Chapter 58: Into the Natural Cage

With a fast flick of his wrist, Roy snapped Marko’s neck

CRACK.

Marko’s body went limp and fell atop the wet leaves.

Mia was just as quick on the other side

Her shadow wrapped blade flashed through the second retainer’s throat and the man never got to scream as his body too slid lifelessly into the mud next to his partner.

Roy didn’t spare a glance at the corpses.

With a careless flick of his wrist, he pulled a length of black silk cloth from his pocket and wiped the stray bits of blood from his knuckles.

"Black Snake Ravine..."

A cold smile slowly stretched across his stolen face.

"An isolated gorge surrounded by towering cliffs, shielded from both wind and sun."

He looked at the mist shrouded ravine in the far distance.

"An ideal grave."

He turned to the four assassins who stood waiting silently in the trees.

"Ben. Lucas."

He pointed to the bodies.

"Take them to the sinkhole fifty yards back. Let the wild swine dispose of them."

"Understood."

The two cultists stepped forward and dragged the corpses into the thick underbrush, leaving no trace behind.

Roy turned his attention to the ravine to the west.

"Mia. Dan. With me."

He was studying the black crevice hidden in the fog.

"We move ahead of the boy. Deploy the Blood-Bait Array along the upper cliffs of Black Snake Ravine."

Mia’s lips stretched back into a dark smile as she followed.

"Once Lucian enters the gorge, we’ll disable his limbs and bleed him over the altar stone."

Her shadow blade slid back under her cloak.

"The scent of fresh blood will travel the natural wind currents and spread directly into Zone 3."

"....And Evelyn will come running right into our jaws."

Roy’s voice was a whisper.

"Move out."

The five disguised cultists vanished into the fog.

They moved like wraiths, faster than the eye could follow, leaving only the occasional trail of disturbed vegetation as they fanned out towards Black Snake Ravine.

Within moments, the five were gone.

Only the corpses remained.

And the forest fell silent once more.

---

The Black Snake Ravine was a result of a violent subterranean shift which had split the granite foundations of the mountain range down the middle thousands of years prior.

It was a narrow, claustrophobic gorge barely fifteen yards wide at the entrance with two hundred foot high sheer cliffs on either side.

The cliffs were composed of slick iron veined basalt that had been smoothed by centuries of wind.

High above, ancient pine branches intertwined to form a dense canopy that blocked out the sun, trapping a thick reservoir of cold stagnant mountain fog inside the ravine.

It was dark and damp along the forest floor where a thick carpet of decaying pine needles muffled any sound of approaching footsteps.

There was no wind.

Only the occasional drip of condensation from the high ledges echoing through the narrow gorge onto the black rocks below.

Lucian casually stepped over a fallen log that was encrusted with moss.

His leather boots came to a halt on a broad circular slab of flat shale.

Ahead of him the ravine abruptly ended in a sheer perpendicular wall of rock, its surface slick with cold moisture and tangled with dark thorny vines.

Lucian didn’t turn to face the opening.

Instead, he stood with his back to the mouth of the gorge, his right hand resting lightly against the leather wrapped hilt of his standard steel blade.

He was breathing steadily.

The damp air barely disturbed.

Then...

CRACK.

The brittle snapping of a dry pine branch echoed through the narrow corridor behind him

A second snapping followed.

And a third snapping.

A heavy boot came thudding against the damp earth.

More boots followed.

Through the thick white fog, a mocking voice bellowed through the ravine, bouncing from cliff to cliff.

"Well, well, well..."

The speaker chuckled.

"Look who finally ran out of path."

Eric stepped forward into the opening, his four retainers flanking him on either side.

The four men who stood with Eric were no common mercenaries from the Vance family’s martial contingent.

They were all third year academy fighters, clad in polished steel breast plates etched with protective runes, long combat spears in their hands tipped with vicious serrated iron points.

Eric himself was as immaculate as the day he graduated.

His custom tailored combat suit of dark crimson bore no dust or sweat stains as he casually flicked a business card from one finger to the next.

At his hip was an ornate silver saber with an elaborate hilt embedded with a glowing blue monster core, radiating the steady expensive aura of refined mana.

"I must admit Lucian."

Eric sneered as he took three slow measured steps forward, idly tapping the pommel of his saber with his thumb.

"You lasted longer in the forest than I expected."

His lips curled back in an amused smile.

"My scouts mentioned a pack of Blood-Eye Boars jumping your drop point. A commoner who actually knows how to run..."

He gave a mocking chuckle.

"Quite the performance."

Lucian slowly turned around.

His face was as composed as ever.

His dark eyes settled on Eric’s smug features with not an ounce of fear, anger, or surprise.

The total lack of emotion was more menacing than any open threat.

"You’ve been tailing me for two miles, Eric."

Lucian’s voice was smooth as still water.

"I assumed you were waiting for a better vantage point."

Eric’s smiling expression tightened.

For a brief moment, something unpleasant flickered in his eyes.

He forced it away with a sharp mocking laugh

Then, Eric spread his arms wide and surveyed the narrow gorge with an air of satisfaction.

The towering dark cliffs enclosed the ravine from both sides.

"Look around you, idiot!"

Eric gestured grandly to the walls.

"You walked right into a natural cage."

His voice echoed through the gorge.

"There are no high ridges here. These mountain walls are rich with iron-ore deposits, which means..."

He raised a hand to the canopy where a lone military surveillance drone hovered through the mist.

Its red optical lens blinked several times, struggling to maintain its signal before veering off towards the outer edge of the cliff line.

Eric’s grin widened.

"...the surveillance drones can barely maintain a lock signal down here."

He lowered his arm.

"The monitoring teams on the skiffs won’t see anything going on at the base of this wall."

His voice dropped to a venomous whisper.

"No instructors."

A pause.

"No guards."

His fingers curled tighter around the pommel of his saber.

"And certainly no Evelyn to smile at you or protect you from your superiors."

Eric’s gaze locked onto Lucian.

For the first time, his smile was genuinely cruel.

"You picked the perfect spot to die, commoner."

The four retainers fanned out in a loose semicircle, blocking the narrow fifteen yard opening of the ravine.

Their weapons came free in perfect unison.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

The serrated iron spear tips leveled at Lucian’s chest caught the dim light filtering through the fog.

Eric stepped forward into the center of the gorge.

"You made a critical mistake back at the academy grounds, Lucian."

He drew his ornate silver saber.

SHING!

The blue steel blade slid free with a metallic hiss, its sheen reflecting in the pale light as it caught the light glinting off the broadsword’s edge.