A Realm of Shadows (21 page)

Duncan
scrambled his
way up the canyon wall, the ascent so steep he was nearly vertical, clawing his
way up the canyon face. Dry rock and dirt gave way and Duncan slipped again and
again before regaining his footing, as did his men around him, hundreds of men
in their armor clanging their way up to freedom.

It was a
desperate scramble. Duncan tried to control his panic as he looked back over
his shoulder and saw the tens of thousands of Pandesians closing in, pursuing
them across the canyon floor and now beginning to ascend the canyon face behind
them. Worse, many of them stopped, lined up, and began to fire arrows.

Duncan
braced himself
as there came the ping all around him of metal arrowheads hitting stone,
chipping away at small pieces of rock. Cries and shrieks rang out and he looked
over and was pained to see too many of his men with arrows piercing their backs.
As he watched, they lost their grip and fell backwards to their deaths.

Duncan reached
out and grabbed for his friend, one of his oldest, most trusted soldiers, just
feet away from him, who had an arrow plunged into his back. His eyes opened
wide as he began to fall, and as Duncan swiped for him, he felt an awful pit in
his stomach as he just missed him, unable to reach him in time.

“No!” Duncan shrieked.

Watching him die
enraged Duncan. It made him want to turn around and charge the Pandesians
below.

Yet he knew that
would be shortsighted. He knew the key to victory lay just twenty feet above, at
the very top of the canyon ridge. He knew what his men needed most was not to
stand and fight, but to get out of there before the great flood came.
If
it ever came.

“CLIMB!” Duncan boomed to his men, trying to encourage them.

As he climbed,
arrows and spears hitting the wall all around him, Duncan flinched, realizing
how close they were coming. He realized what a vulnerable position he had put
his men in, how reckless and desperate this whole strategy was. If for some
reason Leifall did not come through, was unable to divert the waters of Everfall,
the Pandesians would catch up to them as soon as they surfaced and slaughter him
and all his men for good. Yet if the waters did come before Duncan’s men could
ascend and get out of their way, then he and his men would be drowned, washed
away by the tidal wave, killed together with all the Pandesians below.

The chances of
this mission succeeding were dire; yet the alternative, facing a much greater
army in the open field, was not great, either.

Duncan
’s heart slammed
as he looked up and saw the edge of the canyon looming. He groaned as he took
his last step on a ledge and threw himself to the desert floor.

He lay there,
gasping, and immediately spun around, reached down and grabbed as many of his
men’s hands as he could, yanking them up out of the canyon, dodging arrows as
they sailed by. Every muscle in his body ached and burned, yet he would not
stop until his men were all safe.

As the last of
his men reached the desert floor, Duncan immediately stood and checked the
horizon, hopeful.

Yet his heart fell.
There came no river, no flood. And that could only mean one thing: Leptus had
failed.

Yet Duncan knew that he could not give up hope, and that if the surging waters did come, there
would be no time to lose. He turned to his men.

“PART WAYS!” he commanded.

He sprinted, and
his men ran, too, forking, dividing their forces, half led by him and half by
one of his commanders. Parting ways would also make it harder for the
Pandesians to hunt them down.

Duncan
sprinted, even
though no water was in sight, hoping and praying. With every step, he also at
least distanced himself from the Pandesians. Although, looking out ahead to the
wasteland, Duncan knew there was nowhere left to run.

Duncan
checked back
over his shoulder, and his heart dropped to see the first Pandesian surface
from the canyon. Behind him followed another.

Then another.

Hundreds of them
followed, crawling over the edge like ants, out of the canyon, soon on their
feet and rushing his way.

Duncan
knew, in that
moment, that all was lost. His plan had failed.

And then it
came.

It began as a
rumble, sounding like distant thunder. Duncan looked up before him, and he was
breathless.

It appeared an
entire ocean was gushing right for him, rumbling, its waves rolling, huge and white
across the dry, dusty plains. It moved faster than anything he had ever seen,
more powerful, more violent.

The Pandesians
behind him were clearly shocked, too. They stopped in their tracks, gaping, as
the waters raced right for them. Duncan and his men had parted ways, had made
room for the river. But the Pandesians, having just emerged, still stood right
in its path.

All the
Pandesians scrambled to turn back around, to get out of the way of the water,
stampeding each other. It was chaos as a logjam ensued, all of them trapped, all
staring death in the face.

Duncan stood
there and watched as the roaring waters gushed by him and then, a moment later,
crashed down, smashing all the Pandesians like ants.

The waters continued,
raging down into the canyon, landing at its bottom with a tremendous crash and
spray, and filling it foot by foot. Duncan heard, just for a moment, the
horrible shrieks from tens of thousands of soldiers still in the canyon, all crushed
by the waters.

Soon, though, the
shrieking stopped. The water stopped. The canyon was filled. Pandesian corpses
floated over its edge, onto the dirt.

And finally, all
was still.

Duncan
stood there, and
he and all his men slowly turned to each other and looked at each other in
shock. And then, as one, they let out a great shout of victory.

Finally, they
had won.

Ra walked slowly
through the barren wasteland, alone, far from his army. In the distance, he
could hear their shouts and cries, and he watched with indignation as the great
waterfalls of Everfall poured down in a river, flooded the canyon. Down below,
deep in the canyon, tens of thousands of his men were dying, drowning. Duncan had outsmarted him once again.

Ra burned with
fury. Ra, of course, had other armies elsewhere in Escalon, but these were the
vanguard of his men, the elite, and watching them all die in that trap of a
canyon burned him to no end. Not because he cared about them—he did not—but
because it would hamper his own cause, his own mission to wipe out Escalon for
good. Hearing them die, Ra was all the more grateful he had not joined them
this time. Instead, he had let his generals lead the battle and had furtively
separated himself, marching through the desert alone, embarking on his backup
plan. Duncan had won the battle—but Ra would win the war. Duncan was smart—but
Ra was smarter.

Now, as Ra
marched, with each and every step he mulled over his plan. Walking alone
through the desert, he aimed for the far side of the canyon, where he could already
see Duncan’s men emerging, all of them alive, cheering, triumphant at their
victory. They thought they had won, that they had vanquished the Holy and
Supreme Ra. And in one sense they had.

Yet they were
about to learn why Holy and Supreme Ra had never been vanquished. As he walked
toward Duncan now, Duncan would give him a very different reception. Duncan would not meet him with a sword and shield, but an embrace, a hug.

For his
appearance as he walked this desert was not that of a soldier, not that of the
Holy and Supreme Ra —but rather, that of a girl. To the outside world, to even
the most trained eye—even her father—he would appear not as the Great Ra.

But as Kyra.

He bore her
features, her face, her body, her dress. Khtha had done his work well.

Ra would get
close, so close that, in a father’s embrace, he would finally have his chance
to kill Duncan once for all.

He did not need
his army. Just himself. And a bit of sorcery. Deception, after all, always
triumphed over might.

Ra grinned wide.

Wait for me, Father,
he
thought.
Your daughter is coming.

Kyra walked
slowly between the soaring pillars, the blackened stone rising to the heavens,
and stopped at the threshold of this dead and ancient city of Marda. As she walked,
she passed dozens of heads of trolls, of humans, impaled on pikes, to welcome
her. It was clearly a sign to beware—yet this city hardly needed any more
signs. It was the most ominous place she had ever laid eyes upon. Its buildings
looked as if they had been forged from the stones of hell, black as night. A
cold, damp draft blew through the empty, rubble-strewn streets, giving her a
chill. Somewhere a creature wailed, and she could not tell if it were up ahead,
or in the wind. She felt as if she’d entered a city of the dead.

Kyra trod slowly
down the broad, main boulevard, feeling this place was abandoned. The dead
silence was punctuated only by the occasional calling of a crow, perched high
up somewhere, staring down as if mocking her, as if goading her on to her
death. Black stone, black doors, windowless buildings lined streets paved in
black granite, all of it framed by towering mountains of black. She looked down
and saw that, carved into the stone, were five-pointed stars etched in scarlet
red. Were they carved of blood? What did they symbolize?

Kyra felt the true
presence of evil here, and the deeper she went, the more it clung to her. She had
felt safer even in the thicket of thorns, confronting that monster, than she
did here in this wide-open city of hell, with all these vacant buildings, all
the heads everywhere, dripping blood as if just killed. She felt at every turn
as if something were watching her, waiting to pounce. She gripped her staff
tight, her knuckles white. What she wouldn’t give to have Andor and Leo by her
side now. Not to mention Theon.

Yet Kyra forced
herself to be brave, to continue on. She could sense the Staff of Truth lay
somewhere up ahead, sense that she had, at last, reached her final destination.
She felt it burning in her veins, a sixth sense telling her how close she was,
and with every step, it grew stronger. It was like her destiny calling.

Kyra walked
cautiously, her staff clicking in the rubble, turning down narrow streets, beneath
small stone archways, until finally the city opened in a wide, square plaza. In
the center sat a statue of a massive stone gargoyle, scowling down, its mouth a
fountain, vomiting lava into a pool as if it were blood. Kyra walked past it
and was horrified to see it was real blood, splashing everywhere.

Kyra continued
on through the streets, until finally the mountains beyond it loomed larger and
she realized she was reaching the end of the city. She saw in the distance a
massive stone wall ringing the city, its stones plastered with blood. At the city’s
end she spotted a huge arch, an exit gate, leaving the city. A portcullis hovered
at its top, its sharpened spikes pointed down, as if waiting to sever the head of
whoever passed beneath them, all dripping with blood.

Kyra felt a drop
on her shoulder, then another. She held out a palm and examined it. It was red.

She looked up to
the sky as more drops fell, and she was shocked to see that it was raining
blood.

Kyra walked to
the gate, stopped, and examined it. Its opening, she was horrified to see, was stretched
with the biggest spider web she had ever seen, fifty feet high and just as wide.
It was so massive and thick, at first she thought it was a rope. She stared,
horrified, and did not want to ponder what sort of spider had spun it.

Kyra looked past
the web, and as she did, her heart stopped. There, on the far side of it, stood
a black, granite pedestal rising from the earth. And atop it sat a shining,
black staff. Kyra was breathless. The Staff of Truth. She could sense it even
from here.

It shone, a
beacon in the gloom, lighting up the twilight, sticking straight up to the sky,
as if inviting someone to grab it.

Kyra stepped toward
the web, tentatively, sensing a trap. She sensed this was her final test—and perhaps
her most intense one of all.

Kyra inched
closer to the web, breathing hard, and raised her staff. She held it out before
her, heart pounding in her throat as she reached out and touched the tip of it to
the web. The web was thicker and stickier than she thought, and her staff stuck
to it. She pulled back with all her might, and the entire web shook. To her
shock, it was so sticky, she could not extract her staff.

Suddenly, without
warning, the web recoiled, and Kyra felt herself being pulled, like a spring. A
second later she was flying up in the air, and into the web.

Kyra was stunned
as she felt herself weightless, and found herself stuck to the web, her back up
against it, her arms spread out at her sides like a trapped insect. She
writhed, panicked, yet was unable to move. She tried with all her might, yet
she could not break free. Her staff lay in the web, too, stuck, several feet
away from her, just out of reach.

Panic welled up
inside her. She could not fathom how it had all happened so quickly. And the
more she struggled, the more entangled she became.

Kyra slowly turned,
her hair standing on end, as she heard an awful crawling noise. She looked up,
and out of the corner of her eye, she was filled with dread to spot a creature
that made her heart stop. There, crawling for her, sharing the same web, was the
biggest spider she had ever seen—ten feet wide, with enormous, fuzzy black claws,
massive red fangs, and beady red eyes.

Kyra’s eyes
widened in terror as it inched toward her, one grotesque claw at a time. She
looked around, desperate, and suddenly saw all the bones in the web. She
realized hundreds of sojourners had died here, people, like her, who had
thought they could retrieve the Staff.

The spider crawled
faster, bearing down on her, and Kyra, trapped, knew with a sudden horror that
she would die here, in this awful place, by the fangs of this creature, on the
edge of hell, where no one would even hear her scream.