The Shadowy Path - 11. Chapter 11

Isendar
Paidos, Andiol Empire

Isendar Vargan took a few aimless steps across the floor of his large study before pausing to look out the window framed by thick velvet curtains. As he did so, he stroked his long black hair. It felt greasy, but he did not care. The man staring out the window was impatient for news. The hair didn't matter, the news did.

The view out of the six-paned window into the garden, however, could tell him nothing of the important information he was feverishly awaiting. But at such moments Isendar had a habit of looking out the window, useless as it was.

In Paidos, everything had gone according to plan. For months, the Shadow Cross had deliberately sown discord among the townspeople. Disgusting rumours had been spread about Dareis Monteilon, and the legitimacy of the governor's authority had been questioned. The rebellious spirit of youth was propped up by organising alcohol-fuelled parties where they were encouraged to act against the governor in any way possible.

That might have been enough to defeat Monteilon without the direct action from the Shadow Cross. Unfortunately, the City Council had been intractable, and the majority had not been inclined to support the dismissal of the imperial governor. Therefore, Isendar Vargan had finally grown tired of waiting and launched an open rebellion against Dareis Monteilon, and thus against the imperial throne. He had no intention of backing down.

He took a few more restless steps until he stopped to think. Had he forgotten something? Something small and seemingly insignificant, but which could derail the plan? Or plans, Isendar had several in the works at the same time. These plans overlapped, replaced those that had gone wrong, acted as stopgaps or were simply unworkable visions.

Isendar liked to intrigue. However, he often left the rough execution to others. Why get his own hands dirty when the work could be done by someone less important - someone incapable of planning.

No, Isendar Vargan had certainly not forgotten anything. The success of his plans would depend on factors beyond his control, such as the expertise of other people. It was a pity to play one's best cards when one could not be responsible for everything. You just had to trust that others would do their assigned tasks properly. And if they did not - well, it was always easy to replace people with new ones. More loyal, more intelligent, more cold-blooded...

Suddenly he heard footsteps approaching quickly and the door to the room opened. Isendar knew who it was without even turning to face the door. Except in certain emergencies - which he really did not want to remember - only one person had the right to enter his room without knocking. But it was precisely because of these exceptions that the regional director of the Shadow Cross in Paidos turned towards the door with lightning speed.

This was not an exceptional situation, so Isendar breathed a sigh of relief and let his hand slip away from the reddish stone amulet hanging around his neck. With an expectant smile on his face, he looked into the face of the visitor.

"Jolanda, darling," he began, trying to find signs of good news in the beautiful dark-haired girl's face. To no avail - Jolanda looked downright furious.

"What's wrong, my girl?" Isendar asked.

"I lost track of them," Jolanda confessed.

"Are you absolutely sure that the boys you saw were the ones we were looking for?"

"Of course I am!" was the sharp reply.

Isendar Vargan believed his daughter. Jolanda had become like her father, who was never wrong. "Good. That means Monteilon has split his group in two. We'll focus our search on the northern route. That's where we have a certain sighting of Monteilon himself. The boys are less important."

"But the boys might know Monteilon's whereabouts and more about his plans. Let me look for them," Jolanda spoke with unusual fervour; his daughter was normally better at controlling her emotions.

Isendar thought he knew what it was. "You are losing your ability to think rationally. It was a mistake to let you talk to young Sandkan."

"It won't jeopardise the plans," Jolanda snorted irritably.

Isendar did not agree. "I can get you ten beautiful blond boys. I have connections with the best slave traders in the Southland."

Jolanda waved her hand in the air to show how little interest she had in the offer.

"You need someone to oversee the implementation of your plans in Ipalos. You need someone you can trust there," Jolanda said after a short silence, still with a poignant tone in her voice.

Isendar furrowed his brow. The girl needed more training, she should suppress her emotions if she wanted to go far in life. Nevertheless, Jolanda was right, there were not many in Ipalos he could trust.

Jolanda, on the other hand, he trusted completely, and Isendar Vargan usually did not deny his only daughter anything.

"Okay, you'll be on your way as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Daddy," Jolanda whispered, kissing her father on the cheek.

"You will have full authority in the city and I will give you a certificate to prove it."

Jolanda nodded enthusiastically and looked as if she wanted to shuffle off.

Before Jolanda left, Isendar said, "Go, my girl, but be careful. These days there are other hunters than the Shadow Cross, parties from whom even I cannot protect you. We are currently having a dice game at every table in the tavern, if you know what I mean."

Jolanda nodded seriously.

The regional director of the Shadow Cross took one last look at his daughter's face before gesturing for her to leave. Maybe it was not completely madness to keep looking for those two boys after all. Isendar remembered hearing that for Andreuz Sandkan, nothing in the world came before his son. If Jolanda caught the boys, Sandkan, who had already lost his wife, would unveil all his secrets for his son's life.

Of course, the success of the whole plot did not depend on finding Sandkan or even Dareis Monteilon; Isendar Vargan never left anything to chance. Besides, there were much bigger issues at stake than capturing the imperial governor of Paidos.

Isendar rubbed his bony hands together and glanced out the window, framed by black velvet curtains. Again, the view revealed nothing new, but it helped to gather his thoughts. Preparations had to be made for the long journey to the west.

* * *
 

Josel

"That's all," Josel said after digging out the rest of the food. That was a few raw potatoes, a small piece of dried meat, a carrot and a chunk of dark bread - stale and dried to a crust.

His own inability to pack enough food annoyed Josel. There was plenty of food left at home, but in his haste he had grabbed whatever he could find. And there was no home any more, only the seemingly endless forest and the faint hope of reaching Ipalos.

Zdain looked disappointed at the food supplies. "There's no celebration with this."

"Not really," Josel admitted.

They decided to share the carrot, the meat and most of the bread.

Zdain reckoned that the journey to Ipalos would take a couple of days, even on horseback. Knowing this, the lack of supplies seemed really bad.

"There are birds and rabbits here. We could set traps," Josel mused aloud, though he knew they had no equipment to build them. Besides, as a city boy, he had no idea how to pluck a bird or skin a rabbit. Josel doubted if Monteilon did either.

As Josel and Zdain continued their journey, the sun could no longer rise above the trees. The boys agreed that they should go as far as they could while there was still enough light.

"The old road through the forest cannot be far away," Zdain argued.

If we are in the right direction, Josel thought silently.

Zdain appeared to be dazed; the events in the pond had clearly shaken him. So Josel led the way with the map while Zdain was content to follow. Monteilon did not complain of fatigue, but seemed quietly grateful whenever they stopped.

Josel was not quite sure if he should be pleased at the opportunity to take charge. At least they were now even with Zdain when it came to saving another's life. Josel Sandkan had no desire to be indebted to the son of the deposed governor of Paidos.

* * *

As the evening grew dusky, the Veilwood seemed an even more forbidding place, but Josel and Zdain pressed on. They hoped to find the road through the forest by nightfall. Neither of them wanted to spend another night in the middle of the darkest wilderness. Especially as there was something more menacing in the slowly descending darkness than the night before.

Josel could not define this vague and disturbing feeling, so he said nothing to Zdain about it. Monteilon would surely have thought his companion was a coward.

They had been unusually lucky. First in the encounter with Jolanda and her henchmen, then a narrow escape from the clutches of that flying beast, the fiend wing. But in a forest teeming with wild beasts, you could not survive forever on luck alone. So Josel put one foot in front of the other, hoping that Zdain would keep up.

The dusk, spreading like a mist, began to thicken into a murkier darkness. It was a good reason to keep persevering; the thought of stopping frightened Josel. The nagging feeling that something was wrong had not gone away.

There was nothing unusual to be heard. The Veilwood had fallen silent, waiting for the night. The little birds had stopped chirping and the wind had died down. Every rustle was startling.

Imagination plays tricks, Josel tried to convince himself. Hunger and fatigue were causing strange hallucinations. He let his gaze wander to the sides, but all he could see were tree trunks disappearing into the darkness.

The distant caw of a bird crossed the night sky. The sound soon faded and the same oppressive silence reigned again. Josel and Zdain had no choice but to continue. The passage of time was hard to decipher. There were only two boys and an ever darkening forest.

Suddenly, Josel pricked up his ears. He slowed his steps and fumbled with the hilt of his knife.

Was it the same bird? No, something else! It had been a quiet sound, like a whisper in the night.

A shudder ran through Josel. Fear had wrapped itself around him and could no longer be shaken away. He pulled the knife from its sheath and glanced quickly at Zdain.

"What is it?" Zdain asked.

"Don't you feel it?" Josel asked, his eyes searching the darkness.

"I do, and I don't like the feeling," Monteilon replied tensely.

The silence and the sense of fear had preceded the appearance of the dreader. They would have no chance of surviving another encounter with such a monster.

They stopped to look around. Monteilon grunted and threw his rucksack off his back.

"We need Curtus' gun," he said hoarsely, fishing a pistol out of his pack. Zdain - unlike Josel - had experience with firearms, so he had been allowed to carry the pistol from the start. Now he loaded and secured it with habitual ease.

"Let's continue!" Josel whispered.

They moved slowly, constantly glancing furtively sideways. Then the sound came again. It could not be located in any direction. It was just like a barely audible sigh on the wind. Except that the forest was completely windless.

Even if the moon shone in the sky, its reflection was not enough to illuminate the travellers' path. Darkness was now a black curtain around them. There was only enough light to see the nearest trees.

Josel squeezed the knife handle in his sweaty hand and tried to quicken his pace. Zdain followed, breathing heavily. The thud of their footsteps echoed like a drumbeat through the night forest - or so it seemed to Josel. He imagined how easy it would be for a stalker lurking in the darkness to track his victim.

Then suddenly, from somewhere above, there was the snap of a branch and a crackling sound. A gasp escaped Josel's lips. Zdain raised his weapon, but did not fire. They watched as the dark figure flapped its wings and disappeared into the treetops, accompanied by a bird-like croaking.

A raven, just a raven, Josel sighed, trying to find his balance on his wobbly legs. Still, he could not shake the nagging feeling. Something far worse than a lone black bird was preying in the forest.

"Forward!" Josel exclaimed.

The boys set off again, pushing their way through the dark forest. It was impossible to move fast. The path was hardly discernible and they kept stumbling over rocks and stumps. Branches splashed against their faces and they had no idea which way to go.

Josel almost jumped when Zdain touched his shoulder.

"I feel that we are constantly being pulled in one direction," the governor's son said quietly.

Pulled in? Who is doing that? Josel asked in his mind. He could hear the forest murmuring and whining around him. It was impossible to block out the sounds, and they sent shivers down his spine. He had to keep going.

Then something flickered in his peripheral vision.

"Come on!" Zdain said, pulling Josel's sleeve and making him turn in the other direction. They ran into the middle of the trees. Sweat trickled down their necks and panic gripped their minds.

They were swinging branches out of their way and stumbling aimlessly forward. All around them, the forest squeaked as if the wind were whistling in the corners. Josel tried to stay at Zdain's heels. Alone, he would surely not make it out of the forest alive.

Another flash forced them to change direction. Josel didn't know if they were going forward or around. There was a crackling in the night, a different sound than before. It was like the laughter of a madman, ending in a scream. The sound was everywhere, in front and behind, far and near. Sometimes the howls and whispers went over their heads. Whatever those voices were, they were chasing them.

At the same time, the dense branches gave way and the forest thinned out in front of the boys. Josel and Zdain gasped in unison as the moonlight lit up the clearing they had entered. There was an old cemetery.

The stone memorials were covered in moss and climbing plants. Some of the stones had fallen and the rest were sticking out of the ground in crooked rows. In the centre of the clearing were the ruins of a large burial chamber. Its half-collapsed roof and pillars looked bleak in the moonlight.

Josel glanced at Zdain, who had stopped to listen. Soon he understood why. The whispering had subsided and there was an unbroken silence in the cemetery. It was as if the Veilwood had gotten what it wanted, or at least taken the boys to the place it wanted. The thought made Josel's blood run cold.

They took a few unsteady steps towards the centre of the graveyard. It did not feel right to say anything. The woodless clearing smelled like a trap, a death trap with no way out. Josel noticed that Zdain had not lowered his pistol.

It was too dark to make out any inscriptions on the gravestones. Josel mentally counted the centuries the dead bodies had rested in the forest cemetery. Who had they been when they were alive?

"We have to go," Josel muttered, but Zdain's footsteps led the way to the ruined tomb.

Josel gripped the hilt of his knife and followed, knees trembling. Only moments later, he screamed as the ground crumbled beneath his feet.

Clods of dirt were flying in all directions as he fell backwards into the ground. Somewhere nearby, Zdain screamed too. At the very last, Josel saw a pale flash above him, like the glimmer of a lighted lamp. Then his head hit something and the world was lost in darkness.

* * *

Josel did not know if he was conscious or not, but he could see. He knew he saw the Veilwood, this same region, a very long time ago. Back then, there was no forest growing there.

A large army was marching along the road across the plain. The road was as smooth as a mirror, a pitch road in the past, the kind Josel had heard of. The soldiers' helmets gleamed in the sun, and somewhere a drum was banging to the beat of the marching men. The men chattered in good humour. Their rifles hung loosely from their straps on their shoulders or chests. You could tell that the troops were returning from a victorious battle, or even on their way home.

Not all the soldiers were on foot, but there were vehicles among them. They were like chariots without horses. With large wheels underneath them, they rolled forward. At the back of the group, there were also some strangely shaped, noisy wagons rattling around. They looked like disproportionate and sizable containers decorated with pipes. Josel had never seen anything like that before and could not guess their purpose.

One small chariot in the front group caught Josel's attention in particular, as it had no roof, like almost all the others. The man behind the expressionless driver was no longer young. The hair that peeked out from under his forage cap was already grey. He wore the insignia of a senior officer on his shoulders. The man was strong and confident. He sat with his back straight, nonchalantly facing the two soldiers in the chariot, who looked almost as experienced. Everything suggested that the grey-haired officer was the commander of this marching army.

The sky grew dark. It started to rain, but the drops were not water, but something black and dirty, like soot. The soldiers looked at each other and at the sky, stunned. The filthy rain lashed the army. The sub-commanders ordered the men forward. The drums fell silent and the mood instantly changed to fear and uncertainty. Vehicles regrouped in the column, securing the flanks.

Suddenly, a terrible scream rang out. The soldiers turned their eyes to the black, clouded sky. Their movements slowed, and Josel could feel the horror in the men. It paralysed and squeezed his heart, as if...

That's when Joselin saw it. Huge flying beasts swooped down from the clouds. They shrilled, opened their claws and slashed at the air with their leathery wings. The fiend wings had arrived.

Each fiend wing carried a dark-haired rider on its back. From a distance, Josel could make out the beastly hands that held the reins and the fanged bone faces, similar as the slayer of Curtus had. Then he was forced to fall to his knees, wailing in agony with the soldiers.

At the same time, a tattered black veil surrounds the army. The edges of the army were attacked and the deafening crack of rifles filled the field. New men burst from the wagons onto the field, rifles at the ready. Many of them were killed as soon as they got out, or blown to pieces with their wagons. Somewhere a small cannon was being hastily assembled on a rack.

The explosions followed one another as the container-like wagons hurled projectiles from their barrels at the beasts. In vain, for one by one the wagons burst into a sea of flames after an invisible hit.

The dead and dying were trampled into the dirt as the men ran in panic on the battlefield. Some of the soldiers could not even run. They merely cowered in terror on the ground, waiting to die.

In spite of everything, the old commander was still aboard his chariot. He was shouting desperate orders to some device, drowned out by the din of battle. Certainty had vanished from his face.

The gauzelike cloud grew denser, concealing the dreaders and their flying mounts. The fiend wings squalled and moved swiftly like arrows. Suddenly they were among the soldiers. From the shelter of the black veil, the dreaders struck down the army, slaughtering their victims on the spot. The men screamed in pain and sheer terror, the dying groaned with heartrending agony, and the old commander was thrown from the chariot to the ground.

* * *

Josel was still on the battlefield, but there was no more war. There was only a charred field with smoking carcasses of wagons and other debris lying here and there. There were bodies too, thousands of them, badly bruised or burnt.

Josel looked tearfully at the corpse beside him. The slain soldier was just a boy, probably the same age as himself. His skull crushed and a look of panic on his face, the young man stared into space. Turning in the other direction, Josel came face to face with an even more horribly mangled young soldier. Bodies were everywhere, not a single living thing.

Then he felt himself sinking. Josel did not struggle, but succumbed to the fall. Beneath the dirt was a hollow where dozens, even hundreds, of men in uniform lay, rifles at their sides. The bodies looked so dead and yet so alive. The soldiers called Josel to them. He wanted to go, to find his final resting place among the men, to be one of the thousands of dead in the forest.

* * *

Some force pulled Josel up. He did not want to get up, but wanted to join the soldiers who had fallen in the terrible battle. But the force pulled him away. It would not let him stay there. He heard a crow cawing above his head and saw a white fire that lit up the whole forest.

What is happening now? Where is Zdain? Monteilon must be found…

* * *