Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series by James Cardona, Issa Cardona

to the man. The wizard said to Bel, “Come. Pack your things. We leave now.”
    Bel passed his master the stones. The two scaled the steps and opened the door to their room to find Muolithnon sitting upright. Bel caught his breath for a moment as the thought that the wizard was somehow miraculously cured left him and he realized that he was dead. He was a ghoul.
    Nes’egrinon walked in the room and stood in front of the dead man. He spoke softly. “Old friend. We must leave now. You are coming with us.”
    “Yes. I… I feel odd.”
    “Come. We must go now.” He looked at both of the young boys and nodded.
    They quickly gathered up their belongings. Kerlith pulled his master’s hood over his head and pulled it down to obscure his face then grabbed his elbow and tugged. “This way. Come. Come. Let’s go.” The newly dead man was disoriented but he followed the apprentice out of the room and down the stairs.
    Nes’egrinon kept them moving quickly and clearly wanted to make a fast exit to avoid any protests from the villagers. He handed the barman some coins and said, “Here you are, my good man. This should more than cover our stay.”
    As the four walked out a woman at the tables yelled out, “You’re not leaving, are you?”
    They kept walking but Bel became nervous when he heard the legs of a few chairs scrape the wood plank floor. People were standing up. He refused to look over at them.
    Another called out, “You can’t! You can’t leave us! We’re surrounded! The ghoul-kind!”
    Two men stood and blocked the exit just as they reached the doors. Others began yelling out, begging them to stay. The wizard looked deeply into the men’s eyes and said, “Son, you don’t want to do that.” The man’s face melted, knowing there was no way he could stop the wizard, then he moved from their path.
    The four walked out of the inn then quickly ducked behind the building and grabbed torches. Kerlith and Bel filled both their water and oil flasks then they followed the old man into the woods on a narrow winding path. Ten paces in, the woods became so dense that it felt as if they could be miles if not hundreds of miles from civilization.
    As they walked Bel forced his mind to other things to avoid the idea that what they were doing was madness. All madness. His mind wandered to the thought of fishing on the water with his father. It was a simple time. He would sit on the bow, bouncing with the waves, calling out for school sign. Where there were schools of small fish, there were always larger fish, predators, hunting near the large groups. When he saw them, he would call out and his father would heave to and anchor. Bel’s memories were flushed when the dead man spoke. “What? Where?”
    The wizard replied, “Keep walking, my old friend. All will become clear.”
    A few ghouls met them on the path but none of the marauder type so they did not contest but moved out of the way and let them pass. The dead people all recognized them from before and knew what they could do. A few asked for blood but did nothing when the mage-kind did not respond but merely continued on.
    The newly dead man did not walk as fast as the others; he lumbered, almost zombie-like. It wasn’t that his leg was injured or anything like that but he somehow didn’t have the motivation to do it, like he was a small child who was following his mother but really didn’t want to.
    They walked on the path for a long time. It rose and fell, twisted and turned and occasionally broke into clearings. If the clearing was elevated then they might be able to see to the horizon. If not and they wanted to check their bearings then someone had to climb a tree. The path didn’t have many forks so the two young men only had to each climb once as yet. At first Bel wasn’t even so sure that they were heading the right way, and maybe he was kind of okay with that, but as it got colder he knew they were heading into the mountains.
    The group stopped when they