David Bishop and the Mystic of Creation T.C. Crawford (icecream ebook reader txt) 📖

of the ridge looking West towards Eldergate. When she reached the edge, she stopped by David and grabbed his hand.

The Great Plains were covered in a large dark mass of soldiers and demons, each marching slowly across the plains in their direction. Another large mass was breaking away far off in the distance, heading the opposite direction towards Ravenfell.

It was worse than they had imagined.

With so much time wasted from getting lost in the mountain tunnels, along with their rendezvous with the Dwarves, they had lost nearly a week of travel that they knew would cost the lives of thousands. The armies would be on Ravenfell any day now, if they hadn’t made it there already, and they were still a great distance away from their destination where they hoped David would be able to restore his connection to the orb and the source of the nearly limitless power it possessed.

Without it, all would be lost. Unless David regained his powers, they had no real chance of winning against the Defiant One and his incredible power of destruction.

Time was running out.

Chapter XVIII

Jakob Zander and his crew of misfits searched for hours into the night after the trail went cold. He couldn’t understand how all of a sudden they had just vanished in thin air. His trackers were some of the best in the Southern Kingdom, and he was outraged that they had lost the tracks of the boy and his companions after the brief skirmish at their campsite.

It was as if they had just disappeared, and that thought left him extremely on edge. Maybe they possessed some dark magic he wasn’t aware of? he thought.

He knew what was on the line if he were to return to Brineport and confront Bloodvayne empty-handed. Failure was not an option.

He gathered up his resolve and urged his companions onward. They would search the foothills for as long as it took to find the trail once again, even if it took weeks, months, or even years. His only hope of keeping his good standing with the Guild, no… his life, was to succeed, and that thought alone fueled his endless drive to find the boy and bring him back to Brineport.

After several fruitless days of searching, the party reached the road that spanned between Draco’s Pass to the West, and the Land of the Immortals to the East. He knew that if the boy was trying to get back to the Great Plains, he would have to take Draco’s Pass, and there was no evidence of any foot traffic headed that way from what his trackers could see.

If he were traveling East on the road it would take him to the Forest of the Immortals – a forbidden forest that was protected by the Woodland Elves. They were unforgiving to any mortal who dared enter their domain uninvited, and no mortal had ever been invited, so he knew that couldn’t be their destination.

Without any indication showing that the area had seen any travelers recently, he decided that they must have somehow traveled ahead of the boy and his companions, and so they decided to set up camp and wait.

Fortunately, they only had to camp out in the small cave near the base of the mountain pass for one more day before he finally got word from his scouts that the boy and his friends had been spotted once again.

They were coming down from Draco’s Pass, of all places, and heading in their direction.

“Sir, I don’t know how they managed to get all the way up there, but they should be passing our location just before nightfall.” said one of his men who had been scouting the area.

“They must have found a way through the mountains. I don’t remember seeing any caves along the way, do you?” asked one of the other men.

“Silence, you insolent fools! What does it matter how they got there? What matters now is that they did, and now they are headed our way! We will sit and wait for their arrival, and once they get close enough, we’ll take them by surprise!” said Jakob, his hands clasping together like a cat catching a mouse.

This thought seemed to really excite his men. They had been out in the wild for days without any real excitement. Some of the men had even resorted to senselessly killing the local game for fun to satisfy their twisted need for killing. They had been trained to kill since they were young, learning to steal and kill, for the alternative was to be robbed and killed themselves. It was a hard life growing up in Brineport, but if you were good enough at what you did, you were rewarded for it through selection into the Guild.

It was something all the young boys and girls dreamed of. They took their selection with pride and arrogance, seeing it as their proof of superiority over the lesser qualified citizens. Because of this system of rewarding the strong and, often more violent, children over their weaker counterparts, each new generation of members became increasingly more violent and uncontrollable than the last, knowing it would earn their favor in the ranks faster than their predecessors.

Over the years, Brineport became a cesspool of thugs and hooligans at the expense of the more civilized families, and in turn, became a more dangerous place to live. Living in those kinds of conditions led people to one of two things: leaving for the hope of a better, safer life elsewhere to raise their families, or giving in to the constant demands of the Guild and putting up with a life of crushing poverty and hopelessness. Most chose to stay, as to attempt to leave put their families at risk of being captured and killed in a bloody public execution – something the citizens had come to enjoy immensely.

Seeing their opportunity for a bit of fun, the men quickly devised a plan and got into their positions. They would wait for just