The Vitalis Chronicles: Steps of Krakador (52 page)

“
Rain.” His heart broke to see her skin so dry, her lips cracked and bloody and her hair in a knotted mess. He pulled Donovan's canteen out, his fingers fumbling with the cap as he tried to unscrew it quickly. “Oh God, Rain, what happened?”

“
Parnithons...” she mumbled as she squinted against the sun. “They attacked...”

“
Drink this,” he said as he pushed the canteen gently against her lips. The dry blood cracked and glistened wet in the sunlight at the pressure. “You have to drink, just a little. Don't go crazy!”

He laughed as relief washed over him. She coughed a little as he pulled the canteen back and blinked against the sun and the dryness of her eyes. Finally she looked up at him as if seeing him for the first time, wonder and suspicion mixing on her face to show her confusion.

“
Ardin?”

“
Yeah,” he said with a smile. “Sorry I'm late.”

“
Where have you been?” She coughed and reached for the water.

“
Careful,” he said. “That's about all we have left.”

“
My brother,” she said. “We can get more from him. Where is he? You must have seen him?”

“
I found what I think was his baggage train,” Ardin said. “I haven't seen him yet.”

“
You think?” she said as she tried to sit up.

“
Here.” He picked her up and walked over to the slender swath of shade underneath the nearest cliff. The temperature dropped instantly, and he sat her down with her back against the mountain. “I don't know what I saw for sure, but there were dead soldiers in purple.”

“
Hembrody...” she growled as her throat began to clear. “That snake, what has he done now?”

“
I don't know,” Ardin said. “But I think your brother's army has already moved forward to fight. I followed their trail in here and only just saw you by luck.”

“
Luck,” she laughed. “Someone with your power doesn't need luck.”

Ardin didn't respond to that. He didn't know how exactly, so he took a drink from the canteen and put it away. “You've had enough for now,” he said as he started to pick her up. “Time to stand on your own.”

She wobbled a bit as she stood. “I don't know that I can.”

“
You can,” he said with certainty, then he noticed the blood caked on her arm. “What happened to you?”

“
My men...” She looked off the way she had come. “A Parnithon clawed me.”

Ardin didn't know what a Parnithon was, but she didn't look like she wanted to talk about it.

“
I don't want to move yet, Ardin,” she said pitifully as he slung her good arm over his shoulder and began walking her back towards his tired horse.

“
You don't have much choice in the matter. I need to catch up to your brother as quickly as I can before they make it to Krakador.”

“
Krakador?” she said as if waking from a dream. “But Krakador isn't that way!” she yelled weakly. “No... no they've gone the wrong way!”

“
What?” Ardin stopped to look at her. “Where is it?”

“
It's in that direction,” she gestured behind them. “Just north of this road.”

“
How far?”

“
Perhaps a half a day's ride,” she coughed. “But my horses... they're dead... all of them.”

“
You don't have enough in you to cry,” he said as he started walking her again. “You can't afford it, and we can't afford half a day, but it will take us the rest of it on my poor horse.”

It's open.
Somehow he knew this was his chance.
I can't help the Brethren in a fight, but maybe I can turn it to their favor.

“
My brother...” She was still on the verge of wailing.

“
Your brother will be fine,” Ardin said. “The Brethren have to fight the Relequim, and we can help them in that task.”

“
The Relequim?” She whipped around on him so quickly he was afraid she would turn feral. “We can't!”

“
We can, Rain. We have no choice.” He kept her walking, hoping she wouldn't stumble. “We have to find it, his weapon.” He didn't want to see her response if she found out his power was gone. “We have to destroy it.”

“
Let the Brethren do it, Ardin. They can fight the Relequim. My brother needs to know he's marching in the wrong direction!”

He turned her and held her up by her shoulders as he looked her in the eyes. “Your brother is beyond our help, Rain. He's too far into the mountains. I have been charged with the Relequim, and if Krakador is this way, then we can't waste a day chasing your brother when we should spend it reaching his fortress. I'm going to need your help, Rain. I need you, but I can't do this if you let your fear get the better of you!”

She simply stared at him for a minute before the regal resolution began to creep in at the edges of her dust and blood-spattered face. “I'm sorry, Ardin.” She shook her head and stared at her feet, swaying slightly under his care. “I just... I'm sorry.”

“
It's alright.” Ardin pulled her arm back over his shoulders and started walking again. They were only twenty or so yards from his horse, he figured. “But I mean it, Rain. I need you.”

They made decent time towards the west. Ardin didn't know if it was the brief respite he'd given the poor palfrey, Rain's presence, or the availability of shade, but even carrying two people, the horse suddenly had more hop in its step and enough energy to continue on at a decent trot. Ardin was thankful, because even making it to Krakador by nightfall would be a miracle at this point. Rain slept on the horse's neck more than she stayed awake. Ardin wished he had his power in that moment so badly, to heal her, to energize them both. To face the Relequim.

The sun began to set as Rain took them north through the mountains and then struck west again after passing a few of the headless peaks. He realized as they continued on that there were a lot more questions he should have been asking before now.

“
Rain,” he asked after she seemed more alert and had eaten some of the dried meat he had found. “How do you know that Krakador is over here? Why isn't your brother headed this direction?”

“
Oscilian told me,” she said as she bit off more of the salted meat. “He found me... he's the reason I'm alive.”

“
Oscilian...” Ardin looked to the sky as if the warrior would appear upon uttering his name. “What did he say?”

“
He told me where Krakador was.” She tried to turn to look at Ardin, but quickly found it impossible. “He told me to find my brother and guide him here, but I had no horse. I had no way of getting to him in time...”

They do seem to like leaving us in binds...
Ardin started to speak, but was cut short by the sudden appearance of two massive pillars standing along their path. Each was carved in dozens of runes, the carvings black against the red earth of the desert. At their top rested a series of interlinking spiked iron wheels that formed an intricate cage, each containing a floating red ball of flame.

“
They look like the lights of the Magi.” Ardin said, suddenly aware of how blind he was to the world around him without his power.

“
This way.” Rain pointed to the right as the ground rose steeply in the north. In fact, the mountains here seemed much taller than the rest, but a few more minutes revealed that the elevation of their bases was simply higher.

As they passed the third mountain on their left, she gestured to turn. Ardin didn't know how she knew where to go. He credited her natural sense of direction from countless hours of scouting to be the source of her certainty, and he trusted her intuition. As they continued, he felt a strange sensation, like the pulsing of a heart beating in the air, as if an energy penetrated to his very soul. As he tried to get a handle on the feeling, they suddenly came to a quick downward slope between two of the peaks.

Below them, in the settling darkness, more of the flameless fires of the Relequim lit an empty swath of land much broader than most of the canyons they had seen. The lights themselves seemed to lead off into the east, acting as some sort of beacons to light a road.
To guide an army.
And that was when Ardin realized exactly what they were looking at.

Between the mountains and the lights lay one solitary structure, made to look every bit like the piles of boulders around it, and in its center was a gaping hole big enough for twenty men to enter the earth abreast. Before them lay the entrance to Krakador, the end of Ardin's journey.

They took the slope down slowly, uncertain as to what lay below, but Ardin found himself drawn onward by the energy he now sensed clearly in the earth. This was not the great fortress he had been told about, nor was there an army as had been promised. But whatever the Relequim was working on, whatever it was he had hidden here, it was real, and it was powerful.

Strangely, the closer to the hole they drew, the healthier Ardin felt for it. This was something different than he had ever encountered, and the closer he drew the more he wished to untangle its secrets. He had expected fear, and the sickly-sweet scent of death he had experienced in the Cathedral when he had last encountered the Relequim, but instead he found a growing sense of confidence.

“
Ardin.” He could tell by her tone that Rain did not share his growing sense of safety. “Ardin, we can't go down there. What if there are monsters?”

“
I'm with you, Rain,” he said soothingly. “You haven't forgotten who I am so quickly, have you?”

“
No, but...” She squeezed his leg as she tried to fight her fear. “But the Relequim...”

“
Don't worry about him,” Ardin said as they walked his palfrey through the tall pillars and their brilliant red lights in the dimness of dusk. “He's not here.”

“
How do you know?” she asked. “The lights...”

“
The lights are a simple enchantment.” Ardin dismissed the fear as they approached the cave that dove steeply down into the earth. The power was emanating from it like the scent of bread from a bakery. It was warm, and so inviting Ardin could barely resist the urge to race downwards. “He's gone.”

“
But how?” she asked again as he walked the horse down underground.

It was a good horse, to say the least, to be willing to walk so steadily underground. But it also served to confirm Ardin's conviction that the Relequim was nowhere near, nor were any of his monsters. He had been drawn successfully out, convinced of his enemy's presence to the east and threatened enough by it that he had emptied his fortress of every defense to rid himself of them.

The red lights continued farther on, illuminating the smooth path until it leveled out again hundreds of yards under the earth. It opened up into the most magnificent cavern Ardin had ever seen, and there before them stood the fortress he had been promised. There under the earth, illuminated by a thousand glowing orbs, stood the home of the world's greatest enemy. The fortress was immense, the size of a small city, soaring hundreds of feet towards the cavern ceiling.

They stopped at the wall that encircled the fortress, the massive stone gate before them open and waiting. Some buildings lay a good ways off to either side with more lined out behind the fortress itself. The keep stood tallest at the center, with grand towers at its corners, ringed with crowns of iron spikes. The entirety of the structure was wrought out of a better stone than could be found here, their joints and mortar protected by writhing veins of blackened metal. Grand statues, gargoyles, and spires decorated it so liberally that it looked to be eternally populated by stone apparitions.

The power washed through Ardin now, cleansing him, purifying him, and releasing his heart to a freedom he had not known in ages. He dismounted the palfrey and after sending it back to the surface, walked through the high gates, ignoring Rain's pleas to turn back. It was too late now. What he had come here to do he had to finish once and for all.

For it was here that he would turn the course of the war, forever changing the history of the world. The Relequim would fall, and everything would be made right again. He breathed deeply one last time, turning to beckon Rain to follow, then began his final ascent as he mounted the steps of Krakador.

T
HIRTY-
S
IX

S
IR
B
ELDIN LOOKED ON IN HORROR AS THE CHAPLAINS TURNED TO FACE THE
D
AEMONS BEYOND THE CLOSEST COLUMNS OF
K
NOBACKS
. He had never seen Daemons, had hardly heard mention of them all his life save in whispered tales of forbidden lore, but here they stood in broad daylight. His men had surged forward once more. Their confidence was refreshed to see the Chaplains carve a path through the columns of Knobacks they had yet to engage. The enemy reserves couldn't stand against the holy knights, and now Beldin's men would push forward as well to win their desperate battle.