Saren crested the last dune between his group and the city gates, and allowed himself a brief, weary smile at the familiar sight stretching out before them. A brick-paved road wide enough to fit forty people walking abreast leading directly to the city’s main gate, filled here and there with those few whose daily business took them out into the sands. Myriad towers of reddish clay rose high over the city walls, though the city’s cloud-drinkers topped even them.
“We’ve made it.” The paladin breathed out, and a parched yet victorious cheer broke out amongst his fellow survivors. Saren looked to his side, where the ears of the two fennekian guards were already twitching in multiple directions.
“Can you see them safely in?” He asked, gesturing towards the caravan and those who followed it. “I have urgent business to attend to.”
The armed pair nodded in unison, each touching a finger to their ears in a quick gesture of respect towards him. Saren did not have the long ears they did, but he returned the gesture as best he could before turning his steady gaze to the sole lizardkin behind them. The one walking with a distant, determined gaze and still carrying the body of his slain comrade over his shoulder. Daerkin had refused to pile Baerlin’s body in with the others, and Saren hadn’t questioned it. He knew the customs of the lizardkin, and Daerkin had still done his part in their defense when necessary on the route back.
“When you have finished your rites.” Saren told him. “I would speak with you again, if you and your guild are open to it.”
Daerkin didn’t respond verbally, but the lizardkin nodded once to show the paladin his words had been heard. Saren turned back to the rest of the group, raising his voice the barest amount needed out here for it to carry.
“I go now to inform both the city and my superiors in Gold Spire of what has transpired. Should any of you have need of aid or accommodations before moonrise tonight, merely seek out my order and give them my name. You will be taken under our wing, and your needs met. This, I promise you all.”
A slightly less enthusiastic cheer, more of a murmur, rose up from the group at that. The paladin had already made his way to each of them with a similar promise on the way here, though many were grateful to see those words reinforced once more now that the city was in sight. Not all among their number had living relatives left to turn towards, after all.
“Furthermore,” Saren continued. “I ask that you relay your experiences to the guild of your choice within the week. Failing that, I implore you to at least speak with the guard. More ought know of what we have encountered, so that the danger can be given its proper consideration.”
There was more to that request than merely the words at its surface, and Saren was glad to see the faces of everyone present reflect their awareness of his actual meaning.
Warn your people. The paladin was telling them. Warn them, and do so in ways that may lead them to act on the threat instead of dismissing it or hiding behind our walls.
Saren was about to turn around and take his leave, when he recalled again the deal he had struck with the strange undead creature known as ‘Gel’. While the intelligent creature had still been alive last they parted, there was still every chance it would meet its own end before Gel could collect on the debt due to it. The Sohl Desert was not a kind land, nor were its many denizens like to leave a lone traveler unmolested.
Still, it is best to honor one’s debts. The paladin reminded himself, his trained mind turning to scripture. Solepsis 42, Verse Three: ‘Let not the mires of possibility or imagined situations turn you from that which is true. Even a wasted day, if spent on the righteous path, is a currency one may collect on in the future.’
“And forget not our collective promise to the being who saved us all,” Saren said after his moment of inner reflection, though even the owlen could scarcely believe the words coming out of his own beak. “Each of us owes Gel a selection of choice meat, of whichever type or manner you choose. The rarer, the better. Deliver your portion to Gold Spire, and I will handle the matter of its delivery.”
A few eyes narrowed at him in incredulity, but only a few. Everyone had seen the explosion caused by the undead, had seen it fight to the literal un-death on their behalf time and time again. None had forgotten its willingness to dive back into the earth either, seemingly to prevent any chance of their being followed. As such, most simply nodded in assent and looked relieved that all they had to do in return was buy meat.
Saren returned their nod and, after checking that the bar of dull, faded light metal remained in the pouch at his shoulder, the paladin stretched his wings and fell forward down the dune as he activated an ability. A minute later, currents of both wind and familiar mana drifted under each of his wings.
Currents that would take him home… but, hopefully, not for long.
Wain… Bacchus… The bodies of his slain friends, battered and abandoned, left to the whims of the who-knew-how-many undead wandering the Silent Forest, still haunted Saren whenever his thoughts unfocused. It was an unintended mercy that his people did not blink nearly as often as others. It kept Saren from seeing the last, frozen expressions each had worn in death. From seeing the fear and horror on their faces.
In the first moments that Saren truly had alone since his nightmare had begun, tears sprang unbidden to the zealot’s features. Whether they were tears of rage, helplessness, or a desperate, pleading sadness even the owlen himself could not say. Regardless, a steady stream fell from his face, falling without a sound and evaporating immediately on contact with the sun-heated sands below. By the time he had reached Dervash’s main gate, the stream had stopped.
In its place, was a cold, burning determination.
I will see our last duty done, my friends. Saren swore on his faith, on the Spire, and on the very air filling the world around him. I will see your spirits given their proper rest, I promise you both.
—------------------------
Despite the conviction of his new oath, Saren’s reception at the Gold Spire receiving hall was… less thunderous than the owlen had expected. He had reported the deaths in the field of his comrades at arms to the sentinel on duty, and while she had shared his grief to a degree her reaction hadn’t been as fiery as Saren might have expected. That bothered him.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Isla had been the one to train their squad back before they were allowed to take missions. She was also known as much for her reactionary nature as for her considerable strength. On hearing of her former students’ deaths and the potential for their spiritual corruption, the owlen had expected her to swear a mighty oath, rally any nearby zealots within earshot to her sword, and then lead them all back to the forest to cleanse the necromancer from that place in a wave of holy fire.
Instead, Isla had done… none of that. She had commiserated with him, sure, but the older paladin had taken the news not as a surprise – but as if it had been expected. She had honestly seemed relieved to see Saren survive at all. A fact that was now starting to make the owlen unreasonably irritated, because as the day went on it appeared that more and more of his order had actually expected their failure. Several had even spoken highly of Saren’s courage in managing to survive - a claim that burned the paladin’s very soul anew with shame each time it was uttered.
At least they are taking the threat of a Morian family necromancer on our border seriously. Saren consoled himself, as he waited outside the door leading to Oracle’s chambers on Gold Spire’s sixth floor. Perhaps that is it. Maybe the order already knew of this Bancroft’s existence?
It was possible, surely. But presuming that was the case, the unasked questions that logically followed hung in front of Saren like a noose suspended over a floating platform. One that felt as if it had already been tied across his neck, and those of his fallen companions’.
Why would the order have sent a mere three zealots to investigate such a threat if they had known about it beforehand? Should they not have sent Isla, Rory, or even a detachment led by the commander himself? Why had they not been given more support? Had they just been – had his friends’ deaths just been–
Burning orange flames erupted around the metal frame of the door Saren was facing, pushing back his blasphemous thoughts as the gilded door slid into the ground. A deep, booming voice echoed out from within the room on the other side. One that sent shivers down even Saren’s spine.
“You may enter.”
Immediately, the paladin rushed to do as he was told. The room inside was circular, with ascending rings of lit candles held in place by elemental motes. Patterns he did not have the experience to recognize painted the walls. A hulking figure draped in golden silk sat in meditation at its center, facing away from the door as Saren went to one knee not twenty paces away.
“This humble Zealot greets the Oracle of Embers.” Saren intoned, his mind moving his body through the formalities even as his inner turmoil ate away at his patience for ceremony. “I have returned with information I believe the Oracle must know.”
“You have returned with information I already know.” The blind bearkin known as the Oracle of Embers rumbled, as several candle flames around the room flickered and the room’s only door slid shut once more. “A new cadre has already been dispatched. They will continue where your journey was stopped. Make right what has gone wrong in the forest before it is lost.”
A hundred angry questions bloomed in Saren’s mind, popping up like fresh weeds around a spring-fed garden. Before he could settle on one that wouldn’t get him struck however, the oracle spoke once more.
“Take what solace you can find in that, and do not let your heart darken in the days to come. Sudden absences can fester wounds, without the guiding beams of Light to fill them.”
“Yes, Oracle.” Saren responded automatically, feeling a little embarrassed at having been seen through so swiftly by a blind man.
Usually it was he making swift observations of others. Though the owlen supposed that, from the vaunted oracle’s perspective, he was closer to a mere ‘blind man’ than the powerful bearkin was. Sensing a dismissal coming, Saren decided now was the time to speak up. If his primary purpose for being here had already been divined, then maybe he could entice the oracle with knowledge of a different variety.
“On my way back to the order, I was captured by slaver ants.” The paladin said, speaking quickly to get to the salient points. “A large colony of them has sprung up near the route we were taking towards Dry Run. Many citizens had already been taken by the time I was, and I assume they are at least part of the reason why so many caravans have been waylaid as of late.”
“And yet, you escaped.” The oracle noted, a hint of approval in the bearkin’s rumbling tone this time. “Rescuing many of those same citizens, I see.”
Saren had come directly to headquarters with this information. The owlen hadn’t stopped to fulfill his other promises to Gel, for food or drink, not even to relieve himself. With his own natural speed and the abilities he possessed that enhanced it, the other survivors most likely hadn’t even made it to the gate by the time he had entered Gold Spire’s main grounds. Sure he had spent some time repeating his story to the various officers, but even that hadn’t taken long.
How could the oracle possibly know who had traveled with him to the city already?
“No, Oracle.” Saren responded gently, mentally shaking off his surprise at how well-informed the always bearkin was. “I did not rescue them. I was rescued.”
Silence reigned amongst the flickering flames of the candles as even the motes in the room appeared to be paying attention now. Saren knew that leaving hanging statements in front of the oracle was poor manners, but it was hard not to feel slightly better about his trip up here now that the owlen knew it hadn’t been for naught.
“There is an… intelligent undead roaming the desert not far from the city.” Saren explained. “It was the one who rescued us. More than that, it did not harm any of us… it armed us. Helped us. Healed us.”
Knowing how unlikely that statement was to be true, Saren rushed his next few words out.
“Not through any magic of its own – the undead had a life potion, one of healing, and shared it with those who were injured. It burned our infections away, enough that I was able to heal the rest to move. Then it led the way out, and destroyed the colony in our defense.”
“You are leaving something out.” The oracle noted calmly. “Skip to that piece first, Zealot. Omissions are lies we pretend not to know about.”
Saren swallowed on reflex, but did as he was asked. He had hoped to build Gel up a little bit further before revealing this, so that the oracle would not take umbrage at his actions.
“I believe the undead is… tied to the necromancer who slew my comrades.” Saren admitted. “A former minion, possibly cast aside for reasons I was not able to ascertain. When it returned to face the colony, I saw the creature that had personally slain Wain and Bacchus dive in after it.”
“So you went to its aid.” The bearkin might as well have been commenting on the weather, so detached was his tone. Again, the Oracle saw through him. How does he manage it? Am I truly so easy to read?
“I… did.” Saren confessed. “I thought, with its help, the creature might be defeated – and I was right! We were able to–”
The paladin’s words died in his beak as the oracle of embers shifted, placing one muscle-bound paw on the ground before turning to face Saren fully. Cloudy eyes ringed by singed fur that still gave off wisps of smoke – as if the oracle’s very irises were still aflame – stared deep into Saren’s own. An unreadable expression was set firmly on the oracle’s face, and Saren got to both knees this time in case doing so might lessen the punishment he could feel in his feathers was coming his way–
– only instead of sounding enraged, the rumble that followed was… curious.
“From the beginning, Zealot.” The oracle said, and it was clear from his tone the bearkin was not used to saying these words. “Explain all of your story… from the beginning.”