by Ian Haywood
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
The time had finally come for the most eagerly awaited battle within the immortal world to begin and it was blatantly clear that a lot of blood was about to be spilt before either side would finally claim victory.
Gereziac was not too happy about Zephal’s sudden outburst towards Mortus, but he had known him well enough to understand that Zephal was nothing more than a fighting machine and he enjoyed causing havoc wherever he went.
And Gereziac was glad that he was on the same side as him because he wouldn’t like to face Zephal in battle – Mortus was enough to be concerned about right now.
Mortus and his men were hastily making their way down the rocks and soon they would be on the ground in front of Gereziac and his men, who were in full preparation to fight.
And it seemed that Gereziac may have a slight advantage to this battle in the fact that he, his generals and his men were all mounted on horses which meant that they could strike out at their enemy a lot easier than what they could have done on foot.
But the attack came nevertheless and the advancing enemy were still strong enough to cause major mayhem – even death.
It wasn’t long before the air was echoing to the sounds of each side’s war cries quickly followed by the sound of steel blade hitting steel blade.
The battle had well and truly started and it had already claimed its first victim.
One of Gereziac’s soldiers was the one who perished.
He had the great misfortune of being attacked by two of Mortus’s men simultaneously and as he lost his balance and fell off his horse after being struck by one, the other was waiting to administer the finishing move – a sword straight through his chest.
And one by one each side suffered a casualty and moving around the battlefield was becoming more and more difficult by the second as people were tripping over the dead bodies that lay on the ground.
But whereas Gereziac had got stuck into the battle, Mortus could be seen holding back from the melee that had broken out a few feet in front of him.
Zephal had spotted that the opposing leader was free from the fighting and decided that if he hadn’t joined in the fight, then Zephal would have to take the fight to him.
Mortus didn’t expect to be suddenly set upon, but he was still ready and able to fight by the time Zephal got close enough to cause him harm.
Both were great swordsmen and the fight between the two men remained in stalemate as every attack was blocked.
Gereziac was caught up in a battle of his own and it took him a while to notice that his friend had decided to take on Mortus, but when the moment came that he was free to join in, he wasted no time whatsoever in helping Zephal.
But even though the odds against Mortus were two to one, he impressively held off Gereziac and Zephal long enough for help to come his way in the form of a handful of his soldiers.
Zephal knew that Naomi wasn’t too far from where they were right now as Mortus would not have travelled this far south without good reason.
It was become evidently clear that Zephal and Gereziac would have to back off from their attack on Mortus due to the soldiers who were strongly defending their leader from any harm.
And Mortus mocked them as they reluctantly turned their attack into defence – but his laughter would soon come to an abrupt end as two of his men would fall victim to Gereziac and Zephal’s swords.
Barnabus caught sight of Zephal and shouted across.
“We can hold the enemy off here – just concentrate on finding Gereziac’s daughter and we will rendezvous here later!”
His words may have been powerful and full of courage, but the look on Barnabus’s face told a different story as he knew that he may be dependent on luck to help him and his men to survive the battle that they were fighting now.
Mortus heard what Barnabus had said and called out to Gereziac.
“It seems that everyone is interested in making sure that your daughter comes out of this safe and sound, Gereziac. And you and your General here were willing to end my life a few moments ago and that was a foolish thing to go and do because if you did succeed, then your daughter would never have had the opportunity to be free again as her location would remain a secret if I died.”
Gereziac replied, still continuing his swordfight with one of Mortus’s men.
“It concerns me not whether you live or die, Mortus! We have our own ways of finding out information and your men are no different!”
Mortus laughed at such an insinuation.
“You really must think us idiots! My men are fully loyal to me and there is no way that any of them would ever betray me by breaking their silence. If you haven’t noticed already, apart from the rallying calls to battle, my men prefer to stay in silence when they are outside their barracks. They do not need me to constantly bark out orders every second as they are all so well-trained that they do what is expected of them without failure. They will never surrender to any enemy and would prefer to die rather than face the embarrassment of defeat - and today they certainly are not going to lose.”
Gereziac had heard every word that Mortus had said to him, but was too engrossed in his fight to even reply.
Mortus continued with an ultimatum.
“But I have an offer for you, Gereziac. If you take it, then I will call off our attack on your men and in doing so, could prevent countless innocent deaths. I will even get my men fighting with you and your soldier to cease right now so we can discuss this matter further.”
And true to his word, the three soldiers holding them back lowered their weapons.
“And what kind of offer are we talking about here, Mortus?” Gereziac asked, “There is no way you would do anything for anyone without there being some kind of a catch.”
Mortus laughed.
“You know me too well, Gereziac. But you know that you cannot succeed in life without taking risks! A great leader would take advantage of any opportunity where he could save the lives of the men who fight for him.”
Zephal joined in the conversation.
“But we will never give in to the forces of evil! I would rather die than accept any offer from you!”
“But you are not the one in power!” Mortus snapped back. “You are not the one who I am addressing!”
Gereziac was extremely quick to defend Zephal.
“Zephal is my highest ranked General and I completely trust him with my life – he raises a good point that it is our duty never to negotiate with tyrants such as yourself.”
“You call me a tyrant?” Mortus replied, “Your track record hasn’t exactly been squeaky clean! How many innocent deaths have come from the swords of your men?”
“Those who have perished only did so because they decided to take the dark path.” Gereziac replied.
“You have already dismissed my offer, even though you haven’t even heard it yet!” Mortus said.
Gereziac slowly walked up to Mortus and Zephal watched Mortus and his men to make sure that neither of them suddenly attacked.
As soon as the two leaders were less than two feet away from each other, Gereziac gave his reply.
“I will only negotiate with you if it involves seeing my daughter again!”
Mortus just stared back in silence for a few seconds and responded.
“I will personally take you to her.”
Zephal knew that Mortus wouldn’t give in so easily to anyone’s demands and if Gereziac did take Mortus up on his offer, then he would need an experienced helping hand to make sure that nothing bad would happen.
But Gereziac had the same idea and he added one more thing before agreeing to Mortus’s offer.
“If I chose to go with you – then I want Zephal to join me!”
Mortus looked at Zephal for a few seconds and then nodded his head in agreement.
“I will allow that to happen – just as long as he leaves his sword here!”
Zephal knew that he had to reluctantly surrender his only weapon if it
was the only way that they could get to Naomi.
So he handed his sword to one of Mortus’s soldiers.
And before anyone left the field of battle, both leaders call out for their men to cease fighting which Mortus’s men did without hesitation, but Gereziac’s men did so a lot more reluctantly.
And Barnabus ran over to find out why his leader had called an end to proceedings.
But before he could get his words out, Gereziac was one step ahead of him and gave out his orders as soon as Barnabus reached him.
“Remain here with the rest of your men until Zephal and I return.”
“Your return?” Barnabus asked confused.
Gereziac nodded his head and whispered into Barnabus’s ear.
“Trust me on this one, Barnabus! I need you here so I can be satisfied that I am leaving my men in good hands in case Mortus’s men try anything more.”
Zephal joined the two men, fully aware that Mortus was trying to listen in to what was being discussed.
“I don’t trust Mortus one little bit and we must do what we have to in order to make sure that Naomi is indeed safe before we plan our next move. Besides, we have enough men here right now to hold our own and as you are well aware Barnabus, we may have reinforcements heading our way soon so we will have the advantage when they join us.”
Gereziac spoke.
“But it is imperative that you remain here in a peaceful manner until our return or you may cause more harm than good if you tried anything stupid. If you see Mortus heading your way without us, then I give you my permission to attack!”
And with that, Barnabus returned to his post with his men while Gereziac and Zephal headed towards Mortus.
“Lead the way, Mortus.” Gereziac said.
Mortus nodded his head and started walking with Gereziac and Zephal following closely behind.
“It is so nice to have guests for a change, gentlemen.” Mortus said jokingly as they left their men behind, “Normally, the only people who ever pay me a visit do so under duress and don’t normally receive the hospitality that you are having right now – in fact none of them ever leave!”
Gereziac showed no fear at what Mortus had just said and his comment was just as threatening.
“I can assure you that will not be the case when it comes to Zephal and I – if someone is going to die, then it certainly won’t be us!”
And soon, Mortus’s hideout was revealed.
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
I still couldn’t get over how the mysterious woman had suddenly disappeared from view again, but this time she had managed to speak to me through my mind and in doing so, left me with quite a few cryptic messages to ponder over.
And they sure got my mind thinking – especially the part where the man that I had hated so much before was supposedly going to be working alongside me for the good of the people.
But the crazy thing was that for some strange apparent reason, my head has been filling itself with images of Zephal – and not in a bad way.
My last two encounters with men were not the most successful and up until now I didn’t even want to entertain another man touching me again.
But since the changes have occurred within me, I seem to experience a very strange feeling running through my body whenever I think of Zephal.
Even the mysterious woman had mentioned Zephal and I certainly had not let her know what feelings I had towards him.
I didn’t have to tell her anything anyway because if she was successful in getting into my head in order to speak to me telepathically, then she would be more than capable of reading most of my thoughts too.
It was funny how she had been very favourable towards Zephal, but the moment that I brought up Gereziac in the conversation, I couldn’t help but notice how her tone had suddenly changed.
But how did she know so much?
And she was extremely adamant that my name wasn’t Naomi, but someone called Alana.
It seems that my life is like a jigsaw right now and every day I seem to be meeting someone who has another piece and very slowly the picture is becoming more and more clearer.
I really thought that everyone was nuts when people suddenly appeared out of nowhere hunting for me and the talk of vampires, portals, mortals and immortals - and even the fact that I was a Princess who had been hidden away for my own safety made me doubt my own sanity.
But the path so far has been stained with blood as countless people have lost their lives by getting involved in all of this madness.
And the fact that Zephal had managed to come back from the dead is something that I can and probably never will understand for the rest of my life.
Lucius, on the other hand, is a part of my journey that I would rather forget along with Tanya – both of which had tricked me into believing that they were something completely different than what they really were – pure evil.
And I have also discovered that my true father is a King and I am next in line to his throne.
But the biggest thing that I can’t seem to get a grip on right now is the fact that since I have left the mortal world, slowly but surely I have started to change from a weak defenceless woman into a vampire that was now able to fight back.
If someone had told me that all this was to happen to me a few years ago, I wouldn’t have believed them in the slightest.
In fact, I would probably do everything within my power to try and avoid them!
But I am still alive after all the threats that have come my way and I have to stop myself from becoming too arrogant of that fact in case I tempt fate.
I have seen enough deaths to realize that nobody is infallible.
I have realized that immortality does not necessarily mean that you can live forever – it means that you can never die from natural causes, but your life can be ended at any time if someone manages to take it from you.
And there were plenty around me who would do just that.
I may feel stronger than I was before, but I still had that fear within me that Mortus was going to return at any moment and with me being restrained from defending myself, who knows what he could be capable of?
But unbeknown to me, Mortus was in fact heading my way, but this time he would be bringing company.
Company that I would be glad to see.
I could hear feint footsteps coming from outside the room and as they got closer, I worked out that the voices that accompanied them were definitely male.
Mortus entered first and immediately smiled at me.
“Ah, the Princess is still here!” he said, “I’m so glad because I have brought a surprise for you.”
Before I could say anything, Mortus stepped aside and two other men walked into the room.
I instantly recognized one of them, but I had no idea who the other man was and I couldn’t even start to describe the happiness that was running through me right now.
Mortus may be smiling right now, but Zephal was clearly not impressed to see me in such a state.
And Zephal was not going to remain silent.
“What have you done to her?” he shouted at Mortus and instantly ran towards me.
Mortus just grinned and turned to the other man.
“You really must learn to control your men a lot more, Gereziac!”
I was now looking at Gereziac – the man who everyone claims to be my father.
I did not expect such a reaction from Zephal and I was amazed at how much compassion he was showing me right now in making sure that I was still fit and well.
He tried to free me from the chains, but to no avail.
“Where are the keys to these things?” he shouted towards Mortus. “Is this any way to treat someone of this standing?”
It was at this point that Zephal noticed Tanya’s dead body on the floor and he knew that if he didn’t get me out of the room as soon as possible, then there could be a possibility that the body count could rise in the room.
I could see the urgency in his eyes as he once
again shouted towards Mortus.
“I demand that you give me the keys to these chains right now!”
But Mortus was unmoved, but the tone in his voice as he replied to Zephal became incredibly chilling.
“Who do you think you are to speak to me in that manner and demand from me? If any of my men spoke to me like you just did then I would kill them on the spot and you are no different – so it would be strongly advisable that you do not cross me or I will personally make sure that every wall in this room would be covered in your blood!”
Zephal looked across at Gereziac, who mouthed for him not to go too far and make matters any worse and Zephal had no other option but to calm down.
But he did turn to me and quietly whispered in my ear, so that the others couldn’t hear.
“I promise that I will get you out of here alive, no matter what it takes. Trust me.”