“Indeed, and we know that he has done so, for when he countered our attack, a large portion of his forces were Netheren, their faces familiar to all of us. It was horrible fighting against the bodies of people you once knew, those who had been transformed into shadows of their former selves.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds, but don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry, he says,” Brice scoffed. “It’s only hundreds of undead. Everything will be just fine.”
“We killed many of them, and they’re weak and single-minded. We’re only in danger if they attack in numbers.”
“What sorts of spells work best against them?” Laedron asked, doing his best to ignore the terror of fighting legions of dead men.
“Fire is quite effective, for corpses dry out soon after death. Separating the body from the head is also useful, so any spell that can accomplish that would be the first choice. A body that cannot see, hear, or bite tends to be far less dangerous.”
“I suppose we should get to it, then.” Marac buckled his shield to his arm and drew his sword. “We’ll do little good staring at the place from afar.”
Tavin nodded, then led them along the path, which snaked its way down the steep hill. When he reached the front of the temple, he turned to the left, passing the stone steps and heading to a small door in the side of the building. Then, Tavin produced a glowing gem from a pouch at his hip. “It’s dark within these halls. Unfortunately, they’ll see us coming before we see them.”
We’ll give away the advantage of surprise, but we can’t navigate the place in the blind. “A risk we’ll have to take.”
Tavin pulled the handle, then jumped to the side as the door fell to the ground. “As I said, the buildings are in disrepair.”
“That doesn’t worry me.” Laedron peered into the darkness. “How far that echoed is what concerns me.”
“Can’t help it now,” Tavin said. Laedron and his companions followed him inside the building.
The smell is nothing like what I thought it would be . The mustiness hung in the air like the smell of ale in a tavern. Perhaps the scent of decay lessens over time. He had little experience with the dead, for Sorbians—at least those living outside the big cities—buried the fallen in earthen graves instead of placing them in catacombs, and the bodies he’d dealt with apparently hadn’t been dead long enough to have an odor strong enough to detect.
Thankfully Tavin went first, and while he seemed cautious of his surroundings, he must have had nerves of steel because he walked with a certain confidence down the narrow stairwell. Laedron couldn’t say the same, for every scrape of boot against stone, every droplet of water falling and echoing in the pitch black, and each gust of breeze put him on edge. The hairs on the back of his neck stood tall and straight like the ancient trees in the forest.
Reaching the bottom, Tavin glanced over his shoulder at them, then whispered something to the gem in his hand. The shard grew brighter, illuminating the vast chamber beyond the end of the stairs.
“What is this?” Laedron whispered, tiptoeing up to Tavin’s side.
“You’ve never been in a catacomb before?”
“No, I can’t say that I visit them often.”
“We’re entering the first hypogeum.” Tavin kept his volume low as he walked. “And as Uxidin catacombs go, the first chamber is the largest. We build them big enough so as not to need extensions, but we’ve found the need to expand after the passing of time—centuries, mind you. It was built to house hundreds, and we filled those spots quickly.
“The shelves in the center were added later when we needed extra space, for the cost for digging was higher. Eventually, we had to add more antechambers off the main one, and so on, until the place held thousands of our lost brothers and sisters.”
Laedron eyed the loculi in the nearby walls, the bodies placed in their own cavities, sometimes within and sometimes without a sarcophagus. “Thousands…”
Hearing the clattering of metal, Laedron looked at Brice, noticing his hand shaking and the rings of his chain glove tapping the hilt of his sword, and said, “Calm yourself. A few still graves—”
Tavin’s hand shot over Laedron’s mouth, and Laedron struggled to free himself until he heard a hiss from the distant darkness, an unnatural, airy sound like that of the final breath leaving a body. Then, he saw what had approached the edge of the light. The Netheren’s desiccated skin hung on its bones like ribbons, dry and tattered shreds, and the crusted leather armor wasn’t in much better shape. It held an old blade that appeared cracked and rusted, but Laedron feared the weapon even more for its wear. It’s probably dull, too. And jagged. Such an edge would be unlikely to cut a clean wound. The suffering it would inflict… unthinkable.
Laedron raised his scepter and pointed it at the walking corpse. He would have cast his spell—a blast of fire, probably—if he hadn’t noticed all the glowing eyes surrounding them, a multitude of colored orbs in the darkness. There must be hundreds of them. Laedron elbowed Marac and pointed past Valyrie, then to the left and right.
Marac spun and searched for his first target, his sword glowing unnaturally. “What do we do, Lae?”
“I—” Laedron stared at Valyrie, unable to think of any strategy. I hope that I live to see her face in the morning, that we both live to see it out of this mess.
“Closing on the left,” Brice said. “The right, too. They’re all around us.”
“A ring of flames.” Tavin snapped his fingers in Laedron’s face. “When they come close, summon fire around us and maintain it for as long as you can.”
Bobbing his head, Laedron stood at the center of the group and waited for the undead to come near. When they were close enough, he repeated the words for the incantation. It came out a jumbled mess of stuttering.
“Focus, Sorcerer!” Tavin shot a look at Laedron, then peered at the approaching horde.
The undead had gotten within a few steps of them. Laedron cast the spell, and a ring of flames rose up around them.
One by one, the Netheren mindlessly entered the inferno. The dead were engulfed like twigs soaked in lantern fuel, but some continued despite the fire. With his shield, Marac shoved one of the burning creatures back. Brice kicked another, then stomped on the ground to extinguish his pants.
“It’s working,” Marac said. “They’re—”
Lunging over the burning wall from the top of a nearby rack, a Netheren grabbed Marac and sent him to the ground. He tried to swing his sword, but he dropped it. The dagger pointed at his chest, Marac pushed up while the creature bore down.
Pointing her bow upward, Valyrie released an arrow, and it struck another creature dead in its center. The force spell manifested in a flash. The corpse split in two and landed at her feet, and Valyrie drew the bowstring back, searching for another target.
Losing focus at the sight of Marac beneath the fiend, Laedron had trouble maintaining his spell, and the flames flickered. “Somebody help him.”
“Keep the spell going before you get us all killed,” Tavin said, pushing past the Brice and delivering a kick to the dead thing’s head. Crushed by the blow, the head erupted with worms and rotten brain matter. Laedron’s stomach grumbled with disgust at the sight. Marac, covered with bits and pieces of some unknown black substance, pushed the dagger away, then clambered to his feet and continued the fight.
“They’re not as stupid as you thought,” Brice said after slashing a burning corpse and forcing it back into the flames. “Lae, make the fire bigger, taller.”
Gritting his teeth, Laedron forced the blaze higher, too high for the Netheren to jump over it, and several corpses caught fire when they plunged into the flames. He had just smiled when he heard a voice echo throughout the crypt. He likened the voice to that of a drowning man, but raspier. He slowly turned to see a Netheren standing a hundred feet or more away—past the host of walking corpses—and atop a burial rack.
Marac walked over to Laedron. “What the…?”
“A spell!” Tavin raised his wand at the undead mage.
Laedron tried to control his breathing and lost his focus. Tavin had only gotten out a few words of his incantation when a deluge of water fell upon them. Laedron let his spell fizzle, for the water had put out his fire. Aside from the occasional drip, he heard only silence. He stared across the sea of undead warriors, then heard a rattling of metal against metal. One of the Netheren banged its sword against its shield, then the others joined in the cacophony. The chamber echoed with the clattering of thousands.
All is lost . Laedron stared at the ground and shook his head. He turned to Tavin, expecting to see a defeated man, but Tavin didn’t seem intimidated. Instead, he called out, “You think dropping water upon us will weaken our resolve? Witness true power.”
Shouting a spell, Tavin flung his wand toward the enemy sorcerer. A bolt of lightning wound its way across the empty space between them. Upon contact, sparkles of electricity engulfed the undead mage’s body, which exploded in a rain of gore. Arcs of energy shot to nearby creatures, then to more, until every Netheren in a straight line from Tavin either convulsed with the shock or collapsed into a smoking pile of bones and skin.
“That way,” Tavin said, pointing at the cleared path his spell had made. “Move out before they close the gap.”
Hot on Tavin’s heels, Laedron glimpsed the dead men encroaching on the left and right. He swashed his scepter to the right and shouted a spell. A fireball erupted from the ruby and slammed into a group of charging corpses, incinerating the ones at the focus and catching the nearby others aflame. Behind him, he heard Valyrie firing arrow after arrow into the Netheren at their left. He turned just as one of the dead men was struck in the leg. When the reanimated corpse fell to the ground, it was trampled by the others.
“Almost there,” Tavin said.
Stopping just outside a small opening in the far wall, Tavin took Laedron by the collar and nearly threw him into the passage. “Keep going. Don’t look back.”
Valyrie came next, and if it hadn’t been for Laedron catching her, she would have fallen. Brice, obviously frightened, squeezed past them. Tavin grabbed Marac by the hand and pulled him inside the shaft.
Tavin pointed his wand at the ceiling and shouted a spell. A bolt of energy flew from his wand and struck the stone roof. Laedron glanced back to see the undead clawing at each other to get into the tunnel. Tavin pushed them along.
While he ran, Laedron noticed a crack racing along the stone above and keeping pace with them. We must hurry. He’ll bring the whole place down on us! Then, he heard the crash of rocks behind them, and although he tried to see what had happened, he was forced forward by Tavin’s shoving. He surmised that the collapse had started where Tavin had cast the spell. What else could have caused it? The closer the sound came, the faster Laedron’s heart raced, but he didn’t stop until he reached the next chamber. Exploding through the hole like lava from a volcano, they fell over each other and came to a stop. Rocks slammed down just behind them.
Laedron stood and took a look around. Stone jutted from the floor and hung from the ceiling like incomplete pillars. The earthen walls seemed to be held together by tangled roots in the spots where the cave wasn’t solid stone. He couldn’t quite tell how light was getting into the cavern, but he was glad it wasn’t pitch black.
Rising to his feet, Marac glared at Tavin and pointed at the blocked passage. “And how will we get out of here, assuming we survive this? You’ve sealed us in.”
“The Trappers could never go that way; they’re too large to fit.” Tavin stood and swatted his clothes, a cloud of dust popping out with each slap. “I’ve never ventured into the caves dotting this area, but there must be more than one way out.”
“Suppose there aren’t any? Suppose we’re stuck here?”
“Would you rather have been disemboweled by the Netheren? Didn’t think so.”
Brice, his blade in hand, said, “We could’ve fought them.”
“No, Brice. We may have killed fifty, but hundreds more were climbing out of their crypts. That’s not counting the hundreds or thousands that were already coming at us.” Laedron stood and massaged his leg to relieve a dull ache, then helped Valyrie to her feet. “We’ll have to find another way out.”
“Damn!” Valyrie snatched up the bow. Its string was broken. She retrieved her quiver. “A bunch of arrows and nothing to shoot them with.”
Tavin extended his hand. “Allow me.”
“Allow you to do what?”
“Repair it for you, of course.” Taking the bow, Tavin sat on a tall rock and drew his wand.
“Mages can do that?” she asked.
Laedron nodded. “If something hasn’t been damaged too badly, it can usually be mended.”
“More light,” Tavin said, snapping in Laedron’s direction.
Laedron obliged him with a light spell. With the cavern brightly illuminated, Laedron saw another passage leading off from the chamber and gestured toward it, but his companions must have been enraptured with Tavin’s spell because they paid him no mind. At first, he rolled his eyes at their simple natures. Regular people gawk at even the simplest spells. Then, he noticed the bowstrings dancing in the air, and he couldn’t help but stare in awe at the display.
Like trained serpents obeying the commands of their master, the strings wrapped themselves around each other, and energy sparked where they were rejoined. Tavin handed Valyrie the repaired bow. “Now, we should look for a way out of here.”
Tavin cleared his throat. “Has anyone seen a way out?”
Laedron snapped out of it, then pointed at the other passage. “Oh, yes. Yes. This way.”
Tavin walked into the tunnel and led the group along the winding path. Laedron likened the passage to a hole dug by an animal that meandered wildly the entire length. Dampness filled the air, and the musty smell was replaced by the aromas of mildew and earth. Laedron spotted mushrooms caps growing on the walls, worms and centipedes scurrying, and reflections off of the thin streams of water leaking through the tiny fractures. He wondered how long it had been since light of any kind had shone on the black rock in that place.
Turning a bend, he felt the air grow cooler almost in an instant, and a blast of air flowed past him. He could barely make out a faint glimmer of light ahead, a green glow, presumably at the end of the tunnel.
“What do you think is causing that light?” Laedron whispered when Tavin stopped.
“Likely where Kareth constructs his crystal beasts.” Licking his lips, Tavin scratched his chin. “If we should fight one of those abominations, I will be of no help to you.”
“No help? You’re a gifted mage. Hells, you told us how to defeat them.”
“I cannot.”
“Can’t?”
“Mustn’t.”
“What in the hells are you saying? We have to fight them alone?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, Sorcerer.”
“But why? I thought you came here to help us.”
Tavin gave him a tight grin. “If the time comes, you’ll know why I couldn’t. Until then, you’re on your own when it comes to the Trappers. I’ll wait here until you’ve checked ahead.”
Laedron sighed. “Leave it to us, then. We’ll come after you when the coast is clear.” He started to walk away, but he felt a hand on his shoulder.
“Remember: vibrations.” Tavin glanced at Laedron’s friends. “Those weapons can harm them. Do not stand idle, and do not fall.”
“We’ll certainly try to keep that in mind,” Marac said. “Come on, Lae. We’ve got work to do.”
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Crystal Caverns
The green glow grew bright as Laedron approached the opening. He crouched and slowed his steps, afraid to lose any advantage that surprise might offer, and the rest matched his movements. When he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he clung to the last rock that could provid
e cover and stared into the room beyond, captivated. The others huddled behind him.
Around the massive cavern, crystal formations of all shapes and sizes jutted from the rocks at every conceivable angle. The place was much like the cistern he had seen when Tavin brought them to the Uxidins’ refuge, but the cave was illuminated throughout by an eerie green light. A vast number of small, animate constructs comprised of green crystal moved about the room. Their bodies and numerous legs resembled those of sea crabs, but the things were considerably larger. They chipped away at the bases of the formations, harvesting the gems. Resounding through the cave was a constant chattering noise, the tapping of thousands of tiny, crystalline legs against the rock. The noise reminded him of the crickets chirping at night in Sorbia. How long have these things been toiling here at the bottom of the world? And why do they work? For what purpose and for whom? Kareth, most likely, but for what reason?
“What now?” Marac whispered.
“We have to find a way past them.”
“Through that?” Valyrie asked, crouching beside them. “Far too many of them to sneak past.”
Brice pointed toward the ceiling. “What about using those to get across?”
Gazing upward, Laedron noticed the supports leading from the floor to the ceiling. Struts had been secured to them, likely to add extra support for the cave from all the excavation. The network of beams reminded Laedron of scaffolding he’d seen erected for builders on huge construction projects in the various cities they’d visited. “It’s worth a shot. Go get Tavin, Marac.”
“We can’t fly across?” Marac asked, glancing at Laedron’s scepter.
Laedron shook his head. “They would hear the chanting. We’ll have to be stealthy.”
“Hear? Have you seen ears on them?”
“We can’t take the chance.”
* * *
Returning with Marac a few moments later, Tavin bent beside Laedron. “You’ve found a way through?”
“Yes, and without fighting.” Laedron gestured at the supports. “Up and across, as quiet as mice. Then, onward to Kareth.”
The Immortals of Myrdwyer Page 14