Ancients

by Riley Keene

  “Alright, but if we don’t come to a dead end in, eh,” Elise shrugged, “let’s say sixty fen, we’ll come back and check the other way. By the time we’re done, Athala should be finished with her reading.”

  Elise shrugged out of her knapsack and put it on the floor. Digging around for a moment, she produced a spare torch and a small bottle of oil. She doused the head of the torch in the oil and lit it from the one she had hung on the wall, leaving the previous torch behind for Athala to work by.

  Almost ten fen in, the hallway took a hard turn to the left, opening up so they could comfortably walk side-by-side. The hall stretched off into the darkness ahead.

  “Well, I don’t see an end. Did you want to give up yet?” Ermolt grinned, the torchlight illuminating his face garishly.

  “It’s not over yet,” Elise said, bristling. “Sixty fen, remember?”

  “Of course, of course,” Ermolt said as they started down the hall again. “You know, I’m not sure what I’m going to enjoy more, you getting a face full of spiderwebs after all of your comments, or you having to ride on my shoulders to get high enough up for it.”

  Elise looked up at the ceiling that loomed far over her head. “I didn’t think about that.” She was quiet for a moment. The thought of perching on the giant barbarian’s shoulders was appealing, and she couldn’t say she hadn’t thought of it before. But never for the purpose of having her head swarmed by cobwebs. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going to talk me out of it now.” Ermolt ducked slightly as they passed a wall beam that had broken loose and fallen across the hallway at his head height.

  “I’m not trying to weasel out of it,” Elise scoffed, not needing to duck at all for the fallen beam. “I’m just trying to look out for your back. I wouldn’t want you tweaking something and ending up bedridden for a week.”

  “Like I’ve never strained my back before,” Ermolt said with a dismissive wave. “It’s not so bad. The salves used are pleasant smelling and no one asks me to do anything the whole time. Some rest would be nice right about now.”

  “Yes, and meanwhile, Athala gets eaten by giant rats or whatever else.” Elise tried to fix him with a withering look, but Ermolt wasn’t paying attention to her. He seemed, instead, to be fascinated by the stone walls.

  “I’m sure Athala would have something to say about the stone they made this place from,” he said, confirming that he was, indeed, inspecting the walls. “The cracks look to be making consistent patterns.”

  Elise considered pushing against him changing the subject for a moment, but relented. “Maybe it’s intentional.” She tilted her torch towards the right wall, noting the same rough polygonal shapes in the stone mirrored between each torch sconce. “Maybe there were carvings or something that made the rock weak in that particular pattern.”

  “That does sound a lot more likely than the ‘magic rocks break special’ theory I was imagining,” Ermolt said with a frown.

  Elise laughed. “Well, maybe you should go back to thinking about putting your head in a nest of spiders.” She pointed ahead, to what looked to be a wall cutting off the hallway in the dimness just beyond the farthest reaches of the torchlight.

  “It’s probably just another corner in the path. We’ve still got another thirty fen or so before we turn back. I mean, why would a hallway like this just end in a wall with no doors or anything off of it?”

  “Someone is in denial, spider-face,” Elise said in a sing-song tone, grinning as they approached the apparent end of the hall.

  “I am not.” Ermolt walked forward and put his hands on his hips. “See? Look, it’s just another corner in the hallway.” He motioned with a hand at the oncoming wall, where the light was starting to illuminate the continuing passage next to it.

  “Well, if we can’t see the dead end that is definitely around the corner, we’ll go check the other side, then.” They stopped before the corner, Elise drawing them up short. “So, ready to lose?”

  “Hardly,” Ermolt said, puffing up his chest.

  “Good. You look.” Elise held the torch forward to where it could illuminate around the corner but held her eyes on Ermolt.

  Ermolt leaned forward, a victorious smile slowly spreading across his lips. After a moment his eyes widened and he leaned back, the smile replaced by a grimace.

  “Do I win?” Elise tried to keep herself from grinning, but his expression made it impossible.

  “I don’t want to play anymore,” Ermolt grumbled.

  Elise stepped forward and peeked around the corner eagerly, her grin growing as her torch illuminated a room, rather than an extension of the hallway. There were a few lumps of collapsed and rotted furniture, their original purposes indistinguishable. A quick scan over the walls revealed no doors. It was indeed a dead end, the entire passage existing just to lead into this room.

  “Well, would you look at that,” Elise said into the empty room. “A dead end! Who could have predicted this!” She turned back and grinned at Ermolt.

  “So how long are you going to be calling me ‘spider-face’ for?” He asked as he started back down the hall towards Athala.

  “I’d like to think it would be the rest of our time together, but knowing you, within a fortnight you’ll do something else and you’ll have a brand new nickname.” Elise followed him, scurrying for a moment to catch up to his longer stride.

  “Do I really have to go through with it?” Ermolt asked as she caught up. “Can I do something else that is a little less terrible?”

  Elise considered the real possibility that she would have the same reaction. “Alright. If something equally distasteful comes up, I guess I could let you off the hook then.”

  Ermolt tried to hide his relief but did so poorly. Elise was about to call him on it with a barbed comment, but a startled shout ahead of them interrupted her.

  “Athala!” Ermolt yelled. “We’re coming!” He broke into a run, heedless of Elise’s inability to keep up with him.

  She ran as fast as she could behind him, even as he began to pass out of the light of the torch. Her shorter legs barely kept up enough for him to see the broken wall beam out of the darkness. He ducked at the last moment and continued out of Elise’s torch range. When he came to the end of the hall he slapped his free hand to the stone, halting his momentum without slamming into it, and redirecting himself down the corridor towards the light of the torch they’d left behind.

  Ermolt roared in a challenge before Elise came to the corner herself. As she crossed the threshold she saw Athala scrambling across the floor, her various arcane instruments and notes scattered. A walking skeleton loomed in front of her, a wicked axe carved out of sharpened stone held firmly, against all logic, in bony fingers. Behind it were two more skeletons wielding rust-pitted short swords.

  Ermolt charged forward toward the three skeletons, but only the two sword-carrying skeletons had turned to his bellow. They tried to rush forward to meet him but were too far behind to save their axe-carrying ally from the wide arc of Ermolt’s hammer. The head of his hammer caught the skeleton in the torso, spraying splintered bones and marrow dust across the hallway.

  The bottom half of the skeleton collapsed in a heap of inanimate bones. The top half flopped to the ground and squirmed ineffectually, not having enough of its arms intact to propel itself toward its intended victim. Ermolt planted his foot on the monster’s skull and pushed down until a sound like a ceramic pot being shattered splintered through the hall.

  The other two skeletons closed the distance quickly, denying Ermolt the opportunity to get another full swing by getting in under his reach. He was able to entirely parry the first attack with the reinforced haft of his hammer. The second skeleton coordinated its thrust, and Ermolt could only blunt the strike by catching the edge of the blade on the armor across his forearm rather than his ribs.

  The skeleton thrust again, and Ermolt shifted his grip, parrying the attack one-handed. He swung his free hand forward, d
riving his fist into the other skeleton’s rib cage before it could launch another attack. The ancient bones cracked and splintered, but held. It staggered back from the sudden assault.

  “On your left!” Elise shouted, finally locating a window to join the fight. She rolled under Ermolt’s left elbow, her mace catching one of the skeletons across the hip, reducing the joint to a powder. The torch in her offhand struck the monster in the front of its skull as it unbalanced, the improvised weapon smearing burning pitch across what used to be its face. Distant human instincts made it drop its weapon and claw at its flaming head. Without a right leg to stand on, it quickly toppled. Elise stomped down with a booted foot and separated the skull from the spine.

  Sweeping the mace and torch, Elise drove the other skeleton back away from Ermolt, giving him the space to swing his hammer properly. He took advantage of the space and brought his hammer around above his head before driving it down hard atop the skeleton, as though pounding a stake into the ground. The skeleton was immediately reduced to splinters and dust, the pitted sword clanging to the ground uselessly beside what few fragmented bones remained.

  A second pair of skeletons charged out of the darkness with very little warning. This group was barely armed at all, carrying between them a length of wood as an improvised club and a broken femur, the shattered end coming to a sharp point.

  Ermolt stepped up in front of Elise, blocking the hallway. The skeleton with the club swung at him as he approached, but Ermolt just took the blow, his armor absorbing most of the impact. His armor fared well against the broken femur as the wielding skeleton drove the sharpened end into Ermolt’s chest. The tip became instantly lodged in the thick hide and the sharp end broke. The crack rippled up the ancient femur, turning the bone into a harmless cascade of bone chips.

  Elise ducked under Ermolt’s elbow again, slamming her mace into the disarmed skeleton’s rib cage. Fragile bones smashed into splinters and they shattered in a puff of bone dust. The skeleton listed to the side, the change in structure unbalancing it and fouling its attack. It swiped at her with empty hands, but Elise stepped in under its guard and shoulder checked it, sending it stumbling into its companion.

  The distraction allowed Ermolt to bring his hammer around in a wide arc, shattering spines, legs, and pelvises. The lower halves of the skeletons struck the wall of the hallway in a sweep of fragments, while the upper halves fell to the ground, cracking as they hit the grimy stone floor. Elise rushed around Ermolt’s side, bringing her mace down in two smooth swings. She cracked open the two animated skulls and ended the farce of life to which they clung.

  “Well,” Elise said, patting bone dust off of her hands and armor. “That was fun. So, Athala, any idea how close we are?”

  Chapter Five

  Ermolt knelt to help Athala collect her scattered notes and tools off the floor, but she shooed him away. She frowned up at him, and then down at the pages and instruments. “You two are supposed to be protecting me,” she remarked, an accusatory tone to her voice. She tried to knock the dirt from her items. “I’d just like to verify—was it was your intent to leave me here, alone, in the dark, in a hostile environment? Does that seem protective to you?”

  “Well, uh,” Ermolt began, trying to quickly think of an excuse. “We were just going to be gone for a little while, you see? Obviously, we were never out of earshot, and I’m pretty sure we had the ability to, you know, close the distance in time if you called for us.”

  “We’re sorry, Athala,” Elise added. “We were just doing a little scouting for a harmless bet between us, and didn’t think it through. That’s no excuse and we’ll do better next time.”

  “Well, you two showed up before I was harmed, so I suppose I should be grateful. I really do hope you were so close by design instead of coincidence. If you’d been a few seconds later, I might be short an arm or a leg.”

  Athala picked up the two remaining notes from around her initial attacker’s axe, trying not to touch it. “But the presence of animated skeletons tells us we’re getting closer.”

  “Because of the spell?” Ermolt asked.

  “The animation of nonliving objects is another side effect of long-term exposure to ambient magic. Organic matter is first, naturally, especially dead things that have enough structure to facilitate movement. Skeletons are the first natural result, as they don’t have a lot of dead weight in muscle and fat to support and move around.

  “So, yes, it’s a sure sign that we’re getting closer.” The wizard paused for a moment. “Are we going then? My readings were pointing off to the left before I was interrupted.”

  “No,” Elise said, her tone gentle, “we’re going to take a rest first. We’ve been down here for at least a bell and a half. Then there was the whole late start, thanks to you two.” She rolled her eyes. “And, if what Athala is telling us is that we’re going to run into more mutant rats and undead, we need to stop while we can. It’s about time we get some food, and it gives me a chance to see to any scrapes and bruises we have before they start adding up.” She gave Ermolt a pointed look, but she was smiling.

  “Hey, I’m fine,” Ermolt said defensively, “Hide armor isn’t just boot leather strapped around me. It’s very protective!”

  “Yes, of course.” Elise still fetched her knapsack from where she left it earlier and rooted around. “Just let me see your shoulder. I saw you take quite a few blows, and I have some salve specifically designed for the bruising you definitely have from their clubs.”

  “Alright, fine,” Ermolt said, peeling back the layered hides of his armor with a grumble. The skin was freshly bruised, the faint purple tone blossoming on the muscles of his shoulder and bicep. Elise made a disappointed noise and produced a small jar of greenish cream.

  Ermolt tried not to grimace as Elise slathered the cream on his shoulder. “Couldn’t you try warming it up first?”

  “You’re a natural furnace,” Elise said, applying pressure as she rubbed the poultice in. “There’s nothing I could do to make it warm enough for you.”

  Ermolt flinched away from her touch. “Gentle touches, Conscript! My muscles don’t require additional pulverizing!” He fixed her with a teasing smile and Elise rolled her eyes and slapped his arm. It was a playful slap, but the noise still echoed along the walls due to the contact between their wet skin.

  “Be glad then that I didn’t use my mace.” She screwed the lid back on the jar before wiping her hands clean on a scrap of cloth.

  The three of them settled in for lunch, digging into the provisions they’d brought specifically for this event. Ermolt’s rations consisted of preserved sausage made of bear and a mixture of dried fruits. Elise dug into a meal of mixed nuts, a few slices of cooked bacon, and a few scrawny carrots. Athala enjoyed a bit of smoked dilray, cold boiled cabbage, and a fresh apple. While they ate, Ermolt shared a few fantastical stories of heroes long past from the northern tribes, providing a bit of entertainment for his companions. Eventually they finished their meal, gathered their belongings, and continued on their way.

  The following half bell or so was mostly uneventful. Athala was bored, but after her near-death experience with the skeletons, she squashed the complaint.

  Along their path, the twisting hallways of the catacombs would occasionally open up into larger rooms, but the rats and skeletons were either kept at bay by fear, or were otherwise conspicuously absent.

  Not far after the forked hallway they came across a small side room that appeared to be the origin of the roaming skeletons. A few lumps of furniture in the room had not entirely rotted due to the drier air, and there were lengths of wood yanked from them. Athala was quick to point out the scattered bones and shreds of clothing that seemed to indicate that some number of bodies had indeed rotted away.

  They all tried to breathe as little as possible. The whole place smelled of dry rot, both of wood and leather. It was better than the wet mold of the entrance, but not by very much.

  As they went on, the remainin
g side rooms were either empty or collapsed and full of rubble.

  Once or twice, Elise commented about their relative location to the city above, attributing the distant sound of roaring water as they passed an area to the underground redirection of the Ploosk River. Later she commented that they were headed roughly in the direction of the Temple of Ydia, but she was unsure of how close they were to it. Her confidence in their location was not helped by the constant twists and turns the passage took, or the stairs and slopes that led them deeper down beneath the city.

  It wasn’t long before they came to another split in the path. A passageway off the right side of the hallway led down another hallway for once, instead of into a room or a pile of rubble. Elise, Athala, and Ermolt stopped and looked between the two darkened tunnels, the spread of their torchlight not revealing enough to make a further choice.

  “It’s probably straight ahead,” Ermolt said, scratching his chin. “This is probably just a passage into another side room.”

  “Oh, so you’re the expert now?” Elise said, her tone haughty. Athala looked curiously at her irritable friend. The dry air and the winding hallways were irksome, but this was still irrationally quick for even Elise. “Maybe you’ve forgotten who was right at the last crossroad?”

  Ermolt sniffed at the stale air in the hallway. “I won’t deny that I was wrong, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong this time.” He pointed at the hallway ahead of him. “I’m sure it’s that way. It feels right. And, let’s be honest, the right-hand passages have been dead ends for quite some time.”

  “That actually—“

  “I don’t deny that you could be correct based on that assumption, but are you seriously trusting your feelings? Instead of my expertise?” Elise bared her teeth at him. “I know for a fact that way leads closer to the Temple of Ydia, so I highly doubt the spell is that way. If it were, we’d be getting giant rats in the sub-basements, and this spell would have been investigated long ago.”