The Two Dragons, page 10
When it first caught their attention, neither Staff nor any of the others could tell what if anything the distant object was. It could have been a more unusual rock formation than the many unusual formations that they had already seen. As they walked, changing their perspective of the hillside, the hillside obliged them with a better view. It soon became obvious that the object was some kind of stone structure. It was roughly rectangular in shape but built so that the back portion of it was embedded in the sloping ground.
Once again they stopped and gathered together into a group, all eyes on the distant stone edifice.
“I assume you want to investigate it,” said Ivo Kane. “Ours may be the first human eyes ever to see it.
“Let’s just go take a look inside,” said Vever.
“This landscape can play tricks on your perception,” said Werthimer. “Those boulders next to that, whatever it is, are bigger than my house. By the time we get close, it’s going to be dark.”
“We shouldn’t be anywhere near that place in darkness,” said Brown. “It’s a side trek anyway. We should just continue on our way. If we stop to sightsee it will put us a day behind.”
“We can’t leave it unexplored,” said Senta.
“No, we can’t leave it unexplored,” reiterated Staff. “We may be laying a railroad line through here. At the very least there may be trade caravans passing by on their way to Tsahloose. We need to see what this is. We’ll get closer today, but make camp early, before we get too close. That way we can check it out first thing tomorrow.”
They stopped much earlier than they had on any previous evening, long before late afternoon hunger pangs called them to dinner. Staff estimated they were still three miles from the structure that they could now see was a fortress. Tall, peaked towers overlooked crenellated walls assembled from giant square hewn stone blocks. Openings, large and small, probably from which to fire weapons, were scattered here and there and a single large gate beckoned.
“Who would have thought we’d find a castle in the middle of Mallon?” said Edin Buttermore, dumping a pile of twigs onto the spot that had been designated for the fire.
“If this was a trade route some time in the past,” offered Manring. “Say between Suusthek and Tsahloose, then a fortress here would make sense.”
“Kafira,” muttered Buttermore.
They all followed his gaze toward the fortress. The sun had fallen behind a distant mountain leaving the mighty stone construction in shadow, slightly darker than the hill and sky that formed its background—but still more than an outline. It was no longer a fortress. It had taken on the form of a dragon’s head—the pointed towers were now horns, a few large windows together formed the shapes of eyes while the many weapons ports gave the subtle impressions of interlocking scales. The great gate had become a wide-open maw. Half the party continued to stare as the light faded, while the other half turned and looked at the reaction of the Drache Girl, who stood just as amazed as anyone else. Within a few minutes, the light level had dropped to the point that the fortress had become a well-defined but indeterminate shape on the hillside.
That night Staff ordered double the watch that they had maintained thus far. Croffut and Kane stood on guard from ten to one in the morning, Werthimer and Brown stood watch from one to four, and Bratihn and Buttermore guarded the campsite from 4:00 until the entire party was up the next morning. Though almost all of those acting as guards spent a good portion of time observing the massive fortress on the hill, no lights and no movement was ever detected in or near the ruin.
As the sun rose above the eastern mountains, the visual effect on the structure was similar though not as distinct as it had been the night before. The features of the fort must have been designed to create the impression of the reptilian face that it bore. Staff didn’t know for sure, but suspected that he knew the reason that it had been built this way. Human beings had long designed their buildings to impress viewers, whether those viewers were enemies or disciples. The pyramids of ancient Argrathia had garnered awe thousands of years ago, just as the Great Church of the Holy Savior did now. As the party packed up their gear and marched the last three miles to the fortress on the hill, Staff had as much appreciation for those that had built it, whether lizzies or some long forgotten race, as he had for the human builders of those great works back on the continent of Sumir.
Below the great gaping entrance, the steps of a staircase crawled out of the ground and upward into the doorway. The portal itself was huge, more than one hundred feet wide and at least fifty feet high. Whatever door or gate had once secured it had long ago rotted away, but giant square rust marks showed where hinges must have been attached. Staff led the party up those steps, slightly larger and more widely spaced than was readily comfortable for human legs. Within the entryway was a vast courtyard. Up close, the mighty block walls showed their age. Rubble covered the ground below places where the structural integrity had not been enough for the countless years that the fortress had endured. The place was a ruin. But upon those walls that were not worn smooth with age or had not fallen to disintegration, all the party could see the carvings of a dragon. It was the same draconic face carved over and over. It was the same face that the entire stonework had shown at sundown. It was the face of a single dragon.
“He’s beautiful,” said Senta.
Staff looked at her. “Do you know what dragon it is? Or what kind of dragon it is?” The differences between the carved face and the only dragon he had ever seen were obvious even to him. There was no small horn on the nose for instance, and there were wrinkles around the eyes where Bessemer had none. Yet there were similarities too. There were whiskers and there was an expression that seemed familiar.
She shook her head. “Some so-called scholars think you can lump dragons into groups, like they were species of fish or something. But dragons are rare and they’re unique.”
“Are these dragon droppings?” asked Vever, pointing at the ground.
“This would have to be from a baby dragon,” said Ivo Kane.
“Dragons don’t leave droppings,” said Senta.
“All animals must excrete,” said Wissinger from behind her.
“Dragons are not animals.”
“We know they’re intelligent and all,” replied Kane. “They aren’t like achillobators or sheep or fish. But even humans are animals after all.”
“Humans and lizzies and achillobators are animals. Dragons aren’t. They’re gods.”
“It’s lizzie crap,” said Croffut, having just completed a quick sweep of the area. “It’s all over the place. Some of it is years old. Some of it is months. I don’t see anything really recent. There are some flint chips and a few broken lizzie tools…animal bones…a lot of charcoal. I’d say they’ve been using this place as a camp for years, maybe decades… hell, centuries for all I know.”
“All of which tells us,” said Senta, “that this dragon doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Dragons don’t like clutter?” asked Kane.
“Dragons, like any gods, don’t like disrespect. When the dragon lived here, this was a place of worship. Believers don’t defile a temple. The lizzies who come here now don’t worship this god anymore. For them to have forgotten him, he must have gone a long time ago—centuries and centuries.”
“Could this place be that old?” wondered Staff, quietly in Femke Kane’s ear.
She shrugged. “It could be, judging by the decay.”
“There must be a treasure trove around here!” exclaimed Buttermore suddenly. “Dragons have treasure.”
“I doubt the lizzies have left much,” replied Staff. “But since we’re here, we are going to have a look around. Sgt. Croffut, take Werthimer and the Kanes and check out the right side. Sgt. Bratihn…”
“It’s just Mr. Bratihn,” The man interrupted, mimicking the reply that Staff had so often given to others.”
“Just so. You take Brown and Vever with you, and Senta. Swing around to the port…left side and see what you can find. Manring, Buttermore and Wissinger will come with me. We’ll head up this staircase in the back. Someone in each group has a pocket watch, yes? We’ll meet back here in an hour unless there’s trouble. If there is, fire a shot… or several.”
The division of the party wasn’t something that Staff had thought up on the spur of the moment. He had been planning work groups for their activities in Tsahloose since they left Port Dechantagne. Buttermore and Wissinger would provide words and pictures. The Kanes would be observing the engineering of the lizzie city. It was becoming more and more clear that Brown wasn’t going to be much use at all, so sticking him with Senta seemed best. This arrangement also provided two trained military men in each group, or in Bratihn’s case, one trained military man and a sorceress.
Staff and Manring headed toward the back of the massive courtyard, where a stairway climbed up the side of one of the large stone block structures and in the direction of two pointed towers. Buttermore and Wissinger followed them. The steps, like those in front of the main gate, were slightly larger and spaced slightly more widely apart than was conducive to human beings. They climbed up the side of the building, so that a block wall was upon the left hand side and a deadly drop to the courtyard below was on the right. At the top of the building, the stairs passed through a ten-foot tall arched doorway. Before passing through, Staff turned to see if he could spot either of the other groups. Far off to the right, he could still see Croffut, the Kanes, and Werthimer as they examined the carvings on the interior stone blocks of the fortress’s outer wall. To his left he could see no one. Bratihn’s party must have found a way inside.
Chapter Seven: Beneath Ancient Stones
As soon as Senta and the other three members of her group had approached the far left side of the courtyard, they had seen the small passage leading down into the darkness. It was about the same width as the typical human doorway, though only about five feet tall, which meant that all of them would have to stoop to enter. Senta would have gone right on in, had Bratihn not stopped her with a wave of his hand. He then stepped in the doorway first, bending down, and following the downward slope. Senta and then Vever and then Brown followed. They had gone no more than thirty feet from the doorway, when Bratihn stopped.
“We need a torch,” he said to Senta.
She reached into her tiny bag and pulled out an oil lantern. As she handed it to Bratihn, the cloth wick inside ignited, bathing the corridor in light. Bratihn took the lantern and continued on. He slid a bit on the sand that dusted the stone floor. Forty feet beyond, the narrow little corridor joined a much wider and higher one, which ran perpendicular to the first.
“I think our entryway here was a ventilation shaft. It probably had some kind of grating over it long ago.” Bratihn held up the lantern and looked left and right down the larger hallway. “This looks more like something someone would walk in. See those holes in the wall on either side? They’re evenly spaced. I’ll bet there was some kind of lighting there—oil lamps or sconces for wooden torches.”
“So which way do we go?” asked Senta.
“Left should take us out toward the front, so right should take us further back.”
“Right it is then.”
No longer needing to crouch, the four explorers were free to move more quickly. Only the darkness and their unfamiliarity with the oppressive passageway kept them to a slower pace. The air in the corridor was cool, dry, and odorless. After about one hundred twenty feet, the passage intersected another forming a tee. Bratihn held the lantern high over his head and looked down each of the three open passageways, but there seemed to be nothing to distinguish one from the others.
“Which way now?” asked Brown, peering over Vever’s shoulder.
“Right,” replied Bratihn.
“Why?”
“Orientation. When we leave, we can simply follow the left wall and it will take us right out.”
“Isn’t it time we headed back?” offered Brown.
Bratihn took out his pocket watch and held it in the lantern light. “We’ve only been gone ten minutes.”
“Come on. We’re wasting time,” said Senta.
“You heard the lady,” said Bratihn, turning to the right and stepping quickly but cautiously down the hall.
This hallway went about another hundred feet and then took a ninety-degree turn to the left. Sixty feet beyond the turn, it ended with an open doorway into a much larger chamber. The four of them examined the sides of the door. Here, like on the great gate in front of the fortress, were indications that there had once been hinges and some sort of lock, but whatever door had once barred the way was now long gone. The light spilling from the lantern spread out as they entered the room beyond the doorway, but it was a tiny drop in an ocean of darkness. The room was huge.
Twenty feet past the doorway, there was a large step downward. Twenty feet beyond that, there was another. Then another. To either side, stretching out into the distance, cut into the stone floor, were benches. Their surfaces had been worn smooth by years, maybe centuries, of use.
“This is an amphitheater,” said Bratihn.
Senta, who had never seen an amphitheater before, strained to make out what she could in the darkness.
“But why build an amphitheater underground?” wondered Vever. “Wouldn’t it be better outside, where you can see?”
“They must have had lighting—like in the corridor,” replied Bratihn. “Maybe whatever they were watching was better underground—some kind of secret rites.”
“Or perhaps they could see in the dark,” muttered Brown.
“How big do you suppose it is?” wondered Senta, still peering around.
“We can go down to the bottom and get an idea. We have to be careful not to get turned around though. We need to find our way back up this particular walkway.”
“When we get near the bottom, we can scratch a mark on the floor,” suggested Vever. “If no one else has anything, I have a pliers in my backpack that should do the trick.”
Senta put her arm over the shoulder of the little man and walked side by side with him, behind Bratihn, while Brown brought up the rear. They walked and then stepped down and walked and stepped down. The amphitheater seemed impossibly huge, and by the time they had reached the bottom, they had passed more than four hundred rows of seats. Vever set down his backpack and pulled out his pliers, using them to scrape an arrow, pointing back the direction in which they had come, on the floor. Senta meanwhile jumped down the last step into a vast expanse of sand that made up the floor of what must have been a mighty coliseum.
“What do you think? Gladiator fights, like in the time of Magnus the Great?”
“Could be,” said Bratihn. “I’m sure it wasn’t dinner theater.”
Suddenly a horrible cry rent the subterranean air. It echoed through the great chamber from somewhere across the darkness. It was impossible to tell from which direction, but it seemed clear that it was at their level and not along the top.
“Kafira Kristos!” said Vever. “What is that?”
The cry rang out again.
“I don’t know, but it can see us,” said Bratihn. “Get over here, girl.”
Senta stepped back up from the sandy ground below then carefully plucked one of the floating glamours, which only she could see, from its orbit around her head. Suddenly a monster stepped into the edge of the light on the surface of the sand, just beyond where Senta had been standing.
The creature was massive, as big as Bessemer or a tyrannosaurus, though it walked on all fours. Its gigantic head, attached with almost no neck to the hulking shoulders was covered with a plate of armor, which reflected the lantern light, and it trailed a bulky tail making it almost fifty feet long. It moved slowly but methodically across the sand toward them, howling out in rage and exposing row upon row of knifelike teeth.
“What the hell?” shouted Bratihn. He had already raised his rifle to his shoulder. Now he fired. The bullet stuck the great face, but seemed to have no effect.
Senta raised her hand. A lightning bolt, like the one that had killed an entire flock of achillobators shot out from her fingertips. It struck the monster between the eyes and then ricocheted away toward the top of the chamber, for a brief moment illuminating the entirety of the coliseum. The creature roared, angered, but apparently unharmed.
“Uh oh.”
“Run!” cried Bratihn, grabbing Senta by the arm and pulling her along. Vever stumbled along beside them. Brown was already way ahead. They leapt up two of the large stone steps when they heard the giant clawed feet hit the stone below them. They ran up more stone steps, the sounds of pursuit making it clear that the monster was not giving up on his prey.
Suddenly Vever veered off into the darkness, running down one of the rows of stone benches. Senta looked over her shoulder and saw the huge armored creature turning to follow the lone man. She and Bratihn both skidded to a stop. For a brief moment they could see the massive haunch covered with dull grey interlocking scales. Bratihn fired his rifle again. The bullet made a bright flash as it ricocheted off.
“Regnum uuthanum riyah!” shouted Senta, aiming her spell at a spot high on the creature’s back. A blob of magical light, not unlike the small flicker inside the lantern but much larger, spread out illuminating everything within sixty feet. This included the whole front half of the monstrosity and Vever, to whom that front half had now almost caught up. Grabbing a green glamour from in front of her face and crushing it in her hand, Senta waved toward the man now scrambling across the stone benches. Vever shot into the air just as the huge tooth-filled mouth snapped in the spot he had so recently occupied. He zoomed toward them, becoming a black silhouette as he was backlit by the bright light, and then crashed to the floor right in front of Senta. A loud snap and a scream signaled that his landing was not a good one. Bratihn grabbed Vever by the back of the collar and hauled him once again toward the exit.
