by Logan Jacobs
I stood again, tucked the obsidian knife into my belt, and then turned down the adjacent hall. It was still damp and dark, but as we continued on I could hear voices, people chanting. I listened closely but I could neither make out what they were saying nor determine how many people were speaking, though I knew it must be more than ten.
We’d found the cultists, then.
I was just about to suggest we go back to retrieve the others before we moved on when a light appeared at the end of the hall as someone opened a door, and before I could react, a body stepped into the doorframe.
The cultist gave a cry of alarm when he saw us and ducked behind the door again just in time to avoid an arrow in the chest.
“Shit!” Lavinia hissed, and the four of us took off down the hall at a sprint toward the door.
Merlin was the fastest and shifted as he bounded ahead of the rest of us. In the blink of an eye, the fifteen-pound puca transformed into a gigantic hound with sooty black fur and a mouthful of vicious fangs. He burst through the door and screams erupted inside from the cultists.
When I reached the door, I quickly took in the huge chamber cast in dramatic lighting by tall, freestanding candles placed at strategic intervals around the room. Dark purple curtains ensured that no light came through the windows, and the walls between them featured even more depictions of Eutrem. A sigil had been drawn across most of the floor in what I supposed was ash, though the edges were smudged where Merlin had run across it, and in the center, lying on its back was the naked corpse of a man. His throat appeared to have just been split, and his blood was running down grooves in the floor that followed the same path as the ash markings of the sigil.
There were close to thirty cultists in the room, and they’d all backed away from the door when Merlin had charged through, but they were already beginning to launch a counter-attack. I glimpsed more obsidian knives and noted that almost half of the cultists were mages. As one of the mages raised his hand toward Merlin and his mana sparked with the beginnings of a spell, I threw my own hand up and curled it into a fist to stop him. He barely had a chance to look shocked before Merlin leaped at him, and he fell to the floor with a terrified scream.
Lavinia released a volley of arrows that took down four of the cultists in one neat shot, and I backed up and focused on my guild. Over the past few months, I’d been practicing casting mana weapons, and now I could do it easily, without needing direct contact to enhance each of my guild members’ weapons at once. My study of Cygne’s magic only served to make that easier, and as soon as I raised my hand, Lavinia’s bow and arrows, Yvaine’s sword, and Aerin’s axe all glowed bright blue with mana.
Aerin swung her axe into the belly of the cultist who charged at her, and he let out a breathless gasp as he doubled over.
Another foolishly came at Yvaine with only his obsidian knife, and the noblewoman unarmed him with a flourish and then drove her flowing blade into his chest as easily as she would put a pin into a cushion.
Five of the cultists had gathered around the corpse at the center of the room, and I could see their mana glow brighter as they resumed their chant over it. I knew I could quell their mana, but I had a better idea. I held my hand out and turned it palm up, and a mana clone sprang up at the center of the ring of cultists, right above the corpse. They gave a shout and started to stagger back, but not quickly enough.
“Lavinia!” I called. “Over there!” That was all the direction she needed. The archer knew intuitively what I wanted her to do and shot a mana-enhanced arrow at the clone.
As the mana of her arrow met the mana of the clone, it exploded in a blast of blue light that obliterated the five cultists where they stood. All that was left was a scorch mark on the floor where the corpse had been and a bit of smoking gore scattered around.
Distracted by the explosion, the remaining cultists paused for a heartbeat, and Aerin took another two down while Yvaine skewered a third and Merlin tore the throat out of a fourth. In a matter of minutes, we’d taken out half the room. For all the hype, it seemed like this mission was going to be easier than the Mage Academy had anticipated.
The remaining fifteen or so cultists were far less bold now that they realized they were being slaughtered, and several of them began to back toward the door at the other end of the room. Merlin snarled and leaped around to cut them off and herd them back toward us, and that was when I saw one of the cultists raise his blade not at Merlin, but to make a cut across his own wrist.
I threw up my hand and created a clone directly in front of the blood mage, but I was a millisecond too late, and dark blood ran down his arm and soaked into the sleeve of his robes as he began to recite a spell. I closed my fist to quell his mana, but it didn’t really matter. He was using his blood to augment his magic, and I could only affect his mana.
Emboldened by the blood mage’s efforts, the other cultists surged forward again with knives and even some of the candles from around the room, and they pressed Aerin, Yvaine, and Merlin back toward where Lavinia and I stood. They had learned from our mana explosion trick from before, too, and were careful not to huddle too close to each other, or else stay right on top of my companions.
“Lavinia!” I cried. “The blood mage!”
He may have been able to circumvent the full effects of my magic, but he wasn’t immune to an arrow in the head.
The white-haired ranger nodded and aimed for the blood mage, but he had heard me, too, and as Lavinia released her bowstring, he raised his hand, and the arrow exploded into dust before it could reach him.
Aerin buried her axe into another of the cultists’ heads and flung his body away as she charged for the blood mage. Another mage raised a hand to stop her, but I quelled his mana before he could complete his attack. The blood mage saw her coming, too, but another volley of arrows from Lavinia competed for his attention.
The blood mage raised his hand, and the arrows dissolved into ash just like the first, but by then Aerin had reached him and swung her axe at his chest. He stepped back just in time to escape a fatal blow, but the shimmering blade of blessed steel cut a huge gash through his robes, and blood blossomed rapidly over his chest from the wound.
Maybe it was his renewed fear at having come so close to death, or maybe he decided it would be wiser to conserve his blood now that it was streaming down his chest, but as the blood mage raised his hand for another attack, he didn’t use blood magic. His mana flared up abruptly, but my reflexes were honed, and I quelled it almost immediately.
The mage made a choking sound and staggered, and that was the opening Aerin needed to bury her axe deep into the space between his neck and shoulder.
There were seven cultists left then, and they all bolted at once for the door at the opposite end of the room when they saw the blood mage fall. Aerin caught one as he tried to get past her and drove her axe between his shoulder blades, and Merlin grabbed another by the ankle and dragged him back across the floor while he screamed and struggled in vain to free himself. Lavinia took down one with an arrow through the neck just as he reached the door, but the four who were left threw him roughly aside as they shoved through the door.
The cultist Merlin had caught howled in terror until Merlin pounced on his chest and clamped his jaws around the man’s throat, and then there was just a pained gurgle from the one Lavinia had shot as he bled out on the floor.
Then there was silence, and we all let out gasps of relief as we smiled at each other.
Chapter 3
“What?” came a furious cry from the door behind us. “We missed it!” Dehn tramped into the room in a huff, his twin swords brandished as he looked furiously around at the bodies scattered over the floor.
Merlin turned at the sound and came loping back to us with his tail swinging behind him, and his jaws dripping with blood.
“I told you we shouldn’t have gone down that hall!” Dehn ranted on as he whirled and pointed a stubby finger at Maruk where he stood in the doorway we’d come through with
Emeline and Lena. “It was a complete waste of time and now look, we missed the whole damn fight!”
“I was trying to be thorough,” Maruk replied with a frown.
“Well we thoroughly missed out on all the fun, and it looks like it was a right bloodbath too, so I hope you’re pleased with yourself,” the halfling groused and kicked at one of the cultist corpses.
“Some of them got away,” I panted as I started for the other door where the cultists had escaped. “Come on!”
“Yes!” Dehn cheered as he raced after me.
I yanked on the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. The cultists had wisely taken the time to lock it from the other side when they’d made their escape.
“Damn it.” I hit the door with the hilt of my dagger in frustration. “It’s locked.”
“No!” Dehn cried.
“Got any more of that troll conditioner?” I asked Lena.
The alchemist shook her head. “I just had the one vial, it was a prototype.”
“There must be another way around,” Emeline reasoned. “And we haven’t found the books yet anyway.”
“Right,” I replied. There was another door against the same wall, opposite a huge painting of Eutrem covered in bloody rags, and I picked my way over the bodies to it and tried the handle. Unlocked, but the hall beyond it was empty. Still, if Dehn, Maruk, Emeline, and Lena’s route had led them to this room as well, that meant this was the only way forward for us. “Let’s go.”
Merlin brushed past me and took the lead in hound form, and his claws clicked on the bare stone floor as he trotted jauntily ahead.
Through the narrow windows that we passed, I could see that the weather had only gotten worse. It was as dark as twilight beneath the thick storm clouds, and the wind howled and shook the trees in the distance, though the rain still hadn’t reached us. Far away, I caught the boom of thunder.
“Was it a good fight?” Dehn asked behind me.
“I suppose,” Yvaine answered, a little uneasy. “Though I must admit, I do not care for that blood magic business. It’s rather ghastly if you ask me.”
“You can say that again,” Maruk said.
“I’ve never seen blood magic.” Dehn sounded disappointed. “Not really a fan of magic. I think if you’re gonna kill something, you oughta do it up close and personal. You know, really get in there, use your hands! I mean, no offense to you guys--”
“None taken,” Emeline replied. I didn’t turn around to look, but I could hear the amused smile in the pyromancer’s voice.
“Blood magic seems like it’d be pretty badass, though,” Dehn went on. “You think they can make people explode? I heard that once from a buddy of mine on the city guard. He swore he saw it.”
“Gabriel can make people explode,” Lavinia said. “You’ve seen that. Not up to your standards?”
“Well, that’s not the same!” Dehn protested. “It’s all flashy lights and sparkles.”
“Sparkles?” I cast a glance at the halfling over my shoulder.
“Look, I don’t have nothing against it,” Dehn assured me. “It’s pretty badass. But I’m talking about someone’s guts erupting out of their body and flying across the room!”
“Aren’t you interested in anything other than killing and maiming?” Maruk sighed.
“Drinking,” Dehn answered quickly. “Justice. Steel-toed boots.”
We came to a junction in the hall, but before I could so much as wonder which way to go, Merlin had his nose to the floor and was sniffing around feverishly. After a few seconds, he let out a loud bark and started eagerly down the right-hand hall, and we followed.
“Are you sure that thing knows where it’s going?” Lavinia demanded. “It could just be looking for the kitchens.”
Ahead, Merlin paused to growl indignantly in response to the archer’s comment.
“If you have any better ideas, feel free to suggest some,” I told her.
Though I tried to keep track of where we were going, Merlin took us so quickly down identical stone halls and around so many turns that I gave up after a few minutes. Merlin never slowed in his eager gallop, however, and he took every turn with absolute certainty, so I wondered if the puca was actually following the cultists’ scent trail or some sort of magical trace they’d left behind.
Most of the doors we passed were closed, but the ones that weren’t were hardly inspiring. From the quick glances I got as we ran by, most of them appeared to be sacrificial chambers presided over by gaunt statues of zombie-like women in rags, their stone floors stained with blood. How many travelers had come here looking for shelter only to meet their bloody end as sacrifices to Eutrem?
Finally, Merlin skidded to a halt, and his claws left pale scratches on the stone floor as he scrambled to keep his balance outside of a narrow door, and then he turned to me and barked.
The door wasn’t locked, fortunately, and it opened onto a wide spiraling staircase that wound down into pitch darkness far below.
“Emeline, can we get a light?” I called back, and the pyromancer came forward and cast a few small fireballs into the air above our heads. They floated with us as we moved and cast flickering shadows on the smooth stone walls as we started our descent.
I took the steps as quickly as I dared given that there was no guard rail on the inside and the risk of tripping and falling down to whatever lay at the bottom of these steps was high. I didn’t care if the cultists heard us now. They knew we were coming, and we knew their tricks. A few obsidian knives and some blood magic wouldn’t save them from all eight of us and Merlin once we caught up to them.
At last, I could see the floor beneath us, and the outline of a doorway a little ways off from the end of the stairs. Weak firelight shone through it, and beneath the echo of our footsteps, I could hear the last four cultists reciting something in panicked voices.
I leaped down the last two steps and ran through the door, but the cultists weren’t there. The room beyond was dim, but a pair of torches had been lit on the opposite side of the doorway and illuminated the gaunt faces of dozens of statues that extended down into the darkness. Piled up between the statues were hundreds and hundreds of bones. Skulls, ribcages, femurs, and others I couldn’t identify as readily were stacked in neat pyramids as far as I could see.
Though they were nowhere in sight, I could still hear the cultists’ frantic speech, and it echoed strangely off the walls. With a brief look over my shoulder to check that the rest of my guild had reached the bottom of the staircase safely, I took off into the crypt.
Emeline’s lights followed us still, and I noticed spots of what appeared to be fresh blood on the stone floor. It could easily have been from an injury one of us had inflicted on our foes, but I prepared myself for more blood magic. I knew at least one of the cultists who had escaped had been a mage.
The crypt seemed impossibly long, an infinite tunnel of statues whose deep-set eyes followed us as we passed, and more bones than I could count. They couldn’t all have belonged to wayward travelers, the hapless victims of Eutrem’s cult. This crypt must have been created by the founders of this fortress long ago, and they were still here guarding it, in a way.
The air grew colder and drier the deeper we ran, and at last, I saw the cultists’ torches in the distance, surrounding an ornately carved stone coffin at the end of the long hall of the dead. Sure enough, they appeared to be in the middle of some sort of blood magic ritual. Three stood by with torches in hand while the mage stood over the coffin and chanted a spell.
I raised my hand as I ran and brought it closed into a fist to quell the mage’s mana. It likely wouldn’t prevent him from casting whatever he was trying to cast since he was using blood magic, I knew, but I hoped I could at least slow him down until Lavinia could put an arrow through his head.
The three cultists who were on guard rushed forward to meet us, and I saw that two of them had gotten weapons, a sword and a spiked mace, from somewhere. The third came at me with just his torch. I r
eeled back as the man tried to strike me against the head, and Merlin jumped to my defense a heartbeat later and latched his powerful jaws around the cultist’s arm. He screamed and dropped his torch which rolled toward one of the statues and guttered out. His scream was cut off abruptly when Merlin went for his throat.
Dehn rushed past with a furious war cry to meet the cultist with the mace, and the clang of metal on metal echoed off the walls as the cultist moved to block the halfling’s sword.
The mage was still bent over the coffin, and I drew my mana dagger as I leapt over the cultist Merlin had killed toward him. He wasn’t so absorbed in his spell that he didn’t notice me, however, and whirled around just in time to escape his own death. My dagger slashed across his arm instead, and he hissed in pain and stabbed wildly at me with his own obsidian blade.
I dodged easily and grabbed him by the shoulder to hold him still, but instead of making an effort to escape, he threw his injured arm out over the open coffin and splattered the inside with blood. Then the tip of my dagger connected with his mana, and his body jolted and lit up as though he’d been struck by lightning.
I let the cultist’s smoking corpse fall to the floor and turned back just as Yvaine stabbed the last cultist in the heart, and then we were alone in the crypt. I leaned back against the coffin and for a few seconds, no one moved or said anything as we all tried to catch our breaths after having chased the cultists all the way down here.
I had just opened my mouth to suggest that we head back upstairs to find the books we’d been sent for when I felt a cold, clammy hand wrap around my wrist, and the words died in my throat. I jerked my arm free and stumbled away from the coffin just as the corpse inside began to rise up.
Its sallow skin was pulled tight over its bones, broken in numerous places as though someone had hacked at it with a sword. Bloodred bandages had been wrapped meticulously around its arms, chest, and legs, but time had eaten away at them, and they drooped and hung in tatters from its skeletal form. Its eyes were covered in their own wrappings, but the bandages had torn away from the rest of its face to reveal the open cavity where its nose had once been and its lipless gash of a mouth and slack jaw.
