by Max Anthony
Viddo finished it off, plunging a second backstab through the muscle of its heart. With a shudder, the life departed from it and the gargantuan werewolf keeled over, crashing through the closest bed and breaking it to pieces. Discretion was always the better part of adventuring valour and the three did not honour the fallen beast. Rather, they chopped and stabbed at the remains until they were absolutely certain that it would trouble them no longer.
“I think it’s dead,” said Jera at last, wiping blood from her forehead.
“A state it was most reluctant to become,” said Viddo.
“Come, back to the stairs,” Rasmus told them. “There is some dirty business to conclude before we can continue.”
The three of them returned to the room filled with stasis-held werewolves.
“This doesn’t feel fair, does it?” asked Jera, decapitating the first of the unmoving beasts. It died without a sound.
“It’s for the best,” Viddo replied, stabbing two more through their hearts in quick succession. “Nothing good can come from leaving them alive.”
Rasmus left them to the butchery. It wasn’t that he was opposed to taking part, it was simply that he lacked a sharp blade and the knowledge to enact a clean kill. He could have bludgeoned a few skulls into a pulp, but that would have felt even less virtuous.
Soon, all of the werewolves were dead. The stasis gems glowed unabated, their light reflecting from the blood which had accumulated in many pools over the floor and on the biers. With the grisly work done, the adventurers took themselves once more into Captain Gartrom’s quarters to search for clues and to see if the good captain had recently been paid.
There were two more rooms within the suite that they had not yet seen. One was a private bathroom, which gave further evidence as to the esteem in which Gartrom had been held. There was a toilet, in the form of a hole in the floor. Viddo was not interested in latrines as such, but he knew they were commonly used as a hiding place and on occasion were large enough for him to crawl along in order to reach new places that he wasn’t meant to find. He crouched and looked down the hole. A faint wind blew upwards and he could hear dripping water. Other than that, the toilet was not unusual.
Captain Gartrom also had a bedroom, which was large and with the potential to have been well-appointed. It appeared as though the man was not given to ostentation and there was only a single bed of the same style as they’d found in the guardroom below. There was a dressing table, with three drawers through which Viddo searched. He found two gold coins, which he took and five silver coins, which he did not.
There was a wardrobe – sturdy, solid and unremarkable. Within it hung five identical sets of uniforms, oversized in reflection of the captain’s likely stature. There was a gold pin in the lapel of one of the uniforms, which did not escape the sharp eyes of the thief.
Other than that, there was only a flat metal chest, which had been pushed beneath the bed. It was heavy and Viddo had to strain in order to tug it free. The chest was locked and protected with a very crude needle trap, both of which the thief defeated in moments. He lifted the lid.
“This must have been the chest from which the guards were paid,” said Rasmus, lifting an eyebrow at the sight of the coins.
“It looks as if they were paid monthly if this quantity is anything to go by,” added Jera.
“It’s a shame they were paid in copper and silver,” said Viddo. “Otherwise there’d be something worth having in here.”
As it was, they had to abandon the huge pile of coins owing to the low-denominations present and the fact that they weighed as much as a sheep.
“At least there’re signs of wealth here,” said Rasmus, trying to look on the bright side. “The Baron is sure to have a treasury room elsewhere, wherein he kept his gold and platinum coins safely locked away.”
With that pleasant thought in their heads, they followed Viddo through the poorly-concealed secret door that he’d already uncovered and opened. There were steps behind – narrow and steep, they led upwards through the stone of the castle. Viddo took the lead and they climbed.
15
In a castle filled with unpleasant rooms, they entered another example of the type. The steps ended at a confined landing and with another hidden door. On this side, there was little effort to conceal the door and the bare wooden frame was there for all to see, along with the latch used to open it. They went through and found themselves in a square room of twelve feet to a side. Paraphernalia to assist in torture were here. There was a metal casket with spikes inside, jagged manacles that would inflict wounds with every movement, and a rack of hooked and barbed implements hung from one wall. In the centre of the room was a heavy wooden chair, with several metal rings to which the occupant could be secured.
“An interrogation room,” said Viddo. “This would not have been a pleasant place in which to spend one’s final days.”
“There were torture rooms below in the dungeon,” said Jera. “Why have another one here?”
“By all accounts the Baron and his henchmen were cruel and hated. Perhaps they brought some of the prisoners into this room in order to slake their thirst for torture away from the eyes of their employees who worked below. After all, the vilest of tortures can shake even the most hardened of soldiers who hears the screams,” spoke Rasmus.
There was no door leading from the room, though Viddo soon found a catch that would open another hidden exit. “Although the workmanship is poor, great efforts have been taken to hide this room from others in the castle. I’ll wager that the stone of these walls is several feet thick, in order that the screams never reach the ears of others.”
There was something else, which Jera found. On a bench in one corner, there were two tiny red gemstones, partially hidden by a curved piece of metal with a sharp blade. She picked the gems up and handed them to Viddo to see if they were valuable.
“I don’t know what they are,” he admitted at last, with some chagrin. Viddo had an expert knowledge of gems and jewellery, having taught himself in order that he be able to obtain the best prices for his goods. “They aren’t rubies. In fact, they look like those stasis gems we saw in the room downstairs, except for the fact that they aren’t glowing.”
“Are they worth keeping?” asked Rasmus.
“If I can’t tell what they’re worth, no gem merchant will know either. We’ll not get much for them and I’d spend longer arguing over the price than it’s worth.” He dropped the stones onto the floor.
“The Baron was up to something,” said Jera. “And everything seems to concern blood.”
“It usually does. Evil creatures seem to be able to spend blood as if it were coin.”
With those words, Viddo activated the catch to open the exit, trying not to look at the ancient, cracked coating of blood on the nearby rack of torture tools. A section of the wall opened before them – a thin veneer of stone on a wooden frame – and revealed a narrow corridor, not quite of a comfortable height. Sconces in one wall held wooden torches, their oil-soaked cloth unlit, as if the old torches had been replaced shortly before the castle’s occupants had vanished. The corridor was wide enough for one, and then only just. After twenty feet, there was another door, unlocked and undisguised. Viddo felt his hackles rise and warned himself that he should take extra care – he’d long since learned to trust his inner voice when it suggested danger was present. At the very worst, it would be wrong and he’d have wasted a few minutes double-checking everything.
He opened the door a crack and looked through. It was dark on the other side, but his eyes were able to penetrate the gloom and he could make out a longer corridor heading left, much wider than the one they were in. He could only see the right-hand wall and noted that there were openings all the way along, reaching from floor to ceiling, with bars covering them. Cells, he thought.
There was no sound or movement, so he waved the others after him when he crept out into this new corridor. He put a finger over his lips to indicate silence
for the moment. The light from Rasmus’ spell extended a reasonable distance, though not far enough to show where the corridor ended. The place was a dozen feet wide and the cells which Viddo had seen were eight feet wide and ten deep on both sides of the passage. The closest cell was a few feet away and they looked inside. The bars were thick iron, firmly embedded into the stone of the walls and additionally secured with iron bolts. Viddo grabbed the bars and gave them a shake. They were cold and smooth, and his strength moved them not at all.
He listened again for movement. In the distance, there was a steady drip-drip-drip of water falling – nothing suggestive of an imminent threat. “Something’s smashed its way out of this cell,” he whispered. “Look here, the door has been shaken so violently that the steel latch has snapped.”
“It’s the same with this one opposite,” said Jera, equally quietly. She saw something on the floor of the unfurnished cell and went inside to look. It was a withered hand, curled up as if the tendons had tightened whilst they decayed. She didn’t touch it and backed out of the cell.
“I imagine they kept the special prisoners in here,” said Rasmus. “In preparation of torture in the other room. The Baron’s own private stash of victims to be murdered.” The wizard was not in a good mood about what they’d found.
“The prisoners seem to have escaped,” said Viddo. “At first, I thought that a rescuer might have levered their cells doors open. Now that I have inspected them more closely, it appears that they were simply torn open by something very strong.”
Rasmus advanced far enough along the corridor that his light could illuminate the last of the cells. There were twelve of them in total. “I am sure that whoever was in this jail was no friend of the Baron’s. However, I am reluctant to think for one moment that they will be friends of ours.”
There was no noise, but something caught Rasmus’ eye at the extremes of his light. There was a shape, motionless and with an outline that looked somehow wrong. There was a tiny red glow – a pinprick dot, visible in the centre of the shape.
Rasmus was not a man to wait around, yet the speed at which the shape moved took him by surprise. One moment it was still, the next it had covered ten feet towards him, then fifteen. Something took him in the chest – he wasn’t sure if it was a punch or just the momentum of the shape itself. A heavy weight fell on top of him, a blur of speed and shadow. Something caught him firmly on the top of his head and lights sparkled before his eyes, even while he struggled to throw his attacker away from him. The creature he grappled with shuddered as a thumping blow struck it, then another. Something was torn away from it, which landed across the wizard’s eyes. All at once, the weight was lifted and Rasmus struggled to get himself upright.
He saw it then, a dead man with his skin crudely ripped away by a torturer’s tools, leaving muscle, bone and sinew exposed. The man’s eyes were gone, as were any other features that might have allowed his loved ones to recognize him. The creature had three arms – two in their usual places, with another sprouting from his chest. There’d been a fourth arm until very recently, which had now been severed and lay next to Rasmus.
Viddo and Jera hemmed in the creature, to keep it away from Rasmus. It didn’t make a sound, nor did it even seem to acknowledge their threat. At the last moment, it sprang for Jera at an incredible speed, all three of its arms reaching towards her. She struck it with her battle-axe, the blow an imperfect one owing to the speed of its assault. Viddo drove his sword into the creature’s ribcage, while Jera used the haft of her axe to parry a lightning-fast punch.
Their opponent had speed and an incredible stamina. Even so, it was unarmed and facing experienced adventurers. Jera sheared away another of its arms with an overhand strike, allowing Viddo the time to rise behind it and finish off the job with a backstab from his shortsword.
“That was unpleasant,” admitted Rasmus. “Thank you for your quick reactions. I have nothing left with which I can safely defend myself when my attacker is so close.”
“We were not quick enough, unfortunately,” said Viddo grimly. “It caught us unawares when it should not have.”
“What is this creature?” asked Jera, looking at their dead opponent. “It looks a little bit like that revenant we saw in the underground temple.”
“All undead are born of suffering and death,” said Rasmus in disgust. “So, it’s no surprise to see that many of them look alike. This one is a ghast, yet much faster and more powerful than others of its ilk. I saw a speck of redness somewhere about its person when it first appeared.”
“This?” asked Viddo, standing up. He held another of the tiny gems in his hand. This one was no longer red, instead being clear like cheap glass.
“It was red when I saw it,” insisted Rasmus.
“Gems infused with blood, to give them strength,” said Jera. “We have seen evidence of the Baron’s interest in the blood of his prisoners and we have also found that he collects it. Could these gems be the reason? To give power?”
“I think you are right,” said Rasmus, with his head finally cleared. He’d have bruising, but nothing was broken. “I have heard of such experiments taking place before, though I have never seen the results, nor learned if they were successful. One can appreciate that such activities are frowned upon almost everywhere. It looks like the Baron has had both the victims and the privacy to have made a success of things. I wonder how much blood it takes to charge a single one of these gems?”
“Any blood is too much,” said Viddo, angered by the suffering of the Baron’s murdered subjects. “The more I see of this wretched castle and the more I learn of this evil Valps, the greater is my urge to locate his corpse and empty my bladder upon it!”
Jera looked closely at the empty gem which the thief had pulled from the ghast’s flesh. “I wonder why the gem in this creature’s neck was glowing, whilst those we found in the interrogation room were not,” she said. None of them had an answer that went beyond guesswork.
They headed to the end of the corridor to find out where the ghast had appeared from – there was a narrow, deep alcove at the far end, with a wooden seat in it, likely used by whoever was assigned to guard the cells. There was also a reinforced exit door in the middle of the corridor wall, which had not been reinforced enough to prevent it from being wrenched open, taking the lock and a substantial chunk of the frame with it. Viddo didn’t want to leave before he’d looked into each of the remaining cells – there was always the chance they’d overlook something important or valuable. On this occasion, there was nothing to be found, apart from a couple of wooden bowls that showed traces of long-ago decayed gruel and there was also a pair of trousers, too large about the waist to have fitted any of the trio, had they been of a mind to try them on.
Beyond the door was, oddly enough, another room. It was rectangular and fifteen feet on its longest side. An old, metal chandelier hung from the ceiling. There were candles within - ancient, yellowing and unlit. There was a single exit door, which had a desk and a single chair to one side of it.
“I’ll bet someone was stationed here to ensure no inquisitive guards came to investigate the groanings of despair from those cells,” said Viddo.
There was nothing on the desk worth stealing and nothing within the drawers. The trio decided to take a short break, in order to eat a few more of their rations. Swinging heavy weapons and casting spells was hungry and thirsty work and a significant portion of their provisions were consumed, even though they’d not long ago eaten.
The exit door was studied, listened at and then opened. This level of the castle appeared to be a warren, and the passage outside went in two directions, before it split and split again. There were doors of solid-looking, dark wood here and there in the walls. To the right, twenty yards away at a junction between two joining corridors, there were three figures, little more than silhouettes. The light from Rasmus’ spell had spilled onto the wall and floor outside, but they didn’t seem to have noticed. Viddo came back inside.
&
nbsp; “Three more ghasts,” he whispered. “They didn’t see the light, so they either have their backs to us, or they sense their prey by other means.
Rasmus pressed his eye to the crack in the door. He couldn’t see in the dark like Viddo could and his light spell was at a very low intensity. Having been informed that there were ghasts ahead, he opened the door fully, turned up his light and threw an acid ball spell along the corridor. The three creatures were entirely motionless for a second, until they realised that someone was there. Their speed was awful and they’d turned and made five feet towards the wizard before his spell burst over them, smothering each in a heavy green coating of viscous, highly-corrosive acid. There was a loud hissing and fizzing, accompanied by globs of thick smoke pouring from their burning flesh. Rasmus stepped back into the room and pushed the door shut.
“Did you get them?” asked Viddo.
“Possibly,” said Rasmus, forcing his shoulder against the door to keep it closed. Something struck the other side with tremendous force, opening the door by more than a foot and knocking Rasmus away with it. Jera added her strength and the door slammed shut again. The wood was struck once more, this time with notably less vigour. There was another thump and then silence.
Encouraged by nods from her companions, Jera carefully opened the door, using one leather boot to keep it from being thrust open from outside. There was a smell – a terrible smell that made her eyes water and almost made her gag. A quiet sizzling noise was the only thing to be heard. Emboldened, she opened the door fully.
“There’s not much left of these,” she said, looking at the three horribly-corroded bodies that lay on the stone floor just outside the door. They were more bone than flesh now, and even their skeletons looked pocked and damaged.
