The Demon's Blade (22 page)

Chapter 19: Race in the Ruins

Darien awoke to the sound of a crow cawing somewhere in the distance. Rana was already awake, standing just outside the threshold of the stone structure, staring off into the dusty flatland. Jerris still slept a few yards away. The Executioner lifted himself to a sitting position, blinking the sleep away from his eyes.

Rana turned to him immediately and spoke. “So, you’re awake. You see I did not try to escape.”

“I see you didn’t succeed,” the shade scoffed back at her. “Whether you attempted or not, I can’t say. I can say you were wise enough not to try to get into the supplies. I can react quite violently if someone gets too close when I’m sleeping, as Jerris here can attest.” The lad let out a quiet chuckle at the exchange.

“I gave my word I wouldn’t try to escape, and I won’t!” the proud woman stomped her right foot on the ground, kicking up a little cloud of old dust. “That may mean nothing to a friendless traitor such as yourself, but it means a great deal to me. Those who easily break their own word are always slowest to trust the word of another.”

“That’s a fair point, actually,” Darien said. “The Master taught us to be ruthless, deceitful, and suspicious.”

“You call him ‘Master’ as if you still revere him,” Rana observed with a snide smile.

“I don’t revere him,” the half-elf corrected her at once. “I respect his power and skill, but he is not the god he imagines himself to be. I call him ‘Master’ out of habit, nothing more.”

“Don’t delude yourself, You’re no different than he is.”

“I don’t believe you’d still say that if you were unfortunate enough to meet him. Hopefully you never have the opportunity to learn your error.”

“Spare me your false concern. The child may believe your lies, but I do not.”

“You don’t honestly believe that I’m still working for the Demon King, do you?” Darien asked incredulously.

“No, not anymore. But that doesn’t mean I think any better of you,” the woman replied forcefully. “You know, you’re not as clever as you think, and I am not so foolish. Why did you even come this way? We’re easy prey out here in the wilderness. Your enemies could be closing in on you and you wouldn’t even know it. You’re just parading down the road in plain sight.”

“I don’t know these lands,” Darien said, his voice only thinly disguising his frustration. “Even those who do rarely stray from the road. I don’t know any of the landmarks here, or the rivers, or anything else. My plan has always been to get as far away from my pursuers as possible as quickly as possible. If we continue to follow the road, we should reach the crossroads by day’s end. Then, we take the west road, and reach Galad no more than a week later. If we leave the road, it will take twice that long, if not more.”

“Do you even know where your enemy is?” Rana asked. “How do you know he is behind you and not ahead? He could be planning an ambush this very moment and you wouldn’t have a clue.”

“Of course I don’t know where he is, but neither do you. You don’t even know why I’m running now, or how long I’ve been hiding in this region, or how Avirosa would know to look for me here in the first place.”

“I know about the incident in Kantu. How do you think I knew where to find you?”

“And just how do you know about it?” Darien pointedly asked. “I heard nothing of the incident when we traveled through Vorog, and you caught up to us just two days later. Even if you traveled without rest, then you would have passed through Vorog no later than the day after we did.” Rana paused a moment, appearing uncertain. Darien recognized that she was once again trying to come up with a lie.

“When a nobleman is attacked and a castle half destroyed, word spreads quickly,” Rana finally answered. “You must not have been as far ahead of it as you imagined.”

“Alright, fine, but why this sudden concern about the road? We’ve been on the road for days and you’ve raised no concern until now,” Darien said, pretending to accept her explanation. Instead of replying, the frustratingly vague woman simply turned around and resumed staring into the distance, while Darien continued in his firmest, most commanding tone. “If you know of some reason why we should leave the road, I’ll listen, but I am not going to change course based on your opinion alone.” The Executioner waited for a reply, but the golden haired woman did not react. “Fine then,” he waved his hands in frustration and sighed. “You’re obviously hiding something, but I have no idea what. I hope your persistence in keeping your secrets doesn’t get us all killed.”

The three travelers then prepared for another day. After the previous night’s march, they had slept well into the morning. It was just past mid-morning when they at last set out again. Rana’s manner changed markedly that day. She constantly searched the horizon to the west, looking for what, who could say. For the first time, the Executioner began to seriously question his decision to allow the woman to travel with them. While she was not an immediate threat, it was obvious that she knew much more than she had told him, and that made her dangerous. The danger of letting her go, however, might easily prove to be greater than the danger of keeping her close. If Avirosa found her, then he would get her information one way or the other. Though he rolled the matter over in his mind several times, he ended at the same conclusion. The most reasonable course was to simply watch and wait. He would not figure out what she knew either way, and at least this way, he could be reasonably certain his enemy would not know either.

With morning came a resumption of the chill wind, again out of the north and just as unpleasant as before. Clouds had gathered in the western sky, obscuring the Silver Mountains, and threatening rain, or worse, within the next day, perhaps sooner. The road turned southward again, and descended gradually.

The travelers began the day on the dusty flatland, but the terrain started to change after only a few miles of travel. Low ridges approached on either side of them, growing closer as the miles passed. The landscape was increasingly littered with more ruined structures like the ruined campsite of the night before, some smaller, some larger, all long abandoned. Many were overgrown with ivy-like vines, others were leaning precipitously, ready to fall at any moment. Some already had, leaving nothing but piles of rubble to mark where they once stood.

“Are we getting close to a town, or a city?” Jerris inquired as they passed a particularly large round building, the remains of some sort of watch tower.

“No, only the ruins of one,” Darien answered his companion. “We are approaching the ruins of Thordas, a long abandoned city. There may be vagrants, bandits, or worse dwelling in those ruins. Stay close and keep to the road.”

Darien expected any moment to pass into the ruins of the city proper, but he had been frustratingly out of his reckoning. Mid-day passed, then mid-afternoon, and though the travelers passed the remains of many small villages, the city was still out of sight.

Later on in the afternoon, the wall of clouds in the west grew larger and darker. Rolling thunder could be heard in the distance, when finally, at last, they came to Thordas. The two ridges on either side had risen higher and drawn close, and finally came nearly together in a narrow gap, less than fifty yards wide, and some ways ahead. Ruined gates lay broken and fallen upon the ground in front of the gap.

Once, this place must have been a great fortress. Steep cliffs on either side prevented an enemy approaching from the east or west. The only way into the city was the main road. The travelers rode on through the broken gates, and into the city beyond, the ruined city of Thordas, nestled between the two ridges.

Once in the city, the shadows drew close around them. The sun already had nearly gone behind the western ridge of the valley. The ruined buildings upon the hillside frowned darkly down at the travelers, their shadows quickly filling up the narrow valley. The sun shone full upon the eastern ridge and gave the hilltops a pale golden glow. The empty dwellings on that side showed the bright colors of the stone from which they were made, yellow, red, and orange, though everything else about them seemed sad and forgotten.

The wind howled even more shrilly here, as the hills funneled it through the narrow valley. The sun descended as the travelers made their way through the vacant city. The shadows lengthened, slowly gobbling up the lighted eastern hills. It became clear to the three travelers that they would not make it out of the city before nightfall.

“I don’t like this place at all,” Rana glumly commented as they passed a particularly gloomy abandoned inn. “I don’t want to be here at night.”

“We don’t have much choice in the matter I’m afraid,” Darien said in resignation. “It will be difficult to travel here at night. Torches would make us visible for miles, and I’d like to avoid that. It may be better to take shelter in one of the sturdier looking buildings.”

“We shouldn’t stay here,” Rana objected. “We can’t scale those hills on the east or the west, not with the horses. If we encounter anyone, we’ll have to fight our way out.”

Darien nodded silently. Rana was right, the valley was the perfect place to spring a trap. For a moment, he considered turning round, and trying to skirt round the city, but with no knowledge of the local geography, they could spend days wandering around looking for a way round when there might not even be one to begin with. No, for better or worse, they had chosen their course.

The hills continued to rise higher and steeper on either side. The sun soon disappeared behind the western ridge, and the travelers walked in deep shadows, which concealed everything beyond the edges of the road. The thunder drew near, heralding the oncoming storm. The dark shapes of the clouds began to creep across the sky over the western hills, charcoal shapes against the cobalt sky.

They proceeded for perhaps an hour into the darkness, when the wind went dead calm, the calm before the storm. Darien pulled his horse to a stop, but not because of the storm. Without the constant howl of the north wind, there should have been silence, but there was not. Indeed, howling could still be heard. The wind had only concealed the sound of the wolves. Worse yet, the sound seemed to come from both behind them, and ahead.

All three travelers stopped, but none spoke at first. Darien knew immediately that the howls belonged not to ordinary wolves, but warrogs, bred in the north to carry their goblin riders into battle. Finally, Jerris broke the silence.

“What, what’s going on?” Jerris asked. “It’s just some wolves… isn’t it?”

“No,” Rana broke in. “Those are the howls of warrogs, and where there are warrogs, you can bet there are goblins. The brilliant strategist, Darien the Executioner, has walked right into a trap.”

“Yes, and how did you know?” The Executioner growled as he turned a cold stare towards Rana. “Are you working with Avirosa?”

“Absolutely not! If I were, why would I warn you at all?”

Darien turned and furrowed his brow, considering what to say. The irritating woman was right. She had no reason to offer the warning unsolicited, but the question remained, how did she get that information? Whatever was to be done, it had to be done quickly. The goblins, or worse, could appear at any moment.

“Alright, Miss Rana,” The Executioner spoke sternly, his voice growing deeper and more threatening, “I’ve had enough of this game. You’re going to tell me what you’re hiding, now. How were you able to find me out here in the wilderness? Why did you suddenly decide to warn me about the road, and start searching the horizon constantly? Are you in contact with someone? Do you have a magic power that you have not revealed?”

“I won’t tell you, no matter what you do to me.”

Darien’s anger rose within him. Part of him wanted to strangle her, or use his magic to rip her mind apart until it broke and yielded the information, or simply tie her up and leave her to die, but the practical fact of the matter was that an extra sword arm was too valuable now. Then, something clicked in his desperate mind. Perhaps she’ll tell her secret if I tell mine, he reasoned.

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation you’ve placed yourself in, Rana,” the mage warned, his voice returning to normal as he took the Demon Sword, still safely in its sheath, from his back. “Do you know what this is?” Darien asked as he showed Rana the sword. She shook her head no. “Don’t you find it interesting at all that the Demon King is sending assassins and goblins west of the river just to catch one errant shade?” Rana nodded yes. “In the Order of the Golden Shield, you are taught the Demon King is not a real demon, right? You are taught that he was a human sorcerer once.” Rana nodded yes again. “And didn’t you ever wonder how he got so powerful, and lived so long, if he was just a man?”

“Actually, yes. It’s a secret guarded by our order. He doesn’t realize we know about it, at least we don’t think he does, but all our members know his power comes from…,” Rana suddenly turned white. She staggered back a few steps. “Then that’s… How did you… Gods…,” Rana stammered and trailed off.

“Now you see what you are in?” the Executioner pointedly asked. “Wherever you’re getting information, you obviously didn’t get the whole truth.” The frightened woman quickly nodded yes. “So what’s it to be? There’s more at stake here than the three of us. I don’t have time to explain fully but if he gets this weapon back, it won’t be good. He’ll kill me, and then if he’s strong enough to resist the sword’s corruption, he’ll become even more powerful than he already is. If he succumbs to the corruption, then he’ll become something even worse, a demon in truth as well as in appearance. It will be as if the first Demon King returned, the real one who defeated the elves at the height of their power and ruled for a thousand years.”