Chapter Five

The Watching Shadows

The midday sun was high above them by the time they reached the lake in the depths of which they had lain to rest the body of the Voldiner, its radiance barely able to contend with the bitter winter wind that now whipped at their clothes.

Lowering their heads they drank deeply of the cold, crisp clean waters in an effort to remove the clawing dust from their thirst wracked throats, with no mind to the fact that the Voldiner lay trapped within. With their thirst sated they sat in silence for several minutes, both lost in their thoughts.

“We need to eat something Mark,” said Richard as he raised himself to his haunches, his stomach growling at the mention of food.

“Should we head back to the city? Or do we stay away?” asked Mark, starring at the huge dome that dominated the nearby skyline.

“Our only chance of finding out what’s going on here is to go back to the city and see what we can find. If we’re free from this magic then maybe others are to,” Richard replied knowing that it would be highly unlikely that someone else had one of Benedict’s star charms.

Taking one last drink from the lake they headed back towards the domed city.

***

Deep beneath the surface of the icy cold waters, the dead eyes of the Voldiner looked heavenwards from his silver tomb in which it had been laid to rest. Around him there was movement, unseen in the impenetrable darkness.

***

When they finally reached the city walls the sun was low on the horizon, its fading light reflecting orange and red on the underside of the clouds that were beginning to gather in the west, an ominous sign to those that believed in such things, heralding the approach of dusk. Their legs were heavy with fatigue as the pangs of hunger wracked their stomachs.

On their return journey they had decided that to return to their home and the place of the Voldiner’s apparent murder wouldn’t be the safest of options, so re-entering the city via the tunnel beneath the Maggoty Apple they cautiously headed for the watch house where Mark had been on duty.

The dark eerily still nightscape offered them all the shadows they required to move stealthily through the city, and providing them with sanctuary on the several occasions they had turned down side streets to see shadowy figures, some chanting and emanating huge amounts of magic, crossing the junctions ahead followed closely by between six to ten heavily armed men.

One of these occasion’s saw the black cowed figure start in their direction along the street, and as they stood there in the shadows, their hearts beating faster and their swords prepared to strike, they noticed that despite the fact that the figure was coming towards them there seemed to be no discernible movement, as if it were floating on a cushion of air. It was barely ten foot away from them when it turned to its right and disappeared down an obscured side alley, leaving the brothers sweating and breathing heavily having thought that they had been discovered. Richard had felt no sense of magic before and after it had vanished from sight, and this made him uneasy, for they could have been upon it before they had known and only luck had prevented that. Then creeping from shadow to shadow they continued on their way, whilst above them the deep shadows amongst the roofs shifted slightly.

Several more times they had to stop and remain silent within the shadows, waiting for the enemy, for that was what they had come to think of them as, to pass them by.

Finally they reached the watch house that marked the beginning of the merchant quarter of the city, which like everywhere else in the city, was silent and still. They entered the long single story building cautiously and found, like in the village of Voldith, that everyone was frozen in whatever task they had been undertaking, whether it was eating, washing or playing cards.

Something wasn’t right thou.

They stood and stared at the scene around and it took a while for it to come to him, but when it did Richard’s heart almost stopped.

Every single man was dead.

They were frozen in their tasks yes, but each man had had either his throat slit or had been stabbed in one of the vital organs and some in several.

Anger flared inside Richard.

Mark too could see that something was wrong with scene and when Richard pointed it out to him his eyes filled with sadness, which quickly turned to anger.

Richard placed a hand on Marks shoulder. “Do you know their families?” he asked assuming they were his men.

“No,” replied Mark, “These are not from my unit. My men were attached to another unit and sent on a training exercise to the west two days ago. I was kept here so that I could receive special training,” he added in justification.

Recovering from the shock of what lay before them, and bringing their anger under control they started to look around, gathering weapons and supplies, eager to be gone from this carnal house to be.

Richard passed through a door at the back of the room and into the kitchen to gather some food. There sat at the table, with a spoon raised to her mouth, was the cook her lips pursed ready to gingerly taste the full bowl of hot vegetable soup sat on the table before her; he knew it was hot by the steam that hung frozen in the air above it like an early morning spring mist on the western beaches. To Richard’s relief she appeared unharmed.

Richard stuck his finger in the bowl, “Sorry cook,” he said as he raised his finger to his mouth just as Mark entered the kitchen.

“Everyone is the same,” he said indicating with his thumb the other rooms that he had checked. “But what I don’t understand is why they are like this now when they were ok when I left here earlier.”

“It must have been that light that passed through us last night, everything seems to have stopped at about that time wouldn’t you agree?” said Richard, dipping his finger back into the bowl of broth.

“You know, now that you come to mention it, I think your right,” answered Mark drool beginning to form in his mouth at the sight of the soup.

“The next question then is where is the magic coming from, and why?” said Richard. “It seemed to be coming from the centre of the town, where that column of light is, but to get there would be too risky as these “shadows,” would surely be concentrated around such a powerful source of magic and the darkness will only offer us so much protection, but not enough to get close I fear.”

Mark just nodded and with that thought in their heads they gathered some food together from the larder and sat down at the table to eat. When they had finished they discussed what they would do next.

“To be honest I think we should try and find Benedict, he seemed to know something was happening before he disappeared,” Richard began.

“But where do we start looking for him? And what about mum?” queried Mark.

“To the north, far to the north that’s where I believe he re-appeared, so unless we come across information otherwise I think that’s where we should head,” Richard replied. “As to mum, she will be ok. The cook is ok and so were the old man and woman in Voldith, so I think they are only killing the city guard. Besides we need to move fast,” he added, implying that she would slow them down.

“And how do we get there?” Mark asked, knowing that his brother was right, but still feeling uncomfortable about leaving her behind. “No-one has been there in living memory, the mountains bar our way not to mention the ice and snow.”

“We can start to walk and hope to come across some horses that aren’t frozen like the ones around here, and then make our way as best we can, for everything outside of these domes seems to be unaffected,” Richard replied. “As for the mountains, snow and ice I do not know,” he added shrugging in shoulders.

They were silent for a few minutes then Richard spoke. “Go and get together a couple of travel packs with warm clothing and I’ll get some food together, we need to get moving as something big is happening and I don’t know what it is or how much time we have. We can go through the north gate as the guards should be frozen, that should save us some time.”

With that they went about their tasks and met in the kitchen twenty minutes later. Mark handed Richard a belt with a knife, a quiver of arrows and a bow.

The exquisitely carved bow was made from wood from the sacred yeoman tree, said to have been planted by the gods in the days before memory and tended by the silver monks in the high valleys of the east, an order that spent years purifying their minds and bodies before venturing forth into the tainted world to do good. As such they were untouched by any save the monks until the wood was hewn from the tree and de-sanctified for the making of bows.

The bows made from this wood were so fine that they could shoot an arrow through a boat at ten paces and thus were highly prized and priced. How Mark had come across them Richard never asked, but he supposed he ‘found them under a tree’ as was his want sometimes to Richard’s dismay.

“We might need these as we have a long way to go and we have no idea what we will encounter,” Mark said.

“Good idea,” replied Richard as he handed Mark a parcel of food and packing his own into his pack.

Then they secured their packs and weapons about their person and going to the front door took a deep breath. Richard eased the door open and glanced outside. All seemed clear and the magic he could detect was coming from other parts of the city.

They quietly slipped into the shadows and headed for the north gate, avoiding the main streets that led to the centre of town, keeping to the shadows as had become the habit.

***

When they had left the watch house and passed some distance down the street, the cowed Shadow silently detached itself from a doorway opposite.

The figure appeared thoughtful, in that it paused and stared at the departing men, and then it followed again at a distance blending into the night.

***

With the departure of the men and the Shadow another shadow detached itself from the rooftops where it had remained unseen. This Shadow was different; it was smaller, being about the size of an eight year old boy that moved with the fluid grace of a cat and consisted more of shades of green-grey rather than black.

It watched as the two brothers slid silently into the darkness followed by the Shadow, and then it slipped into the open watch house. Several seconds later it slipped back into the darkness and darted off in the direction that the others had taken, its sleek outline now distorted by several lumps.

***

It took them a couple of hours to traverse the dark dead city and reach the north gate, for they had to skirt around its centre, and in doing so avoid the Shadows and their armed guards.

For the first time since they had disposed of the Voldiner’s body they began to encounter groups of frozen people, the majority of who were staring and pointing towards the sky and the column of light in apparent terror.

As they approached the manned gate they could see that the guards here were frozen in their task, their backs to the light, leaning on their spears and talking to a couple of travellers wanting access to the city.

Mark noticed that one of the travellers was holding his cloak tightly to his side as if trying to hide something, which started alarm bells ringing in his head, as he had seen to many men like these over the years in the dark, dangerous streets and alleys. Added to this was the fact that over the last few days groups of men numbering no more than four had been seen moving around the city and leaving at odd hours. This had been noted by the guard but nothing was done as they had broken no law that they knew of.

If only someone had stopped them maybe all this could have been avoided, Mark thought darkly.

Richard’s attention on the other hand was on the guards slit throats, only the slightest red giving any indication that anything was wrong. He knew that there was nothing that they could do, save find Benedict, so the two men passed the gate and the barrier beyond and broke into a trot, so as to cover the distance to the shelter of the foothills in as quickly a time as possible to avoid detection.

When they reached the cover offered by the foothills, they stopped and turned back to look at the city gates, scanning the area for signs of pursuit. The city gates, which were dark and menacing as was befitting city gates, silently stared back at them as nothing in the city moved, or appeared to move, so turning north they headed into fertile volcanic farmlands.

***

The shadow stayed hidden in the darkness of the gates and watched as the two men faded into the night. It had watched as they had gathered their supplies and headed across the city. Even when faced with such events as were around them, the men had kept their heads and remained cautious.

That is what made these two dangerous, that and the fact they were still able to move when no others could.

For half an hour it stood there motionless watching the men travel the foothills, until they disappeared from view, then it lifted its head and let forth a cry of such anger and hate, that if anyone had been near they would have been in fear of their lives.

The cry was answered by two more, different from the first, from somewhere in the city. Then all was silent, and the shadow headed after the two men tracking their scent on the wind.

***

The sleek green-grey shadow watched as those that it had been tracking disappeared into the hills; they would have to fend for themselves.

The cry from the Shadow had taken it by surprise, causing it to almost reveal itself. It had only lasted a mere moment, but in that fraction of a second it knew that it was the most dangerous thing that it had come across. At the thought an image of the fully armoured Benedict flashed before its eyes.

The second most dangerous it amended.

It flicked its wrists and two long sleek daggers appeared in its shadowed hands.

It wasn’t happy; they had taken away its trade.

Someone needed to pay.

It knew exactly who that would be.

It would keep a tally and the city would pay later in coin.

It slipped into the shadows and headed for the centre of the city where the Shadows were mainly gathered, the warm glow from the pendent around its neck comforting in the cold, dark, windless night, ready to ply its deadly trade.