***
Ducking into the howling wind, they moved up the narrow path. The inky clouds now stretched over the entire valley, leaving only a small patch of red-gold sunlight to filter through on the far western rim of the ravine. The shafts of orange light from the setting suns mixed with acrid purple. The waning daylight made the unnatural sky even more sinister as they wound their way up the steep path.
“We’re going to have to find shelter. It’s no use to fight in this.” Ivo grunted and shot the roiling clouds and vanishing sun a glare. Emaranthe frowned, but said nothing. He was right.
“Here, try this way,” Jaeger stopped as they rounded a bend and found a faint trail leading into a narrow gorge. “Stay wary.” He gripped his axe with both hands and led the way.
“I don’t like this.” Ivo frowned and let the women go first. He preferred to watch their backs.
“I wonder what’s down here,” Jadeth slung her hammer over her left shoulder and tipped her head to stare far up the sheer walls. “This whole place is larger than it looks.”
Emaranthe followed, her staff held loosely in her left hand, her gaze searching the shadows at the base of the cliffs. Like Ivo, she didn’t like it one bit.
The narrow ravine ended at another sheer wall and they stood in silent contemplation of their options. Though the wind still howled, it didn’t quite reach so deep into the blind canyon.
“We must stay here. There is little choice with the suns setting, a storm, and enemies afoot.” Emaranthe slid the hood off her head and sighed as she scanned the oval shaped dead end.
Jadeth shrugged, “It could be worse; we could be in the open.”
Ivo grunted and stowed his sword. Jaeger did likewise with his axe. They had nothing with them, so setting up camp was as easy as sinking to the ground, which both men did with pained, weary grunts.
Jaeger leaned against the crumbling sandstone wall and closed his eyes, feeling a weariness he hadn’t felt in a long time. Behind his eyelids a small, flickering glow lit up the dark. He didn’t bother opening them to look.
Emaranthe cupped her hand beneath the tiny, hovering flame and held it aloft like a lamp. It shivered and twisted in the sharp wind, but burned steady, casting a dancing golden puddle of light on the four friends sitting in a circle.
“Why haven’t we seen more of the Dro-Aconi?” Jadeth asked no one in particular and for a long moment no one answered. She too closed her eyes and leaned back against the cliff wall. “Not that I’m complaining, but after all these years one would think that they would have figured out how to fully enter our world instead of ensnaring the minds and bodies of mortals to be used as puppets.”
“They are waiting for the right moment,” Emaranthe whispered. She stared at the tiny fire-lamp in her gloved hand. “As for here and now, they know we are here. They need more mortals to join their dominion, to ensure their success. The Unknown Sun were not an expected force to reckon with.”
“Mining ore doesn’t need an entire invasion. Those skeletons were puppets, our people whose bodies were severed from their souls, and half that number could have taken out the village and secured the ore,” Jaeger said. He opened his eyes and frowned up at the pitch black sky. Darkness had fallen fast and hard. “There must be something other than soul and ore harvesting going on.”
“What else is here?” Jadeth asked. She sighed and dragged a scarlet braid over her left shoulder. She chewed on the tail of the braid, her long ears flattened back as she thought.
“Not much. These villagers lead a simple life. The ore was all they had and even then they never truly knew its value.” Emaranthe said.
She lowered her hand and let the fire writhe out of her gloved palm until it hovered above the bare stone floor. She sat back and pulled her knees to her chest, her cloak and robes bunching about her legs. Propping her narrow chin on her knees, pale braids dragging into the dirt, she watched the floating flame with wide, enigmatic eyes.
Ivo studied her, noting that she looked more like a young woman-child than ever. He knew better however, knew that the decades of battles, deaths, and reincarnations had hardened her, perhaps more so than even he, Jadeth, or Jaeger. Something about dying, repeatedly, made one grow up awfully fast. The fact that she was the youngest Immortal ever was also a puzzle, one their Earthlander leader, Rodon, was keen on solving, perhaps even more so than seeing their elite group drive back the enemy and search for their lost gods.
Jadeth dropped her hair and her ears shot up. Emaranthe sat up, her head tilted as she listened to the howling wind.
“Incoming!” Jadeth cried out. She bolted to her feet just as a louder, more audible wail echoed down the narrow gorge. Her hammer sang as she swung it high over her head, the green glow casting all in an eerie light. “More minions; I hear their bones scraping.”
Ivo hurtled to his feet, his heavy armor clattering as he slid his shield and sword free. He crouched, shifting agilely on the balls of his feet. Fury darkened his face and Jaeger kept his mouth shut as he moved into a defensive position in front of the women.
Emaranthe's tiny fire guttered as the wind strengthened. The wailing and clattering of bones grew louder. She pulled her staff free and moved to stand beside Jadeth.
There is no rest for The Immortal.
Emaranthe closed her eyes and let the heat rise within her. She let it curl, thrash, and slither from somewhere deep in her soul. Flames erupted and swirled at her feet in a macabre dance. They hovered and circled in an endless writhing motion at knee height.
Blazing eyes slammed open.
Jadeth felt the heat emanate from her tiny friend and, despite the approaching danger, she couldn’t pull her gaze from the mesmerizing sight. Emboldened, she tightened her grip on the hammer and turned to face the approaching horde.
Forced to march in a tighter formation by the narrow ravine walls, they appeared around the final bend in rows of four abreast. This time, however, there were more than skeletal minions.
Zombies, no more than skeletons with still-attached, half-decayed flesh and marginally higher intelligence, shambled disjointedly behind the first few rows of minions.
Ivo snarled and clanged sword to shield before dropping into a deeper crouch. Seeing this, Jaeger moved to stand close behind, his great axe ready.
With a roar, Ivo launched through the air on a gust of wind, sword swinging. He cleared the thirty-foot distance to the front line of minions and landed amidst them with an earth-shaking crash that dented the rocky ground. Rock and dirt shook from the cliffs above. Skeletons and zombies crunched, scattered, and screamed with the force of the attack.
Jaeger reached the front lines at nearly the same time. His great axe, finely honed with a layer of ice, swung wide and bits of bone scattered and rained all around.
Growling in fury, Ivo spun about, his sword flashing and gleaming in the green glow of Jadeth’s hammer. The skeletal minions fell quickly, but the zombies posed a slight difficulty as dismembered limbs had the disturbing ability to continue to fight.
Emaranthe noticed a mini horde of forearms and hands scratching and clawing across the ground, intent on attacking the men from behind. She plucked a large ball of fire from the miasma dancing about her legs and hurled it at them. It hit them dead on, exploding and scattering flesh and bone, and setting nearby skeletons and zombies afire. Infuriated, a group of skeletons detached from the mass and turned toward the women, disjointed jaws wide in ear-splitting screeches.
Jadeth swung the hammer over her head and the green light intensified, bathing the gorge in a sickening green glow. Her gaze wavered between the approaching skeletons and the men fighting furiously amid a sea of decay, bone, and screams. She swallowed, and focused on the men. They needed her more.
Emaranthe raised her staff and a pulse of fire, like a living vine lashed out in a fiery arc. It swept aside the first few in a blast of heat and flame. Charred bits of flesh splattered into the sandstone walls.
“Get away fr
om them!” Jaeger’s cry drifted from somewhere in the approaching mob and as the women watched, a large bloodied axe rose above the moldering heads and sheared through most of them with a single blow. “Why. Don’t. You. Die!”
Without warning he staggered and fell, his roar of pain almost drowned out by the wind.
“No!” Jadeth screamed. She leaped forward and swung the hammer in a blaze of green.
Emaranthe sucked in a breath as he vanished beneath a gruesome dog pile of skeletons. She could hear bony fingers scratching and clawing at his armor.
“Ivo! Help!” Emaranthe screamed. She rushed toward the horrible sight, heart slamming against her ribs, her terrified scream almost lost in the ghoulish howls of the minions attacking Jaeger.
She didn’t dare launch fire at them without risking his life. Although as he could be remade, each time an Immortal died, a piece of their soul was irreparably wounded and their current body possibly unable to sustain its life force. If the physical body died permanently then he could, eventually, return in another, but he would be lost to them most likely forever, out of sync with his family and bearing a new face, name, and personality. If anything The Immortals feared death more than the mortals did.
Ivo turned and took in the scene with a single horrified look. All he could see of his younger brother was a blood-streaked iron boot.
“No!” Ivo howled. He spun, leaping into flight across the gorge, shield and blade slashing. He landed at the edge of the mass, and swept his shield across the nearest few, sending them flying. Another bone-crunching swipe unburied the lower half of his brother’s body. Jaeger’s legs arched and kicked, seeking to fight his way free. Blood streamed from jagged gashes around the gaps of his armor.
Both women reached the still-struggling mass of zombies and skeletons at the same time. Jadeth, tears streaming much like Jaeger’s blood, hovered at the fringe, dancing away from scrabbling skeletons in a frantic effort to heal him. Her hammer glowed brighter as she neared, and the flow of blood slowed and then began to reverse and slide back up toward his numerous wounds.
Hands glowing with white hot fire, Emaranthe struggled past the scrabbling fingers to reach him. Each time her hands touched a defleshed body part it burst into flame, and the minion exploded into ash with howls of terror. She flung half a dozen burning zombies and skeletons away before she reached his bloodied upper torso.
“No. Come on!” Emaranthe gasped. She dropped beside him as Jadeth flung herself beneath a zombie’s outstretched arm and hovered her hammer directly over his barely-moving body.
Ivo couldn’t stop the assault long enough to see if his brother lived. His sword sang as he swung in violent desperation. More and more skeletons shuffled closer, decrepit hands and moldy fingers grasping and clawing.
“Ivo, quick! Come here!” Jadeth screamed over the screeching horde. Ivo spared them a frantic look and saw his giant brother draped over Emaranthe's lap, his armor dark with blood. Jadeth’s hammer glowed, but the gruesome wounds hardly moved to repair.
Heat burned deep inside Emaranthe as a powerful, burning fury built. Her eyes, already glinting with fear, darkened into molten gold and blazed in the darkness.
Ivo saw and threw himself toward them. A wave of heat erupted from her, writhing and licking, warping the air. A dome of fire enveloped the huddled group, encasing them in a shield of flame. Ivo dragged Jadeth closer and shot Emaranthe an apprehensive look.
White hot eyes burned the darkness. Panting with the effort and energy needed to create such power, Emaranthe curled into herself, clinging to Jaeger as if to tether herself to the physical world. Ivo and Jadeth edged closer and their strong arms encircled the blazing Mage. All around them hordes of bony hands touched the fiery shield. They burst into flame before crumbling into ash.
“I can’t stop, Ivo. My heart and soul burns!” Emaranthe whimpered, her voice hollow and wild within the fiery dome. “I can’t hold it back any more. Stay close; don’t move.”
“Emaranthe!” Ivo howled. He reached out to stop her.
Fiery eyes slammed shut and her arms whipped wide, staff aloft.
Fire exploded from her tiny body. Heat and flame blasted everyone backwards. The night sky swapped places with the ground, and fire licked the darkness.
And then... nothingness.
Chapter Four