“Is there another way round?” Daniel asked.
“No. Not without crossing even more main streets.”
“Then we go across here.”
“What about the guards?”
“How much farther do we have to go?”
“A couple of minutes. It’s mostly alleys but there’s one more major street to cross. The entrance is down an alleyway. They’ll be watching for us. If we are far enough ahead the guards won’t see where we went.”
“I’ll keep going,” one of the men said. “If they’ve got someone to chase they won’t stop to check the houses.”
“Yes. Good idea… but… they’ll catch you.”
“I know. Make sure you use the time I buy you.”
“We will. Thank you. Is everyone ready? Then run!”
She charged across the street with the others following close behind. They’d almost reached half way before a shout went up. Daniel glanced up the street. The guards were at least fifty paces away. He noticed that while most ran towards him a few chose a parallel route, shouting as they went.
And then Daniel and the others were back in the alleyways, and running for their lives. Daniel kept close to Sarah — if necessary he could grab her and Clara, use his incredible speed to get clear even if it meant leaving everyone else behind. For the moment he settled for biding his time and drawing energy from his surroundings in readiness.
The first alley led into a second, then a third. Daniel could see a large street ahead, but could hear shouts too. As Clara reached the alleyway a group of guards ran into view, weapons out. There were only five or six but Daniel heard other shouts nearby. This group of guards only needed to delay them long enough for the others to arrive.
Daniel didn’t hesitate. Darting past Clara he formed a shield with his powers, forcing it ahead of him at speed and smashing it through the guards. They flew backwards, landing heavily. Daniel was sure at least one had a broken neck. He didn’t have time to think about it. Clara raced past, Sarah and the others close behind. Daniel followed them.
Clara led them down several more alleys, the last two so narrow they ran in single file. Then they were out into a wider alleyway. A door flew open ahead and someone waved frantically. Clara darted ahead and into the doorway. Sarah and most of the men followed her in, with the man who had volunteered to sacrifice himself charging on past. Daniel threw himself into the doorway, darting a glance backwards at the same time. No guards were in sight. The moment Daniel was through the door was slammed shut and bolted. They’d made it!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Daniel stared at his surroundings. They were in a large room that had clearly once been an inn, though the fittings had mostly been stripped out. A group of thirty or so people, mostly men, were standing around. All were armed and some wore leather armour. All looked worried.
“I know what you are thinking, but it could be worse,” Clara said firmly. “I’m surprised so many of you made it here. There are enough of us to do this. You all know what is happening under our town. If we don’t stop it then nothing will be able to challenge Rafael. This is our only chance. It’s now or never.”
The group stood straighter at her words. Determination flared in their eyes. One man stepped forwards, gesturing to Daniel.
“Is this him?”
“Yes,” Clara replied. “There’s no doubt. A group of guards tried to stop us. He blasted them out of the way.”
“Can you do it?” the man asked Daniel. “Can you stop Rafael? Kill him?”
“I do not know,” Daniel replied, meeting the man’s eyes. “But I will fight to my last breath to save Mary and to stop Rafael. And I do know that Rafael fears me, fears what I am. For that reason yes, I believe there is a way I can stop him.”
“That’s good enough for me. Clara, do we go now?”
“No. It’s too soon. We know the ceremony is linked to the dark moon and that Rafael will be there when night falls. We don’t know if he is there yet. Our information is that the sacrifice will take place well after nightfall, a couple of hours at least. We need to enter the temple soon after sunset.”
“Are you sure?” Sarah asked, eyes bright. “My daughter’s life is at stake if you’re wrong.”
Daniel saw the group’s stance change as they learnt who Sarah was. Determination glowed more strongly from them.
“Yes,” Clara replied. “I know you worry, but arriving too early would be as bad as arriving too late. Rafael and your daughter might not be there and the guards would overwhelm us before he arrived. With no one to stop him the ritual would unfold and Mary would die.”
Sarah nodded sharply, then turned away. Clara glanced around the room.
“No one else will make it here now. We need to hide. The guards might start searching houses. Anna, take us to the tunnel entrance.”
An elderly woman shuffled into view. Despite her advanced age she had the same fierce gleam in her eye as the others. She led the group out of the room and into another where a number of lanterns were lit. Taking one she led them down some rickety wooden stairs into the cellar. The cellar was large, as Daniel expected from an inn, with many rooms. She led them through several to what looked like a blank rock wall, then touched the wall carefully in a number of places. Daniel counted seven, though he could see nothing that set the places she touched apart from the rest of the wall.
Silently a section of wall hinged open. Daniel was certain that there hadn’t been even a crack before. Clara gestured the group in. Daniel waited beside her, and Sarah waited with him. Clara grasped the old woman’s hands.
“Thank you Anna.”
“Nothing to it,” the woman's voice was cracked with age. “Wish I was young enough to go with you. Make sure you get him. Make sure you stop the abomination. Do it for me.”
“We will,” Clara assured her. “We need to go,” she told Daniel.
Daniel and Sarah followed her into the passageway. Sarah touched a slightly raised area on the wall and the doorway silently swung closed. Daniel couldn’t be certain but he thought the edges blurred slightly as it did so, almost as if the rock flowed together. He was reminded of the doorways in the keep, of how they flowed away into solid rock.
“Move farther down,” Clara told the group. “The rock isn’t quite soundproof. If the guards do search the place we can’t have them hearing us. Go about thirty paces.”
The group moved off. Clara, Daniel and Sarah brought up the rear.
“The temple has a number of secret entrances,” Clara explained quietly. “They were built long, long ago and are invisible from within the temple — unless you know how to open them. The guards have found many down the years but not this one. There are probably quite a few others they haven’t found too. Knowledge of the entrances is passed down through families. I suppose there must be some that no one remembers, entrances that will never be opened again.
When the time comes we will follow the passageway. At the other end we will open the doorway and storm into the temple. The doorway has been opened once before, many years ago now, so we know that it comes out very near the sanctum. That’s where Rafael will be, Mary too. With luck we will be closer to the sanctum than most of the guards are.”
“How can we be sure of the time?” Daniel asked, remembering the night spent shut away in a room in the keep when losing track of time had almost proved to be fatal.
Clara smiled and pointed to one of the men who had an hour glass in front of him. Several others were also watching the falling sand closely.
“We will know,” Clara assured Daniel. “Now, it is just a matter of waiting.”
Daniel nodded, knowing this would be one of the longest waits of his life, though it paled into insignificance beside what Sarah would have to endure.
Daniel sat deep in thought, trying to find anything from his memories of Ned and the Golden Order that would give him an edge against Rafael. He revisited the patterns Ned had used against the darkness. He hunted through his own
memories too, thinking back over every use of the power. There was no blinding moment of revelation, but he became more certain that the ability to form complex and tightly bound patterns of power would be critical. With nothing else to do he started to practice, pushing his skills to the limit.
He was dragged from his practice some time later by raised voices echoing down the tunnel. Everyone waiting in the tunnel had been quiet anyway, but now they all froze. Daniel could hear the voices of guards calling to each other. They must be searching the basement of the inn. Daniel focused, pushing a tendril of power towards the hidden door and finding that he could hear clearly.
“…cleanest floor I’ve ever seen in a basement,” came a gruff voice.
“It’s my job,” replied Anna. “I’m paid to keep the place clean. I’d cleaned everywhere else, so I cleaned down here. Didn’t want to lose my job.”
“A likely story. More likely so that there’s no footprints left down here. You, take her upstairs. Don’t let her leave. The rest of you, spread out. Check the walls. And the floor. Carefully!”
Daniel let the tendril of power go as the sounds of hammering came. Everyone waited tensely for a shout of discovery. As the minutes stretched on Daniel became more and more tense, but no shout came. After twenty minutes or so the sounds faded. Reaching out with his power once again Daniel heard feet stamping up the staircase from the basement, and someone muttering about wasting time because a daft old bat liked cleaning. He relaxed with a smile. Anna should be safe now.
“They’ve left,” he whispered quietly. The others relaxed, but no one spoke. Daniel returned to practising with his powers. Time crawled slowly by once more.
After eating Josef spoke quietly to his men, trying to keep their spirits up. Nathan was unusually quiet, sitting with his head bent. When Josef approached Nathan looked up, eyes burning with anger.
“It should have worked!” he said angrily. “If it wasn’t for those damn night walkers it would have worked. First chance I get I’m going to take one of them down. I don’t care what they do to me. I’m sure we’ll see one again, and when we do I’ll destroy it.”
“They’re lightning fast,” Josef replied. “You’ll need to be clever. They can be killed though. I stuck a knife in one’s heart and it died. Well, it ran onto the knife truth be told. I just managed to get the knife into the right position.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that. Just get us out of here Josef. Give me a chance to kill one of those god forsaken creatures.”
He lowered his head again. Josef backed away slowly. He worried that Nathan’s anger had pushed the guard beyond the edge of sanity. Clearly it had driven any of his worries about Josef’s own possible darkness aside. Looking into Nathan’s eyes had scared Josef. Nathan was either a man right on the edge or one who had taken a long leap off. Only time would tell which.
Several hours passed without any sign of their jailers. At one point bells started ringing out in a distinctive pattern. Soon after a continuous ringing sounded out for maybe ten minutes before the bells fell silent. Another hour or two passed and then guards started to march into view.
Initially Josef thought it meant dinner was due. He soon realised his mistake. Something like thirty guards came into view, most wielding hefty looking wooden clubs while the rest held swords or crossbows. One approached the cell.
“On your feet! You’re coming with us, but we don’t much care whether you’re conscious, or alive for that matter. When I unlock the door you come out one at a time and we shackle you. If anyone tries anything you all suffer.”
“All right,” Josef said, as calmly as he could manage. “We’ll come quietly, if you tell us where you plan on taking us.”
The guard grinned cruelly. “Why of course. You are distinguished guests. Our master, Rafael himself, requests the pleasure of your company. Now move!”
Josef signalled to his men to form a line, then he moved over to Nathan.
“Nathan… Nathan! Look at me. Not yet. Do you understand? They are taking us to see Rafael. Focus on that. We have a chance to strike back if we just get the timing right.”
Nathan stared up at him blankly for a few seconds, then his eyes cleared and he nodded — though Josef could see the fire still burnt fiercely deep down. Without a word Nathan stood and walked to the back of the line. Josef took up position behind, ready to leap forwards and restrain Nathan if his anger boiled over.
One by one Josef’s men had their hands cuffed behind their backs and their legs shackled together. Escape was impossible, even shuffling slowly was a challenge. Finally it was Josef’s turn and he was given the same treatment.
“Bring them,” barked the guard. Josef and the others were grabbed under each arm by a guard and half walked, half carried through several corridors, up some stairs, through a heavy looking gate and out into daylight. Josef was nearly blinded by the bright light after the gloom of the cell. As his eyes slowly adjusted he realised it was actually near dusk and the sun must already have set. The daylight was only bright because he’d been shut away from natural light for so long.
Two horse-drawn carts waited in the courtyard they had emerged into. Josef and the others were shoved up into the carts. Some of the guards climbed up beside them. The rest ran behind as the horses broke into a trot.
Josef studied the streets carefully during the journey. The town didn’t look that different from Hammersgate, or several other towns he had visited, other than the complete lack of people on the streets. He saw the occasional group of guards but otherwise not a soul. It was eerie. Shivers ran down Josef’s spine several times. He had a feeling that something very bad was going to happen, that the whole town was holding its breath waiting. He couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever it was he and the others were heading straight toward it.
Rafael checked on the girl one more time, smiling at what he saw. The dark power had grown into a shell surrounding her and was strengthening all the time. Even now virtually nothing could pierce that shell, and within minutes it would be impregnable and the ritual would be unstoppable.
Excitement churned Rafael’s stomach in a way he hadn’t felt for centuries. He felt more alive than he had done in so many dark lifetimes. The child would die and he would gain the blessing and power of the Dark God. The unknown threat had failed to materialise, and would no longer be a worry now if it did. It was too late. Nothing could stop him now!
Chapter Thirty
Finally the time came to move off. Clara took the lead, warning everyone to be quiet. She warned they had no idea whether the entrance at the other end was soundproofed, and that any noise might tip off the guards in the temple. Daniel followed right behind Clara, straining his senses for any hint of a threat. Sarah walked beside him.
The passageway soon angled steeply down, twisting back and forth and in places forming a spiral. Rough steps had been hewn into the stone at the steepest points. Daniel became more and more tense as they descended. He could sense something ahead, a raw reserve of dark energy that in some strange way seemed to be waiting for him. He hoped desperately that it wasn’t Rafael. If Rafael had that much power then he would sweep Daniel aside in a heartbeat.
Daniel tried to take comfort from the fact Rafael hadn’t been anywhere near that powerful at their last meeting, but it didn’t help. This was Rafael’s home territory. Who knew what powers he could draw on here? Daniel’s thoughts returned to the keep and his own ability to draw power from the very walls there. Was Rafael able to do the same within the temple? Could he draw on the reserves of dark power?
Abruptly they reached the end of the tunnel, turning a corner into an apparent dead end only twenty feet away. The switch to open the door was clearly visible, a raised section of stone that glowed slightly to Daniel’s senses.
Clara glanced back, confirming that everyone was ready, then reached out to the switch. Josef focused on preparing as much power as he could, ready to unleash it at a moments notice. Clara touched the control. A crack appear
ed in the stone, then a large section began to swing open.
Josef stared around in amazement. They had been pulled off the cart and into another fortified building. When they were taken down two flights of stairs he had started to think they were simply being transferred to another prison. When they entered a long tunnel lit by lanterns he became sure.
But instead of reaching cells the tunnel continued, always sloping downwards and taking large, sweeping curves that soon defeated his attempts to track where they must be. They followed the tunnel for what felt like an age before it finally opened into a large corridor. Rooms and corridors led off from each side but they were dragged forwards by the guards. Then they emerged into the amazing space that Josef now found himself in.
It was a temple. He had no doubt about that. The grandeur of the architecture and the feel of the place meant it couldn’t be anything else. Despite their situation Josef found himself lost in wonder for several minutes. His fascination was cut short by a familiar voice.
“So pleased you could join us,” the Major said. “If you are impressed by this then wait till you see the sanctum. Bring them.”
The Major turned and walked towards the far end of the temple. Josef and the others were dragged after by the guards. Now the spell of the temple had been broken Josef looked around properly. Bronze Order guards were everywhere. For some reason Josef couldn’t fathom most were intently watching the walls. There were night walkers in the huge space too — fifty or sixty at least. All clustered near the end of the temple through which Josef had entered. Many sent envious or angry glances towards the guards and prisoners as they passed. Josef had the feeling the night walkers wanted to follow but that something held them back.
They neared the sanctum. Josef’s eyes were immediately drawn to a large table, and to the child laying on it. Mary! She was alive and appeared to be unhurt, so far at least, but Josef could sense a powerful shell formed of dark power that surrounded her. Even if he could somehow get free, impossible as that was, there would be no way he could pierce the shell. How he wished to be free and wielding his own sword. That would make the night walkers think twice, and it might even pierce the shell of darkness. He might as well wish for the sun to somehow come out in the chamber, deep underground though it was.
Dark Soul Silenced - Part Two Page 21