Scouting ahead of the group, Nicholas stopped when he heard some voices and looked around for a hiding place and saw a thorny bush that would be good cover. Slipping underneath it and getting cut up in the process he watched as several soldiers walked into the clearing before him.
While he was laying frozen observing them, he recognized the soldiers as coming from the neighboring Kingdom of Solas. Taking a look at his map, he knew they were still inside the Kingdom of Keston, so he wasn't sure why these soldiers were currently here and standing around.
From the opposing side of the clearing several people wearing black cloaks walked into the clearing followed by a various undead. At first he thought they would start fighting, but to his surprise the leaders of the two parties walked toward each other and shook hands and began speaking in a low voice that Nicholas couldn't hear.
Looking at the Necromancers, he did not see that elf Necromancer that the dwarven twins had told him about. Which was lucky because he felt that they would not want any witnesses to this meeting. The Necromancer pulled out some papers and conveyed them to the soldier. The soldier nodded and pulled out a bag of coins that Nicholas knew was full of gold based and the clinks coming from it.
Were these Solas soldiers, the ones, the Empire were looking for? As they headed to the border city, they had to hide several times from Empire Patrols who were searching the woods. From looking at the gear of the Empire, they looked prepared to fight undead; they usually had at least two priests with them. They were hitting so many patrols, that Nicholas was considering taking a detour around them.
To keep the others safe, Nicholas scouted ahead, he was better at hiding. Thankfully none of the group had seemed to sense his presence. Now he was waiting for them to leave and really hoped they would not set up camp or he would be having a long wait. He sent a brief message to Debra letting her know that he was okay. He would be stuck here awhile, and that there were soldiers nearby so be sure to hide.
The groups were looking ready to leave about twenty minutes later when all of sudden the clearing lit up with several blasts of magic into the groups. Several Empire Mages and Priests ran in and began to slay the shocked Solas soldiers and Necromancers. Some of them turned tail and ran into the forests attempting to escape, and some Mages ran after them casting spells after them.
All told the entire battle took about a minute before all the Undead were dead, and the remaining Necromancers and Soldiers were captured. Several minutes later some mages dragged back the ones that had escaped into the forest. One of them passed uncomfortably close to Nicholas. He could see the maker's mark on the boot the man was wearing.
They lined up the captured and from the woods walked an imposing mage that was wearing a deep blue cloak. The other mages did a quick bow when he entered the clearing. He was tall, probably taller then Nicholas and had thick brown hair. Walking silently, the man examined each of the prisoners in turn before pointing at one of the soldiers. A pair of mages grabbed the man and dragged him forward in front of the blue mage.
The blue cloaked mage said "You are Lieutenant Easimeir of the twenty-fourth platoon of Solas. How strange to find you here in the Kingdom of Keston, when the last word I heard about you was that you were in the front lines."
"Go to hell and get fucked empire scum." Easimeir said and spat into the mages face.
The slap that followed was almost too fast for Nicholas to see, the mage's hand was simply a blur, and a loud smack rang out and a tooth flew out of Easimeir's mouth. The Mage then took out a handkerchief and wiped his face and said "You should learn to recognize your superiors Easimeir. I am Lord Mark Diacasa, disrespect me and you disrespect the empire for I am a hand of the Emperor."
Easimeir chuckled and said "The Emperor can suck my nuts. Go ahead and execute me you dick-rotted fuck."
"Oh I am going to kill you. Before that, I am going to rip every piece of usable information out your head. Now, I already know that you are aiding these Necromancers to summon an old dead goddess and try to control her to attack the Empire. How desperate must Solas to be to rely on such a futile plan, now tell me more about this Verisian Heart you are going to use to manipulate her."
"You are not going to get anything out of me. Go ahead kill me you fucking pussy, your mom has more balls then you do, I should know cause I fucked her last night."
Mark frowned and said "Did you know the Kingdom of Sevaris had ways of extracting information from a person's soul? All of which are extremely painful, I know how to use each and every one to cause the maximum pain. You will tell me everything, and then you will truly beg me to kill you." Mark grabbed Easimeir head "But I won't, that is until I find each of your family and bring them in front of you. I will rape the woman, slit the throats of the men and drown the children in their parents blood. You will see your Kingdom burn and then and only then will I take your life."
Easimeir howled and struggled "I will fucking kill you if..." he wasn't able to continue before one of the mages hit him on the back of the head knocking him out.
Tugging on his gloves Mark said "Take him back to the mines. Set him in the soul chamber. I will pry out his secrets when I return."
One of the other mages asked "What of the other soldiers Lord?"
"Kill them. I have no use for them."
One of the female soldiers looked frightened and yelled "Wait Lord, I can tell you what you want to know about the Verisian Heart."
The other soldiers glared at her but they were all shut up by the mages when Mark walked over to her and looked down at her and said "What exactly can you tell me?"
"From what Easimeir told me, it was split in the past into four parts. The gods feared its power over them and sought to make sure it was never made whole once more. It was apparently one of the reasons the gods went to war so long ago. I know that General Kolemi has one piece, and the Leader of the Necromancers possesses one piece as well. The other two pieces are being searched for at the moment."
Scratching his chin, Mark said "Do you know where these other two pieces are?"
"One of them is located inside a powerful necromancer's staff. The necromancers are searching for it at the moment. The other piece is sealed away inside a vault, and we are currently looking for a way to unseal it."
"Where is this vault?"
"I'm not sure My lord, all I know it's somewhere inside the Kingdom of Keston."
"Interesting, how exactly did you come to know all of this?"
"I am Easimeir's mistress."
"Affair or was it sanctioned by his wife?"
"It was sanctioned, Lord. His wife knew he would need release while he was away from her, and she didn't want him to sleep with unknown women on the battlefield. She chose me to see to his needs and said I would be his fourth concubine."
"Good. Transport her to the soul chamber as well and chain her in view of Easimeir."
"What?" The woman said looking scared out of her mind.
"Did you not hear my promise to Easimeir? You are part of his family not by blood but by relations. Too bad you are so disloyal, he might have suffered more. Still I am glad you spoke up, I would have hated to kill one of his family so soon after that promise, that would have been embarrassing."
"Please don't kill me." The woman screamed.
"Kill you? Don't worry, once I've broken you in front of him, I'll put a collar on you and have you serve as one of my pets."
Two mages seized the stunned woman and hauled her off. The other mages took out blades and lopped off the remaining soldiers heads. Mark walked over to the Necromancers and said "Kill them all but this one." He pointed at one of the male Necromancers. They attempted to escape but failed and soon their heads joined the soldiers on the ground.
Nicholas was scared shitless, the pressure coming off this Mark was intense, and he dared not use his examination skill and risk drawing attention to himself. The Male necromancer stood and his ropes fell off, and Mark raised his hand and a long pulse of light swept through the camp and over Nicholas. He quickly prepared himself to jump shadows if he had been discovered.
"We are all clear Deav."
"I'm not quite sure how I'm going to be able to explain how I escaped this time. I think the leader is starting to suspect me. We can't do this again."
"You will figure it out or you will soon find another way to serve the Emperor."
Deav frowned and pulled out a rolled up paper. "Here is the map, we are still looking for the sealed up piece, but we are getting close to the staff. The only problem is that it appears someone has the staff at the moment."
"Good. I will contact you again in a week or so. The Emperor wants us to capture Solas within the year. He has plans for Keston he wants to implement that he is unable to with Solas around."
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"Alright."
"Do you have any information regarding that blast of energy up north?"
"No. We are still looking into it. It happened up in the mountains and we are sending people to look."
"Leave then, I am done with you." Mark dismissed the Necromancer who nodded and took off into the woods.
With the Necromancer gone one of the mages walked up to Mark and asked "What do you want us to do about the bodies, Lord?"
"Leave them to rot. They shall be a warning that they can struggle all they like. The mighty hand of the Emperor is closing around their neck, and it is only by his mercy that they are still living."
They walked off into the forest, and Nicholas got the intense feeling that if he moved he would die. So for over an hour he just lay under the thorn bush. The smell of death slowly came over him, and he felt sick. Still the feeling of death weighed over him and he remained still. One of the soldiers bodies began to move and split open revealing a small imp pushing out.
The red imp looked about and stretched its wings. It lifted off and was about to fly away when a blue gloved hand reached out of nowhere and snatched it. To Nicholas' shock, Mark stepped out from being invisible and said "There you are. I thought I felt something when I took a look around. An imp hiding inside a body is a new one for me."
Struggling to escape Mark's grip, it attempted to bite only for a blast of energy to emerge from Mark and freeze it solid. "A pity, I would have liked to find out who your master is, but Imps are too much trouble to deal with." The mage clenched his fist and the imp shattered into thousands of pieces.
Wiping off his hand, Mark stepped back into invisibility and Nicholas felt that itch notifying him to stay still. He had to wait another hour and a half before it completely went away. He waited just to be safe another twenty minutes before slipping out from under the thorn bush.
For a minute he debated whether to examine the bodies, but felt it might leave a way to track him if he did so. As such he made his way back to the others while being incredibly careful not to leave a trail. When he got back to the area where he had left the others, Frankie dashed forward and grabbed Nicholas in a tight hug.
Hugging her back, Nicholas was a bit flustered, but then she broke her hug and whispered "Are you okay?"
He nodded, and Debra asked "How did it go?"
Keeping it brief he told them what he had heard and seen. When he was finished, Denise said "Do you think that they are looking for that black necromancers staff you got?"
"I have to suspect it is. Hopefully not, but I can't take it out, as I have a feeling they have a harder time tracking it when it's inside my inventory."
"Great, I guess that means we can't leave it out to scare the banshee away at night when we make camp any more." Denise said.
"How about the path ahead, does it look like we can continue towards the border city?"
"No, not on this path ahead. This path takes us way too close to that mine and I have no desire to meet that psychotic mage. So we have to take a detour, through the Deathriver tunnel."
"What did you call that tunnel?" Frankie remarked startled.
"It's a local river that they call the Deathriver cause it's full of rapids. No one has survived a trip down the river, so it's useless for travel. However, we won't be going on the river, but through a tunnel carved out in rock by the river. Several years ago there was an earthquake and the river changed routes, leaving the tunnel accessible for walking."
"Let me guess there is something wrong with the tunnel that makes it dangerous."
"The tunnel is actually absolutely safe. It's even being considered as an excellent point for a new road between Solas and Keston. The only danger lies in the pond in the middle chamber of the tunnel. We won't have to swim, so there is no danger."
"What's in the pond?"
"A Rivershark."
"A what?"
"A Rivershark. They are incredibly rare, and have only been seen in the Deathriver. They are incredibly ferocious but luckily as long as you don't swim in the water much they can do to you. Though I would not get too close to the edge, they have been seen to jump."
"How much will this detour cost us in time?" Debra asked.
"Actually it will cut us down in time. If we take, it will only take us one day to reach the city we are headed to, then two days after that to reach the temple."
"If it is the shorter path, then why weren't we already taking it? Is there another problem with it?"
"The problem with that path is that it takes us into Solas territory for a bit. We will be heading to the border town from Solas side. Which means we will face more encounters with Solas soldiers. If we get caught, we could be pressed into service or worse."
"How close is it to the front?"
"Not close. As long as we are not messing around we shouldn't have too much risk. But that is the options we have, either to risk going ahead, or taking the detour and risk that."
Frankie was silent for a moment and said "These Empire Mages are incredibly dangerous. I'm not confident we can safely bypass any watching spells they might have set up. Therefore I vote to go on the detour."
"How long will it take us to reach this detour of yours?" Debra asked.
"We should be able to reach it by the afternoon tomorrow, as long as we don't encounter too many patrols."
"Do you think this tunnel will be watched?" Denise said "If it's a convenient way to get into Keston from Solas, it should be secured right?"
"If it is, we can pass as travelers more easily then we can here in the middle of a forest."
Settled on the plan of action they began to head carefully away from where Nicholas had seen the battle. When the sun was reaching the edge of the horizon, they chose a place to camp that was between three large boulders that created a small hovel without a roof.
It was a snug fit, but by placing some carefully uprooted bushes at the entrance no one would think to look inside. They had to go without lighting a fire as it risked drawing attention to them. As a result they had to eat cold rations for dinner. It was such a confined space that they virtually had to lay on top of each other.
Taking the first watch, Nicholas watched over the others. For sometime he simply stared at Frankie's face and not for the first time wondered what it would be like to have her as his.