39. [Cortland] Lost Art (Patreon)

Note: I screwed up some details in Chapter 38, so that's been lightly edited. (Carina has [Alert], not Cortland.)

--DRAMATIS PERSONAE—

Cortland Finiron, Hammer Master of the 12th Renown, Kingdom of Infinzel, needs a course in leadership

Carina Goldstone, Henry Blacksalve, and Vitt Secondson-Salvado, champions of Infinzel, struggling to work together

Issa Firstdot-Tuarez and Walton Tendersword, barely keeping it together

23 Harvesend, 61 AW

The Underneath

217 days until the next Granting

“I'm going to kill whatever set that trap.” Vitt's words came in a sharp hiss. He sounded like a noble who’d had wine spilled on him by a clumsy servant. “Disfigured me…”

“Relax,” Henry said. He held Vitt's chin in one hand, using [Healing Touch] on the two shallow punctures in the hunter's cheek. “It's nothing. Your women won't know the difference.”

Hearing that, Cortland’s hand tightened on his hammer. Nothing? Getting outfoxed by such a rudimentary trap wasn’t nothing.

They had regrouped in the tunnel crossing after Vitt set off the tripwire. Walton Tendersword had been cut on the side of his head, but it was a superficial wound and Cortland thought the boy might have done it to himself while ducking for cover. Otherwise, there were no injuries. Sharpened scrounger legs were far from crossbow bolts. Even so, the incident had left the group rattled.

“What lives down here that sets traps?” Issa asked. Even in the flickering torchlight, he could tell her face had gone pale from the implications.

“Nothing,” Cortland snapped, then corrected himself. “Nothing we know of.”

Carina stood next to Walton, her hands on her hips as she peered up at the towering cadet. The logician’s wheels were clearly spinning. If Vitt took off hunting whatever was down here with them, she would likely be right behind him.

“Walton, remind me, what was it that you reported hearing down here?” Carina asked. “What did the gargoyle say?”

Issa cocked her head. “Gargoyles don’t talk.”

“He said one did,” Carina replied. “It wasn’t just your imagination, was it, Walton?”

Cortland saw how the boy's eyes were all pupils. His jaw worked, but his mouth didn't open. If she kept at him, Cortland sensed, the young man would break. He’d already come close to lopping his own ear off with his broadsword.

“Enough,” Cortland snapped at Carina. “Save your gods dammed survey questions for when we're topside. We’re down here for Ink, not boogeymen.”

Carina started to respond, but then took a closer look at Tendersword. She backed off, allowing Cortland to grab the young soldier by his burly shoulders.

“Listen to me, son,” Cortland said quietly, needing to crane his head back to look into the boy’s wild eyes. “Nothing will happen to you if you keep your shit together and do what I tell you. Understand?”

Walton nodded, but Cortland could tell he didn’t believe.

Cortland had screwed this up. He hadn't given a speech like Ben would have before they went through the gate. He'd assumed everyone would simply know what they were doing, go where they were supposed to, because he always had when he went on a foray. But that was because he had Ben looking over his shoulder. Foolish of him not to keep better control over this outing.

Cortland sighed. “I’m going to give you something. All right?”

Walton finally rediscovered his voice. “What?”

In answer, Cortland used [Bolster]. The Ink was meant to revitalize an exhausted comrade, let them draw on some of Cortland’s strength to keep going. Mostly, on the island, he kept the ability in reserve for Henry. The effect on Walton was immediate. New power coiled through his huge arms—he relaxed his grip on his sword some as the blade felt suddenly lighter. Fresh clarity came into Walton’s eyes. Hard to be scared when you felt unstoppable.  

“What was that?” Walton asked, like he’d just tasted the nectar of gods which, in a way, he had.

“A fraction of what I got,” Cortland said. “So now you know I’m not bullshitting you.”

  Meanwhile, Henry had finished the healing, so Cortland shouldered him aside and grabbed Vitt roughly by the collar. Cortland shook the hunter with a force that startled him.

“Your first time in these fucking tunnels, yeah? You a gods damned virgin again, Vitt?” Cortland snarled. “Running off at the mouth. Breaking formation. Acting like a fool. You haven't seen what can happen when our guard's down? You haven't seen what can happen to us with one unlucky shot?”

Vitt’s gaze focused—briefly finding Issa Firstdot-Tuarez over Cortland’s shoulder. Then, he nodded once, almost managing to look chastened. “I hear you, Cortland,” Vitt said quietly.

Cortland released him. “Bring your girl out. If we can’t light the way back, I at least want something following behind.”

“Of course.”

Vitt stroked his hand through the air at hip level—once, twice—and on the third pass his fingers slid through a silky coat of jet black fur. He had used [Summon Nightstalker]. The sleekly muscular jungle cat now standing at Vitt’s side let out a low growl, scratching her claws against the rock floor. Her yellow eyes flashed in the torchlight. While the champions hardly reacted, Issa and Walton readied their weapons.

“Trail us, Patricia,” Vitt cooed.

Cortland never felt comfortable around Vitt’s nightstalker. A creature that existed via the Ink, popping into life only when Vitt willed it so. He couldn’t articulate the philosophical reasons why that bothered him. Vitt claimed that she was always the same nightstalker—he had even gone as far as to name her after a particularly punishing governess he’d enjoyed during his youth—and that she remembered all of her many deaths. During training exercises, Cortland had caved the cat’s head in at least twice. Perhaps that was why she unnerved him. Even so, Patricia was a welcome sight now, slinking back the way they came at Vitt’s command.

“Back in formation,” Cortland said to the others. “No more chatter or diversions.”

As they returned to their positions, Carina caught his eye. “You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for,” she said quietly.

“Shut up,” he replied. “Focus on your Ink. I want plenty of warning before anyone blunders into the next trap.”

They advanced slowly and silently down the corridor—a long and wide straightaway with baby stalactites hanging overhead. They’d nearly reached the end when Carina spoke up.

“Something’s coming.”

They hardly needed the warning. Soon, the clatter of stone-on-stone echoed down the tunnel.

Gargoyles.

Cortland put a hand on Issa’s shoulder. “Hold here.” He stepped out in front of the others. “Let them come to us.”

“Sounds like three,” Vitt said.

“I’ll take the first, you take the second, we’ll split the third,” Cortland said.

Vitt notched an arrow.

“And us?” Issa said.

“Let them work,” Henry told her.

The gargoyles bounded into view in a V-formation. Bodies chiseled from pale stone, icy blue veins glowing. Cortland hunkered low and waited.

The lead gargoyle pounced and Cortland met it with the top of his hammer. He didn’t use much force. He didn’t need to. He activated [Destroy] on contact with the monster.

The gargoyle shattered into hundreds of pebbles and ice chunks. [Destroy] was meant for walls or barricades or anything that Cortland wanted removed from his path. It worked only on nonorganic material, so the gargoyle very much qualified. The creature’s core—a pulsing snowball etched with glowing runes—plunked to the ground. The chunks of gargoyle skittered back toward the core. If it wasn’t destroyed, the gargoyle would eventually reconstitute itself. Cortland stomped down on the core, feeling the ice crunching beneath his boot, and the stones went still.

The second gargoyle came in low, head down, like a horse resisting being led. Vitt’s arrow still found its way into the monster’s empty eye socket. [Deadeye] assured the hunter couldn’t miss. The core inside the gargoyle burst and the construct crumbled.

The final gargoyle took to the air, attempting to get over Cortland and attack the softer-seeming targets behind him. Cortland whipped his hammer vertical, slamming the monster into the stalactites overhead. As Cortland pulled his weapon back with [Weapon Return], Vitt fired an arrow that sank into the gargoyle’s belly and parted the stone there in a perfect circle. He’d used [Open Weak Point] – the hunter’s favored rune for dismantling opponents in ward-weave. The gargoyle’s core exposed, Vitt fired another arrow with preternatural speed, exploding it.

Issa raised her shield to protect the others from falling rocks. Cortland nodded to Vitt and returned to his position in the formation. The entire encounter had lasted less than a minute. Walton, smiling and blinking like he’d just seen a magic trick, hopped forward to retrieve Vitt’s arrows.

“Onward,” Cortland ordered.

The tunnel opened up into a circular cavern, the walls pocked with narrow crevices just wide enough for a man to slip through with his shoulders turned. Cortland didn’t envy the Garrison soldiers that would have to map those areas out. Luckily, they were headed to the other side of the cavern, where the floor dropped away to a landing twenty feet below.

“Anything?” Cortland asked Carina.

She swallowed. “I’m sorry. My [Alert] is faded.”

Cortland had suspected this would be the case, but wanted to hear it from the logician. She was only second renown. There were limits to what she could do.

“It’s fine,” Cortland said. “That’s why we’re down here.”

A spike had been driven into the stone at the edge of the drop. Whatever creature had tampered with the wall sconces had left the spike alone. Cortland pulled on the jutting steel, making sure that it hadn’t been booby-trapped or loosened. Satisfied, he held out a hand. “Rope.”

Carina handed him the length of rope she’d been carrying. She held her torch out to look into the passage below. “Suppose something comes along and cuts the rope while we’re down there,” she said to him quietly.

Cortland looked up at her. “Did you foresee that?”

She shook her head. “No. Just a hypothetical.”

Cortland tied a knot around the spike. “Hypothetically, I would throw you back up here.”

Carina snorted, although Cortland was serious.

“I hear something,” Issa said. She pointed her spear toward one of the gaps in the stone. “Coming from there.”

They all went still. Yes, there it was—a clicking and clanking, like dice rolling.

“Shade,” Henry said.  

The group quickly returned to formation with the drop-off at their backs. Moments later, a jumble of bones rolled through the gap, like a skeletal tumbleweed. At its center was an undulating mass of pure shadow.

The shades had been birthed down here thanks to an Orvesian wish gone awry in the years after the first Granting. Cortland heard the lands of Orvesis were teeming with the things. They were creatures of pure shadow, impossible to damage with conventional weapons, but harmless without any corpses to manipulate. The shades were possessed of a limited and very specific type of magic—a telekinetic command of bones. Their only desire was to reconstitute skeletons for themselves, and use these bodies to attack any who crossed their path. Unfortunately, there was no shortage of desiccated corpses in the Underneath, most dating back to the siege of Infinzel.

This particular shade had amassed quite the collection of bones. As it unfurled from the gap in the wall, the bones assembled themselves into a shape vaguely reminiscent of a horse-sized scorpion with a tail made of human tibias tipped by a jagged ring of pelvises. The only answer to a shade was to smash its bones to dust and let it drift away to start another collection. Cortland wondered if he’d faced this particular shade before. There was no way of knowing.

“Stay tight,” Cortland told the others. “Be methodical taking the bastard apart. Don’t let it get under or around us.”

“That might not be necessary,” Carina interjected. “I have something…”

From a pouch, Carina produced a smooth orb of polished silver, freshly made in Infinzel’s forges. On one side of the orb, a hole big enough to stick a pinky finger emitted a clean white light, a rune active inside.

The shade lumbered forward, skeletal joints creaking and grating, its tail slashing through the air. The front line of Infinzel’s champions readied themselves. Carina ducked between them and rolled the orb toward the shade. She spoke an activation word.

Vivid light flared from within the orb. Issa and Walton shielded their eyes, but Cortland made himself look. For a moment, the blob of shadows within the skeleton took on the shape of a woman—her arms raised in a warding gesture, screaming, trying to retreat. But then the shadows sloughed apart as if carved by a butcher’s blade, the purifying light tearing through them.

It was over in seconds. When the light dimmed, the shade was no more. The skeletal creature it had created collapsed upon itself, leaving behind what looked like a forgotten battlefield.

“What was that?” Henry asked.

“A bouncing blessing,” Carina replied. “At least, that’s what the Gadgeteers call them. They love a catchy name. Made to help Orvesians purify their land.”

Cortland wasn’t sure why anyone would want to help the Orvesians clean up the mess they’d made for themselves, but he couldn’t argue with the results.

“Well done,” Cortland said gruffly. “Let’s move on.”

With their Ink, Cortland and Vitt could simply jump down the twenty feet to the chamber below without worrying about breaking their legs. They stood guard at the bottom of rope as the others descended.

“Not far now,” Vitt said.

“No,” Cortland agreed.

“You aren’t curious what set that trap?” Vitt asked. “It doesn’t bother you?”

Cortland met the hunter’s eyes. “I’ve never been curious a day in my life.”

Vitt snorted. “Hammerhead.”

Once everyone had climbed down, they pressed on through silty, ankle-high water, and then into another curving tunnel. As they rounded a bend, three more gargoyles were waiting for them. Everyone flinched and readied their weapons, but the gargoyles didn’t move. The monsters were immobile and lacked the icy blue glow of the others they had faced.

“Statues now,” Cortland said.

“I read about that phenomenon in one of the recent reports,” Carina replied. “Old magic wearing off.”

“Good riddance,” Henry said.

It was still an uneasy thing, passing between the frozen bodies of the gargoyles. As they went, Cortland noticed something off.

“Hold,” he said, crouching next to the nearest gargoyle. “What do you make of this?”

There was a hole carved into the monster’s side. Tentatively, Cortland reached his hand inside. The stone was hollow.

“Thought you didn’t get curious,” Vitt said.

“The core’s gone,” Cortland said.

“Wouldn’t it be, though?” Issa asked. “If the magic wore off…”

“But then why the opening?” Carina asked, following Cortland’s trail of thought. “Something removed this gargoyle’s core.”

“For what purpose?” Henry asked.

The creatures down here acting with any purpose was cause for concern, but Cortland kept this thought to himself as he stood up, dusting his hands off.

They followed the passage to a T-shaped intersection. To the left, the tunnel continued on, eventually descending into a corridor that hadn’t been fully mapped. To the right, the passage dead-ended in a recessed room. That cavern was their goal.

Cortland made them slow their pace as they went down this last passage, mindful of tripwires or other traps, but nothing presented itself. The tunnel opened up into a wide cave, the floor dipping down at the center.

Puddled there—still and obsidian—was the Ink.

And yet, even with the power of the gods in sight, Cortland found himself distracted by the other details of the chamber. There were scrounger skins piled near one wall, and next to them a sharpened bundle of legs and the smooth stone that had been used to whet them. There were bones with stretched pieces of scrounger skin tied across them—broken and discarded—but Cortland quickly identified them as rudimentary attempts to create a slingshot.

“Something… has been living here,” Walton said, and by the way the boy’s voice quivered, Cortland thought he might need another [Bolster].

As they carefully navigated the room, Henry’s torch illuminated the far wall. Everyone stopped.

The creature had put the Ink to use.

The drawing was a better sketch than anything Cortland was capable of. A young man’s face peered down at them from the wall—full lips, timid eyes, a puff of curly hair. He looked to Cortland like an islander or maybe someone from Merchant’s Bay. There were letters scrawled beneath the portrait—jagged and choppy.

Vitt was the first of them to speak.

“Who the fuck is Uicha de Orak?”