UNUKALHAI waited in the wings of the Great Hall, silent as a shadow. The Apostle's head nearly reached the arch of the alcove, brushing against the carved wooden visages of the gods that must have peered down upon many a secret conversation between noblemen over the centuries.
Ten generations past - when Raegnald had first struck the capital of his kingdom - the timbered great hall was the first building raised over Belnopyl's hills, with its forty alcoves having housed many of the ancestors to the men that now sought to claim her city.
Ten generations on, the foundations still remained strong even when much of the masoned stone built up by Raegnald’s descendants had collapsed from the shattering that fell upon the city. Vasilisa wondered whether there was an unnatural strength in the wood itself, for the great hall had been built from the hewn bodies of the many immortal oaks that once dwelled upon the hill - some of them said to have been thousands of years old. Perhaps they were as old as the tunnels which they now sought.
Unukalhai motioned for her to follow, and lead her out from the wings into the central hall. The butchered bodies of her father's courtiers and guards were cleared to make room for the city's vulnerable: the old, the infirm, and the young. Many of them were praying to the Lightning-Lord, to give succor to the men outside the hall. Their voices lifted high up to the broken ceiling of the hall, and mingled with the distant clatter of steel upon steel to make strange, terrified music.
But which god shall hear their prayers? The Lightning-Lord, or Gandroth?
She cast the thought aside, and went past those who were knelt in prayer. She must have seemed a fearsome sight, covered in blood, with the Kladenets slung over her shoulder, and no crown upon her brow save the dented iron of her helm. Some of the women huddled in the alcoves recoiled from her, but others looked on in awe at their bloodstained princess.
Then, someone cried, “Is it over? Has the battle been won?”
Another woman went forth and took the arm of one of the druzhinniks in their company. “Where is my husband? Why is Gena not with you?”
“Tell us!”
“Don’t be afraid,” spoke Austeja. “The enemy is being pressed hard by our men, and the Lightning-Lord looks kindly upon our defenders-”
“Then why are you here?”
“Enough,” Vasilisa sounded, and the clamoring refugees fell silent by her word. “The battle may be won yet, but if Zinoviy of Denev grows impatient for his prize, he may have his men batter down this keep with catapults. There are tunnels - tunnels which will shelter us all - but we must be quick to unearth them! So stand aside, and return to your prayers! Pray to the Lightning-Lord for your city, for your men!”
And pray that this plan of mine will work.
The half-lie was enough to set their spirits at ease - or perhaps the refugees had realized the foolishness of trying to argue with their band of armored warriors. The crowd dispersed back to their alcoves - to pray, to weep, or simply to wait for death or salvation. It was maddening all the same, Vasilisa could taste their terror, sweet as honey upon the air.
Before her father’s shattered throne, and beneath the gently swaying bell, Unukalhai knelt and brushed one hand against the exposed stonework of the floor. The Apostle felt that they searched for, and when Vasilisa drew closer she saw that where Unukalhai’s hands had passed, faint lines revealed themselves in the stone. Steadily the lines grew deeper and more visible, until some circular design could be guessed.
All along the edges of the circle there were engravings that were unmistakably carved words, but in a language that none of them could understand. Unukalhai inclined their head towards the engravings, beckoning her to touch them. She followed suit, and breathed out slowly as she brushed one hand upon the weathered stone.
A jolt of sensation coursed through her - the feeling of knowing, of remembrance. It was as if the memories made by those who had carved the engravings had awakened at last from a long slumber, and they flooded her mind. She saw images - at first vague and murky, but when she sharpened her mind they cleared.
The great hall of Belnopyl was cleared and covered in the resplendence of yore, the earliest days of Raegnald’s kingdom. She saw many bearded warriors with axes, still clad in the northern dress of Jomne - the days of the conquerors from across the sea. Standing before her and upon the dais was a prince, a proud man in whose face she saw the echoes of her father’s countenance, and his eyes shone like the gemstones that were embedded in his sword.
Vasilisa recalled the hand of the shaman who made the markings upon the stone, tracing golden lines upon the floor before the prince’s gaze. There were many others in the hall with the shaman - men and women dressed in bright coats that were decorated with red embroideries she had only seen once before, in the paintings of the old tribesmen that had warred with Raegnald and his sons. The old tribes - Austeja’s folk.
She remembered the others who were watching her here and now, and for a moment wondered whether her voice would echo into the past and disturb the ancients from their ritual. Her voice came as a bare whisper, “I see a shaman, from the old tribes. And a prince of the city - I think he is Prince Ingvarr.”
“Ingvarr the Greedy,” came Austeja’s invisible voice. “Or so some call him. His was the reign that ended my people’s pilgrimage to the Sacred Hollows.”
The shaman spoke to the prince, and then in her hands was a knife with a silvered blade that shone white in the morning sun. She drew the blade across the palm of her hand, then squeezed a smattering of fat crimson droplets from her fist, letting them collect into a wooden bowl. Ingvarr did the same, and when the deed was done the contents of the bowls were poured into the carved lines of the stone. Vasilisa watched as the mixed blood seeped through the cracks, the thin trail growing impossibly long until it had completely drowned the golden sigil in deep crimson.
The blood of the princes…the blood of the old folk…
“In union the seal was made,” she said aloud. “And in union it must be broken.”
She looked in the direction of Austeja’s voice, as the last remnants of the memory were chased from her vision. “This is why fate had brought us together,” she said. “Or did you always know of this? This seal?”
Austeja sheepishly looked away, but that was all that needed to be said. Anger briefly flashed hot in her chest, but Vasilisa smothered it down, knowing time was running thinner with every moment they tarried. One of the druzhinniks in her company offered a clean, thin-bladed knife, and Vasilisa sucked in a hiss of air through her teeth as she drew the cold steel across her palm, letting the red droplets fall free upon the weathered stonework. Austeja did the same, averting her eyes from the princess as she did so. In the instant the tribeswoman's blood hit the floor, Vasilisa saw their life essence begin to crawl along the old engraved markings until the symbol was complete - as red and grim as it appeared centuries ago.
For a moment nothing happened, but then Austeja’s eyes flicked to the floor. Vasilisa felt it as well: a low rumbling, like an awakening breath of the earth.
Then, the floor beneath them shattered.
“Step back!” boomed Unukalhai’s voice, nary a moment too soon.
Vasilisa instinctively leapt away from the floor, narrowly avoiding a stone slab that tumbled free where she stood just a moment ago. Her silent heart raced with fear as she scrambled back and back, and before her the collapse grew, sending more of the floor cascading into darkness with every new break that appeared.
“Austeja!” She shouted as she saw the shaman stumble.
Austeja's arms flailed, desperately trying to regain her balance, but the collapsing floor pulled her down. Vasilisa lunged forward, her fingers barely catching hold of Austeja's arm. The force of the fall nearly dragged her into the abyss as well, but she dug her heels into the floor, gritting her teeth against the strain. The chaos of falling stones and dust swirled around them, and Vasilisa could see the panic in Austeja’s eyes.
Vasilisa felt the hands of the other druzhinniks grasp her shoulders and arms, and with a mighty heave of effort she pulled the shaman over the edge of the abyss, bringing her crashing back onto solid ground. She coughed and sneezed from the great cloud of dust that erupted from the collapse of the floor, and when her eyes cleared at length she saw what had become of the throne room.
She and her company stood breathless at the edge of a great, yawning pit. The majesty of the great hall, already married by the slaughter, was now in complete ruin. Vasilisa studied the hole, and saw the collapse of the floor had also unearthed a gently-sloping earthen path that went into the darkness, wide enough to accomodate two men walking abreast. And all along the passage, she saw the blood-red vines that infested the rest of the keep, only the ones that lurked beneath the earth were far faster, like the veins and arteries of the world itself.
Unukalhai stepped forward, the only one seeming unbothered by the collapse. “This is the way,” spoke the Apostle with a wave of a black-clawed hand. “The old passages, though when I last remember them they were full of life. These tunnels lead to many places through your city, and of course, to other forgotten places.”
“Those might be pursued later,” Vasilisa replied at length to Unukalhai. She then nodded to Austeja. “Light the lanterns. Time is not on our side.”
The druzhinniks stirred uncomfortably, but none gave any word of dissent. The lanterns’ light brooked sight only a few yards ahead of them, so their company treaded lightly as they went in.
***
Unukalhai led them into the yawning darkness, and soon the gaping hole into the great hall was but a tiny pinprick of light, and then it too was swallowed up by the darkness. It grew very, very cold, the kind of cold that cut to the bone, and the damp smell of rot was heavy in the air. Whatever life had once dwelt in the tunnels, it had long surrendered to time.
The dim light of the lanterns the druzhinniks bore illuminated some hints of the things that had dwelt in the darkness. As they walked, Vasilisa saw that amidst the shuddering vines there were the roots of dead trees. Along the ground were flowers, dead and gray, whose petals crunched and turned to dust underfoot. Long, brittle fingers of mossy growths hung about the passages, and Vasilisa ducked beneath them as she went. Somehow, it felt like sacrilege to touch anything in the earthen halls - or perhaps it was the unshakeable, primal fear of the darkness and the imagined threats within that made her uneasy.
At times they came upon twists and turns in the passages, as well as lesser branching tunnels. The Apostle took the lead and announced every turn, and though Vasilisa tried to keep some sense of their heading she soon felt completely lost. And in the heavy darkness, she soon began to fear that every turn Unukalhai made would be the last she would see of the Apostle.
The tunnels began to slowly slope ever further down, and the air grew thinner and thinner as they went. The dead flowers grew thicker about them, until every step taken by their company was punctuated by the crunching of a dozen crushed petals. The pounding of her heart would have deafened her to all else, but in its silence, Vasilisa heard mutterings come from the druzhinniks at her back. She strained her eyes, and made out a shorter, more lithe figure that could only have been Austeja. In the darkness, the fear of the shaman was all the more palpable to her senses - she reeked of terror, as did all the others.
“I mislike this place,” the shaman whispered at length, her voice barely rising above a mouse squeak in the blackness. “Oh, I mislike it so. It is as I sensed, my lady - this is a place of death. And this darkness - it feels our passage through this place.”
Vasilisa did not reply. She kept her eyes focused on Unukalhai’s back, and their swaying braids as the Apostle led them deeper…deeper…and eventually drew to a stop. The Apostle paused before the path ahead, and when the lanterns’ light was cast further Vasilisa saw they had entered into a large, circular chamber. Around them were many doorways, and when she looked up towards the domed ceiling Vasilisa saw many more passages gaping all along the smooth stone walls - some of them large enough to accommodate a man, others scarcely a rat.
At length, Unukalhai pointed a clawed finger towards one of the doorways that looked no more nondescript than the other dozens. “There. There lies our path. Do you hear it? Listen not to the air, but the earth!”
Vasilisa pressed one hand upon the stone floor, and closed her eyes. The others stood stock-still, and all went silent for a time. Then, she felt it - a gentle rush, smooth and flowing. She sensed the flow of the Cherech, the shifting of the water over the earth, and traced the sensation down the hall - where the open air surely awaited.
Before Unukalhai went further inside they suddenly stopped again just at the threshold.
Stolen story; please report.
“Give me your hand, lady Vasilisa,” spoke the Apostle as they turned to the rest of the company. “There are some things that should not be seen. Link arms if you must, but do not tarry long.”
Vasilisa hung back a moment, remembering Yesugei’s suspicions. Did the Apostle intend to mislead her now, when they were at this crossroads of many thresholds? Unukalhai had not led her astray thus far, but some part of her thought to refuse and insist on walking with open eyes. Yet the press of the battle overhead loomed over them all, and she had no idea how long they had been underground - was it an hour? Or the better part of the day?
Begrudgingly, she ordered the druzhinniks and Austeja to link arms, and she herself took the Apostle’s hand, shutting her eyes tight. She briefly stumbled on the ground, its rough unevenness made ever more apparent without sight, but after a while she found good footing, and followed the gentle sound of Unukalhai’s padding footfalls. From time to time, the Apostle would tell her, “There is a drop ahead, watch your step,”, or “We must turn here, my lady.”
They continued ever on, and even deeper through the bowels of the city’s underground. Through the endless twists and turns, she began to grow weary - and all suspicious that the Apostle was leading them in circles, for they had made too many right turns in a row for it to have been anything but.
Finally, unable to quell her suspicion any longer, Vasilisa dared to crack one eye open when she suspected the Apostle’s gaze was turned forwards.
What she saw made her soul freeze with dread.
The walls were lined with countless skulls, their empty eye sockets staring back at her. The lantern light flickered, casting eerie shadows that danced across the hollowed faces and illuminated their twisted forms. Some of the skulls had massive jaws, jagged and lined with massive fangs, while others had grotesquely-swollen brows and misshapen craniums. Eyesockets were multiplied or missing entirely, creating a vision of horrors that defied any human semblance, yet suggested it still.
A gasp escaped her lips before she could stop it, and she instinctively squeezed Unukalhai's hand tighter. The Apostle’s head turned slightly, and though Vasilisa couldn’t see their face, she felt the weight of their gaze.
“You should not have looked,” Unukalhai’s voice was a low growl, laden with an ancient sorrow. “These are the failures, Vaal’s first drafts upon the canvas of flesh and bone.”
Vasilisa fought the urge to close her eye again as she took in the sight. The weight of the skulls’ hollow stares pressed on her, a silent cry of jealousy from the past. Each misshapen bone told a tale of a being that never was, a life unfulfilled, left to rot and die in the dark, entombed alongside a thousand-thousand other brothers and sisters who were judged failures by the one who had given them the curse of life.
She closed her eyes, and let her tears for the forgotten ones fall.
The darkness seemed even more oppressive now, knowing what lay just beyond her eyelids. The journey through the twisting tunnels felt endless, each step a struggle against the chill that seeped into her bones. Eventually, she felt a change in the floor - the ground became more level, and damp with moisture. Cold droplets fell from the ceiling upon her head, and finally, the sound of rushing water grew louder.
Unukalhai slowed their pace. “We are near the end,” the Apostle said. “You may open your eyes now.”
Before her was a rusted grate, beyond which she could see the faint glimmer of the canal into which the sewer they were in had once drained. The water level there had plunged far below the level of the tunnel, else they would have been wading through ankle-deep filth.
The eagerness to leave the bleak tunnel reared its head with a vengeance, and Vasilisa flicked her fingers out towards the grate. The heavy iron twisted out of shape, and then the grate fell out. They emerged at last to a breath of fresh air, and found themselves standing in a drained ditch in the Merchants’ Quarter. The roar of battle was distant now, and the occasional flash of a colored tabard or banner between ruins and alleyways was the only sign of the city at war.
Vasilisa quietly motioned for the others to follow, and in a stealthy trail they walked the labyrinth of shattered homes towards the keep. She did not need to think overmuch on the path, for it was soon marked for her by bodies littered along the streets - those killed on the retreat from the walls. Friend or foe, she could not tell, but all their wounds were cruel and grisly.
What folly...what black, mad folly!
As they rounded closer to the usurpers' battle line, the distant whine of sailing arrows grew louder, and the shouted commands of the enemy became clearer. Orders to regroup and renew the assault rang loud, and when she peered out from around a crumbled wall, she saw the time they had spent in the darkness wasn't squandered by the enemy. They had brought up large wooden mantlets up to the base of the keep’s hill, and siege ladders even taller than those used to scale the outer walls were being assembled nearby, just beyond the prick of the defender’s arrows.
And in the midst of the gathering assault was Zinoviy, galloping along the siege line atop a black destrier, waving the Hearteater above his head. "They are cornered!" she heard him screaming to the footmen as they ducked beneath the hails of arrows that flew from the keep. "Drive these rats into their hovels! Kill them, kill them all!"
She waited for the boyar to slow his horse to a canter before she came into view. For a moment the boyar stood there, staring as if she were invisible. Then a moment later, his mouth fell open.
"YOU." He shouted, bringing his sword to bear.
"Me." She replied. With a thin smile, Vasilisa flung out one arm, throwing an invisible fist towards the boyar. There sounded the horrible crunch of metal and bone as the boyar’s chest caved in, and Zinoviy of Denev went sprawling to the ground. As his destrier neighed and bolted, the rest of her company made themselves known to the enemy.
Austeja led the charge with a cry of "Belnopyl!", and behind her the rest of their meager band fell upon the usurpers’ warriors. The footmen and sappers gathering beneath the hill scattered with cries of terror before the attack, and many more, caught unawares, either yielded on the spot or were cut down. Only Unukalhai needed no cry of war to gather up courage, and the Apostle’s chain whipped with terrifying speed across the field, crumpling any man unfortunate enough to stand before its path.
A wave of exhaustion suddenly crashed over Vasilisa, and she steadied herself upon the blade of the Kladenets as she watched the carnage unfold. The act of crushing the boyar in his armor taxed her far more than she had hoped - she felt her powers beginning to fray, like a rope with an over-heavy burden.
One of her men, mace raised high, stepped over the sprawled boyar to join the fray. Then, in the blink of an eye, there suddenly appeared a foot of black, rippling steel through the man’s chest. As the warrior crumpled to the ground, Zinoviy stirred with a groan.
Black, chilling flames erupted with a woosh from the blade of the Hearteater, coalescing into a form more terrifying than the boyar himself. From the pale light of the sword's fire a faceless specter emerged, growing longer and longer until it was draped around the boyar's shoulders and over his chest. It had no features - only a smooth, obsidian surface where a face should be. Its eyes, if they could be called that, were voids that sucked in light, and they gave nothing back.
You, it seemed to say to her, a wordless call from a mouthless face. The False One, the Exile’s Daughter. The Lord hungers, He hungers for your heart.
The specter's form grew more solid, and the flames formed an arm whose long claws were buried deep in Zinoviy's throat. Then the Hearteater pulled the boyar up to his feet with an unnatural grace, as if he were a puppet on strings. Vasilisa watched in horror as the specter's essence seeped into the boyar's body, rejuvenating his crumpled form with an otherworldly vigor. When the boyar's eyes opened they glowed with a pale light, and Vasilisa knew whatever life within Zinoviy was now not his - wholly unnatural, wholly malevolent.
She had to end this quickly, before her strength waned further. With a deep breath, she called upon the last reserves of her power, feeling it coil within her like a serpent ready to strike. She raised her blade and charged, aiming to strike the head from the Hearteater's puppet as it staggered to.
The boyar moved with unnatural speed for a dead man. He parried her strike with a sweep of his sword, and the impact sent a shockwave up her arm, nearly causing her to lose her grip on the Kladenets. The Hearteater hissed as it drove its puppet to counter with a savage slash, and her arm exploded with the agony of a million ice-cold needles puncturing her skin at once.
She scrambled to find a firm footing, feeling blood running down in cold rivulets down her arm as Zinoviy's corpse stood to its full height. The dead man brought the dripping blade to his mouth, and the Hearteater shuddered as it tasted her life essence.
Even the blood of a false prophet tastes sweet, it moaned to her. How my Lord will feast!
And then the boyar leapt into the fray, lunging at her from all fours like a wild beast. The Hearteater was everywhere at once, shrouding the boyar in a cage of black fire as Zinoviy feinted high and low, right and left, moving so quickly she felt his arms would tear from their sockets. When the killing blow whistled for her legs, she scrambled to place the Kladenets before the flaming blade, and its impact sent her staggering backwards.
Around them, she was vaguely aware of the battle raging on and yet slipping further away. The screams and roar of battle became endlessly distant to her ears, and all she saw and heard was the here and now, the cold, flaming blade coming for her heart.
She danced away from Zinoviy's sword, and saw his missed blow cleave through one of his own men and rip a deep gouge into the wall beside him. When she slipped through a crumbled archway to find some reprieve, a second wild stroke sliced clean through a wooden pillar, causing the ruined floor above it to sink with a groan. Zinoviy's third strike cleaved through the cloud of dust that erupted from the floor’s collapse, and when their blades met in a desperate parry Vasilisa felt herself nearly crushed into the wall at her back.
It was all she could do to brace her other arm against the blade of the Kladenets as the Hearteater whistled down again and again, every impact sending a throbbing bolt of pain down her arms. Her eyes widened as she saw the flaming sword tearing away chunks from the Kladenets. The cracks in her blade were deepening, on the verge of shattering altogether. And all the while, the puppet that was Zinoviy of Denev was grunting and heaving like a beast of burden, raging against the stone blade with reckless abandon.
Gods, where is Austeja? came the burning thought. The Hearteater whistled down again, tearing free a row of petrified teeth from the blade.
Where is Unukalhai? Where is anyone?
She was being pushed against the wall - she did not know whether she would be crushed to death first, or sliced to pieces when the Kladenets broke under the Hearteater’s assault. Then, suddenly, it came to her - she knew what to do.
She saw an opening - barely - and kicked out at the boyar’s ruined breastplate. He skidded back a few paces, and the specter wrapped about his shoulders seemed to cackle as it readied itself.
The Apostle's counsel flooded to her mind as the boyar lunged for her again. Two days had not been for naught, and the Apostle’s teachings needed to be learned quickly, or not at all. Vasilisa’s fingers brushed hastily against the wall at her back - a cross, a triangle, and a prayer that it would work, more than anything else.
She felt the warmth of the mark upon the stone wall, and when the boyar’s sword swung for her head she threw herself to the ground. The Hearteater scraped by overhead, and when she turned to look at the burning sigil she focused her mind into a sharpened point, a fine needle to pop free the last of her strength. The golden sigil ignited, exploding with a brilliant, blinding flash. The boyar went flying backwards, skidding and bouncing against the blood-slicked cobblestones.
Now! Now!
She took the Kladenets in both hands, and rushed the boyar as he struggled to his feet. The stone cleaver seemed to sing hungrily as it whistled through the air, but something felt wrong. Zinoviy’s head came apart like an overripe melon as the stone teeth ripped through his head at the jaw, spraying her with crimson and gray. But then she herself was blinded. Blinded by black flame.
The Hearteater slashed across her face - she first felt the touch of steel, and then the blazing, agonizing cold. She felt as though she had been slapped, but the stinging lingered long after the blow had passed. Her eye was awash with blood, and cold, so damnably cold. Through the crimson veil and the deafening pounding of her head, she was vaguely aware that the battle seemed to have gone past the two of them, or perhaps their clash had drawn them away from the fight.
She turned her single good eye down the streets. The usurpers' troops were being harried well by her men, and more were pouring out from the gates of the keep in a sortie, driving the enemy back into the narrow alleys where their greater numbers were for naught. Where she stood, crows were already beginning to settle upon the dead and the dying for their feast.
Vasilisa braced herself upon the Kladenets, and staggered over towards Zinoviy’s corpse. In his second death, he was almost unrecognizeable - the lower half of his face was a ruin, and little better could be said for the rest. Still, some urge told her to grasp it, and so she staggered towards the battle with the Kladenets in one hand, and the severed head of the boyar of Denev in the other.
Blood, warm, dripping blood, gushed down her face as she heaved with the effort of merely walking. Then at last, she was among the ranks of her own men, and facing the enemy.
With a roar, she raised up the head of the dead boyar, her words slurred.
“Your boyar is dead!” she remembered shouting. “Remain, and you will join him in hell! Run, run, run you precious fools! Run, and never return, or it will be your heads that I will claim next, and your hearts I will eat! I am Vasilisa, Vasilisa of Belnopyl, and this city is mine!”
Then the rest was a blur. She recalled seeing the army of the usurpers retreat, and the distant blaring of horns. Vague, swirling voices around her spoke of some other army, the usurpers fighting among themselves, and of crows and horses. But she was lying on the cold, hard ground alone at the end of it, and the voices all trailed off. All, save for one.
“Be still, my lady.” A girl’s voice. Austeja.
“A- ‘steja…” she managed to croak. “Where…Yesugei?”
“It is over, it is over. Rest, rest and-”
The voice suddenly cut off. Vasilisa’s head felt as though it were made of lead. She could scarcely turn to see Austeja’s face, her brows furrowed. Then she felt herself lowered to the ground, and the shaman was standing, brandishing a sword.
“You,” spoke Austeja. Her voice trembled with fear, but her hand was steady. “Leave her. Leave us. Leave us all. I will not let you take her, I will not let you-”
The black chain wrapped itself around Austeja’s neck, and then there sounded a horrible, terrible crunch. The shaman slumped to the ground.
Austeja? No…who? A chain?
“Who…who…” she breathed, but then she felt herself being lifted by a pair of strong, rough arms. A gentle hand stroked her hair, and her eyelids became unbearably heavy. The battle was over…it was over, and she was so, so tired…
“Yes,” spoke the voice, as sweet as music to her ears, lulling her into the darkness. “It is over. Rest, my lady. Rest, and awaken anew.”