“Take hold of this rope,” said the first soldier, “and climb out from your pit. Your presence is requested in another, far deeper hole.”
Gina slipped her right hand to her thigh, concealing a small object by her waist. She squinted. Her eyes, accustomed to the shadows of the pit, were ill-prepared even for the light of the second soldier’s torch.
Tightly gripped in the second soldier’s right hand, opposite the torch, was a large double-edged axe, a long leather strip wound around its oaken handle. The sentries each wore a thin yet sturdy hauberk, the breastplates of which were woven of tightly hemmed twines of reinforced silver braiding. Cupping the soldiers’ feet were thick leather sandals, wound about their shins to two inches below their knees. Wrapped about their waists were wide satin girdles, with slender bladed poniards dangling loosely from them, the hilts of which featured scarlet-encrusted gems. Resting on their heads, and reaching midway to their brows were smooth copper helmets from which arose short silver spikes. Beneath their chins, wound around their necks, and draping their clad shoulders dangled regal purple satin cloaks, which flowed midway to the soldiers feet.
Hand over hand, feet braced against the walls, Gina climbed from her cell. Her limbs, stiff from imprisonment, craved action. The opportunity now presenting itself, her senses and wits swelled to new life.
She braced herself and faced the second of the guards. The light of the torch he held made him appear taller than he was as it cast a massive shadow on the wall. His eyes were open and owl-like, his face like a hawk. He threatened to be a dangerous opponent.
“Place your hands behind your back,” said the second soldier, and he produced a bundle of rope for his companion to tie Gina’s wrists. “Be sure to make the knot a tight one, Broig, we wouldn’t want our guest to leave early.”
Broig grasped Gina’s left wrist and reached for her right. Gina wrenched her right arm free and in one movement spun to face Broig, reaching with her right hand for what she had hidden beneath her belt. The guard reached for his sheathed dagger, but never made it. Gina’s right arm swept to his throat. The soldier went limp, blood pouring from the wound he had been given. Without a pause, Gina dropped to her knees and the second soldier’s ax flew harmlessly past her head and struck the other guard instead.
Before the guard could wrench his axe free from his comrade’s body, Gina’s hands were clasped about his throat. With a grunt, the Ecordian forced the soldier to one knee. The sentry plunged his right fist into Gina’s face. Gina cursed and pushed forward, rolling the guard onto his back. A moment later it was finished. The guard’s arms fell to his side and he lay still, his bulging eyes staring blindly above him.
Rising to her feet, Gina shook her head. Stooping over the sprawled corpse of the first soldier, Gina retrieved a small white object from his neck: a bone taken from the rodent and scraped to a point on the stone floor of the cell.
But moving freely through the dim recesses of the castle would require the uniform of a guard. Gina returned her attention to the second soldier, and turned to the task of getting a disguise.
Gina slunk through twisting corridors and winding stairways, in search of an exit. At a fork in the passage, she heard voices coming from the left and veered to the right passageway.
The path led lower. In grim silence Gina followed it. There were no gaps to break the monotony of the cold gray walls, but eventually Gina came to a small winding stairway. She took it, and led down deeper, to a short hallway that ended in a tall, arched doorway.
Halting before the portal, Gina rested her head against the barrier. Detecting no sounds from within, she grasped the handle of the door, and pulled. It would not open. Her arms bulged with effort, yet the door still would not budge. She lifted the ax from where it hung at her side, and swung and sank one of its edges into the crack between the door and its frame. Then, bracing his right foot against the roughly hewn wall, her teeth tightly clenched, Gina pried the door open. The hilt bent beneath the pressure she put it on, but just before it seemed it would break, the hinges on the door broke, and it opened.
It was nothing more than a forgotten storeroom. Barrels and crates of dry goods meant to sustain a keep were piled along the far wall. Gina crossed the floor to examine the supplies more closely.
She almost missed the faint click when she was halfway across the room – almost. With quick reflexes Gina threw herself to the left dropping her torch and ax in show of sparks and flame. A elm-woven board leaped from collapsed flooring, clashing against the jagged flooring and spewing a shower of orange and yellow sparks over Gina’s startled face. Rising uneasily to her feet, the half stunned Ecordian glared at an ancient, long-forgotten trap she had unwittingly sprung.
“Mrifk!”she said.
A miniature catapult was concealed beneath two collapsible sections of the floor. The arm of the device was four feet long, boasting razor-sharp spikes along its face with which it was to skewer the luckless body of its would be victim. The trigger was a concealed catch that released a small metal latch beneath the floor, causing the two sections to snap shut and kill anyone unfortunate enough to activate it.
Carefully, and mindful of a possible second trap, Gina dropped her torch into the exposed gap in the floor. There was a second chamber seven feet lower down. Gina grasped the side of an adjoining tile, and let herself drop.
The air was thick and stale. It was a mausoleum. Rectangular stone crypts lined the floor. Their tops of the enclosures were plated with thick layers of virgin gold, while the sides were plated with white ivory now aged to a dirty brown. The head of each sarcophagus held in tarnished silver the likeness of the one it held in state.
Over Gina’s head was the trap she had released, dusty and coated in cobwebs but still evidently in working condition, and completely resettable. To the right of the trap a short stairway wound through a recess in the ceiling; a concealed entrance leading to the mausoleum for which the catapult had obviously been erected as a silent, relentless guardian.
Climbing the side of the device, Gina reset the mechanism, to cover her tracks and to deal with anyone who did manage to track her this far.
She had just finished resetting the trap when a desperate scream from beyond the mausoleum set the hair of her neck on end, and for a moment she fear run the length of her spine. Very little scared Gina. She had fought men with the sword individually and in groups where she had been outnumbered three to one. She had dared the conventions of society by wooing and taking married men and women, and even had defied the goddess by becoming an initiate in her order to persuade a nun to break her vows. She was wanted in a dozen cities, towns and villages from Hinsonne to Nassau’ and if she had left them it was from a desire to live and not from a fear of death or civil punishment.
But here in the catacombs of Gorzom she was afraid.
Something intangible was whispering in her ear, too low to hear and in words too old to understand, but something of the message carried, something distant and terrible. There were stories about the catacombs of Gorzom that were told even in Hinsonne, where the gods had died and superstition had been thrown from the top of the tower before cheering crowds. There were tales passed along over the embers of campfires and emptied wineskins that more than once had served to chill even her.
But if the scream came from within a heart of darkness, it was still human and so was she.
Fearful and nervous, Gina moved from the sarcophagus where she stood toward the sound. Clenching her teeth to steel her nerves, Gina slid the engraved slab from the vault with a sharp rasp of grinding stone. There was another cry of terror, and Gina found herself face to face with a dead man.
Whatever flesh had once hung on the warrior’s bones was long gone, and no more remained of the eyes that once had filled his sockets than remained of the things he had seen. Only the badge of the warrior’s office remained: a metal helmet atop his head, with its gaping mockery of a grin, chain links hung loosely over his broad chest, and the remains of other armor still clung to the skeletal arms and legs, while all else had rotted away. Where his neck had once been there was a silver torc, and his hand rested with an easy comfort upon his sword.
As Gina watched, the skeletal warrior began to move forward, slowly at first and then with greater speed, until at last it fell to the floor at her feet and its bones shattered.
The front few feet of the crypt alone were level. After that, the floor became a set of stairs that dropped down further still, into a part of the catacombs that felt older still.
“What were you guarding, then?” Gina asked the dead man, and slowly she followed the path, her hand grasping the hilt of her sword.
It was a chamber, an ancient room that she k new immediately was consecrated to an ancient god. A woman lay stretched upon a marble altar. A circle of cultists in dark shapeless robes clustered about her, while a tall, wizened figure stood over her with an ornately carved mallet he clearly intended to kill her with as a steady susurrus of chanting came from the other cultists gathered.
With a cry Gina plunged toward the cultists, torch simmering in his left hand and ax swinging in his right.
A gaunt skull faced priest standing at the far side of the altar clutched desperately at his throat, coughing furiously in an attempt to catch his breath. Lurching helplessly to and fro, he pitched headlong against the gleaming base of a massive jade idol. Writhing agonizingly against the hideous image, foam flecking his lips, the priest struggled helplessly in a seizure.
Startled by the sudden attack, the cultists lost their composure. Giving vent to heedless pandemonium, the priests fell easy prey to Gina’s onslaught.
The acolyte performing the sacrifice took a vicious blow to the stomach; hands clutching vitals and severed spinal cord as he sprawled over the altar. The disorganized priests lurched and staggered with split skulls, dismembered limbs, and spewing entrails before the enraged Ecordian. The howls of the maimed and dying echoed among the walls of the tiny chamber; a chorus of hell-fraught despair; as the floor ran red with blood.
Presently all went silent save for the ebbing groans of the sinking shaman and Gina’s curses. The well had run dry. No more lambs remained for the slaughter.
In the wake of her rampage, Gina looked around the room. Towering over her head was the misshapen image of the cult’s hideous deity, Argon. The fantastic size of the idol in consideration of its being of pure jade was enough to cause the senses of any man to stagger and reel, yet thus was not the case for Gina. Her attention was riveted upon the jewel protruding from the idol’s sole socket; its masterfully cut faucets emitting blinding rays of hypnotic beauty. After all, no one can slink from a heavily guarded palace while burdened with a statue of such size. On the other hand, the jewel, gigantic as it was, would not present a hinderence of any concern.
“Help me, please. I can make it well worth your while,” pleaded a soft, anguish strewn voice wafting over Gina’s shoulders as she plucked the dull red emerald from its roots. Turning, Gina faced the woman whose plight had drawn her into this bloodbath, but whom had become all but forgotten in the heat of the battle.
“It’s you,” the Ecordian said in surprise. “I though that I had seen the last of you at the tavern, but it appears I was mistaken.”
Gina advanced into the woman’s stare, and severed the golden chains that had held her captive.
As Gina lifted the girl from the altar, her arms wound dexterously about her neck.
“Are you pleased that we have chanced to meet once again?” Gina merely voiced an sighed grunt, returning the damsels embrace while he smothered her trim, delicate lips between the coarsing protrusions of his reeking maw.
“Let us take leave of this wretched chamber.” said Gina, and she placed the woman on her feet. She swooned a moment, causing Gina to giver her support. then regained her stance.
“Are you able to find your way through the accursed passages of this castle? Mrifk! Every one of the corridors of this damned place are identical.”
“Aye; I was at one time a slave of Prince Agaphim. His touch sent a sour spirit through me, but my efforts reaped a harvest. I gained his liking, whereby he allowed me the freedom of the palace. It was through this means that I eventually managed escape of the palace. It was a simple matter to seduce the sentry at the western gate. His trust found him with a dagger thrust his ribs,” she said.
“What were you doing at the tavern whence I discovered you?” asked Gina as he lifted the female through the opening into the mausoleum.
“I had sought to lay low from the palace’s guards as they conducted their search for me. The tavern was seldom frequented by the palace guards and my identity was unknown to the common soldiers. It was through the disturbance that you caused that the palace guards were attracted to the tavern. I was dragged away shortly after you were escorted to the palace.”
“What are you called?”
“Catherine, daughter of Minkardos, duke of Barwego, whose lands border the northwestern fringes of Gorzom. I was paid as homage to Agaphim upon his thirty-eighth year.”
“And I am called a barbarian!”
“Aye! The ways of our civilization are in many ways warped and distorted, but who are you?”
“Gina of Ecordia.”
“Ah, I have heard vaguely of Ecordia. It is the hill country to the far east of the Noregolean Empire. I
have also heard Agaphim curse your land more than once when his troops were routed in the unaccustomed mountains and gorges,” she said.
“Aye. My people are not tarnished by petty luxuries and baubles. They remain fierce and unconquerable in their native climes.”
After reaching the hidden panel at the head of the stairway, Gina was at a loss in regard to its operation. Her fiercest heaves were as pebbles against burnished armor Catherine pressed a small symbol included within the elaborate design upon the panel, whereupon it slowly slid into a cleft in the wall.
“How did you come to be the victim of those crazed cultists?” asked Gina as she escorted Catherine through the piles of rummage on the left side of the trap.
“By Agaphim’s orders I was thrust into a secluded cell to await his passing of sentence. By some means, the Priests of Argon acquired a set of keys to the cell. They slew the guard placed over me and abducted me to the chamber in which you chanced to come upon the scozsctic sacrifice. Their hell-spawned cult demands a sacrifice once every three moons upon its full journey through the heavens. They were startled by your unannounced appearance through the fear that you had been sent by Agaphim. The prince would surely have submitted them to the most ghastly of tortures if he had ever discovered their unfaithfulness to Sargon, his bastard deity. Many of the partakers of the ritual were high nobles and high trustees of the inner palace; Agaphim’s pitiless wrath would have been unparalleled.
“They have no more to fear of Agaphim now!” Gina said with a wry laugh. “I have seen that they were delivered from his vengeance.
Engrossed by Catherine’s graceful stride and conversation Gina failed to take note of the footfalls rapidly approaching behind them. As she swung aside the arched portal linking the chamber with the corridors beyond, a maddened, blood-lusting screech reverberated from her ears. Gina swiveled to face her unknown foe. With gaping eyes and widened jaws, Gina raised her ax; but she was too late.
Vortoj de la Maradanto 