Path of Shadows

by Ben Wolf

  “One day’s rest?” Commander Brove scoffed. “You mean one day’s head-start. This was part of your original agreement with Ironglade?”

  “It was,” Raqat replied.

  “Then I daresay you’re just as treasonous as—” Commander Brove stopped short and closed his mouth before he could say anything else.

  Raqat stared at him with narrowed eyes. “What were you going to say, Commander? Treasonous as what?”

  Commander Brove shook his head, refusing to speak.

  “I insist, Commander,” Raqat said. “As the emperor’s representative, I must report back every pertinent detail of our journey.”

  “It was nothing of consequence.”

  “Are you certain?” Raqat asked. “Because I must already report about your secretive alliance with foreign agents, your trade of a Govalian citizen to said foreign agents, your ineptness in keeping prisoners adequately imprisoned, and your reckless pursuit, which has thus far resulted in the deaths of multiple wyvern knights.”

  Garrick’s smile couldn’t have been wider if he were swimming in an entire lake of gold coins and surrounded by gorgeous elven women. Whoever Raqat was, he had Commander Brove by his wyvern nuggets and refused to let go.

  Garrick glanced at Aeron again and saw a comparable smile on his face.

  “I have nothing further to say on the matter,” Commander Brove finally said. “Except that it is foolhardy, to use your word, to trust these people on any level, and it is even more foolhardy to give them even a flame’s flicker to escape.”

  “Noted,” Raqat said. “And, ultimately, it is your call. Just remember that whatever you decide, it will go in my report… if we survive long enough for me to give it to the emperor.”

  Commander Brove frowned at him, and he outright glowered at the Blood Mercs. For a long moment, only the dripping of water somewhere in the distant dark of the cavern registered in Garrick’s ears.

  At long last, Commander Brove said through clenched teeth, “Very well. In the interests of surviving whatever perils we have yet to face before escaping this frozen hell, we will accept the truce in good faith.”

  “What makes you think we still want a truce?” Aeron snapped.

  Commander Brove’s eyes widened, and his mouth hung open.

  Garrick piped in, “Yeah. If you don’t trust us, why would we trust you? Bunch of scale-snogging liars.”

  Kent stepped forward, albeit gingerly. He must’ve still been weak after blowing the beast’s innards clear to Xyon’s dinner table.

  “What my companions are trying to say is, we do not accept the terms of the truce as they were stated. We would just as soon go it alone—or kill the lot of you, as Aeron suggested—than work together.” He added, “That is, unless alterations may yet be made to the terms of the truce.”

  Commander Brove’s glare might’ve melted metal if he’d stared long enough. “What more do you require?”

  Kent glanced at the other Blood Mercs, and Garrick nodded at him. He didn’t know exactly what Kent had in mind, but he trusted Kent to handle it. After all, he was the group’s negotiator.

  Kent faced Commander Brove once more. “Perhaps we should sit down. This may take awhile.”

  With their truce reestablished and reinforced in the Blood Mercs’ favor, and with the hours continuing to pass by, Aeron and Wafer led the entire group deeper into the caverns. By now, Kallie would be back at Valdis Keep. Time was running out.

  Despite the stress of battling the frostbloods and the beast, and despite having to travel with the most wretched, two-faced man in the world, Aeron took comfort in knowing that they were heading the right direction.

  The dagger had called Kent to this spot, and Mehta’s grandfather had been right about the frostbloods. That meant Fjorst’s temple had to be nearby. And inside that temple, they would find the weapons they needed to bring down Lord Valdis for good.

  Another painkilling shroom helped to comfort Aeron as well. In the deep dark of these caverns, the color-bending effects were muted at best, but the shroom did its good work in dulling the aches in his lower back. And with less pain, he always had a more positive outlook on everything.

  Given how the battle against the beast had concluded, Aeron had disagreed with Garrick’s decision to bring his cursed weapons along. Even so, he couldn’t deny their effectiveness against the ice-related threats they’d encountered so far.

  Now the weapons hung from Garrick’s belt once again, thanks to Kent having hung them there himself. For whatever reason, they didn’t seem to affect him like they affected Garrick. Perhaps it was because Garrick had used them more, or perhaps it had something to do with Kent’s magic.

  Whatever the case, the cursed weapons made the journey with them. As part of the compromise, Garrick had also retrieved the poleaxe of one of the wyvern knights who’d died along the way, and he now wielded it instead.

  Several more hours passed by, and Aeron began to wonder if they weren’t already in Fjorst’s temple. After all, what better stronghold for a god than an actual mountain?

  But Aeron’s theory fizzled when they entered yet another cavern, one clearly not formed by nature but by the hands of some other being—or perhaps many. And in the center of the cavern loomed a daunting structure made of ice itself, glowing with soft, blue light just like the ice-forged dagger.

  Fjorst’s temple.

  Chapter Twenty

  At long last, Aeron’s goal was in sight, and it was a remarkable sight indeed.

  Ice-blue spires scraped at the cavern ceiling like shards of crystal, and thick, translucent ice formed its exterior walls. But unlike the aboveground fortresses and palaces Aeron had seen, the structure of this temple appeared to be made of one continuous slab of ice, as if carved from a single glacier.

  Its dim, light-blue glow illuminated much of the interior of the cavern, and it melded with soft pinks and greens along the cavern ceiling to give the space an ethereal feel. It looked comparable in size to the Crimson Flame temple in Muroth, although its frigid appearance gave it a far more imposing feel.

  “What is this place?” Raqat asked as he, Commander Brove, and the other wyvern knights drifted into the cavern behind the Blood Mercs.

  “Fjorst’s temple,” Garrick replied.

  “As in, the God of Ice?” Raqat asked.

  Garrick turned toward him. “You know another guy named ‘Fjorst?’”

  Raqat shook his head. “I just didn’t know Fjorst had any temples. He is one of the lesser gods.”

  “Lesser-known, maybe,” Garrick said. “But not lesser in power.”

  Commander Brove scoffed. “How could you possibly know that? You have some direct revelation from the gods, do you? Or perhaps they commune with you instead of the other way around?”

  Garrick squared himself with Commander Brove and Strife, his wyvern. “No, but I’ve been outside in the wintertime, and it’s almost as cold out there as your frozen heart. The weather is Fjorst’s doing, but there’s no good reason for your condition.”

  “Insult me all you wish,” Commander Brove said. “Your words cannot harm me.”

  “Gladly. You make it too easy not to,” Garrick said. “But if you cross me again, it won’t be my words you have to worry about.”

  Commander Brove rolled his eyes. “Perhaps we can bypass the ogre’s endless prattling and advance to finding a way out of here instead?”

  “Ogre?” Garrick shifted the poleaxe in his hands. “Call me an ogre again, and I’ll lodge this poleaxe so deep into your wyvern’s gut that it’ll bond the two of you on a physical level, too.”

  Strife hissed and reared his head back as if to strike, and Commander Brove tensed.

  Aeron tensed too. If the truce melted away, he and Wafer were ready to back Garrick.

  Kent stepped between them with his hands up, one of which held the ice-forged dagger, presumably crafted somewhere inside that very temple.

  “You have made your point, Garrick,” he said. “Let u
s put aside our grievances for now. We have a mission to complete, and once we do, the day may come when you two will have your chance to settle your spat.”

  Garrick didn’t back down at first, nor did Commander Brove or Strife, until Mehta patted Garrick on his shoulder.

  “Be patient,” was all he said.

  For whatever reason, that seemed to appease Garrick. He lowered his guard but cast a long, lingering glare at Commander Brove in the process.

  Aeron knew exactly how he felt.

  “We’re going in the temple,” Aeron finally said.

  “What?” Raqat asked. “Why?”

  Disdain filled Aeron’s voice, but it wasn’t aimed at Raqat. “Because your commander gave my sister to a cult, and that cult’s gonna give her to a powerful sorcerer who intends to sacrifice her as part of a ritual. We need weapons to fight him, and that temple has several inside.”

  “How do you know that?” Raqat asked.

  “We know someone who has been here before. Inside the temple. He and a few others entered and managed to survive. He told us. Brought back that dagger, too.” Aeron pointed at the dagger in Kent’s hand.

  “Some drunk in a tavern, no doubt,” Commander Brove muttered.

  Mehta immediately drew his knives and stalked toward him, but Garrick caught him by the back of his collar to keep him from advancing further.

  Mehta glared back at Garrick, but Garrick said, “Didn’t you just tell me to be patient?”

  “I decided we’ve waited long enough,” Mehta replied, his voice like iron.

  Aeron could see the temptation in Garrick’s eyes to let Mehta loose, but he didn’t. Nor did Mehta continue to try to advance. But Garrick didn’t let Mehta go until he sheathed his knives again.

  “We mean to enter the temple,” Kent said. “We were assured that there is a way out through there. If you do not wish to join us, you may go your own way, but we are pressing forward.”

  With that, Kent turned away from the rest of them and started toward the temple’s wide, icy steps.

  Aeron admired Kent’s tenacity. Even now, with Kallie’s life on the line, Aeron would’ve hesitated before entering Fjorst’s temple.

  After all, Aeron had never seen or even heard of a temple dedicated to Fjorst anywhere in Aletia. Unlike most aboveground temples whose gods never showed up, Fjorst might actually be inside this one.

  That idea either hadn’t crossed Kent’s mind or, if it had, he didn’t care. And knowing Kent, Aeron assumed it was the latter. Kent didn’t fear much in this world, and Aeron could only dream of one day reaching his level of courage and confidence. Maybe someday, when he was older, he’d get there.

  For now, following Kent’s lead was good enough, so he urged Wafer onward, toward the temple entrance—toward a means of salvation for Kallie.

  As Kent crossed the temple’s threshold, he walked carefully so as not to slip on the icy floors and marveled at the simplicity of the temple’s interior.

  Pillars of ice, all roughly the same thickness but scattered throughout the temple’s interior seemingly at random, supported its lofted ceilings. Aside from those pillars, the temple had no other adornments to speak of.

  Initially, Kent had expected to find some sort of supernatural light source glowing from within the temple, but he’d quickly realized that the ice itself actually gave off the glow. It was, perhaps, made the same way as the ice-forged dagger in his hand.

  The first room appeared to be some sort of receiving hall, and at the far end, opposite the entryway, a pair of massive, translucent doors met in the center. As with the rest of the temple, they were simple in design—little more than two slabs of ice with plain handles extending from them.

  The doors had no keyholes of any sort, which initially relieved Kent. It meant no running around in search of a key like they’d done back in the dungeon in Muroth.

  But upon further consideration, Kent realized the doors needed no key. Given their size and heft, who else would be able to open them but a god?

  The temple entrance was more than wide enough for the wyvern knights to get through, and they soon joined Kent and the Blood Mercs at the double doors.

  “What now?” Garrick asked. “You need me to open those?”

  Kent looked at him. “Can you?”

  “One way to find out.” Garrick cracked his knuckles and stepped up to the doors. He stomped on the floor a few times, as if trying to find purchase with his boots, then he curled his massive hands around the right-side door handle and pulled.

  His feet immediately shifted, sliding along the ice, and the door didn’t budge.

  Garrick muttered a curse, readjusted his footing, and tried again. He got the same result.

  “That isn’t going to work,” Commander Brove’s voice oozed from behind them. “Even if you were strong enough, you don’t have enough traction.”

  Garrick glared back at him. “Your miserable voice isn’t helping anything, so shut up.”

  “I could try to melt the ice on the floor to create ruts for your feet,” Kent suggested. “Or try to just melt the doors themselves.”

  “I don’t care what you do, but it won’t work this way.”

  “Step aside, please.” Kent hooked the ice-forged dagger to his belt, scooped a tongue of fire into his hand from Raqat’s torch, and took aim at the floor. He concentrated his magic into his forefinger and loosed a narrow stream of fire.

  The flames licked at the icy floor and dug a small rut into it. But as Kent tried to widen the rut by moving the blast to the side, the ice he’d just been melting re-formed as if he hadn’t melted anything at all.

  He stopped and watched as all the ice replenished itself, now as flat and pristine as before he’d tried to melt it.

  “Hmm.” Kent ignited his other hand with fire and took aim at the floor. This time, he sent two full-fledged infernos at the ice. It melted as it had before, but it continued to return just as quickly.

  Kent shifted his blasts to the doors themselves. He melted off the handles and put a small dent in the doors, but the ice continued to resist. As soon as Kent stopped, the ice refilled the dents and even re-formed the door handles.

  Apparently, ice-forged material couldn’t be destroyed by fire—even fire with magic behind it.

  “Well, that didn’t work,” Commander Brove chided from behind.

  Kent ignored him, mostly to fight the temptation to turn around and send the next barrage of flames at him and his gray wyvern instead.

  Since fire wouldn’t make a difference, he let it extinguish from his hands. No sense burning through his magic if it wouldn’t do any good. Some smoke lingered when the flames on his hands puffed out, and he considered the problem before him.

  Mehta’s grandfather had come through this same temple—at least, he assumed it was the same. It had to be, since the ice-forged dagger had led them back to it.

  That group of men from so many years ago had brought along a mage as well, and though only a handful of the men had survived, they must’ve gotten these doors open somehow. They were, as far as Kent could tell, the only doors in this part of the temple.

  Garrick was easily as strong or stronger than the men in that party, so the answer must have involved the mage somehow. It wouldn’t have involved the ice-forged dagger since they’d gotten it later—presumably, anyway. Or perhaps the doors were already open when they’d arrived.

  A light brightened in Kent’s mind. Was it really that simple? Perhaps—

  “This is pointless.” Commander Brove’s voice broke into Kent’s thoughts. “We’re going to search the cavern for alternate exits.”

  “Do as you will,” Kent said, “but when you fail to find anything, be sure to come back here and follow us.”

  “Follow you?” Commander Brove scoffed. “Follow you where?”

  Instead of responding, Kent grasped both of the door handles. Immediately, the ice pulled at his magic, and he let it flow into the doors liberally. Then he pulled back, and the
doors slowly swung open.

  “Good luck in your search,” Kent called back to Commander Brove as he walked into the next section of the temple.

  His surety faltered when his boot crunched on a human skull.

  Mehta heard the crunch, absorbed the view of the human remains at Kent’s feet, and sprang into action, all out of instinct.

  He dove forward, slid along the ice, and collided with Kent’s legs. Kent went down hard, half on the ice and half on Mehta, who grabbed hold of him to keep him low.

  Kent tried to pull away, but Mehta didn’t relent. “What are you—”

  WHOOSH.

  A huge ice-forged scythe lashed over their heads and then disappeared.

  Kent froze in place, wide-eyed, and Mehta glanced toward where the scythe had come from. It had moved fast, but he’d tracked it anyway. He’d expected to see a towering monstrosity wielding it, about to swing it at them again.

  Instead, he saw a narrow line cut into the wall just beyond the doors. The scythe had receded into the gap. It was so subtle that Mehta might have missed it entirely.

  But probably not.

  He looked down at Kent and said, “Sorry.”

  “Sorry?” Kent laughed. “You saved my life. You have nothing to be sorry for. Are we safe to stand?”

  Mehta glanced at the gap again. “I think so. I think your magic activated it when you opened the doors.”

  Mehta stood first, spread his legs wide for balance, and then pulled Kent up to his feet. They both hunched over, just in case, but the scythe did not return for an encore.

  “You girls alright in there?” Garrick asked.

  Mehta looked at him, confused, then looked at Kent. “Is that some sort of joke?”

  Kent cleared his throat. “We are fine.”

  “What was that?” Aeron asked, still atop Wafer.

  “Nothing good,” Kent replied. “Some sort of weapon set to attack anyone who enters the room.”

  “Mehta’s grandfather mentioned traps,” Aeron said. “So there’s probably more.”