“Tragedy,” Dayne said.
Maresh led them down a cramped, dark hallway, and Dayne had to crouch down to make it through. Whoever built this place did not think about a man his size. He pushed his way through, his heart pounding as they went.
Maresh went on as they continued. “For example, down there is the tomb of King Maradaine the Tenth. But it’s been stripped clean, and the plaques have rather nasty things painted on them.”
“What sort of things?” Hemmit asked.
“Nothing I care to repeat,” Maresh said. “But some people had strong feelings about his failure to hold off the Black Mage and General Tochrin.”
Dayne’s heart continued to pound like a Linjari drumbeat, even as the tunnel seemed to get narrower and narrower. “Why haven’t the priests cleaned it up?”
“I think they did, and it keeps coming back. Strong feelings last a long time, apparently.”
“But . . .” Dayne sputtered. He couldn’t say more than that, not with the walls pressing into his shoulders.
The tunnel opened up to a wide chamber. Dayne felt his heart calm down, and he went to sit on the stone ground for a moment.
“You all right?” Jerinne asked.
“Wasn’t prepared for it to be this cramped,” Dayne said. “Glad to be out of that passage.”
“And what’s this room?” Hemmit asked, holding up his lamp. Lin lifted her hand up, and a soft glow came from it. Here the skulls and other morbid imagery were gone. Instead, the walls had faded imagery of the sigils of each archduchy in Druthal.
“The Chamber of Unity,” Dayne said in a low voice. “As Druth was reunified, one hero from each archduchy was honored to be put to rest here, together, on equal ground.”
But the ten sarcophagi were cracked open and broken. The bones of these heroes, their relics . . . all gone.
“What happened?” Dayne demanded of Maresh. “Where are Lief Frannel and Sammin Kinnest and . . . great blazes, Saint Alexis?”
“This place has been ransacked for decades,” Maresh said. “Have you not been listening to me?”
“I’m just . . .” Dayne shook his head. “I’m disgusted. In the people who would do this—you didn’t have any part in that?”
“I leave things like I find them,” Maresh said. “Most of the Charcoal Club folks do. Though you know how it is with some folk. They come down here with a few bottles, things get out of hand.”
“Horrible,” Dayne said.
“All right,” Maresh said. “If you thought that passage was tough, this next one will be very bad.” He pointed to a cut in the wall that was little more than a hole that came up to Dayne’s hip.
“That’s the tunnel under the river?” Dayne asked.
“No, it leads to it. About a quarter of a mile of that, elbows and knees, sloped down. It’s not going to be easy.”
Jerinne went and looked down the hole. “There’s no way this giant went down there.”
“We don’t think he necessarily did,” Dayne said. “But the tunnel under the river. You’ve seen it?”
Maresh nodded. “Didn’t go very far, because it was pretty damn late the time a few of us went down there. But that’s a sizable passage. Like, big enough to roll wagons through.”
Hemmit scratched at his beard. “That . . . that seems like a lot of work to build.”
Maresh shrugged. “I don’t know why it’s like that. I’m just telling you it is.”
Jerinne took off her belt and scabbard. “Dayne, shield and sword.”
“What are you thinking?” Dayne said as he took his off.
“We’re not going to be able to crawl through there with them strapped on. Give me your belt as well. I’ll lash them all together and drag them behind me.”
“I can—”
“Dayne,” she said, looking down the hole again. “You’re going to have a hard enough time getting through that passage. You shouldn’t have to worry about anything else. I’ve got it.”
He fought through his usual urges to take care of everything. Let himself accept the help. Jerinne was more than capable. “All right. I should go through last.”
“Yeah,” Lin said, coming over. “I’d say me first, then Jerinne, Maresh, Hemmit, and you.”
“You don’t want me to take the lead?” Jerinne asked.
“I mean, you all would have to try and hold a lamp while crawling along, and that’s going to be a challenge. But if I go first—” Her whole body started to emanate a warm glow. “Then I’m your lamp.”
“Brilliant,” Hemmit said. “In every sense.”
Jerinne finished lashing the shields and weapons together with the belts, wrapping the whole thing in her uniform jersey, and tying it to her ankle. Standing above the hole in her shirtsleeves, she asked, “Are we ready?”
Lin answered by crawling down and going in. Jerinne followed, and Maresh gave Dayne a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before going in himself.
“I mean,” Hemmit said with a self-deprecating chuckle, “it would hardly be seemly to let them go without us at this point. Even if it is . . .” He stopped himself. “Fear is nothing but an enemy to be conquered, right?”
“You’ve been reading Escarian, haven’t you?” Dayne asked.
“Guilty,” Hemmit said. “I’ve actually been digging through all the Elite Order narratives. Have you read—”
“Start crawling!” Maresh yelled from inside the passage.
“Another time,” Dayne said.
Hemmit got on his knees, and with a deep breath, went in.
Dayne blew out the lamp that Maresh had left on the desecrated tomb of Saint Alexis, leaving himself in the darkness save the faint glow coming from the narrow passage. He was glad to not have to look at this room any longer. He couldn’t believe that such a rich part of Druthal’s history, the legacy of the nation and its founding, the sacred rest of some of the people who died for the nation—that all of that would be so callously treated, desecrated. It broke Dayne’s heart, more than almost anything he had ever seen. What had become of these bodies, the relics and artifacts that had been interred with them? Were they lost forever? Dayne hoped they could be found again, placed somewhere with care and security, but he feared that there was
