by Riley Keene
Their urgency was spurred on when they approached the inscribed stone.
The sconces along the wall had been filled with torches, filling the small space with a blinding light. There were scuff marks along the floor and wall as if many boots had entered the space and many bodies had tried to move through the area at once. The stone pillar itself was no longer present. In its place there was a gaping hole, reaching back into the recess of the wall.
Ermolt pushed forward at an increased pace while Elise tried to help Athala move quicker. The hallway was much better lit, with torches in nearly every sconce, meaning that Ermolt didn’t require the Conscript’s assistance with seeing.
Ahead, Ermolt spotted a trio of guards in one of the rooms deeper within the catacombs. They were wearing the padded armor of the prison guards, and they seemed to be paying more attention to their conversation than their surroundings.
He drew up short, waiting for Elise and Athala to catch up. The wizard was doing well with keeping the pace, but she gasped for breath as she came to a stop with them.
“Looks like he left some sentries,” Ermolt whispered, though aware that if the sound of his clanking armor hadn’t alerted them, his voice was unlikely to be overheard. It just made him feel better. “I don’t know if he has anything in place for them to get a warning to him directly, but we can’t let them leave the room.”
“The less they slow us down, the better,” Elise said. “He already has the stone, or it’s on the way, and he probably already has the door reassembled. We can’t lose any time here.”
“We don’t know that,” Athala panted. “The inscribed stone was large, and made of a heavier sort of stone.” She leaned down on her knees for a moment before remembering Elise’s advice earlier, standing up straight to open her airways. Ermolt smiled at her attempt to help herself. “Depending on how soon he had it pulled from the wall, we might even be able to catch it on the way there.”
“So, we don’t have time to waste fighting these guards?” Ermolt asked.
“Well,” Athala paused, her breathing still quite rapid. To Ermolt, it looked as if she was trying to fight the urge to collapse against the wall. “The sooner we get there, the more chance I have to catch my breath before we charge in?”
“We need to set a slower pace, then,” Elise said, looking at her friend with concern. “We need to be in fighting shape when we get there. I’d rather show up too late for the spell and have a chance to actually take Ingmar on in a fight than arrive before he has it and be overcome by his forces because we were out of breath from the sprint.”
“You southern folk.” Ermolt shook his head with a grin. “Such a fragile constitution. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the rabble so you two can be daisy-fresh for our appointment with the Deputy Warden.”
“You know—” Elise started, but the rest was lost as Ermolt turned and charged ahead at a dead sprint.
Ermolt waited until the clatter of his armor caused one of them guards to look up. He made eye contact with her and let loose a booming roar of challenge. The other two turned to look, eyes wide with surprise and fear. All three stared at him dumbfounded, and he covered the distance between them before they could parse what, exactly, was happening.
The metal-clad barbarian eschewed his weapon for the first blow, throwing his momentum behind his shoulder and slamming into the guard closest to the door. Ermolt rolled upwards, hurling the man into the air. He hit the ground flat on his back, sliding across the dusty floor to slam face-first into one of the piles of rotted furniture that still dotted the room.
Ermolt bellowed again, the sound filling the room as he brought his massive club around. The metal-banded head caught one of the other dumbfounded guards in the side, sending him immediately to the ground. With a groan, the man clutched what was probably at least one broken rib.
The third guard finally reacted, pulling out her baton and staring at Ermolt with wordless terror. Ermolt could almost see her trying to consider her odds against a plate-wearing barbaric titan wielding the better part of a tree. With a bloodthirsty grin, Ermolt locked eyes with her. He let his giant club hang to one side as he examined the terrified guard.
“Nice helmet,” Ermolt said. “Want me to test it, or would you rather just lay down and let us pass?”
“Uh, no. No! No.” The guard dropped her baton. “I surrender. I didn’t think you would—I mean. You’re definitely not dead. So. Um.”
“Oh!” Ermolt tried to make his smile a little less terrifying. “You must be from the prison. Did we meet there? Was it before or after they tried to execute us?”
“Ermolt,” Elise said from behind him as she and Athala entered the room. “We need to go.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Ermolt turned to the guard, letting his jovial smile fade into a suddenly furious snarl. “Get on the ground!”
The guard shrieked and dropped to the floor. A few fen away, the guard Ermolt had hit first sat up suddenly at the sound, covered in splinters of rotten wood and dust.
“Back down!” Ermolt bellowed, raising his club. “Stay on the floor or I will knock your head clean off your shoulders!” The man immediately flattened against the floor. Ermolt turned to Elise and Athala, returning to his usual tone of voice. “Time’s wasting! Let’s move!”
Elise grimaced, but decided not to say whatever she was thinking. Ermolt was positive it was her wanting to incapacitate the guards, but they had no time. It definitely wasn’t her wanting to correct or scold him in any way for taking charge. Not even a little.
Ermolt headed for the exit on the other end of the room, but stopped to turn back and watch his companions. Elise strode through the room confident enough, looking concerned however at Ermolt’s pause. Athala scurried through the room behind the two of them, holding her quarterstaff up as she eyed the prone guards distrustfully. As Ermolt suspected, they stayed down. Nothing like the threat of decapitation to help one avoid doing something stupid.
As they continued towards their destination, Ermolt took the lead down the lit hallway. It was encouraging that Ingmar had taken the time to light the whole place as any moment he had wasted was to their advantage. Elise kept pace with Athala, making sure she didn’t fall too far behind, occasionally calling Ermolt back when he got too far ahead.
Ermolt had to deal with a few giant rats or skeletons along the way, but beneath his massive weapon and against his polished plate, they were no trouble. He almost wished he had broken out the plate armor their first time through, as it would have saved them so much headache. And while running through the halls away from guards in this would have been impossible, there may have been a slim chance that he’d have been able to take on all of those guards who had come down the secret passage. Maybe.
When Ermolt got to the cave of fungus, he finally slowed to let his companions catch up. They were only a few moments from the chamber and he wanted to be sure everyone was prepared to fight.
“Are we ready?” Ermolt asked, almost impatiently as they caught up to him. His armor was dotted with rat blood and a thin coating of bone dust, and so Elise immediately started to inspect him for cuts or bruises, but he was fine. A good weapon and armor were no match for animated bones or misshapen rodents.
“We’ve still got time,” Athala said. She closed her eyes and tilted her head. “I can feel it in the air. He’s started the ritual already, but he’s not halfway through, yet.” She opened her eyes, looking from Elise to Ermolt. “I can stop him from the door, and we can clean up and take it all.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Athala didn’t know what to expect.
While she had spent a lot of time with Ingmar in what might have been considered an intimate nature by the sadistic wizard, Athala still didn’t know much about him. Was he the paranoid person who would bring hundreds of guards to protect him, the arrogant person who brought two or three guards and trust them to keep him alive, or would he be sensible and bring enough to protect him, but not enough to hinder?
The sanctum, as Ingmar had called it, wasn’t a small room, so many could fit inside comfortably. What if they walked to their doom, just because they didn’t know enough about their enemy?
Athala struggled with her worry, knowing that her companions would think she were silly to be concerned over such a thing. They were outfitted for war, so it mattered little if they were facing one or scores. Eventually, things would work out one way or another.
Up ahead, there were guards flanking the door, but they were staring back into the sanctum as Ermolt, Elise, and Athala rounded the last corner. Ermolt slowed to a snail’s pace to move as quietly as possible in his heavy armor, while Elise and Athala were able to scurry ahead. Elise only needed to hold her arms still to quiet the clank of pauldrons on breastplate, and Athala was able to move at a normal walking pace with little more than a slight chiming of chain.
Standing just outside the door, Athala saw what had captured the guards’ attention.
Inside the room, atop the altar, Ingmar was reciting the spell, in a strong, even tone that vibrated along the walls of the sanctum. He even gestured dramatically as he went, which Athala knew was completely for show as a ritual spell of this nature required no hand motions. At the base of the dais, the inscribed stone sat next to the reassembled door, propped up like two guard dogs flanking the stairs.
On Ingmar’s right was another man in long, flowing robes who stared down into the transparent altar, having eyes only for the dragon imprisoned below. Athala could barely make him out at this distance, but he had a very hollow look to his face.
There were a little more than ten guards around the room, and they were all fixated on Ingmar as his voice filled the room with syllables that bubbled with power. Somehow Athala had suspected that Ingmar would be practical rather than paranoid or egotistical, but she couldn’t have been sure before this point.
Athala took a glance behind her, noting Ermolt creeping up awkwardly as he held himself to minimize the noise. With a broad smile to both of her companions, Athala nodded and stepped forward into the doorway. Elise tensed behind her, ready to jump forward if either of the guards moved. Athala stopped herself almost directly between the two guards, and she belted out a Draconian phrase of her own, her hands molding the spell before pointing it at Ingmar.
Ingmar stopped mid-word and blinked down at the altar. The room fell silent, and then burst into murmured whispers of confusion. When he was able to move again he looked first over at his robed companion, and then finally down at Athala. Multiple expressions swam across his face in rapid succession—confusion, disbelief, anger—and Athala grinned and wiggled the fingers of her previously broken hand up at him.
Around the room the guards turned to follow his gaze to the newcomer. The two right next to the door almost jumped with a start. It was as if they had believed the second voice was part of Ingmar’s ritual until seeing her right in front of them.
Athala’s heart pounded in her chest at the sight of so many guards focused on her. But she stood proud and tall, drawing on her will once more, before she motioned to Elise.
Elise stepped past Athala and grabbed one of the confused guards next to the door by the shoulder, shoving him away before he could attack. She brought her shield up and she fell in next to Athala. The Conscript seemed ready to protect her from the other if necessary, but the man hadn’t moved yet.
Up on the dais, as Ingmar struggled to push through the magic-induced mental fog, the magic in the air faded harmlessly, the delay between syllables too long for the ritual to hold its form. Athala’s grin grew wider.
“You?” Ingmar said at last, his voice almost sounding sleepy through the effect of Athala’s spell. “What are you—how?”
Athala squinted up at him, trying to get a good look at the man. His eyes were sunken into the sockets, and large dark circles rimmed the underneath. His chin was covered in a thin spattering of stubble that may have been attractive if he hadn’t found so much joy in stabbing and cutting her. “You look exhausted, Ingmar. Did you not sleep last night?” Athala looked around the room at the gathered guards, and then back up to the two men on the dais. “Oh, my. Did it really take you all night to get this far? It did, didn’t it?” She burst into laughter, only stilling to flash another sarcastic smile.
“How are you still alive?” he yelled, finally shaking off the lingering effects of her spell. “How did you escape?”
“You have bags under your eyes,” Athala continued. Pride and pity mingled in her mind, turning her will into solid steel. “It’s obvious you didn’t sleep at all. I mean, how pitiful is that? You worked through the night and you are just getting to the ritual now? Meanwhile I sat in a cell all night, avoided being beheaded in the morning, escaped Auernheim, and then still had time to get changed and take the long way through the catacombs. I mean, I knew you were a bad wizard, but this is ridiculous.”
“Friends of yours?” the robed figure asked, looking away from the dragon beneath the dais at last. Athala still couldn’t make out his features from this distance, and it was made worse when he lifted his hood and drowned his face in shadow. “I should hope so. She seems quite astute for one so young.”
“These are the—” Ingmar started. “Actually, it’s not important, sir. They have come here to steal the spell. I don’t know how they managed to keep their scheme for the dragon a secret from me, but whatever they plan, it runs against your interests. They need to be dealt with immediately.”
“Will you be needing my assistance with that as well?” the robed figure said, his voice cold enough to run a shiver down Athala’s spine. “You have served me very well up until this day. I would hate to have the conclusion of your service be so marred by failure.”
“No, not at all, sir.” Ingmar scowled as he turned to look around the room at the gathered soldiers. “I hired these men for a reason, and it was not for their transcription skills. Surely you don’t doubt their strength of arms.”
“I had not doubted last night, as only a great fool would bring incompetent men to fight a dragon,” the hooded figure snapped back. The man glanced back down at the dragon imprisoned beneath the dais. “But my patience and confidence are both waning in equal measure.”
“Let them deal with the intruders,” Ingmar said, and Athala almost felt bad for the man. He looked, and sounded, like a hound begging for another chance at chasing a kill. “I promise, you will feel more confident once you see them in action.”
“I am unsure that seeing a dozen men butcher two women would impress me,” the man said sharply.
“Well, that’s just rude.” Ermolt said as he walked up to stand on Athala’s other side, his giant club resting on his shoulder. He smiled down at Athala and she could see the pride radiating in his eyes. “I’m pretty sure Elise could take you all on herself if she had half a mind to.”
“Hm.” The hooded man seemed to size Ermolt up, and looked around at Ingmar’s men as they moved to form a protective line between the door and the dais. “Yes. I find myself on the last shreds of both confidence and patience.”
“Polearms,” Ermolt said quietly, shaking his head. “I knew it.”
“Get them!” Ingmar shouted down at his guards, pointing toward Athala and her companions. “Stop standing around gawking and kill them!”
Chapter Forty
The guards charged and Ermolt and Elise stepped up to face them, letting Athala drop back behind them. They faced an oncoming wall of sharp polearms, but Elise didn’t feel concerned.
Instead, she brought her shield up once more. She set her feet and tilted her shield upwards. The first blows were deflected up over her head, unbalancing those holding the weapons she blocked. She swiped her mace at the polearms that lanced past her, cracking the haft of one of the weapons and driving the points of the others down into the floor before one or more of the guards could try and rush past her to attack Athala.
Ermolt was an unstoppable wall beside her. His fancy armor was put to the te
st, and it was well prepared for the onslaught. He twisted to one side and brought his club around in a sweep that parried aside the polearms that would have struck him straight-on.
The attacks that came in at angles glanced harmlessly off of the thick plate of his armor. He brought his weapon around from the parry and swung the club back into the oncoming soldiers in a diagonal smash. His swing glanced off the side of a helmet before it impacted more solidly in a man’s shoulder. The splint pauldron buckled and Elise swore she could hear the pop of the shoulder joint. The man hit the floor and stayed there, howling at the pain of his dislocated shoulder and the armor bent around it. The guard whose helmet Ermolt clipped twisted away, backing off the line to avoid being an easy target while she recovered from the blow.
“Get them!” Ingmar yelled from behind the altar. “Stop fooling around and get them!”
From behind Elise, Athala flung a bolt of fire up at the screaming wizard, forcing him to duck down. The arc of the flame narrowly missed his shoulder. He began to rattle out the Draconian phrases of his own spell, his words echoing off the altar he hid behind. When at last he stood he hurled a shimmering blue-white dagger at Athala, forcing her to throw herself to the ground to avoid the magical glittering weapon.
“Well, you seem to have things well in hand.” The robed man remarked as he turned and walked down the dais, away from the fight and towards the door at the back of the room. Despite his calm tone, there was an urgency in his pace.
“Sir!” Ingmar called back to him. “Sir, please, I have this under control.” His pleading fell on deaf ears as the man kept walking. Ingmar directed his fury back to the fight unfolding below, barking out the syllables that called another dagger to his hand.
Ermolt let loose a rolling, bellowing laugh. He took a defensive stance, focusing the movements of his club on deflecting the polearms that would be direct hits to unbalance him, or that were more carefully aimed at the gaps in the joints of his armor. He let the rest glance harmlessly off the metal plates. It was almost as if he enjoyed the feeling of invulnerability as eight men tried to kill him and were unable to penetrate his focused defenses. His mocking laughter helped him to keep their attention while Elise and Athala dealt with the soldiers who had not elected to waste their time testing his armor.