Book One: Maze of Vanthart

Chapter one: [The fateful escape]

Part One

At the edge of a large and dark forest, a carriage drawn by two horses drove quickly on a rough road made of large, grey stone bricks.

Quietly listening to the sound of the wheels, I sat inside a wooden carriage, between two thin and hungered girls whose wrists bled from their iron shackles. The carriage shook violently as it passed over the roughly processed stone. Inside the wagon, there was nothing to cushion the jolts, so those inside had to endure the pain continuously. There, we were all in the same state, starved and emaciated, with bruises and wounds from the ride or the driver’s lashes.

My name? I don’t remember. Everything was a blur, my head hazy. My clothes, a plain and old white dress were rugged, I can’t even remember who gifted it to me. My memories were in tatters, almost destroyed by the slavers’ whips. All I had was a vague recollection on my father’s and brother’s faces, and the picture of a house made of dark wooden logs. The house was on flames, and I heard faint screams as I remembered the scene of when I was abducted by the slavers. That was weeks ago. Father had been injured, I could recollect, and Brother was desperate to save me, but unable to do so. No one could blame him though, all he’d had was a stick when the lord’s troops had swords and armor.

I looked up, to see a painful picture of famine and exhaustion. We were to be transported to the lord’s manor after the slavers had “whipped us in shape”, as they had expressed it. To be his concubines was our fate, apparently. No good was ever heard from our prefecture’s lord, he had violent manners and none of those sent to his manor ever returned. Then, just as I was solemnly looking at the sorry sight…

Something burst, and the carriage was hurled to the side. One of its wheels had shattered, the recoil flinging it off the road into the grass. I was spun around and catapulted out of the wagon. Fortunately, my landing was feathered as well as silenced by grass. I’d landed inside a meadow of fairly high grass, around waist-height. I bobbed myself up and carefully looked around. I’d sensed a chance to escape. The guards, if they weren’t confused by the accident, were busy collecting the carriages’ remains and undoing the horses’ restraints, paying no attention to the slaves who groaned in pain. This was my chance, wasn’t it? Much, I cannot remember. My process of thought was hazy and uncontrolled. I reflexively ran, into the forest. I believe to recall that another girl had attempted to run into another direction, but was soon captured by an attentive guard. I think this one’s sacrifice was what allowed me to escape into the forest before the knights noticed. They did notice, but too late. Behind me, I heard bellows and commands, and the metallic clatters of armor. One of the guards must have seen me running into the forest. The guards assigned to bring us were obviously inexperienced, since they bothered to escort slaves into the manor while wearing full armor. That was my saving grace. I was faster than the armored soldier.

I ran, ran and ran, fled until I lost sense of time and pain, and my consciousness had almost faded. The knight was behind me, that I intuitively knew. He closely followed me. Even though he wore armor and I had been trained fairly well by Father and Brother, he slowly but surely caught up to me. I was famished, I hadn’t eaten a hearty meal since my abduction some weeks before. However, luck was on my side that day, since the guard fell over a root. He quickly stood up, wobbled around for a second and then resumed following me, catching up once again. This continued until we had reached some old ruins. I didn’t pay them much attention, since my only focus was on escaping the menace behind me. We ran into the ruins. Those ruins, as I can recollect, were hardly visible remains of something that could be said to have been a house, or mansion. Its age must have been more than four hundred years. Just as we reached the middle of those ruins and the guard had almost reached me, the ground suddenly caved in.

And this would be where all of it began. My journey, my adventure. If I hadn’t fallen down there that time, I wouldn’t be where I am now. The guard would have gotten me, and dragged me to his lord’s manor. Perhaps I wouldn’t even be alive right now. And even if I were, I would live a slave’s life.

Part Two

The ground had broken down. A hole opened up beneath me and the guard. It had a diameter of around thirty foot and was black as the deepest night. We fell down, unable to avoid the gaping hole. I screamed, he screamed. Then I hit the ground. Everything that wasn’t black yet went black. I lost consciousness.

At first, when I had woken up, I saw almost nothing. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. I slowly rose up. A small ray of light shone down on the ground of a long tunnel. I looked right and left, all I could see was a dark corridor roughly carved out of the ground. It had a diameter of around fifteen foot. I turned around and almost let out a loud scream, however I had the sense to suppress myself in the last second. What if beasts were around? The sight before me was gruesome. Where we broke through the ceiling, the tunnel had almost completely caved in, only a six foot space, the one I stood in, was remaining. The guard who’d fallen down into the hole together with me had his legs up until his waist buried under the rubble. He didn’t show any signs of being alive. Slowly I approached the soldier. Then, in a sudden motion, his hand grabbed my ankle. I shrieked and fell down. In my panic, I grabbed a stone the size of a fist, and hit the knight’s head, repeatedly. I hit and hit, until my arms yielded and I had no strength left.

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Frightened, I backed away from the bloody thing that once was the soldier’s head until I reached the wall with my back. My rugged and frantic breathing was all I could hear. I escaped, that was my first thought. I escaped from those horrible slavers and the fate of being a concubine for the cruel lord. It’s over. I didn’t spare even one thought on the situation I found myself in, not one that I killed someone just now. Instead, I started to remember everything from before my abduction. Freed from the cold and merciless shackles of being a slave, my memory returned and I remembered. I recalled how the soldiers came into our village, burned houses down and took away me and a few other young village girls. I had seen my father trying to get me back from the soldiers. One of them then used the back of his sword to hit Father in the head. The same fate awaited my one year older brother, who stood behind Father.

Cowering on the ground, I recalled and broke into tears. I hadn’t been crying even once, not after seeing Father and Brother getting hurt, not when beaten and beaten, not when on the way to my certain doom. I suppose it was a way of showing rebellion. While I wasn’t highly educated, I have intelligence. I knew not to show too much disdain and rebellious will to the slavers, doing so would only urge them do to more. Now freed from their clutches, everything I had been holding back broke free. Adding to this the pain of killing someone for the first time, I sobbed and wailed until I lost all sense of time and the small ray of sunlight had been replaced by the pale light of the moon. I had also remembered my name: Lazarus. Lacrosse Lazarus. My father was named Layett, my brother Lasar Lazarus. I wasn’t content with my name, though. It reminded me of a legend I didn’t like, of a hero called Lazarus, who, after vanquishing a horrible beast, married the most beautiful woman. I hated heroes, they who had everything. I hated those who went only after looks as well. As for why our last name was Lazarus, my father had a thing for flashy names.

Once I calmed myself down again, I rubbed my eyes dry and began asserting the situation. I was trapped, together with a corpse, inside a dungeon I didn’t know of. I knew of quite some dungeons that had been discovered previously since my father was an adventurer and would often tell me of his deeds inside those dungeons. Through those tales I was also aware that, upon finding a dungeon, one should immediately report back and avoid going inside at all costs. Only raiding parties of more than twelve experienced adventurers should venture inside an undiscovered and unexplored dungeon. As such, I decided to wait, on the slim chance someone heard the ruins caving in and sent someone to look, even though I knew that it was practically not present. Waiting still was better than moving deeper inside a labyrinth where any kind of beast and danger could wait for me, with neither food nor equipment. As I thought of equipment, I looked towards the body of the soldier. I noticed that in his hand, he held a 22-inch long gladius made from iron. The handle was plain, this indicated that he hadn’t been part of the nobility. A sign that made me feel hopeless. The chances of someone searching for them, even if it were the lord’s men, were slimmed down massively. I might have no other choice than to try and find something edible down here, I thought to myself. Besides the soldier, luckily intact, I found a leather pouch with water. I immediately drank a few gulps, but restrained myself.

I counted my assets: Food: None. Liquids: Little. Hunger: Yes. Strength: Barely any left. Equipment: A one-piece dress and a gladius. Location: The worst possible, an unexplored dungeon.

Such a favorable situation, I thought sarcastically. I crawled to the guard, took the gladius and cut off any kind of cloth that was not stained with blood or ripped apart by the rubble. I recovered around ten square foot of cloth. I cowered myself between two rocks and dug my feet into the spot of earth the thin ray of light shone on, to keep them as warm as possible. Afterwards, I covered myself with the small amount of cloth I recovered. Shortly after, I fell asleep.