A Gleaming Path Page 23

  That would be what determined the fate of their quest, Raissa knew. She had no doubts that she and Alamor could acquire Ralu’s Radia when reunited, but whether or not they actually would be reunited was still a question with no sure answer.

  Raissa felt fear and anticipation boil inside of her as the day wore on. The time was coming to see if Alamor had attained an understanding of his immense Serenity, if he had truly overcome the numerous doubts and hardships that for so long kept him from realizing his boundless potential.

  Only then would there be hope to rescue Tordale from Baldaron’s darkness.

  Raissa had to believe that she would be reunited with Alamor, soon enough.

  She spent so much time contemplating Alamor’s role in their desired success that she barely perceived the hours pass by during their trek. It felt to her as if they had just left their campsite when her thoughts were interrupted by Joth’s proclamation that they had at last come upon the Sandstone Mausoleum.

  As Raissa’s focus came back to the world around her, she was not sure at first if she believed Joth. All that she saw in the distance was a gigantic ridge that spanned much of the horizon. The land behind it appeared to climb from the desert floor, ascending into mountainous masses of solid rock—surely the place where the continent began to grow into the Tower Mountains.

  Then her eyes discerned more features of the ridge. A façade carved into its rocky surface became apparent to her. A series of steps ran up to the gaping entryway, the stairs rising fifty feet or more to the arched pinnacle. An obelisk fashioned out of the ridge’s reddish rock stood on each side of the yawning gate, their tall forms culminating in a pointed tip.

  With each step that they took toward the ridge, Raissa began to sense the spirits that still dwelled inside the Sandstone Mausoleum. Many were those of Spiritcasters from long ago, whose souls had descended to the ancient monument, surely to watch over the awesome magic that had been hidden with its halls.

  Raissa’s party stopped no more than a hundred yards from the steps that led up to the Sandstone Mausoleum’s entryway. Each member of their group took a moment to marvel at the incredible structure that was carved by bare hands some hundreds of years ago.

  “This is the place that you have been seeking?” Elisstriss asked aloud.

  “It is,” Joth confirmed. He breathed something of a sigh of relief. “I’ve stood here many times before, but this is certainly the happiest I’ve ever been to finally see that entrance.”

  Dayneth approached Joth until she stood side by side with him. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “You have done a great job in guiding us this whole time. We would not be here right now without you.”

  Joth smiled, even though it did not appear entirely sincere. “Well, I thank you for that, but I’d rather you commend me once our mission is finally accomplished. As it is, our work is only half done.” He then looked at Raissa. “Isn’t that right, your Highness?”

  Raissa nodded, but she did not turn her eyes from the enormous entry upon the ridge. “We will have to wait before we even begin to complete that task, though.”

  “You mean to wait for your other companions to arrive,” Elisstriss said, not so much of a question as it was a statement. “And especially for your friend, Alamor.”

  “That’s right,” Raissa confirmed. “That is the only way we will obtain the magic hidden inside those walls.”

  Without so much as a glance at the others, Raissa turned and walked off. To her relief, she heard no questions or cries of protest from any of them as she left the group. Evidently, they understood what she was heading off to do.

  She finally stopped when she came to the top of a high rising sand dune. She had not walked terribly far from her companions, only enough that she could not hear them, or that they would not distract her.

  Raissa gazed into the depths of the desert. The flat, sandy floor seemed to run on forever into the hazy horizon, which was blurred by the scorching heat. Somewhere out there in that vast region, Alamor, Tridian, and their other companions were attempting to make their way to the very spot where she stood.

  You can do this, Alamor, Raissa thought.

  She took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she began to invoke her Serenity. The magic welled up quickly at her command, but it was only the beginning of what she intended to call to her aid. Raissa fell into a state of focus so deep that her consciousness was soon lost to the world around her. She dug deep into her magical reserves, gathering Serenity from all corners of her being and collecting it into one stupendous measure.

  When she was confident that she had summoned enough, she cast it from her physical form. It was a voiceless cry, a proclamation without words that roared into the desert ahead of her. Raissa’s link flew far from where she stood, echoing across the barren land in search of her lost companions.

  Just as it had been the times before, she felt like she traveled with it, soaring alongside the magical message in its flight. She saw each and every mile that her call journeyed over, like a rushing wind over the seemingly endless land of sand of rock.

  Raissa sensed several signs of life during her pursuit—harmless animals like the Grimali, dangerous beasts like the Kaivu, even a handful of humans who happened to be roaming the harsh desert, but none who could receive and understand her message. She continued to stretch her magical call until time became a distant memory to her, and she no longer recognized its passing as she searched for Alamor.

  It could have been hours, even days for all she knew, when she detected a pair of magical presences many leagues away from where her body still stood. Both presences revealed incredible Serenity, but one was far greater than the other, and it was bolstered by a pure, sacred power of unfathomable magnitude.

  She saw him, and he was not alone.

  Through the eyes of her Serenity, Raissa watched Alamor, Tridian, Tiroku, Rawner, Hinton, and Pauma march across the Arid Reaches.

  18

  Even larger than one of the wolves that roamed the Plains of Oston, and with ocher fur that allowed it to blend in with its sandy environment, the Dunehound was one of the most cunning predators in the Arid Reaches.

  The wild dog followed the Gritback’s scent, its long legs slinking across the sand. The smell grew more potent with every step, telling the Dunehound that it did not need to go far before it would find its intended meal. It moved so delicately that its padded paws hardly disrupted the sand beneath them—the act of a silent hunter that kept it from giving prey any warning of its arrival. The Dunehound’s stealthy movements were so discrete that its footfalls were inaudible even to humans. It was not especially common for the desert beast to hunt humans, but if it was desperate enough for sustenance, or it happened upon one that seemed vulnerable, the Dunehound was more than capable of bringing down a grown man.

  Although the meal that the wild dog sought right now would not be quite as filling, it would suffice. The Dunehound plunged its long snout into the sand, reaching far enough to capture the idle Gritback in its jaws.

  The Gritback was dead before it was pulled from the ground. The Dunehound’s powerful fangs crushed the insect’s exoskeleton with ease and sliced into the soft, juicy flesh beneath. The Dunehound let its quarry fall to the ground and steadied the Gritback with a paw as saliva oozed from its lips.

  It was about to take its first bite when the Dunehound realized that something was nearby. The wild dog lifted its head and looked out into the desert. It sensed, more so than heard or smelled, whatever moved among the sands in the distance. It was moving closer as the seconds rolled by. Whatever it was, it made the Dunehound’s primal instincts warn of danger.

  The Dunehound was a formidable creature, but it was not without threats in the desert. Another Dunehound could be a dangerous foe, while a rival pack was sure death. If a hungry Kaivu might be pursuing it at that moment, the Dunehound stood no chance.

  The wild dog chose not to risk learning the intruder’s identity. It scooped up the Gritback in
its mouth and scurried off into a nearby ravine, its legs carrying it far away as Baldaron and his army approached.

  The man marched until he came to the very spot where the Dunehond had captured its prey. Baldaron stopped atop the hill, and his Wraithlings and the Baroso came to a halt behind him. Only Golric joined him as he stood and stared out over the desolate expanse. What lay before him looked no different from what he walked for miles in the previous days—a wide, sprawling plain of dusty sand dunes, broken only by occasional formations of gritty rock that struggled to pull themselves from the earth.

  Yet Baldaron knew that he had finally come to a place of significance in the Arid Reaches; not for what lay before him, but for what lay beneath.

  His uncle also realized the importance of where they stood. “It brings back memories for you, doesn’t it?” Golric asked as his thin eyes scanned the empty expanse.

  “Many,” Baldaron answered. “The last time we were here, I was still just a boy.”

  “And not very long after I returned home and found you,” Golric said.

  Baldaron nodded. There was no look of satisfaction over his features; his pale face was bereft of any smile, smirk, or grin. Taking their place was a brooding expression that told of the grim thoughts and memories that filled Baldaron’s mind at that moment.

  A grin crossed Golric’s face, however. “I remember the look in your eyes as we huddled behind the rocks and watched the battle. You showed no fear, no disgust of what we witnessed that day. You were stoic to what you saw, as if you studied it. Any other child, even many men would have been horrified of those sights.”

  “That is because I had witnessed far worse just days earlier,” Baldaron said.

  “Yes, you did,” Golric agreed. “And though you suffered such a cruel fate and had so much taken from you, you were not broken. You became stronger because of it.”

  Even though his uncle spoke with blatant enthusiasm about the darkest chapter in his life, Baldaron was not angered. It was, after all, what eventually brought him and his uncle together, and provided his uncle with a feeling of power and accomplishment that he had been denied for all of his life beforehand. “I suppose that cannot be denied.”

  “Do you remember what it is was that you asked me as we watched all of those men slaughter one another that day?”

  Baldaron recalled the moment in his head; he could hear himself from his youth repeating the question that his uncle referred to. “‘Can Scourge destroy all of those men?’”

  “And do you remember what you said once I told you that it could?”

  “‘Teach me,’” Baldaron answered.

  In that moment, it felt as though Baldaron’s consciousness traveled back through time, flying from the present to take shelter in the traumatized boy who had stood in this same spot so many years ago. When his feet last touched this particular stretch of the desert, he was hardly a week removed from witnessing the horrors that claimed his home and family. He was only in the infancy of his mastery over Scourge.

  Baldaron had already heard Scourge’s whisper even before the first time that he and his uncle came to this plain of sand and dust. He had known it from the very day that he watched his family and friends slaughtered, and his village destroyed, even if he did not understand at the time what wordlessly spoke to him. He also did not yet understand the fiery symbol that mysteriously began to burn on his palm—the fist clutching flames.

  He could not acknowledge, nor respond to Scourge back then, but they were the earliest calls which Baldaron heard to accept the glory of vengeance, of rage. It revealed truths which his faith in the Sages and Serenity had kept hidden from him. With its very first utterances to Baldaron, Scourge told him that it would give back to him what the Sages and Serenity refused to protect, and more.

  His uncle, returning to their village for the first time since venturing to the south to study magic with the Dawnwatch, sensed Scourge’s bubbling presence in Baldaron. Golric enlightened Baldaron that he had been chosen by the incomparable energy, gifted with a power unlike any other in the wake of losing everything else. Scourge had selected Baldaron to reshape what life had stole from him.

  Golric took Baldaron under his wing, fleeing not to the bountiful regions in the south, but further into the Arid Reaches, where war continued to wage. Baldaron and his uncle followed the conflict, bloodshed acting as a beacon. Those countless humans who fell to the carnage served as Baldaron’s stepping stones toward his perfect union with Scourge. The dead allowed him to hone Scourge’s blessing of matter manipulation. The dying offered an even greater bounty to be reaped—the last gasps of life, which taught Baldaron how easily existence could be manipulated.

  The war which tried to take everything from him in turn provided Baldaron his army of Wraithlings, and the strength which allowed him to challenge the limitations that time and space levied upon living beings. With Scourge, Baldaron defied more than just Serenity and the Sages. He defied mortality. He defied fate.

  Scourge gave him a choice which would have otherwise been impossible—to forge the destiny he deserved.

  As Baldaron’s attention returned to the present, Golric seemed to be exuberant over his vivid memory. “You appear to remember that glorious day just as well as I do.”

  “I hope you are not surprised, uncle,” Baldaron said. “That is a day that should be etched into our minds for all eternity. On that day, we began our conquest of this land.”

  Golric turned and swept his beaming eyes over Baldaron’s army. “You’ve come so far in your goal. Many years ago, it was just you and I standing here as we watched those men slay one another. Now, we are joined by an entire army that you have created with your own power.”

  Baldaron also looked out over his ranks. His eyes settled upon his many underlings: Captain Ironbone, Destrala and the Strife Wings, the scores of armored Wraithlings. Years ago, there may have been an army that he watched upon that plain, more than one, at that, but this army before him was one that was solely under his command.

  Eventually, his dark gaze fell to Tauroc and the Rockclaw Baroso.

  “Not all among my army were fashioned by Scourge,” Baldaron said, raising his voice so that the Baroso would hear him. “But they no longer have to consider themselves a part of it, if they choose.”

  The implication behind Baldaron’s words seemed to gradually fall in place for each Baroso warrior. One by one, the glares and scowls that had bent their features for days finally leveled. Many among them glanced about at one another with broadened eyes filled with disbelief.

  Sensing that they had no words in response, Baldaron continued. He looked directly at Tauroc. “I no longer require your tribe to bolster my army. You Baroso are free to return to your home.”

  Tauroc stared back at Baldaron as suspicion began to rise in his beastly eyes. It was as if the Rockclaw Chieftain was unnerved to hear Baldaron address him with such a stoic tone. “So, our pact is finished, then? You will leave my tribe alone after all of this?”

  “You think that I am the most vile being to walk this land, but I abide by any agreement that I ever make,” Baldaron said. “You have offered me your knowledge of the mountain passes, as well as your strength in battle. For that, your kind is safe from my reach as I sweep over the rest of Tordale. At least, so long as you never interfere with any of my plans.”

  “On behalf of my entire tribe, I promise that will not happen,” Tauroc quickly replied, as if he was desperate to gain Baldaron’s approval. “You will never see, nor hear from any of us ever again. We will remain in Rockclaw Rise for the rest of our days.”

  “I trust that you will, but first I wish to show you something before you depart,” Baldaron said. “Do you know what this expanse behind me is?

  “If it bears significance, then I do not,” Tauroc answered.

  “Great significance,” Baldaron said. He turned away from Tauroc and back to the bleak horizon. The chaotic images that he witnessed as a young boy nearly three decades ag
o seemed to manifest themselves before his eyes, once again. “Like so many other corners of this region, the expanse we stand before hides a bloody secret from the past. Years ago, a great battle was waged over these sands, the largest of any recorded during King Aurilion Hokara’s campaign to claim the Arid Reaches under the royal family’s rule. It occurred a few weeks after the Tordalian forces first marched into the desert, when the innumerable tribes of outlaws realized that, individually, they stood no chance before the king’s army. This brought many gangs and other bandit hordes together to create their own army, and they eventually met with the Tordalian forces on this very plain. It was a vicious battle, and although the bandit army was eventually routed, they managed to bring down much of King Aurilion’s army. When it was over, the bodies lay over the desert floor for nearly a league in all directions. It would later come to be known as The Battle of the Red Sands, because for years afterward, the ground was stained with the blood of all those who died.”

  As Baldaron paused, he lifted an arm and pointed his outstretched hand toward the desolate horizon. He silently called forth his Scourge, summoning to his fingertips a multitude of the many souls he harvested throughout his time spreading terror across Tordale. “All of the slain soldiers and bandits were eventually buried over the years,” Baldaron went on, “becoming unceremoniously trapped beneath the shifting sands after giving their lives in battle. But today, they will finally be freed.”

  When his words concluded, so did his spell. At his command, the souls that he called forth flew from his body in arcs of glassy light. They darted forward and into the ground, disappearing beneath the sand. Baldaron felt them travel deep into the earth as he guided them toward their new vessels that lay far below. When the souls came to one, he had them enter and take it as their new entity. The symbol of Scourge materialized somewhere upon their forms.