Wrath of Swords and Magic: A Limited Edition Fantasy Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dauntless Dragon Press
Published: 2021-08-10T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

“Where are we?” Brenna murmured, sheathing the rust-colored sword.

“Hela take us,” Anora gasped, pushing away from the wall and landing with sagging legs on a slick, slanted floor. She flung her arms out to regain balance and lost both her sword and knife to the air. Finally getting her balance she straightened. “How am I supposed to know?” She looked to the solid wall of rock behind them. “No way out.” Then she looked down, “and should we lose our footing-…”

“We will get wet. Come, there is a lake of some sort.”

“Is that what it is? It… glows…”

They edged down until the motionless sweep of water was before them. A vague, greenish-blue illumination, coming from below, revealed the lake's depth. They could see to the bottom, perhaps ten man-heights down, rough and studded with rotted tree stumps or broken stalagmites, pale green and limned in white.

After fifteen or so paces Brenna’s hand slipped into a narrow crack and, upon regaining contact, immediately noted a change of texture and shape in the surface under her fingertips. She halted and began a closer examination along its length. This stone was basalt, ragged, bulging out until the slope beneath her feet dwindled, then disappeared. Sharp cracks emanated out throughout the angled floor and into the lake, the black fissures reappearing on the lake's bottom. The basalt was an intrusion, she concluded. The cavern shook, as an immense explosion rocked the caldera.

“We escaped immanent death on a battlefield for this?” Anora asked, her voice echoing. She reached out to the water, “Hela, that's cold!”

“Not the way we go, then,” Brenna replied, scowling.

She turned back to the stone walls. There had been a majikal doorway or the Hevolitt gateway, and the basalt formation had come through it, catastrophically, from somewhere else… into solid bedrock on this world. As she touched the wall, she felt her hand fall through.

Her sword pulsed non-stop. Much like it had during the battle.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

She stepped through the solid basalt wall. Feeling cold, Brenna stumbled forward. Anora just behind her helped her to her feet. They peered into the darkness.

Thrum, thrum, thrum.

“I smell… vast… death.”

Brenna nodded. She drew out her sword, looked down as the writing on the blade glowed red in the gloom.

Anora in the lead, they entered the dark room.

The corridor was as narrow as the invisible doorway itself, the walls uneven, black basalt, wet with condensation, the floor precarious with random knobs and projections, and depressions slick with ice that cracked and shifted underfoot. It ran straight for forty paces. By the time they reached the opening at the end their eyes had adjusted to the gloom.

Another enormous chamber, as if the heart of the mountain had been carved out. A massive cruciform of bound, black wood filled the cavern, and on it was impaled a dragon. Long dead, now rotting. A silver spike as thick around as Brenna's torso had been driven into the dragon's throat, just above the breast bones. Violet blood had

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