Chapter 89: Beneath the Wall
Five Knots returned to Dread Fort with pry bars, rope, shuttered lanterns, and enough healing supplies for a real fight.
Their first attempt had shown them the burial grounds outside the western wall. Matthew’s maps showed an intact chapel almost directly opposite them inside the fort. Min had heard a hollow space beneath the ruined chapel floor.
That did not prove the two buildings were connected.
It gave them something specific to test.
Tessa led the party away from the road as soon as they appeared on the pale hill. The fortress remained quiet in the distance. Patrols crossed its walls, the corpse wagon followed its familiar route, and cold lights burned behind narrow windows.
Five Knots reached the burial grounds without drawing attention.
The ruined chapel waited near the highest row of graves. Half its roof had fallen in, and pale grass grew between cracked floor tiles. Rows of weathered skulls had been carved around the doorway. A headless statue stood behind the altar.
Min knelt beside the three tiles that had sounded different during their first visit.
"The space runs toward the fort." She said. "It is larger than a grave."
Belda wedged a pry bar beneath the nearest tile. Orin added his weight, and the stone lifted far enough for Tessa to hook a rope through the iron ring beneath it.
The entire section of floor shifted.
What had looked like a stone-lined coffin slid sideways on concealed runners. Beneath it, a stairway descended into darkness.
Orin peered over the edge. "A tunnel beneath a coffin."
Kesh lit one lantern and closed all but a finger-width of its shutters. The party descended in single file. Tessa went first. Kesh followed with chalk and parchment. Min walked in the middle while Belda and Orin pulled the stone cover back into place above them.
The stairs ended in a burial passage wide enough for two people to walk beside each other. Empty platforms lined one wall. Sealed niches filled the other. The tunnel sloped gently toward Dread Fort.
It was not an escape passage.
The worn grooves in the floor showed that carts had once traveled through it. This had been a road for carrying the dead from the fortress to the cemetery without using the main gate.
It was also guarded.
Tessa saw the first skeleton before it moved. Black iron covered its chest and arms, while the rest of its bones had been fitted into a standing alcove. Five more occupied the walls beyond it.
"Sentinels." She warned.
The nearest skull turned.
An iron grate dropped across the passage behind Five Knots. All six skeletons stepped from their alcoves, and a second rank pulled itself from niches closer to the ceiling.
The tunnel prevented the undead from surrounding the party. It also left the adventurers nowhere to move.
Belda and Orin took the front while Tessa kept the others close behind them. Min’s first spell struck three sentinels in the narrow passage, but broken bones began pulling themselves back together almost immediately. Kesh stopped trying to help destroy them and watched the chamber instead.
"The alcoves." He called. "The undead are repairing inside the alcoves."
Tessa changed the plan.
Instead of scattering bones across the floor, they forced each damaged sentinel away from the walls. Orin dragged one into the center of the passage. Belda kept two more from reaching the niches. Min used shorter bursts of magic to break the arms and legs that mattered while Tessa directed the party from one target to the next.
The fight became a contest over space. Whenever an undead reached an alcove, green light rebuilt it. Whenever Five Knots kept one in the center, the damage remained.
They won, but not cleanly.
One of the sentinels crushed a healing vial inside Belda’s pack during a scuffle. Another injured Orin’s shoulder badly enough that he could no longer lift one arm above his head. Min used more mana than she wanted, and Tessa spent several minutes checking every pile of bones before allowing anyone to approach the gate.
The grate had no lock on their side. Kesh found a chain running through the wall to a counterweight above the alcoves. Orin pulled it with his uninjured arm while Belda jammed a broken piece of armor into the mechanism.
The grate rose.
Kesh added the chamber to his map.
"Hidden entrance, descending stair, sentinel room and if undead weren’t frighting enough with their lack of pain and unending stamina, apparently they can regenerate as well." He said. "Nothing complicated yet."
"Say that again after we reach the fort." Min replied.
The next section passed beneath the outer wall. Water dripped between the ceiling stones. The construction changed halfway through, replacing rough burial stone with the same black blocks used by Dread Fort.
They had crossed the first wall and should be underneath the outer yard by now.
The tunnel ended at a preparation chamber beneath the intact chapel. Stone tables occupied the center of the room. Shelves held cloth, empty urns, and tools that were best left alone as no one wanted to speculate at what they would be used for. Two skeletal attendants stood beside a cart while a larger undead in a hooded robe worked at the far table.
A thick bell rope hung beside its hand.
The group remain inside the tunnel while Tessa peaked out and studied the room. One open doorway led up into the chapel. Another corridor continued east, deeper beneath the fortress.
They could try to wait until the room emptied. But nothing suggested it ever would and waiting for the undead to leave because it needed to use the bathroom, sleep, or eat a meal wasn’t a real thing. They were undead.
Tessa pointed to the bell rope, then the attendants, then the robed undead.
The party moved together.
Their first attack knocked one attendant apart and drove the second away from the rope. The robed undead proved far stronger than the sentinels. It absorbed Min’s spell, threw Orin across one of the stone tables, and nearly reached the bell before Belda wrapped the rope around a support post and kept it from being pulled and ringing the bell.
The struggle lasted less than a minute. It consumed another healing potion, most of Min’s remaining mana, and the strength in Belda’s left hand. Five Knots finally brought the robed guardian down between the tables.
As it fell, the guardian caught the bell’s rope. Its weight tore Belda’s hurried knot loose.
A bell rang somewhere above them.
Once.
The sound traveled through the chapel and into the fortress.
Kesh looked toward the tunnel behind them. "That was an alarm."
Tessa listened to distant boots beginning to move overhead. "Then we find out how far this route goes before they reach us."
They did not climb into the chapel. The eastern corridor continued in the direction of the throne tower, descending beneath the outer ward. It was the reason the burial road mattered. Anyone using the tunnel could cross the outer wall and continue toward the inner one without stepping into the streets above.
Five Knots ran.
The eastern passage ran straight to an underground gatehouse built into the foundation of the inner wall.
An iron portcullis blocked the way forward. Its bottom rail rested in a shallow trench cut across the floor, and both ends traveled through deep grooves in the black stone walls. Beyond the bars, a broad stairway climbed into the inner keep. The chains attached to the gate disappeared through the ceiling on the fortress side.
No wheel, lever, or release had been left within reach of the tunnel.
Narrow firing openings overlooked the passage from behind the portcullis. Green light appeared inside two of them as the gatehouse guards noticed the living adventurers below.
Orin tested the bars with his good hand. "This is where the road ends."
"The road ends." Kesh said. "The fort does not."
A crossbow bolt struck Orin’s breastplate and knocked him back a step.
More bolts followed. They came through the firing openings at different angles, forcing Belda to move in front of Kesh and Min. A black flame passed between the bars and spread across the floor, forcing Tessa to drag Kesh out of its path.
The gatehouse guards held every advantage. Five Knots stood exposed in a narrow passage, with protected firing positions ahead and reinforcements approaching from behind.
Tessa glanced back. Armored shapes were already entering the preparation room.
"We are not getting through." Belda said.
"Then we learn why." Tessa answered.
Kesh dropped beside the left wall and examined the portcullis while the others held the passage. The gate itself was too heavy for the party to lift, but the stone around its lower groove had been repaired. A line of gray mortar interrupted the older black blocks.
He drove the end of a pry bar into the seam.
Orin joined him. Together, they forced the bar downward. The repaired stone shifted by less than the width of a fingernail before a bolt struck Orin in the side.
Min placed one palm against the floor. Her remaining magic traveled into the shallow trench beneath the gate. Stone rose against the bottom rail.
The portcullis groaned.
Its left corner lifted barely an inch before Min’s spell failed and the iron slammed back into place.
It was not enough to pass beneath.
It was enough for Kesh to understand that the gate could be forced.
He marked the repaired groove, the depth of the floor trench, and the width of the bottom rail. Tessa held her position until he finished.
Then the reinforcements reached them.
Five Knots fought with the portcullis at their backs and undead advancing from the preparation room. The gatehouse guards continued firing from safety. Whenever the party tried to turn toward one threat, the other punished them for it.
Belda disappeared first. Min followed after using the last of her strength to break the front rank behind Tessa. Orin held the narrowest part of the passage until three armored undead forced him down.
Tessa lasted long enough to see Kesh close his map.
"Did you get it?" she asked.
"Enough for someone else to try."
They returned to the hospital seconds apart.
Five Knots awoke in the hospital with every piece of their equipment restored and a clear answer to the question that had brought them into the dungeon.
The secret tunnel worked.
It did not let adventurers avoid the undead.
It allowed them to bypass the outer wall, fight through two guarded chambers, and reach a gate beneath the inner keep. It did not carry them through that gate.
Kesh drew the complete route while the details remained fresh.
Ruined chapel. Sentinel chamber. Burial road beneath the wall. Preparation room and alarm bell. Underground gatehouse. Portcullis seated in a floor trench. Repaired stone around the left groove. Firing openings on the fortress side.
Orin leaned over from the next bed. "It looks shorter when you draw it."
"It will not feel shorter the next time we fight through it." Belda said.
Tessa studied the point where Kesh’s line ended at the portcullis.
"Can we reach the winch from the tunnel?" Belda asked.
"No." Kesh said. "The gatehouse protects it from the inside."
Orin rested his injured shoulder against the pillow. "Then no one is opening that gate from the tunnel."
"Opening it is not the only way through." Tessa said.