There! Deep, heavy prints. He knelt to get a closer look. Wolf prints. Raxx traced the deep pawprints back in the direction they came from, sliding down from the edge of the road into the dense pines.
A familiar faint musky smell lingered nearby. Tangled on the thick spines of some brambles was a clump of pale, silver fur. Raxx plucked it from the undergrowth carefully and sniffed it. Damp dog. Karn had been here.
Raxx focussed his mind, majick tingling in his fingertips as he held the downy fur. When he opened his eyes, he saw a scene frozen before him just like back at the compound.
Karn was chasing down a slim, hooded figure dressed in an expensive-looking fur coat. The princess. Raxx attempted to step deeper into the scene as he had before, but the figures wavered and flickered. There wasn’t enough of Karn’s presence lingering in the patch of fur to allow for any in-depth investigation.
Raxx narrowed his eyes. The princess was hidden from his view and every time he tried to move the scene threatened to disintegrate. It looked as though he was to be kept in the dark as to the princess’s appearance. Raxx scowled with frustration and released his hold on Karn’s fur. The image disappeared and Raxx was standing, staring at the dark, empty road ahead of him.
So, Karn had found her – then what? Raxx knew the wolf was well trained and Lephas would have undoubtedly instructed Karn to bring the girl back to him. Lephas had been smart to employ the wolf’s keen sense of smell in hunting the princess down. Raxx began heading in the direction Karn had chased the faerie towards.
The shadow demon’s majick suddenly hummed inside him with such intensity that he faltered. Raxx shook his head and something caught his eye. He stalked a few steps ahead and dropped to a crouch. There was blood in the snow – not much of it, just a few small spots. Someone had injured themselves in the struggle.
Raxx didn’t expect to get much of a picture from such a small sample, but he reached out and closed his eyes, willing another snapshot scene to reveal itself.
Raxx blinked with surprise, greeted with the wavering image of Commander Lephas, Haros and the other four soldiers. One of the men had the princess’s limp body thrown over his shoulder. A thick red globule of blood hung frozen mid-air as it dripped from the wound on the faerie’s head into the snow.
The image flickered and Raxx allowed it to disperse.
The princess had fallen and injured herself. That was certainly a fly in the ointment. No wonder it had taken Lephas longer than planned to get back; carrying an injured prisoner would have slowed their pace considerably.
Perhaps they had been forced to stop somewhere overnight? It would have been at least late afternoon by the time they had caught up with the princess. Lephas was nothing if not safety conscious and he knew how dangerous these woods were at night at the best of times, never mind when the King’s Guard were lurking around.
Raxx stood, dizziness overcoming him. He shook himself. His head was aching, no doubt from the all too frequent use of majick. Being a majborne, Raxx didn’t tire as easily as those amongst their ranks that had to train in majick, but recalling images from the past was taxing. Raxx rolled his shoulders and walked in the direction Lephas and his men had been heading.
Time passed by quickly as the shadow demon sped through the dark forest. He felt on edge, keen to track down Lephas as soon as possible. Not only would it put his mind at ease to know the man was safe, but the sooner he could get back to Banesteppe, the better. Raxx just hoped Zelrus didn’t plan to leave to meet with Cirro just yet.
A dark shape loomed in the distance and Raxx slowed to a walk. Hidden amongst the trees was an old abandoned cottage. The shadow demon grinned. He knew his friends, there was no chance they had passed by this opportunity.
Raxx bounded up the hill to the house. He cocked a brow – the front door was off its hinges. Was that intentional? The shadow demon tucked his wings tightly against his back and stepped through the narrow doorway into the farm house.
He cast his eyes around for anything out of place. The house had been abandoned for a long time, but the fireplace in the front room still contained dark, fresh cinders. Raxx rubbed the ash between his fingers thoughtfully.
He wandered through to the kitchen. On one of the countertops was a pile of shrivelled peelings. He picked one up and inspected it. The skin of a blood berry – Lephas and his men had camped here.
Raxx examined the rest of the farm house, but other than a few pieces of dismantled furniture that had been broken down for firewood, he found nothing else of interest.
The shadow demon exited the cottage and headed back down the slope towards the main road. If he were escorting a prisoner back to Banesteppe from here, which way would he have gone? Raxx would have certainly avoided the main roads, knowing the King’s Guard were scouting for the princess – not that it had done Lephas and his men much good in the end.
Raxx leapt gracefully off a steep ledge at the roadside. His wings stretched out and he glided to the floor, not missing a step. Raxx continued to speed through the woodland. Something about this place seemed familiar. His heart began to pound in his chest and majick prickled through his veins. He skidded to a halt, suddenly recognising the scene ahead.
He felt sick as he approached the clearing, knowing exactly what horrors awaited him there.
Unlike in the vision Raxx pulled from the injured soldier’s mind earlier that day, the crimson splattered through the snow had now frozen to a dark, sickening black. It was already partially covered with snowfall. Bodies lay slumped, buried in the snow all around him.
Raxx’s majick was buzzing so intensely around his skull it was disorienting. There was too much information to investigate, he didn’t even know where to start. Gritting his teeth, Raxx began inspecting each corpse, one at a time. Whilst most of the casualties appeared to be faerie, he grimaced and closed his eyes as he turned over the first familiar face.
There was so much blood, he couldn’t think…
Raxx took a few deep breaths, attempting to centre himself, and stalked around the clearing. There were so many prints, so much confusion. How was he ever going to make sense of it all? He leant against a nearby tree with a heavy sigh. Raxx allowed himself to become corporeal, feeling his feet sink into the snow beneath him as he gained physical mass once more.
The shadow demon scowled at the gore-filled scene before him. Lephas and Haros had known the danger they were potentially heading into when they took on this mission, but seeing it first-hand made his blood run cold. He knew one thing. He couldn’t leave their fallen men like this.
With a brutal yell, Raxx fired a massive ball of kinetic energy into the ground. Snow and earth sprayed up into the air around him. He stood still, listening to the debris clattering to the floor through the branches of the pines.
When the forest was silent once more, the shadow demon swallowed thickly and grabbed the ankles of a deceased demon soldier. He dragged the man’s stiff, lifeless body into the large crater left behind by his blast.
These men were good, honest, honourable men. They deserved more than to be left out in the snow to be picked clean by the birds. It would take a little time away from his rescue mission, but he was confident it was what Lephas and Haros would have wanted.
