by J. P. Ashman
This time, Biviano couldn’t help but smile, and the constable threw him a wink before dismissing him.
I may be over the bloody moon and grateful for ye marching on the bastards, Stowold, but don’t be getting no funny ideas, Biviano thought with a shudder. He left the Earl’s room swiftly.
***
Fal and the group had arrived at the walled town at dusk. They'd slowed their horses after a good hour or so of pushing them hard, knowing the poor beasts needed rest, and so had continued the rest of the way to Beresford at a fast walk.
Fal and Sav had protested bitterly about leaving Baron Brackley and his men to face the goblins alone, but had given up after being shot down by Correia time and time again. Even Errolas agreed with the woman, and that, in the end, was what silenced Fal and his friend. They both knew that although not of their species, the elf would never leave anyone to face such vile creatures unless he had no other choice, and the importance of their mission was such that he, nor any of the group, had that choice.
The rest of the ride had been spent discussing whether the elves would have the means to, or even agree to help Wesson with its plague. Errolas hoped they would, but admitted he didn't know enough about such things to be able to say for sure. They also discussed who might be following them after the smoke signal Correia has spotted. Sav had named the Samorlians immediately, to which all in the group had agreed was quite possible.
The entrance to Beresford was large, nowhere near as large as either of Wesson’s gates, but big all the same. It was straddled by a stone gatehouse which housed two large wooden gates. A small door stood in the corner of the left hand gate and a smaller hatch in the top centre of that. The gates had closed as dusk fell and as the group arrived. Gleave dismounted, walked to the door and hammered on it with the haft of his axe. The hatch opened inwards and a dirty, wrinkled face with blood-shot eyes peeked through. ‘What?’
Sav chuckled.
‘Kind gatekeeper, do bid us enter. We are of the King’s own forces and require shelter for the night.’ All but Correia and Mearson were surprised by Gleave’s polite manner.
The gatekeeper looked around at them all suspiciously in the dim light. ‘A few weirdoes round here of late. Ye not be of them lot are ye?’
Gleave shook his head. ‘No master gatekeeper, we are King Barrison’s subjects and loyal citizens of Altoln.’ Gleave managed a very regal bow.
‘Hmmm… less of that here or the locals will think ye’re a weirdo.’ The man burst into a cackling, rather high pitched laugh and slammed the hatch shut.
Gleave turned to the group and shrugged.
‘Like bloody children,’ Correia said, walking her horse a little way from the group.
‘Great. Well done Gleave.’ Mearson clapped his hands towards his friend. ‘What The Three was that bowing shite about, eh?’
Before Gleave could respond, the creaking, clunking sound of large bolts moving on the inside of the gate brought a smile to his face. ‘My charm, you see.’
Everyone laughed heartily, bar Correia, who rolled her eyes as she rode back over.
The large gate on the left swung in then and two lightly armoured ashmen walked out, spears in hands as they beckoned the riders in. Once inside the gate, the group were told to dismount. Their mounts, they were told, would be taken to the central stable and their weapons to the neighbouring armoury.
‘Our weapons?’ Fal asked, confused.
‘Aye, yer weapons, Earl Beresford’s law,’ the older ashman said, his tall ash-shafted spear shifting in his hands as he leant on it lazily.
Fal looked to Correia and was surprised to see both her and the two pathfinders unbuckling their weapon belts and handing them over.
Mearson pointed two fingers at the man who took his weapons. ‘Got my eyes on you, ashman, and I’ll remember who took these, you can be sure of that.’
The old gatekeeper, who stood to one side, bottle in hand, coughed as his cackling laugh erupted once more.
The younger ashman reddened as he took Mearson’s weapon belt. He placed it on a cart next to the inside of the gatehouse and then moved on to Errolas who handed over his unstrung bow, arrow-filled quiver and sword. Fal noticed none of them had handed over knives or daggers and so he unbuckled his belt and handed over his falchion, leaving his seax knife in his boot. Sav and Starks did the same and the group set off into the town, Correia leading the way.
Starks asked what they were to do next and Correia told them all they were to take their much needed rest in an inn she knew near the river, before crossing in the morning. Their horses and weapons would be walked across by ashmen and could be picked up at the eastern gate once they left that side of Beresford. Sav’s face lit up at the mention of the inn and Fal admitted he couldn’t wait to get his dry mouth around a good tankard of ale.
Before the group made it halfway to the inn Correia was raving about, the first fire arrow fell from the sky.
Chapter 32: Wesson’s Bowels
Taking the rest of the prison had proved quick and easy for the skilled witchunters and warrior monks. Almost a third of the prison’s guards had fallen ill with the rapidly spreading plague and a handful were already dead. The bell – rang by a terrified young boy – served Exley Clewarth and his men, as it brought the remaining guards to the main entrance in small numbers. As soon as they ran into the main entrance hall they were cut down by hand-held crossbows, rapiers and maces until there were none left to come to the call of the chiming bell, or none that dared.
It had been some time since the last guard had been slaughtered, and Exley had led his men through the lower levels of the prison shortly after. The Witchunter General had ordered the release of any prisoners they passed who looked capable in a fight. Those men were given a choice by the Witchunter General. ‘Return to your cell to rot,’ he'd said, ‘or fight for us. When this is over, you will be free to go, with no questions asked by me or my men. All I ask is, you follow my orders and ask no questions in return.’
One ganger had immediately asked where they were going. He received a swift cudgel blow to the back of the head by a warrior monk for speaking out, which left the man unconscious in the narrow, damp and foul smelling tunnel. The last witchunter to pass the prone figure thrust his rapier into the man’s back to make sure he wouldn’t get up again, whilst the steadily increasing group carried on deeper and deeper into the prison’s winding tunnels.
Egan Dundaven shoved a prisoner from his path as he approached Exley Clewarth. ‘We could be searching for hours, if not days, General. Samorl be with us… even weeks at this rate. Is it not wiser to split up?’ Egan had hung back in the initial fight at the prison’s gate. Not through fear, but through the distaste he had of murdering fellow Altolnans for no better reason other than their getting in the way of the Witchunter General’s goal. He'd shot one guard who'd attacked him directly, but apart from that his sword was clean and his crossbow bolts almost fully stocked.
‘You’re right Master Dundaven, we could, and if that’s what it takes, that’s what we will do. Or do you fancy informing the Grand Inquisitor of our failure?’
Egan shook his head. ‘No, General, of course not.’
Exley disagreed with the mission as much as Egan, but he couldn’t show that in front of the men, after all, many of them were Horler Comlay’s not his. He knew there would be at least one that would run squealing to Horler upon his return, or to the Grand Inquisitor himself. Exley had argued against the mission and would have preferred to travel back south, where he could continue his command and not risk being strung up by Wesson’s magistrates. The Grand Inquisitor had ordered the capture and burning of the traitorous gnome, however, and so that was what he was going to do, no matter how long or what it took to do it.
Exley headed down another stinking corridor as Egan asked, ‘How about the prisoners down here then, we could ask them if they know of anything? General Comlay was said to have entered here in pursuit of the sergeant-at-arms from Tyndurris and hasn’t been se
en since. For all we know, he found the tunnels and has chased the sergeant through them. Wherever he’s gone, some prisoner must have seen or heard something.’
The General stopped, almost causing Egan to crash into his back.
The whole column of thirty or so men behind the General stopped too, with witchunters and monks slapping prisoners who started to ask questions.
‘I don’t give a shit where he’s gone, where he is or if he’s still alive, Master Dundaven.’ Exley closed his eyes and sighed heavily. Well done pushing me into that outburst, Dundaven, it will likely cost me once Horler hears of it. Exley paused, took a deep breath and turned on Egan, who flinched instinctively. ‘That being said, Master Dundaven, you may be right about the prisoners knowing something.’ Exley turned to face those behind him. ‘Who knows these tunnels?’ he shouted. ‘Anyone?’
‘I do, sire.’ A barrel chested man with a bald head and hands like shovels pushed his way to the front.
‘Good man,’ Exley said. ‘Do you know anything about what we were just talking about? A Witchunter General who passed through here and never came back out?’
The large man nodded. ‘There were rumours, sire. They went down to the north east tunnel. Goes by the nutters’ cells! You think it stinks here, wait until you smell it down there.’ The large man grinned and Exley beckoned him forward. Egan had to squeeze against the cold stone wall whilst the large man pushed past.
‘Can you guide us? You’ll be rewarded,’ Exley said, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder in a show of friendship. Egan tried not to laugh out at the poor display, but the brutish man grinned again and seemed to buy it.
‘Sure I can, we can get to it this way, won’t take long at all to get there, then down, down into the prison’s bowels and past the nutters, although I dunno what’s down there, never been that far down before see, for I ain’t no nutter. Ha!’
‘Yes, funny… now on you go,’ Exley said, handing the man a burning torch. ‘Take this and keep me informed where we are and what you’re doing.’
The passages were lit with the odd oil lamp or torch, but it was still extremely dark and so a handful of Exley’s men had lit extra torches to help them find their way.
The heavy set prisoner – stripped down to his waist and wearing only a pair of linen braes – had been true to his word. Not long after he'd taken the lead, had he taken them to the ‘nutters’ as he called them, and beyond. The prisoners down there didn’t dare reach through their bars at these men though, not after the first one lost his hand in an attempt. The stench was awful and all the witchunters, bar the General, lifted their scarves over their faces to try and block the smell of human excrement, sweat and blood.
As the last of the column passed the nutters’ cages, the large man at the front halted and shrugged, before turning to Exley. ‘Dead end, sire,’ he said, pointing to the end of the tunnel, the light of his torch revealing a solid wall. ‘Guess we’ll have to head back?’
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Egan said, from behind the General. ‘Why would they build a tunnel leading nowhere?’
Exley’s mouth had stretched into an uncontrollable smile. ‘Because it leads somewhere, Master Dundaven, I’m damn sure of that. Search the wall,’ Exley shouted, as he pushed past the large man in front. He felt his way down the rough stone looking for some sort of lever, trigger… something to give away a hidden entrance.
Many of the men looked at each other with confusion before running theirs hands across the walls either side of where they stood.
The large prisoner at the front followed Exley, as did Egan, but they didn’t go as far as the General.
Without warning, a loud rumbling stopped everyone in their tracks.
‘Whoa… stop there, General,’ Egan said, looking up at the rough stone ceiling above.
Exley took a couple of steps forward, daring himself to touch the wall of the dead end despite the noise and Egan’s warning. When he did, an incredibly loud splitting groan and rumble announced the following collapse of the roof.
The Witchunter General dropped into a crouch and wrapped his arms about his head, knocking his hat askew in the process.
As the noise abated and the dust settled, Exley realised he was trapped; cut off from the others in total, dusty, silence.
Climbing to his feet, the Witchunter General looked around and saw nothing. He had no torch and even though his pupils were dilating as he strained to look around, there wasn’t enough natural light to make anything out in the black tunnel. He pulled up his scarf and pressed it against his mouth to avoid breathing in the dust filled air.
He began searching around behind him for the fallen rocks of the cave-in. No rubble? Scrambling across the floor, he found nothing but small stones.
His knuckles scraped against a rough wall then, much the same as the one in the tunnel he'd just been inspecting. He put both hands on it, palms forward as he felt around the rough, but clearly cut stone wall.
How is this possible?
There had been a cave-in, no doubt about it, yet there was a solid, rough, but flat wall where he thought he’d come from. He called out then, not too loud for fear of another cave-in. There was no reply. He frantically ran his hands all over the wall he couldn’t see; searching for a crack, a hole, anything that would signify the wall was some kind of door, but there was nothing, nothing but the occasional smooth line running in seemingly random directions and…
Patterns?
The smooth lines were runes, but from what language he had no idea. He searched on, the fear building inside him as he pictured himself trapped, starving to death, dying alone in the dusty pitch black bowls of Wesson.
***
Egan Dundaven hit the deck, his hands over his head as the roof caved in. The large prisoner just in front of him did the same and almost every one of the thirty or so men behind them dived to the floor; over each other and some back up the tunnel.
Dust filled the air and coughing erupted throughout the column. One man cried out, his leg pinned to the floor by a rapier; the prisoner had thrown himself onto a witchunter who'd hit the floor first. A swift crack to the head ceased the man’s whimpering and Egan just managed to see one of the warrior monks standing up, fresh blood staining his mace.
‘Is everyone well?’ a witchunter from behind Egan asked. ‘Except for the obvious,’ he added under his breath.
A chorus of confirmations followed and Egan turned back to make eye contact with the witchunter. He beckoned the man to him and both of them made their way forward to the rubble littering the tunnel.
‘Help us dig,’ Egan said, as he turned to the large man who'd led them there.
The man was sat on the floor rubbing his head, and merely grunted at the request. ‘What’s the point, he’s a dead man and so will we all be if we don’t get out of this old tunnel. The whole bloody lot could come down. There’re other lower tunnels, you know? Whatever you’re looking for could easily be down one of them.’
Egan caught something in the man’s eye when he mentioned the other tunnels, and it struck him as strange that a prisoner would know so much about the prison’s layout.
‘Help us dig,’ the second witchunter said. ‘It wasn’t a request.’
The prisoner felt the presence of someone behind him. He looked up and saw a large warrior monk brandishing a blooded mace. The prisoner nodded reluctantly and pulled himself to his feet with the hand of a young witchunter who'd come forward with the warrior monk.
Before anyone knew anything of it, the large man pulled a dagger from the witchunter’s belt and jammed it into the monk’s throat. Gurgling, the monk dropped to his knees, his mace clattering to the ground as he tried hopelessly to fend off his attacker with half-hearted slaps. The large man quickly withdrew the dagger and the Monk pressed his hands to the wound, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood, before slumping helplessly to the ground.
Half stunned at what had just happened, the young witchunter fumbled for his rapier
as he saw the prisoner turn on him with the blooded dagger.
An audible thud caused the prisoner to jerk forward as a crossbow bolt plunged into his back, and a heartbeat later another found the back of his skull. He was dead as he crashed to the ground over the outstretched legs of the dying monk. The young witchunter who’s dagger the prisoner had stolen looked up thankfully to his two comrades. Face flushed, he nodded before turning back to the other prisoners. He swiftly gave orders for them to move forward and help shift the rubble, for it was too late to do anything for the now dead monk.
No one else tried anything, and as they came forward to move the rubble, Egan realised the large man he'd just killed was probably a prison guard. He imagined he'd been trained to lead anyone looking for the hidden tunnels on a wild-goose chase around the prison until the City Guard could arrive. He felt a fool for following the man, but it'd been Exley who'd ordered the man forward and so Egan felt embarrassingly satisfied in the knowledge no blame could come his way. Egan wasn’t even sure Exley was alive to chastise him for anything at all anyway.
With that in mind, Egan Dundaven turned back to the rubble, and if he hadn’t, he may not have believed what he saw then. The first prisoner to try and lift a stone fell straight through it and hit a solid wall on the other side. The whole cave-in flickered like a candle then and blinked out, replaced by the same wall Exley Clewarth had reached before the ceiling had fallen in.
***
After entering the deserted street outside Mother’s brothel, it wasn’t long until Longoss led Sears and Coppin into the back door of a house; a door marked with a black cross.
Despite both Sears’ and Coppin’s protests, they followed Longoss in, neither of them wishing to linger on the streets longer than was necessary. Both were relieved to find, once inside, that the house was uninhabited and the black cross had been painted there by Longoss himself, shortly after he'd learnt what it meant.
