Nate Kenyon - The Order

While they went, he asked the First Ones to describe exactly what had happened when Leah had been hit by the dart. The plan was progressing in his mind into something stronger. Finally he reached the top, and the skeletal trees ended on the edge of the cliff. Deckard Cain hobbled to the edge and looked out over the valley, through the mist toward the sea. He could just make out Gea Kul gathered there, the hunched back of a sea serpent with the Black Tower rising up like the head of the beast.

They needed more allies. He had no real reason to trust Jeronnan other than blind faith. But something told him the old sea captain would come through.

The others remained behind him as he removed the horn and raised it to his lips.

The sound rose up like a low moan of a mortally wounded beast and grew into a wail of the damned. It echoed over the tops of the dead trees, amplified through the mist, reaching out across the valley. Cain slammed his staff down on the rock, and a crackle of energy and power rippled outward with a flash of light. A moment later the distant screams of others came from somewhere beyond the trees, as if in answer. Friend or foe, he could not tell.

Cain turned to the others as the sounds echoed and died away. “I need you to find a type of root that grows near here,” he said. “And bring me your shovels and pickaxes. We have some more digging to do.” He took out the folded parchment that contained the map of the tunnels under Gea Kul.

“This is our way in. And then we go to war. But not in the way you think.”

As he had promised, the old sea captain came searching for the source of the horn’s blast. Cain met Jeronnan on the edge of the jungle and explained what he needed to do. The only way for them to have a chance of victory was through trickery and deceit, and Jeronnan would provide a distraction. The captain eagerly agreed, ready to fight for his beloved town.

They studied the map of tunnels that led directly underneath the Black Tower. Cain took careful notes of strategic locations to place his charges, while the others dug for the root he needed and the right minerals to fill his sacks. The plan fell into shape. A spell of concealment would hide them long enough to get underground and away from prying eyes. From there, while Jeronnan led a march on the tower aboveground with the few remaining citizens who were not under the sway of the feeders, their party would slip in secret beneath the streets and infiltrate it from below.

If Cain was right, they had until the sun rose before Ratham would begin.

Thomas knew the upper tunnels even better than Egil had, and he wasted little time getting them to the right entrance. He led the small group under the cover of darkness through knee-high dead grasses to a separate sewer grate away from the town’s main gate, well hidden by a mound of refuse and mud. They pulled the grate aside, entered the narrow hole, and climbed down an iron ladder to the stone floor, where Thomas lit his lantern, bathing the passage with yellow light.

The tunnels were dark and empty, dripping with moisture. They smelled like moldy graves. Cain prayed they would not become his tomb.

The remaining First Ones had pitchforks, swords and bows, kitchen knives and hammers. It was a sad army of perhaps twenty-five people, several of them wounded. Mikulov was at the lead with Thomas and the lantern, while Cain brought up the rear with Cullen. Farris remained aloof, but he had agreed to come, and his small, loyal group had joined him. Cain was not quite sure whether he could be trusted. But there was little choice now.

They shuffled forward until the last of the glow from the entrance had faded away. Then they paused, huddled close together, as if trying to remain bathed in the light. The lantern’s glow penetrated the darkness only a few feet.

The sound of scratching came from somewhere down in the tunnel. Thomas held the lantern up. They saw nothing at first, and then, just beyond the circle where the light penetrated, something moved. A ghostly moan drifted up to them, followed by a thud and a bone-shivering crash.

“Cover the light!” someone hissed, and Thomas threw his cloak over the lantern, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Another thud shook the walls, dirt and small pebbles trickling down to the floor.

The thuds came again, closer this time. “Footsteps,” whispered Cullen in the dark, his voice full of fear.

A foul stench overwhelmed them. Thomas uncovered the lantern again and held it up.

An unburied stood about thirty feet away, its massive girth nearly filling the tunnel. The smell of rotting flesh washed over them once again as the thing fixed multiple sets of filmy eyes on them and roared, charging down the tunnel as if it meant to crush them under its bulk.

The men erupted in panic. Thomas turned to run, and the lantern nearly went out in the ensuing bedlam. Mikulov darted forward, and suddenly there was a flash of bright light, and the unburied roared again as the sound of fists striking flesh followed another bone-shaking crash. Cain shouted at the men to wait, holding out his arms in the tunnel as they came toward him.

Thomas stopped, his face as white as parchment, before he set himself and turned back.

The creature slumped sideways against the tunnel wall. One gigantic limb had been torn from its body, and oozing gashes gaped like new mouths in its torso. Mikulov’s movements were a blur as he attacked again, slicing at the thing’s meaty neck with his blade. The unburied roared in pain or anger and tried to turn, lashing out with the spikes of its good arm, but it was slow and clumsy in the confined space, and the blow crashed into the stone wall as Mikulov moved lightly on his feet, dancing out of range before darting in again and pummeling the soft flesh with his fists and blade.

The monk cried out as he struck, and a wave of power exploded from his palm, causing the creature to fall back as its many fanged mouths opened and closed, hissing and dripping dark fluids.

With a small cry of his own, Cullen ran forward, raising his pitchfork and thrusting it straight into the monster’s side. Another man released an arrow from his bow, which sank deep into the unburied’s back.

As it lumbered around again to face the rest of them, Mikulov swung his blade, slicing deep through the monster’s neck with one mighty blow.

Foul dark fluid spouted from the wound. The creature’s head tilted to one side, exposing a stump of rotten, writhing meat. Its swollen, putrid body trembled, Cullen’s pitchfork quivering like a tuning fork.

Mikulov stepped forward with his palm thrust out and struck once again with blinding speed, unleashing a wave of pure energy directed straight into the unburied’s chest.

The creature exploded.

Bits of dead flesh flew in all directions, covering the closest men with gore. Chunks of rock rebounded off the tunnel walls and rolled to a stop at Cain’s feet. Part of an arm came to rest next to the rock, twitched once, and was still.

The lantern flame guttered with the blast but did not go out. Thomas held it up again, revealing a scene of such carnage it was almost impossible to believe. Pieces of flesh still wriggled like the legs of a dead insect. One of the disembodied heads opened its fanged mouth, white-filmed eyes rolling blindly in a suppurating skull, before Farris crushed it under his boot with a sickening, wet crunch.

The tunnel was silent for a long moment. “We . . . killed it,” Thomas said wonderingly.

“Can you kill something that’s already dead?” Cullen said, grinning like a madman and wiping gore from his glasses.

They all looked at each other. Several of the men shouted and clapped one another on the back. But Cain could not share in their celebration. They had little time to waste. He imagined Leah chained in a dark room, with Garreth Rau preparing the demonic ritual that might cost Leah her life.