Chapter 19 The Blackwood Tomb
Elias pushed open the gate, which groaned on its hinges. The violet glow of Blacklight’s blade revealed a narrow path buried in clumps of dark green moss. Fireflies hovered low to the ground where a thin veil of moisture gathered above the grass. They bobbed and glimmered gently in the mist.
As the Daemonguard passed through the old gate into the Blackwood tomb, lumenblooms stirred faintly around their feet, responding to their mana.
The small, trumpet-shaped flowers awakened and unfurled their white petals as the soldiers slipped by, turning their pale blooms toward the group of mana channelers.
The center of the hidden courtyard came into view.
Carved of dark granite stone, a solemn pyramid stood amid a bed of glowing flowers.
The ornate door to the tomb was closed. It didn’t appear to be disturbed in any way.
The sigil of a dragonfly was etched into a plate that hung above the tomb’s entrance.
Elias’s boots slowed to a halt, reluctant to trample the glowing flowers that surrounded the grave.
“It’s been a long time since I visited this place,” muttered Kiran. “Not since your grandfather became ill.”
“We were children when he passed,” Elias said in a soft voice.
The tomb held several generations of Blackwood warriors.
He assumed his own body would lie there some day, and he had visited the tomb often since his return from the war.
It had become a sanctuary where he could be alone with his thoughts.
Somehow, that made the letter’s ominous quality more personal.
Was the mention of the tomb merely a coincidence?
Or had someone been spying on him since his return to the castle?
At his signal, the soldiers spread out, two flanking him on each side.
“Stay vigilant. Someone entered the premises recently.”
“Ugh. Do you smell something?” Cherry asked. “It’s rank . . . like rotten flesh.”
A breeze stirred, and Elias sucked in a breath. Yes, he smelled it too. Cautiously, the squad started to circle the tomb, their eyes searching the grass and lilies for the source of the smell.
“Look there,” Fenrick whispered, coming to stand by Ravenna’s side and pointing at a tangle of ferns beyond the tomb, at the edge of the woods. “I see something on the ground.”
The soldiers raised their weapons and remained on high alert.
Elias crossed the dense underbrush and pushed it back with his sword.
A mound of gnawed-on bones lay on the loamy forest floor.
The pile was impressively large—it obviously contained the remains of more than one animal.
By the sweet, pungent stench of decayed flesh, the bones were fresh.
Elias’s eyes flickered from the mess of gore and blood to the surrounding woods. He saw several ropes, frayed at the ends, dangling from a manawood tree.
“What do you think they were?” Kiran asked in a low voice. “Deer?”
“Pigs.”
Elias’s face was grim. It looked like he had found the cook’s missing delivery of pork for the banquet.
He ran a hand through his sleek black hair, a troubled frown on his lips.
Where was the pig farmer who was supposed to deliver the sows?
He didn’t see any human bones amid the pig carcasses, but the farmer’s remains could still be present. There was a lot to sift through.
He would have to initiate a search for the pig farmer when he got back to the castle.
If the man couldn’t be located, then he had to assume the worst. The thought left him simmering with rage.
If an innocent farmer had met his death due to a madman’s gruesome birthday prank, there would be hell to pay.
“This must be where your well-wishers kept the daemons before releasing them into the gardens,” Kiran said, looking about the clearing once more. “More awaits within the tomb. . . .”
“Yes. And the monsters needed to be fed.”
“Where are the daemons now?” Riordan asked in a deep, booming baritone. He was a large man who seemed incapable of speaking at a low volume—so he rarely spoke at all.
“What does the focus say?” Elias asked.
Kiran answered, “The amulet’s color is strong. The air is thick with daemon dust. Definitely more than one creature, and still present by the look of it.”
The soldiers all shifted, raising their weapons and looking around the forest again. Elias’s eyes flickered to the disc in Kiran’s hand. Sure enough, it glowed bright purple, a sign of high dust density in this area.
“They’re close,” Elias agreed.
A bit of movement flickered in the corner of his eye. A tremor passed through the trees surrounding the tomb, faint as a breath. Somewhere beyond the wild overgrowth, an unnatural whine carried through the darkness.
The wind shifted, and he caught the sharp stench of sulfur.
"Break!" Elias ordered.
The Daemonguard scattered expertly, creating a star-shaped formation with their backs to each other, each one facing a different section of the forest. They were prepared to meet the threat head-on from any direction.
With a shriek like steel on glass, a massive body dropped down from the thick branches of an ancient manawood tree.
Blacklight flashed in Elias’s hand, revealing the threat under a beam of eerie violet light.
Dropping its camouflage, the monster climbed onto the roof of the tomb and snarled at the soldiers.
Its reptilian body seemed unnaturally thin and tall.
Its skin was cracked like tree bark, oozing thick purple sap that smelled of rotten eggs.
A flap of skin encircled its neck, which flared outward like a flower’s blossom.
The head rolled and bobbed from side to side like a demented daisy.
Where the monster’s eyes should be, Elias saw four slits like nostrils and a great, sucking mouth.
From its shoulders sprouted spine-like protrusions similar to branches, each dripping with poisonous sap.
The daemon appeared to be part lizard, part poisonous plant, and altogether foul.
“A violet climber,” Kiran confirmed.
Then, as though the nightmare was just beginning, two more lumbering shapes appeared through the trees.
Emerging from the woods, the second daemon was slow and awkward. Red saliva dripped to the ground, sizzling where it struck the stones, from an alligator-shaped monstrosity with giant fins along its back.
The final daemon was so large, it pushed over two sapling trees to force itself into the clearing. It resembled a mammoth-sized slug: a fat, limbless body covered in slime, a lime-green belly dripping with acid, and eyes on two stalks that swiveled above its head.
“Kiran, you take the violet climber,” Elias said, indicating the aggressive one on the tomb’s roof. “Use the Starcaster.”
“With pleasure,” Kiran grinned.
Then Elias motioned to the rest of his soldiers. “Riordan and Cherry, take the red one. It looks like a crimson crawler, so be careful of those spines! Fenrick and Ravenna shall deal with the worm.”
“He’s kind of cute,” Ravenna said with a bold smile. “Do you think it’s yellow?”
“I think it’s a nice middling green,” Fenrick shouted back.
Elias unsheathed Thunderbreak while Kiran reached for the Starcaster Cannon in the pocket of his greatcoat. He withdrew the bulky, heavy gun and clicked off the safety.
“We’ll see if these bullets do as they’re promised,” Kiran grinned. Then he turned to face the violet climber. “Come at me, you ugly bastard!”
With a keening, high-pitched howl, the daemon leapt off the roof and landed on the ground just yards away from Kiran’s position.
It swung its branchlike tail with destructive force.
Kiran threw himself to one side, dodging the long tail.
The daemon followed him, moving with fierce aggression.
It opened its mouth, its skin flaps quivering, and shot out a long stream of acid.
Kiran dodged again. The stream of acid struck a tree behind him, burning through the trunk.
“Watch out!” he yelled as the tree began to topple.
“Shrrriiieeeee!” the monster screamed.
Wham! The tree fell over, blocking off half the clearing with a shower of silver leaves.
As Elias watched, Kiran took shelter behind the fallen tree and raised the mana cannon, taking aim down the blunt barrel.
Channeling hot mana through the palm of his prosthetic hand, Kiran charged up the shined gun.
The second chamber on the cannon began to glow and spin, absorbing the excess mana so it didn’t overheat and “backfire.” Soon, Kiran’s shined prosthetic was also glowing red with the force of his mana.
“Cheerio!” Kiran yelled as he fired off two shots. Bam! Bam! The cannon roared in the night. Each flash from the gun’s barrel was blinding, and the kick was strong enough to send Kiran flying backward with a whoop. He landed somewhere in the forest’s underbrush.
“Holy Mother of Dust!” Riordan yelled.
A shockwave rippled off the cannon with each blast. Elias felt the wind of it ruffle his hair. Ravenna and Fenrick turned to gasp in amazement at the sight.
The bullets struck the daemon’s side. The monster screamed and shuddered.
Dust #210 Bloodglass was brutally efficient.
Veins of silver and gold ran across the creature’s hide, which then began to crumble and cave inward as all the moisture evaporated from its body.
Its flesh took on a fragile, glass-like appearance.
Within a minute, the lizard’s bones disintegrated, and it collapsed with a choked cry, unraveling into ash that evaporated on the wind.
Elias felt a surge of satisfaction at the sight. A smile stretched across his face. Yes—that was a gift.
Any concern for Kiran vanished from Elias’s mind as his brother’s wild laughter filled the clearing. Kiran was cackling like a proper maniac as he climbed back to his feet, brushing bits of leaves and grass from his coat. Elias remembered that laugh from the battlefield.