Shadow's hunt, part six
#6 of Shadow's hunt
Alright, here is the next part of Shadow's hunt. I had orginally intended to submit this before the new 'knights of juno' segments, but I got stuck and had to move on to other things. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story. As always, comments are appreciated. * * *
Continued from part five... Jen woke to Shadow shaking her gently. She looked up at him blearily and he spoke. "Come on Jen, its time to get up." He said and she nodded, yawning heavily. As Shadow walked away, Jen sat up and yawned a second time. Her body was stiff and sore and she hadn't gotten nearly enough rest. Shadow's tale had lasted well into the night and all she really wanted just then was to go back to sleep. But she saw that Shadow and Hul were both up and about already, packing supplies into their packs. Shaking her head, she leaned forward until she could grab her toes and then arched her back, smiling as a ripple of pops surged up her spine. Once she had stretched out the kinks, she went looking for breakfast. Her search led her to where Talain and Jolis sat with some of their warriors. Talain handed her a bowl of rice and she sat with the wolves, devouring her breakfast hungrily. The Moontigers and Hul's minotaur brethren were already up and either breakfasting or packing up the camp. Despite the warrior's activity, the recently freed slaves were still mostly asleep, for their harrowing trial was now over. When she was finished with her food, she wandered through the camp slowly, looking for anyone she recognized amongst the slaves. She could not see anyone from her village, but that was hardly surprising. Most of the village had been sold off before Shadow had rescued her, and those that hadn't were already on their way to safety, protected by more of Shadow's battle brothers. 'Speaking of Shadow...' She thought, looking around for the Tiger. She found him speaking to his captains a short distance from the camp and she walked slowly in that direction. She waited patiently a respectful distance away from the small knot of officers, not wanting to disturb them. From what she heard, the moontigers were disbanding from their companies for now, each warrior escorting one or more slaves. Even Shadow's guards were leaving as escorts. The captains bowed as one and the group broke up, each heading in a different direction within the camp. "Ready to go Jen?" Shadow asked, walking up to her. She nodded and the pair started back to where they had been sleeping. When they reached the remains of their campfire, they took up their packs and Jen picked up her weapons again. When she took her bow in hand and started to wrap it in a leather tube that would protect it on their journey, the memory of the battle the day before came back to her. The image of her arrows punching into the bodies of the warriors she had killed came rushing into her mind and she felt suddenly ill. She shook her head slightly and slid the bow into its tube. The image remained and she felt a strange sorrow in her heart at the knowledge that she had killed them. Granted, they had been evil men, each having no qualms about slaving, torture and murder. But the fact remained that she had killed them. She was still thinking about it when Hul walked back to the camp, lifting his pack and his huge warhammer easily. "Well, the captains can handle things here." Shadow said and then turned to his companions. "Shall we?" With that, the trio walked out of camp, headed north... *** A few weeks after the battle, the trio were just entering a range of high mountains, deep in the depths of the untamed wilds. They had been hiking endlessly through the woodlands for all that time and Jen had finally gotten used to roughing it. Shadow and Hul were both seasoned campaigners and neither seemed the least bit bothered by their journey's hardships, but she hadn't had to live off the land like they had, or journey as far through rough terrain. And all through the journey, she never said a word of complaint. She wanted to prove to herself that she was the equal of the two warriors. Every night, when they had made camp, Shadow and Hul would spar with her, improving her fighting techniques. She was getting better with the kamas she carried by the day, but she still didn't feel totally confident in her skills. She wanted to be as good as Shadow was with his blades and as good as Hul with his hammer, but she knew it would take years to reach their skill. Still, she practiced as hard as she dared to, and her skill improved. Once her practice was done each evening, Shadow and Hul would strip down to loincloths and fight unarmed for a while, something that Jen thought was a little too dangerous for her. Hul's strength was enormous and she knew that if got caught by one of his punches, she wouldn't be fighting or even walking for some days. But neither warrior was ever seriously injured after these duels, though both sported bruises that the other had given with their blows. And so, now, after traveling for weeks with that routine, they stood outside the entrance to a barren valley in the rock. "Behold, the valley of the dragons." Shadow stated, looking into the barren place. "It has been said that once a great clan of dragons lived here, but they were long ago wiped out in the dragon wars." "Are we going into there today?" Jen asked uncertainly, looking at the strangely silent valley. "Probably not." Hul answered, looking up at the sky. "It would probably be for the best if we waited until tomorrow. Shadow?" "I agree." The tiger stated. "We will need a whole day to search that valley and we might miss something in the dark if we go in there now." "Well then, lets set up camp." Jen stated, happy to put off going into the forbidding mouth of that valley. As the sun went down toward evening, they sat around the campfire and Jen asked Shadow a question that had just occurred to her. "What were the dragon wars? I don't think I have ever heard of them." "The dragon wars took place a very long time ago." Shadow began, "Once, there were many dragons in the world. They ruled all other races with absolute impunity. Their cousins, the reptoids, were little more than henchmen at the time. But, for a reason that I don't think anyone ever remembers, the dragons started to fight amongst themselves. They used our peoples as their foot soldiers, and for a hundred years, the battles raged. Many dragons were killed alongside many thousands of the lesser people. It was chaos, with the lines of control shifting daily. And then, one of the minotaurs rose against the dragons, fighting with them for control of his people. And that minotaur led the people in rebellion. Isn't that right Hul?" "Yes." The minotaur stated, looking full of pride. "Dorian the Strong was his name. He and his tribe were the first to throw off the shackles of servitude. Though his clan has long ago passed out of this world, it is a tale that is well loved by all of my people, regardless of tribe." "Well, anyway, with Dorian leading the way, the people rose up and the war changed suddenly." Shadow continued. "It became a war against the dragons that had oppressed the peoples and the private war to settle a dispute amongst the dragons turned into the dragon's downfall. Nearly all of the dragons were killed and the few that remained left the world. To this day, no one knows where they went. Some same that they all died off. Others that they still live, in a land beyond the Great Ocean. A few, mostly the wishful thinkers, like to say that they joined with the lesser races, forever living on within us." Shadow took a deep breath and then shook his head. "It is just a legend of course. No one really knows what happened to them. Anyway, this valley has been barren for as long as anyone can remember. People just call it the valley of the dragons because it looks like the old paintings of the effects of dragon fire." "Hmm." Jen said, looking up at the constellations above them. Then, something occurred to her that she had meant to think about before but it had slipped her mind. "Cyr, back in the slaver fortress, Gantor said something about the Golden Key of The Moontiger. Do you know what he was talking about? I seem to remember the elders saying something about it back in the village." "I don't know what he meant by that." The tiger stated, looking thoughtful. "But you are right, I do remember the elders talking about that. It has been so long that I don't recall what was said though." "That is the trouble," Jen said, "I can't either. I wish I could, because it is going to bug me until I figure it out." "All that I know for sure about this valley and the so called key is what I found on this scroll." Shadow said, taking a scroll case out of his pack and unrolling its contents, showing them a scroll with an imprint of strange letters on it in an arc. "These are words in an ancient language that is no longer spoken by any save the sages themselves. They say 'When the golden key of the master of war is placed within, the way forward will open and the soul render be loosed.' I can only assume that these letters were carved on the door into the Soulbreaker gem's hiding place." "I wonder what it means?" Jen said, staring at the letters of the parchment. They looked tantalizingly familiar, as if from something that she had seen in a dream, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what they meant. "Why don't you sleep on it?" Hul said sympathetically. "That always helps me." Jen nodded and lay her blankets down at the fire side, straining her memory to remember what the elders had said. Finally, she shook her head and closed her eyes. It would come to her eventually... *** Jen awoke from sleep suddenly as a loud roll of thunder echoed overhead. She looked around in a slight panic when she didn't recognize where she was, but then she saw Shadow and Hul hurrying to set up a shelter. Jen leapt to her feet and ran to help them. Each of them had been carrying a piece of the shelter in their packs and they had used the pieces only once before in their journey. She dug her half of the tarp out of her pack and hurried to string it between the logs that Hul seemed to have cut from some nearby trees. Moments after they got the lean-to built, thick drops of rain started to fall on them from above. The three of them hurried under the shelter and laid their blankets down, leaving the fire to drown in the rain. Moments later, the storm broke fully over their camp, the rain lashing down against the shelter. They lay together beneath the stretched tarps, listening to the rain and the thunder echoing down from above. Hul was stretched out against one edge of the shelter, his snoring barely to be heard above the sound of the rain and thunder. But Jen and Shadow lay side by side, the tiger sleeping, but the fox wide awake. Jen was remembering when she and Cyr had made a shelter like this one day when they had just become teenagers. She thought back to how it had felt to lay there with Cyr when he was a human, how much she had enjoyed falling asleep listening to the sound of the rain beating on the tent, and the sound of her lover's heart next to her. She looked over at Cyr and smiled to herself as an idea came to her. She carefully lifted Shadow's arm and then crawled under it, laying her head against his chest, her body against his side. Once she was settled, she let the arm back down. Shadow stirred slightly when he felt her uniform under his hand, then he held her to him gently in his sleep. Jen closed her eyes, listening to the sound of the storm and drifted off to sleep as she once had back home, nestled in Cyr's embrace... *** The next morning, Jen awoke at Shadow's urging. A warm breeze was blowing in through the shelter's opening, accompanied by bright sunlight. Hul was still snoring across the shelter from her, and for a moment, she didn't find anything amiss. Then suddenly she blushed, realizing that she was still lying cuddled up to Shadow. "Not that I am complaining." Shadow said, winking one eye at her. "But I think Lania might not like that. This is her body too." "Sorry." Jen said, quickly crawling out from under his arm and back to where she had spread her blankets the night before. "Like I said, I'm certainly not complaining." He said sitting up and tucking his swords back into his belt. After he had rolled up his blankets and tucked them back into his pack, he went over to Hul and slapped his shoulder rather hard, saying "Come on old bull, time to get up." Hul snorted and opened his eyes, looking around the shelter sleepily. "Huh?" He said and Jen giggled, watching a pink patch appear on the bull's shoulder where Shadow had slapped him. He didn't seem to even feel the blow and he looked back around the tent. "What time is it?" "About mid morning." Shadow answered, digging out some trail food from his pack. "And we should be getting a move on." Hul grumbled slightly and then sat up. Jen was still giggling and Hul looked at her with a look of confusion on his face before he spotted the pink patch and then his face contorted slightly in an angry snarl. The huge minotaur got to his feet and strode from the shelter, smacking the back of Shadow's head as he passed with one hand. Shadow grinned at Jen and the pair left the shelter to begin the task of disassembling it. The logs they would leave on the ground, but the cords and tarps they stuffed into their packs. After a quick meal of trail rations, they set off into the valley. The storm's passing had left everything seeming finely detailed and Jen breathed deep the fresh scent of newly fallen rain. In the light of the new day, the valley didn't look all that foreboding and she followed Shadow as he passed between the great stones that littered the entrance to the valley... *** It was nearing nightfall when they finally found what they had been seeking. All day long, they had been walking in the totally silent valley. Nothing seemed to be living there anymore and more than once, Jen found herself looking over her shoulder, thinking that she had heard something behind her. She had finally taken to carrying her bow fully strung with an arrow on the string. Whatever had happened so long ago that had ruined this place, it had left something unnatural behind. The silence in that place was profound and she felt as if it was swallowing even the sounds of her booted feet on the stones. But now, at last, they had found a cave. Relieved, she hurried inside after Hul, glad to get out of the silent valley. But her relief did not last long. Jen had forgotten how much she hated caves, and now that hatred came back to her full force. Shadow had stopped inside the entrance and was striking a flint onto a torch he had brought, waiting until it caught before continuing on into the darkness beneath the earth. Jen followed behind the tall tiger, her relief slipping away quickly. The cave was just as silent as the valley outside had been, but only their foot falls could be heard, echoing infinitely onward ahead of them. If anything, this was worse than silence, for it meant that the cave continued on for quite some distance and Jen had never liked being inside caves; she felt as if the stone would suddenly close in around her and crush her to death. However, they had not gone far when Shadow turned aside from his path and stepped into a side tunnel that was even more cramped than the one they were in now. Swallowing nervously, Jen followed after Shadow, trying not to think about the walls around her. It was a good five minutes before anything interesting happened and then Shadow stepped to the side, for the passage had opened up. It appeared to be a perfect dead end, except for a three inch wide hole in the wall about shoulder level for Shadow. Jen dropped her pack against a wall and sat down, disappointed and starting to feel claustrophobic in the enclosed tunnel. Shadow moved over to the wall and began to brush dust from it, revealing letters to the failing light coming from the torch. They were strangely shaped, but nearly identical to the shape of the letters spelled out on the surface of the scroll. But Jen noticed a few differences, imperfections perhaps that changed the shape of a few of the symbols. And there, below the hole, another sentence had been scrawled shallowly, as if in a great hurry. It was shorter than the other lines of words, but no less unintelligible. But then Shadow started doing something strange. He was running his paws over the symbols, muttering strange words under his breath, then he stepped back and turned around, his eyes flashing. "Now I understand it." He said. Jen was surprised at his voice, for it had changed. It was deeper, more wild, with a quality like rolling tribal music. "The sages mistranslated. Here, see, the letters are different. It shouldn't have been 'golden key'; it should have read 'When the hidden blood of the master of war is spilled within, the way forward will open and the soul render be loosed.' The writing below says 'beware the Guardians within...' How strange. But I know how to open the way forward now." Now the tiger was rolling up his sleeve. Jen realized what he was doing a second before he did it. Before she could move to stop him, he turned to the wall and stuck his arm into the hole up to his elbow. There was a faint clicking sound, and then Shadow twitched, his teeth set as if against a sudden pain. And then, the wall started to shudder and shake, and a crack appeared in it, splitting the wall in two above and below the circle. Moments later, the wall melted away into nothingness, leaving no trace of it ever having been there. And just beyond the place were there once had been a stone wall, a vaulted stone chamber gaped before them. Jen gasped when she saw what the chamber held. There, standing on its point on a plinth against the far wall, was a beautiful, many faceted gemstone that caused many colored lights to flicker across the room's wall. Shadow, the arm he had stuck into the hole dripping with blood from a cut in his wrist, stepped unperturbed into the chamber, followed closely by Hul and Jen. And then, as a final ruby droplet of blood fell from Shadow's arm and splashed onto the floor, something happened. A blast of wind swept through the chamber, tossing dust into the trio's faces. They shielded their eyes and blinked to clear them. But the sight that met their eyes when the wind faded was not pleasant. Standing before the plinth and the gemstone were three figures. And, as the flickering light of the Soulbreaker Gem illuminated them, Jen's mouth dropped open. They were facing three exact duplicates of themselves, identical down to the last detail, clothed in all black clothing. Except the eyes. The eyes of the trio facing them were solid, pitch black, as if there was nothing more than a vacuum beyond them. And then, the black eyed Shadow began to laugh, a deep, dark laughter that echoed endlessly in the chamber. As the laughter reverberated around the chamber, the figure drew his swords, the blades black and glittering with foul mockeries of the runes that covered Shadow's rune swords. And then he started forward, a blade raised high to strike...