I listened to everything Mira said with growing anger. By the time she was done with her recounting, I was ready for war. Juleen needed us if she was still alive. She had to be alive. She had to be. I picked up my helm and put it on, checked all my buckles, then put on my steel gauntlets. I picked up my shield and was moving toward the door just behind my brothers, who were a little faster than me. Led by Dortham, we marched toward the Surekeels’ house with haste. There were still lights on in many houses, though it was an hour or so until midnight. Often, father would shout “The Surekeels are the kidnappers! To arms!” There were people who saw us coming from their windows, then raced back into other rooms to get dressed or arm themselves. Father didn’t wait on anyone, though, and marched with powerful strides through the city. Though he was acting with confidence, my heart was hammering in my chest. This was my first real battle, and even with all the training I’d had, the danger and fear were real.
As we came around the final corner, I saw four guards posted outside the Surekeel residence. They saw us immediately and retreated inside when they saw we were marching for them. When they slammed the door shut, I could hear a heavy bar drop into place and an alarm being called out inside by the guards. The slam the door made sounded like it was made by a very heavy door. Father jogged up to it and threw his shield and shoulder against it at a run. The door didn’t budge. It looked like we would need a battering ram to get that door open. I remembered that Mira thought the houses were connected.
“Next door!” I said, pointing at the house to the right.
Elric got to the front door of the next house first, and he kicked it in with a loud crunch. I could hear a lot of people stirring within. Elric got both feet on the ground and his shield up when suddenly a man with insanely fierce glee on his face wearing a dark red robe slammed himself into Elric. He stumbled back a couple of steps, which brought him in line with Darek and father, who steadied him. The man howled in bloodlust, then attacked Elric with a dagger in one hand and with what looked like an eagle’s talon in place of his other hand. Elric blocked the knife with his shield, jerked his head to the side to keep the talons away from his eye slits, then smashed him in the head with his mace, which sent him crashing to the cobbles to land in a twitching, bloody heap.
At that moment, more crazed people rushed from the darkened doorway, throwing themselves at us with loud shouts and ferocious abandon, and they forced us back into the street. There was a woman with her left arm replaced by a snake who threw herself at Dortham. He slammed her in the face with the edge of his shield, and when she staggered back, he ran his arming sword through her chest. She screamed in pain, clutching at the sword in her chest, but kept moving straight at him. Dortham pushed her back with his shield, ripped his sword free, then cut her down with an overhand chop. Blood sprayed, and she fell. We each had one or more lunatics clawing at our shields, trying to stab us with whatever kind of knife or shortsword they had. We held the line, brother to brother, shoulder to shoulder, and struck back as hard as we could.
Bran and I set ourselves more firmly at the ends of the line as more came running out of the house, each one with a wide-eyed, maniacal look on their faces. The five of us kept swinging our maces and swords and kept striking down cultists in dark red robes, almost all of which had some sort of foul mutation performed on their bodies. Some had huge black talons on the ends of their fingers. Some had ram horns coming from their temples, or scales on their faces, or fur on an arm swollen with muscle. Some even had tails with barbs on the ends. Without exception they threw themselves at us with ferocious strength, and we fought for our lives. For a moment I thought of how strong I previously believed I was and now knew how wrong I was under the fury of this onslaught. It took everything I had to keep from being flung about under the strength of their blows.
Though badly outnumbered, our training, armor, and ability to block their worst attacks with our shields kept us going. The mutated cultists fought savagely, and the fight spilled out further into the street. Blood sprayed from mortal wounds as weapons found their red-robed targets. The cultists had the strength to scratch furrows into our armor and shields when they attacked with tooth and claw, which was something to take seriously. Fortunately for us, two of the neighbors had opened their windows behind us and were shooting the cultists with bows. It looked like thirty of the crazed cultists had erupted from the house, but after a few minutes of hard fighting they all lay dead in the street at our feet. We stood there panting after the attack faded. I swung my shortsword in a small arc to rid it of the worst of the blood. The blood splattered on the cobbles in a half circle.
“Anyone hurt?” Dortham asked between breaths. Each of us replied with a negative. Dortham raised his sword in salute to the archers behind us, who responded with grim nods. He returned his attention to the houses before him. “We have to hurry.”
Led by Dortham, we went into the house with shields upraised. The entry foyer was dark as night, but there was dim lamp light in other rooms of the house. The dirty white walls had insane verses scrawled on them that were either scratched into the walls with talons or painted on with bloody fingers. There was trash everywhere in the hallways. We heard a woman’s scream that sounded like it was cut off by a hand over her mouth come from above us. Dortham immediately ran up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time with my brothers and me right behind him.
At the top of the staircase was a small hallway with three bedrooms and a staircase behind us going up to another level. There was a struggle occurring in the bedroom next to the stairs with a woman’s bare legs sticking out from under two red-robed men, thrashing about. Father charged in without hesitation. As soon as he took a step into the room, two crossbow bolts were fired at him from a darkened corner of the room to his right. One thudded harmlessly into the wall beside him, and the other clanged against his shield, but it was a only glancing blow. The two men on the heap turned suddenly, and all three of them, the woman included, fired their crossbows at father. Dortham had his shield up as he charged, and the bolts clanged into his shield and left pauldron as he closed the distance. Dortham swung and buried his sword in one of the robed men’s head. By then, Darek and Elric had charged into the room as well, and it was a wild melee as the cultists dropped their crossbows and attacked with knives, trying to stab into our helms’ eye slits. Without armor they only lasted a few seconds, but they did their best to take us with them.
A silence filled only with our heavy breathing followed the skirmish. The other two bedrooms on this floor were empty except for dirty blankets and garbage. The stench of human waste was very strong here. I heard footsteps above us, as did the others. We looked to Dortham for direction, though it was clear to us all what we needed to do.
“Elric then Darek are first up the stairs. I need a breather,” Dortham said, breathing heavily.
We moved down the hallway and up the stairs to meet the next challengers. This was the highest level in the house, and up here it was even more insane. There was the usual trash strewn about everywhere, but there were body parts of people nailed to the railing at the top of the staircase like it was some sort of a demented trophy wall. Bloody writing on the walls told of the exploits of the Dark Lord, whoever that was. I didn’t stop to read it all because I was alert for danger. There were only two bedrooms up here, one on the front side and one on the back side of the house.
The staircase ended at the back side of the house, so we checked that bedroom first. Inside the dimly lit room was a bed against the far wall with a nude woman holding a lamp standing next to the bed. She had a chain around her neck that was firmly attached to the corner of the wall behind her. The woman had a huge cut in her torso just under her ribs with dried, brown blood covering her from the gash down. Her glazed eyes found us, but she made no moves of any kind. Then it hit me. That was Fay! Oh, God! They had cut her heart out, then turned her into an undead abomination, just like Mira thought they did. The horror of it stunned all of us. They were using her corpse as a lamp post! The sheer evil of this abomination was staggering. It struck me then that every person in this organization was aware of it and approved of such things. No longer did I have any conflict in my heart about coming here with violence. This had to be stopped, and death was the only acceptable means.
I was the last person to enter the room, and I heard the faint click of the door behind us. I turned quickly and shouted a warning as the other door opened to reveal two men kneeling and two men standing behind them with crossbows leveled at us. Without conscious thought, I brought up my projectile shielding spell, and the bolts hit the shield and dropped to the floor. I barely felt the pain of the magic. Enraged, I charged the four men with Bran right behind me. I stepped to the left side a bit as I swung my sword with all my strength at the kneeling man on the left. He had dropped his crossbow and was standing up quickly with a dagger in his fist. He tried to block with an arm that looked like a crab’s pincer, and my shortsword sheared right through the shell. Bran charged with a shield bash as the Terrans taught us, then followed up with a thrust of his shortsword, spearing the scaly neck of the man in front of him. I maneuvered in a circle deeper into the room to give my other brothers an opening to attack as well. The robed men before us slashed at us with their knives and daggers to little effect before they were cut down.
There was another nude corpse of a woman in this bedroom with an identical chest injury to Fay’s, and she was holding a lamp just like Fay was. Apparently, they were picked for their beauty in life, but that beauty was taken from them in the cultists’ cruelty and lust for death. Sickened at what I knew I had to do, I slashed downward with my sword, burying it in the poor woman’s head. She collapsed against the wall, held up by the chains around her neck, and would have dropped the lamp if it had not been tied to her hands. We were all furious, panting for breath, and sickened by what we saw around us. It was then that I noticed that two of the dead men were Sethor and Lerg. They were barely recognizable. I caught Bran’s eye and pointed with my shortsword. He’d noticed who we fought here also.
“I’ll do it,” Elric said grimly, as he walked out of the room.
We walked back to the top of the stairs, and though we didn’t go into the bedroom, we heard the sound of Elric’s mace ending Fay’s torment with a single crack. We took the stairs carefully in case of an ambush, but very soon we were descending into the basement of the house. The staircase down was barely lit by a dirty lantern hanging from a sconce on the wall on the landing below. I made sure I was second in line after father because I was fresher than my brothers were. At the landing below, the stairs ended in a dusty basement with a family’s personal belongings pushed against the right-hand wall in a big heap of broken junk. We could hear chanting from many voices coming from a tunnel in the left-hand wall, and we exchanged dark glances as we tightened our grip on our weapons.
The room we were standing in under the stairs had another room farther in as well as a freshly dug tunnel to the left and to the right. We advanced halfway into the room, fully intent on going towards the chanting on the left, when suddenly a roar came from the tunnel to my right. As I turned and set myself for the charge I knew was coming, I saw a line of crazed men and women brandishing knives, cleavers, and shortswords running straight at me. Without thinking twice, I focused my will and drew from the source, shrugging off the pain. I conjured a tongue of intense fire that briefly wrapped around my fist, then became a deadly cone of flame that erupted from before my sword hand, roaring through the tunnel. Shouts and screams of agony sounded from the tunnel, and I kept the flame going until I heard no more. I couldn’t judge the reactions of my family because of the helms, but they said nothing when the flames ended.
A crunching sound caused me to look to my left and I was shocked to see that a group of around a dozen undead villagers had come from the room deeper in front of us. My brothers moved quickly to meet the charge with shields upraised. Elric and Darek both had maces in their gauntleted fists, and they were able to use them with deadly efficiency against the unarmored dead. The rest of us, who were bearing swords, had to work a little harder. I ran one through the chest before I remembered Mira’s words. The undead kept clawing at me until I shoved it back a bit, withdrew my blade with a sickening scraping sound, then delivered an overhand chop to its head to knock it to the floor. It stopped moving after that.
Two more cultists ran howling from the right-hand tunnel, straight at me. I set my feet and braced my shield as I had been taught. The first one through had bull’s horns growing from his head, and he lowered his head as he ran. He hit my shield with jarring force, which knocked me back on my backside at least six feet away. The horned one was staggered a bit by the force of his blow, and father turned and slashed down with his sword. The man’s horned head fell to the ground next to me with a hollow sounding “thock!” as blood sprayed all over my legs. The second cultist was right behind the first and slammed into Dortham. With tentacles for arms, the cultist tried to squeeze him to death in a great bear hug. I was still scrambling to my feet when Bran ran the man through his chest from the side. He collapsed in a spray of blood when Bran withdrew his sword. We fought hard against the numbers of undead coming at us from the darkened doorway, and there always seemed to be more. Finally, with a couple more loud cracks from the maces of Elric and Darek, the last of the undead fell to the flagstone floor.
We were still trying to catch our breath when we heard a call from the stairway. “We’re coming down!” Mira said just loudly enough to be heard. Down the stairs came Mira and Elle of all people, both of whom were completely unarmored. At least Mira had a crossbow ready to fire, but Elle had nothing but her impotent little fists.
“Are you crazy?!” Bran asked, gesturing at the blood on his armor. “What are you doing here?”
After they came down, a small figure flew down the stairs swiftly after them. It was a white-haired Seeker in dark grey clothing with a tiny wand held at the ready, and he hovered about three feet off the floor. I’d never seen anyone who could fly before, and I was momentarily distracted by the spectacle. My higher senses were straining to examine the magic he used.
“We came to help,” Mira said.
“And help we will,” the hovering Seeker said.
“Timperis?” Dortham asked.
“You can call me Whizzbang. Nice to finally meet you all. My involvement in this will be secret, if you don’t mind.”
“The prince and his men will be here soon,” Elle said.
“Good, but you still shouldn’t be here,” Bran said.
“I know the danger,” Elle said to Bran. She could see we were amazed at her foolishness at being present during a battle. “I can’t explain it, but I know I’m supposed to be here. I’ll be careful.”
“Stay behind us,” Dortham said. “Trouble’s that way.”
Dortham pointed down the left-hand tunnel towards the chanting, which was getting louder and faster, screamed out by a bunch of lunatics. No wonder they hadn’t heard us. Looking in the tunnel entrance with a shield up in case of missile fire, it looked to me like the tunnel was only about a few feet long, and that it had been hastily blocked with furniture of some sort.
“I’ll start this next party with a little surprise, then make it look like we’re entering the room beyond to spring any possible trap. Give me a moment,” Whizzbang said.
With that, he flew above and behind me, as I was the only one foolish enough to be standing in clear view of anything down the tunnel at that moment. He took something out of a pocket on his vest, said some mystical sounding words, and suddenly a blast of lightning sprang from his hands and ripped through the tunnel, blasting the furniture to bits. There were many cries of pain from the room beyond, but then a volley of crossbow bolts flew into the room, two of them hitting my shield with a clang. Whizzbang muttered some more mystic words and an illusion of the group of us appeared to be running into the room beyond, screaming war cries. Without warning, several reddish, scaled tentacles sprang into being right in the middle of the illusory party and flailed about, seeking prey. The illusion of our group faded into nothing, but the tentacles certainly didn’t. I didn’t hesitate to focus my will again, and after drawing from the source, I hurled a cone of fire down the tunnel. I felt like I was burning, too, and it took all my will not to scream in pain. Screams sounded from the crossbowmen, though, which I could now see in the light. I kept the fire burning until the tentacles and the screams were gone, and we could hear the chanting again.
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When I ended my flames, father charged like a bull down the tunnel with Elric, Darek and Bran close behind. They were blocked from entering more than ten feet into the room beyond by more guards in chainmail wielding shortswords and shields. I was a little slower getting in there, as the fighting and evoking of the fire had taken a lot out of me. I heard shouts and cries coming from the room as the fighting began.
When I got down the hallway after stepping over the charred bodies of several guards in chainmail, I saw we were in a basement room as big as the entire house above it. There was another tunnel straight across from the tunnel opening I was standing in front of, a door on the wall to the left, and the rest of the room opened up to the right. At the end of the room on a raised section of floor, my eyes were drawn to a frightening figure in blood-red armor that was made to mimic a demon. He had horns and spikes jutting out of the plates in his armor and helm, and he was holding a black knife high in his right fist that seemed to absorb light. A black octagonal shield with blood red writing painted on it leaned against the wall behind him. I could also see two silhouettes in the darkness in the far corner of the room, but had no idea who they were.
The leader stood behind a large stone altar that had a dark aura coming from it that seemed to be pulsing in time to the chanting coming from the cultists. Next to the altar and facing it was a nude woman with disturbing symbols written in blood on her body and an expression of ecstasy on her face, clearly waiting for something with outstretched arms as she chanted in time with the other cultists. On the altar, with her wrists and ankles securely shackled to each corner, a helpless nude woman struggled feebly against her chains. I recognized her immediately. It was Juleen!
I hurled the most powerful arrow of fire I could conjure directly at the dark priest. Just before my magic attack hit him, the arrow struck the dark aura and turned to the side, blasting a chunk out of the stone wall. Seeming to ignore me, the demonically armored man turned a burning red gaze directly at Dortham, concentrating furiously on building the dark energies he was summoning. From behind me, a blast of lightning thundered past me towards the dark priest but was also deflected by the summoned darkness. Dortham, Elric, Darek and Bran fought with everything they had against the armored guards, trying desperately to get to the altar to protect Juleen, but the guards knew how to fight, and they didn’t go down easily.
Spewing forth the crescendo of his dark chant, the demonically armored priest shouted in triumph and stabbed his dark blade down into Juleen’s chest, just under the ribs. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a soundless scream as her back arched from the agony. The battle seemed to stop momentarily as combatants on both sides paused to watch, instinctively able to feel the dark energies in play. He quickly sawed a huge gash into her body, and to my horror, he reached into Juleen’s chest and pulled her heart out. With a cruel leer, he showed the heart to Dortham as he squeezed the blood from it, then directed the dark energy he had summoned into the heart. Juleen screamed in agony.
“Nooooo!” Dortham roared, fighting against the guards with all his might.
“How does that feel, Dortham?!” the demonic priest shouted above the chaos. “You’ve interfered with my plans for the last time! Suffer and die!”
Juleen collapsed onto the bloody altar and her head lolled to the side, but she was still breathing heavily, like she couldn’t catch her breath. The cult leader gave Juleen’s heart to the woman standing at the foot of the altar. She laughed and brought it to her mouth, taking a big bite out of the heart. Like the others, I was completely stunned by what had just happened, and I couldn’t move in the sheer rush of emotion.
“Kill them!” the armored priest yelled, pointing at Dortham.
His command broke the pause, and chaos raged. As the darkness coming from the altar waned, the remaining cultists swarmed my father and brothers. The demonic figure said a prayer of his own in some infernal language and began to glow with a reddish light that inspired fear. I could barely keep myself from fleeing at once, and only my growing fury at what had been done to my sister bolstered my will enough to defeat the magical attack. My brothers staggered back, but they held their ground also. The priest snatched up his shield and drew a broad arming sword that seethed with a fell darkness, then advanced on my father.
The chaos of battle erupted in bloody fury. The cultists flung themselves with abandon at Dortham, Elric, Darek and Bran where they fought the guards. It was a deadly melee as fang, horns, claws, talons and long knives were hurled at our defenses. I now recognized the two dark silhouettes in the corner belonged to Kromwell and Raynold. Kromwell looked like a smaller copy of the man in the demonic armor, which could only have been Sivash Surekeel in his true colors. Raynold was wearing only dark common clothes under a dark cloak, and his gaunt visage was in deep concentration. He said some words I couldn’t hear, then pointed at us. My higher senses told me dark magic was at work. I shook myself out of my stupor when I heard the groans of the dead coming from the tunnel on the other side of the room.
From behind me, I heard Elle’s voice lifted in prayer. Her voice sounded like a harp in the midst of the tumult. Suddenly, a pulse of light emanated from her and filled the room. The debilitating fear we all felt vanished like a puff of smoke. In fact, I felt invigorated, strengthened. The cultists cried out in pain and anger as the light made their mutations burn, and their attacks paused momentarily. I could clearly see a big group of undead townsfolk shambling at us through the tunnel, so I focused my will against the coming pain, drew in the power I needed, and let loose with another bright blast of fiery death, scouring the undead with flame. Mira fired her crossbow at Kromwell because she didn’t have a clear line of sight to Sivash. The crossbow bolt hit Kromwell in the chest but didn’t penetrate his plate armor. She ducked back into the tunnel and began reloading.
The melee in front of the evil altar was in full swing with my brothers fighting with all they had in them. More of the cultists fell, but they pushed us back with the sheer ferocity of their attacks. Sivash joined the fray with a snarl of hate and launched himself at Dortham like a dark thunderbolt. His first powerful overhand blow cut deeply into Dortham’s upraised shield and made him stagger backwards. Sivash easily yanked his sword free and launched a backhanded blow at Bran, who fought next to father, which chopped into his pauldron hard enough to knock him on his backside five feet away. The cultist Bran was fighting leapt onto him, pinning Bran to the floor and trying to stab him in the eye with a knife. Bran was helpless, unable to move his wounded sword arm. I was the only one who could help, so I fought to draw in more magical power as I kept my flames burning the undead, and managed to shoot an arrow of fire through the head of the cultist attacking Bran.
Sivash invoked a magical command in a foul language, and the remaining cultists started glowing with a dull red light. They seemed to be infused with renewed strength and roared their hatred in our faces, attacking with berserk abandon. Although I’d decimated the undead I could see, the undead once again started pouring from the tunnel. I could see Kromwell and Raynold were creeping around the fighting near the back wall to get to that tunnel and the protection the undead offered. Raynold was clearly directing them, pointing at us and chanting in some weird, whispery language that carried over the din. He was standing behind the place where Elric and Darek were fighting, so I couldn’t hit him with anything without hitting my brothers, too. Instead, I focused my will and hurled another blast of fire through the undead and down the tunnel, instantly consuming as many as I could see.
As we fought, another pulse of golden light filled the room. To my surprise, Bran pushed the dead cultist off him, picked up his sword, and rejoined the fight like he wasn’t wounded. From behind me, I heard Elle praying again. A bright ray of sunlight shot from her hand to strike the evil altar. The altar seemed to bulge as darkness burst from it. An inhuman scream issued from it loud enough to hurt my ears, then the altar crumbled and the reddish light giving the cultists strength was snuffed out. Juleen lay stretched out on top of the pile of rubble, staring in disbelief at her torso, which was completely healed as if the horrible wound was never there.
Sivash and Dortham were locked in a titanic struggle, trading heavy blows with their swords, and father was definitely getting the worst of it. His shield looked like a crumpled piece of paper, and he struggled to block each blow. I heard Whizzbang chanting behind me as I channeled fire into the tunnel, and suddenly a pea sized ball of fire shot past me and into the tunnel entrance. Something exploded back there, sending a wave of intense heat into the temple room. Elle was still praying, and the next pulse of golden light from Elle washed over Sivash, which made the darkly magical auras surrounding him and his sword wink out. Sivash roared his rage as he staggered to retain his balance.
Elric finished the cultist he was fighting with a powerful blow to the head, but then was bowled over by some of the cultists that had reached his flank. He went down under three of them and struggled to get his shield between them and him. Darek was locked in combat with two cultists still, and one of them slashed with his barbed tail in a powerful movement, stabbing Darek in the chest through the chainmail protecting his underarm. With a pained cry, Darek fell to the floor. That cultist suddenly took a crossbow bolt in the chest courtesy of Mira, who stepped back into the relative safety of the tunnel to reload.
The nude woman, who had been shaking in a disturbing way after the ritual, had grown a second pair of arms and threw herself at Bran, who was fighting with another cultist on my right. Sivash and father were still fighting with intense fury on the other side of Bran. With Elric and Darek on the ground, there were three cultists raining blows down on my brothers. I focused my will and drew from the source, hurling a series of fiery arrows from my fist that burned small holes right through torsos of the cultists. Unfortunately, they fell on top of Elric and Darek even as my brothers struggled to get up. Bran smashed through his opponent’s guard with an overhand chop to the collarbone and ended his life as the unclothed woman screamed something incoherent and leapt forward, grappling with Bran’s shield with all four arms. I advanced and ran my shortsword through the side of her chest. She spat blood in my face as she fell. I glanced at the tunnel opposite us and saw nothing moving. Kromwell and Raynold had disappeared, and the armored guards were all dead.
Father was still fighting with Sivash, and without his magical protections, Sivash was finally being worn down. The armors of both combatants were rent and badly dented, and they were staggering under the blows they dealt each other. A glowing, blue-white arrow made of lightning flew past father and struck Sivash in the chest, blasting a small hole in his cuirass. Sivash shook and reeled back from the blow, stunned, and Whizzbang gave a mocking salute where he flew close to the ceiling in the far corner of the room. Father followed the magical attack with a powerful thrust of his sword through the hole in Sivash’s breastplate. Sivash looked down at his chest as father twisted his sword, then ripped his sword out, spraying blood in a wide arc. Sivash coughed up some blood, and with a final weak curse, he collapsed to his knees, his guard down. Dortham slashed down brutally at Sivash and took his head clean off.
I looked around to see no more fighting enemies. All of us were breathing heavily. Darek groaned in pain where he lay on the floor, his blood mingling with the blood of his enemies. A pulse of light from Elle seemed to relax him, though, and Elric helped him to his feet. Elle ran heedlessly through the dead and dying to get to Juleen as the rest of us began finishing off the undead and cultists where they lay. When Elle got to Juleen, she let out a sobbing cry and embraced Juleen in a tight hug. Dortham ran over as soon as he could, and held Juleen by her bare shoulders, staring down at her unbroken skin. There wasn’t even a scar. It was like the injury had never happened.
“I can’t believe… I thought…” Dortham began. He nearly crushed her against his cuirass in an embrace as she cried.
Dortham eventually released his hug and brushed Juleen’s hair away from her face, clearly thankful beyond words that his daughter was still alive. Elle noticed the robe that the nude woman was wearing had been left in a heap where she had been standing by the altar, so she gave it to Juleen. She self-consciously turned her back to us all and put the robe on as quickly as she could. It was made more difficult by the manacles that were still on her wrists and ankles.
“I thought I was dead,” Juleen said, tugging at the manacles.
We were all still wary of ambush, and we unconsciously took turns watching for danger as Juleen hugged each one of us tightly. Seeing her struggling with the heavy chains, Mira took a small piece of metal from a vest pocket and in moments had popped off one of the manacles. She began working on the rest.
We were still panting there a couple of minutes later when we heard a commotion coming from the tunnel that we entered the basement through. Whizzbang suddenly disappeared from view like he was never there. Dozens of soldiers wearing the colors of the prince burst into the room with weapons drawn. They saw the carnage in the room and that no one was fighting currently, so they stayed their charge and spread out through the room. Then, into the room marched Prince Kimorel Mithram himself.
The prince looked around, obviously impressed. He was in his thirties, with brown hair under his helm and blue eyes showing through the visor. He was wearing fluted plate armor with the royal crest of Mithram, a griffin rampant, etched into the surface of his cuirass. He sheathed an ornate arming sword.
The prince addressed his captain of the guard, saying, “Secure the rest of this complex from bottom to top. Take no prisoners. Leave no building within two blocks unsearched.”
“Yes, your Royal Highness,” the captain responded.
The captain left four men with the prince and divided his men. Half went up the stairs to the Surekeel house and he took the rest down the tunnel where the undead came from. The prince paused for a short time before addressing us. The sounds of distant fighting were soon heard in the background along with the words he spoke.
“Who are all of you, and what in the hells happened here?” Prince Kimorel asked.
“Your Royal Highness, I’m Dortham Smith, and this is my family,” Dortham answered, bowing. “Councilor Surekeel was responsible for the abductions, and he was sacrificing innocent people on that altar, um, that used to be there, in order to give his followers some kind of demonic mutations. He used his son Kromwell to collect victims and used a young man named Raynold to turn the corpses of those sacrificed into undead. I have no idea what he was going to do with them, but I’m sure it would not have been good. We discovered his plot today after my daughter Juleen was kidnapped. We sent Elle to warn you and then tried to rescue Juleen before she, too, was murdered.”
While Dortham was speaking, Mira walked unnoticed over to a door on the right side of the room by the altar, which was hard to see from where we entered. She tried turning the handle and found it to be locked. She looked thoughtfully at Sivash, then walked over to take a key ring off of his belt. She tried a couple keys, then found one that clicked. The door opened inward to reveal three more nude women who were unconscious on the floor but were apparently unhurt. By this time we’d all noticed what Mira was doing, and the prince had a look inside the door. He stepped back out of the doorway in respect for their dignity and signaled to one of his men.
“Find three robes, as clean as possible,” The prince ordered the soldier. “Make sure these three women are returned to their families.”
They hastened to obey.
“By your leave, your Royal Highness, we’re going home,” Dortham said. He was pretty unsteady on his feet.
The prince nodded. “Of course, Master Smith. I’d like to speak with you when you have time. We owe you a debt.”
Dortham nodded. We all bowed to the prince, then followed Dortham from the room and back to the entrance foyer of the house next door where we first entered this nightmare. Bran held us up briefly with an upraised hand.
“We need to bring Fay home to her family,” Bran said with downcast eyes.
Dortham looked to his eldest, Elric, with an unspoken request.
“I’ll handle it,” Elric said as he went up the stairs. He came back down a few minutes later carrying Fay’s body on his shield, wrapped in a curtain.
When we walked out the front door of the house next to the Surekeels’ residence, we saw that the prince had stationed dozens of men outside, surrounding the entire city block and conducting searches of the surrounding homes. There were bodies everywhere in the street, not all of which had been killed by us. There was a line of armed townsfolk that protected a gathering crowd of people before several dozen corpses. It wasn’t an unruly crowd, so only a couple of the prince’s men were needed to keep them at a distance. Nora was with them, and she rushed over when she saw us.
“Juleen? My baby girl?” Nora cried out. She saw the body Elric carried, and her hand went to her mouth.
Juleen stepped from between Elric and Darek, and Nora finally saw her. With a wordless cry, the two of them ran together and hugged fiercely, then sobbed uncontrollably. The Bakers, who were close to Nora in the crowd, pushed through to see. They could see the body covered in the draped that Elric held as he walked towards them.
“Is that…?” Donin asked.
Elric nodded solemnly, head bowed. With a heart wrenching cry, Johala turned and buried her face in Donin’s chest, then wept loudly. Donin cried bitterly for his lost daughter as he held his wife tightly. Dortham gave them some time in respect, then he went over and put an armored hand on Johala’s shoulder.
“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Johala. Donin.” Dortham said softly. “We’ll bring her home.”
“I can do it,” Donin said stoically.
Elric nodded and gently gave the shield bearing Fay to Donin. By this time Nora had come to Johala and supported her as she turned to go. The crowd parted for us as we went. As we walked slowly down the street, we could hear the sounds of both joy and lamentation as the three other young women were carried out of the house by the prince’s men. The joyous cries were the ones I try to hold onto.
