The Warlock & The Wizardess Ch. 10

"And that's when Al's Order of the Golden Shield swooped in," Jadrik concluded, casting a smirking glance at the morose, blatantly embarrassed paladin. "A few years ago his brave brothers launched a crusade to 'reclaim' this place, after it had been abandoned and cultist-free for a while, of course. Very convenient to conquer something that nobody really cares about, isn't it, Al?"

Getting nothing but a grumpy scoff from the livid and stubbornly mute knight, Jadrik went on. "Basically, the Order just sealed the accesses to the underground levels of the Catacombs, tore down the empty temple on the surface and built a tiny little chapel in its place, right between the two big spikes of stone that give it its name. And that was that, pretty much: the Red Catacombs were no more, and the Chapel of Red Spires was born. Did I miss anything, Al?"

Blinking in surprise as she digested the truth behind their adventure for the first time, Shayla turned to stare at her flustered, taciturn fiance. The wizardess's deep blue eyes glinted with raw fury as she spat out between gnashing teeth: "Why didn't you tell us any of that, Al?! Uli and Jad and I have come to help you on your quest, and you didn't think it necessary to tell us that this damn Chapel of yours was actually a temple of the Lords of Chaos? For all we know, there might be a bunch of leftover demons and necromancers waiting for us in there, or an army of them come back to retake what's always been theirs!"

"You didn't need to know," Aldarius replied tersely, not even looking at the wizardess. "None of you belongs to the brotherhood, and the holy secrets of the Order are meant to be spoken only among sworn crusaders."

As Shayla bristled and prepared to yell at her pigheaded betrothed some more, Jadrik interjected with an ever widening grin on his face.

"Oh, you really shouldn't have gone there, Al... Your silly 'just for crusaders' stuff doesn't work with me. I already know a lot more than you think about your so called holy secrets. You see, I read a lot of books, Al, and not just demonic grimoires. From time to time, I pick up something not work-related, so to speak, just to amuse myself with fantastic stories and such. How do you think I know so much about your Scriptures? Honestly, religious texts are the perfect bedtime books, the ideal read to slip into a comatose state, I assure you!" the warlock mercilessly teased the paladin while not so subtly reminding Aldarius of the many theological arguments he had lost to Jadrik in the previous days. "Now, what you might not know, Al, is that I went so far as to read the Code of Conduct of your dumb Order before we left for this pointless little quest of yours. And if I remember correctly, there is a section about oaths and duty and that kind of demented stuff," Jadrik said, reining in his horse right in front of Aldarius's charger, forcing the paladin to stop and finally look at him.

"Apparently," the warlock stated, locking gazes with the frowning knight, "there was no need for you to come here and fulfill your oath of reclamation to be allowed to get married. No need at all. Since the Chapel has been claimed by your people less than fifty years ago, it doesn't qualify as a 'blessed sanctuary', or whatever you clowns call these things. And because of that, according to your insane regulations, any oath taken relating to it is not binding beyond the 'normal accomplishments of your knightly tasks' to quote what the code says. In practice, it means that you could have just left this all thing alone and got married right away, especially since your superiors had already given up on this stupid shrine among the rocks after they lost battalion after battalion of armored buffoons over it in the recent past. Isn't that right, Al? Have I got it wrong, or are you just a pompous, self-righteous little liar?"

"What?!" Shayla exclaimed, closing in on Aldarius too. "Is this true, Al?! Look at me, damn you," the wizardess yelled at the top of her lungs, "or I'll fireball your lying ass right now and then make Jadrik call back your spineless soul and have it answer me before we send you to rot forever in the foulest pit of the darkest, cruelest, most demon-infested Hell there is!"

"Aye, ye better come clean right now, laddie," Uli butted in, his massively muscled arms crossed over his barrel chest and his flinty eyes trained on the fidgeting knight. "I suggest ye spill the beans before I get tired of playing nice and use my axe to spill yer guts instead."

Cowering under the wizardess's flaming gaze and with the dwarf's all too serious threats ringing in his ears, the paladin tried to sit straighter in the saddle and muster some semblance of dignity, failing miserably. As he attempted to swallow down his nervousness, Aldarius was acutely aware of Jadrik's wickedly gleeful stare drinking in the whole scene. The knight's voice was unsteady as he answered, his eyes turning up to the sky in a silent plea for guidance from the Gods of Light.

"All I'll say," the paladin haltingly mumbled, "is that I'm doing this for the greater glory of the Order."

"Pff, no you're not!" Shayla growled back at Aldarius, grabbing him by a shiny pauldron and forcing him to look her in her raging blue eyes. "You lied to me! You used the fact that we were going to get married to make me find someone to help you with this stupid quest, so that you could then go back to your brothers and be a hero! I know you, that's exactly what you were thinking, isn't it?! You useless piece of gold-plated shit!" the wizardess yelled, her hands already tingling as her fingers traced in the air the first arcane signs needed to conjure the blazing ball of fiery destruction she meant to launch at Aldarius. "You knew I would go get my friends to complete this meaningless quest, and you knew that with three serious adventures like us backing you up you'd surely succeed! All that crap about duty and honor was just talk! You're always preaching about honesty and righteousness and the Ways of the Light, and look at you: scheming and tricking people and manipulating even your betrothed into gaining you prestige and making you famous and all that ridiculous hierarchical stuff you dumb knights love so much! I should have known that you're nothing but a vain, armor-clad moron, just like every other paladin!"

"Now, dearest, don't get mad..." Aldarius sheepishly said, raising his arms defensively as he attempted an explanation that would save him from dying in a burst of magical flames. "I did it for us... It's going to be good for you as much as for me, you see. Just think: once we're married, all my glory is yours by default too. As my wife, you'll be considered almost as highly as myself... So, in a way, I was doing you a favor."

"A favor?! I don't need you, or your favors! You pathetic little weasel!" Shayla roared, raining down a litany of scathing insults upon Aldarius. As her blazing rage consumed her, the wizardess's words shifted seamlessly from cussing the paladin in the common tongue to reciting a fiery incantation in the language of magic, her brain focusing solely on casting a fireball against her silver-plated, two-timing, slimy, lying moron of a fiance.

All of a sudden though, while a grumbling Uli and an ever more pleased Jadrik moved away to avoid getting caught in the obviously incoming detonation, a sudden apparition at the very edge of her vision interrupted the wizardess's concentration.

"Hey guys, I'm back!" Laentharyel chirped, pulling back the hood of her magical cloak to reappear a few feet from the companions, smiling cheerily. "Whoa, what's going on? Shayla, you look so mad... Did I take too long?" the elf said, misreading the situation and nervously looking around. As she played with her long blonde hair, a shadow of guilt marred Laeny's beautiful visage and led her to apologize. "I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner, guys, I was just being thorough. My Sisters always insisted that I double check every time I was out on ranging duty, so..."

Blinking her eyes and shaking her head to dispel the angry red fog that had descended on her, Shayla sighed and held her hand out to Laeny. "It's alright, sweetie, don't worry. You did nothing wrong. It's not you I'm mad at..." the wizardess said through clenched teeth, still glaring daggers at Aldarius.

"So, what'd ye find out, lassie?" Uli asked, wrapping his massive arm around the gorgeous huntress's slim waist. "Lemme guess: bunch of cultists waiting down there for us, is there?"

"Not really..." Laeny shrugged, unfazed by Uli's stubby fingers tracing the protruding curve of her firm heart-shaped tushy. "In fact, I didn't find anything at all. That's why I was so freaked out and stayed longer to have a second look. It's all empty. Just like this," she said, indicating the rocky surroundings with a gesture of her dainty hand, "nothing in sight all the way to the end of the canyon, up to a tiny church squished between two big pillars of red stone. Nothing at all."

"How about the inside of the Chapel," Jadrik asked, "anything in there?"

"No," Laeny replied, "just rubble, dust and a hole in the floor with lots of broken marble tiles all around it. The hole seems to lead down into some tunnels, but I didn't look in there."

"Yeah, that's probably where they reopened an access to the catacombs," the warlock reasoned, "whoever 'they' might be. Well, despite the heaps of crap our fearless leader here has tried to feed us," Jadrik stated, snickering at Aldarius, "I'm convinced that some of the previous owners have come back and taken over the Chapel, or at least the Red Catacombs beneath it. I bet there's someone down there in the lower levels," the warlock concluded, adding with a grin, "someone who probably reanimated the corpses of all the dead paladins from the previous failed expeditions of Al's mighty Order."

"Aye, lad, that makes sense," Uli agreed with a guttural grumble, overriding Aldarius's weak attempt at a rebuttal to Jadrik's insinuation that his brother knights may have been turned into undead minions of some necromantic cult. "No matter how shoddy human buildings are, holes in marble floors don't just dig themselves."

"Alright," Shayla exhaled impatiently. "Let's just go take a good look at this stupid church and its stupid tunnels already. Whatever there is down there won't last long," she said while deliberately locking gazes with Aldarius before she slowly, angrily spat out: "I feel like roasting shit with fireballs and watching it burn to fucking cinders."

As soon as she was done speaking, Shayla gave her horse the spurs and galloped ahead at full speed in a cloud of reddish dust. Strapping her bow to her back, Laeny just shrugged and took the reins of her own horse from Uli before mounting up and following the feisty wizardess deeper into the canyon, her long blonde hair waving in the wind.

"Shayla, wait!" Aldarius squeaked, launching his charger to the chase of his furious betrothed and the elven huntress. "Please, calm down darling! Don't do anything rush! It might be dangerous!"

"See, Uli," Jadrik mused as he and the dwarf spurred their mounts into an easy trot after the rest of the party, "that's why fools like Al never get the girl in the end."

"Ye mean, because they're dolts to begin with and paladins to boot?" the dwarf replied, laughing heartily at the mere thought that a sane woman could truly fall for someone who picks faith to fight by his side rather than a keen-edged axe and lots of good old furious bloodthirst, like a real warrior would.

"Yeah, that, of course," Jadrik conceded, "but that's not all. See, a guy like Al doesn't belong with a girl like Shay, and never will. He's afraid of the fire, you know? He can't see what an amazing slut Shayla really is, how much intensity there is in her. He doesn't appreciate her passionate nature and her volcanic sexuality, so he can't let it shine, let alone have fun with it. Like right now, for instance: did you see how he got all scared and whimpering when she raged at him and threatened to roast him alive? In a situation like that, Shay is at her most beautiful! But a moron like Al doesn't even notice it, he can't see how hot and dick-hardening Shay becomes when she gets angry!"

"Alright, lad, alright..." Uli chuckled knowingly. "I see where this is going. Ye're saying that ye're the only man how knows how to fuck the happiness into the lass and ye can't resist her when she's mad and extra feisty and all that. I can understand that. Still, at least wait until we see what we're up against before ye drag her in a dark corner and stick yer cock in that round juicy arse of hers, aye?"

"I'll do my best, Uli," Jadrik grinned, trying to sit comfortably on his horse despite the bulging erection straining inside his pants, "but I'm not making any promises."

"Bah! Of course not, ye horny bastard!" the dwarf bellowed between loud guffaws, the thick twin braids of his red beard swaying heavily in time with his laughter. "I swear," Uli finally concluded, still chuckling and shaking his head while rolling his flinty eyes at the warlock, "ye humans get even dafter when ye're in love!"

*****

To be continued...