by Hans Bezdek
“Nonsense,” laughed Ivsaar. “We agreed beforehand-”
“The Resistance and the people of Nurem could use the money much more than I or my friends could,” said Sloane firmly.
She didn’t need to be tempted anymore, or she would take what the elf was offering. She felt too guilty about taking the money after realizing the repairs that would be required from all the devastation, and if they were going to try and restart somewhere else, then they’d definitely need every ounce of gold they could get their hands on.
Thankfully, Ivsaar nodded and dropped the subject. “That’s very thoughtful, thank you. Actually… would you like to come with us? We’re not sure where we’re going next, but battle is sure to follow sooner or later. You’re a great help.”
Sloane scoffed at that. She had nearly killed Ivsaar when she was suffering that horrible flashback to Goldsworth and then took a while to get her aim back. Some help she was.
“I’m serious,” said Ivsaar, shaking her head. “Don’t let what happened to you back there shake you up too badly. I’ve known plenty of warriors of old who saw truly horrible things, and I know it can get to them. That doesn’t make you any less valuable.”
“I appreciate it,” smiled Sloane. The elf was being kind, but Sloane didn’t feel any better about what had happened. What if Ivsaar wasn’t there to shake her out of it? What if she froze again when Zeke and Delvin needed her help?
“So, you’ll come with?” asked Ivsaar.
“I can’t. I’ve got to wait for my friends to return with the Arcane Staff.”
“Sloane…” said Ivsaar quietly, weighing in her mind the best way to put this. “What if they don’t come back?”
“I’m not worried,” smiled Sloane. “Somehow, I know the two of them will be alright.”
“Very well. We can wait a bit for them as well,” shrugged the elf.
“That won’t be necessary. The three of us our on a journey to find the Lost Citadel,” explained Sloane. “That isn’t a job for the Linsuk Resistance. You’ll be needed elsewhere to stand up to Kutarm’s tyranny.”
“True,” agreed Ivsaar. “If they do come back with the Fourth Staff, tell them to consider helping us out in the fight.”
“I’ll be sure to pass it on,” smiled Sloane. “You think Zeke will be able to figure out how to use the thing?”
“That scrawny elf? Ha!” laughed Ivsaar. “No, just having The Elf Thief wielding an Arcane Staff near our men will be enough to get them to fight at their strongest. I doubt your friend will get much actual use out of the Fourth Staff. One of the reasons the elves have never tried to take it for themselves is that the Arcane Staves are notoriously difficult to use.”
“I’m not sure if Zeke got that memo,” smirked Sloane.
A young dwarf ran up to them. “Ivsaar, we need your opinion on how best to pack food for our travels!”
“Of course,” nodded the elf. “I’ll be right there.”
The dwarf nodded then went on his way.
“May the stars and the moon allow our paths to cross again,” said Sloane, reaching her hand out as she recited the elven goodbye.
“Let it be so,” smiled Ivsaar, finishing it and shaking Sloane’s hand.
Sloane watched as her new friend walked off to lead the Nurem survivors to a new home, and to a new battlefield.
Chapter 20
“Do you think we’ll make it back in time to turn the tide?” asked Delvin, as he and Zeke neared Nurem again.
“Hopefully we won’t have to turn a tide,” said Zeke, walking with the Arcane Staff leaning back against his shoulder. He’d eventually start wearing it on his back, but he was too excited to finally have it in his possession. The legendary weapon he had heard of as a child was actually his!
“True,” nodded the gnome. “Still, what if we’re too late and everyone’s dead?”
Zeke quieted as he thought that over. The whole fiasco at Wizard’s Keep did take a couple hours longer than he had planned for. He thought he’d snatch the Fourth Staff and be out before anything bad happened, and then they’d be back in Nurem before things heated up. If the revolt actually started when Throgrom and the others planned it, then they’d be coming in either when it was in full swing, or over.
“I don’t mean to be morbid,” mumbled Delvin. “I’m just worried about Sloane.”
“I’m actually not worried about her,” smiled Zeke, glancing around at some of the trees as they walked. Of everything that could go wrong that day, he knew Sloane not coming out alive wouldn’t be one of them.
“Really? I thought she was your friend?” asked Delvin, looking horrified.
“No, no, not like that,” laughed Zeke. “I mean I’m not worried that she fell in battle. I don’t know how to explain it, but I just feel like she’d be fine no matter what happens. You’ve seen how good of a shot she is. She could shoot herself a path to safety if she needed to escape.”
“Yeah,” smiled Delvin. “I suppose your right. No reason to worry about her.”
Zeke’s smile slowly slipped away as he looked up ahead. Black pillars of smoke could be seen from between the trees. There was only one thing in that direction: Nurem.
“We’ve got to hurry!” shouted Zeke, breaking into a sprint.
It took Delvin a moment to figure out what was going on, then he quickly chased after the elf. Zeke kept pace ahead of the slower gnome, stuck between trying to make it to the city as fast as possible without leaving Delvin behind to fend for himself.
After close to twenty minutes, the two finally stood between the forest and the city.
“You’re… You’re so… so fast…” said Delvin between labored breaths, fighting hard to not fall over.
Why was it so quiet? The city had clearly seen better days, but there weren’t as many active fires as Zeke had feared. He expected to hear something though. Anything. There was no sound or sight of the wagons that were around the town when they first came, nor any sign of horses or guards. Even all of their tents were gone. All he could hear from the town was the occasional soft crackle. The whole thing was eery.
“Zeke! Delvin!”
Zeke and the gnome turned, looking around for the source of the familiar voice. Sloane stepped out from behind a tree and ran to join them.
“You’re alive!” squealed Delvin. “Just like Zeke said you’d be!”
“Like Zeke said, huh? You didn’t have faith in me, then?” teased Sloane.
“N-No! I mean, I-I did!” stammered Delvin.
“She’s just messing with you,” laughed Zeke. He walked up to Sloane and wrapped her up in a hug. She tensed up for a second, but then hugged him back. It wasn’t until then that he realized how awkward this felt, and slowly broke away.
“Good to see you made it back,” smiled Sloane.
“Y-Yeah,” said Zeke, rubbing the back of his head and looking away.
“Don’t I get a hug?” asked Delvin.
“Oh! Of course!” laughed Sloane, bending down and hugging the gnome as well. “I knew the two of you would manage to get back here in one piece. The Elf Thief does it again!”
Delvin glanced up at Zeke, but the elf didn’t meet his eye line. Now wasn’t the time to correct her. Zeke was sure he’d get an opportunity some other time.
“What happened?!” asked Zeke, scanning over what remained of Nurem. Part of the wall was destroyed, and the fire and smoking rising in various parts of the city let him know there was more than first met the eye. It looked like Lord Kutarm’s forces clearly won, but where were they?
“We won,” shrugged Sloane.
“This is Nurem winning?” said Delvin, eyeing the woman curiously.
“It didn’t go as well as we had hoped,” conceded Sloane. “We won the fight, but the survivors had to abandon the city.”
“Everyone’s already gone?” asked Zeke, a bit disappointed. He was looking forward to showing everyone the Arcane Staff and hopefully getting to use it some more. While he didn’t want
to admit it, he had secretly hoped he would be a big hero of the battle.
“You just missed them,” nodded Sloane. “With so many sections of the city destroyed, and with Kutarm having access to demons and undead, Ivsaar had everyone move on.”
“Ivsaar? The elf?” asked Zeke, surprised. “Did she go over Throgrom’s head or something? Besides literally, obviously.”
“Throgrom didn’t make it out of the battle,” said Sloane, glancing away.
Zeke winced at how poor taste his joke suddenly became.
“Oh…” said Delvin, looking sadly at the ground.
“That’s too bad,” nodded Zeke. He didn’t speak much with the leader of this part of the Resistance, but he wished the dwarf would’ve made it out. “He seemed like a good guy.”
“He did,” agreed Sloane. “Ivsaar took over for him after we finished clearing the city.”
“There were more demons and undead, you mentioned?” asked Delvin.
“And fae,” she added. “Our worst fears seem to be true. Kutarm’s forces were teamed up with them, and there was no way the abominations just happened to show up in the middle of the city right after the revolution began.”
“So Kutarm’s got one of the other Arcane Staves,” mumbled Delvin. “That’s the only explanation. Interesting. Very interesting.”
“Speaking of which… is that… it?” asked Sloane, staring at the Fourth Staff.
“It is,” smiled Zeke, offering it to her. “Want to hold it?”
Sloane reached out, grabbing for the glowing purple top. Zeke quickly brought it back. “Woah, don’t touch that!”
“Huh? Why not?”
“I don’t know how it works yet, but that purple stuff is magic… and it’s strong,” he explained, offering more of the safe area.
“You know, on second thought, I think I’m fine just admiring it from a distance,” laughed Sloane nervously. “You had to use the Staff to protect yourselves?”
“A smoke dragon was set up as a guardian of the keep,” said Delvin, breaking from his earlier thoughts. “Zeke showed that thing who was boss!”
“Zeke did?” laughed Sloane.
“Don’t say that like you can hardly believe it!” complained Zeke. “I told you I’d be serious business once I got the Arcane Staff!”
“True,” nodded Sloane. She winked at Delvin before continuing. “You do have one of the strongest weapons in all of Linsuk, so I guess I should assume you’ll occasionally get a win.”
Zeke grumbled but let it go.
“Where are we off to next?” asked Delvin, eager to keep the others from getting into a fight so soon after reuniting.
“That’s really up to the two of you,” said Sloane.
“What do you mean?” asked Zeke. “I thought all of this was to get to the Lost Citadel?”
“I still fully intend on getting there, but I wouldn’t be opposed to making a few more stops along the way.”
“What kind of stops?” asked Delvin.
Sloane opened her mouth to say something but then shook her head. “It’s nothing. All I’m saying is I’m down to go where ever the two of you would like to.”
“And I’m following the two of you until I can repay my life debt,” shrugged Delvin. “So I guess that means it’s up to Zeke!”
The two of them turned towards the elf. Zeke thought about it for a moment, tapping his fingers on the Arcane Staff. There were almost too many choices. They could go and try to catch up with the remnant of Nurem. They could venture deeper into Kutarm’s lands and try to help other towns revolt. They could go after the Lost Citadel. They could go back to Le’Rus, and Zeke could show everyone how wrong they were about him.
“Delvin helped me realize something,” said Zeke, staring out over the burning city. “I think I want to help the Linsuk Resistance.”
“Wasn’t that why we did all that today?” smirked Sloane.
“I was just doing that to get access to the Arcane Staff,” sighed Zeke, shaking his head. “My heart wasn’t really with helping them. But now… now I feel like they are fighting against something that’s important to stop.”
“I agree,” nodded Sloane. “We can run after the survivors if you’d like.”
“Let’s not get too crazy,” smiled Zeke. “If we go and join up with them, we’ll just become regular soldiers. People will tell us what to do, we’ll have lame jobs when we aren't fighting, and we’ll have a lot less autonomy.”
“Doesn’t sound so great when you put it that way,” laughed Sloane. “What are you proposing, instead?”
“What direction is the Lost Citadel?”
“It’s in the west.”
“Kutarm’s territory is also in the west,” Delvin pointed out.
“Exactly,” nodded Zeke. “How about we head for the Lost Citadel, and once we find it, we join in the fight against the tyrant on our own?”
“You want the three of us to fight Kutarm’s army by ourselves?” laughed Sloane.
“I-I don’t know if I like the sound of that…” mumbled Delvin, playing with his fingers.
“We’ll have plenty of time to flesh out a plan,” said Zeke, waving them off. “And who knows? Maybe the Lost Citadel will be so awesome that we won’t want to leave. But I think we can try and accomplish more of our goals if we strike out on our own, rather than joining up with one of the Resistance factions.”
Sloane and Delvin exchanged a look.
“Works for me,” shrugged Delvin.
Sloane looked Zeke over carefully as she thought a moment longer.
“Alright,” she conceded. “But we’re still splitting the treasure in the Lost Citadel two ways! If you want to give any to Delvin, that’ll be out of your own share!”
Zeke laughed. Even though a lot had happened that day, it sounded like some things weren’t changing too drastically. They were still headed for the goal they started with, even if there were some additional things added on.
“Let’s get out of here before the fire takes over the entire city, then,” said Zeke, pointing the Arcane Staff out towards the west. “To the Lost Citadel!”
Delvin and Sloane shared another look.
“Um, didn’t Sloane just say the Lost Citadel is in the west?” asked Delvin. “Why are you pointing east?”
“Ugh, whatever,” groaned Zeke, storming off in the opposite direction. “It’s been a long day, okay?”
The End
Lost Citadel (Book 2)
The Arcane Staff Series
by Hans Bezdek
Chapter 1
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said Zeke, glancing around.
They were in a tavern in the town of Tunil. A half dozen tables populated the place, along with a small bar in the back. While this wasn’t the seediest place Zeke had ever had the misfortune of coming across, it wasn’t the best. The bartender hadn’t paid them any mind, nor had the rest of the place. The handful of patrons were engrossed in private conversation, enjoying their dinner and their drink.
It had been nearly a week since the battle of Nurem. Things hadn’t gone as smoothly as Zeke initially hoped. It wasn’t that he expected to just stumble across the Lost Citadel… but that would’ve been nice. Instead, the three of them had tracked down two of Sloane’s leads. Both had proved to be a waste of time.
Zeke wasn’t sure about the other two, but he was starting to worry that none of Sloane’s contacts would pan out. After all, If someone knew the location of the Lost Citadel, why wouldn’t they go there themselves?
Still, they were on their way to another of her leads. Tunil just happened to be on their way, and sleeping on a bed sounded much nicer than spending another night out in the wild.
While he wanted that as much as either of the others, he wasn’t sure Sloane’s plan here was a good one.
What was she thinking?
“This’ll save us money,” shrugged Sloane.
Oh.
Right.
Of course she was
thinking about money.
“B-But don’t we have money to spend?” asked Delvin, chewing on a nail anxiously.
“And how much money have you contributed to the group?” asked Sloane.
Delvin made an unhappy noise then leaned back and out of the conversation. She got him there.
“Delvin has a point,” said Zeke. “If we just spent our own money on a room for the night, then we wouldn’t have to worry about potentially exposing ourselves.”
While no one had recognized the Fourth Staff for what it was yet, Zeke was confident it was just a matter of time. All they could think to do was put a small covering over the top of it in order to hide the magical purple glow. If Lord Kutarm’s people or sympathizers figured out that the three of them had an Arcane Staff, then they were going to have some serious problems moving forward.
“Trust me,” said Sloane. “No one wants either of you exposing yourselves.”
Zeke glared at her as she smiled back. She knew what he meant.
“Look, we deserve something for helping the Linsuk Resistance at Nurem, don’t we?” she argued. “We can’t get that unless we talk to people and let them know we’re part of the organization.”
“Tunil is mostly human,” whispered Delvin, gesturing around to prove his point. “There’s no way for us to know who is on the Resistance’s side and who’s on Kutarm’s. We don’t even know if this place has been reached by the Resistance yet!”
“No risk, no reward,” shrugged Sloane.
Zeke and Delvin shared a look.
“Look, I’ll let the two of you pick who to talk to,” she continued. “If it doesn’t work out after talking to just one person, we can leave and stay in an inn.”
Zeke thought about it for a moment then nodded. Seemed reasonable enough.
“Fine,” said Zeke, quickly scanning over the people in the bar. The bartender was pretty buff, so Zeke didn’t want to mess with him. There were two tables taken by large groups, which meant there was a higher chance one of them would not want to help them. One table was occupied by just two men, and it looked like their mugs were nearly empty. A solitary figure in a blue cloak was in the corner, reading something. “What about the one in the cloak?”