Chapter 16

Maya walked with her quarterstaff propped on her shoulder, her steps kicking up trails in the fog that covered the valley floor. She was walking near the front of a long column of soldiers attired in the blue and white uniforms of the army of the Redakai. Her team mates and the two survivors from Team Tuatha trudged along beside her. She glanced over her shoulder, looking at the soldiers behind her. They still managed to look splendid, even with their uniforms and weapons stained with blood and dirt. The masters of the order walked up front, leading the army.

Another column marched along beside this one, the soldiers wearing the blue and brown uniforms marking them as soldiers of Kieran McCann. They looked more ragged than their counterparts, for they had been prisoners of the gihox not too long ago. Maya tried unsuccessfully to spot Cat and Roger in that column. The king himself walked at the head of his army, and master Baphamel walked along at his side. The kairu master had become somewhat of a battlefield adviser to the young king. Catapults were being pulled along by horses at regular intervals in the column.

Maya felt a pain in her chest all of a sudden, and she stumbled over a stone sticking through the turf, but managed to remain on her feet. Her friends looked at her with concern, as sweat started to roll down her face. But then the pain subsided, and she straightened and kept on walking as though nothing was wrong. Her friends bought her act, apparently just thinking she had been startled. But she was worried, for this had happened several times over the last two days, and she was starting to worry she might have a heart condition. She had not told her friends about it, for they had more important things to worry about.

A scout wearing blue and brown came riding toward the two columns, his horse churning the ground fog as it passed. The man looked wearied, though he had not been out for more than ten minutes, and his horse also looked drained. ''My king,'' he said, bowing with fist to heart, though the simple motion nearly threw him from the saddle. ''There is something terribly wrong with the landscape up ahead. I don't know what is wrong, but everything is gray and colorless, and all the vegetation is wilted and dying. There wasn't an animal to be seen anywhere, my lord.''

''This must be caused by the Cataclysm Stone,'' master Atoch said. ''Malice must be using it to drain the kairu from the land.''

''Will it affect my men?'' Kieran asked.

''I am afraid so,'' master Atoch said. ''We must find and neutralize it, or our soldiers will be too weak to fight the gihox.''

''But should it not affect the gihox as well?''

''It should,'' master Atoch said slowly. ''But I doubt Malice is foolish enough to use it if it means draining her own troops. She might have tampered with the stone somehow, so that it drains us but not herself and her gihox.''

''So what do we do?'' Kieran asked.

''The fortress is close,'' master Baphamel piped in. ''We could set camp here and gather our strength, before attacking the castle in the morning. Then we should be able to take the fortress before our strength is too depleted.''

''Alright then,'' Kieran said, and then the armies set up camp.

xxxxx

The vase flew through the air and shattered on the obsidian wall, the shards dropping into a pile of more shards and dust at the base of the wall. The act of breaking did little to relieve Malice of the rage bubbling within her. Most of her army was gone, leaving her with only the small garrison she kept here in her fortress. The gihox of that garrison were very angry with her, for they blamed her for the disaster outside Castle McCann. The garrison was even smaller now, for a gihox tribe had abandoned her, sneaking away in the night. Those few tribes who remained only did so for they feared her wrath.

Muttering a curse, the dark spirit grabbed up another vase and hurled it with all her might across the room, to shatter against the wall. One piece slid back across the floor, coming to rest against her black boot. She took a deep breath to try and steady herself but without success, and she reached for another vase. But there was none left, and so she spun away and stalked across the room, holding her head. She had gone from victory to utter defeat in the blink of an eye. There came a knock at the door and she called for whoever it was to enter, and two very nervous gihox entered the room.

''We have received news, mistress,'' the braver of the two barked. ''The humans are camped not so far away, and will reach us tomorrow.''

Malice already knew that, for she had gone out in spirit form to scout earlier. ''Is that all?'' she asked in the gihox tongue.

''Two more tribes have left us,'' the gihox said, gaining confidence.

Malice screamed with rage, and channeled her inner kairu into her arm, which she swung at the gihox who had spoken. There came a bright flash of purple upon contact, and then the entire room was sprayed crimson. ''Leave me!'' the dark spirit wailed, covered in blood, and the remaining gihox, also painted red, dropped a quick bow and exited. Its outline was visible on the wall where its body had shielded it from the bloody spray. It was the only spot on the wall that was clear of blood. Malice growled a curse as she looked at her bloody arms, and strode into the adjoining bathroom, where she drew herself a bath.

To be continued...