by James Wisher
“Dead or captured,” Imogen said. “Even in hiding she could have gotten out a message calling for help.”
“Agreed, but now what? There’s no point heading on to the village.” Lon scratched his chin. “Should we just move on, look for the next person on the list?”
“Unless you have a better suggestion.” Imogen took a strip of paper out, wrote a quick note, and sent it off with a conjured messenger.
Chapter 27
Connor watched as the Soul Burn Crystal continued to expand. It had already covered the entire cavern and now it spread to the ceiling, coating the stalactites like ice. The process was glorious and after a month plus of study Connor still had no idea how it worked. And while his innate curiosity compelled him to watch the corrupt energy sparking like lightning through the crystal matrix, deep down Connor didn’t really care about the process. It worked, nothing else mattered.
After setting the crystal in motion Connor had more thoroughly explored the underground complex. In addition to the massive cavern carved out to house the crystal, a maze of tunnels extended deeper under the mountains. He hadn’t gone down every tunnel, but those he checked out appeared largely empty. That was another surprise. It seemed nearly impossible to set foot in a cave in this part of the world without running into something that wanted to kill you. Perhaps the inhabitants sensed his power and had chosen to retreat. That worried Connor even more as it implied intelligence.
The clank of Mikhail’s boots across the crystal path heralded the black knight’s arrival. He’d left the armored guardian at the cave entrance to protect against any of the haunted land’s nastier inhabitants entering and making a nuisance of themselves. In truth it shocked Connor that none of the demons or undead he knew lived in the wasteland had put in an appearance yet. Perhaps Mikhail had been forced to kill something and wanted to report it. With the overwhelming power coming from the crystal blocking out everything else Connor wouldn’t have sensed anything short of a major demonic invasion.
The armored figure arrived at the entrance to the portal chamber. “A message, Master.”
What could it be? He had a number of pieces in motion, but most of them knew their tasks and had the wit to adapt to anything short of a total disaster. He doubted it came from Morana. Perhaps one of his cult agents. Connor had reassigned several crystal birds that had belonged to dead agents to cult spies scattered here and there throughout the kingdom. One of them might have discovered something interesting.
The crystal didn’t need his constant observation to complete its transformation. The message might make for an interesting diversion. The crystal still had days or maybe weeks of growth to undergo before he could fully activate it.
Connor walked along beside his servant back to the entrance. The half dozen energy sources he’d collected so far didn’t make so much as a peep as he passed by. He assumed from the way they’d thrashed when he connected them to the energy matrix the process was quite painful. Perhaps they’d simply passed out. Whatever the cause, the quiet pleased him.
They reached the entrance and the black bird landed on Connor’s outstretched hand. He’d placed a barrier at the entrance to keep the little crystal creations from entering. He feared the energy in the cavern would cause them to shatter and he only had so many.
Connor plucked the message from its beak and unrolled it. As he read his smile grew. More targets had presented themselves. He sent the messenger back without a reply. That agent couldn’t do anything in the current situation beyond providing him with more information.
A few steps from the cave entrance Connor had carved a secure niche to hold the trunks with his collection. It took only a moment to retrieve the messenger he needed. Much as Connor would have enjoyed handling this mission himself, he wasn’t yet ready to leave the crystal unsupervised and leaving Mikhail to deal with it…He shuddered at the thought. If something went wrong Connor wasn’t certain he could set it right, so leaving someone else in charge would be foolish to the point of madness. He sent a brief message to Morana. She should have no trouble taking the new prey.
Chapter 28
Damien yawned as he guided the platform through the predawn sky. The three of them had been up half the night decoding all the messages they’d found, and when they finished they ended up with seven unique locations. Considering how many scraps of paper there’d been in the second pouch he considered them lucky to only have seven to scout. If every piece had led to a different location it would have taken the rest of the summer to check them all out. As it was they should be able to roll them up in half a week, assuming no major resistance.
After four hours’ sleep they’d headed out to the nearest meeting place, a circle of standing stones three hundred miles north of the village. The stones appeared plunked down in a random clearing in the forest, even further into the wilderness than the druid village he and Jen had visited. If they found a single cultist there Damien would be shocked.
“Talk about the middle of nowhere.” Jen leaned over the rail and looked down at the passing trees. “Who in their right mind would have a gathering out here?”
“We’re hunting a cult that worships demons and wants to bring about the end of the world. I’m not sure ‘in their right mind’ would describe any of them.” Damien kept a watchful eye on the thick trees below. They were getting close to the location described in the ledger. A circle of standing stones wouldn’t be easy to spot in all this wilderness.
Marie-Bell brought her white horse up alongside him. She pointed with her hammer to a spot about a mile ahead. “Do you feel it?”
Damien had been focusing so hard on what he saw that he’d let his sorcerous senses lapse. When he concentrated the queasy feeling of corruption washed over him. “I do now, that must be our target.”
“I’ll go in first.” Marie-Bell’s mount raced ahead of them.
“Wait!”
Too late. She streaked like a pale comet to the source of corruption. Damien accelerated the platform to try and keep up. From this distance he couldn't tell if there was an active source of corruption like a demon or if it was something old like a former ritual site. Whatever waited down there he didn’t want the paladin to face it alone. He also didn’t want her to destroy anything that might give them a clue about what they were dealing with.
“It’s no wonder the other paladins let her go off on her own,” Jen said. “She has no sense of tactics or teamwork.”
Damien grinned. “She should have been a sorcerer. Marie-Bell would fit right in at The Tower.”
An explosion shook the air. Both the corruption and Marie-Bell’s holy aura had ramped up by three or four times. Whatever she’d found down there, it wasn’t an old ritual site.
A stream of hellfire shot past the platform, missing them by a foot. Damien swerved to avoid the next blast. He raced toward the ground. Two black shapes like ravens the size of horses rushed to meet them.
“I’ll help Marie-Bell.” Jen leapt over the rail and plummeted the remaining fifty feet to the ground.
Damien shook his head and let the platform vanish. That short a fall wouldn’t bother Jen, he just wished he knew what she faced.
He drew Lizzy from the sheath on his back. This would be the first time they’d fought a proper battle together and he was anxious to see what they could do.
The giant bird demons breathed hellfire at him. He dodged the clumsy attack and surrounded Lizzy with a chunk of his soul force. Her power merged with his as she read his mind and learned what he had planned.
He swung her at the nearest demon. A curved blast of gold and gray soul force swept out, annihilating the demon in an instant. The attack continued on, hammering into the ground, scattering trees, and blowing a thirty-foot crater in the ground.
Damien winced. Looked like he still needed practice modulating their combined power.
Hellfire shattered against a gray barrier.
Focus on the battle. There’s still one left.
Right.
Damien orientated on the monster diving toward him, curved black talons extended. Lizzy’s blade burned with gray fire. This time Damien added just enough of his own soul force to give it the shape he wanted.
He slashed and a serpent of gray fire struck at the demon, crushing and rending it in a fang-filled maw. The demon vanished.
With the skies clear Damien turned his attention to the ground. He still sensed corruption, weaker now, but still active.
Damien drifted in the sky above the battle. How best to help? With Jen and Marie-Bell down there any sort of heavy attack would blow them away as well. Maybe if he used Lizzy the same way Dad did, as a sword…
You’re not a warlord, Damien. Fighting like your father will only get you killed.
“Not just like Dad. If I pierce the demon then release external soul force I can blow it to pieces with minimal overflow.” Damien dove toward the battle. “Until we improve at combining our power and controlling the results I think it’s the safest course.”
The serpent you made worked pretty well.
“Yes, constructs are an excellent way to use our power. When I was first learning to use soul force Ann suggested I focus on creating constructs to use in battle.”
Twenty feet from the ground Damien spotted Jen and Marie-Bell battling a dwarf with a beard made of black quills, wearing black armor similar to Mikhail’s and carrying a red ax that pulsed with corrupt energy. Damien was probably the only one that saw the swirling tendrils of energy running from the dwarf to the standing stones surrounding it.
The dwarf staggered and dents appeared in its armor as if from no where. The women moved so fast Damien could only make out hints of their positions. The dwarf swung, hitting nothing. It appeared the creature couldn’t keep up with Jen and Marie-Bell’s speed, but by the same token as far as Damien could see they hadn’t accomplished anything beyond denting its armor.
Damien turned his attention to the standing stones. Deeply incised runes covered them from top to bottom. He didn’t know if he could read them, but he also didn’t want to destroy them before he tried.
“New plan. We’re going to encase the stones in a barrier. That should cut off the dwarf’s energy source. We also won’t risk hurting Jen with an attack.”
Damien leveled Lizzy at the megaliths and an instant later a shifting, gray and gold shield appeared around them. All the tendrils of corrupt energy vanished.
The next crash revealed Jen’s sword piercing through the dwarf’s chest followed an instant later by Marie-Bell crushing its head with her glowing hammer.
Jen looked up and Damien waved. He landed between the girls a few feet from the dwarf. “I’d best deal with the body before I release the barrier. I’d hate to have that thing come back to life.”
Jen nodded, but Marie-Bell said, “Can I do it? I’ve been wanting to try a purification technique, but haven’t had a chance.”
Damien waved at the corpse. “Be my guest.”
She smiled and did a little dance that brought a corresponding smile to Damien’s face. He loved how excited she got. When he’d first discovered his powers, after the initial nerves wore off, Damien had felt the same sense of excitement. He still felt the excitement, but a constant fear of what might happen if he lost his concentration mixed with it.
Damien and Jen moved a few steps away when Marie-Bell raised her hammer. The glow surrounding the head grew until the light devoured her figure. When the light became so bright he had to squint a resounding crash sounded.
The light vanished along with the dwarf and all its gear. Not bad and it spared Damien from having to use any more of his power.
“Good job,” Damien said.
She beamed. “Thanks. It’s a hard thing to use in battle as it takes a while to build up the energy.”
With no vessel remaining to receive their corrupt energy Damien lowered the barrier around the standing stones. Dark power swirled around them, making Damien a little sick, but nothing worse.
Marie-Bell made gagging noises and ran for the bushes outside the circle. When she’d collected herself she said, “I can’t stay in there. The darkness is too thick.”
“That’s fine. I just want to see if I can decipher any of these runes then we’ll get out of here.”
The paladin conjured her mount and galloped into the air away from the sickening corruption. Beside him Jen muttered, “It doesn’t seem that bad to me.”
Damien traced a rune that resembled a twisted vine. “As a paladin she’s probably more sensitive to corruption than we are. It makes her a good hunter, but if she can’t learn to block it out she may get into trouble one day. Lizzy, do you recognize any of these runes?”
Some of them are the personal sigils of various demon lords. The majority appear to be crude pictographs used by savage tribes. The rest I’ve never seen before.
Damien grimaced. This site could be a valuable resource to The Tower’s scholars. It also seethed with demonic energy. If anything with ill intentions wandered in now that they’d destroyed the circle’s guardian they might end up having to eliminate another monster before they could study the markings. Should he level the place or leave it for now?
Even if another guardian should be born, it will be bound to the circle just like the first one. The risk to the area is minimal.
“Good point. We’ll leave it for now.” Damien turned to his sister. “Ready?”
She nodded. “We’ve wasted enough time here.”
Chapter 29
Imogen glanced at her traveling companions with a faint grimace of distaste as they flew from the site of Maria’s capture. Why couldn’t Damien have come with her on this mission? She would have loved to spend a week or two in the field with him. No princess to distract him, no one to interrupt. She licked her lips. It would have been the best mission ever.
Instead she was stuck flying over the middle of nowhere with Lon, who she acknowledged as a fine sorcerer, and his apprentice who was considerably less impressive. The boy—she found it hard to believe that he was the same age as Damien—didn’t have a great deal of power and when his field work was complete Imogen suspected he’d end up working in The Tower or as an advisor to some minor noble. He seemed a steady young man so that might actually be a good fit for him.
The little group was currently flying toward the last known location of Kormac Slider, a veteran inquisitor who’d been patrolling the kingdom since before Imogen was born. He’d missed his last check in a few days after Maria. At first no one had thought much of it. Apparently Kormac was known to be less than diligent about checking in, but when he went a week overdue someone decided there was a problem and put him on Imogen’s list. If he was just futzing around in some backwater village and had forgotten about reporting in Imogen would be upset.
Below them a desolate expanse of rugged mountains and scattered mining camps spread for miles in all directions. According to the report Kormac had actually requested this wasteland as his patrol area. It looked more like a punishment, but to each his own.
His last message came from a flyspeck town called Last Tailings. The town apparently served as a sort of hub for all the others where assayers bought the miners’ ore and taverns and whorehouses separated them from their newly acquired coins.
“I believe that’s it.” Lon pointed to a scattering of rough-built one- and two-story buildings. He rode, as was his habit, on a golden griffin, his apprentice behind him.
A single, central road ran through the town. Not a soul stirred in the streets and no sound reached Imogen’s ears. Granted it was still early afternoon, but there should be some signs of life. There didn’t appear to be any damage to the buildings so an attack seemed unlikely. Where the hell was everybody?
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Lon said, echoing her thoughts.
She sensed the corruption a moment before hellfire streaked up from the town. The blast missed them by a comfortable margin, almost like whoever fired it was trying to not hit anyone. Lon and Imogen
dove. Imogen conjured her golden armor and an ax appeared in the air beside her. She was looking forward to carving chunks out of whoever had begun collecting sorcerers.
“Do you see anything?” Imogen asked.
The streets rapidly approaching looked just as empty up close as they did from above. The corruption she sensed didn’t have a definite source, instead it seemed to come from all around them. Either they faced multiple enemies capable of wielding hellfire, or their opponent had prepared the town before they arrived, seeding it with dark constructs so Imogen and her companions wouldn’t be able to sense where the attacks came from.
“There, Master!” A soul force blast shot from Eli’s outstretched hand. The golden dart struck the ground near a two-story hardware store.
They landed opposite where Eli’s blast had struck. No sign of an enemy presented itself.
“What did you see?”
“I thought it was a woman. She ran into the alley across the street.”
Lon hopped off his construct but left the creature intact for use in the coming battle. Imogen had no doubt a battle was coming. She’d been in enough of them to know when someone was toying with her. She didn’t like it, and when she got ahold of whoever was out there they wouldn’t like it either.
“You didn’t try to hit her very hard,” Imogen said. “A blast like that wouldn’t even dent ordinary armor, much less a warlock’s shield.”
“If it was a civilian I didn’t want to risk hurting her. And if it was a warlock my strongest blast wouldn’t have taken her out anyway.”
“It’s fine.” Power gathered around Lon’s hands for ready shaping. “The important thing is you gave us a place to start searching.”