- TMK -

Rising from the west, smoke tinted the sun red. Cannons still echoed. In the aftermath of battle, their occasional crack split the silence that crawled over the people.

           

It had not taken long for news of defeat to reach Kane. Under the cover of a hundred airships and awash in adoring crowds, his army had left the city. They dazzled in garb of emerald, black, and gold. They had marched in perfect rank and file to the glory of the battlefield.

           

At High Rock, their glory died.

           

The survivors trickled in slowly. Their faces were painted with ash and reeked of sulfur. Their uniforms, spotless just days ago, now hung by threads. But, while the city around them wept, Kane and his men worked under this ruddy sun. They had no time to mourn.

           

The Crusade was coming. With it came the promise of inquisition.

           

So, Kane’s soldiers piled barrel after barrel of gunpowder over the cobblestones. Every few blocks, another barrel tower rose. Provisions were gathered, fuses laid, and arms given to anyone who would rather fight than face the wrath of the Glass Monastery.

           

Kane’s people, the Cath, had stood for years beyond counting. War, famine, disease–all came and went. Every nation under the sun circled around their city, drooling for its wealth and position. Now the Crusaders of the Holy Land wanted their turn. But the Cath would remain eternal. They would fight for every inch of their city and Kane knew how.

           

The sewers ran for miles underneath Cathlod, filled with every nook and hideaway imaginable. As long as the sewers belonged to Kane, the city would never truly fall. All the airships, all the air power in the world would be useless as the Cath moved from tunnel to tunnel. Furthermore, with the dozens of new sewer holes he would blast into the earth, the invaders’ advance would be slowed to a crawl. He would strike from the shadows with impunity.

           

“Viscount.” Lieutenant Arras saluted him, his balding scalp slick with grease. “The first charges are ready. On your order.”

           

Kane nodded. “Light the fuses.”

           

“Sir,” Arras replied before barking the order back to the men.

           

A long wire flickered as sparks traveled up the fuse. Kane’s men crouched behind alleys and old shipping pallets left at the edges of the canals. Kane watched from a high balcony as the powder detonated.

           

The blast shook the building and flung cobblestones into the sky. A rush of dust followed in a mushroom plume. As the echoes died down, the slog of raw sewage could be heard from the pit in the street. The smell of Human refuse and mud lingered as Kane came down from the balcony to inspect his handiwork. Elsewhere, more explosions shook Cathlod.

           

The hole of mangled cobblestones opened a path to the sewer. A rubble pile marked an easy climb into the bowels of the city. His men responded with scattered clapping and cheers as they saw the open pit. Kane’s hand found its way to his silver necklace, a pendant of the compass rose dangling at the end.

           

The compass rose of Cathlod.

Though it came at such a rancid cost, it would be worth it to see that same compass rose fly over the city again.

           

“I want all available arms and provisions taken inside the sewer. Burn any food that won’t keep or munitions too large to move,” Kane commanded, waving a silk glove at Arras.

           

“Yes, sir,” Arras said with a slight bow.

           

The men had already started creeping into the pits, bringing with them any supplies they could carry. Kane followed, clutching his hand to his nose.

           

“Pretty rank, eh, sir?” Nestef said as he joined Kane. He was one of Kane’s older retainers and the grizzled veteran of a dozen battles. One of which left him with a gaping red scar over his left eye. “Best get used to the smell. Only the gods know how long before the Crusaders leave.”

           

“If they leave,” Kane responded.

           

Nestef smiled back at him. “We’ll make sure they do.”

           

“Watch it now with that!” a soldier shouted as they began dropping barrels onto the sewer walkway.

           

The provisions soon formed a heap along the wall. Guns, bullets, armor, and preserved food rolled into the hands of soldiers who hauled them deeper underground. Despite Nestef’s protests, Kane joined them, pulling crate and barrel along slick, square stones.

           

There had always been a divide between the aristocracy and the commoners of the city. The resentment the soldiers held against Kane and the rest of the socialites had echoed with tales of revolution, despite Kane’s best efforts. He had always dreamed of a city where birth and rank were meaningless in the face of merit and ambition. A city free from Arrcus and their accursed electorate. Free from a nation that leeched off their wealth and gave nothing in return. Kane gambled that dream of secession at High Rock. He gambled the Saironian Empress would honor her guarantee of Cath independence and deter the Crusade. His gamble failed. He was a fool for ever trusting the Empire to the east. In retrospect, had Kane succeeded, he likely would have traded one hegemon for another. But hindsight mattered as little as keeping up the charade of class. They were, each of them, pagans to the Crusaders, heathens to submit to the will of a God they had never known.

           

The faces of his men betrayed a hopelessness they all shared. For their sake, Kane knew that as long as he lived, he could never bow before the God of the west. He would fight for his men just as they had died for him at High Rock.

           

He owed them that much.

           

“Ain’t proper, sir,” Nestef said with the violent, rolling inflection typical of Cathlod. “Master of the city helping grunts with the dirty work.”

           

“When the sun sets, I will not be master of the city,” Kane said as he pulled a crate onto the walkway.

           

“The Van Therr have been masters of Cathlod going on two hundred years. Gods strike me down if we turn on you ‘cause some back-whippers wield a big club.” 

           

Before Kane could answer, a shockwave knocked both him and Nestef off their feet. Kane’s ears rang as the powder detonated, the explosion reverberating down the tunnel. When he came around, the first thing he heard was Nestef in his ear.

           

“You alright, sir?” The old man coughed. “Kane?”

           

Kane wiped the dust from his eyes. “I’m fine.” 

           

“Bloody fishhooks, I’ll have you in irons,” Nestef bellowed at the terrified soldiers.

           

“Nestef,” Kane interrupted his captain.

 

“Sir?”

           

“Look.” He pointed to the scorch mark where the barrel had detonated. There, a new hole echoed with the rush of water where rock and soil should have been.

           

Kane and his captain peered down the edge of the pit. Below, a tunnel opened, the water at its base glistening as sunlight hit it for the first time.

           

“Nestef,” Kane addressed his captain.   

    

“Sir?” 

    

“The city plans said the sewer was the deepest part of Cathlod, yes?” Kane asked.         

 

“They did, sir.”

 

“Then what is that?”

           

Nestef grinned. “I want six men with torches. Now!”

           

Kane was the first to enter the pit, Nestef and the soldiers following close behind. The torches lit a rectangular passageway of carven stone twice the width of the sewer above. The ceiling glistened with a film of condensation. The center of the floor held a channel of rushing blackwater. The water in the channel flowed precisely, cascading under a wall blocking the passage before them. A wall built entirely of mortarless stone, cut and laid with an exactness that formed a shear face.

           

Deep in the rock, etchings of a curvilinear script lingered.

           

Kane held a torch over the etchings. “Nestef, how good is your Old Tongue?”

           

Nestef eyed the carvings. “Good ‘nough.”

           

“Read it to me.” Kane moved to explore the rest of the passage. The other end ran far beyond torch’s light. Regardless, Kane could make out several crossings and intersections where multiple passages met. More were revealed as he walked away from the dead end.

           

Far more. It was a labyrinth. Large enough to hide an army and far more intricate than Kane could have ever hoped for.

           

“Jahnko begiad lunum…I’m not sure, sir. This’s old priest speak. Far older than what I remember. Somethin’ about an eye?” Nestef called Kane back.

           

“That’s fine, Nestef,” Kane said as he moved to the old man.

           

“It’s an older sewer, eh?” Nestef surmised. “A catacomb? Never knew how the old folk liked to store the dead. I’ve heard of graves like this in Westport and Gelvaran.”

           

“Doesn’t matter what it is. It’ll be far more useful than the sewer.”

           

“Dunno about that. Not sure how far it goes and the Crusade’s hot on our heels,” Nestef cautioned. He rubbed the red scar running along his eye.

 

“Sorry. Itches from time to time.”

           

“Have the men bring another powder barrel here. I want to see what’s behind this wall while there’s still time,” Kane said, placing his hand against the dead end.

           

“You heard him. Bring down another barrel of powder. No mucking up this time.” 

           

Then bell towers tolled in the distance. Before Nestef could say another word, the dead end vanished, the wall sliding beneath the floor as if it was never there. At the other end of the passage, a new wall of mortarless stone swallowed up what little sun there was. Soldiers shouted in alarm as the torches became their only source of light.

           

The earth groaned as square blocks in the walls were replaced by holes pouring forth torrents of blackwater. The water level rose to their knees in seconds, then their waists, their chests. Kane’s men screamed as their torches flickered out one by one. Nestef barked orders at them before his head fell below the surface.

           

Then Kane was alone, trying to keep breath as he was crushed against the ceiling. Water filled his lungs and blood rushed to his head. His muscles burned as he choked for any trickle of air. Soon, his extremities tingled, and the world began to fade.

           

Then, a ghostly figure appeared. She was tall and willowy, dressed in a cloak that showed only her hands and face. Her skin shone like morning frost. Her hood pushed long tresses of nearly white hair along her neck. Lips and eye sockets the color of black marble greeted him. She seemed to walk on nothing as she closed the distance between them. Polished silver eyes stared back at him in the dark. She grasped the compass rose that floated in the blackwater. Her ghostly hand gently locked Kane’s fingers around the pendant.

           

And in that lightless place, Kane Van Therr died.