“Who’s there?”
He barked the words, hoping to scare off any creature which might lurk in the dark. With practiced skill, he loosened the first few inches of his blade.
No reply came at first, but then, yards farther down the tunnel, he saw a green spark of light. Tiny at first, like an ember cast into the sky by some eldritch fire, the spark grew larger and brighter until it rivaled his own torch. Then he saw the light’s wielder.
“Hahn? What in the name of the Gods are you…”
Sienhin took a few sloshing strides toward him, then stopped, both at the memory of what Therrador told him about the Voice of the People, and as the other figures standing behind Hahn Perdaro came into view.
“Hello, General.” Perdaro smiled and gestured at the men standing behind him. “We’re glad you could make it.”
Without the sickly green glow at the end of the staff in Hahn Perdaro’s hand, the six creatures standing with him would have been hideous. The light, however, turned them into monsters, deepening the hole in one’s throat, making the other’s sunken eyes sink farther into its skull. Parchment thin skin pulled tight across a dented skull took on an amphibious hue appropriate for the damp tunnel surroundings. Sienhin lowered his brows and pulled his sword.
“What is this, Hahn?”
The Voice of the People smiled crookedly. “Exactly what it looks like, General. We’re here to stop you.”
“Traitor. How could you do this to your king? To your kingdom?”
Perdaro’s laughter echoed down the tunnel and Sienhin felt heat rise in his cheeks. He concentrated to keep anger from quaking his sword hand.
“This kingdom was lost long ago-long before Braymon ever fell. It just didn’t know it yet.” He brandished the glowing end of his staff toward the general. “Do you see this? That’s not flame, old friend, it’s magic. How can you fight it? And them.” He gestured again at the undead soldiers.
“I care not for your magic and your dead men, Hahn.” Sienhin took a step forward, closing the distance between himself and his adversaries, and felt a familiar calmness descend on his mind despite his outward bluster. It was ever this way with a fight imminent. “I care only for my homeland.”
“Don’t be foolish, Sir Alton. This is a battle you cannot win. Lay down your sword and join me. I have the Archon’s ear, and I’ll make sure she knows of your cooperation. You will be compensated.”
“You can have that whore’s ear. I’ll not lay my sword down until I have her head.”
“As you like.”
Perdaro stepped back and swept his arms forward. With the gesture, the five undead soldiers advanced, chipped swords and rusted axes in hand.
The general’s muscles tensed, ready to accept their attack, but his gaze flickered away at the feel of a cold touch around his knees. A billowy white mist had crept into the drainage tunnel from one of the side ducts. It resembled a mist that might collect in a meadow with the dawn of a springtime sun, and it floated past him as though it moved with a purpose, collecting in the space between him and the dead men. Sienhin’s legs and sword arm strained to the point of pain.
What manner of deviltry is this?
The Kanosee dead men halted at the sight of it, seemingly unwilling to let their lifeless flesh contact the vapor. It swirled a slow, gentle circle, then extended upward into a slender column.
“What are you waiting for?” Perdaro screeched. “Kill him!”
The Kanosee soldiers looked at each other with dead eyes and hesitated a second longer. In that instant, the column of mist rectified itself into the shape of a ghostly woman. Sienhin gasped a half-breath in surprise but stopped himself for fear inhaling the mist might prove deadly.
“Whore,” he muttered raising his sword.
The translucent woman advanced on him before the soldiers did and, before she made contact with him, he saw it wasn’t the Archon, but a face he didn’t know. Then the ghostly woman’s hands touched his chest and, instead of passing through him or wrapping around him as a mist should have done, her palms hit him like a mace, knocking his wind free of his lungs and sending him from his feet.
The general tumbled backward, arms thrashing for balance. The torch hit the murky water first, hissing as it extinguished and throwing the tunnel into the sickly green glow of Hahn Perdaro’s staff, but Sienhin’s experience of it was short-lived. His back hit the water, then his head. In an instant, the sludgy liquid surrounded him, covered him.
Foul fluid touched his tongue, rubbed against his eyes. The black water muted the light of Perdaro’s staff to a far-off turquoise tint, but Sienhin paid it little attention, for in a matter of seconds the undead soldiers, or the ghost woman, or both, would be on him. He fought his throat’s urge to gag the squalid water from his mouth and attempted to sit up and remove himself from its depths, to bring his sword to bear in defense, but it felt as though a weight sat atop his chest, holding him below the surface.
He blinked flecks of detritus out of his eyes and flailed uselessly under the water. The turquoise hue grew brighter, changed in quality, and something about it made Sir Alton Sienhin cease his thrashing. He sank to the bottom, black water cradling him until he settled in the layer of sludge. His back touched the bricks and a calmness settled in on him.
This is the end then.
The thought of dying didn’t scare him; he’d faced death more times than he could count or wanted to try. But with him died Therrador’s message. With him died the hope of the kingdom. The weight of his failure weighed him down, held him under the water.
Then the flash came, startling him. Orange-yellow light bright enough to penetrate the murky water and nearly blind him flashed like a bolt of lightning. It remained for a second, maybe two, then disappeared and darkness descended-no orange-yellow light, no turquoise glow. Sienhin rose off the bottom as though rescued by helping hands. His face broke the surface and he coughed viscous fluid out of his lungs and throat and nose.
Breath surged into his chest and decades of combat brought his sword up, ready for an attack as he lay in the water. None came. Sienhin remained stationary, his blade held over him, only his eyes moving as they darted side-to-side. He sensed no movement in the darkness, heard no sound save the plunk of water droplets falling from his blade. A gust of foul wind buffeted his cheeks and sent a wave washing over his nose before it died away. After a few seconds, he drew another ragged breath through his nostrils. He never would have thought he’d be happy to draw such a rank smell into his chest, but it was better than sucking polluted water into his lungs.
Wondering where a breeze had come from in an underground tunnel, Sienhin struggled to his feet and tossed aside the useless torch he still held in his left hand. It banged against the wall and landed in the water with a mute splash, as though it hit something below the surface. The general gritted his teeth and swallowed hard, struggling the taste of sewage down his throat, then moved toward the spot where the torch had landed.
He advanced cautiously, dragging his feet on the slimy bottom and probing the dark in front of him with the tip of his sword. As he moved, the smell of sewage dissipated, overpowered by another odor that brought a hard lump to the back of the general’s throat.
The smell of burnt flesh.
Sir Alton pressed forward another step, squinting against the darkness, and realized he could see a little, the tunnel illuminated by a tiny light under the water to his right. His eyes flickered toward it, saw the spot of green light beneath the surface some distance away, then he looked back to his target ahead. A dark mass, blacker than the black water, floated near the wall. Three more steps brought him close enough to see it was one of the undead Kanosee soldiers floating face down. He pushed the tip of his sword into its side; it sank in a couple of inches without reaction.