XVII
“You sure this was the right path?” Tarsus asked angrily.
We had been walking continuously the whole day yesterday, spending the night at another cenote. At daybreak, we embarked on our journey once again, after scavenging the cenote for the supply of food promised by Roslyn. We walked for another two hours before arriving at a dead end.
“I’m certain!” Kadava shouted. “Look! I’ve been following the map this whole time!”
“Well then how do you explain this?” Tarsus countered, pointing at the dead end.
“I don’t know! Why don’t you read the map if you’re good at this? Look! We were here,” he circled a space on the map with his finger, “this was the cenote. If you take a look at the end and retrace back to the cenote, we would be right....here! And that’s exactly where we are!”
“We’re still on Fulcan’s island,” Mirage spoke.
“No kidding! Where else would we be?” Tarsus remarked sarcastically.
“Well there’s only one answer then,” Mirage processed, glaring at Tarsus. “We must’ve reached the border of this island.”
“So you’re saying we would have to find a way up to cross the bridge?”
“No,” she replied. “I doubt we could all make it up without the Legion noticing, provided we even find a way climbing up. We’re pretty deep underground.”
“Then how do we get out of here?”
“Look around,” Kadava instructed. “There may be a lever or a trapdoor or something. There must be a way of getting out.”
Immediately, the two guilds scattered amongst the small tunnel, scaling the walls, searching the floors, scanning the ceiling for anything.
My hand rubbed a hard stone on the right side of the tunnel wall. It felt unusual, polished and cold. Quickly, I dusted off the silt and clay that concealed the flat boulder, revealing a brick-like structure. The center of the flat surface was dug out, resembling a concave hole.
What would Roslyn do?
I pulled out the white gemstone posthaste from my cloak pocket, fumbling my fingers around the many smooth facets. The white gemstone slid perfectly into the incurvated cavity, glowing all the more brighter, producing a blinding white light. Within a matter of seconds, a white flaming portal grew larger and larger in front of the dead end, and Naterra’s rugged island could be seen through the blazing gateway.
“So Roslyn...didn’t forget to bring the stone to Fulcan,” Tarsus recalled as the guild members turned towards the portal.
“She knew we needed it,” Kadava replied. “Well...there’s our answer now. Who wants to go first?”
“Hold on! If we’re supposed to bring the gemstone to Fulcan, who’s going to retrieve it once everyone crosses?” Tarsus inquired.
“Oh,” I muttered, distracting myself from Roslyn’s sudden departure. “Well the portal took a few seconds to open so...perhaps it would take a few seconds to close. Here’s the plan. Tarsus, cross first, then lead the guilds to find King Fulcan. I’ll stay behind and fiddle with this portal.”
“You sure you got it?”
“Hopefully. We can’t waste time now. Go!”
Tarsus and the two guilds jumped through the portal one by one, landing onto the dark forest floor on the other side. Before long, I was the last one on Fulcan’s island. There was only one way of testing the mechanism without risking my life. I took the gemstone out and the portal stayed agape for a few seconds, before snapping shut. Inserting the gemstone again, I took it out, recording how long it took for the portal to close and determining the distance I would have to run before it closed. I slipped it into the depressed brick and pulled it out one more time to be sure. Now I was ready. I carefully placed the stone into the brick.
“What are you doing?” I heard Tarsus shout.
I was caught by surprise; portals never carried sound. I turned around, and Tarsus stood right in front of me.
“Why are you back?” I yelled angrily.
“To see what you were up to. I mean, I didn’t know if you knew what you were doing after I saw the same portal open and close three times in front of me!”
“I got it! Go back! I’ll be there. Go!”
“If I see that portal open and close one more time, I’m leaving you,” Tarsus taunted, marching through the portal.
The flaming white doorway stayed ajar for a bit less than two seconds, and I was only a meter away. From previous experience, the stone slipped smoothly out of the carved crater. I placed my right hand on the stone, and bolted through the portal as I pulled it out. Rolling onto the forest floor, the portal behind me snapped shut. In my hand was the smooth, white diamond.
“You finally did it,” Tarsus mocked.
I glared at Tarsus and got on my feet instantly, slipping the stone back into my pocket and joining the rest of the twelve guild members.
“Lexon found one of Fulcan’s soldiers, so we’re heading there now.”
Overlord Naterra’s island, the Terramancy Domain, was significantly smaller than Fulcan’s, who possessed the greatest land mass. The whole island was a lush, dense, rainforest, tall canopies shielding the cerulean sky. It was impossible to look farther than ten meters without a tree trunk or an overgrown thicket hampering my vision. Ever since the War of Zxyx, Naterra’s island was the least visited island on Grozorg. Tribal clans had formed to fight against Zxyx, but after the fall of the dark king, the tribes turned against each other to demonstrate dominance and superiority. Some had begun the practice of dark rituals, other tribes performing cannibalism. All in all, the land became barbaric, and Lord Naterra did not stop it. Now that he himself had become corrupted as well, the only way of stopping the clans would be stopping the overlord entirely.
“Just to the left there,” Lexon indicated.
We pushed our way through the bushes and shrubs, evading snaking vines and twisting thorns. The twelve of us kept our guard up, fully aware of the island’s unpleasant history and unsettling reputation.
“Sir Valkard, at thy service,” the knight spoke upon seeing our arrival. “King Fulcan awaits thy presence. His majesty is hidden behind the Weaver’s Pass, to thy right, then thy left. Please-”
The knight fell as a dart pierced his skull.
“Ambush!” Tarsus yelled.
There was a small wooden-masked warrior, an emerald humanoid creature half the height of a grown man, holding a blowgun to his mouth with two thin arms. At once, Lexon ripped the weapon from the tribal warrior’s grip and snapped the neck of the small fighter. He lay on the ground in a distorted angle, unconscious.
“There’s more - we’re outnumbered!” I yelled, looking beyond the trees. “Everyone, head into the Weaver’s Pass! We should be able to lose them there!”
The twelve of us followed the knight’s navigation, heading into a darker region of the rainforest.
The primitive warriors poured out by the hundreds from every which way, streaming through the thickets.
We entered the pass, only to discover the crooked branches and forest floor coated by a sticky, silky substance. The appellation “Weaver’s Pass” suddenly dawned on me as I recalled that long-forgotten name.
“Hold on...we gotta get out of here now!” I hollered.
I turned around to see the tribal warriors slowly retreating from the pass as we carelessly stepped foot into the Weaver’s realm.
There had been legends about Naterra’s land. The legends were taught to me when I was a child, so long ago that I had simply put it aside, never imagining I would one day come close to encountering the species. The sole reason I had formed the guild was to hunt beasts, either as game or to defeat terrorizing creatures that threatened cities, all in return for gold. The legends had spoken of abnormally large arachnids, namely the Weavers, that roamed the Terramancy Domain, and all who entered never escaped. My guild had never been recruited to slay the aberrant arthropods, nor would we ever choose to even come close to one, but here we were now.
“Are those...the Weavers?” Tarsus asked weakly. I looked at him and he was turned around, petrified in fear.
I knew what to do. Without spinning around to gaze in his general direction, I backed up, lifted the stone-solid Tarsus over my shoulders, and brought him off the pass. His dilated pupils gradually returned to its normal size, and he slowly regained strength to stand up.
“Our men are still in there. We need to hurry!”
The mythical Weavers were fierce and strange creatures; their preying tactic simple and deadly: petrify, weave, devour. The arachnids, with their eight gruelling gazes, would petrify the victim upon eye contact, emitting hypnotic impulses into the victim’s mind to cease every movement. The victim, helpless, would be frozen in place, watching the predator weave a thick web tightly around them. If they were lucky, the arthropod would leave the webbed victim stuck onto the forest floor, giving them time to escape, if they still had the strength to tear through the glutinous webbing. But if the Weavers were hunting to kill, the arachnid would inject a lethal venom into its mummified prey, dissolving the inner organs into liquid before the Weaver proceeded to devour it.
“Ulterium, save our men! I’ll take care of those damned spiders!”
“Be careful! We won’t be able to get you out if you go too deep into the forest!”
“I’m always careful,” Tarsus snickered as he closed his eyes, running towards the direction of the Weavers.
I turned around and jogged backwards towards the frozen guild members. All had fallen to the gaze of the arachnids, transfixed in a rigid motion. One by one, I carried them off to the side of the path where they slowly regained consciousness. As they woke from the spell of the Weavers, they assisted me in carrying the rest of the guild members aside, following my technique of jogging backwards to evade glimpsing upon the mesmeric octet of eyes.
Tarsus pulled out his shuang-gou, linked them together, and swung his blades in a smooth, deadly, circular movement. Since he had previously locked eyes with the Weavers, he knew approximately how far to run to reach the congregation of spiders. Bloodcurdling shrieks were heard from a distance as the arachnids fell one by one to Tarsus’ blade.
“Tarsus!” I hollered at the top of my lungs, hoping he could hear through the shrieking spiders. “Retreat, we’re good!”
“Alright!” The distant voice replied.
He turned around, running towards us. When he reached the edge of the pass, he opened his eyes.
“I’m surprised you didn’t run into a tree or something.”
The guild members chuckled, slapping the panting Tarsus on the back and thanking him.
“The trees obviously parted for me when I entered. Where to next?”
“He said to go right then left.”
“Behind the pass,” Kadava added.
“Right. So I guess we should trace along the pass, heading rightwards, until we find an opening on our left.”
The twelve of us took a few seconds to recover. Soon, we were on our feet again, heading right. We traced along the darkened trees, careful not to turn our heads yet to look within the web-coated forest. After a while, the population of trees diminished.
“This is it,” I spoke, leading the group left and into the opening.
The clearing was barricaded by a tall wooden palisade with archers in lookout towers that were erected at every few hundred meters along the grand wooden wall. The banners that hung beneath the towers resembled the insignia of King Fulcan’s Army of Light and Purity. The fortified fortress, however, had a portion of the wall, farthest away from us, burnt and broken down.
“Tarsus!” A familiar voice shouted.
We looked up towards the sound of the familiar voice, spotting Glo a couple of meters ahead.
“Ulterium! You all made it!” She shouted exuberantly.
“Are we late?” Tarsus asked.
“The king is waiting for you! I’ll let him tell you.”
She met us and pointed northeast, directing our gaze through an open gate in the palisade, towards a tall white tent rising above other shorter tents.
We made our way to the complex quickly, entering the tent Glo had indicated.
“Ulterium! Tarsus! Welcome! Glad you could join us,” King Fulcan greeted. Foku was by his side, studying the scrolls and maps haphazardly lying around in the large tent.
“Foku spoke to me regarding your two guilds. Thank you for sending him and Glo in advance.”
“Always at your service,” I bowed. “Oh, and before I forget.”
I quickly fumbled the white gemstone in my pocket and pulled it out, memories of Roslyn suddenly painfully filling my thoughts.
“Apparently this is of high importance to you.”
“You have it! What a relief!” The king exclaimed, taking the stone from my palm. “Where’s Roslyn?”
The twelve of us looked at each other, sullen-faced as the memory of the skilled messenger filled their thoughts again.
“She was a good lad. You should be proud of her,” Tarsus spoke quietly.
“What happened?” Fulcan asked, grief filling his words.
“The first night we travelled here, the Almega Legion raided us. We were camping in the cenote, when the Legion suddenly started pouring down by the dozens. We fought the army, but the soldiers just kept coming down on us,” Tarsus answered as I lowered my head.
“So Roslyn activated the destruction sequence,” Fulcan correctly guessed, pain heavy in his words.
We stood there in silence, remembering the selfless deed of the messenger. I turned my face around, concealing the tears in my eyes.
“She was the best diplomat I had ever recruited in all of Grozorg. Smart, fast, efficient...” The king paused, sighing heavily. “Well, what’s done is done. Let’s make sure Roslyn’s act was not in vain,” Fulcan finished, overcoming his anguish.
“Sir! The troops are advancing!”
The king turned towards the sudden voice. A soldier stood at the entrance of the tent, announcing his news to a commander posted nearby. They proceeded to converse in a lower tone, an inaudible mumbling.
“So what happened before we came?” Tarsus asked the king.
“When we first stepped foot on the island, our troops were immediately rerouted by the savage tribes.”
“Right,” Tarsus noted.
“There was a knight from my army who had grown up on Naterra’s island, and he explained the culture of the tribes. Apparently, the feuding tribes had one thing in common; they looked upon the Weavers as gods. The Weaver’s Pass acted as a barrier between them and us, so we set camp behind it for protection from the tribes.”
“Figures,” I said, recalling the encounter with the arthropods.
“Anyways, the two tribes were not the only problem. Our forces were met by Naterra’s personal army, a small but formidable force of fighting men. They had a strange strategy, and on the first day alone, my army was decimated by the hundreds.”
“How about Tyrannust?”
“Some of his men were with Naterra’s army, but he himself wasn’t on the island. I still haven’t figured out what his plan is at the moment.”
“Hold on, if he knows about the tunnel system, wouldn’t he be well on his way destroying the passages now?”
“I doubt it. It would definitely hinder us if he did destroy the system, but that would ultimately impede him more than us from whatever his next move is. He needs time, but this would just distract him instead of buying him more time.”
“So how long do you reckon this war will last?”
“My Lord,” the commander spoke, facing Fulcan, “we have to move, now.”
“There’s your answer,” Fulcan spoke. “Our army has been greatly diminished, some men fallen to Naterra’s warriors, others to the barbaric rituals of the tribes. There is no other option now but to retreat-”
“But what will happen if we retreat? Won’t we...lose?”
“These wars were not started by the elemental overlords, but solely from Tyrannust himself. We received intelligence about the war halfway in; it was planned as a mere distraction for Tyrannust to prepare something much greater.”
“Then why not just find Tyrannust and get to the root of the problem?
“That’s the problem. If we don’t confront the immediate fighting forces, they’ll overtake Tenebris, and Grozorg will fall.”
“Tyrannust can’t immediately command all twelve elements to lay siege to Tenebris though, since that wouldn’t buy him enough time to do whatever he’s planning right now,” I spoke, linking the pieces together.
“Precisely,” the king responded, “but I also cannot risk Naterra marching to Tenebris against the high lord’s command to befall the last beacon of hope.”
“My Lord, scouts say there is movement on Overlord Geonyte’s island. Perhaps Tyrannust is there.”
“We must stop Geonyte before he becomes the next major threat.”
“Hold on, we can’t just leave Naterra here. What if he does march to Tenebris like you said while we were busy with the overlord of rock?”
The tent fell silent as the men within stumbled across a roadblock.
“Burn the trees,” Tarsus suddenly spoke, breaking the silence. “Burn the damn trees.”