Path of Shadows

by Ben Wolf

  Fire continued to burst from the beast’s orifices, and blazing orange overtook the timid blue lighting that had illuminated the cavern until that point. A low groan droned from deep within the beast, and fire spewed from every hole along the thing’s hide.

  Then it all ceased. Kent slumped to his hands and knees before the beast, which was now little more than a carbon husk. The deep groan faded to nothing, and the beast went totally still.

  Despite his weapons’ influence, even Garrick had seen fit to pull away from the blazing beast, albeit only until the flames subsided. Then he resumed his onslaught, attacking its empty shell with just as much fervor as before.

  The blue light no longer shone from within the beast, and smoke issued forth from its openings instead. The only light in the cavern came from the wyvern knights’ torches behind Mehta and the other Blood Mercs, though Mehta could see everything anyway, thanks to his enchanted vision.

  As Garrick continued to maul the beast’s remains, Aeron and Wafer swooped in, and Wafer collected Kent into his talons. Kent didn’t resist, and Wafer deposited him to the right of the chasm and then landed beside him.

  Whether they’d meant to leave Mehta alone with a rampaging Garrick, he didn’t know, but that was the end result of it. And when Wafer took Kent away, Garrick seemed to realize his foe was done for, and he turned back.

  Even in the dim light from the distant torches, Mehta could tell something was wrong with Garrick’s eyes. He’d seen genuine, natural rage in them before—the fury that accompanied Garrick whenever he went berserk—but this was different.

  Worse.

  Arcane and evil.

  His eyes reminded Mehta of Lord Valdis’s eyes.

  Garrick snarled and stomped toward Mehta.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mehta’s thirst invited the challenge, but it also yearned to end the challenger once and for all. He couldn’t allow that.

  Garrick was under the influence of those weapons, and Mehta couldn’t fault him for succumbing to their compulsions. As such, sifting him wasn’t an option.

  He sheathed his knives. Against Garrick’s battle-axe and flail, they wouldn’t do him any good defensively, and offensively, though they might manage to pierce Garrick’s tough skin, Mehta wanted to inflict as little lasting harm upon Garrick as possible.

  His thirst chastised him for weakness and a lack of aggression, but Mehta refused to listen.

  Garrick had exhibited boundless energy throughout the fight, and he showed no signs of slowing now. Between the weapons’ influence and Garrick’s innate durability, Mehta doubted he could have sifted Garrick even if he’d wanted to.

  But disarming him wasn’t an option, either. Taking hold of Garrick’s weapons meant Mehta’s thirst might overpower his will, as it almost had when he’d held them back in the armory. And if Garrick was this dangerous while holding the weapons, Mehta wouldn’t be stopped until he’d sifted everyone in the vicinity.

  So how was he going to handle this?

  Garrick swung the flail at Mehta first. It was a setup for his next attack, a lateral swing with his battle-axe, similar to the one that had nearly removed Mehta’s head back when he’d been trying to free Garrick from the tentacles.

  Mehta backed out of range of both, but Garrick kept coming—spinning and whirling and whipping his weapons at Mehta in a tornado of phantom steel. When Mehta saw an opening, he took it. He shot forward, skidded under Garrick’s vicious attacks, and wrapped up Garrick’s ankles with his own.

  It was a technique he’d learned as a Xyonate for situations like this one, with a bigger, relentless opponent swinging wildly and not allowing for any reasonable attempt at a counter.

  It worked. Mehta’s legs stymied Garrick’s forward progress, and he pitched over onto the cavern floor with a thud.

  Mehta had shifted clear of Garrick’s mass on his way down. If he hadn’t, Garrick’s weight would’ve pinned him there, even if only for an instant, but it might’ve proven fatal if Mehta couldn’t escape.

  As Mehta regained his footing and worked for a better position, the telltale buffeting of wyvern wings sounded overhead. Instinct kicked in, and Mehta sprung away from harm. Had the wyvern knights joined in the fray?

  In the low light from the distant torches, Mehta caught a flash of blue-green scales in the air overhead. Wafer.

  He landed full-force on Garrick’s back, a mountain of reptilian mass, and drove him to the floor. Still facedown, Garrick squirmed and struggled, but with those weapons strangled in his merciless fists, he couldn’t find enough purchase on the cavern floor to move, much less escape.

  Garrick was probably strong enough to unseat Wafer if he wanted to, but holding onto those weapons might prevent him from achieving it.

  “Grab his weapons,” Aeron said, his voice edged with urgency. But his voice came from beside Mehta rather than before him, on top of Wafer. Sure enough, Aeron approached him from the side. “Hurry.”

  “I can’t,” Mehta said.

  “What? Just grab one and pull it away. I’ll do the other one.”

  “I can’t,” Mehta repeated. He didn’t move.

  Aeron tilted his head. Now irritation marked his voice. “Then watch him. Help me by holding down his arms.”

  That, Mehta could do. He followed Aeron to Garrick’s right arm first, the one holding the battle-axe.

  The incredible weight that had plastered Garrick to the floor was only making him angrier with each passing moment, but he couldn’t do anything about it—not without releasing his weapons, and he refused to do that.

  In fact, he’d decided never to release them again. He would hold them in his hands from that point on.

  He would eat with them, grip them while he slept, wield them in everyday conversation, and, of course, destroy anyone or anything that stood in his way, just like he’d done to the beast in that cavern—singlehandedly.

  The weapons were as much a part of him now as his hands were, or his ears, or his legs, or his bones. They operated as lethal extensions of his person—well, more lethal, anyway—and would always be with him from now on. They were welded to his very soul.

  Why he hadn’t joined himself with them sooner, he couldn’t comprehend. He had resisted at first, and then he’d refused their call the handful of times he’d brandished them after that, but this time, he’d fully given in to their pull.

  Garrick didn’t remember how it had happened, but he knew he’d done it. He’d simply taken them into his hands, and when he started to use them, something shifted in his mind. The desire to resist their draw was gone.

  And he was all the better for it. More dangerous. More deadly. More durable. More powerful.

  Quicker. Stronger. Merciless. Brutal. Thoroughly effective.

  Before long, they would grant him power that would rival the gods. He would ascend to the Aetherworld and battle Zovalon, the god of gods himself. He would take control of the entire continent of Aletia, then the entire world, and everything that lay beyond it as well…

  As soon as he found a way to get out from under Wafer.

  He strained, marshaling all of his considerable strength, but Wafer continued to pin him down, hissing and snarling. Garrick snarled back, but nothing he did managed to move Wafer more than a few inches at a time.

  His weapons craved death and yearned to gorge themselves on it, so he decided that when he did finally get free, he would kill Wafer first. The essence of a wyvern would go a long way toward making Garrick stronger.

  As Garrick continued to thrash and fight against Wafer’s weight, Aeron’s goofy form materialized in front of him. He’d grown to like Aeron well enough, even in spite of his betrayal back in Lord Valdis’s throne room, but it was Aeron’s wyvern who now sat on Garrick’s back, keeping him from sating his appetite for more power.

  So Aeron would die second, after Wafer. Then Mehta, who approached Garrick from behind Aeron. He’d die next—not for any particular reason. He was just the next closest.
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br />   Without so much as a word, Mehta took hold of Garrick’s right wrist with his hand. Garrick resisted easily enough; Mehta was weak compared to him. He tried to swing his battle-axe at Mehta to ward him off, but Wafer’s jaw latched onto Garrick’s arm just below his shoulder and held it in place.

  Garrick’s rage responded with more struggling and thrashing, all to no avail.

  Mehta maneuvered his grip to where he held Garrick’s wrist with one hand and had hooked his other arm underneath Garrick’s elbow, then he’d grabbed his other wrist with that hand. He’d also wrapped his legs around Garrick’s arm and tucked his boots under Garrick’s armpit.

  In effect, Mehta’s position locked Garrick’s elbow joint in place. With Wafer’s jaw clamped onto Garrick’s shoulder, he couldn’t move his arm at all.

  Then Aeron took hold of the shaft of the battle-axe and started to pull it against Garrick’s thumb joint. Garrick clenched it all the more tightly. It was his weapon. His battle-axe. They were trying to take his power from him, but he wouldn’t let them.

  “It’s… not moving…” Strain turned Aeron’s face red, apparent enough that Garrick could see it even in the low light.

  Weakling. They’d never take it from him!

  “Keep pulling,” Mehta said. “I’ll pull his arm the other way.”

  Garrick’s heart rate quickened. It had been hammering since he’d taken hold of the weapons anyway, but it accelerated anew at the prospect of losing his grip. If their plan worked, he would lose his new strength. His new power. Everything.

  They might as well kill him instead.

  Garrick growled and roared and gripped the battle-axe even tighter.

  They jockeyed for control for an eternity, repositioning their grips, pulling Garrick’s hair, jamming their boots into the side of his head to get more leverage. And slowly, it was working. The battle-axe inched out of each of his fingers until it finally popped free entirely.

  Garrick howled. It felt like they’d torn one of his limbs off. He hollered at them and swore and called down every curse from the Aetherworld he could think of, and he called a few up from the Underworld, too. None of them worked.

  His rage burgeoned when Aeron tossed the battle-axe behind him, and each of its clanks on the cavern floor physically hurt Garrick from the inside out.

  How dare they steal from him! How dare they take what was rightfully his—a piece of his very soul itself.

  But they weren’t done yet. They repeated the process on his other arm, and this time it didn’t take nearly as long. Stripping him of his battle-axe had broken his spirit. He fought to keep the flail, but they soon wrestled that from his grasp as well.

  Though Wafer still pinned Garrick down, he screamed at them, threatening them with all manner of violence and retribution until his voice ran hoarse, until he no longer wanted to yell. And when he no longer wanted to yell, he realized the truth of what had transpired.

  He realized what a monster he had been, and he realized that those weapons had turned him into that monster.

  Yes, he’d done considerable harm to their opponents, but his memory flashed with scenes of him attacking Mehta multiple times, plotting to kill Aeron and Wafer, and his intention to carve his way through every living thing on his way to ruling the universe itself. As the rage burned away, only a hardened ball of shame remained in his chest.

  He tried to reassure himself that it hadn’t been him—at least, not entirely—but it gave him little comfort. He’d allowed the weapons to seize him at his very core, and he’d done their bidding, just as they’d done his.

  By that point, Aeron, Kent, and Mehta all stood there, looking down at him. The weapons still called to him, but the thought of ever holding them again disgusted him nearly to the point of vomiting. He wanted nothing more than to kick them over the edge of that chasm and never see them again.

  But the memory of the power they’d afforded him still lingered in his mind as well. They were trying to locate and enter the temple of a god, and weapons that made one feel like he could take on the entire pantheon of Aletian gods might come in handy.

  And if they encountered more frostbloods, they were the only weapons in the vicinity, aside from torches and Kent’s magic, that could take them out. It seemed Garrick was stuck with them for the time being. He would keep them, but he wouldn’t be foolish with them.

  He blinked away his shame, his ambition, and every other emotion swirling in his head and looked up at his fellow Blood Mercs. Truly, he only wanted one thing at that moment: to draw a full, deep breath—impossible unless Wafer got off of him.

  “Will someone get this scaly, boulder-brained sack of stupidity off me?” he grunted.

  Aeron smiled, and Kent’s mouth curled into a small smirk. Mehta’s expression didn’t change, but then again, it rarely ever did anyway.

  “I think he’s back,” Aeron said. “Let him up, Wafer.”

  The weight of ten-thousand armies lifted off of Garrick’s back, and relief filled his tired lungs and spread through his exhausted, aching limbs. As before, the blows he’d taken when fighting the beast hadn’t registered while he was using the weapons, but the aftermath was hitting him now.

  His shoulders, especially, hurt from where Wafer had clamped down to keep him still, and small rivulets of blood tricked from the various punctures along his skin from Wafer’s teeth.

  But he was alive, and he was in his right mind again.

  The others continued to stare at him with expectant expressions.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  Each of them nodded, and that was the end of it.

  The torchlights in the distance drew nearer, and Garrick’s fists clenched. The wyvern knights were there. They’d seen how uncontrollable he’d been, how it had taken a wyvern and two capable men to remove the weapons from his grasp. It was embarrassing.

  But, he reasoned, they’d also seen exactly how dangerous Garrick could be if they pressed him. With those weapons in his hands, he was nearly unstoppable—for better or for worse.

  The other Blood Mercs turned to face Commander Brove and the rest of the wyvern knights. No one spoke for a long moment until Commander Brove finally broke the silence.

  “Are you ready to surrender?”

  All four of them replied at once:

  “Go drown in a tar pit,” Aeron said.

  “Shove it up your wyvern hole,” Garrick countered.

  “Are you an absolute imbecile?” Kent asked.

  And Mehta simply replied, “No.”

  At least they were united again.

  “Then we have no choice but to kill you where you stand,” Commander Brove said.

  Again, their responses layered on top of each other:

  “Good luck,” Aeron said.

  “Try it,” Garrick said.

  “Your funeral,” Kent said.

  “No,” Mehta repeated as he drew his knives.

  Wafer issued a low hiss and spread his wings wide, adding to their resolve.

  “Wait.” Raqat drifted forward. Garrick vaguely remembered that Aeron had forged some sort of truce with him.

  “Withdraw, Steelwing,” Commander Brove’s voice edged with menace. “This is of no concern of yours.”

  Raqat didn’t even flinch. “I will remind you, Commander, that I am here at Emperor Ubardo’s direction. I represent his voice and wisdom in these matters.”

  “We all represent the emperor, Steelwing,” Commander Brove snapped. “Do not presume to lecture me on the way of things in my wyvern knight corps.”

  “It is the emperor’s corps, not yours,” Raqat countered. “And he does not condone foolhardy actions. In fact, an officer found to be guilty of such actions may be removed from command by a subordinate if it is deemed necessary.”

  Garrick glanced at Aeron, as did Kent, though Mehta kept his eyes forward and his knives ready.

  Aeron just shrugged.

  Commander Brove’s countenance shifted from irritation to rage. Slowly, h
e uttered, “You presume to threaten me? And you dare to undermine me in front of the enemy?”

  “No threat has been issued, and any slight against you is a fabrication of your own insecurities.”

  Garrick chortled loudly, and a chuckle followed from Aeron, too.

  The wyvern knight officers glanced at them, then they resumed their staring contest.

  “After we were separated by the ice wall, I established a working truce with Leatherwing Ironglade,” Raqat started.

  “Former Leatherwing. He disgraced himself, committed treason, and was convicted and discharged,” Commander Brove asserted. “Now he is nothing but a fugitive, criminal, and a murderer.”

  Garrick caught Aeron scowling at Commander Brove.

  “And you betrayed my sister, one of Govalia’s citizens, to death,” Aeron fired back. “Maybe we don’t need a truce after all. Maybe I should just kill you now, like I swore I would back in that cell, and then we’d be done with it.”

  “Your threats do not frighten me, traitor,” Commander Brove snapped.

  “You should be frightened,” Aeron countered. “The only reason you’re still alive is because we might need your help to get out of here. Once we find our way out, and once we get my sister back, I’m coming for you.”

  A few months back, Garrick had offered to hold down Kent’s treacherous brother if he ever got the chance. Now, having spent far too much time in the presence of the man who’d nearly ruined Aeron’s life, Garrick decided he’d gladly hold Commander Brove down for Aeron, too.

  “Regardless of your personal vendettas against each other,” Raqat continued, “Aeron and I established a truce and survived long enough to make it here, to this cavern, which saw us reunited with you and our fellow knights. I believe our best chance of escaping this labyrinthine place is to work together.

  “So rather than fight, I propose that we extend that truce to the entirety of our two groups. That way, we can ensure our best chance of survival. Then, once we escape from this subterranean nightmare, we can resume our pursuit…” Raqat cleared his throat. “…following one day’s rest for our knights.”