Lament (Scars of the Sundering Book 2)

Scars of the Sundering

Book 2

Lament

Hans Cummings

Chapter 1

A chilly blast of air greeted
Pancras as he opened the doors that led to the walkway. The waning twin moons
of Calliome, the King and Queen, hung low in the sky, their soft light
reflecting off the snow-covered Almerian rooftops. The minotaur scanned to the
left and right. Seeing the arcade empty, he gave the all clear.

The three draks and the dwarf
followed him as they made their way toward the main hall. Sneaking out in the
middle of the night was Kali’s idea. She assured them she knew the way through
the palace’s undercroft into the catacombs and from there into the city. By the
time Princess Valene and Lady Milena awakened the next morning and noticed their
absence, they would be miles away from the city.

Assuming they successfully
avoided the Royal Guards.

Almeria should have provided them
a safe shelter from the harsh winter. It should have been a place in which to
lie low and keep warm for several months. The luck of Dolios had not been with
them however, and they found rampant political corruption in the city. Still,
they might have ignored it had they not been pulled into the affairs of the
prince and learned of noblemen using slave labor in salt mines. While Pancras
believed the princess would keep her word and allow them to leave in peace, he
didn’t want to take any chances.

Delilah took point as they
descended the stairs leading to the main hall. She pointed her staff at the
floor. As the eyes of the rodent skull atop her focus glowed blue, she
whispered an incantation, “
Kalee’steen enoch leetiké goyna
.”

A dozen boggins materialized and
scampered into the main hall, yipping and gnashing their teeth. Were it not for
the armored greaves worn by all the Royal Guards, Pancras would not have agreed
to loosing the furry balls of teeth and hunger in the palace. He hoped their
steel armor would be up to the challenge of boggin teeth.

Each downward step sent a new
wave of pain into Pancras’s leg. Even a day off it would help the wound he
incurred the previous morning, but there was no time for healing if they wanted
to leave the city before the real fallout from Princess Valene’s coup began.

Once the shouts of alarm and
clanks of running armored guards receded, the minotaur led the group across the
main hall. They crossed without being spotted, and, as usual, found the door to
the undercroft unguarded.

Kali chuckled as Kale pulled out
his tools and set to work picking the lock. “They never guard the rooms where they
store all their junk.”

“Dwarves do.” Edric grunted as he
kept watch around the corner for patrolling guards.

“Dwarves post guards to their
privies.” Kali snorted. A click from the lock heralded Kale’s success.

“Yeah, well, some of those nobles
crap gold, you know.”

“Enough.” The minotaur ushered
the draks through the door and snapped his fingers to attract Edric’s
attention. The dwarf trotted over and pulled the door closed after he passed
through it.

Kale locked it behind them. “That
should slow them down.”

The glow from Delilah’s staff
illuminated the dusty, crate-filled alcoves. Deep shadows hid the tops of the
arches that supported the ceiling, creating the illusion that the room was
larger than it was. They heard distant shouts and the sounds of scuffling
through the ceiling as guards chased down Delilah’s boggins. The commotion
above them caused a fine rain of dust to drift down from the ceiling, hanging
in the air like faerie glitter.

“I don’t suppose you can banish
the boggins you summoned now that we no longer need the distraction?” Pancras
followed the path in the dusty floor caused by Kale and Delilah’s repeated
trips to the catacombs some weeks earlier.

“Oh, probably.” Delilah shrugged
and pointed toward the door that led to the catacombs. Crossing it was a new
wrought-iron barricade bolt, no doubt intended to keep hostile creatures out of
the palace. “I never learned how to do that, though.”

The minotaur pursed his lips as
he lifted the barricade out of the way. “You might look into that. I’m not keen
on leaving a bunch of angry, hungry boggins for others to deal with.”

Delilah ducked under his arm as
he opened the door. “I won’t learn it in time to help here, so don’t worry
about it. You thought it was a good idea when I suggested it.”

“We need to learn some
illusions.” Pancras waited for Kali, Kale, and Edric to pass before closing the
door. He couldn’t replace the barricade bar from the catacomb side, a typical
limitation of such crude door-barring methods.

“Wait…” Kali held up her hand.

“What?” Kale placed his hand on
her shoulder to keep from bumping into her.

“I thought I heard something.”

Pancras cocked his head.
As if
that’s going to help.
He held his breath as he strained to hear anything
more than Edric’s heavy breathing and the commotion still audible from the
palace guards chasing boggins.

He ran his hand down the cold,
stone catacomb wall. “Close walls like these cause strange echoes. Could it
have been noise from the palace?”

Kali glanced up at him. The
orange-scaled drak wrinkled her nose and shrugged. “Yeah, it’s probably
nothing.” She patted Kale’s hand. “Let’s go. The way I got in should still be
open. It’ll be tight for the minotaur, but I think he’ll make it.”

The thought of squeezing into an
even tighter space pained Pancras. He stooped to keep his horns from scraping
the top of the tunnel. Their packs made the catacomb passageways seem even more
cramped. If anyone were down here with them, they would surely be alerted to
the presence of Pancras and his companions by the scraping of their packs
against the walls.

“All those ghosts and whatnot you
draks riled up a few weeks ago are gone, yeah?” Edric gripped the haft of his
axe with white-knuckled fingers. He peeked around a corner, jumping as Pancras
brushed past him.

“I can handle anything down here,
Edric.” Pancras held aloft his focus, creating light with the same incantation
Delilah used. Pulling Kali to the front of the pack with him, he led the way.
He took note of the various twists and turns of the catacombs. One gift bestowed
by the gods to his people was the ability to unerringly navigate labyrinths,
and the layout of the catacombs was more straightforward than the labyrinths
minotaurs occupied in Drak-Anor. He still needed a guide to show him the
correct way to their destination; however, he would remember the way back
should they need to retreat.

“Shh!” Kali held up a clawed hand
to silence the whispered bickering of the drak twins. “I hear it again.”

Pancras heard it, too: the sound
of voices echoing off the stone walls of the catacombs. It was impossible to
pinpoint its origin, but the minotaur was certain what he heard was not the
echoes of Kale and Delilah’s discussion. The source of the noise drew closer and
became more distinct. He identified three voices and turned toward Edric.

“Are dwarves good at locating the
sources of sounds underground?”

The dwarf snorted and tugged at
his beard. “Maybe some, but not me.”

Pancras shook his head and
proceeded down the corridor with caution.
It figures I’d travel with the
only dwarf who is terrible at being a dwarf.

* * *

“Kale and I will scout ahead.”
Kali grabbed Kale’s hand. “Don’t follow us too closely.”

Kale shuffled along behind the
female drak and withdrew his hand from her grip. He drew his daggers as they
ducked around a corner, finding it difficult to determine the difference
between the sounds of his friends behind him and the others in the catacombs. One
thing was certain: the sounds from those who were not his friends grew louder.

The stone walls and bone-filled
niches of the labyrinthine catacombs couched their secrets in cobwebs and
shadow. Kale peered into each alcove as they passed, hoping to see some sort of
treasure unneeded by the catacomb's long-dead occupants.

Kali held out a clawed hand and
then placed it on his chest when Kale continued to shuffle forward, oblivious
to the intent of her gesture. She held a finger up to her lips and then grabbed
his arm as she pulled him into one of the compartments.

The others were close. He heard
them clearly now, their voices rising above the scraping of leather on stone
and the clink of metal against metal.

“Are you sure this is the way?”
The voice sounded familiar to Kale, but he couldn’t place it.

“Of course not, Highness. I know
the draks used these tunnels to enter my mine, so there’s no reason we cannot
escape your palace by the same route.”

“I shouldn’t have to escape from
my own damned palace. We’re coming back soon, Reznik, to deal with that woman
and the rest of the traitors.”

Reznik and Gavril!
Kale
didn’t take the time to wonder how the men gained entry to the catacombs. The
former mine owner and the former prince didn’t seem terribly close during the
trial, but Kale was not good at deciphering human body language.

Kali placed her arm across his
chest to restrain him as the two men walked past the niche they occupied.
Although they glanced quickly at each alcove, they did not linger long enough
to detect the draks hiding in the shadows. Several men garbed in chain shirts
and armed with crossbows followed.

Once the humans passed them, Kali
released Kale. He crept forward, daggers ready, and peered around the corner.
The men stopped at an intersection, whispered, and pointed, clearly disagreeing
about which direction they should go.

“They’re going to run right into
Pancras and the others,” Kali hissed in Kale’s ear.

Kale nodded and glanced in the
direction they came. It seemed clear. “We should lead them away.” He pulled a
clay pot out of one of the niches and let it crash to the floor, sending
hundreds of razor-sharp shards into the pathway.

As they heard the cries of alarm
from the humans behind them, the two draks took off. Kali shouted directions as
they ran.
I hope we don’t end up lost down here.

The draks skidded around a
corner, claws scraping on the stone floor, and found themselves facing a door.
Kali cursed, and Kale whipped out his tools as he examined the locking
mechanism.

“Hurry, Kale!”

Kale poked at the lock with a
probe. It was an older-style lock, but it was more complex than most of the
mechanisms he encountered in Almeria’s palace during their stay there.
Furthermore, his initial examination revealed that the lock was corroded and
would not be easily coaxed into unlocking.

Behind him, he heard a metallic
twang, and a crossbow bolt embedded itself in the door next to his cheek.

“Time’s up, little draks.”

* * *

“I heard it that time.” Delilah
cocked her head toward the commotion.

“The dead could have heard that.”
Edric picked his teeth with a fingernail as he leaned against the wall.

The drak sorceress eyed Pancras.
The minotaur stepped forward, peeked around the corner, and then returned to
the group. “The way is clear now, but I don’t seen Kale or Kali.”

“Pah! We’ll be wandering down
here for days without our guide.” Edric spat on the floor.

“We’ll not become lost, but I
don’t know the way out.” Pancras crept forward, tracing Kale and Kali’s path
and motioning for them to follow.

Delilah was confident in the
minotaur’s ability to keep his bearings in the catacombs, but she did not
relish the idea of being stuck surrounded by dead bones for any longer than
required.

The echoes of the disturbance
nearby made it difficult to determine if they were headed toward or away from
it. The drak sorceress dragged a claw along the wall as they walked, digging a
gouge so she would detect if they doubled-back along the same passageways or
became separated from Pancras.

Pancras held up his hand and
turned to face his entourage. “I can hear them just up ahead. They’ve cornered
Kale and Kali. Ready yourselves.”

The drak sorceress tightened her
grip on her staff. With her brother behind the humans, she contemplated what
spell to use that wouldn’t endanger him. The humans ahead made no effort to be
quiet.

“Where’s the minotaur, Drak?”

Delilah recognized the voice of
the former Prince of Almeria, Gavril. Pancras slipped his new rod from his
belt. It glowed with emerald light as he stepped around the corner.

“Right behind you, Gavril.”

“
Kaléste gi stoicheiaki
.”
Delilah concentrated on the stone surface behind Pancras as coils of azure
aether swirled forth from the top of her staff. A rocky fist punched its way
through the floor, and then another. She stepped out from behind the corner and
observed Gavril and his cronies level their weapons at Pancras. Kale and Kali
crouched behind them, their backs against a door.