She stopped walking and moved a bit closer to Damian, propping herself up on his elbows. “Did you get chosen, too? Before being chosen as the envoy of the knights?”The muscles in Damian's neck tightened under his skin, but contrary he didn’t walk further. Her blue-green eyes gleamed above his inflamed cheeks. Finally, after five long seconds, Damian nodded. “Yes. But it didn’t end well. I killed a commander who attempted to touch me. I mean… you know what I mean. I killed him with my fire. And elfar helped me get away with it by telling the authorities that the killer had been slain by me. This gives me a way out of the journey and I return to my family.""This is the first time you've chosen to use your fire right?" Diana guessed."Yes. I was not regretful, the bastard deserved it." Before Damian could add more he had another dizzy episode. This time, it wasn't just Diana who had felt it, so did Tommy. The trio stopped walking and sat at the nearby boulders.This one was longer and
Staring at the old witch, Diana smiled with the hope of tasting her fresh-baked bread, yet she wobbled and became dizzy. She couldn’t even support her weight. Before they could reach the first step on the cabin, she fell on top of her and they collapsed in a heap. Diana's face slapped against the dirt ground, which seemed to wobble like a seesaw. Everything happened so fast, that her ears rang, high-pitched and loud. The noise inside her head was even louder than the scream of the old woman.The witch scrambled to her feet and grabbed Diana's right hand. Clasping it tightly, she pulled with all her might. “Get up, Dear! We have to go!”The old woman called the sleeping lads inside the cabin yet, none seems to hear her.Diana could hear the old witch's shouts though, but she was powerless to even move. Though her mind was so alert as she heard the wail of some kind of an alarm bell that was too loud on her ears. She knew by now it was not an ordinary warning. It was an enchanted one.S
Then, Diana stepped toward the enchanting waterfalls that seemed to be calling her. It was whispering something but she couldn't understand what it was. Tommy raised his brow and followed right behind, sweating like crazy. It was like jogging in a steam room, only hotter and more uncomfortable. Within seconds his clothes were soaked. The vapor was so thick they didn’t see the pool until they were ten feet away. As they scrambled toward the stone passageway they nearly collided with someone coming out of the right of the pool. It was a tall man wearing a dark tunic and carrying a woman in his arms. The woman also wore a dark tunic but appeared to be unconscious. Tommy looked carefully at the man, trying to glimpse the face behind the steam of cloud, and realized it was Cavin. His eyes were wide and fearful behind the vapor. "Help!"Diana edged at the unconscious woman. “Is that Lanah?” she inquired. Her voice, hushed by the steam, was hardly clear under the wailing warning bells. Cavin
An hour and five miles later, the evacuees walked under the steamed underground with only little lanterns to brighten up their pathway, the tunnel’s main emergency exit led to a trapdoor in the floor of the barn. At least tweeny people had already used this exit by the time Tommy came up the stairs carrying Cavin, on his back, and Damian, carrying Lanah, and on their back was Lady Aya carrying a basket of food and herbs and different bottled mixture. The barn, although wide, could hold no more than fifteen people; the rest had spilled into the barnyard. Men and women lay on the barn’s surface, where Aya dealt with the wounded and prepared doses of herbal mixture. But almost all of them halted what they were doing and glanced at Tommy as he brought in Cavin and Damian brought in Alanah and rested them on the floor.He trudged backward while three women crowded around their unconscious bodies. One local man stripped off Cavin's tunic and slid a vile concoction down her throat. The woman
Dark TunnelFinally, after so many turns and darkness that seemed like forever, Diana finally saw a decent light from the distance. She ran as quickly as she could and when she reached it, she was astonished by the grandeur of the gigantic door. Sparkling gems and glistening golds and pearls which appear to be a million pieces of stone embedded in the door itself and the sheer height was way bigger when she came close, it was more or less twenty feet high and twelve feet in width.Diana opened the slightly ajar door and was stunned by the brightness of the morning sun. Has it already been another day? She thought to herself, she must be walking in a circle for hours.The way out, naturally, was also a way in. It was a boundary between realms. Diana was unaware of her surroundings, she didn't notice a huge dark eagle circling up ahead, she didn't hear what it whispered to the others, 'well done on finding the door to the underworld, that takes real courage and takes a powerful blood t
Cornelius drew his sword and took his warrior stance as his vampire fangs elongated and glistened from the little sunlight that graced upon him. There was not much room to move on this wagon top.The cart unexpectedly hit a boulder and both of them had to catch themselves to keep from falling off. Snow clouds, silver and black, in a multitude of precious metal hues, adorn the sky as if they long to kiss the land but to Cornelius, it was like his death was near because he saw them as a warning.Cornelius looked down over the side to see the carriage was riding close to the boundary of the plain. If he fell over that side, he would hardly hit the bottom, he would fall an extra several hundred feet down the side of the ridge to his death with that thought, Cornelius shivered, and in that shiver was a moment of truth, a story of the emotions that no mask could ever hide. In the array of frozen heights, where the air kisses his lungs so coolly, the sudden blizzard tips the balance of his
UnderworldNear the Valley of DeathIn the afternoon, barefoot on the icy turf, Diana approached the black dense wilderness, filled with the uncertainty of what she had seen in her dreams when she took a nap by the little shaft, but also with the fear of what she saw last night at the underground tunnel, in fact, she was too confused about what happened back there, one moment, she was saving someone and the next, the man disappeared in her grip.Her enthusiasm about what transpired which has been concealed since then but all at once comes bursting up from within her now. She wondered what truly happened back there. Who was that man?Diana was in a state beyond mere apprehension. No word was sufficient for what she had sensed. Now she was at the dense shrouds, touching the gloomy cloud, so black, sleek, like a moonless night sky reflected in the sightless face of a shadow. She was practically as bewildered as she petrified, for it appeared to her that she was both at the dark tunnel an
The distant hills surrounding the barn reminded Damian of the mounts of Daisy Valley, his childhood home. Ancient oaks, birches, and maples covered the steep slopes, and thick scrub covered the forest floor. It was supposedly gorgeous in the fall, but in the summer it was a treacherous landscape, muffled with foliage.It's morning now and he and Tommy started their journey past midnight. They were crazy enough to journey when Goblins were everywhere, Damian sighed as he swung his arm to clear a path through the thickets, but he wasn’t moving fast enough. Tommy had been walking so fast in front of him that he had lost him twice now.Above them was two enchanted birds flew at about three miles per hour, watching for Goblins, it was Aya's idea, though Tommy could effortlessly beat that speed on a flat stretch, now he was slogging up and down the hills while the birds moved in perfectly straight lines above the treetops. They have decided to journey to Aya's cabin to infiltrate the tunnel