A Warrior's Path Read online

  With the larger group of people and much more gear, mostly weaponry, there was a noticeable difference in progress up the mountain compared with the group from the previous day. It was very late in the afternoon when the search party reached the point where Reniu and Urietsin had gone in opposite directions. The group did not stop to rest or eat, however. Instead they continued on in the direction that the Swift One's group had chosen two mornings ago. From that point on, the terrain was not too rough, and it took little time for them to reach the site of the gotori attack.

  Signs of the struggle were clearly evident all throughout the area. Blood was caked upon the ground where it had pooled after the fight. Dirt and grass had been gouged out of the ground in several spots. Footprints and claw marks circled each other and crossed here and there. Komeris scrutinized the evidence and tried to piece together the battle in his mind. The conclusions he was coming to were not very pleasant.

  “They never stood a chance,” he said sadly. “From the looks of it, this creature would be a challenge even for the twelve of us.”

  Pei-Shi, the female blade master, pointed to the long trail of blood that stretched beyond the surrounding trees. “It looks like the bodies were dragged this way,” she said.

  Komeris shook his head. “I'm not sure. Look how wide the grooves in this path are. This seems a bit more than what would be left by men's bodies.”

  “There's no way we're knowin',” remarked Reniu thoughtfully. “'Till last night we never thought of the gotori as anythin' but a myth.”

  The captain nodded, but doubt still sculpted his expression. “If this was even a gotori. The man who survived might be mistaken. They may have been attacked by a bear or some other common mountain creature,” he said.

  “If the creature is real, it may be just as common in these mountains as a bear would be,” suggested Pei-Shi. The comment drew many apprehensive looks from her fellow fighters; they looked as though maybe they had enough exploration for one day.

  Reniu, big though he was, looked around warily. “I'm fer bettin' that whatever it was that attacked the men left nothin' of them to find, and I don't think I want to be around when it gets hungry again.”

  Komeris gazed into the trees beyond the clearing, uncertainty on his brow. It was clear that even though there were twelve of them, no one was looking forward to coming face to face with the creature that had done this. Still, he did not want to leave without being certain that the lost men were indeed lost forever, and if they were, he wished to find their remains and give them an honorable burial.

  Conflicting thoughts battled each other in the captain's head as he watched the sun approaching the horizon. Dusk would be on them in a couple of hours, and though he desperately wanted to find some clue to convince him of the group's fate, he also did not want to make the other soldiers stay up here in the dark of night if they did not wish to. He looked back to the east and noticed a thick plume of smoke rising into the sky from where he knew the campsite to be.

  He pointed and bade his soldiers to look. “Either there’s trouble or they are signaling us. Let us hope it’s the latter, for there’s already been too much trouble for my liking,” he muttered.

  “Are we goin’, then?” Reniu asked.

  Komeris thought for a moment. “Yes, you may go. I will stay and look around a bit longer.”

  “Captain, are you sure that's wise?” Pei-Shi asked.

  “I must know what happened to my men,” he said firmly.

  “Then I shall stay with you,” the blade master said.

  “As shall I,” Reniu echoed the sentiment.

  “No,” Komeris said, holding up his hand before anyone else could join in.

  “Pei-Shi, you may stay with me, if you like,” the captain said. “The rest of you go and make sure everything is well at the camp. If they are in trouble, they will need your strength. We will follow shortly.”

  Reniu and the other warriors stood and looked at the captain for a long while. “Very well, sir,” Reniu answered finally. Then he added, “Be careful.”

  “Don’t worry,” Komeris reassured them. “If we come upon serious danger, we will flee.”

  Reniu nodded his agreement with that logic. With a quick bow to the captain and Pei-Shi, he turned and ordered the rest of the warriors to follow him down the mountain.

  As soon as they were out of sight, Komeris began to inspect the ground.

  “What are we looking for?” asked Pei-Shi.

  “Any sign of Urietsin and his men,” the captain replied without looking up.

  Pei-Shi nodded. “Well, whatever made that track in the dirt, we should probably follow it,” she suggested.

  Komeris nodded and began to step along the path into the trees marked by the gouge. Pei-Shi followed quickly behind. They tracked the markings easily for most of the way, but as the sun edged closer to the western peaks, and the ground became firmer, their task became more difficult. As the shadows grew to cover almost everything, the two came upon a clearing. Komeris hurried quickly toward the middle of the open area.

  “What is it?” Pei-Shi asked, staring at the low, flat grouping of stones.

  “A hearth,” said Komeris.

  “Here? In the mountains?” she asked in disbelief. “It must be old. The dwelling has deteriorated around it.”

  “No,” the captain answered. He wiped his fingers along the surface of the hearth and held them up. Even in the dim light he could see that they were black. “Soot,” he said. “This was the source of the smoke seen by the elves at the forest's edge.”

  “But...who could have lived here?”

  Komeris shook his head. “More importantly, did whoever it was come across Urietsin's men?” he asked.

  Nearby, a pair of wide eyes watched from a hiding place. They looked from the man to the woman, then down to the warrior who lay unconscious and, likewise, hidden. The eyes closed in concentration. Theirs was as much a hiding place of the mind as it was a physical location. He could not risk being discovered. Despite the longing he felt at seeing the two familiar warriors, Kiusu could not let them come between him and his destiny.

  “Captain, it’s getting dark,” Pei-Shi said hesitantly, though the sunlight was already almost completely gone.

  Komeris continued to look around. Quite suddenly he called out, “Urietsin!”

  Other than the echoes that reverberated across the valley, there was no answer.

  Komeris looked to Pei-Shi and nodded resignedly. “Let’s go,” he sighed.

  Together they strode off as the stars multiplied.

  Dusk had long relinquished its hold on the sun's lingering light, and night had overtaken the sky when the two warriors strode back into camp exhausted, their torches announcing their arrival well in advance. Reniu ran up to welcome them back.

  “It was a messenger from the empire,” he explained to Komeris. “Said he had urgent news from the emperor and the general.”

  Even through his tired eyes, Komeris looked surprised. “What was it?” he asked.

  “First,” said Reniu, “did you find anything of 'em?”

  “I wish I could say that we did,” he replied, grief evident in his tone. “We did find the remains of a dwelling of some sort, burned down recently.”

  “But no one around ta claim it?” the big man asked.

  Komeris shook his head. “We shall have to go back tomorrow, when it’s light.”

  Reniu looked away and sighed.

  “What?” asked Komeris.

  “It'll have ta wait, captain. There's more pressin' business. General Etrusin is makin' his way ta the edge of the forest with a thousand soldiers,” Reniu explained.

  Komeris reeled back at this, shaking off his weariness. “A thousand!” he exclaimed. “Moving with the general outside the empire? What has happened?”

  “I don't know fer certain, but the rider said somethin' about an enemy comin' from the west. We're buildin' the army ta defend the empire!” Reniu shouted.

&n
bsp; “One thousand soldiers makes for a pitiful army, although it is the largest force we've had since the days of Reisothin. Etrusin will have to recruit a lot more warriors to compete with the numbers it took to defeat that beast. Hopefully the current threat is not so great,” said the captain.

  Reniu nodded. “The general's sendin' out more requests through the empire. Any who're fit ta train and fight are welcome and needed. The messenger said he needs us ta return and help with the trainin' at the new camp.”

  Komeris's gaze shifted to the black shadow of the mountain against the sea of stars. The silhouette, which had held much promise three nights before, slashed the sky in two and seemed to the captain a blight upon the horizon, reaching for the fully-risen moon. “Good men were lost up there yesterday,” he said after a moment of thoughtful silence.

  “Yes,” agreed Reniu. “Wish we could've found 'em.”

  Something about that wish pulled at the back of the captain's mind. It didn't seem right that he should have found nothing of the men except for footprints and blood caked in dirt. No warrior gave any argument or question to the orders to break camp. Though they did not wish to go without knowing what had happened to their brothers in arms, they knew it was more important business that called them east. The diplomats, one specifically, did not seem to be so understanding.

  “How can we leave before discovering their fate?” implored Su-Ni.

  “I do not wish to leave this matter unsolved either, but we have orders from the empire,” Komeris explained.

  “Your orders, not mine!” she stated firmly.

  “Su-Ni! Know your place,” rebuked Ninei, then to Komeris, “Forgive her, sir, she is saddened by the loss of those brave men.”

  “As are we all,” was the captain's reply. “As are we all.” He looked one last time to the westward looming shadow, and a grim expression descended upon his face. He did share Su-Ni's grief, especially for the talented young Swift One. Although none of the warriors were expendable, it was he for whom Komeris felt the most sorrow. Such energy and promise, stolen from the world. Again he thought of the clearing near the south face of the mountain where he could find no remnant of the men but the markings on the ground. So unusual it seemed to him that there remained no gear, little though they took, and no weapons, just blood and footprints and a gouge in the earth that lead to a burned down shelter.

  * * *

  Niele'itio. Urishenutoi'isonu.

  Orbein read the words as he had countless times before. They conjured up a whirlwind of images in his mind. Dark City. The fruitless victory. The stark spacing of his city's title accentuated the hopelessness felt by the men who erected this monument. They had carved it on a massive slab of smooth stone and hoisted it upon two colossal pillars. An overhang protected the deeply-carved relief from the elements and had been kept in perfect repair for generations by the military. It was visible to all in the city, a constant reminder of its abysmal beginnings.

  Scanning down the columns, Orbein could see more references to those beginnings. The left column contained carven imagery of lines of soldiers marching upon the bones of their fallen victims. The right depicted men searching desperately along a forest's edge for some kind of path, any opening at all. It was the story of how the city came to be as it was. It was the story that fueled Orbein's pretense for war and made his people so easy to manipulate.

  It was also the entrance to the grounds of the city temple, and Orbein stood there studying the pillars for several minutes, as he had many times before. Finally, he turned his attention away from the frozen history and made his way to the temple doors. They opened, as all the doors in the temple appeared to, on their own, and the king hurried down the main corridor to his destination.

  An otherworldly glow filled the main chamber of the dark temple of Niele'itio. It was not the natural light of the sun. Even if the sun's bright rays could penetrate the haze-choked sky over the Dark City, they would do little besides emit a dim, purple shimmering through the windows that did more to confuse sight than to help it. The light came instead from blue orbs that protruded randomly about the walls of the chamber. What powered them only the priests of the temple could say, but they never shared such secrets with any but the men of their order. No priest was present, however, and the lights now sent out their eerie illumination for only one person.

  Orbein stood before the sacrificial pit that dipped in toward the middle of the room. He looked into its empty shadows. It seemed to him as though it had become a hole into eternity. Staring into its depths, the king's eyes moved as he followed motion that only he could see. The shadows parted, and he saw a great army marching down the slopes of Thontur. At first he thought this was a vision of his army arriving home from a victorious campaign. He soon realized that this was not the case. The men were stern-faced and road weary, but not battle worn. Their uniform was not that of his own army, but a light colored leather with a golden leonine device emblazoned on a segmented breastplate.

  These men marched toward Orbein, and he saw their ranks, so thick that when the front line stepped beyond the roots of the great mountain, more still flowed over its jagged peak. Their expressions were grim, and their advance was strangely silent. Tens of thousands of soldiers walked over the soil where, even now as the king had this vision, his own men were training. In this waking dream, though, the field of Ionotu was empty, and the army from the east came ever on unimpeded. They marched right up to a massive gate set in a great wall.

  Orbein knew that this was not his city, but it was certainly the ground upon which Niele'itio was built. In place of his plain, square dwellings, there arose a noble city, clean and beautiful. White buildings reached for the clouds, several of them capped with gold. A majestic bouquet of palatial towers trumpeted itself as the crown jewel of this peaceful setting. The brightness of all that assaulted his eyes was contrasted by an all-encompassing silence. This did not appear as a city that was about to find itself besieged by a massive army.

  The charge was called out over the ranks, and a crest of shining helmets swelled against the wall, a raging stormy sea against stark stone cliffs. Great sharpened rams were heaved at the gate, and towers were pushed up against the battlements so that soldiers could pour down into the city. Men soon filled the streets. Then the real carnage began. Women and children were dragged out of their homes and slaughtered; their bodies were left to lie in the gutters. Houses were set ablaze, and a thickening circle of smoke crept inward toward the palace. The streets were soon filled almost to overflowing with the bodies of the innocent and the fell soldiers from beyond Thontur. An enormous contrivance, the like of which Orbein had never seen, was rolled up to the palace gate.

  The king looked on with amazement and great interest as a mass of pitch was loaded onto this contraption and flung ablaze over the gate and into a great colored window that adorned the palace like a big glass painting. Glass exploded, and he actually ducked and threw up his hands in defense.

  Orbein wondered at his reaction and scoffed at being startled by a vision that existed only in his mind. His curiosity grew further as he realized that he felt shards falling on him from above. He ventured a peek and saw something fall into the pit among a pile of shattered glass. He was again in the main chamber of the temple, and a great gaping hole in the dark glass let in a breeze that cooled the beads of sweat on his brow. Looking back into the shadows of the pit, the king saw something stirring ever so slightly, and tiny curling fingers of steam brought a terrible stench to his nostrils.

  Shaking off the lingering remnants of his trance, Orbein stepped cautiously into the pit. Glass crunched under his boots, which made it impossible for him to move down silently. After several tense moments, he had eventually crept up to the steaming shadow as best he could. He could not see well enough to make out what it was, and he prodded it with the toe of his boot. It hissed in a way that seemed all too familiar to him. He bent down and began to feel in the shadows, looking for some way of holding this thing s
o he could bring it into a more well-lit area and confirm his suspicion.

  Orbein's hand wrapped around something leathery that was sparsely covered with either fur or feather, which it was he could not say for certain. A long and low whimper issued from the shadow as the king tried to lift whatever it was out of the glass. Though he could tell this thing was small, at most the size of a wild dog, it was also deceptively heavy. Still, he did not put forth any great effort in carrying it; rather he dragged it unceremoniously through the broken shards and out of the pit. Much sputtering and whining could be heard from the creature, for it was surely a living thing. The sounds did not bother Orbein, and he was only careful enough to make sure he didn't kill the thing outright.

  He sighed as he approached the wall. He could see no better near the strange blue lights than he could away from them. He pulled the creature toward the door, which opened as he came near.

  Light poured into the chamber from the vast hallway beyond and the many candles that adorned it. There in the doorway, Orbein stooped to get a closer look at his burden. His breath caught as he beheld it in full light. It was hideous. The creature seemed very bat-like, but malformed in the most horrible way. Its lips were curled in a feral expression, and a line of pus streamed off its back.

  As Orbein examined this strange perversion of a beast, its eyes opened and blinked wearily. It stared at first, as if blind, but then it focused on the king. A whine sounded out as the creature attempted to withdraw from the king's grasp. It struggled for only a moment before a gleam of recognition sparked in its eyes. A shudder ran through its body, and a sickening crack echoed through the hall as Orbein watched the creature's face contort in a way that did not seem possible. The leathery skin and tufts of fur twisted and reorganized, and when they finally settled, the king recognized the face of his scout Gayossha, prince of the Fiu-Het.

  An astonished gasp came out of the shadows not made by either the king or the prince. From behind a column stepped Agucho. He ran up and looked upon the face of his cousin and former master and became sad to see it, though he would later be thankful to Laernus for making this reunion possible. It was clear to Agucho that his prince was in great pain and very close to death. The wounds on his back were grievous enough to wonder why he was still alive.