Chapter 14b: A Trip to the Temple

Shannai walked in the center of the group of men with an arrow notched into her bow. Her eyes scanned the dark forest. An eerie silence filled the forest-lined road. Their footsteps and the occasional rustling from the woods were the only sounds that broke the quiet walk to the Temple.

She still couldn’t believe that Marchas had talked her into leaving the safety of the Palace. Her brother had made a good point when he said the palace had become a trap with no way out, and with the dead mysteriously gone from the walls they could easily escape. Besides, there just weren’t enough people left within the walls to fight through the ranks of undead she had seen. Still, the duke didn’t seem like a man who would let himself become cornered, and even if he were he still seemed to be smart enough to figure a way out of a trap like that, and if not him there was still the wizard and Wellan certainly wasn’t one to be brought down easily.

A noise caught her attention. Leaves rustling deep within the oak filled woods. Something ran parallel to the road. Trying to get ahead of them?

She stopped raised her bow and focused on the darkness between the trees, past the rough trunks. Shannai could just make out the outline of a figure standing deep within, a faint highlight on a cheek, the dark silhouette of a shoulder breaking up the vertical pattern of the tree trunks. The black woods made it difficult to tell if the shapes were real, or only her eyes playing tricks on her, and she had to be sure before she alerted the others. Everyone’s nerves were frayed and having false alarms was the last thing they needed.

"What do you see?" Her brother whispered in her ear causing her to jump and release her arrow into the forest.

She turned to scold him for scaring her when she saw a sight that made her heart race, the twinkle of eyes deep in the forest. Ignoring her brother she pulled another arrow from her quiver and notched it, never taking her sight from the small round disks.

Shannai whispered to her brother and pointed her arrow at a tree, "Look into the forest, just to the right of that tree. Do you see..."

Another set of eyes opened, and another. As she watched, pairs of glowing disks opened throughout the forest. She turned to face the other side of the road and saw the same thing. Hundreds of the undead stood in eerie silence, watching them.

Her brother croaked, "Oh my Gods!"

"Yeah, at the moment it doesn’t seem like such a good idea to be away from the palace."

The leader, a short blond fellow named Stiles, hissed, "Shut it up you two."

"But the undead..." Shannai tried to tell him.

"Yeah, I see them. There’s nothing to be done about it now, and so far they aren’t doing anything but standing there. We’re gonna keep moving forward like we have been. If something threatens us then we will do something about it, but for right now the best thing we can do is keep going."

Shannai nodded and followed Stiles as he walked down the road, towards the temple; her eyes never leaving the eyes that peered at her from the dark forest.