The three-sided structure poked out from the top of the motte, gleaming white despite the dim light of the approaching nightfall, and came together to a point. Hajra licked the back of her teeth, staring up at the unusual building. Looks like one of my plate-piercing arrowheads. It was snowing steadily, two fingerbreadths deep, making the already difficult hike up the slope a right pain in the ass. Damn insurgents. To Ground with the lot of them. The Pigskin had been right; the bunker would have been impossible to find if she hadn’t known where to look. A dense ring of cedars hid the motte from view, and the complex itself would have blended in perfectly if the Necromancer’s magic hadn’t blighted the land and made the snowfall an ashy grey. Now it stuck out like pigeon shit on a black carriage, once she got clear of the trees.
Hajra Longshadow changed her mind about the north. At first, it had been pleasant to be away from the inclement weather and the lifeless countryside. But at least she had her footing there. True enough it was brighter and more alive north of Vardo’s Bridge, but that wasn’t nearly as important as being able to take a sure step when fighting needed to be done. She wanted to get this business done with and be on her way back south to Necron, before she fell down a ravine never to be heard from again. Hodjens would probably fall in after her, crushing her to true-death. Kotzan jam.
She climbed the steep slope carefully, keeping low to the ground with Hodjens to her left. She felt at the straps round her damaged leg making sure they were still tied and holding the splint firmly in place, which mostly rid her of her limp--but wasn’t proving to be much help at the moment. He was having as hard a time as her, trying to keep from losing grip and sliding back down to the tree-line below. They had come round to the western side, where it was significantly more inclined, with assurances that there wouldn’t be any lookouts posted. Scrambling their way to the base of the pointed bunker, pressing their backs against the white stone, they both slid out their blades slow and quiet in the pitch dark. Night came quickly in Leria, even in the north where the dark overcast let in small patches of the sky above. Wasn’t near enough to let in much moonlight or starlight, but there was a faint glow coming from the front of the bunker and was enough to give them something to head towards. It appeared that the human’s word had been good. So far. The ground leveled out there, at the top, with barely enough room for a foothold. She looked at Hodjens and pointed, and he moved towards the north side while she shimmied towards the south, side-stepping along the narrow path. It was a simple plan, nothing needed to be said.
They made it round to the front at the same time. She was surprised to find only one ghoul standing guard; she was expecting to find an army of these insurgents waiting for them. It would’ve been just her luck. Hodjens grabbed him from behind by the straps of the odd-looking chest plate too wide and too narrow for his thin frame, lifting him off his feet so quick his oversized helmet fell off his head and sunk into the murky slush. He swung his short spear wide, and she ducked under, letting him have a backhanded pommel strike to his skull. It gave, burying the hilt up to her hand. Hodjens let the limp ghoul drop to the snow, motionless in true death. She put her foot on his face, his eyes still wide in surprise, twisted the grip back and forth, wrenching the pommel out of his skull with a wet sucking sound followed by a soft pop. She wiped off the gore on the sleeve of his thick gambeson and turned to the bunker.
Two braziers stood on either side of the entrance, fixed into the ground and burning bright regardless of not having anything in them to burn. Must be the everflames the old Pigskin went on about. An ancient dwarven wonder, or some such nonsense. That’s the trouble with torture, once you get them started talking they go on and on about every useless thing they can think of. Like a floodgate, once it breaks it all comes out at once. The door, if one could call it a door, stood five paces inside the stone overhang, and looked to be just a flat wall with a small lever extending out on the right side. Like a small hallway that just led into a dead end, all made of smooth powder-white rock. Hajra took hold of the lever, which stuck out horizontal to the stone floor, and pulled. Nothing. She pulled up, pushed down on the twice-cursed thing, even tried twisting it like a doorknob, and still, nothing happened. She looked over her shoulder at Hodjens, who had been watching in silence. He shrugged. I knew I should’ve brought Broke-nose instead.
Broke-nose was with the horses back near the sacked hamlet, watching the human they had taken prisoner the day before. At least he damned-well better be. Broke-nose was worthless in a fight, but if he couldn’t keep hold of a shackled old man with burnt feet and all of his fingers hacked off then she’d make sure everyone would have cause to start calling him Broke-skull. He always had a flair for the quieter side of their trade, though, and Hajra did not doubt that he wouldn’t have a problem getting them inside. The human had told her that his entire fighting force was pretty much gone; he had taken all of his warriors to the lumber-town to fight the grave-digging crew and lost them all, which was impressive considering that dig-crews sent to the north were almost the size of a battalion. But, Hajra didn’t quite believe that his hideout would be defenseless, so she decided to bring Hodjens and leave Broke-nose to keep the prisoner detained. She put her shoulder to the door and started to push, still trying to move the lever in every direction in hopes it would do something.
“Give me a hand.”
There was no telling how long they pushed, but it had been a while. The armored ghoul was almost completely covered in snow, just another mound on the ground now. They pushed in vain, accompanied only by the low hum of the wind and the clang and hiss of the snow falling in the metal braziers behind until the wall moved slightly to the left. It was a good thing that it did; Hajra was starting to doubt whether it was a door at all. Hodjens looked at her, then to the lever.
“You’re kidding me.” He stepped back, a look of frustration on his face and murder in his eyes. She didn’t feel much different. It wasn’t a lever at all. She dragged the handle to the left and the massive stone block slid smoothly open, revealing stone stairs and metal lamps fixed to the walls--lamps like the braziers outside, with nothing in them to burn. No oil, not even a wick. Everflames. The door was incredibly thick, she had no idea how something that heavy could be moved so easily.
“Dwarven fucking wonders, no?” She smirked. He drew his sword and started down the steps in reply. She stepped in and looked back at the inside of the door, noticing a metal ring in the same place the handle had been on the other side. She looped her finger through it and pulled. It slid easily, now presenting a handle on the inside, and she dragged the door closed. Hajra realized that this was an unpickable lock, on a door that would take days to break through. If the ghoul on watch spotted them, he could’ve pushed in the handle, and they would be locked out.
At the bottom of the steps, the walkway opened into a large circular room, with a domed ceiling. Everflame lamps lined the room, fastened to the walls, and all connected by a rounded bar of metal. The craftsmanship was impressive, the interior made of marble and mortar with repeating three-sided shapes as both its design and construction. The ceiling was inlaid with gold and silver, depicting many different scenes and reminded her of the cathedrals in the human kingdom--only they used paint instead of precious metals. From what the human had told her, the bunker was a dwarven outpost built to hold reserved troops and to watch the borders of their realm. It was abandoned before the Necromancer moved his troops across the bridge all those years ago; they were wise enough to realize there was no stopping his great conquest. These filth should have taken the hint. If the race that built holds like these turned tail, what hope could a rag-tag band of humans have? They would’ve been smart to get across the water, instead of trying to fight, the fools.
Hajra Longshadow, coming from the undead capital and having visited many of the holds and keeps across Leria at one time or another, knew just how many forces were under the Great Necromancer’s control. Uncountable, at least by her. Endless. Pigskin’s entire force was put down by a company not even considered to be military. He had a rude awakening that day, just how insignificant his rebellion really was. The human went on about how he built his army over most of his life. How he had taken over leadership after his father, keeping those still among the living safe. His plan started when he had noticed more and more of the dead were coming back with their memories. He would take the warriors that were getting on in years, and have them drink poison. Them and those that were sick. If they came back and knew who they were, they could still help and keep their numbers instead of becoming useless over time. If they came back mindless, they were destroyed, fearing that they could be easily swayed to the Necromancer’s side. That had been what they witnessed in the clearing back in the woods; one of their comrades died before they could return and treat his injuries, and they waited to see if he would come back okay. She found it amusing that they spent all that time thinking they were building a resistance, only to have it destroyed within a fortnight. He was little more than an insect to her, by her reckoning. She wasn’t even interested in asking for his name, content regarding him as Pigskin.
“This place is going to take a while to search,” she said. She held up the naked blade of her sword, inspecting the steel in the light. “If we can find more arms and armor like this, Theleden might reward us. Dwarves really take their work seriously, no?”
“Do you believe the human? Is this really dwarven?” His voice was low and sounded like gravel. She looked away from her sword to see Hodjens looking down at her, a puzzled frown knotting up his misshapen and scarred brow. He hardly ever talked, but the place must have caught the old bruiser’s interest.
“I believe him. He hasn’t lied about anything else. He has no reason to lie about this.”
“Have you ever seen a dwarf?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know it’s dwarven?”
Hajra sighed. “Because I’ve lived with humans, and they don’t make things like this.” Actually, we both lived in the human city, but of course, you don’t remember that. He grunted, which was Hodjens-speak for he had understood. “Right, let’s get started.”
* * *
The snow stopped round midday, leaving an off-white stagnant slush calf-deep covering the lumber town. The broken buildings, carts, everything was caked in the stuff. The massive pile of corpses Hajra remembered looked now just like a hill of snow. Hodjens trudged along behind, dragging the makeshift sled full of weapons and armor. She could see Broke-nose up ahead, sitting on a log bench in front of one of the few shacks still mostly intact. He looked to be doing some needlework on fur skins. She had asked him to skin the beast she'd killed in the clearing and was hoping to get it fashioned into a hooded coat. The human had called the thing a bear.
“Made it back in one piece, eh?” Broke-nose tossed the furs beside him, stood, and started walking over to her. “You found a new bow.”
“Yes.” It was one of the most remarkable things she had ever seen.
“Hodge, I fixed up that cart over there while I was waitin’, we can hitch it to one of the horses. Unless you wanna drag that thing all the way back.” Hodjens grunted, and dragged the sled to the side of the shack, and started unloading it onto the cart. Broke-nose and her walked to the front door of the shack, barely hanging on to the blackened and warped frame. She noticed a strange necklace laying next to the furs on the bench.
“Where’d you find that?” She picked it up, looking it over. It was in the shape of a hammer made of solid steel, about the size of her hand. The chain was of dull metal.
“Oh. I caught the human trying to bury it, so I took it.” Hajra frowned. She shook her head and decided to keep it in case it proved significant. She would ask Pigskin about it later. She went to put the necklace in her pocket when the ornament stuck to the pommel of her sword sheathed at her side.
“What the…” She grabbed the hilt with one hand and had to pry the thing off with the other. She slowly moved the necklace back to the pommel, and it suddenly snapped through the air and latched onto the sword again. It seemed to be attracted to metal. But the dull chain wasn’t affected. What kind of magic is-- She wrestled it back off the pommel and burst through the frail door, snapping it off its rusted hinges and clattering to the floor. The human, who had been curled into a ball on the frozen planks in the corner of the shack, scampered on all fours trying to scurry backward but was already against the wall. The stubs of his fingers crusted with thick black scabs, his feet charred and oozing yellow pus from splitting blisters. She held the necklace in front of his whimpering face, the hammer dangling between his eyes.
“Please, I’m sorry, I…” She grabbed both sides of his head, kneed him in the face, and let him fall onto his side.
“You didn’t think to tell me about this?” He was sobbing, holding his broken nose with fingerless hands, blood pooling on the floor, steam rising off of it. He was shaking from the pain and the cold, the shackles on his wrists rattling. She stomped on the side of his head. “If you think I put you through torture before, you have no idea who I am. I think I’ll just go ahead and show you now.” She yelled over her shoulder, “Broke-nose, bring this human filth.” She led them over to the sled, now empty except for two large brown sacks with dark stains in splotches. Broke-nose dropped him in the snow, and Hajra lifted his sagging head from under the chin to face her. “Is this the only one,” she asked, holding up the necklace again.
“Yes, yes. I swear. Please, I should have told--”
“It’s too late for that now, filth. Hodjens.” On cue, the brute dumped out the contents of the sacks in front of the human. Two corpses covered in long and precise lacerations that only meant a painful death rolled out onto the sled. The arms cut off at the shoulders, the legs hacked off at the hip.
“No! Oh my gods, please no!” His words turned into incohesive mumbling, he wailed and tried to crawl through the slush to them, but Broke-nose held him back.
“That’s right. We found the rest of you and killed them all. But not before we found these two. Your wife, and daughter. I thought that you might like to see them again, no?” She smirked. “And that’s not the best part. When we get back to Necron, I’m going to see to it that they come back with their memories, and put in the darkest cage where they can sit and rot forever.” I don’t know if they’ll come back mindless or not, and I’m sure as Ground not going to ask the Great Necromancer if he would do it. But he doesn't know that. She patted the top of his head. “All thanks to you.” He collapsed, completely giving up, broken. She put the dwarven key around her neck and started off towards one of the horses.
“Time to head home, boys.” She pulled herself onto the undead steed, turned south, and headed for Vardo’s Bridge. She touched the thick steel cord that was the string to her new short-bow strung across her back. "Dwarven wonders," she said under her breath.