After what felt like hours but was probably only about ten or twenty minutes at most, the relative quiet of the camp ahead of them bursted into action as people were getting up and all headed in the same direction. Someone had been spotted for sure. Eliana came over to the rest of the group. She’d been up ahead a little bit, listening in on as much as she could. “Now’s our time, we’ll give it another thirty seconds until most people have left the camp and then we head in and take the center of this village. Hopefully the other group will join us as well.”
Cobal and Mana nodded.
“I’ll go around a little bit and flank them,” Dana whispered before immediately darting off through the bushes. Without a sound she was gone. Merrick stayed with the rest of the group as they carefully snuck closer. The village was much more of an encampment than an actual village. There was one building erected that had two large statues in front of it. The statues had a snakelike lower body and an almost human looking torso and face. But the face was carved in such a way that it looked like the man had scales. Cobal had never seen these statues before but he had heard of serpentlike creatures before. They were supposedly native to this continent and some scholars argued there would still be some living in the Feral Wildlands. Surrounding this temple of sorts were a smattering of tents varying in size and color. Four men and women were standing guard, spears and crossbows in their hands. From where they were, Cobal couldn’t see inside the presumed temple but it looked like those four were the only ones outside.
“On my signal,” Eliana said, as she held out her arm to halt them all. They were maybe four or five meters from the closest guard.
Right as Eliana lowered her arm and stepped out of the bushes, one of the guards turned their way, coming eye to eye with the pirate captain. Eyes wide, the hooded woman immediately loosened a bolt in their direction, hitting Eliana in the shoulder. The captain almost dropped her weapon but she gritted her teeth and held onto it. “Quickly,” she yelled to the three behind her, as she leapt towards the woman who had just shot her. Two more guards turned their way and fired bolts directly at Eliana. Cobal wanted to yell out to her but Mana was faster. She reached out her arm and with a few words muttered under her breath the air she expelled from her lungs shot forward and collided with the arrows, making them fly off to the side. That was all that Eliana needed to close the distance and drive her curved sword through the cultists’ abdomen. The woman let out a pained moan before collapsing onto the ground.
Eliana looked at the other three, one of which was frantically reloading their crossbow while the other two tossed it in favor of their spears. “I’d drop those if I were you,” Eliana said flatly. The bolt was still sticking out of her shoulder. Merrick stepped forward to stay next to her. The two with the spears wavered for a moment but recovered and held their ground. They didn’t advance but they stayed between Eliana and the others. The man who was reloading his crossbow finished and aimed it at Eliana.
“Derk, go warn the others that we have intruders,” one of the cultists yelled at the man with the crossbow. He nodded and started running away. Cobal started running after him and for a moment he was worried he was going to be too slow when suddenly the cultist stumbled and fell on his face. He must have tripped, Cobal thought, but when the cultist didn’t stand back up he noticed the arrow sticking out of his back. He looked back and saw Dana sitting on a tree branch, a little while away. She nodded at Cobal as she slinked back into the canopy. The camp went quiet for a moment before a flash of light shot up in the distance releasing thunderous noise along with it.
Eliana snapped at the cultists in front of her. “What the hell was that?”
One of them smiled. “Your friends must have stepped into a trap, I hope you weren’t close.”
Eliana jumped towards him, but the cultist was better with a spear than she expected as he calmly pushed her sword away and grazed her side with the point of his spear. He spun the weapon around, ready for another strike. The other one saw his chance and jumped towards Mana, who was now alone with Cobal having chased after the cultist that ran.
Cobal panicked. Mana’s anxiety was getting worse by the day and he wasn’t sure how she would respond to being attacked. This was bad.
Mana unsheathed the dagger on her hip and with the motion a gust of wind was released from the sheath. As the cultist barreled towards her, she released the sudden air towards his legs, making him flip through the air before slamming his head into a nearby rock. With blood trickling down his face he stood up again, wobbling a bit before finding his footing. He retrieved his spear from the ground and faced Mana again. At this point though, Cobal had managed to close the distance and with a yell he drove his sword deep into the chest of the cultist. He watched as the man let out his last breath and crumbled to the ground.
Quiet filled the space. All four of the cultists had been taken care of pretty handily. Cobal shuddered before putting his weapon away. He looked around. Dana came out of the bushes near the tree she had shot the cultist from earlier and joined up with the rest of them. Cobal looked at Eliana. Merrick was already tending to her wound, pulling out the crossbow bolt and bandaging it. Luckily he’d come prepared with a kit full of bandages and some smelly concoction that he smeared on the wound while Eliana winced. “I always hate this stuff.”
“You should be used to it by now, Captain, I feel like I patch you up at least once every few weeks.” Merrick chuckled.
“Are you done? We shouldn’t waste time. It doesn’t look like the other group is coming so we need to get on top of this situation fast so we can figure out what’s going on. She shot a glance at Cobal and he immediately understood why.
“Mirgia is very capable, I’m sure the other group is fine.” He suddenly realized something. “Where’s Dylon?”
Eliana looked at Cobal a bit confused. “Oh, your guard? I thought he was right behind us,” she said. She looked around. “Shit, this is bad. If they caught him they will absolutely use him as a hostage.” She looked at Merrick and Dana. “Change of plans, the two of you will go back the way we came, see if you can find a sign of him. The three of us will head into that temple.” She pointed at the building ahead of them.
“Captain, are you sure? That place looks dangerous.”
She nodded. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take. If the guard is still somewhere behind us we need to find him quickly.”
“Alright, good luck boss,” Dana said. The two of them quickly headed off into the bushes and out of sight.”
After watching them disappear, the other three walked towards the open doors of the temple. Eliana walked up front with Mana and Cobal right behind her.
The building had an eerie look to it. Compared to all of the other buildings in the village, it looked much older. It was likely to be a pre-existing building, something that was already here before the cultists settled here. The framework of the door was once carved meticulously to portray some sort of scene from history but the ages had not been kind to it and Cobal could not figure out what sort of story it was trying to tell them. Eliana didn’t seem interested as she moved through the threshold.
The inside of the building looked like a small temple, as the outside would make you expect. There were some similarities to the underwater temple that led to Arana. The way the pews were set up with an altar at the end of the building. Behind the altar stood a young man, maybe still a teenager.
“My dearest Captain Tidescreecher, how wonderful of you to visit us again.” He smiled at her, clasping his hands in front of him on the altar. “After our last encounter I was worried you fled with your tail between your legs.”
“Very funny, we’ll see how long you keep that up.” Eliana said. She took a single step forward, but the confidence on the cultists’ face made her hesitant to get closer. Surely he had something planned and with the thought in the back of Cobal’s head of the mention of traps he couldn’t blame her for being careful. He himself was looking around frantically if Dylon was anywhere in the room, but he couldn’t see him.
“You see, his holiness has been very kind to us lately, showering us with gifts of magic much beyond the comprehension of those incompetent court mages.” He smiled and shifted his attention to Cobal and Mana. “I see you’ve made some new friends, some pretty interesting ones at that.” He took a bow. “It’s an honor to meet another prince of Blueyerd. My name is Mornas, high priest of Palsika.” He smiled. “And to even meet the hero herself. Is it true that you were summoned from another world?”
“You implied that this isn’t the first prince of Blueyerd that you’ve met, would you be so kind as to elaborate on that statement?” Mana asked. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by Cobal either that he used the word ‘another’.
Mornas took a step to the side of the altar, revealing that his lower body was not that of a human, but instead snakelike. From under the priest robes he was wearing, a thick blue tail emerged that held him up in place. “I met Prince Sapher a couple of weeks ago. He’s been integral to preparing for the return of our holiness. I was hoping the rest of the family would be as helpful as he was.” He took a step back and made a motion with his hand. The ground below his feet lit up in a pattern. Cobal immediately had a hunch about what was happening.
“He’s getting away, quickly,” he yelled at Eliana, who immediately started moving forward.
Mana nodded. “Those runes look similar.”
“Oh, so you’re familiar with his gifts? If you want to learn more, you’re always welcome to come visit his holiness’ birthplace. I’ll be waiting in Rashimal.” And with a small bow the priest vanished from the temple, leaving behind a dormant magic circle.
“Damn it,” Eliana cursed, kicking over the altar that the priest was standing behind just moments before. “The damn snake got away again.”
She looked at Cobal. “What now?”
There was a vulnerability to her expression. She hadn’t asked for anyone’s input up until this point. But Cobal didn’t have the answer either. Too much was spinning in his head. This cultist met his brother and even told him where he might be. But Cobal had never heard of Rashimal before. “Let’s meet up with everyone else and make sure we’re all safe.” He said. They all charged out of the temple, looking for where the main force might be.
Opal Kaharis 