Page 21 of Darkening Truth
“Let’s see if we can get in?” I suggest.
Zev grins, “I was hoping you were going to say that.”
I know I just stopped myself from using my magic to move the vines off the crest on the gate in case the use of it alerted someone here to our presence, but the thought of being able to explore more is too much of a temptation, and considering that we haven’t run into anything, apart from whatever was flying, I’m willing to bet that no one is still around. It certainly looks that way. I’m willing to risk it.
“Here, hold on to me, and I should be able to use my air magic to get us both up to the guard house, and then we can go down the ladder on the other side. Guard houses always have ladders on the inside of whatever they are guarding,” I suggest.
Zev grins and wiggles his eyebrows as he moves to stand behind me and wraps his arms tightly around me. I sink into him, and any tension that I was feeling leaves me.
He kisses my neck and says, “I’ll never say no to holding on to you.”
“Good,” I reply. I wriggle my ass and smirk as he groans, and he tightens his grip around me.
Before we can get thoroughly distracted again, which I am absolutely going to do, because Zev’s kisses are addictive, I use my air to propel us upward and keep us steady as we get to the window of the guard house.
“Ah, it’s not as abandoned as we thought it was,” I mutter as Zev reluctantly lets go of me to climb through the window, and then I follow.
I would float us straight over the gate, but we have no idea if there’s some kind of magical defence in place which my magic could trigger, so it’s just safer to do it this way, since half of the guard house is overhanging the wall. Of course, it could still have spells or wards on it, but it's too late to worry about that now. My excitement is clearly clouding some of my judgement in this case.
We carefully move into the guard house, and I study the pile of bones that’s left scattered across the floor.
“Well, there’s an arrow mixed in with the bones, so I’m pretty sure that we can assume that he didn’t die of natural causes,” Zev points out.
“Agreed, come on. Let’s get out of here and see what they’re guarding. From what I could see, there were quite a few guard houses along the walls, which means whatever they were protecting was important.”
I look out of the door of the guard house, and see that there are bones wearing tattered clothing scattered everywhere. It reminds me of the hallways in Hades' half of his castle, except there are no newer bodies here. They’re all very old.
“There was a battle here,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
Zev nods grimly, “Yeah. There was, and it was a long time ago, judging from the bones and how overgrown everything is. I can just about see a cobbled road under the plants that are taking over.”
I nod, “I guess we’re following that then.”
“Yeah, let’s hope we’re not about to run into some survivors who are going to wonder what the fuck we’re doing here,” Zev replies as he glances down the ladder to make sure that it’s safe and then starts to climb down.
I follow him, and when we get to the bottom, I say, “I would hope that if there are survivors here, they would have come to get their dead, not just left them out here.”
“Unless they were too scared to,” Zev points out. “Fear does strange things to those who were once brave.”
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” I agree. “Okay, we’ll approach with caution, then, I guess.”
Zev raises an eyebrow, “We weren’t, anyway?”
I shrug, “I wasn’t.”
He chuckles at my response and shakes his head.
We head up what used to be a driveway, at least that’s what I’m assuming it is, since it leads away from the gates and into the surrounding trees.
As we move, we have to navigate around the bodies that are scattered all around us.
“This was a pretty epic battle,” I say.
Zev nods, “Yeah, it looks like it. If it hadn’t happened so long ago, we might have been able to recognise some of the creatures, and it would give us a better idea about where we are.”
“Yeah, that would have been helpful,” I agree. “Although it probably would have made the situation a lot more dangerous.”
We move quickly, making sure that we stay vigilant and keep an eye on our surroundings, but just like outside the gates, there is nothing alive here except for the plant life. That is the only thing that seems to be thriving.
