by Hugo Huesca
Given that nearly everyone not Dark-aligned wasn’t willing to deal with a Dungeon Lord, no matter how well intentioned he was, his relationship with the Guild was refreshing.
The Guild and the Haunt had a good thing going. With any luck, it could even last.
Life rarely works that way, though, a bleak part at the back of Ed’s mind chimed in.
The Haunt celebrated its victory against the spider rebellion the evening following Ed’s return from Undercity. They all stepped into the Mess Hall at more or less the appropriate hour, wearing their best clothes. A year ago, that would’ve meant a not-so-dirty shirt or dress, but thanks to the seamstress’ skills and the discrete trading with the neighboring villages, those of the Haunt had slowly rebuilt the possessions they’d lost during Burrova’s destruction. Tonight, Ed saw many green capes, fashioned similarly to his own, as well as more than a couple purple dresses with tight corsets like the ones Lavy favored, and even a few brave men trying to wear the Haunt’s emblem, the Lasershark, stitched to their expensive vests with varying degrees of success.
Ed wasn’t a fan of the Lasershark, but so far he hadn’t changed it, and at this point he suspected it was best if he resigned himself to it—the Haunted liked it, at least.
The Mess Hall was a great chamber in the middle of the dungeon. Ed had built it to fit most of the Haunt’s inhabitants—although he was running out of space. The ceiling was a forest of stalagmites, some of which were as long as spears. Candlesticks and magical torches hung from them like exotic, luminous fruits. Silvery web swayed with the dungeon’s airflow, like the breath of a slumbering titan. Horned spider princesses traversed the webs, hauling meat around and having an upside-down replica of the celebrations below.
He sat at the end of a long stone table that fit several dozen people. Batblins and kaftar and humans filled several other similar tables that occupied most of the Mess Hall’s center. Drones ran through the corridors left among the rows of wooden chairs, acting as impromptu waiters. It was a job they absolutely despised, and drones often found passive-aggressive—emphasis on aggressive—ways to protest jobs they hated, so Ed only used them this way during special occasions.
“The situation, as I was saying yesterday,” mumbled Governor Brett while he chewed, “is terribly grim. The Haunt’s expenses are hugely demanding, and we cannot depend on our… er… aggressive commerce forever. Undercity’s Treasury is hunting for us, I hear, and no matter how good the ruffians that our Murderousness employs are at evading it, the Treasury always sinks its teeth in its prey! You can trust me, I’d know!” He barked a mirthless laugh for emphasis, sending flecks of food flying everywhere. “We need to institute tributary laws at the Haunt, soon, or we could face disaster,” he announced, brandishing a finger at Kes. “Of course, given I’m somewhat of a legal expert myself, I’d be in charge of drafting our constitution. For the benefit of the Haunt.”
Kes was staring daggers at the man. “In case you haven’t noticed, we are in a war for survival against the Inquisition itself. We cannot waste time on bureaucracy—it’d only slow us down.” She stabbed her steak with ravenous enthusiasm. The main dish involved smoked ham bathed in a sauce made of a sweet yellow berry, the taste of which was reminiscent of fermented pineapple, though it was poisonous if you ate too much. “The Haunt can’t demand taxes from its inhabitants—not yet. It has no economy, they have no coin to pay us with, and we can build everything we need from scratch, anyway. Or have you forgotten that his ‘Murderousness’ can create real estate by hollowing out the rock under our feet?”
Ed took a long sip out of his tankard of ale. He had no interest in politics, and the mere phrase “institute tributary laws” made him want to yawn. The ale probably had a hand in that, too. No, better to let Kes and Brett duke it out.
He shifted his attention away. Forgemaster Heorghe was eating what—judging from the growing pile of bones on the plate in front of him—had been an entire gray hell chicken a few minutes ago. The blacksmith was drinking straight from a bottle of tzuika as he went, and judging from the annoyed look of his wife, Ivona, and the already empty bottle near his current one, drones would have to carry him to his chambers in a few hours. A shame, because otherwise Ed and Heorghe could’ve had a chat about the Haunt’s engineering projects, which was always a welcomed way to pass an evening.
Close to Heorghe was Priest Zachary, who was sipping a greenish soup sprinkled with nuts. Most of his attention was in an argument against the batblin Drusb, the Haunt’s main cloudmaster. Judging from the trail of soup dripping from Zachary’s chin, the discussion was getting heated.
“Preposterous, preposterous!” Zachary bellowed. “Hogbus never won that bet, he cheated Oynnes when he disguised himself as a horned bear!”
Drusb waved Hogbus’ holy symbol at the priest. The symbol was an old stick with bells and colored pebbles hanging from it, and a pewter bear-shaped medallion at the center. “Silly human, you know nothing! There is no such thing as a horned bear! Hogbus outsmarted dumb Light god fair-and-square, not his fault Oynnes forgot that wood elves can talk to animals!”
“Don’t wave that thing my way!” Zachary waved his own holy symbol at the batblin, a fist-sized coin of solid gold with a hollow center.
The conversation failed to captured Ed, especially since he wasn’t on speaking terms with most of the Ivalian gods. Murmur was an asshole, Alita was an asshole who also wanted him dead, and Hogbus, from what he’d heard, suffered from the divine equivalent of fleas. That left Oynnes as the Haunt’s patron. He was a giant gold digger, but at least he was willing to accept Zachary’s offerings without looking too hard into their origin.
On the other side of the table, near the fireplace, Alder sat on a suede sofa and played a mellow tune on his lute to aid the digestion of the dozen sleepy children that were his audience. The Bard had his flute and harp next to him, so Ed judged that Alder intended to milk the attention for all it was worth.
“Something troubling you?” Lavy asked. She plopped into the seat next to him and set her plate down on the table. She had skipped the main course and gone straight to the dessert: marzipan cakes bathed in hot jam and sprinkled with dried fruits.
“Was it so obvious?” Ed asked while Lavy nibbled a cake.
“You’ve barely touched your food,” she pointed out.
Ed glanced at the small pile of empty plates around him, then raised an eyebrow at her.
“I meant that you only ate enough to survive Kes’ training tomorrow,” clarified the Witch.
“Oh. Makes sense.”
Lavy snatched up a glass of tzuika from the tray of an annoyed drone that was passing by them. “It isn’t healthy, you know, to spend your time worrying about that over which you have no control. It’s terrible for your skin, and it will age you before your time. As someone who barely cares about things, I’m the perfect counter-example.” She pinched her cheek. “See? Not caring works.”
Ed snorted. “My skin will have to handle it.” He scratched his chin. “Klek and Tulip have been gone for almost a week. It’s the longest they’ve been away, and their task is risky.”
Lavy crossed her hands. “They’re fine. Neither of them are prone to take risks lightly… and with Klek’s luck, anyway, it’s likely he’ll return having soloed the Inquisition. We'll have to add Hero-Destroyer to his list of titles.”
“I believe that,” Ed said with a low chuckle. Then, he shook his head. “I just hate having to wait. Even if it is for a reason, it makes me feel too much like a typical Boss at the end of a raid, just hanging out in his cave until the Heroes arrive.”
They paused while Lavy chewed a cake. Next to another table, a group of men and women talked over Alder’s melodies, exchanging rough jokes and laughing at those too drunk to stand.
“You should try to join them,” Lavy suggested. “It’s not fair you don’t get to celebrate the Haunt’s victory along with everyone else.”
“Look more carefully,” Ed suggested. He w
aved at the revelers, like a Bard ending an illusion spell. The laughter from the circle came with an edge of forced bravado. The mothers’ eyes kept darting toward their children, as if worrying that a hungry horned spider would drop from the ceiling to carry them away. The men carried daggers and hunting knifes at their waists, like Kes, Ed, and the kaftars did. To Ed, that was the most telling sign, because he knew the reason he was always armed.
They expected an attack at any time and hoped to be as ready for it as they could.
“I gave them a victory against an enemy created by my own choices.”
“You’re describing war itself, Ed,” Lavy said. “These people are no strangers to suffering, so they take whatever cause there is for celebration. They’ll even cheer if our spiders defeat a bunch of other spiders. But I also know you well enough to understand that the life you led back on Earth wasn’t much like ours.” She gazed at the biscuit she held between her fingers as if divining some profound truth from it. “To us Ivalians, see, this is the way it has always been. A monster may end them tomorrow. Or a fire. Or a zealous Inquisitor. They may get drafted as arrow fodder. Maybe their dungeon falls to an invading army. There’s always sickness, or famine, or flood. They may run into bandits while traveling, or encounter wild animals.” She looked like she could go on, but changed her mind. “What I mean is, the Heroes are just another name added to a long tally. They aren’t your fault, just like what happened to Kael wasn’t your fault. It’s just the way it is. Our friends may act terrified when I call on the spirits of the dead, but death is as normal to them as it is to me.”
Ed could almost feel the caress of the tongues of flame dancing in the fireplace as they cast their shadow upon his face. The airflow made the shadows flicker on the floor tiles like lurking ghosts. He appreciated Lavy’s attempt at cheering him up, and he knew she was right. But she had misread the reason for his bad mood. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t the weight of responsibility. But how best could he put it into words?
He almost wanted to let the conversation end there, but he thought it over. Closing himself off to his friends would be a mistake. A weakness he couldn’t afford.
“Do you remember the terms of the bet I made with Kharon when I became a Dungeon Lord?” he asked without taking his gaze from the fire.
He had told her the story not long after they first met, back when the Haunt was but a cave with some rugs thrown in. “The Boatman bet that power is the shackle of man. He believes that the only thing required to make you serve the will of Murmur was to receive the Mantle,” she said. “It’s the Dark doctrine, you know? I had to know a bit of it, even though I hated it, as an apprentice for Warlock Chasan. The Mantle takes its name from an old Lotian saying. ‘The only difference between a King or a Tyrant is the color of the cape.’” She grasped a corner of her violet dress in her fist. “It’s a load of dung, Ed. These clothes may be the dress of a Witch, but if Alder wears them, he won’t become Lavina. We are who we are, no matter what.”
A few years ago, he would’ve agreed with her in an instant. The thing is, Kharon wasn’t talking about clothes. The mantle we wear is the power we wield, Ed thought.
The lives of everyone in the Haunt hinged on him. If they thrived, it’d be thanks to everyone’s efforts pulled together. If they died, though? His fault alone.
That was a Dungeon Lord’s Mantle.
It was no wonder that every other Dungeon Lord he’d heard about was crazy.
6
Chapter Six
Bootcamp
“Spears are simple,” Kes told her audience. She had one such spear resting vertically next to her, the iron point aimed at the Training Ground’s ceiling. “They build your strength, and your stance, and teach you good habits. Master the spear and you’ll have the foundations for the sword and most other martial weapons.”
The Training Grounds bristled with activity. A group of disheveled batblins ran circuits around the chamber, cursing and wheezing as they went, their tiny legs pumping up and down, their furry behinds shaking like that of a chicken. It would’ve been comical had Kes not been in charge of shaping their sorry asses into proper combat-ready shape.
“To start, you’ll learn the basic stances, and we’ll progress from there. All you need to know today is that spear-fighting is built around thrusting at three specific areas: the face, throat, and gut.” She demonstrated with three quick attacks against a training dummy. The recruits stared in awe.
Kes wanted to scream. Despite drinking enough water to drown a kid, the hangover threatened to split her head open side to side. What the hell do the Brewers put in the booze? She didn’t want to know. Actually, she hoped she’d never find out.
No matter how bad she felt, she couldn’t let it show, not even for a tiny second. The nine sorry men and women that would become the backbone of the Haunt’s garrison were as hungover as she was, and they’d take any sign of weakness as an excuse to complain. Humans. One would think having an Endurance average of 10 would mean they were tougher than an Avian teenager, but if Kes had learned anything in her life, it was that no matter the species, boots would find an excuse to complain about anything.
This current batch was green. They were greener than grass on a bright summer day after a hearty rain. Volunteers, the lot of them, so she’d to give them props for their courage, although she suspected that none had known what they were signing on for. Isn’t it like that always? There were only nine volunteers, but that was almost as many as Burrova guardsmen, and taking the batblins into account, the Haunt’s armed forces were about as numerous as that of a small town’s. After Nicolai’s attack on the Haunt, most of the villagers had been happy to let the fighting fall in Kes’ hands, as well as Ed and his army of spiders, so even nine human recruits to take care of protecting the Haunt was huge. Even so, at first they’d serve as a sort of community watch, only taking arms if needed and working their normal jobs otherwise. Costel, for example, was a baker. Young Ivan was a butcher, and Old Ivan was a drunk whose brothers had “volunteered” him for guard duty after one too many mornings having to drag his ass home.
“With a spear, you want to stab. That’s how you kill an enemy. You’ll still learn to swipe and chop, but understand for now that it works differently than with a bladed weapon.” She demonstrated a brutal chop that mashed the side of the iron tip against the dummy’s temple. Against a human, it would’ve meant a broken skull. “You want to crush, rather than cut.” The recruits nodded almost in unison. Kes could’ve bet her nonexistent retirement fund that they hadn’t understood a word. It didn’t matter. She’d make them understand.
“This is an underhand hold.” Once again, she demonstrated. “Rear hand goes here, above the spear. Now you do it.” The boots hurried to imitate her with their training spears.
Their ages ranged from fifteen to thirty, except for the only woman, Costel, a stocky forty-year-old widow who wanted to be a guard because, as she had told Kes, she wanted to know what it felt to kill someone. Her husband had choked to death in his sleep under mysterious circumstances. Costel was Kes’ most promising recruit.
She did a passable underhand hold. “When can we practice against real people?” she asked Kes.
“When I’m sure you won’t kill each other by accident.” Kes tried not to add any emphasis on the word “accident.” “Even with training weapons, a mistake can maim or kill. We’ll wait on practice combat until you’re better trained, and until your gambesons are finished. Padded armor can turn a caved-in skull into a mere contusion, so don’t dismiss it because it isn’t steel.” Since Heorghe was up to his eyebrows with work, he’d offloaded the gambeson’ job on the seamstresses, who had only a vague idea of what the process entailed. It would take a while until they managed a passing armor, but they’d get there.
Costel grunted and said nothing more, but she occasionally stole hungry glances at the dueling ring, from which the sound of metallic clashes emanated.
Young Ivan was the second to get t
he right form after Kes corrected a couple mistakes. While she went to instruct Old Ivan, Young Ivan tried to snap his spear at a forty-five degree angle, and smashed his foot with the butt of the spear. He hopped around on one leg while the others mocked him.
Green. A bit greener than that and maybe she could sell them in the market as produce.
Kes corrected their holds again, then had them spend the next few hours entering and leaving what the Cardinal Command called the basic defensive stance of spear-fighting. She followed along, giving them pointers and fixing common mistakes. It was hard work, and it was excruciating while hungover. But a part of her was ecstatic. It’d been so long since she’d revisited the Cardinal fighting style that it was like catching up with an old friend she hadn’t seen in years.
“Sir—Ma’am—my hand is bleeding. Is it supposed to do that?” asked Yemal, a twenty-something male with five children and one more on the way.
“No, Yemal, you’re holding your spear wrong.” She grabbed his wrists and showed him the right way. Again. “Don’t worry. Eventually you’ll get calluses in the right spots.”
Yemal sighed. “My hands will end up being only calluses, then.”
“Just think of how weak in the knees your wife will be when you turn up transformed into a mighty warrior,” Old Ivan egged him.
“She said that if I get killed and I leave her alone with the kids, she’ll bed my brother,” Yemal said. “She hasn’t talked to me since I signed up,” he added.
“Why would you volunteer, then?” someone asked from the back.
“I have a pregnant wife and five children. This is the most peaceful morning I’ve had in years.”
Green! With the money from the produce sale, Kes could buy a club and some nails, which surely would make for a more effective defense system than these humans.
