---

---

Glen

Mister Garth

Hardir O’ Fardor

Five days in the mountain’s bowels

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---

 

Eelco Flucht turned his head and eyed him determined, face ruined and half-healed, one eye milky the other gleaming under the lightstone lamps luminance. Ah, curse the gods, he thought and glared at Henk De Weer, the young captain, all bones and skin clenching his teeth so hard, he could see them even with the mouth closed.

Behind the men standing protectively near him, the Blood Raiders were hoofing it through the open gates, but for Theun Est Ravn, the Valkyrie’s captain standing near the iron lever waiting for his order. He turned around and looked at Rikkert Klein’s rearguard, swords and spears in hand blocking the way to the approaching horde. The sound reverberating inside the hollow underground cavern, reaching deep in the mountain’s bowels and traveling towards the exit his men were crossing.

“REINUT!” Eelco growled seeing him hesitating. “WE NEED TO GET OUT NOW!”

“Rikkert will do what’s needed. Stop them dead,” Henk insisted, more to convince himself, as the sounds turned to thousands of legs clacking on stone, the weakened from the earthquakes walls collapsing and more chasms appearing in the dark corridors.

Rikkert standing over a hundred meters away behind the row of men he’d ordered to stand firm to buy them time, turned his head and looked at him a wild smile on his ebony face.

‘Better to die free and on yer feet’, he’d told him seven years back before they’d embarked on this crazy journey half a globe away. ‘Than be turned into a slave. Flesh and bones, but no soul. Better to go wit eyes open and Uher’s light warming your face.’ He raised an arm still half turned, brilliant rings and a world of loot hanging from his neck. The large phial Flucht had given him shining like gold under the quartz roof, the light increasing and bouncing off of it, but not enough to illuminate every dark space.

“Make it shine brethren,” Reinut murmured and nodded to his devoted right hand man. He turned and followed Eelco and Henk out of the gates, his bodyguards running after him and Theun being the last pulling the lever entombing those that were left behind. The gates croaked like a beast covering the sounds of the approaching horde, chains clanking as they worked to slowly close the massive stone flaps and finally pulling them forward to seal the entrance completely.

A young Blood Raider run to the seemingly flat wall and reached to open the bronze cap and get the key out.

“Valwarin,” Joris Van Oord barked seeing him. “Leave it, we ain’t coming back son! This whole cursed place is a bloody grave!”

Aye, it is a grave, Reinut thought, a permanent scowl on his face. But also a way back in, however dangerous.

You never know what our future holds.

“Get the key,” He ordered the young soldier and the ground shook at that moment, men losing their footing, others crying in fear the tunnel would collapse and burry them as well. It was almost like another massive earthquake had happened, but it was only Rikkert and his squad dying while taking the monsters with them.

 

 

Psst.

Uh?

Glen scrunched his mouth this way and that and tried to find a better spot on the chair. The former thief had managed to catch a couple of hours of shuteye while he waited for the rest of his group to finish clearing up the mouldy rock.

Psst.

What in Oras Hells?

He opened an eye and saw a dirty palm blocking his sight.

“Whisper,” he hissed and slapped her hand away from his face. “Girl you stink like a skunk.”

“Hey,” Jinx admonished him and gave Glen a good shove toppling him from his chair. Glen tumbled down almost bashing his head on the cobblestone and managed to save it at the last moment whirling his body into a roll.

“For fuck’s sake Whisper!” He grunted and got up, his heart lodged to his throat from the scare and mess of hair covering his eyes. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Why, how about I just finished slaving away ye lazy cretin!” She snapped and glared at him. It funny but only because she was so short. “And I want that bath more than you, despite you needing it more!”

Whoa, she’s slowly losing it, Glen decided. The journey doesn’t agree with her.

Soren approached them, each step sounding thunderous inside the underground tunnel.

“Wall’s clean.” He reported. “Now what?”

“Ahm,” Glen stared at the large group standing at the end of the tunnel. The many lit torches made the air rancid and difficult to breathe. “Whisper you have that pendant?”

“Alix has it,” Jinx murmured.

Glen turned to stare at her apologetically. “Whisper I got surprised is all, you know I don’t mean—”

She rolled her eyes exasperated. “Abrakas take ye! You’ll lie on top of it?”

“I wasn’t… where’s Alix?”

Jinx puffed out and pointed with a thin finger. “In front of Angrein. Gish are short and stinky.”

Glen groaned and stared at her, but she just walked away.

“You shouldn’t take it out on Pretty. Whatever yer problems are,” Soren advised him and Glen would have groaned even more frustrated, but Alix guffawed and stopped him.

“What is it?” Glen asked rushing towards them. Angrein gave him a look over his shoulder.

“Master Alix found a hole,” He rustled.

“A keyhole?” Glen chanced.

“Just a hole. A square one.”

Right.

“Alix move aside,” Glen said and went to stand next to the thief.

“I was going to insert my arm in here,” Alix explained. “See if there’s a lever or a spot to slot the pendant. Do you want to take over?”

Glen stared at the ominous artificial dark gap.

“You go ahead now friend,” He yielded magnanimously. “Bring it home.”

Alix blinked unsure at the term and Glen grinned broadly to encourage him.

“Just pretend it’s a fucking cunt!” Jinx snapped losing her patience.

So Alix pushed his arm into the square hole and found a place to fit Valwarin’s pendant in. The old ornament was both a key and a lever. Turning it produced a series of metallic sounds, hidden pulleys creaking and rusted chains clanking as they started working after centuries. It lasted for a couple of minutes and then stopped abruptly.

“Well,” Alix said frowning. “That was underwhelming.”

Glen puffed his cheeks out alike frog while everyone started giving their own opinion on what had happened. Looking sideways he caught Soren looking at the massive basalt obstacle.

“What do you think big guy?” He asked him absent better ideas.

“Zola used to say all doors open when unlatched, if I gave them a good shove,” Soren said.

“I don’t see a door,” Glen pointed and Soren laughed finding it funny.

“I didn’t see a latch, but that don’t mean it isn’t there,” The big Northman explained and started walking determined towards the massive boulder barring their way. He put a spade like hand on it, then the other.

Hah, he may be right.

“What is he doing—?” Jinx tried to say, but Glen stopped her with an impatient wave of his hand and rushed to help Soren. The Northman had started pushing hard, large muscles bulging and thick veins popping out. Glen added his effort on it and not a minute in he swung his head around, eyes gawking from the effort and blasted the crowd watching them idle.

“Put yer backs to it for cryin’ out loud! Don’t expect me to do all the plaguin’ work!”

What is this shite?

Thank the Gods he wasn’t actually paying them lazy fools.

 

 

Big Soren’s crazy idea worked younglings. Ten of us managed to push the gates in and then like magic they pulled away and opened up to the sides. The mechanism working after who knows how many years. The tunnel continued inside the mountain. But the way was almost blocked.

 

 

Glen smacked his lips and eyed the debris that barred their way. Alix standing next to him cleared his throat and then used a comb to fix his pink hair, the line at the middle almost perfect.

“Yes Alix?” He grunted.

“This is going to take some work,” The Gish stated the obvious, offering no way around it.

“One wall is standing,” Angrein explained returning from the collapsed portion of this new and much bigger tunnel. “There’s glass mixed in the debris.”

“Ahm, can we clear it?” Glen asked.

“We can move the material back into the first tunnel using the carriages and the animals. It’s a great advantage having them here.”

“What about the supplies?”

“We will unload the supplies first Garth,” Angrein explained.

“That was my meaning,” Glen retorted with a grimace. “Better get on with it then. Metu!”

“Master Garth.” The slave replied calmly standing right behind him. Glen swung around and eyed him suspiciously.

“See we don’t lose anything valuable.”

He didn’t much trusted Kalac’s Horselords to keep their hands off his stuff.

“We move the rocks away?” Soren asked approaching, happier than he’d been in days.

“It seems that way,” Glen replied.

“The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll finish,” Soren said. “It’s like being back at Hellfort again right?”

Glen hadn’t enjoyed that part of their journey at all. The carrying rocks part that is.

“I’ll get Fikumin.” He said and looked about them for the dwarf. “We need his expertise for this.”

“Carrying rocks?” Soren asked. “Not much skill is needed.”

“Not for that, but the cave part,” Glen explained. “This was a cave once, before they turned it into whatever it is they did here.”

“How do you know?”

Glen pointed at the part of the wall that was visible. “That’s mortar filling, shaped with tools.”

 

---

---

 

Two days later they had cleared a large part of the debris field. The new passage left enough room for a single carriage to pass and the tunnel seemed stable further inside. It was also massive in size, twice that of the one they had followed. Cut inside the mountain, probably over an existing cave deep into its bowels. Some parts of the ceiling high above their heads sparkling and covered in a strange quartz.

“Lightstones,” Fikumin explained.

“Where’s the light?” Glen asked.

“They need to stay in light some, before they are worked on. I mean they need to absorb light in order to offer it back. These are inactive, raw,” the dwarf explained. “This was a stone mine at some point. What we see, is what’s left.”

“Can we extract it?”

“It’s mostly dug out Garth already,” Fikumin explained. “Only traces of it remain.”

“Hmm. Well, this is the roomiest mine shaft I’ve ever seen,” Glen said who had glanced but not visited the mines but in the dwarf village. So it was the first one he’d entered, but given the descriptions he’d heard… well, Glen expected something more claustrophobic. The ceiling was almost ten meters above their heads and the width at twice that.

“Zilan built like that,” Fikumin said simply.

“Why did it collapse?”

“We need to clear the rest of it to know for sure.”

“Seems like a waste of time,” Glen said and watched Angrein digging something out of the debris, Flix standing next to him nodding. “What is it?” He asked them and walked towards them.

“A broken sword,” Angrein replied.

“What’s special about it?”

“Nothing, it’s a steel blade.”

“Someone died here,” Flix elucidated and Glen turned to stare into his aged face.

“How do you know?”

“He was still holding it,” Angrein replied and showed him the skeleton arm and fingers protruding out of the debris. The bones on it brittle and white.

Good grief.

“An accident?”

“Not many laborers work with their blades drawn Garth,” Flix said.

Ah. Had this been a shovel or a pickaxe it wouldn’t offer any mystery.

Glen scratched his forehead, the stiches there bothering him.

“So we… ehm, how long ago did this happen?”

Angrein shrugged his muscular shoulders. “Decades, perhaps longer.”

“Fine then, whatever it was that had this poor soul spooked to an early grave, assuming the rocks smashed him by accident…” Glen started and then paused thinking about it. This was a fucking tunnel after all. “We better keep our eyes open.”

Flix frowned and stared at this strange boulevard under the mountain, dark and foreboding beyond the lights of their torches and ‘working’ lightstones.

“Stay close.” He said and Glen didn’t like the old Gish’s tone at all. He liked it even less when they encountered the first massive spider webs not even a kilometer in.

 

---

 

“Make camp,” Kalac decided, seeing Glen and Flix unwilling to continue. “What is the matter?”

“Probably nothing,” Flix said.

“It must be something,” Kalac rustled.

“Glen, what is it?” Jinx asked him and he pressed his lips tight visibly uncomfortable.

“I don’t like this.” Glen replied which was most of the truth.

“Eh, it’s an old cave. Prettied up sure, but still a cave Glen,” Jinx explained as if he was a clueless kid mindful of the dark. “So it has a couple of bugs inside… so what?”

“Trust me, you’ll regret those words Whisper, if I’m right,” Glen warned ominously.

“Are ye trying to scare me?”

Eh. Yes?

“If it was a mine, then it was cleared of dangers,” Fikumin told them, listening in to their exchange.

“See? Fiku agrees,” Jinx argued.

“Flix?” Glen looked for a second opinion.

Third.

The old Gish had gotten his pipe out. “I suggest we make camp. Investigate the road up ahead.”

“The road ahead appears endless,” Kalac reminded him.

“It is not though,” Angrein countered.

“Because it’s also a road,” Glen eyed the blacksmith.

“That’s true.”

“Have you been here before?”

“The mines closed many centuries ago,” Angrein replied. “Quiceran started building a road here at some point, but never finished it afore I left Wetull. Apparently he did later.”

“How do you know?” Glen asked him. “Deciphered all that with a glance?”

“He started on the other side of the mountain,” Angrein said simply. “While modest the gates we just went through was its end.”

Luthos, I know ye want to fuck up things for me here.

Don’t.

“Make camp and rest the men,” Glen decided. “We scout ahead, determine its safe first, then we move until we get tired.”

“Rinse and repeat?” Kalac asked with a smirk.

“Aye,” Glen replied.

“What in Abrakas black beak do you guys think we’ll find?” Jinx asked with a grin. “Big arse spiders?”

 

---

 

Kalac returned half an hour later, four of his men with him.

“Well?” Glen asked him nervously.

“Lots of netting on the walls, nothing untoward, but a couple of corpses,” the Horselords leader replied.

“Corpses?”

“Aye. About five hundred meters up ahead. The way is clear. That’s the straightest tunnel ever. We should just ride it out.”

“Flix, Soren,” Glen said. “We’ll check the dead bodies.”

“I’ll come along,” Jinx volunteered.

“Stay here.”

“Why?”

“For fuck’s sake Whisper, just do as yer told!”

“You are freaking me out Glen.”

“Why does she call you Glen?” Kalac asked curious.

“It’s a family moniker. Rarely used now. We go way back.”

Kalac raised his brows. “With the Gish?”

“Show me the corpses’ mister Kalac,” Glen snapped annoyed. Kalac grimaced and nodded.

“Follow us Garth,” he rustled emphatically.

 

---

 

The corpse reminded Glen of Lebesos. This man had also died a long time ago.

“Shite…” He cursed and looked right and left at the unseen walls. “You checked at the edges?”

“For what?”

“Ever been to Lebesos Kalac?” Glen asked him and the Horselord stood back alarmed.

“Belec, Tarn, check the walls!” He ordered.

Glen kneeled next to the mummified corpse in the meantime. The remnants of rusted chainmail were still visible, but no weapon. The dead man had his mouth open in a silent scream, most of his face skin melted away and the eye cavities empty and black.

“Cofol?” He asked a nervous Kalac.

“Issir, I think.”

“What does an Issir…? This can’t be. Flix are these Reinut’s men?” Glen asked the old Gish.

“It’s possible.”

Talk about an archaeological find at a nigh inopportune moment.

“Just straight stone walls Kalac,” Tarn reported. “But it’s difficult to tell, unless we clear them from all netting.”

“Evil spirits,” Kalac said looking at Glen.

“Arachne,” Glen replied and even talking about it freaked him out plenty. “Burn their webs, use the fuckin’ torches. Soren, can you hack this into pieces?”

“Are you sure?” The Northman asked and reached for his axe.

“Aye,” Glen replied and unsheathed his sword. “Eyes open friends. These motherfuckers are sneaky.”

Soren walked to the corpse and raised his axe. Glen glanced right and then left, his eyes on the thick spider webs covering the walls. Tarn was using a torch to burn them away, another Horselord two meters from him doing the same further ahead. Soren downed his axe and chopped the corpse’s head off, almost pulverizing its skull with a loud thud. The silence that followed and the general stillness of the large dark tunnel unnerved Glen.

Fuck.

The torch melted the webs clearing large parts of the walls, the shadows dancing and the caravan slowly approaching them, bringing more light and even more torches. Glen started walking after Tarn and the men removing the thick nettings, while Flix ordered the men to also help clear the walls behind him.

“Floor is cracked here,” Tarn reported and pointed with a hand. “Where does it end Lerh?”

Glen stooped to examine the foot long gap on the well preserved cobblestone. It almost reached its midpoint.

“Mind the carriages and the animals. Bring them on the left side of the path,” He warned the approaching caravan. “It’s deep.”

“What is it?” Tarn asked, while his friend followed the crack to the west wall of the tunnel torch in hand.

“The collapse was too far away from this spot right?”

“It looks like an earthquake,” Tarn said.

“There’s an opening here,” His friend reported. He’d burned away the spider webs and revealed a meter long hidden chasm on the wall. It almost reached the ceiling.

“What the hells is that?” Kalac asked from across the underground road Quiceran had built. He was standing next to Belec, the horselord clearing the wall from that side.

Glen turned to look at what he was pointing at and saw someone coming towards them. He appeared out of the dark like a wraith, but he was probably walking towards them for a while now. They just happened to spot him the moment he stepped into the more lighted area. Stumbling like a drunkard or as if he was injured.

Of course he was neither.

“STOP HIM!” Glen barked, right eye swelling out of his socket. Flix who’d seen the figure coming towards them, fired a bolt from atop the carriage he’d just climbed up, in order to direct it away from the crack on the road.

It smacked the walking corpse right at the top of its skull, blew a part of it away and exited out the back.

“What in Oras Hells?” Sam Mathews grunted not believing his eyes and Glen made to attack the charging corpse, but spotted the Horselord out of the corner of his eye going down holding his severed arm and stopped dead in his tracks.

“ARACHNE!” He bellowed, the hairs on his arms standing up. Tarn turned just as the huge insect soared out of the collapsed part of the wall and charged him. Thinking on his feet he hurled the torch on the two meters tall arachnoid and got it right at its chest setting it on fire.

With an inhuman hiss it violently swirled away, long legs moving sideways, the screams and cries of shock coming from the caravan and horselords creating a pandemonium in the previously silent tunnel.

 

---

 

Glen went under the arms of the charging corpse, slashing its leg away below the knee and sending it sprawling down. It banged its half-destroyed skull on the hard cobblestone and cracked it open fully, decayed skin and bone splinters creating an amorphous mass where its head had been.

Still it pushed itself up on a shaking leg and a stub.

Then came at him again.

Glen turned and hacked at it chopping an arm off, then the other, using no skill as if he wielded a cleaver, but the corpse kept at it. He kicked it on the chest next caving it in, almost losing his boot, but he sent it back down. Glen stepped on the flailing corpse’s torso, bones cracking underneath him and stumbled away.

Soren had managed to cleave the burning Arachne in half in the meantime. The two smoking pieces still moving, spreading bodily fluids and entrails everywhere.

“That’s a very big bug!” Jinx yelled at him, eyes wide as saucers and climbed at the roof of the carriage. “Are ye fuckin’ kidding me? USE PROPER FUCKIN’ WORDS NEXT TIME!”

Glen puffed out exasperated and turning checked the corpse for signs of life. He didn’t found any.

“Lerh is gone,” Tarn hissed through his teeth. “That thing severed his spine.”

“Everyone find a torch and clear those walls, find me something to block this fucking opening!” Glen barked. This is a very big cave, he thought with a shiver.

 

---

 

“A nest?” He asked Flix and the frowning Gish put the silver pipe in his mouth and sucked at the thin tube deep. “Seriously Flix? Is this the time?”

“I’m trying to think Garth and regain my wits. I don’t exactly like these hellish things as well,” Flix replied calmly, puffing smoke out of his nostrils. “It didn’t have time to call on the rest. Did it?”

Everyone standing around them looked at each other unsure.

“What does a… what does that thing sound like?” Someone asked from the back.

“It did… made some sounds right?” Sam Mathews queried nervously in the attempt to remember.

“That was no talk,” Soren explained. “It just made a popping sound when I cut it.”

Uh.

“Let’s assume it did call for help,” Glen said with a frown.

“We need to move either way,” Flix said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

Fucking lovely.

“Glen?” Jinx asked him worried, still standing on the top of the carriage. “When you say nest…?”

“Whisper, get the caravan going. We cordon the animals and move as a group. Everyone keep a torch at hand or stay near someone that carries one. We move fast, we don’t rest.”

And pray this fucking road isn’t a long one.

 

 

Quiceran’s road was a long one. Over forty kilometers long and kept almost straight for the majority of the way. The quartz patches over our heads shone the light back to us, the walls covered with webs and the remnants of over fifty skeletons decorating the road, especially close to the places where the earthquakes had created new corridors by collapsing. They had sprouted new tunnels, or had opened up older ones that met with the main artery of the former mines. It was from these abysses the Arachne came. In all sizes, from a large behemoth standing at over three meters to younglings the size of small cows.

 

 

Soren swung with his axe and chopped the long hairy front leg, foul fluids spraying out. A horselord got rushed by two more, Kalac killing one using his bronze hand like an improvised hammer when he lost his blade inside the monster’s abdomen. The horselord next to him got paralyzed and the behemoth Arachne skewered his torso with both front legs, reached with its gigantic chelicerae and ate his face, before Glen could draw a single breath.

Glen hacked with his sword at a hind leg cutting a foot of ceramic hard piece of ‘spider hide’ away, dodged the giant Arachne’s retaliating attack and almost died to the next, Angrein’s massive sledgehammer pulverizing the long front leg at the knuckle saving him at the last moment.

Thank fucking Luthos.

“ARGH!” Glen cried out when the gigantic Arachne rushed him maddened at the brutal injury, all around them chaos unfolding with everyone fighting for their lives. Glen dodged the predator for the most part, but the part he didn’t dodge connected with his shoulder, darn thing popping in and out when he landed on the cobblestone. Growling frenziedly he rolled away, the Arachne twisting around spectacularly fast and coming after him determined to finish the hysterical Glen off. Angrein intervened again, this second ferocious swing ripping, or melting, a part of the creature’s bloated abdomen away, foul vicus pouring out.

A snarling Glen got up, panic turning to fury, teeth clenched and eyes gawking, pumped full of adrenalin. And preternatural fear. There was plenty of that too mixing in. He made two quick determined strides and shoved Emerson’s blade to the hilt between the towering creature’s numerous black-red eyes. Glen lost the handle on it when the Arachne jerked away fatally injured and he stumbled back to avoid a death spasm from decapitating him, his boots slipping on purple and white ghastly entrails.

Soren killed his third giant Arachne and the rest of their group managed to slowly hack away at the rest of them using every weapon and tool at their disposal, losing three animals and two more people.

 

---

---

 

Kalac wanted the men burned, but Glen got the bodies on their carriages and urged their group to push ahead. This time he allowed everyone to ride and sent a small scouting force ahead of their group.

“We’ll move fast and hope the next horde doesn’t come out until we get out.”

“What if there isn’t a way out?”

“Then we do all this again, moving back towards our gates and then the ramp.”

“We should have closed those gates,” Flix murmured.

“Will they come out of the tunnel?” Glen asked.

“I don’t know, there’s something wrong with them. They seemed less smart?” The old Gish said.

“Starved to death,” Angrein replied. “And leaderless. That big one was a male, an old one and given its size the female leader must have been the size of a house.”

Oras Hells!

“What happened to the female then?” Glen asked and Angrein walked to the carriages surprisingly calm given all that had transpired and the struggle of marching for the whole day. Or two days, Glen had lost count. He came back with a large white piece, triangular in shape and curved at its longer pointy end.

“I found this back at the collapsed spot, near the entrance, or I guess the exit to Quiceran’s Road.” He said and Flix approached to look at it up close. “I kept it to see if I can work with the material. It’s pretty rare.”

Uh?

“What the fuck is it?” Glen asked with a grimace of pain and rubbing at his sore shoulder. Soren was hugging a disturbed Jinx to calm her down, with an injured Alix watching them with jealous red-rimmed eyes.

“A piece of a fang. A big one. But the Arachne it belonged to had died at the collapse I believe, if that is what it was.”

“What else could it be, other than an earthquake?” Glen asked unsure and Flix answered it for him.

“An explosion. It crippled the nest, killing its vanguard.”

“A volcano?” Glen chanced.

“A weapon,” Flix replied not making any sense at all. The poor old Gish is probably shook to his core from all this running around hunted by monsters in the dark, just like the rest of us, Glen thought and decided to cut Flix some slack.

“Aye,” Angrein agreed, picking up their conversation. “Without their leader, a new female should have been picked to rule the nest from the remaining population, but then it’s down to chance and randomness, much like in our Realm’s politics, doesn’t always favor the tribe.”

“Not all Arachnids are as big as houses?” Glen taunted him.

“Only the eldest reach that size. That male was part of the first colony,” Flix explained. “In Lebesos both were males, the female chose not to engage.”

“Are there any more?” Glen asked stopping the lesson on the hellish creatures.

“I wouldn’t sleep in here another day,” Angrein replied. “We better leave and take the bigger carcasses with us.”

“Why?” Glen croaked.

“Deny them an easy source of food,” Flix elucidated on the blacksmith’s words, adding just to put everything into the proper context. “When they feed, they mate and when they mate, they lay eggs.”

“Enough!” Glen blasted him, goosebumps rattling his tired body. “We’ll take the plaquin’ corpses wit us!”

Good fuckin’ grief!

 

 

There was another set of gates at the end of Quiceran’s Road. Or the start of it. Much bigger in size, the large hall impressive and the ceiling lost in darkness high above our heads. The sound reverberated on its dark walls and the entrance itself was columned and made out of black granite. There was a lever on each side and if you pulled them at the same time the doors opened much like they did at the other end. Several men cried tears of joy smelling fresh air and seeing the sun’s strong light entering the ancient tunnel again.

Despite our fears the Arachne didn’t make another appearance. As Angrein said, ‘those that could still fight had made the attempt to save the nest.’

By failing to wipe us out, the nest had died. Garth who had aged a year in the few days our journey inside the bowels of the mountain had lasted, declared the lush jungle and the flowing river easily spotted amidst the massive trees, ‘A darn wonderful sight.’

He was to remember his abhorrence for the Jungle and thick vegetation of all sorts early the next morning, when a huge chicken-like bird with beautiful yellow and blue plumage tried to eat him near the river banks. It was a funny incident for the most part, for the rest of us that is and it made for a fine meal. Angrein and Flix agreed the river barring our way was one of Merodras two branches.

Garth, who had started his journey at Castalor almost two years back, had travelled half of known Eplas and reached Wetull in the second month of Winter 190 NC. He arrived a vagabond and a scoundrel and he was to leave years later a King.

And an even bigger scoundrel.

 

 

Fikumin Flintfoot

Jarl of all the Folk

First Servant of the Onyx Wyvern

Foremost Shield,

of the King beyond the Pale Mountains,

Lord Garth Aniculo.

-

Chapter III

(Epilogue)

An Adventurer’s Tale

Circa 250 NC