by Steven Drake
“This is why you confiscate and catalogue all the magical items.”
“Precisely.”
“Did Traiz know about this?”
“Unfortunately, yes, so it’s a certainty that the Demon King now does as well. That’s most likely how Traiz followed Darien and found him in the rookery.”
“You were tracking Darien?”
“Yes. We used the homing stone he placed in the Demon’s Blade’s sheath.”
“Then you know where it is, the sword?”
“Actually, no.” The Empress smiled, and Nia still was not sure why. “We know where it was. His light disappeared just about two months ago.”
“Two months ago.” Nia quickly did the math in her head, and it didn’t match. A full three months had passed since the fight at the rookery. “What happened?”
“Well, three months ago, we observed and documented something remarkable. Darien’s stone was in the far north, not far from Geoffray’s, or yours in fact.” Empress Sarenna pointed to the northernmost part of the map, near the edge, in a range of mountains. “Then, without any warning, over a span of less than an hour, it traveled several hundred miles west, at which point it went beyond the map’s boundary.” The Empress pointed to a blank area of the map on the western edge. “That’s how we discovered what happens when a mage goes beyond the boundary. The light stayed there, hanging on the edge, for about a month, then one day, it just vanished.”
“But what does that mean? I thought it would have been destroyed in the fight with the demon, but the time is wrong.” Nia searched her mind. She had worked with enchanted trinkets much of her young life, and an idea was slowly forming in her mind. Destroying enchanted items was not an easy thing to do. They resisted magic and the inherent resonance of magical auras made them resistant to all but the severest impacts. Completely destroying them usually involved special tools. Nia remembered seeing a spell breaker hammer demonstrated when she found a particularly nasty cursed bracelet. There was, however, an exception. Mages could usually destroy things they enchanted themselves quite easily.
“When it disappeared, did it flicker, or fade slowly?” Nia asked with tepid excitement in her voice. If an enchanted object were destroyed by some conventional means, it wouldn’t go out all at once. The item would fracture first, then break apart over time, from a few seconds to several minutes.
“No, this room is observed constantly, at all hours, and because he is so important, we had an agent assigned specifically to Darien. Darien’s stone just blinked out all at once. I suppose it’s possible that someone out in the wilderness had a spell breaker with enough strength to obliterate an enchantment woven by Darien the Executioner, but we thought that unlikely. You are an expert on enchanted trinkets. What do you think that means?”
“He’s alive.” Nia’s heart skipped a beat as the emotions overwhelmed her, joy, relief, and also profound confusion. Somehow, against all odds, her brother had survived, but why had he not returned? There had to be a reason. Was he captured, detained by some unknown force, or was he injured so badly that he couldn’t return? The spot the Empress had mentioned was so far away, and he had gone beyond even that. Jerris needed to know, and they had to decide what to do, whether to go after Darien, or continue building their forces in Trinium.
“That was our conclusion as well,” the Empress said. “I was somewhat surprised you didn’t know. Until you arrived, we had no idea what happened. After you left, Traiz’s allies closed ranks, and all of our sources on his faction’s activities mysteriously vanished. But now that Traiz is dead, his plans will unravel, and I can finally finish consolidating my power. A unified Sarenna has been my life’s work, and the best chance we have to face the Demon King. It’s frightening to think it nearly came apart because of that vile little man.”
“So what do we do now? We have to find Darien. Jerris may even want to go himself, and we still have to do something about Geoffray, too.”
“We will send scouts to look for him, but the journey will take weeks, if not months.” The Empress cracked a devious grin. “As for Geoffray, I knew I would have to deal with him sooner or later. He has all the subtlety of a mad razorboar. He doesn’t understand anything but brute force, and he can’t see past his own inflexible ideals” The Empress then turned towards the door. “We’ll address those problems soon enough, but for now, you should rest. I’ll have word sent to your friends that they are welcome to join our alliance and camp outside the city. We appreciate the additional forces. They’ll be needed before long. Now, let’s get our champion to the healers.”
For the first time in days, Nia relaxed as the Empress personally led her to the houses of healing, where the most skillful hands applied expensive salves from the Order’s best alchemists to her bruises. It felt wonderful to relax, and she gladly accepted the offer of a private hospital room rather than being assigned quarters. She laid down eagerly in the bed after a very long and arduous day, exhausted, but also energized and confident as she had never felt before, with her head filled with thoughts of soon being reunited with the young half-elf who had become the most important person in her world. Soon Jerris would be by her side again, a meeting made all the sweeter by what she had gone through to get to it. She eagerly anticipated seeing the look on Jerris’ face when he learned that Darien had survived. That alone would be worth at least one of Stephan’s vicious backhands. Soon, they could share that joy, then they could find Darien, together.
Chapter 24: Love and Desire
In the days following the harvest festival, Darien returned to the enemy camp several times, and on one such occasion, found signs of activity. Someone, probably one of the regular couriers who were relaying information, had searched the camp. Whoever sent the would-be abductors would soon discover that their mission had failed. That meant sooner or later, the Order of the Shade would learn that one of their number had been lost, and since they took failure quite seriously, they would want to know why. Still, the Shades were cautious by nature. They would send spies first, to investigate and determine what had happened. They would not act until they had a plan. That would take time, time that Darien would put to good use.
Darien took what steps he could to prevent them learning his identity. With the help of Kellan, Zitane, and Garok, Darien spread a false story about what happened on the night of the festival. The official account that Kellan read as a town proclamation focused on the enemy’s association with Mirisa and Zitane’s brother, Zandrek, and did not mention the Shades at all. Moreover, Darien insisted that he only be credited with discovering the camp, while Garok got the credit for dispatching the enemies. Darien even made a show of personally thanking the ogre for saving his life and apologizing for his foolish mistake. When the Shades sent their spies, they would only hear that the attempted abduction had been foiled by a rogue ogre, a story with enough plausibility to throw the Shades off his trail for a while at least.
Darien also prepared the town of Exire for possible attack. He lent his strategic experience to Kellan as the woodsman organized the city’s defenses, just in case. He wove enchantments into and around the city’s walls to resist the earth magics that were often used by the Shades. He scouted the area around Exire, to determine the best methods of attack, and the most likely approaches for an enemy force. He laid magical wards that would alert him when someone approached, and managed to enchant a few items for some of the more skilled fighters. Darien and Kellan also arranged patrols of the countryside surrounding the town, to prevent anyone again establishing a camp.
Darien expected a great deal of resentment from the people, who faced the possibility of hardship, battle, and death for the sake of a few outsiders. What he received instead was almost universal support. The hard men and women of Exire seemed surprisingly willing and even eager to help. Darien credited Mirisa, both her personality and her gifts, for their attitude. She had helped many of them personally. Some of them owed their lives, or their children, to her gifts, and were eager
to return the favor. Most everyone in town knew Mirisa and considered the elf girl to be one of them. Nobody even suggested letting her go without a fight. The young man, Norin, sole survivor of the ill-fated expedition to abduct Miri, even joined the patrols, as a way to earn his keep in Exire, and because as much as the young man was haunted by his experiences with the Shades, he was grateful to be alive.
While the town prepared, Darien also prepared himself to the extent possible. He sparred daily with anyone willing, offering pointers to the inexperienced, and learning who would be most useful in an actual fight. Darien pushed himself hard, despite his injury, despite whatever pain came, and finally, he began to see progress. Whether the poison had finally run its course, or for some other reason, his injury showed marked improvement in the weeks following the festival. Over the course of a month, Miri reduced her visits to every other day, then to just two visits a week. It was a welcome change, and gave him a reason to hope he might eventually recover fully. Between his focus on preparations and his improving health, Darien’s spirits improved.
Miri, on the other hand, grew more subdued and quiet. Darien carefully avoided bringing up the subject of her eldest brother, or the incident on the night of the festival, not wanting to magnify the burden she already felt. She felt the town was in danger for her sake, in the same way Darien felt it was in danger because of him. Since it upset her, Darien never again mentioned leaving town alone, and as he considered the matter more soberly, he himself began to doubt whether his departure would have done much good. In dark corners of his mind, Darien worried for Miri. He wondered if the Shades had heard of Miri’s power, and were seeking her for the same reason they had chased after his own mother. That thought, more than any other, fueled him with the same rage that had driven him to betray his old Master and steal the Demon’s Blade.
Darien accelerated Mirisa’s magical training as well. After her impassioned speech following their first spar, Darien had dropped all objections, mostly because Garok had been right. It was nearly impossible to win any argument with the stubborn woman. The deceased Severin had left several books of magic in his collection, which Darien gave to Miri. That seemed to make her happy. Her elemental magic grew quickly, as she became proficient with the forces of ice and cold. As he had suspected, she took naturally to earth magic as well. She didn’t have enough control to use any of her magic offensively, but it was a start.
Darien attempted to show her how to use augmentation, but that effort met with limited results. Unlike Jerris, who had taken to augmentation quickly, Miri struggled to master the art of channeling the proper amount of energy to the proper muscles at the proper moment. Miri’s healing used vast amounts of magical energy, but augmentation required subtlety, precision, and control. The transition proved difficult. She injured herself a dozen different ways, broken bones, sprained ankles, severe lacerations. Had she not had the ability to repair her own injuries, she would have been useless within a week. It reminded Darien of his own struggles. The greater the magical force one possessed, the more difficult it was to control. Of course, when he had suffered injuries, he had been expected to keep going anyway, healing or not.
Darien discovered no further clues about her ability to perceive the dark energy of the Demon’s Blade. He avoided saying anything more about it, as he didn’t want her brother to start filling her head with stories about demons, but her magical sight seemed to break a number of the usual rules of magic. Most mages learned to cast their first spells, then moved on to more advanced skills, and over a span of months or years, they developed the mage sight that allowed them to see the currents of magic. Mirisa had developed mage sight first, before her first spells, or so it seemed anyway. Perhaps she simply manifested very young, before she had been put to sleep, but then perhaps it was something else. Perhaps her powers were more like those of the Black Council, not entirely natural. He kept such speculation to himself.
With winter bearing down quickly, Darien expected to have several months of peace before any of his preparations would be needed. Regular snows and constant cold quickly became the norm, and a blanket of white several inches deep built up fairly quickly. It was, thus, quite a shock when Darien received an unexpected and loud knock on his door around midday on a particularly cold day in the early days of winter. Norin showed up at his doorstep, panting heavily, bent over his knees.
“What is it, Norin? Did the patrols find something?” The mousey young man looked up and nodded between gasping breaths. The look on his face told Darien that something was amiss. “What’s happened?”
“Bunch of elves in uniform. Hundred at least, maybe more. Boss Kellan says come quick.” Darien patted Norin on the shoulder, and bade him wait inside until he caught his breath, then to join them at the gate, and Darien took off like a shot. He put his augmentation magic to work, and covered the distance in just a few minutes. He caught sight of a large group standing in front of the city gates, and made for that group.
He made his way through the crowd to the front where Kellan stood with his hands on his hips, gazing out to the southeast, further down the mountain. Zitane, Garok, and Mirisa stood with him. Garok looked stern, and ready to fight. Zitane paced angrily and wrung his hands. Mirisa hung her head and stared at the ground, obviously crestfallen. She looked so miserable that Darien could almost feel the embarrassment, the frustration, disappointment, and concern that radiated off of her. Darien thought of his mother, and his fury began building.
He needed to talk to Kellan, but as he passed Miri, he felt a strange urge. Almost unconsciously, before he could stop to think, he reached out, put a hand on her shoulder, and squeezed gently. It felt both strange and natural, easy and difficult at the same time, certainly not something he would ever have done before, for anyone else, but someone had done something similar for him once, and it had eased his mind. He didn’t turn, but he thought he noticed her look up out of the corner of his eye as he walked on to speak with Kellan.
“Well, Kellan, I’m here,” Darien said as he walked up beside the woodsman.
“Gads, you’re fast,” Kellan said with a shake of his head, though his voice was flat and uncharacteristically gloomy.
“What’s the situation?”
“Southeast morning patrol caught sight of a group of elves on horseback, well-armed and in uniform. I didn’t expect this, not this soon. Didn’t think they’d trudge through the snows in the dead of winter. This is bad.” Indeed it was, Darien silently agreed.
“Who is in command?” Zitane joined the conversation. “Depending on who he has sent, I may be able to reason with them.”
“Edwin told me there was a blond-haired fellow out front, riding a white horse, tallest elf he’s ever seen,” Kellan explained. “Most of the soldiers were dressed in dark green leather, like your kind favors, but this fellow had white and silver chain inscribed with that White Wolf insignia on the front.”
“That can only be Zandrek,” Garok added as he looked meaningfully to Zitane, who nodded grimly. Then the ogre put his large hand on Miri’s shoulder.
“What do you know of your brother?” Kellan asked. “Will he listen to you, or to Miri?”
Zitane shook his head. “Not likely. He’s come himself. That means he doesn’t trust any of his lieutenants, which isn’t surprising I suppose. The competent ones don’t trust him or don’t like his methods. The loyal ones are mostly incompetent sycophants. He’s smart enough not to trust them with anything important.” Zitane wrung his hands mercilessly. “I should have known he would come immediately, winter or not. He knew we had discovered he was on to us, and didn’t want to give us time to run. He means to finish this. Our choices are to run, or fight.”
Kellan groaned, and scanned the gathered crowd. Kellan had to realize these people were not prepared for either a battle, or a protracted siege. Nevertheless, Darien felt certain the woodsman would choose to fight.
“Alright, everyone listen up!” Kellan bellowed. “Everybody inside. Get to
your homes, and don’t come out until we signal the all-clear.” The gathered crowd headed inside, with the notable exception of a handful of hard-looking men, mercenaries, hunters, rogues, and woodsmen, the few who had both the ability to fight, and the loyalty to be trusted. Darien, Zitane, Garok, and Mirisa remained as well. “You go inside too, Miri. I won’t let them in.”
“No,” Miri said. “I’m the one they want. If I go with them, maybe they’ll leave the city alone.”
“I won’t let him take you, Miri,” Kellan huffed. “It isn’t right, taking a woman by force, and I won’t stand for it.”
“He’s right Mirisa,” Darien added. “There’s a good chance if you go with him, the Shades will find out about you. They would probably be interested in someone with your abilities.” Mirisa opened her eyes wide with fear and surprise. This clearly was not the best moment to reveal that particular piece of information, but he needed Miri to understand that she could not go with them, even to save the town.
Darien turned back towards the southeast, where he could just make out the outlines of the riders in the distance, and extended his magical sense, searching for any trace of magic. He focused deeply, well aware of his failure to notice Carliss a few weeks prior. He felt no magic, but kept his awareness about him. Then something else occurred to him.
“Mirisa, do you feel anyone with power among them, anyone like me?”
“No, I can tell Zandrek is there. I can always tell when he’s coming, but I don’t think that has anything to do with magic.” Miri shuddered slightly and Garok drew her closer, while Darien breathed a sigh of relief. These were not Shades at least. The worst scenario would not come to pass. There was some hope.
“Good, but we shouldn’t assume anything. Remain vigilant. Be on your guard for anyone that doesn’t look like an elf, especially an easterner like myself.” Darien looked directly at Kellan, and the city master nodded to the hard men gathered in front of the town. Every moment, the horsemen in the distance drew closer.