The Vitalis Chronicles: Tomb of the Relequim (41 page)

The Titans hadn't lied. They were saving him weeks of travel. Potentially months, had he been forced to go on foot and avoid detection. What was amazing to him was how the things never seemed to tire. They had been flying for over two days and hadn't so much as stopped to sleep. The Shadow King himself had never needed sleep until he had taken on Silvers as a host. Now it came as a grudging necessity, but one he could do without for extensive amounts of time if he had to.

And somehow sleeping among the clouds and stars seemed fitting. But the gentle pleasure of drifting to sleep was rocked by the horrors of his dreams. Nothing showed itself to him, but he was haunted by ghosts and hunted by guilt. Terror even gripped him at times. Shapeless. Mists and colors. Lights and darkness. He woke sweating more than once.

If the Titan carrying him noticed, it never said anything. It just flew into the west. Always into the west.

On the third morning, as the aches in his arms began to truly gnaw at him, green appeared on the horizon. It grew steadily as the sun stretched its fingers towards the dark border of land and sky. As they descended he could see the mountains grow in the distance. Reality came swirling up with the ground; it was time.

“
I'll leave you here, then.” The Titan dropped him as he might a dead fish. Neither of them so much as touched the ground. “The high road is north by a mile. I believe you know the way.”

“
How heavily is it guarded?” The Shadow King asked as the Titans began to fly off.

“
Beware Renault's Chaplains. The rest should give you little trouble.” And they were gone.
Always together. He wondered if they had ever lost sight of one another since the day they lost their brother to the Cleaver.

The Shadow King had once fought alongside Renault's Chaplains, even if it was only in one battle. They were fierce, deeply religious men who expressed their calling in defending the realm. If they were still the same white-armored, banner toting rogue knights he remembered, he would do well to listen to the Titan's advice. Who knew what kinds of tricks they had been taught to deal with the Shadow should they return?

He started walking north, angling west through the hills as he sought the high road. It was one of the main highways in the Western Kingdom, named for the heights it reached as it approached Islenda. The thought of the Chaplaincy brought back a lot of memories. He couldn't help but think of the last time he had fought with them, their heavy white plate armor splattered red with blood. Most of them used warhammers, some even bore axes. Everything they carried was bleached heavily until it shone a dull white. Save their red banners.

They had told him the flitting cloth represented the blood they owed. For the sins they had committed. For those they had yet to commit.

“
No one deserves to wear naught but white,” their old commander had said the day before he died. “None can claim such purity.” So the leather collars around their necks were red. As was the thin mail they wore just under their heavy breastplates. Many had subtle devices inscribed on their shields or in the plate they wore. If it wasn't for the vastly arrayed styles and makes of their armor, they would have been impossible to tell apart. They appeared inhumanly massive on their gilded mounts.

The Shadow King wouldn't stick to the high road for long. He was glad that the Demon's advance had come so far, it made for a short trip by foot. He simply needed to get through the pass they called Albentine, it would take him to the broad vale that housed Islenda at its westernmost point. He would break north long before that, however. If he stuck to the shadows of the mountains, he should be able to get to the pass to the nameless mountain unseen. Then he would storm the town of Ilthuln to free the Relequim. But first he would have to break the Guardians of the Tomb.

That was when the real trouble would begin.

T
RISTRAM HAD LEFT AS QUICKLY AS HE HAD COME
.
He seems to like doing that
, Ardin reflected. He sat on a low broken wall just outside of the temple as Rain's men cleaned up their mess. They were taut as catgut, and it left Ardin unsettled. More than that. The events of the night troubled him deeply.

Whatever that stone had been, some sort of
MARD
by the sound of it, there had been more to it than simple Atmospheric repulsion. It had brought a madness with it, one that had almost cost them everything. But with Branston killed in the fighting, he hoped that they were in the clear.

“
Wish I could heal up as quickly as you,” Shill said as he sat down next to Ardin on the wall.

Ardin didn't respond. He didn't really feel like talking to anyone, even if Shill had saved his life.

“
So we're going to head west then,” the old man continued. He grunted every time he moved, the bandages around his chest barely permitting him to do so. Drops of blood were ever on his lips. “I can't believe it...”

“
West is the way we were always going to head, isn't it?”

“
Not that, boy, no. The Brethren. I can't believe we were visited by one. It was... noteworthy to say the least.”

“
He's all flash and dash, Tristram.” Ardin's choices were obvious, though few. He needed to head
to Islenda as quickly as possible. Whatever was going to happen, he was going to be there. The sky began to change hue as the sun threatened its advance.

Cid came over and stood behind them silently. “I need to talk to my lad, there, Shill. If'n ya don't mind.”

“
Of course.” Shill stood tenderly, testing his weight before hobbling back towards the little temple. “Glad you're still with us, Ardin.”

“
Right bastard, that Branston. Knew there was somethin' wrong with 'im from the get go.” Cid took Shill's vacated seat.

Ardin waited in silence until Shill was well away. He never broke his stare from the horizon. “I have to do this alone, Cid.”

“
What are you talking about, lad?”

“
I have to go to Islenda. Alone. Today.”

“
Lad, it's a long ride from here, and dangerous.”

“
It'll be longer with this bunch. Half of them are injured now.” He looked Cid in the eyes. “Shill can't even stand up straight. And the fact remains that I can't trust any of them. Not after tonight.”

“
They'll never let you through Albentine alone, lad. They've built some mighty defenses up there.
Tall towers with gates betwixt 'em. You'll ne'er make it through.”

Ardin looked off at the warming horizon again, mouth compressing into a frown as he worked it through. “I'll take Rain, then. We need her to raise the alarm in the West in any case.”

“
And you mean to leave me behind?” Cid was indignant.

“
Those people we left behind, the slaves. They won't ever make it to the Western Kingdom in time. A unit can't move faster than it's slowest member, right? Their slowest members are old women with bent legs, Cid. They need to be found, and redirected.”

“
To where, lad?” Cid had never seen Ardin so certain of anything. Something had changed in him.

“
Take them back to the coast. Pray that Donovan comes like you asked.”

“
Paul? Aye, I pray that most hours of the day. But should we be caught...”

“
Drive south to where we landed. Hopefully the Demon is too focused on his invasion to spare
any forces to chase you.”

“
You don't know the Demon, do you lad? His sole mind is destruction. Once it was to rule, but no more. He won't let us walk away so easy.”

“
Then hope he doesn't know where you are.” Ardin hopped off the wall and faced the old man. “You can't come with me on this one, Cid.”

“
Why not?” The old man exploded. “How can you be so bloody certain?”

“
I'm different, Cid. I'm not wholly human any more, try as I might to deny that fact... I was made for the task at hand.” He was struggling to remember. “Something Tristram said... or the Greater Being. They're one and the same though, aren't they? It's confusing.”

He sighed. “I can't have vengeance, and I can't bring back the people I love. But I can stand in the gap, Cid. I can do that for these people, but I have to do it alone. And even if I didn't, those people need you more than I do. They practically worship you, Cid. If you were to lead them, they would follow. If you were to rally their protectors, they would be safe.”

“
Lad, I swore to protect the Magi. To protect you...”

Ardin put a hand on the old man's massive shoulder. “What good is it saving my life if the rest of the world burns around us, Cid?” He smiled. “I promise to find you when I've done what the Greater Being has bid me do. I will.”

“
Aye,” Cid said grudgingly, a twinge of sadness in his throat. “But can you promise not to die? That's really the promise I'd like to hear.”

Ardin found Rain shortly after and pulled her aside. He was surprised at how easily she agreed to his plan. Her brother wouldn't listen to anyone else, she admitted. She gave Shill her orders, that he was to follow Cid to the camp and rejoin their forces. He didn't look too happy at the idea of leaving her side, but he was in no condition to ride at any real pace. They left a quarter of their strength buried outside the little village temple. A dark place made even darker by the passing of the night before.

Ardin and Rain took two horses each and left before the others had even finished packing their gear, making due west as Rain lead the way. They angled north slightly from time to time. She told him there was a highway they would eventually connect with that way. It would take them to her home.

The first day was spent riding through the ashen wastes of the Truan Empire. It went too slowly for Ardin.

“
How far do we have to go?” He asked her as they reined in for the night in an outcropping of boulders. There had been no sign of enemies the whole day, but they didn't want to take any chances.

“
A hundred leagues or so,” she said as she took the saddle off her mare.

“
How far is a league?”

“
We traveled about ten today.”

“
Ten leagues?” He almost exploded. “We... how... this will take forever!”

“
We can't very well fly, can we?”

Ardin wanted to take that as a challenge, but he calmed himself as he groomed his own horses and fed them. He was happy to have Gella back. The fire he sensed in her brought him a sense of peace, of kinship.

“
Do we even have enough supplies to make it that far?” He asked as they sat down to a meal of stale bread and dried meat. “I didn't see much in the way of foraging for us, or for them.” He gestured
with his thumb at the horses. They were already rooting around in the dead ground for any sign of grass.

“
It will be tight,” she admitted. “I'm more worried about water.”

They did come across a spring the following day, however. And though most of the water they found was spoiled by ash, they would get lucky often enough to continue on. How a countryside could burn so thoroughly made little sense to Ardin. It made him wonder what horrors the Demon unleashed to accomplish it.

The farther west they traveled, the more alone they felt. The great expanse had been abandoned by every living creature. They came to a winding river that she said had once been a boundary between two warring kingdoms. They walked down a gentle slope among the bare poles that had once been trees. At the water's edge sat a solitary statue, covered in differing shades of ashen gray. A woman in mourning, veil covering her eyes, and the wings of a swan sprouting out of her back and relaxing gently behind her. It settled a weight on Ardin's heart to see it. The ash made him think of Levanton, the statue of his mother. He wasn't the only person in this world to lose everything to the flame.

Rain wondered aloud where her enemies had gone, but each passing day left her a little less cautious until finally they rode openly where they wished. When they made it to what she called the high road, they kept an even better pace. But it was still too slow for Ardin.

At night he hardly slept. The knowledge that time was running out weighed on him. The stars brought little consolation, regardless of how bright and clear they burned here. The darkness was consuming. The only light he ever dared show was that in the crystal on the chain that hung around his neck. He took it out from time to time, rolling its delicate silver framework in his fingers, watching the little purple light float inside. He wondered if Alisia was watching him now. Wished she could be there to help.

“
What is that thing?” Rain asked one night after they had made camp to sleep.

“
I thought you were asleep.” He put the Uriquim back under his light armor, shifting as he leaned against his pack.

“
I've been sleeping about as much as you have.”