Kael Shadowthorn's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

For three days the leaf pulled Kael east. It warmed when he walked right and chilled when he strayed. But it told him nothing of what waited ahead. On the fourth morning he crossed a frozen stream and the leaf burned hot in his glove. He looked up. The wilds thickened into black pines. Somewhere past them stood the bone tree, and whatever had spared Aldric once. He stopped at the mouth of a cave carved deep into the mountainside. The leaf tugged him inside. Kael did not trust it. He needed to know his enemy before he met it, and the wizard had left him blind. He drew his sword and stepped into the dark. Inside, torchlight flickered. Two figures crouched by a jeweled chest half-buried in cracked rock. A green snake coiled at its base. The men wore black armor. Scales showed at their throats, and folded wings rose from their backs. Brothers, plainly, one leaner and one broader. Kael had heard travelers whisper of the dragon lord burning villages in the east. These two hunted him. The broader one saw Kael and rose. His left wing hung wrong, half-open. "Ranger," he said. "You're going the wrong way." "I go where the leaf leads," Kael said. The leaner brother did not turn from the chest. "He carries Aldric's mark." He tapped the scar on his own palm. "The old man sent us east too. Told us the bone tree. Never told us the guardian." Kael's grip tightened. "You've seen it." "We've seen what it leaves." The broader one nodded at the chest. "That's a lure. Gold to draw fools close. The snake is the least of it." He pointed past the cave, deeper into the dark. "Beyond the bone tree, the ground is bare for a mile. Nothing grows. Nothing walks. The thing there does not sleep." "Aldric ran," the leaner brother said. "Smart. You won't." Kael lowered his sword. Here was the warning the wizard had denied him. Not the shape of the thing, but its reach, and how it hunted. "Then tell me how it strikes." The broader brother studied him. "It watches from the tree. It waits until you touch the crypt door. Then it takes you." He pulled his sword an inch free and slid it back. "We turned around. The dragon lord is easier prey." They gathered their gear and left him at the chest. The snake hissed and slid into a crack. Kael stood alone in the torchlight. He no longer walked blind. He knew where the guardian hid and when it would move. That was enough to plan. He stepped back into the cold and turned east again. The leaf burned hot. This time he did not fear the pull. He feared only the moment his hand would touch the crypt door, and now he knew to fear it.