46. Corruption (Patreon)

XLVI Corruption The next morning, Nerya spent most of her time overseeing the preparations for the festival. It was a lot of work. The hall

XLVI

Corruption

The next morning, Nerya spent most of her time overseeing the preparations for the festival. It was a lot of work. The hall they used for the ceremony, dedicated solely to the yearly Festival, had been ruined during the attack along with everything inside.

But how? Nerya questioned as she directed one of her clan members to a different site. The Prayer Hall, like her home, was located at the edge of Winterforge. Yet the hall had been burned to a crisp. The fires couldn’t have spread there naturally, which must mean one of the demons had gone out of their way to assault it…it wasn’t unthinkable. A building separate from the rest would stand out as important. However, their home remained untouched.

A coincidence? Couldn’t be. But Nerya had no way to confirm or deny her beliefs. Father had declared the shrine off-limits.

“Since it cannot be repaired in time, we will offer its remains as a gift during the Festival,” he had said.

A solid decision, Nerya thought. Sometimes, starting from scratch was easier than repairing. This was one of those times.

Maybe I can ask for permission. The site may be holy, but cutting off the entryway of the demons was more important than anything; their apologies for desecration could be offered however many times, their lives only once.

So Nerya excused herself from her clansmen and found Father, who was in his office in the main hall, and repeated her thoughts to him.

‘I give you permission,’ he said after hearing her out.

She blinked, almost asking, “just like that?”, before bowing and seeing herself out.

Excavating the ruin that was the Prayer Hall was a task for five golems. Given that, Nerya could’ve finished in an hour. She had just her trusty spider and the task swallowed the remainder of the morning and afternoon.

‘Find anything?’ Varrick said.

He’d come to watch her work as evening neared.

‘You would’ve known the answer if you helped,’ she said. There was no bite in her voice, though. Varrick had been out hunting most of the day, so she knew he was tired.

‘I enjoy watching you struggle,’ he said and offered her a waterskin.

She greedily partook of the ice cold water.

‘Father is joining us for dinner,’ Varrick said.

That didn’t happen often. Normally. Now that Mother was bedridden, the family tried to be together as much as possible.

‘I’m almost done.’

Her golem had continued excavating while she spoke with her brother, leaving only a single pile of rubble in the corner. Nerya had already given up hopes of finding anything, to be honest. The Prayer Hall was large. To find something in the last remaining nook was doubtful at best. But when her golem removed the debris, she spied a void where there should be stone.

‘Varrick,’ she called, ‘come quickly!’

‘Do I have to?’ he sighed. ‘My legs are finished.’

When she didn’t respond, he sensed the severity and rushed to her side. ‘Is that…’

‘A cellar,’ she finished.

Though Nerya had spent more time outside than inside the Prayer Hall, its construction was familiar to her. There was no cellar.

The golem removed the last of the debris covering the entrance.

‘Do you have a torch on you?’ Nerya said.

Varrick produced one from his bag.

Nerya focused her mind, reducing the size of her golem with a thought so the spider could fit inside.

‘I’ll go first,’ Varrick said. His tone brokered no room for disagreement.

The staircase was entirely intact. Nerya’s face lowered beneath the floor, baring her skin against the still air of the cellar. It’s not cold. But it should’ve been. Any room left untended for longer than twenty minutes would feel the wrath of mother nature’s breath. The first sight the firelight relayed was that of smashed glass. Second were the remains of shelves, their contents strewn over the floor.

Varrick angled his torch. ‘What is that?’ He stared at a circle in the centre of the room.

Words that Nerya couldn’t read, but whose meaning was obvious.

‘A ring of power,’ she whispered. The archaic letters formed two concentric circles. Nerya stepped forwards and her boots came away with sticky, dark liquid. She cast an old folk spell to enhance her sight. Even as the spell begun to take hold, she felt it: the sluggishness to the magic in the room. Magic, especially that of a sorcerer, was light and quick. In here, the mana was…thicker. More viscous. Like sugar heated in a pan.

Her golem shuddered, it too, feeling the strain of mana.

Suddenly, the fetid energies fell upon her like a landslide. She sank to her knees but Varrick’s powerful arms held her up.

‘I’m fine,’ she murmured. ‘It’s just…something wrong has happened here.’

She released herself from her brother’s grasp and stumbled forwards, which was when she found the two scorch marks on the floor. They were the size of a man and situated between the circles. Nerya knelt of her own volition this time. She picked up a black and blue plume of cloth. The same cloth every villager of Winterforge used for their robes.

A trail of them led to the rear of the cellar. Nerya stepped forwards, and backed off just as quick. Varrick angled away his torch but the view had already burned itself into Nerya’s memory.

Two charred corpses lied at the far end. Half-eaten and discarded as if they were leftover trash.

Neither of the siblings uttered a word. They had questioned how the demons had made it into the village. Now, they had their answer.

They were on their own.

Malakai and Ian travelled for hours—at least, that’s what it felt like. Just when Malakai was beginning to question if there was an end to the tunnel at all, a speck of light reached him. The light fuelling them, the two guards hurried forwards as fast as stealth would allow.

The tunnel extended into a chamber. Big, was the first word that came to mind. Malakai was surprised it even fit underneath the earth at all. While the chamber itself was warmly lit, frozen statues of all shapes and sizes littered the ground. Some were smaller than him, others three times as tall as the Warden. But the craziest detail was that there were figures encased within the ice.

Malakai’s gaze found Wraith. Something similar must’ve happened to them as to the bandits.

Ian tapped on his shoulder, shifting his attention to the rear of the room. The shaman. He was kneeling in front of an altar built into the wall. It featured a hooded maiden carrying a basin. Inside, was a veritable pool of blood into which the shaman dropped the cores he gathered one-by-one.

‘How are we stopping him?’ Ian said.

Great question. Shamans weren’t crazily strong—or so the Warden told him—Wraith could take care of one with ease. But Malakai hesitated. The orcs knew someone had infiltrated the underground. If the cores were so important an entire mining operation was organised to gather them, why leave their security up to a single shaman?

Malakai signalled Ian to hold and surveyed the room again. This time, he tried using his inner senses. Nothing jumped out at him. He closed his eyes. Malakai focused on the cold in his stomach. If the cold was mana, then he must search for anything akin to it.

His breaths lengthened as he tried to capture the room in his mind. He could sense…a lot. Yet also nothing. The pillars stuck out like sore thumbs in his head, further convincing him that they were similar to Wraith’s magic, but in doing so they dwarfed everything else.

It was a guess.

‘You decided?’ Ian said, his hawk eyes were trained on the shaman, who added more cores to the basin.

Malakai’s mouth pulled sideways. What to do? Let Ian take the shot? The frostguard wouldn’t miss—Malakai trusted his skill—but the shaman had magic. That left Wraith, who Malakai didn’t want to send in first. If there was an ambush, Wraith would be isolated from them, which would drastically reduce their chances of survival. Worse, the undead may become incapacitated...

Think, he thought, remembering what the Warden told him. Judge the strengths of your army.

Right. Why was he trying to sense for an ambush himself when he had three mages with him?

‘Cast your senses out discretely,’ Malakai told Tina, Ellen, and Radi. ‘Do you see anything?’

He couldn’t tell if they were listening to his commands or ignoring him, but after some time, the undead whispered back unintelligible nonsense. There was a distinct lack of apprehension in the “tone” they used.

‘Ian, take the shot,’ Malakai said.

One-Eye had been waiting for the command. String pulling back, the bow neither vibrated nor mumbled as it stretched. The tip of the arrow cut through the air of the underworld. Perhaps the arrow understood its mission, because its whistle was softer than usual. The metal tip sprouted from the shaman’s throat. The orc gasped, dropped the core, and reached for its throat.

The shaman tumbled off the staircase.

Malakai and Ian waited as the echo of the crash filtered out, leaving solely the dying coughs of the orc.

‘Go look, Squire,’ Malakai said. The horseman hadn’t been that valuable inside the tunnels. All the more reason to send him in first.

The undead made its way towards the corpse and confirmed the greenskin was dead.

I suppose we got lucky, Malakai thought. Yet he stepped forwards warily, the entire party behind him. Malakai reached for a fallen core and held it to his eyes. The energy within was more concentrated than anything he had ever sensed.

‘There’s at least ten in here,’ Ian said, weighing a cloth sack next to the stairs.

Malakai turned to the basin. The reek wafting from it was dense. How many cores were in there? Fifty? A hundred?

‘We need to get rid of it,’ Malakai said.

‘Cleansing it would be better,’ Wraith suggested.

Malakai saluted. ‘Warden! Glad you’re back.’

‘I told you I would be quick,’ she said. The undead ascended the staircase and towered over the demonic mixture. ‘It’s like a soup.’

The two guards chuckled.

‘I was being literal.’

‘How so?’ Malakai asked.

‘Blood demons grow stronger the more blood they absorb. Especially the blood of creatures who have a lot of mana. This—’ she pointed at the soup ‘—is food for them.’

The Warden paused, leaned on the cauldron, and reached inside, mimicking the swirling motion of the shaman.

The two guards traded glances but kept their mouths shut. Good that they did. The Warden withdrew her arm, blood dripping from her cloak, and produced a gemstone.

Malakai forgot to breathe. No, it wasn’t that he forgot. He didn’t dare to. The crystal the orcs dug out of the earth had been the single most powerful demon whose presence he’d ever felt—and he’d never seen the creature.

The stone in the Warden’s hands had no such presence. It didn’t weigh on his shoulders because everything was contained inside.

Food, the Warden had called it. How long had the core suffused itself in blood? How long had it gorged on the souls of the innocent? Centuries? Millennia?

Malakai swallowed. If that creature got out…

‘What should we do with it, Warden?’ Ian mouthed, the same truth Malakai had realised settling upon him.

She loomed as she regarded them. ‘As I see it, we have two options: find a deep enough hole. The problem is that someone might climb inside to retrieve it.’

Malakai didn’t think there was an end to the hole he was thinking of, but then magic existed.

‘Option two, Warden?’ Ian said.

‘We purify the core. It will take time, but it’s our best choice.’

That, Malakai had trouble wrapping his head around. How could they possibly purify a corruption which ran that deep?

‘Is there a chance the core will activate during the process?’ Ian asked, something Malakai hadn’t even considered.

‘It’s a risk,’ she said.

Ian went thoughtfully silent.

‘In any case,’ the Warden said, ‘we need to dispose of the cauldron as well. If we destroy the core but the soup remains, another can be created.’

‘How will we do that?’ Malakai said. The cauldron was too big to carry.

‘More purification,’ Ian guessed, and the Warden nodded.

‘It’ll be easier since the soup is not as concentrated—less than a day, I’d gather.’

‘I doubt the orcs are stupid enough not to notice we’re here during that time,’ Ian said.

‘Which is why the two of you won’t stay,’ the Warden said. ‘Take the core and return to Tauron. From there, we’ll escort it back to Frostmouth. Do not lose the core under any circumstance.’

‘Warden!’ they saluted, all too glad to be making their way out of the hellhole that was the orc underground.

They discussed their plan of action. Ellen would remain in the chamber with Wraith; the two of them would be enough to purify the demon soup. That left Malakai, Ian, Tina, Radi, and the squire to make their way back through the underground.

‘Best of luck, Warden,’ Malakai said as he prepared to leave.

‘You as well,’ the Warden said. ‘I won’t be far.’

Her words sounded strangely final to him. They weren’t cold like they usually were, but they lacked…a kernel of hope. It was probably his imagination. The underground was getting to him.

He smiled, then made his exit.

Moments passed in the chamber. The dead shaman had already risen to its feet, becoming part of the undead empire. The Warden’s eyes were not on him. Instead, they bore into a particularly dark spot at the rear of the room.

‘In our society,’ she said, ‘it is considered rude not to greet a ruler upon entry.’

Silence.

Until the darkness swirled to form the shape of a humanoid figure. A black orc exited the shadows.

‘My greatest apologies, Lady Dread,’ the orc said in perfect human tongue. It paused, head tilting. ‘You don’t mind if I refer to you by your old title, do you?’

The Warden regarded the newcomer. ‘To whom do I owe the pleasure?’

‘I go by Gore’ter, Lady Dread,’ he smiled. ‘Following old customs, I would be considered The Warlock. But you may call me Gore.’

‘Gore, you reach far, but the name is mine. Do state your business. I am occupied, as you no doubt noticed.’

The orc rubbed the back of his head in a gesture that was too human to be anything but mimicry. ‘I was to ascertain the safety of a certain artefact, but I see you have found it already. May I request its return, Lady Dread? It is very precious to my commander.’

‘I refuse.’

He sighed. ‘I thought so. My mistake. I did your sensory abilities a disservice.’

‘Ah, and here I thought you were so kind as to let my men leave.’

The orc waved it away. ‘They won’t get far.’

From within his larger shadow, dozens of tinier ones shot out, bounding towards the tunnel entrance.

Though Wraith watched them leave, two wicked daggers appeared in the undead’s palm.

Gore’ter grinned.