Chapter 51: Chapter 51 – Below the Surface

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“You lot can call me Thayn,” the dwarvish man, grunts his breath smelling heavily of drink. “Since we’ll be delving together, I don’t see why we shouldn’t know each other’s names. We’ll have to give the grievances to the family if any of us can’t crawl our way back…”

“Not this time,” the spearwoman says, stepping up to us. She moves confidently, her weapon, held in a light grip, is always at the ready and I imagine that it could be buried in my chest before I could even raise a shout. The faint lines that run along the length of the weapon suggest that it’s enchanted, while the spear tip glows a faint red glow, even now. Her red-orange hair is bright in the low light, but her sharp yellow eyes steal my attention, cutting down to the bone.

“We’re here for business, if someone falls, I’ll be responsible for informing their surviving family.”

“This here is Ruby,” Thayn says, waving a hand at her. “She’s our babysitter, to make sure we follow the contract properly.”

“I’m here by Semi’s will,” Ruby says, turning a smile at me and offering her hand. Her grip is tight and after a moment her smile deepens before she squeezes my hand as if to try and squeeze the life out of it. If I wasn’t strengthening myself, then my bones would be grinding against each other. “I’m here to keep you safe, whatever happens down there. No matter what, you’re coming out alive.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” Thayn lifts his head back with a laugh.

“I wasn’t talking about you, dwarf,” Ruby replies. “If you want to make it out of this, then you’d better put up a good fight.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can handle myself against a few shambling corpses,” he spits at the ground. “Just hope we don’t come out wreaking of rot again. Come on, let’s get going already. The dead are waiting for us, can’t leave them waiting forever.”

“Syr,” Ruby holds me still with her gaze. “Whatever happens, you will obey my orders down there. If it means that you leave all the rest of us to die, then that’s what happens. Do you understand?”

I nod, biting my lip. It’s still the same. Everyone still thinks that I’m too weak to save them, and they’re not wrong. That’s why I’m here to grow stronger so that I don’t have to leave everyone behind again.

“Lothar,” Ruby turns to him.

“You’ve done your research on us,” he says, still on his back foot with his hand on his sword.

“I have, and while Syr is more important, I was told that any of her teammates should be protected. Just make sure that you keep Syr safe, and keep out of the way,” Ruby says, her gaze locking Lothar in place.

“I understand,” he lowers his head with a sigh. “I’m from around Perkin’s street, you’re from one of the other poor houses?”

“Grendel’s,” Ruby replies with a nod and a smile. Lothar hisses a quiet breath at the name. “Semi saved me before that damned woman could find me any work. Her shops are ashes now, and I owe Semi more than my life.”

“That’s one part of this city that no one’s going to miss,” Lothar spits, nodding at Ruby. “Well, I can’t say that it’s good working with you, but I’m glad that it’s someone like you that I have to deal with today.”

She snorts a laugh through a smirk.

“You sound like a smart man, a handsome one, too. You’re a rare thing around these parts. I hope we can get along, but we can talk about that after we’re back out. We have to get this business finished.”

“If you’ve had enough chatting,” Thayn grumbles kicking at a stone brick. “Let’s pay our respects and get moving.”

“Pay our respects?” I ask.

“This is holy ground, girl,” the dwarf lowers his head to a mound of fallen stones. “The buildings might crumble, and the gods themselves could forget, but that’s no good reason for us to fail in respecting them.

“The gods that protect our souls, especially.”

Thayn lowers his head to the stone bricks, whispering something under his breath as he closes his eyes. The others either join him or stand quietly aside to wait for him to be finished. I bow my head to the stone and leave it at that.

I don’t know what I’d say to a god if they were actually listening to us.

“The crypt is this way,” a tall man wearing heavy armour whispers to us, his voice carrying clearly through the quiet of the graveyard. He doesn’t have a weapon but instead has two massive shields, one strapped to each arm, with thick armour plating covering the rest of him.

It’s thicker armour than even the knight that I fought against, but this man isn’t nearly as dangerous.

“That’s our scout, Leech,” the last member of our group explains. “I’m Parker, I’m the archer when the need calls for it. Otherwise, I’m pretty handy with a club and a shield. Don’t see many people using two short swords, seems a strange choice of weapon against the undead, but I suppose you should be safe at the back of the group.”

“I’m not weak,” I say, glaring at him. “I fought a knight with these swords. I can fight whatever is down there.”

“A knight?” he chuckles, glancing down at me. “Well, I’m sure you’ll do just fine, then.”

“Two swords, dumb kid move,” whispers Leech, who has no weapons.

“Come on, stop grumbling,” Thayn says, walking up to the doors of the small stone building attached to the rubble that we bowed to. “Let’s just get this over with. Smash a few bones, and we’ll be back out before the sun comes up.”

“Come on Thayn, you know that’s bad luck,” Parker cries out. “We’ll be here all bloody night now.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Thayn grumbles, following Leech down into the ruins.

Crow is the only undead here with us, and I sneak him into my bag before the others can notice him. I’d leave him up here on watch but I’m not sure how deep we’ll be travelling, and I still can’t feed my æther into my friends when they’re too far away. Even with Semi explaining how she kept him alive, I still can’t make it work.

Standing on the edge of the darkness, I draw my swords and summon flames along their lengths, just enough to light the world around me. The world down here is moist and smells vaguely of rot that’s itself decayed, becoming something close to ash, but not nearly so clean.

“Here,” Ruby says, approaching me with a small band. She sets it into my hair and activates some sort of magic through it. Light cuts through the darkness, revealing every bone around me, most set out carefully on shelves in the walls, but some scattered carelessly about the floor.

The enchanted band only lights the world for a few metres around me, but it’s still better than the light from my burning swords.

“It’s only borrowed,” Ruby says. “Try not to lose it.”

“I won’t,” I promise nodding firmly while gripping the band. She smiles, patting me on the head before turning to Lothar.

“Cute girl, and one that can give a knight pause. Wish I could keep her.”

“She’s not staying in this city,” Lothar shakes his head, drawing his own sword as we pass by a few scattered bones. They’re brittle and broken, but they still want to move. They don’t call to me as the living do, but it’s more like a vibration. An eager readiness to move.

“Of course not, it’s not safe here,” Ruby shakes her head, poking at a skull with her spear. “Semi’s betting that your little group can keep her safe, so make sure not to disappoint her.”

“We’ve been protecting Syr since long before we came to this city,” Lothar growls, as we pass by a few bones set into the walls.

Ruby nods, her smile fading for a second as she stares at the mercenaries ahead of us. They’ve stopped by a pair of bodies that are lying in the middle of the narrow tunnel, unlike the bones, they wear rags over the little flesh that hasn’t rotten away. They’re children.

Thayn is bowing his head and making religious signs with his hands.

“Shialla, guide these souls to a better life. Heal them for what wounds carry on past death, and let them be cherished in what world you deem best,” he mumbles a small prayer, before raising his head.

“Scavengers,” Lothar whispers, his voice warbling as he covers a frown with his hand. “Kids who came down here to find some scraps of gold.”

“There’s no gold down here,” Leech whispers, pulling aside the rotting body and setting it neatly against the wall so that we don’t accidentally step on it, as we walk past.

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“Dumb kids,” Ruby shakes her head, spitting at the ground. “At least these ones closed the doors behind them. Lost my family because some idiot scavenger left the doors wide open behind them, thousands of the undead just spread out and slaughtered everything they could reach. I’d be dead, too, if a passing knight hadn’t decided to save us. A good man that one, not sure he’s still around.”

Lothar covers his mouth with a hand, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

“They’re not idiots. They’re starved and desperate,” Lothar says, but his voice is weak. “I… it’s not like they wanted to hurt anyone…”

No one replies, we continue onward, the floor slowly slanting downwards taking us deeper and deeper beneath the ground. The rooms that we pass are small, with only enough space for four of us comfortably, but less if we need to fight.

“From here on in watch yourselves, these places aren’t ever as stable as they look,” Thayn says, turning towards us. “Don’t go knocking on the walls or the supports unless you want to starve to death down here after a collapse.”

“Is there anything we need to keep an eye out for?” I ask, watching the bones on the walls. They’re not alive, not yet, but the energy in them calls to me and I desperately want to try my magic down here. Bones use so much æther to keep walking, I can only hold constructs like that together for a short time, and I can’t afford to waste my energy now.

Leech is at the front of our group, his heavy armour completely silent even down here where the smallest noise would carry far.

“Bones,” he whispers, and the rest of the team raise their weapons. “Three, maybe four.”

“We’ll crush them,” Thayn grunts, lifting his hammer.

Motion stirs around the armoured scout as he raises his shields and starts stomping at the ground, cracking the bones at his feet. A rattling spreads out from ahead, bones striking against bones as the skeletons pull themselves together and start stumbling towards us. I don’t get much of a chance to look at them before the other mercenaries get to them.

Hammers and clubs break the bones and scatter them across the ground where they’re stomped on and crushed beneath heavy boots. The rattling bones try to pull themselves back into shape even after they’ve been separated, and it takes some time for the mercenaries to destroy them enough that they give in. Even then they don’t fall as ash.

The sound of fighting draws out more of them.

Shambling figures. Not a shred of flesh or sinew remains upon the bones that clumsily lumber toward us.

I close the gap and join the scramble. My swords cut down the first at the knees as he raises his hands to claw at me.

Why

Why does he want to hurt me?

Who told him to fight like this?

“Why do they fight us?” I ask, pushing back his head with my sword. His bony hands, held together with magic, claw at me even now. I try to press my magic into him, but it feels strange.

He has another magic inside of him.

Another necromancer has laid claim to him.

A powerful one.

“They fight, ‘cause that’s what the dead do,” Thayn says, smashing in the skeleton’s skull with his hammer. “Some of the wild ones’ll break after a few good swings, but around these parts, the dead just don’t want to stay dead.”

“They don’t stay dead?” I ask. Watching the bones still struggle to gather again, even leaking æther everywhere they’re still struggling to survive. “Something’s keeping them alive?”

“Old treasure of the necromancer, maybe?” Thayn chuckles. “If we’re after something like that…”

“It doesn’t matter what we’re after,” Parker shakes his head at his friend. “We’ll do this job, get out of debt, and get clear of this damn city.”

Whoever or whatever created these undead, they have a far better skill in magic compared to me. I can’t even start to guess at how I could keep one of my friends together when they’re broken and scattered like these skeletons. As it is, when the flesh decays too far it reaches a point where I can’t keep them going anymore, all my friends give up at that point, becoming ash.

To hold up a skeleton without any flesh, and then keep it alive even after it’s been torn apart and scattered…

What sort of power can do that?

How can I get this power for myself?

There is still much for me to learn it seems.

“A remnant of the old necromancer,” Thayn grumbles. “The great Lich bastard.”

“He was never a lich, that part is just a rumour,” Ruby says, shaking her head.

“Do you think he could march an army of the undead on this city if he wasn’t a necromancer?” Thayne asks. “There is no way that an ordinary mage, even knight class, could do something that insane. They say that he controlled the bodies of the knights he killed and had them war on his side, just as strong as they were in life.”

“With their magic?” I ask.

“What’s a knight without their magic?” Thayne chuckles, unamused. “His army rolled over this city. He was a monster unlike any other.”

We delve deeper into the ruins encountering more and more undead as we go. They’re all weak, but it takes time to break them to the point that they can’t stand back up again. I don’t use my magic on them, though I’m pretty sure that I could make them mine if I really tried.

It would be dangerous to push myself, and even more dangerous to show myself to the others in our group. I don’t know why Semi thought it would be safe for me to come down here with these mercenaries considering their opinions on necromancy, but I guess it’s difficult to find people who actually like necromancers.

“Stop,” Leech grunts back to us, lifting his shields as he stares into the darkness. “We’re mercenaries. Who are you, and what are you down here for?”

“Who are you talking to?” Ruby asks, lowering her spear and rushing up to our scout. “Is there someone down here with us?”

“A big guy in armour,” Leech says, staring ahead at the suit of armour.

The warrior doesn’t move, or even say anything, holding a long quarterstaff in his hands as he blocks the path ahead. He doesn’t attack, but he doesn’t move aside for us, either. There’s something strange about him.

“That’s… an undead,” Lothar whispers, his sword quivering in his hand as he stares at the figure. “It’s guarding the way ahead.”

 

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