by Max Anthony
5
They reached the closest house without being spotted. Viddo sailed through the window with grace and aplomb, while Rasmus kicked and struggled his way inside.
“It looks very familiar,” whispered Rasmus as he took in the details of the room. “Did you kill that one?”
“No, not me,” said Viddo. He was standing at the front door, with it pulled open enough for him to look through. “We should talk about it once we get away from here.”
Rasmus was about to say something, when Viddo yanked the door open at speed and darted outside. There was a soft impact and a quiet thud, followed by a scraping sound as the thief dragged one of the undead creatures inside. He pulled it away from the door and dropped it in the corner of the room.
“A perfect backstab,” he said by way of explanation.
They left the house and entered the next one through the window. It had been all Viddo could do to prevent himself from propelling the wizard headfirst through by means of a hand on his rump, but he didn’t want to make his friend feel like a clumsy buffoon. As it happened, Rasmus was far from clumsy, he just wasn’t best suited to climbing in and out of windows.
They exited this second house only moments after they’d entered it. Rasmus saw the severed arm, this time keeping his mouth shut. They reached the third house without encountering any more of the undead, and Viddo called a brief halt in order that they could discuss the best way forward.
“I am not sure how far through the village we are. It could be that there are another ten or fifteen houses until we get to the other side, or there may be much fewer,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rasmus was looking through the exit window. “There’s quite a gap between here and the next house,” he said. “At least twenty feet and it’s all quite open.” Almost before he’d finished these words, he ducked away from the window, with a look upon his face that Viddo recognized.
“You’ve been spotted, haven’t you?” he asked.
“Possibly,” admitted Rasmus. “There were only four of them. Perhaps five.”
Viddo positioned himself to one side of the door with his dagger in one hand and Jera’s sword in the other. Rasmus drew his cosh. They waited in silence, hoping that the wizard had escaped notice. He had not, and the door was thrust open from the outside. One of the creatures came inside, with others to follow. Rasmus looked at it, and saw that its mouth was open in a hate-filled snarl. The sharp teeth gave it an air of extra menace and the black orbs of its eyes were otherworldly and strange.
The first creature burst into flames and the second one with it, their grey skin shrivelling and tightening where the angry blue-red heat of Rasmus’ magefire scoured them. The first stumbled and fell before it could reach the wizard. The second one tripped over the body of its fellow, but tried to crawl onwards to reach its foe. Rasmus had no intention of trying to hit it with his cosh while it was still alight, so he backed swiftly away until he reached the opposite corner of the room.
In the doorway, a third creature was already dead, stabbed by Viddo as it passed. A fourth muscled its way inside, brandishing a two-headed axe in one of its broad hands. Viddo stabbed it in the throat with his dagger, ducking at the same time in order to avoid a powerful swing of the axe.
There was a fifth, which was so impatient to enter the fray that it pushed its near-dead fellow in the back, in order that it could suffer the same fate a fraction of a second sooner than it otherwise would have. Viddo happily obliged it, pushing his sword into its chest. The undead was full of enthusiasm and forced itself onto the full length of the thief’s blade. It wielded a heavy stone club with ease and Viddo had to take evasive action to avoid having his skull flattened. He jumped away, leaving his sword in the creature’s chest and readied his dagger.
Moments later, it was over. Five of the undead had been destroyed without having done any harm to the brave adventurers who had dispatched them. Viddo tucked his weapons away, after giving them a cursory wipe on the matted hair of the final undead.
“Fairly tough, but nothing unusual,” he concluded, covering his nose and mouth with one sleeve to try and escape the worst of the smell from the two smouldering bodies.
“It’s always the numbers, rather than their individual strength,” said Rasmus. The undead rarely arrived in ones and twos, except on the earliest floors of a dungeon.
The combat had been a comparatively silent affair. Creatures such as these usually fought in silence and gave no cries of pain when they were injured, nor did they ever try to run or to raise the alarm when it was clear that they were outclassed. Even so, Viddo ensured the front door was properly closed, having checked and found the streets clear of incoming reinforcements.
“I don’t think there are any more coming,” he announced. “But get yourself out of that window and be quick about it.”
Rasmus obliged and struggled his way through the aperture, landing in a heap on the other side. Viddo was already there, standing casually nearby.
“It seemed easier to just leave by the front door,” the thief said by way of explanation.
There was no time for Rasmus to make an angry utterance, since Viddo had dashed across the gap to the next of the dwellings. With a leap and a dive, he threw himself cleanly through the window, while Rasmus hurried in his wake. By the time he reached the window, Viddo had already killed the single undead denizen and re-sheathed his dagger.
“You’re a smartarse, do you know that?” asked Rasmus.
Viddo did not deign himself to reply, instead putting out a hand to assist the ungrateful wizard through the window.
“This one’s a two-storey house,” announced the thief. “I’m going to have a look up those steps.”
Rasmus scanned the room, which was larger than the others they’d entered. There were steps against the far wall, leading up to a hole in the ceiling, where the first floor presumably lay.
“The settled life is not for me, but if I ever change my mind, I will be sure to live somewhere that is full of life and cheer, rather than these appallingly dreary underground houses,” the wizard said.
“I agree with you wholeheartedly,” Viddo replied, already halfway up the steps. “But people must make do with what is available to them. If you have chosen to live underground, then you must accept that there are few materials other than stone.”
“I am certain that we have found our way into another area of that same underground complex that we have so recently escaped,” Rasmus replied. “Everything is very similar.”
“I have come to the same conclusion,” said Viddo. “It means that we must tread carefully, in case the former owners of these diamonds we appropriated come looking for them again.” With that, he gave his tunic a gentle pat as if to reassure himself that those diamonds were still there. In truth, he wished that he’d stashed them somewhere for safe keeping, since they were most uncomfortable to carry on his person. He thought about putting them in his backpack, but rejected the idea at once – he had a habit of losing his packs or abandoning them when circumstances dictated it wise.
The upper floor was nothing more than another square room, devoid of life, devoid of furniture and lacking in any sort of plumbing. However, it was not a toilet break which had sent Viddo up these stairs. What he was after was a safer and quicker route out of the stone village.
“I think we can get onto the adjacent roof easily enough,” he mused. “And from there I think we can jump across the rooftops until we’re on the other side, at which point we can make a dash for one of the exit passageways I can see from here.”
“Are these jumps suitable for a wizard, or am I likely to fall short and tumble into the waiting arms of the undead?” asked Rasmus warily.
“Assuming you can jump six or seven feet, I can’t imagine that you’ll have a problem. The first jump from the confines of this narrow window will be the most difficult.”
Without waiting for further discussion, Viddo climbed through one of the two-feet square openings and,
whilst gripping onto the thick stone with his hands, used his legs to push himself away. Rasmus looked through the recently-vacated window and saw that Viddo had landed safely on the next roof, which was a mere four feet away.
With trepidation, Rasmus attempted the same feat. The end result was the same, in that he arrived on the other roof, but the action itself was performed with somewhat less verve and resulted in the wizard scraping one knee and an elbow when he landed. He gritted his teeth and rubbed at these very minor wounds.
“It should be plain sailing from here,” said Viddo, offering no sympathy at all. They’d both suffered far worse in the past.
“Were we seen?” asked Rasmus.
Viddo cautiously peered over the edge of the building into the winding alleyway below, taking care not to become visible. “There’s no sign of any activity,” he said.
Rasmus took stock of their surroundings. From the vantage of the flat, stone roof, they could make out the extent of the village. It wasn’t very large at all and there were only another five roofs between where they were standing and the other side. The wizard had to admit that the gaps he was expected to jump looked entirely manageable. Unfortunately, he’d just had a thought which he didn’t like to consider.
“Why are we so eager to escape this village? Is there a chance that Jera is trapped within one of these dwellings? I don’t wish to search them all, but we may need to do just that.”
“I would have agreed with you until I’d seen what had happened to the undead in some of the houses I first entered. They had been killed by something or someone.”
“Jera? How would she have managed to do that if she’d been captured?”
“We are only assuming she has been captured. What if, rather than being held by these undead, she was forced to flee down the steps behind that locked door?”
“Something opened the door and attacked Jera’s party, killing them. When the young lady saw that she was about to be overwhelmed, she escaped by the closest possible means?”
“It could be,” replied Viddo. “She may have dropped her sword as she ran or thrown it at a pursuer. When she got here, she made her way across the village by going house to house and killing those she found within. It’s not as if the undead are usually capable of acting in concert. At least not the feeble examples that we face here.”
“That still doesn’t explain how we can be sure whether or not she lies dead in one of these houses.”
“We can see that she’s following a path that stays close to the cavern walls. If we explore each and every one of those dwellings, we can be reasonably sure we will find her if she’s met her demise. If there is further indication of violence meted out to the undead, we will have evidence that she has escaped.”
“Very well, are you intending to descend to floor level again and search, while I remain on the roof?” asked Rasmus.
“That is the plan. I had considered asking you to hold onto my feet and dangle me over the edge so that I could look into the windows, but the time for showmanship is not now.”
At that, Viddo dropped off the edge of the roof and landed silently below. He gathered the darkness around him and crept across to the next dwelling. Inside, there was a dark shape slumped on the floor, which gave Viddo a moment of concern until he came close enough to see that it wasn’t Jera. He left by the opposite window, but not before he’d picked up two copper coins that his hands located within the folds of the creature’s rags. The coins were green with age and looked ancient, but he pocketed them, intending to hand them to the young woman he believed had destroyed the fallen undead.
There was no sign of activity on the streets, so Viddo proceeded to check the next house that butted up against the cavern wall. He heard the occasional bump and thump as Rasmus made his way across the rooftop above, which told him that his companion had not yet tumbled to the ground.
The next house was empty, and the one after that also. Soon, Viddo reached the last house in the village and in here he located two more of the undead. They’d been tidily butchered and chunks of them lay in places that indicated they’d been attacked by someone who was either very skilled or exceptionally angry. There was one more copper piece, which Viddo swiped to accompany the previous two.
There was a scraping and scrabbling sound close by and through the last of the windows, Viddo saw a shape drop to the ground. It landed with a thud and then there were the unmistakeable patting noises of someone dusting themselves off. Not wishing to delay any longer, Viddo exited this final house in the village and joined Rasmus.
“Jera may be the formidable young lady that her father told us she is,” he said. “She has shown courage and ability in equal measure to have crossed this village.”
“She got through, then?” asked Rasmus. He crouched low against the cavern wall in order to reduce the chance that any passing undead would see him.
“It looks that way,” replied Viddo.
“We have only a short dash to reach the closest of the three tunnels which lead away from here,” said Rasmus. The tunnel he referred to was about thirty yards away, just where the cavern began to narrow and taper. There were other exits, but these were further away and on the opposite wall. It seemed likely that Jera would have gone to the closest of the exits, so Rasmus and Viddo crept along the cavern wall towards it. There were signs of movement in the village and a few of the undead strode out from one of the alleys. Fortunately, they didn’t head towards where the pair hid and the creatures soon disappeared along another of the exit tunnels.
With relief, Rasmus and Viddo escaped into the tunnel. There was something about the village which they’d both found depressing. The undead were never the life and soul of the party, but the animated corpses of this unknown race spoke of the futility of existence – they’d lived their lives underground and had then been raised in order to spend an eternity of death in the same place.
The new passage was eight feet wide and tall, with an arched roof, this being an unusual amount of elaboration in a place that was otherwise filled with straight-edged shapes. Rasmus didn’t need to use his spell of light here, since the glass globes were present, firmly embedded into the walls at head height. The tunnel continued for a hundred yards or more, curving slightly to the left as it went, as if those who had channelled it turned up slightly drunk every morning. Then, it split into three, providing the opportunity to go left, right, or continue ahead.
“Shit,” muttered Rasmus. “We have no way of knowing which direction Jera took.”
“And no way to second-guess her habits without having observed her past behaviour,” said Viddo.
There was nothing for it but to choose and rely on luck to take them where they wanted to be. After a moment’s thought, Rasmus went right and Viddo followed.
6
The corridor was deserted, as if the undead they’d seen nearby had no reason to be here. Rasmus and Viddo were relieved to find it so, not wanting to battle their way through dozens of the creatures at every turn. Generally, the low-level undead did not act on their own initiative and required guidance from whatever it was that had animated them. Because of this it was no real surprise to find that the creatures were not wandering freely in search of excitement.
There were two more branches off, which added to the consternation of the pair, since each fork in the path reduced their chances of coming upon Jera. They were aware of how extensive these tunnels were – the last time they’d ventured into them, they’d travelled for many miles and had been left with the impression that they’d seen only a fraction of what there was to see. If they were correct in thinking that the place they were at now was joined to the other tunnels, then it seemed conceivable that the network of passageways and rooms could stretch across much of the northern part of the Frodgian continent.
Just as they were starting to worry that they might end up lost themselves, or get to a stage where they’d have to admit defeat in finding Jera, they came upon a new place. The cavern they enter
ed was roughly cuboid, with the height far greater than the width. There was what could almost be described as a plaza, forty yards to each side and decorated with stone statues of all descriptions. There were light globes at floor level, which gave off a sickly green light of a most unpleasant hue. The globes were set near to the outer walls only, making the centre of the plaza especially dim and full of shadows. The opposite wall of the cavern was smooth and flat, stretching up into the darkness above them. Here and there, they could see what looked to be windows dotting the surface, with light behind many of them.
Not wishing to march into the place without first studying it, Rasmus and Viddo watched for a while from the confines of their tunnel. There must have been at least fifty of the statues, ranging in height from five feet to eight feet and depicting all manner of creatures, many of which neither man recognized.
“They are all humanoid,” whispered Viddo, pointing at one or two. “But their features are not that of humans. Are we seeing reality reflected in stone, or are these the work of an artist’s fevered mind?”
“I can see ghouls and others which look like the undead we saw back in the village,” whispered Rasmus. “Perhaps they pass for objects of beauty in this place.”
Neither man was convinced by this notion, yet there were many times they had witnessed the skills with stone that were displayed in this underground world. It wasn’t a great leap to imagine that there would be craftsmen as well as tunnellers.
“Look over there. I can see what appears to be a doorway in the opposite wall,” said Viddo.
Rasmus looked in the direction indicated and was able to see an eight-feet tall doorway, arched at the top in the same way as the passage. The doorway was deeply shadowed, but it was still possible to make out the closed door that sealed off this single exit from the room.
“If I didn’t know otherwise, I would say that this was the house of a wealthy individual,” Rasmus said.