Iron Blooded

There was something very wrong with the tunnel ceiling.

The sludge that we had seen at the entrance of the sewer was thicker. It hung, glistening, and wet on large sticky strands that dripped to the ground.

Kato prodded one with his sword and made a sound of disgust as it splattered to the stone.

We moved silently now, communicating only through gestures and signals. The Skinwalker, wherever it was, was likely aware of our presence. It would use the darkness as an alley, and try to separate us. So we moved within a few arms lengths of each other, two checking behind and the rest ahead.

My boot slid and I had to throw out an arm to catch myself. A trail of red slime now coated my boot and I grimaced. Whatever this stuff was there seemed to be more of it than there had been before.

It felt more like walking into the lining of a giant stomach than a sewer. If it hadn’t been for the smell, I might have had my doubts.

It grew stronger the longer we followed the steam of water and sludge. Draxus held the torch in one hand, and his blade in the other. I let him lead, careful to keep my own sword and shield at the ready.

As the light bounced off the walls I saw more of the strange runic writing on the walls but now there was more. Great slabs of black stone stood in pillars at the side of each wall, and the ceiling widened out to a long narrow hall.

As we passed, the symbols on the pillar seemed to shift. I blinked and studied them closer, but none seemed to move under my gaze. It was only when I turned away that I saw them moving in the corner of my eye.

There was something fundamentally wrong about this place. The same feeling I had gotten from the cave with the cursed bear. The same I had felt that night before the Shadow Kin found us.

A cool breeze ghosted across the back of my neck again and I turned. I could see Hade’s face in the flickering light - set but determined. There was nothing behind but the darkness of the tunnel and the odd runic pillars. I turned back in time to see Draxus hold up a fist for a halt.

Wordlessly we dropped into ready stances, shields raised and blades at the ready. A moment passed. Then two. Finally, I heard it.

It was faint, almost too much so to hear. But every now and then the rasp of words would echo off the walls. Whispers, and what they said I couldn’t quite tell.

I signaled a question to Draxus.

How many?

Draxus signaled back.

One.

I frowned and stepped past Kato, laying a hand on his shoulder as I passed. Standing next to Draxus I could hear the faint whisper a little more clearly. The voice was deep, that of an older man - and it was coming from somewhere up ahead.

Slowly I stepped forward towards the bend in the tunnel. Torchlight flickered, casting my shadow on the wall. Bracing myself, I rounded the corner and saw….nothing.

Draxus frowned and the half-light made the shadows of his features deeper. Then I heard it again the faint rasp of someone speaking. It felt closer now as if I were hearing it through the walls.

We continued on slowly but carefully until we reached a fork in the path. The two tunnels looked nearly identical. And if it wasn’t for the sounds of the whispering, I might not have known which to take.

But it was plain now, the sound of voices and the gleam of eyes in the dark. I advanced even as my pulse began to rise. The adrenaline of battle was already coursing through me as I prepared for yet another fight to the death with an unknown threat. Draxus circled to the side, lifting the torch high and casting light for feet ahead of us.

Kneeling on the tunnel floor was a man. He had been a soldier once, of that I was sure. Beneath the blood and the grime, I could see the dark blue of his surcoat - the colors of Ceris.

His hair was dark and greasy and he was turned away from us, facing the wall. As he began to mumble to himself I realized that he was the source of the whispering we had heard earlier. I signaled to the others to wait at the ready before I slowly approached.

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I wasn’t foolish enough to let my guard down even as I neared the man. He remained on his knees, rocking gently backwards and forwards, forehead resting against slime-covered stone.

“Soldier,” I said softly, and yet my voice echoed off the stone. The man didn’t seem to register my presence. I tried again.

“Soldier, why are you down here? What company do you belong to?

This time the man did react, his head twitched to the side as if he’d been struck and he turned his gaze on me.

He was hollow-cheeked, the look of someone who hadn’t eaten in a week. His skin was sallow and drawn against the bones of his face. When he saw me he showed no reaction of surprise or relief. Instead, he merely glanced at me and looked away.

“He can’t see me,” he muttered to himself, fingernails digging at his dirt-smeared tunic. “He can’t see me.”

“He’s gone mad,” Draxus's hesitant words echoed off the tunnel and into the dark. The man again showed no reaction to the presence of the others. He just kept rubbing at his eyes with his hands and muttering to himself.

“He can’t see me. He sees with your eyes.”

A creeping feeling of dread began in the pit of my stomach. The man was clearly unwell, and it was hard to gauge just how long he’d been down here. But there was something about his words that rang a warning in my mind.

“Who?” I asked him, leaning forward.

The soldier stopped muttering and looked at me again.

“He who is seen and unseen. Don’t let him in. He sees with your eyes. DON’T LET HIM IN. DON’T DON’T….”

His voice rose and he began rocking back and forth. Then without warning, he stuck his fingers into the sockets of his eyes. There was nothing I could do to stop him. I jerked forward to grab his arm but it was already too late. Eyeballs burst in his fingers and the soldier screamed.

“Throne on high,” whispered Hade. His own eyes were wide with horror as the man mutilated himself.

Blood welled over his fingertips and down his wrists.

Kato muttered something under his breath and made the sign of the saint. Draxus shook his head, a muscle feathering in his jaw.

“We shouldn’t leave him like this,” he said even as the soldier began to whisper again, rocking back and forth as tears of crimson.

“We have to put him out of his misery.”

I swallowed, reluctant to move. But I knew the truth of his words. To wonder in the dark and madness forever was no kind of fate. What’s more, the soldier wasn’t stable enough to follow us in or out of the tunnels. In his current state, we couldn’t be sure what he would do, or if he could follow simple instructions given by myself or Draxus.

There were only two options ahead of us, and both made my stomach twist. I remembered Lord Dacon putting an injured Knight out of his misery. Of that sadness and burden in his eyes as he lifted the blade.

It was a weight only a leader should take on.

“I’ll do it.”

I approached the soldier as he rocked back and forth against the wall. He gave no visible reaction to my naked blade. I swallowed hard and readjusted my grip.

“He can’t see me now. Can’t see,” he chattered to himself.

“He can’t see,” I confirmed past the lump in my throat. “You’re safe now.”

The soldier continued to mutter even as blood dripped down his cheeks and onto the stone below with a slow patter.

“Be at peace, brother,” I said. Then, before I could think or even feel, I brought my blade down on his neck.

His severed head in the ground and rolled several feet before coming to a stop. Red blood painted the stone wet and crimson.

I forced myself to look away, flicking the blood from my blade.

Draxus swallowed but gave me a firm nod.

“It was the right thing.” He said. Hade grunted.

“Aye Ser William. No man would want to be reduced to a puppet of madness.”

“The real question is how did he get down here,” I said, studying the body. “And why.”

Draxus shook his head.

“No one can say with any certainty but the man himself, and well, he wasn’t of sound enough mind to be answering questions.”

I turned to Kato.

“Did what he said mean anything to you? About eyes, and seeing and…” I trailed off and shrugged. Kato stuck a tongue in his lip and shook his head.

“The ramblings of a madman can’t really be taken as points of fact,” he said. “If what we’re fighting is some sort of Wendigo or its variant, it’s possible that the creature could have some sort of fear skill. A skill that can eventually drive a man mad.”

“Is that likely?” I asked, uneasy. Kato grimaced and shrugged.

“It’s not unheard of. But if that’s the case, we should consider backtracking. Taking on a creature that dangerous on our own would be asking for trouble. We’d need more manpower, maybe twenty men to corner and kill it.”

I grimaced and lifted my visor to rub at my face.

“The question is if we can afford to wait that long. If this thing, whatever it is, is killing folk in the night then we can’t take the risk that it strikes again.”

“Agreed,” sighed Draxus. “At this point, I don’t see we have much choice.”

I glanced at each man among us, looking them in the eye and making sure they understood the threat. Only determined faces greeted my gaze and I nodded, satisfied.

“Then we continue on.”

We left the corpse of the mad soldier behind and began our descent down a small slope In the tunnel. At the bottom more slabs of dark stone lined the walls, runes shifting and glimmering.

Draxus raised a hand as if he was considering touching one, then thought better of it and let his hand drop to his side. We were nearing the heart of the sewer now, where the rush of the underground river could be heard from somewhere far ahead. Kato stopped so suddenly that I almost ran into him.

“What is it?” I asked, annoyed. Kato glanced around, his face uncharacteristically serious.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Feel what?”

“The cool breeze.”

Kato and I exchanged a look. Something was going on, and I didn’t like being in the dark. I turned to Draxus.

“When you felt it earlier, did you see anything unusual?”

Draxus shook his head.

“Neither did I. But I can’t shake the feeling that we’re being followed.”