Some of the corpses were twisted in horrible contortions: others lay sprawled with their limbs outstretched, as though they had been struck suddenly from behind. Mottled green creepers wrapped around the bones, as if seeking to replace the long-rotted flesh with new ropey sinews. A stench of decay and death filled the chamber.
The treasure hunters stood just inside the crumbling chamber entrance. No one moved as they all took in the repellant scene.
Finally, Wharkun broke the silence. “Up or down?”
“Please,” Lita squeaked, “I don’t want to go down!”
Robellar glanced from one ruined stairway to the other. Thick vines half-blocked the way up, but the way down was almost completely clogged. “Why would a queen of Sanguinarre’s power hide her treasures deep in the dark?” the baron wondered aloud.
“She wouldn’t,” Persha agreed. “From what we know, she reveled in her power.”
“Indeed. With her island safe from intruders, why would Sanguinarre want to hide her wealth?” Reifworm added. “She would want to keep her baubles close by—just as your . . . friend does.” He greedily eyed the jewelry dangling from Lita’s slender form.
Antiope huffed. “This looks place more like a playroom than a treasury. We won’t find any gold here.” There was only a trace of irony in the way the Midknight said “playroom.”
“Up it is, then,” Wharkun concluded. Impatiently flexing his muscles, he trudged to the stairway and began hacking his way up.
“Help him,” Robellar ordered, and the rest of the warriors fell in line, working together to cut back the benighted jungle that barred their way. After their long climb, Rik was glad for the chance to limber up his sword arm again. The baron, the mages, and Lita fell in behind as the group gradually made their way upward.
The next chamber they passed through was much like the first: full of cells, implements of torture, and rotting bodies. The next levels after that presented similar grisly scenes. Occasionally, one of the group investigated a cubicle or a side passage as the rest continued upward. Without exception, the cells proved foul beyond comprehension, while the passageways always dead-ended after a short distance—though several corridors looked as though they had continued before the invasion of the choking greenery.
Rik limited his exploration of the side avenues, feeling not only that poking around slowed the group, but also that straying too far from the main path might prove dangerous. As a successful mercenary, Rik prided himself on avoiding unnecessary risks, and the dungeons of Sanguinarre seemed hazardous enough without looking for additional trouble.
He felt vindicated in his opinion when Reifworm returned from a side trip clutching his left hand. Blood poured down the mage’s arm and dripped on the mossy floor. “It’s nothing,” Reifworm said. “I thought I saw some jewelry on one of the corpses in a cell. When I reached to take it, I stabbed my hand on those damnable thorns.”
“Wear gloves next time,” Memnon remarked. Antiope laughed.
Reifworm glared at the Midknights, but didn’t reply. Persha helped her fellow mage bandage his hand.
“Next time,” Robellar said, “take one of the knights with you. We need to investigate all avenues in this place, but I don’t want my mages getting injured before we reach our goal.”
Neither Midknight seemed pleased at this suggestion, but Reifworm grinned broadly.
Late afternoon sunshine, admitted through tiny holes high in the stone walls, shone into the next chamber. The light revealed something surprising about the ever-present vegetation. Though all of the vines they’d seen previously had been vital and green, some in the new room were brown and withered. Rik noticed the change immediately, but chose not to mention it for fear the mages would investigate and further slow the group.
Reifworm and Persha seemed determined to investigate any oddity they came upon—as though the whole decaying palace was some kind of fascinating experiment. To Rik, the dungeons of Sanguinarre remained merely a deadly maze placed between him and his eventual reward.
As the group hacked its way upward, the withering of the vegetation continued until even the aloof wizards noticed it.
Reifworm tugged loose a brown section of vine and crumbled it in his hands. “These have died since the castle’s destruction,” he noted.
“How can you tell?” Wharkun asked.
“Because they have grown on top of the devastation caused by Sanguinarre’s enemies.”
“So Izanti and Fyre’s vines caused this destruction and then died afterward,” Persha said.
“That is the logical conclusion,” Reifworm replied.
“At least it will make the cutting easier,” Rik noted.
Al-Shakir eyed the dying creepers suspiciously. “Why are the plants dying?” His tone implied concern that the cause might be a threat to his master.
“Perhaps some lingering magic of the queen’s,” Persha suggested. “Sanguinarre’s enchantments stripped the island of life once—or so the legends say.”
“But she’s dead, right?” Memnon asked.
“I daresay,” Robellar replied. “If she or any of her people had survived, do you think we’d have gotten this far?”
Wharkun guffawed. “Not bloody likely!”
Baron Robellar’s eyes narrowed as he peered around the chamber. The room was much like those they’d seen previously, aside from dead vines and the pale sunlight streaming in from on high. The chamber was broad and roughly circular, with a staircase ascending one side wall and descending the other, back the way they’d come. There were more skeletons here, many covered in tattered crimson rags. Perhaps they were servants of the queen, Rik thought, rather than prisoners or torturers. Like their dead comrades below, none had escaped the wrath of Carnelian Fyre and her companions.
The baron turned, peering into all the shadowed corners of the room. “Where’s Lita?” Robellar hissed.
A cold chill ran down Rik’s spine. Where was the girl? They’d been so busy hacking through the brush that he hadn’t been paying any attention to her. Judging from the surprised looks on the faces of the rest of the group, neither had any of them.
“Well?” Robellar bellowed.
The Midknights shrugged. “She was at the back of the group, last we saw her,” Antiope said.
“We were all working hard,” Wharkun explained, sweating. “She should have kept up.”
“Should have?” the baron roared. His face went so red that it appeared he might burst a blood vessel. The nobleman clenched his longsword tightly and glared at Wharkun.
Reifworm looked from the way they’d come to the ascending stairway. He cleared his throat. “The day presses on,” he said. “We should not tarry on the girl’s account, despite your feelings for her, my lord.”
The baron rounded angrily on the sea mage, and Rik read the conflict on Robellar’s face. Clearly, the nobleman cared for the girl—he wouldn’t have brought her this far if he didn’t—but he didn’t want to jeopardize the success of the mission, either.
“I will find her, my lord,” Al-Shakir volunteered. “The sun is dipping low. You and the others should continue.”
“Yes,” Robellar said, some of the tension draining from his face. “Find her and then catch up. Take Persha with you, in case you need any magical assistance—and take that fat walrus as well.” He glared at Wharkun. “Perhaps the three of you can keep track of a simple girl where one of you could not.”
Wharkun nodded, apparently feeling he’d gotten off easy, since the baron had charged him with taking care of the girl.
Persha appeared nervous and sweaty as she followed the two warriors back into the dungeons. Soon the pale light of her glowstone vanished into the darkness.
Grif and Brak returned to cutting their way up the ascending stairs. Rik and the Midknights joined them, with Reifworm and the Baron bringing up the rear.
Now we are seven, Rik thought. Despite his misgivings about Lita, he hoped she and the others would return. Though he fancied the pr
ospect of a bigger share of the treasure, he knew that the greater the number in the expedition, the greater the chance that each of them would get home alive.
As the warriors cut through the dry vines covering the portal at the top of the stairs, the dungeons gave way to an actual castle corridor. A many-paned window, its red glass shattered and lying on the floor, stood at the far end of the hallway. All of the doors lining the passage had been rent off their hinges. Carpeting with crimson designs lay bunched and curled like monstrous snake skins trampled beneath the intruding vines.
Gruesome sculptures, and occasionally a cage containing a skeleton, filled the regularly spaced niches along the hallways walls. Many of the statues had been toppled or beheaded by the decaying greenery.
Rik and the rest walked quickly through the corridors, continuing upward. They passed kitchens with spitted cadavers and a banquet hall with skeletal dinner guests. Nothing moved; no sounds, save the noise made by the treasure seekers, disturbed the ruined palace’s deathly silence.
The Midknights paused at the great table and gawked at the corpses, most of whom were dressed in rotting red and black leather. Cages, filled with the remains of the queen’s victims, dangled from iron chains secured to the room’s vaulted ceiling. A man’s perfectly preserved corpse was pinned to one wall, his mouth gaping in a silent scream. His guts had been opened up and the skin from the wound pulled taut to either side—a grisly canvas bespeaking the Red Queen’s dark appetites.
Piles of bones lay in the room’s corners; only rusting shackles gave testament to the fact that the heaps had once been human beings. Instruments of torture—apparently for the use of the dinner guests—sat near the grisly piles.
Memnon shook his head. “That blood-red bitch had a strange sense of fun.”
“I don’t know . . .” Antiope replied. “Some of her equipment looks fairly . . . amusing.” She glanced meaningfully toward a cat-o’-nine-tails hanging on the wall and flashed her lover a furtive smile.
Grif stuck his nose over a large silver soup tureen, filled with blackish lumps and sniffed curiously. Brak pushed a corpse aside and picked up a wide silver serving platter. Nothing in the room looked alluring to Rik—not even the silver-and-crystal jewelry of the guests. To him, everything seemed completely ghastly.
“Leave those be,” Robellar told the lizard men. “They’re too large to carry right now, and there will be better treasures farther on. We can pick up such trifles on the way out, if you like.”
He turned and mounted the stairway on the far side of the room. The basilisks put down the silver, and they, the Midknights, and Reifworm followed the baron. Rik paused just long enough to look out one of the room’s shattered windows. Below and to the right, he saw the rockslide that had taken Chun Ping’s life. Far below that, barely visible through the crushed trees lay the beach and the tethered sampan.
Part of the former pirate wished he were back on that beach right now; another part wished he had never come on this journey at all. Despite having encountered no actual resistance thus far, a mounting feeling of doom filled his gut. He shook off the emotion, strode to the stairs, and quickly caught up with the rest.
“It shouldn’t be much farther now,” Reifworm said. His eyes gleamed with anticipation. “The legends say that the queen’s chamber occupied the highest point in the keep—and we’re nearly there.”
“How can you be sure?” Memnon asked.
“I peered through one of the shattered windows in the dining room while you were all admiring the . . . decorations,” the mage replied. “Only a few floors remain above us. Plus, the queen would want her throne room to be close to the main banquet hall so as to better attend to her guests.”
“Or to eat them,” Antiope whispered.
“Finally,” Reifworm said, ignoring her, “the vines entangling the castle are growing ever more brittle as we ascend. Soon, they will be as dry as dead leaves. I deduce that this is because of the residual effect of the queen’s dark magic trying to overcome the jungle-creating spell of Izanti and Carnelian Fyre.”
“That’s good news for us, right?” Memnon said.
“It certainly makes cutting the vines easier,” Reifworm agreed. He stopped in mid-stride and his brow furrowed. “Now that’s odd!”
As in the rest of the upper castle, regularly spaced alcoves lined the crumbling hallway ahead of them. Strangely, all of these niches stood empty, save for the intricate web of vines which covered both the recesses and the walls, too. The vines had become much thinner here; most were barely the width of a finger, and nearly all of them appeared dead and brittle.
Reifworm squinted and walked into one of the alcoves, his hand outstretched to touch the brown vines. But as his fingertips brushed the wall, the ceiling of the niche crashed down on top of him, like a dozen hammers striking an anvil.
The sea mage didn’t even have time to scream as his body turned into red pulp.
“Gods of Mercy!” Antiope cried. She and the others instinctively backed away from the crimson ooze that had, moments before, been their companion.
Rik’s stomach twisted. Was this merely another accident, or was it some kind of sick trap set by the Blood-Red Queen? In either case, the number of their party had suddenly been reduced to six.
“Keep back!” Robellar commanded. “Everyone stay away from the niches.”
The basilisks and Midknights didn’t need the baron’s advice any more than Rik did. None of them would venture anywhere near the deadly alcoves. Rik wondered what the sea mage had seen that lured him to his death.
Brak and Grif glanced at each other, and then gazed back the way they’d all come. If the basilisks were thinking about going home, Rik couldn’t blame them.
“Keep moving,” Robellar ordered. “I won’t come this far only to have the prize slip through my fingers. What happened to Reifworm was tragic, but it’s not going to stop me now!”
The others walked forward cautiously, scanning the hallway for more hidden dangers. Rik paused long enough to scoop up Reifworm’s fallen glowstone and stick it in his pocket. It would be night soon, and the former pirate didn’t relish being caught in the queen’s palace without any source of illumination.
The group had just turned the corner at the corridor’s far end when the lizard-men suddenly stopped.
“What is it?” Robellar asked.
“Hear something,” Brak replied. He and Grif turned back the way they’d come and held their saw-toothed swords at the ready.
IV. Sanguinarre’s Throne Room
“You’re sure you heard something?” Antiope asked, peering around the corner. The Midknight’s scanty armor seemed little protection against whatever she and the other treasure hunters might be facing.
Both basilisks nodded, though their lizard-like faces remained impassive.
“And you’re positive the noise came from behind us?” Memnon, asked. “This place echoes like a tomb.” He and Antiope drew their swords, as did Rik and the baron.
“Yesss,” Grif replied.
“Enemy comes from below,” Brak agreed.
The baron shuffled to the rear of the group and the warriors arranged themselves in a defensive formation—the basilisks in their heavy turtle-shell armor in front, with the Midknights and Rik in the second rank.
“Keep an eye to aft,” Rik told the baron. “We don’t want anyone sneaking up on us from behind.”
“Yes,” Robellar replied, though his eyes warned Rik that the baron didn’t like taking orders.
Rik’s sea-trained ears soon heard what the basilisks had sensed earlier: something was moving quickly through the ruined palace, racing up the stairs from the banquet hall, heading straight toward them.
The mercenaries stood hidden behind the bend in the corridor, waiting to cut down the first enemy to appear around the corner. Rik tensed, and sweat beaded on his skin. This was the job he’d been hired to do, but avoiding battle was always the best way to stay alive.
A huge, dark sh
ape appeared at the corridor’s turn. The lizard-men leapt forward, serrated blades flashing.
“Stop!” bellowed Robellar.
The basilisks stopped, one with his sword leaning heavily against the intruder’s raised greatsword, the other with his saw-toothed blade mere inches from the towering man’s neck.
It was Al-Shakir, Robellar’s bodyguard.
“Warron’s beard!” Al-Shakir gasped.
Persha and Lita nearly plowed into him as the big man pulled up short. The two women seemed startled and afraid. All three of the returning expedition members were dirty, bruised, and bloody.
“A little warning, next time,” Antiope said, sheathing her twin shortswords.
“You’re lucky we didn’t kill you!” Memnon added. He wiped a river of sweat from his brow and lowered his broadsword.
Rik and the lizard-men also relaxed.
Barron Robellar sheathed his longsword, rushed forward, and embraced Lita. The concubine appeared greatly relieved to be back in her master’s arms. “I’m glad you’re safe,” he whispered.
“I was lost,” Lita sobbed, “but Al-Shakir found me.”
The baron dipped his head to Al-Shakir in gratitude; the bodyguard bowed slightly.
“Where’s Wharkun?” Rik asked, a chill running down his spine.
“We don’t know,” Persha replied.
“Two levels down, we thought we heard the girl calling, but we couldn’t locate the source,” Al-Shakir said. “So we split up to search the side tunnels.”
“The whole palace is honeycombed with secret passages,” Persha explained. “We didn’t notice any earlier in our explorations, but apparently Lita fell through one.”
“It was dark, and I couldn’t find my way out,” the girl said. “I called for help, but no one came. I-I finally groped my way into one of the side corridors and Al-Shakir found me.” She tried, unsuccessfully, to wipe the grime off of her smooth legs and her grubby silk clothing.
“The gods must have guided me to her,” Al-Shakir said. “She is a very lucky girl. We rejoined Persha shortly afterward. Then the three of us waited, but there came no sign of Wharkun. So we decided to return to my lord’s company.”
Zombies, Werewolves, & Unicorns Page 3
