Blade of Erogrund

Chapter 33- Silver Blood

Every uneven droplet of water sounded like the footsteps of some cursed shade in the overgrown tunnel. The flickering lights of their captives' torches cast the illusion of scampering demons in the flickering light on the heavily rooted walls of the passage. The smell of must hung like the tattered cloak of the ghosts Godric used to have nightmares about in his childhood over the bony shoulders of the tunnel's jagged turns. 

"Bring the light a little this way, why don't you," barked one of the brutish, unnamed captors. Godric had been watching him as they walked to keep his mind off the eerily uneven dripping as moisture slipped from the ceiling above; the man had been nearly shaking at every flicker of the torchlight. 

"Grow a pair why don't you," the commander snapped ruthlessly. "If you're too much of a pathetic child to keep walking then we've no further use for you." 

The man grumbled something under his breath and continued to place one foot in front of the other down the narrow tunnel. 

Godric let his eyes wander from the man for the first time since they had entered the grungy hole to dare examining the path. The tunnel was completely enclosed; roots writhed through the dirt and clay of the walls to form an even denser latticework of a ceiling above them. Water trickled down from the dirt onto the walls or slipped in silver droplets at unpredictable moments with a soft plop on the muddy ground on which they walked. 

Scarcely few details were perceivable in the pitch black that lay outside the unpredictable light that flashed from the dimming torches other than the spiny shapes of rocks or roots reaching from their buried places under ground.

Smoke from the torches choked the air above them giving off the suffocating aroma of cinder and oak. Moisture filled the air to mix with this unpleasant haze until Godric could feel grime and water clinging to his clothes and skin. 

"Keep moving," Kanora ordered flatly from behind him. 

Realizing he had slowed, Godric hurried his pace to where Ephraun trudged beside one of the captors. 

After taking a glance at the bandit who appeared far more concerned about the shadowy walls than the captives who stood behind him, Godric judged it safe to lean in. 

"You okay?" 

The man shrugged. His face was grim and determined while his shoulders were drooped like the weight of the entire forest above them had fallen on him. "As good as can be. Would be a bit better if I had my chance with that captain." 

Godric couldn't help but smile despite their surroundings. "I've no doubt you will sooner or later." 

"How much farther?" Hilthwen asked from some steps ahead of them. 

"Just keep walking," the commander muttered. "You'll know it when you see it." 

And know it they did. By the time Godric's legs had begun to ache from walking on the uneven, muddy path through the dark, the party had stopped. 

White torchlight revealed a great portal framed in the thick timbers of ancient roots that apparently clad the faces of some aged stone gate. Chipped, jagged, and worn stone blocks were barely visible through the network of vines, roots, and tendrils that wove around the gate. Rusted, slime-covered hinges barely supported the weight of a sagging wooden door whose timbers looked to be in scarcely better shape than the stones that framed it. Must, which already saturated the dank air of the tunnel, coiled in reeking wafts from the slick beams upon which a mighty rusty iron lock sat. A gaping keyhole was positioned in the center of the lock, surrounded by sharp scratches on the metal. These appeared to Godric as much newer as they had gouged away the rust to reveal relatively shiny metal underneath the layer of grime.