The Emperor's Shadow War (Tales of Alus Book 2)

by Donald Wigboldy

  Dante stared after the raven and wondered briefly if he would ever see the strange creature again.

  Thoughts of the raven were quickly set aside when he came to the first gate of the castle leading to the main hall. The crowd seemed thickest here. Dante used his armored form to maximum effect and pretended that he had somewhere important to be. "One side!" the sergeant ordered gruffly as he shouldered through the crowd. Most of the people were just milling about before the doors anyway. A few others looked at him crossly until they caught sight of his armor and figured that they were not losing a place in line to him. It wasn't long before Dante reached the gate itself.

  The doors were shut tight. The masses had obviously become too much for the chamberlain and his aides. Dante found the small petition window in the left door. Knocking forcefully, Dante made his presence known.

  The small peep window opened after a long while. A man with a gray beard stared out at him. "What business do you have to declare?" he asked gruffly. The man had obviously had a long day of interruptions.

  "I am Sergeant Dante Betrice. I've come with information for the king from the battle at Turo."

  The old man sighed, "Just a minute."

  The door pulled back a crack. A few of the nearer people of the crowd started to rush for the opening. A dark look from Dante and a menacing movement towards his sword squelched the idea as he intercepted the would be intruders. He judged that it would be quite awhile before any of these people would be allowed to set foot inside and felt slightly guilty at his ease of entry.

  Once inside, the old man that had addressed him before looked at him from head to toe. "Just get back?

  You look like you came pretty close to not making it," he said pointing to a tear in Dante's armor that no longer protected his heart. Dried brown of shed blood still clotted the opening and prevented a look at the skin beneath. It itched and he knew that it was probably just a minor flesh wound.

  "Yeah, I was lucky," he replied gruffly. There were no other words that could explain his current condition, when so many hadn't survived, so he didn't even bother.

  The old man nodded. "So what information do you bring?" he asked. In his hands, were a quill pen and a tablet of paper, which appeared ready to record his statement.

  "No offense, sir, but I believe that I should report to no one less than a general concerning such matters."

  The old man sighed again, "All the generals are in conference with the king himself. You'll have to wait."

  "No, this would be the perfect time to talk to them all. I think the fact that I know what happened to the invaders would require such attention."

  Surprise showed in the man's face. Taking a moment to gauge the truth of Dante's words, he then motioned over a younger man also wearing the garb of the king's staff. "Show the sergeant to the office of General Laban."

  The younger man gestured for the sergeant to follow and quickly turned on his heel. Dante fell into his wake and was led along. Fifteen minutes and four flights of stairs later, they came to a strong oak door and stopped. The escort rapped on its surface sharply.

  A large man in silver mail came to the door, "What is it, man? We requested no interruptions!"

  Dante stepped boldly in front of the suddenly shaky escort. "I'm afraid that I'm the cause, General Laban," he offered with a crisp salute to his superior officer.

  "What is it, sergeant?"

  "I have word from the plain of Turo as well as news of the enemy's course."

  An eyebrow arched in curiosity. He turned to the escort and dismissed the man with a nod. "Inside, sergeant," the general instructed.

  Once inside, Dante's hubris faltered. Before him standing around a desk bearing a map of central Certe, was not only General Laban, but Second General Desquer, Commander Liess of the Homeguard and Cavalry General Celes. The final member of the council was King Druin himself. All the eyes of the most important men in central Certe lay focused on him.

  Dante swallowed hard.

  "What have you learned, sergeant? We haven't got all day," Laban growled irritably.

  He nodded. "I have just returned from the battlefield of Turo where the entire battalion under General Batist was utterly destroyed."

  The men all looked uncomfortable at his words. "We know of that, sergeant. Get to something that we don't know," Laban commanded.

  "Though I'm not sure how I survived when others did not, I did leave the battlefield well after all the other survivors must have gone," the sergeant continued and they all knew that he meant when the few remaining soldiers had fled after the rout. "My return followed the wake of the enemy. Fully three villages along the road to Trea were slain and burned nearly to the ground." The looks on their faces proved that they had not yet received such information. Dante continued, "Just before I sought out a place to sleep in the woods for the night, their tracks suddenly disappeared. All trace of the alien marauders fully evaporated into thin air. There was literally almost a straight line where their footprints ended.

  "I don't how such a thing is possible, but I do know that, as suddenly as they arrived in Certe, they no longer exist here."

  "Just how badly wounded are you?" General Desquer questioned sarcastically. "No one can just disappear into thin air, sergeant. You must have been delirious from your ordeal and seen things incorrectly. Perhaps you just wanted to believe that they had disappeared or wish us to believe that they have."

  Dante replied before any others, "Why couldn't they just disappear, general? You didn't see these creatures as I did. They are unlike anything that I have ever seen before, certainly not human. I doubt that anyone alive has ever seen such beasts. You know from other reports, or at least the rumored reports, that this army appeared within our country from nowhere. The borders or villages surrounding the plains should have spotted something of them well before they entered the heart of this kingdom. You can't just hide such a large force in this territory, and they fearlessly attacked our villages as well. So why would the other towns be avoided?

  "What I'm saying is, if they could appear out of nowhere to attack, why would it be so hard to believe that they could disappear just as easily?"

  Dante noticed King Druin nodding in supposed agreement. His words supported his action, as he said, "A convincing argument and well thought out, sergeant. I have sent out a pair of wizards in an effort to check on such a possibility."

  The other men surrounding the desk looked to their lord in surprise. He ignored them as he continued, "Wizard Galzan remembered studying of things referred to as portals. He didn't offer up much explanation other than to say that such things were known to appear naturally from time to time and that the past held stories of sorcerers from this world that had managed to open them artificially. His theory was, if we could do it, perhaps another race from another dimension could as well.

  "I don't claim to understand exactly what Galzan meant, but the sergeant seems to have proof that the wizard's hunch was correct. It may have been a portal large enough to drop an army off long enough to destroy a battalion and cause havoc by destroying innocent villages. Such a weapon used against us more than once, would be truly devastating."

  The king seemed to realize that Dante was still present. With the rank of only sergeant, he must have realized that such information should not be shared. "Sergeant, keep these matters to yourself. This information is privileged and, if you were to leak this out, it would mean your head. Do you understand?" At Dante's obedient nod, the king asked, "Did you have anymore to contribute? No? A pity that. I am deeply appreciative of your efforts sergeant. Now go. Clean yourself up and try to get some rest. You've earned it."

  Dante bowed to his king and saluted the various generals before backing out of the office door. Breathing a sigh of relief, Dante headed back the way he came as the man looked forward to a little rest.

  Chapter 5- Darius

  The forest was unusually quiet as Darius lay crouched against his captor. The woman seemed preoccupied with se
arching for signs of another attacker. She had obviously discounted him as a threat for now.

  Darius used his free hand to casually remove the knife hand from his throat. The touch caused the woman to tense against his back just before she pulled away from him entirely. The beautiful blond looked at him distractedly as she continued to divert part of her attention to searching for any sign of the other creature or creatures out there.

  Darius shifted closer to the woman's ear, mainly to be as close as possible to speak softly, but as she tensed again the second reason was accomplished. He owed her a little discomfort.

  "Who are you?" he breathed. Drawing in a breath, he caught the faint scent of berries and knew that it was hers.

  A flick of her crystal blue eyes to him to note his intent, led to her mouth moving closer to his ear again. "My name does not matter. I need to finish with these trolls before I can do anything else."

  Darius glanced around them and listened. The leaves which concealed them masked much from his sight as well. He looked at the woman again and thought that her answer had been too entirely disappointing. He tried again. "I have never seen a woman like you. Why do these... trolls... seek you?"

  "I don't have time for your questions, human. Were a troll to attack us we could be slain quickly, if I failed to see it soon enough."

  "Don't worry. My magic flame can protect us." He willed the flicker of blue flame to lick the tips of his fingers and presented them in front of her.

  The woman frowned, "Rock trolls are fire proof.

  You would only singe their fur and anger them even more before one tore your arms from their sockets."

  Her tone inferred that she believed that only an idiot would not know such a thing. Darius hardly took offense. He had already gathered that the stranger was all warrior and absolutely not the diplomatic sort. The apprentice, however, was and tried again. "He's a troll. I'm a human. What is your race might I ask?"

  If the woman weren't concerned with giving away their position, he figured that she would have sighed with total exasperation.

  "Elf," was her one word reply.

  "An elf? I've heard the term from our mythology, but I would have never guessed. This is quite an unusual day. Why are you here anyway, um...?"

  "Electra," the elf stated absentmindedly. Realizing that he had tricked her into giving out her name, the woman turned stubbornly away from him and refused to answer the question.

  "Mine is Darius. I'm so pleased to meet you, but I think that we'd better get moving now. The others of my group don't know of these beasts roaming around out here. We'd better go warn them."

  The woman looked at him as if he was daft. "I'll not go with you! I have my orders to slay these creatures and return to my leader." Electra suddenly realized that once again her words surrendered more than the girl believed was wise.

  Darius heard her, but he was no longer truly worried about her as his ears caught a distant sound. He had been about to rise and walk away when they heard the muffled explosion from the direction that the other wizards had gone earlier.

  "Damn!" he hissed and leapt up before the woman could stop him. He needed to help the others, to warn them.

  She would have grabbed for him for another reason since, as he started away, a troll suddenly entered his vision. The creature spotted him almost as quickly he had it and Darius' hand went to one of his pockets instinctively.

  A blur of movement leapt past his side as Electra jumped forward with a pair of long knives bared to attack nearly startled him into forgetting the spell that he had prepared. He withdrew his hand with the pair of glowing pine needles even as the troll met the elf's attack.

  The larger creature was slower than Electra, but not by much despite its bulky size. Its skin tore in a pair of flesh wounds as the knives glanced off the thick skin. The troll retaliated with a swipe of his left arm and sent the woman flying from a careless swing of its' monstrous limb.

  Darius didn't have time to check if the girl was all right. He simply flung the needles towards the troll as it bent to check if the elf would be anymore threat. As they neared, the troll straightened back up and noticed the small projectiles. With only inches between them and the creature, the magic kicked out violently. The needles expanded so quickly that they hit with incredible force into the troll's chest and neck.

  The creature recoiled as twin spears stuck straight through its body. It was falling before the troll even knew that it was dead.

  Darius rushed to find Electra sprawled unconscious in the leaves shed by more than one season’s droppings. Taking a final reading from the locator to check on the others, he put the tool in another larger pocket before picking up the elf woman. He threw her over one shoulder and started to retrace his steps back to the roadway. Another pair of needles was held handy in his throwing hand just in case. He ran across nothing on his way back to the wagon luckily enough.

  When he was almost to the road, he heard another explosion and it was much closer this time. When he found the wagon back, Darius gently laid the slender young woman into the flat of its bed. He hardly had time to notice her foreign beauty before the brush ahead of him began to move violently. With both hands free, Darius still held a pair of the spear needles ready while his second hand gathered what looked like an acorn.

  The young wizard held his hand and refused to attack in case it was the others returning. When Tate came flailing through the brush, closely followed by an impressively spry Wizard Elias, Darius knew that he had been right to wait. He spied a quartet of trolls following in their wake, however and with a flick of his wrists; he launched first the spears and then the acorn. The needles found their victim in a splatter of blood. Its fellow pursuers stalled slightly when confronted by their companion’s death. The acorn fell between two of them and exploded in the same fashion that he believed the others had tried previously. Body parts flew away impressively. The final troll gave pause in light of the sudden change of advantage.

  Darius charged forward into the brush past his mentor and peer, his hands glowed and blue light extended from both tips in a nearly solid coalescence of the light like a pair of swords. The troll wouldn't back down from such a physical mismatch. With a throaty growl, it charged for Darius.

  Though no warrior, Darius was still young, agile and quick. With his magic to bolster him, he ducked under the sweeping claws and sent both magical weapons deep into the troll's chest. As it started to fall onto him, Darius brought the blades upward and crossed in such a way as to decapitate the beast. He rolled aside before the creature’s bulk could crush and checked for more enemies.

  There were no other signs of pursuit, but he kept a pair of needles in hand just in case. They were less draining to use than the psychic blades and he wasn't sure how many more were out there. Darius returned to the others.

  Elias sat in the front seat of the carriage looking back at the still unconscious elf woman. Tate was aboard his mount and held Darius' reins for him. Though everyone had questions, Elias was first, "Who or what is this, Darius?"

  "An elf. Where's Elder Welden?"

  Tate replied for their mentor, "One of those monsters tore him apart before we even knew that they were on us. I can't believe that you just killed four of them. Our mystic flame couldn't kill even one of them. I’m not even sure the fire did more than anger them. If Master Elias hadn't used the explosive acorns to disrupt their attack, we'd be dead as well. How did you kill them so easily?"

  "Rock trolls are resistant to flame. My unconscious friend there warned me before another troll struck her. I figured that a strong physical attack would be better. Sometimes it pays to be physical and the timing of an ambush added to my advantage."

  Wizard Elias began to turn the cart around on the small roadway. "We'd better return to the village and regroup," he insisted. "We don't know how many more are out there."

  After a second's pause as the Elias fought the horses to turn, the old wizard added to the apprentices as they watched for troub
le, "Good work, by the way, Darius. We wouldn't be here most likely without your efforts."

  Darius nodded without taking his eyes from the forest surrounding them. He hoped that Tate wouldn't be jealous of such praise. He spared a glance at his friend who didn't seem to be worrying over such trivial things right then as he watched his side of the forest nervously.

  Darius wondered how many other monsters they'd have to fight on their way back.

  They had put nearly an hour's worth of hard travel between them and where they had stopped earlier, before they decided to stop a short while at a small stream near the road. It gave the horses both the time to rest and to quench their thirst. Tate and Darius dismounted and walked their horses to the stream and watched the woods across from them. Master Elias simply let the wagon follow those tethered to it as they drank from the coolness.

  Tate walked over to the wagon and looked in on their passenger. The others joined him as well as he remarked, "She's kind of pretty, Dar, even if she is alien. How did you find her anyway?"

  On impulse, Darius reached over and slid the cloth covering away from the woman's head. Long golden curls poured from beneath as the green head scarf was pulled away from her. Shining alongside her smooth bronze skin, he had to admit that Electra was truly beautiful. The exotic quality of her race was quite intriguing to him. "I was practicing with one of the tracers and noticed the flicker of red on the other side of the road, Tay. Either she and the troll know how to conceal the use of magic or a great magic was losing its taint on them."

  He looked at Wizard Elias, "I was right in front of her. Is there any way that someone could hide their magic, at least momentarily?"

  The old man shrugged from where he sat upon the seat looking over the fallen woman. "All things seem to be possible with magic, even the hiding of it. Did she mention why she was here, Darius?"

  He started to shake his head until he remembered her words. "She said that she needed to kill the trolls before returning to some leader."