Redemption Of The Sacred Land (Book 3)

by Mark Tyson

  A cold wind blew, and Rennon wrapped his cloak tighter around himself. “I certainly hope not.” He took a few steps. “Are we going to meet at Salderwick or wait for the others? They should be coming up the main road from Draycott, right?”

  “If they made it to the docks there,” Morgoran said. “But regardless, we move on. We all survived. We need to get Dorenn to the Codex and get him out of here.”

  “How far away is Salderwick?” Lady Shey asked.

  “I have never been here before, but I would say several days walk. The island is of a pretty good size,” Morgoran said. “According to the map I saw at Draegodor, the main road goes straight through from Draycott to Hillsford to Fornorth. It curves slightly and then goes straight through a forest and a couple of other small towns to Salderwick at the center of the island.”

  Ianthill stopped at a subsidiary road to the main road. “There was a major battle at Fornorth. We are going to see things that we would not normally see traveling around our own lands. It is important that you do not touch anything. If you find jewels or gold on the ground, leave them where they lay. They are most likely cursed.”

  “I can tell one way or the other,” Gondrial said.

  “I don’t care,” Ianthill said. “You still should not pick up anything. I am not sure what we will find, but nothing about this place is going to be pleasant.”

  “I think it’s time to get moving. Sanmir is intuitive. We will stop for the night a bit early to give him time to catch up with us. They shouldn’t be that far behind us if they made it to the docks,” Morgoran said. “We will all be together by the time we reach Salderwick.”

  As he rearranged his pack on his back, Dorenn thought of how grey and depressing this land was. The low-hanging grey clouds made it seem worse. Morgoran led the group from the shore, followed by Shey and Gondrial. Rennon stayed with Dorenn and Bren, and Ianthill guarded the rear. Seandara secured her bow and ran to walk beside Dorenn and Rennon.

  With a heavy, worried heart, Dorenn smiled uneasily at her and then followed Morgoran toward Fornorth.

  Chapter 15: Lux Amarou

  All around the road just outside the ruined city of Fornorth were the white-washed skeletal remains of a long ago battle. No one had set foot near this place in memory. Because of the magic used, the area was slower to decay than normal, and the power and essence Dorenn could feel emanating from the land was almost intoxicating. The vegetation had overgrown some areas and avoided others. The acrid smell of death from the areas without vegetation gave Dorenn a clue as to why. The magic used there was that of death and decay.

  “Careful you avoid those barren areas, Dorenn,” Morgoran said.

  “I will avoid them for the stench alone,” he said. “Morgoran, I can feel the tremendous power from this land. Why doesn’t Toborne or the Oracle use this essence?”

  “It’s too far away to draw from, and there is no known way to contain it for use elsewhere, at least not this much essence. The source of the essence is primal and arcane. It would take hundreds of thousands of essence vessels to transport a fraction of this essence anywhere near our kingdoms. It would also take an army of wielders with the knowledge of how to make such vessels years to make. It just isn’t practical. Waiting for the Sacred Land to reawaken is much easier. Furthermore, Lux Amarou is not worth ruling or for using as a base to try and take over the world. So far, we have just tipped the edge of the island. There are things here that I would not dare disturb if I brought an army of men that could wield twice as well as me. These lands are truly ruined. We must refrain from disturbing it as much as possible.”

  “It’s such a shame,” Seandara said. “I can tell it was a beautiful place once, even though it reeks of death and decay now.”

  “Why didn’t any of these men get proper burials?” Lady Shey asked, repulsed by the many corpses left to rot.

  Morgoran shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, and my guess would be that they all killed each other without leaving enough people to perform burials.”

  “I say they didn’t want to return here—the people who survived and escaped, I mean,” Ianthill said.

  Dorenn noticed that some of the armor of some of the skeletons looked more modern than others. “Could some of these corpses be from expeditions?”

  “My people sent some expeditions here that never returned,” Seandara said.

  Gondrial walked up closely to a skeleton that looked different than the rest. It had a golden amulet partially buried in the ground and golden armor encrusted with jewels. The corpse itself was buried partially. “Look at this one. Some sort of nobleman or king.” As he knelt down to examine the amulet, careful not to touch anything, he thought he saw the fingers of the arm not buried in the soil move. A moment later, the head slowly turned to look at him directly from empty sockets. Gondrial backed away, not sure of what he was seeing. The corpse began tugging and writhing, trying to pull itself up from its partial burial. It suddenly made a frustrated, wailing noise.

  Lady Shey looked over Gondrial’s shoulder. “Oh, no, what did you do? Did you disturb it?”

  “Nothing! I did nothing, I swear! I was just looking at it.” Gondrial noticed the skeleton closest to the one he was looking at also began to move. “Not these undead things again.” He drew his sword. “Do we cast magic on them? What do we do?”

  “Get in close,” Morgoran commanded. “I guess you know why they aren’t buried now, Shey.”

  Dorenn looked around in horror as all of the skeletons began to stir awake.

  “Seandara, shoot for the head,” Morgoran said. “The rest of you, don’t use any essence unless you absolutely have no other choice.”

  “Mindwielding?” Rennon asked.

  “I don’t know. Use it as sparingly as possible.”

  Rennon grinned and held out his hands. A quarter staff of pure energy appeared. He swung it around him with expert precision. It hummed with a pleasing vibration as he did so, and it obeyed his every command, going ridged in his hands.

  “Impressive,” Dorenn said as he unsheathed Dranmalin.

  “A trick I learned from Theosus. You ought to see the weapons he can produce! I could only conjure this staff with any skill.”

  “If you two are finished admiring each other, there are two skeletons right behind you,” Gondrial said.

  Rennon turned to face the first one. He spun his staff, thrusting it directly into the head of the nearest skeleton. Its head exploded, and its body went limp. He threw his staff at the second one, and it sung through the air, clipping the abomination in the head before returning to Rennon’s hand. He spun it around his back and threw it at another.

  Dorenn wanted to watch Rennon fight, but he knew he had to join in. He connected with Dranmalin by holding the sword straight up and down near his face with his eyes closed. He could feel the sword in his mind. He got a sense of the arcane power surrounding him for a brief moment, and then the dragon magic flowed between him and Dranmalin. He opened his eyes, and they were as dragon eyes, slit in the middle and yellow. He could see as the dragons saw. He had only learned how to connect with his sword when he enchanted it according to the instructions of the essence shard he absorbed in the Hall of Ancients. This was his first time to fight with it as one. To his eyes, the skeletons glowed in a purple, smoldering light. He was seeing the evil emanating off of them. He leaped into action. Dranmalin almost seemed to pull him along as it hacked and slashed each skeleton with deadly accuracy. He and Dranmalin were one entity, bent on the destruction of all evil.

  He stopped when he heard Gondrial cry out. The skeleton in kingly armor had escaped the ground and had him pinned against a decaying building. Dorenn instinctively threw Dranmalin forward, but he soon realized the sword never left his hand. Instead, a plume of fire emanated from the sword’s blade, swirling in a deadly arch and burning the skeleton in a white and yellow light. Being nothing but a skeleton, it still managed to scream somehow, and then it fell in a heap of ashes.


  “Can you do that again?” Morgoran called to him. He had taken a sword from one of the skeletons, and he was trying to hack at another. Dorenn pointed Dranmalin at the attacker, and it released the fire again, destroying it.

  “Is that dragon’s fire?” Ianthill said. “How are you able to control it?”

  Dorenn knew through his connection with Dranmalin that it was a form of dragon’s fire, but a lesser form. There was a much stronger version. “It’s dragon’s fire, aye, but it’s not the dragon’s fire you are thinking.” He cut down another attacking skeleton.

  Dorenn checked on Seandara. She was using her new bow, creating an arrow every time she drew back the bow string. Skeletons were falling left and right at a distance in front of her. She was doing fine.

  Bren was to his left, wielding his magical dragon fang and dragon claw. He looked Dorenn’s way for a brief moment, and Dorenn saw that his eyes, too, were as the dragon. Dragon knights connected to their swords in the same way he connected with Dranmalin. He briefly wondered if Tatrice knew how to do that, and then he went back to cutting down the enemy skeletons.

  Dorenn marveled at the skill and precision that he and his companions had. It was amazing to think of how well they were doing. Then he saw it, a huge skeleton three times the size of any one skeleton they were fighting. It ran up to the party, swinging two monumental battle axes. Dorenn’s dragon vision saw great plumes of purple rolling off it; it was almost certainly pure evil.

  “Well, to thunder with that!” Gondrial said. “I’m wielding!”

  Suddenly, Dorenn felt essence from all around him flowing. Apparently the others were drawing it in as well. He thought about it, too, but before he could, one of the axes swung into him. He parried with Dranmalin, and a shield of fire blocked the brunt of the blow. He sailed backward from the concussion of the blow. Dranmalin sang out as it flew from his hands and stuck into the ground nearby.

  Gondrial, Morgoran, and Lady Shey were all using blackfire to try and stop it, but it didn’t seem to do much damage to it. Ianthill was casting a shield of light to protect them. Where are Vesperin or Fayne when I need them? Dorenn thought. They would be able to defeat this evil.

  Bren went up to it and made his attack, but the beast of a skeleton hit him hard with one swing, knocking him off as a bull would swat a fly with its tail. Rennon wisely stood back from the fight, surveying the skeleton for a possible weakness. Or so Dorenn wanted to believe.

  “Its evil protects it,” Morgoran cried. “I don’t think we have what it takes to defeat it.”

  Seandara took a knee and aimed her bow at the evil being. Lady Shey bathed each arrow in a bright light as soon as they left her bow. A barrage of ten arrows struck the skeleton in the head and penetrated it. It screamed an unearthly howl and redoubled its efforts to get at her.

  “I think you just made it even angrier,” Gondrial said.

  Dorenn searched his knowledge, what he could remember of the knowledge of all the wielders that had come before him, and came up with nothing. No one he knew of had ever fought a titan such as this before. Then he saw a spot in the titan’s armor just below the arm. Every time it lifted its arm to swing at Ianthill’s shield, he saw it—a black heart beating with evil.

  He got up and ran to Seandara. Ianthill was battered down. He was about to lose the shield. “Seandara, the next time it raises its arm, there is a gap in the armor. There is a heart in there. Can you shoot it?”

  “Aye,” she said. The titan raised its arm for a blow to Ianthill’s shield, and Seandara loosed her arrow. Shey cast the light spell on it. Dorenn drew in essence and guided it true. It went right through the gap in the armor and through the black heart. The titan exploded, throwing the two axes into the air. They landed blade down in the ground. The titan skeleton was no more, and the other skeletons that remained fell to the ground with it.

  Bren pushed himself up and sheathed his swords. “Brilliant move!”

  Ianthill collapsed onto the ground. He was all right, just exhausted. Morgoran and Shey went to sit beside him. Gondrial went to the skeleton of the king and held his hands over the amulet. Dorenn could see the essence entering him. After a few moments, Gondrial took the amulet off the corpse and put it around his neck. “I’ll take that!” he said.

  “Are you sure that wasn’t evil?” Shey asked him.

  “I checked it. It is magical but not evil. At any rate, it’s mine now!” he said.

  “We will take a short rest, and then we need to continue on to Salderwick,” Morgoran said. “Be alert. Don’t think we are out of danger. There are dangers here that make that titan look like a kitten.”

  “Why did you say that?” Gondrial said. “I didn’t bring anything to drink, and I could use one about now!”

  Bren took a flask out of his pack and tossed it to Gondrial. “Here.”

  Gondrial took a swig and almost choked. “Ah, that’s stout.”

  “It’s Moonshadow wine from Draegodor,” Bren said.

  “Aye, it is,” Gondrial said.

  “That’s enough,” Lady Shey said. “Give the flask back. I don’t need you drunk.” Gondrial took another long swig and tossed the flask back to Bren.

  “The road to Salderwick awaits,” Morgoran said. “We best make our way.”

  Dorenn went to help Lady Shey, who was helping Ianthill stand. He glanced back at Seandara, and he felt something inside him jump at the sight of her. He didn’t expect that.

  They moved on from Fornorth and headed across a plain covered with low-hanging clouds and a feeling of doom. The dark, rainless skies contributed to the growing feeling of the evil of the land. Before dark, they reached an ominous forest. Morgoran called it Darbridge Forest. At its center was a city among the trees called Oakhaven. They planned to camp there for the night.

  Once they reached Oakhaven, Dorenn recognized the wooden platforms as soon as Morgoran levitated them to one. Seandara’s reaction was all he needed to know that they had found the tree city of their nightmares. They had entered the city where Dorenn, in his many dreams, had seen Seandara fall out of his hands and through the branches, pulled down by evil black creatures.

  Trendan, at last, found the tracks of the other party on the road. They seemed to lead toward the city of Fornorth. He pointed at the trail as soon as Sanmir had caught up with him. “There, those are the tracks of Dorenn’s party. It looks like they all made it; there are seven individuals.”

  “That’s good news,” Sanmir said. “How far behind them are we?”

  “I would say about half a day, judging by the age of the tracks.”

  Veric looked ahead. “Can we catch them?”

  “If they stopped for a brief rest and we don’t, we may be able to close the gap,” Trendan said. “They are moving understandably fast. The feeling of evil gets stronger with each step we take closer to the center of this island.”

  “I should never have let you come here,” Kimala said to Fayne. “The corruption here is unbearable.”

  “What happened here?” Vesperin asked.

  Sanmir took a deep breath. “According to the stories of my people, the Amar started dabbling in dark forces to gain power and dominion, much like the Oracle is doing in your lands, only imagine hundreds of men as bent on domination as the Oracle. They awakened dark forces here and destroyed each other. The last remaining good men from this land traveled to Trigothia just before Lux Amarou’s descent into civil war.

  “It’s a shame really,” Deylia said. “I bet this place was beautiful once.”

  “Aye, it was. I remember traveling here as a boy. My father was a trader, and he would bring me here on some of his trips,” Sanmir said.

  It was nearly nightfall when they reached Fornorth. Trendan rushed to the spot where the titan exploded and dropped its axes. “They fought here. Look some of the skeletons have been recently destroyed.”

  Deylia absently walked up to one of the axes, she reached out to touch it.

  “NO, don’t touch that ax
e!” Sanmir barked, but it was too late. As soon as she touched it, Deylia went limp and fell to the ground. Instinctively, Vesperin went to her aid. Sanmir rushed to intercept him. “No, Vesperin. It’s too late.” He was unable to stop Fayne, who also rushed to help the girl. As soon as she touched Deylia, Fayne, too, fell by Deylia’s side.

  “No!” Kimala screamed. She started to go to her daughter, but Trendan grabbed ahold of her. She turned and began to hit him, but he would not let her go.

  “What is that?” Vesperin said. Trendan saw a tear run down his face.

  “It’s an evil weapon. None of us should touch anything on the ground around here,” Veric said. “Whatever wielded that weapon was evil beyond imagine. If it was defeated, its evil stayed with its possessions.”

  “Are they dead?” Trendan knew it was bold to ask, but he needed to know.

  “Dead to us,” Veric stated coldly. “We need to keep moving.”

  “Maybe I can cast something from my goddess to save them,” Vesperin said. “I have to try at least.”

  Sanmir nodded. “All right, but no touching. Can you use your magic from here?”

  “I would advise against it,” Veric said.

  Vesperin concentrated and channeled the life-giving force of Loracia. Trendan watched in horror as the energy rebounded on him and knocked him to the ground. He stood back up, and his eyes were pitch black. He reached for Sanmir, and in an instant, the sand elf collapsed.

  “RUN!” Veric yelled at Trendan and Kimala. Trendan tried to pull Kimala along with him, but Vesperin was too near. In a howl, he leaped at Kimala and snatched ahold of her leg. Trendan let her go as her gaze turned from fear to an evil scowl. He ran right behind Veric. He took a chance to look back behind him briefly and saw that Fayne and Deylia were now up and running behind Vesperin. He stayed close to Veric, weaving in and out of the dead trees toward the ruined city of Fornorth. He could feel the tears running down his face, but he suppressed his emotions. His first priority now was survival. Maybe he could find a way to save his friends if he could just stay alive.