Inside… the one place we needed to go, and the one place none of us wanted to be in. I had ran up here without a thought in my head, obeying the whispers as though I had no choice in the matter. Was that cause for concern? Could I refuse the voice in my head later, were it to have less reasonable requests of me?

 

“I… I’ll lead us down.” I said, swallowing the crippling fear that was creeping up in me. The guards were reluctant to allow it, each of them saying that she should go first. I denied them all. This was my fight, and they were my women. I’d be damned if I let any of them take an arrow for me.

 

So I pushed past them and put my foot on the first of the stone steps. Nothing happened save for my elevation relative to the others lowering a small amount. I took another, and another, walking into darkness. When my head past under the surface of the hill, the darkness vanished.

 

As though the voices had been expecting me, the walls of the stairwell were lined with torches that burned with an unnatural blue light. I dared not touch it, though the flames interested me. What were they made of? How had they been put there, and how long ago? What magic- for surely it was magic that had given us light in the dull grey stairwell- had created this?

 

“Where are you?” I whispered. Despite my inquiry, no voice greeted me. Instead, only more stairs. They began to curve to the right now, ever so slightly, each one taking us further and further down into the abyss.

 

No answer. Only more stairs. More stairs, still leading us further underground. The footsteps around us and the sound of our hesitant breathing were the only things I could hear past the zinging of silence in my ears. It was louder than anything else in the chamber, more deafening than the loudest of parties in the Throne Room back home.

 

The stairs ended, the blue lights with them, stopping at a door. A simple wooden thing, it was, planks barely held together by a bar running horizontally across, dents and scratches, rotten bits and splinters hung off of it. It seemed a miracle it was still in one piece.

 

“Here goes nothing. Get ready, girls.” I said, pushing lightly on the door. I heard the clink of metal as blades were drawn, spears scraped against the wall, and boots repositioning themselves on the stairs.

 

It emptied out into a chamber so vast the blue lights from the end of the stairwell barely illuminated what looked to be the entryway. The room was massive. As I walked in, my footsteps echoing on the ground, those of the guard following behind me, the purpose of this room became more and more clear.

 

It was our doom.

 

I stopped, and a moment later, more torches appeared on the wall, lit with that magical blue flame from before.

 

Welcome, Nightmare.

 

I heard the voices say, echoing even louder and more persistent than ever. The walls around me were a smooth, black rock, as was the floor, but the voices and the torches only distracted me from what made up the room. To my horror, I looked.

 

There were stone altars, roughly the size and shape of a bed, running from the near corner of the room back into the darkness, where the torches dare not light. Atop each of these was… what I had to assume was a woman. I’d never seen anything like it before.

 

It was in the shape of a woman, though it were much taller. It wore no clothes- none of them did. Their breasts were flat, bulging out only around its edges, mostly at the bottom. Heads bald, as though very recently someone had taken a razor to the entirety of their scalps. Between each of their legs was not womanly flesh, but… a protrusion of some kind. Two protrusions, one cylindrical, the other of an oblong sphere. I couldn’t begin to imagine what you did with that, but these women’s intimacies were the last thing on my mind now. They were huge, muscular, even the smallest of them was at least thirty centimetres taller than our tallest guard. Their arms were as wide around as a small tree trunk, with large, protruding veins that could rival a finger in width.

 

“What are they?” One of the guards asked. The sound echoed, and I held up a hand, hoping that the sound hadn’t awoken any of them.

 

“Quiet.” I whispered harshly, looking back to the hulking, sleeping women. The Race of Myn… I thought. They sure were ugly.

 

Luckily, the noise hadn’t awoken any of them. Slowly, quietly, I drew the knife from the sheath I had strung on my waist. It gleamed in the blue light, reflecting the murderous intent I now had. We’d come here for a reason.

 

Do it.

 

Again, the voice, and again, I felt compelled to listen. While this time, I would have done so of my own accord, I felt a bit of unease as I stepped up to one of the sleeping women. Markless. The one I was standing before had no etchings on the back of her hand, nor on the other, as I peered over the hulking monstrosity that was her toned, flat chest.

 

I looked over at the guards. Each of them had taken up position at one of the stone altars, placing their weapons on the necks of our foes. They all looked at me, and I nodded.

 

And sliced.

 

Red blood began to ooze out of the wound as I drug my knife across its skin. The sight caught me off guard, I gasped, taking half a step backward, but not enough to remove my weapon from its target. I had prepared for this moment, but the realisation I was killing this sleeping woman had earned the cry from my throat. Fuck. Ten thousand of them? One sixth of ten thousand was… far too many. Could I really do this that many times? Blood began to pour out of the wound, covering the woman’s neck, spilling out onto the stone underneath her. It sat there for a moment, slowly spreading across the stone, making contact with the back of her head, shoulders, some probably going down her back.

 

Yes, yes, good job, little Nightmare. Adorable, innocent Nightmare.

 

“Shut up.” I whispered. And yet, despite my pleadings, the voice continued.

 

Six down, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-four to go, yes, yes! Keep going, oh hideous murderer!

 

I grit my teeth, doing my best to ignore the voice that abounded within my skull. We moved to the next set of sleeping Myn, and much the same, six sliced throats, six fewer of their ranks breathing. The second time had been easier than the first. I kept my footing, knowing what to expect as the blood poured out of the wound I had created. Gulping as the knife slid across its target, I did my best to stare the whole time, ensuring my aim was still true. 

 

One more, infesting Nightmare, one more, yes, yes!

 

It would be a lot more than just one. We’d stay up all night if that’s what it took. All night and into the morning. The next neck was easier to slice than even the one that came before it. Again, the blood hurried out of the flap of skin I had created, again the breathing stopped. I thought they said these Myn were hard to kill. Yet here we are…

 

As short-lived a thought as I’d ever had. The moment the six of us looked up from our third set of sleeping bodies, horror greeted us. More torches were lit, lighting up even more of the chamber, it extended further down still, so far that I didn’t know if the far wall was visible or if the thing was so long that it extended further than the naked eye could see. Either way, this was even more dangerous than we could have expected.

 

A shifting, a sudden, rumbling movement knocked me off my feet. It came not from the ground, not from nature, and certainly not from whatever source the voice was taunting me from. It came from the stond beds. Each of them at once. Save the ones who we’d killed, each of the Myn sat up on their beds, one row at a time, each neck turned to look towards the exit. Their eyes glowed. No irises. Or, if they had them, they were the same shade of blue as the rest of the eyeball. The same shade of blue of our Marks.

 

“What do we do?” One of the guards asked. I didn’t know. They were awake now. Six of us staring down an army. All my knowledge and training had done nothing to prepare me for this moment. I was a scholar, hardly an assassin, and not a fighter. There was only one thing to do.

 

“Run!” I said. Before any of us could spring to action, however, the Myn began to stand up, two by two they walked towards the entryway. Silently, eerily silent as they walked.

 

Thank you, beautiful Nightmare. Thank you, oh thank you!

 

The voice spoke again, less haggard and more… elated? Excited? Whatever it was, I had no time to process it. Not when hulking giants of women were marching towards the stairwell, towards the surface. They ignored us, me and the guards, trapped in between two stone beds with no room to make a break for it, lest we be trampled under their colossal feet.

 

“Never mind that. Don’t get yourselves killed!” I called out. “We wait, and hope they leave the horses.”

 

They marched, looking dead ahead of them, not turning to look at any of the six of us. No arms reached forth to maim or injure us. No fists sent our way, no violence of any kind. I was almost willing to believe they were a peaceful force when I looked back to the entryway, and what had become of the door. Shattered, broken into a thousand soft, rotted pieces. They stepped on the splinters, digging into their feet, I saw a particularly large one send itself straight through a foot, yet the injured Myn made no cry of pain. He simply ignored the blood and moved on.

 

He? I thought, realising what comment I’d stumbled upon after thinking it. What kind of word is that?

 

The kind we call Myn, oh Nightmare, my little Nightmare.

 

You can hear me? I thought back.

 

Ever since you stumbled upon our little alcove, oh brutish murderer, oh saviour of Myn.

 

Fuck off, get out of my head! I thought, squatting down, putting my hands on my temples, pushing hard in hopes that the throbbing pressure that added to the rumbling of the marching would expel the intruder from my brain.

 

It won’t be that easy, Killer of Many. 

 

These creatures aren’t human, killing them was nothing. I thought, but it knew my lie immediately.

 

You almost abandoned your quest. Thankfully, you didn’t, otherwise I would not be marching. Castle Telbud? Your pregnant wife? She will make a delicious first meal…

 

What followed in my head was a loud, piercing, cackling laugh that permeated my entire being. Squatting wasn’t enough. I lay on the stone, curled into a foetal position, tears forming and leaving my eyes as they streaked towards the stone ground. 

 

Get out of my head, get out of my head!

 

I don’t know if the voice listened, or if it left of its own accord. Several long maddening moments after I pleaded with it to leave me be, it did. The laughs silenced, and the marching too, died down, leaving me and the guards alone in the chamber.

 

They spotted me and ran to me, though I didn’t know it until they had their hands on my shoulders, pulling me up while I still cried. I didn’t care. I threw myself at one of them, sobbing loudly, fear clutching my chest, pain in my stomach, and all around me, a tingling of regret.

 

I felt comforting hands on my back, in my hair, arms wrapped around me in a hug as the soldiers tried to calm me. The trembling came, and lasted for several minutes. My hands shook, balled fists of rage and fear as my mind swirled with emotions. Thoughts of Stephanie, of our child, of the Castle Telbud in ruins, smoke arising from it, everyone I’ve ever known dead.

 

“I fucked it. I fucked us all.” I said when I was still enough to speak.

 

“What happened?” Yemis asked. “And where are they going?”

 

“Home.” I said.