Chapter 37 | Vallan #2
“Then I suppose we have to trust you,” Sephania says with a sigh. She sounds racked with emotion.
“I suppose you do.”
“This is all well and good, ladies, but what is the plan here?” Skartovius butts in.
Zefyra pulls out a scroll from her cloak and unravels it on the table. We circle around and she points at the crude lines on the parchment. “What do you know of the tunnels cut through the Olhavian Peaks? The ones that run straight through the heart of the city of vampires . . .”
A few hours later, as the moon reaches its zenith in the sky, we find the entrance Zefyra pointed out on her map. It’s an abandoned mine shaft located on the southwestern edge of the Peaks, boarded and closed for activity.
Here, at the base of the mountain ridge, well out of sight from anyone, we scuttle around in the dark until we find the entrance on a craggy cliffside.
It doesn’t take long for me and Lukain to pull the boards away and reveal the dark, yawning mouth of the mine shaft that leads into utter darkness in the mountainside.
“Damned and devils, if this doesn’t look like an ambush in progress, I don’t know what does,” Garroway mutters.
“We have to trust Zefyra, Garro,” Sephania answers.
“Do we?”
“What other options do we have? We need silver.”
The cub shuts up. Sephania lights a spare torch. Then, with Skartovius leading the way, we descend into the deep.
The tunnels here are musty, pungent from years of disuse and a fungi infestation. It was the poisonous spores here that caused the mine shaft to be closed, according to Zefyra, because too many workers were dying.
Sephania wears a mask tight around her face, showing only her shining eyes, while the rest of us move with our faces uncovered. As vampires and dhampir, we’re relatively resistant to disease that might be inhaled. Our insides don’t work the same as humans’ do.
It’s just the five of us. Eerily quiet, dismally black, and uncomfortably stuffy. Some of the cruder parts of the tunnels are so narrow I have to move sideways to squeeze through, or crawl through holes that leave me scratched and my leathers ripped.
A few hours of struggling through here feels like days.
Eventually, we make it to wider corridors, where thin streams of light seep in through the porous rock overhead, mottling the space with dancing dust motes.
The light and the dust tells us we’re close to the surface.
We’ve been moving across an incline for a while now, higher up the mountain interior.
When we hear muffled voices ahead, we freeze. Sephania takes the lead, and we draw our weapons. The hilt of my war-axe scrapes the ceiling of the tunnel as I pull it off my back.
Inside the next chamber, twenty halfkeepers stand, crowded shoulder to shoulder. Their eyes meet ours and Sephania gives them nods. Their hair is filthy, dark when it should be fair, greasy and caked with dirt. Their faces aren’t much better, and their throats bob nervously.
I was the foreman of many of these forgotten folk, and most of them fail to meet my eye. I could be a taskmaster and a proper bastard, so I understand the ex-miners not wanting to be friendly with me.
“Thank you for helping us,” Sephania whispers to them.
The head halfkeeper, a girl with stubble growing on her chin and cheeks and bright red hair shorn on the sides to give her a single row of braids on her pate, grunts to Sephania.
“We’re doing this for our own dignity. It’s time the Olhavians learn the mines don’t work themselves.
Our people have been forgotten for too long, Hellwhore. ”
“Agreed.” Sephania draws her dual swords from her hips. The steel glints in the numerous torches held in the room. “You know the way to the North Mines from here?”
The redhead nods. “And the way to the silver cache. Half our group will fight with you, the other half will lead you to it.”
“Excellent. Let’s get this over with.”
The Gilded Ghosts lead us through the tunnels, beelining past the spiderweb of offshoots and mine shafts to strike a direct path to the surface.
We come into the North Mines through the southern end deep in the mountains. Even I haven’t been down this deep, but these people have.
The clanking sounds of pickaxes against stone begins to echo through the mines. Dim at first, growing in volume as we ascend the tunnels.
We come to a pair of miners, their picks stuck in midair as we emerge from the shadows like phantoms. Their voices end on gasps.
The redhead, called Kimera by her comrades, puts a finger over her lips to tell the miners to be quiet. The halfkeepers adjust their helmets and step out of the way. One of them points wordlessly down the winding corridor, around the corner, and lifts two fingers.
Kimera nods to Sephania, who nods to me, Skartovius, Lukain, and Garroway.
Garroway and Lukain take this one, dashing forward on light feet. The dhampir are silent fuckers, and we hear nary a grunt or thudding of bodies as they return with their daggers bloodied.
Passing down the hall, I note two vampiric guards with their throats cut and holes in their chests. The cub and the overseer made quick work of them.
Moving stealthily, we pass more miners working, none of them raising a fuss at the sight of us. Almost like they wish to join us.
Near each group of workers are guards stationed with their backs turned, staring the opposite way toward the entrance of the deep mine shaft in the mountain. Their negligence makes it easy to squeeze swords through their ribs and chests, pierce their hearts, and end them.
By the time we’ve reached the entrance of the mines, we’ve slain no less than a dozen guards. None of them are Aramastun’s judgemen, however, which I know are a skilled breed we have to watch out for. These have all been hired hands, mercenaries under Liolen Sesk’s employ.
The purple night cuts through the dark, aided by moonlight.
Shafts of silver and white bathe the wide mouth of the mine opening.
Skartovius takes the lead, my arrogant brother-in-arms, with Sephania by his side.
Lukain hems in next to my silverblood, and I make toward the opposite side with Garroway.
The cub and I have always worked well in tandem.
We emerge from the mines like a gust of wind, a gentle breeze you’d soon forget. Except none of these bastards will forget about us after this night is through.
A line of guards blocks the path, all of them facing the wrong direction since we came in through the back.
I lift my axe.
My boot hits gravel.
The closest guard warily looks over his shoulder—
And my axe takes his head off at the neck.
Blood geysers, the body topples, and I glance sidelong and notice the other half-dozen guards dropping in unison as my comrades violently murder them.
One of the guards gets out a squeal before Garroway can plunge his daggers into his heart. His body falls hard against the wall, rustling and thudding, smearing the stone with a trail of red as he slides down.
More sentinels make up the next line through the initial back-guard. We charge as they turn and level their halberds, spears, and swords. Their shields come out.
Mayhem unfolds in the night.
Dust kicks up on the level ground. The valley chill feels comforting against my heated skin as we make our way into the night.
My axe swings wide, savage and arced, tearing into flesh and rending deep grooves in armor. Vampire soldiers squeal and cry out, alerting more guards, and before long we have a proper brawl on our hands.
Three vampires descend on me, baring their fangs. One of them lashes at me face-first, trying to bite into my arm, and gets his calves cut from Garroway behind him. When the soldier flops forward onto the ground, my axe cuts a groove into the dirt and slices his arm and shoulder from his body.
The vampire jerks, spasms, and stumbles to his feet—
Only to get the hilt of my axe crushing every bone in his face. I spin as he’s stunned, stumbling back, and carve a hole in his chest that certainly hits his blackened heart.
Pain cuts into my side and I grunt, snarling through my beard. One of the other vampires has scored a hit on me, so I rush him with my shoulder, pushing him aside.
Garroway streams in between my legs, low to the ground, and comes up slicing the vampire from groin to necks, spewing a red torrent of gore and spilling guts across his front.
I’m right behind him, ignoring the pain. My bloodrage settles in my belly, bubbling, ready to explode, and a tinge of warning zaps my brain.
I spin, lurching and then falling into a full sprint at the inner sound of danger coming to Sephania from my bloodsight. She’s around a corner of stalagmites near the entrance of the mine shaft, trying to wade through soldiers with Skar, Lukain, and half the Gilded Ghosts.
Ahead of me is a soldier who’s drawn a bow. She fires a shot and spears the redheaded leader of the Gilded Ghosts in the neck. Kimera goes down mid-charge, croaking, sputtering blood onto the ground, and twitching.
The vampire reaches into her quiver for another arrow, this time aiming at Sephania.
I come up behind her, closing my fist over her hand in the quiver on her shoulder. She gasps, spins—
I break her wrist with a sickening snap. Screeching, the vampiress scuttles back, lifting her bow crossways with her single good hand, while her other arm dangles limply, uselessly, at her side.
I kick her in the chest, snapping the bow like a twig and sending her sprawling onto her back.
A comrade of hers leaps onto me from behind. I spin, lifting my axe high, and create a crater of red through the prone woman’s chest, nearly splitting her in half.
The vampire on my back screeches, “No!” and bites into my neck.
I drop my axe, grunting at the sudden puncturing of my neck, and grab at the vampire’s head with both gloved hands.