War of Shadow and Light: Part Three of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  Kinimod sat while Stylinor lay, both breathing hard. The forest seemed suddenly empty. The lumbermen had all fled toward Valdorin, the sound of their voices all but gone from the stillness of the trees. Smoke streamed through the trees, the crackling of flames heard faintly in the distance as a fire apparently spreading up the hill from the southern valley, and Kinimod looked about warily for those who had intruded and slain their people.

  He laid a hand on Stylinor, rousing him to sit up and look to where he gestured with a nod. Stylinor turned and looked into the hazy trees and saw strewn about the bodies of many lumbermen, pierced by arrows or slashed by what he guessed to be swords.

  “I hear fire,” Kinimod said quietly. “It wasn’t nature after all.”

  Stylinor swallowed nervously. “We need to go.”

  Kinimod slowly rose to his feet, looking from side to side to be sure no one was about that shouldn’t be. “Go where?”

  “My home,” Stylinor said; rolling onto his knees as a sudden realization came upon him. “What if . . . What if they got to my home?”

  “Who are they? Sty, I don’t know what’s going on!” Kinimod turned about, his eyes becoming wide with the terror they had felt before. “Were they horgs, giants? Maybe they were a troupe of trolls coming into the valley for lumber.”

  “Look, here,” Stylinor said, moving to where an arrow protruded from a nearby tree. “The shaft is black and so is the fletching, except these aren’t the crow feathers a horg would use.” He gingerly felt the fletching of the arrow, the smoothness of their surface. “This is nothing I have ever seen before.”

  “So what do we do?” Kinimod stared at all the dead, the blood stained leaves and the strange arrows. No one but the two of them moved. There was no sight or sound of a bird or any other animal. It was all so quiet, so dead.

  Stylinor turned and began running down toward the place of the lumberjack settlements, intending to find his home. “For now, we stay together!”

  Chapter 8

  Darkness!

  Milstrom, chief guardsman of the Silver City’s dungeons, was strong even concerning Adya strength. He was whole heartily dedicated to his service in the king’s dungeons, and personally walked the dark passages beside his chosen guardsmen, keeping a clear and always cautious eye on the prisoners. Some said that the warden never slept, while others side he didn’t need to. But, like everyone else, the warden needed his sleep.

  The dungeon of the Silver City was set beneath the city, and only accessible by way of a single stairwell in each of the cities’ twelve barracks, and by way of the nearest stairway Duoreod descended into the only dark place in the Silver City. Milstrom was well known to Duoreod, being counted among his most trustworthy friends, and Duoreod hoped that the tough Adian would join with him and Andril on their journey westward.

  “Through the Valley of Hills we shall go,” Duoreod told the chief guardsman when he entered into his chamber, beneath the barracks closest to the citadel of the king. “I and my companion, Andril Strong Arm, are going westward toward the black fumes. We know not what dangers await, though we are prepared, and no oath or bond binds us to this calling – except for me. My bond is one of honor and loyalty to my father, Drelus, the king of this, our city. So I beseech thee, Milstrom, your strength and cunning at my side.”

  Milstrom did not answer right away. Such was his way when asked questions that would trouble the mind and good sense. He would stand, or sit silently, frowning at the floor in thought, and test the patience of the enquirer. And so Milstrom stood behind his desk, piled with separate parchments inscribed with names of either guard or prisoner, and thought deeply on the subject Duoreod addressed to him.

  What Duoreod was asking seemed simple to the stout Adian guard. What could there possibly be to turn aside any in fear for their safety? Duoreod said that they were to go west through the Hilled Valley, which by all accounts housed little danger, and toward the smoke clouds shadowing the westerly horizon. Little there was to fear of this in the eyes of the chief guard of the Silver City’s dungeons.

  Milstrom looked up into Duoreod’s grey eyes, and held them in his gaze for a moment as he searched for some clue that might spark fear in the young Adian. The only question Milstrom had for Duoreod was whether or not the prince was afraid of taking the journey west.

  Well, was he?

  Milstrom searched deeper into the eyes of the prince for some hidden doubt, but saw nothing that would hinder him. Duoreod was a steadfast follower of his father, and kept with pride the name of Muari the Beloved about his neck and shoulders as he wore the custom grey cloak wherever he went. Ever sense the shattering of the house of Drelus, and the fall of Duoreod’s brother and Drelus’s son from their glory, Duoreod had kept about him an enduring characteristic.

  The infamous fall from glory had broken nearly everyone in the keeping of the Silver City. They had all mourned the loss of their courageous prince’s fall. Shadow and doubt and fear had stolen him from them all. Only the power of the Beloved could deliver them from their sorrow, and that came in the form of what appeared to be an emerald star cresting the Bolgin Mountains. That star stood as a testament of hope for them all, and as each teary face was turned toward its gentle light, they were delivered through the Beloved’s power. That star was still rested upon those mountainous slopes, ever giving hope to the people who saw it.

  The black fumes, however, threatened to extinguish that light as it ever grew in the south in its consuming passage toward the Silver City. If something were to threaten the hope of the people, of the Silver City’s people, then Duoreod would see it put aside. Milstrom saw all of this in the calm grey eyes of the Adian noble. If Duoreod would stretch forth his arm to sway the coming storm of fear and doubt and hopeless despair from his people, then Milstrom felt that he must join him. Such was his obligated duty to his country.

  Before Milstrom could accept the task, though, a call from the passage outside his courters caught his ears and attention, as it was directed to him.

  “Milstrom, warden Milstrom!” an Adian guard frantically called as he jogged up the passage, his shirt of silver rings jingling as he came. “You must come quickly!”

  Milstrom turned from Duoreod to look upon his guard. “What could possibly be wrong?”

  “Something...” the guard began, choking on his words as he struggled to maintain his anxiety. “Something has happened to the prisoner! None of us know what it is, but all has gone sick about him. The light, it’s all gone!”

  “You’ll have to forgive me Duoreod, but something amiss seems to be happening in your father’s cells,” Milstrom said to the prince. He bowed to Duoreod, and then moved out of the room as the guard led him down the passage he had come.

  Duoreod turned, watching the warden go with curiosity. “What indeed?” he asked himself as Milstrom turned a sharp corner and was gone from sight. The soft thudding of their feet faded into the distance.

  A shiver suddenly ran up his spine, and he felt as if a cold, dry wind was coming from the torch-lit passage before him. He felt cold, and wrapping his grey cloak about him Duoreod stepped out into the passage to stand discomfortingly in the chilly corridor. He looked down the passage, awaiting some sign that would give him an understanding of what was happening, and why the air had suddenly dropped in temperature.

  Duoreod sighed reluctantly, steam escaping his mouth. He looked about to either side: To his left a ladder stretched upward to the barracks above, while to his right another passageway stretched for a great distance; metal doors of the prisoner cells spaced perfectly along its walls. Duoreod held his gaze on this passage for a moment, wondering where the usual guards that had usually patrolled up and down that narrow hallway had gone.

  “Where indeed,” Duoreod asked himself in a puzzled whisper.

  “I always knew this place to be dark and cold, but I don’t remember it ever being this cold,” Andril remarked as he shimmied down the ladder. He came down and stood beside Duoreod, followi
ng his troubled gaze as he peered down either passage. “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know,” was all Duoreod said to the smith. He turned his attention back to the passage Milstrom had gone, and listened intently for any faint voices.

  Faint indeed were the echoes of several voices in private conversation somewhere in the maze of tunnels, and though Duoreod could not make out for certain what was being discussed, he was convinced by their air of speech that it was drastic. Andril must have heard them as well, for he took a step into that passage and narrowed his eyes in concentration.

  “What do you suppose is going on down there?” Andril asked curiously.

  “I don’t know,” Duoreod replied. “But I’m going to find out.” He walked down the passage, Andril following at his side, and turned down the side corridor where Milstrom had gone.

  Near the end of the corridor several guards stood round a cell door, peering in through the bared window as they talked to one another. Milstrom stood in their midst, speaking through the window as if to the prisoner inside. Duoreod and Andril approached them, listening intently to what they said.

  “I will ask again,” Milstrom said, “What happened to you?”

  “It is a curse upon us all,” one of the guards whispered to another.

  “Or upon those who have done wrong in the sight of The Beloved,” the other replied.

  “Darkness!” wailed a voice in reply to Milstrom from behind the cell door. “It is all dark! It is all pain! He promised us victory, he promised us peace! No peace of mind have we received in return for our doings... He is a liar!”

  “What are you rambling about?” demanded Milstrom, gripping the iron bars in the window.

  A chuckle echoed from the cell. It was a sound that turned the stomachs of those standing in the corridor, and Duoreod felt Andril tense nervously at his side.

  “He is coming back,” the prisoner said through his laughter, “He will fulfill his promise now, and no power of this world can stop what is coming... Darkness!”

  There was a sound like struggling in the shadowy cell, and Milstrom frantically began shoving his key into the lock to swing the door open. But he stopped suddenly, all the guards gathering round to look in at what he saw, and narrowed his eyes apprehensively.

  Duoreod and Andril stepped forward to see what they were staring so intently at, and the guards made way for the prince as soon as they recognized him in the gloom of the passage. Duoreod examined Milstrom for a moment, studying the warden’s solemn expression, before following his and Andril’s gaze into the cell.

  Lying in the center of the square room was what once had been an Adian like the rest of them, but no more. A ray of torchlight extended through the barred window to rest upon the fine features of this creature, but the face was not fair as it once had been. Instead, the features were a sickly pale, the hair stark white, and the eyes which stared blankly at the ceiling shone with deathly hue.

  “What sorcery is this, Milstrom?” Andril asked the warden in a harsh whisper.

  “None of us know,” Milstrom replied, stepping away from the window. “But I don’t want to see any more of it. The king should know, Duoreod.”

  “Yes, he should,” Duoreod agreed. His mind became lost in thought as he continued to stare upon The Fallen.

  “He was fine yesterday,” one of the guards put in. “But this morning we heard a noise, like weeping and moaning echoing down from this spot, and so we came to see what was about . . . The prisoner was not here, but this thing was.”

  “It is your prisoner,” Duoreod said. “Some dark magic is gathering round these lands. Some otherworldly power threatens us. I fear our very souls are at risk now.”

  “The fumes,” a guard said thoughtfully.

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” Andril put in. “Some sorcerer may be conjuring that blackness in the west to not only cover the sky in shadow, but also our skin, our eyes, and then eventually tare from us our souls. I do believe this creature is dead.”

  Milstrom turned to his guards. “Burn it where no one will see,” he said to them, and then to Duoreod he added, “I will go with you to see these fumes, or whatever they may be.”

  Duoreod stepped away from the door of the cell as the guards opened it to retrieve the victim of The Darkness, and nodded to Milstrom. “Thank you,” he said to the warden.

  Chapter 9

  Where the Fowls Feast

  How am I still standing?

  The sun was in his eyes as he checked himself, the light filtering through the foliage and twisted branches overhead onto his mesh armor and soiled boots, all untouched despite all that he had expected. His hands, deathly pale, hadn’t even needed to draw his duel scimitars. He had done nothing, and no one had done anything to him, yet before him were the scattered corpses of a dozen or so creatures. He raised a hand to block some of the light that cascaded down to lay across his trembling form, passing even through the enhanced shadow of his hood, and listened intently to the distant screams now drifting on the gentle breeze.

  He began to walk down the hillside, passing trees and clumps of low growing bushes that filled the area, rather breathlessly as he had been running to keep pace with the rest of his charging company. Tendrils of smoke trailed behind him, twisting through the bushes and trees as ash began to rain down from above, an air of sickness filling his lungs as he breathed. Humid, despite that time of year, and he thought he could hear flames crackling in the distance. And yet, even as he walked past the scattered corpses of the people of that world, he found it a wonder that he was still standing.

  He halted his descent from the hillside as he came across the bloodied corpse of a man of Heinsfar lying in his path, crimson smeared across the front and back of his wool jacket where a blade had passed clean through him. At first thinking to go around, he suddenly hesitating as a curious thought passed briefly through his mind. He stood, hands at his side, purple cloak fluttering in the breeze, watching the dead body with a furrowed brow.

  He had arrived in the forest just as his comrade came upon the stumbling man, drove his sword through his back, and moved on in pursuit of the next. And the man, as rugged and fierce as he appeared to be, hadn’t even turned to fight back. His back had been to them, fleeing from before them as a sheep flees from a wolf.

  Is that what we are? Neth’tek asked the blood on the man’s clothing, a pack of horgs slaughtering innocent gnomes? They said many of us would perish this fight. Perhaps they meant it the other way around. Perhaps I misheard or misunderstood.

  He knelt beside the body to examine it more closely. The scent of blood filled his nostrils as he inhaled it, the taste of it nearly tangible on his tongue. Neth’tek grimaced, spitting the taste aside into the damp earth, and watched as the spittle slowly sunk into the wet dirt, fresh with trampling foot prints. The soft crunch of leaves warned him of someone approaching from his left, and he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see another of his company wander toward him.

  The Follower walked slowly – almost remorsefully – up the gradual slope that they stood upon, smoke trailing through the trees on either side. He was wrapped in the purple garb of the Urden’Dagg, as were all the members of The Followers, and carried a short bow in one hand. In his other he held an unlit torch.

  Rising once again to his feet, Neth’tek stepped round the corpse to be on his way, pretending to not have noticed the newcomer approaching.

  “Am I right to assume that one is dead?” the Follower asked, gesturing with his unlit torch at the body. His voice was familiar, with its even tone, and Neth’tek knew it at once to be that of Vexor Hulmir.

  Neth’tek looked back over his shoulder, as if not noticing the dead man before, and gave a quick shrug. “With a wound like that, I wouldn’t say otherwise.”

  He looked up into Vexor’s face, meeting those wounded eyes only for a moment, and then Vexor stopped and looked at the bloodied corpse with a frown. As Neth’tek watched him more closely, he noticed t
hat he had a distant look about him, as if pondering some far away place or time. Perhaps even the past. It seemed he almost shook his head, as if ashamed of the events taking place, and Neth’tek suddenly remembered what he had overheard from him the night before.

  He is ashamed, Neth’tek told himself.

  “Good. Less dirty work for me,” Vexor said with a shrug, taking up his wandering again, and seemed to purposefully avoid Neth’tek’s gaze. “They tell me that the ten battalions are to gather at the bottom of this hill, the edge of this forest, where a great blaze is to be built in honor of our all great and all powerful Urden’Dagg.”

  “And then what?” Neth’tek asked. Curiosity and anticipation filled his senses as well as the smoke beginning to surround them.

  The other stopped, his solemn gaze slowly turning to fall upon Neth’tek, and he spoke as if every word pained him. Seeing those eyes filled with such heartache and regret, and hearing that voice ring steadily with the sound of sickening ideals, Neth’tek was struck to his very heart.

  “More killing,” he said. “Don’t you know? This is where the fowls feast.”

  Neth’tek winced at feeling those words evoked.

  Chapter 10

  Devils

  The two woodsmen came crashing out of the trees mere minutes after the raiding force had passed and moved on toward Valdorin, and the two of them stopped at the base of the trees to look upon the smashed door and broken windows of Stylinor’s home. The gentle breeze passing by carried with it the smell of burnt earth, rustling the branches beside their heads as they took in the scene with absolute dread. Stylinor’s face was expressionless, his cheeks red with the chill of the air, and his bright eyes unblinking as he stared forward.