Castle Raiders

by Max Anthony

  “What would he need so much blood for?” asked Jera. “Was he a vampire, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rasmus. “Vampires do drink blood, but they have normal-sized stomachs. They drink what they want and no more. I’ve never heard of one that needed gallons and gallons of the stuff.”

  “Blood is used in many dark magics,” said Viddo. “As we have learned in that underground world we so recently escaped. Whatever the Baron was planning, it won’t have been beneficial to anyone living in the villages nearby.”

  “I wonder why he vanished,” said Jera.

  “Time will tell. Unless we get killed trying to find out,” said Rasmus cheerfully.

  “Is there anything more we should know about what’s on those pages?” asked Viddo, trying to read over the wizard’s shoulder.

  “The rest is just bits and pieces. Numbers brought in to the dungeon, numbers killed, gallons of blood harvested and so on. The gargantuan undead might have been used as some kind of enforcer. Maybe it brought the prisoners to this room.”

  “I wonder if it killed all of those people out there,” said Jera. “As if the prisoners escaped and were killed by this thing here.”

  “A group of villagers wouldn’t have been able to overcome it,” Viddo told her. “So I’m sure you’re right in what you say.”

  There was nothing very exciting left on the table. Not even a lone coin waiting to be pilfered. There were three crystal vials, in which fluids of differing hues resided.

  “Don’t we want these potions?” asked Jera, wondering why her companions were already heading to the door.

  “We don’t do potions. Not usually,” said Rasmus.

  “Why ever not?” she asked. “The last time I asked you about potions, you said it was because it was hard to identify them on the run. However, there were dozens of them for sale in the magic shop at the village, all of them clearly labelled.”

  Wizard and thief stopped. Jera couldn’t help but get the feeling they were uncomfortable about something. “What is it?” she demanded.

  “It’s just that potions feel like cheating,” said Viddo. “They take away the skill element of an adventure.”

  “They make one careless,” added Rasmus.

  “How do they make one careless?” asked Jera, confused by what they were telling her.

  “If you catch a disease, drink a potion to cure it. If you get a cut, drink a potion to heal it. If there are difficult monsters to overcome, knock back a potion of armour and another one of dodging. Where’s the fun?” said Viddo.

  “We once knew a fellow who filled up a big container with healing potion fluid which he kept in his backpack and attached to his mouth with a flexible tube. Whenever he got hit, he’d just take a drink through this straw to heal himself right back up again. It made things much too easy.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Jera.

  “He choked to death,” said Viddo. “Breathed in through the straw by mistake.”

  “Don’t get us wrong. Potions are great for beginners and all that. When you’re just starting out, the odds are unfairly tipped against you, so the odd potion, sneakily quaffed, can be the difference between life and death.”

  “They’re just not for us,” finished Viddo lamely.

  Jera wasn’t angry - far from it. She just didn’t know what to say. And in situations where she didn’t know what to say, she didn’t open her mouth and take the risk that nonsense would spill out. “Let’s go,” she said.

  Outside the room, Viddo didn’t even spare a glance for the new additions in the corridor. They were minor undead and it had likely only taken Rasmus a few seconds to destroy them. After a few dozen yards of this new corridor, during which they passed a number of closed wooden doors, they entered a chamber, which was not too large and not too small. Furnishings were present in the form of a long wooden table and eight chairs. There was a body on the floor, clad in the partial armour of a guardsman. A sword protruded from the figure’s chest, having been thrust towards him with sufficient force to smash through his breastplate. Opposite, there was a single metal-banded wooden door for the purposes of exiting.

  “A guard room,” said Viddo. “You can even see the hooks on the walls where they’d hang their keys.”

  “And this man here suggests that at least some of the escaping prisoners managed to get this far,” said Jera. She looked at the body, which was now mostly skeleton with a few patches of dried skin still clinging to the grinning skull. It didn’t move or attack, which was a good thing since Jera was ready to hit it with her hammer.

  There were two empty tankards on the table, into which Viddo peered hopefully, as if there’d still be alcohol within that had managed to resist fifty or more years of evaporation. Both were empty, though the guardsman’s pockets contained a folded leather purse, which jingled slightly. Inside were two silver coins and six coppers.

  “It must have been pay day!” exclaimed Viddo with delight. Then, he dropped the coins and promptly forgot about them. He had little use for such low denominations, even if he still took a small pleasure from unearthing money, wherever it might be and how insignificant in quantity.

  With nothing else to keep them in the guard room, they drifted towards the lone exit door. Unusually, it was unlocked and swung open freely. Behind, there was a short passage that led to a wide flight of steep stone steps, which disappeared upwards.

  “Looks like we need to go this way,” said Jera. They walked to the steps and began to climb.

  8

  There were not too many steps to climb and it wasn’t long until the adventurers found themselves in another room, similar in dimensions to the one which they’d just left behind. There was nothing to look at apart from a wooden exit door and a couple of empty torch brackets in the walls. Finding himself in a new area, Viddo took extra care to look for any traps that might have been left in here. There was nothing to be concerned about, so he strode at once to the door, studied it and then opened it carefully. He looked through a small gap and then closed the door again.

  “Looks like a storeroom through there,” he said. “Crates, boxes – all the usual.”

  “Who on earth would build their prison so one needs to come through storerooms to reach it?” asked Rasmus, irritated at the stupidity of it.

  “There could be another exit and entrance elsewhere,” offered Jera. “We could have stumbled upon the back steps, used in case of fire and in other emergency situations.”

  Rasmus was not convinced that the cruel master of a castle would think about fire exits. Still, it wasn’t inconceivable that there’d be a second means of entering the prison area – to bring food and water, for example.

  “Any sign of activity through there?” asked the wizard.

  “Nothing. Not that every sentinel will make a noise for me to hear, of course. Want me to scout ahead?”

  “Let’s not bother. I’m impatient to find our way into the keep proper. These interminable prisons and storerooms are not to my liking.”

  “Rasmus, you impatient man!” scolded Jera, without malice. “This is the first storeroom we’ve seen. How can you be bored so soon?”

  “My attention span is short when it comes to rooms filled with boxes and crates, that is all. Mark my words – we’ll search a couple of the boxes through there and we’ll find nothing but linen sheets, empty sacks and, if we’re particularly lucky, plates and cutlery.”

  Having delivered his message, the wizard who had seen too many storerooms took it upon himself to open the exit door again. Without even looking around the new room, he used the end of his broken staff to lever away the top of the closest crate. “There!” he said triumphantly, then, “Oh.”

  Viddo knew at once when the wizard had been rumbled and he was there in a flash. “Bottles of wine!” he said in a loud whisper. He took one out and rotated it carefully to get a better view of the label. He stared at the writing with his eyebrows raised in order to give the impression that
he had a clue about what he was looking at. “This looks like a nice one,” he said.

  “You wouldn’t know a good vintage from a pint of cheese juice,” Rasmus told him, lifting out a second bottle and contemplating the label. “A Furntrian Excellence 1023. A well-balanced and fruity little number, if memory serves.”

  “Don’t give me any of that,” said Viddo. “You don’t have a clue either. I think we should have a taste, though. To wash out the taste of burnt undead.”

  “We don’t have a corkscrew,” said Rasmus. “However are we going to get it open?”

  There was a swish and a plink. When the wizard looked once again at the bottle he held, the neck and cork were now missing. Jera put her hammer back into her belt. “Done,” she announced.

  “There might be small pieces of glass that have fallen inside,” said Rasmus, taking a careful drink anyway. “Not bad,” he said. “A bit harsh, perhaps.”

  Viddo grabbed the bottle and took a bigger drink. “Tastes better than the lingering nuances of grilled, rotting undead that remain in my mouth,” he said.

  Jera took the bottle and gulped down almost a quarter of the contents, in complete disregard for the gentilities of drinking such a product. “What’s it meant to taste like?” she asked. “I’ve never had wine before.”

  Soon, the bottle was empty and shoved back into the crate amongst its fuller brethren, as if to hide the evidence of theft.

  “I don’t think we should drink any more,” said Viddo, staring longingly at the other bottles. “Alcohol impairs one’s judgement, so I’m told.”

  “There’s always a smart arse who wants to tell you what to do and how to think!” exclaimed Rasmus, already feeling an extra belligerence from his intake. “I’ll bet they wouldn’t like me to blow up their houses, would they? That would bring them down a notch or two!”

  “Rasmus, I know you wouldn’t do such a thing, so let us talk no more about it,” admonished Jera. “We can come back for some more wine later, if we have to. It would seem a shame to leave it behind.”

  As it happened, the wine had originally been of a decent quality. The years and sympathetic storage conditions had been kind to it, resulting in a product that might have fetched four or five gold pieces per bottle in one of the bigger Frodgian cities. None of the adventurers was to know this and even if they had, there was no easy way for them to transport all ten crates of twenty bottles away from the castle.

  “I have learned a valuable lesson today,” said Rasmus, already mellowing. “Not all storerooms are alike. I shall remember this for next time.”

  There were two doors exiting this room, neither of which was locked. They looked through both, and each option led to a similar storeroom, giving no clue as to which was the most efficient route to their goal. In such cases, Rasmus and Viddo knew it was useless to ponder for long and they picked one of the rooms without further delay. Unable to prevent himself, Rasmus levered off the lids of three large crates in this new room, finding cutlery in one, plates in another and folded curtains in the third. With normality restored, he turned his full attention to the more important task at hand. Neither Viddo nor Jera offered criticism, since everyone was entitled to their foibles.

  Having left this second room, they entered a long corridor, which was over ten feet wide and ten tall. They had entered at a corner, so the passage went directly ahead and also to their right. Wooden boxes and barrels were stacked in a haphazard and irregular manner against the walls in both directions, sometimes reaching the ceiling, at others being no more than a single container high. There were other doors to be seen, in both walls of both corridors. Something was different here – there was a flickering light, coming from oil lamps which dangled from hooks in the walls every dozen feet or so. The piles of boxes ensured that there were many areas deep in shadow, whilst others were comparatively well-lit.

  “These lamps didn’t fill and light themselves,” said Jera. “We should take extra care.”

  With no need to keep the spell active, Rasmus extinguished his own light and they headed straight on. The appearance of the corridor suggested that this level was created in a square, which was a logical enough way to approach the construction of one’s basement. Even with the light, it was still hard to be certain of this and the presence of shadows in the distance made it tricky to see where the corridor ended.

  They came to the first of the doors they’d seen and were naturally interested to find out what lay behind it. The door was unlocked and opened into another room, quarter-filled with nondescript items of unwanted furniture and some wooden boxes. There were signs of death in the form of three skeletons lying next to each other, the familiar poor-quality weapons strewn nearby. Viddo would have usually paid them little heed, except that something caught his eye.

  “Bite marks,” he said, looking at the leg bones of one.

  “What’s happened to the ribs of this other one?” asked Jera. “It looks like they’ve been prised apart.”

  “That’s not a result of combat,” said Rasmus, frowning at the sight. “I think that these poor people were eaten – hopefully after their deaths. That twisting of the ribs makes me think that the killer was seeking the organs within the body.”

  “There are a number of evil creatures which crave human hearts,” added Viddo. “As if the taste is irresistible.”

  Jera had seen enough of the unusual that she wasn’t excessively shocked by the notion. Life was cheap for some and easily lost – especially for people who found themselves in the castle of a madman.

  “Whatever these creatures were, they had better not try to consume my heart!” she said. “Unless they like a good bludgeoning about the head and neck for their troubles!” With that threat, Jera turned from the room and exited with her companions close behind.

  The rooms behind the next two doors provided further insight onto the tedious workings of a large castle. There were boxes of bedsheets, boxes of nails, crates of candles and another crate of candlesticks. These were all the sorts of items one might expect to find in storage until they were needed – items which cost money to purchase, but which had no real monetary value to a group of adventurers who were looking for things a little easier to fit into a pocket or backpack. They did find one of the larger boxes to contain something that provided a small diversion.

  “This box smells a bit funny,” said Viddo, sniffing loudly. “And it’s been made with more care than the other boxes – look how closely-fitted the boards are. I wonder what sort of thing one would keep in a box like this.”

  “I don’t think I want to know,” said Jera. “Particularly in light of the unusual odour.”

  “As adventurers, we must explore the unusual,” Rasmus told her, already attacking the box with the snapped stave, which he used in the same manner as a crowbar.

  There was a rending and splintering sound as the wizard pulled firmly with his makeshift lever. He gave it a twist and then kicked with his foot. After another moment, Rasmus had managed to get the side off the crate. Things tumbled from inside onto the floor and the smell became stronger, almost overpowering.

  “Urgh! What on earth is that?” asked Jera.

  The things in question were thin strips, a dark brown in colour. Each strip was irregularly sized and approximately the length of a finger. Within seconds of Rasmus getting the crate open, there was a buzzing sound and a big, blue-black fly whizzed by in order to settle on the pile. Then another fly appeared, with this pair quickly joined by two more.

  “Where have these flies come from?” said Jera, wafting at them. It was usually Rasmus who hated flies, though on this occasion he seemed completely unsurprised at their arrival. He and Viddo were looking at the pile of brown strips with interest.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, when the thief stooped. When he rose to his feet, he was holding three of the strips. Rasmus took one and shoved the end into his mouth. With a look of intense concentration and effort, he ripped the end off the unknown brown object and b
egan to chew with difficulty. Viddo stuck the end of another strip into his own mouth and did the same, whilst offering the third one to Jera.

  “These are lovely,” he said.

  “What is it? It stinks!”

  “It’s called Boonox Pigeon,” he announced, chewing hard.

  “Pigeon?” asked Jera, leaning in to sniff, yet without touching the offered strip. “It smells more like fish.”

  “It is,” said Rasmus happily, taking another bite. “Caught and then dried on the docks of Boonox, until it turns into tasty fly-attracting snacks such as we see in this crate.”

  “Why do they call it pigeon, if it’s a fish?” Jera asked.

  “Who knows?” said Viddo, wafting a small cloud of flies away from the dried fish and helping himself to another piece. “The taste is much more pleasant than the smell.” He waved a piece of it at Jera again, as if by wiggling the fish it would somehow lure her into trying some. It didn’t work.

  “It smells horrible,” Jera told them. “Can we get on with business?”

  “Not all treasure is made of gold and platinum!” Rasmus said. “We have found this rarest of delicacies, which has been banned across much of Frodgia for more than twenty years.”

  “With an extra fifty or more years in which to mature,” said Viddo.

  “What was it banned for?” Jera asked, already dreading the answer.

  “Hygiene, apparently. Something to do with flies landing on the unfinished product.”

  “Come on Viddo, let’s get our packs filled,” said Rasmus, crouching and scooping up a double-handful of the fish.

  “If you two think we’re exploring this castle smelling like a bucket of rotting fish guts, you’ve got another thing coming! Just think of all the undead you’ll attract, walking around trailing that smell about with you!” said Jera firmly.

  Rasmus dropped his prizes back onto the pile, disturbing more of the frenzied flies. He and Viddo stared with undisguised longing at the delicacies they’d been instructed to abandon. Rasmus even peeped hopefully at Jera.