Lore of Eternal Shadow: The Fugitive King

Chapter Twenty-Four

The portal opened a number of feet off the ground and Alva careened through. He tumbled onto the ground and found dirt in his mouth. He spat out a mouthful and peeled himself off of the surface. He quickly sprang up and darted around to gain his surroundings. Galgaroth, forests, the wild... Alva screamed out in anger and exhausted frustration, "Gods damn it!!!"

So his brother had freed Thalos, one of Alva's master's old generals. Maybe Argon would find that interesting, especially the part about the Ring of the Dead. But Alva wasn't done with Zicone or his stupid friends. He knew his foolish brother would return to Galgaroth eventually. Alva summoned his steed.

He would have his brother, dead or alive, when he returned to his master. He was unbound from Argon at that moment; serving his master was second to pacifying his brother. Alva's mind set into motion a number of ideas... Perhaps Zicone could be more easily persuaded if the trash he hung around with was disposed of.

***

They crossed the vigilant ancient towers and beheld the sand-like ash of the wasteland once more. "Do you remember where we parked the coach?" asked Runa to Tiberan, half-jokingly.

"Certainly," said Tiberan, "I wouldn't be much of a ZRDF Officer if I couldn't tell where I was going."

"Be cautious," called Salgan, "we don't know when those things will come back."

"It's not even midday," said Alyssa.

"Yes, but if our journey here is any indication, the monsters roaming this wild are unpredictable at the very best," Salgan responded.

They didn't have to wait long. Zicone once again felt like he was being watched. They were not long out of the limits of the city when another spider appeared out of the sand itself. This one was about the size of a large house. Its eight red eyes glared with the closest thing to anger it could represent.

"Oh for gods' sake—how many of these things are there!?" Zicone said as he drew his sword.

"One less now," called the Vampirex. With unimaginable speed, he leapt onto the spider's head. He grabbed the creature's pincers with long fingers. Propping himself against the creature's neck, he thrust the spider's head clean off. Discarding the enormous head onto the ground, he jumped down and shrugged off all the bodily fluids on his robes. The eyes of the bodiless head darted from one person to the next as its pincers still wiggled but signs of life quickly faded. "Twice I have saved your lives now," the Vampirex said to their speechlessness.

Lauren studied the spider corpse for a moment. "If you're looking for redemption, I'd suggest doing that a few million times more at least."

"Let's just keep going," said Zicone.

With the Vampirex at their side, the spiders were much less of a worry on the journey back. Still, they didn't dare stop to rest; instead setting up decoy fires to fool the spiders (and whatever else was out there) into thinking that they had.

At noon the next day the valiant party finally spotted the coach on the horizon, parked precisely where it was before. It was obvious that the coach didn't think the last few days had been trying or challenging at all... if it could think. It symbolized the civilization the Zey^Rey living in their home-dimension had gotten used to. Nothing was too hard or challenging; everything was controlled and clean.

It was a stark contrast to the party. Most of them were a sweaty, gross mess. Everybody showed at least some crusty residue of blood upon their skin and clothing from cuts and injuries they'd received from their long, tiring trek through the scarred past of the Zey^Rey and Shol^Thol peoples. "Feeling this disgusting may as well be my thing now," Runa said, looking over the tattered remnants of her cloak.