Brian Kittrell - The Immortals of Myrdwyer

We’ll give away the advantage of surprise, but we can’t navigate the place in the blind. “A risk we’ll have to take.”

Tavin pulled the handle, then jumped to the side as the door fell to the ground. “As I said, the buildings are in disrepair.”

“That doesn’t worry me.” Laedron peered into the darkness. “How far that echoed is what concerns me.”

“Can’t help it now,” Tavin said. Laedron and his companions followed him inside the building.

The smell is nothing like what I thought it would be . The mustiness hung in the air like the smell of ale in a tavern. Perhaps the scent of decay lessens over time. He had little experience with the dead, for Sorbians-at least those living outside the big cities-buried the fallen in earthen graves instead of placing them in catacombs, and the bodies he’d dealt with apparently hadn’t been dead long enough to have an odor strong enough to detect.

Thankfully Tavin went first, and while he seemed cautious of his surroundings, he must have had nerves of steel because he walked with a certain confidence down the narrow stairwell. Laedron couldn’t say the same, for every scrape of boot against stone, every droplet of water falling and echoing in the pitch black, and each gust of breeze put him on edge. The hairs on the back of his neck stood tall and straight like the ancient trees in the forest.

Reaching the bottom, Tavin glanced over his shoulder at them, then whispered something to the gem in his hand. The shard grew brighter, illuminating the vast chamber beyond the end of the stairs.

“What is this?” Laedron whispered, tiptoeing up to Tavin’s side.

“You’ve never been in a catacomb before?”

“No, I can’t say that I visit them often.”

“We’re entering the first hypogeum.” Tavin kept his volume low as he walked. “And as Uxidin catacombs go, the first chamber is the largest. We build them big enough so as not to need extensions, but we’ve found the need to expand after the passing of time-centuries, mind you. It was built to house hundreds, and we filled those spots quickly.

“The shelves in the center were added later when we needed extra space, for the cost for digging was higher. Eventually, we had to add more antechambers off the main one, and so on, until the place held thousands of our lost brothers and sisters.”

Laedron eyed the loculi in the nearby walls, the bodies placed in their own cavities, sometimes within and sometimes without a sarcophagus. “Thousands…”

Hearing the clattering of metal, Laedron looked at Brice, noticing his hand shaking and the rings of his chain glove tapping the hilt of his sword, and said, “Calm yourself. A few still graves-”

Tavin’s hand shot over Laedron’s mouth, and Laedron struggled to free himself until he heard a hiss from the distant darkness, an unnatural, airy sound like that of the final breath leaving a body. Then, he saw what had approached the edge of the light. The Netheren’s desiccated skin hung on its bones like ribbons, dry and tattered shreds, and the crusted leather armor wasn’t in much better shape. It held an old blade that appeared cracked and rusted, but Laedron feared the weapon even more for its wear. It’s probably dull, too. And jagged. Such an edge would be unlikely to cut a clean wound. The suffering it would inflict… unthinkable.

Laedron raised his scepter and pointed it at the walking corpse. He would have cast his spell-a blast of fire, probably-if he hadn’t noticed all the glowing eyes surrounding them, a multitude of colored orbs in the darkness. There must be hundreds of them . Laedron elbowed Marac and pointed past Valyrie, then to the left and right.

Marac spun and searched for his first target, his sword glowing unnaturally. “What do we do, Lae?”

“I-” Laedron stared at Valyrie, unable to think of any strategy. I hope that I live to see her face in the morning, that we both live to see it out of this mess.

“Closing on the left,” Brice said. “The right, too. They’re all around us.”

“A ring of flames.” Tavin snapped his fingers in Laedron’s face. “When they come close, summon fire around us and maintain it for as long as you can.”

Bobbing his head, Laedron stood at the center of the group and waited for the undead to come near. When they were close enough, he repeated the words for the incantation. It came out a jumbled mess of stuttering.

“Focus, Sorcerer!” Tavin shot a look at Laedron, then peered at the approaching horde.

The undead had gotten within a few steps of them. Laedron cast the spell, and a ring of flames rose up around them.

One by one, the Netheren mindlessly entered the inferno. The dead were engulfed like twigs soaked in lantern fuel, but some continued despite the fire. With his shield, Marac shoved one of the burning creatures back. Brice kicked another, then stomped on the ground to extinguish his pants.

“It’s working,” Marac said. “They’re-”

Lunging over the burning wall from the top of a nearby rack, a Netheren grabbed Marac and sent him to the ground. He tried to swing his sword, but he dropped it. The dagger pointed at his chest, Marac pushed up while the creature bore down.

Pointing her bow upward, Valyrie released an arrow, and it struck another creature dead in its center. The force spell manifested in a flash. The corpse split in two and landed at her feet, and Valyrie drew the bowstring back, searching for another target.

Losing focus at the sight of Marac beneath the fiend, Laedron had trouble maintaining his spell, and the flames flickered. “Somebody help him.”

“Keep the spell going before you get us all killed,” Tavin said, pushing past the Brice and delivering a kick to the dead thing’s head. Crushed by the blow, the head erupted with worms and rotten brain matter. Laedron’s stomach grumbled with disgust at the sight. Marac, covered with bits and pieces of some unknown black substance, pushed the dagger away, then clambered to his feet and continued the fight.

“They’re not as stupid as you thought,” Brice said after slashing a burning corpse and forcing it back into the flames. “Lae, make the fire bigger, taller.”

Gritting his teeth, Laedron forced the blaze higher, too high for the Netheren to jump over it, and several corpses caught fire when they plunged into the flames. He had just smiled when he heard a voice echo throughout the crypt. He likened the voice to that of a drowning man, but raspier. He slowly turned to see a Netheren standing a hundred feet or more away-past the host of walking corpses-and atop a burial rack.

Marac walked over to Laedron. “What the…?”

“A spell!” Tavin raised his wand at the undead mage.

Laedron tried to control his breathing and lost his focus. Tavin had only gotten out a few words of his incantation when a deluge of water fell upon them. Laedron let his spell fizzle, for the water had put out his fire. Aside from the occasional drip, he heard only silence. He stared across the sea of undead warriors, then heard a rattling of metal against metal. One of the Netheren banged its sword against its shield, then the others joined in the cacophony. The chamber echoed with the clattering of thousands.

All is lost . Laedron stared at the ground and shook his head. He turned to Tavin, expecting to see a defeated man, but Tavin didn’t seem intimidated. Instead, he called out, “You think dropping water upon us will weaken our resolve? Witness true power.”

Shouting a spell, Tavin flung his wand toward the enemy sorcerer. A bolt of lightning wound its way across the empty space between them. Upon contact, sparkles of electricity engulfed the undead mage’s body, which exploded in a rain of gore. Arcs of energy shot to nearby creatures, then to more, until every Netheren in a straight line from Tavin either convulsed with the shock or collapsed into a smoking pile of bones and skin.