The Cloud of Darkness (The Ingenairii Series Book 11) (24 page)

Chapter 18

“It’s time for us to go north,” Alec told Kecil as they ate breakfast together the next morning.

“You’re not going to try to leave me behind here, are you?” the girl asked with an intense stare at Alec’s eyes.

“No, that issue is done.  You can’t get away,” Alec retorted.  “We’re going to go to the Healing Spring and get bags of water, then we’ll Travel north and wait for the ingenairii to arrive.  We can go explore the countryside and try to discover more about our adversary while we wait.”

The couple went to the spring with several empty water skins which they filled quickly, then carried back to the palace.  They said another round of farewells to the staff at the palace, and Alec translocated them to the northern settlement, Gallop, once more.

The store fronts showed less vitality than they had on the last visit.  There was no evidence of residents in the empty streets, and as Alec led the way from their alley-arrival spot towards the guard outpost, he saw that a few of the stores were boarded closed.  Only the tavern with the garrulous barkeeper was open in one stretch of the street.

When they arrived at the gates of the guard post, Alec and Kecil were quickly admitted.

“Why is Gallop so empty?” Alec asked the sentry who attended the gate.

“Because Death is coming closer,” the guard said.  “People are disappearing from farms less than a mile outside the city now.”

Alec and Kecil looked at one another.  “Have people spotted a black cloud?” Alec asked.

“Aye.  If you hear screaming in the countryside, it usually means the cloud is coming to get someone, and it won’t go away until it has caught a victim or several,” the guard explained.  “There’s hardly anyone left; we’re about ready to abandon this post, thank the spirits.”

“We’ll go talk to the officers,” Alec said.   He gave a nod to the guard and left in search of the leaders he had met during his earlier visit.

The female lieutenant he had met during the previous visit rose from her seat, then knelt when she saw who had entered the command room for the outpost.

“You’ve come back to even more perilous times, my lord,” she said.

“Help is on the way,” Alec reassured her as he gestured for her to rise.  “A whole collection of ingenairii are on their way from Oyster Bay, and should arrive in just another two or three days.”

“What can the ingenairii do against a cloud?” she asked.  “Arrows and spears and swords are no use in the fight against that thing.”

“Call together the other officers and we can discuss the upcoming campaign,” Alec suggested.

“There are no other officers left, my lord,” the woman said with a tremor in her voice.  “They’ve all gone and tried to lead battles against the Cloud…none of them came back.”

“So you’re the commanding officer?” Alec tried to keep the conversation focused, as it saw it on the edge of spiraling down to disaster.  “In that case, I want you to come with us and show us the last location where the cloud was seen.  We can talk while we walk out there.”

“If you so wish, my lord,” the lieutenant resolutely answered, though Alec could see that she had no desire to approach any location where the cloud had been.

“I fought the cloud once before,” Alec reassured the officer.  “And we lived to tell the tale.  Do not think that this is a hopeless trip.”

“Thank you, my lord,” she replied, as Alec turned and led the way out of the building.  They said farewell to the guard, and then paced through the empty streets.

“What’s your name?” Alec asked.  “And where are you from?”

“I’m junior lieutenant Dale, my lord, from Red Water,” she replied as they passed the last building on the north end of the settlement.

“I’m giving you a promotion to full lieutenant from now on,” Alec told her.  “You’re not a junior lieutenant any longer.”

“Thank you my lord,” the woman said, a note of pleasure in her voice.

“We’ll approach the closest sighting of the cloud when we round that bend up ahead,” she motioned towards where the road disappeared behind a grove of trees.

“It’s very close to the village now,” Kecil commented.  “It was much farther away just a few days ago when we were here before.”

“You’ll have to evacuate everyone left in the village,” Alec agreed.  “At this rate of progress it’ll be among the buildings in no time.  When was it last seen here?” he asked.

“Just yesterday morning,” Dale answered.

They walked in tense silence then, as they rounded the curve and looked at the road that slanted towards the northeast.

“There it is, my lord!” Dale suddenly whispered, as she grabbed his arm while she pointed into the forest.

The darkness rolled towards them from the dark depths of the forest, and Alec immediately raised a hand and fired a bolt of intense Light energy at the roiling mass.  The cloud appeared to slow down its progress where the beam struck, but other parts continued to advance.

“We need to run back to the settlement!” Kecil shouted.

Alec turned and released another deadly bolt of energy at the cloud in another spot, and then another, slowing the darkness in each spot but only in those immediate areas.

“It’s too late,” Dale answered.   “It’s going to get around us!  We need to retreat into the forest on the other side of the road.”

“The cloud is already flanking us,” Alec said through gritted teeth as he turned to see the edges of the cloud silently slide across the road both before and behind them.  He responded by releasing another half dozen bolts of energy, fired at random spots in the cloud, while it united its out flung arms in the forest behind them.

The trio was encircled, and Alec slowly spun around, releasing energy at any portion of the inky darkness that bubbled and churned as it slowly crept closer and closer to the trapped humans.

“My lord, I am so sorry to have led you here,” Dale apologized with tears in her eyes.

“We aren’t in trouble yet,” Alec said glibly.  He burned the cloud in several more spots, continuing to force it to keep its distance, even as it slowly reduced that distance on every side.  “But we probably ought to leave before this does become trouble,” he added.

“Dale, Kecil, come to me,” he held one arm out and pulled Kecil into a hug, while still shooting sparks of energy at the encroaching cloud.

Kecil instantly understood and complied, pressing herself against Alec, while Dale stared in non-comprehension.

“Dale!  Get over here right now!” Alec barked, while Kecil beckoned.  The woman reacted with instant compliance, and as soon as she did, Alec folded his outstretched arm around her.  The cloud sensed that his attacks were finished, and it rolled towards its trapped victims with startling speed, but not quickly enough, as Alec engaged his Traveler powers and transported them back to the safety of the main street through Gallop.

“Oh, my lord!  You are a truly great one,” Dale moaned more than spoke the words as she staggered out of his grasp.  “You saved our lives!”

“Will that cloud come into the village?” Alec gasped out the question.  He felt exhausted from having used so much energy fighting the cloud and then escaping as well.

“It hasn’t come into the village yet, even when it’s been that close,” the lieutenant replied.  “Do you think we should officially abandon the post?”

“I think we should pull back and wait until the ingenairii arrive so that we can strike the cloud with all our power at once,” Alec responded, not wanting to actually admit to abandoning the settlement.  “Get your squad to work and knock on every door to order people to pack up and evacuate immediately.

“I’ll go back to the edge of town and watch for the cloud.  If it starts to approach, I’ll send a warning,” he added.

“I’ll go with you,” Kecil quickly spoke up.

“Get everyone moving south,” Alec directed Dale.  “Tell them there’s no time left.”

The lieutenant immediately dashed into the small guard post, and Alec heard her voice loudly shouting out orders, while he and Kecil began to walk up the road.

“What will you do if the Cloud starts to come to the village?” Kecil asked.

“I’ll try to fight it,” Alec said resolutely.  “And I’ll send a shaft of light up into the sky as a signal,” he added.  “And I’ll probably grab you and transport away again.  There’s not much more that I can do right now,” he said.

“Once upon a time, long ago, I used to just heal people, and swing a sword,” he muttered to Kecil as they arrived at the edge of town and took up their position, scanning the vicinity for signs of the arrival of the deadly cloud.  “Things seemed so much simpler then,” he sighed.

“You sound like my grandmother,” Kecil said sharply.  “Everything was always better when she was young.”

Alec grinned in spite of himself, and said no more for the moment, until they arrived at the edge of the village.  He stood with eyes that scanned from left to right, looking for any evidence of the next attack by the dangerous foe.

The attack came, a half hour later, just as Alec was estimating that the evacuation of the village should have been completed, and he and Kecil could withdraw from their station.  The Cloud came tumbling out of the forest on the far side of the fields around the village, and streamers of the darkness crept forward ahead of the main body.

“Let’s start to retreat,” he told Kecil, backing up as he watched the arms of darkness approach.

They entered the boundaries of the settlement, and Alec sent a streak of red light up into the sky to signal to the others that the darkness was approaching.  Their steps were backwards, as they faced the approaching evil while backpedaling through the settlement, looking for stragglers while keeping an eye on the closing threat.

The tendrils of darkness grew closer and closer as they passed through the village, and by the time Alec and Kecil reached the southern boundary of the settlement, the darkness had completely engulfed the village from side to side, and it continued to roll towards them.

Alec released a burst of intense light at the entity, but watched the cloud pause only momentarily in its advancement in response.  Alec felt strained from the release of energy, coming on top of his earlier fight, and the Traveling trips he had completed that morning as well.  But he had no choice, he knew.  He had to fight or he and Kecil would be consumed, he feared.  The cloud was coming faster than the two of them could run, and he didn’t know if he had the power to Travel once again, without a rest.

“Kecil, you start running as fast as you can,” Alec suddenly shouted to the girl.  “Don’t stop running until you reach Lieutenant Dale.”

“Are you coming?” she asked.

Alec fired a half dozen bolts of sizzling Light energy.

“Go!” he screamed.  “I can’t slow it down much more!  Go now!”

Alec took a deep breath as he reached for his drained reserves of ability, and grasped the Light power to his utmost limit, then released a continual stream of Light that burned through the air and struck the advancing darkness, halting its movement, and seeming to penetrate the surface of the mysterious adversary to some degree.

After ten seconds of that drastic last effort, Alec collapsed to his knees, and his flow of energy ceased.  The cloud remained paused for a few additional heartbeats, then began to advance again, as a slower rate, as if in pain, but coming closer to the incapacitated Alec nonetheless.

“Alec!  Let’s go!” Kecil grabbed his arm and tried to lift him to his feet as he knelt with his head bowed in exhaustion.

“Run Kecil!” he said softly.

“We have to go!” the girl shouted her reply, grabbing him and jerking on his arm frantically, as the cloud picked up speed and approached at a faster rate.

The sky overhead suddenly blossomed with an overpowering brilliance that made Alec and Kecil squint in surprise, and then a wide beam of Light energy came swooping down from above and struck the black cloud relentlessly.

There was a high-pitched sound – a squeal, or perhaps a scream – and the bloom of reddish light appeared deep inside the cloud.

The beam from above continued to bear down from the sky, spending long moments of intense focus on the darkness, and then it abruptly ceased.

The cloud seemed to begin to dissolve from the powerful assault.  The dark streamers in the front turned into wisps that rose and vanished, while the main body of the cloud withdrew at an astonishing rate, disappearing back into the village, and then through the village and out of sight, all in a matter of seconds.

“How did you do that?” Kecil asked in astonishment.  “I think you killed it!”

“That wasn’t my doing,” Alec replied wearily, thankfully.  He bent forward and placed his hands in the dust of the road resting further, before he slowly pressed himself back up to his feet.

“If it wasn’t your doing, what was that?” Kecil asked plaintively.

“It was a miracle,” Alec answered.  “John Mark, was it you?” he asked aloud, raising his eyes to look up into the scattered clouds overhead.

There was no answer.