Answer to the comment:
ITN 7th: Thank you for the review! The fourth chapter is appoximately the same length as the others. Though basically, yes, this story has rather short chapters. The last fan-fiction I wrote had very long chapters and I did update very fast, which had drained most of my inspiration. That is why in this story, the chapters are short, and I update much less often than with the last one. It is actually an experiment (I usually don't write romance... I think it shows, since we are into the 5th chapter now and there still is nothing resembling romance in the story), and meant more for recreation than for anything else.
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Lord of the Mountain Roads
Chapter IV: Darkness
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...
Wait.
Yes.
Wait.
Silence, no more voices, no more souls.
Wait.
Days. Months. Years. Decades. Millennia.
Wait.
Hunger.
Restless, growing weary of waiting.
Where, where?
Voices, again, finally.
Finally.
Just a little bit more.
Wait.
Ready to strike.
...
Setharai stirred in her sleep. Was it a sound she heard? Was it a nightmare? She rubbed her eyes, disoriented in the darkness, more pitch black that she remembered the last nights to be. Where was she?
She sat up. There was no fire, no warm horse body keeping her safe against the winter of Naggaroth. Where was Umdar? She felt her way along the cold stone ground blindly, and then, finally, she felt – warmth.
"Shhhh, Setharai." A male Druchii voice. Husky, but not particularly dark. Somehow familiar. "Don't move."
She froze.
"There is something outside." Her own words were too loud to her ears.
"Yes." The other elf's voice again. Fingers gripping her hand, warmth even through the material of her glove. "Stay here. I'll go look." The other's hand was gone, and the emptiness was icy on her palm.
She crouched, her hand seeking the leather wrapped hilt of her sword, not warming but comforting, the weapon's blade making almost a soft mewl when she drew it out of the scabbard. In this blackness, every sound was so intense.
Steps not heard, more felt by the flowing of the air. The other elf moved, quietly, more quietly than she could imagine any Druchii move. Memories came flowing back, and she at once knew that the elf was Ruathac, was a Shade, was a temporary ally in the vast valleys and rocky heights of the Blackspines. Maybe trustworthy.
Whistle of a crossbow bolt flying. A scream. Not a scream of a dying creature. A surprised, almost frightened scream. The Shade's voice.
She jumped up, not caring if her steps were heard, ran towards the noise.
She was almost blinded by the light of the sickly green Chaos moon, the small disc hovering over the black shapes of the mountain tops, but she ran on to where a barely visible shadowy figure of an elf was defending himself against three pale-skinned, clumsily moving men.
Not so clumsy at all, she thought while she swung her weapon, they were fast enough to come close enough to Ruathac before his crossbow killed them.
Her blade cut into a human's shoulder, and she pulled it out again, jumping back, parrying a blow of a wooden club that another of them aimed at her.
Not so clumsy, and quite quick to react. But no match for Setharai.
Another swipe of her sword arm, a head rolling, the body still stumbling on before it would fall, a macabre theater of shadow and moonlight.
Her eyes widened as the headless body didn't fall but struck out with the club again. She screamed, bringing her sword down in a downwards strike, severing the arm below the elbow, the club still clutched in the dead hand.
No blood dripped on the snow as the enemy continued attacking her, with a stump of black flesh and his remaining fist. The man she had wounded first turned around too, his shoulder adorned by a black gap of a wound that didn't leak. His face, grayish skin dyed green by the Chaos moon, black holes for eyes, was showing no pain.
She stepped back, cold fear creeping up her spine. Only a moment of hesitation – but it almost cost her her life.
The beheaded undead threw her down, icy weight of flesh frozen solid clashing against her armor, and she felt his remaining hand grip her throat. Setharai was back to her senses instantly. She curled her body into a ball, pushing her knees against the enemy, and threw him off. The body rolled over the side of the plateau and disappeared; she heard it taking stones with it on its way down the steep mountain side.
The one with the shoulder wound swung a length of rusty chain – with sudden clarity she saw that it was still attached to the iron collar that he wore on his neck – trying to hit her with it. She dove down and came up again, gripping the chain between his neck and hand with one hand and plunging her sword into the undead man's stomach with the other. She knew that she wouldn't kill him this way – but it gave her enough leverage, and pressing her feet into the snow, she pushed the undead over the edge of the plateau.
The body slid off her sword into the emptiness, and as she released her grip on the chain, she expected for a moment to see a pleading look on the ugly death mask that the creature had for face, but there was none.
Sudden pain seared through her back, and the impact of the blow brought her down to her knees, sliding on the flat surface of white-covered rock, dangerously close to the edge. She struggled to stand up, to turn around, but another hit threw her onto the ground, and at once she was looking into the abyss beneath. The undead thing was pinning her down, kneeling painfully into her spine only protected from breaking by the cooked leather plates that spread the weight more evenly over her back. She screamed in terror as the undead creature gripped her head with bony fingers, bending it back and turning it, trying to break her neck.
And then the creature was thrown down from her, flying over the edge, its bony fingers scratching the sides of her head in a helpless attempt to hold on.
She watched it fall, heard it bouncing of the rock beneath. Just laying there, staring into the abyss, until a cloud darkened the green moonlight and a firm grip on her waist and hip pulled her away from the edge of the plateau.
…
"I warned you that we would have to fight." Ruathac looked down at the Druchii female. He was relieved that she was not wounded – bruised, probably, and sporting a couple of superficial scratches on her brow and cheeks, but nothing serious.
She stared into his eyes, seemingly confused. Then her indigo eyes focused, and she smiled. "Yes, you did." She sat up. Just a moment later, she was on her feet and walking back to the cave in the vertical rock wall.
Ruathac couldn't believe his eyes. Was she insane? Why would she go back there? He would prefer to leave this place instantly. Then he realized that she might just want to retrieve her bag.
He waited several minutes.
She didn't come back.
Sighing, he followed.
The woman stood there, a witch light flickering over her palm. Ruathac furrowed his brow. So, she was capable of some magic, wasn't she? If she was able to summon a witch light, she would probably also be able to sense that something was not quite right in this abandoned mine. Why, by the Dark Mother, was she still in here then? Even he, having no magical talent whatsoever, could feel that this place was damned.
He shook his head, scolding himself silently. He was being unfair. Unlike her, he knew something about the history of this mine. He had hoped that she would listen to his suggestion to go on without him having to explain her what it was all about. This place had taken its toll so many times; the temptation of wealth and knowledge was sitting in this cave like a fat spider, waiting for the next victim, just to turn out to be endless doom.
"Setharai." He called her, softly. "Let's go."
She turned back, her finely chiseled features hauntingly beautiful in the flickering blue-green shine. "Already? I thought you could at least tell me what kind of place it is." Her other hand, in which she still held the sword, gestured at the walls. "A bit more than a simple 'be prepared to fight' would be nice. You could start with… Let me think… 'This mine is cursed, Setharai, let's not stay here, we could be attacked by zombies'… Yes, that would have been fitting."
The Shade listened to her, unable to believe the insolence of her words. What was she talking about? He had been pretty clear about his wish not to spend the night here.
"Or you could tell me if there are other interesting encounters, like the undead we just enjoyed playing with, planned for the next days. Will it be a horde of beastmen next time? Or maybe a dragon ogre? A Greater Demon, perhaps?" She turned away again, her voice sounding hollow and shrill, echoing from the black walls. "Maybe it would make some sense for us to try and talk, you know? Traveling together would be much more pleasant this way." And with these words, she stepped further into the cave, following the rails into the tunnel.
"Setharai!" Ruathac gritted his teeth.
For a moment, he considered letting her walk off into her death. He tried to help her, he really did; but her behavior made him really uncomfortable now. What was she expecting? The treacherous sweet talk of the Hellbane's court, the drunken fairy-tales of corsairs from the haven of Clar Karond? He had seen enough city-dwellers in his life, and it seemed that they were all the same. They preferred talking to thinking.
He leaned against a wall and began reloading his repeater crossbow. He had lost some of the bolts in the undead flesh before he noticed that they wouldn't be wounded by the shots. He had had no possibility to get the bolts back out. He would have to make new ones soon.
When he was finished with the task, he waited, eyes closed, even elven sight useless in the complete darkness of the cave, and listened.
She would come back soon enough, he told himself. Once she noticed that he didn't go after her, she would come back. City-dwellers were too afraid to cross the Blackspines alone. She needed him.
He waited.
...
Wait.
Something is breathing.
Steps.
Warmth.
Light – no, not just light. Magic.
Magic!
Sweet, sweet scent of – life.
Souls. Voices.
Wait.
Ready to strike.
...
With a sudden rush of blood in his temples, his heartbeat going so fast that he thought his heart would break open his ribcage, he opened his eyes.
Only moments had passed since he had heard Setharai's faint steps for the last time, but at once the waiting was unbearable, and the acute sense of danger had him in its grasp.
Something else had been waiting too.
Waiting for Setharai.
And he knew at once that if he wanted to see her again, he had to find her before it found her.
...
Wait.
Awake, now.
Follow, follow the path, little mortal.
Little vessel of magic.
Dormant, weak, but it will suffice.
The net is woven.
Hungry.
Wait.
...
Setharai walked on. The walls of the tunnel had become smoother again, and the silvery veins of metal were once more visible in the stone. The witch light in her hand shimmered, reflected by the thin, snaking metallic surfaces, hinting to the beauty of the treasure hidden inside the mine, turning the dark corridor into something more resembling royal halls than a mere cave.
She was sure by now that this ore must be something precious – the first part of the corridor, where the walls were full of ragged edges and holes, was the one where the metal had been already mined, broken from its mineral cradle.
She had seen a couple of dwarf skeletons on her way – probably slave workers, judging by the iron collars, cuffs and chains still adorning their bones. She wondered how they managed to decay in here instead of being conserved by frost. Even though it was slightly warmer in the cave than outside, it was still a temperature that would make water freeze. Maybe it was different in the summer – or maybe the cave had been heated by fires at the time when the workers had died.
The further she moved into the mine, the more skeletons she found. Now, there were also longer, more fragile bones, probably those of elves or humans. Briefly, she worried that the presence of undead outside the cave might mean a possible resurrection of all those skeletons.
The thought made her stop.
...
No, little vessel.
They won't come alive.
Nothing returns to life here.
Everything just dies.
Everything dies.
And you will, too.
Wait.
And see.
...
Soothed by undefined, misty thoughts clouding her mind, Setharai walked on again. Soon, she would learn the secret of this place. She was looking forward to it.
She had learned so much already – summoning a witch light was something she had never been able to do before, and it was so easy here. She felt gratitude, and she felt welcome in this place.
When she saw what else awaited her, she smiled in delight and relief.
On the path before her – walls and metallic rivulet patterns on them fading – she saw Umdar, steam rising from her black flanks. The mare was shaking her delicate head, beating an inaudible, nervous rhythm on the ground with her hooves, dancing in impatience.
"Umdar! I feared you were dead…" Setharai stretched out her arms towards the horse, letting the sword fall and the witch light disappear.
Darkness enveloped her.