Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  UNLIVING

  THAENA WAS BACK HOME. The crypt was her home: she was born there, she would die there. Her kids closed her in their arms. It was an even better feeling than she had remembered. Their skin was gray in the twilight of the tomb. By daylight it would be with a hint of blue. They were half-dark elves. Their father, Taric Okari, stood back watching them, a shadow in the dark, draped in a loose robe.

  “It’s good to have you back,” he said. “Why do I have the feeling that it won’t be for long?”

  Thaena looked up guiltily. He always had the gift of reading her better than she could understand herself.

  “I’m not sure it was the right choice that I left them,” she replied. “Nearly everything in my visions has come true lately. Even the ones that I didn’t tell anyone. I saw the Wild Hunt a day before I was told that there will be war.” She sobbed. “I just have this feeling that one of them needs me now.”

  Taric put his hand around her face. It was a rare gesture for a dispassionate dark elf.

  “It was the right choice for us,” he told her. “Your family needs you. You are not a combatant.”

  She nodded, understanding. “But here, it is safe.”

  A strange feeling overcame her as soon as the words left her lips. Like there was a mental link to it in her memories, something that she shouldn’t forget. There was one reason why the place was creeping her out, and it was not the dark. It was the things that lay in the dark and made noises, be it in parts where some of them had advanced but which were only seldom patrolled, or in the uncharted junctions, the black halls that existed only in the imagination. It was like sleeping in a house with an open door.

  A loud unnatural noise she had never experienced before sent chills through her spine. Her little ones looked at her, eyes and mouth wide open, hoping for their mother to explain the scream that sounded like a choral of mountain monks. The deep voice resonated from far beneath the caverns, but its source could never be far enough away.

  “Taric?” She turned to her husband. “Do you know what this is?”

  The dark-elf didn’t reply. It was answer enough. It wasn’t one of the present residents of the crypt, that much was sure. They had become few in number and spread thin since Dryston and his group had left. Then Gabriel had abandoned them as well, leaving his dubious studies unfinished.

  Thaena swallowed. “I think we should get to the bottom of this.”

  Taric nodded.

  THAENA DESCENDED with Taric into the depths. They had sent back the little ones to their babysitter and promised to be back soon. The first steps were accompanied by worrying about being able to fulfill their promise. Whatever it was that might detain them, they simply had to come back for their children’s sake.

  There were candlelit rooms with tables on which Gabriel had left his journals. Thaena took some of the scattered notes with her. Taric studied a book that was folded open on a bookholder.

  They should have learned more about this place. While Taric was most engaged with the fauna and flora of the cave of Mother Goulcrest, Gabriel’s interest had lain in the tomb itself. He was a necromancer, after all.

  The dark-elf advanced first, his kukri knife with its inwardly curved edge at his side. Thaena’s torch was held high and outside her field of vision.

  Distant impacts boomed through the subterranean tunnels, and the running of water behind the walls and ceiling sounded like a constant thunder. Sometimes the rooms shook as if there were an earthquake that made rocks and dust run from the ceiling. It gave a claustrophobic feeling in those narrow corridors, devoid of natural light. They passed under creaking wooden supports. Thaenarecognized the shapes of bats fleeing from them, seconds before their distinctive squeaks echoed back.

  The background screams, however, had never ceased. They reminded Thaena of the howling of mountain winds. Nonetheless, they were a form of conversation. They were incomprehensible words in a language that sounded old and guttural. But Thaena could understand their content of pain and hatred.

  On a high platform inside a vast vault, she saw something stir. Against the stone and earthy background, it was hard to make out, as it was thin and long-legged and clad in similar colors, but it was on the move. Thaena signed to her husband the presence of the underground dweller. Her breath froze at the sight of the cold, dead eyes that were scanning the dark, restless. She had been right about one thing, namely that the disturbing noises had not come from a present resident of the crypt. They had come from a former, and the realization made her see where she had been wrong. This place was not safe at all.

  The draugr strolled in their direction, as if it had sniffed their scent. Taric wasn’t sure if it was even able to smell through its hollow bones, but somehow they had attracted the after-walker’s attention.

  Daur had read from Werdum’s journals that the tomb of Mother Goulcrest was guarded by dozens of warrior followers, who were buried with her to guard her treasures. But it should not have happened that they were revived. It simply should not be. Not before the star constellation could activate their trapped spirits as a possible byproduct of the cosmic event. This was much too early, and it was a horrendous prospect to learn that it was happening at all.

  The draugr chief called his retainers to him. There was the sound of bony toes scratching over the stone tiles, coming closer. The leader of the walking dead dragged his long sword behind with a noise that made Thaena flinch. He looked too frail to wield the mighty weapon he had used in life.

  Thaena put a crossbow-bolt right between his eye sockets. It was a master shot, given the nervousness, bad light and considerable distance. The undead was slow and had no chance of evasion. The bolt pierced the nose-guard of its iron helmet and knocked its head back.

  Two other draugr emerged from the platform, skeletal creatures draped in old rusty armor. The space in between their bones was made of crusts of dirt, clotted blood, and old leathery skin that had been gnawed on by rats and other vermin. They had weathered worse than that.

  The draugr-leader was coming back up, closing in on the tomb raiders with an unending hate against all living.

  Thaena saw how the bats Taric had flushed out before dropped dead in flight and fell like black rain to the ground in the draugr’s proximity. Their impacts made sounds like frozen hail on the stony floor.

  The draugr-chief let out a dissatisfied sigh and crunched them under his feet.

  An arrow darted from the singing bow of one of the after-walkers. It missed Thaena’s neck by a hair’s breadth as she ducked, but it took off her earlobe. She cried out and let the torch fall, whose fire had drawn the archer’s aim. The undead were on them. There would be no distance between them to reload her crossbow. Instead, Thaena let go of the weapon and pulled out the whip that was fashioned directly into her clothes.

  “Conventional weapons might not prove sufficient against these fiends,” Taric said, sweat forming on his forehead. He gripped his kukri blade tight and positioned himself before Thaena.

  They might have been able to outpace the slow monsters in the branched dungeon, but every one that got past them might get to their children before they made it back. Out of the walls behind them, and from side niches, fingernails clawed through the stonework and shoved away the heavy lids of sarcophagi. For now, fighting was the only possible way.

  THE FIRST DRAUGR came within reach and lunged with an old ceremonial axe. While shrunken, its muscles were still in place and functioning, covered by a bloated oily skin. It gaped and showed a broken, sharp row of teeth surrounded by a full beard that covered its haggard face like algae. Beyond deep sunken eyes glowed the real, malevolent spirit that inhabited the corpse.

  Taric closed the distance before the stroke could fall and slid alongside the draugr’s shield side out of the weapon’s arc. The undead shifted for a slash over his shield, but Taric knew this was the only way to reach him and had planned for it accordingly. He bent his knees and let the axe-head pass a
bove him. The draugr had neglected his shield defense and Taric exploited it by hacking his kukri low under the shield. The forward curved blade multiplied the impact the small weapon could make and cut through the Achilles tendon while breaking an ankle. A backhand sweep caught the dark-elf on his temple, and he staggered but got a hold on the after-walker’s arm to pull himself back inside. The draugr crashed to his knee. Taric used its fall to slide the tip of his blade beneath the ribcage. The draugr didn’t let go when both their arms locked. It opened its mouth wide, releasing a stench of century-old interment and slow decay. It snapped for Taric’s face and tore out a chunk of his ear. The dark-elf drove his knife into the belly of the monstrosity over and over. He aimed for vital organs: liver, lungs, spleen, that he had learned from gutting deer and other game, not knowing if the draugr still had any. It didn’t have the desired effect on the undead, but he did it instinctively. Something gave in, eventually. The draugr released its grip, and Taric quickly changed his kukri to his other hand. He sliced the blade through the undead’s throat. The draugr smashed its shield against Taric’s head, cutting him open over the eye, then gurgled and fell forward on its face. Taric tried to recover as fast as possible and drove his knife into the back of the skeletton’s skull, just beneath the neckguard. He lost grip through the impact and tore his palm open with his own knife. He was on his knees, looking up at the chief of the draugr and its mighty sword.

  THE UNDEAD ARCHER drew its bow again. It had its head laid slightly against the bowstring and aimed the arrow at Thaena’s heart. She saw it. It didn’t come as a surprise, but nevertheless, she would have liked to be able to do something against it. Thaena had rolled out her bullwhip and was running to the draugr. There was between her and that shot, only her reflexes. She felt when the draugr released the arrow and threw herself flat. She saw the tip coming closer, and then it passed over her. It clashed against the steps behind her, ricocheting several times till it slid to a stop.

  Her knees and elbows shook from pain when she tried to get back on her feet. She couldn’t run anymore, but she didn’t have to. The archer drew another arrow from its quiver. Thaena’s overhead flog caught its elbow with a crack and splintered the bone, and the arrow fell out of the draugr’s grip. Thaena brought her whip on the other side and followed with another overhead. The draugr blocked with its bow and closed the distance. It drew a broadsword from its scabbard, but Thaena switched her whiplashes to a X pattern. Varying timing and angles, she formed an intimidating screen of fast moving leather. The draugr closed in, knowing no fear in the afterlife. Thaena whipped the returned’s helmet clean off its skull with her first attack, then snapped a leg with another. The monster crashed on its sword, the blade clanking against the floor. Thaena pulled her whip tight around the draugr’s neck. She kicked away the blade, sending it skidding over the tiles. She jumped on the draugr’s back and pulled the whip closer, breaking the ancient warrior’s neck. The creature’s glowing eyes went dark, like congealing ice crystals.

  THE DRAUGR-CHIEF loomed over her husband, Taric. Its scrawny arms belied its strength. It effortlessly raised the mighty sword from the ground and lifted it over its head, where Thaena’s bolt had nailed helmet against skull. Thaena’s whip was aimed to bind one of its forearms, but the chief caught its end with an iron gauntlet and didn’t let go. It thrust the sword downward at Taric. The dark-elf rolled free and kicked against the monster’s shin, breaking one of his own toes. The undead lord yanked Thaena’s whip, pulling her toward it. From the corridor through which Thaena and Taric had entered the vault, more risen dead emerged.

  The draugr chief slammed an elbow to Thaena’s temple, splitting her skin open and sending her reeling. It then grabbed her by the throat and delivered a head-butt to her face. Thaena felt the bridge of her nose crush. The agony drove tears into her eyes and made her vision blur. But she was lucky the grip on her windpipe released with the impact. Dazed, she was pushed against the wall by the centuries-old arm, hitting the back of her head before going down.

  She and Taric were surrounded, and what they most dreaded had happened. Some draugr had made it past them, leaving them free to return to the upper halls, where they could roam through the remaining dwellers and their children.

  “We can’t win this,” Taric panted. He spat blood that ran from his lips.

  “We don’t have to win,” Thaena said.

  The draugr were guardians of the treasure buried within the noble lady’s grave. They didn’t have to be eradicated. It would be enough to exploit their weakness, their lethargy, to run from them and maybe imprison them in their tomb till Thaena and Taric found a way out.

  THE DRAUGR CHIEF turned to Taric and reached back with its blade again, its grip two-handed. The dark-elf had lost his weapon. But it would have been of little use against the bastard sword anyway.

  Somehow, Thaena still had her bullwhip in her hand. She lashed out low against the draugr gathering in the hallway and managed to entangle the foot of one. With a snapping motion, she pulled the leg away and brought the undead down. It presented an opening through which to flee.

  Her husband lost no time and sprang over the downed opponent. He grabbed the ceremonial axe of the first disposed enemy and deflected the blow of a standing draugr with it while still in midair. Their blades clashed in a rain of sparks. Thaena followed swiftly, but the prone draugr stabbed at her feet. She stumbled after landing, falling forward into an uncontrolled roll. Taric pulled her up quickly before the undead horde could turn on them. They ran away into the darkness, limping, their torch left behind on the floor.

  The draugr-chief bent down and reluctantly took up the torch. It extinguished the flame with a breath that could chill blood and freeze skin. It didn’t need to command its retinue to follow the already bleeding victims.

  THAENA DRAGGED HERSELF into the chamber with the big table, where Werdum’s journals were stored. Together they searched for the close mechanism of the door. The door mechanisms were ancient automatons, clogged by dust and cobwebs. The levers wouldn’t shift. Draugr warriors came closer with shields, spears and flails and heavy armor. They were still more muscular then Thaena and Taric together, even after decades of anabolism. Their skin shone pale from absent sunlight, or was brown or blue from necrotic blood vessels.

  Thaena felt vulnerable. She was exposed without armor. She would feelevery touch of the undead on her skin; every slash of cold steel would penetrate her unhindered. She was bleeding again, for the second time in a few days, and was growing fatigued. She looked over to Taric, whose ear and temple were cut open. He tried hard to operate the lever that would close the door. Every effort pumped more blood into torn blood vessels and emptiness. The open wounds burned from infection. Blood pattered onto the stone floor.

  “Do not close that door!” a commanding voice bellowed behind them.

  Gabriel Werdum came at a smart pace. He was in full plate, his war hammer dangling at his side beneath the knee. “Don’t close it!” he repeated. “What happened here? Have you awoken the draugr?”

  “We didn’t awake them,” Thaena replied.

  “What?” Gabriel said. “What else?”

  Thaena panted. “Has anything made it past you? Are the children safe?”

  “They are safe,” Gabriel assured. “At least for now.”

  She saw the undead approaching and greeted them with a grim nod.

  “Get ready. Here they come!”

  Gabriel Werdum ran into the group of monsters, his tower shield catching some arrows before he clashed with his first opponent.

  “Do not fear them! They have already died once. They can do so again!”

  He mustn’t let them enter the chamber.

  Once inside they would try to encircle him. Lined up in rows of two, he could engage them without fearing the archers. His hammer was made for shattering bones, mortal or undead. He wielded it without having to look for weak spots in the armor. All his force was transmitted into the small hammerhead, dealing eno
ugh damage through concussions without even penetrating the heavy iron plates. It crashed against the breast-plate of an ancient warrior, the helmet of another, and shattered a held up shield. Wooden splinters rained down on him and bounced off his face.

  He cast a glance into the corridor filled with undead that had left their niche tombs.

  “So many empty graves,” he uttered through gritted teeth. “What a waste of undead flesh.”

  He couldn’t control them once they had risen. They were like an eternal treasure guardian device, and when set off would only return to their slumber when the intruders were fended off. But what had activated the alarm in the first place? Without mind-shackling them when they were sleeping, and thus controlling them, he would have no opportunity to speak with them.

  Gabriel used the pointed back of his hammer, drove its spike into a shoulder blade and drew the assailant stumbling over his leg. Taric and Thaena swooped down on the straggler and pinned it to the ground.

  He had no means of communicating with the draugr, but he had other means to force them to their knees. He was a necromancer. He knew the wretched anatomy, functioning and weaknesses their corpses possessed. He studied the dark, forbidden arts, and they were messy.

  With a flick of his hands, he opened a meridian in the body of the bloated draugr and channeled organic acids and gases that had formed in the course of decomposition into one reactive cocktail. He had to be close to the surface of the vessel, but it happened without contact. The toxic substances reacted and busted the corpse wide open, sending mummified skin, bones and liquid flying in a wide arc.

  Whoever the warrior had been, and how well his body had been conserved through rituals before that, it now had been maimed to an unrecognizable state. A lesser man would have fled from the sight alone, but these creatures knew no feelings. He had to cut them down to the last one, and it was just what Gabriel intended to do. Thaena and Taric beheld the necromancer at work.