“How much farther do you think? We’ve walked for an hour at least.”
“Can’t be too far now, we’re very deep. I didn’t think anything went this deep.”
Korrgonn looked up and lifted the ankh’s cord over his head. He held it in his hand and passed it over a nondescript section of the tunnel’s stony wall. That section of the wall began to glow with an eerie light. Just as quickly, it faded away—not just the glow, but the wall as well. A rectangular opening loomed before Korrgonn, where a moment before there was a solid wall. Behind the opening, a hidden passage. “That way,” said Korrgonn, pointing down the narrow tunnel.
“Guess it works after all,” said Frem. “He’s sending us down a stinking rabbit hole.”
“Quiet,” said Sevare.
Frem, Par Sevare, and their knights walked back to the others. A fake smile filled Frem’s face as he approached Korrgonn, but the Nifleheim Lord didn’t bother to look at the huge warrior as he passed.
They proceeded into the small tunnel, Frem again at the van, a rock of mass and muscle to blaze their trail. This tunnel was narrower and lower than the main course. The ceiling dipped below seven feet, and the top of Frem’s helmet scraped it here and there, sending sparks flying. He had to hold his torch in front and low, grumbling under his breath all the while, since his shoulders, widened by his thick plate armor, were near as wide as the tunnel and jostled against the walls again and again as the tunnel curved and meandered in the dark.
Behind Frem’s pointmen went four burly lugron, then Korrgonn and Ginalli. Behind them were four of the Shadow League’s arch-mages, Par Hablock, Par Brackta, Par Morsmun, and Par Ot. After them went the better part of a squadron of Sithian Knights, then Lord Ezerhauten and Mort Zag. Another group of lugron guarded the rear.
While the main tunnel was an uneven natural passage with a gradual slope, this one was hewn through the living rock in bygone days. What arms wielded the picks and shovels that birthed her, no man could say.
The tunnel, slick with water and slime, descended steeply—a difficult passage even for the sure of foot. Mort Zag had the most trouble navigating the narrow tunnel. Where Frem could at least walk upright, Mort Zag had to proceed stooped over nearly the whole way. Every now and then, he cursed and spat when his head bumped the ceiling, or when he had to twist and turn to squeeze through some narrow portion of the tunnel. At one point, he took a hammer to a stony outcropping and smashed it away in order to squeeze past.
Deep, deep beneath the bowels of Midgaard were they now. Three cities of man stood there. The current city, Tragoss Mor, ancient itself, built atop the remnants of an older city whose name was seldom remembered. That city was constructed atop the ruins of an ancient metropolis, long lost to the passing eons. The stony tunnel took them far below even the deepest pit of that antediluvian city.
At last, upon a door of stone they came. Carved from the living rock, its seams smooth and crisp, its handle metal, but free of rust, scale, or stain. The passage widened near the door and the ceiling rose to a stately height.
The pointmen turned to Korrgonn for direction. “Open it,” he commanded.
The two Sithians, large men both, pulled and pushed, and strained against the portal, but it would not yield. Frem shouldered one knight aside and took a turn. His massive hand clamped down on the handle and he pulled with all his power. His arms bulged and strained, veins pulsed at his corded neck, his face reddened and dripped with sweat. But the door would not yield, not at all, not even the slightest movement.
“I’d have better luck pushing on a mountain,” said Frem as he turned back to the others.
Par Sevare examined the cold stone of the door. “No magic binds it,” he said. “Barred from the far side, I would say.”
“Break it down,” Korrgonn said.
“Pass me up a hammer, biggest one we got,” said Frem. “Swords are no good on stone.”
“Kick it down,” yelled Mort Zag from the rear.
Frem looked from the door to his boot and back again, and then moved carefully into a good kicking position. He blasted the door with his armored boot, a blow what could snap a man’s spine in half, but the door did not yield. It shuddered ever so slightly, but barely a scuff marred its surface to mark the blow. Frem kicked again, and again, a half dozen strikes, all to no effect. “Dead gods, it’s too thick. I need a sledge.”
Mort Zag pushed forward from the rear, grunting; a mockery of a smile on his demonic face. “Step aside,” he said as he barreled through. The others parted to let him pass. Had not the passage widened near the door, he could never have squeezed his bulk past them.
As huge as Frem was, past four hundred pounds and far beyond six foot, Mort Zag dwarfed him in both height and bulk. The red-skinned giant waved Frem aside and slammed his bare foot into the door at mid-height; it shook and shuddered but held fast. Again he kicked, harder this time. A cracking sound rang out. Two more times he kicked before the stone, which proved some eight inches thick, broke clear through, the upper half crashing to the tunnel floor.
“Ha! What do you think of that, puny man?” said Mort Zag, slapping Frem across the back.
Frem narrowed his eyes and only offered Mort Zag an icy stare.
“Well done,” said Ginalli. “Sevare—check it out.”
Frem and Sevare squeezed past the debris. Behind the door, a landing of polished granite overlooked granite steps that descended into darkness.
“Looks clear,” said Frem quietly to Sevare. “The big red fellow called me puny. He said it like an insult. What does it mean?”
“It means small,” said Sevare.
Frem looked down at his own bulk and then looked back at the others, big men most, but all much smaller than he, save for Mort Zag. “I don’t get that. What is he anyway?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean he’s not a volsung,” said Frem. “He’s not any kind of human. Not an elf or anything. I’ve heard folks whispering dark stuff about him.”
“What’ve you heard?”
“Some folk say he’s a demon; a creature from the bad places. I don’t like to hear such talk.”
“Frem, buddy, he’s just a giant from the deep mountains—like in the old stories.”
“He’s big enough, I suppose, but he’s red. How do you explain that?”
Sevare paused, thinking. “Remember the time that farmer in Sarnack mashed up that basket of carrots to pulp and you drank it?”
“Sure. Wasn’t bad at all, but the palms of my hands went all orange. Stayed that way a week or more.”
“Exactly. Same with Mort Zag. That guy eats bushels of red apples and tomatoes. Turns his skin all red. No more mystery to it than that.”
“Hmm. Never thought of that. I reckon I’m a simpleskin like Ezerhauten says.”
“Simpleton,” said Sevare.
“That’s what I said. What does that mean, exactly?”
“Dumber than a rock.”
“Thought so. I can’t disagree with him, but neither he nor I are happy about what them others did to those men on the road. Killing your enemies is one thing, but cutting them up and taking away bits, that’s not right, not right at all. I don’t understand why Korrgonn stood for it.”
“So that is what’s been bothering you,” said Sevare. “Frem, it’s not what you think. It was a ritual cleansing. You know about those, right?”
“A what cleaning? What does that mean?”
“Zounds, Frem, no wonder you’ve been wound so tight these last days. You must’ve thought we had gone crazy, and I guess I couldn’t blame you for it.”
“Those Eotrus men were in with Thetan, the evil one, so they were evil too. Men like that have black souls, filled with hate. When such men die, their souls are damned and tormented for all time. But if the evil is washed away, then they can enter the afterlife, and find the lord’s forgiveness in Vaeden. That is why Father Ginalli had those rituals performed. He was saving those men’s souls. It was an act of m
ercy.”
Frem visibly relaxed. “You should’ve told me about of that before. I didn’t know what was going on.”
“Sorry, big guy. I thought you knew what was happening. You okay now?”
Frem nodded. “It’s a relief to know that I am on the right side—with the good guys, I mean.”
“I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” said Sevare.
“What do you see?” called out Ginalli.
“A stair,” said Frem. “Leading down.”
Four lugron hefted the heavy debris aside, clearing the path for the main group.
Down they went in single file; a slow and treacherous descent, the steps uneven, steep and slippery, and all was pitch black save for the meager light from their torches. The air was cold there; their breath rose as mist about them.
To one side was a comforting stony wall, on the other, a black abyss of unknown depths, with no parapet or guardrail for protection. One misstep, one slip, and that would be the end. A hundred nerve-racking steps down brought them to a wide landing, a place of relative safety. They paused for a few minutes to rest and calm their nerves before continuing down, as most of them had nearly fallen more than once.
Frem first heard them when they had descended another hundred steps. Booted feet, climbing the stairs, coming up toward them. Many, many booted feet, distant, but drawing closer.
“Oh, boy,” said Frem as he steadied himself against the rock face. The stair was not nearly wide enough for two men to fight side by side. “Not the best spot for a battle.”
“We should move back up to the landing,” said Ezerhauten. “We can’t fight on this stair.”
Korrgonn stood considering for a time, then ordered the men up to the landing. In their rush to ascend, one of the lugron lost his footing and slid over the edge, wailing as he fell into the dark. Those nearest to him tried to grab him, but weren’t quick enough. Most of the men peered down into the darkness, though in truth they couldn’t see him at all. The rest turned away. Seconds went by, until finally, his screams faded out with the distance. They never heard him hit the bottom, if any bottom there was.
The men arrayed themselves across the landing, and made their plans how to switch out the lead man when he tired or became wounded. Frem stood the watch at the head of the stair.
The sounds grew louder and louder as the minutes went by.
“There must be hundreds,” said Sevare.
“If they have bowmen, we won’t be able to hold them off,” said Frem.
Ezerhauten turned to Korrgonn. “We can’t fight an entire army, my Lord, and it sounds like that is what’s coming. We can’t retreat up the stair, the going is too slow, and if any come down on us from above—”
“The Orb is below,” said Korrgonn. “Without it, we can’t restore the Lord to Midgaard. There is no turning back, not now, not ever.”
Then began a mad howling. The cries of hundreds, perhaps thousands of wildmen, screaming war cries to whatever unknown gods they worshipped.
Almost as one, nearly all the lugron dashed toward the stair going up, their courage broken. Mort Zag stepped over and barred their path. “Get back in line,” he said. “Or you will follow your friend over the side.”
They paused a moment, but in the end, chose to resume their places.
“We should be able to see them,” said Sevare. “It sounds like they’re right on us.”
“Throw down a torch,” said Ezerhauten.
Someone did. It landed some twenty feet down the stairs, but revealed nothing. They waited, and still nothing, only the sounds of booted feet and manic war cries.
Sevare spoke some arcane words, sharp and loud, painful to hear and the sounds of the approaching warriors abruptly stopped.
“An illusion,” said Ginalli. “A trick to deter us, to make us flee.”
“Let’s head back down,” said Korrgonn. “We’ve lost enough time.”
Two hundred steps down, three hundred, four hundred, a landing and a switchback after each hundred. Five hundred steps and still the stair had no end. Just beyond the fifth landing, another man lost his footing and plunged silently into the darkness. The group paused for a few moments in respect, then continued down. Down and down they went, and somewhere, very deep, they lost count of the steps.
Eventually they reached the bottom, dripping with sweat and breathing heavily from the stress of the harrowing descent, though the air was chill and their pace had been slow and cautious.
At the base of the stair, their torchlight revealed a wide hall of marble tile, polished smooth. The tile continued some three or four feet up the walls. Above that, a gruesome row of stone carvings, the heads and arms of demons and monsters, fiendish and foreboding, loomed out from the walls with eyes that glowed red in the fluttering torchlight. Above the gargoyles, the stone walls were inlaid with murals and pictograms, some colorful, others faded, but all of ancient times. Azathoth in all his magnificent glory was featured in many, beside him his Arkons, tall and powerful, but the faces of many were defaced and vandalized; their names forevermore stricken from the toll of history.
“I smell blood,” said Mort Zag.
Ezerhauten held a torch low to the marble floor beside the base of the stair. A narrow, empty passage led back into the darkness, parallel to the stair. In the distance, they could see what remained of the two fallen lugron splattered across the flooring—a gruesome sight even for hardened men to see.
“The tiles are smashed and gouged, here, and here, and there,” Ezerhauten said pointing. “They were not the first to fall here. Many preceded them down, but I see no other corpses, no bones, no equipment. Nothing.”
With no danger in sight, most of the men collapsed to the floor, taking however brief an opportunity to catch their breath.
“Someone or some thing must have carried away the fallen,” said Ginalli. “There are more than just old wards at work here. Be on your guard.”
Mort Zag looked up and down the hall and back again, tensed, ready to spring.
“You sense something?” said Ezerhauten.
“A feeling,” said Mort Zag. “Something is not right. Be ready.”
“I sense something as well,” said Korrgonn. “There is magic at work here. Old magic.”
Ezerhauten spied something—some flicker of movement, some shadow of something along the walls, above the men’s heads, where they reclined against the passageway’s walls.
“Well, this is the perfect place for an ambush,” said Frem. “After that climb down, who has got the energy to fight?”
Ezerhauten’s eyes widened in alarm. “Up,” he shouted. “Get away from the walls! Up!”
Even as the words flew from his lips, the walls came alive with movement. Stony, demonic arms silently flailed out, grabbing men’s heads and squeezing, crushing, with strength beyond imagining. Gargoyles stretched out and down, emerging from the very walls. Stony fangs, inches long, bit down and bore into the skulls of lugron, knight, and wizard.
The hall descended into chaos. Screams rose up on all sides. Geysers of blood erupted as men’s heads exploded within the gargoyles’ stony grips. Swords blunted and shattered against stone heads and stone arms. Torches went flying and others went out; spells were thrown, weapons crashed, men roared, and swore, and died.
“We have to go,” shouted Sevare.
Korrgonn’s sword crashed through a stone arm that tore at his cloak.
“My lord, we must fly,” said Ginalli as he pulled on Korrgonn’s arm.
“Frem, grab him,” shouted Sevare.
Then they were running—running through black halls, slick and desolate, wondering if the gargoyles would or could pursue, wondering if there was any way out.
A pit opened up before them; men fell in and screamed, impaled on sharp spikes a dozen feet down. Whirling blades flew from the walls; spears shot down from the ceiling; more men screamed in the dark.
They came upon a stone door, held fast. They stopped and turned, weapons held at the
ready. Not even a third of their number remained. Korrgonn, Ginalli, Frem, Sevare, Hablock, and Brackta were there, along with a handful of lugron; that was all.
Sevare looked around at how few were left. “Bloody hell,” he said. “We’re in the deep stuff.”
“Are you hurt, my lord?” said Ginalli to Korrgonn.
“I don’t run from my enemies,” said Korrgonn, his golden eyes afire with rage. “I don’t leave my men behind. We should’ve kept fighting.”
“We couldn’t even see,” said Sevare.
“Swords are no good against stone,” said Frem.
“We had to get you out of there, my lord,” said Ginalli.”
“This is a madhouse,” said Hablock, sinking to his knees.
“A tomb,” said Sevare. “It’s a tomb of horrors.”
“Get some torches lit,” said Korrgonn. “You men,” he said to Frem and Sevare, “see to that door. You others,” pointing to the lugron, “form a line across the passage.”
A few minutes later, they heard the drum of footsteps marching in the darkness behind, drawing closer.
“Get that door opened,” said Ginalli. “Now.”
“Frem pounded and pounded on the door, but the stone would not yield.
“I’ve one more trick,” said Sevare. He knelt before the door and spoke some words of magic. After but a moment, a clicking sound came from the door, then it swung open of its own accord. Beyond, silence and darkness.
“We’re through,” said Frem. “It’s open.”
“Do we flee or do we stand?” said Ginalli.
“We stand,” said Korrgonn, as he drew his blade. “Wizards, ready your magic.”
The footsteps grew louder. In a moment, Ezerhauten came into view holding a torch aloft. With him, nearly a dozen Sithian Knights, several wounded. Behind them loomed Mort Zag carrying the stone head of a gargoyle in one of his massive hands.
“They won’t be following,” said Ezerhauten. “But we had best find another way out. That was a gauntlet I would rather not pass again.”
“Morsmun? Ot?”
“Both dead, and a dozen more with them.”
Knight Eternal (A Novel of Epic Fantasy) (Harbinger of Doom Volume 3) Page 14
