A water droplet as clear as the surrounding darkness formed, running down the length of a stalactite before it slid off the end and landed with a quiet tap, the only sound breaking the rhythmic silence of the tunnel. A lone rock beetle silently scurried between two puddles, searching in the patches of moisture for the cave lichens its kind subsisted on. It seemed to find something and paused, reaching into one of the puddles to grasp at some dark shape within.
Movement, faster than a thought, and with nary a sound the beetle was gone. The Cragfisher withdrew into its pool to wait for the next hapless bug to come wandering accross its path.
Its wait was interrupted as a sound began to build. It was faint at first, a low rumble like distant thunder, but soon it grew into a swell like a tidal wave. At the far end of the tunnel a soft glow could be seen, casting the jagged rocks of the cavern in a ghoulish orange light.
The rumble reached its climax as the cart rounded the bend, illuminating the cavern with the glow of stout, wrought-iron lanterns mounted on its sides. Its wheels were tall and spokeless, reaching almost past the ribbed metal carriage that sat between them. At the front of the carriage sat the driver; he watched the road ahead intently, orange eyes glinting over the enormously broad back of the Goldrunner Beetle. He was unarmed, for despite the wealth contained within the armored carriage, the two figures crouched motionless in the shadows atop its iron paneled roof would have made any armament of his hopelessly redundant.
They could have been statues for the amount that they moved, hardly seeming even to breathe. Both of them were clad in identical black plate armor, and had they not been drenched in the shadow of the cavern the polished ebony surface would have reflected the lantern light brilliantly. Their heads were bowed, burning orange eyes watching the darkness intently beneath their ridged brows and ribbed helmets. THEY were not without arms: the one on the left held a long black polearm in his long, bony fingers, while the one on the right clutched the edge of the carriage with both hands, a long sword strapped across his back.
The carriage rounded a second corner in the tunnel and ground to a halt, the driver tugging on the reins and bringing the beetle slowly to a standstill.
For the first time the figures moved, with the polearm-wielding one dropping to the cavern floor below while the swordsman raised himself up to his impressive height. They both peered silently at the rock tumble that blocked their path forward, a pile of rubble that stretched nearly to the twenty-foot ceiling of the cavern. It had not been there when they had begun their journey away from the city of Kanderhelt two days prior.
Cave-ins were a possibility of course. The tunnels connecting Kanderhelt with the deeper caverns were filled with underground streams capable of eating away at even the strongest of bedrock. But cave-ins didn’t usually occur in the narrowest part of the tunnel, right in front of a cart carrying valuable shipments of mothhide cloth and heatstone alloy, before the sweeps of Stonerunner wyrms that regularly patrolled the tunnels to keep them clear of obstructions such as this had a chance clear the debris.
The sentinel on the ground made a hand signal to the one on the roof, who nodded, dropping down onto the driving platform. In a hushed voice he whispered to the driver, who was peering around the cavern, only his wide eyes betraying his obvious unease.
“How quickly can you turn around,” the swordsman asked. The driver shook his head briefly as if to clear it, responding. “Junas can make the turn easily, just a few seconds.” The swordsman nodded, pleased. “Get ready to run like hell back to Scar Garrison, and tell them to send a sweep this way.” After he saw the driver understood he straightened up and jumped to the cavern floor, taking care to land steadily on the gravel-covered road. The spearman motioned to him and he drew closer to him. “How exactly should we go about this, Arinthi?” the swordsman asked in a hushed voice, keeping his head steady as his eyes darted around the corrugated tunnel walls for any sign of movement.
“I think I’ve got one picked out,” Arinthi responded equally softly. “Behind the stalagmite off to my left.” The swordsman followed his gaze, staring at the thick stone formation a little in front of the roadblock until he saw a flicker of movement in the darkness behind it. He had to give them credit; it had been a good ambush, but Torchlight raiders always seemed to suffer from a succinct lack of patience. “I don’t see anything wrong with rushing him and letting his buddies unmask themselves.”
Arinthi hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll do it, be ready to turn and cover my ass. And Cairketh,” he added before turning to face the stone piece, “good hunting.”
It would be a gross breach of etiquette for a Fyrdun officer to smile, but Cairketh got as close as he could, running his tongue along his sharp ivory teeth as he bared them in a rictus grin.
Cairketh remained standing in the center of the tunnel as Arinthi slowly began to walk towards the stalagmite. His right hand twitched and his body grew taut with tension as he waited for Arinthi to make a move on the raider they knew was crouched behind it, no doubt waiting for the signal that would cause them and the rest of their party to descend upon the cart like flies on a carcass.
Fifteen feet away, then ten, then five. Arinthi halted, clutching the haft of his spear in his gauntleted hands. Cairketh’s eyes swept the shadows of the cavern and the tunnel’s walls. Junas the Goldrunner beetle shifted, massive spoke-like legs digging slightly into the gravel as the antenna on his enormous armored head twitched. The driver motioned him to be quiet, running a rough brown hand along the top of the beetle’s ebony shell
Arinthi took a step to his left. Then another.
With a movement faster than a thought he drew back his arm and hurled the spear, sending it flashing across the remaining distance in a black whir to transfix itself through the helmet of the raider, just barely visible over the shoulder of the rock formation.
It was an astonishing feat of accuracy and precision, but nothing less was expected from the Kanderhelt Cliffrunners.
Cairketh felt a movement behind him, like sand sliding down an incline. With a single motion he reached his hand up to the scabbard on his back, unsheathing his long sword and spinning around to bring the hard edge of the blade smashing into the head of a raider behind him, stopping the creature’s headlong charge dead in its tracks and sending the dagger clutched in her fist tumbling from her now-slack fingers.
Cairketh held his sword out in front of him, the tip starting to glow from the impact it had sustained, as more raiders poured from the shadows around them. Cairketh glanced up at the driver, who seemed to be frozen in place. “Get the hell out of here!” he yelled, galvanizing the man to action. With a heavy, desperate motion he flicked his reins, prompting Junas to sharply turn to the right, nearly doubling back on the route they had come and sending the carriage tilting sharply on two wheels as he charged off at the breakneck pace only his kind was capable of.
As the lantern light of the cart faded off down the tunnel, the cavern was cast in shadow once more. But not for long. A blur of movement behind him, and Cairketh whirled around, slicing his blade through the fist-sized object hurtling towards him. The ceramic bulb shattered, sending a cascade of glowing embers and oil scattering across the gravel, flaring up as it was exposed to the air of the tunnel. Most of it missed, landing several feet to his side, and the few embers and burning rags that found their target glanced off his armor, leaving no mark on the polished black surface. A second urn sailed towards him; this he sidestepped entirely, the flames splashing on the cavern floor and casting a wide, hellish light on the approaching band of raiders.
He guessed there were nearly a dozen of them, each wearing piecemeal armor held together with ropes and chords. Their weapons were makeshift too; he only saw three armed with military-regulation swords such as his, with the rest sporting a motley mixture of clubs and daggers.
As they advanced on him his eyes narrowed, counting down the seconds until they would be in reach. Without warning he bent his knees and leapt at them, holding his sword over his head with both hands and swinging it down with all the strength in his body at the leader of the advance, knocking aside a weak parry attempt and biting the blade deep into his shoulder, the heat of the glowing orange blade burning a deep gash through the hapless raider’s muscle and bone. As the man screamed he withdrew the blade and ducked under a clumsy club stroke, hacking at the raider’s ankles before straightening up and swinging his sword in a wide arc around him, sending the remaining raiders staggering back. He felt a slight impact on his back and turned to see a raider drawing back his club for a second blow. Cairketh paused and let it fall, the impact barely moving him as his Heatstone alloy armor absorbed the kinetic force behind the blow, beginning to glow a soft orange as it was converted into heat energy. The raider dropped the club, seeing its lack of effect, and turned to flee, only managing three steps before the rounded tip of Cairketh’s sword, superheated from the impacts its heatstone core sustained, bore into his unguarded back.
Cairketh turned, facing the remaining raiders in front of him as they edged away, uncertainty crossing their faces. Without hesitation he advanced on them, swinging his sword in a blinding pattern of overhead and backhand slashes, the now-superheated blade cutting through the Torchlight raider’s makeshift steel armor like it was paper as the raiders fell away like tinder before a flame.
A yell of pain from behind. Cairketh whirled around; in the shadows behind the stalagmite three tall figures loomed, armored silhouettes studded with flickering Kanderstone and naked blades glowing a soft orange. Arinthi lay stretched out at their feet, clutching his side, spear tossed uselessly to the side.
Cairketh’s eyes narrowed beneath his helmet. These were no hapless raiders, unarmored and under-equipped. He had heard rumors of new entries into the Torchlight ranks, soldiers with more advanced training reminiscent even of that practiced by the armies of the cities themselves. Here was proof of it, and Arinthi would be dead if he didn’t act now.
Formal combat in the style practiced by the rank and file of the Fyrdun militaries was extremely plodding and methodical; battles were almost always fought in near or complete darkness, and in a wild, chaotic mele distinguishing between friend and foe would be near impossible. Thus, tactics revolved around a slow, deliberate pattern of set formations and maneuvers, and sizing up of one’s opponents and a search for their potential weaknesses before combat began.
No sooner had Cairketh laid eyes on the situation than he began sprinting forward, ramming headlong into the figure about to plunge his sword into Arinthi’s helpless form and sending the both of them tumbling to the rocky floor. Cairketh heard a dull thud as the would-be executioner’s head cracked against the unforgiving stone of the tunnel. Knowing that he would not be down for long, he jumped to his feet, spinning around in time to block a hasty sword stroke from the soldier nearest to him, pivoting and using the momentum of his turn to knock the sword aside and land a heavy two handed strike into his adversary’s abdomen.
The black metal plate hardly seemed to move, beginning to glow a soft red under the impact. Cairketh cursed softly. He’d forgotten he was now fighting a real opponent.
He brought his sword up in time to block a second strike, alternating his strategy and swinging his heavily gauntleted fist in a wide arc to come crashing into the soldier’s helmet, the steel ringing under the impact and sending the woman staggering back. Cairketh smiled; Heatstone had been deemed unsafe for helmet use a few years prior, and for once he was glad his opponents were using the latest in military innovations.
Before he could follow up on his opponent’s lapse, he was forced to sidestep a heavy downward stroke from the third soldier, responding with a quick pair of slashes aimed at the area of exposed skin beneath the soldier’s helmet and chestplate. Both strikes glanced off of the man’s raised buckler, but Cairketh pressed the assault, raining down blow after blow as he drove the man back, his sword spinning in a fiery whirlwind through the air as his opponent tried desperately to avoid the superheated blade.
As his arm came to the end of a blindingly fast backhand that had been barely deflected off the spear’s hollow iron haft, Cairketh suddenly grasped the handle with both hands, his heavier left gauntlet closing around the pommel of the blade as he swung a heavy roundhouse stroke straight for the soldier’s exposed shoulder. Seeing he wouldn’t be able to shield himself in time, the soldier dropped it, grasping his spear in both hands as he desperately moved to block the strike.
With a screech of tearing metal the white-glowing blade tore through the haft of the spear, sending the barbed heatstone head spinning in the air and sending the soldier staggering as his weapon suddenly was halved in weight. Cairketh let his sword fall to his side as they both looked at each other for a moment, the fight seeming to drain out of the soldier’s orange eyes through the wide openings of his helmet. He began to raise the useless iron shaft halfheartedly, as if to strike with it, but before he could do anything more Cairketh thrust with his blade, burying the first half of it in the soldier’s neck, smoke rising from the wound as he withdrew his sword and the air began to fill with the smell of burnt flesh.
The soldier collapsed without a sound.
A movement behind him. Cairketh whirled around, bringing his sword up in a defensive position to block the strike he was sure was coming for him.
Nothing. The cavern behind him was empty, save for the corpses of the dead firelight raiders and the form of Arinthi, using his spear as a crutch as he attempted to rise to his feet.
Cairketh walked towards him, laying his still-glowing sword on the ground to cool as he offered a hand which Arinthi took as he rose painfully. Cairketh gestured to the wound in his side, where a sword edge had caught the gap between his hips and chestplate. “Is it bad?” he asked, though he was unconcerned for the most part. If it was bad Arinthi wouldn’t be standing.
Arinthi shook his head. “Caught me by surprise is all.” Leaning heavily on his spear he hobbled over to the corpse of the soldier, kneeling as he examined the man’s shattered spear and rent throat. “Gods Cairketh, you you really didn’t hold back.”
Cairketh stood over him, not looking, as his eyes scanned the cavern for any signs of the soldier’s two companions returning. “Would you rather I hadn’t?”
Arinthi shook his head. “Well if we had been able to take him alive we might have an idea as to which city is now aiding the Fireflies.”
That drew Cairketh’s attention. “Are we sure it’s any city? They’ve always attracted deserters and other filth.” Arinthi shook his head again, beginning to search through the soldier’s belt pouches. “A deserter wouldn’t be carrying this,” he said as he seemed to find what he was looking for and held it aloft.
It was a short length of string, the coarse kind made from the fibrous mushrooms that grew beneath the thin soil deeper in the caves. It was a sondusyo, strung with several beads, two of plain iron, one of polished obsidian, and one of dull glass. Cairketh could feel his breath catch in his throat; it was a the mark of an officer, a badge given by the Dynar of a city to soldiers deserving of the highest honors and abilities.
Cariketh felt his heart quicken. He suddenly seemed to feel a weight under his armor, where his own sondusyo hung from a cord wrapped around his neck. He could feel a ringing in his ears as his mind flashed back to a cool evening in Kanderhelt, when the air was suffused with the warm glow of Emberstone and the dull rush of the river running through the city echoed across the ornate spires and ridged domes of the underground skyline. Kneeling on a balcony perched on the edge of the city’s grand citadel, the Earthwarden’s deep bass voice intoning the traditional honorific of the city’s elite before the gentle hands of the Chancellor placed the bead-laden string into his open hands and instructed him to rise, in a voice more befitting of speaking to a close friend than a ruler to their subject. In that moment he had felt a part of things, that his lifelong journey up the ranks of the Kanderhelt military had finally ended and he would be able to find contentment, a place to truly become his home.
The feeling hadn’t lasted long. But the memory stuck with him, and he secretly wished more than anything else to be able to recover it.
Arinthi unconsciously rubbed his left his left wrist, where Cairketh knew he kept his own sondusyo wrapped. He guessed similar thoughts were going to his head; he had known several who had been gifted with the sondusyo, and each of them he was sure had felt similarly strongly.
That a bearer of this badge would be willing, or even capable of throwing it all away was unfathomable, and yet here was the proof.
Cairketh stumbled away from the corpse, resting his hand on the tunnel wall as his head pounded. Behind him he heard Arinthi groan as he attempted to rise. “Cairketh!” he called, his voice breaking as he hobbled after him. “Where are you going?”
Cairketh turned to him, his face blank as stone beneath his iron mask. “Which way did the other two run off?” Arinthi shook his head. “Out of the question, we have to get back to Kanderhelt as soon as possible to tell them what we’ve found.” Cairketh shook his head, heat beginning to suffuse his head as the pounding of blood grew ever stronger. “You go then, there will be a sweep crew this way soon to clear the tunnel. Take the body with you, report to Kantarus, tell him I’ll be along shortly.”
Arinthi was shaking his head, concern showing in his eyes. “You can’t go after them alone, the tunnels are like a maze down there, you’re not prepared and—”
Cairketh’s eyes blazed and his arm shot up, clasping around Arinthi’s wrist in an iron vise, fingers searching until they found the raised portion of Arinthi’s cloth undergarment where he knew his sondusyo lay hidden. “He wore one of them, Arinthi. He accepted it from wherever he was from, they trusted him. He spat it back in their faces. I need to know if the other two—” he choked slightly, his voice shaking with anger as the memory of that evening once again flashed before his eyes. He steadied himself, and continued, “We can’t let them escape, think of the damage they could cause if they continue to aid the raiders.”
He let go of Arinthi’s wrist, stepping back as the injured man gasped slightly at the sudden lessening of the pressure of his grip. “Would you really try and stop me from that?” he asked in a low voice.
There was a pause, and for a moment the only sound was the dripping of water somewhere in the cavern. Cairketh was aware of Arinthi’s labored breathing and pained grimace. Maybe he’s more hurt than I realized. He suddenly regretted grabbing his arm.
Arinthi shook his head, gesturing towards a rent in the tunnel wall barely big enough to squeeze through. “They went that way, towards the Knotholes, one supporting the other. I think you nearly knocked her out cold, shouldn’t be too hard to catch up.” Cairketh nodded his thanks, starting to move towards the indicated pathway.
“And Cairketh,” Arinthi said from behind. Cairketh turned, his body taut with tension as a familiar, almost uncontrollable urge to run, to be off and away, anywhere but the present.
“Good hunting.”
There was no smile on Cairketh’s face as he nodded, turning and sprinting towards where his still-heated sword had been lying on the ground. He scooped it up and didn’t hesitate before taking the plunge into the dark crevasse that awaited him.