The two women walked out of the courtyard and made their way across the wide ruins to one of the lushly overgrown gardens. Several other militia and guardsmen joined them until they had a group of eight striding along behind them.
“Do you know of a series of passages under the palace grounds?” Linsha asked.
Mariana nodded. “Iyesta did not like anyone to go down there because she kept her treasure in the large chamber under her throne room, but most of us know about it.”
“Has anyone gone down there recently?”
The half-elf grew thoughtful. “I know a group of the dragon’s guards went downstairs through the throne room entrance to be sure the treasure was intact. We feared Iyesta might have taken her treasure and left for good.”
“She didn’t.”
“No. Nothing was touched and there was no sign of her.” Mariana looked around curiously at the path they took. She was a tall, well-balanced warrior who was fiercely loyal to the dragonlord and the militia, and someone who took her job very seriously. She had made it her business to know every inch of the grounds of the palace, yet she knew of no reason why Linsha would bring her to this particular area. “What do you know about the passages?” she demanded.
“That they are much more extensive than mere passages under this palace,” Linsha said.
She slowed down along a narrow path and scanned the crumbling, ancient buildings around her, looking for the one she remembered. Then she saw it, its doorway nearly lost in a mass of vines and flowering creepers. She led the way inside and found the steep stairs that led downward. The others followed silently.
The light swiftly faded behind them, and the damp, cool darkness took over. Linsha held her lantern high and found the right passage that led downward into the labyrinth.
The half-elf chuckled mirthlessly at the stone walls around her. “I did not know that entrance was here. I wonder what other entrances she had hidden around.”
Linsha was about to reply when she noticed something slightly different. She stopped so fast, the captain behind her bumped into her back and jogged the lantern in her hand, sending shadows jigging madly over the walls. Fearfully, Linsha pushed the lamp into Mariana’s hand and strode forward several paces where she could be away from the smoke and smell of the burning lantern. She sniffed the dank air slowly and deliberately, and she caught it again—a faint smell that had not been there the few days ago when she came this way with Iyesta.
“Mariana, leave the lamps and come here,” she insisted.
The half-elf heard the tone in her voice and did not argue. When she reached Linsha, she started to say something then she, too, found the taint in the air. Her brow lowered to a worried frown. From her elf-blood she had inherited stronger senses, including a more powerful sense of smell. She knew immediately from which direction the smell emanated, and with Linsha beside her, she hurried along the passage. The rest of the group followed close on their heels. The tunnel here was high and wide and skillfully built, full of moving air, echoes, and a sense of space.
“I don’t know where this leads,” Linsha said.
“I don’t either,” was Mariana’s only reply.
They said nothing more for nearly a quarter of an hour as they walked through the dark passages of Iyesta’s lair and followed a smell that grew stronger with every passing minute. Even the soldiers of the guard and the militia had caught the smell and murmured worriedly among themselves.
All too soon the stench became heavy and pervasive. Linsha and Mariana covered their noses with their sleeves and pressed on in the thick darkness.
Something small and multi-legged skittered out of the light, its claws making hard scratching noises on the stone. The two women exchanged glances. They both recognized the creature in the brief glimpse they had before it disappeared—a large carrion beetle. And where there was one, there were usually more.
Linsha held the lantern overhead. There was a mutual gasp. More beetles clung to the wall and the ceiling of the passage, their oblong bodies iridescent with a sickly greenish light reflected from the lantern. So replete were they that they did not move as the group passed by them with lanterns.
“I believe we’re near the throne room,” Mariana said quietly. “There are supposed to be more large chambers under there connected by passages large enough even for Iyesta.”
“Did anyone notice this smell when they went down to check Iyesta’s hoard?”
The half-elf s voice was muffled through the cloth of her sleeve. The reek was so strong now that her eyes were watering. “I don’t believe so. That was three days ago. They would have investigated this.”
Just ahead, at the farthest edge of the light, they saw the passage come to an end in a high-arched doorway.
Beetles clung to the doorframe and scuttled across the floor. The blackness beyond was impenetrable, and out of the void came a stench so foul that the searchers could hardly draw breath.
Fighting off fear and sickness, Linsha, Mariana, and the soldiers groped forward into the dreadful opening. The walls and ceiling around them vanished into a vast space that echoed with their footsteps and the sound of uncountable insects scrabbling and chewing and chittering in the darkness.
Linsha raised the lantern again. The feeble lantern light spread a small pool of pale light across the great floor. It was not nearly bright enough to light the entire cavern, but it was enough to show them the end of their search. Her hand flew to the dragon scales on the chain under her shirt. Mariana gave a cry of despair.
They had found Iyesta.
14
Mourning a Friend
She lay sprawled across the floor of the abandoned stone chamber, a great hulking carcass that stretched almost from wall to wall. They knew it was she by the size of the corpse and by the piles of brass scales that heaped on the floor where the carrion beetles had chewed them loose to get at the flesh beneath. Withered and tattered skin hung over the skeleton like a ragged blanket. Bone shone through the rents and gaps in the half-devoured flesh. It was difficult to tell how long she had been dead, for the beetles had been hard at work and through the gaping holes and tears in the skin, the searchers could see the corpse writhe with the gorging insect bodies.
“Paladine preserve us!” Mariana moaned. “What did this to her?”
Huddled around the two small lanterns, the group made its slow way around the corpse toward the head. What they found dismayed them all.
“Oh, gods,” Linsha murmured for everyone.
The long, supple neck lay collapsed on the stone floor, mostly eaten away by the beetles, but where the head should have been was nothing but a dried pool of blood.
“Someone took her head,” breathed Mariana. “Who would do that?”
“Another dragon,” Linsha said flatly.
“Thunder?” gasped one of the soldiers.
The captain shook her head in disbelief. “How would a dragon have gotten in here? We’ve doubled the guards on this palace since Iyesta’s disappearance.”
“Since her disappearance,” Linsha repeated. “What about the night of the storm? All this time we’ve worried for her and looked for her, she’s been dead below our feet.” She whirled around, glaring at the tiny pool of light thrown from the lanterns. “We need more light. We must learn what happened here. Who killed her? Who took her head?”
Mariana readily agreed. “You three. Go back the way we came. Bring torches and all the help you can find. Tell anyone who comes down here to wear a mask. You three—” she turned to the next set of soldiers—“take word to the city elders, the Legion, and the Solamnic fortress that Iyesta is dead. I’m sure you are smart enough to leave Lady Linsha’s name out of your report. Now, you two—” she spoke to the remaining soldiers—“there is another entrance over there, large enough for a dragon. Get torches and see if that corridor leads to the treasure vault. The way should be shorter than the way we came.”