For the first time in 150 years, Gram felt true fear take hold. It was not just some of the wounds on the dragon that had closed, as is customary with a typical healing spell. Instead, Malachite was instantaneously and completely healed of all damage done against him thus far in the battle.
Gram stepped closer to Arun and cast a mass invisibility spell on himself, Arun, and several of the guards standing nearby. Malachite immediately countered with a spell of his own and they all became visible once again. Clearly, the dragon had identified the largest threat and was intent on removing it.
Malachite’s voice boomed across the field. “One does not harm a dragon and expect to live. You will suffer at my hands, wizard.” Malachite broke into a gallop across the field directly toward Gram and plowed through the front gate of the fortress. The wall was twenty feet tall and seven feet thick, but the dragon smashed through it without slowing down and scattered the stones like so many pebbles. Gram thought that if he was to die, there was no more glorious way to go.
Chapter 71: Into the Dungeon
Evisar considered whether to go down the tunnel into the Underworld after the First Heir and leave his brother behind or heed his brother’s bizarre warning and continue down the original corridor, looking for a way to the surface. Both options would lead them away from the fortress, which was all Evisar really cared about at this point. Ultimately, the decision hinged on whether he believed his brother, who had just come back from the dead, even though he had nothing to go on but his good word. There was no obvious answer, but one thing was for certain: Mestel’s lack of explanation was exceptionally annoying.
He looked Xander, Mestel, and Valihorn in the eye one after the other, trying to make up his mind, before he finally said, “At this point I can’t give anyone orders. You can do what you like, but I’m going to stay with Mestel and continue down the corridor.” He glanced at his brother with obvious anger. “His refusal to explain himself grates me to no end, but he seems to have the gift of prophecy.”
Evisar took several long strides toward Mestel. The two brothers exchanged a look and a curt nod of acceptance. Valihorn spoke up as Evisar turned around to face him. “You are my friends, and I am coming with you as well.”
Xander shook his head and was not convinced. “The three of you are insane. This tunnel is exactly what we’ve been trying to find. We’re crazy not to take it.”
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Mestel was not amused and precious time was ticking away. They needed to keep moving. It was amazing Gram hadn’t found them yet with a search party. He served the Faithful Falcon, and he certainly didn’t need to kowtow to this half-elf of a lesser faith.
“He’s made his choice. Let’s go.” With that, Mestel turned on his heels and began walking down the hall.
Xander finally said, “Wait, you bastard.” Mestel stopped but didn’t turn around. “I think you’re wrong, but I can’t very well go into the Underworld by myself. The three of you have made the decision for me.”
With his pride damaged but salvageable, Xander walked quickly and joined up with the other companions. They left the entrance to the Underworld behind and continued down the original corridor looking for a way to the surface.
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Nero had thrown the dice by going against Gram in order to join the elves and recover the gem. So far, the gamble wasn’t paying off. The guard he bribed was dead and the elves weren’t in the dungeon like he anticipated. The uncertainty added a briskness to his step and a sharp focus to his mind. He walked down the staircase and past a trap that had recently been set off. At the bottom of the staircase the passage went to the left and right with no way to distinguish between the two, but luckily his rogue eyes easily spotted a disturbance in the dust leading down the corridor to the right.
He grabbed a torch off the wall, took off at a brisk walk, and soon came to a secret passage on the left with the door thrown open. During his two-day vacation in the Noble’s Keep, Nero had studied a layout of the entire fortress including the underground corridors, and he knew this passage led into the Underworld. He curled up his nose in disgust at the direct link this passage represented with the cursed Krone. Foul vermin. They should all die. Nero thought of Venal and his constant battle with the Krone and shook his head back to reality. The more power he gathered to himself, the more harm he could cause the Krone later. Although the secret door was open, the footsteps of the elves continued down the original corridor. Nero didn’t understand how the companions had been able to find the secret passage in the dark while they were running for their lives. Strange. Stranger still was the fact that the elves had passed up the passage to the Underworld and continued down the corridor. Nero continued briskly down the corridor. After another hundred steps he began to hear the clang of steel on steel up ahead. The companions must be caught in a sword duel.
Chapter 72: The Witch
With the entrance to the Underworld behind them, the companions continued quickly down the stone corridor with nothing but Valihorn’s light spell and Evisar’s torch to light the way. After three hundred paces another door appeared on their left. Unlike the previous tunnel, this door wasn’t hidden and couldn’t have been missed unless the companions were blind, deaf, and dumb. The door was ornately decorated and carved out of a wood as white as newly fallen snow. The carvings on the door were small and delicate, and painted with colors that were true to life, unfaded with the passage of time. Standing on either side of the door were two stone statues of Krone warriors with swords at their sides. The two statues looked so real that Mestel had to take a closer look just to make sure.
The carving that dominated the white door was a pictograph showing a female Krone sitting on a throne covered in blood with what appeared to be dead elves all around. To Mestel, the art work on the door represented the head of the Krone pantheon, Evona, sitting on her throne with an uncountable number of surface elves slain at her feet. The features of the dead elves were sharply drawn near the throne and faded out to obscurity as the distance from the throne increased, giving the impression that the fallen elves around Evona’s throne went on forever. Mestel tentatively reached for the door handle but pulled away as pain lanced up his hand.
Evisar came to his side and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Mestel looked at his hand and said, “I don’t know. I can’t seem to open this door.”
Eager to recover his bruised ego, Xander quickly stepped past the brothers, reached for the doorknob, and gave it a twist. Everyone expected him to recoil in pain since Mestel just did exactly the same thing, but nothing happened and the door swung open without any apparent difficulty. The door gave way to reveal an immaculate room untouched by the passage of time. The inside was lit only by a strange lantern on the end table of the bed that burned continually, but did not appear to have a fuel source. The tiny light gave a soft glow over the room with shadows in every corner. The room was obviously built for royalty. The desk, end table, and dresser were built from the best wood, meticulously put together and varnished to polished perfection. The quilts on the bed were fashioned from many fabrics, and the hand-sewn designs were ornately small. In a place where stone flooring was the norm, this flooring was made from hardwood that had been laid without a single gap and sanded to fit together perfectly. Even the dust refused to settle on the furniture and ground in the room.
All of the wealth in the room was secondary to Mestel’s eye, as the first thing he noticed was a skeleton lying peacefully on the bed. The person had either died lying in bed or the body had been brought to this room and carefully laid to rest. The decorations around the room were distinctly feminine and the skeleton wore a formal gown with long skirts. The more Mestel looked around the room the more baffled he became. Underground rooms were difficult to construct and always valued at a premium. Why take up valuable space underground with a tomb, especially one so finely decorated and well kept? Was this person so powerful or dangerous
that the Krone left her alone out of respect? Or was it fear?
Mestel stood at the threshold to the room and said in hushed tones, “She may be animated as an undead skeleton or perhaps even a lich.” Mestel had never encountered a lich, but legend said they were just as deadly as vampires, except that a lich was a wizard in life who delved too deeply into the secrets of the undead in order to live forever.
Xander closed his eyes and chanted a prayer to Fortuna. “As far as I can tell, she isn’t undead. It’s just an ordinary skeleton.”
Mestel added pointedly, “It may be that she will not animate as undead until we enter the room. She may have been placed here as a guardian.”
Xander looked at him with irritation as Mestel treaded on his terrain once again. “I don’t sense any evil from her. If you think I’m going to miss the opportunity to collect the treasure in this room, then you’re crazy.”
Mestel gave up the argument as his gaze wandered to Valihorn, who had been staring at the skeleton the entire time. Without taking his eyes off the skeleton, Valihorn said in a slow, monotone voice, “I think we should trust Xander on this one, Mestel.”
Mestel furrowed his brow at the young wizard and then reluctantly stood aside as Xander and Valihorn entered the room while Mestel and Evisar waited in the hallway. Xander moved to the dresser first and pulled out a jewelry box, while Valihorn went straight to the bed and stared down in wonder at the Krone corpse. “This must be the Krone Witch that ruled this fortress more than a hundred years ago. It all makes sense. It was right where he said it would be.”
Sensing trouble, Evisar turned to the wizard with worry. “Where who said it would be? Valihorn, what are you talking about?”
The young wizard paid no attention as he looked at the skeleton of the Krone Witch and the one ring she was wearing on her hand. Valihorn snatched the ring off the Witch’s hand and held it up to the one lantern in the room. “That is why we have not run into any Krone down here in the tunnels. The dragon must be attacking on the surface even as we speak.”
As if in response to Valihorn’s revelation, there was a thud that rippled through the ground like an earthquake, rattling the stone walls.
Mestel was having trouble understanding the gibberish coming out of Valihorn, and everyone held their breath to see if anything else would happen. A number of heartbeats passed, and just as Mestel started to breathe more easily, his vision went black; he was in the future again.
*****
The vision was as disorienting and fragmented as ever. He was in the Krone Witch’s room a few moments in the future, and he watched as Valihorn put the Krone Witch’s ring on his own finger. The scene flashed again and Mestel was on the surface, standing outside the walls of the fortress. The earth shook violently, and Mestel watched as the entire fortress collapsed in on itself and sank into the earth.
For the first time ever, Mestel understood immediately what one of his visions meant. If Valihorn placed the ring on his finger, then the fortress, along with its entrance into the Underworld, would be destroyed.
*****
His vision flashed back to the present just in time for him to see Valihorn move to put the ring on his finger. Quick as a cat, Mestel moved toward the room to stop him. “No Valihorn, don’t!”
But as he reached the threshold to the room, an invisible force that hadn’t been there before sprang to life. The invisible force threw him off his feet and back against the wall with such force that it knocked him unconscious. In that instant, Valihorn put the ring on his finger.
Chapter 73: Friend or Foe
Evisar took a step back and drew Neverlost as his brother fell unconscious to the floor. The head of the elf stone statue on the left turned to face Evisar and spoke with a distinctly feminine voice.
“By the will of Evona you cannot stop the war, little one. Armena will fall with your death.”
A smile slowly spread across the statue’s face. As the smile grew from ear to ear, the statue on either side of the door turned from stone into flesh. They both had the white hair and dark skin of male Krone warriors with the symbol of Evona emblazoned on their foreheads, clearly visible in the limited light for everyone to see.
Evisar grabbed his brother’s collapsed body and all but threw it down the hallway to get him out of harm’s way. Then Evisar turned to face the Krone warriors as he slowly backed away. The two swordsmen drew their blades with practiced ease, stepped off their pedestals, and walked coolly toward Evisar. Blood pounded in his ears as he prepared for battle. “Valihorn, Xander, get out here.”
Xander was the first to move with Evisar’s call, but as he put his hand gingerly against the threshold of the door, the invisible force sprang to life. Evisar’s heart sank as he realized he was on his own. The two Krone didn’t charge in, but rather, they were purposefully slow to action, almost as though they were giving Evisar time to prepare. Either these Krone had a sense of honor about them, or they were such masterful swordsmen that they wanted to make it more sporting by giving him every advantage. He hoped it was the former and prayed it wasn’t the latter. After a few moments the warriors charged forward in earnest. Both swung their blades at the same time, one aiming high and the other low. Evisar jumped over the lower blade and met the high one with Neverlost. The blades clashed with a sound that echoed off the stone walls as Evisar and the swordsman locked blades, testing each other’s strength.
He could tell instantly that the Krone were master swordsmen, but he had the strength advantage. With a shove, he threw the warrior back several feet. The warrior gave him a smile of respect and spoke to his partner in the language of the Krone.
“We must be careful with this one. Move to the side so we can flank him.”
Having been educated in a castle among the royal court, Evisar and Mestel were well schooled in the ways of their greatest enemy, so Evisar had no trouble understanding what the warriors said.
Both Krone moved as close as they could to their respective walls and took a step forward. Evisar went on the offensive and didn’t wait for them to execute their plan. He jabbed at the warrior to the left and used the force of the block from his enemy to slash his sword at the one on the right. As the warrior on the right parried the blow, Evisar switched direction again and slashed his sword at the feet of the swordsman to his left. Evisar tried again and again, but slowly his offense switched to defense. The Krone walked cautiously forward using masterful strokes to force Evisar to retreat. He continued to give ground to the Krone’s numerical advantage until he saw his brother’s body lying on the floor a few steps back on his left side and knew he could retreat no farther. It was a losing fight and he knew it, but he couldn’t leave his brother to die. He probably could have beaten one, but two swordsmen who worked well in tandem were just too much. The slashes came closer and his defense grew more and more desperate. More than once, his shirt ripped as his chain shirt armor absorbed a glancing blow.
Eventually, the warrior on the left drew back for a vicious cut on Evisar’s exposed sword arm when the point of a rapier burst through the dark skinned Krone’s chest and sprayed blood across Evisar’s face. He had to take a moment to blink the blood out of his eyes. He noticed that the rapier belonged to an unknown surface elf standing behind the Krone warriors. The newcomer had sneaked up silently on the warriors in the heat of battle and thrust his rapier through the heart of one of the Krone, killing him instantly.
It took only a moment for the remaining Krone to react to the new threat, and he slashed behind him in an effort to decapitate the newcomer. The stranger ducked the cut deftly and used the momentum to roll backward in a summersault that landed him a few feet away and neatly back up on his feet. Evisar was about to move in for the kill when he heard the twang of a bow from his left side. The arrow brushed the clothing under his arm and took the remaining Krone cleanly in the throat. More blood sprayed against the stone wall as the last Krone dropped his sword and flailed about for a moment before toppling over. Evisar was so
shocked by the near miss of the arrow that he took a moment to look away from the newcomer standing down the hallway to see his brother awake and lying on the ground with a bow in his hand. While lying flat on his back, Mestel had taken an impossible shot that flew under Evisar’s armpit and took the Krone warrior perfectly in the unprotected throat.
Evisar looked back at the newcomer while shaking his head in disbelief, trying to assess whether the newcomer was a friend or foe. He was a surface elf, and Evisar was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt since he just saved his life, but he still had to be cautious. The newcomer was dressed in an impressive suit of leather armor that wrapped the shadows in the corridor around his body. His pants and under tunic were black and gray, and he had a hood down around his shoulders.
Evisar heard Mestel come to his feet behind him as the newcomer confidently sheathed his rapier, took a couple of steps closer to the light, and looked Evisar in the eye to emphasize the truth of what he was about to say. “My name is Nero. I am a special agent of the Crown sent to find you. My orders are to help you find and recover the First Heir of Armena.”
With this single statement, Evisar’s world came crashing down around him. Nero stood confidently waiting for him to absorb the news, undoubtedly not knowing the conflict of emotion his words brought to the surface.
After a good while, Evisar asked, “What in the seven hells are you talking about?”
Do the Gods Despise Us? Page 26