They moved quietly, traveling for a few hundred yards before the tunnel branched to the right and left. Dhamon looked over his shoulder. There was a word scrawled in black on the brickwork to the right. “Sorrows” it read. The “s” curved round to make an arrow.
“To the right then,” Dhamon said without hesitation. He could smell the cloying sweet odor of death in that direction, and he could smell nothing but the heavy dampness in the other. Dhamon followed this course only a short way before he climbed more submerged steps that took him into another winding corridor, this one relatively dry. Unfortunately, it dead-ended after another hundred yards.
“Wonderful,” he growled. “We’re a pair of rats in a maze.” He made a move to retrace his steps, then thought better of it. The smell of death hung heavy here, and it had to be coming from somewhere. He passed the torch to Ragh. There were more tiny cracks around two bricks, and he could hear faint hissing voices on the other side of the wall. It sounded like a pair of spawn in the middle of a heated discussion. He drew his sword and pressed on the bricks. The wall pivoted, and he stepped through, coming face to snout with a surprised spawn. Without hesitation, Dhamon drove his sword forward and was greeted with a splash of acid that burned at his clothes and skin. The other speaker, a slightly smaller spawn, retreated down the corridor.
“Oh no,” Dhamon warned. “You’re not going to get help or sound an alarm.” He sped behind it, feet slapping against the damp stone floor, then he thrust out the sword, skewering the spawn in the back where its wings joined. The creature cried out, turned and lunged, but Dhamon was faster, dropping beneath its outstretched claws and bringing the sword up to slice deep into its abdomen. The spawn shuddered and then dissolved in a burst of acid, just as Dhamon leaped back. The sivak edged into the next corridor behind Dhamon, holding the torch out. There were other torches here, guttering fat-soaked ones hanging from iron holders spaced evenly along the walls. These torches gave off scent and heat and illuminated a ghastly site. Dhamon had entered a hallway lined with cells that were crowded with both emaciated prisoners and rotting corpses.
“By the Dark Queen’s heads, where are we?” Dhamon breathed.
The sivak cautiously moved up. “Dungeons are found throughout Sable’s swamps. Some are Sable’s. Some belong to humans who believe they hold some measure of power here. Though horrid, these cells offer us good news—surely we will find stairs and a way to the surface now.”
Dhamon sheathed his sword and tested the bars of the closest cell, finding them too sturdy for even his considerable strength.
“You can’t think to free these people. Look at them.”
Indeed, Dhamon looked closer. None of those in the first several cells would live beyond the next few days. They’d been either starved nearly to death or beaten so severely that moving them would only hasten their demise. Despite that, he tried the bars one more time.
“You’re no hero,” the draconian told him. “Why are you bothering?”
I used to be, Dhamon thought. I used to be Goldmoon’s champion, and I used to care about things beyond myself. Aloud, he said. “What could they possibly have done to deserve this?”
The sivak offered no answer.
Dhamon hesitated for a moment, deciding whether to retreat back through the hidden passage and take the other fork, the one where he could smell nothing. A trace of a familiar voice stopped him. He hurried farther down the corridor, again drawing the sword.
“Dhamon? Dhamon Grimwulf?”
“Aye,” he said, standing in front of another cell and peering between the bars. “Why does • my life seem so intertwined with yours?”
Beyond were a dozen more prisoners and an equal number of dead. Among the prisoners were Rig and Fiona.
“Aye, Rig. It’s me.”
They looked beaten, and not just physically. There was no life left in their eyes. Fiona’s skin looked as pale as parchment. Rig had lost a considerable amount of weight, and his clothes hung on him.
“You’ve got a sivak…!”
“Time for answers later,” Dhamon said, as he passed the sword to the sivak. He braced himself, gripped the bars of the door, and pulled. Despite his strength, the bars did not budge. He tried to bend the most rusted bars, throwing all his effort into it, muscles bunching, jaw clenching. The veins on his neck and arms stood out like thick cords. When the bars did not yield to his first attempt, Dhamon strained harder. Finally he was rewarded with the groan of metal.
“Dhamon,” growled the sivak. “you are not a hero. Think of yourself.”
“Maybe I’ve been doing a little too much of that lately.”
“Listen,” Ragh continued. “Do you hear—”
“Aye, I can hear them. More spawn’re coming,” Dhamon returned.
“Or draconians,” the sivak said. “You’d best hurry. Free them quickly or let’s move on.”
Dhamon took a deep breath and forced the bars again. The effort caused motes of white to dance behind his closed eyes. The metal moved just enough. Prisoners slipped through into the corridor. Dhamon spun on the draconian and grabbed his sword, looking past the people and down both ways of the corridor.
“Hurry,” Dhamon urged them. “We’re going to have company very soon.”
Rig helped Fiona out. She was so weak he half-carried her.
“Thanks,” Rig muttered. “I never thought I’d be so glad to see you again. I thought we were going to die in there.”
“We still might die,” the sivak shot back. “Look.” He gestured with a claw down the corridor, then brushed by the mariner and Fiona to stand shoulder to shoulder with Dhamon.
“You might want to be a hero,” Ragh told Dhamon through clenched teeth. “All I want is the naga. I don’t want this.”
A particularly large spawn had spotted the entourage and was charging down the corridor, webbed feet slapping against the damp stone. Holding his sword like a lance, Dhamon rushed to meet the spawn. Carried forward by its momentum and stupidity, it was unable to stop in time and impaled itself. Dhamon backed up quickly, bumping into Fiona and Rig and avoiding the burst of acid.
“I didn’t think I ever wanted to see you again,” the Solamnic Knight said to Dhamon, “but somehow I knew you’d come here to help us.” She gave him a slight smile. There was the sound of a rainwater barrel crashing over and another burst of acid, signaling another dead spawn, courtesy of Ragh.
“Dhamon, how did you find us?” Rig asked. “How did you know we’d been captured?” The mariner’s overly large clothes were in tatters, torn by what were probably the claws of the spawn. His skin bubbled from acid scars. He had a deep gash on his forearm, and on his neck was a thick ropey scar that glistened pink in the torchlight. Fiona seemed wan and small without her plate mail. Her face was scarred on the left side. Both of them were breathing raggedly. “How’d you even know we were here?” the mariner persisted.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” Dhamon said finally. “I didn’t know you’d been captured. Frankly, I don’t care how you came here. I was here looking for… something.” He waved them along the corridor, eyes flitting down alcoves hoping to find stairs. They passed into a large open area. There were no torches here, though there were elaborate empty sconces.
“Rig, grab a torch from back in the hall, will you?”