“My people and I can go through the building first before you...” Annia started to say.
“No,” Shandon said, cutting her off. “That won't be necessary. I want to see whatever is in there for myself. But can they get the lights on? There could be traps waiting for us.”
Annia motioned to one of her people who was standing just inside of the doors and the rogue nodded. He disappeared for a moment and then the entrance was suddenly bathed in light, almost blindingly bright as it pushed aside the darkness.
“Excellent,” the king said. “Let's go in.”
The rogues outside hurried past him and the others and fanned out in the entrance hall of the mansion. The ceiling of the room rose high above them. A golden chandelier glittered as light shone through hundreds of tiny crystals, bathing the people below in little bursts of brightness.
The floor was covered in white marble veined with silver and a staircase rose from the right side of the hall to circle up and around the entire room. In the center of the hall were several padded chairs covered in rich fabrics, presumably placed there for visitors to rest on while they waited for the lord of the manor to appear.
“The Duke's son lived well,” Shandon observed dryly as he gazed around the room.
“That he did,” Jergen agreed. “Maybe it's because I'm the son of a tinsmith, but all of these trappings and baubles just look gaudy to me. What is the point of them, anyway?”
“They are meant to impress,” Hallic told him as he studied the large paintings that hung from the walls. “Nobles have always sought to show off their wealth and privilege, to the commoners and to each other. This place is no different than any of a hundred other homes that I have seen in my time.”
“As a guest?” Pieter asked him with a teasing smile.
“Hardly,” Hallic replied, chuckling. “I visited them more in a, shall we say, professional capacity.”
“I'll bet you did,” Jergen chortled. “I never really appreciated your kind, Hallic. There were always so many misleading stories about rogues. But seeing this display,” he waved a hand at the room around them, “changes my mind somewhat. If you were relieving a pampered lord of a few baubles, well, maybe it helped to keep them honest.”
“Doubtful,” Mel told him. “We only enter the homes of the rich and powerful to fulfill contracts. And very few of those contracts call for us to steal anything of value from the target. Almost all of them are requests to seek out information; documents and the like, not tangible items like jewels or gold. Rogues are not common thieves, sir.”
Jergen nodded slowly.
“I meant no insult. I still have much to learn about you and yours, it seems.”
“An open mind is a healthy mind,” Shandon told his old friend with a smile. “Remember that.”
“Well, mine is more open than it used to be, so that is something, I suppose,” Jergen admitted.
While they were speaking, several of the rogues had ducked into side rooms leading off of the hall. As they returned, they all reported seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
“Very well,” Shandon said. “This is a big place and we don't have a lot of time to waste. Annia, would you take your people and search the cellars? I have no idea how big it is down there, but if it's as large as many others in manors like this one, it could be several levels deep. Check it out and report back to me.”
“Yes, my lord,” Annia replied.
“In the meantime, the rest of us will head upstairs. Stay alert,” he warned the others. “We saw the signs of violence on the doors. They weren't left open by accident. Larin, anything?”
The mage shook his head.
“No direct threats so far, my lord. But I do sense something. Just a hint of dark magic. But it is vague and unfocused. It makes me uneasy, but I cannot tell where it is coming from.”
Shandon looked around at the group.
“Even more reason to stay on your toes. Let's proceed.”
Annia led her rogues out of the hall while Shandon climbed the stairs with his original group behind him. The house was still and a brooding silence gathered around them.
At the top of the spiral staircase, a long hallway stretched out the length of the manor, with more than a dozen doors leading off of it. Ceiling lights brightly lit the entire length of the passageway.
The king looked at the others.
“Everyone take a door and look inside. If you see anything suspicious, call out at once.”
The group moved forward and began opening doors. Odella stayed with Shandon while Larin walked down the hallway with Hallic and Mel. Jergen and Pieter split up and moved past the king.
Every door that opened led into quiet, empty rooms. Bedrooms, sitting rooms, storage rooms. All of them were tidy and clean, but there were no signs of the family or the servants who had once lived there. The home could have been deserted for a day or a month. There was no way to tell.
Once they had reached the end of the hallway, the group gathered around Shandon again.
“Anything?” he asked them.
“Nothing,” Jergen told him as the others shook their heads. “Nothing at all. Not a sign of anyone.”
Shandon looked at the double doors in front of them. They were the only doors still unopened and he assumed that they led into the master bedroom of the manor.
“Well, this is the last one,” he said to them. “If there are no signs of the family's fate in here, then we may never know what happened to them.”
“I think that we can guess, my lord,” Larin said, his voice heavy with foreboding. “Duke Corse failed his master, your son. And this is the home of his heir. I do not know how well Corbin accepts failure in others, but I doubt that Cindra would have let it pass without some sort of retribution.”
“But the children,” Odella objected. “Surely the children would have...”
“Been safe?” Shandon said sharply. “We've seen how little they value the lives of others, including children. That is why I am hesitating now. Behind those doors could be a scene even more terrible than the one we witnessed at the power station. Gods above us, why did I ever let this get so far? I should have locked Corbin up the moment he began to plot against me. All of this horror is on my shoulders now. I am responsible for the deaths of innocents as much as he is.”
Pieter put a mailed hand on the king's shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.
“Open the doors, old friend, and let us face whatever is behind them, together,” he said compassionately.
Shandon looked at him and Pieter smiled back, his green eyes glowing warmly.
“Aye,” the king replied and gave himself a shake. His armor rattled loudly in the long hallway. “Aye. Let us see the worst of it then.”
Pieter and Jergen each grabbed a door handle and turned them. They pushed the double doors open and the hinges squealed loudly. Odella shuddered at the sound.
Inside, the room lay in darkness and Jergen turned to look for a wall switch. He fumbled around for a moment and then flipped the switch, bathing the room in light from an ornate overhead fixture, along with several other table lamps scattered around the bedchamber.
Everyone stared, wide-eyed, expecting to see some sort of carnage. Odella actually gasped in anticipation when the lights came on. The reality was almost as shocking.
“Nothing,” Shandon stated flatly. “There's no one here.”
He was right. The large, four-poster bed across from the doors was made up and covered with a brightly-colored quilt. Several closets and cupboards presumably filled with clothing were closed and the rich carpeting on the floor was clean and without stain. The only sign that the room had not been used in a while was the layer of dust that covered the end tables next to the bed and the puffs of dust that arose as Jergen walked around the room opening closet doors.
“Just a lot of clothes and things,” he said as he searched the last of the cupboards.
The king let out a long breath and glanced at Hallic.
&nbs
p; “Any thoughts?” he asked the rogue.
“Just a lot of questions,” Hallic replied. He sounded puzzled. “Which I assume you are asking yourself as well. Where is the family that lived in this house? What happened to them and the other nobles who are missing? That display at the power station only told us that the enemy is ruthless. It still does not explain why this entire quarter was guarded by daemons or why the power had been shut off. What were Corbin and Cindra trying to hide? And why?”
“Let's head back downstairs,” Shandon told the group. “This place is giving me chills.”
They followed him back down the hallway. As they reached the top of the stairs, they heard someone running below. A moment later, one of the rogues appeared and raced up the staircase toward them. It was Ellin.
She stopped abruptly as she saw the group at the top of the stairs. Her face was pale and she was panting loudly.
“Guildmaster,” she gasped, looking past the king at Hallic. “You have to come quickly! Annia needs you below in the cellars.”
“What's happened?” Hallic asked quickly as he hurried down the steps toward her.
“We were attacked,” Ellin told him as she tried to catch her breath. “The enemy left a couple of guards downstairs and they jumped us.”
The young rogue shook her head at his expression.
“We are all unhurt, Guildmaster,” she assured him. “Annia suspected that there might be some surprises down there. The attackers are dead, but you have to come down and see what they were guarding. I think we've figured out what happened to the family that used to live here.”
“Who attacked you?” Shandon asked her.
Ellin looked up at him and blinked several times. She seemed to have forgotten that the king was there.
“Was it daemons?” he asked urgently.
“Oh no, my lord,” Ellin replied with a shake of her head. “Not daemons.”
“Well then, who was it?” Jergen asked, sounding exasperated.
“It was goblins, Guildmaster,” Ellin said to Hallic. “We were attacked by goblins.”
Chapter 29
Ellin led the way down to the main floor and through the manor to the staircase leading into the cellars. Light fixtures embedded in the walls lit their way as the stone steps spiraled into the depths beneath the house.
“How many levels are there down here?” Hallic asked her as they descended.
“Three, Guildmaster,” she said over her shoulder. “We found nothing out of the ordinary until we reached the bottom level. That is where the goblins attacked us.”
“Goblins,” Jergen muttered. “I can't believe that there are goblins here, in our lands! How could they have reached the empire so quickly? We are a thousand miles beneath the surface of the world.”
He was walking just behind the king and Shandon looked back at him for a moment.
“They tunnel like cave rats, Jergen,” he said. “You know that. But if they are here, it is because someone met with them and told them how to find us.”
“Cindra?” Larin asked from the back of the line.
“Almost certainly. Who else could transport themselves to the surface and meet with those foul creatures?”
“Then she does indeed serve the dark gods,” the mage said bitterly. “Goblins would have killed her out of hand unless they were both serving the same evil masters. And we all know that the old gods brought those creatures back to life when they returned from the Void.”
“The gods of Chaos are still blocked from entering our universe,” Odella reassured him. “They are still battling with the lords of Light.”
“But perhaps this is a sign that the dark gods are gaining the upper hand?” Pieter mused. “Surely they are lending their power to both the witch and to the goblins?”
“Speculation won't get us anywhere,” Shandon said sharply. “Everyone stay focused. We have a more immediate problem to deal with right now.”
They reached the bottom of the steps and Ellin led the group down the hallway that the staircase opened on to. High archways led off of the main corridor and as the dwarves passed by the arches, they saw rooms filled with stacks of dried goods: bags of flour, barrels of oil and ale and much, much more.
“At the end of this hall is another set of stairs, my lord,” she told the king. “And at the bottom of those is a hallway just like this one.”
“And another set of stairs at the end of it, leading down to the third level?” Shandon asked.
“Exactly, my lord. The goblins were waiting for us at the bottom of those stairs.”
“Lead on then. There may be more of those creatures below. Annia and the others could be in grave danger.”
Ellin quickened her pace and the others did the same. They reached the next staircase and hurried down it, watching their feet on the steep steps.
At the bottom of the second set of stairs another hallway, identical to the one above, led to the third staircase leading to the bottom level of the cellars. Instead of archways leading off of the hall, there were iron doors closed and locked on both sides. No one knew what those rooms held and there was no time to explore them.
But at the end of the hallway, there was someone waiting at the top of the stairs. It was Annia.
When the group reached her, the relief on her face was obvious. Her short silver hair gleamed under the bright lights above them and the scars on her face stood out starkly.
“How are things going down here?” Shandon asked her. “Ellin told us that you were attacked by goblins?”
Annia nodded.
“We were, my lord,” she replied. “They sprang on us as we reached the bottom of these stairs. Fortunately we were prepared for them and took them down easily enough. Their skills are...lacking,” she added dryly.
“Their danger is based on their numbers, not on their skill in battle,” the king said. “They breed like tunnel rats and overwhelm their enemies by wearing them down over time. Any signs that there are more of them?”
“No idea, my lord,” Annia replied. “I decided to hold our position at the stairs and send Ellin to tell you what had happened. Our next move is up to you.”
Shandon looked around at the others and saw identical expressions on their faces. They were waiting for him to take the lead.
Pieter gave him a subtle wink and the king fought back the temptation to roll his eyes.
“Very well. Let's get down there and find out what is happening. Annia, with your permission, I would like Ellin to head back to the power station and tell Commander Brokk what has happened. I want a squad or two of his troops sent here quickly. If there are any surprises down there, our group and your rogues together may not be enough to counter it.”
Annia looked at Ellin.
“You heard his majesty,” she told the young woman. “Get to the commander as quickly as you can and pass along his message.”
“I will, Master” Ellin replied.
She bowed awkwardly to the king and then ran off back down the hallway.
“Thank you,” Shandon said to Annia. “Now let's head down. I want to see those goblins for myself.”
The lowest level of the cellars was not built like the ones above it. There were no hallways or separate rooms dividing it into different sections. Instead, it was wide open, with thick stone columns spaced out every twenty feet or so to hold up the weight of the manor and cellars overhead. There were only a few scattered lights flickering here and there around the vast, cavern-like space, and most of the cellar was shrouded in darkness. A strong smell of dust and mold hung in the dry air and a distant drip of water echoed around the room.
Shandon walked out of the stairwell and saw Annia's rogues spread out in a circle around the exit, all of them facing outward toward the darkness. A few yards away from the doorway were two bodies covered in blood and dust.
The king wrinkled his nose as he approached the remains.
“They really do stink, don't they?” he said as he looked down at the goblins
.
Jergen walked forward and used the toe of his boot to flip over one of the bodies. He made a disgusted noise deep in his throat.
“Repulsive creatures,” he growled.
The goblin's face was misshapen and splashed with drying blood, but its features were clear. A long, crooked nose, a pointed chin and a snarling mouth filled with jagged, yellow teeth gave the creature a feral look. Its red eyes were wide open and, even in death, stared up at the ceiling with blind hatred.
Both goblins were wearing mismatched pieces of leather and mail armor and they had been armed with crudely-made iron swords.
“Is this the best that they can muster?” Pieter wondered as he moved to stand next to the king. “Shouldn't advance troops and scouts be better equipped?”
“They were disposable,” Shandon said as he looked away from the corpses to scan the distant shadows. “Perhaps they did not expect any resistance, or perhaps we are here earlier than they thought we would be. What I need to know is, where did they come from?”
“We need to search this level thoroughly,” Hallic told him. “Just like rats, if you see two goblins it means that there are probably many more hidden just out of sight.”
“Agreed. Larin, can you sense any hostile magics in the air?”
The mage walked forward with Odella at his side. The two of them spoke quietly for a moment before Larin answered at the king.
“There is a heavy feeling down here, my lord,” he said. “Nothing specific, but the dark magic that I sensed upstairs is more pervasive here. We both believe that a hostile magic-user, perhaps more than one, is nearby, but we cannot tell how close they may be. Be cautious.”
Shandon's smile was grim.
“The time for caution has passed, my friend,” he told the mage. “We are now officially at war. My son and his witch have apparently joined forces with goblins, our most ancient foe. It is an abomination that cannot stand. Goblins do not surrender and they do not take prisoners. I know my history well enough to know that when we engage them, every battle will be to the death.”
The Dwarven Rebellion Page 37