by Joe Jackson
“About two hundred years,” she answered. “But this may all be for nothing. We have to find a way out of here, and hope that there’s a way back to Citaria.”
The globe of light buzzed around Kari and then moved toward the door. Kari grabbed a couple of daggers and affixed their sheaths to her thighs, and then followed the light. “Where are you going?” Aeligos called from behind her.
“Following the light,” she said, still a bit confused that he couldn’t see it. He got to his feet without comment, though, and followed after her. The light led them to the main doors of the castle, a surprising bit of rot-free wood in the form of reinforced double doors. The little globe of light floated through the doors, and after tapping them to see if they were real, Kari worked to get the bar free from its resting place.
With Aeligos’ help, she managed to get the door open, revealing an odd, glowing sheet of arcane force of some kind. Kari wasn’t sure what she was looking at initially, but recognition hit her at about the same time as Aeligos. It looked like the force within the portal they’d destroyed in the syrinthian valley near Atrice. Kari wasn’t sure where it led to, but she imagined just about anyplace was preferable to this castle on the edge of oblivion. She glanced at Aeligos and, with a nod he probably didn’t see, she jumped through…
Annabelle turned and fixed wide, dead eyes on Kari as she appeared in the chamber. She was alone in an open, grand room fallen to ruin and disrepair. “What is this?” she barked. “How is this possible?”
Kari drew her blades and rushed to the attack without waiting for Aeligos to come behind her. Annabelle gave ground, unprepared and quite shocked, but she held two advantages: she was wearing Kari’s armor, and wielding Kari’s scimitars. Kari pressed her attack before the vampire could arm herself, and landed a perfect thrust right to the gut, but it deflected off of the paluric plate harmlessly. Kari had to stifle a laugh; now she knew how everyone who fought her must have felt when they finally landed a solid blow.
Annabelle snarled and got her swords in hand. “Obnoxious whore, this time I will cut you limb from limb before I leave you to be drained of your lifeforce. None escape our fortress.”
“What can I say? I’ve got gods and angels looking out for me. All you’ve got is an undead dragon.”
The vampire laughed. “How little you know,” she hissed, finally ready to attack.
Kari wasn’t used to fighting with longswords, but it didn’t take long to recall her training from the days before she learned to use scimitars. She reacquainted herself with the difference in where they were weighted. The scimitar was, to her, a more sinuous weapon, all the better for her dancing, elusive style of counterattacks that she learned from her master. The longsword was a more straightforward weapon requiring a different fighting style, but one Kari had learned extensively when she was a cadet at the Order’s academy.
It was ironic: neither woman was using their preferred weaponry, forcing them to fight in styles they were unaccustomed to. The advantage Kari had came through the portal a moment later, and Aeligos drew his blades and moved to flank their enemy. Annabelle chased Aeligos off for a moment, and Kari pressed her attack. When the vampire turned to fend her off, the rogue came back in and harried her. Like wolves nipping at the heels and hamstrings of their overmatched prey, Kari and Aeligos slowly began to wear down the vampire’s defenses, impregnable as her armor may have been.
“MASTER!” Annabelle yelled, fleeing to one side of the room to escape her flanked position. She began to circle, keeping her enemies before her as she waited for assistance.
“Oh, now what did you have to go and do that for?” Kari taunted her.
“We’d better get out of here, and fast,” Aeligos said. “As it stands, we’re going to have to flee through an entire fort full of vampires or thralls.”
Kari dashed forward. She wanted to end this before Zaliskower came and forced them to withdraw with whatever breath weapon it was he wielded. If they could just kill Annabelle, the main goal of their mission would be complete, and they’d buy precious time to raise an army to come and kill the dragon. Precious time, however, was something she didn’t have; Kari could hear the massive form of the dragon stirring somewhere below. The depth of its breath and the weight of its form shook the very foundations.
Annabelle met Kari’s attacks, but not quite expertly. Kari remembered the many lessons she had learned under Suler Tumureldi, concentrating on the form and function of the scimitar. Annabelle was not a master of the weapon, and Kari used the vampire’s limited proficiency to her advantage. She worked inside and tried to disarm her old partner, but was shocked when Annabelle feinted and turned the scimitar over in hand, using the chopping edge to cut right through Kari’s greaves.
Both women screamed at the same time. The sword had bitten into Kari’s leg, though not so deeply that she couldn’t walk. She hopped gingerly away, but even as she did so, she saw that the scimitars were emitting that golden light from the weave engraved on the blades again. There was the hiss of burning flesh as Annabelle yelped and dropped both swords to the ground with a clatter.
Aeligos thought to capitalize on Annabelle’s predicament, but the vampire used her very armor to parry the rogue’s strikes, and snapped at him with wicked fangs. She was like a wild creature, far more dangerous than any typical rir would be if trying to bite at someone wielding a blade. Aeligos kept her busy, but was more measured in his attacks, seeking to push her back so Kari could get to her scimitars. Kari made good on the opportunity, sliding down behind him and picking up her blades. She had a hard time straightening her leg out again, and silver blood squirted through the hole in her armor for a moment. She stumbled, but ultimately got her knee to lock, her feet solidly below her.
Annabelle made for her old weapons, and soon, Kari could hear the footsteps of the dragon’s humanoid form coming up the stairs. The demonhunter rushed to the attack once more, and began a deadly dance with the vampire that rivaled the one she’d shared with Turillia the year before. Back and forth they traded routine after routine, but Kari realized with the bleeding in her leg, she was going to tire long before she defeated her deadly adversary.
“Call the thralls and be done with this game,” Zaliskower said as he reached the top of the stairs and stood with his hands folded behind his back.
“NO!” the vampire snarled. “I can beat this stupid whore myself without their help. Get her sidekick away from me, and I will dispatch her in short order.”
Kari concentrated on healing her wound while they argued. Normally, she had to touch a bad wound to channel Zalkar’s healing power, but then she’d never tried to do it by force of will. She called upon his power, thought of sealing the wound, and soon felt the sharp sting and itch of skin stretching to fit back together and then seal. It was amazing to her that healing could cause pain at the same time, but it did.
Zaliskower sighed. “You ignorant fool. We have hardly had a taste of this one’s power, and not only has she awakened, but she has escaped the oubliette. This is not about your battle prowess. Call the thralls and end this, now. I would feast on this one’s lifeforce tonight.”
Kari slipped a scimitar into her belt and lifted one of the longswords up using her foot. “Feast on this,” she said, heaving the blade end over end at the dragon taken humanoid form.
She didn’t even wait to see the results, drawing forth the second scimitar to engage the vampire again. Annabelle met her intensity with rage, and sparks began to fly from the force of the pair’s weapons slamming against each other. Aeligos moved to the other side of Annabelle, but Kari realized it was as much to get out of the dragon’s immediate area as to flank the vampire again.
“Insolent wretch!” Zaliskower bellowed, and Kari spared a glance over her shoulder. He was wounded, something black and barely blood-like trickling from where the sword had struck him on the shoulder. He opened his mouth and breathed forth that black cloud again.
Kari folded her thoughts in on themse
lves, and pushed her faith out to form that shield, like she’d learned to do in Barcon hunting Turillia. The shadowy mist was pushed back by her aura, and Kari found that the weave of her blades was glowing again. She turned, ready for Annabelle to counterattack, but she found that the vampire had retreated from her aura as well.
“Stay close to me, Aeligos,” Kari said, and he came over quickly to stay inside her pocket of protection. Kari stalked in on the dragon-man, who watched her with narrowed eyes. She got close enough that he entered her aura, and she could sense the ancient, terrible evil that was the animating force of this creature. Zaliskower, too, was undead, just as Kari had suspected. There was nothing there but a pure malevolence, and she made ready to engage him in swordplay.
Kari and Aeligos were thrown back suddenly as the dragon shifted to his normal form, nearly filling the entire upper floor of the keep. No word needed be said; Kari and Aeligos ducked under one of Zaliskower’s rear legs and made for the stairs down. Kari took a half-hearted swing at the dragon’s hamstrings, as she had learned long ago, but without a significant amount of force behind the attack, it glanced off his hardened, armored scales harmlessly. The dragon attempted to tail slap them, but he was limited in mobility in the tight quarters and couldn’t muster a proper attack.
The demonhunter and the rogue ran down the stairs and to the front door of the keep, only vaguely aware that they were about to run out into the middle of dozens of vampire thralls. It was certainly better than staying and fighting a fully-grown dragon and its vampire servant. Kari threw the door wide and descended to the dirt floor of the courtyard in quick steps, Aeligos close on her heels. She was expecting the thralls to gather and stop them, but Annabelle’s reluctance must have been true; it took the vampire servants time to answer the call and begin to filter out into the courtyard.
The exits were blocked first, as expected, even with the fallen and missing walls and the many gaps they could have escaped through. Zaliskower, returned to humanoid form, and Annabelle emerged from the keep and stood on the top step while a wall of several dozen thralls hemmed in Kari and Aeligos. Kari’s primary concern was for Aeligos; while she wasn’t wearing her paluric armor, she was pretty sure she could fight her way through the wall of bodies and flee. What she wasn’t sure about was how well Aeligos could hold his own against the overwhelming odds.
“Take them,” Zaliskower ordered
Kari tightened her grip on her swords. Just as the thralls were about to reach combat range, though, the entire courtyard was suddenly bathed in a radiance that was almost daylight. The thralls, the dragon, and the vampire all shaded their eyes from the intensity of the light, and Kari glanced at Aeligos to see if it was his doing. He was looking around at their enemies, brow furrowed, giving no indication that he saw the source of the light. When Kari looked at it, she found it didn’t hurt her eyes at all.
“Let’s go!” she shouted, and she cut down a couple of the recoiling thralls to break through the line. She and Aeligos ran faster than she could ever remember running, becoming like the wind as they dashed off into the forest. It was the same desperation that moved her so swiftly when she’d been told Grakin was injured and taken to the healer god’s temple. She had to get away, had to make sure she and Aeligos were safe, and then they could come back with a force large enough to destroy their enemies. At that moment, though, flight was their sole concern.
Kari ran until her legs could no longer carry her, and she crashed into the underbrush in a spray of leaves and dirt. Aeligos came up beside her and doubled over, breathing heavily. Kari pulled herself back up to her feet using a nearby tree, and she concentrated on Zalkar’s power. She touched Aeligos and felt a surge of energy leave her, and she could see in his expression and the lack of heavy breathing that he felt renewed. Kari closed her eyes and pulled Zalkar’s power into herself, flooding her arteries with it and feeling the numbing tingle of relief.
Without a word, she dashed off into the forest again, putting miles behind her and the rogue before they finally had to stop again. Kari felt she could draw on Zalkar’s power again, but she had no idea how long it would be before dawn, and proper rest was what they needed. She estimated they must have run a safe distance away. Zaliskower could easily outpace them in his dragon form, but if they used the forest to their advantage, he would have to take to the ground and a humanoid form to root them out.
Kari sat heavily at the base of a tree and looked around. She had no rations, no water, not even a bow to hunt with. Her armor was too heavy, but at least she had the right swords. The city of Jade was still a good distance away, and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to walk or run all the way there without proper food and water. Aeligos had obviously come to the same conclusions, his mouth pressed into a line as he looked at the forest around them.
“Do you know how to make a snare?” Kari asked him.
“If I had some rope, but…,” he trailed off.
Kari shook her head. “We’ll have to do this like the elves,” she said, once again glad that she had befriended the reclusive people in her prior life. “Find some vines, thin and supple; they don’t have to be that strong, we’re not trying to catch a deer. I’m going to see if I can find a spot to dig for some water, or else find a spring or brook nearby.”
Aeligos set off to do as asked, and Kari began searching for water. She felt a slight grade to the forest floor, but it turned out to be nothing. She didn’t lose heart, searching for similar grades that might lead to or at least indicate nearby water. It took over an hour, but she came to a slow-moving brook, and she sat down by its edge, exhausted. The last several hours had been a complete whirlwind in her mind, and it was hard to fathom that she and Aeligos had very nearly died. She washed her hands off once she’d rested for a few minutes, glad to get that feeling of grime from them. Then she ducked down and took a long drink from the cool waters.
Kari expected something would be standing across the creek from her when she looked up, but there was no one there. She had the feeling someone or something was nearby, and she scanned the forest suspiciously, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She mused, as the elves might have, that she herself was the most extraordinary thing in the area, and she had to stifle a laugh. Perhaps that ball of light was somewhere nearby; was it a guardian angel?
Kari knew so little about angels. It had always seemed a tad strange and even unfair that demons seemed so widespread, while she had heard only whispers about angels. Now, of course, she knew that most of what she considered “demons” were, in fact, just people of different races. Still, she had seen a demon before, felt its cold, oppressive presence, and even fought against it with the help of her adoptive father. So why were angels so reclusive or scarce?
She held up her scimitars, admiring the inlaid black weave that glowed golden when the swords reacted to the undead. She’d been told by a couple of people that they were angel’s blades, and Kari wondered now if that was true. Such would certainly tip things in her favor when she finally had her reckoning with Annabelle. Considering the vampire was wearing Kari’s impenetrable paluric armor, Kari was going to need all the help and every advantage she could claim.
She couldn’t get that guiding light out of her thoughts. Was it an angel? A part of Sakkrass guiding her? Or something more mundane, like a helpful spell cast by an ally from afar – Peri, or even Eliza Chinahala?
Kari heard approaching footsteps and readied herself, but it was just Aeligos. He had a good length of vines wrapped around a shoulder, and he hurried his pace when he saw Kari had found water. “I realized I don’t have anything to pick it up with,” she apologized when he knelt down beside her to take a drink.
Aeligos sat back on his haunches. “Where are we headed next? Back to Solaris? To Chandler’s Grove, maybe Jade?”
“Solaris,” Kari answered. “We’re going to look into some old local legends, and try to find more help.”
“What do you mean?”
“When I live
d here in my prior life, the bards that used to pass through Flora and Solaris used to tell tales about dragon riders long ago,” Kari said, and the rogue’s brows both rose. “It may just be legends, but maybe there’s something to it. We know there’s a silver dragon living here, supposedly above Emerald City. I’m guessing as strong as the Red Mask might be, we need something strong enough to fight a dragon while we take care of Annabelle and her thralls. And the best thing I can think of to fight a dragon is another dragon.”
“It does make sense. But they said the dragon lives in the clouds. Any idea how we’d get his attention?” Aeligos asked, bending down to take another drink.
“I might know…another dragon who can help,” Kari said, and Aeligos chuckled. “We’d have to go to Laeranore to talk to him, though, so Solaris seems like a good place to start for some information and to get better armor.”
“We can’t make it to Solaris living off the land, though, can we?”
Kari looked at the vines over his shoulder and the babbling brook before them. “We’ll see how far my elven ranger training can take us,” she answered.
Chapter XIII – Chasing Legends
Kari’s ranger instincts only got sharper the farther they traveled. At first, they ate lightly and water was scarce. As Kari got a better feel for the land, though, she was able to bag enough food – meat or otherwise – day to day to keep them energetic and moving. The more northern forests weren’t the best for foraging, so hunting had to be their mainstay. They had to follow the streams or look for ponds more often than they usually would, but were able to keep a good pace toward Solaris. Kari felt as though she’d spent most of her life since being resurrected as a city-dweller, but then she realized she’d spent two thirds of it in the mountains during the Great War. Thus, her old instincts returned quickly when the situation demanded it.