Chapter 15: 15. Collapse

Hasan, as it turned out, did not have a backup plan. At least, not one that Reshid could see. They held their position, the human medics blending in with the revenants as best they could.

Not long after the wall of fire went up, Feane emerged around a bend in the path, approaching Hasan without slowing. He waved to greet her, and they exchanged a few words.

A moment later, he turned and began shouting orders for the revenants to regroup. Reshid stayed back, but Feane saw him and Rory and gave them a toothy smile and a short wave. It felt more than a little threatening, though maybe that was just because of the teeth. Ghouls usually drew in essence the same way he did, by sort of pulling it into himself with his will. That smile reminded him of something else that he had witnessed shortly after his descent into the Deep Paths. Some ghouls preferred a more… direct approach. Reshid shuddered.

“Gives you the shivers a bit, doesn’t she?” Rory said quietly. He let out a breath. “Makes you wonder just what they’re doing to our people in there.”

Reshid didn’t answer. After another moment of silence, Rory turned to face him, his expression curious.

“Listen. I’ve been wondering ever since I came down here… Why don’t more of you—revenants, I mean—try to get back up to the surface? I’m sure almost everyone down in the village still has family or friends up there somewhere, and I’ve seen a lot of…nightmarish things… since I’ve been here. I know the priests and the gods themselves are supposed to prevent that, but they don’t even keep the ghouls out, really. I doubt it’s really more dangerous than staying down here. If there are unguarded passages to the surface, why live in the Deep Paths?”

That was not the question that Reshid expected. He was tempted to scoff at him, but the man had a point. He stopped and thought about it before replying.

“I think religion is only a small part of it. We know we’ll be hunted if we’re discovered, but it’s dangerous here, too. I think it’s more because we don’t have anywhere to go.”

Rory frowned.

“What do you mean? I know the doctrines about damned souls, but I can’t imagine that a lot of children would really complain about their dead father showing up at the door alive, regardless of any minor… deformities.

Reshid shrugged, a hollow feeling spreading out in his gut.

“That’s just it. The connections aren’t as strong as you think. Dying is hard on your mind. I remember that I had children, but I don’t really remember them. Not in detail. One is dead—I know that, but I don’t remember how she died or what her face looked like, or exactly when it happened.” Reshid coughed, collecting himself. “More importantly, they’re not children—I lived alone a long time, before the end. I died old. Most of us did. Seeking out our descendants now would put them and us in danger. They would be required to report us to the priesthood or risk being exiled themselves.”

Rory nodded, conceding the point, but he didn’t let up. “Ok, I suppose. But what about younger people, like Charlie? There have to be hundreds of revenants like him every time there’s a war, but you almost never hear of anyone coming up to the surface…”

“I don’t know…” Reshid shrugged. “I‘ve been here for less than three months. Maybe they do and the guardians just don’t report it.”

The man nodded and turned away, scratching at his stubbly chin in thought.

As soon as the revenants were formed up, they began to move. A few minutes later, they reached the flames, flaring unnaturally high from open ground. It wasn’t natural fire, but it was certainly real, giving off heat so intensely that Reshid had to blink to keep his eyes from drying out. He’d seen Idrin throw fireballs, sure, but this was an entirely different order of magnitude. The flames were nearly as tall as the trees and curved around in both directions, probably in a semicircle, pinning everyone in the camp up against the cavern wall.

The Lich and his motley band of monsters were waiting on this side of the flames. He didn’t even seem to be exerting himself.

“Ah, I’m glad to see you made it.” Antonius said, his tone affable, though his expression was completely dead. “After that remarkable explosion, I was quite concerned that our alliance had already come to a premature and unprofitable end.”

Hasan stared back with a stony expression, betraying nothing. “No. We were attacked, but it was likely just meant to be a distraction. A guardian called down Vaclar’s judgment. We ran him off.”

“Ah. And… he got away?” The lich asked, tone growing incredulous.

“He was protected.” Hasan said simply. After a moment, he took his eyes off the Lich to glance at the wall of flames, changing the subject. “What’s with the fire? Aren’t your people in there?”

“I decided that it would be best not to take any chances, since it seemed that you were under attack. As for my people… no. At least, not any that matter.”

The undead sorcerer gestured, and the flames advanced toward the camp. All the while, his eyes remained locked on Hasan. It was obvious that he suspected them of something, but Hasan remained completely impassive, unnaturally still as only a stone elementalist could be. In fact, Reshid wasn’t sure that the man was breathing anymore.

Rory wasn’t so collected. He was pale and his breathing was too ragged for the gentle pace they’d been walking. When Reshid saw, he stepped forward a half step to keep the shorter man out of sight. The other humans were further back, and he hoped they’d keep their mouths shut. If the Lich could conjure fire like that with no visible effort…

This entire trip was a fool’s errand. That was real power. Idrin was one of the most powerful revenants he’d met, and she was limited to throwing fireballs barely big enough to set Geoffrey on fire—it was like comparing a single ember to a bonfire.

The flames swept away from the group toward the cavern wall, the camp, and the stairwell. The Lich’s minions were murmuring amongst themselves, clearly uncomfortable with what was happening, but no one challenged the sorcerer. The flames left barren, scorched earth behind. Before long, the first bodies began to emerge, blackened lumps littering the ground where they had fallen. Apart from a few of the were-creatures, it was hard to tell who was friend or foe. There were no screams—most likely they had died during the fighting minutes earlier.

How many had died already?

In the distance, Reshid could just make out the sound of a single shout, cutting through the roaring of the fire. Just as the flames passed beyond the first tents, leaving nothing but a few charred sticks and broiled flaps or leather, the crack of an explosion echoed through the cavern, followed by the rumble and clatter of falling rocks.

Cursing, the Lich waved a hand, extinguishing the entire blaze as if it had never been there.

Reshid didn’t have an ideal vantage point, but even he could see what Antonius was fuming over. The entrance to the stairwell had collapsed and, and a corpse had been nailed to the timbers of one of the nearby cages with a bayonet through the eye. It had few deformities, so it might have been a wight or a vampire, but it wasn’t clear which.

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What was very clear was the brown-black moldering handprint on its chest.

That meant Charlie was alive, probably. And he and whoever else had made it had been able to set a charge at the tunnel entrance. Most likely, they were going up toward the city right now.

He wasn’t sure what an explosion like that would do to any regular people stuck inside the tunnel like that, but it seemed likely that Charlie would survive it. The mission was a success.

With a single sweep of his clawed hand, the Lich cleared the rubble from the entrance of the tunnel. It, together with the cages and the corpse were thrown aside by an invisible force, revealing the tunnel and the foot of the staircase.

A moment later, rocks began to slide and tumble down from the cavern wall, collapsing in to cover the hole again. It looked completely natural, but the Lich whirled on Hasan, eyes suddenly glowing light blue with their own internal light.

“You think you can hide your treachery from me?”

Hasan’s eyes widened, and for a moment everyone was completely still. They were dead, and they all knew it.

Then, Hasan stomped a foot on the ground and the cavern walls crackled and rumbled like a calving glacier.

The sorcerer raised an arm to the sky and the rumbling simply stopped. This time, though, he was applying himself more fully. He hadn’t stopped the collapse, he was literally holding up the entire cavern wall, and probably part of the ceiling, hundreds of paces up. His entire body was glowing slightly, and he kept his eyes locked on the ceiling above.

“Enough!” He roared, and the world erupted in fire.

Reshid was burning. The pain was indescribable, never ending torment. He couldn’t see anything, but he could hear screams all around him. He tried to move, to get out of the fire, anywhere, but immediately bumped into someone on his knees in front of him. Pulling himself together, he reached out and grabbed him. His hands wouldn’t work right and he could feel skin tearing as he moved.

Without thinking, he healed the man, pouring essence into him. He gasped, then screamed in pain and terror. It was Rory. A moment later, the agony began to fade. Reshid tried to move again, but nearly fell over instead. Dimly, he realized that he’d run out of essence. He was dying.

With a new surge of panic, he tried to draw in more power, but there was nothing to draw from. The ground all around was dead. He needed something, anything. Rory had stopped screaming again.

Then, as suddenly as it came, the fire went out.

Too late, Reshid thought. They were dead if he couldn’t find a source.

Trying to reach as far as he could, Reshid felt… something. But it wasn’t far away at all.

His crystal. He’d forgotten all about it.

Focusing on it, he tried to draw the power in with his mind, but nothing happened. Was it empty? Just as he relaxed, giving up, the power melted into him. This was not from his essence crystal, he realized. It wasn’t like the cultivation essence he was used to at all, but the feeling was still somehow familiar. The stone that he wore on a cord around his neck—a gift in life that he’d brought down into the Deep Paths with him—felt cool against his chest.

Then the pain was back and Reshid gasped, too out of breath to scream. Just as quickly, that was over too. He had healed fast, much faster than before. His vision cleared, and he saw that the Lich wasn’t even looking at them, though his minions had moved to surround them. A few charred bodies lay around him but he heard the agonized groans of other survivors as well. Revenants were hard to kill. Idrin stood nearby, totally unharmed. She was standing over a handful of less charred revenants—probably people she had pulled from the flames.

The entire ordeal had taken less than a minute.

Reaching for Rory, he began healing him. He felt stronger—much stronger than before. The new essence didn’t interfere with his healing ability, in fact the essence running through him felt exactly like it had before. There was just more of it. A lot more.

“You are beginning to test my patience.” The Lich scolded them. “You will repay your debt to me for this… inconvenience. I trust that you and your little village will be more cooperative when I come to collect.”

With horror, Reshid realized that the sorcerer hadn’t even been trying to kill them, he was just annoyed. After losing half his forces and the advantage of surprise for his attack on Duskhaven. He couldn’t clear the stairway now without collapsing the cavern down on it again—at least not quickly.

So, what were they missing?

“Oh, and don’t bother trying to hide.” Tiny whisps of light burst from the Lich’s chest, too fast and too many for the eye to follow. He felt something burn on his neck like a hot needle—then it was gone.

“He’s… he’s not going to kill us?” Rory asked. He looked almost normal, though his skin was a little too pink and his ears hadn’t quite healed right, showing some scarring.

“I don’t think so.” Reshid replied. It sounded like the Lich meant to use them somehow, or recruit them. But that was a problem for tomorrow. He offered Rory a hand up.

“Can you help me sort out who’s still alive? We should help those we can and get out of here. Uh… have you seen Hasan anywhere?”

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