Guards Vestige

by Alexander Adams

  “I know they can,” Austin said. “It’s just a question of what happens to them afterwards.”

  Austin had them stop just outside a home that seemed largely unharmed by the blaze. He knocked on the door four times before turning the handle, then waited another few moments before pushing it open and stepping inside. They followed him in and shut the door behind them. The moment he was inside, Daniel felt a wave of relief pass over him, which was only reinforced when Kenneth stepped through a door on the other side of the room.

  Kenneth smiled wide, strode across the room, and placed a hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Glad to see you made it through, lad.”

  Daniel smiled back. “Me too.”

  Kenneth’s eyes took in the rest of the group. “Well,” he said, “let’s get out of here while we can, shall we?”

  He led them to the room he’d just come from. Inside, Claudia stood with sword in hand next to a slab of stone that had been removed from the floor; it now sat diagonally over part of a hatchway that revealed a set of stairs leading down into the earth. Claudia smiled wide at each of them as they stepped past her and down. Kenneth had Aaron and Zachery help him slide the slab back over the opening before moving to the front and leading the way.

  The stairwell was longer than Daniel would have guessed, but then so was the spiral staircase he’d gone down during his last trip into the catacombs of Vigil. The memory sent shivers down his spine, so he pushed it aside and instead focused on the barely visible form of Kenneth in front of them. After nearly five minutes of descending in the dark, a flicker of torchlight appeared ahead of them. Shortly after, they stepped into a brightly lit annex, a square room with two tunnels leading out, one blocked by a heavy iron gate that was locked and rusted. The other tunnel featured a similar gate, though it hung wide open with a torch set into a wall mount next to it.

  Claudia gently pushed past everyone and stood next to the open gate. “How about we all take a moment to catch our breath?” she said.

  Kenneth crossed his arms. “Catch our breath?” he said. “We’ve barely–” Claudia’s glare apparently made him reconsider his words. “Ah, well, uh . . . yes, that descent was rather taxing.”

  Claudia began checking each of them for injuries. When Daniel said he was fine, she gave him the same glare she’d given Kenneth and he quickly acquiesced. Daniel smiled as she stepped away from him and began looking over Griffon. He’d forgotten how intimidating the scholar could be—in a loving way, of course. Kenneth stood to one side of the gate, his arms still crossed, watching her do her work.

  Austin, however, was pacing. His eyes were focused on his feet and he tapped his finger on his chin. He was clearly eager to get out of the city. Yet Daniel sensed there was something more. After spending so much time with Austin, he knew many of his mannerisms. The ranger was nervous.

  When Claudia finally finished, Austin turned to the open gate. “We better get moving,” he said. “We need to get out of these tunnels, I don’t fancy the idea of the city coming down on top of us.”

  Daniel sighed and stood. His whole body felt weak and heavy. It was a struggle to move. But in spite of the fatigue, he still managed to follow through the gate.

  “How long is this tunnel?” Clara asked.

  Kenneth answered from the front. “Quite long. It goes all the way to the other side of city, then comes out on the beach a short distance from the harbor.”

  Daniel heard Aaron behind him. “Did Obadiah ever report back?”

  Austin shook his head. “No. Chances are that when we had to start sending people down, he was on his way back and got pushed back out. Knowing him, he’s probably leading everyone away now.”

  “How many people made it down here?” Aaron asked.

  “By my count,” Claudia said, “it was seventy-four city guards, nine Dragon Guards not including ourselves or Obadiah’s squad, and two hundred fifty-six civilians.”

  Daniel felt his heart skip with each number. There were so few left. Besides their team and Obadiah’s group, out of the entire population of Vigil only three hundred thirty-nine remained. The Kridens had wiped out the entire city in hours. He wondered if there was anything else that could have been done to save more people, something to counter the sudden appearance of the dragons that burned so many away. He wondered if there was something that might have saved Alan.

  That line of thought quickly brought him back to the scene in the alley, his failure to stop the valgret, and then Lace appearing. He was still trying to figure out what had actually happened. She had seemed so distraught and confused. Her behavior simply didn’t make any sense to him. How had she had cracked the ground and soothed the monster? There was no explanation he could come up with that didn’t lead back to magic. Magic like what Dalton had done to him. The magic that had stolen his breath and made it feel as if his heart had been in a vice, about to explode.

  He was still lost in his own thoughts when he ran into Griffon, who had stopped walking. He looked past her and saw that the others had stopped as well.

  Austin sniffed the air several times. “Does anyone else smell that?”

  The air was heavily tinted with a scent much like iron. Which meant blood. For the smell to be this strong, there had to be a lot of it.

  Jane was the first to voice it: “Blood.”

  Kenneth drew his sword slowly. “That’s not a good sign.”

  Everyone else drew their own weapons. Daniel removed his bow and grabbed his string from his belt. He looped it over one end, then placed the same side against the ground and planted his foot against it to anchor it against his shin, with the curve of the bow resting against the back of his thigh. He pushed the arm of the bow forward and down, bending it far enough to pull the other loop of the string over the hook. He released it, letting it bend back into shape and pulling the string taunt. He tested it before grabbing an arrow from his quiver. Jane also strung her bow and nocked an arrow.

  Kenneth looked back over the group to direct them. “Claudia takes the rear,” he said. “Austin and I will have the lead. Everyone else get between us.”

  They took their positions. Austin grabbed a hand axe from his belt before starting forward again with Kenneth at his side.

  Clara’s voice quivered as she spoke: “It’s probably Disciples, right? Ones that the forward squad killed to clear the way?”

  No one answered. They all hoped that was the case, but Daniel felt it was unlikely due to the strength of the smell. He just hoped it wasn’t as bad as he envisioned. He was uneasy about everything he was seeing. The tunnel was identical to the one he’d been in several months ago, poorly lit with wall sconces and carved from solid stone. The only difference was that the smell of mildew and rot that had been present previously was now being overpowered by the metallic odor of blood. His mind flashed to the image of the valgret holding his sword as it died in a pool of its own blood. Then it went to Alan being held by one of the monsters as life left his eyes.

  Daniel felt himself shaking. He was soaked with sweat and shivered as the images kept flashing through his head. His hearing was being drowned out by his own heart again. He snapped out of it only when he felt a hand lightly touch his shoulder. He turned to see Clara behind him, concern clearly evident on her face. He faked a smile and turned back around. He had to focus. He pushed everything out of his mind and concentrated on the feeling of the bowstring against his fingers.

  He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Daniel thought that aside from the smell of blood there was another scent that was altogether out of place. It was musky, almost like sweat, but more pungent. It was familiar to him but he couldn’t place it. They all kept walking in cautious silence. No one wanted to speak for fear of alerting some unseen force in the dark. In addition to the new underlying scent, the smell of blood grew steadily stronger with each step. After several minutes of walking it began to make Daniel feel s
ick.

  Austin stopped ahead of them and whispered: “Oh, no.”

  Daniel and the others at the back stepped forward to see what had caught his attention. But before he had taken even two steps forward, Daniel felt his feet nearly slip out from under him. He glanced down and saw that he stood in a large puddle of blood. It seemed to have flowed toward them from ahead. He pulled his eyes away and made his way forward to look past Kenneth and Austin. What he saw caused his stomach to turn. He had to move away from the others and vomit.

  The tunnel walls and floors were soaked with blood. Bodies lay across every inch, as far down the tunnel as he could see. Every one of them was maimed beyond any possible recognition, with limbs missing and sections of flesh stripped away entirely. The first dozen before them wore the armor of the city watch, followed by corpses wearing the simple clothes of the citizens of Vigil. Daniel’s heart sank. The Dragon Guard had thought this tunnel would be a safe passage to evacuate the citizens, but North had been right. The Disciples controlled the tunnels once again.

  Daniel thought of Hall and the other captains. They’d remained above to stall and hopefully kill the dragons. Yet even if they succeeded, chances were high that they would die in the city above. Their sacrifice at this point meant nothing. The ones they had been attempting to buy time for were already dead. Every citizen in Vigil was dead. The last of them lay here before Daniel.

  Aaron’s voice cracked with fear: “What happened to them?”

  Kenneth started forward, stepping carefully over corpses as he did. “I’ve never seen carnage like this,” he said.

  Daniel retreated further from the smell and looked back the way they had come. He felt lightheaded and braced himself against the wall with one hand. Clara had her eyes closed and her arms crossed, her back to the carnage, as she stood even further than he was from the group. She was shaking.

  Jane whispered behind him: “They look like they were trying to run away.”

  “That they do,” Austin said as he knelt beside one of the bodies. “Every one of them.”

  As much as he wanted to keep his eyes off of the massacre, Daniel turned and looked at the scene in front of them. Most of the bodies lay face down, toward them.

  Claudia had a hand over her mouth. “What would they be running from?”

  “Whatever it was,” Austin said, “if they were running from it, than that means it was coming this way. It was probably waiting at the exit, until they were far enough into the tunnel that even if they ran, it wouldn’t matter.”

  “Which means,” Kenneth said, “it most likely reached the annex before we descended.”

  “Since it didn’t come out the hatchway,” Austin said, “that means it most likely went back the way it came. This could be very good for us . . . or more likely, very bad.”

  Claudia placed a hand on Clara’s shoulder to gently lead her back into the middle of the group. “Let’s hope for the former,” she said.

  Austin nodded. “Either way, we need to keep moving.”

  Clara turned to him with wide eyes. “You mean through . . . that?”

  Claudia looked her in the eyes. “Clara,” she said, “it’s the fastest way out of the city. I know it will be difficult, but you have to keep going.”

  After a few moments of hesitation, Clara nodded. Claudia stood behind her with a hand on each shoulder as the group started to walk. Daniel wanted to keep his eyes straight ahead and off of the bodies, but that wasn’t always possible. They all had to look at their feet to ensure they wouldn’t trip. While most of the bodies lay face down, many were face up. Their expressions were twisted in terror. Each one reminded Daniel of Alan. Each time the young boy’s face flashed through his mind, Daniel felt a little weaker.

  The group made steady progress. After ten minutes, they were still stepping over bodies, with more ahead of them. There seemed to be no end to them.

  Jane sounded calmer than Daniel would have expected. “Did any of them make it out?” she asked.

  “At this point,” Austin said with a heavy sigh, “I don’t think so.”

  Clara was nearly whimpering. “So, all of Vigil is . . . ?”

  “No,” Kenneth said, his tone strong in spite of the situation. “We’re still alive.”

  Despite Kenneth’s words, they all knew what the true answer was. The entire city had been overrun and burnt to the ground in less than a night. Daniel wasn’t even sure he and the other survivors would be able to make it out. If whatever had done this was still down here, how would they be able to handle it? The farther into the tunnel they went, the more the second scent started to overpower his senses. He knew what it was but he couldn’t bring it to the forefront of his mind.

  Kenneth seemed to finally notice it himself. “What is that odor?” he asked.

  “I’ve been trying to figure that out,” Austin said. “It seems . . . familiar.”

  Claudia furrowed her brow. “It’s definitely out of place down here.”

  “Smells like an animal of some kind,” Jane said slowly as she too tried to place the source.

  That was what triggered it in Daniel’s mind. It was an animal. He had smelled it hundreds of times in the forest around Sapella’s Crossing. “It smells,” he said, “like an elk.”

  Kenneth sounded confused. “An elk? Why in Edaren would an elk be down here?”

  Austin was at the head of the group. He stopped walking. “An elk,” he said. His look of concentration slowly turned to fear. “We have to get out of here now.”

  “Why?” Kenneth said. “What’s . . . ” He stopped speaking, as if a realization had come over him.

  Seemingly in answer, a cry echoed through the tunnels. Daniel recognized it immediately as the sound of a bull elk, a long and drawn-out bugle followed by several short and breathy grunts. Yet this was different than a standard elk bugle. It sounded hollow. It sounded wrong. It instantly made Daniel tense and reminded him of how the wolf howls had sounded as the Disciples changed it and the woman into a valgret. Into a monster.

  Kenneth growled angrily as he spoke: “Shade curse it, it’s in front of us!”

  Aaron drew his sword. “What is? What’s down here?”

  “A wirvus.”

  “So what do we do?” Aaron asked.

  Austin took a deep breath, “Hope it’s not directly in front of us. We can’t go back into the city and this is the only way out of the tunnels that isn’t collapsed or exits into the city itself. If we’re lucky it’s in one of the side passages and we can pass right by it without even seeing it.”

  “If it’s not?” Jane asked hesitantly.

  “Pray.”

  They all started running down the tunnel in the direction of the elk bugle. There was no point now in worrying about being heard. Even if the creature hadn’t been able to hear them before, it would have been able to smell them. They were jumping over bodies as they ran. Several times, Daniel slipped in the blood that soaked the floor. Each time he landed, he stumbled forward and placed his hand on the wet ground the catch himself.

  A wirvus. Their lessons had covered the creature only briefly as not much was known about it. The main takeaway had been that if they ever encountered one, they should run. The circumstances didn’t matter. They just had to get away from it. Daniel and the others kept sprinting, but the tunnel seemed to have no end. They were clearly beyond the city walls, so they had to be nearing the exit. Unless the wirvus had been leaving or as Austin had said, in a side tunnel, they would run into it at any moment.

  They all came to a stop as a silhouette appeared in front of them. They watched as it slowly came closer, inch by inch. When it moved next to one of the wall sconces roughly twenty feet away, Daniel could finally make it out in detail.

  If it had been standing at its full height the beast would have easily been ten feet tall, with antlers adding another two. But with
the low ceiling of the tunnel, it was crouched. All four limbs were long, thin, and frail. The fingers on its arms were narrow, the skin missing at the tips so they melded into the long nail-like talons seamlessly. Its torso was humanoid and gaunt, every bone visible beneath the taut grey skin which was dotted with patches of dark brown fur that seemed to be falling off of it. The back was deformed into a large hunch with its spine bent in unnatural angles. Its head was in the shape of an elk displaying grey and dead skin.

  Its teeth that were jagged and sharp, as if they’d been broken at their midpoint. Its eyes were sunken in and entirely void of color. In addition, the wirvus seemed to continually twitch. Constant tiny movements beneath the skin that were almost unnoticeable made it seem . . . wrong, as if it didn’t belong in reality, as if it were a hazy dream almost forgotten but still on the edge of recollection. It looked at them curiously, tilting its head to one side, then made a sound almost like a squeak. They were all frozen in place. None of them wanted to move for fear of provoking it.

  Slowly, Austin backed up to stand next to Daniel. “Daniel,” he whispered, “go for the left eye. Jane, take the right.”

  Daniel took several moments to register the order. When he did, he nodded and drew back the string on his bow. He brought the string to his cheek and let his nose rest on it to properly aim down the length of the arrow. The wood was flexible, so drawing and holding the shot was manageable for quite some time, though the more malleable wood meant the shot had less power behind it. But at this distance it wouldn’t matter. He just hoped he could hit his mark. He had been far from the best archer among the trainees.

  Claudia reached into her bag to withdraw an ingera. She addressed Clara as she did. “Get one ready,” she said. “We need to bring this down fast.”

  Clara nodded. The wirvus continued to look at them and squeak curiously.

  Kenneth placed his shield in front of him and stood ready to be the wall between them and it. “Wardens,” he said, “up front and low.”

  They took their positions as everyone waited for Austin’s command. His signal would set all events in motion. Austin lifted his arm and balled his hand into a fist. He would try to poison the monster with a dart. Daniel had no idea if it would actually help. More than likely neither did Austin. As far as anyone knew, a wirvus had never been killed before. There had only been a handful of sightings and fewer survivors. But they all had the same story. An unstoppable beast that would tear through any resistance, piercing steel and ripping men apart with no effort while shrugging off anything thrown at it.