Morgan Rice - A Vow of Glory

As the water carried them deeper inside, the cave walls began to take on a soft glow, to light up just a bit; Thor looked closely, wondering where the lights were coming from, and all along the walls he spotted thousands of insects, clinging to the stone, hissing at them, their glowing green eyes opening as they passed them and casting off a light. Thor realized, with dread, that they were waking them. It was like a thousand small candles in the blackness, but at least it afforded them a light to see by.

“What are they?” Elden asked Indra, on guard, afraid they might attack.

“Cavesuckers,” Indra said. “They carry the sting of a hundred bees. You need not worry: they stick to the walls. Unless you provoke them.”

“How do you know if you’ve provoked them?” O’Connor asked.

“Their eyes will glow,” she answered.

Thor gulped.

“As they are doing now?” he asked.

She nodded back.

The hissing continued, and the cavesuckers crawled along the walls, some of them arching their small heads towards the boat.

With the cave aglow, Thor could dimly make out its proportions: it was cavernous, its arched ceiling soaring dozens of feet, and they were riding down the center of a narrow river. Huge stalagmites and stalactites hung from every direction.

There came a low, soft snarling noise from somewhere in the depths of the cave, and Thor turned with the others—but saw nothing.

“I don’t like the feel of this,” Reece said, tightening his hand on his sword hilt.

“Nor do I,” Conval said. He drew his sword, and the metallic ring echoed loudly in the cave, again and again, as if a dozen swords had been drawn.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Indra scolded him. “Now you will provoke them.”

“Provoke who?” Conval asked.

There began to appear from the depths of the blackness, walking towards them, dozens of shadows. They resembled human skeletons, all bones, no flesh, but their bones were black, and their eyes glowed white. They each carried a long, white sword, glistening, reflecting off the water’s light. Thor could see that each sword was made of bone. It looked like human bone.

“The army of the undead,” Indra answered, fear in her voice.

Thor turned slowly and saw that from every corner of the cave there emerged hundreds of these things, these undead skeletons wielding swords of bones, all heading right for them.

“Undead?” Elden asked. “Can they not be killed?”

“No,” Indra replied. “They are already dead. The only ones left to be killed are us.”

There came a great clatter of bones, and suddenly the undead raced towards them, raising their swords.

“Well, if we’re going to die,” Thor said, “it’s going to be on dry ground, and with our swords held high. ATTACK!” Thor commanded.

As one, the nine Legion members jumped from the boat, onto the dry ground of the shore, Krohn leaping out with them. They all drew their swords and bravely charged the undead.

There came a great clash of weapons as sword met sword, the sounds amplified, echoing off of everything inside the cave. The Legion had trained for this, had trained to be outnumbered, had trained to be pitted against fierce warriors—and while these shadow skeletons were fierce, they were still conventional warriors, and no match for the expertise of the Legion.

Thor and the others went blow for blow with the skeletons, and as Thor’s sword met one of theirs, he was happily surprised to see that his steel shattered the bone sword; he then swung around and slashed the skeleton before him, and as he did, all of its bones broke and crumpled into a heap on the ground.

Thor wheeled in every direction, blocking blows, parrying, shattering swords and slashing skeleton after skeleton, leaving heaps of bones at his feet.

All around him, his Legion brothers were doing the same, deftly defeating the warriors before them.

Krohn joined in, leaping into the fray, snarling, pouncing on one skeleton after the next, knocking them down to the ground, and leaving them in piles.

After nearly an hour fighting, the shores were lined with heaps of bones. Though Thor and his Legion brothers were bruised and scratched and breathing hard, exhausted, none were seriously injured.

They all looked at each other, regrouping, out of breath. For their first time since being in the Empire, Thor was hopeful, even optimistic. They had taken some of the worst the Empire could throw at them, and they had survived.

“We won,” O’Connor said. “I can’t believe it.”

They all turned and walked back towards the boat—but as they did, Indra stood there, eyes still wide with fear, looking over their shoulders.

“Do not boast too soon, warrior,” Indra warned.

There arose from behind them a sound that made the hairs on the back of Thor’s neck rise. It was the sound of a thousand bones clattering.

Slowly, Thor turned, almost afraid to look.

There, he was horrified to see, were all the bones of the defeated skeletons, slowly beginning to rise up from the ground, and re-attach themselves. One bone at a time, the entire army of the undead was coming back to life.

“As I said,” Indra said, “you cannot kill what is already dead.”

Thor watch wide-eyed as the entire army began to reassemble itself, to prepare for yet another attack. All that fighting, all of their victory—it had all been useless. These monsters would just keep regenerating themselves, until finally they tired Thor and his men out, and killed them all. They might not be as good fighters—but they had something that Thor and his men never would: endless endurance. And at the end of the day, Thor knew, endurance would always triumph.

“Back to the boat!” Thor yelled, stepping backwards slowly with the others.

As one, they all turned and jumped back into the boat and gave it a good shove from shore, paddling harder than ever. The tides picked up, and soon they were rushing downriver, gaining distance from that shore. Thor and his men ducked as they passed into yet another canal, leaving the cavernous room, just in time to be out of reach of the advancing army.

It was the first time in Thor’s life that victory had been meaningless, and as they entered yet another tunnel of darkness, he wondered, with a futile feeling, what other horrors could await them around the bend.

Gwendolyn stood on the broad stone landing of the lower city of Silesia, surrounded by her generals, soldiers and Silesian citizens, all of them looking out in ominous silence into the vast expanse of the Canyon, watching the second sun drop in the sky. They had not heard a peep from the Empire’s men all this time, and after a long, agitated panic among the crowd, slowly, they had settled into a deep quiet. The tension hung thick in the air, each of them lost in their own world, looking out at the sky, facing their own mortality. It was the quiet of a thousand souls in the eye of a storm, of people who knew they had nowhere left to go but to their deaths.

The silence from the Empire scared Gwendolyn more than their attack. She knew that Andronicus was up there somewhere, plotting something, and she knew it was only a matter time until he executed it. He was as ruthless a soldier as she had ever seen. The worst part was that, even if he did nothing, there would still be no way out for them but death. How long could they survive down here, until their provisions ran out? They had nowhere to go but up. And up was not an option.

Andronicus knew that, of course. He had them all by the throat. He would make them wait it out. Allow their panic to set in. He was probably reveling in it right now. He had them exactly where he wanted.

Gwen supposed she should be pleased with herself for at least fending them off as well as she had in her first battle, for taking out so many of them, and for saving so many of her people in the evacuation. But she was not pleased with herself at all. She felt she had failed.