“A new Shadow King?” Palos asked, shaking his head. “Impossible.”
Holte laughed. “I wouldn’t be so quick to write off the possibility,” he said. “No one believed the first Shadow King even existed until he had ravaged nearly all of Vecnos.”
“You may be right,” Palos replied with a chortle. “Anything is possible, however unlikely it may seem.”
“Perhaps someone will know something at the Blightstone Gate,” Holte said.
“We will find out soon enough,” Palos agreed. “I look forward to speaking with the commander there.”
THE BLIGHTSTONE GATE
Two days after they had departed Westhaven, Palos decided to address his officers and let them know the real purpose of their mission. He waited until they had stopped for the night and then summoned them to his small command tent.
“Hademar has returned to Vecnos,” Palos began at once. He hated trying to make small talk with the officers and, as far as he could tell, the men enjoyed his bluntness, or at least appreciated his honesty with them.
Two of the officers exchanged worried glances, but none of them spoke.
“King Gottfried thinks his brother might have discovered some method to bring back the shadow magic of old, and Hademar might be trying to use that power to resurrect his wife,” Palos went on.
“Was the man killed in Westhaven a shadowlith?” one of the officers asked.
Palos thought of reprimanding the officer for the interruption, but he didn’t want to seem hotheaded or petty in front of Marius, especially since the lieutenant would be reporting directly to the king. “Yes,” Palos stated flatly.
That knowledge brought a gasp from one of the officers.
“Be on the lookout,” Palos went on. “There may be a shade hunter following us as well.”
“How many shades are there?” the same officer asked, again forgetting his place.
Palos gave him a hard look. “We don’t know,” he answered. “Perhaps Hademar has reawakened shadow magic across Vecnos, or perhaps Westhaven was an isolated incident. In either case, our mission is to intercept Hademar before he reaches the tomb of The Shadow King.” He stared at the officer who had interrupted him, waiting for him to speak again, but the man remained silent under the weight of Palos’ glare.
“Sir,” Marius began, drawing Palos’ attention. “How much shall we tell the men?” he asked.
“You may confirm their suspicions about the shadowlith in Westhaven,” Palos said. “I’d rather not have a hundred different rumors passing between the men and distracting them. Let them know the truth. As for the mission, they should know who we intend to kill.”
Marius nodded. “Thank you, my lord,” he replied.
A few hours later, when the only light visible in the camp was that which came from torches near the sentries positioned around the perimeter, Palos struggled to sleep. His body was tired and sore from riding, but his mind would not rest. Shadows were everywhere. Inside his small command tent, his eyes would not leave the darkness unsearched. Whenever a soldier moved about through the camp, his shadow would dance on the fabric of the tent, and Palos would restlessly wait for the shade to come alive.
Palos remembered when he had learned that the shades were still alive. He had felt terror then, more than ten years ago, and that same terror threatened to worm its way through him once more. He had been a young noble on King Gottfried’s high court, and he had learned what was perhaps Vecnos’ most nefarious secret—that Alistair the Fourth had not ended the shadowlith threat as the histories all proclaimed.
Forcing himself to think of anything but the possibility of shadowliths stalking his soldiers, he turned his mind toward the glory of the coming war he intended to initiate, and visions of grandeur pushed the fear from his head. With a smile, he finally drifted off into sleep, restless though it was.
The landscape beyond Westhaven was far different than anything Alster or Elsey had ever seen. Everything beyond the city was bleak and dull, a vivid contrast to the verdant forests and plains of western Vecnos. As Alster rode, he noticed the smell of the Rift lingering everywhere. It wasn’t stuck to his clothes or simply ingrained in his mind from his trip across the tentacles—it permeated the ground.
Even the air itself tasted differently on the other side of the Rift. Their breaths felt encumbered and left a stale taste which no amount of water would erase. A pale haze clung to the weak gusts of wind which constantly blew past, making it difficult to see anything more than a mile or so away.
“I don’t like this place,” Elsey said for the tenth time. She walked at least twenty paces ahead of Alster and his horse, and she kept nervously looking over her shoulder and all around her.
As they traveled, Alster and Elsey only passed a handful of signs indicating civilization or human life. They had seen a small cottage nestled into a low hillside on their third day after leaving Westhaven, but even that appeared abandoned. The bleakness of it all stifled any conversation Alster attempted to make.
On the fourth day, they finally saw the Red Mountains towering above the horizon. They were still several miles from the base of the range, but the sight managed to return at least a little bit of vigor to their movements. As he looked down at the horse’s hooves, Alster understood the name of the tall peaks. As far as he could see, the ground was made of sticky, thick clay the hue of old blood.
Nothing grew in the clay. Had he not been taught of Xathrin, the kingdom on the other side of the Red Mountains, he would have thought he had reached the desolate edge of the world.
A rider dressed in blue galloped toward Palos’ small army as they reached the outskirts of the Blightstone Gate. He rode hard, kicking up a cloud of dirt behind him. Palos gathered his officers around him as he awaited the rider’s approach.
“I’m not sure how they knew to expect us,” Holte said ominously. They had only just gotten close enough to the gate to see the road leading to it, and they still could not see the imposing structure another few miles ahead of them.
“It is only a single rider, my lord,” Lieutenant Marius said. “He bears Karrheim’s standard.”
“Indeed,” Palos said quietly. The past four days had been peaceful, if exhausting, and he didn’t like the idea of some unforeseen circumstance derailing his intricate plans.
When the rider reined in his horse in front of the officers, he wasted no time. “Commander, you’ve arrived earlier than expected,” the man said breathlessly. “Please, follow me at once.”
Palos held up a hand to silence his subordinates. “Expected?” he asked.
The rider looked confused. “Yes sir, though we should not delay!” he urged. He began to turn his mount back toward the Blightstone Gate, but Palos stopped him again.
“For what purpose are you expecting us?” the lord questioned.
“You…” the rider looked down, suddenly deflated. “You are not the reinforcements from Karrheim?” he asked.
Palos shook his head. “Reinforcements for what?” he demanded hotly. “What war are you fighting? What dire need do you have?”
The rider met Palos’ gaze, his face full of confusion. “The Rift has begun attacking us. Shades walk up from its shores to fight, and we’re losing. We sent a messenger to Karrheim a week ago, but we have not heard back from him,” he explained.
Palos’ expression ignited with interest at the mention of shades. “Lead us to the gate!” he bellowed heroically, spurring his horse forward. The officers were surprised by Palos’ outburst, but they obeyed his command immediately, relaying the charge order through the ranks and urging their own mounts forward at the same time.
The army sped down the dusty, narrow road at full speed. Though the Blightstone Gate was only a few miles away, they could not see it until they were almost upon the stones themselves. The air around the gate was thick with darkness. As legends told, it was built upon the exact place where the Rift had begun, the site where The Shadow King had breathed his final breath on the en
d of Alistair the Fourth’s red-bladed sword, though other tales placed The Shadow King’s death outside Mournstead.
The structure itself was towering, though it did not extend far to either side along the shores of the Rift. It was more a monolith than a gate, Palos thought. There was a large stone archway which housed the gate itself at the base of the tower, and the portcullis was smashed, dangling off the side into the shadows below. The bridge appeared heavily damaged also. Stone and wooden debris were everywhere, scattered to all sides in front of the gate as though some massive boulder had smashed through the front entrance.
When they were before the small building which served as the gate’s stables, several military officers were there to meet them. Lieutenant Marius ushered Palos’ army toward the main bridge where they paused, preparing their arms and armor for combat.
“Commander,” one of the men from the gate began. He wore a battered hauberk and several layers of dirt over his tabard.
Palos quickly made note of the man’s insignia etched into his steel pauldron. “General,” he replied respectfully. “We are not the reinforcements you have requested, but we will help as much as we can before we cross.”
The general nodded, and a fresh wound on his neck oozed a thin line of blood under his armor. “If you can assist us in pushing the shades back into the hell they came up from, I’ll be indebted to you, my lord,” he said with an exhausted expression.
“I’ll remember you and your dedication to Vecnos when I return to Karrheim, sir,” Palos replied. “What’s your name?”
“General Bellon Cagg of Vrifor, Commander of the Blightstone Gate,” he stated, tipping his head slightly. “How many have you brought?” he asked.
“We march with seventy,” Palos answered. “They’re hardened men.” In the back of his mind, Palos was thrilled by the idea of getting his men used to killing shades.
“Your men will need to douse their weapons if they wish to harm the shades,” the general explained. “If they are ready to fight, I would have them bolster my front line. My own men haven’t seen a day of rest in a week.”
“Certainly,” Palos replied. He dismounted and handed his reins to Holte who led both of their horses into the small stable.
“Follow me, my lord,” Cagg said gruffly.
“Bring the men,” Palos quickly commanded his officers behind him.
“At once, sir,” one of them said with a sharp salute. He turned his horse around to return to the troops.
The general led Palos and Marius to a narrow stone staircase at the side of the Blightstone Gate. When they ascended, they stood on a small parapet above what was left of the bridge over the Rift. A story below, there was a stone well built into the side of the gatehouse which contained a steaming, milky liquid.
“We have the shades pushed back for the moment,” the general began. He drew his sword and used it to point across the Rift to various places. Unfortunately, the dark haze clinging to the air obscured almost everything that was more than thirty or forty feet away. “I have two hundred men left under my command, and all but thirty are currently deployed,” the general went on. “We have patrols there, there, and there,” he said, marking the locations in the air.
From somewhere deep within the haze, a horn sounded, and men’s voices began to filter back toward the gate. “A new attack?” Palos asked.
The general nodded in confirmation. “It happens every hour, sometimes more,” he said quietly. Below the parapet, the first of Palos’ soldiers began filtering through the gate. They had to stay to the right to avoid a missing section of the bridge, and they could only pass through two abreast. As they went, each man dipped his weapon in the small pool of bubbling liquid. When the steel came out, it flashed red for a moment, then returned to its original state.
“I would like to watch the battle,” Palos said, his tone authoritative.
The general instinctively rubbed the wound on his neck before replying. “As you wish, my lord,” he stated. There was a door behind him leading into the tower which he opened. After issuing a series of commands to the troops within, he led Palos and Marius back to the ground where they were joined by Holte. The captain had already dipped his sword into the murky liquid, and he stared at it in awe, a smile slowly spreading across his face.
Palos drew his own short sword, a sturdy weapon with a jeweled pommel, and sank it into the pool. When his hand got near to the liquid’s surface, the hair on the back of his fingers started to curl and burn. It was hot, painfully so, and Palos had to pull his sword away quickly for fear of losing his grip. The blade glimmered crimson when it emerged. He saw his reflection in the steel, tinted dark red by the transformation and the black haze hanging in the air.
A dozen or so soldiers, weary and covered in a patchwork of blood and dirt, came out of the tower and formed a semicircle around the retinue of officers. Satisfied, Palos sheathed his sword. “Take us to the front, position four,” General Cagg commanded.
Below, in the dark trench of the Rift, everything appeared oddly peaceful. In stark contrast to what Palos had seen in Westhaven, no writhing tentacles lashed to and fro beneath the bridge.
“Why is it so calm?” Palos asked, stealing a glance over the side of the bridge.
The general grunted. “When the shades appear, the Rift quiets down,” he explained.
“And your men have pushed them to the eastern shore?” Captain Holte asked. “Do the shades come from the Rift, or from some other source?”
“They know where we are, and they come for us,” he answered. “After the second attack, I sent men across to establish outposts on the other side. That has pulled their attention away from the gate, at least for now.”
“Smart thinking,” Palos commended. The guards had to break their formation several times in order to cross the damaged bridge, but they reached the other side without incident. “How did the bridge get so torn?” he asked. He envisioned hundreds of shadowy warriors crashing against the heavy iron portcullis of the gatehouse, and he wondered if the metal bars had been treated with the same magical liquid which coated their weapons.
“Most of it was caused by my men,” the general replied. “We dip our arrows in the liquid from Scalder’s Inlet so they kill the shades, but they pass right through the damned things. The bridge has taken a few thousand arrows since the battle began. Then one of my men turned a ballista on them. We couldn’t see how much damage the bolts were doing to the deck of the bridge until the shades retreated. There’s damage on the underside too, where the Rift has attacked as well.”
Palos stopped for a moment, looking at Cagg with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. “I wasn’t aware the Rift could move objects,” he said.
“It takes them a concerted effort, but the tentacles have ripped huge stones away, sometimes when my men were standing on them,” the general explained. He smiled, but his voice betrayed his fear.
Ahead through the haze of darkness, they heard a man’s scream followed quickly by the sounds of battle. “Position four,” the general reminded their guard. The men began marching northward with their shields before them, their swords clenched tightly in their hands. Each of them appeared battered and bruised, likely in desperate need of rest, but they marched on without complaint.
Palos noticed Holte sweating beside him. The man’s hands shook, and the captain stared ahead as though he was afraid to look anywhere else. They reached the recently constructed rampart some hundred or more feet from the edge of the Rift, and the small garrison of soldiers was already heavily engaged against a swarming host of shades. For every man, at least twenty shadow creatures came against him.
As far as Palos could tell, the human line seemed to be holding. Their weapons cut through the shades easily, and only a single strike was needed to destroy all but the largest opponent.
A handful of the fresh soldiers Palos had brought with him were already fighting at the front, having gone ahead. They were coordinated and fearless, striking down shad
es with impunity from behind the earthen bulwark. All along the Rift, similar outposts were marked by torches, though only the nearest two outposts could be seen with any detail.
“How many positions have you made?” Palos asked Cagg above the soldiers’ grunting voices.
“We have seventeen, my lord,” the general replied. As he spoke, a shade previously committed to assaulting position four broke away from its dark compatriots, somehow noticing the newly arrived humans. The guards in front of the officers formed together immediately, and when the shade arrived, its claws swinging wildly before it, the men easily sliced through it. Several more shades seemed to notice the officers then, shifting their assault from the outpost to the less-defended group as one.
“We should retreat,” Captain Holte said, his voice shaking.
“You would run?” Palos scolded, though he had to admit that bravery was the more difficult choice when confronted by such monstrous entities.
The shades stalked forward, tall and thin, shuffling quickly across the battlefield. The guards in front of the group fanned out, and the officers stepped forward to fill in their gaps. They formed a formidable line, though only a few of them held shields. Palos wondered what a shadowy claw would do against such an implement, and he soon found out.
All at once, the group of shades before them lurched forward, issuing a hideous screech as they charged. They came in fast, swiping left and right with their incorporeal claws. They fell almost as quickly as they attacked, but there were always more.
Through the splotchy darkness obscuring the air, Palos couldn’t decipher exactly where one shade ended and another began. To his left, one of Cagg’s guards quickly chopped down a shade, but as he pulled back for another swing, the shade behind the one he had killed lunged forward, sending its long arms forward like a black spear of darkness. Defensively, the guard ducked behind his shield. When the shade met the metal, the shield flared to life with a brilliant red glow, and some of its size was shorn away. Still, enough of its body pushed through the shield to claw a line of blood down the soldier’s cheek. Grunting, Palos swung his own sword down hard on the shade’s arm, severing it with a flash of red light and fully obliterating the creature.
Shadowlith (Umbral Blade Book 1) Page 17