After a brief walk down the same rocky path, they came to their first junction. Two paths opened up to their right and left, running perpendicular to the main tunnel. The group slowed as they approached the openings, everyone except Ean who sniffed at the air. The hound sniffed a few times at the path to the right, then the one to the left, and returned to Ean's side. Ean got the distinct feeling that the hound smelled something, but whatever it was did not cause the beast any anxiety.
"Humans have been down here very recently," Azalea whispered, a small frown touching her lips. "More than a few. They were in a great deal of pain as well."
"How do you know?" Ean whispered back.
"Their body odor is faint, but the emotions they left behind remain strong. It's a confusing mixture of pain and pleasure. It tastes...wrong."
The Yulari seemed to lose herself in her thoughts, so Ean turned his attention to Zin. "Which way should we go?"
"Straight. These two side paths are new. The Living Dead must have dug them out sometime after my old master died. The first real sections of my master's old lair start much, much deeper down."
"Alright then, let's keep going."
"The humans went straight..." Azalea said, still sounding a bit off.
Ean shrugged and started down the path, this time pulling Azalea along behind him. Zin fell behind for a moment until he realized he was close enough to touch the hound, then quickly jogged up past both Ean and Azalea. Ean would have laughed if he wasn't so nervous.
They continued on, passing more junctions with a single path to either side or two like the one they had passed. Each time the paths ran perpendicular and away from the main one, vanishing into darkness. They paused at each for only a moment, Zin instructing them to continue on each time. Azalea kept a slightly confused look to her face as Ean dragged her on, but it lessened at each junction. Either the tastes were fading or she was getting used to them.
When they finally reached two branching paths running diagonally in either direction, Zin called the group to halt.
"Home, sweet home," the imp announced. "This is where my old master's domain truly starts. The tunnel to the left goes down to where the kennels and Carnslug hatchery used to be. Straight ahead leads to the quarters where the various hordes of creatures he controlled used to live. Finally, this way," he pointed to the right, "leads to my old master's throne room and personal lodgings. All of the paths eventually connect, of course, but the path to the right is the most straightforward way to where we should look first."
"Wait," Ean said, releasing Azalea and moving closer to the imp. "If it's so easy to get to, wouldn't it be likely that the people in the village below would have looted everything there already?"
"They might have found some trinkets or statues, but I doubt they would have been able to enter his inner sanctuary. That was magically locked behind stone doors."
"But we'll be able to get in?"
Pointing at Ean's glowing arm and side, the imp smiled. "With those tattoo lamps we will. I'm sure of it."
"Then let's press on," Azalea said, her mouth twisted in a frown. "I'm really starting to not like this place. Plus, we do still have that angry mob somewhere behind us. By now they've probably found the remains of their friends, so I'm sure they want young Ean's blood more than ever."
"Good point," Zin said and immediately began walking down the path to the right. The others followed along quickly.
As they moved down the path, Ean began to notice that the walls down this path were slightly different. Still consisting of the black rock of the mountains, the walls of this path were much smoother. Moving a bit closer, Ean thought he could even see a few designs running down the walls. It made him more excited about exploring the lair.
The path began to snake in one direction and then the other. It made a sharp turn to the left, followed by a sharp right turn, then another abrupt left. At every sharp turn they would move ahead slowly, being careful just in case something jumped out at them. By the fourth sharp turn with nothing around the corner they began to relax. Unfortunately at the fifth sharp turn, they found that the pathway was completely caved in.
"Well, this is just wonderful," Azalea mumbled.
"How was I supposed to know this section had a cave-in?" Zon shot back. "It's not like I've been here recently."
"One excuse after another. You're no better than every other insignificant speck of your kind. If anything, you are more annoying than the average imp because you can talk."
"I can bite, too, you ugly Brayurat. I don't know why I agreed to convince Ean to let you come along in the first place. You'll probably turn on us the first chance you get."
"Yes, I really showed my disloyalty when I saved Ean's life TWICE so far. And don't even try to act like you are completely on his side. You really don't want to go there, imp."
Striding in-between the two, Ean raised his hands to signal calm. "Enough, both of you."
The Yulari and imp continued to glare at each other but remained quiet. After a few moments, Zin threw his hands in the air in disgust and stormed back to the corner. Azalea stuck her tongue out at the imp as he went then turned her attention to Ean.
"You really don't need the imp around, you know. The two of us and your mutt would be fine without him."
"Zin has always been with me. He is the most loyal person I know." Ean raised his hands quickly in a calming fashion as he saw Azalea's eyebrows rise. "That's not saying I don't trust you. I appreciate everything you've done for me. But Zin is part of our group, and you two have to try to get along. At least until we get out of here."
"But that little stain..."
"Azalea, please, at a minimum, try not to push his buttons as much?"
"Fine, fine. I'll leave the imp alone, for as long as we are down here and in danger."
"Thank you. That's all I ask."
"If you two are done," Zin said from his spot by the corner. "We should probably get back to the main junction. The next quickest path will be past the living quarters and the kitchen. Hopefully, that mob has not reached the first junction yet or gone off in another direction."
"That sounds like an excellent idea!" Azalea exclaimed with a bit too much enthusiasm. "We will certainly follow your lead since you know this area the best."
Zin just stared at her, his mouth slightly open. Shaking his head, Ean walked away from them and was the first to head back. The two of them were eventually going to drive him insane--if his powers didn't corrupt him first.
Moving along at a brisk pace, Ean tried not to think about that possibility. The others followed along behind him, and they began to make their way back to the main junction. They reached the last major curve before the beginning of the lair. Ean slowed down and waved the hound to come up next to him. The hound trotted up to his side.
"Is there anything up ahead?" Ean asked the hound and got a blank stare in return. Scratching at his head, he tried to figure out the right words or thoughts. He had never had a pet before; not many people in the village had pets either. So his experience with intelligent animals was limited.
"Danger?" he pointed ahead of them. He tried to project the feelings of fear and caution through the bond that he shared with the hound. The dog immediately tensed, its attention focused ahead of them. Taking a few steps, it sniffed at the air then waited. Then it took a few more steps and repeated the action. It did this a few times then looked back at Ean. A wave of confusion washed over Ean through the bond.
"Nothing, huh?" That made Ean relax just a bit. Maybe the mob wasn't going to be as big a concern as he had thought. Ean was glad to have something to be happy about. Trusting the hound's sense of smell, Ean continued on at a faster pace, the hound at his side and his other two companions behind him. Glancing back he smiled slightly at the two of them, which earned him a smirk from Azalea and a frown from Zin.
It also made him miss seeing the armored man come striding into the junction at the exact same moment he did.
The tw
o of them collided with a thud, the man's red armor absorbing most of the impact for him while Ean was knocked squarely off his feet. He fell back with a grunt, bouncing twice before coming to a stop a pace or two from the wall.
Azalea was at his side in an instant, grabbing him by the arm and lifting him up. Her eyes were on the path that lead back out of the mountain. A low snarl came out of her mouth that Ean would have expected more from the hound than the Yulari. Once Ean was finally on his feet and got some of the air back in his lungs, he was able to look up at what Azalea was staring at.
Ten, red armored men stood at the opening to the path back, each one holding a long wooden pole with a nasty spiked blade on the end. Behind those men and the ten spears all pointed directly at Ean, looked to be the entire town. Men and women of various size and all manner of clothing stretched back as far as Ean could see, each blue face staring at him with a mixture of hate and fear.
"Do not move," said a familiar voice from behind the guards. Two of the red clad guards moved to the side, and the man named Ulften stepped between them. "Surround them."
As a single unit, eight guards circled around Ean and Azalea, separating them from the hound and the now missing Zin. The two remaining guards placed themselves in front of the hound. Ean wanted to try to figure out where the imp had gone already, but the guards put the tips of their spears practically in his face. Once they were properly surrounded, Ulften stepped forward into the ring of guards.
"I'm not one to waste time on words," he said, addressing Ean. "I want to know how you killed one of our people, where you found that monstrosity," he pointed to the hound, "and I want to know how you came to wear those runes on your body."
Ean remained quiet, letting a few wheezing breathes of air back into his body. He shot the hound a look through the guards, sending the feeling of danger through their bond. The dog tilted his head and returned the feeling of confusion. It didn't consider any of those surrounding them as dangerous. No wonder it hadn't given any warning. What did a creature as big and potentially vicious as a hound consider dangerous?
"My name is Ean. I'm just a simple Healer--"
"Maybe I didn't make myself clear," Ulften said, cutting him off. "I don't care who you are or where you are from. I want the answers to the three questions I asked. Now."
"I don't really know how I killed your man. It was an accident." Ean drew out every word, trying to think. "He grabbed me and then, well, you saw what happened next."
"Yes, I saw a man I've known for close to two hundred years, a man that has been with me almost since the founding of our town, reduced to dust in less time than it took you to answer just one of the questions I asked. And a poor answer it was."
"Kill the girl," he said as casually as if he was telling his men to fetch him lunch.
"Now wait a minute," Ean said, pulling himself out of Azalea's grip and standing in front of her. "There is no need--"
"You had your chance to talk," Ulften said, cutting him off again. "Now, you get to see how serious I really am. I hope after she dies, you--"
A loud moan from behind Ean interrupted Ulften. Every eye turned to the middle tunnel behind Ean, the one that was supposed to lead towards the living quarters. Ean glanced quickly at Azalea and saw that same confused look on her face. She seemed slightly tense but not overly worried.
"What was that?" Ulften said, his voice not hiding his annoyance. "Who else is with you?"
Another moan, quickly followed by another higher-sounding one filled the junction. A third joined it, then a fourth and more and more until it sounded like a pack of creatures in pain. Straining his eyes, Ean thought he could make out movement on the edge of the darkness down the tunnel.
"What other things have you brought into our mines?" Ulften was at Ean's side now, the man clearly not afraid of him or what he had done to his friend.
"Whatever it is, I had nothing to do with it."
Ulften seemed to consider this for a few moments and then motioned to the guards. The majority moved into the opening to the corridor leading to the living quarters with only the two guarding the hound remaining in place. Even as tall as he was, Ean had to stretch slightly to see past the line of guards. And all the while the moaning grew louder.
SOMETHING SHUFFLED OUT OF the darkness. Ean's eyes were immediately drawn to its face. The familiar face of one of the men snatched from the caravan in the middle of the night stared back at him. Ean's jaw slowly dropped. The face was the only thing that still looked even remotely human.
Attached to that human head was a body bloated and scarred with boney spikes sticking out randomly over its entire torso. Tan human shoulders extended into grey arms, two to each shoulder. Where those grey arms reached the elbow, the flesh seemed to be torn apart. From those wounds extended one singular bone claw from each elbow, twice the length of an average man's forearm, as if the bone had shot out and torn through where the hands used to be. Its legs looked like they were put on backwards, the knees bending towards its back, while stumpy feet faced forward.
The man, or what had been a man, was a nightmare, the likes of which Ean had never seen, and judging by the few steps back the guards had taken, it was a new sight for them as well.
"By the gods..." Ulften breathed, a hand going to his mouth. He made a gagging noise, which was surprising coming from a man who had casually ordered two separate deaths earlier this night.
More monstrosities started to shuffle into the light, each just as horrible to behold and groaning loudly. They were grossly distorted human beings, each unique and grotesque in its own way, with boney projections sticking out like pins in a cushion or long blades, the flesh hanging off in shreds. They shambled along on their backward legs, slowly making their way towards where Ean's group and the Living Dead were all gathered.
Though their bodies were no longer recognizable as human, the faces on each abomination remained untouched. In a way that was worse, because he was able to attach a name to each face of the men that had disappeared from the caravan. They all wore the same expression, a mixture of pain and ecstasy. That was probably what Azalea had been smelling the whole time, what these poor souls were feeling as they shuffled around.
Ean counted seven now, two less than the total that had gone missing, which meant either the other two had left the caravan like everyone thought, or they were walking around somewhere deeper in the lair. Ean couldn't pull his gaze away from these monstrosities, but thankfully Ulften was more in control of his wits.
"Men, line up," he said, his voice strained. "Those monsters must be put down. We can deal with this murderer afterwards."
He almost felt bad for the monsters that had at one time been men. Did they even realize what they had become? Or were they just mindless creatures? And most importantly, who or what had done this to them?
"Spears at the ready..." Ulften said, his eyes locked on the creatures.
They were only a dozen or so paces away now. Ean could clearly see their eyes, vacant and staring off into space.
"Aim straight for their heads." Ulften sounded more confident now. As grotesque as the creatures were, they moved slowly and would make easy targets for the men. Ean continued looking at those poor faces as they moaned away.
The creatures moved slowly, their vacant eyes seemingly devoid of all thought. But in the blink of an eye, the look changed from blank to unbridled fury. With surprising speed, they burst into action, sprinting across the mine to crash into the line of guards. Which is why he was probably the only one that saw the eyes of the creature closest to them snap forward and focus on the guards. Caught flat-footed, the majority of the guards went down, the creatures on top of them. Those sharp protruding bones stabbed and slashed at their armor, but were turned away by the red plated armor. The guards that were still on their feet tried to adjust their spears into play, but there just wasn't room with the creatures right on top of them.
Ean backed away quickly from the melee but couldn't tear his eyes away fro
m it.
"Help them, you fools!" Ulften's voice cut through the clatter of bone on armor. He was gesturing wildly now towards the two remaining guards that were guarding the hound.
The two men took one look at the hound then moved to join in the fray. With more space, the two men began jabbing their spears into the creatures wrestling with their fellow guards. The spear tips went into the beasts easily, slicing through the skin. Each time they were pulled back out, the barbs on the blades tore the gashes wider, pulling off bits and chunks of flesh.
Rounding on the men still standing, the fleshy monsters seemed to ignore the wounds they were receiving and pushed past the spears to engage the men. Bone hooks and claws slashed and poked at the men's armor, each deflected blow evoking an annoyed moan from the recipient. Most of the men had discarded their spears now and had pulled smaller blades from belts. The daggers slid into the unprotected bodies just as easily as the spears, with the frantic stabs of the guards doing more damage than they would have if they had tried to be more precise.
While the brawl raged, neither side seemed to gain an advantage. The monsters' bone blades were unable to cause any damage to the guards' armor, while the fair amount of damage the guards were causing with their blades did not seem to slow the monsters down in the slightest. In fact, many of the wounds on their bodies stopped bleeding soon after they were created. It seemed as if the two groups would be locked in battle until one side simply ran out of energy.
But then one of the creatures was able to get its sharp bones into the small divide between a guard's chest plate and leg grieves.
The guard stiffened as the bone blade slid into the armor and pierced the poor man's stomach. A gasp of pain escaped from underneath the armored helmet he wore while a moan of triumph accompanied the limp grin that spread across the creature's face. Sensing the weakness, the creature's other three bone spikes flicked into the same space as the original one. The spikes slipped in between the armor easily directly into flesh and lifted him completely off the ground. The guard flailed for a few moments, suspended in the air, until with a sickening crunch the creature pulled its four bone protrusions apart.
Descent Into Darkness (Book 2) Page 25