Wulf Almsson, city guardsman, serves the king, even as the people he loves incite rebellion. All Wulf can do is try to protect them and the folk who suffer under the oppressive thumb of the tyrant…until the day that he discovers that the king is no man, but a serpent cloaked in flesh. Quick, unkillable, and insatiably hungry. And the serpent knows that Wulf has found him out. Blackmailed by his manipulative captain, Wulf has no choice but to go along with schemes to overthrow the serpent king. If he wants to save the city that he loves, he must be prepared to make sacrifices…even if it means giving up part of himself.
***
Last time, Royse revealed his purpose for saving Wulf’s life--to send him down to a long-abandoned dragon’s hoard in search of a weapon he could use to kill the Serpent King.
The two men at the gate had clearly been ordered to let in anyone asking for the captain without question. Cloaked and hooded, Wulf and Dyani followed one of them through the corridors to Royse’s office.
He was still awake, sipping a glass of wine in front of his fire. At their entry, he stood, nodding to the guard. “Thank you. I’ll take it from here.” He waited until the door closed behind the guard before speaking again. “So you’ve decided to do as I asked?”
“That makes it sound like he had any choice,” Dyani muttered.
“It’s not my problem that you didn’t like the options I offered.” Royse brushed past them. “Come.”
He led them through quiet halls and down a set of stairs. Wulf recognized where they were heading and reached out, taking Dyani’s hand and gently squeezing it to reassure her.
Royse swung open a metal barred door, revealing a corridor lined with barred cells.
Dyani balked. “The prison cells? Why are we here?”
Royse turned to her. “Those who work in the caves are criminals. Thieves, murderers, rebels.” He let the last word linger for a moment before continuing. “Our prisons have supplied these primarily for the last few years. We have to make this look convincing.” He pulled open a cell door and gestured them inside.
“If you’re worried about unseen watchers, how will you keep anyone from recognizing me?” Wulf asked.
The corner of Royse’s mouth twitched. “The prisoners chosen to work in the caves aren’t allowed to see where they’re going.”
Tension coiled in Wulf’s belly, but he stepped past Royse into the cell. Dyani followed him, spine stiff.
“The men coming for you are ones I trust,” Royse said, closing the door behind them. “They have instructions not to handle you roughly, as long as you don’t try to fight back.”
The cell door swung shut behind them with a sharp, echoing finality, leaving a guttering lantern their only companion.
Wulf looked around. A few wisps of rotting straw were piled in a corner of the room. Other than that, the cell was bare stone and crumbling mortar.
He made an overly grand gesture towards the straw. “Your bed awaits, my lady.”
Dyani let out a choked laugh and hugged him. “Are we doing the right thing?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” Wulf wrapped her in his arms and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I sure hope so.”
The sound of the door creaking open snapped Wulf out of his light sleep. In a matter of seconds, he’d shifted Dyani out of his arms and rolled to his feet.
The light of multiple lanterns nearly blinded him. Wulf could only see the dark outlines of several men before hands seized his arms.
“Both of them,” someone barked.
Dyani cried out in panic. “Wulf!”
“Don’t fight them,” he reminded her, just as a bag dropped over his head.
Wulf shook his head in surprise, and the hands grasping him dug painfully into his arms. He stilled, holding his breath. Chains clanked, and he could hear Dyani’s panicked breathing not far from him. He started to reach out, to feel for her hand, but the guards jerked his arm back to his side.
Shackles tightened around his wrists, and then the men guided him forward. Wulf’s feet stumbled on the rough stone floor and up the uneven steps.
The bag over his head was of rough jute, scraping against his face and sticking to his hair, like a potato sack. The loose weave let Wulf vaguely see his surroundings. He didn’t dare move his head much, but out of the corners of his eyes, he could see the vague shapes of guards on either side of him. It wasn’t enough to recognize them. Royse had said they were loyal—he would have to trust his captain.
Even if he didn’t want to.
As they emerged from the prison, Wulf could tell it was not quite dawn. He risked a quick glimpse over his shoulder and got a blurry, vague sight of Dyani and her guards following them, before one of his guards grabbed the back of the bag and a handful of his hair, yanking him around to face forward once more.
Wulf stumbled over something that crumbled underfoot. The scent of charcoal and ash rose in the air, and something else…something acrid, something that burned his nostrils.
They were walking through the Western Quarter.
He could hear the city waking up around them, but here in the scorched streets the sounds were muffled, eerily quiet.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, more puzzle pieces clicked into place. He felt sick.
The king had ordered the Western Quarter burned because that was where the entrance to the dragon cave was. Not because of rebels. Not because he lost control of that section of the city. But because he wanted treasure.
The guards led him towards a tall, ragged shape that Wulf guessed must be the remnants of a guard tower, set not far from the city’s walls. As they stepped into it, sounds came back in a rush, drumming into Wulf’s ears. He flinched at the voices echoing off the stone walls.
“Hey, got two more for us?” Someone shouted. A stocky man came into view.
One of the guards nodded and let go of Wulf’s arm. He held out a small coin pouch. “Your usual payment.”
The stocky man raised an eyebrow. “So they’re some of Royce’s.”
The guard nodded.
The stocky man sighed. “Let’s get them on the crane then.” He waved off to his right.
The guards walked them over, the sound of their footsteps changing from the scrape of leather on stone to the hollow thud of wood.
The floor suddenly shifted under them, and Wulf’s stomach dropped. Wulf heard Dyani’s feet scuff against the floor, her sharp gasp echoing off the stone walls. Wulf glanced over his shoulder and saw that her guards had had to drag her forward, her entire body gone tense.
“It’s a platform attached to a crane,” the guard at his right said in an undertone. “It’s fine. Keep walking.”
He had to force himself to take the next step.
Several other men came into blurred view, standing beside the platform’s railing. When one of his guards lifted Wulf’s hands to the railing, he understood. They were prisoners like him and Dyani, shackled to the railing to keep them from bolting.
As the guard tugged on Wulf’s shackles to make sure they were secure, he leaned closer and whispered, “Good luck.”
Wulf grunted. They could wish him all the luck they wanted, but it still didn’t mean a damned thing.
The guards’ footsteps receded, leaving behind only the foreman shouting orders to the men loading the crane platform. Wulf tightened his fingers around the railing, trying not to flinch every time the platform under their feet shuddered from the thud of a barrel or crate. To his left, he heard Dyani give a soft whimper. He reached over, the shackles on his wrist rattling. The chain around the railing gave him just enough length to be able to reach her, to press his hand over hers. He could feel her death grip on the railing, and the way she trembled.
Dyani twisted her hand, her fingers wrapping around his and squeezing like a vice.
After a few moments, the foreman called out, “All right, that’s good enough. Let’s take her down.”
Wulf squeezed Dyani’s hand tighter as the platform lurched. Dyani and several of the other prisoners cried out. The loud, grating churn of the crane’s gears echoed off the stone walls, digging into Wulf’s ears and scraping around the inside of his skull.
Below them, a dark chasm yawned into the earth, and as the platform lowered, cool air rushed over Wulf’s skin. He gripped the railing with his free hand, heart hammering in his throat, and watched the shadowed walls slip past outside the loose weave of the sack over his head.
Gradually, the darkness of the tunnel gave way to the wavering gold of torchlight. Wulf felt when it opened up into the cavern—the air stopped swirling tightly around them, and it was almost like he could feel the walls giving way, spreading out into a huge, sprawling space.
Someone yanked the sack from his head. Wulf pulled in a deep breath of humid, cold, musty air, grateful that it no longer filtered through a sack that smelled like old potatoes, and turned to watch as the guards unhooded the rest of the prisoners.
The large cavern around them was honey-combed with patterns of light and dark. Torches blazed around the perimeter of the cavern, and Wulf guessed it to be bigger than the castle. The highest part of the ceiling stretched up into darkness, though he could faintly see another, bigger chimney of stone that was blocked by fallen rocks—the original entrance to the cavern, he guessed, since the crane’s channel was barely large enough to fit their platform, and certainly not big enough for a dragon.
More torches peppered the floor of the cavern, illuminating an uneven floor of cracked, broken rocks. A few buildings were tucked to their right, close to the loading dock. Tunnels honeycombed the sides of the cavern he could see. Most of them looked natural, though a few of the larger ones had rough-hewn edges, as if someone had widened them once. Most of the other side of the cavern was blocked by a huge mound of mottled yellow-and-white stone debris. Wulf could see several figures clambering around on the mound, while others crossed back and forth over the floor to large crates.
The platform came to a stop a few feet above the floor, and several men hurried over to push it flush with the loading dock. Wulf braced as well as he could as it thumped into the side of the dock, but one of the other prisoners staggered and dropped to his knees. As the crane platform was secured, several soldiers stepped up onto it, crossing to the prisoners.
The soldiers unlocked everyone’s shackles from the railing, but left the manacles in place as they ushered the four prisoners off the platform and to the side. Wulf watched as the other workers—all wearing tunics emblazoned with the castle crest, like the crane workers above, but no armor—hurriedly off-loaded the barrels and crates, then stacked several smaller barrels and sacks that clinked and jingled on the platform. One of the men heaved on the ropes and jumped off the platform. A few minutes later, it began to rise back up through the channel, blocking the weak sunlight that filtered down into the cavern.
As soon as it was out of their reach, the soldiers unlocked the shackles around the prisoners’ wrists. Wulf shook out his arms, glancing over at Dyani as he rubbed at where the metal had chafed his skin.
She winced and reached over, stilling his hands. “Don’t. It will only make them worse.”
One of the soldiers knocked their hands apart. Wulf glared at him. The man just shrugged and stepped back out of arm’s reach, hand dropping to the sword at his side.
One of the men who had unloaded the crane platform—another foreman, Wulf guessed—walked over to them, his quick brown eyes flicking over each of them in turn. He gestured to the other two men. “Show them where they can start.” He looked at Wulf and Dyani and jerked his chin to the side. “You two, follow me.”
Wulf heard one of the other prisoners grumbling a complaint as he and Dyani followed the foreman off to the side. He pushed open a door to one of the buildings, ushering them inside. There was no proper floor—instead, the ramshackle buildings had been built directly onto the floor of the cavern. The hallway was dim, the only light filtering in through the cracks in the boards. To their right, another open door led into a sort of kitchen—Wulf could see a man standing over a huge griddle set over open flames, sweating as he shoved around a mass of frying eggs.
The foreman walked to the end of the hallway and opened another door, motioning them inside. Wulf was surprised—this room was brightly lit by lanterns hanging from the ceiling. There was a well-made desk and chair in one corner, and a large table with a half-finished map stood in another corner.
The foreman stopped and faced them, folding his arms across his barrel chest. “You two must be the ones Royse sent.”
Wulf nodded, started to reply.
“Don’t,” the man said. “I don’t need to know your names. All you need to know is that mine is Arren, and I’m the mine foreman. I don’t know what Royse sent you here for, and I don’t want to know. He paid me to supply you two and let you see the map of the caverns, and that’s what I’m going to do, no more, no less.” He pointed to the door behind them. “The minute you walk back outside that door, I’m done with you, and you with me, understand?”
Wulf nodded.
Arren waved them towards the map table. “Take a look at it, then, while I get your supplies.” He started for the door, then paused and made eye contact with Wulf. “And let me disavow you of the idea of climbing out of here. Plenty of men try it, and I’ve seen every one of them plummet to their deaths. The crane is the only way in, and the only way out.”
“So what happens when we need to get out?” Dyani asked.
“We’ll get to that when it comes.” The look on Arren’s face said he didn’t expect to need to deal with that. He left the room, leaving the door open after him.
Wulf leaned on the edge of the table, frowning down at the map. It wasn’t one sheet of parchment, like he’d first thought, but rather a collection of smaller pieces, all tacked into place. The central cavern was depicted in detail, noting the position of the crane, the buildings they stood in, and the formation in the center of the cavern. Most of the tunnels seemed to have been mapped to completion, especially the bigger ones he’d noticed at the west side of the cavern, but there were a few that ended abruptly.
Dyani propped her chin on her fist as she studied the map.
“Any thoughts?” Wulf asked her.
She sighed and blew a curl of hair out of her face. “It’s going to take days, even if we focus on the places they haven’t dully explored yet.” She gestured to the unmapped passageways. “Maybe longer.”
Wulf draped his arm over her shoulders, tugging her gently to his side. Dyani pressed against him, and he could feel her pull in a deep, frustrated breath. It had been the first time he’d touched her since they’d been dragged out of the prison cell, and Wulf immediately felt his neck and back relax a little. “Just tell me where to go,” he said softly. “We both know you’re the brains and I’m the muscle here.”
That got her to laugh—a soft one, barely a sound on her exhale, but he was going to count it anyway.
Arren came back into the room, shoving a couple of small packs at Wulf. “The scavengers usually use these for hauling in whatever they’ve found in the tunnels, but I’ve packed these full of supplies. Food, blankets.” He nodded to Dyani. “We were told you’re a healer, so there’s a small kit in your pack.”
“Considerate of Royse,” Dyani muttered, crouching down to open her pack and dig into it.
“How much freedom do we have to move around here?” Wulf asked. “The guards won’t bother us?”
Arren shook his head. “We send people into the tunnels all the time. You might be missed when you don’t show up for meals, but—” He shrugged. “People disappear down there all the time. Sometimes they make it back out. Sometimes they don’t.”
Wulf nodded and glanced back at Dyani. She’d grabbed a blank piece of parchment and a stick of charcoal, sketching out a quick copy of the bigger map that she stuffed into the pocket of her overskirt.
“Good luck,” Arren told them.
Wulf briefly considered calling him out on the lack of sincerity in his tone, but decided to not bother.
Thank you for reading this installment of Serpent King’s Castle!