Chapter 380: Scouting (6)
The camp stirred before the fires had burned to ash.
No bells, no horns. Only the scrape of boots on stone, the creak of worn leather, the hushed murmur of men and women preparing to walk into a death they could not name.
Lindarion stood before them, shadows still clinging faintly to his frame. His chest ached with every breath, the wound hidden but not forgotten, yet he let none of it show. He could not afford to. Not when their eyes followed him like moths chasing flame.
Harrow moved through the crowd, barking names, pointing men to the front, the wounded to the center, the women and children shielded by the strongest fighters they had left. Their torches burned low to save oil, each flame a fragile tether against the cavern’s endless dark.
Nysha appeared at Lindarion’s side without sound. Her crimson gaze flicked across the humans, her lips pressing thin at the tremor in their hands, the hollowness in their cheeks. Her shadows writhed faintly, restless. "They are not soldiers."
"They will be," Lindarion said.
"And if they break before they harden?"
His eyes stayed on the crowd, on the children clutching at their mothers’ skirts, on the gaunt men who had once been farmers now clutching spears chipped and bent. His grip tightened on the sword at his hip.
"Then I will hold until they can stand again."
Nysha said nothing more. But her shadows curled closer around her arms, like wings folding tighter in a storm.
Harrow approached. His voice was low, but steady. "Scouts report the tunnels ahead are quiet. For now. The rockfall is holding the corruption back. Once we breach it..." He hesitated. "...no one knows."
"They will know," Lindarion said, his tone sharp as steel. "Because they will see."
The commander studied him for a moment, then nodded. No more words.
The march began.
—
The cavern swallowed them quickly. What little warmth the campfires had offered fell away, leaving only the torchlight, wavering and frail, painting the stone with trembling shadows.
Their path wound downward, narrower and narrower, until the wounded had to be carried single file, their groans echoing down the stone throat of the earth. Water dripped from the ceiling, each drop a knife in the silence.
Lindarion led at the front, his stride unbroken. Nysha ghosted just behind him, her shadows spilling ahead to probe the dark. Harrow kept close, his sword drawn despite the exhaustion dragging at his frame.
The humans followed, muttering scraps of rhythm to steady their steps. Not songs, not prayers, but guttural syllables that filled the silence with something less than despair.
Hours passed.
Finally, the rockfall came into sight.
The tunnel narrowed to a jagged throat of stone, boulders piled high where the earth itself had collapsed. Veins of black corruption pulsed faintly through the cracks, glowing like embers beneath the rock, spreading in slow, hungry tendrils.
The humans recoiled instinctively. Some muttered curses. One woman clutched her child closer.
Lindarion stepped forward, shadows stirring around him like storm winds. His hand found the hilt of his sword. The blade hummed low, eager, shadows licking its edge.
"Clear it," he said.
The men hesitated. Harrow barked, "You heard him! Move!"
Reluctantly, they obeyed. Pickaxes rang against stone. Hands scraped raw against sharp edges as they dragged smaller rocks free. The corruption veins pulsed brighter with each strike, as if aware, as if listening.
Lindarion’s eyes narrowed. He lifted his blade and drove it once into the largest boulder. Shadows erupted, ripping through stone like paper. The rock split down the middle with a deafening crack, fragments scattering into the dark.
The humans froze, staring at him with fear and awe mingled.
"Do not stop," he commanded, voice low but cutting.
They obeyed, working faster now, their fear transmuted into desperate energy.
Within the hour, a gap wide enough for a man appeared. The veins pulsed violently now, black ichor seeping faintly from cracks. The humans muttered, shifting uneasily.
Lindarion stepped into the breach first.
The air beyond was colder, damp with rot. His shadows stretched out, brushing against stone slick with ichor. The tunnel was not collapsed—it had been swallowed. The walls themselves pulsed faintly, veins crawling like worms beneath flesh.
The humans hesitated at the threshold. Nysha moved past them, her voice sharp. "Move. If you stay here, the corruption will eat you where you stand."
One by one, they followed.
—
The march south continued.
The further they went, the worse it became. The walls were no longer stone, but a strange hybrid of rock and corrupted flesh. Black ichor dripped slowly from the ceiling, hissing faintly when it struck torchfire. The air reeked of copper and rot.
The humans gagged, some pressing cloths to their mouths, but they kept walking. Their eyes never left Lindarion’s back.
Then came the sound.
A faint skittering.
Nysha froze, shadows bristling. Lindarion lifted his hand, halting the column. His blade slid free with a whisper of steel.
From the shadows ahead, something moved.
The torchlight caught its form, half-human, half-beast, its limbs twisted into jagged angles, flesh stretched thin over bone. Its eyes burned faint white, its mouth splitting too wide as it hissed.
A mutant.
Two more crawled out behind it, their bodies dragging along the walls, twitching spasmodically.
The humans drew weapons, their breaths ragged. Fear thickened the air.
Lindarion stepped forward.
The first mutant lunged.
His sword moved once. Shadows erupted, cleaving the creature in two. Its scream cut short, its ichor spraying against the walls.
The others shrieked, hurling themselves forward. Lindarion met them without slowing. His blade danced, shadows tearing through flesh, severing limbs, splitting skulls. Each strike was clean, merciless, efficient.
In moments, silence returned. The mutants lay in twitching heaps, ichor steaming.
The humans stared, wide-eyed. Some whispered again. Savior. Prince. Hope.
Lindarion ignored them. He shook the ichor from his blade, the hum of it settling. His chest ached faintly, but he buried it deep.
"Keep moving," he said.
And they obeyed.
—
The march stretched on, endless. More mutants came, single stragglers, malformed husks barely strong enough to stand. Each time, Lindarion cut them down with ease. The humans raised weapons but never needed to strike. Their fear dulled, replaced with something sharper, faith.
Nysha’s gaze never left him. Her shadows writhed, restless. But she said nothing, only walking at his side, her presence a constant question unasked.
Hours bled into one another. The corruption thickened, but so did their resolve. The humans no longer dragged their feet. They marched. Not like soldiers yet, but not like prey either.
And always, their eyes clung to the figure at their front, Lindarion, sword in hand, shadows at his heels, a prince of Eldorath walking through a world that wanted them dead.
Southward.
Always southward.