by Jack Knight
Xion could instantly tell that this forest was different from the one by Aur’in. The trees were thicker, and taller, and it did not smell like wet dirt and decay. This forest smelled both floral and fruity, though there were no obvious flowers or fruit to be seen. The dense flora was lusciously green and made everything look and feel fresh. However, the most notable difference to Xion was the steady incline they were currently traversing. Most of Ustama was exceptionally flat, as Xion should know by now, since he had walked across the entire width of the kingdoms. The land was changing into something he was less familiar with.
“Hey, so, uh, anyone know where we’re going?” Warren asked, a few hours after they entered the forest.
“I do,” Ava answered simply.
“How?” Sapphire asked. She had stopped crying after an hour or so, but her voice still sounded hollow.
“I’ve been there,” Ava answered. When Ava answered so shortly over and over, Xion knew it meant that they were not going to get any more information out of her. Laira was not used to Ava, and did not understand.
“When?” she asked, her voice filled with excitement.
Sapphire looked at Laira like she could not believe that she could possibly be excited by anything, but Laira did not seem to notice.
Ava kept walking like Laira had not spoken. Xion worried that Laira would ask another question and make Ava angry. Luckily, Warren spoke first.
“Hey, Xion, did you notice that dragon’s e…”
Before he could finish, Ava turned around and shouted, “Stop!”
All of them stopped walking at once. Xion was not sure what he had missed. He had only been walking without Laira’s support for an hour, and there was no way that he could possibly win a fight against anything that came at them. He looked around for any threat of danger, but the forest was eerily quiet.
“Wait, me?” Warren asked. His voice was filled with just as much confusion as Xion felt in himself.
“Yes, you. Don’t. Just stop,” Ava commanded.
Warren’s eyes went wide. “You knew! You let me read all that stuff, and you knew that…”
Ava flicked her wrist, and for the first time, Xion saw how she always had a dagger in her hand. When she reached her hand out, it was empty, but by the time it was fully extended, the dagger was in her hand. Xion had never realized she was summoning the weapon, and she had been doing that since her first day in Aur’in. There was no way that Ava could have said any spell for that before being taught. In that moment, Xion realized that he was not the only one that used chaos magic.
Ava pointed the dagger that had magically appeared in her hand at Warren. “Stop talking,” she threatened.
“Guys, stop,” Xion said immediately. He had no idea what they were talking about, but that did not matter. He could hear something moving in the forest behind them.
They only needed to stand in silence for a few more seconds, when they heard a rustling in the distance, but coming closer very quickly.
“Run!” Warren commanded, he chanted a spell quickly and waved his hand before he turned and followed everyone as they all ran as fast as they could farther into the forest.
Xion was still weak from the fight with the dragon, and running in a forest was not the easiest thing he had ever done. He kept stepping on tree roots and losing his balance, and having to slow down to dodge between trees. Everyone else was not faring much better than him. They were moving too slowly, and Xion knew that they were not going to make it very far.
Something about the sounds behind him was bothering him, though. Dragons in their true form would be much too large to move through the forest. They would have to knock down trees and make a lot of noise. Xion only heard snapping twigs and rustling of leaves.
That was it. There wasn’t much on the forest’s earthen floor. The trees were all tall, and for the leaves to rustle at all, something would have to be moving through them. Dragons could easily fly over them. Whatever was following them, it was not the dragons that they were dreading, it was something else.
Xion could not tell the others. They had been running for so long that he was out of breath and sweating profusely from the humidity of the forest, he could barely keep his feet under him. Everyone else had passed him, and he finally gave up.
He stopped, trying to catch his breath. He watched the others race ahead a few more minutes until they disappeared into the trees. There was no way that he could keep running, but maybe he could stop whatever was chasing the others.
He turned around and tried to summon the magic within him. He felt the fire burn in him, but it was not strong enough for him to do much of anything. He could not think of a single spell that could help the others from so far away. Short of trying to burn down the forest, he was out of options.
He was surprised when a figure dropped out of the trees and landed only a few feet in front of him. The figure was almost as tall as he was, and dressed head to toe in black leather armor, with a piece of cloth covering most of its face. Only its bright green eyes could be seen.
“Well, well,” the figure said, its voice slightly shaking with contained laughter, “I really expected more of a fight.” The voice was definitely male, and his height told Xion that he was an elf.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Xion said with ragged breath.
Three more figures, dressed exactly the same, broke through the trees. One of them, slightly shorter than the others, with purple eyes, pointed to Xion. “Bind his hands.” Another male voice. Xion wondered if all of them were elves, humans would have to be taller.
Two of the others, each with hazel eyes, moved forward and tied his hands together behind his back. Xion did not resist. Once his hands were tied, they pushed him forward. They were not rough, and they walked to his pace. Xion was not sure if they were showing kindness, or if this was some strange show of confidence. Maybe they did not need to be harsh, because they would get whatever they wanted without having to push him.
They did not walk for long, before they arrived at a large group of people, huddled in the trees, all wearing the same black armor. Several of them moved aside as Xion was ushered forward and pushed between them to see that his friends were all sitting cross legged on the ground, their hands bound just like his were.
“Sit,” the one with purple eyes commanded.
Xion walked forward and turned around before sitting on the ground between Sapphire and Ava. Sapphire looked too scared to speak, Ava glared at the man with purple eyes. Xion did not understand, until Ava spoke.
“What do you want, father?”
Chapter 7: Escape
“Whoa, no way!” Warren shouted.
Xion could not believe that Warren was drawing attention to himself, but could not do anything to stop it. He just hoped, just this once, Warren would stay quiet.
“You’re Dario Orcbane?” Warren continued. Xion let out an exasperated sigh.
The short man, with laughter in his eyes, chuckled. Then he reached up to his helmet and pulled on the cloth, one side of it fell down and revealed his face. There was no doubt, the man looked extremely similar to Ava. It was almost like looking at her face, with the helmet covering most of his head. His face was a bit thinner, and his eyes came to sharper points at the sides. Otherwise, they were nearly identical.
“Avalon has talked about me?” Dario asked. “Now, that is a surprise.”
“Don’t call me that!” Ava spat, she was glaring so fiercely at her father that Xion could not believe the man did not cower beneath her rage.
“I see you have not matured much,” Dario said brightly. “Tell me boy, what has she told you about me?” he asked Warren.
Xion could feel the rage radiating out of Ava like it was a solid force. He had never heard anything about Ava’s father, and was sure that she had never so much as mentioned him to Warren. He was starting to understand why.
Warren shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, not a lot,” he hedged the question.
“Just let u
s go,” Xion interrupted. Warren had a habit of talking too much, this was not a situation that Xion wanted to let that happen.
“Ah, yes, the chosen one,” Darion said in mock awe. Several of the other armor wearing figures around them laughed. Xion noted that not all the voices were male. There was no way to tell them apart, all the armor was the same to the last detail.
“Sorry, Your Excellency,” Dario said as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against a tree, “but we’ve been paid. Nothing we can do about it.”
“Paid by who?” Xion asked. “To do what?”
“Xion, they’re assassins,” Sapphire whispered urgently beside him.
Dario laughed again. “Don’t worry, miss. If we had been hired to kill you, you’d be dead. Nope, we’ve been hired to deliver you. Except for Avalon, she has to stand trial.”
“You might as well just kill me now,” Ava growled.
“Now, child, do you really think I want to kill my own daughter? But, The Hand has rules, you have to face a trial.” Xion could not tell if Dario actually cared or not, but Ava seemed pretty certain about the outcome of whatever trial they were talking about.
“What if there was no trial?” Warren suggested.
“This is between me and my daughter, human. Stay out of it,” Dario commanded. His voice had not changed from the bright, breezy way that he had used with Ava, but the threat was obvious.
“Right, family stuff, I get that, trust me,” Warren said as he started to get to his knees. “So, why don’t the rest of us just get…”
Warren stopped suddenly when a dagger shot out of the crowd of armored people and stuck itself into the tree just behind Warren, embedding itself up to the handle. It had flown so close to Warren’s face, that Xion had to look closer to make sure that Warren had not been cut.
“Comfortable! I was going to say comfortable!” Warren insisted, sitting back down and crossing his legs again. “You didn’t let me finish, come on, guys. This seems like it might take a while, we should at least be comfortable, right?”
“Stop talking,” one of the figures commanded. Warren nodded fervently and said nothing.
Ava rolled her eyes at Warren and then looked back at her father. “You know where I went, and you know who he is,” Ava gestured with her head toward Xion, “you know what he is supposed to do, why would you stop us?”
“Gold, Avalon, gold. The price for delivering your friends was rather generous. The darkness pays well, it seems,” Dario said with a chilling grin.
Xion’s heart skipped a beat. These people, and Ava’s father, were working for Draxis? If they were delivered to Draxis, especially bound, they would all be dead within minutes. Xion could not let that happen, but they did not have a way out of the constraints. Let alone a way to get passed the thirty or forty people surrounding them.
“Do you know what Draxis is planning?” Xion asked. He needed time to come up with a plan, and Dario seemed to like talking. The longer the assassins were kept busy, the better the chances of Xion, or any of his friends, coming up with some kind of plan.
“Couldn't care less,” Dario answered. “All I know is that I’m supposed to deliver you to The Tomb of the Dragon.”
Xion looked to Ava quizzically. He had no idea what tomb Dario was talking about, but it did not sound like a place he wanted to visit.
“So, first you let mom get murdered, and now you’re going to kill your own daughter?” Ava snapped.
Xion felt like he had just had a rug pulled out from beneath his feet. If Ava’s plan was the same as Xion’s, she was much better at it than he was. He had no idea that Ava had lost her mother, that felt like something that she could have mentioned at some point.
Every person in armor went completely still. Dario even hesitated, the grin fell from his face in an instant. Slowly, he pushed himself off the tree and walked over to kneel in front of Ava. He grabbed her hair and yanked down, so that she had to stare right into his face.
“Your mother’s death was not my fault,” Dario said viciously. “And, I have spent decades trying to avenge her!”
Ava spat in Dario’s face, and he released her hair to wipe the saliva from his eye. He stood and kicked Ava in the stomach. She doubled over, coughing and gasping for breath, and Dario walked straight through the crowd of people.
“Take them!” he roared, his voice filled with fury. “I don’t want to see any of them again.”
“There are nice ways to talk to people!” Warren called after him.
“Shut up,” Ava scolded him, between coughing fits.
“Is now really the time?” Xion demanded of the two of them as several of the people crowded around them approached and pulled them all to standing.
Xion and the others were pushed along through the forest. Xion noticed that only six people in armor had gone with them. After a few minutes, Xion felt brave enough to ask, “Where’d the others go?”
One of the armor clad captors laughed, it was a woman’s voice. She walked behind Xion, who was the farthest back in the line of his friends. Xion could not see the woman, but her voice was high and light, Xion could tell that she was an elf.
“We don’t need everyone to watch three people and two humans,” the woman said. “Besides, the others have to set up the trial.”
“What exactly is the trial for?” Xion asked. He knew that he and his friends were being led to almost certain death, but he hoped that if he had enough information, he might be able to think of a way out.
“I ran away,” Ava called back. She was several places in front of Xion in their line, Warren was behind her, and then Sapphire.
“She betrayed her pledge to our lord and patron,” one of the other guards corrected. This one had a deeper voice. Xion guessed that he was a man, much taller than the others. Xion could not imagine that this group contained many humans, but he looked too tall to be an elf.
“Your patron?” Sapphire asked, she sounded like she was personally offended.
“All of us swear an oath to Dreskar, and only those given his blessing are allowed into our ranks,” the woman behind Xion explained. “Avalon broke her oath, and she must stand trial before Dreskar.”
“Ava,” Sapphire said, her voice filled with horror, “you…”
“Yeah,” Ava interrupted, “I swore an oath to Dreskar.”
“Anyone want to tell me who Dreskar is?” Xion called forward to the others.
“How is this what you guys are talking about right now?” Laira asked, she continued to walk forward, because their captors gave her no choice, but she turned her head to ask her question.
Nobody answered Laira. Instead, Warren responded to Xion, “Dreskar is the god of death and poison, the patron of thieves and assassins, the lord of darkness. He was removed from the council of the gods when he convinced a human to commit the first murder. He convinced the guy to kill his own brother,” Warren finished, shaking his head. “That wasn’t very nice of him.
“What bothers me, though, is Dario Orcbane letting his wife die. When did that happen?”
“I will gut you if you keep talking,” Ava warned.
“You are in no position to threaten anyone, Avalon,” the tall man pointed out. “Dario’s wife was taken by orcs, over a hundred years ago,” he answered.
“That’s horrible,” Sapphire said dejectedly.
“It was,” the woman behind Xion agreed. “Venitia was a wonderful and terrifying woman. The orcs feared her, they said she was cursed by their god and belonged to the five hells. One night, the most terrible storm I have ever seen appeared out of nowhere, and the orcs raided one of the tree cities. Dario realized Venitia was missing and tried to find her. Even now, he searches.”
Ava snorted in derision. “He searches for orcs. He became a famous murderer. He never cared about my mother, he used her as a reason to get famous.”
“Do not speak like that about the leader of The Hand,” the tall man growled. “Or, you will never make it to your trial.”
Xion’s head was spinning. Ava and Dario had both said that Ava’s mother was dead, but Dario still searched for her? Those two things could not both be true. Xion had met a few orcs, and he could not imagine anyone surviving being captured by them. He also knew that the orcs worshipped a strange, war-hungry god. Why would they believe Ava’s mother was cursed? Xion knew that he was missing a lot of important information about the story.
“Yeah?” Ava spat back. “Was there ever a trial for Vairiel?” she asked.
“What?” Warren and Xion exclaimed simultaneously.
Vairiel had been an apprentice in Aur’in. He was a vile, racist elf that had gone out of his way to make people feel badly. Now that she brought it up, Vairiel had mentioned both Ava’s father and a “guild”. At the time, it had meant nothing to Xion, but it seemed pretty obvious now. If Ava had been in this assassin’s group, then Vairiel surely must have been. That would explain how they had known each other before they got to Aur’in.
“Vairiel was sent there on Dario’s orders, traitor. He receives no trial,” the tall man answered smugly.
“Oh, of course,” Ava growled. “I ask to go, and I’m forbidden from ever using magic, but the great Vairiel, the son he always wanted, is sent with permission. Perfect.”
“Can we maybe complain later,” Warren suggested, “I’m learning a lot here.”
“Are we really just letting them lead us to some place where they’re just going to drop us off with the darkness?” Laira called back.
The woman behind Xion laughed. “Did you think you were going to escape?” she asked mockingly.
“Xion, you have your strength back yet?” Ava asked.
Xion did not know what good it would do, but he told her that he did. He had not fully recovered, but between the time sitting and talking with Dario, and their walk through the forest, he was feeling a lot better. As long as he did not try to over do anything, he felt like he would be fine.
