VII

His torch gave him far more light to see by, its yellow glow providing an orb of yellow illumination of the sand and debris-scattered floor. For the most part, the temple was constructed from red marble blocks, but Yoreno noticed the ancient paint of the walls was peeling away, the plaster surface chipped and gone in many areas.

Yoreno stepped forward, his boots crunching into the sand, small rocks and leaves strewn about, his footfalls echoing forward. The sounds his made forced him into acute awareness of his own presence in this quiet place.

It looked abandoned. Hoping it wasn’t, he moved forward, regarding the floor carefully for any signs of tracks. There were none.

Yoreno would find himself rather disappointed if there was no Herokelus to slay at the end of this journey. But even so, he would find a final challenge that would satisfy Dantera. In a way, Yoreno’s situation was rather interesting. He was the heir of John Dantera, a lord of Haven, recognized as such in Aevalin with new holdings in the city. His father could knight him in an afternoon.

But such a thing, he had come to learn, was looked down upon strongly. While lordships were inherited, a knighthood had to be earned. The noble title granted by family was considered a conflict of interests.

Dantera would knight Yorenno.

When she felt he had earned it. He would do all that he could to make that happen. He wasn’t far off. It would happen here at the Isle of Morr or he would find another opportunity before next summer.

He came to the end of the corridor which split to his left and his right. There was no point in worrying about which way to go, so he took the left side. The corridor continued much the same as it had before, with its sand-strewn tiled floors, chipping plaster and cracking crown molding butting up between the upper wall and the ceiling.

The corridor turned. He followed it, and light revealed itself. He exited down another flight of steps, almost slipping because of the thin layer of sand coming out from beneath his right boot.

A courtyard revealed itself. The outer edges full of carved marble, pillars and cracking statues—the ones that hadn’t already fallen into the sinkhole at the center. In the middle of the sinkhole was a landform proving a platform to cross from.

Just as soon as he made his way over the rope bridge. The wood was relatively intact, so he stepped into the bridge with little worry, though he kept his hands over the thick rope railing just in case.

It was clear to Yoreno that this bridge was not in fact, ancient, and must have been maintained by the dungeon’s inhabitants. Dantera had said that only ten years had passed, but this bridge was not one with ten years of wear.

A bird squawked overhead as it flew through the light misty rain that wet the the ground. Yoreno stepped off the bridge onto the landform. The statue that stood before him was of old white marble, cracked and stained with weather. The statue was in the form of a hideous monster.

Was it a demi-monster?

It stood on two legs like a man, but the similarities mostly ended there. The creature—the monster—had six fingers and toes, its body muscle-bound and animalistic, like that of a hunched dog, but there was no snout. Instead the monster was depicted with a mouth that opened vertically. Inside its mouth there looked to be pincers with teeth on the sides?

Yoreno shook his head. What fell magic would it take to spawn such an abomination? And what would a monster such as this do with a human or demi-human had it caught one?

Was this Herokelus?

The creature wasn’t fully beast either. The statue depicted it with shredded trousers and a sword belt, it’s weapon gone, as the monster’s left arm had cracked off, the arm in question missing.

Was this monster worshipped? The other statues ensconced around the edges of the courtyard were bowing in supplication toward this center piece. The concept almost made Yoreno snarl. If this was Herokelus, when he found the monster, Yoreno would show it what he thought of such a beast and his worshipping supplicants. He stopped studying at the statue and circled around so he could cross the second bridge leading to the other side.

Once he was over, he glanced back, then trudged toward the steps before him. What was he to find next?

Venturing into the corridors, he picked up his pace, turned a corner and continued down a long corridor, but stopped short suddenly when he heard something. It was a scurrying sound coming from the chamber ahead. It was much darker, which kept Yoreno from properly peering inside. Why was it so gloomy?

Something was there.

The scurrying continued and sounded to him like more than one monster. Narrowing his eyes, he approached and tossed his torch inside with an underhanded sling of the stick. The fire guttered noisily and the torch landed at the foot of a snarling wolf.

Wait, Yoreno thought. That was no wolf!

The monster was completely silent, despite its toothy snout dripping with saliva. It didn’t move as Yoreno removed his sword from its scabbard, the hard leather causing as hissing metallic sound.

The monster snarled audibly, the other two coming into the firelight. These wolf-monsters of black fur and piercing red eyes however did not have dog-like paws, but rather monstrous paws of curling claws the size of small daggers.

The monster at the fore arched its back so high Yoreno thought it might get up and stand on its hind legs. It lunged at him, jaw snapping. He swung his blade, the edge connecting with the monster’s shoulder. The weight of the thing nearly toppled him over, but luckily Yoreno side-stepped the creature and finished it off with another strike of his sword. It cried out in a deep growl of teeth and saliva.

The blood reeked.

It smelled to Yoreno like something acrid and acidic, high in metal content, but almost with an unnatural burnt smell. With the death and spilled blood, the other two wolf-monsters seemed to increase in aggressiveness, as their silent snarls became audible ones, their claws clacking. They didn’t claw at the ground like a dog or a wolf might—or even an angry bull, but clicked their claws. Yoreno’s impression was one of shrewd thought and impatience.

But these monsters were not thinking creatures. Not like humans and demi-humans. Surely that was not possible?

He had no time to deliberate, as the two beasts launched forward at him with their powerful hind legs, jaws snapping so loudly Yoreno thought their teeth and fangs might shatter. One monster lunged past him, turned and swiped with a clawed paw. He brought his knee up into its toothy jaw of sharp teeth and fangs. It growled and fell on its back.

The other monster slammed into Yoreno’s back and he flew forward onto his forearms. He rolled over, turned and raised his sword as it came at him snapping for his throat, but he bashed it in the eye with his sword guard.

The beast cried out and backed away while the other closed its maw over his armored forearm, but the high-level runes therein snapped to life and hissed. The monster lurched away, cried out and scratched at its magically-repulsed jaw.

Yoreno grunted, got up and brought his sword over the monster’s head and split its skull in two. Blood and saliva oozed out on to the sandy tiles. He glanced about for the other monster and saw no sign of it other than blood spots from its gashed eye.

He wrinkled his nose at the putrid and metallic smell of the blood he had spilled and followed the spatter trail out of the chamber and back through the corridors. Trotting, he was sure this corridor would lead him back outside, and surely as he thought, light appeared at the end of the corridor.

But so did sounds, and they were not the sounds of monsters, but of men performing some kind of chant he had never heard before. With his sword held high, Yoreno advanced, following the blood toward the lit up corridor.

He moved slowly so his boots would not make too much noise. This area was sandy as well, covered with small leaves and other debris such as cracked urns, bones, and even sticks from outside of the dungeon.

Heart now racing, Yoreno continued to advance as he tightened his fingers over the hilt of his sword. He wasn’t expecting to encounter men on this quest to kill Herokelus.

The corridor was wide, and to the left, it broke off. From where he was, Yoreno could see the beginning of a flight of stone steps. He could easily be discovered, and if these men were hostile toward visitors, he might have a serious problem on his hands.

He came to the end of the corridor where there was a depression in the wall, a sarcophagus-urn, seemingly untouched nestled into the wall. Stepping forward and keeping his back against the wall, he peeked around the corner.

What he saw baffled him.

In the chamber there were men wearing black robes. They had lit the chamber by placing torches throughout. The sarcophagi nestled into the depressions in the walls had been disturbed, a few of the desiccated corpses exposed as they lay on the ground.

Were these men raiders? Out to make some coin in this dungeon?

But what told him that wasn’t the case, was the man in the center of the room, walking in the direction away from Yorenno where he hid at the corner. He held a bright stone in his hand, held high in reverence as he muttered with his fellows in a ceremonious chanting.

It was some kind of dark ritual.

Yoreno knew one when he saw it, and this was indeed a fell act by these hooded men. He couldn’t see the man who had his back turned to him properly, but the other men had armor and swords. They were well equipped, ready to do battle, ether with monsters or other men, he couldn’t’ say.

Narrowing his eyes, Yoreno tore his gaze from the ritual and glanced up the stairs to his left. He wasn’t going to just walk into the chamber and announce his presence with a polite “Well hello, there.”

He needed to scout, find out what these men were really up to, but without revealing himself. He cut left and went up the steps and tried to make his boots land as softly as he could. He held his sword by the button part of the blade near the guard where it wasn’t as sharp. Yoreno didn’t wanted to sheath the weapon, since the end was still covered in blood, and besides, he might need his blade at any moment with monsters and dangerous-looking men about.

Not having realized it before, the stairs were many. Yoreno began to tire, and by the time he got to the top his legs were burning with the effort he had to exert. He was armored and equipped with a sword and provisions after all. When he got to the top, he followed the corridor outside. The cloud cover seemed to be dissipating, the misty rains receding as the sun peaked out of the grey clouds. The terrain up here was not what he expected.

There were landmasses with old ruins atop them, mostly gone, crumbled away by time. Leading to each of the raised areas were rope bridges and instantly Yoreno made out the barrels and crates. Provisions brought by adventurers, or rather the men below. He crouched low behind a cracked piece of wall and regarded the ruins atop what would have been the lower part of the mesa, as the mountains of Morr rose to Yoreno’s east. There was a man far to the north east, but he was mostly obscured by the ruins. He looked to be walking steadily, perhaps patrolling. But perhaps not? What was there to patrol on this dungeon island? Did they really expect adventurers?

They were there, he thought, deciding these men might have something to protect against, especially if their deeds were in fact, fell and malicious.

The Isle of Morr didn’t seem like a large island. It was hard to tell from the map Dantera had shown him, but now that he was on the landmass in person he was certain that the island was in fact, tiny.

Still, though, Yoreno thought, he couldn’t see the sea from his position. He needed to take stock of who these men were, and that meant he needed to get to the other side of the island where there were some steep hills—small mountains in their own right—and see how many ships these men had brought.

When he found that none of the sentries were looking in his direction, Yoreno stalked out of his hiding place. Crouching low, he traversed the short rope bridge in front of him His destination wasn’t very far, and after walking two more similar bridges and dodging the eyes of these visitors to the island, Yoreno found himself at the bottom of the foothills.

Getting here unseen took more time than he had realized. The sun was high in the sky as he set forth to climb the foothills. To stay unseen, he chose to walk along a dried river bed that climbed the steep foothills.

At some point the river bed dug so deep into the rock, he was for all intents and purposes, inside of a cave with little more than an undulating crack leading to the surface. Traversing the river bed wasn’t difficult, but at some points the bottom was smooth enough to make climbing take effort. Yoreno had to search for rough rocks or cracks to put his boots onto for traction.

He continued to climb, making haste to his destination as he wondered where Dantera was at. Was she aware of these men on the island? Was she scouting them even now as Yoreno intended to do? Normally she might sling a ball of light up into the sky. The loud sound, and if there was a lack of light, the bright illumination, would alert him to her location. But with these men here, she wouldn’t be able to do that. Yoreno grit his teeth as he wondered how he might find his mistress, or she him.

The river bed evened out and Yoreno no longer had to climb. He found that he was sweating with his exertions, the clouded sky no longer obscuring the hot sun, though he had partial shade within the river bed overhang, but the further he went now, the less overhanging rock there was to protect him.

Yoreno took pause, reached into his leather bag and unstopped his water jug. He took one deep gulp then put the jug back in his bag. He didn’t know how long he would be here or if he could refill the jug if he ran out of water. Conserving resources was essential. In his back, he had two torches left. That should be enough if he made sure to smother them and then repack them when they were no longer needed.

He glanced about. The river bed was quiet, save the occasional draft of wind that funneled in from further above the hills. This quiet gave Yoreno time to think and to focus on his travelling.

Before too long the river bed opened up into a dry depression in the ground at what he thought the top of these hills. The lake bed was deep and smooth and there was a crack visible near its base where rainfall now seeped away no doubt, though he still suspected these river beds carried large bodies of water during the rains and flooding. Yoreno climbed out of the lake bowl and up toward the ridge. There were rough shrubs up here and sand grit. He crouched low then decided to lay down on his stomach to keep himself as hidden as possible.

The shrub next to him swayed in the breeze, its dry thorny branches giving him some minimal cover. What the view afforded him was a vantage point revealing more ruins and forests of dead trees, and a beach of coves and rocks. In the hot sun the mist had cleared and the anchored ship was clearly visible in the dark blue waters. The coast stretched around, creating a sheltered bay with islands in the distance that probably also protected the cove from too much chop.

It was a good bay to drop anchor. Yoreno wondered what would have happened had the Minstrel’s Dagger entered this particular cove instead of the one on the south side of the main island.

How as it that such a beautiful island, albeit, a bit barren and rocky in spits, was a place where monsters and fell magic spawned. The pleasant warm winds and the views of sparking blue waters were deceptive.

All was quiet.

It was winter, and yet the weather was now almost comparable to mid spring. Magically induced, of course. Magic tended to effect its environment, especially if there was a wellspring nearby. Fell magic often affected areas adversely by killing or corrupting living things.

These thoughts brought his mind to an earlier topic. Those strange men and their rituals…

What could they be doing on the island? They weren’t adventurers. Adventurers didn’t wander into dungeons and then perform strange rites of magic. None that he knew of. But Yoreno wasn’t a mage, so he wasn’t absolutely certain.

All of his instincts told him that something bad was happening here. He turned onto his back, the view of the steep craggy mountain on his left and the ruins straight ahead. He was too far away for anyone to spot him without specifically searching in this very spot without a spyglass.

Where was Dantera?

Yoreno could wander about, trying to find Herokelus. But with these dangerous men about, that would be a fool’s errand. He decided to head back to the beach where his friends and the rest of the crew were camped. They needed to know what was going on just case.

Dantera could handle herself. She was twice the swordsman and adventurer he was. Yoreno slid back down the smooth bowl that used to be a small lake and started making his way back via the same river bed that had been cut in the stones. He was almost back down to level ground near the ruins when something behind a large bolder made a noise.

He narrowed his eyes and took hold of his sword hilt as he stood completely still, ready to draw his blade and defend himself.

Something stirred and a beast issued a cry. Yoreno pulled on his sword, exposing the blade, when a small creature lurched out from behind the rock, snarling and crying out against an assault by a large black bird. It chittered in panic and scampered off as the bird took to flight.

Edgy. That’s what he must have been if he had partially drawn his sword over such a simple thing. He breathed out heavily then let his blade rest inside his scabbard. When he turned the person standing there caused him to jump, his heart lurching nearly out of his chest.

“Gods!” he hissed. “Why did you sneak up on me like that?”

It was just Dantera, standing there with a smirk on her face. “You have to be ready for anything, Yoreno.” Then more quietly she added, “Come,” as she beckoned him forth.

Yoreno followed her between some craggy boulders and a steep rise of hills. Eventually she led him to a path of which they climbed, staying low so as not to be seen. Luckily there were plenty of large rocks and dead trees to obscure them. When they reached the top, Dantera motioned toward the ruins. The vary ones he had snuck through when exiting the temple corridors. He looked, realizing there were more men than before.

If they were patrolling, then they were being careful. But against what? Monsters? Other adventurers? “Who are they?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, “but they’re up to no good.”

“How do you know?”

“I told you I would be scouting, Yoreno.”

He looked at her, feeling somewhat surprised. “Did you know these men would be here before we left Aevalin?”

“No,” she said firmly. “I thought the island would be abandoned, except for the monsters.”

“What are they doing?”

“I believe… they are doing a most evil deed, Yoreno. They are siphoning dark energies from the tear somewhere inside this dungeon.”

Yoreno was immediately alarmed. Dark energies. Fell magic. These men were the most vile of the vile, taking advantage of the same evils that begot the Age of Darkness. “We have to stop them.”

“Yes,” she said. “My thoughts as well. But we will have to be careful.”

“We should warn the crew.”

“No.”

“What?” he asked, shocked. “Why not?”

“The crew is not equipped for a battle, and your friends—well I’m not sure how to put this, Yoreno except to say it plainly—“

“They’re too weak.”

“I am sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Dantera. It’s the truth.”

“I wish Jorinius was with us.”

“Isn’t he away?”

“Yes,” Dantera said, and turned to look Yoreno in the eye. “It is just you and me. We must deal with these trouble makers.”

“How do we do that?”

She looked to the ruins, regarded the patrols. “From my scouting, I have determined that there aren’t too many of them for us to handle. However, if they signal their ship and reinforcements are sent, that could pose a problem. Not to mention they would start looking for our ship so they can deal with us.”

“Are you certain?” Yoreno asked. “Should we not reveal ourselves and give these visitors a chance to stop what they’re doing?”

“Ha!” she scoffed. “You would like that wouldn’t you, Yoreno? That is very knightly of you, but we both know what these men are doing. They will attack us just as soon as see us. No, we must take the fight to them when they least expect it.”

She had a point. Yoreno was not experienced in combat with… with humans. He was an adventurer. He killed monsters. He didn’t fight wars.

“What is it, protégé?” she asked, her tone almost rebuking.

“Do you know me so well?”

“I think I know you well enough to know that you’re having second thoughts. What is it?”

His heart was racing inside his chest. The anticipation of what they were about to do. It would be dangerous, but it wasn’t the danger that frightened Yoreno. As an adventurer, danger was his profession.

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“Ah,” she said, as if she had forgotten some small detail on a shopping list. “You are about to be knighted, Yoreno. You may choose not to swear fealty to a lord of even the king, but that does not mean you will not bear the responsibility in protecting the realm.”

“So what you’re saying is—“

“Yes,” she interrupted. “We must do this thing. We must kill these men—stop them from siphoning these fell magicks from the other world.”

“Why is this tear even here? Why hasn’t it been closed?”

“You know how difficult it is, Yoreno,” she snapped.

He straightened.

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to yell at you. I too am flustered at what is happening here—and what we must do. This magic is going to be used for evil, Yoreno. To kill people and to spread evil.”

He nodded. Yoreno needed no more persuasion than what she had already given, and besides, he trusted her. “Say no more, my lady.”

Addressing her with the honorific, he wanted Dantera to know that he respected what she had told him with the utmost sincerity.

“Yes, you are quite the knight today,” she said with a smile. But then she sobered. She gave him a nod and said, “All right.” She regarded the ruins again, twisted her lips as she evidentially racked her brain for ideas. “I think…”

“Should we attack their ship?” he asked.

She smiled, tapped her temple. “You do have the mind of a strategist, Yoreno. These were might thoughts exactly. We cannot let them find Minstrel’s Dagger.”

“And we can’t let them call reinforcements.”

“Precisely! What’s more, when we’ve dealt with their ship, the men here will be disorganized and panicked. They will not know what to do. If we get lucky, they will surrender.”

“And if they don’t surrender?”

“Then we kill them,” she said. “Perhaps we can capture some prisoners whether or not they wish to ask for quarter. This would be ideal. We need to know who these men are and what their connections might be. They could be a small arm of a much larger cabal.”

Her words put his mind to stirring.

“How many tears are there?” Yoreno asked, wondering if men like this were very common. He had heard there were hundreds of cracks to the other world, and he had also heard that there were tens of thousands.

“It is hard to say,” she said. “The Grand Bastard and his followers, once they were on the run, tried to open as many as possible. Many of his followers were never accounted for.”

That was right. There were probably hundreds in the world, but probably not more than that. Fortunately the one at Kar’mor Dann was closed. It was so large the lands there were still heavily cursed. Or so Yoreno had heard.

Dantera broke the silence. “It is midday. We will wait until nightfall, then steal their skiff and board their ship. And then our swords will taste blood, Yoreno. Do you understand?”

He paused for a moment. “Yes.”

“Are you ready for this?”

“I can do this, Dantera. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she said. “Now let’s make our way to the other end of the island and find a place to hide until it is dark.”

Yoreno nodded and followed Dantera as she led the way.