Chapter 21: 20: King Baragh Abaethaggar

Loud screeches could reach their ears from the tunnels behind them. As the seconds ticked away, the sounds grew louder.

“Those are the callings of high level beasts. We need to seal this passage to the city." Gargdor uttered worriedly. “There are other routes that are closer to the city. If the king commands it, we’ll bring you back by one of those, but these outlying passages aren’t easily defensible, not anymore.”

“You’re going to destroy the bridge, aren’t you?” Lindley asked in shock. "What of the others at the outpost?"

"I can no longer sensed them. They're gone. Vargha be with them." The scaven answered solemnly as he patted the amulet on his neck. "The bridge must be destroyed before they get here."

The more Lindley thought about the beasts that could make the scavens fearful, the more he agreed with the scaven paladin. Looking at the ancient bridge, he could faintly sense magic radiating from it. “It’s a very old bridge, isn’t it?”

Gargdor nodded. He never took his eyes off the structure. “The scavens who carved it out of the stone are long gone, but there were my ancestors among them. I can feel them, as if they were standing beside me.” He spit into the chasm. “I am glad that they aren’t here to see us so … few.”

Ogvigh made a sound of displeasure, but was ignored by his father.

“Keep back until I’m finished,” Gargdor commanded. “The bridge took years to shape, but I’ll bring it down in only a few heartbeats.”

Lindley stepped back.

Ogvigh stood with his father as the older scaven traced a pair of symbols in the air. His hands moved too quickly for Lindley to follow the shapes, and no glowing rune appeared in the aftermath of his casting. Gargdor gestured again, and the symbols appeared on the side of the bridge in swirls of fire, burrowing into the stone.

After a few minutes, the fiery runes covered the bridge. Gargdor drew his axe off his belt and went down on one knee. He turned the black battleaxes, symbols of his family, toward the bridge and sketched three vertical lines in the stone. The scrape of obsidian echoed in the chamber. Gargdor turned the axe upright.

“Vargha, forgive and protect,” he said, and Lindley was surprised to hear the words spoken in general language. These were sacred scaven words. He didn’t have time to wonder why Gargdor had chosen to share the ritual words with him. The scaven drove the axe hilt into the stone over the vertical lines. Sparks flew, and a thunderous roar echoed through the chamber. The runes on the bridge flared to dazzling gold and exploded.

Heat erupted across the chasm and swept over Lindley. Instinctively, Lindley turned away, shielding his face, but the fire from the runes never reached him. Cracks splintered the stone bridge, suffused with radiant gold light. The structure groaned once, a long, mournful sound, and then broke apart, huge stone chunks dropping into the chasm.

Dust rose in the air, obscuring Lindley’s vision. He blinked and wiped watering eyes, but he found he couldn’t look away from the destruction. He stood behind the scavens, who hadn’t moved either, until the dust settled and revealed the gaping hole where the bridge had been. Broken remnants clutched each side of the chasm.

Gargdor turned away from the devastation first. Lindley was startled to see tears in the scaven’s eyes. “It’s done,” he said, his voice as rough and ancient as the stone. “We can be on our way.”

The passage they followed ended in a set of stone stairs that descended in a spiral just wide enough for them to walk two by two. The scavens went ahead with a lit torch, and Lindley walked behind, guided by the red light above the older scaven’s head.

Gargdor paused and glanced back at them. “We’ll be in the Underrealm soon. Keep a close watch around you. We might run into patrolling parties.”

“Patrols?” Lindley said. “You mean your people or more monsters?”

“Monsters.…” Gargdor said. “Yes, that’s right.”

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Lindley watched him spit again and headed down the stone stairs.

King Baragh Abaethaggar sat on his throne and listened to the echoes of his boot tapping rhythmically against the stone, the sound traveling out to the ends of the hall. The cavernous chamber, built in the time of Shanatar, was large enough to house an army of warriors to challenge the greatest scaven cities in the Lowerment.

A bitter laugh escaped the king’s lips. He listened to the sound echo back at him in a mocking wave. The royal court of ancient kings, large enough to house an army of wraiths.

The door to the hall swung open, and one of the regents strode in. Baragh Abaethaggar was embarrassed that he didn’t remember the scaven’s name. He’d been appointed sometime during Baragh Abaethaggar’s last slumber. Sometimes, the king felt as if he was still sleeping, that his whole life was one infinite dream.

The regent stopped before Baragh Abaethaggar’s throne and bowed. “The gathering are prepared to discuss battle strategies, my king.”

“Tomorrow,” Baragh Abaethaggar said. “Today I’ll be interrogating the dark elf again.”

The regent nodded, but Baragh Abaethaggar saw the expression the scaven tried to hide. It was dismay, wasn't it. He frowned before demanding in irritation. “What is it? Speak!”

“My king,” the procurator said, “drow patrols press closer to the city every day. If we’re to prepare our army against an attack, we must act quickly.”

Baragh Abaethaggar gazed at the pillars lining the hall, the dust-filled carvings in the ancient stone. “You see the names on these pillars, procurator? The mages, smiths, paladins, alchemists greatest scavens of an age—all of them gone. The dead outnumber the living to a great extent. It will not take nearly so long as you believe to prepare our army. What’s left of it.”

Lost in his dark thoughts, he fell silent. He waited for the procurator to leave, but the scaven stayed, maybe waiting for him to change his mind. Maybe he sensed Baragh Abaethaggar’s dangerous mood and didn’t want to leave him.

As if he could do anything about it. Baragh Abaethaggar gripped the arms of his throne, felt the indentations where his fingers had dug into the stone in his statue form. Over a century, they’d worn their mark while he was slumbering, oblivious to the passage of time.

No, not to time alone, but oblivious to pain too.

How much had he missed while he was trapped in that Astral darkness known as the eternal void? How many births, deaths among his people? Without guidance, the city had stagnated during his slumber, unable to become because its leader was absent, yet the people had been unwilling to replace him.

Now when he finally had a chance to change things, the damned dark elves decided to attack.

Baragh Abaethaggar knew he should be out there now, among his soldiers, meeting with his council. Yet here he sat, on the same throne where he’d dwelled a century in stone, unable to make himself leave his hall unless it was to go down to the dungeons to interrogate Ahlysas, the dark elf.

Baragh Abaethaggar shook away some hidden thoughts, stood up and said to the procurator. “Tomorrow, we’ll begin. We don’t have time to indulge in past losses or regrets.”

The procurator bowed and left the audience chamber. Baragh Abaethaggar listened to his boots echo on the stone and tried to swallow his bitterness.

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