Chapter 7

I leaned on my sword, not tired but merely bored with killing. I had never known that killing could be so much fun, until I had given in to the wish of Dark Shear. Now, as I watched blood drip from its blade, I felt a satisfaction I had never before felt. There was only a single pair of men left, besides Vi and Mavin, who I wished to make a public spectacle of upon our march to the Forbidden Well. I had called back my krul, and we stood surrounding the remaining four.

"Will you surrender?" I asked while inspecting my clothes to make sure nothing was torn.

"Never!" Vi cried. "How could you be so heartless, so cruel? We did all we could for you, and you turn around and stab us in the back, consumed by rage and violence! What kind of a man are you?"

"Simple: I'm not a man." I picked my fingernails. "I'm a Night Wraith." I began methodically wiping the blood off Dark Shear. Finishing, I stood and motioned for the krul to take them alive. The two swordsmen went down; fighting to their last breath, but Vi was disarmed and captured.

The wizard was another matter.

Beams of light pierced through the ranks of undead. I saw the wizard's sword glowing with the strength of the light.

This one I will take alone.

I stepped forward, raising Dark Shear. "You leave me no choice, Mavin."

"Do your worst!" the man sneered.

I reared back and gave a mighty slash. Mavin's sword raised up to block my blade, its runes flashing in its encasing of light. Then our blades met, and the radiance was extinguished as Dark Shear shattered the blade of my enemy, also cutting off the ring finger of the mage who wielded it.

I turned my back and walked away, leaving the krul to put him in the cage.

A few moments later we were beginning the long trek to the city of Mel-Kora, the city of wizards, where the Forbidden Well lay.

Chapter 9

"Cold enough yet?" I asked the prisoner in the cage. It had been snowing for the past few days as we ventured up into the mountains. Vi had never stopped trying to turn me from my task, and she was getting aggravating. Even worse was the feeling of doubt that she had invited into my mind.

Maybe it's true. I thought. Maybe once you leave something of this magnitude you can't go back.

Shaking the thought from my mind, I turned my attention to Dark Shear. Whenever I started getting the doubts, something strange happened to Dark Shear. It would turn a lighter shade, and seem more like the old Shear before I returned to the darkness.

An archfiend strode up to where I rode on a pale horse, its skeletal walk making it look all the more hideous.

It opened its bone jaws to speak in a phlegm-clogged voice. "We are approaching the Wizard's City, Night Wraith. What are your orders?"

"Assemble the krul in a spearhead formation in order to break through the first wave of attackers when I open the gates." I commanded. I turned to Illidan Flamewheel. "Follow me."

I stood before the gates of the imposing fortress. "Greetings, Wizards!" I called up to the watchman. His only reply was a stream of fire as the gates burst into an inferno.

I nodded to Illidan. With a twitch of his hand, the blazing firewall leapt into the sky. Illidan then placed his two Charkams on the ground, and standing on them, ascended into the firestorm.

The blaze took on the shape of a dragon, sweeping across the walls like a wave. Burning bodies fell from the walls as they crackled and burned.

I raised Dark Shear. A wave of pure darkness rose around me, becoming a fearsome storm of black lightning, not striking from the clouds but from the ground. At a signal from me the krul began to charge. I summoned up all of my powers, and sent a flow of pure blackness, without a single drop of light, flowing at the gates. The gates seemed to shimmer, and then vanished utterly, consumed by the darkness.

The krul washed in, Illidan landed with a wave of fire, I lifted Dark Shear, and the killing began.

By the time the death was dealt and the krul raised, Illidan and I were at the Forbidden Well holding the urn containing Kael-Surd's bones.

"The Forbidden Well." Illidan said with desire shining in his eyes. "It is said that whoever drinks of this water will live forever, if their cause is right. What can be more right then our cause, to exterminate the living, and thus bring peace to this troubled world? I will drink." He bent towards the well and started to reach for the water.

"No." I blocked his hand with my arm. "We have our orders, to revive Kael-Surd. Availing ourselves of eternal life is not what we are here for. Besides, this place stinks of magic. I wouldn't be surprised if a wizard placed a death spell on this place." I did not voice my inner reasons. This had been a place of beauty, and we, in the space of less then an hour, had reduced it to a home of the dead. Only the Forbidden Well was undefiled, and I did not want to do more harm then necessary. He seemed about to argue, but a single blue flash in my grey eyes was enough to silence him.

"If you insist." Illidan was angry but hiding it well, I could see.

"Then let us proceed." I said reverently as he tipped out the remains of the bones of the dead captain. At the same time I grabbed a captured swordsman and threw him down into the well.

There was a large crash, and the water in the well seemed to roil in pain, almost. That was when he emerged, in a new body that the Dreadlord had provided.

A beast that must have been ten feet tall loomed up from inside the well. It was entirely black, with perfectly round, entirely white eyes. Its claws were three inches long, and I saw six tentacles protruding from its chest. One of these held the unfortunate soldier. As I watched, the other tentacles wrapped around him, and the swordsman slowly disintegrated.

A sepulcher voice emanated from the beast, addressed entirely to Illidan. "Well done. It would appear that you have served the Lord of Silence well. You may leave now, and leave the destruction of this place to me." Still ignoring me, Kael-Surd turned his tentacles on the city. As the rest of us filed out of the ruined fortress, I glanced back and saw black tentacles tearing down and destroying the fortress. A tinge of regret surfaced in my heart.

Such a waste. Such a waste, all of this destruction just for a single entity. Couldn't there be a better way?

A buried memory surfaced.

"Well, I know who you are, Arc, and you are not one of them." Vi said with surprising ferocity. "I know that you are a good man who wouldn't ever join them. Never. If you used to be with them, I know that you aren't now, and that's good enough for me."

I wondered if I was doing the right thing.

Shaking such thoughts from my mind, I signaled for the krul to erect shelter for the sentient archfiends and us Silent Prophets.

The beast that was Kael-Surd approached me and Illidan. "You two have played your parts well. We no longer have need of you. You will stay with the krul until I summon you for your next task." He stalked off into the snow.

I turned on Illidan. "Is that it? We are cast away after all that we have done?"

"be calm, Kylar." Illidan replied. "You may still have a part to play in this grand scheme."

"I may have a part to play?" That didn't sound good. "You have just been used like a tool, Illidan. I don't know how you feel, but I did not come all this way to be cast aside after being manipulated."

"Relax." He seemed almost serene. "We are not going to be abandoned."

I turned and walked to my tent where I stayed. I sat by the fire, glad of warmth for the first time since I had rejoined the order. I lay back, and allowed sleep to take me.