The Northern Approach

by Jim Galford

  Raeln panted and steadied himself, kneeling in front of the door with its broken beam. The doors themselves creaked open slowly as he knelt there, revealing more darkened tunnels beyond. He quickly slid away from the opening, hugging his throbbing hand to his chest.

  Without a word, Yoska passed a sloshing flask to On’esquin and walked around Raeln, holding the torch high. For his part, On’esquin beamed at Raeln, patting him on the back as they went on.

  Beyond the doors, the tunnels looked little different in design. It was not the architecture that changed, but the details. Where Raeln lay, the halls were as clean as an underground tunnel could be. Even the stones under his feet felt smooth and free of anything more than a thin layer of dust.

  After the doors, blood covered the walls and deep scratches had been dug into the doors themselves. Even the stones nearby had been worn in spots, as though something had clawed at them until its fingers bled. There were no bodies, but easily enough blood for a dozen grown men to have died at that spot.

  “Thoughts?” asked On’esquin, eyeing the bloody hallway as he fastened the skin of wine to his belt.

  Raeln rolled onto his feet and eased one of the doors the rest of the way open. Flexing his aching hand, he tapped the metal brackets for a beam on the inner-side of the doors with his other. Unlike the brackets on the outside, these were unused.

  “Something locked them in, not out,” he noted and sniffed. “It was dwarves who died here. They were massacred. Torn apart, judging by the smell of entrails.”

  “Inside their own fortress?” asked the orc, getting a confused shrug from Yoska.

  “I know not what happened inside,” admitted the gypsy, and this time Raeln believed he was telling all he knew. “My friend got inside to visit family, but said that they were ready for war. Dwarven fortresses do not fall unless they upset the elves that live below. If that were so, would be far cleaner kills.”

  “We don’t have time to figure it out from here,” Raeln said, yanking the torch from Yoska’s hand and walking into the next section of the tunnel. The blood beneath his bare feet was long dry, but he could still feel it crackle with each step. Someday, he wanted to go somewhere that did not cover his feet with filth. “If the dwarves are dead, there will be little chance for food or water down here. We push on quickly to the next exit and get out of here. No more stops until we see daylight, even if it means I’m dragging you two through this place.”

  When neither man objected, Raeln continued a little farther and then stopped as a clattering noise echoed from the halls behind them. He motioned for the others to be quiet and listened, hearing a faint tapping as something came closer. Then the noise stopped. His first thought was that it was claws on stone, but it almost sounded like hooves.

  “Yes, we are followed,” Yoska said softly, getting an annoyed glare from On’esquin. “Has been following for hours. I had hoped golems would stop it, but is sneaky like us, yes? Have not seen it yet, but have heard it crunching through woods like clumsy ox.”

  “We’ll try to lose it underground,” suggested Raeln, walking down the tunnel again, though faster than he would have liked. He preferred to watch for dangers at a decent pace, but with something known to be behind them, he had little choice. He would have to listen and be mindful of scents that did not belong if they were to avoid being ambushed.

  The next section of tunnel continued somewhat downhill, though not nearly as steeply as the last portion. The farther they went, the wider the halls became and fewer signs of bloodshed marred the walls. Soon Raeln could not even smell death over the natural dank aroma of the underground passage.

  With the tunnel nearing twenty feet wide, Raeln caught a glimpse of something at the edge of the light. He stopped midstride and backed up, staring ahead to try and make out what stood in their way. His first thought was that the object had moved, but the shadows from their torch made it impossible to be certain.

  Slowly Raeln’s vision adjusted to the wavering light of the torch enough to make out the shadowed shapes in the tunnel ahead. It was a barricade, spread all the way across from wall to wall, built from stone and wood. Pikes, axes, spears, and swords lay scattered around the makeshift wall, abandoned or cast aside. There were no bodies or defenders, but he could smell blood and death again. There had been a battle here and more dwarves had died.

  “Is edge of the fortress,” explained Yoska, pointing not at the barricade but at an ornate stone archway directly over it. “Less doors, but lots of walls now. Dwarven king built this place to stand against armies that don’t know better. Outer courtyard is big trap for invading army.”

  Raeln nodded in understanding and advanced more slowly, his ears snapping back as he heard the clattering farther back in the tunnel. They had gained some distance on their pursuer, but it had not given up. This time, he swore it sounded like claws—similar to how his would sound if he were less careful about walking on the stone floor. It might just be an animal, but he had no way to be certain without letting it catch up.

  The area past the barricade did not look like any trap Raeln had ever seen. At first he thought they were entering a cavern, the walls widening to well beyond the reach of their feeble torch. His eyes searched the dark for several seconds before he realized he could faintly make out walls somewhere ahead and above them. A dim light illuminated the walls—not much brighter than candlelight, but even and unflickering like moonlight. From what he could see, the lights were coming from small recessed sections of the walls about twenty feet over their heads.

  The walls stretched off to either side, curving away from their position and giving him the impression of walking into a hollow stone cylinder. He had to pass the torch back to Yoska to allow his eyes to further adjust before he made out a thin staircase on the far side of the round room that went up the walls, zigzagging until it reached an open gate set high into the cavern wall. Off to his left, a ramp went up to another gate, allowing access for carts and other creatures that might not handle the stairs so well.

  “The king, he has people carve the fortress from the solid stone of the mountain,” explained Yoska, passing the torch to On’esquin. “It takes many generations to finish and I think they never call it done. Is impressive for such a large tomb, no? Out here, dwarves can drop huge stones on enemy and clean up mess later. Is very secure when one is planning to fight off living army.”

  Raeln looked straight up and saw three large slabs of stone that seemed to hover at the edge of the light, a similar dim glow as that on the walls somewhere above them. They were suspended in some fashion, telling him a single dwarf with an axe could probably have sent them crashing down on anything that came through the open area. There were few things in the world that would survive a fifty-foot-wide stone slab coming down on them. For whatever reason, those had not saved the dwarven city from whatever happened.

  “They were attacked from another entrance or from within,” Raeln noted, shaking his head and trying not to look at the stones. He wondered if they had ever fallen by accident, killing visitors to the fortress. “How many ways are there into this place?”

  “Four. Two if you are not dwarf and you ask a dwarf. The other two are hidden inside their surface cities to let their people come down here in a hurry.”

  “How do you know that?” Raeln asked as they walked.

  Yoska shrugged. “One I find by looking. Other a friend told me of and I think is way he came back here to visit without king finding out he is around. Might be more ways in. Friend was very sneaky.”

  The faint clattering on the stone floor behind them reminded Raeln that standing still allowed their pursuer to get closer. Not wanting to say anything that might tip off whoever was coming, he pointed at the stairs. Whatever was behind them sounded as though it had gotten closer. He began walking, with the others following close behind.

  The stairs were clearly not built for anything larger than a dwarf, and Raeln realized it would be a difficult climb with his stride, though hi
s paws were smaller than most humanoids’ boots. Yoska nimbly began up the steps, with On’esquin lumbering up them, his boots barely fitting halfway onto each step.

  With one more glance toward the tunnel they had come through, Raeln started climbing. He kept one hand against the wall to steady himself. Several steps into the long climb, he thought he saw white eyes gleaming near the entrance to the open area, but they vanished before he could be sure. The thing following them was close. On the surface, he would have attempted to guess at the type of creature, given what little he had seen and heard…below ground, it could be almost anything.

  They had gone little more than a quarter of the way up when Raeln realized the switchbacks in the staircase curved over top of the previous section, allowing defenders to fire down on the stairs directly beneath them. They likely could even use rolled stones to clear the area where approaching forces would need to turn around to continue up. Those thoughts made his fur stand on end, and he looked up to see if there were people above them that might be planning that very attack. Though the walls were faintly visible, the design of the stairs allowed him to see down easily but not up past the section they were on until he was close to the next switchback. There could have been thousands of dwarves glaring at him and he would have no way of knowing. Adding his mild fear of heights to the mix, Raeln was afraid to look up or down. The only safe direction to look was at the steps directly in front of him.

  On the third switchback, On’esquin slipped on the narrow steps, nearly falling. He came down hard on his knees, catching himself before tumbling backward into Raeln and pulling them both off the end of the section of steps. Softly muttering something in a language Raeln did not know, On’esquin steadied himself before moving.

  “Brilliant design,” On’esquin muttered, trying to stand back up without anything to grab hold of. Giving Raeln and Yoska an apologetic look, he added, “Terrifying and infuriating, but brilliant.”

  The clattering down below warned Raeln that whatever had followed them was well into the courtyard. Despite his own reservations about looking down, Raeln pressed himself against the wall and began slowly searching the courtyard. He could see nothing down there, but he could feel its eyes on them. Judging by its pace, whatever was down there might reach the steps in another few minutes. Once, he thought he saw movement, but if he had, it was fast and darted into the next set of shadows before he could see any details.

  The last two switchbacks passed with more tension but no more mistakes by the climbers. At the top Yoska waited inside a large open gate for the others to pass him before he came through the walls with them. Almost as an afterthought, Yoska pulled shut the heavy wooden doors and brought down a bar to block them. If nothing else, it would slow whatever was pursuing them. Raeln knew it could likely come in the other entrance to the fortress, but it would need to backtrack to the ground and back up, costing it easily an hour in trying to reach them.

  The dwarven fortress certainly lived up to the title in Raeln’s mind as he cleared a low portcullis that forced him to stoop his head in passing, several feet inside the outer doors. Streets that appeared more like tunnels carved from smoothed stone ran in all directions, with doors set into walls here and there that reminded him of shops or homes. Unlike a surface city, he could not look up to see past the buildings around him, but if he kept his eyes down, he could have forgotten he was underground and thought it was merely nighttime. The whole place was beautiful in its own way.

  “Where is the light coming from?” On’esquin asked as he squinted and put a hand to the wall, as though he had to reassure himself that he knew where anything was in the dark. “I expected to be even more blind in here than I am.”

  “Is magic of some sort,” said Yoska, giving On’esquin’s armor a tug to guide him. “My friend believed they would put out the light when attackers came and wait ’til they were close before making it light again to scare or blind them. Dwarves would be blind too, but they know their way. Attackers might not. Is one of few kinds of magic dwarves let their wizards use underground for fear of using up air or collapsing tunnels. Much babble I mostly ignored.”

  Touching one of the doors nearby, Raeln was surprised that it swung inward slowly, unbarred or locked, creaking softly. “This doesn’t look like preparations for war,” he said, frowning at the dark interior of the building, where a faint scent of death emanated. Raeln had no desire to go any farther in and see what was making the smell.

  “You rather we find army of the dead waiting for us, no?” asked Yoska, giving Raeln a disgusted look. “We will not stop because of scary dark house, I think. Go right at next street and left two after that. I know several abandoned buildings where we can rest. In morning…or when we guess is morning…we walk straight through center of city. We use central garden to skip much of fortress and go on to far side. Is faster, but if they fight war, we find doors closed and go long way. Either half day to far side, or many days, depending on which doors are open. Either still saves us weeks of travel in mountains and tell us if dwarves come help us.”

  Raeln took the man’s directions, heading down the right-hand hallway. They passed dozens of doors that mostly stood partway open as he searched for the streets Yoska had mentioned. The only sounds he could make out anywhere for some time were their footsteps and breathing, until a loud boom behind them echoed through the fortress.

  “Barred door is open now,” noted Yoska nervously, pushing On’esquin to hurry him along.

  Seconds after the sound behind them, Raeln could again hear the occasional tap of their pursuer’s feet on the stone floor. Now he was certain they were claws. He could hear the individual tips striking the stone if he listened carefully enough. Claws generally meant predator, and that was the last thing they needed on unfamiliar terrain and in limited visibility. Anything that would follow for this long was probably not friendly.

  They ran on for what felt to be nearly an hour, until Raeln’s feet had gone numb to the incessant pounding against the stone street. His mind had begun to wander when Yoska grabbed his arm, yanking him to a stop. For a moment, Raeln thought that the man had seen something and it was time to fight, but he calmed quickly as Yoska led the three of them into a building that looked like it might have been a warehouse.

  Ducking inside with them, Raeln had to squint to make out anything, even with the torch once Yoska closed the door behind them. For several long minutes, Yoska kept a hand up to silence them while he pressed his ear to the door, but then he eventually relaxed and sat down with his back to the wood.

  “Has been nearly a day,” the gypsy told them, surprising Raeln as he had lost track in the endless night of the dwarven tunnels. “Is easy to keep going until you make yourself sick or too weak to go on first time down here. This is good place to rest and let whoever follows lose our trail.”

  As On’esquin sat down with Yoska, Raeln began moving out into the edges of the dark, trying to determine the sort of place they were in. Slowly, shapes solidified as his eyes adjusted, letting him see that they were in a massive open space, with long rows of crates on either side. He sniffed, finding so many scents that he had trouble picking them out. When he closed his eyes, the chamber’s smell reminded him of the first time he had gone to the markets outside Lantonne.

  Seemingly noticing his confusion, Yoska said, “Is food stores for southern part of fortress. King’s guards keep people out, so figured would be empty now, no matter what happen outside. Is also fine place to replace our few bits of food with some that will last longer.”

  While the others settled in to rest, Raeln moved slowly through the warehouse, peeking inside one crate after another. Most were filled with vegetables, wheats, and gains, packed tightly with a scrub grass that he knew slowed their decay immensely. In the steady temperatures of the caves with that grass, he was willing to bet most of the food would last for weeks if not months.

  Raeln filled his pack as he went, finding that the farther back he got within the warehous
e, the hardier the goods. By the time he reached the limit of his vision, most of the crates were filled with spices and other items that would be of little use on the road. Circling back, he double-checked the crates closest to the light and found several with salted meats and fish, which he carried by hand, hoping to provide a meal that did not come from a dingy pack.

  Coming back to the others, Raeln sat down and lay out the fresher meats and some fruit he had found on top of his bedroll, smiling broadly at the other two men. On’esquin smiled back and reached for the fruit, only to have Yoska slap his hand and glower.

  “You trust too much for these times,” Yoska warned, picking up an apple and sniffing at it. Scowling at it, he turned it over several times before he held it out to Raeln. “You did sniff these, yes?”

  “They’re just apples,” answered Raeln, in no mood for the man’s oddities. He bent to pick up a piece of salted beef, but Yoska kicked aside the entire bedroll with his boot and held up the apple again. “What is wrong with you?”

  Yoska’s expression hardened further. “You do not know how they kill those in the cities?”

  Raeln’s chest tightened as he remembered that his own sister had been taken by the Turessians through the use of poison. It had been so long in the wilds that he had not even considered the risk.

  “I do, but I don’t know what I’d be hunting for,” Raeln admitted, taking the apple.

  “My dear friend once say he finds the poison in Altis,” said Yoska, relaxing somewhat. “Was in water and anything cooked in it. Most of this is likely safe, but he say that the poison is bitter to his nose. Was not something a human could smell. I think many times this is why crazy dead people work so hard to kill those with fur. Always better to finish off enemy that can ruin plans before you go after rest of enemy, no?”