Estimates put the number of Evestani forces within Elmshadow Burg upward of seven thousand soldiers. Hawkwood had seven hundred under his command. Arkk had three hundred. They were outnumbered, but that wasn’t a problem.
Everything hinged on the avatar. Without the avatar, Arkk would be able to launch bombardment magic with impunity and the tower could walk right up to the burg’s walls, forcing a surrender. Or, failing to get their surrender, simply bombard them to dust.
For that reason, Lexa stole through the burg’s streets. There was no wind in the air, yet the shadowy cloak Arkk had gifted her billowed around her, fluttering against the stillness. It moved as if it had a mind of its own, melding with the shadows of the buildings she neared and drawing her toward spots that would hide her presence. Combined with her own magics that kept others from noticing her, it was enough to make Lexa burst out laughing. Or, it would have been enough if laughing wouldn’t have ruined the effect.
She felt utterly invisible. Completely undetectable. Not just the kind of unnoticeable that someone not paying all that much attention would ignore.
The crunch of boots against a worn road made Lexa freeze. Caught out between buildings, she had nothing to hide behind but the dilapidated remnants of a market stall. It had been broken and trashed, leaving little more than a few planks of wood standing upright with some torn and ripped cloth limply dangling from where the canopy had been. Even a gremlin of her stature wouldn’t be able to hide behind it.
A patrol of a dozen guards, one of many that she had slipped past so far, marched right past the market stall. A few of the guards even looked directly at her as she stood frozen, only half behind the stall.
Close enough to watch their eyes, Lexa held her breath as they focused on one thing to one side of her then immediately slid their eyes to the other side of her. They didn’t so much as blink. In a moment, the patrol was gone down another street, leaving Lexa stifling laughter.
This thing was amazing.
Arkk had warned her not to test it against the avatar, if at all possible. She could certainly see the reasoning in that. They knew that the avatar could detect some level of planar magic, given that it had attacked Arkk while he had been teleporting people out of Gleeful Burg. They didn’t know if it could detect this shadow magic too.
But right now? Lexa felt she could single-handedly end this war here and now. The avatar might be a worthy foe, but what good would the avatar be if Lexa slit the throats of every single soldier in the burg?
It was a bit difficult to keep a realistic outlook on things with this cloak on. There was no way she would kill more than a hundred before Evestani’s spellcasters or the avatar found some way of detecting her. She had a mission. It had specific parameters. Risking that mission was not acceptable.
Lexa moved on, letting the cloak guide her from spot to spot as she advanced further into Elmshadow Burg.
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“Careful with that!” Hakk’ar hissed as clay met stone a little harder than expected.
He ducked down, running his fingers along the outside of the clay pot. Not feeling any cracks or leaking, he let out a small sigh before turning a harsh glare on Livva.
“If the boss didn’t want them broken, he would have made them stronger,” she said, turning aside without the barest hint of shame.
“You fool. You weren’t at Gleeful. You didn’t see what these things can do. If these things go off, we’re dead. Even that little girl’s healing magic won’t be enough to save us.”
Livva huffed but she sent a wary glance at the tall clay pot anyway.
It stood at roughly waist height with two handles on either side of a circular lid. The lid had notches on its surface. Although three large clamps kept the lid from being removed, they did not stop its ability to rotate. Twisting the lid to a certain point would activate some small magical array deep within. Hakk’ar didn’t pretend to understand it.
He just knew not to be anywhere nearby when that magical array started up.
“He’s right,” Joanne said. The human stepped up behind them, carrying her own clay pot along with another human that Hakk’ar didn’t recognize. Company Al-Mir had grown quite a bit since the war’s start and he hadn’t bothered keeping up with every single person who signed on. “If you weren’t listening during the briefing, I don’t need you on my team. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Livva said with a slight curl of her lip. Just enough to show off a little extra tooth.
If Joanne saw that as the threat it was, she didn’t make any outward show of it. She brushed by with the other human and set their pot down near the other one.
Both looked relieved to be done with the job, but Joanne didn’t double over panting like the other human. She straightened her back, kept her breathing steady, and glared around the tight corridor.
If Hakk’ar was being honest, he was surprised that a little human woman could carry one of the pots. Joanne was a little over half his size and yet, she had to be hiding some muscle under her gear.
Hakk’ar idly wondered what it would take to get a look under her cloak. Humans were often a little too prudish about that kind of thing. Ask an orc and they would either be happy to go for a toss or simply shut the idea down. No further complications. Humans, Hakk’ar thought, think too much.
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Lexa dropped down, cloak billowing about her as it drew the shadows close. She stared into the defaced church with a frown on her face.
On the outside edge of the keep’s inner wall stood a tall church. It had seen better days. Most churches had white-washed walls, keeping them gleaming, and several golden symbols overlaid on top of the bell tower. Today, soot marred more of the walls than not. It wasn’t an intentional thing, just a consequence of Elmshadow having experienced a few fires.
What was intentional was the bell tower’s golden symbols. Normally, there were three distinct symbols. The Luminous Mandala, a complex set of geometric symbols—normally simplified into a series of concentric circles—was said to represent the Light. The other two didn’t have specific names but were said to represent and honor fallen gods.
The Luminous Mandala and one of the other symbols had been blasted off the sides of the church. That left just one set of gold metal in the rough shape of a rectangular, angled spiral with long lines radiating out from the center, joining at the corners of the spiral.
She had never been a pious sort. Some among Katja’s crew were. How could the sun shine every day if not for the Light’s grace, and all that. The world would come to an end if not for the powers above, and so on. Imagine her surprise when Arkk claimed that the gods were real.
Of course, that was still second-hand information. But Arkk didn’t seem all that pious himself. He spoke of the gods more as things that simply existed and could be interacted with rather than almighty beings that existed in an intangible sort of way, passively influencing the world.
Regardless of the status of the gods, Lexa didn’t much care for the defacing of the church. She was much more interested in the interior.
The church had one large room with a high ceiling and rows of wooden pews. Religious iconography adorned practically every surface. Most, except for those geometric spirals, had been defaced along with the exterior.
Although the Abbey of the Light didn’t discuss the other gods all that often, Lexa had a feeling that she knew to whom those rectangular spirals belonged.
The pews had been arranged to make something of a central area. A dozen children sat within, huddled together with nothing but rough, woolen blankets to keep out the cold. Aged between ten and fifteen years of age—probably, Lexa wasn’t the best at judging human ages—not a single one looked happy. They looked downright miserable. Their faces were unwashed and covered in various levels of filth, which just made the tear streaks on their faces all the more obvious.
Every single one of them had their heads shaved with tattoos that were obviously fresh, leaving the skin still raw and red in places. They were… a week old? Give or take. They had probably been applied around the same time as the expanded fog around the city in the scrying balls. The tattoos were rectangular boxes that adorned the crowns of their heads. Now that she saw the symbols around the church, she could easily compare the similarity.
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That was it. Lexa hadn’t found the avatar yet but she had more than one objective. This was one of the secondary things Arkk had asked her to look out for.
Guards stood at the doors of the church. They didn’t look like they were protecting the children so much as they were acting as their warden. Which wasn’t what Lexa had expected. These… hosts of the avatar were not volunteers. They weren’t enamored to be here, they weren’t honored for their sacrifice or gifted with lavish rewards for their service.
Lexa ran a gloved thumb against a blade beneath her cloak, biting her lip…
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“Disgusting thing.”
“Quiet. What if it hears you?”
“I wouldn’t much care,” Abbess Hannah said, glowering.
A blob of black tar and slime dragged itself down the corridor. Its eyes, small and yellow like miniature stars, bubbled and popped, only to reform and repeat the process. A gap in its side opened up, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth shaped like the tip of a blade. Tendrils dug into the wall of dirt and rock, breaking it apart with smaller maws before dragging the bulk of the mass down into the void in its side.
Once enough of the wall had been eaten, it slopped to the ground. Tendrils pulled it forward, dragging its mass over the top of itself. The maw that had eaten most of the wall ended up smashed against the floor as the rest of it oozed along the top. That opening sealed shut, returning to the formless mass of the rest of the creature until it came to a stop against the wall of rock. There, it broke down and consumed the wall.
A second of the creatures followed along behind the first, undulating and squirming in a foul dance that, through magics unknown, formed smooth tiles, glowstones, and brickwork in place of the raw earth.
Occasionally, more of the servants would arrive and start digging in a different direction, creating branching paths that seemed far too easy to get lost in.
Continuing in that manner, they carved out a long tunnel beneath the Elm mountains.
Abbess Hannah, despite her revulsion, continued following behind the pair of creatures. Vector and his squad of battlecasters walked alongside her with a large detachment of soldiers spread through the corridor around them.
Ever since following Richter in his idealistic goal of doing what was right rather than what was ordered, Hannah had been somewhat at odds with their leader. Not with what they were doing. Evestani and the heretics of the Golden Order were a blight on the Duchy. It was the methods through which they were accomplishing their goals that Hannah took umbrage with.
“It is quite a fascinating creature,” Vector said. The squat man with perpetually sleepy eyes barely blinked upon first seeing one of the monsters. Rather, it looked like he wanted to try poking it. “Makes you wonder what all exists in this world that you’ve never seen.”
“I don’t think it is a creature of this world at all. It is an invader. An abomination. It scurries in the dark of these tunnels to avoid the wrathful gaze of the Light.”
“No. I don’t think so,” Vector said with a shake of his head. “They were moving all around the tower as we exited it, up on the surface. Didn’t you see?”
Hannah grimaced. Despite having traveled inside it for the last several weeks, she tried her best not to think of that tower. Upon first laying eyes on it, she had urged Richter to abandon this Arkk heretic. But Richter was too blinded by his idealism and desire to be the hero of the Duchy. The one who fended off the Evestani army—or at least played a large part in it—and Company Al-Mir offered him exactly what he wanted to hear.
To be fair, it wasn’t like abandoning Company Al-Mir would have changed anything. That tower would have marched without them. Although sizable in a vacuum, those who followed Richter were too small to make a difference in the end.
Hannah had considered departing on her own. In the end, love for the soldiers she had grown close to during the war kept her where she was. They needed guidance. Especially in times like these, with company like this.
The Abbess closed her eyes as she waited for the creature to consume another section of the earth around them, devouring the very world they lived upon. She flipped through her mental library, seeking an appropriate passage for the situation she found herself in. In these dim corridors, with an approaching battle against heretics with heretics at their side, there had to be something she could say.
She was an abbess. It wasn’t a particularly high rank among the Abbey of the Light. Barely above that of an acolyte. A bishop, oracle, disciple, or adept would know how to bolster the spirits of those around them even while surrounded by monsters. It would come to them naturally, as if granted divine inspiration by the Light Itself. Hannah had studied the holy texts, the history of the Abbey, and the ways of the Light. She just lacked that spark of inspiration.
Then it hit her.
A passage in an old scroll she had discovered.
“Remember the words of the Prophetess Aeliana as she spoke in the Canticles of the Dawning Sun. ’Even in the company of shadows, the Light shall be your shield and your spear. It is not the nature of our ally, but the righteousness of our cause that sanctifies our coming battle.”
Hannah’s voice carried through the corridor. It carried far further than she had anticipated or wanted. She could feel the way the soldiers and battlecasters around her fell into silence, looking at her as if she were about to speak something utterly profound.
Her jaw locked up and nerves bolted her lips closed. She was no stranger to public speaking. She had offered plenty of sermons in the ten years she had served as an abbess. Yet here and now, she swallowed, feeling trapped by her sudden outburst.
These were men who were about to go to war. Not just war, but a battle with the odds stacked against them. She along with them, as their healer and support.
They waited in silence, staring, waiting for inspiration or words of comfort. A blessing for the battle ahead.
Hannah drew in a breath. “We stand on the precipice of a battle that may well decide the fate of our lands. Among us…” She pressed her lips together, narrowing her eyes in the direction of the corridor’s end. Her eyes then flicked over the mass of soldiers to another creature. One creature too tall to fit in the large corridor upright, had all six of its arms spread out. “Creatures of ancient might and magic beyond our ken. Our alliance with these beings, born of necessity, does not tarnish our souls. Nor does it sway our commitment.
“Our enemy is deplorable in the extreme. I have read reports of their so-called Avatar of the Golden Good. A heretic who mutilates children to further their goals…” Hannah suppressed a shudder. If what that scout had said was true, the Golden Order was even worse than the Abbey typically preached. It was possible to be a heretic and still a good man. Even those who didn’t believe in the Light would share their porridge with their neighbor in trying times. But mutilating children to use as disposable bodies? “In this trying time, our faith is tested. But it is also proven! The Light does not abandon its faithful. It will not abandon us! Let your courage be as your shield, your faith as your sword, and your spirit as an unbreakable bond that unites us all in singular purpose—to vanquish the heretics and liberate our people in the name of the Light!”
Hannah let her words hang in the air. Her heart pounded in her chest, nervous and yet… exhilarated. She wasn’t sure that she had said anything coherent at all. If not, it didn’t seem to matter. The soldiers in the corridor pumped their fists, cheering out.
Vector just raised an eyebrow. Of course, he wasn’t one to fall for a ramble of rhetoric. Still, the corner of his lip curled upward.
This… was a good feeling. It was why Hannah stuck around despite the monsters and anathema. She wasn’t some powerful pontiff, she was just an abbess. Her duty was one of guidance and comfort.
Just as she allowed herself a small smile, a sudden hush surged through the crowd of soldiers.
It wasn’t hard to see why.
That creature at the rear of the group crawled forward. It didn’t try to push past the soldiers or battlecasters. Rather, it avoided them entirely by clamping its many limbs into the ceiling, skittering above the soldiers’ heads. Hannah locked up, freezing solid as it came to a stop directly over her. Its head, upside-down and backward, twisted and bent until that false face it wore was at her level.
“I have a question,” it spoke, its voice sending tremors through Hannah’s heart.
Hannah didn’t know what to say in response. It wasn’t supposed to speak to her. It was here to provide information, using its foul magics to communicate instantly with other groups in the tower and the city.
“Oh?” Vector asked. “Regarding the Light? Abbess Hannah is well-versed in such matters. I’m sure she would be most pleased to discuss theology.”
Hannah’s eyes widened, flicking over to Vector. He wasn’t implying that she could try to convert this thing to proper worship of the Light, was he?
“But perhaps now isn’t the best time,” Vector finished.
“A simple question.” It looked away from Vector, turning those wide, eerie eyes on Hannah. “You spoke of a prophetess. The words used ‘in the company of shadows’. To what does that phrase refer?”
Hannah opened her mouth. Her throat, dry and parched, forced her to swallow rather than speak. Vector lightly nudged her in the side, which was just enough encouragement. “I don’t know,” Hannah admitted. Now that the first few words were out, the next came easily. “Prophetess Aeliana’s life is poorly chronicled. Many records of the time have been lost. Even the Canticles of the Dawning Sun are incomplete. She was involved in a war and had allies she obviously didn’t agree with, so the words just popped into my mind. Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“I see,” the creature said, accepting her words without doubt. Its hands, gripping the ceiling, started to pull it back where it had come from, only for it to pause and turn to Vector. “I am informed that you are almost in position. Preparations are still ongoing elsewhere. You will not engage immediately.”
Vector nodded his head. “Thank you for the notice.”
With that, the creature skittered back over the heads of the soldiers, much to their discomfort. Hannah could only sigh in relief at its vacancy.
“Looks like we have some time,” Vector said. “Perhaps you should speak more of this Aeliana. What little you know, anyway.”
Hannah drew in a breath and nodded, agreeing internally. Better to not leave silence in the air. That would only lead to festering thoughts. “I don’t know of those shadows,” she said, averting her eyes from the creature. “But the battle she was in is said to be one of legend…”
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Lexa finished measuring out the distance from the keep to the final primary target. The keep, though ruined, still stood tall enough to poke out above the scrying fog. That meant that it could be used as a reference point to various targets throughout the burg.
As long as her measurements were correct, anyway.
Arkk had dumped several brass items in her lap—courtesy of Hawkwood, apparently—and had given her brief instructions on how to use them to determine distances. It had been a short lesson but Lexa was pretty sure she got the gist of it.
Writing down the last few coordinates, this one pointed at an armory, on a small notebook marked the end of her mission. She had accomplished all her objectives. All except one. There had been no sign of the avatar. Just those poor children.
Night was on its way. Which meant she had to get back. Arkk needed her reconnaissance to finalize all the preparations.
Lexa found her eyes drifting back toward that ruined church.
After she delivered her report…
After…