David Chandler - A thief in the night

The barbarian laughed and shook his head. “It is like the olden days, when my brother and I would wrestle and play tricks on one another,” he said.

“It’s good to have a laugh now and again,” Croy agreed. He sighed. “Ah, Morget, here we are-surrounded by death and danger, our comrades in certain peril, lost in the dark in the lair of a demon.”

The barbarian agreed with a hearty sigh. “What other treasures could life offer to a man?”

Croy’s eyes went wide. This was a… treasure? And yet… he knew exactly what Morget meant. Croy never felt so alive as when he was dodging certain annihilation, or cutting his way through a throng of enemies. As much as he wanted to rescue Cythera and Slag and get away from the Vincularium, there was a part of him that longed for adventures like this, and mourned how few of them fate presented to him.

“I’ll miss this life,” he said.

“You are expecting to die soon?” Morget asked.

“Only part of me.” Croy shook his head. “I fear the age of adventuring is coming to an end. My land is pacified, and from here to the mountains in every direction, it is turned to agriculture, and the good of mankind. All of Skrae is under the rule of the king’s law. No more trolls scheming in dark forests. No more bandits preying on travelers in the hills.” He laughed a little. “And every year, fewer sorcerers remain-the arcane arts are thankfully being lost. Now that Hazoth is dead, there are only two or three real sorcerers left in the world. And where there are no sorcerers, there can be no demons that need slaying.”

“It is true. Too true,” Morget agreed.

“Well, no point in crying over future boredom when today is full of excitement,” Croy said, brushing off his cloak as best he could. He would need to bathe before he saw Cythera again, or she would most likely faint from the smell of him. “We must press on.” He sniffed at the air. The stench of the manure didn’t bother him so much anymore-nor did it obscure other smells quite as much. He led Morget back to the central aisle, then started once more up the tunnel, looking for another way up.

He sniffed at the air again. Something-maybe-reached his nose that was not the smell of excrement, nor of mushrooms, nor of general damp. Something sharp and slightly acrid. Something that tickled the roof of his mouth.

Looking back at Morget, he placed a finger across his lips for silence. Then he drew Ghostcutter.

He had definitely smelled the smoke of a campfire.

Croy and Morget moved forward silently, taking light steps to avoid splashing in the water that covered the floor. They both had their swords drawn but held low so they wouldn’t glimmer in the light.

There was definitely light ahead of them, far down the tunnel. They had extinguished their candles. Croy could see very little. But his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him-a flickering radiance came down the aisle, glinting on the wet floor.

He was unable to dispel a nagging thought. Nothing they’d seen so far required fire. Nothing they’d seen suggested there was a desire for warmth or light in this forgotten place. The fire might have been natural. The fungus they’d seen lining the walls of the central shaft might be flammable, and some strange alchemy of forgotten places might have started a blaze on its own. But he thought not-the fire was glowing too steadily, as if it had been tended with care. And a natural fire down here would have spread quickly, given enough fuel, while this fire seemed to be carefully contained.

Which left only one possible conclusion: they were not alone in the Vincularium.

He already knew that the demon haunted the place. He’d also seen the countless revenants up on the top level. He understood that the ancient city was not completely abandoned. Yet this fire suggested that things were far more complicated than he’d previously believed. The demon didn’t seem intelligent enough to use fire. The revenants were creatures of the cold and the dark-they had shunned Dawnbringer’s light, so why would they make a fire of their own? No, there must be living creatures here. Living people, who needed to stay warm.

He should have known earlier, he thought. The flock of beetles and then the farm of mushrooms should have spelled it out clearly. Farms did not prosper on their own. Someone had to be cultivating the fungus. If someone didn’t come by periodically to harvest the yield, the crop of mushrooms would have died and rotted long since.

He looked back at Morget and thought of how to proceed. There was no telling how many enemies might be waiting by that fire. Yet Croy knew he had to get through them. They’d found no other path toward the upper levels. If he wanted to go up, he had to go through whoever tended that fire. If he wanted to rescue Cythera and Slag, he needed to keep advancing.

The racks on either side provided excellent cover, but there was no way to move forward without heading up the center aisle. It was also their only path of retreat, should there be more resistance ahead than the two of them could handle.

“Do you see any other path but to charge forward?” he whispered to the barbarian.

“I’ve rarely needed any other,” the barbarian replied.

Croy nodded. He frowned and looked forward again. Shadows flowed along the ceiling, as if someone had moved around the fire. “Together we run up there, as fast as we can, and surprise them.”

Morget nodded. “As it should be.”

Croy shifted his grip on Ghostcutter’s hilt. Then he held up three fingers. Morget looked at them in incomprehension, then shrugged and ran forward, bellowing a war cry and brandishing Dawnbringer over his head.

For a second Croy watched the barbarian recede before him, aghast at how much noise Morget made. He supposed it was honorable to let your enemies know you were coming, but still Oh, enough, Croy thought. Then he screamed, “For Skrae and her king!” and followed the barbarian in his headlong rush up the tunnel.

Croy could see nothing but Morget’s back. His feet kept slipping on the wet floor and his breath plumed out before him in the damp. His brains felt like they were rattling in his skull as his boots came crashing down, again and again, on the hard flagstones.

He thought he must be running to certain death-at least, certain death for someone. The long tunnel sped past him, rack after rack of mushrooms in their ordure, and then suddenly the tunnel opened up, widening out into a broad antechamber.

Morget staggered to a stop. Croy saw the barbarian standing over a very small campfire, turning his head back and forth as he sought something. Croy drew up beside him and looked down to see buckets of water sitting by the fire. Nothing else.

“He disappeared before I could cut him down,” Morget said. He sounded like a gambler who had just discovered a card cheat.

“He? Who did you see? I saw nothing,” Croy told the barbarian.

Morget frowned. “There was one person here. Small, perhaps a youth.”

“A warrior of some kind? Was he wearing armor?”

“No.”

“Was he armed?” Croy asked.

“I do not think so. I do not know if it was even a male. It might have been a girl. It was very small. Yes. Probably a girl, judging by the noise she made. She screeched a bit, then ran that way.” Morget pointed with Dawnbringer toward the wall of the tunnel. Croy saw no door there, not even a wide crack between the mortared bricks. “She simply vanished.”

“Cythera can do that,” Croy said, rubbing his chin. “She can make herself invisible, but only for a few moments at a time. You… you don’t think it was Cythera?”

Morget shook his head violently. “Definitely not. Cythera is bigger. You know, taller. And dresses in finer clothes. This girl wore only a much-patched shift.”