Chapter 27 Vargath
VARGATH
The tunnel mouth yawns before me like the throat of some ancient beast. Broken stones jut from the walls where my axe has carved through decades of deliberate collapse. My hands are raw, knuckles split and bleeding, but the pain keeps me focused. Keeps me moving.
The air grows thicker as I descend, heavy with the scent of old death and forgotten prayers.
Torch flame gutters against damp stone, casting wild shadows that dance like spirits of the buried.
These are the old burial chambers—sealed when I was still a boy, after part of the ceiling came down and crushed three temple workers.
The walls tell stories in cracked carvings and faded paint.
Gods with tusks and flowing hair, their hands full of grain and weapons.
Shrines carved into alcoves, their offerings long since turned to dust. The Plentiful God stares down from every surface, his eyes following my passage like an accusation.
"Where are you?" I whisper to the darkness, voice echoing off stone that hasn't heard speech in decades.
The tunnel branches ahead—three passages splitting like the fingers of a corpse's hand. I pause, straining to hear anything beyond my own ragged breathing. The silence presses against my eardrums like water.
Then—faint as a dying ember—I catch it. Voices. Two of them, one sharp and cold, the other...
My heart slams against my ribs. Seris.
I follow the sound through a narrow passage that scrapes my shoulders, past collapsed shrines and broken funeral urns. The voices grow clearer with each step, bouncing off the stone like trapped birds.
"...pathetic animal out of its misery."
Zharra's voice. Cold satisfaction dripping from every word.
The passage opens into a circular chamber, and an icy sensation washes over me.
Seris lies crumpled on the stone floor, belly swollen beneath torn fabric, wrists raw from shackles. Her face is gaunt, eyes hollow with exhaustion and fear. But alive. Still breathing.
Zharra kneels above her like some twisted priestess, ceremonial dagger gleaming in the torchlight. The blade wavers as she raises it, runes along its edge pulsing with reflected flame.
Time fractures. Slows. The world narrows to this single moment—the curve of steel above my woman, my child, my everything.
"SERIS!"
The bellow tears from my throat like a war cry, echoing off the burial chamber walls with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling. Zharra's head snaps toward me, eyes wide with shock and fury.
The dagger begins its descent.
I launch myself across the chamber, feet pounding against stone, muscles coiled like a spring finally released. Zharra tries to adjust her grip, to complete the killing stroke before I reach her.
Too late.
My shoulder slams into her ribs with the force of a battering ram, lifting her clean off the ground. The dagger spins from her grasp, clattering across stone as we crash into the far wall in a tangle of limbs and snarled curses.
"You—" She tries to speak, but I drive my elbow into her solar plexus, cutting off her words with a satisfying wheeze.
We roll across the chamber floor, grappling like wild animals. Her nails rake across my cheek, drawing blood, but I barely feel it. Nothing exists except the need to put distance between her and Seris.
"Get away from her!" I roar, hauling Zharra upright and hurling her against the wall.
Zharra scrambles to her feet, blood trickling from her split lip. Her hand finds the ceremonial dagger where it fell, fingers closing around the hilt with desperate fury.
"You chose wrong," she hisses, lunging forward with the blade aimed at my throat.
I sidestep, grabbing her wrist and twisting until bone grinds against bone. She screams but doesn't drop the weapon, driving her knee toward my ribs instead. The blow connects, stealing my breath, but I hold on.
"All those years," she snarls through gritted teeth, "all that training, and you throw it away for a human whore."
"Better than a bitter shrew who thinks birthright makes her worthy."
We crash into the wall again, the impact jarring the dagger loose. It skitters across the stone as we grapple, trading vicious blows in the cramped space. Her elbow catches my jaw, snapping my head back. I return the favor with a knee to her stomach that doubles her over.
She recovers faster than expected, tackling me around the waist. We hit the ground hard, rolling across ancient burial stones as we fight for position. Her nails rake across my throat, seeking the major arteries beneath the skin.
I grab her wrists, forcing her arms wide. "Enough."
"Never." Spittle flies from her lips as she struggles beneath me. "I won't let you disgrace our bloodline with that—"
My axe appears in my hand before she can finish the insult. The weight of it settles against her throat, edge kissing skin just hard enough to draw a thin line of blood.
Zharra goes perfectly still. Her eyes burn with hatred and something else—fear, finally breaking through her rage.
"I should end you," I growl, pressing the blade deeper. "For Maedra. For what you've done here."
She meets my gaze without flinching. "Then do it, coward. Or live knowing you let me walk away."
Instead, I shift the axe to her right wrist, pinning it against the stone. "You want to touch what's mine?"
Understanding dawns in her eyes a heartbeat before the blade falls. The wet sound of metal through bone echoes off the chamber walls, followed by her shriek of agony as her hand separates cleanly at the wrist.
Blood pools beneath the severed limb as Zharra clutches the stump to her chest, face white with shock and pain.
"Remember this," I tell her, wiping the axe clean on her robes. "Every time you look at that stump, remember what happens when you threaten my family."
I leave her there, sobbing and bleeding, and rush to Seris's side.
Her eyes flutter open as I kneel beside her, hands shaking as I gather her into my arms. Blood—too much blood—soaks into my armor from wounds I can't yet see.
The crimson stain spreads across the ceremonial leathers I've worn into a hundred battles, yet none have terrified me like this one.
"You found me," she whispers, voice barely audible, the sound threading weakly through the heavy stone chamber.
I shake my head, throat tight with words I can't speak.
"I've failed you, Seris. Both of you." My voice breaks over the admission.
I run my trembling fingers over her face, brushing away matted strands of dark hair stuck to her forehead with dried blood and sweat.
The pallor beneath her soft brown skin fills me with dread—too pale, too cold against my calloused hands that suddenly feel too rough to touch something so precious.
Behind me, Zharra's agonized moans fade into the background as I focus entirely on the woman in my arms. I scan Seris's body frantically, trying to assess how deep Zharra's ritual knife has cut, how much damage has been done to her and our child.
My child. The heir I was meant to create with a proper match, now the most important life in all of Azhgar.