The Sorcerer's Bane by B. V. Larson Read Free Book Online

bothered donning their ancestral battle armor, Gruum noticed with some apprehension. No doubt they considered the robed priests and priestesses to be unworthy of fully gearing for war. Gruum hoped they had not miscalculated.
    “These stones,” Therian said, walking gingerly upon the countless cairns. “They are softer underfoot than they should be.”
    “They hide the dead, milord,” Gruum said.
    Therian shot him a withering glance. “I’m no fool. I know the Necropolis and its secrets better than those who dwell here. But the dead flesh we trod upon—it should not be so supple .”
    Gruum suppressed a shudder. Whenever he walked in this place, he tried hard not to think of the countless dead he trod upon.
    “What’s that then?” asked Therian, gazing off into the distance. Behind the pair, the small army of guardsmen spread out, walking gingerly with disgust over the stones and fingering the hilts of their weapons. Their eyes were slits and they held their lanterns high.
    Gruum followed the King’s gaze. He saw something out there, a pulsing glow. As he watched, a shuddering flash of light grew then faded, like the surge of the sea. The light was lavender, green and somehow black in color…if one can somehow imagine light that is black.
     “I don’t know, sire,” Gruum said. “I’ve never seen the like.”
    “Void magic,” Therian said thoughtfully. “The removal of what was. Does that lie in the direction of the black priestesses you met or the red priests and their waterhole?”
    Gruum stared. “I’m not sure, but I would say neither, milord.”
    Therian nodded in agreement. “Correct. I would say a third party is at work down here. Let us investigate.”
    They set off, reluctantly followed by companies of guardsmen. Gruum walked at Therian’s side, noting the King did not send out scouts. He imagined that the guardsmen were happy about that. No one wanted to be sent out alone in this vile place.
    When they drew closer to the strange glimmer, they found something odd. The stones at their feet had been disturbed. Therian studied the piles of brick-sized stones, and knelt before a spot where things were not right.
    “See here? I’ve found a hole in the middle of this eruption,” Therian said.
    “Yes, milord,” Gruum said. He stood well back, not wanting to approach the hole.
    Therian leaned over the opening, staring down into the inky depths. “Bring me your lamp, man.”
    Gruum placed it into the King’s hand and stepped back quickly.
    “Quite deep,” said the King, gazing down. I can’t see the bottom at all. A number of them could have escaped here.”
    “Escaped, sire?” Gruum asked. He found his mouth dusty, and tried to swallow. The action pained his throat.
    “Yes, all the evidence points to an exit, not an entry. You see here, how the stones have rolled away in a pattern, all heaped up in a circular mound around this hole?”
    “Looks like a gopher hole, sire,” Gruum offered.
    “A what?”
    “A small beast that lives in the ground of the grassy steppes. They make holes like this when they come up from the earth. The dirt is displaced up onto the surface when they tunnel. The dirt must go somewhere.”
    “Oh yes, I see,” Therian said. “Just as these stones pile in a ring in this instance. They must, as you say, go somewhere to allow the tunnel to form below. But there aren’t enough stones piled to form a tunnel…and I don’t see the dead faces in the walls of the tunnel, as I would expect.”
    Therian reached back over his shoulder with Gruum’s lamp. He shook it impatiently at Gruum when it was not immediately taken from his gloved hand. Gruum stepped forward and snatched it, then stepped away again.
    At length, Therian stood. “The important point is one of honor. Someone has been violating the resting place of Corium’s dead. It’s an insult.”
    They proceeded further among the thick columns and the shifting stones. They found more holes with tunnels beneath,