Chereads / The Crimson Blade and the Frozen Crown / Chapter 16 - The Gathering Storm

Chapter 16 - The Gathering Storm

The following morning dawned cold and still. Glacial, but only barely penetrating the shade of the wild woods, Elara and her party moved swiftly and purposefully among the abandoned campsite. Their very last conflict with the spectral version of the jade lotus has not just scarred the land, but has filled them also with an existential fear in their very hearts, in the heart of their own bravest warriors.

Elara held the gaze on the road ahead of her, her mind a total mess currently following the sequence of events just past. The Jade Lotus had, by virtue of nature, gained in prominence much more than it could have dreamed of. What was once in the minority, is now a force that cannot be dispensed with.

Fine, princess? Bael's voice cut across her mind.

She turned her eyes to meet his, her lips coming into a thin straight line. "I'm fine," she replied, her tone clipped.

Bael didn't seem convinced. He studied her carefully but said nothing further. The others were busy packing up, their expressions somber.

"Where to next?" Varik asked, stepping up beside her. On his face was both a shield and it was barrier guarded with a posture of timidity that had choked the camp.

[We] go to the Blackened Mountains," Elara declared, her tone firm. "The Verdant Veil's intelligence was clear—there's a stronghold there, one we'll need to neutralize. Second, Jade Lotus has controlled its agents as well from and through the space. Because if we remove their by means of operation, they can be taken away from their line of attack in a terrible way, the written says.

Varik nodded, though the doubt in his eyes lingered. "You don't think this is too much of a gamble? They'll be expecting us."

Elara clenched her molars from the work involved and from the pack. "I don't think we have a choice. Unless we act now, Black Lotus will wreak such havoc that it will be too late to undo. This is the only way to strike back."

The Blackened Mountains

They arrived at the foot of the Blackened Mountains at midday. The scent of pine and damp earth hung in the chest, the rocky peaks thrusting aloft jaggedly before them. Fog descended from the valley floor, it nestled itself between the slopes at elevation, a sentient one. The range was infamous for its rough and tumble landscape, but what frightened Elara was not the landscape but the impression that the range itself was keeping an eye on them, waiting.

Every time they moved their narrow track uphill and uphill, the air became a vortexed, hissing in the rocks and chirping in a strange way, almost mournfully. The vehicle of travel (go) was a narrow, uneven road, steep enough so that every step was a laborious movement. The colder it got (the deeper the frost became) and the thicker it got, the higher up they go.

For Walt, Elara Varik's voice was airy, like it may very well be the voice of someone with nothing to tell, because they are too afraid to own up to it.

She glanced over at him, arching an eyebrow. "What is it, Varik?"

We're under observation," he said, his hand resting casually upon one of his blades. "I can feel it."

Elara didn't respond immediately. She also felt it—the almost imperceptible force that seemed to hold the air, the dislocated feeling that the shadows expanded abnormally, the creepy stillness of the mountain summit. She scanned the area and (but) she found nothing on her back as they followed her route.

"Keep moving," she ordered, her tone low.

They spent hours and hours trekking up the mountain, with the air getting colder and colder and with their surroundings increasingly hostile. Each thud sent up a muffled swoosh, muffled by the quiet-compressing snow and the wind was "mewing" voices as they climbed higher and higher.

Then, just as the sun began to set, they reached the narrow cliffside pass that marked the entrance to the Black Lotus stronghold. The road ahead forked in two ways—one winding further into the mountains, the other angling upward toward the skyline fortress.

[Right] It's on the left," Elara said, narrowing the gaze even more. "They'll be expecting us."

Bael stepped forward, his voice a low growl. "Then we'll give them a fight they'll never forget."

However, before they could make a move, someone materialized from the darkness, appearing out of the shadows and stepping directly in their way with surprising swiftness. Unmasked in the dark armour the figure was a specter of the first light of the day breaking into the twilight world, the hood pulled down to hide his face. He walked with unnatural grace, every movement deliberate and threatening.

Elara," the voice replied, as he spoke, the voice flat and cool, as if he knew her name.

She froze, catching the hilt of her froststeel dagger as she felt it in response to the touch. Who am I, she blurted, hardly maintaining a natural inflection.

The figure's lips curled into a smile, with a very slight shimmer, a semblance of malice in his stare. "I am one of the Black Lotus's finest. You may call me Aleron."

Elara's heart skipped a beat. She'd heard rumors of Aleron—the Black Lotus's right hand, a man said to be as deadly as he was elusive. He was whispered of in the back of the house in guised fear and he was, at the corner of their vision.

"Do you plan to stop us, Aleron? She said, her voice firm even though marked by the rushing of the adrenaline in her veins).

He tilted his head, his smirk widening. "I plan to give you a choice."

"A choice?" Varik growled, stepping forward. "What choice?"

Aleron's eye darted over the line for a second each with the men and women, then landed on Elara. "Join the Black Lotus. Just stay by my side, and I will provide you with more power than you know what to do with. Your kingdom will fall—your enemies will fall—but only if you're willing to take the step into darkness.

Elara's hand tightened on her dagger. "I'll never join you."

Aleron's expression darkened. Prepare to see how far the blackness can go.

With a flash of movement, he drew a thin, bladed, unnatural figure from his side, its tip and its edge black.

Bael and Varik whirred over to Elara's side as fast as they thought they could go for and grabbed both their weapons but suddenly Elara drew both of them to a standstill in one stretched finger.

"I'll handle this, she said, her voice low and cold.

Aleron's lips curled into a predatory smile. "As you wish."

The Duel

The air seemed to condense around the time Elara met Aleron, the blackened blade shimmering and flashing in the dying illumination. She could feel the weight of his presence—he wasn't just a mere swordsman, but a man who wielded the darkness itself.

He charged her with a "zap," crackling with electricity, and his sword shimmered with a foreboding gleam that sliced through the room like a "hss. Elara slinked sideways, free as the breeze, froststeel blade through the opening that Aleron's blade had just vacated.

He had been swift—and fast, like no enemy she ever seen before. But she was no stranger to danger. With a snap of the wrist and Elara parried his incoming strike and a crack rang up the sides of his blade.

Aleron nearly topped the object, reflexively in head. "Impressive," he said, his voice rich with amusement. "But it won't be enough."

He ran faster this time running to slam Elara against and he slid under. Each hit instilled helplessness fear, that sense of finality of death, that overwhelming compulsion to squish her into the soil, into the dust. But Elara's resolve hardened with each blow. The Black Lotus had nothing on her.

"You don't understand, Princess," Aleron said between strikes. "This world is dying. Jade Lotus is the only chance to save it. You may have more power than you realize how to wield, but that power actually comes into play if you have the power to use it.

Elara's icy eyes narrowed. Power, [you] write, "but knows nothing of fighting for anything. I'm not like you."

She entered like a tornado striking, her blade shimmering in the shadows on a direct collision course with his chest. This time, Aleron didn't move fast enough.

Her blade landed, but fell short of his body cavity, as the blood made her own veins freeze from within. He winced in pain but his eyes still gleamed with gleeful sadism.

"I'll be back, Princess, he whispered, blood spilling from his wound. "You can't outrun the darkness forever."

With a swift movement, he vanished into the shadows, leaving Elara standing alone at the edge of the mountain pass.