“My apologies, milady, milord. I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have said that,” she added in a trembling voice.
“It’s okay, thank you for sharing.” Heron’s calm voice made me turn my head to face him. His eyes were bright gold as he looked at the female Iman. He’d been mind-bending her from the moment she’d walked in. He recovered his jade gaze as the female Iman helped Rauss off the couch and scuttled out of the living room, wary of making eye contact with us.
She knew she’d said something she shouldn’t have, and she knew that if she stayed longer in our presence, she might be compelled to say more—that much I’d been able to read from her fearful expression.
“She’s no stranger to mind-bending, either,” I murmured, placing my hands on my hips.
“Not her first time, for sure,” Heron replied, visibly concerned as he looked at me. “They’ve been mind-bent out of their minds, if you’ll allow me the pun.”
“What do you mean?” I pressed my lips together to smother a smile.
“They’re practically brainwashed. I’ve seen this happen a few times, with other creatures back home. It’s what happens when too much mind-bending is done to one person. Their brains get fried.”
“And the disease she mentioned?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “But there is definitely something fishy about how these servants live here…”
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
I waited outside the Broken Bow Inn with Scarlett, Caia, and Blaze. Jax, Hansa, and Patrik came out a few minutes later. We were all geared up, diamond-fiber plates mounted on our combat gear, weapons and shields ready. Patrik was the only one who didn’t like the leather suits, but, then again, he was armed to the teeth with Druid defensive spells, and fast in his liberal use of them, too.
Rewa, Darius, and his guards soon joined us—a dozen Maras and six Imen, all on horseback, while Darius’s servants brought out horses for us.
“We brought a few of these with us from Calliope,” Darius explained, patting his white steed’s neck. “They’re not as fast as the indigo mares grazing around the Dearghs’ volcanoes, but they can hold their own in long-distance sprints. We brought some of those, too, but I like my Saifa more… She has a gorgeous lineage.”
Emilian came out to see us off, accompanied by Farrah and Caspian.
The main square opened out to a wide stone road at a relatively steep angle, connecting that upper floor of the city to the ground level.
“Okay, so you two go with Rewa.” Jax turned to Blaze and Caia. “You know what to look for and what questions to ask.”
Both nodded, while Rewa smiled, gently leaning into Blaze. I could see fires burning in Caia’s teal eyes, but it wasn’t the time or the place to crack any jokes. I had to swallow and keep them for later.
I got on one of the horses, a black mare with strange, bright blue eyes. The creature neighed under my weight, and I stroked its strong neck, running my fingers through its mane. We were good to go.
Jax, Hansa, Scarlett, and Patrik got on theirs, and Emilian pointed toward the Valley of Screams with a concerned look on his face.
“Please, all of you, be careful,” he said slowly.
“Don’t worry, old friend.” Darius gave him a weak but reassuring smile. “We’ll be back for drinks in a few hours, at the most. There are plenty of us here and a Druid. We have better odds than those who went before us. We can no longer postpone this incursion, anyway. At least we have specialized fighters with us this time.”
He clicked his teeth and rode down the steep road. We followed, along with his sixteen guards. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Caspian watching me, his expression firm, dark, and unreadable. Behind him and on different levels of the city, there were Maras stopping in their tracks and coming toward the edge to watch us, with plenty of curious eyes but few words between them.
Back in the main square, Emilian turned to Caspian and Farrah and said something, to which they both nodded. But when I turned up my hearing sense, all I got was a “Let’s hope they’ll be back…” from the elder Lord.
I left them all behind and focused on the road ahead, our horses’ hooves thundering as they galloped toward the open field.
We reached the dark plain. Two moons shone overhead, with the third slowly rising from the east, beyond the Valley of Screams. I sensed movement on both sides as we darted across the dusty country road leading toward the gorges, but I couldn’t see anything, even with my True Sight. Just tall grass and the occasional rock or shrub. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A scream echoed above us. It was raw, shrill, and downright blood-chilling, igniting my senses and sending them into overdrive. Scarlett and I briefly looked at each other, then shifted our focus to what rose ahead—giant limestone gorges bound together with whispering rivers and thick patches of woods in a maze that stretched for miles on end.
There were about two miles between the Valley of Screams and Azure Heights, and we’d made it in less than fifteen minutes. These horses were fast enough, I thought to myself, then wondered about what entities dwelled in the valley, and what their travel speed was. After all, they’d been able to reach into the city and snatch people from outside their homes without being seen or traced.
“This is it,” Darius said slowly as our horses came to a halt in front of a narrow opening into the massive gorge—one of many stretching left and right, and as far as the eye could see.
Giant trees, reminding me of the sequoias back home, bordered the stone maze, and towered over us with dark green crowns, their leaves rustling in the night breeze. Another scream pierced through the darkness, as distant and sharp as the one before it. My spine froze, but I shook the fear away. I needed my focus.
“Are you telling me those screams belong to actual people being tortured or killed?” Hansa was boiling at this point, her muscles jolting and her nostrils flaring. She seemed dangerously eager to get in there and do some damage.
“We believe so, yes.” Darius sighed. “We’ve sent people after them, but they never returned. If anything, I could swear we heard them scream as well, over the nights that followed.”
“Were there any traces of them visible during the day?” Jax asked, scanning the narrow opening in front of us. I heard water flowing somewhere nearby, splashing against rocks.
“We’ve sent Imen in during the day,” Darius replied. “Some came back, but were never the same again. We even tried mind-bending them to get them to talk, but it didn’t work. They were traumatized. Mute. Catatonic. None of the few Maras we sent in afterwards came back either, just like the many gone before them while hunting over the past couple of years. Therefore, we don’t know for sure; we, the Lords and Ladies, never dared venture ourselves. The Valley wasn’t like this two years ago…”
“Then why are you here now?” Jax raised an eyebrow, and Darius sighed.
“Your arrival here has inspired us,” he said. “I felt like a coward when you and your team simply decided to come here. Besides, you have a Druid. None of our little swamp witches’ spells are a match for that, except maybe for the interplanetary spell. It’s the strongest of the handful she left us. At least you are all powerful and trained individuals. We can work together and maybe yield better results.”
Jax then looked over his shoulder, checking Scarlett and me.
“Stay close. Don’t do anything I don’t sanction,” he told us. “Keep your senses hyped and watch your sides. Your backs are covered.”
Indeed, Darius’s guards were behind us.
“We’re ready,” Jax said.
Darius clicked his teeth again, and we followed, staying quiet as we entered the gorge. The giant stone walls came around us with darkness and the sound of trickling water. I instinctively held my breath, focusing my True Sight on the narrow path ahead, a plethora of trees and bushes making it snake its way toward the other side of the gorge, which even I couldn’t see.
Nocturnal critters
and large hooved herbivores mingled with the darkness, chewing on tree bark and grazing along patches of grass, undisturbed by our group. I even ventured to think they were ignoring us, as if we were nothing but passing ghosts.
I looked up and saw two moons watching over us, one white, the other a pale orange. They seemed like they knew more than we did.
Hansa
The first half mile through the gorge was uneventful and worryingly quiet. I could see through the darkness—the large boulders, the smooth patches of grass, the tall trees all over the place, and the animals rummaging for food.
My senses were on high alert, with a constant feeling that we were being watched. I looked up and got glimpses of the starry sky and two moons between the tree crowns. I checked on my team regularly, making sure that Scarlett and Harper stayed close behind Jax, Patrik, and me, while Darius led the way and his sixteen guards watched our backs.
Then we all heard it. The tortured shriek of a young woman, closer than we’d heard it before, maybe four hundred, five hundred feet ahead. I instinctively straightened my back, one hand clutching the handle of my broadsword.
Jax and I glanced at each other, and he shook his head, quietly asking me not to do what I was so tempted to do—dash out and get to the source of that scream. My blood rushed, my heart thudding in my ears.
A second scream came, slightly closer, as we moved forward.
“Jax,” I whispered, already frustrated. My horse was getting restless, as if sensing my urgent need to help whoever that was crying out in the darkness from what sounded like horrific pain.
“Hold on,” Jax shot back.
Leaves rustled and branches cracked somewhere behind us.
Darius’s guards squealed and grunted. Horses neighed, their hooves shuffling on the hard ground. I looked over my shoulder and froze. I could see well enough through the darkness to observe some of the Exiled Maras and Imen being swept off their horses and swallowed into thin air, while the others drew their weapons, dread imprinted on their pale faces.
“We need to go back,” Jax growled, witnessing the eerily quiet massacre.
“We can’t go back. It’s too narrow,” Darius replied. “We need to move ahead—I have a feeling there’s an opening to another gorge. We can go through there and get back to the plain.”
Several of the Maras bawled in the darkness, and their swords and their saddles fell off as the invisible fiends dragged them away. Their horses went berserk and ran off. Some tried to go back but swiftly vanished, their ear-piercing wails making me shudder, while the others trotted off ahead, passing us with no intention of spending another second there. Whatever this was, we couldn’t see it.
The woman screamed again, this time louder. Closer.
“Run!” Darius croaked as he saw what happened to his men.
I didn’t wait for him to say that again.
“Let’s go!” I hissed, then nudged my horse in the ribs.
We shot through the narrow gorge, leafy branches slapping us along the way. Something thudded on the ground behind us, but I didn’t want to stop and see what that was.
“What the hell was that?” Scarlett gasped.
“I don’t know, but it’s definitely not out to make casual conversation!” Jax shot back, his horse keeping up with mine as we jumped over a cluster of rocks.
The scream came again, this time closer.
Only a few yards away.
I squinted and saw her then.
“Somebody! Somebody help me!” she screamed at the top of her lungs as she staggered between the trees, the air rippling around her. Something huge was there, prowling, ready to pounce.
“What the hell are those things?!” Harper exclaimed, her eyes wide, glimmering as she used her True Sight. “I can’t see what they are!”
“Help me!” the girl cried out as she saw us headed her way.
I clicked my teeth together, urging my horse to go faster. The girl tripped over a gnarled tree root and fell flat on her face, moaning when she tried to get back up. She looked like an Iman female, and a very young one at that, probably in her late teens.
I drew my sword, my eyes on her.
“Hold on, honey, I’m coming!” I shouted, crossing the last couple of yards. Then my heart stopped.
I felt a chilling presence looming behind her, getting bigger with every step it took. The girl was wounded, with deep red slashes all over her calves, blood pouring out uncontrollably. I caught a glimpse of what seemed like beady, fire-red eyes as the unseen fiend got closer, but then they were gone. Had I imagined it?
There was no time to think.
I jumped off my horse and slid on my knees for a good ten feet, bringing my broadsword forward as I stood and took my attack stance in front of whatever that beast was, placing myself between it and the Iman girl.
“Scarlett, wait!” I heard Patrik shout, then heard Scarlett grunt as she landed behind me and dragged the whimpering girl away.
I kept my eyes on the invisible presence, which seemed to be focused on me as it inched forward. I bared my teeth and hissed, something I always did to intimidate my opponents. Most of the time it worked. But not with this… thing.
“It’s concealing itself somehow,” I snapped as it got closer.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Three more of these invisible creatures were moving in from the right. They made absolutely no sound, but the air trembled around them.
A ball of blue fire hit my opponent hard, pushing it back a few feet, but still, no sound. Patrik moved forward, his hands an incandescent blue as he shot a few more of his flames at the other three fiends.
The one Patrik had hit first, the one I’d stopped from feasting on the Iman girl, rushed toward me. I slashed away at it, but it dodged every hit. It was ridiculously light on its feet, despite its massive size.
Jax moved next to me, both swords out. His eyes shone gold as he tried to use his mind-bending abilities on it. He shook his head, gritting his teeth with frustration. I saw the invisible figure rippling fast from left to right, making it impossible for the Mara to capture its mind.
“Oh, great, so that doesn’t work either!” I barked, then moved to attack the unknown beast again.
“It’s too fast. It knows what I’m trying to do!” Jax said, moving to my left, where three more of these invisible forms emerged.
There were seven of them now, and six of us, including Darius, who I couldn’t see anywhere in my split seconds of stepping back and recalculating my attack angles. It wasn’t a fair fight, considering they’d practically swallowed sixteen Exiled Maras and Imen without the slightest of efforts.
Harper was the last to jump off her horse, pulling her swords out in the process.
A hard blow to the chest knocked the air out of my lungs, and I hadn’t even seen it coming. I looked up and saw those blasted red eyes almost smiling at me as I fell backwards and hit the hard ground.
White stars covered my field of vision.
“Hansa!”
I heard Jax’s voice echoing somewhere in the back of my head.
He seemed so far away, as opposed to the invisible entity that had appeared on top of me.
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
Something dark and hard knocked into me midair. I landed on my right side with a thud, but I flung my swords out, slashing at the invisible figure above me. It worked—it moved back a foot, enough for me to jump to my feet and groan from the throbbing pain in my shoulder.
I managed to get a glimpse of the others in the darkness. They were fighting these strange, massive entities, much like the one coming at me again. There were seven in total, and Hansa had just been brought down by one of them. I’d heard Jax shout her name during my botched jump.
Another one slashed at Patrik. Blood spread through his white shirt and vest at an alarming speed. Scarlett was busy dragging the girl away, moving too fast for any of the hostiles to get to her. Hansa growled and swung her sword a
gainst her attacker, then sprang to her feet, wobbling slightly.
She and Jax moved back-to-back, holding their own against four of the invisible creatures. Two were moving in on Patrik, who dropped to one knee due to rapid loss of blood. I had to do something fast with the seventh in front of me, so I could get to the Druid in time. The entity lunged at me, big and black with gleaming red eyes, like burning coal.
I pushed out a barrier, strong enough to push it back a couple more feet. I needed to put more energy into these barriers, since they barely nudged these bastards. I shuffled to my right and moved around the obscure creature, trying to get closer to Patrik.
I couldn’t see Darius anywhere, but I didn’t get another second to look around again, as two more invisible fiends emerged from my right. There were nine of them now, one inching away from Patrik and moving toward Scarlett, who kneeled above the Iman girl and drew her sword, ready to defend her.
I was faced with three hostiles, all big and red-eyed. I pushed out a second barrier, using most of my energy. I heard a grunt before I saw one of them dart around, moving so fast I didn’t realize what it was doing until it was too late.
It swept my feet from under me, and I couldn’t help but yelp as I tried to get up and stilled, staring into a pair of red glowing eyes that I’d glimpsed before. The invisible beast had swiftly moved over me. I heard claws scraping the hard ground next to my ears.
I felt its hot breath on my face. It smelled like iron, like blood… like death.
Harper
(Daughter of Hazel & Tejus)
I slashed at it again, this time in an upward motion. No sound came out, and it didn’t seem like I’d even touched it, but its eyes burned brighter, as if letting me know that I was screwed for even trying that. I held my breath and tried to kick it with my feet.
I hit something hard, but nothing happened. The beast still hovered above me.