They both jumped at a sudden grinding noise from behind. Even as he turned to look, Aiul knew what it must be. The enormous gate was closing, and there was nothing either of them could do. Aiul cringed at the resounding clang of the doors as they slammed shut, and shook his head in resignation. “I suppose we should have expected that. Obvious trap and all.”
“Not sarcasm anymore,” Logrus noted. He gestured ahead. “It will come now.”
They heard ‘it’ approaching, but they could not identify the bizarre sound, a hollow, rattling vibration like a thousand sticks of bamboo striking arrhythmically against stone. They had only moments to contemplate it before the enemy was upon them.
Without warning, at each of the outer pyramids, more doors burst open with a crash, to pour forth a seemingly endless stream of—
Aiul felt reality slipping from his grasp even as he felt his jaw fall open like an idiot. They’re just bones! I have one in my office that I hang my jacket on! Skeletons could not move without muscle, nor could they grip rusty swords, and yet that was what was happening, and medical knowledge be damned. Try as he might, Aiul found himself frozen, unable to accept the reality of what he was seeing. Skeletons could not attack!
Logrus, however, seemed to have no such pesky mental blocks. He simply accepted it for what it was. With a muttered curse, he grabbed Aiul by the collar and drug him out of the path of the oncoming skeleton warriors, shouting over his shoulder to the zombies, “Flesh! Defend us!”
Aiul, no longer frozen, found his feet and sprinted across the courtyard with Logrus, back toward the main entrance. There was no way through, but it was clear of attackers for the moment.
“It’s impossible!” he cried, having no idea who he even intended to hear him.
Logrus shrugged as if Aiul were discussing the weather. “Possible.”
Aiul took a moment to catch his breath and looked back at what was now a chaotic melee of undead skeletons hacking at zombies with swords, and zombies swinging at skeletons with clubs or fists. For a moment, Aiul felt his sanity teeter again, but he managed to keep it together for the moment. “There are hundreds of them! We don’t stand a chance!”
Logrus watched the melee with great interest a moment, then asked, “What will you bet me?”
Aiul rubbed at his left temple and groaned softly, eying Logrus and wondering if the poor fellow had actually lost his mind at what they were seeing. Mei knows, I’m right on the edge, myself.
The skeletons, armed with rusted blades, were as much automatons as the zombies. They stabbed at their targets most of the time, a fairly useless tactic against an enemy who had no vital organs. The undead Elgies were armed mostly with clubs, however, and used them to great effect. Old bones shattered under the blunt weapons, sending skeleton after skeleton to the cobblestones, heaps of useless rubble.
But the skeletons had the advantage of sheer numbers. Aiul guessed that perhaps two hundred had entered the battle. The relatively minor damage they were capable of inflicting on the zombies accrued over time. Still, the zombies destroyed four or five of their foes for every one of their number that fell. When it was over, seven zombies, in various stages of disrepair, stood amongst the remains, unenthusiastic victors on a bloodless battlefield. It’s ironic that there are no more corpses at the end than there were at the beginning. It’s cheaper than conventional war.
Aiul was uncertain if he had accepted his new reality, or had merely grown numb to it, but certainly spending long minutes watching the fight had made it seem more real. “Let’s raise these fools again and get about our business.”
Logrus shook his head. “The second death is final. Elgar would not permit it. They have absolved themselves.”
Aiul sighed. “Of course it is. Is there a book I could read on the rules?”
Logrus seemed to consider the question seriously for a moment, then broke into a broad grin. “You’re joking.”
Aiul clapped Logrus on the shoulder. “You’re getting better at this. You’re almost human, now!” He paused a moment and looked at the shattered skeletons. “Though, being serious, there ought to be a book on these sorts of things. One has to wonder, if bones can attack on their own, why can’t they attack after they’re broken?”
Logrus said nothing for a moment, considering, then shrugged. “Magic. Come, we have a mission. Do science later.”
They picked their way across the courtyard, weaving between the various ruins and occasional gigantic chunks of shattered stone. Aiul felt especially perplexed at these. They seemed completely out of place. Why would there be random bits of rock, as if it had rained from the sky? And yet it was everywhere, on both sides of the moat, great hunks of rock that appeared as if they had been smashed by a giant’s pickaxe.
Aiul looked across the moat to the large pyramid, his smile fading as he remembered their goals. “That’s where we’re headed, I suppose. Let’s see if we can find a way across.”
The smell rising from the moat was the most revolting scent Aiul could remember encountering, and, as a surgeon, he had quite a library to compare it against. He covered his nose and mouth with his cloak, wondering if they might, somehow, find the resolve to swim it. If we do, there’s no telling what sort of disease we might pick up.
The idea fled from his mind as the surface of the water suddenly rippled. Mei! Something is in there! Aiul leapt back, grabbing Logrus and shoving him away just as a huge, motley tentacle broke the surface and whipped toward them with dizzying speed. Aiul dove behind one of the large chunks of debris, pulling Logrus along with him. Logrus grunted as he hit the ground, and his eyes grew wide as the tentacle tore past where he had been standing.
The tentacle wavered back and forth for a moment, dripping filthy water, as if frustrated at losing its prey, then settled instead for a zombie. It darted at its new victim and wrapped itself around the undead fighter in the blink of an eye, then pulled him into the moat. The zombie had no time to even struggle before it vanished beneath the murky surface.
“Back!” Aiul shouted to the rest of their troops as he and Logrus scrambled to their feet. “Retreat!” Even as they fled, the tentacle lashed out again and seized another of their troops before they could get clear of the area. They ran back to the main entrance as fast as their legs could carry them and paused, shaken.
“Five left,” Aiul noted. “We’re no match for another round of the damned skeletons. I have no idea how we get to the center now.”
“The smaller pyramids,” Logrus said. “They connect underground. I saw it in the dreams. Escape tunnels to retreat into the center. If they haven’t collapsed.”
Aiul scowled. “Where the skeletons came from.”
Logrus shrugged. “The skeletons came out. They are not there anymore.”
Aiul groaned at the idea, but there seemed no other way. The moat was clearly a death trap, and Logrus’s simple logic was hard to argue with, though it naively assumed that all of the skeletons had attacked. Privately, Aiul suspected some might have been held in reserve, but saw no point in going too far with that line of thinking. It would just spook him even worse than he already was. Either there were more skeletons, or there weren’t, and they would know soon enough.
“Fine, this whole venture has practically been a suicide mission from the start.” He looked toward the closest of the outer pyramids, its doors still wide open, and searched for signs of movement, when something Logrus had said registered with him. “Wait, what do you mean ‘if they haven’t collapsed’? Why would they collapse?”
“Designed that way,” Logrus said. “To weather a siege.”
Aiul buried his face in his hands for a moment. “So, in order to avoid being drowned and possibly eaten by the moat beast, we risk being ventilated by another skeleton horde.” He ticked those two off on his fingers, and raised a third. “And if we somehow survive that, we might have the misfortune to be buried under tons of rubble, eh?”
Logrus grinned at him. “Correct.”
Aiu
l blinked at him a moment, then stood. “Well, let’s get on with dying. You needn’t be so happy about it, though.”
Logrus stood and clapped Aiul on the shoulder. “We were sent here by a god, Aiul. We cannot die as long as we are about Elgar’s work.” He gestured to the zombies to follow. “Have faith.”
With another groan, Aiul followed. “Easy for you to say. Have you considered the sort of problems we will have if we’re buried under there and we don’t die?”
Logrus stopped where he was and stared back at Aiul, distress on his face as he thought about Aiul’s point. After a moment, he shook his head and moved on.
“That’s a point for me,” Aiul declared, grinning in dark humor.
“You are an idiot!” Logrus answered, but he, too, was smiling.
The interior of the smaller pyramid was dark and musty, the dust of centuries accumulated over unidentifiable lumps, remains of what might once have been furniture. Light trickled in through murder holes that lined the walls. With the heavy doors barred from within, a hundred men could have easily held off ten times their number. In the center of the room, a spiral staircase, in surprisingly good shape, twisted into the darkness below.
Logrus produced torches from his pack and lit one for Aiul, another for himself. Wordlessly, the two led their soldiers downward.
The passage below was made of rough-hewn stone blocks, and damp. The sound of dripping water broke the silence every few seconds, echoing from the rock faces. It was quite wide, enough to allow ten men abreast. Logrus held his torch aloft and peered down the hallway.
“Cunning construction,” he said. “Flee down here when you can’t hold any longer. Just need time to get down the staircase before they breach. Plenty of room to run, then the staircase slows down the enemy.” He pointed to a series of arches along the path. “They chase you into a killing field. Should be controls at the other end to collapse those. Very clever.”
Aiul shuddered. “It’s certain death is what it is.”
“Turn back then?” Logrus asked with a grin.
Aiul glared back at him. “Stay close,” he sneered. “When it comes down on us, I want to watch you die first, so I’ll at least get to know I was right.”
Logrus shook his head as he continued leading the way. “Don’t run,” he cautioned. “Eyes on the ground. Could be triggers in the floor, in case they couldn’t escape in time. Defenders would know to avoid them.”
“How do you know these things?” Aiul asked “I remember seeing this in the dreams, but I certainly didn’t get this sort of education.”
Logrus raised his torch and peered at something near the ceiling. “You wonder if Elgar gave me more detailed information? No. I know this on my own.”
Aiul shook his head in admiration. “You play at being a simple man, yet you know military construction, traps, survival, tracking.”
Logrus turned to Aiul and shrugged. “I have done many things,” he said. “Chased, fled, escaped, hunted, killed.” He began to move forward again, looking closely at the floor. “I have seen many ways to kill. I have hunted men in cities, in swamps, in fortresses. I have survived traps such as these. I would know what I know, or be dead.”
Aiul chuckled at the simple logic of Logrus’s explanation. “It surprises me is all. Common murderers don’t know such things.”
Logrus stopped in his tracks and turned to Aiul, a pained expression on his face, and asked, “Am I but a common murderer to you?”
Aiul stammered slightly as he said, “No, I’m saying that you seem at first glance a common murderer, but there is much more to you than meets the eye.”
Logrus frowned. “The men I kill are hardly common.”
“I know that!” Aiul said defensively. “I read your journal, remember?” He stammered a moment, then sighed and pressed a hand to his face. “I meant it as a compliment, you know.”
Logrus gave Aiul a long looking at through narrowed eyes, then turned and set off again down the tunnel. “Your language is poor,” he called over his shoulder. “You should have studied it harder.”
Aiul was about to retort, when he realized Logrus had just made a fairly complex joke. Aiul laughed as he answered, “Well, it just seems terribly suspicious, you knowing all of these things. And unfair, too. I mean, for a cultist to have so many useful skills.”
“I will kill you for that!” Logrus chuckled.
Aiul looked up at the ceiling himself, but whatever Logrus saw, Aiul could not recognize. “Hopefully, you’ll have your chance once we’re done.”
Aiul’s humorous mood evaporated in an instant as he heard a sharp click at his feet. He realized, to his horror, that despite his best intentions, he had stepped slightly to the side of Logrus’s path. Likely, this was not the first time, but it might well be the last.
The sound echoed loud in the tunnel. Logrus’s head whipped around, his eyes wide with alarm. Aiul froze, having no idea if they were about to be buried under tons of rubble.
Logrus raised both hands in a cautionary gesture. “Don’t move. It triggers on release.”
Aiul looked about, somewhat relieved that he had yet to die, but wildly uncertain as to whether that would continue for any length of time. “How do you know that?”
Logrus shrugged. “We are still alive.”
With a shuddering breath, Aiul nodded at that logic. “So what do we do?”
Logrus looked intensely at the surrounding floor, then called, “Flesh! You! Come here.”
Carefully, Aiul exchanged positions with the swaying zombie, as Logrus commanded it to hold fast. It would have been nice to breathe a sigh of relief, but there was no relief to be had. In theory, the zombie would stay where it was until it rotted. In practice, they were Mei knew how far into the tunnel and their lives now depended on a creature dumber than a rock. “We have to leave them all,” he said. “If I can take a bad step, so can they. We’re lucky they haven’t already.”
Logrus’s features deepened with a frown. “I think so. I hate to lose them, but it seems only a matter of time.” He gestured at the remaining undead. “Flesh. Stay.” Without bothering to verify that they would obey, he set off again down the tunnel.
Aiul struggled not to give in to screaming terror as they made their way forward. The more he thought on what was overhead, the more aware he was that they were not travelling a simple passage. Rather, they were in the firing line of a murderous, well-disguised weapon.
They inched their way along, carefully examining the ground. Twice, Logrus’s caution was validated, the second time almost too late to matter. Mei, thank goodness we caught that one. We have no more dummies to spare.
Twenty yards became fifty, then a hundred, and Aiul felt himself nearing the edge of madness. How long could the damned thing go on? At last, after another fifty yards, he spied an open doorway in the gloom ahead, and allowed himself a glimmer of hope.
It was short lived. Aiul felt his stomach leap into his throat as a tortured, metallic squeal filled the tunnel. From above their heads came a sharp crack of cables tightening, and the sound of gears meshing, followed by the grating of stone against stone. It’s not fair! We did everything right!
Logrus pulled him forward without a moment to spare. Tons of stonework rained into the space they had just fled. It was over in seconds, leaving them with no choice but to move forward.
In the aftermath, Aiul coughed at the dust, and croaked, “What did we do wrong?”
Logrus, his face dark with anger, shook his head. “Nothing. It was triggered externally.”
Aiul felt his eyes widen as he absorbed the implications of this. Logrus had mentioned controls elsewhere. Someone is watching us!
He had no time to think about it. The silence was suddenly filled with a new sound, a heavy, metallic thud followed by a rumbling, liquid roar.
“Water!” Logrus yelped. “The moat!”
The flood erupted from the gaping hole left in the ceiling by the collapse. Aiul charged for the doorway, and saw t
hat a hatch was slowly closing over it, driven by some unseen mechanism. He pushed himself forward with more speed than he had ever imagined, once again thankful that he had trained at something as seemingly useless as sprinting. He dove through the rapidly shrinking opening, landing hard on the other side. His torch flew from his hands and went skittering across the floor.
Behind him, Logrus cried out in pain, spurring Aiul back to action. He looked back in the wild, flickering torchlight to see Logrus caught in the closing door, part of his chest and one arm still on the other side. The mechanism began to whine as it continued to try to seal.
Putrid water and air jetted past Logrus as he struggled in the vise-like grip of the hatch. Aiul grabbed Logrus’s free arm and pulled with all his might, hoping the rapidly rising pressure on the other side of the door would be of aid.
Logrus cried out as one of his ribs gave way with a crack, but Aiul knew at once that the injury was a blessing in disguise. The door mechanism was slow, and Aiul took advantage of the brief loosening to haul his companion through.
Logrus landed on the floor with a wet thud and lay there, clutching his ribs and grimacing as the hatch sealed with a loud click.
“Blew your chance, there,” he chuckled weakly.
“To see you die first?” Aiul asked with a grim smile, “I’ll likely get another very soon.”
Logrus struggled to a sitting position against the wall, grimacing, a hand pressed against his ribs. Aiul, shaking his head at Logrus’s stubborn nature, retrieved his torch and crouched beside him.
“Let me see, fool,” he grumbled. “Lie down a moment.”
Logrus complied with a pained smile, and said, “Damned suspicious that you just happen to know medicine, if you ask me.”
“You’ve found me out,” Aiul quipped as he examined the injury. “All this time, I was posing as a necromancer and a madman, but in reality, I was just manipulating you into getting injured so I could practice my trade.” He prodded gently at the darkening bruise on Logrus’s side. “It seems clean,” he said. “You should be able to walk if we bind it up. Is there a lot of pain?”
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