The Elder Blood Chronicles Book 3 From the Ashes (18 page)

“You know I don’t really know why I feel
inclined to point this out now, other than perhaps so you
understand in the future. But you do realize Vaze sees through
Shadow screens as easily as I do water and air right? So that
little bit of privacy you just had wasn’t truly private at all,”
Valor said softly as he helped her back onto the horse.

Jala paused and looked back at him. “Did you
just say you both watched me bathe?” she asked in a dumbfounded
voice.

“I didn’t, but I could have. I don’t know if
he did, but he could have. It’s just good knowledge to have in the
future I suppose,” Valor replied.

Jala nodded and shrugged. “Even had there not
been a shadow screen and the area had been well lit, I still would
have bathed. I feel twenty pounds lighter now and ready to face
whatever may come,” she said and was surprised to realize it was
the truth. She was less than half a day from facing Death and a
fortified city held by demons and she wasn’t concerned in the
least. Vaze would deal with Davrian; the Forgotten would deal with
the demons. That left only Death for Valor and herself. In
comparison with how it had seemed at the beginning of their quest,
this was actually going to be easier than either of them had
thought.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait for Fiona?”
Valor asked looking back at Vaze before he actually mounted.

“We don’t need her as a guide and she won’t
be helping in the fighting,” Vaze pointed out with a shrug.

Valor nodded slowly and climbed onto the
horse behind her. “Which way then?” he asked as Vaze picked his
pack up from ground and swung it onto his back.

Looking up, Vaze smiled slightly and shook
his head. “Oh, I’m afraid I don’t have time to give an actual
walking tour, Valor. Listen close both of you. I will open the
shadows for travel. Ride through after me. I will engage Davrian.
Jala, call the Forgotten once I have, and allow them to assault the
city first. Once the gates have been breached, ride hard for the
center of the city. You will find her there. Don’t wait for me, I
will follow to help if I can, but do not wait. You can’t afford to
risk the Forgotten losing the fight and missing your opportunity.
You cannot face Death and her host of demons at once. You must
engage her while the Forgotten are still fighting. You will not be
able to kill her; she is Death. You will be able to weaken her
though and that is when you strike. Take Finn back and leave the
Darklands with all haste. Understood?”

“Understood.” Jala agreed and felt a flutter
in her stomach. It wasn’t fear she realized with a faint smile. It
was excitement and anticipation. They were so close to their goal
now. She glanced back as Valor whispered something and raised an
eyebrow at him. “What was that?” she asked curiously.

“A prayer.” Valor replied with a shrug.

“To who?” Jala asked, turning to face him
fully with a look of astonishment on her face. She had never heard
Valor pray or even show reverence toward any of the Aspects.

“To you, for you, I’m not really sure how to
explain it,” Valor said with a shrug. “You are Divine blooded so it
can’t hurt.”

Jala stared at him for a long moment, then
blinked and shook her head. “Well, uh, I suppose you are right, it
can’t hurt,” she said after a long pause and turned back in the
saddle again to find Vaze watching them both with a bit of a
grin.

“It would seem Valor paid particular
attention to our talk,” Vaze said with a salute to Valor. “Long
live the Hai’dia. They are a clever line and the world would be a
poorer place without them. Good luck to you both. May we meet again
under the sun.” He bowed with a flourish to the pair of them. As he
stood, he drew the swords from his back and brandished them in
front of him in a graceful arc. The shadows before him seemed to
thicken as they slowly wove into a tunnel. With another brief nod
to them, Vaze stepped into the center of the swirling mass of
shadows and disappeared.

“Valor, is failure still your biggest fear?”
Jala asked as the knight guided their horse toward the tunnel at a
swift trot. Her heartbeat had increased and she could feel her
blood pumping strongly.

“More than ever,” Valor answered quietly as
the shadows enveloped them.

The Darklands

“Behold Despair, capital of the Dark Lady’s
domain.” Vaze gestured toward the massive walled city that stood in
the distance. “Not really sure if that is the name she gave it, but
that’s what the shadows call it.”

Jala nodded absently, her attention fully
focused on the city before them. The walls surrounding it were so
large that they seemed more like a cliff looming against the
horizon. If not for the soft glow the city was emitting, she
doubted she would have been able to see the walls at all. Their
stone was as black as the rest of the Darklands. She had given up
trying to fathom what was creating the glow beyond the wall. She
somehow doubted it was the customary lights that most cities held.
Her eyes were now riveted instead on the sea of dead that seemed to
surround the massive gates. Thousands of spirits milled as they
waited for entrance to the fortress city. She had expected the
gates to be sealed with a barrier. She just hadn’t expected a
barrier of the dead.

“How big is the city?” Valor asked
softly.

“Not as big as Sanctuary, but larger than any
other city in the Sunlit world. If either of you have second
thoughts, now is the time to act on them. Once we pass this point,
there is no going back,” Vaze said, looking between the two of
them.

Jala shifted in the saddle to look back at
Valor. He met her gaze and shook his head slightly. Nodding, she
shook her head at Vaze. “No, we’ve come too far to turn back now.
We will finish this,” she said and looked back toward the city.
“Are those the dead of Glis?”

“The ones toward the front of the gate likely
are. The ones near the back are the dead of Sanctuary,” Vaze
answered as he stood straight and flexed his grips on his
swords.

“So many from Sanctuary, but those don’t look
like soldiers, Vaze,” Jala whispered. She couldn’t see many details
from their current distance, but many of the forms in the crowd
were small or appeared to be women in dresses.

“You can’t unleash the kind of devastation
you did without casualties, Jala. Your quarter of the city was
evacuated, the rest wasn’t. The buildings you crushed had people
hiding within,” Vaze explained gently. He watched her as he spoke,
his expression filled with concern.

“I did that,” Jala breathed as her eyes raced
across the spirits, her mind frantically searching for a number.
There were so many and constantly shifting. It was impossible to
count the dead accurately, but she knew it was in the thousands.
“By all the Aspects,” she whispered shaking her head in revulsion.
“I didn’t know…” She let the words die in her throat. She wasn’t
sure really what she had been about to say. She hadn’t known they
were there, but that seemed a pathetic excuse. She had known
Sanctuary hadn’t been evacuated beyond her quarter. She had seen
civilians in the streets running from the fighting. She should have
guessed they were hiding there as well.

“We did that,” Valor corrected. “I destroyed
as much as you did.” His voice was hoarse as he spoke.

“This is what happens when you unleash your
power carelessly, Jala. Take it as a lesson, not as a burden. You
don’t have time for the guilt right now,” Vaze spoke firmly and
elbowed her knee lightly. “Make their deaths meaningful with your
actions. Build something better than what they knew.”

Jala nodded slowly and looked down at Vaze.
“I feel like a monster right now and you are telling me to build
something better from this.”

“Feel like a monster, eh? Well,
congratulations. You are finally becoming a High Lady. When you
know for sure you are a monster you have fully attained your title.
High Lords and Ladies don’t have the luxury of guilt or remorse for
their actions. On one side of the war you have the lords that have
done what they had to do, no matter how much they hated it. On the
other side you have the ones that don’t give a rat’s ass what they
have done. Be one that does what has to be done no matter the cost,
Jala, and we will be fine.” Vaze smiled at her and winked before
flexing his swords once more. “Now if you will excuse me, I believe
I need to find Davrian. If I’m guessing correctly, he is near the
city gates. Let me engage him and then summon the Forgotten.” His
armor began to ripple around his neck as he spoke. Vaze closed his
eyes and tilted his head back as the inky black metal crept up his
neck and then face. Within moments the armor had covered his head
completely, leaving only a shiny black mirror where a visor should
have been. There was no sign of eye slits or holes for air. The
final effect was wholly unsettling. He twirled his swords once and
bowed to them in farewell.

“Good luck, Vaze. May we meet again under the
sun,” Jala said as she watched him move down the road toward
Despair. He moved casually as if he were simply on a stroll through
the park.

“Should we move closer?” Valor asked, his
gaze following Vaze’s approach.

“I think so. I don’t think the Forgotten will
take long to arrive, once I summon them,” Jala answered.

“If they answer at all,” Valor sighed and
urged the Arovanni forward at a slow walk.

“They will answer,” Jala assured him.

Vaze had moved to a slow jog ahead of them
and his path seemed to be leaving the road. His form blurred as he
increased speed and she watched in amazement as his other four
swords were drawn by what seemed to be living shadows. The forms
moved with him, only the occasional shift from his body and the
additional weapons revealing their presence.

“That’s a nice trick,” Valor whispered.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,”
Jala said, her eyes locked on Vaze as she tried desperately to
decipher the spell he had used before he grew too distant for her
to see the weave. It was an innate ability she was sure, but if she
could just study the way it was done for a moment longer, she might
be able to roughly duplicate it with arcane magic.

“That must be Davrian,” Valor breathed, his
words barely audible over the murmuring of the spirits.

Reluctantly, Jala pulled her eyes from Vaze
and looked past him to the massive form that was emerging from the
gloom beyond him. Davrian towered over Vaze in height and muscle.
The demon had lost nearly all semblance of humanity beyond the
basic human shape. His skin was covered in scales that she could
see even from her distance. Spines covered his shoulders and arms
and seemed to run down his massive back. He drew twin axes from his
belt as he lumbered toward Vaze and Jala shook her head in dismay.
“Those things look big enough to cleave a horse in two,” she
mumbled.

“If he had swords, I would worry. With the
size of those Axes, Vaze will be able to dodge nearly every blow.
Those are not maneuverable weapons. Once he picks a direction to
swing he is committed,” Valor assured her.

Jala nodded in understanding, though she
wasn’t sure if she truly believed what he told her. To her, it
seemed as though the axes were so big that Davrian couldn’t
possibly miss. Vaze sprang forward to strike as the demon raised
its axes in what looked to be a challenge. The shadowy duplicates
moved as well, splitting to the left and right as Vaze’s swords
struck sparks from the creature’s scaly hide.

“Call the Forgotten,” Valor urged her with a
gentle nudge to her back. “He said to waste no time.”

Jala pulled her gaze from the fight and
quickly wove a message spell to all those she had given names.
“
It’s time
.” She felt their response echo back in the form
of raw fury.

The air in front of them shimmered and the
gentle murmurs of the shuffling spirits before them was drowned by
the banshee squall of the Forgotten as the tormented dead appeared
on the road ahead of them. Demons poured through the gates in an
effort to keep the Forgotten from the city. The gentle spirits that
had been milling calmly, exploded into chaos as the first of the
fighting erupted. The Forgotten ignored the frantic spirits
completely and threw themselves at the demons with a savagery that
made her skin crawl.

“We are supposed to ride through that?” Jala
asked in disbelief. From her vantage, there was no way through the
mass of dead.

In answer, Valor pressed his heels deep into
the Arovanni’s sides and the horse sprang forward. He leaned
forward, forcing her toward the horse’s neck, his armor digging
painfully into her back. “Stay low,” he ordered, though there was
no need for the words. She had no choice but to stay low with the
way he was pushing on her.