“Yeah, most soldiers would’ve been on the lower floors to react to attack faster,” Tournak said.
“The cellars contained the bulk supplies and extra arms,” Bodrin responded. “I’ve searched through the tower for signs of anyone living here but found none.”
Bodrin and Tournak had searched the fortified buildings attached to the tower and inside the moat. “The support buildings housed the garrison’s camp followers,” Bodrin said, grinning at first and then blushing when he gazed at Tonelia.
“There was little sign of recent habitation,” Tournak said, “We’ll continue to search and watch, while we wait for your directions, Saxthor.”
“I’ll be on the battlements waiting for sunlight. It’s a cloudy day, and the sun’s just not cooperating.”
*
Tonelia looked around, settled on the second floor, and began cleaning up to make it tolerable, even if just for that night. When there was enough space cleaned and swept, she started a cooking fire. Then she found the cooking pot and started downstairs.
“Come on, Delia; there must’ve been a well for such a tower in case of a siege.”
Delia wagged her tail and stood at Tonelia’s side.
“It would’ve been inside the tower.” She tapped the cooking pot and looked at the attentive dog.
“Go find water, Delia. Of course, I don’t believe you know what I’m talking about, but you’re good company. You’ll alert me if something is wrong.”
Delia and Twit preferred to stay near Tonelia when she was cooking. Twit watched Tonelia talking to the dog and rolled his eyes.
I can’t imagine why people eat what she burns, but it draws juicy bugs for an easy meal, Twit thought. This conversation with the dog is too much. The bugs aren’t worth it. Twit flew off to keep an eye on Saxthor.
Wagging her tail, Delia trotted off down the stairs.
“That’s a good start since water doesn’t flow uphill,” Tonelia said, following Delia down into the cellars. “These basement rooms go on and on. I guess they had to support five floors of soldiers when this was a thriving outpost.”
The cellars turned into a maze. Tonelia tried to follow Delia, but the dog was thirsty and went ahead of Tonelia, who was poking her nose in every cellar room. “With all this junk and rubble, there has to be something useful in the supply rooms.”
Delia came back with a wet mouth.
“Where’s the water girl?”
Tonelia followed Delia down a corridor and turned twice before coming to a room containing a well. Tonelia looked down at the water. “How’d you get water from the well?”
As the thought crossed her mind, Delia went to a bucket and drank. Her splashing drew Tonelia to it. When Delia finished, Tonelia poured the bucket’s water down a drain.
“Wonder if that goes out to flush the latrines.”
She drew fresh, clean well water for her cooking. With Delia again at her side, she started back up through the corridors to the cellar steps.
She was almost back on the first floor when something occurred to her. If no one was in the tower, how did the water get in the bucket? She thought of it along the way to the second floor.
Saxthor was by the fireplace, munching dried fruit.
“Saxthor, Delia, and I just went to a well in the cellar. She was drinking out of the well’s bucket.”
Saxthor watched Tonelia as she went about preparing the food.
“What’s so unusual about that?”
“You see, the water was already in the bucket when I got there.”
She heard Saxthor rush past her to the stairs and down them. She shrugged her shoulders. “He must’ve suddenly remembered something he was supposed to do.” Delia wagged her tail, watching the pot.
Bodrin and Tournak were chatting as they ambled back to the tower after searching the outbuildings.
“Bodrin! Tournak!” Saxthor called from the tower doorway.
They rushed over to him.
“What is it?” Bodrin asked.
“Tonelia noted that someone had drawn water from the well in the tower’s cellar yesterday or today. Better check out the cellars again. When you finish, come to the second floor.” Saxthor looked up again, but it was still too cloudy to use the ring, so he returned to the second-floor room.
“Tonelia, where are you?” Saxthor called. She must have gone in search of food or supplies, he thought. “Hope you didn’t go back to the cellars.” Bodrin and Tournak soon came up the stairs, where Saxthor was refilling the cooking pot water.
“Where’s Tonelia?” Bodrin asked.
“Didn’t you run into her scrounging for supplies in the cellars?”
“No, there was no one down there,” Tournak said.
“Tournak, search the upper floors for Tonelia, and bring her back here when you find her,” Saxthor said. “Bodrin, you and Delia come with me. We’ll search the cellars again. Tonelia is in the tower somewhere.”
The men fanned out and searched the building, but there was no sign of Tonelia anywhere. They checked and rechecked, even searching the support buildings as a last resort. They found no sign of the girl. As the light faded, they met back at the second floor before trying another quest.
“We’ve hunted over and over; there’s no sign of her. If we can’t find her in the daylight, how’ll we find her in the dark?” Tournak asked.
“We have to keep searching!” Bodrin said. “She’s here somewhere.”
Saxthor drew Sorblade; it had a faint glow.
“There’s something evil in the tower after all. It’s at some distance, but it’s here.” Holding the sword out before him, he went to the steps, raising and lowering the sword. The glow was slightly greater when he lowered it.
“Draw your swords and come with me. Tournak, you’re a wizard. Stay close behind me. Both of you bring torches, but stay back so that I can see changes in Sorblade’s intensity.”
The three men descended the tower stairs in the dark, with the low light of Sorblade’s runes leading them. They went down through the first floor and then to the cellars, where the runes glowed stronger.
“Delia, where is Tonelia?” Saxthor asked.
Delia seemed to sense what he wanted and started sniffing. She searched the floor, looping around and around.
“Delia is circling, following some scent, but it ends in the room,” Saxthor said. “Tonelia was here, but something picked her up. She wasn’t walking on the floor. We’ll have to go room by room and check the intensity of Sorblade’s rune-glow. Bodrin, stand by the door with your torch. Tournak put out your torch so there’s less light, and we’ll follow the sword.”
Saxthor and Tournak searched through the cellar rooms, checking the changes in the blade’s light. In the third room, the light became intense.
“Bodrin,” Saxthor said, “come here, and stand in the doorway.”
In the torchlight, they saw the room contained some old packing crates and straw on the floor, but otherwise, it was empty.
“There’s nothing in here,” Tournak said. “Could it have passed through here and gone to another room?”
“It’s in here or nearby,” Saxthor said. “Stay with me. I’ll circle the wall and see if there’s a hidden passage.” Saxthor went all the way around, but the light stayed almost the same. “Let’s try the next room.”
Tournak started for the door. Saxthor lowered his sword as he was leaving. Sorblade’s glow strengthened.
“There’s a trap door in the floor!” Saxthor turned back. All three men grabbed sticks and brushed the floor’s straw to the walls but saw nothing.
“This tower sits on low ground. With the moat just outside, any opening below this cellar level should flood with groundwater,” Tournak said.
“Think as a wizard, not as a man, Tournak,” Saxthor said, trying to reason through possibilities. “It’s in this room; it’s not in the walls, it’s in the floor. There has to be a trap door.”
“The crates, we didn’t mover the crates,
” Tournak said.
Bodrin shoved one against the wall. The other two men shuffled crates away from the room’s center. When Bodrin lowered the remaining torch over the floor, there was a straw sticking up from between two floorboards. Nearby was a small indentation in one board. Bodrin pointed. “There!”
Saxthor reached down to the indentation and started to lift a suspected trapdoor when a green spark arced from the crack. It popped Saxthor and knocked him back against the wall.
“Tournak, what was that?” Saxthor asked.
“It’s a warlock weld used to lock the trapdoor against all but he who created it. We must draw it off,” Tournak said.
“Can you do that?”
Tournak took a stick from the floor and touched the board’s indentation repeatedly. Each time it arced, and the stick’s tip glowed red.
“It’s self-charging. We can’t drain off the lock’s power.”
“Do something!” Bodrin said.
“Memlatec taught me a neutralizing spell, but that was long ago.”
Tournak pressed his fingertips to his temples, scrunching his face. He was concentrating as hard as he could, but the more the stress and pressure to remember, the more flustered he became.
“Think hard!” Bodrin said. “We have to find Tonelia before it’s too late.”
“Memlatec said that neither man nor evil could destroy Sorblade. Wonder if this spell counts as evil?”
Saxthor wrapped his coat around the sword’s hilt and touched the floorboard’s indentation. A huge pop followed; the sword flew up in the air. Delia cringed by the chamber door as the trap door flew open in a puff of smoke. Saxthor grabbed Sorblade, still unharmed, and headed down exposed steps beneath the cellar floor. Sorblade’s intense rune-glow illuminated a tunnel.
“What’s this? Why isn’t it flooded?” Bodrin asked, following Tournak and Saxthor down the stairs.
Saxthor was apprehensive, proceeding with care. “This should all be underwater.”
“A wizard has sealed the walls, preventing water seepage,” Tournak said. He was feeling the walls. “See the stone’s green haze?”
“Many workers built this complex and not that long ago,” Saxthor said. “See… there’re three more tunnels radiating from the staircase. It looks as if they've planned four more. There’s fresh stone dust on this third tunnel’s floor.”
“Be careful; the plan is to hide troops under the ruins,” Tournak said. “The stonecutters are here somewhere.”
Saxthor followed the strongest rune-glow down what appeared to be the first and most complete passage. “There’re chambers on both sides of this hall. The corridor ends in a stone wall, but that wall seems to ripple much like an ornsmak. Is that rippling the water seal?”
As they turned to explore the other two tunnels, Saxthor thought of ornsmak energy ripples. He spun around. With a possessed yell, he gripped Sorblade with both hands and slashed the rock wall with all his might. Sparks flashed through the corridor from the rip in the wizard’s veil that had been the stone image. Sorblade’s power neutralized the wizard’s projected imaging.
Drained totally of his energy in that instant, a wraith appeared, then dissolved. Its remains dissipated like smoke revealing some sixty cringing orcs. Their glaring eyes focused on Saxthor and Sorblade. The three men and the sixty orcs were all equally astonished at the sight of each other.
“Hold your swords on them, both of you,” Saxthor said, recovering from the energy shock.
“How did you know that wasn’t a wall, that there were orcs and a wraith behind it?” Bodrin asked. He was looking at Saxthor but then turned and brandished his sword at the orcs. The intimidation worked, and the orcs shuffled back in unison.
“The ripples in the wall at a certain angle, it was like an ornsmak’s plasma energy.”
“What do we do with them?” Bodrin asked. “We aren’t equipped to handle prisoners, much less this many.”
Bodrin looked among them for Tonelia, but she wasn’t there. “Where is Tonelia? They still have Tonelia!”
Tournak stepped forward and grabbed the lead orc, cringing in fear of men who just vaporized a wraith. He jerked the orc aside.
“These are construction orcs, not soldiers. The lead orc is anxious to cooperate to save his hide.”
“Make him talk, or I will,” Bodrin said.
“These are laborers the wraith brought under the cloak of darkness to seize Talok Tower,” Tournak said after talking with the trembling orc. “They were building a massive accommodation for a thousand orcs to hide here. When Dreaddrac marches south, the orcs were to rise up behind enemy lines and attack the Neuyokkasinian army, breaking its supply lines. Their efforts were well underway.”
“Yes,” Saxthor said, looking around the complex. “Only by happy accident did we stumble on the plan and thwart it.”
Bodrin raised his sword and stepped forward past Saxthor heading for the orcs. “Where is Tonelia?”
Saxthor grabbed his shoulder, stopping him. Tournak turned again to the orcs, who were crushing each other to get out of Bodrin’s reach.
“Where’s the girl?” Tournak asked.
The lead orc hesitated. Bodrin struggled free, pressing his sword against the orc’s throat. “Where’s Tonelia?”
The orc was shaking. Hesitating at first, slowly, he pointed to the opposite corridor. Bodrin turned and raced to the second hallway. The tunnel had connected chambers as well, and the end room was visible. Bodrin searched each room but couldn’t find Tonelia and returned to the terrified orc. Again, the orc pointed to the far tunnel. Bodrin searched again. The next to last chamber was smaller than the others, but Tonelia wasn’t there. Bodrin dashed back, his face twisted in a snarl.
“This is the last time I’ll ask.”
The cringing orc dropped to his knees and pointed to the same corridor once more. His pleading eyes fixed on Saxthor as Bodrin approached, raising his sword. Bodrin grabbed the orc’s thick neck, dragged him down the hall, and pushed him into the chamber.
“Show me where she is!”
“He doesn’t understand you, Bodrin,” Saxthor said.
“He understands.”
“She must be in the room,” Tournak said.
Bodrin rushed forward just as a bolt of green fire flashed from the wall. The orc collapsed; his chest was smoldering. The back wall was gone, and two huge ogres stood snarling on either side of another wraith, all glaring at the men. They had Tonelia tied and gagged on a chair behind them.
“Tonelia!” Bodrin started forward, but Saxthor grabbed his shoulder.
One screaming ogre leaped at Bodrin. Before he could react, a bolt of blue flame shot past him, mortally burning the ogre. A second blue bolt flew past and exploded in front of Bodrin. Tournak’s wizard-fire struck the wraith, just shooting his wizard-fire. The explosive energy collision vaporized the wraith.
Tournak slumped, drained, as Bodrin leaped through the smoke and dispatched the remaining ogre with a single upward slash of his sword. He rushed to untie Tonelia.
“Where've you been?” Tonelia asked. “What’s taken you so long? I thought you’d never come.”
“Nice trick, Tournak,” Bodrin said. “We could’ve used that before. I sometimes forget you’re Memlatec’s apprentice. Thanks for saving our lives.” He sheathed his sword and hugged his mentor.
“What about me?” Tonelia asked, staring at Bodrin with hands on her hips.
Bodrin grabbed and clutched Tonelia in a hug that she returned.
“I’ll keep a closer eye on you in the future,” Bodrin said. He hugged her again.
“What do we do with the orcs?” Saxthor pondered. He waved his sword looking back down the tunnel.
“I can remember a spell mother used to seal me in my room as a willful child,” Tonelia said, coming down the corridor straightening her dress and hair. “We’ll use that to hold them in the room until tomorrow when we can decide what to do with them.”
The others nodded, and Tonelia c
ast the spell that sealed the room for the night.
They checked the remaining tunnels and rooms, finding no sign of more wraiths or orcs. Without the specters, the catacomb walls lost their green haze. The only sign of evil was the cringing orcs. Exhausted, the adventurers trailed along back through the cellars and climbed the stairs to the second floor to fall asleep without eating.
Twit was annoyed seeing Bodrin and Tonelia hugging.
I patiently remained near these emotional people in hopes they’d burn something that would draw flies. All that mashing together is a waste of energy. Memlatec failed to warn me people get all touchy like that. My mate and I politely preen, but all this mashing together is rubbish, messes up the feathers, he thought.
The stuffy bird had all he could take, dropped a black and white comment, and flew out the window in search of a peaceful place to spend the night.
The next morning, they went to the cellars to find food for the orcs. When Bodrin raised the trap door, water was just under the cellar floor.
Tonelia gasped, stepped back from the opening, hand over her mouth. “The tunnels are underwater.”
Tournak came to the opening. “When we destroyed the wraiths, it ended their spells, including the spell that held back groundwater. The orcs drowned.”
“The Dark Lord won’t garrison troops in the Talok Tower,” Saxthor said as Bodrin lowered the trap door. “We need to get word to Konnotan. They’ll need to send troops to rebuild the tower and hold it against another such incursion. I’ll have to think of some means of communicating with Memlatec.”
* * *
Back upstairs, the sun shone through the window on Saxthor’s face, and he remembered the mission. Leaving the others, Saxthor climbed the staircase to the citadel’s roof, where the sun was strongest. He checked to make sure he was alone. Seeing no one in the surrounding countryside, he felt it was safe to seek the message revealing the third jewel’s location.
Saxthor sat on the roof’s west side with the rising sun behind him. He took off the dragon ring and his necklace. Holding the ring so that the sun’s rays shot through it, he focused the blue rays through the necklace’s third loop. At once, a message displayed on the battlement in front of him.
The Neuyokkasinian Arc of Empire Series: Books 1-3 Box Set High, Epic Fantasy on a Grand Dragon Scale! Kindle Edition Page 44
