Shiden could not believe how much of the city they'd traversed. He'd been getting even more exhausted. He commanded many of the conscripts they found to move on. Shiden stifled a cough and tried to cast a detection spell, not to check his surroundings, but to see if he could still cast anything. It was costly, but he felt it was worth the risk of not being able to cast more powerful ones later, and they could use the extra information on their surroundings, anyway. “Luran was right,” he muttered.
“About what?” asked Aurien. He was scouting ahead, running his hands up and down a section of wall in front of them.
Shiden sighed. He hadn't expected his companion to hear what he'd said. “Nothing, Captain. What are you looking for? One of the posterns?”
Aurien was annoyed. He'd been silent for some time, brooding on something he would not tell Shiden about. “Of course,” he said, while looking over his shoulder a moment. “What else?”
“Can't we scale it and go over the top? There are staircases leading up to the top of the wall.”
“Quiet. And no we can't! It's a fifty-foot drop to the riverbank, damn it. Those parts are south of us, anyway. What is on your mind now, distracting you – you know this city.”
The captain finally found what he was looking for, a way to the citadel. He walked over to another part of the wall, and whispered as he touched a stone brick. It was marked with words scratched in with the Raiiya language. A door clicked somewhere in the darkness, and Aurien went over to a house; it was nearly touching the wall, but there was a meter-wide gap between the city wall and the line of buildings. The two men entered the house one after another, and shortly after entering, were met with a stench of something rotting. Shiden moved ahead and cast a light spell, flinging a sphere away from him toward what he guessed was the center of the room. There was an opening in the floor. Whatever Aurien did outside, it seemed to have opened a way for them, but. . .
“Master Aurien – this leads underground.”
Aurien chortled as he walked over to the hole in the floor and dropped into it. Then, Shiden heard what appeared to be clanking, the sound of Aurien's boots hitting the rungs of an iron ladder. The spellcaster entered the tunnel, and a horrible grinding sound drew his attention next. The house's floor closed above them and sealed them in. Shiden lit his scepter again, but did not use the follow-up spell which sent its emitted light to hover elsewhere on its own. It was slow going. They were beneath the river; he smelled the water, and the fish, maybe. Shiden hadn't even realized they were so near it – he could hear no sound of water, for the river was rather calm in this area. He'd even been fishing nearby, on the piers lining the other banks.
The tunnel was wide, and descended steadily. They could see the other side – there were lamps lighting up as they went; Shiden put out the light coming from his scepter to preserve his abilities. Whatever was damaging or suppressing the power of the lanterns above ground, it wasn't affecting the ones down in the tunnel.
It must have been the Black Fog, after all.
The spellcaster continued following after Aurien. They said nothing to each other until they reached the halfway point of the otherwise empty tunnel; for whatever reason, Aurien kept looking back at the end they'd come from.
“Fine, Captain – I'll ask: what happened back there. You are clearly unsettled.”
Aurien shook his head. “Nothing. Another fight, nothing I couldn't handle, and someone from the company used a flare by the bridge.”
Shiden's heart skipped. “I sent Luran to the Citadel. Captain, what if―?”
The captain muttered under his breath, knowing how Shiden would react, but waited a while before answering him. They reached the end of the tunnel and climbed up a short flight of steps, the captain looking ahead at the wall, which had a section much more faded than the rest of the brickwork. There was no noise on the other side. Aurien touched a loose brick and whispered to it, and the section of wall slid inward and out of the way, opening the passage out. When they got to the ladder, Aurien stopped.
“He'll be fine, the flare was used from the bridge itself; it would have been thrown, and bounced off. Top of the hill, the buildings there were burned up, too. The spell-fire must have swept down the hill. We were right at the hill's base when I found the thing – was Master Faryn with him?”
Shiden nodded, and gestured toward the ladder. “After you, Captain. Shall I use a ward?”
Aurien climbed, and Shiden heard his quiet 'no need' when the knight was at the top. There was no one in the building. It seemed to be another house, but though it was furnished as a residential building, Shiden recognized the telltale signs of a scuffle – there was a lot of debris, and a few ripped banners on the ground. They were in another disguised guild outpost. What was more, there were pieces of broken armor plates on the floor. Shiden walked up to the fireplace on the opposite wall. Scratched into it was a message written to those who knew how to decipher its coded words. It was the language of the Raiiya people.
The spellcaster went to a storage chest hidden by a spell, in the corner of the room near the front door, as the message suggested; when he opened it, Shiden found five ration packs, along with a bundle of crossbow bolts. He threw the bolts to Aurien, and tore into one of the ration packs. It was another terrible option – dried, salted, squid from up the coast – but he ate it anyway, and threw Aurien a second one.
There were no people in the street when they left the outpost, and neither liked it. Aurien pulled his crossbow out, and readied a bolt to be shot. He expected danger. That danger came to them very quickly. About halfway through the first block of houses, they found a knight wearing the Raiiya armor. Aurien didn't trust anyone else – at least none they'd see below the hill, which was to their left, and dominated the landscape. They waited for the knight to get within shooting distance. The knight was clearly guarding the path leading up to the ramp. There was a screeching coming out of the darkness behind the knight, but it was getting fainter. Runners were going somewhere nearby.
Shiden noticed a rumbling beneath his feet. Their enemy was looking the other way, right at the top of the citadel, but the knight was clearly sensing something as well. It wasn't too strong at first, but then the main quake came. The enemy knight almost fell. Aurien took his shot, and hit the knight in the shoulder, nearly missing. He dropped back and prepared his weapon, and shot again, hitting the enemy in the throat. The companions did not wait once they'd passed the river. The spellcaster lit his scepter as they ran through the streets, forced to take the few roads that had not been blocked by collapsed structures. It was slow going, but the captain noticed Shiden's frequent glances up at the dark shape of the arena in the distance. He even stopped and stared once as they were traveling across the city. It was as though he'd seen something startling; but Shiden did not say anything about it to the captain. The spellcaster coughed several times when they stopped to rest, and spit something out.
A light rain was falling on them. Whatever the Black Fog truly was, it was making the rainwater black, and there were puddles of it everywhere, a slippery black mess drenching the walls and roads around them. Shiden had no idea how to get to the arena, with all the barricades surrounding them. It was not long, however, before they found a narrow alley ahead. Shiden passed into it, and was slow about passing through, not liking the terrible, melodic call he could hear.
It was exactly what he feared, and it reminded him of another beast he'd fought in his first adventure, months after he found the precious scepter he now bore. His light went out, and his muttered words were drowned out as the beast's call got louder. Shiden went into the road, and immediately cast a barrier ward, none too soon. The beast turned its attention on him and its tail shot a sharp, black spine at him.
Aurien shot his weapon, and the beast's belly was shredded by fragments of exploding steel after a few seconds. It recovered quickly enough, and another spine nearly pierced Aurien's armor, cracking the heavy rakan-scale plates on his chest. Aurien grasped the end of the stuck spine with a rag he pulled from his belt pouch, and wrenched it free. It had knocked the wind out of him – the captain made his way over to Shiden and slammed his serrated officer's knife into the dirt. It began emitting a ward of its own at Aurien's single, whispered word. His was a ward of blue flames, not too unlike the spell fires emitted by flares if they were used in a certain way. Aurien forgot who discovered, and spread the news of this improvisation.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The beast did not die quickly. Shiden changed tactics; his barrier was struck again by another spine, and shortly after this he channeled its wavering light into a different spell, this one a series of light beams, which shot out towards their enemy. The beast was cut many times by the narrow streaks of light as the barrier was spent. The beast fell back, stunned, but it was getting angrier, and more aggressive. There was no sign of a handler nearby. When Shiden's barrier faded entirely, he crouched behind Aurien's own, his breathing shallow, clutching his side. The beast hadn't managed to hit him with its attack, but the barrier spell did not always completely protect the one using it. Shiden was bleeding, not profusely, but it was as if a sword had slashed his torso. His tunic was torn.
“Captain, I can't heal this fully – what are you thinking of doing?”
“We need to kill it.” Aurien had drawn his saber. He got an idea then, a risky one, but he rose up and swept his saber through the flames cast by his ward. The flames shot out, much like the lights Shiden's spell caused, and raced toward the beast; the black rain, drenching it like oil, ignited.
Aurien wondered if it would be too risky to try again – the rain was coming down harder. “Get back,” he said. “Need to risk a conflagration. The beast has to die so it does not reach the citadel. When you see what I do, shoot a blast spell at it, understand?”
Shiden stood up on his shaking legs, and raised his scepter, before looking over his shoulder as he backed up a few paces. He had some idea of what his captain was planning. He stared on as Aurien raised his saber and brought it down. The beast did not realize what they were doing, but it instinctively ran toward the captain as a streak of flames began racing towards it in the shape of a sword. Aurien's projectile launched toward the beast, embedding in its head. Shiden used his own blast spell. The effect of it was terrifying. His blast made contact with the captain's conjured spell sword, and both exploded into a fireball, which engulfed the street and broke many of the houses into rubble from the force of the spell.
Both of them were exhausted, but the beast was obliterated; its blood and entrails and bones were everywhere. Shiden tried to light his scepter again, and a terrible jolt of pain shot up his right arm; he screamed from the sensation. Aurien had withstood it better, being older, and made his way stumbling over to Shiden. He helped the spellcaster stand up, almost dragging him along.
“So, spells can be combined. I do not think we can try that again. Might have killed us both.”
Shiden did not respond, but kept glancing up at the arena wall in the distance. He remembered a light he saw, a slight glimmer, signifying the presence of something concealed there, and wanted to see what had happened. The light had streaked downward toward the ground. There was a yard surrounding the arena's eastern side, with a tall tree in it; there was a massive structure mostly made of glass panes and white-washed brick – like a child's treehouse, but much larger – built on its upper boughs. He knew there would be a gathering beneath it. He was right; when they reached it at last, Aurien set him up next to a pillar in the yard beyond the broken gate, and at last, they reunited with a man they were surprised to see.
The man ran up to join them. He stopped short of hugging the spellcaster. Shiden grinned. “So, you made it. Where is Luran?”
Hiro shook his head. “Left. The damned guild commander took him on horseback to the north. I do not know where, but they mentioned a section of the Raiiya military. I tried to go – but the commander would not let me, and they left. We had to stay and fight.”
“We?”
Hiro blushed, but he nodded furiously. “Indeed, 'we'. There are others this way, by the fountain. Can you walk there on your own? Captain – take his other side.”
Aurien relented, and helped Hiro guide Shiden closer to the arena. Blood dripped from the corner of Shiden's mouth. His side was soaked in blood also, his upper cheek swollen and cut after being hit with bone fragments from his last kill. There were many there, wounded conscripts, and guildsmen. One of them was a healer-in-training, a woman, who kept touching her throat as though checking for something. The others were veterans in the War Quests; Shiden saw one champion he'd personally escorted out west on a trading route. There were others; most of them were young, and there was also a crowd of healers, much older, and with them was a tall man in foreign wear. His head was bowed, as though in prayer. Shiden knew who he was; he'd even met the man, thanks to his mother.
Instinctively, Shiden pulled away from the men helping him walk toward the crowd. Aurien did not know what to expect, but he, too, was curious. Hiro let go of Shiden. He knew what they were looking at, and did not want to see again, and walked back to where Iren was sitting in the grass, with tears on his face.
Shiden glanced over his shoulder, smiled and laughed, at first, and shook his head.
A healer, dear boy? Really? So much for disliking us 'casters'.
Yet Shiden's high spirits were dashed as he and Aurien approached the healers. He knew the woman lying on the bier before them. The Watcher recognized Shiden. He bowed and stepped back, calling the healers off. They could do nothing. Shiden whispered a lament he'd memorized long ago. He dropped to his knees, sobbing. Tears welled up in his eyes as he sat in the rain beside his mother's body. They'd come too late. The damage was severe, and Aliin Megia was dead. Few of those in the yard saw it. None could tell him exactly how it happened, except one of the guildsmen. Saga wandered away to avoid the spellcaster's questions.
But Shiden knew it did not matter. He wept silently by his mother's side. Aurien knelt and bowed his head. He put a hand on the spellcaster's shoulder. There was nothing he could say, or do, but wait. He did, however, recognize the type of damage on her shoulder, and the deep wound in her right side. Aurien watched as the head of the council guardians came back and covered the woman's body with a sheet. Several men came up and carried her body off on their improvised, bloodied military stretcher. They placed her on the back of a wagon quickly, and climbed on. Shiden made eye contact with Aurien and nodded; the captain raised a hand to get the owner's attention.
“Wait,” called a voice. It was Hiro's. Aurien lowered his arm slowly, and listened. Hiro came up to Shiden, and inclined his head. In one of his hands was his ivory pendant, shaped into the form of an eagle, with a single white stone embedded in it. Hiro placed the pendant in Shiden's hand. “I want to go north with them. They're returning her to her ancestral land?”
“Yes, Hiro. Why. . .why are you giving me this?”
“You know why. Don't bring it up. Now, I know you want to go after him – the one who did it. I know you too well, Shiden. I thought we would travel together for once – as you and Saiya did for a while, but. . . maybe you're supposed to go after him. I do not know his name, but it was some sort of priest, in black garb, and armor – a headdress. Not really ornamental, more like a battle helm. He passed me on a horse a-and―.”
Aurien's blood ran cold. It could not be true. “Boy! – are you certain?”
Hiro nodded vigorously. “Yes – he smelled rank, and he was covered in ashes – like he'd been in a volcano field or something, I do not know. But he had a staff with three prongs on it. . . hideous man, he was.”
Shiden grabbed Aurien by the collar of his overcoat. “It was him, wasn't it? It was Rivelas – the man who warned you about the monastery raid! I told you. I told you not to trust him! If you know him as well as you claim to, you know where he is bound, so go with me. If he is an enemy – you'll repay him by killing him.”
Aurien only stared at the corpse on the nearby wagon over his son-in-law's shoulder. “Master Faryn – go with them, go north. Go find my daughter. She'll be in the forest.”
Hiro nodded, and went off to the wagon. He beckoned two others: Iren, and Saga, who'd survived whatever he had encountered, but had been mostly silent ever since he descended into the arena yard with the woman's body, borne by the other surviving guildsmen and the last surviving Watcher. Most of them were in shock, he thought; but Shiden was worst of all – he wondered about the priest.
The man in front of the wagon waited for the others to climb on back, and drove the workhorses on towards the main road. Flanking them were two outriders on their own steeds. Seeing Aurien and Shiden were looking his way, Hiro pointed first at one of the riders' horses, and then back at the arena. He knew they would not hear his words. The wagon turned and went out beyond their sight. But Saga jumped off the back before it got too far, and went back to where Aurien and the spellcaster were standing.
“He's pointing at the horse, isn't he,” choked out Shiden.
Aurien sighed. “There must be at least a few here. Check the outer buildings for supplies.”
“Where are you going?”
“To retrieve them. The cavalry used the arena's lower storage areas to keep their animals in.”
“There were,” said Saga, when he strode up. “The officers left several at the stable. I can go along, Captain?”
“It is fine with me. Help me find them, then.”
A few whistles got their attention before they could enter the arena, however. There were still others in the yard. Several in blue armor came up and saluted Aurien. The spellcaster realized Lin was with them. “So you survived, too.”
“Found my message, did we?”
Shiden greeted Lin, and waited for Aurien and Saga. They returned with a few horses, and went back inside the arena to receive the last ones. There were enough for twelve additional riders. The remaining men left aboard the last departing wagon with Lin. Aurien saluted, and waved them off, and got atop his own steed. He was glad for it. The horse was not his own, but they could go to the Company's secret headquarters to find his.
