The Twice-Enchanted Blade: Part 6

The reason for the creatures’ sudden retreat became apparent in a moment. As sunlight reached the corpses of monsters left behind, their remains began drying up and turning to ash. Light of day revealed the platters of fruit to be nothing but dirt and mud, and the wine turned out to be a foul-smelling liquid. Only the incense was real. The temple itself wasn’t nearly as glorious as it had seemed. It was blindingly obvious that it was a ruin abandoned for centuries, and the reliefs above the entrance were nonexistent.

This night cost us two lives, and several more were wounded, though nobody was in critical condition. The boatmen were the luckiest, as they tended to their creature and went back to the barge to sleep under deck before the music even started. Had they been outside once the combat began, it’s possible they would’ve gotten decimated, and we would’ve been forced to retreat downstream.

This, thankfully, didn’t come to be, so they harnessed the sauropod, and we continued our journey as soon as possible, Annabel taking care of the wounded on the move, since we didn’t want to spend a minute more than necessary at this cursed place.

In another two days’ time, we reached the stone arch and the canyon heading west mentioned in Orion’s biography. We made a deal with the boat crew that they would return to Bataya for now, and then periodically check whether we’ve returned. Then we found a suitable place for a cache and buried a ten-day’s worth of supplies, as we were unlikely to be waiting for the barge for longer than that. All that business taken care of, we mounted our elephant birds and continued our journey west through the stone desert.

We mostly traveled at night, finding places to hole up when the heat became unbearable. Several times, Iocasta spotted wild goats and sheep, taking them out with her new rifle, to which a scope could be attached. Water was a bigger issue, but the mercenaries were experts at finding it, including techniques such as dew gathering. For a while, there was no significant trouble. Before dawn one day, as we were setting up camp, a manticore appeared to check us out, but then left to seek easier prey.

Then, strange shadows started appearing in the sky. They were almost imperceptible at night, but at dusk and dawn winged silhouettes could be seen circling in the sky. Nervous whispers began spreading among the mercenaries. According to them, these flying shapes were much larger than any natural flying creature they knew of. Shadows such as this could often be seen in the villages to the north, they said, and they were an omen that someone was about to disappear.

We thought that, whatever these creatures were, our numbers and weapons would keep them away, but that turned out not to be the case. One of the mercenaries went behind a large rock to relieve himself and promptly disappeared. Another one was snatched while on guard duty, while we were holed up in a cave and he was guarding the entrance; his colleague dozed off for a minute, which proved to be ample time for a kidnapping.

Unrest among men grew, with them openly resenting accepting this job, but being in a large group still felt safer to them, and their professionalism didn’t allow them to openly mutiny. We increased precautions, doubled the guard, and nobody was allowed out of sight of at least one other group member. The journey continued.

It was very lucky for us that there was only one clear path forward. There were a few crossroads, sure, but quick scouting revealed most options were dead ends. After a few more days of watching the sky with increasingly anxious paranoia, around sunrise, we made a corner and found before us the second leg of our journey, the sand desert.

What we found there shocked us, to say the least. From the sand, less than a kilometer to the west of the mountains grew a stone tower. It was a fairly crude construction, made out of uneven blocks, and it was still under active construction. Numerous emaciated, barely-dressed human figures were dragging large stone blocks across the sand, some of them with Al-Teinan features and some of them darker-skinned, from further south. Urging them to work were black-furred, fiery-eyed, ram-headed creatures, wielding large flaming whips. Winged monsters who had been hounding us for the past days were circling above, but at a much lower height, and it could be easily discerned that those were gargoyles. They resembled large pterosaurs with an additional set of arms, and skin indistinguishable from stone.

None of these creatures seemed to pay any attention to us. We briefly pondered whether to look for our kidnapped comrades, but Fang himself shot the idea down, claiming we lacked the manpower to deal with this many demonic foes. He was right. Attacking the tower in open combat would require an army. A discussion ensued on whether to continue our journey, circling the tower, or temporarily retreat to inform the Al-Teinan government of our findings. Even if we returned, there was no guarantee they would deem it worthy to venture this far out of their territory with a large force for the sake of a couple of dozen kidnapped villagers.

As we were talking, fate once again prevented us from acting cleverly and pushed us into a corner. A dark figure emerged from the tower and moved towards us, gliding across the sand at high speed. It was a humanoid, dressed in the finest black silk, but his manner of movement, his feline eyes, and a tail betrayed his true nature. An aura of dread surrounded him, making our blood run cold in spite of the desert heat. He approached us and addressed us in an echoing baritone.

“Greetings. I am Astaroth, a Duke of Hell, and I serve the great wizard Maximillian. My master is delighted to have visitors, of which we get tragically few in these remote parts, and would like to extend an invitation to join him for a cup of tea”.

He must have noticed the extreme caution on our faces as we tried to formulate a way to reject him, so he added:

“I see you are suspicious, perhaps rightly so, but let me just tell you: if Master wanted you dead, you would be dead. If Master wanted you in chains, you would be in chains. If you try to run, our gargoyles could get you in minutes. We have no need for petty trickery. You may regret coming to this desert in the first place, but you ARE here, and I strongly urge you to come with me if you want your lives to be long and not altogether unpleasant. Who knows, maybe Master just wants a friendly chat over some tea – though I doubt it”.

We had no counterargument. Being at the demons’ mercy, we followed Astaroth towards the tower with heavy hearts.