Lore of Eternal Shadow: The Fugitive King

Chapter Two

"Jannick, admit it, we're lost!" cried a girl of fourteen, her hands flying over her in frustration. The dark pines behind them had been cause for confusion. However, the lush green valley on the road before them and the bizarre array of mountains beyond had been the last straw.

"Okay, fine then, we're lost!" answered Jannick. The girl looked at her eighteen-year-old big brother with her forest green eyes expectedly.

"Will you ask for directions now?" asked the girl. She put her shoulder-cut fiery red hair behind her ear.

"Runa, do you, by chance, see anybody we could ask directions from?" asked Jannick. He raised his eyebrows.

The girl, Runa, crossed her arms and sighed as she looked skyward. This was Jannick's reply. Jannick rested his muscular frame against a huge twenty foot tall boulder at the road's side. He scratched his messy red mop of hair and surveyed the valley before him. Perhaps there was a landmark he didn't before notice or otherwise something he missed. He stroked his red goatee pensively. "I think we've passed into the Easterlands," he said finally.

"The Easterlands?" asked Runa as she joined him, "You must be joking. We've only been on the road for three weeks. It takes almost two months to get to the old country from Varian lands." Jannick's garnet red eyes looked at her, "What makes you think so?"

"See that mountain?" Jannick nodded towards the peak to the north, "That's got to be Mount Darin." The mountain seemed entirely too distant, as though it should have curved over the horizon or otherwise faded into the afternoon's summer air. The peaks that rose over the far side of the valley they were coming into seemed dwarfed by the far off mount.

"Mount Darin?" mused Runa, "Hmm... hang on a second." At her left side, on the belt at her waist was sheathed a scepter crafted of a silver-like metal. It was nearly two feet long and an inch in diameter. Runes elegantly calligraphically swirled around the length of the silver scepter. At the bottom, the scepter was plated over in a strip of darker metal before ending in a silver stump about twice as wide as the rest of the scepter. The head of the scepter was crowned with a long red crystal that went from the width of the scepter to a fine tip; it took up a third of the scepter's full length.

She took her scepter in her left hand and weaved her free hand around it briefly. The red crystal glowed before Runa turned swiftly and pointed the scepter at the mountain, launching a ball of fire at it. Runa rummaged through her large and rather full cloth satchel and retrieved a spyglass. She scrutinized the mountain for a moment as she watched her fireball fly toward it. "Hm... Mmhm," she murmured, "Well, it's an awfully big mountain alright; thirty miles high... perhaps forty."

"As I said," said big brother to little sister, "that's got to be Mount Darin."

Runa shrugged, "Well, I couldn't have you make a gross misinterpretation."

"I guess it's a sign we're still on the right road," said Jannick, "in any case our maps are inaccurate." They started walking east along the road.

"We may get lost again if our maps have been giving us false information," nodded Runa.

"Pass me the big map, please," said Jannick.

Zicone and Lauren watched the redheaded duo intently as they stood near where the pine forest broke to let a road through. "What an odd pair," Lauren confessed.

"They came from the west," noted Zicone, "I didn't think there was anything out there."

"She's obviously a mage," Lauren said, noting the short red cloak Runa wore over her linen dress. Her wardrobe looked a bit too fancy for the road with a high collar and lacy hems. Combined with her pale skin, she looked like a girl of high standing. Lauren looked at Jannick, "He seems more a warrior type." Jannick's clothing was more practical. His dark maroon linen long-coat had a stylish flare with a folded collar. He even sported a pauldron on his right shoulder but the dark grey metal was unfamiliar to Zicone and Lauren.