10

Yunaba's Tunnels

Jeshu held his new shield out front, testing its weight as he climbed through the jagged tunnels leading to the swamp.

"I've never seen you eager for a fight," Cricket said.

"Eager?"

"You've had your hammer out this whole time."

"I guess I have. I definitely feel more prepared," the druid admitted.

"You look scary. We just might be able to take Yunaba."

Oydd growled. "I know you're just trying to get a rise out of me, but Yunaba has never been contentious with the dhampiri. This will be a diplomatic mission."

"Then why am I along?" Cricket asked coyly.

"Not to hurt Yunaba, I can assure you. Not that you'd have much luck."

"Ha!" Cricket replied. "I fought two swamp dragons once. They'll back down if you yell at them. They're not used to being challenged."

"That sounds entirely fabricated."

The rudra's new creation led the group, a ghoul created from the trollblood's corpse. This time, Oydd used copper only as a framework, covered with iron plates that resembled mail but with larger gaps. He fastened shields to its forearms, rather than claws, and named the menace Gad, because it was "a wall of iron." The monstrosity breathed heavily—the only undead creature Cricket knew to ever breathe.

Kaser followed behind and then Patches. Cricket felt less need to monitor her with the ghouls so close.

Oydd insisted that controlling two ghouls at once would help him build the strength he needed to reanimate an ogre, but the strain was evident. The rudra sweat in the cold tunnels, and had trouble keeping pace with the dryad.

Patches held a small gift, wrapped in light blue cloth. Cricket hadn't seen what was inside, but it couldn't have been much bigger than a flute. He had assumed it to be some sort of weapon at first, but currently a flute was his best guess.

The dirt walls began to dampen, which meant they were nearing the marsh. The winding, uneven tunnels served to separate the two biomes, keeping the larger swamp creatures away from the dhampiri cities.

"I haven't been this way before, but we should be safe if we stay in a group and out of the muck," Oydd explained. "There are leeches here bigger than Patches, eels bigger than Cricket, and then predators that feed on the eels. But the dry land is relatively safe."

"The muck is pretty safe too," Cricket added, causing the rudra to flinch in annoyance. "I just stomped through last time and the eels ran. I think the bigger predators don't really want to eat anything with limbs. They just want to slurp down their food."

"We won't test that theory today," Oydd said coldly.

A faint light appeared in the mist at the far end of the tunnel, and Oydd turned to Jeshu while they climbed. "The Craters are up ahead. They will be in the distance, but we can detour to see them more closely after we complete our objective."

Jeshu smiled and sighed contentedly. "I wasn't sure if I would ever see the sun again."

The tunnels soon opened to a massive cavern, nearly as big as their home, but much deeper, with a heavy mist settled on the ceiling, which made it difficult to gauge its height.

The group started their descent down a thin winding trail with thick, black mud full of insect compost, waterlogged worms and tiny, bleached shells. Patches hopped onto Cricket's shoulder. She held the package with her tail as she licked her paws and tail clean.

When they reached the basin, Oydd sighed. "I'm sorry, dryad."

"Hmm?" Jeshu looked up.

Oydd indicated the fog in the distance. "The craters are that way. If there were sunlight, we would see it now."

Jeshu stared wordlessly into the fog. He saw streaks in the sky that could only have been rain from the surface, finding its way down through the holes in the ceiling. It appeared still from a distance, but the look was unmistakable to him.

A cold mist splashed along his bark skin, pooling in drops of dew on his arms and brow. Water from the unseen surface world. Blown by wind from the surface world. Jeshu noticed the distant sound of a storm. Something he did not expect to crave. The rush was hard to hear above the nearby sounds of dripping water.

"Jesh." Cricket placed a hand on the druid's shoulder. "We've been calling your name."

The druid turned to see the rest of the group crowning a small mound a short distance away, and he followed. He strapped his hammer and slung it over his shoulder, then trudged off with his shield held low and loose in his grip.

Jeshu felt a small paw press something into his hand and looked down to see a twig from the surface. He closed his hand around the gift, in stunned silence, as the mouseling scurried away, back onto Cricket's shoulder. He hadn't noticed her when the insectoid had spoken to him.

As they moved further into the marsh, Jeshu held the twig in his hand, making it writhe and coil like a snake with druidic magic. He tried to get it to grow by pouring some of his own life energy into the dry wood, but it had been too long since he had seen the sun. Perhaps it was in his mind, but regardless he was unable.

They reached a section of the marsh dominated by tiered calciform pools, with white, blue, and green lime deposits that smelled heavily of sulfur. Some pools were clean, and others filthy. Oydd warned the others to avoid the clear pools.

The smaller pools were only a few feet wide, while others stretched a mile or so into the dripping abyss. Dried leaves from the overworld littered the surface of the outer pools, blown by the wind, contributing to a hard peat crust on the dry ground.

Oydd stopped at a fairly large, dark pool beneath an overhang of rock with pillars of saltpetre flowing down like icicles.

"This is not at all what I expected when you called this a swamp," the druid said.

Oydd tapped the rock at his feet with the tip of his staff and called out, "Yunaba!"

The pool stirred slightly, though nothing could be seen below the dark surface of the bog.

Oydd tapped his staff once more and a mound began to rise out of the black.

The swamp dragon rose from the murk and mud, covered in patches of a tar-like grime full of dead leaves and worms that dripped noisily back into the pool. He croaked from deep within his throat, and the giant toad-like dragon placed two fat hands on the edge of his pool, eyeing the group.

"I Yunaba," he said hungrily. "You have triboot?"

Patches stepped forward, presenting the small gift above her head with her tiny paws.

"Wait!" Cricket cried, but before he could move, the swamp dragon's tongue shot from its toothless lips—the fat round tip swelling around her. An instant later he retracted his tongue, pulling the mouseling and her flailing limbs into his wide mouth.

Cricket leapt onto the dragon's face, grabbing her tail before it disappeared. "No!" he reprimanded the dragon, slapping its snout with his hands. "That's not your tribute."

Yunaba spit her out into the water and cricket dropped to retrieve the mouseling with a splash of greasy black water.

Oydd took a step back, protecting his robes.

Cricket swam from the pool with the mouseling in his lower arms. He dropped her in the mud, where the dragon's sticky, thick saliva slowly pooled beneath her trembling form.

"Bad dragon!" Cricket scolded. "Do you remember me?"

Yunaba nodded.

"We don't eat anything that talks. Remember?"

The dragon whimpered.

"Do you still want to be friends?" Cricket threatened.

Yunaba withdrew a bit into the murk. "It didn't talked," he objected.

"I was going to give you some big grubs. But now you get nothing!"

The swamp dragon withdrew until only its gigantic black eyes poked out from the black water. Yunaba tried to speak with his mouth underwater, but any sound was drowned out by the rush of bubbles from his gullet.

"What did you say?" Cricket folded his lower arms and tapped a foot impatiently on the rock floor.

Yunaba repeated himself as he rose a bit, but Cricket only made out the last word. "Triboot."

"You still want tribute?"

Yunaba nodded, making huge ripples that splashed over the edges of his pool.

"What do you want to eat?" Cricket asked with a stern tone.

The swamp dragon eyed the other members of the group, but Cricket raised one finger to remind him of their deal, and the swamp dragon croaked, "Jerob."

"Jerob?" Cricket repeated. "You want jerob beetles?"

The dragon waved his head side to side.

"Jerob larvae?" Cricket held out his hands, indicating the approximate size, and the toad-like dragon nodded hungrily.

"We can still be friends," Cricket said. "And I'll bring you a whole cartload of larvae, but you have to talk first."

Yunaba croaked and Cricket gestured to Oydd. The stunned rudra stepped forward. "We heard some dhampiri were seen out this way."

Yunaba slapped a paw in the mud. "Damper gofa back dunnas. Tulud."

Oydd looked frantically to Cricket for interpretation.

"He says the dhampiri go to the far back tunnels. And that they're too loud."

"Dampers tulud inda dunnas," the dragon clarified.

"Well that's partly why we're here," Oydd replied. "They shouldn't be here at all. Where did they go?"

Yunaba stomped several times, adjusting his position until he could point behind himself—the loose, slimy skin dangling from his fat arm. The spectacle caused a veritable wave to nearly wash away the mouseling. Cricket quickly swept her up and added, "We'll go back and see if we can get them to quiet down. We'll bring you your tribute later."

The dragon croaked in frustration, but Cricket pushed past authoritatively, and the dragon relented. "Da whhhite ones," he said and slurped several gallons of sludge into his mouth as he sank beneath the inky black surface of the pool.

"I know," Cricket assured him. When the dragon was gone, he wiped the spit from Patches' fur and rubbed her paws to warm them up.

Oydd glared at the insect.

"What?"

"You know what."

Cricket stood back up and Patches climbed again onto his shoulder. He felt her little fingers holding on with a death grip. "I tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen."

This information failed to visibly soothe the rudra. He began to climb the rims of the pool, like so many steps toward the back wall.

"And I didn't know that I knew this one specifically. But I recognized the scar under his eye from our last encounter."

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Oydd ignored the insect.

Numerous tunnels of all shapes and sizes honey-combed the cliff wall, some only extending back a few yards, and others winding out of view. A thick, black bramble covered most of the holes. The constant flow of water wore each passage smooth and slick, granting a musty smell.

Oydd chose a fairly large passage free of vegetation, flooded with murky orange liquid. "This looks disturbed."

Cricket agreed.

As Jeshu passed, he stooped to inspect the briar. "I haven't seen growth like this down here."

"Don't touch it," Oydd warned. "Those ridges are razor sharp, and the thorns are poisonous."

"On the surface, I helped the plants grow," the druid explained. "But it hasn't worked on the mushrooms down here. Still, this looks so foreign."

Oydd began to trudge through the flooded tunnel. Kaser ran ahead with sploshing echoes that rang unusually loud in the cramped space.

Gad moved slowly through the muck, and might have slipped if not for his added weight in iron. Cricket moved slower still, up to his knees in the orange water, struggling to keep upright.

Oydd watched in amusement, his mood lightening somewhat. "Do you float?"

"What? No that's not it. The noise is disorienting me."

"But do you float?" Oydd repeated. "If you were in water?"

Cricket avoided the question, but his cheeks flushed visibly to a dark brown.

"Dryad, pass your hammer to the insect."

Jeshu unstrapped the weapon and extended it to Cricket.

"No, I'm good."

"Humor me," Oydd insisted, and the insect grudgingly grabbed the hammer. Afterward, he managed to keep his footing quite easily and the rudra laughed.

"The floor's just really slick. It's helping me keep my balance."

"Of course," the rudra replied cheekily.

Cricket knit his mandibles in frustration, but pushed ahead, still holding onto the hammer for extra weight.

Dozens of tunnels weaved past each other, like braids of hair, with alternate paths emerging, rising, diving and then disappearing into unknown depths, sometimes to rejoin the main tunnel at a later time. When the ground dried, Cricket returned the hammer looking uncomfortable.

The main passage widened and eventually Oydd lamented. "Empty. Kaser is too calm. If the dhampiri were here, they have left."

"We should be thorough anyway," Jeshu advised.

"Agreed. But the risk level seems low, so I'll go ahead with the ghouls. You two take a separate path."

"Three," Cricket corrected, but even he didn't notice the mouseling alight from his shoulder and pad silently down a tiny side passage.

*****

Patches chose a tunnel where the others wouldn't fit. But also she smelled wet fur, and dried salamanders, and knew that other ratlings had passed this way.

Despite some spacious areas, the tunnel had no wide openings, which meant whatever ratlings had lived here had likely used the narrow passage for privacy from the dhampiri.

The smell of salamander jerky grew overwhelming, and the mouseling's mouth watered. She soon found herself in a large cavity in the rock, not quite deep enough to throw a stone without hitting a wall, but covered with countless ratling trappings, from a rack of drying meat, to a firepit with lukewarm coals and three bedrolls of the softer purple mushroom leather. Patches ate three salamanders then discovered a set of small kettles and crystals, all of which she kept. She identified a side passage as the inhabitants' latrine.

The mouseling sniffed the damp air and agreed that the den was currently unoccupied.

She continued on and her small tunnel eventually rejoined the main passage. She heard Cricket's voice some distance behind her.

In the main passage, she found a ratling-sized roofed wagon mired in the mud, with several dangling strings of beads serving as a door. Inside, a clear glass ball, larger than her head, sat in the middle of the single room, propped by rings of silk to prevent it from rolling. In each corner sat a black candle of denub beetle wax, half melted and stuck to the floor.

On a small shelf in the back, the mouseling found numerous empty glass flasks and potion reagents. Some she recognized and others she did not—dried webcap mushrooms, nightshade pulp, rough turquoise and blue calcite. She found the bones of an unknown critter, along with a pile of tiny skulls and a gourd full of ratling teeth.

First, she grabbed a small doll made from bound black fur with a tooth inside, made to resemble a ratling. Dried blood stained the fur. One arm had been viciously torn from the doll, and three bone needles penetrated its back, emerging from its belly in a cluster.

The mouseling began to stuff her pack, but then paused and whispered to herself softly, "You should never steal from a witch."

The mouseling sat for several seconds pondering, weighing her options, and then removed some rocks and the set of kettles from her bag to make extra room.

*****

"What is this?" Cricket asked in disgust, lifting a goblin arm from the pile. A centipede as thick as his wrist crawled, chittering, from the heap of limbs then began to burrow into the frothing flesh of a decaying lizardman tail. It knocked a dhampir eye with a golden iris from the stack and it rolled to bump against Cricket's foot.

Jeshu stood some distance away. "Sacrifices to Bale."

"Well at least that means we're on the right track." Cricket tossed the rotting arm back into the pile and it landed right on an insectoid hand. Cricket brushed the arm aside and placed his hand over the dismembered one. The severed hand was nearly as big as his own, and looked as though it might have had a dark shell before it dried to a dark grey.

"It also hints at dozens of followers. I think we should retreat and report," Jeshu said.

"Uh-huh..." Cricket answered absently.

"What is that up ahead?"

Cricket looked up and saw a small wagon with walls and a roof of grey mushroomwood. "Let's go see."

The two continued on, passing several rusted spears jammed into the rock with the dried heads of goblins and what must have once been a rudra mounted on top. Such displays often warned of witches, and effectively warded off some of the more superstitious creatures, like ogres and trolls.

Cricket walked indifferently past the macabre arrangement, with Jeshu stepping apprehensively behind him.

A small form darted soundlessly from behind the wagon and Cricket readied his sickles.

However, when he rounded the bend, he saw only the mouseling running along the wall, pausing once or twice to sniff the air.

Cricket stowed his weapons. "You startled me. Where did you come from?"

The mouseling scampered up to his side and brushed against his leg, nearly tripping him as he walked.

At the far end of the tunnel, Cricket saw Kazer skulking on all fours, scraping and clacking the smooth rock beneath him with his claws. For the first time since the catacombs, the insect felt a chill. Not from the presence of dark magic, but simply a rush of adrenaline, imagining squaring up against the frenzied ghoul.

Kaser, however, clacked along harmlessly, dully. As if the lack of suitable prey bored him. And Gad lumbered after, nearly clogging the side tunnel. Had he grown in size since their fight in the catacombs, or was it Cricket's imagination?

Let's return home. I've seen enough.

Cricket looked around for Oydd and soon noticed the rudra walking in Gad's wake.

"Would your ghouls ever attack us?" Cricket asked suddenly.

"What? No."

"What if you passed out or something?"

"Then they would fall limp to the ground. They can only move by my will."

"But they seem to hate the living except for us."

Oydd placed a hand on Gad affectionately. "Don't feel left out. They hate you too. But they can't move a muscle without my willing it. The greater dead have demonic souls bound to their bodies, like the lizard skeletons you fought. They do not require mind or muscle in the flesh, because they possess something more powerful. My creations would be considered the lesser dead. They desire to kill because of the small bit of dark magic infused in their brains, like a spark kindling a fire. But if their mind or muscle rots away they would be worthless."

Gad stomped past Cricket and the group slowly made their way back toward Yunaba's pool.

"What would we do if we encountered rebel dhampiri," Cricket questioned. "Any slave who raises a weapon against his master shall die."

"And that rule has always been broken," Oydd answered.

"The dhampiri have often ordered us to break it. But that offered no protection. I once had a friend who was executed for following orders."

"And I had a comrade who was killed for disobeying orders," Oydd countered. "What choice do we have? We were ordered to investigate."

"But we're in charge now. Shouldn't things be less complicated? Safer, at least?"

"Do you feel in charge?" Oydd scoffed.

Cricket didn't answer.

"Because I feel like a pawn," Oydd spat. "You can only make the choices they allow. Damien fell out of favor, and so we were allowed to kill him. Used to kill him. I see no agency in it. Try to disobey an order, and we'll see how much clout you've amassed."

The loud, unmistakable whoop of laughing gnolls resounded from the tunnel ahead.

"Crap!" Cricket placed a hand on his forehead. "We were being way too loud. Didn't we look everywhere?"

"It would take days to search all of these tunnels. But I presume they are returning and arrived here after us."

The approaching voices grew in volume and the gnolls, it seemed, picked up a run, based on the echoing sounds of splashing water.

This way. Oydd dropped down a side passage. Keep silent. Dozens of these passages lead to the entrance. Remember all the holes we saw when we arrived?

Cricket ducked into the low tunnel—watchful of the mouseling at his feet—then Jeshu entered, and then Gad, nearly clogging the narrow tube. Kaser split from the group, sprinting toward the sound of the gnolls.

Almost instantly Cricket heard the clash of metal against metal, followed by warcries and pained barks.

Oydd pressed forward undistracted until a gnoll dropped down from a side shoot, and he hollered in surprise, falling back.

Cricket squeezed past to block the gnoll's axe, catching the blade in the nook of his sickle and pinning it in the mud wall. His second sickle lashed at the gnoll's throat but it yelped, dodging backward. The insect pressed forward stabbing two daggers down into its thighs and the gnoll stumbled back hitting its head solidly against the smooth stone.

Cricket pressed a knee into its throat to silence it as he stabbed it through the ribs.

The insect took the lead at a bit of a run, dodging the passageways with the loudest cries, attempting to maintain their general direction.

The cackling of a hyena reverberated behind him, near the rudra.

Oydd touched his staff to a murky pool and called out "Teyra aranaka!" When he lifted the tip of his staff from the water, a thick strand of web followed. The webbing dispersed in thick sheets, covering the walls and blocking the exit, then began to fill the main passage with a few final, thin, floating wisps.

Jeshu brushed a rogue strand away from his eyes as he and Gad caught up, then rushed ahead to Cricket's side.

Cricket glanced back and saw the rudra slowing, but thought that position safer, due to Oydd's proximity to the hulking trollblood.

"The tunnel's blocked." Jeshu pointed. Ahead, a thick briar covered the narrow passage from wall to wall with no end in sight.

When they reached it, Cricket slowed but the dryad raised his shield and plowed straight in. The sharp vines tore at his arms and legs but he barreled through without slowing, and Cricket reluctantly followed, swatting away the few thorns that bounced back at his face.

The insect caught a few cuts and scratches but Jesh took the brunt of the blows, and Cricket couldn't see the front of the dryad to gauge the damage he had taken.

Patches crawled against the wall, easily slipping through the openings in the bramble, passing Cricket and then Jeshu.

When the druid reached the end of the tunnel, the mouseling was already long gone.

Jeshu turned around, and Cricket saw some serious cuts to his calves and upper arms, but the shield had protected his face and throat.

Cricket passed the druid, coming to a small drop-off leading back to the marsh and the sulphuric pools, then glanced back down the tunnel to locate the rudra. At first he saw nothing, but then Oydd appeared around the bend at a full sprint, huffing and puffing with three gnolls in pursuit.

Cricket saw no sign of Gad.

The druid began to chant in his druidic tongue and the thorny vines danced as if blown by a powerful wind, but Cricket felt nothing.

Jeshu's chanting rose and the vines whipped from the walls, grabbing at the gnoll's ankles and wrists and throats. As the insect watched, the bramble grew until each vine was as thick as one of his arms, and the sharp, twisted ropes coiled around the gnolls like constricting snakes.

Oydd stopped before he caught up to the others. He leaned against the wall and panted loudly, wailing and wheezing.

After a few deep breaths he came to the ledge. He took one look down at the pools then threw himself over the ledge speaking a word of magic. The rudra fell slowly, like a feather, landing softly on the ground below.

"Can you do that for us?" Cricket yelled down.

Oydd shouted back, "No."

Cricket looked over the ledge then back at the suffocating gnolls, then back over the ledge again, finally deciding to jump for one of the pools.

He leapt and plummeted into a clear, steaming pool with a splash then bobbed back to the surface screaming and paddling to get out of the burning water.

Once on dry land, his shell still steamed heavily, and the insectoid howled in shock.

"I told you to avoid the clear pools," Oydd growled. "If anything could survive inside of them, they wouldn't be clear."

Cricket looked up at Jeshu, still blubbering, then calmed himself enough to shout up at the druid. "Don't jump in this pool!"

But the druid was already in the air, and an instant later landed the same steaming water, plunging much deeper than the insect.

When he surfaced, he floated to the edge calmly, then rose from the pool without a complaint.

"It's way hotter than he's making it look!" Cricket howled.

"If it were 'way hotter' you would be dead," Oydd snapped.

"Nothing can survive in there!" Cricket reminded the rudra.

"Because of the chemicals. You're fine."

Jeshu resumed his chant, waving an arm toward the tunnel above, and the briar grew until the black thorns weaved and blotted out the tunnel entirely, curling over the edge.

For a moment, only the sound of distant dripping water could be heard.

"We better hurry back," Cricket said. "They'll find a way around the thorns."

Oydd stared up into the tunnels. "Gad is still fighting. But he is lost to us."

"What about Kaser," Jeshu asked, concerned.

Oydd shook his head. "There were a lot of them. I have lost contact."

For the first time, the mouseling crawled into Jeshu's branches for the journey back. Cricket walked behind him, pouting a bit because he wasn't chosen, and a bit because the druid didn't seem to notice.

As they past by the craters, a thin ray of sunlight broke through the fog, far in the distance.

"We cannot afford a detour right now," Oydd said bleakly.

"I know." The druid barely looked at the beam of light. "The brambles have made their way down here, growing without the sun. And I will learn how as well."