Chapter Seventeen #2
Tor was striding along at his side as though he did this every day.
He was totally fine, and he was as ready as he could ever be for what was to come next.
It was normal that Pel was twisted up with worry.
In fact, he imagined that similar worries were going through Tor’s mind right now.
It didn’t mean they thought the other person incapable, just that they were worried about the situation and didn’t want their loved ones to get hurt.
But the rest of Tor’s loved ones were trapped in this castle, and that’s why they were doing this.
Nostex needed to be stopped, and the High King and his family needed to be saved.
Tor was worried that some of them were already dead, and Pel privately shared this concern, but he wasn’t going to say so out loud.
Tor’s shields really were incredibly powerful, and High King Varex’s should be even more so.
Please, let him have had the chance to use them.
They had no idea what they were going to face when they got inside, but it was possible it was going to be a reality that had the power to crush Tor.
Pel just kept sending prayers winging up to the goddess, hoping for the best. Nostex had been taking advantage of all of them for years, and it was time for them to redeem themselves.
The stone beneath their feet began to rise on a gentle incline, which was a nice change.
It had been hard to shake the growing feeling that perhaps the tunnel system actually ran the entire length of Filon, and the trap was that it simply never ended, and they would walk and walk and walk until they ran into the mountains or the sea.
But now the path sloped up, and finally, Pamuna raised her hand, and they all came to a halt.
She pointed out the stone they needed to avoid, and Tor once again cast a shield over it.
Pel appreciated that, as he felt suddenly unnaturally clumsy and uncoordinated, as if he was going to suddenly trip onto the deadly stone when there was no reason he couldn’t just skirt around it.
There was an entirely prosaic door at this end of the tunnel, rather than another trapdoor. The stone with the trap was set back far enough that when you pulled open the door, it was where you would be naturally inclined to step.
Pel wondered again what Pamuna or her parents had done for Nostex. Surely this wasn’t a widely used tunnel. Someone would forget about these traps and bring the whole thing down. Unless they didn’t really cause a cave in, and that was just a story?
Pel huffed to himself. As if anyone would ever be willing to test that.
“When I was last here, there was a tapestry in front of the door,” Pamuna said quietly, voice barely audible. “That is probably still true. It leads to a small room, usually used for storage. I don’t know if it’s guarded now. It wasn’t in the past.”
They’d moved as quietly as they could, no one talking, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t still sounded like roughly a dozen people moving through a stone tunnel.
“I will go first,” Stronex said, quiet but firm. “I will clear the room, and you will wait here.”
Tor looked like he wanted to protest this, but instead, he squared his shoulders and moved to the side. He motioned Pel to stand behind him, even as he kept his gaze glued to the door. Pel readied an arrow, and everyone else clasped their swords.
Stronex gripped the doorknob, but then gestured at Tor’s lights, and a moment later, they winked out, including the shield around the trap.
For a long moment, all Pel could hear was a dozen people trying to breathe steadily and quietly. He strained his eyes, but it didn’t seem to be getting any lighter. He finally started counting in an attempt to control the heart that wanted to beat out of his chest.
He reached thirty before he heard the tell-tale signs of a door being quietly opened, then displaced air indicating that Stronex was moving.
There was no blinding light, just a slight lightening that allowed Pel to make out the faint shapes of the people around him.
These were all good signs, of course. No immediate attack, scarcely any light.
It suggested the room was still being used for storage, as Pamuna had hoped, but he found his hands clenched white-knuckled on his bow until Stronex returned, bringing his own bobbing magic light with him.
“All clear. The room is secure.”
They tiptoed into the room, going to the side to get past the protective tapestry and emerging to find a storage room just like Pamuna had said. They all fit, but it was snug, especially since the room did have various odds and ends piled in it.
“Where are we?” Tor asked, still keeping his voice low.
Pamuna explained, “We’ve come out in the lowest level of the castle. The dungeons used to be down here, but now the King uses it for more of his trophies from the war.”
Tor rolled his eyes, looking fed up with everything to do with Nostex. Pel had vague memories of visiting when he was little. Perhaps because he’d been a child, Nostex hadn’t tried to make him look at his collection.
It wasn’t funny anymore, of course, now that they knew what Nostex was up to, but it was still hard to quash that little burst of amusement that Tor was so eager to avoid someone who talked too much.
Now, though, Pel couldn’t help but wonder if there’d been more to it than that, if some part of Tor had recognized the danger of the man.
But maybe Nostex really had created the best disguise ever, and Tor had simply disliked that persona.
Pel supposed they’d all be questioning their memories of him, assuming they made it through today in one piece.
There was a faint rustle as they all stretched and breathed.
They’d made it into the castle, and it was only going to get more dangerous from here.
Now they had to figure out where everyone was and figure out how to rescue them.
They were so much closer, and yet it felt paradoxically like they were further away than ever.
Tor’s face was lined with tension, and Pel wanted to give him a hug, if only that weren’t the most poorly timed impulse ever.
Instead, they crept out of the room. There appeared to be no windows in this level of the castle, which Pel supposed made sense since Pamuna said it had once been the dungeon.
But there were torches in brackets along the wall, and though they were a bit widely spaced, they were lit.
How often did people come down here? Well, everyone said Nostex liked to look at his collection, so maybe this was for his convenience. Pel didn’t recognize any of it, not even when they began creeping through some of the rooms, which seemed to open into one another.
It was Terila who whispered, “That’s horrible.”
Looking around, they found her gazing at one of the displays.
Pel had been concentrating solely on getting through any area that didn’t have Tor’s family in it, but he recognized now that this was short-sighted.
Even if it didn’t contribute in any other way, this collection told him even more about Nostex.
Because while these displays still had shields and weapons and helmets, which he vaguely remembered Tor complaining about, they came attached to the bodies—or body parts—that had been wielding or wearing them.
Pel swallowed. These skeletal remains should all have been given proper burials, not put on garish display like this.
Everyone looked horrified—except for Pamuna, who simply looked resigned.
“Trophies,” she said.
It was clear she’d seen this area before.
Tor looked furious, and Pel knew without having to ask that if he’d seen these displays before, he would have done something about it.
Pel couldn’t imagine Nostex had shown them to very many people, as it didn’t fit in very well with the persona he’d crafted for the world.
There was remembering the dead, and there was making a mockery of it. These were helmeted skulls that had clearly been severed from the rest of their body. Were these Nostex’s enemies, and he was flaunting their deaths?
Pel didn’t need anyone to tell him this was a terrible stance to take in the United Realms, where they’d been at peace for twenty-five years and were supposed to be treating one another as allies.
They were well past that, of course, given what the man was doing to Tor’s family, but there was still something incredibly chilling about seeing this laid out, knowing it had probably been here for years and years, and they’d never known.
A shiver ran up Pel’s spine.