The Last Satyr: The Two Paths Part 2

They also found Leradien, standing over the fallen, and shaking back her long, silky white hair as if expecting them.

“I got tired of waiting for your plan to kill them,” she told them, “so I did it myself.”

The others stared at the result, aghast.

It was difficult to say how many of the enemy the drider had slain—certainly more than ten. The boys had been keeping score of how many of the enemy they had killed as a competition. Only now Leradien had her own score. Amien estimated five tens.

“I admit she’s good,” mused Marroh as he surveyed Leradien’s handi-work, kicking a dead orc’s severed head that rolled away down the tunnel. “But it’s hard to keep score of how many she's killed when she doesn’t even leave them in one piece,” he complained to Amien. “I say this entire mess counts as one. That’s a good score for a girl.” He then added to her, picking up a bloody severed orc’s arm, “By the way, you might have left some for the rest of us to fight. We are a gang, you know!”

“We shall have to get rid of these bodies too,” the boy ignored the dwarf and decided. “If the drow ever find them, they shall know someone has entered their defenses.”

“The boy is right,” said Amien. “Drag these bodies back into the dwarf mine. Either dump them into the crevasses or burn them. Let us do it before more come.”

Ronthiel picked up a limbless corpse and looked towards Leradien. “The least you can do is help. You made this mess.”

“I believe I’ve already helped,” she said in reply. “Where were you?”

The boy ignored their bickering and asked Leradien another, more important, question instead. “What do you know of these tunnels?”

“These?” Leradien met his gaze and shrugged. “There are three kinds of tunnels. The military highways like this one we’re on now are built to handle marching men of up to ten ranks wide. They allow the movement of vast armies back and forth underground. Parallel to these are the messenger tunnels, only one person wide. They exist so that a messenger can bypass the military traffic.”

“And the third?” asked the boy.

“Drider tunnels,” she said. “Since driders are both detested by drow and insane, they are made to use their own tunnels, lest they offend. These are second-rate holes but fairly wide in order to accommodate a drider’s size.”

“How can we best follow the orcs that have Graybeard?”

“You would take the messenger tunnels,” she answered. “They lead to the same city as this highway. They are easy to find, having the same dimly lit flooring as in this one. But I cannot accompany you. I am too big, for such narrow tunnels. Nor can I take this highway. It would be inexcusable for a drider to be caught in a military tunnel. Any drider so caught they would kill—and they can kill driders! If I am to accompany you, I must take the drider tunnels, which are not safe for you. Where they actually go, I do not know. A drider tunnel need not lead to the same place as a military tunnel.”

“What do you suggest?” he asked.

“I have already made my suggestion,” she said. “We go back.”

“On that, the others have voted. We go ahead.”

“So it seems.”

The boy paused and then asked, “So, how do we do it?”

“As I said, for you and your friends, it is easy. Simply take the messenger tunnels. You will avoid the marching troops and catch up with the orcs.”

“And you? You will take a drider tunnel?”

“I have no choice, really,” she said. “There could be one ahead if I’m lucky. Your friend, Ronthiel, is more observant than you realize. I must stay with you or go insane. I cannot stand the loneliness and you’re my only friend. If you take the messenger path, I shall take a drider tunnel and hope it goes where you go.”

“But, if you take such a tunnel,” the boy realized, “you’d be alone.”

“I cannot fit in a messenger tunnel.”

The boy fell silent. He was facing yet another decision.

“Remember your promise,” she reminded him.

Yes. He nodded. He had not forgotten it. It weighed on him already.

When all the drow and orc bodies had been removed and disposed of, they left to follow Graybeard. With caution etched in their faces, they ventured deeper into the foreboding abyss of the drow’s military tunnel. Leradien took the lead, knowing what to expect. The others followed more warily, knowing downhill was the worst direction to go, yet reluctantly conquering their fear to see a girl boldly leading them into that oppressive darkness like a beacon of defiance. With each step in the quiet, cold air, they could heard their own footfalls.

As they followed the softly illuminated paving stones—stones that served to guide the enemy’s armies along the roadway, the boy now whispered to the others his plan.

“There are messenger tunnels that parallel these larger tunnels,” he informed them. “You shall take them and use them to overtake the orcs that hold Graybeard. Leradien and I shall take the drider tunnels. They go a different way. We shall hope to meet at the other end in rescuing Graybeard and the satyrs. If we both look for the same thing, we are apt to search in the same place. There, we will find each other.” Remembering they were supposed to be a gang of robbers, he added, “Rob and pillage what you may.”

Ronthiel, the elf, followed along behind his sworn master, the satyr boy. The satyr, in turn, followed Leradien, the drider, with the others to the rear in search of their own side messenger tunnel. The elf deliberately put distance between them. He wanted nothing more than to put an arrow through Leradien’s heart and end her misery. How could the satyr think that something good could come of something bad? That thing deserved death! Who would possibly deny it?

But the elves have a saying that, while anyone can grant death to the wicked, none can grant life to the good. Forgiveness should be granted at least once to the wicked. This offers the possibility of redemption, as killing them denies them a second chance.

So Ronthiel kept his mouth shut for a time. Yet his eye remained on Leradien and well she knew it. At last, she stopped and faced him.

“What is the matter, elf? Why do you stare? Is it because I am a drider or because I am beautiful? As I am both! Yet I fear you see only the drider. If so, then stop looking at me! I suggest you put those elfish eyes and ears to better use! Because, if you don’t want me to guide you, I’m sure you can find many anthills of orcs and drow about willing to do so! They should all eagerly jump at the chance. You certainly shouldn’t put your faith in my Light Elf half, which disappeared long ago!”

Ronthiel said nothing, for he agreed entirely with her last sentence.

The others, in watching, said nothing.

“Oh! I don’t know,” disagreed the satyr boy. “I think that half of you constantly reappears! Isn’t that right, Leradein the Light?”

The boy had remembered her talking to herself in her cave and using that name.

“You should wish I did not have that half,” she replied, moving forward again. “For, by being only half-drow, my night vision is only half as good as theirs. Although my demon blood helps, they shall always see us before I see them.”

Leradien seemed to sense the boy’s reluctance for his decision to take the drider tunnel with her, even wondering why he did it. For she finally turned and asked him, to the elf’s surprise. “Why do you keep your promise to me? Why are you always nice to one such as me when no one else is? Here you have volunteered to come with me, and yet I’ve never done a kind thing for you.”

“You’ve never done evil to me either,” answered the boy. “Even though you want to. There’s good in you if you look deep enough to find it.”

“Whether by selfishness or goodness,” she said, “it is my desire that you leave this terrible place. I can still take you out. It’s not too late to turn back.”

“No one desires that more than me,” stated the boy in obvious agreement. “But my heart tells me if I do not take this mission, no one else shall.”

“On that you are correct,” she replied, her ruby eyes to his. “But a foolish mission is still a foolish mission.”

“She wants you to turn back,” warned Ronthiel, “so that she can have you forever and ever. Only she can’t! Can you, Leradien? You’ll outlive him in years and by at least tenfold. You can only delay your misery. Eventually, you’ll be alone. You’ll never avoid it!”

Ronthiel’s eyes remained fixed on Leradien, his internal conflict against her evident in the tightness of his jaw. Hatred and distrust mingled with uncertainty, creating a storm of emotions within him. The knowledge haunted him that she was part of their mission, whether he liked it or not. She had saved Amien, however grudgingly. Still, the complexity of his feelings was etched upon his face, revealing the inner turmoil he grappled with.

“You seem to look forward to it,” she coldly said to him.

“Well! I certainly don’t!” interrupted the boy. “I plan to live a long life!”

“She plans that for you, too,” added Ronthiel. “That’s why she wants you to turn back.”

“But she doesn’t force me to turn around,” the boy promptly reminded him as they kept moving ahead. “You keep forgetting that.”

“Keep reminding me,” said the elf.

For now, the wide underground highway was empty. Yet for how long, none of them knew. For dim as it was for them as surface dwellers, the golden glow of the paving stones lit the tunnel bright as day for the drow. Even now, they might be walking right into enemy arrows and not know it. Deathly gloomy and quiet it was as the eerie stones led the way ahead.

Leradien halted at a rocky side tunnel, one that had not been cut by tools. Its edges were those of a cracked fissure. The jagged ceiling was high and the depth ran deep. They could feel a cold, clammy presence of dead air within.

“A drider tunnel,” she noted of it. “They seldom cross the highways. We’re lucky to find even one. We must take it.”

Amien confronted the boy. “You’re really leaving us?”

“I am.”

“To go with her?” he asked, in doubt of Leradien.

“With her,” the boy said. “I made a promise to her.”

He had to keep it.

Amien nodded slowly in agreement while still looking at Leradien doubtfully.

“I would have followed your commands anywhere,” he said to the boy. “I am sorry to see you go your own way.”

“I know you would have. That is what Belam said as well. But you are sworn to the elves and not to me. That oath best serves Graybeard now.”

“I agree,” said Amien. “If our paths do not cross again, may I say now that I am proud to have served under you?”

“And I also am proud just to have known you,” replied the boy.

Marroh was next. “I should not take any other way to rescue Graybeard but the shortest,” he said, adding “Even my axe wants to get on with it. Can’t blame it, I suppose. It’s not used to all this talking. If not for fear you take the longest way, I would go with you.”

“I do fear mine is the longest also,” said the boy. “I pray you to overtake those orcs.”

“We shall.” Promised the dwarf. “You have my word on it!”

Next up was young Joe.

“I’d go with you,” he said, “but that drider gives me the creeps!”

“Enough said,” answered the boy, shaking his hand. “I entrust an important mission to you, my captain of the guard. Dwarves are of hardy stock, but they don’t travel very fast. You shall have to keep Marroh moving to overtake those orcs.”

“I will,” promised young Joe.

The boy waited for Ronthiel to give his parting words last, but the elf did not.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked the boy. “I’m not leaving with them. My vow is to you!”

“But I am leaving with Leradien,” said the boy.

“Then I am, also,” said the elf. “That is all the more reason for me to protect you.”

“Why does everyone think I’m going to kill the boy? Are all males as stupid as you?” demanded Leradien insistently.

The six silently stood together for what could be the last time, with the boy, Leradien, and Ronthiel facing the ominous drider tunnel ahead.

“Where it leads, I do not know,” Leradien said of the sharp edged crack. “But no orc or drow will use it. They would not dare. They would go around it for miles to avoid it rather than pass through. Neither should we dare.”

Yet then she plunged into the tunnel and the boy and Ronthiel had no choice but to follow her, leaving behind the familiar glow of the paving stones for the utter unknown darkness ahead. They parted, leaving the others behind then, going their separate ways; Amien, Marroh, and young Joe now in search of a messenger tunnel. Lonely, wary, and uncertain, they sought whatever lay ahead.

Someone kicked a drow helmet down the military tunnel where it clattered and clanked with an eerie echo like some distant, cold laugh.