A Gleaming Path

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A Gleaming Path Page 34

by Jeffrey Pawlak


  It was just a matter of actually finding wherever they might be within the sprawling, maze-like Sandstone Mausoleum.

  The hallway eventually brought Alamor and Raissa to a foyer that connected it to three other corridors. They only had a few moments to decipher which path might be best for them when they heard a chorus of metal feet from further down the hallway ahead of them. A few moments later, multiple armored forms hurried out of the shadows. Alamor did not let his eyes settle on them for long, but he guessed that he saw more than a dozen of the Wraithlings storming down the corridor.

  He nearly urged Raissa to follow him down the adjacent hallway before he saw an orange flicker materialize in the darkness behind the oncoming horde. A fiery blast tore through the corridor without warning, engulfing many of the armored suits and shaking the entire foyer.

  A cloud of smoke filled much of the hallway, masking the remaining Wraithlings that had not been obliterated by the explosion. Alamor could vaguely make out two other figures within the haze. Both moved like lightning through the smoke, white flashes of light following one’s steps, and flashes of steel following the other’s.

  When the smoke cleared, every last Wraithling lay in a heap across the hallway floor. Tiroku and Tridian stood above their remains, while Hinton and Pauma came bounding down the hallway.

  “Look at them!” Hinton cried out in elation. “They’re both all right!”

  “And they got that second Radia they were looking for!” Pauma added with equal joy. “You two kids managed to do it again!”

  “We’re just as happy about it as you two are,” Alamor said, taking a quick glance over his shoulder. “But now’s not the time to stand around and celebrate. There’s a big group of Wraithlings coming this way.”

  Tiroku took heed of the warning and started down the hallway from which he, Tridian, and the Bachus emerged. “Then we’ll talk as we move. Follow me!”

  The others obeyed, taking off in a dash just behind the Champion of Light. Tiroku clearly knew the path that he took them on, as he ran throughout the murky corridors of the Sandstone Mausoleum without a trace of uncertainty in his steps.

  “It’s a good thing we found you when we did,” Tiroku noted while they hurried along. “If we spent much longer inside of here, we may have been separated too far from the others.”

  “Where did Baldaron’s forces even come from?” Raissa asked.

  “We don’t know for sure,” Tridian answered. “It was an ambush. They simply poured out from over the cliffs above the courtyard where we were waiting. We held off most of their initial attack, but we knew that they would overwhelm us in time, and we needed to find you two so we could escape. Luckily, we managed to spot an alcove that led us out of that courtyard and over the rest of the ridge. It eventually opened up into a much larger pass along the temple than that little tunnel you two entered through, and it seems to run into most of the other courtyards.”

  “That was when we decided to break into two groups,” Tiroku explained. “Myself, Tridian, Hinton, and Pauma here chose to head inside to look for you two, while I had all of the others continue to make across the ridge toward the Tower Mountains.”

  “So, everyone is still all right?” Alamor asked. “Rawner, Dayneth, Joth, and the others?”

  “We hope so,” Tiroku answered. “Their goal was to fend off as much of the enemy as possible, sort of to act as a distraction while we searched for you and Raissa. As of when we separated, no one had fallen, yet, to Baldaron’s troops.”

  “They’re still making for the Tower Mountains while they fight,” Tridian added. “Once we join up with them again, we’ll head that way and hopefully escape this attack.”

  “The only problem is that there’s a whole mess of those armored fellas around these ridges—maybe hundreds of them!” Hinton said. “Master Tiroku here has let me use my blast orbs to blow them up, even in a sacred dwelling like this, but I don’t have anywhere near enough to make a great dent in the army that’s trying to end us!”

  “Speaking of the enemy…” Tridian said, pointing down the hallway. At the other end, another squad of Wraithlings rounded the corner and began a headlong charge toward them. It was a much larger group than what Alamor and Raissa had run from earlier, containing at least thirty or more of the lifeless warriors.

  “Alamor, stay with me in front!” Tiroku ordered as he charged to meet the oncoming foes. “Prince Tridian, bring up our rear and give us support!”

  The three of them fearlessly met the Wraithlings and launched their own offensive. They acted as just Tiroku commanded. Alamor and the Champion of Light met the ghostly suits of armor first, lashing out with their luminous swords. The magically imbued blades hacked through a Wraithling every time they swung, taking off a limb, helmet, or an entire torso with each cut. Both Alamor and Tiroku had proven capable of handling a group of Wraithlings on their own without much difficulty; now that they fought together, they seemed nearly unstoppable.

  Tridian hung behind them, facing what foes managed to slip past Alamor and Tiroku. While the Prince of Tordale may not have wielded a weapon as devastating as Alamor or Tiroku, he thwarted the attacks of multiple enemies. He swung his lance with such strength and ferocity that he regularly disarmed the Wraithlings or flung them away from his reach. Many smashed into the walls so violently that portions of their mail came apart upon impact and fell into a useless pile upon the floor.

  Alamor, Tiroku, and Tridian vanquished well over half of the horde before another dozen came storming down the hallway. When Pauma spotted them, she reached into Hinton’s sack of blast orbs and pulled one free.

  “Let me handle the rest of them, boys!” Pauma shouted as she lit the wick.

  “Get back and hit the deck!” Hinton added.

  The three warriors immediately turned and hurried back to where Raissa and the Bachus stood, throwing themselves onto the floor just as Pauma hurled the blast orb. The bomb landed in the center of the remaining Wraithlings and the new reinforcements, detonating only a split second later. The fiery explosion that flew out from it seemed to swallow up each armored suit, pulverizing and incinerating their black forms along with much of the hallway’s makeup around them.

  When the rumbling stopped and the smoke began to break, Alamor and the others saw that the corridor had been cleared of every Wraithling.

  But they also saw that more soldiers were coming. They peered down the length of the hallway and saw that it connected to another corridor that ran adjacent to it. Shadows of marching Wraithlings danced along the walls of that distant hallway, an ominous portent to another horde of Baldaron’s armored minions.

  “What do we do now?” Alamor asked, looking back the way they came, also knowing that the troops they retreated from before gained on them with every passing second.

  “We have no further time to waste,” Tiroku said as he hurried to where the blast orb detonated. He stopped along one of the walls that had been damaged by the explosion, looking down at a sizable hole near the floor. He kicked away at the loose stone and soon revealed a gaping gash within the rock. “There’s another hallway down here; everyone hurry and get inside!”

  They followed Tiroku’s command one by one, slipping through the hole near the floor and landing into the small corridor beneath. Once all of them had dropped down, Tiroku took to the front of their group once again and led them onward. They passed through a number of hallways over the next few minutes, each one as black and as murky as the last. There were no torches in the cramped passages, nor crevices that allowed rays of sunlight to creep through the rock. Only Alamor’s and Tiroku’s shining blades illuminated the spaces around as them as they hurried along.

  The walls about them trembled on more than one occasion, signs of when another Wraithling horde marched directly above. The echoes from the ghostly soldiers’ footsteps seemed to trickle throughout the stone, filling the tight air within the stygian hallways. It soon became apparent that they had been unbelievably lucky that
Hinton’s blast orb revealed the lower passages. If they had continued through the hallways above, they would have encountered dozens more of the lifeless armored suits that hunted them.

  They eventually came into a large chamber, one that was partially brightened by sunlight that spilled through an open doorway on the other side. The chamber was further illuminated by a pair of large candelabras hanging upon one wall, gold flames rising nearly two feet along the stone. In between the candelabras was another hallway that ran deeper into the Sandstone Mausoleum, seemingly wider than the closed-in passages as they had escaped through before.

  “That should take us to the ridge outside,” Tiroku said, his eyes fixed on their intended exit. “Let’s go!”

  They dashed across the chamber, running faster than ever as they closed in on the portal that would take them back out into open air, and hopefully to their remaining comrades.

  But Tridian only got halfway across the spacious room before he stopped. Raissa was the first to notice, quickly stopping as well, but to look back at her brother.

  “Tridian, what are you doing?” she called out.

  When Tridian did not answer, Alamor came to a halt and glanced back at the Prince of Tordale.

  Tridian never looked at either of them. He stood like stone in the middle of the chamber, his perplexed expression scanning what lay before him.

  Alamor watched Tridian for only a few moments before he, too, began to look about the chamber. He eventually noticed its strange contents. On one side of the room lay rows of long objects that were wrapped in what appeared to be cloth or canvas. Upon further inspection, Alamor realized that they were bodies—the remains of long dead beings simply strewn on the cold, hard floor without any other kind of care.

  As Alamor studied the many corpses, he noticed a bizarre trend among almost all. On one side of each body was a weapon—in most cases a sword or spear—that lay broken in two upon the floor. On the other side of the body was either a shield or a breast plate of armor, every single one also broken in half. What baffled Alamor the most, however, was what was painted onto each of the shields and breast plates.

  A sitting panther surrounded by four diamonds.

  “Don’t linger!” Tiroku’s voice boomed throughout the chamber. “We must go!”

  His words did not reach Alamor, Raissa, or Tridian. They all continued to stare at the countless bodies and the broken tools of battle, each of them completely baffled by what they had found.

  “Why would so many soldiers be placed like this?” Raissa asked. “Without any kind of tomb, or even a burial?”

  “I…I don’t know,” Tridian answered, his voice low.

  Their eyes eventually fell to an inscription that was engraved into the floor nearby, just inches before the first row of bodies. When they came to it, they each read it silently to themselves—

  FOR THEIR UNFORGIVABLE PERVERSIONS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY’S NOBLE AMBITIONS, THROUGH THE SLAUGHTER OF UNTOLD INNOCENTS IN THE QUEST TO CLAIM THIS DESERT, MAY THESE MEN AND WOMEN BE DENOUNCED AS SOLDIERS AND SPIRITCASTERS IN SERVICE TO THE ROYAL FAMILY AND TORDALE.

  MAY THEY NEVER SEE MERCY FROM ANY OF THE SAGES OR GREATER POWERS AS THEIR SOULS JOURNEY THROUGH THE REALMS BEYOND THIS EARTHLY EXISTENCE

  A soft, almost inaudible gasp from Raissa was the first thing to break the heavy silence between them.

  “How can this be?” Tridian whispered, traces of horror joining his words.

  “All of you, hurry at once!” Tiroku roared from near the doorway to the outside, the urgency unmistakable in his tone.

  Again it was as if none of them heard Tiroku.

  But at least for Alamor, it was because he heard something else behind him.

  It was faint at first, but it quickly magnified, growing louder and shriller as it seemed to purposefully seek him out. In time, the sound multiplied, being joined by many others like itself—so many that Alamor soon could not discern one from the other. It was as if thousands of persons wailed aloud, each one expressing unfathomable agony in the form of a desperate, despairing cry.

  Alamor soon realized that this was not the first time he had heard the sounds; he heard them before while he made his escape through Caldeya.

  He turned slowly, thinking back to when he stepped into that plaza and felt the most sinister magic he could have ever imagined. His eyes stopped upon the other hallway that connected to the chamber, the one that he and his companions had not traveled in their flight.

  Baldaron’s pale countenance was the first thing to emerge within the gloom. His huge form strode into the light from the nearby torches on the wall a few moments later, along with the many Wraithlings that waded out of the murky hallway behind him. They were the largest and most fearsome that Alamor and the others had witnessed among his ranks; each one over six feet tall, clad in bulky, rounded armor and wielding maces that looked as if they could fell a yew tree.

  Baldaron stopped on the very edge of the light from the torches. Unlike the last time that Alamor and Raissa were in his presence, Baldaron showed no sign of a diabolical smirk or grin over his ghostly white features. His expression was eerily still.

  “For all of you, this is your first time laying eyes upon these murderous soldiers,” he began, his deep voice rumbling throughout the chamber. His gaze finally settled upon Alamor, Raissa, and Tridian. “But I have seen many of these men and women before now, back when they still drew breath. I saw them when I was younger than any of you three. I can recall that very day that they stormed into my village like a pack of wild beasts, tearing our homes down to the sandy floor while mercilessly slaying my kin. My village was not the only one to be targeted. There were others that were wiped off the face of this continent, along with the innocent people who called them home. All of this was done in the name of King Aurilion Hokara’s vision to claim the Arid Reaches under his rule—a goal that sought power, but only brought death to the people of this region.” Baldaron’s eyes narrowed with a measure of bitterness. “Thus, fate has brought us together, for me to exact vengeance on the Hokara royal family and take its kingdom into my own grasp after all that was taken from me and my kin.”

  Alamor and Raissa had no response for Baldaron as they stood frozen to the chamber floor, but Tridian faced the huge man as fury lit up his expression. “I don’t know what these soldiers may have done in the past, but my father did not command any kind of destruction while he ruled,” the Prince of Tordale retorted. “If you or anyone else in the Arid Reaches suffered injustice, it was not through any of my father’s decisions.”

  Baldaron’s sunken eyes fell up and down along Tridian for a few moments, as if he studied the prince. “You are much like I imagined, Prince of Tordale, a living legacy to King Aurilion Hokara—bold, brash, and blinded by your ambitions.”

  Tridian’s face twisted in rage. “Do not speak of my father that way, you wretch!”

  “Why?” Baldaron asked, his voice rising. “Because you fear the truth that haunts your bloodline? Because you will not accept what great sins lie upon the Hokara name, sins conjured by your father as he attempted to guide his dominion across this desert? You see the many men and women behind you, their corpses disgraced and their souls condemned for their actions; actions that were only carried out because your father ordered them to march into this region.”

  “Our father sought peace for the Arid Reaches,” Raissa spoke up. “He sent his armies here to protect the people who were threatened by the chaos that swept over this desert. Whatever these soldiers may have done that was evil, it cannot be blamed on our father!”

  “And yet, you only know about these soldiers because you’ve happened to come across their corpses in your escape from this temple.” Baldaron’s declaration brought silence to the chamber, the realization striking Tridian and Raissa so hard that neither of them found words in reply. His gaze hardened. “You have probably seen the aftermath of their atrocities, though, in your journey throughout this region. Some among you must have come upon o
ne of the towns or villages that they destroyed in their senseless campaign.”

  Alamor immediately thought back to the day when he and his companions explored that ruined town. The ghastly understanding fell over him.

  It had not been bandits who destroyed those homes and killed the many people whose bodies lay beneath the sand.

  “You saw one of those towns, didn’t you, boy?”

  Baldaron’s voice ripped Alamor away from his thoughts. Alamor looked at Baldaron, who stared back at him with a penetrating gaze.

  “I can see the truth over your face; the horror in your eyes reveals that to me,” Baldaron continued. “Would it horrify you even more to know that it was not merely Tordalian soldiers who participated in the slaughter? That there were Spiritcasters, even Champions of Light, who joined them? They are still with them, even today. Just look at the five bodies that lie furthest from you in this chamber.”

  Alamor hesitantly turned to the rows of bodies lined across the floor. Just as Baldaron said, there were five that sat alone near the far wall. No shields or chest plates bearing the royal family emblem joined them. Only two of the wrapped bodies had a weapon at their sides. Both were swords that were broken in half.

  “At one time, those blades radiated with Serenity, just as your sword does at this very moment,” Baldaron went on. “And just as you do now, those Champions of Light pledged their blades and their magic to the Hokara royal family. Does your pride still remain in protecting your precious friend and her murderous bloodline, just like those Champions of Light did before?”

 

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