Tarrel pulled out his wand of fireballs. “Anyone for roast mushroom?” he said, and grinned.
Aiming his wand carefully, he placed a fireball directly in the cave mouth. Silent flame shot out of the narrow entrance, and the four companions finished the climb, with the homunculus flapping behind them.
Charred fragments of fungus littered the inside of the cave. They advanced cautiously as the cave turned into a narrow passage, their footfalls making no sound. Just before a bend in the passage, Haldin stopped and held up a hand, and gestured his companions to each side of the cave. Then he held up two fingers.
The two zombies never stood a chance; the intruders were upon them before they had time to react. Brey cut one almost in half with two swings of her longsword, while Mordan’s rapier gutted the other like a fish. It was strange, almost dreamlike, to be fighting in complete silence, to feel the impact of one’s blows but hear no sound.
Tarrel motioned the others to stop and mimed that he was going to look ahead. Holding the crystal wand to his chest, he vanished. A few seconds later, his companions heard the first sound in some time—a slight shuffle, followed by a dull thump. Looking round the corner, they saw Tarrel standing beside a large gong and sheathing his shortsword. At his feet was an armored corpse, its exposed flesh blistering from the holy water that puddled around it. Near the gong was a narrow opening, with a large, dimly lit chamber beyond. Tarrel scanned the area with his mirror.
“Looks like a storage area,” he said. “A lot of sacks and crates, but not much else.”
They went cautiously through the opening, using the boxes and sacks for cover. To their right, a broad passage led to the landing stage on the cliff side; they could see frantic movement beyond and hear the sounds of battle. Occasional bursts of flame lit the area. It seemed that the Ministry airship was providing them with a good diversion.
Tarrel hissed a warning, and they ducked behind cover as a group of zombies hurried to join the battle. They carried crossbows, and moved faster than any zombies Mordan had seen in the Karrnathi military.
For several nerve-wracking minutes, they made their way across the chamber, following the fluttering homunculus. The few containers that were open held a bewildering array of cargo: black gemstones of various shapes and sizes, an assortment of herbs and powders, kegs of ink, and what appeared to be several barrels of dirt. One group of crates gave off a strong smell of rotting fish, and two barrels, placed side by side, contained miniature skulls—one load cast in iron, and the other carved from a flecked gray stone.
They reached the other side of the chamber, where a rock-hewn passage led away into darkness, broken by the flickering of distant torches. The homunculus hovered in the entrance for a moment, then darted down it.
Following the flying construct, they found themselves in a guard room of sorts. The square central chamber was lined with cells, walled off by iron bars. Nearly all of them contained prisoners. On the left, a young human woman stood gripping the bars of her cell; the homunculus squeezed through them and settled on her shoulder with a trill of happiness, wrapping its tail lightly around her neck.
“Lady d’Cannith, I presume?” asked Haldin, with a courtly bow. She smiled wearily and nodded. Tarrel fished a set of slim, hooked tools from inside his coat and knelt down to examine the lock.
“Captain?”
Brey turned at the sound of a familiar voice. Her eyes widened in shock as she recognized the filthy, ragged creature that looked at her through matted hair.
“Egen?” she breathed. “It can’t be!”
Several other figures, barely recognizable as human, shuffled to the front of the cells.
“The Captain!” they muttered to each other, “she’s come back for us!” Brey turned away for a moment, wiping a bloody tear from her cheek.
“I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed, turning back to her lieutenant. “They kept you alive all this time?”
Egen pushed the hair out of his face with a ghastly parody of a smile.
“Yes, Captain,” he replied, “all you see here, at any rate. I can’t vouch for the others.”
“What did they do to you?” she asked, her voice softer.
“They said it was some kind of research that needed living subjects,” said Egen. “I don’t know what it was. Mainly they just moved us from place to place and one of the undead elf wizards would look us over now and again. I thought at first it might be some kind of disease, but we’re all in pretty good shape, considering.” He caught sight of Mordan, and stopped abruptly, his eyes wide with sudden fear.
“A Karrn?” he asked.
Brey smiled. “The War’s been over for two years now,” she said. “We were captured by an experimental unit that officially never existed, then went renegade and disappeared. That’s why it’s taken me so long to find you.”
“So …” the ranger said, “did we win?”
