Deliverance (13 page)

“Quadawhat?” asked Blaze.

“It means they walk on four legs,” Crystal
clarified.

Suddenly, Blaze caught sight of a dark,
scaly creature with red eyes that ran toward him.

“Over here!” he yelled. He then charged at
the creature with his sword. It ran at him on four claw-like legs
and whipped its spiked tail back and forth menacingly. It had a
gargoyle-like face with enormous fangs and two curved horns on its
head. It also had spikes that ran along its back from the head to
the base of its tail. The creature roared as it lunged through the
air at Blaze.

Blaze brought his sword up and swung at the
creature from the side, striking the creature in the ribcage. It
landed to the ground roughly, but it immediately rose to its feet
like nothing happened.

“What the hell?! Not even a scratch!” Blaze
yelled, befuddled.

“Lookout!” cried Kerali, who shot an arrow
at another creature that crept behind Crystal. It bounced off of
the creature’s snout, and Crystal immediately shot a fireball at
the creature’s face and it whined with pain. Gavril then attacked a
third beast coming from another direction, and Thaddeus cast a
thunder spell on the one Blaze was fighting.

The shock paralyzed the beast momentarily,
and so Blaze took advantage by swinging at it again. This time, his
sword easily sliced through the beast’s scaly skin and poured dark
blood onto the dead grass. The creature moaned and cried out in
pain, and Blaze responded by slicing its throat. The beast then
fell to the ground and became still.

“Thunder spells weaken their scales,
Crystal!” shouted Thaddeus.

“Got it!” Crystal shouted back. She then
shot a lightning bolt at the monster she and Kerali were fighting
and Thaddeus then did the same to Gavril’s monster. Gavril then
sliced the monster apart, and Kerali unloaded his arrows into the
other. Once the three creatures were dead, Crystal examined one of
the bodies.

“What are they?” she asked Thaddeus.

“I do not know,” he replied.

“I have lived for three centuries and have
killed thousands of monsters, but never have I seen anything like
this,” said Kerali.

Upon further examination, Gavril noticed
something.

“Their eyes are blood red, and I feel the
same dark presence as I did with the Eye of Gaull when we first saw
it in the City of Magi,” said Gavril.

“Yes, you’re right,” Crystal said
softly.

“What do you mean? I do not sense this
presence you speak of,” said Kerali.

“The Eye of Gaull can only be used by a
human, so it only tempts the humans who go near it, but elves,
dwarves, and others are not affected.” Thaddeus explained, “There
is no doubt about it; there is indeed a shard in these ruins.”

“So what about the monsters?” asked
Gavril.

“This is only a hunch, but perhaps the
monsters are demons, possibly even followers that sold their souls
to Gaull, that are protecting the shard,” the old mage
supposed.

“Why protect it? Wouldn’t they want it to be
found?” asked Crystal.

“I do not know. Like I stated, it is only a
hunch,” replied Thaddeus.

“At least we know how to kill them, now.”
said Crystal, who then stood and looked at the ruins and added,
“Let’s head inside, and we’d better watch for any more of these
demons, just in case.”

The five of them then grouped together still
grasping their weapons and ventured cautiously inside. Crystal held
a small fire in her hand above her head to light the way, and
Thaddeus lit his staff behind the rest of the group. They walked
through what used to be the foyer, their every footstep creaking on
the rotting wood floor. They tried a few different rooms around the
ground level, but some rooms were inaccessible due to the massive
damage.

Suddenly, another demon appeared. Crystal
used her thunder spell and stunned it while Blaze attacked it with
his sword and Kerali shot it with arrows. They soon found that the
deeper into the ruins they ventured, the more demons appeared.

“We have to be getting close,” said
Crystal.

Room by room they walked on with no sign of
the shard. The rebels were becoming tired from fighting all of the
demons, but they knew that the shard had to be close. They finally
came to what looked like a kitchen area that led to an archway
where the rebels assumed a back door used to be.

“We’ve looked in every room that we could
get to.” said Crystal, “So the shard has to be in the
backyard.”

Once they stepped outside, they could see
numerous old trees against the night sky and a dense, overgrown
hedge that lined the property. There were dead bushes and a
cobblestone walkway that led further to the back of the
property.

“This must have been a garden at some
point,” said Gavril.

“I feel the dark presence further towards
the back of the property.” said Crystal, “Let’s find our way
there.”

The rebels followed the walkway, which
twisted and turned around rows of bushes and trees almost like a
maze. The group could see old and crumbled statues that once
resembled human form, but now had fallen apart from years of decay.
Dead leaves crunched under their feet as they walked, but it was
the only sound they heard other than the cool wind.

The group eventually came across the end of
the walkway. They stopped a few feet away from an old fountain that
lay against the hedge. A faint red glow came from the dirty water,
and when Crystal inched closer, she could see the shard.

“It’s here! The shard is in the fountain!”
she called out.

No sooner than Crystal said this, however,
did a voice say, “Thank you for finding it for us.”

The rebels turned around to see none other
than Saitar. He was no longer wearing his elder robe, of course. He
now wore a black robe with silver trim and carried his staff like a
walking cane.

“What are you doing here, traitor?!” yelled
Thaddeus.

“Oh I didn’t come alone,” replied Saitar.
After he said this, half a dozen high ranked soldiers jumped over
the hedges and landed near the rebels. Perun had also appeared on
top of the fountain. He had somehow slipped past the rebels without
either of them being aware and now had his hands on the shard.

“We are here to take this back to our king,
and we owe you for doing the work for us,” said the dark elf from
atop the fountain. He then jumped forward into the air, flipped and
twisted around in midair, and then landed next to Saitar facing the
rebels.

“My, my, Prince Blaze, you look different!”
Saitar exclaimed, “Your father has been looking for you. I am here
to personally escort you back to the castle.”

“Forget it,” Blaze snapped.

“Oh? You refuse?” Saitar asked
curiously.

“Does that asshole really think I’ll go
running back to him like a lost puppy? Does he really think I’ll
forget the way he tossed me aside, drop everything, and be his
bitch again? You can tell your king that he’d better watch his
back, because if he doesn’t, he’ll find my sword plunged into it!”
Blaze threatened.

“I see. Well then, if you refuse to comply,
I have been given orders to kill you,” replied Saitar.

“And to bring the rest of you filthy rebels
into custody,” added Perun.

“Just try and defeat us!” Gavril
shouted.

“With pleasure,” replied Saitar.

The former elder then launched a wave of
rock and dirt that came up from the ground in a path towards
Crystal. She blocked the flying earth with a force field and
counterattacked with icicles that flew around and shot at Saitar
from the side. He blocked the ice with his robe, but Thaddeus had
attacked with a lightning strike from his hand from the other
direction, catching Saitar off guard.

The shock knocked him off of his feet, and
so Perun attempted to attack Thaddeus while his comrade was down.
Gavril, however, stepped in the way and blocked Perun’s attack.
Kerali also teamed up with Gavril against the dark elf. The elf
hurled arrow after arrow at the dark elf and was attempting to
distract him so that Gavril may grab the shard.

Blaze had begun fighting three soldiers at
once while Crystal fended off the other three. Crystal managed to
incapacitate two of them with various spells, and it wasn’t long
before she was able to defeat the third. She turned to Blaze in
time to see him kill the last of his opponents by making him stab
himself with his own blade.

“Must you use so much force?” she
yelled.

“It’s either us or them! I choose us!” he
yelled back. He then ran in Perun’s direction to attempt to grab
the shard.

Perun slowly became overwhelmed by everyone
attacking him, especially since he only had one hand free. Crystal
could see that he may cave in, but she looked to Thaddeus first. He
was fending off Saitar well, but the rogue elder was younger and
quicker, so Crystal decided to jump in to help her mentor.

Saitar was trying to help Perun, but with
Crystal and Thaddeus keeping him busy, he could not defend his
comrade. It wasn’t long before Kerali’s arrows distracted the
general to the point at which he lost focus and allowed Blaze to
plunge his sword straight through his chest. The Gaull shard slid
out of Perun’s arm and rolled in the dead grass. The dark elf then
fell to the ground and bled to death.

Blaze grabbed the shard, held it up, and
shouted, “I’ve got it!”

Crystal turned to face him, at which point
Saitar quickly took advantage and shot a gust of intense wind at
her.

“Crystal!” yelled Thaddeus as he jumped in
her way. He was hit by the wind and fell to the ground hard, and so
Crystal quickly rushed to his side.

Saitar then teleported next to Blaze and
grabbed his neck with one hand and the shard with the other. The
two struggled against the other, but before anyone could rush to
help Blaze, a blast of energy emitted from Saitar’s hand that
gripped the prince’s throat. Blaze was knocked to his back by the
force of the blast and Saitar didn’t waste a second after grabbing
the shard and disappeared before anyone could yell, “stop!”

CHAPTER 8

Once Saitar had disappeared with the shard,
Thaddeus suggested that they cremate the bodies of Perun and the
other soldiers that were killed. Crystal agreed to help him,
stating that even though they were enemies, it was not right to
just leave their bodies to decay out in the open.

“I’ll kill the unconscious ones so they
don’t go crawling back to Bogdan,” Blaze offered.

“You’ve done enough needless killing for one
day,” Crystal remarked.

Instead, once the soldiers awoke, Crystal
informed them that their leader abandoned them. When they realized
that the rebels had spared their lives, the soldiers begged for
forgiveness. Crystal informed them that if they wanted redemption,
they could join the rebels. The soldiers agreed to do so, but
claimed that they needed to get their families out of harm’s way.
An agreement was made that a group of rebels would meet them back
at the village once they had their families and bring them all to
the hideout to start new lives.

Though disappointed by the loss in the
ruins, when the rebels returned to the village, Crystal assured
them that it did not mean defeat.

“They only have one shard that we know of.”
she said, “As long as we can get our hands on just one, it would
mean that they didn’t have them all, so the Eye of Gaull cannot be
used.”

“You are far too optimistic,” replied Blaze,
who walked past Crystal without looking at her.

“Sometimes you have to look at the glass
half full, lad,” replied Thaddeus.

“Well, I think we should stay here for the
night.” said Crystal, “There is an inn right down the road. I will
go ask the owner if there is a vacancy.”

“I will let my men know that they can rest
too,” said Gavril.

“Good idea,” responded Crystal.

Once the innkeeper heard from Crystal that
the monsters were no longer a threat to the village, he gladly let
the rebels stay the night for free, even though Crystal objected.
Even when she asked the innkeeper if he needed help cleaning or
cooking, he would not hear of it. He was quite amiable and insisted
that the other villagers would be just as thankful for their deed
as he was.

“It is the least I can do for you and your
team mates,” said the kindly old innkeeper.

“I appreciate your generosity. We will try
not to be a burden,” Crystal replied graciously.

Crystal was given a smaller, separate room
to herself. The innkeeper’s jolly wife insisted that she take their
daughter’s old bedroom because she felt it was not proper for a
young lady to share a room with a group of men. Even though Crystal
didn’t think anything of that sort of thing, she was still grateful
to have privacy.

Gavril’s men were given one room and Gavril,
Blaze, Thaddeus, and Kerali were given another. Each room had four
narrow beds that were each covered with fresh, linen sheets and
feather pillows. The walls were decorated in old, dull-colored
wallpaper. When the men lay on the beds to sleep, they noticed that
the beds weren’t very comfortable, but still better than the beds
at the hideout.

“It’s better than sleeping on the dirt
outside,” Gavril claimed.

“I have slept on worse things than dirt in
my younger years.” replied Thaddeus, “Try a prison cell in
Dwyp.”

“You’ve been imprisoned by dark elves?”
Kerali inquired curiously.

“Yes, forty-five years ago.” replied
Thaddeus, “I traveled quite a bit in my youth and I went to Dwyp
with my brother to find an artifact for the High Elder at the time.
Needless to say, we were captured by the king’s men and locked into
his dungeon for trespassing.”

“I never knew that about you;” replied
Gavril, “That must have been terrible!”