[TLQ-B2] 18. The Call (Patreon)

XVIII

The Call

“We’ve been looking to relocate lately,” King Rok said.

Relocate…

“Is there a threat out there, King Rok?” Nerya mumbled.

“If there was, my Frostsplinter tribe would’ve taken care of it.” He scoffed. “Our current home is growing too small for our numbers.”

Nerya side-eyed the troggs. Though there were hundreds of entrances in the walls, each and every one was occupied. She’d thought the troggs were communal creatures, but maybe the square was so busy because there was nowhere else for them to sit.

“Are you looking to head to the surface?” Leah asked. “We may be able to arrange for one of our villages to become your home.”

The king snorted again. “We’ll die before we willingly head up to the surface.”

“King Rok,” Master Circe chimed in, “please do not keep us in suspense.”

He swapped the arm he was resting his chin on. “I want the fort.”

Leah titled her head, which Nerya understood. How could they ask for a fort when they refused to relocate to the surface?

Nerya hadn’t told her about her recent find yet.

“Are you speaking of Fort Nazdroth, King Rok?” she asked.

“The very one,” he grinned. His teeth were crooked and yellow.

Nerya gave Leah a quick rundown of what she’d run into before meeting her.

“That…” Leah said. “That’s a tall order.”

“Taller than what you’ll be having my men face?” King Rok said. “How many do you think the war will lose us? If we don’t have sufficient protection afterwards, the other tribes will consolidate us.”

Biting her teeth, Nerya turned to Leah, who had an equally challenging expression on her face. The fort was not theirs to waive the rights to. Moreover, they weren’t even certain if they could get to it. Of course, this also meant they could trick the king and sign away the rights with ease. If the rights weren’t theirs, penning a contract to give them away wouldn’t do anything. And in the case that it did work, if there was no way to get to the castle, the troggs were out of luck. Making it accessible was beyond their means to promise.

‘They may have tunnels that can get there.’

That said, the pressure coming of the fortress was immense. Could a trogg enter it without suffering some death-induced illness?

These thoughts warred inside her. They needed this army of troggs and they had nothing else to barter with.

Leah spoke up. “If we were to agree, how would we be settling this deal?”

The king snorted. “‘Never trust a surface rat’. Those were the words my father passed down to me and his father to him. You dwellers only ever come down here when you need something. Once you’ve gotten what you wanted, to return and forget all about us.”

He stepped off the stone and rose to his full height. Despite not reaching past her chin, the king still struck an imposing figure. If he got a hold of her, it’d be lights out.

“You can write the contract in blood or not at all. Those are my terms.”

The two girls shuffled in place and eyed each other. What were they going to do?

Malakai lowered himself to the floor and fished the rat the Warden had given him out of his pouch. The undead critter skittered onto the floor and turned towards him, standing on its hind legs.

Now came the hard part. Giving orders to the other undead worked to a degree, but Malakai didn’t know if that was because he was getting better at commanding them, or because they were more intelligent than other undead. If the latter, there was nothing he could say to make this rat listen to him.

Malakai considered this words, then pointed to the small hole near the bottom of the wall. “Go in there and kill anything you see.”

The rat stared at him but didn’t hurry off to do his bidding.

Jaeger and the other guards standing behind him looked down on him with a frown on their face.

“Must be all that time spent underground,” one said.

“I know. Haven’t even been here five hours and I’m already seeing ghosts.”

Malakai stopped his forehead from popping. He knew how ridiculous he looked, but this was necessary!

‘Focus,’ he chided himself.

He locked eyes with rat. His lips parted—but he snapped his mouth shut. ‘The Warden doesn’t speak to order her soldiers.’ So instead of speaking, he pulled a set of thoughts close to the front of his mind. Those of the rat fighting other of its kind, of those beasts rising and joining their army, only for the dead to spread further and wider in search of more living.

Malakai was surprised by how easily those thoughts seemed to come to him. His thoughts were not mere visions. More than seeing, he could…feel the dead spreading like a disease. Feel the idea churning in his stomach.

He reached out and touched the rat’s temple. The creature jerked once like a jolt had passed through it, then burst into the tiny entrance. It wasn’t long before a set of screeches crawled out of the exit.

The guard captain rose and spun back to the guards. Their whispers had died down and they’d collectively taken a step back. Except for Jaeger.

The castellan-in-training kept his eyes on the hole, from which the screams of critters were still pouring. “Do we need to wait?”

“No,” Malaki said. “it will act independently from now on.” So he hoped. He wasn’t certain what the beast would do if it couldn’t find any other hovels. He’d at least implanted the idea for them to scatter, which would broaden their range.

“Then let’s go,” Jaeger said. “Michael said we’re dealing with quite the force.”

Malakai didn’t like the sound of that.

“At an estimate, I’d put them at over a thousand,” the frostguards’s scout said.

Malaki took a moment to trade greetings with Michael and Drake. The two hadn’t been assigned to his squad, but outside the time he spent as the guard captain for her manor in Snowspire, they’d been with the Warden for as long as him. Albeit quite reluctantly in most cases.

After the pleasantries, they all turned towards the bridge in the distance with nothing but trepidation. There were so many demons that the surface of the structure was no longer visible.

‘How can we possibly push through an army of this size?’

Malakai saw that question reverberate in the heads of the other guards, heard it in their laboured breathing. There weren’t any other paths they could take to end up behind the force, nor any surprise angles from which they could ambush them.

This was suicide no matter how one looked at it. As that realisation settled deep in his bone marrow, the Warden’s voice came back to him.

‘I’ll give you a hint—’ he could still hear the slight amusement in her tone as she watched the bandits at Camp Tauron threaten to overrun him ’—undead are almost never outnumbered.’

Malakai grimaced. That may have been the case back then, but there was not a single place in this godforsaken underground he could retrieve reinforcements…

His stomach spasmed, causing Malakai to frown. He considered whether he’d eaten something egregious when his stomach did the same thing again. However, when he focused his attention on his insides like the Warden had taught him, he realised the sensation was not physical. This was a pull. One similar to the one he felt when the Warden’s presence stirred in his mind or one of the undead tried to convey something.

But the Warden was indisposed and he’d stored the undead in their crystals. So what was trying to get his attention?

…whatever it was, it wasn’t wise to ignore.

Beside him, Michael, Drake, and the rest of the company continued to shiver in place. Malakai side-eyed them. “Jaeger, there’s an urgent matter. Can you lend me some of your men?”

“Sure, what are you planning?”

“I don’t know.”

The steward blinked.

Malakai shrugged. “I’m following through on a hunch.”

Jaeger traded glances with his men and slowly turned back to Malakai. “Will that hunch require fighting?”

The guard captain shook his head. Even if it did, if the undead he had with him couldn’t keep him safe, the frostguards wouldn’t either.

“Just give me a few soldiers so they can report back in case anything happens.”

They quickly made the arrangements.

Malakai controlled his breathing. Kept his mind cool and calm. The pulse in his stomach intensified with each step through the winding pathways of the underworld. Most of the paths were unlit except for a few that had torches fastened to the walls. Signs of the orcs and demons.

The edges of his lip sank. They needed something good on the other end of this hunch.

They closed in and sweat rolled down his neck as they closed in.

“I hate this fockin’ place.”

Malakai whirled at the sudden voice and made Drake jerk back. The guard captain coughed. “Sorry, I was a little focused. Yes, I’m amazed all of this was down here.”

He supposed Winterforge had a role to play in that, but Nerya’s clan hadn’t made all of this.

‘Did the Warden’s ancestors build all of this?’ He’d never heard her mention anything of the sort.

But then he supposed she didn’t know about it either.

“I always knew therr’ was more below our feet,” Drake said.

“And how’d you know that?” Michael snorted. “Your momma tell you?”

Drake raised his fist. “An’ what if she did?! My mums was a smart woman!”

Malakai let their bickering pass over him. There was an argument to be made for keeping quiet, but they were nervous. As was he. The background murmuring actually kept his heartrate low.

The calm didn’t last, and his organ began beating three times as quick once they stepped out of their tunnel onto a landing strip. A series of bridges crawled through the underground chamber like a giant spiderweb. They connected shards of earth jutting out of a lake, which shone in all the colour of the rainbow.

Michael exhaled. “What is this place?”

Malakai wished he knew. He turned to a far off landing strip halfway up the walls. One look at the fort was enough to know what had called him.

“Oy, oy,” Drake mumbled. “I know yar her favourite an all, but ya sjur ya wanna go there?”

If even a non-sorcerer like Drake could feel the aura radiating from the structure, it was a devastating pressure indeed.

Malakai’s gloves creaked. He balled his fists. “I’m sure.” Then he stepped towards the bridge connected to their platform.