by Max Anthony
Soon, the unpleasant descent ended in a vast, expansive room that was more than merely unpleasant. They emerged through a wide doorway somewhere in the middle of one of its walls. There was no way to see how far this chamber reached. It seemed to go on and on, directly beneath the dungeon above. Pillars supported the ten-feet-high roof at regular intervals – simple upright posts of stone which had been left behind when this space had been cut from the rock. Rasmus could see enough to get an idea of what was wrong, and Viddo could see a lot more.
There were bodies everywhere – thousands of them, in varying stages of decay. They were strewn at random, as if they’d been thrown down here without care or concern for how they fell. None of the closest bodies looked freshly killed, but they all had skin on their bones, suggesting that this slaughter had happened much more recently than the deaths above. Viddo walked to several of the corpses and inspected them. He lifted up the heads of two and pointed out the neck wounds that both had suffered – it looked like they’d been killed by having their throats cut.
Viddo crept back to the bottom of the steps and whispered to Rasmus. “This is appalling,” he said in dismay. “Our thus-far pleasant jaunt through this underground complex has taken a much more sinister turn.”
“I’ve never seen the like,” said Rasmus, equally disturbed by what he witnessed.
“Are we going to retreat, or should we see what secrets this room holds?” asked the thief.
“Neither option is palatable. Let us have a look further within this chamber. It may tell us something about the dungeon above, or indeed the wider existence of this entire complex.”
They set off on a path that took them directly away from the steps and beneath the dungeon. It seemed likely that a room this large would have several entrances, and they were content to try their luck in finding one that might allow them to escape the never-ending presence of misery. Although they were both used to the sight of death, each did his best to avert his eyes from the countless bodies around them.
“Look up there,” said Viddo, pointing to several foot-wide square holes above. “Gaps in the ceiling.”
“Leading to the cells above, do you think?”
“Can’t be going anywhere else. Maybe this room served as a huge sewer for the dungeon.”
“It’s a bit big for a sewer,” said Rasmus. “Even I can see that.”
“What else would it be here for?”
Rasmus was silent for a while and Viddo didn’t think he was going to reply. Eventually the wizard spoke. “Blood?” he asked.
They fell into a period of quiet at the wizard’s suggestion. Blood had always been the fuel for the evillest of magics. The darkest powers needed the darkest of gods to grant their abilities to the caster. These gods liked their servants to show their loyalty through the death of others, uncaring whether this blood came from believers or non-believers.
Their contemplation was shortly disturbed. From afar they heard rustling and scampering sounds, which pitter-pattered in the darkness. Viddo squinted ahead and saw movement – low, dark shapes flitted from pillar to pillar at speed. They were undeniably coming closer.
“You might as well increase the brightness of your spell,” said Viddo in a conversational tone. “They know we’re here.”
“What are they? Rats?” asked Rasmus, doing as the thief suggested. The light expanded, filling the area around them.
“Not rats,” said Viddo. “Something rather more unpleasant than rats.”
“Don’t keep me guessing you fool!” said Rasmus with some justification. “I need to know what spells I’ll have to cast.”
“Ghouls, from the looks of things. And coming from all sides.”
“Should we make a run for it?” asked the wizard.
“I don’t think there’s any point. Once they’ve got the scent of fresh meat, they’ll follow it until they’re killed, or we’re eaten.”
Rasmus knew this to be true and offered no argument, nor did he give the incoming creatures the opportunity to dictate the terms of the coming engagement. With a violent chop of one hand, Rasmus conjured a charged bolt of lightning. It appeared twenty yards from where the adventurers stood and jagged away in a line, thirty yards long, as quickly as if it had come from the heavens themselves. The brightness from the spell was pure, brilliant white, which lit up the room for yards around and left imprints upon Viddo’s eyes where he’d accidentally stared at it. Shorter, thinner lines split from the main bolt, and these contacted with the approaching shapes, coruscating as they did so. The main bolt struck a pillar and bounced off at an angle for another twenty yards. Rasmus grunted in contentment as he saw seven or eight of the shapes thrown away by the force of the shock, and knew that they would certainly have been destroyed by the power of his spell. The noise of a rending crack reached their ears a split second after the whiteness faded.
Rasmus was not a man to rest on his laurels, nor to hoard his spells unnecessarily, and he threw another lightning bolt in a different direction. Three more of the ghouls were struck directly and another few were scattered and burned by the offshoots.
“Run out of fireballs?” asked Viddo. He was crouched low and with his daggers in his hands.
“The flesh of ghouls is greasy and rubbery,” the wizard replied. “They are somewhat resistant to fire.” As he said this, he realised that the strength of his fireballs would be more than enough to overcome their minor defiance, but he had a few spare lightning spells that it seemed wise to use in the circumstances.
The first of the undead creatures came close – it raced across the uneven floor on all fours. As it came within the globe of Rasmus’ light spell, its features became distinct. It was human-sized and shaped, but its face was a mottled patchwork of pink and green. It was naked and all over its body were ulcerous sores and weals, which wept a clear fluid over its skin. It had human eyes, but the nose was gone and its mouth was bared in a grimace of hatred, showing yellow, stubby teeth. Viddo knew that ghouls had once been human and though he didn’t know what had turned them into creatures of such evil, there was no hope of redemption for them.
This first creature leaped upwards. Viddo was ready for it and stepped to one side as filthy yellow fingernails reached for his throat. His dagger snaked out, cutting open the ghoul’s throat. It was as bloodless as all undead and it hissed as it landed badly, thrashing over onto its back. Viddo was there at once and stabbed it in the chest, killing it.
Two more sprinted in mindlessly and unconcerned for their safety. The closest one jumped and Viddo ducked beneath, pushing both daggers into its torso. The speed of its leap pulled open two huge gashes along its stomach, and slippery pink intestines fell from within. The second undead almost caught Viddo, but he rolled away and saw Rasmus smash his cosh into its head. It stumbled in a momentary daze and Rasmus hit it again, producing a marked indentation on its skull and flattening the brain beneath.
“More coming,” said Viddo, moving to intercept the approach of three more ghouls, which had thus far remained beyond the far reaches of the light spell.
Before they could threaten, Rasmus cast a short-range shock spell, which arced from one to the other, killing two.
“Those were mine!” said Viddo indignantly, though in truth he hardly enjoyed killing ghouls at all. They never carried anything of value and there was always the risk of catching a hideous disease of some description if their nails dug into his skin. Priests could usually deal with any diseases that got past his innate resistance, but there weren’t many friendly clerics in the vicinity that he was aware of.
“There’s one left for you,” countered Rasmus as he attempted to look in all directions to see if any more were coming. The wizard could have saved his breath, since in the time it took him to speak these words, Viddo had darted towards the last of the three and dispatched it.
“This room could be teeming with them,” said Viddo. “Let’s get on.”
More shapes clustered. Ghouls were stupid creatures,
but with occasional cunning. They might attack singly for a time and then they might decide to gather into a pack, without rhyme or reason for their behaviour. Rasmus had mellowed as he’d got older, but had little patience with threats to his person. He threw a fireball at what he hoped was the greatest concentration of the creatures. The spell exploded with a whump, hurling a dozen of them in all directions. The blast also picked up another seven or eight of the corpses in the vicinity, throwing them in amongst the carnage.
Even though Rasmus had closed his eyes against the flash, there were still faint imprints left on his retinas. When these cleared, he saw that Viddo had finished off another two of the vile creatures, and stood ready in case more came.
“Are you hurt?” asked Rasmus.
Viddo knew that the wizard was asking if he’d been scratched by a claw. “Nope. Totally unmarked. I think we’ve got them for the moment.”
“This place is enormous,” said Rasmus. “There could be hundreds more, and I don’t wish to be whittled away by their constant assault.”
“Forwards or back to the steps?” asked Viddo.
“Hmmm,” said Rasmus. He was as averse to treading over old ground as was Viddo – at least when that old ground took him to a place as abysmal as the dungeon.
The decision was made more difficult by a sudden sound from back the way they’d come. It was the noise of heavy metal boot on stone, as if something clad in black plate armour had come to the bottom of the steps the pair had so recently left behind.
“Dread knight!” said Viddo. “How did it find us so soon?”
“It seems that you are not the only one who decides his route on a left-right-left basis,” said Rasmus, hitting upon the unfortunate truth in a flash of inspiration.
“Damnit!” swore Viddo, suddenly confronted by the realisation that he might need to alter his methods, lest he become too predictable. He put the decision to one side for the time being and addressed their immediate concern. “Want to go back and fight it?” he asked.
Rasmus was already hurrying the other way. “Not until we know if it’s alone!” he said. “There might be another three behind it and a lich with them.”
“Extinguish your light,” said Viddo. “And take my hand.”
In a moment, the spell of light was ended and Rasmus found himself engulfed in an utter, utter darkness. He waited calmly, and felt Viddo reach out for him, grasping his hand firmly.
“I’ll try and lead us around any obstacles, but be wary of your footing.”
With that, Rasmus felt himself half-dragged across the floor of the room. True to his word, Viddo led him around the liberally-scattered corpses and though the wizard stumbled once or twice in the first minute or two, he soon found a sixth sense guiding his feet.
“Is it still coming?” the wizard asked quietly.
“Directly for us,” said Viddo. He could hear the metallic footsteps faintly, but enough to know that the creature wasn’t deviating from their trail.
“You’d think it might have wandered off somewhere else. This room is big enough.”
Viddo didn’t reply, but Rasmus felt the tugging take him away in a new direction. The implication was clear: the thief had been going in a straight line and the thought hadn’t occurred to him that he should deviate himself, rather than waiting for their pursuer to do so.
They hurried on. Once or twice, something soft and yielding squelched underfoot and Rasmus was grateful that he wasn’t able to see what he’d trodden on. When they’d travelled for a while in this fashion, Viddo stopped and listened again.
“It’s still coming after us,” he said. “It might be gaining on us.”
“I wonder if it can detect our life energy,” said Rasmus. “I’m sure all the undead can see in the dark, but this creature might go one step further.”
“I’m going to go back and try and delay it,” said Viddo. “I’ll hide you behind this post over here and you can wait it out. If you hear me shout, come running.”
Rasmus didn’t think this was necessarily the best plan he’d ever heard, but he reminded himself that thieves were suited to working alone and in the dark, so he kept his mouth closed and allowed himself to be ushered along until he felt the cold stone of a pillar at his back. The wizard leaned comfortably against it, trying to exude an air of nonchalance, when in fact he’d have preferred to be almost anywhere apart from where he was.
“Viddo?” he whispered. There was no response – Viddo had gone.
Fourteen
Viddo slipped away without a further word. Rasmus wasn’t a feeble man who needed mollycoddling, nor to have the exact details of a plan spelled out for him in the smallest of details. The thief was wary of the notion that the dread knight could see his life energies, but was determined to put his expertise to the test against this evil creature. In the earliest days of training, thieves were shown how to meld in with their background. At first, they needed to wear black clothing and to work in near-darkness. Then, as the thief grew in skill and experience, they developed an affinity for even the faintest of shadows and could try their luck at hiding almost anywhere. Of course, there were limitations – hiding in broad daylight in the middle of a crowd tended not to work very well, but the experienced thief knew where and when he could escape notice. Viddo was reasonably certain that even the most powerful of undead could not see through a solid stone pillar and that’s where he crouched while he set his trap.
Viddo was not a squeamish man, an attribute which stood him in good stead as he threaded a long piece of flexible wire through the shoulders of two corpses that shared his company behind the pillar. The first one had rotted quite badly, but the second one seemed to stare at the thief as he pushed a stout needle through its flesh.
“Sorry old fellow,” said Viddo, though in truth he wasn’t especially sorry. The corpse was nothing but a tool for him now and he didn’t let himself think that he was being disrespectful.
The clank-clank-clank of metal was closer now and Viddo was concerned that he might not have enough time. With the wire connecting the two corpses, he quickly dragged them out from behind the pillar and laid them five feet apart, across what he hoped would be the dread knight’s path. He glanced in the direction of its approach and was relieved to note that it was currently out of sight behind another of the pillars. Viddo ducked back into his hiding place, melded with the shadows and waited.
The wait was not long. The metal-shod footsteps were purposeful and unhesitant in their advance. Viddo had a sudden, worrying thought, which came too late for him to consider the ramifications. How does it know where we are now that me and Rasmus are hidden behind pillars? this wicked thought asked him. Might it realise that we have set a trap for it?
Whatever fell power the dread knight was using, it appeared to be fallible. As Viddo hunched out of sight, the hulking creature strode confidently past him. It walked through the gap between the two corpses and Viddo watched as the wire connecting them bowed out with the creature’s stride. The next stride caught the wire as well, and the two corpses were dragged inwards. For a second, Viddo was concerned that the undead might be too heavy to be tripped. As its feet became fouled by the unexpected obstruction, it didn’t fall onto its face, but it did stumble onto one knee with a rattle of chain mail undervest and a heavy thud as its black poleyn struck the stone. Viddo heard a low, rumbling sound come from the visor, which might have been a growl.
Knowing that his time to strike had arrived, Viddo sprang silently from his crouched position, with his favoured dagger in his hand. He had been known to try a backstab with a dagger in each hand in the past, but now he wanted to focus all of his energies on making this one attack count. The dread knight’s back was hugely broad, as if in life it had been the strongest man within a thousand miles. Viddo saw his spot and thrust downwards with all of his might, just as the black plate helmet began to turn in his direction. The dread knight was too late to prevent Viddo’s attack, and the dagger punctured through the outer coa
ting of plate, sliced through the chain vest beneath and finished hilt-deep in its spine.
The creature roared - a sound of hatred that echoed hollowly as it came through the visor. It threw out a backhanded swing with one arm. Viddo had anticipated this, but his dagger had become lodged in the undead’s spine and he was delayed for a moment as he tried to pull it free. Consequently, the arm caught him in the side. The power in the blow was immense and Viddo found himself plucked from his feet and thrown several feet away. Even in flight, his senses didn’t desert him and he rolled nimbly to his feet, the perfection of the manoeuvre slightly spoiled by a stumble over the leg of a corpse as he righted himself.
The dread knight pushed itself to its feet with effort – a clean backstab from an expert thief could kill most things in one go, with even a powerful creature likely to suffer a significant debilitation. It reached over one shoulder and slid out the long-bladed sword it carried. The blade was as black as the metal of its armour and the creature held it two-handed. Against untrained opponents, this sword would scythe them down as if they were wheat. Within the helmet, the deep red eyes searched, looking for the human which had the temerity to strike it. There was no one there.
Meanwhile, sixty yards away, Rasmus stood behind his pillar. He’d heard a few distant patterings, which had concerned him, but they hadn’t come closer. The noise from the dread knight had also become much clearer. He wasn’t enjoying the situation, since he was a wizard of action rather than a wizard of books, and his boredom was telling him that he shouldn’t be huddling here when he could be casting spells.
“Why should Viddo be having all of the fun?” he asked himself. “We’re meant to be a team and at the moment we are not acting like one.” Rasmus was a wise man, but failed to see that by allowing Viddo to act to his strengths, the pair were in fact acting as a team. Then, he heard the roar.
“Sod this for a game of wizards!” Rasmus muttered to himself. He boosted his spell of light up to full strength, shielding his eyes for a few seconds. Once his pupils had contracted sufficiently after their time in the darkness, he emerged from his refuge behind the pillar and hurried towards the source of the roar. The glow of his light didn’t reach far enough that he could see the dread knight, but he soon heard it. Heavy footsteps resumed, only this time they struck a fast cadence over the floor. The creature was running.
