Bone Lord 5

by Dante King

  “No, no, she’s right,” Rhuz said. “There’s another smell, beyond the stench of human waste that permeates these tunnels. A more disturbing smell, one that’s making me feel … on edge.”

  I dropped down next to the sluggishly flowing water of the sewer and held my torch over it. The revolting sludge had a distinctly reddish tinge to it. What was more, I could sense the presence of fresh death nearby; there were vast numbers of dead bodies down here in the darkest and deepest parts of this network of sewers.

  “It’s blood you can smell,” I said darkly. “A lot of it.”

  “So, the mythical Blood Pyramid is truly down here below us, then?” Yollah asked.

  “We’re already in it, brother,” I said. “These are not just the sewers of Luminescent Spires— they’re the outermost passages of the pyramid. Look closely at the stonework and tell me whether you think this was built a few hundred years ago, or a few thousand.”

  He examined the stone and gasped. “You’re right. We’re inside the Blood Pyramid. It’s no myth…”

  “A great evil pulses in the depths of this dark place, like the beating of a black heart,” Friya murmured. “My wolf senses are screaming out many silent warnings.”

  “When it lives again, my dragon’s fire will purify this place of whatever evil lingers in these stones,” Yumo-Rezu muttered.

  “Not even dragon fire can completely purify this place,” Friya said. “The entire Blood Pyramid must be leveled, and every one of these stones pulverized to dust. We cannot leave a single brick intact once we have defeated Elandriel and the Blood God, and whatever Demogorgon or Demogorgons they have summoned with their evil powers.”

  “I’ll be able to do that,” I said, “once I receive my final prize.”

  “Your final prize?” Yumo-Rezu asked. “And what might that be?”

  I still hadn’t told anyone about the Bone Crown that lay waiting for me at the top of the Gray Sentinel, and I suspected that Yumo-Rezu would be especially unhappy to hear about me becoming ruler of all the gods, since I knew that she considered herself my equal. But it was only by becoming the ruler of all deities that I would attain the power to turn every stone of this evil place to dust. For the moment, though, I figured it would be better to be vague about this.

  “A power that will enable me to destroy this place completely,” I said. “Don’t worry about it now; I have to defeat the Blood God and Elandriel first, and that sure as hell isn’t going to be a simple task. Let’s focus on getting into the vaults for the moment and grabbing what we need to make that victory happen.”

  We continued through the sewers, and I cast part of my spirit into the undead rat. Dawn was breaking in the city above us, and with the rising of the sun came the changing of the vault guards. This would be a perfect chance for me to slip into the vaults.

  The changing of the guards was a strictly controlled affair, and I saw right away that the warriors who protected the vaults were no ordinary warriors. Instead, even the lower tier guards were elite warriors who wore full plate armor and carried greatswords. The upper tier guards were Consecrated Knights, who, in addition to their martial prowess, were able to wield devastating Light powers on par with Elyse’s, or even greater. Even so, we could have taken them in a fight, but then our cover would have been blown and Elandriel would certainly have launched all of his forces against us in a monster of a battle that we weren’t yet ready for. Stealth was the wisest option here, although I was sorely tempted to simply say fuck it and charge in with my Dragon Sword swinging.

  The complex series of locks spun and whirred, and the head guard whispered the secret incantation that would temporarily disable the magic protecting the doors. The enormous doors slowly swung open as the first rays of the sun hit them, and the night guards began to march out in perfect order while the day guards waited in formation outside in the cobbled street. The vaults looked like a small castle from the outside and stood near the top of the hill city of Luminescent Spires, just below the enormous white palace, with its soaring towers and spires, but the crenellated walls were thicker than those of most castles in Prand. These vaults could take multiple hits from the biggest trebuchets without so much as a crack appearing in the dense stone.

  Behind a half-eaten loaf of bread, dropped on the street the night before, my rat waited. I had to time this perfectly, so that I could get my minion to slip in unnoticed. The leaving guards split into two lines, one marching in a left-curving arc, the other in the opposite direction. Then the incoming guards marched through the space between the lines. It was a clever tactic; if anyone thought they could rush the guards at this somewhat vulnerable time, the outgoing guards could easily form themselves into a tight defensive square in seconds.

  Of course, I wasn’t about to rush anyone in this tiny form. I waited until the last ingoing guards marched in, then watched as the enormous doors slowly began to swing closed. The outgoing guards positioned themselves into two rows forming a wedge, blocking the entrance completely, with the rearmost guards right against the wall. This formation protecting against any slippery street urchin or thief ducking swiftly in before the doors were completely closed …

  But none of them thought to look down at the litter on the cobbled street for an intruder. Weaving through dropped cabbage leaves and bread crusts and darting from spot of cover to spot of cover, I raced toward the closing doors. I scuttled behind the rearmost guard’s boots and slipped through the last crack of open door, scurrying through the gap just before it shut completely. One second slower and my undead rat would have been flattened like a bloody piece of parchment.

  I was in, but I wasn’t about to hang around and wait for some eagle-eyed guard to notice that a rat had gotten into the vaults; the marble-floored corridors in here, like those of the palace, were kept spotlessly clean. Being the greedy, money-grubbing asshole he was, this was Elandriel’s favorite place in all of Luminescent Spires, and he insisted on every surface being clean enough to eat off of. If my rat’s digestive system had still functioned like that of a living creature, I would have made sure to drop rat shit and piss all over the place to spite the asshole. As it was, though, I had to be content with simply dirtying the place with my creature’s presence.

  Back in the sewers, where my actual body was, I now had to rely on Yollah for directions.

  “All right, I’m in,” I said to him. “Where do I go from here?”

  Yollah gave me detailed directions, and, communicating with him every step of the way, I directed my undead rat through the labyrinth of corridors.

  The interior of the vaults had been constructed in such a manner that it was part of the protection against thieves. There were no paintings on the walls, no statues, and no decorations of any sort. The whole place was constructed in the form of an extremely complex maze, with every corridor and door looking exactly alike, and with each corridor splitting up into two more corridors. The idea was that if you’d never been here before and didn’t know the layout of the place, you would get hopelessly lost. Furthermore, not only would you not be able to find the entrance to the lower vaults, you wouldn’t even be able to find your way to the exit again. The only way you’d escape without starving to death or going mad would be by being escorted out—directly to the dungeons of Luminescent Spires—at swordpoint by the guards when they eventually found you.

  The maze was so complex, and the surfaces so identical, with every wall, floor, and ceiling being exactly the same dimensions, and the same smooth white marble, that if you stayed in this place too long you’d start to forget which way was up and which way was down, and which way was forward and which was backward. Every guard and treasurer who served in the vaults spent their first few months of work simply memorizing the intricately complex routes in and out of the vault mazes.

  Thankfully, Yollah’s memory of the interior of the vault was flawless, and he was able to guide me through the immensely complicated maze and get me all the way down to the secret escape tunnel at th
e bottom. There were two elite guards watching the entrance to the tunnel, but I was able to scamper past their feet when they started engaging in idle chatter. We’d have to deal with the two of them and take them out swiftly and silently when we made our way in, but I figured that it wouldn’t present too much of a problem, since I had over a dozen elite assassins behind me.

  Once inside the tunnel, which was gloomy and dimly lit by only a few burning torches spaced far apart, I sent my undead rat scurrying down the winding passage that led to the sewers. Unlike the rest of the interior of the vaults, the walls of the tunnel were of rough brown and gray stone, and the floor was uneven and rocky.

  “Where’s the switch?” I asked Yollah. “I’m at the door.”

  “There should be a rock sticking out of the wall that’s a slightly different color to the other rocks,” Yollah said. “That’s the switch.”

  I sent my rat scurrying up the wall, which was easy to climb owing to how rough and uneven the stones were. While my rat wasn’t exactly colorblind, it did take some intense focus to notice a jutting stone with a reddish tinge to it, which was different to the gray and brown stones. I used my little minion’s paws to press it, and found that I had to exert a lot of force before I heard a click and the stone sank flush with the rest of the wall. Then, with a deep rumbling, the door began to slowly creak open. In my own body, I watched the entrance to the vaults open.

  “How many guards do we have to deal with?” Friya asked. For a brief moment, just the blink of an eye, her face almost seemed to ripple, the skin almost peeling away to reveal the ferocious werewolf within. Her destiny was calling, and if she had to use her werewolf form to rip apart the guards that stood between her and transforming into her final form as a dragon, I knew she would consider it blood well spent.

  “Just two at the end of this tunnel,” I said. “Keep your wolf fangs in your gums and your claws retracted, though—we need this to be a clean and silent takedown. Rhuz and I will take care of that. Beyond the two guards at the end of the tunnel, there are a lot patrolling the maze, but none of them are in stationary positions. I’d prefer to avoid them and sneak by rather than kill them—at least up until we’ve got our hands on the goods and found out who this mysterious prisoner is. Everyone follow me now. We’ll take care of the guards, then Yollah will take over and lead us through the maze to the Inner Vaults, where our prizes are.”

  We all crept through the corridor until we came within earshot of the guards and could hear the murmurs of their conversation. At this point, the rest of the group hung back, and Rhuz and I went on ahead.

  A thrill coursed through me, one that I hadn’t felt for quite some time. This scenario took me all the way back to my first days as an assassin, and the adrenalin rush that would surge through my veins in the final seconds before closing in on a mark for a swift, stealthy kill. Even though the warriors we were approaching were elite, highly trained fighters, I felt like a panther in the night, approaching a hapless monkey in the jungle.

  Rhuz and I coordinated our movements with silent hand signals—all assassins were trained in a unique sign language for scenarios just like this one—and we swooped from shadow to shadow, taking advantage of the gloom in the dimly lit tunnel. We neared the two guards, so close we could hear them breathing and smell the reek of their sweat. They were clad in full plate armor, forged by the most masterful armorers of Luminescent Spires, and there was barely a weak spot anywhere in their suits, but that wasn’t about to stop us.

  We didn’t need to penetrate their armor to snap their necks.

  I communicated to Rhuz that we needed to go with an unarmed takedown; I didn’t want to spill any of their blood and thus leave traces of their deaths on the floor in the form of blood splatters. As assassins, we’d learned the standard ventriloquist’s trick of throwing one’s voice, to make it appear as if the voice was coming from a different direction entirely. I gave Rhuz a hand signal to indicate that I was about to do it, and that we would strike immediately. He replied, signaling that he was ready for this.

  “Hey, assholes, you smell like a pair of rotting goblin testicles!” I yelled, throwing my voice to make it sound as if my voice was coming from in front of them, rather than behind them in the tunnel.

  “Who goes there?” one of them yelled, drawing his greatsword.

  “Show yourself, scoundrel, and prepare to meet your doom!” the other snarled, his weapon at the ready as he spun around to face the direction he thought my voice had come from.

  Without a word, Rhuz and I pounced from the shadows, moving with brutal speed and feline grace. I hurled myself into a tumbling leap, vaulting over the guard I was targeting and coming down out of my tumble with my arm hooked suddenly around his neck. He barely had time to gasp with surprise, let alone attempt to defend himself, before my momentum and savage grip snapped his neck like a twig. I landed with his head lolling in the crook of my elbow on his limp, broken neck, and glanced across at Rhuz, who had used the same maneuver on the other guard. We gave each other a quick nod of mutual respect for a job efficiently done, then I sent a low whistle down the tunnel, beckoning to the rest of the group.

  While they came up the tunnel, I resurrected the two dead guards as zombies. They wouldn’t be fighting alongside us—not yet, at least. They would stay here in their positions, and any other guard who walked past wouldn’t suspect for a moment that any foul play had taken place … unless he tried to talk to them, of course. Even so, I could keep part of my spirit in their bodies and observe this place through their sensory organs and growl out a wordless grunt if needed.

  “We could go this way,” Yollah said when he reached us, pointing to the left. “It’s a longer route, but it’ll take us directly to the Inner Vault.”

  “You said ‘could,’” I said. “What’s the other option?”

  “The other way takes us past the entrance to the secret dungeon cell first,” he said. “It’s shorter but might be riskier.”

  Instinct, or some sort of sixth sense, seemed to be drawing me toward this unknown prisoner.

  “We’ll take the route past the dungeon,” I said. “Take us that way.”

  Yollah gave me a nod and took off at a brisk pace. We followed along, staying close behind him and keeping our eyes and ears wide open for any sign of patrolling guards. We stuck close together; if anyone fell behind and took a wrong turn, they could end up vanishing for good.

  Soon enough, though, Yollah stopped before one of the many perfectly identical doors that lined the walls of the maze. “Through here,” he said. “But there’ll definitely be guards to deal with behind this door. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I nodded. “This instinct that’s guiding me is growing stronger and stronger; I have to discover who this prisoner is.”

  Outside this door, I felt an irresistible pull, drawing me in just as powerfully as that first pull I’d felt in the crypt I’d been robbing when I woke the spirit of Isu, right back at the beginning of this journey of mine. Whatever lay beyond this door was as much a part of my destiny as awakening Isu had been; I could feel it in my bones.

  “Ready yourselves for a fight then,” Yollah said, “because whoever this is, he’s always been heavily guarded.”

  I drew the Dragon Sword and gripped it loosely in both hands. As I exhaled, I stood on the balls of my feet, my muscles tensed.

  “Open the door,” I said.

  Yollah flung the door open, and beyond it we saw a large chamber with a number of prison cell doors lining the walls. Also, inside the chamber were a dozen elite guards.

  No words were spoken from either side; we all knew that this was a fight to the death, with no quarter asked or given.

  I charged in with the Dragon Sword, with Yumo-Rezu’s enchanted arrows streaking through the air ahead of me. The assassins’ Death-enchanted throwing stars and throwing knives flashed in the torchlight as they sped toward their targets. Friya transformed into her werewolf form and pounced on a guard, and
the assassins leapfrogged off walls or dived acrobatically under sword slashes, drawing their long knives to stab through tiny chinks of the guards’ armor.

  As for me, I needed no such precision, not with the Dragon Sword in my hand. The enchanted blade could slice through almost any substance on earth. When one of the guards came at me with a roar, swinging his greatsword in a whistling arc at my chest, I simply flicked the blade of the Dragon Sword in an aggressive parry and cut his blade in half. I flipped the sword in my hand, darted forward, and slashed diagonally downward. The sword sheared through the guard’s entire torso from the top of his right shoulder all the way down to his left hipbone, cutting through armor, meat, and bone as if they were wet paper.

  I jumped over another greatsword slash aimed at my midsection, and when I came down for a landing, I brought the Dragon Sword whistling down in a downward slash, splitting the next guard’s body from the top of his cranium down to his balls. The two halves of his body peeled grotesquely apart and flopped to the floor in a gush of blood and cascading viscera and organs.

  While the assassins, Yumo-Rezu, and Friya dealt with the remaining guards, I headed straight for the cell at the very end of the chamber. The lock was enchanted with Light magic, but it was no match for my Dragon Sword, through which I channeled my own magic. I slashed the lock off the door and kicked the door open to see who the prisoner was.

  The cell beyond the door was a small, dingy space. In the darkness, a skeletal figure cowered, wheezing pitifully. His body trembled with both fear and weakness. It was clear that he was barely clinging to life. I couldn’t make out his features in the gloom, so I grabbed a torch off a nearby wall and stepped cautiously into the cell.

  When the firelit revealed the prisoner’s features, I recognized him immediately, and so great was my sense of shock and surprise that the torch fell from my hand.

  “Fuck me,” I gasped. “Holy fuck … what the fuck is this?”