Tales Of Adventure #2

The Necromancer’s Lair-1

The Necromancer’s Lair

Gareth's chest heaved as he sucked in gulps of air. His heart pounded in his ears, and he tingled all over with a mixture of exhilaration and fear. He leapt backwards, leaving grimy claws to scratch harmlessly along the front of his steel breastplate before he got out of reach.

This thing was relentless! Gareth had hit it a dozen times before, each blow of his axe tearing out large bits of flesh and muscle, but it kept on coming. Even losing an arm did not stop it.

The creature shambled forward, the putrid scent of rotting flesh leading the way. Its mouth lolled open in a brainless snarl and its eyes shown with a ghostly light that did not come close to resembling life. And yet it moved. Ragged cloths, the last remains of its funeral rainment, Gareth was sure, still clung to its body in places, but were at best an afterthought. If such a thing as this had any thoughts at all.

Gareth drew a deep breath and adjusted his grip on the handle of his axe. He wondered for a heartbeat how much longer he could keep hacking at the thing before it simply wore him down from fatigue.

Then it was on him. The nails - claws- of its sole remaining arm thrust toward Gareth's throat. It was an awkward attack, as clumsy as the thing's stride, and Gareth easily sidestepped it. He gritted his teeth and, with a grunt that was nearly a shout, brought his axe down.

The thing's arm went flying, cut off at the elbow.

No blood flowed; there was none remaining in its body. Neither did the thing seem to feel pain, or slow. It stumbled forward, turning to face him, before launching itself straight at him, its rotting teeth its last weapon.

Except for the stink. It became overpowering as the thing's mouth drew near. Gareth nearly gagged, only years of training stopping him from losing his composure.

Would the thing never die?

He recoiled and struck again with his axe.

The half-moon of steel struck the beast in the forehead, cleaving its head nearly in two before lodging in place.

The light in the creature's eyes flickered and it shambled forward another half-step. Then the light went out completely and it fell forward. It hit the ground with a sickening, squishy thud, and lay still.

"Ye Gods," Gareth muttered as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He took a deep breath and had to stop himself from shuddering.

"Well fought, my lord," said Hatherle from behind him, "but if I may make a suggestion?"

Gareth scowled and looked over his shoulder.

The slender man behind him and to his left was less armored than he was - just a leather breastplate, mostly hidden by the dark grey tunic he wore over top. His pants were light brown, tight-fitting, and tucked into calf-high turned-down boots. He wore a pack on his back, and a grey scull cap covered most of his head, leaving just a few strands of his blond hair falling out. His hands rested upon the pommel of his longsword, which he held point-down into the dirt before him.

"What?"

Hatherle cleared his throat. "I would avoid flesh wounds for such as these," he nodded toward the still corpse at his feet - its head was severed from its body, "and go for the head instead."

Gareth stared at him for a long moment, then rolled his eyes, bent over, and grabbed the haft of his axe. "No kidding." The axe was stuck fast. This was going to take a bit of work. He stepped over the rotting corpse and took hold with both hands. "You could have helped, you know, if you figured it out so fast."

Gareth practically heard Hatherle's shrug. "You seemed to have things well in hand, my lord."

Gareth heaved upward, his breath leaving his lungs in a long grunt as he strained against the axe handle. For a long several seconds, nothing happened. Then, without warning, the axe came free. Gareth stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the creature's severed forearm. Decaying corpse-matter of some variety or other - Gareth did not want to think about what it was exactly - sprayed out of the thing's head where his axe used to be.

He shuddered, trying not to inhale the newly-increased stench.

Instead, he turned away and stalked further into the cave, pausing only to remove a rag from behind his belt. He wiped the blade of his axe clean of slime, bone, and the rest, as he walked.

Hatherle followed.

"I asked you to stop calling me that. I'm no lord," Gareth growled over his shoulder.

Again with the semi-audible shrug. "Lord Hadley offered a title to whomever rids the county of the Necromancer, so I expect you will be soon. Besides, I am sworn to your service, my lord. What else should I call you?"

Gareth ground his teeth. They had argued this point several times before, and he had never been able to get Hatherle to budge. Best to just let it lie.

"What do you make of those things?"

"Necromancers are masters of all things dead, my Lord. Considering our quest..."

"Yes, I know. I just meant, what do you think about them?"

There was a long pause. "My lord?"

Nevermind.

The reanimated corpses were clearly watchdogs. That meant Gareth's notion was right: there was a passage from the cave into the Necromancer's tower. Hatherle either really did not see it or was just playing dumb because that was what he thought a man servant was supposed to do with his Lord. It would be less annoying if he was consistent about it, if the later.

The light was beginning to fade. Gareth took a moment to look back.

The cave mouth was about twenty-five feet behind them. The jagged rocks around its entrance really did make it look like a mouth, come to think of it. The floor of the cave was relatively flat, littered here and there with rocks and boulders...and two hacked-up corpses. But as far as caves went, it was easy to navigate.

Looking back to the passage ahead, the cave bent around to the left. Very soon the light from the entrance would be gone.

"Break out the torches," he said.

Hatherle nodded acquiescence and took off his pack. He spent a moment digging around before coming up with two of the torches they had made back in town.

Gareth set his axe down and took out flint and steel. Hatherle held the torches out toward him, and he began to work. In a few moments, both torches were alight, and the two men set off once more.

"Keep a close eye out," Gareth said softly, receiving only a short grunt in return.

Glancing aside, Gareth noted an expression of annoyance on Hatherle's face that disappeared as soon as the other man felt his eyes on him. He had to suppress a grin; it was not often that Hatherle let his facade crack.

The cave continued to twist to the left and ascended. It gradually became more narrow, and the ceiling lowered as well. The small pools of light cast by their torches only heightened the sense that the world was slowly closing in on them. Gareth felt the hair on his arms stand on end and he began to get a queasy feeling in his stomach. He had to force himself to breath normally, but nonetheless he felt a deepening pressure on his chest. He had never cared for tight spaces.

Finally, the passage leveled, though it became noticeably more rough, with more rounded boulders strew hither and yon, along with the occasional stalactite and stalagmite. Then there was a whisper of moving air. Gareth would not have noticed it except for the stillness of the rest of the cave. The slight breeze carried with it the odor of dampness, with a hint of corruption beneath.

Gareth rolled his shoulders, settling the shield he kept slung on his back a bit more comfortably. Then, flexing his fingers on the haft of his axe, he stepped around a particularly large boulder.

And found himself flailing his arms to keep from falling as his foot came down on only empty air. Only Hatherle's quick reaction, grabbing his shoulder and hauling him back, prevented disaster.

Shivering from a surge of adrenalin, Gareth exhaled deeply and nodded thanks. Hatherle returned the nod, but said nothing. His eyes said enough - Gareth needed to be more careful. It would not do for Hatherle to lose his Lord this quickly into his tenure as Gareth's sworn man. Gareth managed not to scowl at the man before he turned back to the fall that had almost taken him.

His heart sank.

The floor dropped away on the other side of the boulder, becoming a sheer crevasse that descended farther than the torch's light could reach. The crack ran in both directions as far as he could see and was about fifteen feet wide, too far to jump. Except for a narrow ledge leading off to the left on his side of the crevasse, there was no way forward.

"That is discouraging," Hatherle said as he eyed the crack.

"That's one way to say it. I didn't see any branching passages or anything that looked like a door. Did you?"

Hatherle shook his head.

Gareth sighed and stepped to the left left-hand wall, where the ledge lay. It was about two feet wide and proceeded on for quite some distance, well past the illumination from the torches. It was not a very inviting route.

"I'm not sure I like the notion of sliding along that ledge, but I don't see any other way to go," Gareth said. He glanced back at Hatherle. "What do you think?"

The slender man shrugged. "I go where you go, my Lord."

Great help, that one.

Gareth sighed. "All right. Let's go."

With a deep breath, he inched his foot out onto the ledge.

It was too narrow to walk properly, not without great risk of overbalancing and falling, so he pressed his back against the cave wall and slid along sideways. It was slow going, and awkward. Very quickly in the process, he switched his axe to his left hand - the one that was leading the way - and the torch into his right. At least he would have a chance of defending himself that way, and he was not staring directly into the torch's flame.

At one point, Gareth's foot came down on the very lip of the ledge, and part of it broke away. He pressed himself back more tightly against the wall, expecting the rest of the ledge to fall away beneath him at any moment. The various prayers that he had not spoken since he was a boy flew through his mind as he awaited the end, and he felt a cold sweat beading on his brow.

But the rest of the ledge held. After a long moment, Hatherle cleared his throat, rousing Gareth from his near-panicked state. He shook himself and blinked, then managed a rueful grin and continued on.

Finally, after what felt like forever, but was probably only a few hundred feet, the wall expanded back into an oblong alcove that almost appeared carved out of the rock face, it was so smooth. About twenty feet deep and half again as many wide, the walls were rounded, rising to meet in a sort of dome in the center of the alcove area. Aside from that, however, the alcove was unremarkable.

And empty.

The walls were bare rock, with no protuberances, the floor smooth and level. Even the ledge did not continue beyond the alcove.

This was it. End of the road.

"Damnit," Gareth muttered. "I thought sure there was a way."

"The presence of our previous adversaries certainly suggested as much, my Lord," Hatherle replied. "Though I hesitate to imagine beings like those successfully navigating that ledge."

Gareth was forced to nod in agreement. He had been wondering that himself as they crept down the ledge; those walking corpses were not particularly nimble. How had they managed to not fall off the ledge? Of course, there was nothing to stop the Necromancer from simply bringing them in through the cave mouth.

By why go to all the effort to do so if the only thing in the cave was...this?

"There's got to be more here than meets the eye," Gareth said. "Take left, Hatherle. I'll start on the right. We'll meet in the middle."