"Sergeant Vaund? Do you really think it's still in the house?" The question came from Corwin. Vaund looked over at the young man in his ill-fitting helmet. It had been his father's, and his father's father's before that. Worn leather stretched over an iron cap, pitted and stained from years of use. Corwin had not yet had time to grow into it. He would, knowing Corwin's late father. If he survived today.
"Not really no, but you never know," Vaund replied. His group was getting close to where what had once been a young man, barely of age, had lived with his family. It was a small cottage out in the woods.
"It couldn't be that stupid, surely," Eleo piped in, "It must realize that's the first place we'd look, right?"
"Maybe," Vaund replied as he stepped over a fallen log, "Maybe not. They say that the victims of the Unor will be confused and disoriented in the beginning," using the ancient name for the demon that had taken over the soul of the boy they were hunting. "Maybe we'll be lucky."
"And find an empty home?" Corwin asked before catching himself.
"Yeah," Vaund replied honestly, "I'm in no rush to come face to face with a Taken."
Murmurs of agreement sounded among the search party.
"I'm not worried," Sull piped up, "If it's so disoriented, and we have bows and spears, why should we be? It's not li-"
"Shut it, Sull," Eleo snapped before Vaund could correct the farm-fresh soldier, "If you don't know how dangerous an Unor, even a newly possessed one, is, then you have no business being here. Ain't that right, Sarge?"
"Right," Vaundel replied without looking at Sull, "The danger doesn't lie in weapons."
Sull started to reply back when Corwin slapped him upside the head.
"Just shut it and pay attention to the search, Sull. You've grown up with the stories, same as us. Even if only a third are true, that's still bad enough. Beside, if Sarge and the other vets are worried, only an idiot isn't." Vaund looked in surprise at Corwin. There was some of his mother in the boy in any case. Vaund almost felt better at the thought. She was even more formidable than the father.
Sull, to his credit, cast his eyes downward.
Vaund sighed and carried on walking towards the cottage, wishing a Noble had come with them. At least the patrol Ayna was with had already been sent around to the Lost City, further east. Any other day, the thought would have made him uneasy, but today, that fact was a small blessing.
---
Though nothing in their surroundings was noticeably different, the forest seemed to become more hostile with every step as Vaund made his way through with the search party. The chatter among the search party, which had been more reserved than usual to begin with, had died completely. They were getting close to the former home of the Taken and his family. What had become of them, nobody knew for sure, but given how strangely they had acted before the Sifting, there was little doubt that they had been puppeteered by the demon that had been worming its way inside their son's soul. Vaund sent a silent prayer to Muyun, Mother and Protector, that the effects would prove temporary, so those poor souls could at least pick up the shattered pieces of their lives after the whole ordeal and live what life would remain to them.
The cottage itself was small. A deer hide hung on a tanning rack outside the entrance. No smoke came from the stone chimney. Could they have been lucky after all?
At a signal from Vaund, Sull and another man, Daime, went to open the door. A flicker of movement in the small, dark window caught Vaund's attention. The next moment, Sull had pulled the door open. Vaund was about to shout a warning when Sull spoke up.
"Empty. There's nobody here," he said, letting out a long breath.
The shadow in the window retreated somewhat, revealing the silhouette of a face.
Before he could say or do anything about the discrepancy however, Vaund experienced the strangest and most alarming sensation of his life.
Everything froze. He tried to take a step forward, but nothing happened. He could still feel his feet. For the most part, everything seemed normal, except he had been frozen in that one moment. He could not turn his head, he could not lift his legs, no matter how much he tried. He tried to open his hands, to scream, to run. Nothing happened. All he could do was stare at the window he had been looking at, with the shadow inside. It too stood still. Everybody did. It was as if all the world held its breath.
Suddenly, he found himself on the ground, neck at an awkward angle against the cottage wall. His left ankle was sprained, screaming pain at him. His spear and shield were both gone. Looking around, he saw everyone else lying down or getting up, moaning in pain and confusion. A few feet behind him, his spear lay, discarded where he had been standing moments - if it was moments - . The cabin door stood wide open.
"Everyone alright?" Vaund called out.
Grunts of confirmation answered him. A pained moan came from the direction of the door. Vaund staggered to his feet, easing himself onto his left foot. The sprain wasn't too bad, thankfully. The pain subsided to a much more dull thud with a suddenness that would have given Vaund something to ponder, had he not seen Sull's hand covered in blood.
"Sull! You alright?" Vaund barked. He hobbled over to the man just as Eleo and Daime turned him over. A patch of red stained the shirt under Sull's jerkin. A bloody knife lay beside him.
"Daime, stop the bleeding! Eleo, run back for the healer! Corwin, sound the horn, three blasts! Rest of you, prepare to fight!" Vaund knew a fight against a demon that could mess with their senses to this extent was highly futile, but any chance at all beat none. Beside, it gave his men something to do, to focus on.
Vaund drew his own knife and looked inside the cabin. Empty. The shadow in the window had disappeared.
"S-sarge..." Sull said weakly. Vaund looked back at Sull, who was pointing deeper into the forest. Vaund turned and looked. A trail of footprints and broken branches gave away the Taken's path into the surrounding woods. The overhead sun cast the path in a pale gold light, almost lighting the search party's way. Due east. Vaund sighed, stuck his knife back in its sheath and picked up his spear.
"Daime, you stay here and look after Sull. The rest of you, with me."
The sound of a horn, a short distance away, announced a sighting. The search party began a reluctant pursuit. Vaund, for his part, was torn between wanting nothing more to do with the Taken, and hoping the pursuit ended before his wife got involved. She was too far along for his liking, to be involved in patrols.
---
"It can't have gotten much farther now, we're almost at... The Lost City," Corwin said, stumbling over the last part. Whether from being winded after chasing the Taken for the better part of five miles by Vaund's reckoning, or from a healthy dose of fear for the old ruins, Vaund could not tell.
The call of yet another horn filtered through the forest, which was beginning to thin. They were getting close to the Lost City. Vaund shuddered and hoped his wife, who was out on patrol around the city, was on the far side and as far away from the Taken as possible.
The search party passed through the final standing trees into a waist-height underbrush that formed the edge of the perimeter around the ruins of the Lost City. Ahead, the underbrush faded to grass, then to bare dirt, and finally, the ruins of the Lost City itself. To the untrained eye, it would seem nature itself hesitated to get too close to the city. To those that had heard what lurked within, this assumption was known to be true. Avoiding directly looking at the ruins, Vaund instead surveyed the perimeter as he continued at a somewhat reduced pace, relieved not to be the party most directly in pursuit anymore.
Roughly four hundred yards ahead, one of the other search parties were running, chasing after the Taken, who was running due south-east by Vaund's reckoning. Was it trying to reach the Great Lake?
Here and there along the forest's edge, more search parties emerged, gradually cutting off escape. In spite of its apparent powers, the demon that had taken possession of the Taken appeared to adjust course accordingly, slowly tilting closer and closer toward the edge of the Lost City's border.
Around a bend in the small slope on which the Lost City rested, riders appeared, riding to cut off escape due south-east altogether. More riders appeared from the only road still leading to the lost city, north of Vaund. At the sight of the first group of riders, and who was leading them, Vaund's heart skipped a beat. Ayna was, unmistakably, riding to intercept the Taken.
