by Hugo Huesca
The worst part was, she’d never finish her research. She’d dreamed of having her own laboratory for so long, and now she’d lost it before she even managed to learn improved spellcasting. So much potential, thrown in the trash.
Her hands clenched into fists. That’s right. I’m no apprentice anymore. I’m a goddamn Witch. Time to act like one.
She scowled at the black creature. “Do it, bitch.”
The beast lunged, a flurry of teeth and claws. “Blazing whip!” A line of fire flashed between the hell chicken and Lavy. The monster stumbled, lost its footing, clawed at the ground to regain its balance, and stepped away from Lavy. The smell of cooked chicken meat mixed with acrid burnt feathers reached the Witch. The creature’s beak was smoking, a line of smoldering red crossing it.
“Serves you right,” Lavy told the animal. “Do you think I’m some sack of meat and muscles hiding behind armor? I’m Witch Lavina of the Haunt, you ugly bastard! I command arcane forces beyond your comprehension!” she flicked her whip again, forcing the beast to step away.
Most of the other hell chickens had forgotten all about their food. Their inquisitive gazes bore into Lavy like a physical presence. They were sizing her up. They hadn’t thought of her as a threat before. They did now.
Slowly, showing no fear, she inched to the door again. A dozen hell chickens cried angrily at her and walked warily in her direction. “Oh no,” she told them. “Don’t push your luck.” Her whip flashed in all directions, hitting nothing, but forcing them away. The line of fire shone brighter than the distant magical torches, drawing lines in Lavy’s vision. The beasts stared at the whip as if hypnotized.
She hit something hard with her back. The door. She was so close now…
The first creature, the one with the burn in its head, stepped forward, body low and taut, ready to jump at her.
“You like how that felt?” Lavy told it, snapping her whip in its direction, cracking the tip an inch away from the animal’s feet. “Get some more, then! I’ll hurt you badly, I promise you, and your friends over there don’t strike me as the kind to let an easy target go. If you rush me, we’ll both die.”
To Lavy’s surprise, the creature actually stopped, and threw a wary glance at the semi-circle of its peers, right behind him.
“Oh, you’ve figured it out. They aren’t there to back you up. You’re the scout! And after me, you’ll be next.” She gave the monster a savage grin and cracked her whip an inch away from its eye. The hell chicken roared and showed her its rows of teeth. “Try me.” With her free hand, and without taking her eyes off of the hell chickens, she found the doorknob and, very, very slowly, cracked the door open.
The hell chicken didn’t move. It only stared at her with its beady red eyes.
Step by step, Lavy shifted her body past the crack in the door—leaving her whip arm for last. Then she ended the spell, and as soon as she was fully out of the lost farms she pushed the door closed with all her strength and threw the plank across it in less than a second—leaving bloody handprints on the wood as she did so.
She was alone. Alive. Uneaten. For several seconds, she didn’t dare get her hands away from the door, as if only her bodyweight prevented the beasts from forcing it open.
Then the trembling began. She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Control yourself. You’re alive. You’re alive.
But the danger wasn’t over. Rolim’s friends still roamed the Haunt. Nicolai was still out there. She could have a panic attack later. She turned to the tunnel, just in time to see a black shadow, similar to a specter, but with eldritch green eyes, float down the ceiling in front of her.
The shadow stared at her and her sorry state with something akin to worry on its featureless face.
Anyone else may have mistaken the shadow for a specter or a wraith, but Lavy was a Witch. She could tell one necromantic emanation from another blindfolded, just by the different degrees by which they lowered the temperature of a room.
“Took you long enough, you know,” she told the shadow. “A hero is supposed to arrive in the nick of time, but that was about two minutes ago.”
The shadow shrugged apologetically. Are you alright? it seemed to ask.
Lavy sighed. Her hands were trembling terribly. Even her teeth were chattering.
“Go on,” she said. “I’m fine—you’re needed elsewhere. My chickens and I can defend ourselves.” She chuckled to herself.
The shadow floated there, unsure, for a few seconds. By the time it vanished, Lavy’s laughter had become a full maniacal hollering.
She only allowed the tears to fall once she was sure she was alone.
The Seat came into view. It was almost a letdown. After all that he and his rebels had been through, Nicolai had expected something more impressive.
Instead he came across a somber chamber, badly lit, decorated with the same rough pelts and linen curtains found across the rest of the dungeon. A trail of blood reached somewhere behind the Seat. A red carpet with copper edges extended from the Seat to the entrance. The Seat itself, at least, was sufficiently impressive. It had hand-rests carved as skulls, with its back shaped like a human ribcage. A section of the marble had been engraved with rough amethysts and a few emeralds, but it was clearly a work in progress.
Now it’ll never be finished, Nicolai thought.
He reached the center of the room. This time, he didn’t check for traps—they were nothing his regeneration couldn’t handle, after all. He had to grant Wright something—at least the chamber was very warm, even with an empty fireplace. Even the carpet was pleasantly heated.
Someone appeared behind the Seat, walked forward, stumbled, and caught herself on the skull hand-rest at the last second.
“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Nicolai said. He could afford to be mocking—he was facing a broken enemy.
The explosion had burnt an eyebrow out from the avian mercenary, and the rest of her was covered in white ash and blood. Her leather armor was ruined, and dried blood marred her belly. Her face was a bloated mess of bruises and bloodied lips. She was unarmed, and probably only on her feet thanks to the effect of some potion or another.
She stayed by the Seat, as if daring him to come forward. Had he been in a laughing mood, he’d have done so.
“Are you all there is?” he asked. He shook his head. “I suppose Brondan and Rolim have killed everyone else by now.”
“Not everyone.” A man with the broad shoulders of a blacksmith stepped out from behind the Seat, taking up a position next to the avian. He was armed with a blacksmith’s hammer. “I’m still around.”
A fat woman appeared too, her hair a damp mess that looked vaguely like roots. “As am I.” She was armed with a sickle.
A lanky old man followed, bald and with a nose like a hook. “My faith is strong. There’s nothing to fear.” He was clearly scared, though. He was armed with a knife and a crystal flask filled with water.
The two of them surrounded the Seat and the avian woman.
Nicolai’s arm twitched in anticipation, but the carnival of misfits wasn’t over yet.
A fat man walked next to the blacksmith. He was dressed in an expensive jacket, but it was patched all over. “Greetings. I am Governor Brett. As the representative of Haunt’s free people, I’m here to discuss the terms of your surrender,” the man said, a clear shaking in his voice.
Even a bunch of fucking batblins took position behind the Seat and the avian and all the other assholes. They were followed by a small contingent of spider warriors, and a stream of spiderlings. The critters showed Nicolai their teeth and gestured angrily at him with their shoddy weaponry.
“As you can see,” Governor Brett went on, “you’re badly outnumbered. I suggest you lay down your… arm… and surrender. There’s no need to get anyone else hurt.”
Now Nicolai was in a mood for laughter. He barked like a kaftar, his throat still raspy from that damned explosion. “Badly outnumbered? Oh, this is golden! Simply fant
astic. Thank you, everyone—” he gave them a mocking curtsy “—for saving me the trouble of looking around for you. Saved me the trouble of looking for you and killing you one by one.”
The lanky man gulped audibly and almost dropped his knife. No one broke rank, though. It didn’t worry Nicolai one bit. They’d flee as soon as they saw their friends and family dying in front of them.
More than enough to satisfy my revenge, he thought, with something akin to glee.
Governor Brett grimaced at the sight of Nicolai’s arm. “Look… whoever you are… you claim to fight for Starevos, don’t you?” The Governor extended his arms. “Look around. Can’t you see everyone here is Starevosian, one way or another? The batblins and the spiders were here before any of us. And everyone else has lived here for years, working the land, side by side, surviving together—”
“Nice try,” Nicolai said, then readied himself for a lunge. First, he’d kill the avian, then the blacksmith. After that, everyone else would be easy pickings. “Sadly, you chose the wrong Starevosian cave to pass the winter.”
He took a step forward, and someone screamed in terror. Everyone raised their weapons—those who had them, that is. Nicolai tensed his arm.
A shadow dropped off the ceiling in front of him, green eyes fixated hatefully on Nicolai’s. It floated a few feet above the floor.
“A specter?” Nicolai muttered. The Diviner, Manfred, had told him the Haunt had a low-level Witch in their employ. Perhaps she had managed to summon one?
It didn’t matter. His arm was infused with the dead corpse of a being from the Wetlands. Its strikes could hurt undead just as well as they could hurt the living. He swiped at the specter, as if he were brushing aside an annoying fly… his arm went right through.
The shadow didn’t even acknowledge the strike. Instead, it very slowly turned to the people around the Haunt, and gave them a gesture whose meaning even Nicolai understood to mean, “Back off a bit.” They did so, looking as confused as Nicolai felt. He gave them a thumbs-up.
“You dare mock me?” Nicolai roared. “It’s you, isn’t it, Edward? Have you come to see your friends die? Congratulations, you’ll get a perfect view of the carnage!”
The shadow of the Dungeon Lord floated down, slowly for half a second—then disappeared under the floor so fast it almost looked like some invisible force had sucked him in.
Nicolai stared at the floor. The Haunt’s inhabitants stared at the floor.
“Did he just bail?” a batblin whispered.
Nicolai smiled. “Guess he didn’t have it in him. Now, where were we?” He raised his arm, aiming it at the avian, who was too hurt to even pretend she could dodge.
Then the floor collapsed under Nicolai’s feet, and he plummeted among a shower of debris down into the darkness below.
He fell about two stories, but it lasted an eternity. Pain flashed across his entire body, his arm flailed about madly, and everything went dark as an unending flurry of dirt and rock smashed against his body. Some boulders were big enough to break bones.
He screamed, and dirt poured down his throat. He spat, coughed, and tried to protect his head from the debris. Something hit his arm—the normal one—and snapped it in two. With his other arm, he struck blindly over him, deflecting as many rocks as he could, until it was over.
For several long seconds, even as his powerful regeneration regrew bone and cartilage and re-inflated his lungs, Nicolai was too stunned to think anything at all.
Then, slowly, as the regeneration drained the fluid inside his skull, his first thought arose.
What?
Nicolai had never expected the Seat room to be hollow. And never, not even once, had he expected Wright to collapse the floor down on him.
His legs were broken, but he could move his torso a bit. He was half-buried in debris, squarely in the middle of an ample chamber. There was a rough workbench near a corner, filled with tools; materials were strewn around, and a small pyramid of clay pipes clumped up near another corner. Behind him, Nicolai saw a big iron contraption, similar to an Herbalist’s cauldron, big enough to boil a man and his entire family. Its upper section was covered by an iron lid connected to a wide iron tube that reached all the way to the ceiling—which was the normal dungeon’s floor—and went past it. A fire came from the lower section of the cauldron, sparks flowing out of an open vent that revealed a spread of coal fueling the flames.
Wright had thrown him down into the dungeon’s fucking heating room. The creation behind him was a furnace.
“Edward!” Nicolai howled, ignoring the pain exploding from his broken ribs. “I know you’re out there! Come face me, you coward!” Only a bit more until I can move again. Then I’ll break him and everyone else. After all, what was a bit more pain to him? Nicolai knew his will wouldn’t break. He could fight forever, and Wright and his friends were tired and hurt. Nothing they could throw at him would stick.
That had been the gift of the Lotian envoy. The surgery that had infused his arm with the mindbrood’s larva had turned him into a force of nature. Unyielding. Unstoppable. The wrath of Starevos itself.
He began to push boulders away from his legs, slowly crawling away from the pile of dust and rocks.
A small figure skittered into view. Its many pairs of eyes shone with an eldritch green light, which gave the chitin of its body a supernatural texture—as if the creature were covered in the black armor of an ancient monster from the Wetlands.
“Edward? Was this your true form all along? Or are you too scared to face me with your real body?” Nicolai had recognized the horn above the creature’s eyes. He was looking at a horned spider. “I had heard tales of Dungeon Lords that could take the shape of the creatures under their command, but this? Don’t you command anything more dignified than a single spider warrior?”
The spider said nothing. She… him… it merely skittered right beyond the reach of Nicolai’s arm and stopped there.
“Answer me something, will you, Edward? What do you plan to do once I get up?” Just a bit longer. I’m almost there, I can feel it… “Will you bite me to death? Sorry to disappoint, but spider toxin won’t stop me. Maybe a bit of spiderweb? Nothing I can’t handle; my arm can eat steel with ease. Perhaps you’re at the end of your rope, aren’t you? This was your last trick, and now you’re spent. Like a spellcaster who runs out of spells and resorts to throwing rocks. Hah!”
The Dungeon Lord said nothing and didn’t move. It was as if its body had turned into stone. Only its ever-burning eyes gave any sign of intelligence past its monstrous visage.
It angered Nicolai. After all we’ve gone through, I’m not worthy of a small speech? After everyone you killed—all the friends whose lives you had me waste fighting you?
“Not in the mood for talking, I see. Maybe you will be after I kill your spider body and force you to beg for the life of your friends. Maybe you’ll talk then!”
Not even a word, Nicolai thought with black fury. At least tell me I’ll never guess your evil plan! Because he had to have an evil plan, right? He was a Dungeon Lord. They all did, everyone knew it. Dungeon Lords were just itching to share their evil plans, talk a tad too much, let you recover, and then the hero would defeat them at the last second. Yes, everyone knew it.
So why wasn’t Edward Wright talking?
Nicolai heard a faint rumbling. A single pebble hit him on the nose, like a mosquito bite. He looked up, past the hole in the ceiling, past the distant walls of the chamber above. He saw the tiny imps of the Dungeon Lord crawling across the Seat chamber’s ceiling. They were biting at it, madly, tearing entire chunks away. Nicolai saw one such chunk fall straight down, past this ceiling, past the tube of the heating contraction, and strike heavily not a foot away from his face.
“NO!” Nicolai roared. “NO, NO, NO! TALK TO ME, WRIGHT, TALK TO ME!” More chunks of ceiling rained down on him. One hit his arm, forcing it down. “YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO GLOAT, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO GLOAT AND DIE. WHY WON’T YOU GLOAT—”
>
Stone and dirt rained down on him, like unending peals of thunder roaring right next to his ears. One rock smashed against his back. Something inside him snapped, and then he couldn’t feel anything anymore.
When the dust had settled, half of his head was buried under the rubble. He had no idea how long it’d take for the regeneration to repair the damage.
He was so hungry, and so terribly weak. The world seemed to spin around him.
A figure danced at the corner of his eye. “Edward?” Nicolai asked. He was surprised he could yet speak.
It wasn’t Wright, but one of his drones. The imp-like creature carried a piece of wood in its hands, tip covered with a ragged piece of cloth. It barely looked at Nicolai, then it went out of sight.
Nicolai heard the distant, annoying laughter of the drones somewhere behind him.
“Edward?” he repeated. Was he begging? Was that how low he had fallen?
He couldn’t even say with any certainty when it all had gone to shit.
Had it been when he had stormed the Seat chamber by himself?
Or when Brondan had failed to spot the dust trap?
Maybe before that, when the avian had killed a bunch of his rebels and run away from him—slowing the invasion long enough to warn everyone else and mount a defense.
Perhaps long, long before that, when Nicolai had decided to attack this forsaken dungeon instead of unleashing the wraith and the specters upon Undercity, like he and Rolim had first planned.
No, he decided. No, it was even before that. It all went to shit the instant Edward Wright set foot inside the catacombs. Right around the time when Katalyn Locksmith ruined our damn ritual.
Nicolai saw the spider warrior come into view, well within range of Nicolai’s arm.
Except it didn’t matter anymore. The rebel leader was paralyzed.
“This isn’t how my story ends,” Nicolai whispered at the spider. He knew that he’d either triumph against Heiliges or be executed by the Militant Church. His story was the story of a rebellion. To die in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere? Against someone who didn’t even know the name of the Duke in exile?
