Demon Hunt

Chapter 6 Part 2

Kado was angry, although he wasn't sure if he was angrier with Auren or himself. She knew how dangerous the shadow world could be. He had told her more times than he cared to count. But he made the mistake of assuming she wouldn't try anything on her own. Apparently he wasn't immune to making presumptuous decisions. Now a demon was loose on Luten Isle and more people were likely to get hurt. Worse, he should have waited to heal her. He let the thing get away, and the longer they waited, the harder it would be to track. They couldn't move fast on the ground, but if it started climbing, they'd be in trouble.

He glanced back to find Auren right on his heels. Her effort to keep up with him impressed him. He wasn't moving slow. She avoided his gaze, and her silence was unusual for her. Talking was one her favorite activities when they were hiking. Most likely she believed she was in a lot of trouble. He couldn't bring himself to scold her, however, when he was just as responsible for this as she.

"You realize it was a demon you released from the shadow world?" he asked.

"Yes, sorry. I..."

He waited for her to continue, but she didn't. "You what?"

She sighed. "I wanted to try to call the veil. I wanted to see if I could get it so I could surprise you."

"Well, it looks like you succeeded," he said, taking a deep breath. "What happened?" He knew because he had looked into her mind and saw the whole event play out, but he wanted to hear her version, so he would know what had gone wrong.

"It started with the black—blob that got bigger and bigger. Then a green mist came out of it. I knew I was seeing into the shadow world, and I wanted to stop it."

Kado glanced back to find tears streaming down her face.

Her talking sped up. "I just didn't know how, and then the demon was there. I tried to get away from it, and then—"

"Okay," Kado said, interrupting her. "Let's focus on finding it." At the moment, following it wasn't proving to be too difficult. A large beast in the forest tended to leave a mess in its wake. The demons rarely went around objects and they were incredibly strong. If something was in its way, it got mowed down. That included large trees.

"What if we don't find it?"

"We will." They had to. Kado would not leave a demon loose on the island even if it took months to hunt it down. Normally when a shadow stalker let a demon loose, they followed it closely, so they could return it to the shadow world as soon as it was no longer needed. And it wasn't something they did lightly. In war, they were used to push back the enemy when things were getting desperate. The demons were deadly to anyone who got too close. When brought to the physical world, they saw everything as a threat, including the shadow stalker who summoned it. While they were not mindless beasts, and possessed an enormous amount of intelligence, their cleverness was limited to their purpose. Guarding the shadow world from intruders.

There was a roar to the west near the mountains.

"We're getting closer." Kado sped up, trusting that Auren would keep up with him. They needed to reach it before it got to the mountains or they might lose it. Though there was an advantage to it heading that way. It wasn't going toward any of the villages.

The rock face they had run into rose well over two hundred meters, but about fifty meters up, there was a cave.

Kado pointed. "That's where it's heading."

"How do you know?"

First he pointed out the obvious. Recent gouges in the hard rock. "It will seek darkness as well. Being from the shadow world, they are not accustomed to the daylight. It confuses and agitates them."

"Maybe it will start just traveling at night then?"

"They don't sleep, Auren. It will keep moving. We're just lucky they move so slowly. It's our only advantage."

"How are we going to get up there? We didn't bring rope."

"I had intended on teaching you to free climb during this trip. I also planned to have time to do it properly. We don't have that luxury now. I will go first. Watch me and go where I go."