Dragon Quest - I - Chapter 3, Parts 0+1

"The Thousand Year Witch" - Onslaught (pp93-98)

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Chapter 3 - The Thousand-Year Witch

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The wild mountain range in the northeast part of Alefgaard used to be filled with rolling green hills, and was home to many towns and settlements.

However, the great quake unsettled the soil and crust of those hills and caused sand and dirt to cascade out in great waves, swallowing up the villages and changing the region from verdancy to rockland in mere moments.  

Aleph departed the cave of Loto and headed northeast, as directed by Garai. After crossing over the desert he took to the old Alefgaard Highway due east, passing through a number of forests and canyons before finally arriving here, at the precipitous mountains.

He had been under constant attack by monsters until this point, but the dangerous terrain must have been too difficult to serve as a home to many creatures, giving Aleph a respite.

Before he realized it, the Month of Kings had become the Month of the Phoenix, and the seasons had flowed from the harsh winter into a blossoming spring.

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1 - Onslaught

The cold set in quickly as the sun set. The icy wind blowing in from the north sea still held a midwinter chill. The misty moon to the east, however, was a reminder of the season’s change.

A lone shadow ran along the mountain, cutting through the darkness of the crags. It sprinted like a breeze atop the rocks, dashing from one to another. It leaped high, then stopped suddenly on a large stone. It was the shadow knight.

The shadow knight, after not hearing any orders or report from Zaltotan, had lost his temper and joined forces with the devil knight in an effort to end Aleph once and for all.

The shadow knight leered out in front of him, then smiled an unsettling grin. Far away, on the crown of a peak, he could see the outline of a lone person.

Aleph, who had just reached the summit, wiped the sweat from his brow as he turned back north to look upon the ridge he had just climbed over. He turned south again and began to head back down, so accustomed to climbing now it was like he had done it for a hundred years.

The journey had matured Aleph. His sun-tanned face now showed a certain virility. He walked faster now, and he was taller. Muscles had developed on his shoulders and back, and his leather jerkin just barely fit him.

He was a better swordsman, too. Perhaps it was thanks to his many years of solo training, but his own individual style grew more polished with each battle. His spells, too, grew incomparably more powerful than they were before he left on his journey.

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And his confidence had risen - and his naivete had fallen away. Sometimes, though, he felt loneliness deep in his heart. Who could blame him? He hadn’t seen a single human since he had spoken with Garai, all those days ago. From time to time, he would look out far to the west and imagine the face of the beautiful Cecille.

Aleph could hear a great roar coming from the valley below, a crashing that reverberated in the pit of his stomach. He leaped down to a flat rock and looked down.

Beneath the steep cliff face, a river snaked from east to west through the ravine. The river, its current overflowing with waters from melted snow, churned angrily as it eroded both banks. Noise aside, its flowing waters were plainly visible in the moonlight. One false step and Aleph’s adventure would end here.

Suddenly, the river’s waters became black. The moon was covered by clouds. As if waiting for that moment, an unsettling rumbling sound came from above, just as a boulder came crashing down the side of the cliff.

Aleph leaped aside just in the nick of time, and the boulder bounced with a crunch, tumbling down into the ravine and splashing into the river before sinking from view.

He had only a moment to hesitate. The muscles on his back twitched and he felt a demonic presence behind him. Aleph clasped the hilt of his sword and looked around at his surroundings. He turned his back to the valley and froze, searching for any sign of his enemy.

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Eventually, the clouds parted from the moon, and with its light Aleph could faintly make out a shape at the top of the crag. He growled and unsheathed his sword.

The shape remained a black shadow despite the moonlight illuminating the mountain. It was the shadow knight.

“Who’s there!?”

The shadow knight let out a disturbing, high-pitched laugh. Shadows crept from his feet and spread out around him, like they were crawling up the rock face. The shadows split, then split again, forming humanoid shapes -  the feared Black Shadows. About ten of them stood where there had only a moment ago been just one.

Aleph didn’t wait. He chanted the Gira spell, letting loose a ball of fire and showered them in flame. Aleph knew immediately they were henches of the Dragonlord.

The shadow knights were scattered by the flames, but immediately redoubled their attack. They wouldn’t give Aleph another chance to cast a spell. Aleph dodged and countered one by one, slashing with his sword.

But the knights were agile, and fast, and withstood his blade.

The brutal back-and-forth continued, until eventually Aleph stuck one through the chest, and split another in two with a backswing as he pulled his sword free.

Their corpses tumbled over, then broke apart into innumerable fragments that vanished like dust in the wind.

The Black Shadows altered their strategy. They switched to confusion tactics, surrounding Aleph and encircling him with torrential speed.

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Now it looked as if there were twenty, perhaps thirty. They began to move even faster, and started to move closer.

“Damn you!” Aleph renewed the grip on his sword, and as soon as he did, the shadows attacked as one.

Aleph yelled as he swung his blade wildly at the knights, now possibly thirty, or forty, he couldn’t tell, finally leaping up and away and landing on a rock next to the ravine.

“Crap!” he exclaimed as the rock he perched himself on began to crumble and fall with a clatter. His yell as he tumbled down the slope echoed throughout the valley. His body hit a rock by the bank of the raging river and he plunged under the waters, being sucked away in an instant.

“After him!” the shadow knight yelled, disappearing from the top of the crag to the bank of the river in a flash. The knights split into groups and searched the river up and down.

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As the light of the eastern sky began to glow with the light of dawn, the shadows gathered together on a large stone by the waterfall at the end of the river’s flow. Not one of them had found a single clue; not one of them had satisfied the shadow knight’s demands.

“Worthless! Search again!” he ordered once more, his entire body quaking with fury.

The shadows flitted away in seconds, searching upstream and downstream.

The shadow knight was troubled. Aleph had tumbled over the steep cliff face into the violent waters and disappeared. He was likely dead, however - until the shadow knight saw Aleph’s corpse with his own eyes, it couldn’t be certain, and he couldn’t relax. After all, it wouldn’t do to repeat a fifteen-year old mistake.