Ashes of Verdenheld

by Jack Wright

  “Huh, that must’ve been pretty cool.”

  A dazzling green light flared within the lock and Caesia began to gradually pull her hands apart.

  “It wasn’t, believe me. While everyone ate at these huge, extravagant tables in the dining hall, I was confined to a shitty little tea table in the corner of the room.” Caesia hissed, earning a nasally snigger from Eris. “But I digress. I was also given my own dorm in the form of a windowless janitor’s closet in the East Wing.”

  The lock began to swell and from within came sounds of cracking and snapping.

  “I decided I at least deserved a window, so with a bit of ingenuity and a touch of abjuration… I made one like so!”

  The lock exploded spontaneously in a shower of stone and metal that scattered violently across the ground. Eris quickly shielded her eyes, just in time for a few projectiles to ricochet off her bracers. The explosion left behind a small, shimmering, pale green barrier that faded at the flick of Caesia’s fingers and revealed the exposed latch.

  “Okay, that was amazing.” Eris laughed, brushing off a few bits of debris from her armour. “A bit of warning would’ve been nice though.”

  “Yeah, sorry…” Caesia smirked, sticking her finger into the open lock. “Alright, now let’s see about getting rid of this latch.”

  Electricity surged out of the palm of her hand and to the ends of her fingers. With surgical precision, she pushed her fingers up against the latch, the metal crackling and sizzling as it was gradually heated by the energy. After a few moments of heating, the latch began to slump and melt away into a bubbling ooze.

  Caesia grinned delightedly at the sound of a satisfying clunk as the door parted with the wall. She stepped back to admire her handiwork.

  “There you go, one open door.” She declared triumphantly. “Keys are for the weak.”

  Eris slid her sword out of its sheath, bouncing up and down excitedly. “Alright, let’s go!”

  “Put the sword away, Eris.” Caesia groaned with a heavy sigh. “Anybody here who might challenge you is already dead.”

  “But it’s a tomb, I’ll need to defend us from the undead!” Eris insisted, waving her sword about in demonstration.

  Caesia rolled her eyes in disappointment. “Eris, the undead are a myth made up to scare children, we’re just taking a shortcut through an empty tomb. Now put the sword back and let’s get on with this.”

  Admittedly, Caesia was a little intimidated by the dark, imposing nature of the tomb. Perhaps the concept of delving into a dark and silent tomb was somewhat unnerving for her, but she wasn’t about to succumb to the absurd notion that there could be zombies or ghosts roaming the halls. That was just a load of fictional nonsense.

  “Fine.” Eris hissed, sliding her sword back into its sheath. “But if we run into any undead in here, I hold the right to an ‘I told you so’.”

  “Deal.” Caesia agreed confidently. Eris’ naivety was somewhat concerning but often quite hilarious.

  Eris approached the door and tried to push it open. The door was heavy and barely budged under the pressure of her arms, forcing her to really put her back into it and push as hard as she could. As the door ground open, she was greeted with a sight that was both confusing and concerning. The entrance hall of the tomb was fully lit with fiery light.

  “Caesia, what is this?” Eris muttered concernedly at the sight of the burning torches within.

  Caesia peered into the room herself, utterly baffled. This couldn’t be right, she thought, nobody in Verdenheld ever visited ancestral tombs.

  “I… don’t know. This is impossible.”

  “You’re sure nobody could’ve come here recently?”

  “Possibly… they’d need a key though, unless there’s some other entrance we don’t know about.

  Even so, the fact that someone would finally come here in all the four hundred years the tomb has stood, it seemed far too much of a coincidence.

  “You think someone beat us to the dragon?” Eris gasped, mortified by the idea of losing out on her heroic deed.

  “No. Maybe. I don’t know, but I think we’d best be on our guard. Whoever or whatever is down here, there’s no guarantee it is friendly.”

  “Agreed.” Eris whispered, moving into the torch lit room.

  The tomb’s interior was intricately designed, with spectacular murals decorating the walls and pillars, displaying stories of the epic battles in the mountains. They featured image after image of mages and dragons doing battle, complete with shimmering shields, fiery explosions and magical blades. It was like the world’s coolest picture book.

  One of the murals in particular caught Eris’ eye. It showed a group of mages firing spells at a dragon as it swooped down upon them. One of the spells was shown to be exploding in the dragon’s mouth and in the next panel, the dragon lay dead.

  “Caesia, you might wanna take a look at this.” Eris called. She figured this would be useful in fighting the dragon, perhaps the mouth was some sort of weak spot.

  Caesia wandered over, herself marvelling at the murals with fascination. “Ah, these must be the famed House Tarantis Battlemages. The House takes pride in having the best arcane soldiers in the world, a position thus far undisputed.”

  Most of that flew over Eris’ head. “Check this out.” She urged, pointing eagerly to the dragon. “Look, the mages took down the dragon by shooting it in the mouth!”

  “Huh, good find! Of course, there is the possibility that this mural is over-dramatized and the dragon was killed with sheer weight of fire, but it may nonetheless be useful. If we have a weak spot to exploit, it may give us the upper hand we need.”

  “Careful. You’re almost starting to sound optimistic!” Eris teased.

  Caesia chuckled, subtly shaking her head. “Don’t mistake analysis for optimism. I prefer to look at both sides, the good and the bad.”

  “Well it was still a pretty optimistic analysis.”

  “Perhaps.” Caesia grinned, peeling her eyes away from the murals. “We should keep moving. I want to get out of this place as quickly as possible.”

  “What’s wrong, not scared of the undead are you?” Eris grinned cheekily.

  “Oh, shut it. I simply find the place… unnerving.”

  The pair moved on, down the halls. The hallways were equally as intricate as the entrance, but made way in the lower walls for several coffins that were laid within dusty alcoves. There was a lot of walking ahead of them, for despite being indoors, they had a whole mountain to work their way through.

  “Stars, I get that the idea of building through a mountain sounds cool, but was it really necessary?” Eris moaned, as she had been doing for the best part of an hour.

  The tomb had been quite interesting at first, what with the murals and the like, but it didn’t take long for the patterns to begin repeating.

  “Falion Tarantis must’ve took a seriously big army into the mountains to constitute this big of a tomb for them.” Caesia observed. “I wouldn’t be surprised if most of these coffins were completely empty.”

  “Yeah, I guess-”

  Eris was cut off as she felt her foot jolt down and in the doorway ahead of them, a metal gate crashed down with a colossal clang that rang through the halls. Eris looked down to see her foot pressed down onto a depressed slab of stone, a pressure plate.

  “Oh, bloody hell.” Caesia groaned. “Tell me we don’t have to go all the way back.”

  Eris opened her mouth to answer but was interrupted by the sounds of banging and creaking behind them.

  “Caesia…” She mumbled anxiously.

  Caesia had her eyes squeezed shut, taking deep breaths in an attempt to remain calm.

  Eris span around and saw what she had unleashed. Coffins were bursting open all the way down the hallway, spraying thick clouds of dust into the air. Out of them came the decrepit, skeletal hands of the dead, as skeletons scrambled out of their resting places.

  Caesia opened her eyes and turned round as wel
l. Her heart sank and her body tensed. All down the hallway, skeletons were pouring from coffins, their bones battered and filthy with the dirt and dust of four hundred years and their eye sockets aglow with demonic red light. Caesia gritted her teeth and continued to breathe deeply, trying her hardest not to freak out.

  “I told you so.” Eris sneered with a wide grin.

  Caesia fearfully glared at Eris, clearly not in the mood for jokes. “Piss off.” She spat shakily.

  “Permission to kill, ma’am?” Eris jested, sliding her sword from its sheath.

  Caesia ignored her, which was confirmation enough for Eris. She grabbed her shield from her back and flourished her sword. Caesia put out her arms in front of her, wrists crossed and thrust them back, igniting them with crackling green energy.

  Eris counted about ten skeletons. They were unarmed and slow, their movements rigid and their rusted armour weighing them down. Speed was going to be the key to taking these guys down.

  As Eris moved to engage, Caesia pushed herself up against the end of the hall and drew back her arm. She thrust it forwards, sending a bolt of green lightning streaking into one of the skeletons, obliterating it completely and scattering its bones around the room.

  Eris stormed towards the front-most skeleton and struck its neck with her sword, severing the spine. The skeleton’s head rolled from its body, but the body itself still stood. The headless skeleton flailed around erratically in a desperate attempt to strike its target. Eris kicked the skeleton’s rib cage and it clattered uselessly to the floor.

  “Um… Caesia?” Eris called, observing that while they had taken down two skeletons, several more had begun to crawl out of their coffins. “There’s more!”

  Caesia had begun to well up out of fear, trying as hard as she could not to break down and cry. At least the skeletons weren’t covered in gore or melted skin.

  “Bloody… alright, hold them off while I try to get this door open.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better the other way around?” Eris argued, shattering another skeleton’s ribs with the iron rim of her shield.

  Caesia focused the energy in her arm into the ends of her fingers and lifted up her hand to a bar, trying to forget about the current, rather dire situation and concentrate.

  “As much as I’d love to watch you try and break down a metal gate, I don’t think we’ve the time.”

  The bar began to glow as Caesia slowly moved her hand up and down the width of the bar.

  “Show off.” Eris muttered under her breath as she severed another skeleton’s arm.

  The skeletons’ numbers were swelling. Eris took a defensive posture and held her shield out in front of her. As the skeletons approached, she bashed them away with the shield while taking thrusts at others to keep them at bay and make the situation more manageable. That way, she was only dealing with a few at a time.

  The clang of a falling bar rang through the halls as Caesia melted off the first one. She looked back at Eris, who despite being swarmed by the undead seemed relatively calm. Caesia envied her - she may have been making an effort not to show it, but she was utterly terrified. This whole place was way out of her depth, she didn’t belong here at all. How did she let herself get mixed up in this?

  “How much longer?” Eris yelled back to her.

  “Two more bars? I hope…” Caesia called with uncertainty. She could barely think straight under all this pressure.

  As Eris continued to stand firm, Caesia moved her attention to the next bar. She imagined it was only a matter of time before Eris was overwhelmed, so she had to start working harder. She pressed up her fingertips against the next bar and pushed herself harder, heating her fingers to a greater temperature. As she melted through the metal, she could feel her mind aching from the strain she was putting on it. The second bar clattered to the ground.

  The skeletons were still swelling in number, so much so that Eris was gradually being surrounded. She couldn’t control this many bodies, slow as they were. She swiped at three of them, trying to slip past her, only for another couple to make a shuffle for her left flank. She swung with her shield and smashed one into pieces, next bringing it up to shove the other away.

  “This is getting out of hand.” She muttered, taking another jab into the horde.

  The third bar fell away and Caesia released herself from her focus. After a moment of dizzying light-headedness, she stuck her leg through the gap and slipped through, only narrowly avoiding the molten metal left over from her handiwork.

  “Eris, come on!” Caesia urged desperately.

  Eris looked over her shoulder to the hole in the gate. She turned back around and made one last sweeping strike in front of her to hold back the mob, before running for the gap and slipping hastily through.

  Eris and Caesia emerged into the next room, one unlike any they had seen yet, not a hallway but a hall. The room was massive, bigger than any Eris had seen back home. It was littered with statues of fallen warriors and mages and was supported with towering, archaic pillars. The walls were decked with coffins and offerings, there must have been hundreds of bodies laid to rest in here. At least, there were. Now those hundreds of bodies were stirring and crawling from their coffins. All around the room skeletons were awakening, some now wielding weapons once left as offerings by their sides.

  There was no turning back from here, the earlier mob of skeletons was already clambering through the gate.

  “Run!” Eris snapped, shoving Caesia along.

  They darted across the room, as the waves of skeletons closed in on them. Eris spotted an archway on the other side of the room, the only exit in sight. She grabbed Caesia’s arm, who at this point was happy to be manhandled as long as it meant getting out, and made a dash for it.

  Out of crowds appeared a skeleton wearing a hooded red robe beneath its battered, rusted armour, its hands glowing a burning red with pulsating energy.

  “Battlemage!” Caesia cried.

  The skeleton put its hands together and drew them apart, creating a shimmering red bow of pure energy.

  “An evoker, get behind me!” Caesia skidded to a halt and thrust her hand out in front of her.

  “What’s an evoker?!” Eris yelled, throwing herself behind Caesia.

  The skeleton created a burning red arrow out of thin air and slid it into its bow.

  “Duck!” Caesia snapped.

  As the evoker fired its shot, Caesia projected an ovular barrier of glistening green light in front of her. As the arrow struck the barrier and deflected off with a flash of pale green light, Caesia thrust forward her other hand and blasted the evoker off its feet with a lightning bolt.

  “Nice one!” Eris admired.

  The evoker was swiftly taken care of, but it had brought the skeletons time to close the gap. The archway was cut off by a wall of skeletons and they were surrounded now by the silent dead, shuffling steadily towards them with the clatter of ancient bones.

  The situation seemed bleak, there was no way they could take on this many. Eris turned to Caesia, who was starting to panic, her breath short and rapid. A fearful tear trickled down her cheek and she whimpered quietly in terror.

  “Don’t worry, we got this.” Eris reassured her, although she herself wasn’t sure.

  “How?” Caesia gasped panickedly. “We’re doomed!”

  Eris felt terrible about this. Caesia didn’t belong here, yet she guilt tripped her into coming. If Caesia was hurt, it was on her hands. She wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “We fight.” Eris declared heroically.

  “Seriously?” Caesia hissed, her voice trembling and arms stiff.

  “What other choice do we have?”

  Caesia looked around at the wall of skeletons surrounding them. Eris was right, there was no point in sitting here and letting the undead rip them apart. She clenched her fists and closed her eyes, gathering herself. She wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. “Okay… let’s do this.”

  With a triumphant roar, Er
is launched herself fearlessly into a nearby group of skeletons. She immediately smashed one to pieces with a sweeping blow from her shield, while she flung her sword above her head to parry the strike of a rusted blade. Turning on the sword’s wielder, she kicked its legs out from beneath it and stamped down hard on its skull, fracturing it into pieces.

  Another skeleton staggered behind her and took a heavy swing with its handaxe. Eris span around and narrowly caught the blow with her shield. The axe embedded itself in the shield and as the wielder tried to dislodge it, Eris flicked her sword between the skeleton’s ribs and pelvis, severing the brittle spine and slicing the foe in two.

  Caesia surveyed the horde for key targets. She picked out another mage in the back, its hand consumed by yellow flame, and launched a bolt across the room, blasting the skeleton’s head clean off.

  She had always held herself back in order not to kill anyone but admittedly, finally getting to use her full power was absolutely exhilarating. It would almost be fun if it wasn’t for the impending doom.

  As Caesia span around, she saw across the room a heavily armoured skeleton wade out from the crowds. It grasped its ancient, rusting blade with both hands as it approached Eris from behind.

  “Look out!” Caesia screamed, hurling a lightning bolt at the skeleton.

  The bolt glanced pathetically off the skeleton’s armour. It swung its blade over its head as Eris turned around to meet it.

  The blade cleaved down upon her and struck here narrowly, across the side of her face, as she reeled away. A shower of blood spattered the ground as the skeleton’s blade clanged against the icy stone. Eris stood motionless for a moment, her breathing rapidly accelerating as her trembling hand rose slowly to her face. Her sword clattered to the ground and she staggered onto her knees, clutching her cheek in her hand. Her whole body violently shaking, she slumped onto her hands and let slip a tortured cry of pain.

  Caesia watched as Eris hit the floor before the skeleton, frozen in terror. Snapped suddenly out of her trance by Eris’ cry, she reeled back her arm again and let slip a calculated lightning bolt. As the bolt slammed into the skeleton’s face and obliterated its skull, spraying fragments of bone from its helmet, Caesia skidded onto her knee beside Eris. She lay on the ground whimpering at the searing pain of her wound.