Years in the field had done many things to Aleksei, but thankfully, the experience had its good effects as well. About five feet into the tunnel, where light from the half-rotten homestead above failed nearly completely, he found a splintered rod of some sort by nearly stumbling on it. After making sure the thing was dry enough, he split it in half over his knee, sat down, and rubbed the two pieces together, breathing on them lightly occasionally. There arose an acrid, irritating stench that almost made him gag, but he stubbornly continued, figuring that this would be his only chance at light. After a great deal of time, he had one semi-functional torch and one rather worn torch candidate. Other than a few splintered pieces of rod that were the result of his cracking the thing in half, there were no other bits of anything else usable. While he wasn't completely sure who may be following him down, or indeed if anyone would, he allowed the flame to burn the floor for a few moments. He noted with some surprise that while the ground beneath it scorched normally, the rod was just as slow to burn as it had been to catch fire in the first place- it was as though the fire was having a difficult time consuming the perfectly dry wood. Shrugging it off as either Bahamut or Io's blessing, he picked up the rod and moved forward.
The tunnel clearly wasn't made for someone his size, and after just a few minutes, he found that he had to hunch his seven foot frame to avoid grazing his head on the ceiling of the pathway. By the time the worn bit of the rod nearly burned down to his fingers, the tunnel height began to grow again, and he was greeted by a stone portal with two significant gaps between its four pieces. He pushed the burning piece of rod through the largest gap, shoved his hands through, then grunted and strained until he had pushed the rounded edges of the portal back far enough to allow him through. On the other side, in the dim, flickering light, he was able to see three different paths- one that descended to his left, one that ascended before him, and one that descended to his right. All apparently diminished in size until they resembled the tunnel that he'd just left on the other side of the portal. The first interesting thing about the descending right hand path was the presence of scrawl similar to that which Amilie had read before, but when Aleksei picked up the bit of burning rod to inspect it, he noticed that there were also burn marks- not unlike the one he'd left on the floor- on the walls. He walked a few feet beyond the first burn mark and urinated, not having anything else with which to mark his progress.
Slow to burn as it was, his makeshift torch only lasted a few more minutes after that, and he was soon left to grope about in utter darkness. Deciding that he would find either the end of the tunnel or something else to burn, he got down on his hands and knees and felt his way forward. The ground beneath him was still packed hard, cold, and unremarkable, and he wondered how long ago the cause of the burn marks had passed through.
About an hour after he began crawling forward, he began to hear distant, muffled voices. Instantly concerned that Amilie's theory of slaves might be true, it was only hard-won discipline that kept him from rushing forward toward the sounds. Instead, he slowed himself down and tried to note if there were any etchings anywhere, getting up to smooth his hands down the walls as well as sweeping the floor. As he continued, the sounds of the voices grew louder, as though two male creatures were right in front of him, or next to him. But it seemed the more attention he paid to the feel of every inch of the place, the more absolutely without mark that it seemed- until he realized that the ceiling of the tunnel began to rise again. Some exceedingly careful searching made him realize that he had encountered a portal similar to the one through which he'd had to shove his way some hours ago- but there were no gaps through which anything could get through. After a few minutes of exploration, listening to the increasing anger in both voices just beyond the portal, Aleksei decided that it would be a good idea to simply crack the stone himself. He backed up a few feet, got a running start, and smacked his scale-plated shoulder into the stone, only to feel a sharp jab that- just for a moment- terrified him with the thought of a broken bone. He dropped heavily to his knees and gripped his arm, checking for the damage he was sure he'd sustained, and was utterly surprised to hear the rasp of slow-moving stone.
Even more surprising was the light that suddenly poured in from the other side of the portal.
Along with oil-filled pots that were blazing with light, there were scattered pickaxes, hammers and chisels on the floor before him. The sources of the voices, two apparently Human males, kept up a weak physical fight in spite of his sudden presence. Both were nearly skin-and-bones thin, made frail by some blight- their sallow skin looked more like yellowed paper than anything else. As Aleksei let go of his arm, which was sore, but unharmed, and stood up to walk through the portal, one of the men managed to stab the other with some small implement, and struggled to his feet to run toward the open portal.
"Don't let 'im past thee, lad!" the wounded man cried plaintively, his sickly eyes fixing the Dragonborn at once as he sat up on his elbows. Without delay, Aleksei bent slightly to clothesline the fleeing man, slung him over his shoulder, and walked over to the wounded man. Behind him, the portal eased itself shut with a quiet rasp.
"What is this?" Aleksei asked calmly, putting the offending man down carefully. "Who is leaving you here to work with cold stone when you are sick?"
"Nae, lad," the wounded man panted, a laugh not far from his wavering voice. " 'Tis nae sick. 'Tis poison-work thee sees 'ere, an' th' hag's magics. And dinnae trubble thyself with who's i' th' right of it, eh? We're both sinners, 'e and I. 'Tis but our own wickedness come fer us, is all."
"I am not understanding," Aleksei sighed, sitting down and looking over to the still-gagging man as though he could explain his companion's words. "Who is poisoning?"
"We're all doin' th' poisonin'," the wounded man responded woefully, allowing himself to lay completely on the ground. "But we wasn't doin' our fair bit, so says Perry. So down we comes, th' pair of us, to carve th' way t'rough this 'ere cursed rock."
Aleksei looked behind himself to the portal for a few moments, then got up to inspect it more closely in the light of the firepots.
"All th' movin' I ever seen it done, it done when thee comes," the wounded man said, having shifted himself slightly to keep an eye on Aleksei's movements. "All th' stone 'round 'ere's cursed, I tell thee. We hits it, it grows back. We burns it, it grows back. And i' th' nights, I hear a wee lassie speakin' to me- speakin' magic t'ings. 'Tis th' stone 'erself, I t'ink. Just yesternight, I tell 'er, 'Begone, hag,' for I cannae stand 'er whisperin' a moment longer. An' 'tis she, I t'ink, done somethin' to me laddie 'ere, who's nae lifted a finger to me in 'is life."
Aleksei put his hand to the stone to feel the carvings, and pain gripped his arm again, as though he had slammed himself against it a second time. He jumped back slightly, and noticed that a slender, blood-red tendril ran along four previously seamless parts of the portal, which seemed to soak in the tendril as though it were dirt instead of stone, crack apart and pull open.
"Th' lassie likes thee, eh? Now she's 'ad thee for a dram, mayhap she'll leave us die in peace."
Suddenly struck with the realization that both men were quite near to death indeed, Aleksei turned around to see if there were anything that he could do to either save the men or make their ends less miserable. But the man that he had put down like a sack had slumped to one side, his eyes rolled up in his head, and the other, who'd spoken his last words mere seconds ago, had no breath passing in his chest when Aleksei put his head down to him to check.
"Ja vse eshhe ne ponimaju."
As he thought this with some degree of frustration, Aleksei heard the portal begin to slide itself shut. He turned to look at it one more time, finally noticing a third set of scrawling just to the left side of the portal. He rolled his eyes, deciding at last that he would have to learn to read the lettering of his own language. There was no telling what Amilie wondered about being able to decipher writing that the Dragonborn should have recognized right away, and while his war excuse had been valid some decade or so ago, he had since had more than one opportunity to at least learn to read and write his name. Ylyssa had longed to teach him not only what she had glimpsed of Draconic lettering, with that photographic memory of hers, but also the wealth of her understanding of Common, Elven and Sylvan- although what she thought he would do knowing any of the various dialects of the Elven language was absolutely beyond him.
With a sigh, Aleksei moved away from the bodies of the men and along the pathway whose upward gradient went from gentle to rather sharp within just a few minutes of walking. It narrowed and shortened considerably from the landing hall that it had been by the second portal, down to the size of the tunnels that he'd made his way down before, but it was lined with flame pots. Some had gone out due to lack of tending, but the rest lent sufficient light for him to see his way- which was pocked with pickmarks and scuff marks. Instead of a bare, empty smell, there was the damp aroma of physical effort, whether it were the attempt to chisel at living stone or at someone else.
When the tunnel opened up a third time to allow him to stand at full height instead of hunching over, the Dragonborn felt sure he knew what to expect- but was completely wrong. Instead of another portal, he came upon a perfectly circle shaped hole in the wall, which he discovered was covered by a fur only when he reached forward to move it. Seeing that there were cell bars before him, he quickly moved all the way into the cell, leaving the fur to flap closed behind him, and surveyed the area around him. There were four other holding cells in the circular area, one his immediate left occupied by a shivering female, one to her left that seemed to serve as a cache for personal effects and weapons, and two females per cell in two cells that were immediately across from him. Just on the left side of the final cell was another perfectly circular hole that Aleksei figured probably delved into another hallway. All five cells appeared to be guarded by just two characters, made utterly recognizable by their wickedly spiked leather armor.
Stingers.
They were inattentive, calmly chatting to each other over some mindless card game that involved them nearly throwing the cards at each other. Aleksei assumed from this behavior that all the cells would either be locked, or the inhabitants of the cells were physically incapable of getting away- or both. He scooted over to his left to catch the female's attention, and found that she had already turned strangely hopeful chestnut brown eyes to him.
"Skazhi mne, chto delat'," she whispered fiercely, weakly holding up her left hand. Mageflame glowed at her fingertips, illuminating her matted brown hair and highlighting the determination in her face. Aleksei was only slightly less surprised at her ability to cut through his language barrier than at what fight she had left with what clearly was either the last or the next to last reserve of her living energy.
"Pozvonite v odin iz nih dlja vas," he replied calmly.
With a smirking nod, the woman slid far toward the other side of her cell and began first to sniffle, then to whine.
"Bert's beard, there goes the hag," one of the guards sighed after throwing his card. "Go and see if she's on about the little girl again."
"I've 'alf a mind to take 'er back to th' Phoenix," the second guard replied, getting up from the table. " 'Tis them wha' ha' shoved 'er in one o' our holes. Perry'd've pushed 'er back up, an' 'e knew th' trubble she'd be."
He cast a careless eye toward the newly occupied cell, but didn't really notice the strange scaly creature inside until it was too late. Aleksei gracelessly lunged forward, grabbed the guard and yanked him back as hard as he could onto the bars. Given the brute strength of the seven footer, this force summoned a wide river of blood from the left side of the guard's unarmored head. His wounding, however, did not go unremarked.
"Oi- attack! One of them's got Terry-boy!" the first guard cried to some unseen reinforcement elsewhere. Aleksei easily snapped the head of the second guard to the right, snatched the string of keys from his belt, and let him drop like a sack of potatoes to the floor. Doing this allowed him to discover that his own cell was unlocked, however, since the door opened slightly with all the movement, so he took the opportunity to surge out and grab the first guard. The Human male, who was busy attempting escape through the cleanly cut circle in the far wall, was caught by a low-slung sliding kick that landed him on his behind. Aleksei was quick to roll to his knees, flip the Stinger over so that the spiked armor was no longer a danger, and crush the male's windpipe with a solid elbow to the back of the neck. Just as he did so, he heard a sharp feminine voice report down a corridor somewhere above him.
"Attack! Attack!"
The way the Common sounded in the female's mouth struck Aleksei as strange and familiar at the same time, and he found himself raising his eyes upward to catch the source of the cry. The woman whose fingers had shone with mageflame knocked on the bars of her cage to get his attention. "Ja mogu otkryt' vorota. Davajte ubezhat', prezhde chem oni vernutsja."
"What are you saying?" one of the women in the cell next to the hallway finally whispered. "Will you get us out?"
"You are able to move quickly, yes?" Aleksei began, scrambling up to try each one of the five keys in the lock. The third one worked, and the door sung its protest as the two women pushed on it at once.
"Yes, yes," one of the other women replied eagerly. Aleksei noted first that she was some type of Elf, then that she had received a moon-shaped slice in one shoulder. "And who of us can't, gets carried. Just let us out, quickly. That last one's an archer- a good one."
Aleksei found that the first key worked for that cell, but also that the door was either rusted or somehow fastened shut. It took a few minutes of concentrated effort to get the thing to budge, and when it did, the entire thing popped free and nearly collapsed on him. The two women inside quickly rushed out of the way when he reacted by pushing it forward instead, barely restraining themselves from squealing their delight at freedom.
"Come now, let's get the hag out, and we'll go," the one who'd first spoken encouraged. But Aleksei was listening to the dull roar of coming feet and the echo of voices.
"It is better maybe for you open this door, yes? I will stand here, and make sure you are leaving safely."
"He's not coming," the oldest woman harumphed, her grey-streaked head slowly bobbing. "I know one soldier too many what's the same way. Make it good, girls, you'll not see this laddie again."
"What a terrible thing to say!" the Elf-woman snarled, fussing with all the keys until one finally whined all the way around in the lock. "Come on, it's open, come on."
"Here-"
And as the door opened, an image of a flaming bird leaped up from the outstretched arms of the brown haired mage, who immediately sunk with her effort.
"Oh goddess- grab her up, girls," the Elf-woman commanded with authority. With nearly the same breath, she whirled around and grabbed the back of Aleksei's readied sword arm. "Sir, when you make it to the Dale, ask for Faera."
"I will do this. Please to go now, through the last cell's fur back," Aleksei nodded, not taking his eyes off the entryway. He felt a comforting tap on his arm, then heard the scuffle of the ladies doing as he'd asked. He thought about turning around and leaving with them, but felt as though he had to stay and face whoever would come up after them. He was not sure why the portal that he knew stood between Amilie and Udala and the Stingers had opened for him, but as far as he was concerned, if it would open for him and for the mage, it could open for the Stingers. Not wanting to alert them to the fact that they seemed to have a previously undiscovered route up to the city, Aleksei decided to crush whatever meager force was coming up to meet him.
Looking around himself, he noted that he could do without the two firepots, since there were also long torches that had been weighted to the ground. So he broke each of the chairs that the guards had been sitting in, slammed himself into the table to break that, chucked the results down the hallway, and threw the firepots into it. They burst upon smacking into the walls and the floor, oozing the sizzling oil that had been burning within. The result was a glorious fire that made the Stingers' upward charge difficult- the fire took serious hold just as the first of them started coming into the room, so the first three jumped through the flames while the others found themselves first blinded by the light of it, then lit aflame. As could be expected, the poison on their spiked armor was just as flammable as the oil, so Aleksei went into all out battle with three opponents in the circular cell room accompanied by the screams of most of the rest of the company.
The three who had bested the fire came at him without pity, and it took him a bit of work to repel them, at first. But his vast martial training bested what meager swordplay they seemed to have learned mostly from sparring with each other, and even as more Stingers swarmed up from the burning hallway, the dying ones had to yell advice to their doomed compatriots over the sound of clanging metal. Aleksei began to feel his kilij become the extension of his arm, the sanguine rhythm of his killing punctuated by gored stomachs, falling heads and severed arms and legs. The blood of the fallen began to paint masterpieces on the walls, began to dance in perfectly calculated arcs off the tip of his sword, began to sing to him in the way that no bard could. He allowed himself to sink into the familiar, barbaric delight of sheer destruction, immersing himself in the glorious freedom that was simply stripping life from one victim after another.
He moved so effortlessly and seamlessly- bending himself under charging attackers, swinging away from one blade to parry another, wrenching one Stinger's arm so that the outstretched sword parried one coming from his fellow- that the archer, atop one of the cells, had a very difficult time placing her mark. She was well aware of just how his scales covered certain parts of him, and was carefully aiming for the leathery skin on the back of his left shoulder. Finally, when he slammed one of the last of her compatriots to the ground in a choke-hold that crushed his windpipe, she had a prime shot.
Aleksei felt the arrow at once, but it wasn't enough to disturb his bloody reverie. He continued somewhat unsteadily, grateful for the fact that there was only more struggling Stinger left in this nest. A few minutes later, the vision in his right eye began to blur and his muscles began to scream their discontent. By the time he felled that last man, Aleksei had to allow himself to slam heavily against a wall. His body had come alive with pain such as had rarely been matched in his lifetime. His breath came in pants, his head spun, and the shadows in the room seemed to stretch themselves into his functioning eye. He tried vainly to choke back vomit, but finally simply rolled himself to one side as it forced its way out of him. Somewhere beyond him, a creature of significant weight hit the floor, and he found that he could not force his body to respond to the imminent danger- he couldn't even sit himself back up straight against the wall. Yet, through his agony and dizziness, he could still tell the familiar lilt when he heard it.
"Sword-brother," the quiet female voice sighed as its source straightened him, then bowed her forehead against his own. "You are freeing me also; thank you. You die with honor."
Aleksei closed his eye, fully expecting some dagger, or perhaps his own sword to run through his throat or ribs at any moment. But instead, he simply heard the footfalls of the female Dragonborn, thumping down the hall that had been aflame, then disappearing into silence. The seething pain diminished in intensity, but left him unable to move, drifting between conscious suffering and a sort of restless, dreamless sleep.
Above ground, where the fresh air breathed on the healthy, rosy cheeks of a Halfling buried deep in a comfortable embrace, her Human companion shot straight up in the palette bed as though she'd been branded with a hot iron.
"Goddess!"
"Huh? Whaa?" the Halfling managed, well-startled. "Matter?"
The Human, not unlike a spooked deer or hare, stayed still, but trembled with the physical anticipation of what move she'd make next. "Hurt- no, dying- I- we- he- oh, Goddess!"
And by this time, the Halfling had come to her right mind. "It's what you cast the spell for, isn't it? Gimme my crutch and let's go."
"But the walk-"
"Crutch and let's go, I said," the Halfling crabbed in a nearly threatening tone. "Didn't you expect your hag's hymn to work? It worked. So pack as much of your witchery up as you can, give me what you think I can carry, and let's go."
"I- oh- yes- yes, okay, yes," the Human managed at last, somehow dashing out of the bed over her companion toward her alchemic reagents.
"And calm down, Ami, you cast the spell, and it worked, okay? We know he needs help, as you thought he might before he even left. He probably just tripped some fool trap, or decided to drink bad ale, but he'll be alright, now. We're going- Hag and Hop are on the trail."
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