Chapter 40 - Fingernails

The first few nights on patrol were the worst, both in terms of just being out of shape for the long overland hikes, and having no idea where they were going. However, as time passed, Cadryn got better at following the game trails and marked out paths around the Neeft. By the fifth night, with the moon bright above, he did not even reach for a lantern while following Felina out the gate. Maybe if he did, he would had have noticed the added rigidity in her posture, or the anger in her steps before she whirled on him after he turned off down the usual path.

“Not that way, we’ve got a bullshit assignment, count of your girlfriend’s nerves.”

Cadryn stopped. Coming back up to the road, he could see the scrunched up face and hear the tapping of Felina’s boot on the gravel. He began to wonder how much she really cared about him, despite claiming otherwise. Cadryn found his thumb spinning the bracelet she had given him while they had been enjoying one another, the stone was cool in the autumn air.

“Not that again,” he said, crossing his arms. “You think she’s making up the reports of strange noises?”

“I think she wants her dandy back in the Guard Post instead of the boring and haughty Encara Tos,” Felina said, punctuating her point by spitting into the ditch. “But the Captain says look, so we look.”

With that, she set off on a new path, one they had not taken so far. It cut across the drainage ditch; a long jump for him that Felina made easily. After, they wormed against the outer wall of Redoubt itself, passing the spot where he had caught the young would-be thief Grey climbing more than month ago now. No signs of recent attempts marked the stonework and they moved on. Stepping and leaping across pitfalls, nothing but the now constant north-eastern wind howling down off the battlements above to drown out the sounds of their mutual exertion. Circling the entire Neeft, they came in the southern gate opposite their departure.

“Fuckin’ nothing, told ya,” Felina hissed, tossing her coat at Cadryn and heading for the toll house to get lunch. He knew it was best to leave her alone, and decided to cool down from the hard hike with a walk around the Lower Gardens. Ascending the stairs, he nearly collided with Encara.

“Apologies,” she gasps, doubling over, her normally immaculate clothes rumpled and sticking to her skin. “I need to report something.”

******

After Encara caught her breath, and managing to drink almost an entire glass of wine in one go, she shared the discovery with Felina and Cadryn: She too, had heard things. Some sort of moaning and clawing come up from the tunnels near the sealed off western entrance to the Redoubt. They had passed by there about an hour ago now, and at ground level, the deep fissures along that part of rise the Neeft squatted on went down into the bedrock, and the Underground Cells themselves.

Where the noises came from.

After telling Encara to inform Mareth that they would be investigating this new report, Felina lead the way across the inside of the fortification to a long ladder down into the tunnels and underground. The moon had moved, and now light poured down the ladder revealing a partially flooded landing of mossy stonework. They waited, but nothing stirred and only the wind in their ears answered.

“I’ll go first,” Cadryn said, unable to wait any longer.

“I’ll tell’em you died brave,” Felina replied, her easy nature returning with the hope of action. That she hadn’t spoken a word during or after Encara’s confirmation of the noises had been worrying. This response, by contrast, was a comforting return of normalcy in an otherwise strange situation.

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Cadryn swung a leg down, felt the ladder give slightly at his weight, held on tightly, and put down his other leg to the lower rung, found it sturdier. A long minute later and his feet slid on the green stones of the tunnel mouth. He suddenly regretted not grabbing a lantern on their way over here. Felina’s more graceful landing followed him as he began to look around the wet passageway. Sediment heavy yellow-brown water flowed a few inches deep out from the Neeft.

“Just some ‘rosion,” Felina drawled, “The sewage goes out to the north side, down into the canyon.”

“Good to know,” Cadryn said, stepping slowly into the flow. His footing held after a moment of sinking into the sludgy bottom. “Do you hear anything?”

“Just you yappin’ Cad,” she said, and pulling a long bottle from her jacket. She uncorked the half-full bottle, poured some white powder from a folded up square of paper into it. Bright yellow light bloomed within as she re-corked and shook the bottle. “Gift from Alchemist Drast,” she said, holding it up above Cadryn.

The opening of the tunnel, now lit, was much more disgusting. The thick water burbled past the grate in the outer wall to one side, and led up into the fortification until it hit a turn in the tunnel in the other direction. Moss hung in sheets from the walls, sickly and pale, leaving the air smelling of mildew. The grate itself was mostly covered in the leaves of a creeper vine, but patches allowed some view of the deep ravine beyond, largely lightless and devoid of larger plants.

“What are those,” Felina asked, pointing to the surface of the water near the grate and holding out the bottle to him.

Cadryn took the light, and sloshed his way over, lamenting the time it would take to clean his boots. Stooping down, he could see it was a mass of leaves for the most part, all freshly torn, mixed in were odd discs of white material that caught the light. Looking at the patches of torn away vines, he found more and plucked one from the rusting metal: a human fingernail.

There were more, some stuck on the grate, others floating with the leaves.

Slowly collecting a few, and not taking his eyes off the ravine beyond the grate, Cadryn backed up to where Felina waited.

“We need to tell the others about this,” he whispered.

*****

Captain Vaast kept his office at the Neeft within the old apartments Oathkeeper Jalisco, high atop the primary turret of the Redoubt. The rooms held a commanding view of both the toll house below, and the inner courtyard of the citadel. They were also even with the lower levels of the sky gardens, giving them a continuous supply of fresh, flower scented air. It was perhaps only this last element that prevented Sefton from claiming the rooms for himself, as he was sensitive to some of the species, sneezing uncontrollably when they bloomed. For an old soldier like Vaast Von Rompa however, it was as close to paradise as he expected to come.

Leaving his sullied boots in the mudroom, Cadryn ignored Felina’s chuckling as he padded his way through the smoking room to the Captain’s office. The door was open, as he often left it while on duty at night. Within he could see the Captain reading one of Sefton’s reports by the blue light of the Redoubt’s eternal sconces.

“Enter,” Vaast rumbled, turning the delicate page with a single finger and thumb, as if it might disintegrate at his rude touch. Glancing at Cadryn, he sat up to his full height. “This will be good, I hope,” he said, eyes narrowing at the bootless youth with hands full of wet leaves.

“It ain’t,” Felina called out. She had drifted into the smoking room and, taking care to keep Cadryn between her and Captain, plucked a cigar from the case on the reading table by the door.

“It isn’t, young Felina,” Vaast corrected. He seemed set on convincing her to speak properly, with little to show for it, “and put that back, isn’t thieving how you got here?”

Felina replaced the cigar he had seen her take, dropping the other one from her sleeve into a coat pocket. “Yes, sirrr,” she said, flopping down into a chair.

“She’s not wrong, Sir,” Cadryn said, shifting the leaves in his hands, smaller object spilled out onto the granite desktop, making tiny clicks as they bounced.

“Where did you find these?” the Captain asked, suddenly serious.

“At one of the old tunnels, leading out to the ravines,” Cadryn said, walking to toss the leaves out the window, “the scratching looked fresh.”

“Most grave,” Vaast replied, scratching at his bread. His eyes, normally grey, flashed like silver in the blue light as he met Cadryn’s. “You and I will investigate this next eve. Dismissed.”

Saluting, Cadryn collected Felina and retreated. Behind them, Captain Vaast pushed aside the stack of files and, opening a seldom used drawer in his great desk, retrieved a gilded tomb bound in grey leather. A leering skull adorned the cover and cracking it open dust danced over the granite surface like the floor of the long abandoned tomb. Flipping through the pages Vaast spoke, perhaps to the book as much as himself.

“It’s been a long time, since I’ve fought the dead.”