The Vale: Behind The Vale

by Brian D. Anderson

  “Hellspawn,” spat Drake.

  “I thought they’d all been killed,” said Bane, a hint of fear in his voice.

  “So did I.”

  “What do we do?”

  Drake could not look away. “Nothing. The royal guard will be here soon enough to deal with it. We need to stay out of sight.”

  The hellspawn had stopped directly front of the lodge and was sniffing the air. Slowly, it turned its head to face the building.

  “Your ward!” Drake shouted. “Get rid of it.” When Bane did not move, he shoved him roughly over to the door. “Do it now!”

  Snapping back into the moment, Bane waved his arms in a wide circle. The hellspawn was moving toward their room, still sniffing and with ever-increasing drool pouring from its mouth. A second later the ward was gone. Even so, the creature continued to move closer. It was only then that Drake realized why.

  “Stop!”

  Bane looked at him with confusion, his hands glowing with mana. But before Drake could say anything further, the hellspawn let out a feral cry and charged. In an instinctive reaction, he threw himself forward hard and low, wrapping his arms around Bane’s waist and pulling him down. They hit the floor together in an untidy heap. An instant later, the creature smashed its way through the door, its massive body tearing the frame completely away from the building.

  Both men scrambled to their feet just a couple of yards away from where the beast was standing. Bane let loose a spear of fire, but it had no effect whatsoever, dissipating the instant it made contact. The hellspawn swiped a huge claw at him in response, forcing Bane to jump awkwardly back. Drake seized on this distraction. Ducking low, he made a dive straight between the creature’s legs and clear through to the other side. He was on his feet in a flash. As he ran, he could hear Bane continuing with what he knew to be a useless assault.

  Cal was parked a short distance away from what had once been their door. Drake lengthened his stride. He had to hurry; otherwise Bane would be torn apart. He reached the car just as he heard the mage let out a terrible scream. Glancing back, he saw that the hellspawn had him by the leg and was holding him upside down like a rag doll. His arms flailed wildly as he bucked and jerked futilely against the beast’s enormous strength.

  Hissing a curse, he drew the P37 and fired three short bursts into the beast’s back. The creature turned, flinging Bane into the wall like a child angrily discarding an unwanted toy. Its black eyes, glittering with malevolence, were now focused on Drake. Holstering his gun, he opened the trunk and quickly retrieved his sword. Once free from its scabbard, the soft glow emanating from the blade radiated power. But on this occasion it was cold steel he needed, not the mana with which it was infused.

  The ground shook under the weight of the creature’s rapid strides. Drake hadn’t fought with a sword for quite some time, though he practiced often. Still, fighting an actual opponent was different, particularly one as dangerous as this.

  The hellspawn struck out, its long talons threatening to rip him apart. Drake ducked low and countered. His blade sliced into the creature’s left thigh, and it let out a howl as green blood spilled from the wound. The strike would have completely removed a human’s leg, but hellspawn hide was as tough and resilient as the thickest leather.

  It lunged in again, forcing Drake to roll away. But this time he wasn’t quite fast enough. Caught by the shoulder, he was thrown violently into Cal’s rear door. The impact forced every bit of breath from his lungs and sent pain shooting through his entire body. Gasping for air, he thrust the blade up, and the tip penetrated to the left of the beast’s gullet as it moved in to finish him. Though this drew a fresh dribble of green blood and caused the hellspawn to step a pace back, the injury was still minor; not nearly serious enough to give Drake sufficient time to recover.

  He tried to spin away, but a pair of massive hands hefted him up and over the beast’s head. Drake slashed at its arms, but this only served to infuriate it to an even greater pitch. With another mighty roar of anger, it hurled him more than twenty feet into the lot. After thudding to the ground, as he slid along a few feet from the sheer force of the throw, he felt the unforgiving concrete tearing great strips away from his jacket. A thought flashed through his mind that at least this was sparing his flesh. But then he came to an abrupt stop and he struck his head. Immediately, he felt blood trickling from his scalp.

  He tried to look up to see where the hellspawn was, but everything around was temporarily a blur. Only the thud of heavy steps advancing told him that his attacker was almost upon him. He struggled to his knees just as a dark shadow loomed. This was it, he thought. The beast would smash him to pulp before he had time to move any further.

  Just as Drake was resigning himself to his fate, a sizzle cut through the air, and he caught the familiar smell of hellfire. Renewed hope surged. Bane must have recovered, though he still obviously had no idea that his magical attacks would not harm the beast. Nonetheless, the hellfire had distracted it, allowing Drake precious seconds to scramble away and get to his feet. His sight was now clearing as well, and he could see that the hellspawn had turned fully around to once more advance on Bane. For the moment, its attention was focused entirely on the mage.

  Drake flipped his sword around and picked the spot where he thought the creature’s heart should be. Bane was still peppering it with fire, though with no more success than before. But at least it was keeping the hellspawn’s attention. Drake charged on unsteady legs, very nearly toppling over twice in the process. He spanned the distance between them, and with his eyes still fixed firmly, mustering up every last ounce of strength, he sank the blade in.

  The roar that the hellspawn let out this time seemed to engulf the entire street. It spun sharply, using the back of its hand to strike Drake on both the head and shoulder. The force of the second blow sent him crashing onto the hood of a small truck nearby, once again leaving him dazed and barely conscious. Sliding from the hood onto the ground, he lay there not knowing what would happen next. Either he or the beast was about to die. But which one?

  And then he heard it: a beastly wail of agony followed by a single heavy thump. He had hit the mark.

  A few moments later, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” Bane asked.

  It took a moment to reply. “I will be. Is it dead?”

  “Yes. It’s dead.”

  Drake knew they needed to leave the scene as fast as possible. The royal guard would arrive soon, and the last thing he wanted was for Xavier to know where he was. “Help me up,” he said. “Quickly now.”

  “You need to stay put. Medics will be here soon. You need healing.”

  “I’ll heal on my own. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  Catching on to his sense of urgency, Bane pulled him to his feet as gently as possible. Drake’s right arm was hanging limply at his side, and his hair felt sticky with blood. Gritting his teeth, he staggered over to a nearby car and leaned his dislocated shoulder heavily against it. The shock as it popped back into place caused a grunt to slip out. But at least he could now move his arm again.

  As his vision cleared more, he saw the hellspawn lying face down on the ground a few yards away, the sword still buried in its back. Bane helped him over to Cal, pausing to retrieve the sword and then to gather their belongings from the room. People were emerging from the surrounding buildings. Drake groaned. So much for incognito. They were pulling away just as a line of black vehicles approached from the west. Thankfully, they took no notice of Cal, instead heading straight into the lot where the hellspawn lay.

  “Where the hell did that thing come from?” Bane asked, still clearly shaken from the experience.

  “Beyond the barrier.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Nothing can get through the barrier.”

  “Then where do you think it came from?”

  Bane had no answer to that.

  “They first appeared when I was a rookie in the royal guard,” Drake told him.
>
  Bane nodded. “I heard about them. But I thought they were all killed.”

  “They were. It took us weeks to hunt them all down. They killed twenty-four guards in the process before we figured out their weaknesses.”

  “What weaknesses?”

  “You can’t use mana,” he explained. “They feed on it. Unfortunately for us, the P37 is a mana weapon. That’s why your spells didn’t work, and why it was attracted to your ward. I found out later that there had been other attacks. But those were a long time ago, before even my grandfather’s day. We never found out why they came back…or how they got inside the barrier. All we know is that they come from the wasteland.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The high mages,” he replied. “Said they could sense that they were not from Vale. So if they aren’t from Vale, where else could they be from?” He reached down and turned on the vibraplayer.

  Bane frowned. “You really want to listen to music?”

  “No, I want to see if there was more than just the one. If so, the royal guard will broadcast an alert.”

  Drake could well remember how the hellspawn had wreaked havoc throughout the provinces. The royal guard searched for months trying to find out how they’d managed to enter Vale. In the end they’d assumed the creatures must have somehow tunneled a way beneath the barrier, though there was never any real proof of this. Nonetheless, that was the story they had told the public when wild rumors began to fly around that the creatures were actually the dead brought back to life by corrupted mana.

  Bane would have been no more than a child at the time, so it was no wonder he knew little about them. The high mages had assured the public that the problem had been solved, and in time it had become nothing more than a story told among the veteran guards.

  After an hour of listening, there were still no reports coming over the air, not even one mentioning the hellspawn he had killed. They probably don’t want people to panic, Drake surmised. But something also told him this was a sign. A sign of what, he had no idea. All the same, too much was happening for it not to be connected somehow.

  “You said you know where they’re holding Prince Salazar?” he suddenly asked Bane.

  “I know where they were keeping him,” he replied. “Of course, they might have moved him since then.”

  “That’s good enough.”

  As long as he knew from where they had started, Drake had ways of tracking someone. No doubt so did Bane. A good hawker didn’t need much to go on. Between the two of them, they should have no problem at all.

  The trouble would come when they found the prince. Once he was safe, Drake would be looking to settle accounts with whoever was trying to kill him. He glanced over at Bane. His demeanor had relaxed and he was settled into the seat, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

  For the time being, he needed the younger man.

  But the moment that was no longer the case…

  Chapter Nine

  Drake had considered starting at the warehouse he’d been shown at the magistrate’s office. But naturally, Xavier would be expecting him to go there. And even if the captain were not the one trying to kill him, whoever else it might be could also know about it.

  Aside from saying that it was somewhere in Antwerp province, Bane refused to reveal any further details regarding their destination. Not that Drake really blamed him. As far as he was concerned, the only value the guy had was this information. The second he was no longer useful, he would get rid of him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to risk Bane claiming credit for returning the prince to Troi.

  Wherever in Antwerp they were heading for, it would take them several days to get there. That being so, Drake thought it best they skirt the inner provinces to avoid detection. This route took them through the hills of Lancaster. Only a few years ago, this area had been prime grazing land for sheep and cattle. But even here, as with the rest of the outer regions of Vale, the sickness that plagued the lands was growing worse. Small patches of green only made the brown now covering most of Lancaster’s gentle slopes even more pronounced. The houses they passed in the area were mostly abandoned, their occupants herding closer to the border of Pasdonia where food was easier to come by. It was the same in many other dying regions, particularly those in the north where the winters were harsher and fresh water scarcer. Naturally, this was leading to severe overcrowding in the places least affected by the sickness – which in turn led to resentment and violence.

  “You think the high mages will ever find a way to heal Vale?” Bane asked, as they made camp near a patch of sickly looking trees just off the road.

  “Sure they will,” Drake replied. “One day.”

  “It doesn’t look like it to me.”

  “Look, if it wasn’t for the high mages, nothing would grow at all.”

  “That may be so, but you’d think they could have healed it by now.”

  Drake leaned back with his hands behind his head. The stars, unhindered by the light of mana streams, were clearly visible in this part of Vale. “You’re a mage,” he said. “You should know better than anyone how hard they try.”

  “We don’t all learn restorative magic,” he replied. “Only those born to it.”

  Drake knew this already. Being a high mage was definitely genetic, and the knowledge was passed from parent to child. All children with magical ability were tested to see if they could use restorative magic, but as far as he knew, only the children of high mages had ever been known to possess the gift. Even so, he had always assumed that all mages from the college would at least be familiar with it.

  “So, you have no idea how it works?”

  “I know the same thing we all know. High mages infuse it into the mana strings. But how it’s done, or where the power comes from…” He spread his hands. “Beats me.”

  “But you can heal, can’t you?”

  He gave a puckish grin. “Not really my thing. I was more a fire and lightning kind of guy.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “What about you? How’d you end up in the royal guard? You don’t seem the type.”

  “What type is that?”

  “You know…stuffy and proper.”

  Drake snorted. “If that’s what you think, then you don’t know the first thing about us.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Drake was becoming irritated. He didn’t like talking about the guard. Even after so long, he felt as if he were betraying the brotherhood if he spoke about their inner workings.

  “I was recruited,” was all he chose to say.

  “I thought you had to have a parent in the guard to even have a chance.”

  “Not always.”

  Bane waited nearly a minute for Drake to say something else. But he had no desire to carry on a conversation with this man.

  Bane eventually lay down and let out a long breath. “Fine. Be that way.”

  He was right, Drake conceded. To his knowledge, he was the only person ever to be inducted who did not have a parent or some other relative already in either the guard or the magistrate’s office. Like everything else in Vale, it was the circumstances of your birth that determined your life. Once your path was set, very seldom could you alter it. This restriction was the cause of most protests. But what could be done? There was only so much food to go around. And the high mages certainly earned the extra comforts they were afforded.

  “Anyway, I’m not a royal guard anymore,” he said after a lengthy pause. “So what does it matter?”

  Bane sat up again. “You know, I really imagined you’d be a little more skeptical than you are. I mean, you’ve been on the inside. You know everything that goes on.”

  “Exactly! I’ve been there. And believe me, there is nothing going on. Nothing at all. There are no secret fields of crops hidden beneath Troi. Certainly no sinister plan to starve the people to death. You can forget those lies, and any of the other crazy theories that people are always coming up with. Now, if you’re finished being anno
ying, I’d like to get some sleep.”

  “I’ve only just begun to be annoying,” he said. “But I’ll let you sleep for now.”

  Bane continued to pepper him with questions over the next two days, most of which Drake refused to answer. But it was more out of spite than the questions being too personal. He was still wary of the man. His youthful appearance and jovial nature did not discount the fact that he was a trained killer. He might claim not to be an assassin, but the many stories Drake had heard of his exploits couldn’t all be exaggerations. One in particular he knew for a fact to be true.

  Bane had tracked a group of bandits from the inner provinces to just shy of the barrier. Six men ran, and he delivered six bags of ashes back to his client. The magistrate even brought him in for questioning over that one. Not that she could really do anything. The law was clear in these matters. Make a run for it and you voluntarily gave up all your rights. A hawker could use any means he or she saw fit to capture you. And if you resisted, lethal force was permitted. Hawkers might not be highly regarded by the magistrate, but their word was taken over a runner’s every time.

  When they reached Antwerp, it was as if they had stepped into a completely different world. Here, you needed a special permit if you wanted to take up residence. Parks had been built for travelers and for those from the city who wanted to enjoy the outdoors, and a subterranean railway ran from the center of the province all the way through to the outskirts of Troi. From one end to the other took only five hours, faster even than Cal could go.

  Drake used to come here with his father from time to time to camp and hike. This was the one activity they’d enjoyed together, and the only time they ever spoke more than a few words to one another. Drake knew his father loved him, but he was a man of science – an engineer. People simply didn’t make sense to him. He was far more at home among the various gadgets he invented than with his own family.

  By mid-afternoon, they had reached the town of Narsil. As with most of the northern towns, it was quite a bit larger than those found in the southern regions. Its streets were decently maintained and the houses not nearly as dilapidated as dwellings usually found in the outer provinces. But then, most of the provincial industry was in this part of the north, whereas agriculture was centered in the south where the growing season was considerably longer.