeshot.
Chink, chink, chink, chink!
Slam!
They all turned and jumped in surprise, as not five feet behind Gwenneth, the spiked iron portcullis that had obviously not moved in forever, fell shut.
“Did you touch it?” Shinayne whispered to Gwenneth.
She felt her heart pounding out of her robes, she glanced with the arcane sight, nothing. She closed her eyes and focused, using her magical blindsight to see if h
er eyes were tricking her. Nothing. Gwenne looked to Shinayne, and shook her head to the no.
They waited a few more moments, yet nothing appeared. Saberrak huffed out his breath and turned. Everyone followed he and James further into the decrepit ruins. Hundreds of buildings lay in disarray, once temples and manors, some just homes and shops, yet the stairs and roads along Temple Way gave to nothing that would indicate anyone was still here. Only the rising smoke from the last structure on the right caught their eyes.
“The blackbirds are just staring as we pass.” James nodded to the minotaur.
“Watch the vines, keep quiet.” He huffed in return.
“No animals here, not a rat nor rabbit. I sense nothing close either, not even those birds.” Shinayne was concerned now, she could not feel the life of the birds she was looking at.
“Answers there in whoever started the fire, keep goin’ then.” The dwarf was uneasy as well, feeling like everything was closing in around him. Trees without leaves leaned inward, grasses seemed to stare, but did not, and the birds of black just watched without sound from long dead rooftops of warped wood.
The building was run down and ancient like the rest, yellow stone and disrepair, yet the doors were intact and shut. The roof had branches and bundled foilage that looked recent, the windows were boarded with wood that held no moss, and the smoke rising from the chimney smelled of charcoal and dinner. A wooden sign hung from old chains above the door, a sign with barely visible carved letters in some old tongue, but in had been repainted blue not too long back by the looks of it.
“What does it say, Lazlette?” Saberrak put his back to the wall of the small building, sniffing and listening.
“I cannot read it, ancient indeed or out of use, the language is not known to me.” She stared again, trying to decipher even one letter as recognizable. She could not.
James went beside Saberrak, peering around the other corner next to the door, back to the outside wall. Shinayne crouched low, turned in careful circles, then looked up next to Gwenneth.
“Something looks familiar, that sign, the letters, I have seen them before.” Shinayne stood below it, turned, and looked at it upside down from underneath. “Looks dwarven.”
