Nature Abhors a Vacuum (The Aielund Saga Book 1) Read online

  “Clavis, give Pacian some cover!” Aiden yelled as the borer Pacian had struck turned to follow its attacker into the shadows.

  “I can't,” Clavis exclaimed, “I left me bow over with me tools!”

  “Same with my longbow,” Colt grated, swinging his sword back and forth to try and keep the first Borer at bay.

  “I’ve got mine,” Nellise cried, raising her weapon and aiming at the nearest borer. Sayana pulled out her axe and ran around to one side of the creature focused on Colt. It was lashing out with its paws, as he warily searched for a way past. There was enough light to see the back end of the second creature, which gave Aiden an easy target for his sword. Dashing forward, he struck with his blade before it could react.

  The borer shrieked in pain, and then lashed out with its rear paw. Aiden had anticipated this response however, and held his shield ready to block. The force of the blow knocked him backwards, but he was otherwise unharmed.

  A flash of light lit up the area of the cavernous hall, followed by the roar of the other borer as Sayana bathed it in flame. Aiden risked a quick glance over to see Clavis slashing at its flank with his hatchet, while Colt was trying to bash its head in with his sword. A crossbow bolt from Nellise pierced the creature’s side, gaining its attention.

  The borer turned to its left in a slow, lumbering fashion and then squirted a stream of liquid from its mouth. Whatever the liquid was, it splashed on the ground at Nellise's feet, sending up a cloud of noxious vapour as it sizzled on the bare rock.

  “Oh they also squirt acid for eatin' through rock!” Clavis yelled as an afterthought.

  “That would have been handy to know a few minutes ago,” Aiden called back, his heart racing as he took another swing at the borer in front of him. Locating one if its paws in the shadows, he swung at that next, slicing a huge gash along its rear leg. The beast lurched towards Aiden, but its crippled leg couldn't maintain its weight.

  “Pace, are you still over there?” Aiden called.

  “Yeah, thanks for the assist, mate!” Pacian yelled back. “I'm pulling back though, it got my arm pretty good.”

  “I'll follow you out,” Aiden cried, stepping to one side and bolting for the group that fought the other creature not twenty yards away. More flame erupted from Sayana's position, causing the borer to shriek and recoil from the heat and light. With the other beast partially crippled, they had a better chance of surviving this fight.

  Aiden wasn't sure what had motivated them to attack – it might have been hunger, or the light pained their eyes, or some other reason. But they couldn't just run them off, considering how dangerous they were. This had to be a decisive victory if they wanted to continue on through Ferrumgaard.

  With the first borer on the defensive, Colt took the opportunity to take a powerful, reckless swing at its head. His weapon struck a telling blow, gouging out one of its puny eyes and spattering blood onto the stone. In doing so the big man had his left arm splashed with acid which quickly ate through his leathers and burned his skin. Colt dropped his sword and staggered backward, clutching at his arm and screaming.

  “Bugger it, I'm goin' for me crossbow,” Clavis bellowed, running past the gravely wounded borer and over to the rock pile as fast as his little legs would carry him.

  “Watch out behind you!” Sayana called, spotting the other borer starting to move in, dragging its wounded hind leg. “Cover your ears, I’m going to try something.”

  Sayana brought her hands together in front of her as she unleashed her spell, shaking the rock around them and blasting the two wounded borers with deafening sound. They shrieked in agony, unable to withdraw or cover their ears from the assault, but worse still, the blast dislodged rock and debris from above.

  “Sayana, don't do that again,” Aiden cried. “The ceiling could come down on us completely.”

  “I had to do something,” she yelled back as the echoes from the sound blast slowly dissipated. The first borer slumped to the ground, as blood oozed from what seemed to be its ears and its tongue unfurled onto the stone floor. The second borer was not only still active, it had gone berserk. Its tiny eyes narrowed on Sayana and it spit a stream of acid at her.

  She was quick to react, leaping to her right and continuing on in a cartwheeling motion that let her avoid most of the acid, though she still caught some of it on her legs. The wounded creature attempted to swipe at Aiden with its front paw, but met his magical shield instead.

  Pacian started to work on the other side, stabbing away at its exposed flank. Aiden opted to change tactics, stabbing with the point of his weapon instead of trying to slash through the armoured hide of the borer. Nearby, Clavis stood amidst the rubble, cranking out bolts as fast as his repeating crossbow could manage.

  Pummelled from all sides, the beast eventually stopped moving and slumped to the ground. Aiden struggled to catch his breath, with the left side of his chest stabbing with pain if he breathed too deeply. Clutching at his side, he staggered over to check on the others.

  “Everyone okay?” Aiden croaked, heading back over to see how Nellise and Colt were faring. A soft light glowed from the crystal Nellise held as she healed Colt’s burned arm. Grimacing through the pain, Sayana had dragged herself back over to Nellise as well, her legs sporting some nasty burns that would need tending.

  “We're fine,” Colt replied gruffly, examining what remained of the armour on his left arm.

  “Everyone gather around and I'll do some group healing,” Nellise instructed, opening her eyes to take in the line of patients awaiting her care. Clavis walked over and sat on the ground with the rest of them, looking overwhelmed at what he'd just seen.

  “We used to keep 'em as pets,” he mumbled in disbelief, looking at the massive bulk of the dead creatures nearby. “Now I see why we used to cull 'em in the wild, I wouldn't want a bunch of those things running through me city.”

  “Clavis, it would have been handy to know about them before we entered the city,” Aiden said a few moments later. “Even if they were two feet long, it would have been nice to be prepared, if you know what I mean.”

  “Pets, I tell ye!” Clavis protested, his hands raised in supplication. “If'n I thought they'd be a problem, I woulda told ya, I swear on me life.”

  “So you never encountered them before on your previous visits?” Aiden pressed. “Not even a tremor?”

  “Nay, the first time down I ran into a pack of bandits that were using the top level as a hideout,” he replied as way of explanation. “Twenty-five o’ the bastards, more'n I could take by meself. So I left again before they saw me, never having gone beyond the entrance.”

  “What about the last time,” Pacian asked bluntly. “You made it to this point, and yet saw no giant monsters?”

  “That's right, I never saw or felt the damn things,” Clavis shot back. “Me and my team made it here and no further, with no sightings.”

  “Easy,” Nellise said gently. “No-one is accusing you of hiding their existence on purpose. The question we need to ponder now however, is do we continue on, knowing there could be more of them?”

  “Yes,” Aiden said immediately. “We were taken by surprise this time, and won't let that happen again.”

  “Nothin's changed really,” Clavis added. “I told ye all that Ferrumgaard was dangerous, but the reward is gonna outweigh the risk, so long as ya have the courage to persevere. And on the upside, we've got a way through now that we never woulda had afore them borers came through.”

  “Does save us a lot of rock-moving,” Colt grunted. Having made their decision, Aiden went over to the pile of rocks to put on his breastplate once more, swearing to never take it off again while they were still underground. The others gathered up their things and moved towards the new tunnel.

  “There's something I never thought to pack,” Sayana observed quietly as she mournfully picked at the tattered remains of her leathers. “Spare pants.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The tunnel curved through t
he rock for some distance, then re-entered the old chambers of Ferrumgaard once more. Clavis explained that while the borers could dig through rock well enough, they preferred to set up a tunnel network to move around with ease.

  While they were walking, Aiden dropped back to the rear of the group to speak with Nellise about the body they had found under the fallen rock.

  “It was no more than three years gone, at the most,” she informed him quietly. “Apparently the local wildlife cleaned up the bones quite rapidly, for if he had received a proper burial, the body would obviously have appeared quite differently. A little more... fleshy, as it were.”

  “Only three years,” Aiden mused, trying to resolve something that didn't quite add up. “Clavis claims the rock fall stopped their progress two years ago, but that body was definitely buried underneath it. Therefore the passage had to have collapsed on them, trapping those underneath. Clavis lied about what happened the last time he was here. That body must be the remains of one of his companions.”

  “It doesn't please me to say it, but I don't see any other way he could have become trapped there,” Nellise whispered. “We shouldn't jump to conclusions though - perhaps there was an accident, or he ran into something which attacked his team.”

  “Even if that's true,” Aiden disagreed, “why would he keep that information from us? The same thing applies to the borers. He really should have mentioned them, even if he only thought they were the size of a house cat. I don't know about you, but if cats could claw their way through rock and spit acid, I'd like to be informed.”

  “When we stop to rest, I think we should confront him about these omissions,” Nellise suggested. “I have the distinct feeling this place is only going to become more dangerous the further we go.”

  “No argument here,” Aiden replied, wondering what else lay between them and his goal. For that matter, he wasn't sure where, exactly, he needed to look for the item he sought. A library or laboratory was most likely the best place to start looking, but he hadn't yet seen anything resembling such a building.

  They left the confines of the borers’ tunnel and entered a new part of the city, and weren't quite prepared for what they saw. The decaying bones of hundreds of people were strewn across the streets, and the buildings here were heavily damaged, but from what, Aiden couldn't tell. The air was quite stale and warm in this part of the complex.

  “What in God's name happened here?” Nellise breathed, looking around at the carnage. The others were similarly taken aback, but nobody, even Clavis, had any answers.

  “Me first thought was that these folks died in the flood,” he muttered grimly, “but the water never came up this far.”

  “And what about this?” Pacian called from behind them. Aiden turned and saw that his friend was pointing at the collapsed section they had just bypassed. The bones of many people were sticking out of the rocks, much in the same way as the other body they'd seen on the other side of this rock fall. Aiden exchanged a knowing glance with Nellise, who was now looking puzzled by this new development.

  “Give me a few minutes to examine these bodies, and to pray,” she asked. “I need an answer to the carnage I see before me.”

  “I think we all do,” Sayana said, appearing distraught. Aiden gave Nellise the space she needed and moved over to speak with Clavis.

  “Is this still the worker's district?” he asked, looking around at the wreckage and trying to see if there was any similarity to the buildings further back.

  “If memory serves,” he answered, tugging his beard thoughtfully, “this was the dwellings 'o the common folk. More'n that, I couldn't tell ya with any accuracy. I haven't stood on this ground in nearly a hunnerd years, Aiden, and truth be told, there's much that I didn't know, even back then.”

  Aiden was tempted to ask a few confronting questions, then decided against it. He would prefer to have Nellise with him and she was a little preoccupied at the moment. They stood amongst the devastation of the city for a few more minutes in silence where only the faint whispers of Nellise's prayers could be heard, echoing through the still streets.

  “It would seem this group of people left this world nearly a century ago,” she eventually reported, looking drained, although whether it was from the prayer, or the information she'd gleaned it was hard to tell. “The manner of their deaths was not revealed to me, but it was virtually simultaneous. All of them died around the same time. A cursory examination of the bodies shows broken bones from weapon impacts, so I think we can safely assume there was a battle and we are looking at the losers.”

  It was a sobering thought, to understand the people that had been left behind in the flood had ended their lives at each other's throats. It must have been a chaotic scene, with thousands scrambling to be free of the dying city, only to be trapped by the collapsed tunnel.

  How the passage became blocked was unknown, though it did practically confirm the body found earlier had indeed been part of Clavis' team – the time difference between the two graves Nellise had discovered left no doubt, assuming of course that one believed in her source. Colt might have issues with it, but Aiden had a little more faith than the big man. He was about to nudge Nellise into talking to Clavis about this, but Colt was already moving the group forward.

  “This place stinks of death and betrayal,” he growled. “There's nothing further to be gained by standing around.”

  “Aye, the sooner we're out of here the better,” he agreed soberly, guiding Colt through the pile of fallen masonry. Aiden kept his eye on the dwarf for the first few minutes, and then moved forward to speak with him.

  “Clavis, a word?” he asked tactfully upon catching up to him. Colt and Sayana were a few steps ahead, leading the group towards what appeared to be another stairwell at the edge of their light. Clavis grunted absently, intent upon their surroundings, so Aiden leaned in and spoke quietly.

  “Do you remember whereabouts in the city the library was?”

  “Library?” he responded, having his full attention now. “I don't remember a lot 'o books from my time here lad, except those as kept by the engineering corp. I do remember a tallfellow though, who used to visit all the time. Had a strange name that I can't quite recall. Anyway, he was a human from Aielund, and was always looking for bits and pieces that we would dig out o’ the ground. He visited so often the King let 'im set up shop here. If anyone would’ve had a collection o’ knowledge like that, it woulda been him.”

  “Just what I'm looking for,” Aiden said, trying to hide his excitement. “We haven't passed his chambers I hope?”

  “Nay, he was housed in amongst the nobles, on the fourth level. We should pass by there soon enough, and I'll be sure'n point his old place out to ya. Better that you keep anything he might have had ‘o value, than leave it here for the rats and borers to eat. Mind yer step there lad, looks like the floor has given way.”

  A hole roughly ten feet across, partially hidden by the shadows cast by Sayana's light was just to the right of the path they walked. They carefully moved around the edge on the way to the stairs, noting with some discomfort that the bottom of the hole was deeper than their lights could reach.

  The stairs were the same as before, wide, and carved out of the stone itself. Dust and dirt kept a record of their footprints as they passed by with an unconscious urge to keep as quiet as possible. Now more than ever, Aiden had the feeling they were walking in a tomb, and they should disturb the surroundings as little as possible. It didn't help they passed a number of skeletons, covered in cobwebs and a century of dust as they descended, their skulls staring at them with hollow sockets.

  Upon reaching the fourth floor, Aiden could see the buildings were indeed larger and more elaborate than those above. The smell was a little strange, though – far from the intensifying musty dankness, this area smelled almost like something had been burned, and it was an aroma he didn’t recognise.

  “Smells like boiled crab down here,” Colt grunted, apparently noticing the smell too. Th
ey followed Clavis along a wide street, taking in the eerie sights and smells of part of the city that had remained undisturbed for nearly a century. Pacian had already disappeared into a nearby building, eager to finally locate some hidden treasure in amongst the crumbling buildings of Ferrumgaard's nobility.

  “I have the strangest feeling we are being watched,” Sayana murmured, looking around as if trying to spot something about to pounce on them from the shadows.

  “Easy girl,” Clavis grumbled, “Ain't nothing been down here for longer'n ye've been alive.”

  “No she's right, I feel it too,” Nellise said, her voice trembling slightly. “I can't put my finger on it, but there's something wrong here.”

  “Balderdash,” Clavis muttered. “The worst we're going to see is a few more borers. Blimey - sorry Aiden, I've got some bad news for ya. See that pile of stone up ahead blocking the street?”

  “Yes, what of it?” Aiden replied, his ears pricking up at the prospect of more trouble.

  “Yer library is in there. Or rather was in there, I should say. Looks like the ceiling came down from above, from that hole we went around. Damn place is coming apart... breaks me heart.”

  Aiden’s hopes of salvaging something from this cursed city were rapidly diminishing. Indicating for Sayana to follow along with him and provide some light, he moved up for a closer look.

  The rock fall seemed fairly complete from this level. Aiden wasn't about to give up just yet, however. He managed to heave away a large stone with his gloved hands, depositing it on the floor, and then returning for another one. After a few minutes of shifting the rocks around, he noticed a pocket of air inside.

  “Sayana, can you move your light in there?” he asked her, intent upon the gap inside. She complied with a gesture from her hand, sending the tongue of flame hovering inside the gap. As Aiden suspected, at least part of the interior was hollow. He wasn't certain if any more stone could be shifted away without bringing the whole lot down, however. Aiden conveyed his concerns to Clavis, who was more of an expert on such matters.