Soldier Scarred

by D. K. Holmberg

  “It’s some sort of residence,” he said.

  “They would have their residence hidden like this?”

  “The religion is ancient, Endric. The people who followed it have been gone for centuries. Who knows what traditions they might have followed?”

  Endric smiled. “I don’t think it’s nearly as dead as you believe.”

  “Why is that?”

  “When I was trying to find some way to reach you, I stopped in a village called Joyner. The people there still believed in the power of the mountain, and they still believed that there was a connection to the gods.”

  “Of course there is a connection, but most understand that the Urmahne have proven their knowledge of that connection over the years.”

  “Most have?”

  Urik arched a brow. “Most who still believe.” He shook his head, considering Endric for a few long moments. “I can’t believe that the son of General Dendril finds it so difficult to have the necessary faith to believe in the Urmahne traditions. How is it that you can serve the Magi without that faith?”

  Endric shrugged. “I don’t need to have faith to do what is right. How is it that you can have the faith that you do and still betray so many people?”

  “A fair point.”

  Urik started off down the hall again and Endric kept close to him, not wanting to allow too much distance between them. Without the flaming torch, they would be cast in complete darkness. They found a few more doors recessed along the hallway and at each of them, Urik paused and pushed the door open, only to step back and remark that they were residences. The temple once must have housed many priests, and he wondered if it were only abandoned because it was buried in the side of the mountain or if there was another reason.

  They reached the end of the corridor. The wall was smooth and unmarked.

  Urik looked back at Endric. “There should be something more here.”

  “And yet, there isn’t.”

  “I don’t understand. How is it that there is nothing more? This should be the priest entrance.”

  Endric touched the wall and found that it was warm. It was smooth, as if it had been carved from the mountain rather than hot lava that had cooled. “Maybe this was never the priest entrance. Maybe this only brought us access to their quarters.”

  “Why make it so difficult to enter?”

  “I’m not so convinced that it was difficult to enter,” Endric said. “Think about how easy it was for us to trigger the door. Maybe that wasn’t meant to be a difficult way.”

  “But these residences only really make sense if the priests were using them, and they would have to have an easier way into the temple.”

  Endric looked back, remembering how the entrance to the temple had been buried. “Maybe there was an easier way that has since been lost.”

  Urik waved the torch around, studying the wall. As he did, Endric realized that wrappings around the torch had already burned off.

  “Urik?”

  As he said it, the torch burned itself out.

  They stood in darkness. It was an eerie sort of darkness, a complete blackness that surrounded them, and Endric shivered in spite of himself. He shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, especially as there seemed an easy way to get out, but he couldn’t help it.

  “We should head back to the door,” Endric said.

  “We can get another torch and return,” Urik said.

  They could, which Endric wasn’t certain was the right decision, but he wasn’t going to press Urik on that at this point.

  As they made their way back along the hall, Endric trailing his hand on the walls, he heard the soft sound of stone scraping.

  The door.

  “Have your studies shown you any other doors that mysteriously close on their own?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Endric clenched his jaw and reached for his sword. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  It meant that they weren’t alone.

  21

  When they reached the door, Endric ran his hands along it, searching for some way to trigger it from this side. The darkness all around him was almost a physical presence, and he couldn’t see anything. The air smelled of heat, though there was almost a hint of dampness to it that wasn’t present in the rest of the temple. Could there be water somewhere nearby?

  He licked his dry mouth, only now realizing exactly how parched he was. It had been far too long since he had anything to drink. He’d made a mistake allowing the horse to share with him, though that mistake might have kept the horse alive. His stomach grumbled, and though he had been hungry before, combined with his aching thirst, it was an incredibly unpleasant sensation.

  “There would have to be some way to trigger it from this side, wouldn’t there?” Endric asked.

  “Typically there would be, but there is much about this temple that is unusual.”

  “But the priests would have to have some way of reaching the inside of the temple from here.”

  “That would be my assumption,” Urik said.

  Both Endric and Urik continued to run their hands along the wall. He found traces of lettering, though it was faded. There were other scratches here, and he couldn’t quite place what would have made them. They were almost like claws had raked at the stone, tearing at it over and over.

  Endric pulled his hand back and turned his attention to the residences behind him. He could see nothing about them, and certainly nothing that gave him any idea about what might be there, but a troubling idea came to him.

  “Urik, how certain are you that these were priest residences?”

  “What else would they be?”

  “Think about it. If there was only one way to enter, and it can only be opened from that side, and a wall lined with residences…”

  Urik must’ve stepped close to him. Endric could feel the heat radiating off him and smelled a hint of sweat mixed with a strange, almost floral scent. “These wouldn’t be cells. Priests don’t have cells in their temples.”

  “You said you don’t know anything about these priests. What if they did have cells? What if this was their way of imprisoning those who didn’t believe prisoner?”

  “The residences were far too nice to be any sort of cell.”

  Endric stared for a moment. “Was there anything in there that we could have used?”

  “Most were empty. A few had scraps of fabric. And some had what seemed to be remnants of straw beds. I didn’t see anything else that could be useful. There were no books or scrolls or—”

  “The scraps of cloth and straw might be useful.”

  Urik groaned. “Of course they could. Why didn’t I think that way?”

  “Because you’re thinking like a scholar. You’re the one who said that you have stopped thinking like a soldier.”

  “There are times when I miss having my mind forced to think in that way.”

  “Just because you stopped serving as a soldier doesn’t mean that you have to stop thinking like one.”

  “It does if it means that I can work with the Conclave. I can’t do that when I’m trying to scheme and plan the way that I did before.”

  “Then let me be the soldier. You serve as the scholar. See if you can remember where the scraps of fabric were found so that we can use those, wrap up the remains of the straw bed, and add to the torch.”

  “We won’t have any way of lighting the torch.”

  “We are surrounded by stone and we both have swords. If we scrape them on the stone and get enough of a spark, we might be able to ignite the straw.”

  “Straw won’t burn very long, Endric. Even if we managed to ignite it, we won’t have much time to search for a way out.”

  “It’s better than searching blindly. I haven’t found anything on the ground in front of the door that would help me open it, have you?”

  “I have not.”

  “If we get even a few moments, we might be able to see well enough to know if there’s anything here that can he
lp us trigger the door to open.”

  “If you’re right about this being a cell, there wouldn’t be any way of triggering it from this side.”

  “Let’s hope that I’m not right about it. Let’s hope that you’re the one who was right about the purpose of these rooms.”

  “I’ll go. I saw where the straw and the scraps of fabric were in each of the rooms. It’s better that only one of us wanders. You stay here and wait.”

  It made sense, but Urik’s leaving also made Endric slightly uncomfortable.

  “Go quickly,” he said.

  Urik hurried off, his feet scraping along the stone. When the sound stopped, Endric waited for it to resume.

  It did not.

  He continued waiting, feeling increasingly troubled the longer that he did. Where was Urik? He should have heard him moving again.

  Endric’s mind started racing, working through what he had heard. It was entirely possible that there was someone else in the temple who had triggered the outer door to close. If that were the case, then that person might have come into this hallway with them.

  If that were true, waiting here would only leave him in danger.

  He kept his back to the wall and held his unsheathed sword in one hand. Endric slid along the wall, taking careful steps until he reached the first doorway. He reached inside it, and swept with his sword before stepping around and into the room. Once there, he paused, listening for long moments. There was no sound of anyone else. There was no one breathing, nothing that would signify that he wasn’t alone.

  Still, he continued to wait.

  As he did, he tried to think about what he would do if he encountered someone else. Likely they would know of a way to escape this hallway, especially if they had triggered the door from the other side and stepped inside. They wouldn’t have trapped themselves inside—not intentionally.

  He continued to listen, waiting to see if there might be sounds of Urik scraping along the stone, but that never came.

  Endric explored the room, taking careful and quiet steps as he did, making a point of moving as soundlessly as possible. He found nothing. At one point, he stepped on what must have been one of the remnants of straw that Urik had mentioned, and he pulled his foot back carefully, not wanting to make too much noise. He crouched low, running his hands along the stone as he searched for any other potential noises that he might make.

  There was nothing in the room. There was no sign of anyone else. He was alone.

  That didn’t mean that no one was in the temple with them.

  Endric continued to hold onto his sword, keeping it ready so that if he were to need to attack, he would be prepared, but there was no need. The room was empty.

  Was it a cell?

  He wasn’t certain anymore. Maybe this was nothing more than a priest’s residence, and if that were the case, then why wasn’t there any way out? Would the priests trap themselves like this? That didn’t make sense, but then, as Urik had said, the Salvat religion was old enough that it was practically forgotten.

  Endric reached the entrance to the room and stared out into the darkness. As he paused, listening, he thought that he might hear something that would tell him whether they were alone or not, but he heard nothing.

  He needed to find Urik—but he needed to do it as silently as possible. If there was someone here, he didn’t want them to know that he searched for them.

  Endric made his way along the hall, moving as quietly as possible. Each foot was placed carefully, and with each step, he held his breath, exhaling as softly as he could so that if there was someone here with him, they wouldn’t know that he was waiting.

  He found the next room empty.

  Endric searched the same way that he had searched before, winding his way around the inside of the room, sliding his feet as quietly as he could.

  Empty.

  When he went on to the next room, he started into it the same way.

  About halfway into the room, he bumped into something.

  Endric nearly slashed down at it but held his sword, refusing to attack.

  He cautiously reached out and found a person lying in front of him. He recognized the pattern to the jacket and the short sword sheathed at his waist.

  Urik.

  Endric shook him, trying to get him to awaken.

  He started to moan and Endric clamped his hand over Urik’s mouth, silencing him.

  “What happened?” he whispered.

  Uric fought for a moment before seeming to realize that it was Endric. “Something caught me from behind.”

  That made it even more likely that there was someone in the temple with them. But where? And without any way of seeing anything in the darkness, there wouldn’t be a way to anticipate whether another attack would come.

  Worse, there were some people with the ability to see into the darkness.

  “Can you stand?” he asked.

  Urik started to nod and Endric helped him to his feet.

  “You need to be quieter with your steps.”

  “I was being quiet.”

  “You weren’t. I heard you scraping along the stone. You have to be as silent as possible.”

  Endric could imagine Urik frowning at him but at least he didn’t object.

  “I will do what I can.”

  Endric started out of the room before hesitating. “Was this the room with fabric and straw?”

  “It should be.”

  “Gather what you can. We might need it.”

  Endric waited near the door and listened to the faint sounds of Urik moving around. When he returned, he was breathing heavily.

  “I found what I could.”

  Endric wished that it was lighter so he could see just what Urik had found. Would there be enough for them to ignite to create a torch? They needed a moment—nothing more than a flash—and they might be able to see if anyone was in the rooms with them.

  “Wrap it tightly. Be ready to see if you can ignite it.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  Endric started back toward the door in the distance. “Draw whoever might be here out.”

  When he reached the door, he pushed his back against it and made sure that his sword was ready. “Are you ready?” he whispered.

  “As much as I can be.”

  “You might need to fight,” Endric said.

  “If it comes to it, I will, but this might be a Salvat priest, Endric. I would much rather have the opportunity to speak to him than attack him.”

  “After we subdue him, you can speak all you want.”

  “The torch is on the stone,” Urik whispered.

  Endric reached for it and placed the tip of his sword near the end. When he was ready, he looked up. “Urik?” he called out, raising his voice.

  “I’m right here,” Urik whispered.

  Endric sniffed. “I know where you are. I want whoever attacked you to know where you are,” he said.

  “Here!” Urik said, pitching his voice in such a way that seemed to echo off the walls. “Something hit me—”

  Endric scraped his sword across the stone, rubbing it back and forth quickly. All he needed was a single spark, hopefully enough that it would catch the straw.

  There was a distant sense of movement.

  Endric couldn’t describe it any differently, only that what he detected felt as if someone ran toward them.

  He scraped the sword across the stone again, moving more quickly.

  There was a spark.

  It was enough.

  The straw ignited and caught the fabric that Urik had wrapped around the end of the torch. Endric swung it up, bringing it out in front of himself.

  A small robed figure hurrying along the hallway froze.

  Endric lunged, tossing the torch as he did.

  The figure tried to turn, but Endric was too quick. He reached the person as the torch burned itself out, but it had served the purpose that Endric had for it.

  He wrapped his arms around the figure
, squeezing. The other person struggled, and pain surged through Endric’s arm. A bite.

  “Stop moving and I won’t hurt you,” Endric said.

  The figure continued to kick and Endric had no choice. He slammed his sword onto the back of the person’s head.

  They stopped resisting and crumpled.

  Endric grabbed the torch off the floor and dragged the figure back toward the doorway. “Now we get to see who this might be,” he told Urik as he returned.

  “How? You used all the fabric and straw that I was able to find.”

  “There’s more straw in the first room on the right. We can use strips of fabric from his robe.” They didn’t even have to use their own clothing, which was an advantage. Had they been forced to use their own, they would potentially have left much of it burning. This way, they could tear off long strips from this person’s robe and use as much as they needed.

  “Do you want me to go get the straw, or do you want to go after it?”

  “I’ll stay here with him,” Endric said.

  Urik shuffled away, his feet scraping along the stones. Now that they had found the person who had been in the hall with them, Endric was less concerned about ensuring silence. He tore off several strips of fabric from the person’s cloak and used some of them to wrap arms and legs, tying them up. The others he set off to the side, preparing for the torch. When Urik returned, Endric heard him before he felt his presence.

  “I’m right here,” Endric said.

  Urik shuffled over to him and thrust out a fistful of straw. Endric felt through the darkness for it, and when he took it, he started wrapping bands of fabric around the straw, looping them so that it would hopefully burn slowly. He didn’t want to destroy the wrappings too quickly. If needed, they could continue to use the newcomer’s robes, burning off more and more as needed to continue lighting the way. Endric scraped his sword across the stone, working the same way that he had when he had ignited the torch the last time, and managed to get a spark. There was less urgency to it than there had been when he’d heard the sound of someone racing toward them. A spark flickered and caught the straw, which then ignited the wrappings.