by Hugo Huesca
“This is wrong,” Manfred muttered. His hands trembled from pixie dust withdrawal. It said much about his mental condition that he was able to feel anything at all about the sacrifices. Nicolai judged that the Diviner would break soon—probably wouldn’t cast a spell ever again. It does not matter. We got what we needed out of him. Unlike Brondan, Manfred didn’t belong to Nicolai’s family.
“It’s necessary,” Nicolai told him. “You have the map with you?” He extended an expectant hand.
Manfred ignored him for an instant, his expression cold and distant. That was the pixie dust right there. He reached inside his tunic—behind him, the two rebels drew their daggers—and produced a parchment roll, which he handed to Nicolai. The rebels lowered their weapons.
“Ah, excellent,” Nicolai said, extending the roll in front of him. It showed a map of a section of Hoia Forest, lines burned with precise magical fire across the surface of the parchment. It represented the area of influence of Edward Wright’s dungeon. “Excellent job, Manfred. This is just what we needed.”
“Can I go now?” Manfred asked, a dead expression across his face. Nicolai dismissed him with a wave of his hand—his part in the ritual had ended hours ago—and the Diviner headed out, probably to take another hit of dust.
Brondan looked at the map over Nicolai’s shoulder. “You really think we have enough manpower to take an area that size?” Brondan asked, raising an eyebrow.
Despite the Thief’s lack of common sense, he had a decent Mind score. Nicolai put aside his disgust and spoke to the elf as if they were equals, because Brondan’s opinions may actually be worth a damn in this phase.
“Most of it is horned spider territory,” said Nicolai, pointing with his finger. “Wright’s cluster is scattered at the moment, currently in conflict with the rest of the clusters in the forest.” He traced a direct line to the center of the map, a bunch of steep, rocky hills with jagged tops which oversaw a deep valley dense with vegetation. “As long as we move quickly, we won’t have to concern ourselves with the spiders.” He tapped at the X at the center of the map, next to two simple words: “The Haunt.” “This is our objective, and we start about an hour away. Enough distance to secure the area and establish a safe perimeter to create the last summoning circle.”
Brondan’s eyes followed the direction of Nicolai’s finger. “So instead of dealing with a huge area of influence, we’ll only concern ourselves with Wright’s dungeon? That’s risky. Even Inquisitors expect huge losses when invading a dungeon, and only the most powerful adventurers face them on their own.”
“We’re ready,” Nicolai assured him. “The men are brave, and they’re equipped with potions, runes, and weapons of good quality. Manfred’s scrying found no undead in Wright’s service, no kaftar, and no Dark creature to defend his hold. He has a rabble of batblins, a group of villagers—traitors to their country, the lot of them—and a few human minions. Besides—” Nicolai shot the elf a happy grin “—we have a monster of our own, don’t we?”
“The wraith,” Brondan muttered. He glanced in the direction of the second section of the magical circle, the one where most of the hostages lay. “Are you sure we can control it?”
“We don’t need to control it,” Nicolai said. “We only need to point it in the right direction and it’ll do our job for us.” He traced another line, this time an arc, that avoided the direct route to the Haunt, instead reaching it by the side closer to the hills, deep within the forest. “And while the Dungeon Lord deals with the wraith, we’ll infiltrate the Haunt here…”
The Thief’s uncertainty seemed to fade by the second. “I’ve seen the wraith in action. Hell, the three of us have. If it attacks Wright… there’s no chance he can survive it, no chance at all. Much less after—” he stole a disgusted glance at the hostages “—after it feeds.” He licked his lips. “Without the Dungeon Lord to deal the dungeon’s defense…” Brondan nodded at Nicolai approvingly. “Yes. It will work.”
The plan was simple. They’d loose the wraith and its specters in the forest and funnel them to Wright’s Haunt. Nicolai had seen Edward react rationally when the wraith attacked them in the catacombs—he thought things through and chose a course of action that had saved them from the wraith’s fear aura, and at the same time protected him from Nicolai’s vengeance.
Thing is, Nicolai thought, you can predict the actions of a rational man just as much as a greedy one. When Edward sees the wraith and his specters coming, he’ll take the best course of action, given his limited knowledge. To fight a group of incorporeal entities inside a dungeon—where they could pass through ceilings and walls and attack without warning—was folly. Edward would choose to bring his forces outside and order his loved ones to take refuge within the dungeon.
And while Edward fought the wraith, Nicolai and his forces would pay the Haunt a visit.
You’ll come back to find the people you swore to protect in the same condition you left Lyndis, Nicolai thought with a surge of hate burning through the tranquility potion at an alarming rate.
Rolim grunted loudly, clearly voicing his discontent with Nicolai’s plan. “Nicolai,” the man said, drawing near and lowering his voice so the rebels wouldn’t hear him disagree with their leader. “After we do this, we won’t be able to use the wraith again. The Inquisition will scry its presence in the forest, and they’ll come deal with it. We’ll waste a valuable asset killing a Dungeon Lord who poses little threat to us.” Rolim scowled. “Are you sure you want to do this? There’s still time to return to our original plan… We summon the wraith to Mullecias Heights’ gardens, set it loose there, get lots of rich foreign assholes killed.” There was a glimmer of mad desire in Rolim’s eyes—he hated the Heiligians as much as Nicolai did, after all. “Won’t that better advance our cause? We bring chaos to Undercity, destabilize Heiliges’ rule, and grow in strength so we can oppose the Inquisition when the time is right.”
By now, he was spewing Nicolai’s arguments back at him. Nicolai smiled sadly and shook his head. “That’s the problem with you, my friend. Always a romantic. Yes, unleashing the wraith in Mullecias was our original plan. That ship has sailed, though.” He placed a comforting hand on the warrior’s shoulder. “Don’t you see? There will always be another undead we can raise against the Heiligian tyrants. Or we can ask our secretive sponsor for more… tools like the one he provided Ioan and us.” He caressed his flask with his free hand, checking to see if it still carried enough potion.
“Nicolai—” Rolim started.
“But a Dungeon Lord…” Nicolai’s expression darkened. “A Dungeon Lord is a blight more dangerous to our beloved land than a group of rich merchants, Rolim. A Dungeon Lord is a leech that devours all life around him as he grows in power, until there’s nothing left.” He took a step forward, away from his friend, and raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. “Dungeon Lords destroy villages to steal their resources and execute entire populations so their dungeons can have prettier walls. They aren’t like us. They aren’t even like our enemies. They bring wanton murder without reason, suffering without purpose. They’re a sword that guts for the joy of it, who serve no country and recognize no authority except that of their Dark god. Murmur.” The chanting diminished in intensity as people’s attention fixated on him. The crackle of purple lightning above them grew in intensity, threatening to overload the circle’s safety measures. “Worse, a Dungeon Lord brings the wrath of the Inquisition with them. Remember what happened to Kael Arpadel? His dungeons were razed to the ground, and everything that surrounded them died, everyone slightly related to him or his service was hunted down and executed by Inquisitors! Everyone here knew someone who died during the purge: friends, family, lovers! Dungeon Lords see our beloved people as tools! Are they?”
At this, the few rebels not tied to manning the magic of the circle screamed angry denials.
“We call ourselves the will of Starevos!” Nicolai went on. “But how can we be the will of our homeland if we a
ren’t willing to excise its parasites? Should that be the work of the Inquisition, like it claims?”
“No!” roared his rebels. “No! No!”
“We won’t let them!”
“Death! Death to Alita’s lapdogs!”
Their loyalty warmed Nicolai’s heart. He threw a glance at Rolim’s face, and he saw mixed feelings that he couldn’t recognize. Fear? Love? Both looked the same to Nicolai when observed over the eldritch, unholy light. “No!” he roared, along with his rebels. “No, we won’t. Burning the blight out of Starevos is our sacred duty, and we shall uphold it!” Purple energy thundered above his head, where a dark cloud of energy was forming. It was time. “Today, we make our ancestors proud. The innocent souls we send their way will be remembered as martyrs, their names engraved in Galtia’s castle when the flag of our kingdom rises again upon its towers! Today, we make Duke Fynnal proud!”
He signaled at the magical circle, and the incantation grew in intensity as the final stanzas were sung. The purple energy encircled the dark cloud as if a tornado was trying to form inside the warehouse.
One of the hostages was caught by the end of a feedback spark and his head exploded in a shower of blood and gore, but the chanting didn’t stop. It couldn’t. They were committed.
For it was portal magic they were casting, powered by human sacrifice, and stopping now would bring forth into reality beings far worse than Dungeon Lords or the Inquisition. The only option left was to push forward and finish the job.
Which was how Nicolai had lived his entire life. He would have it no other way.
His hair stood on end, like a cat’s, as the magical energy reached a crescendo of raw power. The arcane ley lines of the circle were brought to life. Strange voices, voices that human throats couldn’t imitate, joined the chorus for the briefest of instants…
Reality rippled, as if time and space were but a lake and a child had thrown a stone into it.
The portal opened.
And then, silence.
A snowy field spread in the middle of the magical circle, seemingly through a giant crack in an invisible wall. Cold seeped inside the warehouse, carrying a hint of snowflakes with it. The smell of winter reached Nicolai’s nostrils, and a river of memories awoke inside him. His childhood, running and laughing among the oaks; Spriveska; his brother and father, working the fields, blissfully unaware of the grim fate that awaited them.
And Lyndis. Her face torn from her skull.
“This is for you,” Nicolai whispered, making sure no one could hear him. He stepped inside the portal, and his warriors followed.
WHILE BRONDAN WATCHED, paralyzed by awe and terror, as Nicolai bridged the gap between Hoia and Undercity with a single step, the spiderling slid out of his armor, unseen, and scurried away from the rebels and the eldritch circle.
The spiderling was too young to have a voice, or a name, but it was born to follow the commands of its Mother, and she had ordered the cluster to follow the will of Lord Wright. So the spiderling’s will was the will of the Dungeon Lord. And the Dungeon Lord had told it to observe and report back.
The nooks and crannies of the old warehouse provided excellent hiding places for the creature. It had the stealth skill as its birthright—the only way a singular spiderling could hope to survive until adulthood in the unforgiving forest.
Hiding inside the first thief’s armor had been easy. It only had to remain very still and wait for him to meet with the elf. To the spiderling, all humanoid mammals were alike: pinkish blobs of exposed skin and soft, swollen tissue, with hair in all the wrong places. But it could distinguish an elf from a human by the smell.
There was a tiny breeze coming out from one of the cracks in a nearby wall. It was big enough for it to fit through. With a jump and a swing from its web, it reached the crack and scouted to make sure there weren’t any predators nearby.
It would be a shame to get this far only to die in the beak of a lucky bird.
When the human Thief had confronted the elf in the Guildhall, it had been the riskiest moment of the spiderling’s short life. The mammals came to blows, and it had had to bridge the space between them by jumping from one to the other, using a short strand of web to tie itself to the elf’s waist as he ran away from the human. It had been a close call, for the elf was hurt and sick, and lacked a couple fingers, but the human wasn’t in prime condition either.
The spiderling cared little for the details. The danger of the stint had earned it five experience points, bringing it to a total of ten. It was now well on its path to adulthood. In a couple more years, it’d be able to speak.
But first, it had to survive the dangerous streets of Undercity: a hellish world where everything was bigger than it, but unlike in Hoia, the rules were made up, and there were no trees or bushes for it to hide in.
Alleys were as wide, to it, as open roads, and just as exposed. Trying to wade through the sea of legs was out of the question—it’d get crushed, or worse, get noticed and killed for its meager experience points by some child or a cat.
It actually was almost killed by a cat when the spiderling ran across a bridge that seemed to extend for years. It only survived by throwing itself out into the deadly waters of the freezing canal below, then launching a web string at the last second toward the bridge to swing its body underneath the bridge’s planks. The cat, frustrated, howled at the out-of-reach critter and left.
That adventure netted the spiderling another five points, a rank increase for its Mind attribute, and the first rank in the acrobatics skill. At this rate, it’d soon become the most powerful spiderling of its generation.
Then it lost a leg when a bird swooped down from out of nowhere, caught the spiderling with its beak before the critter could react, and lifted it in the air, fast as an exhalation, for several feet before the spiderling’s leg broke and it fell to the ground onto a convenient heap of steaming horse dung. The bird made another pass, but this time the spiderling expected it, and burrowed inside the pile until the bird lost interest.
It gained another few experience points, and a rank increase to its Spirit, but now its Agility was down by one point until its leg regenerated. The critter soldiered on.
The smell of the sea affirmed it was going in the right direction. Lord Wright had given it instructions to find his smell by the artificial shores of the city—and if the spiderling couldn’t find him there, for it to return to the forest and report.
The spiderling hoped with all its strength that it’d be able to find Lord Wright by the shores. It doubted that it’d survive the return trip to the forest. Its stamina was greatly diminished, and reaching the shores took it all night and most of the following day. The cold and the snow robbed its blood of warmth, and hunger reared its ugly head. If only the spiderling could stop for a few hours so it could hunt… a couple flies would be enough.
But no, it thought. I have orders.
There were thousands upon thousands of different smells carried through the cold breeze. It was dizzying. To find a normal human inside this invisible sea? Impossible. To find the Dungeon Lord to which Mother was pledged?
The spiderling had only to find and follow the essence of the Dark. There were several trails on the shores, but the strongest one could only belong to a Dungeon Lord.
It brought the spiderling to a humanoid nest that seemed to serve food and provide refuge to beings of different clusters. The critter found the tiny hint of its sister’s smell there, along with Lord Wright’s personal aroma. Sadly, both trails were cold. They had left the place early in the morning… and headed in the direction of the forest.
The spiderling stared with dismay at the uncountable legs stomping the wet mud, and upward, at the birds that had started to encircle its general location. The spiderling was no more to them than a healthy snack—the same way it thought of flies and mosquitoes.
The critter was almost resigned to its fate when it discovered a second trail with Lord Wright’s smell, mixed with another, war
m, and very, very near.
Surging with determination, the spiderling headed to it, dancing among the legs and the mud and the dung.
It had an urgent message to deliver.
20
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE TICKET
The entrance to the tunnel was just like they had left it, covered by trash and a small pile of snow. The alley was empty, but they had been followed before, so Kes insisted on spending half an hour standing watch outside, scowling at the occasional hobo who dared to wander in their vicinity.
Ed was tasked with clearing the tunnels of junk and snow, while Alder sat nearby and groaned pathetically.
“Someone come end my pain,” the Bard whispered with a raspy voice. “Oh, gods, the pain…” He clutched at his head like it was splitting and groaned again.
“A hangover is not a reason to just sit there, you know,” Ed pointed out, beginning to get frustrated, as he tossed a wet sackcloth away from the pile. A nest of rats ran from him.
“That’s not fair,” Alder told him. A shy ray of sunlight hinted itself through the cloudy winter sky, and Alder scowled at it like it had spat on his mother. “You are fresh as a lettuce and got some action last night. Have some mercy, man.”
Ed lifted an eyebrow at him. “From the looks of it, you got some action too.” He tossed away pieces of a broken, rotten chair.
“Maybe,” Alder said noncommittally. “Or maybe I didn’t. But the price was too high!” He scowled at the sunlight again.
The Dungeon Lord sighed and kicked away what remained of the pile, causing it to collapse inward and reveal the tunnel’s entrance. A freezing wind seeped through the black hole.
“Anyway,” Alder said. “What are Katalyn and you going to do now?” He grabbed his new flute and took it out of its sheath, which he had been doing frequently ever since he had bought it—Ed guessed that Alder just liked to make sure it was still there.