The Elf King (38 page)

Kamen grunted and then
screamed, venting his anger with swinging fists. “Those nightmares!
They’re attacking the city!”

“
Why would they...?” Qenn
began, but answered the question for himself. The war had already
started. Tannindell had fallen.

“
They’ll march south to the
Elves now,” Kandish stated harshly.

Qenn turned to look at her
and saw the fire in her eyes again. She looked like her old self,
he thought. The way she looked when he first saw her. “Do we turn
back and warn the Elves?”

“
We can’t,” Prevost
answered. “We would lose valuable time. Days maybe.”

“
Prevost is right. Turning
back is not an option.” Kamen Ode turned to Qenn with a face so
determined that Qenn thought the big man’s words were
unnecessary.

Very little was said after
that. Kamen’s men spoke briefly to each other, mostly about their
concern for the city. Other than that, they kept their eyes and
ears on alert, staying quiet.
Takers
could be anywhere, they knew.
And this time there would be enough of them to leave no survivors.
The thought did not sit well with them. They became jumpy and
nervous, scared to talk even. They hoped they could pass down the
river unnoticed. Unchallenged. Alive.

The smoke from the burning
city fogged up the sky as the day slowly drifted into evening. With
the sun sinking below the horizon, Tannindell’s buildings were
visible. As night fell and blanketed what was seen, red and yellow
flames flickered brightly and the billowing smoke was lost in the
darkness. In the distance ahead, the Spira emptied out into the
Upper Krune with the burning city falling to rubble at its
southwestern corner. The boat was shored just a few hundred yards
of the city, pulled up into a patch of bushes and each of its
passengers hid in the shadow of the foliage staring at the dreaded
city.

Even hidden behind the
smoke screen and darkness, Qenn could make out the size of the
city, thinking that it dwarfed Skadar Port. Ahead of him, all of
what he could see from his left to his right, were the shapes of
buildings and flames, ruin and destruction. The sky above him was a
wash of black smoke. The size of the invasion must have been
massive, he thought. He wondered how many people had survived. He
swallowed hard. He began wondering what happened to his hometown
after they had fled the demons.

“
Stay close,” Kamen
whispered.

He began moving slowly away
from their concealment without waiting for anyone to object.
Prevost followed a step behind, beckoning for Qenn and Kandish to
follow behind him leaving Kamen’s other two men bringing up the
rear. All were watchful, moving slowly, quietly. They stayed close
to the riverbank where a series of bushes grew, offering them the
only protection towards the city. The land to their right was wide
open and they would be spotted right away if anyone was looking. In
the silence of the night, only the crackling of burning wood was
audible.

They followed Kamen Ode as
he snaked them from the shelter of the bushes and into the city
streets. With their backs against the wall of a building, they
slipped around the side, darting through an alley until they
reached the storefront and a street corner. They paused to stare at
the destruction, ash falling down like rain, the air choked by the
stagnant decay of burnt flesh.

Yellow flames danced in the
dark like nightmarish ghosts, ripping through the city unchecked.
Once-buildings were lit fiery red with either licking flames or
searing embers. No one was seen. The streets were filled with
burning debris and rubble as if the shops and homes were gutted out
and the buildings torn down. Standing in the shadow of what
remained of a porch’s roof, the six members stared without moving.
They had never seen anything like it.

“
No one could have survived
this.” Prevost gasped softly, his face wrinkled in
shock.

“
They weren’t meant to,”
Qenn said quietly.

“
Annihilation.” Kamen shook
his head. “Let’s get out of this hell.”

All heads nodded in
agreement. None of them wanted to linger in the devastation. None
of them wanted to end up like the city.

They crisscrossed
intersections, staying away from buildings that were smoking,
creeping through the shadows. They moved a few blocks in towards
the center of the city when they began to notice rubble piles in
the streets. But as they moved closer to one, it seemed oddly
formed, even in the dark. They were within twenty feet of it before
the pile became visible for what it was. Faces without eyes, mouths
opened with silent screams, some with bodies, some just heads,
piled in the center of the street.

The group stopped, backing
away slowly. Only
Takers
could do this. Only a storm of demons could tear
through the city leaving this massacre. And no one would have
survived. No one could have.

“
They’re all dead.
Everyone.” Qenn swallowed hard.

“
We should get out of
here,” Prevost whispered. Kamen nodded next to him.

And then a dark figure
detached itself from a building down the street. It made its
appearance obvious. It stood facing them for a moment, then moved
forward. Its cry was wicked—soulless.

“
Run!” Kamen
yelled.

The group turned and raced
back in the direction they had come. From other blocks around them,
the
Taker’s
cry
was matched by several others. The horrors bellowed out through the
city like aftershocks. Hearts pounded faster than footfalls then.
Eyes widened like screaming mouths.

They turned down an alley,
heading towards the Spira, when they were met by three
Takers
. Instantly red
fire exploded from their hands, but the group dove and scattered
out of the way. One of Kamen’s men tripped over rubble chunks and
twisted his ankle. More fire shot into the group, forcing them to
flee quickly, leaving the injured man. As the group raced away, he
was slow to get up, clutching his ankle. The
Takers
closed in on him.

Looking around, he
screamed for the others to run, to get to the boat while they still
could. He picked up a splintered board from the street and faced
the advancing
Takers
. They circled him. He swung his weapon in heaving whiffs,
screaming his vengeance. Long arms raised towards him, a red glow
coming from within the darkness of the cuffs intensified his
screaming.

From blocks away, Qenn
looked back in time to see a red burst of light, then the
Takers
following in
pursuit once again. “They’re coming!”

He ran next to Kandish,
just a step behind Kamen and Prevost, with Kamen’s last man
throwing daggers back towards the demons, cursing them for what
they are. Kamen led the group in a zigzag pattern, trying to lose
the
Takers
in the
smoke and burning debris. Several times their course had to be
changed, altered by collapsed buildings that choked their escape.
Kamen cursed himself out loud for bringing them to Tannindell, for
allowing them to be so close to death once again.

They weaved their way in
and out of collapsed shops, over and around rubble piles, keeping
away from anything still burning. They found themselves running
past a series of towering buildings out into a large open park with
small trees and bushes. Past that was the Upper Krune. Little could
be seen in the darkness north or west. And none of them wanted to
turn further into the city. Kamen told them that they needed to
turn back, they needed to reach the bridge leading out of
Tannindell and over the Spira.

“
We could follow the
shoreline around,” Qenn suggested.

“
The bridge would be at the
mouth of the Krune. West.” Prevost pointed in the direction they
needed to go.

Then suddenly something
moved in the street ahead of them. It was a man, crawling out of a
hole in the street. Kamen raised a hand to his group to keep them
quiet. Then the figure turned and saw them. No one moved for a few
seconds. Then the figure raised one hand, then the
other.

“
I have no weapons,” the
voice called out to them.

“
We do.” Kamen’s reply was
nothing friendly. “Who are you?”

The man began walking
slowly over to them. He was tall, his lean frame was draped in a
long hunting cloak tied about his waste. His hair was long and
unkempt with a scraggly beard. As he approached them, he lowered
his hands. His head shifted around uneasily, as though he was
expecting something to happen.

“
You’ll be dead, caught out
in the open like this,” the man said.

“
What happened here?”
Prevost asked the man.

The man came within a few
feet and stopped. He took time to look each of them over, pausing
considerably at Kandish, much longer than she would have wished,
before answering. “The beginning of the end, of course.”

Qenn thought he caught the
man smirking. “You mean,
Takers
?”

The man turned to Qenn to
respond, but as he caught sight of the staff in the elf’s hands, he
paused, eyes fixed on the staff. When he did speak, his voice was
distant, eyes never leaving the staff. “Yes, the
Taker
horde. They
destroyed everything, killed everyone.”

It was obvious to them all
that the man was intrigued by Qenn’s staff. Even more-so when Qenn
placed the staff behind him, snapping the trance between them. The
man seemed to be annoyed. He tried to see around Qenn, trying to
keep his eyes on the staff. “That staff you carry, where did you
get it? What does it do?”

Kamen interrupted at once.
“How did you survive, if everyone else is dead?”

The man smiled. “They
attacked at night. Red fire shot everywhere, burning wood and stone
alike. People were pulled into the streets and killed. Hundreds of
the demons flooded through on a rampage. A few of them stuck
around. Not sure why. Maybe to feed, I guess. Maybe just to make
sure no one was left alive.”

“
You didn’t answer his
question,” Prevost pressed. He moved closer to Qenn.

The man was bothered now,
and it showed. He snapped at Prevost. “I am smart enough to know
where to hide and when to do it.”

“
Who are you?” Kamen shot
back. He didn’t care for the tone the man was giving. Something
about him troubled Kamen. There was a look of distrust in his eyes.
Kamen thought about cutting his throat and being done with him, but
he thought better of it.

“
I am Wix. And you
are?”

“
We... are leaving this
forsaken city.”

“
Then I can help. I can
take you wherever you’re going.” Wix said desperately.

Kamen glanced at Prevost,
both unsure. Kamen looked back to Wix, his face a blank expression
as the other stood with eyes flickering in mistrust. “We need to go
over the Spira, then north. Far north. Creatia.”

Screams tore through the
night then, loud and terrible.
Takers
. The group turned to see a
line of black figures heading towards them.

Wix looked away from
the
Takers
and
back to Kamen Ode, speaking excitedly. “I can get you out of here
alive. But I’ll need some compensation.”

Kamen drew his sword and
placed the tip at Wix’s neck before he had a chance to blink. “I
would reconsider, if I were you.”

“
Just the staff. Then I’ll
take you. Just the staff!” Wix’s voice was filled with desire and
lust. “It’s a fair—”

Kamen pressed his blade
into the other’s neck deep enough to draw blood. “You take us to
the bridge, and I’ll let you live.”

The
Takers
were screaming now, getting
closer. Wix held his ground for a moment, then backed down. “Okay,
okay. I don’t want the stupid staff anyhow. Come on, we must
hurry.”

Qenn was uncomfortable.
Kamen looked at him then nodded. He would watch Wix; the staff
would never change hands, he knew. Still, he didn’t like the idea
of the man being around them. He swallowed hard, then rushed to
follow the others.

Wix ran towards the
Takers
, running to his
manhole in the street, sliding the heavy steel cover aside and
dropping down quickly. The others used the steel rungs as a ladder,
disappearing beneath the street. Prevost wasted no time sliding the
cover over head before climbing down to the others.

A spark was heard in the
dark, then a flame was lighting a torch. Wix’s face was a mix of
panic and excitement, all camouflaged with light and shadow as he
held the burning torch just above their heads. They were about ten
feet below the city, ankle deep in stagnant water. Wix moved them
quickly down the stone-block tunnel until it opened up into a
larger tunnel, with a larger body of water moving swiftly away. A
series of smaller tunnels poured water into the sludge-filled
river, which had a very unpleasant smell to it. Rats scattered
along the river by the dozens. Bats hung from the
ceiling.