The Foolhardies 29 Chasing Shadows

"Find my niece and bring her back safely, One-Hundred Man Commander," Darah ordered after she'd threaten to beat me black and blue once I got back to Fort Darah.

"You need more training," she insisted. "I'll personally train you hard until your life flashes before your eyes."

I sighed just thinking about the painful experience I would have to undergo to make up for last night's blunder.

Edo slapped my back gently with one of his huge hands. "Weep and regret later, Dean... we have company."

He was less angry with me after Darah's reprimand. Partly because he pitied me for getting yelled at but mostly because she'd called him out by name too for failing to protect Aura. The bodyguard and I were in the same boat now.

From behind the outcropping of rock Varda, Edo, and I were crouched behind, I watched the two drow guarding the entrance. The rest of our thirty-five recruits were waiting just around the bend of the narrow path that led up back to the main canyon road.

I gave instructions to my two companions. Edo would attack the guard closest to us while Varda would cast 'Fist of Stone' against the one further away.

"Knock him out or throw him over the gorge," I ordered.

"Understood, Commander," Varda whispered right before she pulled out her component pouch and reached into it. When her hand came out she was holding a smooth round rock about the size of a golf ball. "Give me a second to cast the spell."

Varda wrapped the rock in both her hands.

"Spirits of earth assist me in breaking bone, empower this pebble into a fist of stone," she whispered.

Edo covered the dim yellow light radiating out of the space between Varda's fingers with his massive form to keep our enemies from noticing.

Varda mouthed that she was ready, and I nodded to her before looking over to Edo and drew a line across my neck with my forefinger.

Edo hefted his glaive in one hand with the blade facing downward, and after the muscles on his arms tensed, he rose from our hiding place and threw his weapon at the enemy drow.

In a burst of inhuman speed, the shadowblade zipped across the air and impaled the first drow in its chest, killing him instantly. The other drow had just enough time to look at his ally in shock before a small boulder-sized rock in the shape of a fist came hurtling at him. The fist of stone collided with the drow's face and sent him crashing into the cave entrance's wall.

He had nearly crumpled to the ground but with a last-ditch effort held onto the wall to keep himself up. Blood poured down the side of his head. His eyes were slits as he struggled to stay conscious.

I dashed out of the rock outcropping as quickly as I could with Edo right behind me. And while he took the time to pull his glaive out of the dead drow's body, my falchion's shadowblade was already resting on the skin of the other drow's throat.

The enemy drow was about to yell for help but I pushed my shadowblade close enough to his skin to draw blood. "I can slit your throat before you could scream for help."

I used all the pent up frustration boiling up inside me to send this drow the most intimidating glare I'd ever given anyone in my life. Obvious fear caused him to nod his head slowly.

Edo walked over to stand beside me. He leaned in closer to drow's face.

"Listen, friend," Edo's voice was a smooth baritone. He spoke in a friendly manner that was the opposite of my own threatening tone. "My commander's a little crazy tonight, so I recommend you tell us what we need to know and maybe we'll just knock you out."

Our partial promise to spare his life seemed enough for the drow guard to spill the beans on everything we wanted to know.

There was roughly a hundred drow who lived in the series of caverns beyond the cave entrance. Many of them were females and children. They had around thirty male warriors, minus the one Edo slew, and less than ten elders left who were still alive during the end of the drow civil war fifty years ago.

Yes, I knew about the war of the seven fractured moon clans and how the alliance of three led by the Scarlet Moon clan slaughtered the rest in a conflict that lasted two hundred years. I think I've already established that I am a nerd—and proud of it.

The drow told us this sob story about how their group was a remnant of one of the fallen clans and that they'd been hiding here for an entire generation but some of their children were caught outside the cave system by mercenaries who sold them as slaves in Broken Sellsword's Canyon. The young clan leader and his troop went out to rescue them but came back with one of their number dead at the hands of a human warrior.

At the mention of Luca, my heart began to palpitate, and that anger I felt for fairies when I first learned about them was slowly climbing back to the surface of my conscious mind. I clamped down on this feeling as I needed to focus. I couldn't give in to hate now. Maybe later when their forces stood against mine, maybe then I would be merciless.

Edo noticed the murderous intent oozing out of me and urged our drow captive to keep talking less I grow berserk and rip him apart with my bare hands, or so Edo claimed. It seemed he was enjoying his role as the good cop to my bad cop.

The drow told us that Luca had killed a member of the young clan leader's family and his sister demanded that they seek revenge against the killer. It's why they kidnapped Luca and took him back to their lair. In fact, at this moment, Luca was in the middle of a one-on-one fight with the clan leader while we spoke, and all their people were there to watch which is why there were so few guards at the entrance.

I slammed my fist into the drow's shoulder. "Why didn't you say that before?!"

It was then that I saw the glint of defiance in the drow's eyes, the quiver of lips that was trying hard not to smile.

"You were stalling us," I snarled.

"We survivors of the Hazy Moon do not fear death," he said, with the fear in his voice gone as if it was never there. The quivering of his body vanished and he stood tall despite the weight of Edo's hand bearing down on him. "We welcome her as an old friend who has walked alongside us all these years."

I sighed in relief. Even with the trouble Luca was in, at least we knew where he was now. We just needed to find out where Aura was and the pressure I'd been feeling since Darah's lecture would ease a little—or so I hoped.

"What about the she-elf who was with us?" I drove my shadowblade against his neck and drew an even deeper line of blood in his skin. "Why did you take her if all you wanted was revenge for your fallen comrade?"

The drow's eyes narrowed. "I don't know about any she-elf..."

It was Edo's turn to get angry. It was a quick change in attitude that made me instinctively back away.

Edo drove the tip of his spear slowly into the drow's shoulder.

"Argh!" the drow screamed.

"Where is Aura!" Edo growled into the drow's ear right before he twisted the blade to the left. "Where did you take her!"

I understood his anxiety. Not knowing Aura's location made my chest tighten. It became hard to breathe. And for the first time that night, I was unsure of the plan I'd made. Maybe this was what Kallista meant when she said not everything was as it seemed. Maybe we were fighting on more than one battlefield.

I shoved that thought aside for later. Luca needed my help now.

"Edo," I grabbed his arm despite the risk it entailed. "He won't tell us anything else... It's up to us to find them."

"Your friend will be dead long before you get there... Our leader is strong," the drow explained in an almost haughty voice despite the situation he was in.

Edo's eyes darted between me and our drow prisoner, and his brows furrowed with each passing glance. Without warning, he punched the drow in the jaw and knocked him out.

I didn't even wait for him to crumple to the floor. I ordered Varda to gather our recruits and follow us in. It was time to go to war.

We traversed a series of connected caverns, some with low hanging ceilings and tight corridors while others with wide spaces and high ceilings. All of them showed signs of being lived in. Whether it be the ordered rows of leather tents and wooden furniture or the firepits and common household tools, the different caverns were full of proof that a group of people lived here.

Eventually, we reached a low hanging corridor that was wide enough for eight men to walk side by side in. The other end of this corridor opened out into a wide central chamber that was larger than any we'd seen. It had a hole in the roof that allowed the golden moon to shine down at the scene before us.

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There were holes of different sizes placed at different heights along the cave walls. They were most likely entrances from other areas of the cave system that led back to this central chamber similar to the entrance we were in. A crowd of onlookers gathered around these entrances to watch over the spectacle below them.

There were three drow watching from our hole, but as they were so focused on what they were watching, they were easy prey for Edo and Shaqs—our new troll recruit—to knock them unconscious.

With my path clear, I walked over to the ledge and gazed down into the central chamber. I finally found my brother.

Luca was engaged in single combat against a drow wearing a familiar-looking cloak. It took me a second to place him as he wasn't carrying the bow that had killed so many of the city guards during our battle at the gate. And instead of the bow, he parried Luca's new broadsword with a shadowblade sword that had a curved edge—and it looked suspiciously like a Katana to my eyes.

"Everyone ready?" I glanced behind me. "You better be… it's do or die time."

"We're ready as ready can be, Commander," Varda answered.

She must have read my mind as she was already carrying the aluminum cylinder with both hands. Beside her stood a very skeptical looking Ashley Johnson who was carrying the other cylinder gingerly in her hands like it was dynamite. However, regardless of whether or not this would blow up in our faces, it was time to see if my experiment to mix science with magic would bear fruit.

I glanced down at my brother and his opponent, and I gritted my teeth as Luca barely dodged the katana aimed for his neck.

"Let's make some noise," I whispered.

Chapter end