by Mark Barber
Orion shivered involuntarily as he realized how close to death he had just found himself. He stared, fixated on the slit in the wall and the blade that lay hidden within.
“Now, I appreciate that you’re far too proud to say you want me to save you,” Aestelle leaned in and smiled dangerously, “but nonetheless, I’m here for you, to stop you killing yourself. I’ll go first, shall I?”
The tall woman walked along the tunnel with a cocky swagger, pointing casually at various pressure plates, trip wires, and other booby traps at irregular intervals as they proceeded. The chill Orion felt failed to dissipate as he realized just how out of his depth he was. As a soldier, he had always scoffed at the term ‘adventurer’ as a description of selfish, glory seeking idiots who wasted their time wandering around abandoned mines. Now, just a few minutes in Aestelle’s company was quickly demonstrating the expertise required to survive in this environment.
“We arrived in the outer chamber,” Aestelle explained as they approached the end of the corridor, “that is traditionally where the deceased would place their outer guard; normally loyal soldiers who died in battle alongside their master, or sometimes even men who were willing to die by their own hand just to be buried as guards. This, where we are now, is the chamber of procession, where the body was ceremonially carried by clergy to be laid in their final resting place. That’s up ahead somewhere.”
“So if we’re going deeper into this crypt,” Orion queried, “should we not turn around and try to find our way back out?”
“These things rarely have a single entrance,” Aestelle replied as they reached another large, double door at the end of the tunnel. “This should be the burial chamber itself. There may be another tunnel leading in from the far side.”
Aestelle heaved the heavy wooden bar off the doorway, and the double doors swung noisily open on their creaky, rusted hinges. Orion followed Aestelle into the next chamber. The ubiquitous red tiles continued underfoot into a large, circular room. A huge, uneven pile lay in the center of the room, only a few paces ahead. Orion looked around for evidence of a sarcophagus or anything similar but found nothing. He turned to look at Aestelle and found her cocky smirk replaced with a look of concern, bordering on fear.
“What is wrong?”
“This is not a burial chamber,” she replied in a hoarse whisper, “this was no ordinary nobleman.”
“What does that mean?”
“Two things,” Aestelle whispered, taking a careful step forward. “First, there is somebody important buried here.”
Orion cast his eyes around the darkened chamber but found nothing of note in the flickering shadows that were semi-illuminated by Aestelle’s torch. No other exit was obvious; all that was visible was the shadowy pile a few paces away.
“And the second?”
“This person was important enough to have an inner guard chamber,” Aestelle replied nervously, “and that’s where we are right now. I think there’s something in here with us.”
The pile moved. With an earsplitting, raspy roar, the pile shot up toward the ceiling, growing in size at a spectacular rate. It turned in place, and Orion let out a gasp as he realized that it was in fact a being, roughly humanoid in shape but twice the height and width. The huge creature spread out its thick arms and leaned forward, the torchlight capturing its grotesque form. Great rends in its gray skin showed rotting flesh and bone beneath, entrails were visible through tears in its abdomen, and two void black holes sunk into a hideous face where its eyes had once been. A rusted, bronze nose ring emerged from the creature’s nostrils and a tatty loincloth fell from beneath its swollen, corpulent belly.
The huge, zombified creature took a pace forward and leaned over to shove its head within an inch of Aestelle’s face. It opened its mouth and let out a deafening roar that echoed and reverberated through the dark cavern. Aestelle grabbed the creature by its nose ring, yanked its face closer and brought her own forehead crashing down to connect audibly with the monster’s head. The huge creature let out a cry and reeled back; Aestelle whipped her pistol up from her side and shot the beast in the neck.
With a chocking gasp, the zombie monster reeled back and dropped to one knee. Aestelle twirled the smoking pistol around on one finger and looked across at Orion, flashing him a cocky smile and a wink. The undead monster sprang back to its feet and lashed out with an immense, clenched fist, smacking into Aestelle and sending her tumbling through the air like a discarded child’s toy. She landed untidily on a pile of rocks at the far end of the chamber and lay still. Orion brought his greatsword up and ran forward to attack.
***
Her breathing labored, Aestelle struggled to force herself up onto one elbow. She saw spatters of crimson blood sprinkle across the tiles below her from her open mouth as she forced herself up onto one knee, one arm instinctively wrapped around her ribs as her breath wheezed in and out of her damaged respiratory system. She looked up at where the paladin was locked in combat with the zombie troll, the big man now dwarfed by the undead monstrosity who flailed powerful limbs around in an attempt to swat at the knight.
“Alright, you bastard,” Aestelle laughed, “you want to play rough…”
Struggling up to her feet, she immediately let out a cry of pain as she felt her broken ribs cave in and restrict her lung. Collapsing back down again, she spat out another mouthful of blood and swore viciously as she realized with disappointment that it was time to use the very limited control she had over magic. Placing a hand against the damaged area, she concentrated hard and summoned the energies of divinity magic that, even with her long dwindled faith in the Shining Ones, still always somehow obeyed her call. Her ribs clicked back into place and fused, allowing her breathing to return to normal.
Springing back to her feet, Aestelle discarded her bow and quiver and recovered her greatsword. Up ahead, the paladin was holding his own against the undead monstrosity – if anything, he even had the upper hand. She had never seen anyone able to force such an opponent back single-handed. She paused for a fraction of a second to watch him, something about him reminding her of a distant memory that somehow did not wish to be recalled. It did not matter.
With a yell, Aestelle sprinted forward to join the fight.
***
Orion ducked quickly under another unstoppable blow from the rotten fists of the macabre monster he faced, darting to one side to try to create an opening to attack. The monster’s fist slammed into the wall a few inches from where he had stood, plunging through the crumbling stonework and causing a small landslide of earth and broken stones to flow down across the flooring. With a roar, the monster yanked its fist clear again and turned to face Orion, tirelessly returning to the offensive and swinging its deadly hands back in his direction.
Taking a step back, Orion allowed the lumbering monster to overextend and lean too far into its attacks. Losing its footing, the monster stumbled forward, and Orion had his opening. Hacking down in between the creature’s flailing limbs, he tore open a vicious wound in the monster’s gut that spilled its rotten entrails across the dusty floor. Orion followed up with a lancing attack to the monstrosity’s chest, puncturing his greatsword through the creature’s ribcage and twisting the blade to create a larger wound before retracting it. He continued the offensive with a series of cuts and thrusts aimed at the head and torso, forcing the monster to fall back toward the far end of the cavern.
Out of nowhere, a hammer blow caught his shoulder and span him around, dropping him helplessly to one knee in full sight of the undead creature. He felt a light blow behind him as Aestelle appeared from the shadows, leaping up to plant a foot on his back and propel herself up into the air to meet the monster. Her blade whipped up and severed one of the creature’s arms; she landed to one side and immediately hacked out to drag her blade viciously against the back of the creature’s knee, severing tendons and ligaments and leaving the limb useless. The creature collapsed on its wounded leg and held up its severed stump of an arm, how
ling in pain and rage.
Seizing the opportunity, Orion leapt back into the attack and swung his heavy blade around to tear the sharp tip through the creature’s throat, hacking open a gaping wound. Bringing the blade up again and again, he repeated the attack to hack at the widening wound, ripping open the tear until the head detached completely and the monster finally fell down at his feet.
Wiping sweat from his eyes, he walked over to where Aestelle was recovering her pistol and bow.
“How are you… alright?” he managed. “I saw that thing nearly kill you with one punch!”
“That?” the blonde woman scoffed. “Barely felt it. I once went head to head with Skullface for nearly half an hour. In comparison, this was nothing.”
Orion narrowed his eyes in disbelief at the young woman’s claim of survival at the hands of Mantica’s most notorious orc warlord, but he quickly dismissed the thought.
“What was that?” he asked, pointing his sword at the defeated monster.
“A zombified troll, a very large one, too. That thing was the inner guard of whoever is buried here. Spells and incantations keep creatures like this frozen for hundreds of years until idiots like you come blundering in here and trigger the spell that wakes them up. The magic is never perfect, that’s why the troll was rotting.”
“It still begs the question,” Orion said as he glanced cautiously around the cavern, “who is all of this for the benefit of?”
“Oh, the fellow who is buried here?” Aestelle flashed a dashing smile. “Fear not, Ogre, we’ll meet him soon enough. The fact that those skeletons were reforming suggests you’ve woken their master up, too. Skeletons rarely do that by themselves. Somebody is watching us.”
“A necromancer, then? That is who we have stirred?”
“No, that is whom you have stirred,” Aestelle tossed her beaded blonde hair over one shoulder. “But that shouldn’t concern you. You paladins have all got your little book of faith to keep the dark denizens at bay.”
With her reference to the Eloicon, Aestelle moved to dismissively backhand the sacred book that was chained to Orion’s waist. He swiftly reached out to grab her wrist and drag it up away from the holy text. His anger flaring up instantly, he fixed his eyes on hers.
“Do not ever disrespect the word of the Shining Ones or their prophets again!” he snarled. “Not in my presence! Disrespect their word, and lady or not, I will put you down!”
Aestelle stood her ground and showed no obvious fear but met his stare with a neutral expression. It was the first time he had seen her without her arrogant exterior. He released her wrist and turned away.
“You’re right,” she said softly, “I overstepped the line. It’s your faith and I have to respect that. I’m sorry.”
Inhaling deeply, Orion took a few paces, but then remembered the traps in the previous tunnel and remained still. He lifted his Eloicon up and unlatched the book, opening it on a random page to search for clarity and inspiration. He saw a few notes written in the margin, questions for a priest that would never be answered. It was his uncle’s writing.
“Stay here,” Aestelle said, “give me a few minutes to look around. I’ll find a way out.”
Orion nodded. He dropped to one knee and closed the tome, placing a palm over the case and silently reciting a few prayers from the Book of Salvation. His anger subsided as the minutes passed. Orion had taken the book from Jahus’ side the day he had died, and his uncle’s Eloicon was what drove him to excel, to be the best warrior he could be. To never let anybody down again. Lost in his own thoughts, he fought to display mastery over his own mind by dispelling the memories of his uncle’s loss and replacing them with focus on the words of his prayers. He failed.
“Got it, I think,” Aestelle’s voice propelled him back to the present.
Orion looked over to see Aestelle running a finger along the edges of a rock that looked the same as any of the others that surrounded it on the chamber wall. She spent another few moments examining the nondescript stone before pushing one edge of it. The rock clicked into place in the wall, and a few paces down, an entire section of the wall rotated in place to reveal another passageway. Aestelle looked across to Orion and grinned broadly. Orion walked to catch her up as she peered tentatively into the newly revealed tunnel.
The passageway itself was short and covered in cobwebs. At one end, a spiral staircase had been carved into the corridor leading up toward the surface. At the other end, a similarly fashioned stairway led further down.
“Perfect,” Aestelle said, nodding at the second staircase, “that’ll lead to the main burial chamber, I’d wager.”
Orion looked across at her incredulously.
“That does not matter now,” he said sternly, “there is a way leading back to the surface. There are people waiting for us. Depending on us.”
“The burial chamber is where the riches are!” Aestelle snapped. “We have not fought off skeletons, traps, and trolls to walk away now! Do you have any idea how much we are likely to find down there?”
“You were paid to do a job!” Orion thundered, his temper flaring up again. “There is an entire army stranded up there, waiting for us to do our part! We carry on with the plan!”
“Just think for a second, you fool!” Aestelle met his anger with equal ferocity. “We’ve done most of the job already! How often do you think an opportunity like this just falls into one’s lap? I know these mountains, and I know burial chambers like these! There is one chamber left at the foot of those stairs – one! If we go in there and return whatever aberration is waiting for us to the grave, we’ll both walk away rich! I’ll split it with you straight down the middle, and that is generous considering how the workload has been split between us!”
“I do not want your treasure!” Orion snarled. “You have clearly misjudged me!”
“Don’t be so high and mighty!” Aestelle leaned in closer to point a finger in accusation at him. “Take your half of the money and do something good with it if you must! Go and pay for better beds in an orphanage or whatever paladins do, I don’t care! But we will finish the damn job! Unless you are content to leave some undead shit free to roam?”
“The job is to get back to the surface and fix the bridge so the force can bring in that bastard we are hunting down!” Orion growled. “That is the job! There is not a shred of proof that we have woken up anything, so do not try to use my morals against me just so that you can rob a tomb! I am going to carry out our task, with or without you!”
Orion barged his way past the tall woman and began to ascend the spiral staircase.
“Wait! If you blunder your way up there without my help, you’re dead! Do you understand? You will die without me!”
Orion stopped and looked back down the stairs at Aestelle.
“My comrades are relying on me to help them. Basilea is relying on us all to bring in a dangerous and evil man. They are my principles, and I am willing to die for them. Your principles are just money. There is nothing more to you than that. You go and die for your principles and allow me to die for mine.”
Orion continued to climb the staircase, leaving an ominous silence behind him for a few moments. Then he heard Aestelle growl a string of words he never thought he would hear uttered from a woman.
“Fine!” she snapped at last as she nimbly ascended the staircase behind him. “I’ll look after you! Again! You pig-headed, narrow-minded, clumsy f…”
***
The wind had picked up considerably over the course of the last hour. The majority of the soldiers had moved to take cover on the leeward side of the slope, huddled in against the rock face as the chilling wind whipped around and brought biting waves of drizzle with it. The moisture in the air settled into a thin mist, obscuring the horizons in all directions.
Tancred stood alone by the fallen bridge, shielding his streaming eyes to look up at the peak on the far side of the chasm. Still nothing. He paced up and down along the chasm lip, looking down at the half of the
bridge that had been recovered by a handful of the men-at-arms. All useless without a line to attach it to.
“Your man has been two hours now,” Hugh said as he walked across, his rich cloak flying out to one side in the wind. “We cannot afford to wait!”
“What is the alternative?” Tancred retorted, throwing his hands to either side. “We either repair this bridge or admit defeat! If we head back to the coast, then the trail is lost, and Dionne is so far ahead we might as well start from scratch!”
“I’d rather that than sit on a mountainside overnight, watching the weather close in when we have inadequate shelter!” the Dictator-Prefect countered. “We need to get off this peak and find some decent natural shelter to set up camp for the night!”
“Then go!” Tancred exclaimed. “But I shall wait here for my soldier!”
Hugh shook his head in despair and turned to leave.
“Such a waste,” he muttered.
“He will come through yet.”
“I didn’t mean your thug,” Hugh replied. “I couldn’t care less if he’s been crushed under a rock fall. I meant the girl.”
Tancred repressed an angry retort, turning away, and rested a hand on his Eloicon for comfort as the Dictator-Prefect walked back down the slope.
A thick, snaking rope flew through the gray sky to land on the lip of the chasm before falling to disappear into the darkness below. Tancred’s eyes widened.
“Over here!” he yelled back down the slope. “They’ve made it! They’re up there!”
Hugh immediately set about barking orders to his men. Ten men-at-arms were sprinting up the slope within seconds as Tancred looked up through the chill wind to see two hazy figures standing on the far side of the chasm. The taller of the two hauled the rope back in for a second attempt at bridging the gap between them.
“Here!” Tancred yelled. “Over here!”
Whether there was a reply or not, Tancred could not tell over the whistling of the wind through the chasm. He waited for a second attempt at a throw and saw Orion spin the end of the rope around before letting it fly through the air again. This time, Tancred was ready and caught the rope before it could disappear back into the chasm. He quickly set about tying it to one of the posts driven into the earth by the start of the bridge. Within moments, the second line was successfully across, and Hugh’s men carefully set about securing the first half of the bridge to its new lines. In less than an hour, the bridge was fully repaired, and Tancred followed Hugh and his aides across to the other side.