need of it.”
Roth rumbled, but complained no more.
From above, at the head of unseen stairs, the sound of iron shod boots clattering on the stone steps came, harsh and ominous. In the echoing hallway the noise was amplified until it sounded like a marching army.
“Where is it?” whispered Tirielle. “All their symbols look the same — a peak within a white circle should not be too hard to find!” She spoke too fast, exasperation and desperation in her quavering voice.
“Be calm, lady,” said Cenphalph, more quietly than Tirielle had spoken. “We will find it.”
“I don’t know how,” muttered Typraille under his breath, but at a stern glance from their leader said nothing further.
“This way,” said Quintal. He sounded unsure, and somewhat embarrassed by the realisation himself.
They followed him at a run, down a turn in the corridor and away from the approaching soldiers. They turned several times, checking the symbols outside each chamber as they ran. Nothing. No peaks, no circles. A half moon, a flowing river, a tower nestled in a crescent…some were painted, some were not. Some symbols were so strange that they sent shivers down Tirielle’s spine. She dreaded to think what planes of existence they led to, whether the Seer’s mind had traversed those other worlds, their plateaus and plains, their peaks and canyons.
If only the Seer were here to guide them now. She had said nothing of where to find the chamber. She had not warned them of the immensity of Arram’s underground caverns, or the confusing nature of the warren.
To what worlds and places must the Protectorate be able to travel? It was huge beyond imagining. She despaired of ever finding the true path. It was a maze, full of twisting corridors, misleading turns and cross ways, with no guiding marks but those on the great doors that lead to portals behind them, the portals in turn leading to places from which there might be no return. Death awaited behind some of those doors, Tirielle was certain of it. To flee through the wrong one would be fatal. If they could not find the right path, none of them would leave Arram’s bowels alive.
They came at a run to a dead end.
The soldiers were in the corridors now. Their booted feet clattered on the flagstones. The soldiers would know their way among the corridors. They would understand the symbols, and the trick of sound within the corridor would not confuse them. They would be upon them sooner than Tirielle would have liked.
She fingered her fine blades through the soiled material of her dress. She would die before she let them capture her. She could not face torture. Not at the hands of the Protectorate. She knew that they embraced pain, and fed on suffering. She would not be food for them.
Roth saw her quivering and lay a massive hand on her shoulder. As always, Tirielle took strength from the beast’s touch. She was ever thankful to have Roth in her life. She placed her own hand on top of the furred paw and patted it, steeling herself for the battle to come.
They followed Quintal back to the branch in the corridor, and looked each way. Quintal drew his sword, and his brethren followed suit, the thin twang of steel loud in the hallway. There was no sign of the Protectorate.
“You can’t fight the whole of the Protectorate! We must run,” she said with heartfelt urgency. She was shaking now, feeling death approach. They were close now, and there was no way out in sight.
“To where?” said Typraille, his voice firm and sure. She imagined he was looking forward to the battle, and hated him a little for his calm and his eager tone.
“We will find it,” she said.
The clamour of boots on stone was nearer now — perhaps one corridor away, perhaps five hundred feet. The strange pathways under Arram had their own rules. Perhaps millennia of dark magic warped even sound, as it warped their perceptions.
“I think the tunnels are trying to confuse us. I think it is the magic here. It doesn’t want us…we are alien.”
Quintal nodded. “I have felt something working against us, tendrils of darkness pushing at my mind.”
“If it doesn’t want us to find the right chamber, how will we ever get out of here?”
j’ark strode forward, taking the lead. “We are committed now. We cannot leave and we cannot go on unless we find the path. I have an idea, though.”
The other Sard exchanged glances. Quintal was never one to take offence at j’ark’s refusal to follow his lead. J’ark was a powerful man in his own right. Perhaps Quintal understood that j’ark was at his most effective when given free rein. The leader nodded to his fellow paladins, only six remaining, and strode after j’ark. Roth grinned at Tirielle.
“I think I will get my wish. I find myself longing to see Protocrat blood.”
“You are gruesome sometimes, Roth. Their blood stinks of offal.”
Roth looked hurt. “I happen to like offal.”
Tirielle looked away and saw what she feared, j’ark running at a Protocrat who had rounded the corner suddenly. There was no room to swing a blade in the corridor, but somehow j’ark’s two-handed sword turned aside a thrust from the Protocrat’s short sword, an elbow found his throat and the soldier crumpled. With no battle cry or ceremony Carth leapt the crumpled form and fell upon the following soldiers, tumbling them. There was no room for more to fight, but Carth could hold the corridor indefinitely — only two soldiers could pass abreast, and two tenthers were no match for the mighty warrior. He seemed to tower in the gloom, filling the corridor with his girth. He used his long dagger to stab low, and his sword to turn aside the short swords of the Protectorate.
Soon, the corridor was littered with bodies. As the Protocrats stumbled over their fallen brothers, Carth pushed them back.
Behind him, j’ark had dragged the fallen soldier behind Carth, away from his ten. He held the tenther by the throat, his thumb pressing into the hollow at the base of the soldier’s throat, his fingers plying the tender spot at the back of his neck. The warrior spat at the paladin, but j’ark increased the pressure. There was no fear on the Protocrats long face, and no anger on j’ark’s. Tirielle saw what he meant to do, but even she was surprised when it came. Tirielle heard his cries even over the clamour of battle from the side of the corridor.
j’ark wasted no time. Carth could not hold back the tenthers for ever.
The dim torch light seemed to brighten, and the corridor was suddenly awash with a golden glow that had nothing to do with the flames, and everything to do with the strange powers that the Sard claimed they did not have.
j’ark’s dagger fell, and the tenther started talking, babbling in agony. They enjoyed others pain. It did not seem that they enjoyed their own with such fervour. j’ark listened serenely while Tirielle watched, unable to tear her eyes away. She watched to the end, when without warning j’ark plunged his dagger into the captive’s neck and stood. Quintal looked at him sadly, for what reason Tirielle could not tell. The warrior needed to die. There had been no other choice. j’ark spared time to shake his head angrily at Quintal.
“Don’t waste time on me now,” he said and strode forward, blood drenched dagger joining Carth’s blade, driving the Protocrat’s back from the junction to clear a path. As soon as they reached the turn, j’ark urged them forward with a wave of his hand. Then he left Carth to protect their backs.
j’ark walked with no urgency, trusting his quiet brother to protect them and hold back the tide of warriors that washed against him with no more efficacy than the sea against the sand.
“It’s all a trick,” he explained briefly. “It is always where you want it to be — whatever world or place you wish to travel to is where you most need it — usually at the base of the stairs, but we passed that,” he paused and ran his hand over the symbol of the first chamber they came to, “So now it is here. Quickly, inside!”
They dashed through the door into the chamber beyond. It was already well lit. It must have been used recently.
Carth shouldered the bunched mass of the Protectorate aside as he entered the chamber last. He sliced a hand from the arm that snuck through the door, and then slammed it shut. Tirielle looked away from the hand, clenched around the sword. She had seen enough death, but she was not awed by it. The Sard’s abilities with the sword were not something she could ever get used to, but the death they dealt was a necessity. She might turn away from death, and she hoped she would always do so when she could.
Instead, she turned her attention to the chamber. It was larger than she would have imagined. The walls and ceiling curved away, rising to a crest somewhere up above where she could not see. The light from the torches in the sconces on the walls could not reach the room’s heights. The flames held still, although that was remarkable, for she felt the wind from the portal on her face, cool, but bringing with it no relief from the stifling warmth of the underground chamber. Her sweat chilled on her brow, and she wiped at it with one filthy sleeve, merely wiping dirt
