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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 3750196" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 246SHADES OF THE DARKDar was in a dark, malevolent place.  The fighter circled warily, alert to danger.  Despite the absence of light, he was generally aware of his surroundings, his other senses compensating somehow for his blinded vision.  But the details of his location were indistinct, hazy.  Only Valor, the blue steel blade naked in his right fist, was clear.  The pressure of the hilt, the weight of the sword, were something reassuring in this realm of uncertainty.  After a time, he spoke.  “I am dreaming,” he said.  His voice filled the gloom, but that too sounded unreal, muffled as though in a heavy fog.  The darkness shifted; what was just changed, and Dar saw a figure ahead of him.  He raised Valor as he recognized the man; the high priest that he’d killed in the slave pits under Rappan Athuk.  But the figure was a shade, not a living foe.   His left arm was severed at the elbow.  Dar had taken the limb, moments before he’d impaled the bastard on his sword.  “I killed you,” he said to the shade.  The priest looked at him, and Dar felt an involuntary shudder as the shade’s empty orbs fixed on him.  That feeling intensified as the dead priest repeated what he had whispered to Dar during the battle, just before his death. “Your choice will decide her fate,” he said.  “Screw you and your god,” Dar said.  He stepped forward toward the cleric, Valor coming up despite himself, but the shade dissolved into nothing, and the darkness returned.  He sensed the presence of the others a moment later, and turned.  The darkness had retreated, partially, enough for him to make out the forms of row upon row of armed men.  He knew these, too, for they were his men, the slain soldiers of the Border Legion.  Their faces were vague, indistinct, save for the three in the front rank.  Bullo, Travius, and Kalend fixed their empty stares upon him, in quiet indictment. “I suppose you’re going to bitch about getting killed,” he said to them. The formation of shades watched him in silence.  Dar met that stare with equinamity, waiting for something to happen, but the only thing that he felt was the cold weight of those intent looks. Finally, he spoke.  “Well?  What do you want from me?”Still, the shades waited in silence. “Fine, you lot stay here, you belong here, more than I.  I’m getting out of this freaking place.”  He turned and started walking, but he remained aware of the soldiers behind him.  He could not hear the sound of their tread, but when he suddenly stopped and turned they were there, right behind him, keeping pace.   “I didn’t ask for this command,” he said to them.  “I didn’t ask for any of this.  I’m just a selfish gods-damned bastard of a mercenary, not some freaking general.”Valor flared in his hand.  Still the soldiers did not stir, but nevertheless Dar heard words, whispered as from the mouths of many men, the faded voices of every man who had ever died in service to Camar. Duty.  Honor.  Sacrifice.  The code of the legions.  The words weren’t spoken often in the Border Legion, but even in his short time with them, Dar had learned that they were still there, beneath the surface. “Go screw yourselves,” Dar said.  He spun and walked away, briskly, not quite running.  This time he did not look back, but he could feel them there, following. He kept walking.  The darkness around him seemed to extend for an interminable distance in every direction; there were no landmarks or distinctive features that he could see.  There was nothing to do but keep walking, or to stop.  Dar’s jaw tightened, and he kept going.  There was no way to measure time in this place, but he was not yet tired when something appeared ahead.  He slowed his approach, wary.  He held Valor at the ready, although he doubted that a mundane blade would be of any use in this place.  Still, the hard feeling of the hilt in his hand offered some comfort.  The figure resolved into the form of another shade.  This one remained indistinct, and he could not identify it, except that it seemed vague humanoid.  Dar watched it and waited for a moment, but the ghostly form did not do anything further, so he spoke to it. “Well, ghost?  Are you going to give me some crap, or what?” The ghost quavered, like a cloak blowing in the wind.  There was a voice, but it did not seem to come from the ghost.  Dar did not recognize the voice at first, although it was very familiar, echoing with sepulchral intonations through this entire place, and in his mind. “To confront the demon... the the apostate, the general, and the elflord... must sacrifice that which they hold most dear... and only thus... may the world of man be spared...”The ghost hovered there as the words passed through him and faded.  “So what does that have to do with me?” he asked.  The ghost did not reply. “Look, I’m tired of all these freaking games,” he said after a moment.  He lifted Valor.  “All I need, is a place to put this, and I’ll do for that bastard and his servants.”But the ghost remained uncommunicative.  Dar turned around, and saw that the fallen soldiers of the legion were gone.  As he completed his spin, he realized that the latest shade, too, had disappeared; he was alone. “Dar.”With a start, he woke.  Shay was kneeling above him.  “Are you all right?”The fighter blinked and looked around.  They were in camp, in the temple of Orcus. He looked over and saw Nelan, surrounded by candles, still engrossed in his ritual.  The spellcasters were still asleep, but he saw Talen standing near the cleric, and a slender shadow pacing the perimeter, that had to be Mehlaraine. “What... what do you want?”“It’s your watch.”  The scout looked tired; Talen had insisted on keeping most of the fighters awake while the spellcasters rested and recovered their spells.  Dar felt anything but refreshed.  “Are you all right?” Shay asked. Dar shook his head to clear it and levered himself up into a sitting position.  He reached over and grabbed his armor, carefully stacked within easy reach.“I’m fine.  Get some sleep... if you can.”</blockquote>

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