“How far up is this along the interior passageway?” Richard asked the sergeant.
The sergeant led them back to the service stairwell and motioned the guards to close the door. “Above halfway up. Before, I had a man stationed at each one of these doors on the way down, guarding them so that people couldn’t wander in here and have access to the restricted areas of the palace.”
“One man at each post?” Richard asked, since there were now two men at each door.
The sergeant wet his lips. “Yes. The doors are always bolted from this side so that people can’t wander in here, but we often had men guard the doors when a lot of people were visiting the palace, like now, just so that there wouldn’t be funny business. You know how people get curious about locked doors.”
Before Richard could question him, the man started out again.
“This way, please, Lord Rahl.”
The sergeant continued on down the stairs, hurrying the entire way. After what seemed like an endless series of flights of stairs, they finally approached the bottom. Half a dozen men with torches waited there for them. Even the torches couldn’t entirely banish the oppressive darkness. They hissed and sputtered, is if warding off the haunting silence. The smell of burning pitch helped mask the dank, musty odor.
Once Richard and his party had all joined the sergeant at the bottom, the sergeant signaled most of the men with torches to go on ahead. Then he tilted his head, indicating he wanted Richard and the rest of them to keep following as he led them all onward through a wider hall and then a dark passageway that reeked of stagnant water, mold, and dead rats. In places there were puddles of water they had to skirt or step over. Their footsteps echoed in whispers back from the darkness.
When the men with the torches stopped before a broad opening into pitch blackness beyond, Sergeant Barclay halted and turned back to all those following him.
“If it pleases you, Lord Rahl, I think the ladies should remain here while I take you on alone the rest of the way back in there to see it.”
“See what?” Shale asked.
“Please, trust me on this.” He paused to lick his lips nervously. “If you would, could you just wait here and let Lord Rahl come with me, alone?”
“Where Lord Rahl goes, I go,” Vika said with finality.
The other Mord-Sith all looked to be of the same mind.
“You wouldn’t have brought us down here if it wasn’t something important,” Shale said. “I’m going, too.”
“Show us what you brought us down here for, would you, please?” Kahlan commanded.
The sergeant was about to object, but at the look of resolve in her eyes, he simply let the breath out and turned to Richard as if to implore him to intervene.
“Just do as she asks, would you, Sergeant?”
The sergeant took one more look around at all the determined faces, then nodded. With a sweep of his arm, he ushered a few of the men with torches ahead into the darkness.
“Watch our backs,” he told the ones he left behind. They nodded and took up positions to each side of the entrance.
“What’s in here?” Richard asked, wondering what the men needed to watch their backs from. In some of the broader areas Richard saw the shapes of stone blocks stacked in random places. “What is the purpose of this place?”
Sergeant Barclay looked back over one of his broad shoulders as he hurried onward. “It’s an area where part of the foundation was constructed. The foundation is massive. I can’t say for sure, but I believe this area was used to store construction materials—stone and such—during the construction of the palace. After it was finished the room was left empty, possibly so that the foundation could be inspected from time to time, or possibly it was simply not seen as worth the effort to fill it in.”
As they hurried down the roughly hewn passageway, Richard could begin to pick up the unmistakable stench of death. Before long it was bad enough to make his eyes water. Shale and Kahlan tried to cover their mouths, but it wasn’t much help.
“Wait,” Shale finally said, bringing them all to a halt. “Wait just a moment.”
She scooped up a handful of pebbles near the edge of the uneven floor. She spun her other hand around over the top of the hand with the pebbles. Finally, she held out her hand, palm up.
“Here. Each of you take one of these. I infused them with a powerful smell of mint oils. Hold it up to your nose to help keep from gagging.” She looked to Kahlan. “In case any of us might have unsettled stomachs to begin with, I don’t want any of us vomiting from the smell of death.”
The three soldiers, Richard, and Kahlan each gladly took a pebble.
Kahlan held it to her nose and took a deep breath. “I’ve smelled the stench of death often enough. It’s something you never get used to. This helps a little. Thanks.”
The sergeant looked grateful for the menthol-scented rock. Richard certainly was. The Mord-Sith seemed indifferent.
Vale took one, smelled it, then handed it back to Shale. “Thanks, but I don’t need it.”
Shale arched an eyebrow as she glanced at Richard.
Richard didn’t feel like taking the time to explain Mord-Sith to Shale. “Let’s go,” he said to the sergeant.
In a short distance, the smell of death became so overpowering that Richard was glad to have the salvation of the pebble that filled his nostrils with the strong aroma of menthol. It helped mask some of the sickening smell. Without it, it would have been difficult to continue. As it was, it was still hard to take.
The end of the crude passageway opened into a vast chamber. In the dim, flickering torchlight, Richard saw something ahead in the darkness.
“What is that?” He could hear buzzing, but he couldn’t see exactly what it was.
Sergeant Barclay held a hand up urging them to wait as he went forward a short distance with a torch to show them what was there. Richard blinked in stunned astonishment when the torchlight lit the scene. Shale leaned forward, her eyes wide.
“Dear spirits help us,” Kahlan whispered as her eyes welled up with tears.
10
What Richard was looking at was so incomprehensible that at first, he wasn’t sure he could believe that it really was what he thought it was.
There in front of them, up against a dark, towering, rough-hewn stone wall near one of the monolithic footings of the foundation, was a massive pile of remains. It took a moment for it to sink in that the mass of the irregular heap were indeed remains, and that they were all human. Blood and bodily fluids had drained out in great, thick pools across the floor. Clouds of flies buzzed all over the chaotic pile while others drank at the edges of the thick liquid on the floor. In the shadows, what at first looked like the pile moving proved to be rats burrowing through the remains.
The stench was overpowering, even with the menthol stones Shale had made for them. The smell was sickening enough, but the sight of it added another dimension to his revulsion.
White bones or pieces of bones stuck out everywhere from the tangled jumble of spinal columns, smaller bones, clothes, guts, and connective tissue putrefying in the humid darkness. Most of the bones had had small bits of tissue still attached. Bloodstains gave most of the bones a dark patina. Many had been shattered to get at the marrow. Some were gouged with claw marks that Richard recognized from those he had seen on Kahlan’s arm.
Here and there Richard spotted chest and shoulder plates from the leather armor of men of the First File. All of them he could see had been ripped apart by claws. That leather armor had afforded no protection from the power of the attackers. Tangled in among the remains were bloody sections of chain mail. Here and there weapons lay among the debris.