Chapter Three

Validus sat upon his horse and looked down on the two villains before him with disgust.

I thought the Quanso would have some honour at least but it is clear I was wrong. I did not expect the witch I came all this way to hunt would be so young but the wickedness I sense from her is clear. And to think I thought her a common thief at first, but her foul magic made it clear to me her true nature.

The paladin got down from his horse and unsheathed his sword as he approached them. His sword was lit aflame with white and gold fire as he whispered a prayer under his breath and found it answered by Humanus. The witch and her companion had gotten up by this point and were preparing for combat with fear in their eyes. Fear was common in the wicked when faced against the light of the gods. The Quanso brought his fists up and moved in front of his companion in a combat stance while the young witch kept her distance and readied her bow.

If this witch is as fearsome as I heard then this will be a tough fight, although the important ones always are.

*

This is an unwinnable fight. I’ve never even used my bow on anything but animals and now I have to go up against the strongest paladin in the Empire? Fuck that, I’ll die. What am I even supposed to do in a situation like this? I guess I just have to survive until Ralisdor gets back.

Shuka started to draw back an arrow and aim at the paladin but before she could loose it he surged forward with unnatural speed at Xorvos and swung downwards with his sword. Xorvos tried to block with his gauntlets but the blow was too powerful, and the sword buried itself an inch into his shoulder, just barely missing his head. The blade would have gone farther but was slowed by Xorvos’ armour. The fire from the sword started burning away the flesh and heating up the metal while Xorvos grunted in pain. On the verge of collapsing Xorvos brought up knee to strike his opponent but struck nothing but air as Validus removed his sword and backed away. Shuka had moved to the side to get a clear shot and now seeing them separate, shot at the paladin. Validus saw the arrow coming and blocked it with his shield, then swung his sword in a wide arc towards and unleashed a wave of fire from it, extinguishing the sword in the process. Shuka moved to dodge but was a little too slow and caught the edge of the arc of flame on her shoulder. The pain she felt was like no other she had felt before, it was similar to being burnt by flames but worse, like it was burning your soul alongside your body. Thankfully, the worst of the pain didn’t linger and although her shoulder still hurt the worst of her agony had receded. Xorvos lunged towards Validus, desperate to prevent any further attacks but was forced to dodge another slash. As soon as the blade passed Xorvos he quickly lunged forward again trying to get too close to him for him to use his sword properly. Just as he was about to try to grapple the paladin, Validus imbued his shield with holy light and struck Xorvos in the chest with it. As the edge of the shield hit flesh the light was released as a concussive blast that launched Xorvos through the air and into the wall of Rainsburg. Shuka shot at him again but the arrow didn’t even come close as the pain in her shoulder flared up from the strain of pulling back the bowstring. Validus took this opportunity to charge at the lone hunter with his shield forward and sword ready to strike. Slinging her bow across her back Shuka quickly started backing away from the approaching paladin and began the process of casting a spell. She had never used magic in such a stressful situation before but there was no room for mistakes so she just concentrated as hard as she could on the spell. First, she created an image in her head of what she wanted to make, a ball of fire, and then took the mana inside her and let it flow out the palm of her outstretched hand. Then she shaped the mana into the desired form and changed it to make it look like she wanted. Since Validus was unlikely to fear an ordinary orb of flame, she also made the fire purple to make it seem more dangerous and hopefully make that crazy paladin more wary of it. Sadly, the fire wasn’t even as dangerous as normal fire seeing as it was just an illusion, and not even a very good one at that. it made no sound and produced neither light nor heat but hopefully the paladin wouldn’t notice and just see it as a threat. The entire process only took a few seconds but that was enough time for Validus to almost reach her, so she ‘threw’ the illusion at him, concentrating hard on making the fire fly through the air at least semi realistically. The illusion had the intended effect and Validus stopped his advance and hastily brought his shield up to block the purple flame, even going as far as to project a barrier of holy light from it in front of him. Of course, Shuka didn’t even maintain the illusion until it hit and just started running towards Xorvos the moment Validus stopped moving. Taken by surprise, Validus didn’t even have a chance to intercept her and instead reignited his sword with holy flame as he chased her. Luckily Shuka’s trick had given her enough of a head start to reach Xorvos before he could launch the flames from his sword again. When she reached her fallen friend, Shuka found him getting into a sitting position from the ground with a dazed look on his face. He must have hit his head when he flew into the wall but at least he was alive and conscious. As she was helping Xorvos stand she saw his eyes sharpen and look at something behind her. She dodged to the side at the last second, just barely avoiding the paladin’s blade as it cut through the space where she had just been and causing Xorvos to fall back onto the ground. Undeterred Validus stepped towards his cowering foe only to find a large, gauntleted hand grasping his leg. With the last of his strength Xorvos held onto him with an iron grip and then forced as much mana as he could to flow into his gauntlet. The gauntlet took that mana and then like all Quanso weaponry, converted it into lighting to shock its enemy’s and in this case, a very annoyed paladin. The lightning coursed through Validus’s veins, but he refused to fall as he glared at Xorvos with anger. Any normal man would have trouble moving after such a strong shock, but Validus was no ordinary man so he raised his flaming sword up high and prepared to decapitate him with one powerful strike. Right as he was about to kill Xorvos, Validus turned and swung his sword to the side instead, attacking some unseen enemy. Knowing an opportunity when she saw one, Shuka grabbed Xorvos again and dragged him to his feet before Validus could return his focus onto them. Over by the gate there were two new horses that weren’t the at the start of the fight so Shuka helped Xorvos make his way towards them while Validus was distracted. Halfway to the horses Validus noticed them getting away and launched another wave of flame from his sword and then went back to fighting his invisible enemy. The white and gold fire went hurtling through the air towards the fleeing duo, but this time it splashed against an invisible shield of force that had materialised between them and the attack. As they got to the horses Xorvos felt something smooth being put into his hand and he herd Ralisdor’s voice come from the space in front of him.

“drink this, it’s a potion of healing. Then get on a horse and ride as far away from here as you can.”

Xorvos wasn’t a moron so when he looked down at what was in his hand and found a vial filled with a vibrant red liquid, he immediately removed the cork and drank the entire potion in one long gulp. Before he had even finished drinking it Xorvos felt he pain leaving his body and his wounds started to heal. As Shuka and Xorvos mounted their horses they saw that the paladin finally seemed to finish dealing with his invisible foe and was heading towards them now. Shuka new by now that her arrows weren’t going to do much to him, so she pointed her bow at his mount instead. Not wanting to kill the horse, she aimed at its back leg and fired. The arrow flew true and found its mark just above the knee of the warhorse Validus rode in on, causing it to whinny in pain.

I feel bad for the horse but I’m going to die if I don’t slow that paladin down somehow. And besides, Validus can probably heal him anyway.

With that done she put her bow away, grabbed her horse’s reins and started riding away from a very angry paladin and the village where she had spent her entire life in. Xorvos followed closely behind her and although she couldn’t see Ralisdor, she trusted that he wouldn’t be that far behind them. Looking back and seeing Validus quickly becoming distant, Shuka let out a sigh of relief and she felt like things might start going a little better for her now.

*

Ralisdor caught up with Shuka and Xorvos half an hour later riding a purple and blue spectral horse that ran much faster than the mundane horses his companions rode. Once he was riding alongside them the mage called out to them over the wind.

“The paladin will be catching up to us soon, we should hide in the forest.”

Looks like shooting his horse didn’t do much.

She slowed down and moved her horse of the well-worn path that ran through the forest surrounding Rainsburg. Ralisdor dismounted his spectral horse and then summoned two more but unlike the horse he rode these new additions seemed immaterial and transparent everywhere but the hooves. He then sent the two new horses galloping down the path leaving two sets of hoofmarks in their wake. Ralisdor dispelled the horse he was riding and then started moving through the thick underbrush.

Moving our new horses through all of this is going to be difficult, but if Validus really is gaining on us then I guess we don’t have a choice but to hide.

After going a good hundred feet off the road Ralisdor called for them to stop and hide as he started casting illusions around them to make the area to hide their presence. After a tense few minutes spent in silence, they finally heard the distant hoofbeats of Validus’s warhorse in the distance. As the hoofbeats grew loader the tension grew until finally they saw the light shine off the paladin’s armour as he rode past them and the hoofbeats grew more distant. Shuka and Xorvos let out a collective sigh of relief as the sounds of their pursuer faded away.

“So, what do we do know? Going down the same road as that paladin seems like a bad idea but going back to Rainsburg doesn’t seem much better.”

Ralisdor responded to Shuka’s question with a calmness that she couldn’t help but envy.

“We stay of the road and head north-east through the forest until we find a town to help us get our bearings and then we head to Rockmarsh to resupply. Then from Rockmarsh we will go to Lancrin to see if we can get your curse removed there or at the very least learn more about it.”

Rockmarsh was the closest major city to Rainsburg and Shuka was not looking forward to going there. Even she knew that it was located in the center of a large swamp in the middle of nowhere and even just getting there would take multiple days of travel through a very unpleasant landscape. The city didn’t even have anything interesting in it, all it had was mines and stuff you made from stuff you find in mines.

“Do we have to go to Rockmarsh? Its probably not going to have anything that will help with my curse and going through the swamp is sure to be slow and unpleasant.”

Ralisdor pulled out a map of the Celestial Empire, a long and relatively thin strip of land that had the ocean to the west and a mountain range to the east, from his travel pack and rolled it out onto the forest floor.

“This…”

He said pointing to a small forest near the bottom of the map.

“Is where we are. And this…”

He pointed to a discolored blob with the word Rockmarsh in the middle that was slightly above the forest they were in. the blob stretched nearly from the ocean to the mountain range and was almost as tall as it was wide.

“is what you want to try avoiding. Either we increase the length of this trip by over a month trying to go around or we just suck it up and go through it. Also, it is a bog not a swamp.”

“Huh, I always though it was a marsh considering it’s in the city’s name.”

Ralisdor scowled at Xorvos and replied with disgust.

“Rockmarsh was named by Dwarves who wouldn’t know what non mountainous biome they were in if they had been living in it for centuries. Which they have been. The name alone is enough for me to want to avoid that wretched place, but it is simply too impractical to go around.”

Looking at the map the bog was at least three times as big as the forest which made even Shuka reconsider taking the long route. Oh well, its not like she really expected to win an argument with Ralisdor anyway and the wetlands can’t be that bad can it?