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Neeson had never seen so many bodies. He had known the men less than a fortnight and now they all lie bloody and lifeless, twisted among the thick brambles of the Feral Woods. The filthy green corpses of the attacking trolls were a sight only slightly less disturbing. It had all happened so fast, and he could hardly believe he was still alive. The trolls had rushed upon them with such voracity, and for no apparent reason, save for the thrill of slaughter.
Without pausing to wipe the thickening green blood from his blade, he searched the faces of his fallen comrades. A wave of relief swept over him when he found that his mentor, Clade, was not among them. The air was silent and the sunlight had already begun to recede. Standing alone in the heart of the Feral Wood, he wished he had listened to the warnings of the villagers at Elassa’s Bend.
Neeson scanned the forest around him in desperate hope of discovering a human survivor, coupled with the fear of spotting a troll. The sky had grown prematurely dark. A massive grey thunderhead loomed on the horizon, obscuring what little sunlight remained. A rustling drew his attention to a thicket. His fist clenched the sword at his side and he drew a silent breath.
The rustling stopped, and the pounding of his heart was the only sound that remained. “Wh-who’s there?” he called out, his voice betraying his terror.
A man’s voice answered, “Neeson my boy, is that you?” The brambles parted and the brawny figure of Clade emerged, his chin raised and chest puffed with pride. His shiny metal breastplate was unmarred and there was no visible sign that the man had suffered even the slightest wound. Neeson glanced down at his own leather armor and boots, smeared with blood and punctuated with gouges and scrapes. He tried to ignore the nagging question that surfaced in his mind when he noted that his mentor’s sword remained clean and shining.
“I’m glad you survived, my boy,” Clade said, clapping a hand on the young man’s shoulder. But Neeson could not bring himself to speak. The nightmarish image of the men’s bloody corpses was permanently branded into his mind.
The sky rumbled with thunder closing in, and the air bore the intangible thick quality that precedes a rainstorm. With little hesitation Clade hefted his pack and pointed with his torch toward the rocky hills. “We’d do well to find more substantial shelter.”
The young man gave a half-hearted nod.
Clade trod onward, but Neeson’s courage was badly shaken by the carnage. He watched as his master charged on through the brambles, taking not a moment’s rest, and his feet carried him after by sheer force of instinct. His mind was a blank as he followed on, staying close to the only beacon of relative safety he knew.
Droplets of rain began to fall from the sky and it would not be long before the dark clouds released the full force of a downpour. They came to a gradual hillside where the roots of a vast fallen tree clutched a massive chunk of earth the size of a bolder. The trunk stretched far beyond a horizon that grew ever darker and nearer.
It was Neeson who broke the quiet that existed between them up to that moment. “Why - it must have been hundreds of years old,”
“Yes, but it’s long dead now. And thank the gods for that. If this old thing hadn’t fallen we’d never have found this hole.” Clade stepped gingerly forward, “We’ll wait out the storm inside.” He shone his lantern into the darkness of the cavernous breach left in the soil when the roots pulled out from the ground, bringing the massive clump of earth with them. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Neeson stared into the darkness of the gaping hole. The shadow cast by the looming clouds made it impossible to see the extent of its depth. “What if something else has already found shelter inside?”
“Do you honestly think we’ll be any safer out here? Now hurry, before we both get soaked, or worse.”
Neeson swallowed hard, gripping his torch so firmly his knuckles ran white, and stepped into the darkness. The air in the recess was cool and clean, but unsettlingly still. The pit was larger than he had imagined, as if a subterranean pocket of air had been exposed by the fallen tree. He probed the darkness with his torch, but the recess stretched beyond its reach. He groped along the wall of the pit, then stopped at a man-sized hole in the rocky surface. The cavern that was now exposed had apparently been covered for hundreds of years. A forceful nudge from his mentor urged him onward through the hole.
Inside it was stark silent, except for the hesitant echo of his steps and a faint, steady dripping from the far reaches of the cavern. Clade paused at the opening in the rock, then drew his sword and followed his young student inside.
The two walked in silence, their torches illuminating the crevices and sharp stalactites that hung down from the ceiling. They made their descent down a barely noticeable, but deceptively steep grade and the ceiling continued to rise far above their heads. Pale insects darted into the shadows as the foreign sensation of light touched them for the first time in thousands of generations.
“This cave seems to go back quite a ways.” Clade’s words, callously casual after the brutal deaths of his comrades echoed along the ever expanding walls. “We might just find something of value in here.”
The further they ventured, the more anxious Neeson became. He wanted desperately to camp close enough to the mouth of the cave that they could easily escape if need be, but now he could barely see the dim light of the entrance far behind him. Cloudy images of what horrors might reside in the darkness filled his mind as his eyes struggled to make out what lie ahead. But the dark encapsulated them and the weak torchlight was barely enough to keep it at bay. “Are you sure we should keep going? Wouldn’t it be better to camp near the mouth of the cave?”
“We have to make sure we’re alone in here, and besides, there might be something of value. I don’t want to think about what Rendryck would do to us if we came back empty handed with everyone else dead.”
Neeson didn’t say anything. He knew his mentor had a point. Rendryck, the man who had financed the expedition, had quite a temper and was not likely to respond well to failure. The two might as well have died with the others by the time Rendryck was through with them. But if they brought back at least some bit of treasure he might be satisfied. Rendryck seemed to value his possessions more than the lives of his hirelings and Neeson felt he had little choice in the matter. Deserting his master and venturing out alone was out of the question, for Neeson was still an apprentice with little instinct for the wild.
The young man held his torch out in front of him, sweeping it side to side, but the cave stretched ever further ahead. A sinking feeling filled his stomach as he noticed his master’s torchlight had grown distant. “Clade!” he shouted, and his voice returned to him several times in a hollow echo.
“Neeson, my boy,” answered the man, “Let’s not get too far apart. Come this way. I have a feeling-”
The man was interrupted by the thunderous crash of falling stone. The cacophony mixed with the echoes it produced was nearly deafening. He turned to find that the light of his protégé’s torch had vanished.
“Neeson!” he shouted, but the only response was the echo of his own voice and the steady drip of water in the distance.
***
Neeson gazed up at the hazy orange light far above. “Clade?”
“Neeson! I’ve been calling you. Didn’t you hear me?” His mentor’s voice from far above rang with concern, confusion, and a hint of irritation.
Neeson tried hard to keep panic from setting in. A sharp pain throbbed in his left leg, but he could see nothing in his pitch black surroundings. “What happened?”
“The floor must have caved in. I’ve been calling you for some time now. Are you injured?”
“My leg,” he said through teeth clenched with pain, “I think it’s broken.”
“I have rope. I’ll send down another torch. Tell me what’s down there. Can you see at all?”
“It’s pitch black. I can’t see anything. Gods, my leg!”
Clade lit a second torch and carefully tied the rope around the middle, balancing the two ends so that it would not set fire to the rope as he lowered it.
Neeson watched the distant torchlight move slowly toward him from above as his master lowered it to him. It took several minutes for it to reach him, and the young man shuddered to think how far he had fallen when the floor collapsed.
Finally the torch reached him and Neeson surveyed his immediate surroundings. He found that he had been fortunate enough to have landed a safe distance from the boulders that had given way beneath him and tumbled to this strange depth. Despite the pain shooting through his leg, he was able to drag himself up and look around.
He discovered what appeared to be a fire pit, but the partially burned logs were hard as stone, and just as heavy. He continued half limping, half crawling along the rough and jagged stone floor and found a petrified tree. He could scarcely imagine how such a thing had come to exist in the depths of the cave.
Shards of smashed stone lay beside a very detailed statue of a pregnant woman. The head had been broken off, and lie in pieces. Something about the statue was remarkable to him, but he could not pinpoint what it was. To his eyes it was nothing more than a broken sculpture, yet he could not help but feel it held some inexplicable importance.
“Clade, I’ve found something!”
“What is it?” The man’s voice was sharpened with an impatient intonation.
“It’s some sort of statue. Life-sized. The head is gone, but I’m sure it’s worth something.”
“A statue? What else is down there?” He shifted restlessly, squinting in a vain effort to discern what lie in the abyss below him.
He was answered only by the sound of stone dragging against stone.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
“Send down the rope again. I’ll tie it around the statue and you should be able to hoist it up.”
“Don’t be a fool.” He made no attempt to hide the irritation in his voice. “What would Rendryck want with a broken statue?”
“Send down the rope,” Neeson said in a tone that Clade had never heard him use in the years he had known the young protégé. It was brusque, authoritative, demanding. “This statue is more precious than you can imagine. I can’t say why, but I just know it is.”
Out of a frank curiosity, more powerful than the outrage he should have felt at the young man’s insolence, Clade sent the rope down, securing the near end to a thick and sturdy stalagmite.
He heaved with all his strength for what felt like an hour until the top of the stone statue cleared the edge of the pit. He hauled it up and stood gasping for breath, unable to take his eyes from the stone figure before him.
“Clade?” the young man called from below, his voice unsteady with rising anxiety.
“Why, it’s incredible,” the man said in awe. “I will surely be rewarded.”
“Clade!” called the young protégé, “send down the rope again!”
The dragging sound of stone on stone echoed down, and he felt a wave of panic spread over him.
“Clade, Clade!” he shouted as the torchlight from above began to fade and the grinding of stone grew increasingly distant.
A sound, lighter than a whisper made the hair on his neck stand on end and filled the air with a harsh chill. He turned around and waved his torch, straining to find the source. It was like the quiet hiss of a concealed serpent. The sound grew in volume, slowly, insidiously, until he could make out the word “Neeson… Neeeeessssson… Neeeeeeessssssssssson.”
“Who’s there?” he shouted, terror gripping him as he waved the torch frantically around him, searching for the origin of the voice.
Silence fell and he began to tremble uncontrollably. He was not alone.
The quiet was cut by a voice as thin as a razor and slick as a serpent’s tongue: “Neeeeeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssson, what have you done, Neeesssson?”[b]
