Instead of leading them to the main gate, they veered off the path at a hurried pace. Jerico wondered what was going on, but then the horsemen pulled up.
“My thanks for the escort,” Kaide said, kneeling down in the grass. “Take care of our horses, will you?”
His hands searched, and then he lifted up a trap door hidden underneath a layer of dirt. Jerico looked around, realizing the men had them surrounded and hidden with the bodies of their horses.
“Tight fit with your armor,” Kaide said, sitting down and then sliding in feet first. “I trust you’ll manage.”
And then he vanished into the tunnel. Tightening the straps that held the shield against his back, Jerico took a deep breath and then followed. The tunnel was steeper than he expected, and he more fell than crawled into it. When his feet touched solid ground, the trapdoor closed above them. In the darkness, they heard thuds as the men covered up the entrance.
“No torches,” Kaide said. “Not for a while. Just take careful steps, and keep your hand against the wall.”
Instead, Jerico pulled his shield free and held it before him. The blue-white light bathed them both, easily illuminating the tunnel.
“Hrm,” Kaide said, raising an eyebrow. “That works too.”
“Lead on,” Jerico said. “I’d hate to keep our gracious host waiting.”
“Keep the sarcasm to a limit,” Kaide said as he walked ahead, his left hand still touching the wall as if he feared the light of Jerico’s shield could fade at any time. The whole while, the floor slanted sharply downward. “Arthur’s not much for joking of any kind. Terribly serious man, but not much to do about that now. He’s always had me come through this tunnel ever since I began my raids on Sebastian’s men. Like I said before, he’s a careful one.”
“Is this cave natural?” Jerico asked, inspecting the walls closer.
“This one? Probably not. There’s at least twenty tunnels I know of. I’m sure the early ones were, but even those have been worked and extended. In the span of minutes, the entire castle could vanish underground, and I pity the poor sods stuck trying to chase after them.”
Around a curve the tunnel expanded immensely. They entered what seemed like a great hall of an underworld king. Stalactites, some at least twenty feet in length, stretched from the ceiling like teeth in the jaws of an ancient beast. In the light of his shield, the rocks sparkled, showing a hundred different crystals Jerico had never before seen. On either side of their path the stone ended abruptly, and Jerico’s light could not pierce the darkness below. The stone bridge had a single rope running across its center, both ends firmly nailed, and Kaide grabbed it to steady himself.
“Step carefully,” Kaide said, and he laughed at Jerico’s blank stare. “What? You aren’t afraid of a little fall, are you?”
Jerico glanced into the chasm, and a shiver ran through him.
“Not before today,” he said.
“Put your shield away if you’ll feel better. Just use the rope to guide you.”
“I’d rather see.”
The bandit shrugged.
“If I was to fall to my death, I’d prefer not to see the ground coming. Up to you, though.”
The paladin ground his teeth.
“You’re not helping.”
Kaide walked along the stone bridge across the chasm, eventually vanishing beyond the reach of the shield’s light. Praying to Ashhur for the steadiest footing known to man, Jerico began crossing. The bridge was several feet wide, and it felt sturdy enough when he stepped. But the stone itself was wet, for water dripped from ceiling as if it were a lazy rain. The thought of a single slip, a lost grip on a rope, all leading to a very, very long fall…
“You still alive?” Kaide called out, his voice echoing.
“Yes,” Jerico said, unable to muster a worthy retort to such a stupid question.
Halfway across he felt something smack against his shoulder. He immediately froze, and had to choke down his cry so Kaide would not hear. It was a rope, just a rope, though what it hung from he had no clue. Deciding that just for once they could have used the front gate, he continued. When reaching the other side, Jerico hurried the last few steps, beyond relieved to be inside another, much smaller, tunnel. Kaide clapped him on the back, then pointed back toward the bridge.
“Feel that rope?” he asked. “When I first came here, I was told that if you pulled it and held, it’d collapse enough stones from the ceiling to crush the bridge into a thousand pieces. Like I said, I pity the fools trying to give chase through here.”
Jerico pushed further ahead into the tunnel, wanting nothing more to do with the chasms. He hoped Kaide didn’t notice the slight shaking of his shield as he held it aloft for light.
“How much farther?” he asked.
“Not far.”
Sure enough, the cave angled upward, then ended with an iron door. There was no handle of any kind, and when Jerico pressed against it, it lacked the slightest give.
“Locked and barred from the inside,” Kaide explained. “Just in case someone gets too clever. Bang on it a few times. The jailor will hear.”
“Jailor?”
Kaide looked at him as if he were dimwitted.
“I said we were visiting the dungeons, didn’t I?”
Jerico struck the door with his fist, hurting his ears with the loud clang of his platemail striking metal. After a wait, and an impatient gesture from Kaide, Jerico did so a second time.
A tiny slit in the door opened up, letting in a beam of light that fell upon Jerico’s breastplate.
“The man from Ashvale,” Kaide said, stepping in front of the paladin. “And a friend.”
“You know the password?”
“I know you, One-Eye, and you know me. Now open the damn door.”
“Was that the password?” Jerico asked as the slit shut, and they heard a heavy thud as the bolt on the other side was removed.
“Nah. I just like messing with One-Eye. One time he kept me waiting for an hour while he tried to convince Arthur that the king of Mordan was down here.”
“Why’d he think that?”
“Because that’s who I told him I was.”
The small, circular door opened, flooding the tunnel with light. Kaide exited first, then offered Jerico a hand. As the jailor dropped the door shut behind him, Jerico took in his surroundings. Sure enough, they were in a dungeon, albeit a small one. He saw only two cells, and both were empty. The walls were packed dirt instead of stone. The jailor himself was an ugly man with, true to his name, only one eye. The other was missing, and without an eye patch, the vacant slot made his face all the more grotesque.
“Is milord expecting you?” One-Eye asked.
“I don’t know. Should we go ask him if he is?”
One-Eye scratched his head.
“Guess that’s all right. You go find out if he is. I’d hate to bug him if he ain’t.”
“That’s a good man,” Kaide said, smacking One-Eye’s shoulder with an open palm. “Stay sharp. I heard something big following us in the tunnel. I think it’s a dagadoo.”
“You seen it, too?”
One-Eye clutched his club tightly with both hands.
“I heard it. You can, too, if you listen quietly enough. Come on, Jerico.”
Kaide led him toward the stairs out of the dungeon.
“Dagadoo?” Jerico asked.
Kaide shrugged.
“He’s been hunting it for a year now. One-Eye’s a half-orc, you know.”
Jerico glanced back at the big lug, who crouched atop the closed tunnel door with his ear pressed against the metal.
“Does that explain the… you know…”
“That and more.”
