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The guard say something in low voices, then one leaves the front gate and approaches Solat’s hiding spot. One step. Two. I feel like I’m going to explode as he takes out his sword, heading toward the bush, ready to attack.
To my utter surprise, Markos leaps from his hiding place and latches onto the guard the moment he gets close enough. His knife flashes, and then there’s a horrible gurgling noise. The guard falls to the ground, clutching at his throat and rolling in pain.
Oh shit. That’s not like the movies at all. It’s not a fast death. It’s not swift and painless. The man keeps making sounds and writhing, and I freeze, petrified. I knew we were going to make a break for the crypt, but I didn’t think about the fact that people were going to die.
I’m such a naïve idiot.
The other guard shouts, and then men are racing toward us, drawing their weapons.
Kerren grabs me by the arm and hauls me forward. “Come on. No time to waste.”
Solat and Markos confront the soldiers, while Kerren shields me with his body and keeps me against the rails of the fence. His sword is out, but because it’s dark, no one’s noticed us yet.
“In the gates,” he whispers to me.
I run forward, my staff clutched in my hands…right into a pair of guards.
They look startled to see me. “A woman?” one blurts out. “Here?”
“Surprise!” I yell, adrenaline rushing through me, and swing my staff like I’m trying to hit a home run. I don’t stop to think about what I’m doing, or if they’re going to kill me. I just swing.
I was pretty good at softball back in high school, and I definitely remember what the crack of the bat felt like against the heft of the ball. My staff slams into the side of the guard’s face and…it doesn’t feel the same. It feels a thousand times worse, and it makes a wet, cracking sound even as his jaw moves in a weird direction and blood flies and teeth spray and I can’t stop gasping as he stares at me, then staggers. He’s not going down, so I hit him again.
And again.
When he crumples to the ground on the third hit, I suck in a deep breath—fuck, there’s not enough air in the world right now—and try to focus. I just killed a man.
Later, Faith. Worry about that later.
Kerren struggles against two guards, parrying their blows as they push him back against a large stone grave-marker. I rush forward and swing for the closest guard’s head, but I only hit him a glancing blow from behind.
He immediately pivots and his sword slices out at me, too fast for me to avoid.
CLANG.
It feels like a truck hits my stomach, and I fall backwards as if kicked. I gag on the sensation of vomit creeping up my throat. I smack my staff against the back of his knee and he goes down like a rock even as I crawl onto hands and knees. While he staggers, I slam my staff against the side of his head, crushing his ear and knocking him over. A second swing makes him go still, and then Kerren shoves his knife in the man’s throat.
Markos and Solat jog up to us. One whistles, staring at the guards I mashed. “Damn, woman.”
I tremble, squeezing my eyes shut. It’s either that or vomit. I remind myself that it was them or me. Them or me. If they knew I was Aron’s anchor, they would have killed me just to get to him.
I still bend over and puke on some poor person’s headstone.
Markos gives my back a pat. “Hurry it along, Faith. More will be coming.”
Right. Right. Never mind that I just murdered two soldiers that were doing their jobs. This is war. I chant that to myself as Solat takes my arm and the men half guide, half drag me along with them, heading for the crypts.
Once we’re in the cemetery, I realize we never asked what the crypt itself looks like, but it soon becomes really obvious that we don’t have to. There’s one building in the midst of this place, with a statue of the god of the dead in front of it, skulls at his feet. Behind him rises a square building with columns, and absurdly, I think it looks a bit like a bank. It’s got double doors and columns and…well, bank. A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me.
“Get inside,” Solat hisses. “Hurry.”
The double doors are chained and locked with a delicate padlock that looks extremely expensive, and that Markos breaks with two swings of his sword. Then, the doors swing open and we step inside…and down.
Stairs descend, and it’s pitch black inside. The moment the doors close behind us, we’re in utter darkness.
“Um…?” I say aloud. “Did we think to bring a light?”
“I’ll get the sparker out,” Kerren says, and then there’s a rustling noise as he digs through his pack.
“Hurry. Hurry.” Solat’s voice is the essence of impatience. “The moment they find out we’re in here, we’re trapped like rats.”
“Let’s not mention rats,” I whisper.
Something taps. A skittering, scratchy sort of noise. It’s a noise I’ve heard before.
Ah, damn.
“What was that?” Markos asks.
“The dead. Can we hurry things along?” I ask. “Kerren? Please?”
The striker flares, and then Kerren lights a fat, ugly tallow candle shoved into a cup. He holds it up, and then hands it to me. “So we can keep our hands free,” he says.
Good call. I want them to be doing the fighting, not me.
The scratching noise starts again.
“Did you say that was…the dead?” Markos asks, confused.
“They’re coming back,” I say, stepping forward in a far braver fashion than I feel. “The god of the dead isn’t home to receive them any longer so they don’t have anywhere to go.” I shield the candle with my hand as I move forward.
Kerren mutters a prayer under his breath.
The crypt itself is long and cold and dusty. As I step down the stairs, I see niches carved into the walls, and each niche has a heavy coffin already in it. Cobwebs hang over everything, and as we pass by the first coffin, I notice there’s a heavy rock atop the lid. It’s not something that fell there by surprise—it’s easily the size of a shield, and not just the one tucked into my shirt. It’s enormous and would take several men to move it.
The coffin scratches, and Markos jumps, jostling me.
“Sorry,” he says.
I look across and the coffin on my other side has a similar rock. As we step forward, I see each one has something to weigh the lid down. “We’re safe,” I promise them. “Someone’s already been down here to do damage control. The dead can’t get out.”
“Safe,” Solat snorts. “How do you kill something that’s already dead?”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out, all right?” I say cheerfully and walk a little faster. “Look for a statue of Aron. An ugly one.” I pause then add, “It might not be that ugly. That just might be his vanity talking.”
Someone snorts.
We walk. And walk. I can’t go too fast or the candle will blow out, but I really want to get out of this crypt, and it seems like it snakes along for forever. We pass row after row of coffins, some with dried flowers left in vases by the floor, others covered in such thick dust that they’ve been here for forever. The scratching dies down the farther in we go, but I’m hyper-aware that Aron’s outside, getting pummeled just because he can’t die. I don’t want him hurt. As silly as it sounds, I worry about him. For all that he’s arrogant as hell and a god, sometimes he’s clueless. There’s a lot of things they can do to a man without actually killing him…and then I shake those thoughts out of my head because I don’t even want to consider it.
Then, the passage changes. It turns into a larger chamber, and at the far end is a statue of a man holding an axe, his head bowed. The entire thing is a little…stumpy and the expression on the man is downright constipated. I can’t help but laugh, because this had to hurt poor Aron’s huge ego. “All right, I think we’ve found our man.”
“How do we get inside?” Kerren asks, curious.
“No freaking clue,” I admit, and hand him the candle so I can run my hands along the wall itself, looking for a hinge mechanism of some kind. I run my fingers over the cracks, and I find a narrow, straight line between the large stone bricks that has to be our secret door, but no amount of pushing or pulling will open it. “Is there a lever somewhere?”
“Faith,” Markos warns. “Hurry up.”
“We can all look, you know,” I snap back at him, studying the floor. Is there a panel we step on? I push on one tile experimentally but nothing moves.
He readies his sword, and Solat does, too. “Someone just came in,” Markos whispers.
Then, I hear it, too. Voices. Distant, but definitely in the crypt. Fuck. We have to get out of here, and soon, because we’re cornered. Frantic, I run my hands over the wall one more time, but when I find nothing, I turn to the statue. Maybe our answer is here. I run my hands all over the ugly dwarf-Aron made of stone, checking the mouth, the crotch, the hands, but it all seems to be entirely one piece. Even as I move, I hear footsteps approaching, the clank of armor, and then shouting.
“Come on, Aron,” I whisper. “Help a girl out.”
I jerk on the axe, hoping that it’s the key I’m missing, but when it doesn’t move, I glare at the statue itself, frustrated.
And stop. The eyepatch covering Aron’s left eye looks strange. I run a fingernail under the patch itself and it flips up. Inside Aron’s eye socket is a pupil, which shouldn’t be there if he’s missing an eye, right? I shove my finger inside and push it, and it clicks like a button.
Stone rumbles, and the wall slides open in a cloud of dust. A new, dark passage opens.
Fuck yes! “Let’s go,” I tell the others, flipping the eyepatch down and snatching the candle from Kerren. I lead the way, down a second narrow passage, and the men file in behind me. The stone scrapes behind us a second later, indicating that the secret door is closing once more. My candle blows out at the rush of air.
Then, all is silent.
“Did they see us?” I whisper into the darkness.
“I don’t think so,” Markos murmurs. “Where are we?”
“Hell if I know. No choice but to go forward, right?” I put a hand out and take a few steps into the dark. I don’t hear the dead scratching, so I’m really, really hoping this is just a small antechamber and not crypts 2.0. Sure enough, my fingers brush over stone, and I’m touching a wall. “Here we go.”
I run my hands up and down the stonework in the dark, and to my surprise, there’s something protruding—a door handle? I turn it and the door swings outward.
Light spills in.