Sound echoed strangely down there, making it tough to determine the source. Our own footsteps rang back at us, and more than once I had to quiet our party to hear what sounded like whispers so far away they might have been the whistling of the wind. But there were words buried beneath the noise. Old words. A language I didn't know. One so old even Ssserakis did not know it.
It was quite a surprise, at least to the others, when we found the first of the faces carved into the walls. From that point on, they were a regular thing, a new face every dozen paces or so, almost terran, but not. Some of the soldiers were unnerved, I heard at least one talk of going back. I snapped at him for silence and told them they were just carvings, no matter how lifelike they might look. Of course, I knew it wasn't entirely true. With Ssserakis' sight I could see further than any of the others, and with that sight I could see the faces had their eyes closed, at least until we drew close. Just out of range of the torchlight, their eyes snapped open, and seemed positioned in just such a way that they were staring at us no matter where we stood. The others didn't need to know, so I did not tell them. But I was certain that once the city was fully explored, I would have every one of the faces chiselled out of the walls.
"Some sort of Geomancy?" I whispered to Ssserakis.
The horror laughed. Far older than magic. Not everything dies as you know it, Eskara. Some things live forever in one way or another. The horror had the truth of it. The faces were alive, yet not living. A true oddity of the world.
For hours we searched that city, and even then, we only covered a tiny section of it. On the fourth level down from the surface, we found bodies. One or two at first, but soon more. They were small things with grey flesh and tails. Heads with no ears. Imps. Through my innate Necromancy I could tell they were freshly dead, no more than a few days. Some were eviscerated, others showed clear signs of being gnawed upon. One thing was abundantly clear to me: In raising the city, I had broken it apart in many places. The barriers the imps had built to block off the Damned and protect themselves were broken. There was a war happening beneath our feet, one the imps could not hope to win.
Another floor down and new noises started echoing along the tunnels toward us. Our cartographer was making marks on a nearby wall when she heard it, a shrill scream barely audible to us. She backed up, placing herself in the centre of our little group. We heard it again, louder this time, maybe closer. I could not tell which direction it came from, sound echoing underground is often distorted that way, confusing our senses. And terran hearing is far from perfect. We are a people who rely on our eyes most of all, and the tahren do like to mock us for it. Horralain moved in close and I stepped away, growling at him not to crowd me. There was something familiar in the scream, a noise I recognised but had not heard in a long time. That knowledge gnawed at me, recognition so close yet just out of reach.
Would you like a hint? That Ssserakis recognised the noise was already a hint.
When it came again, I realised it was no scream. It was a howl. Our little group closed ranks, soldiers watching each other's backs, weapons raised and ready. The noise came again louder, closer. Hunters moving in for the kill. We were prey. I do not like being prey.
"We should go back to the stairs," said the cartographer in a shrill voice that bordered on the edge of panic.
Running is for prey. A true predator lays a trap and forces the prey into it. I couldn't help but feel we were already neck deep in the trap.
"Even the deadliest of predators is prey to something deadlier." The words were meant for myself and my horror, but the others heard them. Whether they took as them as condemnation that we were all fucked, or as reassuring that we were mightier than whatever was coming for us, I don't know. Certainly, none of us broke and ran. That was good, we terrans are followers at heart, pack animals clinging to our herds. If just one of us had broken and run, the rest would almost certainly have followed. Courage held up by bravado and company and nothing else.
The howl came again, so loud it hurt my ears. The others, too, found the noise painful, and I could see how close panic was to setting in and taking control. I could feel the fear, and it was delicious. "We used to hear stories down in the Pit, Horralain," I said. "That you had once wrestled a Khark Hound. Were they true?"
Horralain looked pained, as though suddenly being the centre of attention hurt him. "No." The word slid slowly from his mouth. "I hit it with a rock while the others went at it with picks and shovels."
I smiled at him and then turned it on the others. "A rock and some picks. And we have a bloody great hammer and a thicket of swords. I think we can take a Khark Hound, no problem." Laughter, even forced, can do much to bolster courage. A few chuckles rolled around, half-hearted at best, and the fear lessened a little, though not enough. I couldn't blame them, not really, I knew what we were up against.
When I noticed them for the first time, it was at the furthest edge of what I could see, and even then, they were little more than indistinct shapes waiting out in the gloom. I don't know how long they had been there, watching us, but Khark Hounds have a savage intelligence to them. They are not quite the mindless beasts they appear. There were two of them and they filled the tunnel. Two great slavering maws, and eight eyes all trained on us. Ears twitched our way and backward, keeping track of many sounds all at once. They were waiting. They were hunting us.
"The howling stopped," one of the soldiers said. "Have they gone?" Fear often makes us cling to vain hopes.
"No. They're here. Watching us," I said. Khark Hounds are voracious hunters, moving in packs and tracking prey over long distances. They have no noses, and their faces end in a squat muzzle bursting with jagged-edged teeth, but their hearing and eyesight is unmatched in either Ovaeris or Sevoari. Like all creatures of the Other World, they are a nightmare given savage form; a nightmare of the perfect hunter maybe.
Minions and beasts. I kept them as pets, trained to hunt down the places where Norvet Meruun's tendrils spread.
"Any suggestions on how best to fight them?" I asked quietly.
Fight them? I dominated them.
"Helpful."
"Who are you talking to?" asked one of the soldiers, an older man with dark, wrinkled skin.
Horralain grunted. I'm not sure if the exclamation was meant for me or the soldier, but it certainly put a stop to people asking about my conversations with myself.
I'd never actually fought a Khark Hound before. I'd summoned many in my time, using them to great effect harrying the Terrelan army as it advanced upon Vernan, but summoning a monster, and fighting against one are two different things. I remembered the tactics I had seen soldiers employ against my own summoned creatures, spear and bows for the most part, and acceptable casualties. Losing even a single member of my team seemed unacceptable to me. That is the problem when you start thinking about soldiers as people, they are much more difficult to send to their deaths. One of many reasons I made for a terrible general.
The tunnel was maybe ten feet high and almost twice that wide. A large space, but we would struggle to surround an attacking pack of hounds. I was still considering options when our time ran out. An ear-splitting howl ripped the air to pieces and with Ssserakis' black and white sight, I could see the monsters in front of us leap into a loping run. The howl was answered, a second group I couldn't see. I realised then that we were surrounded. I let my Sourceblade puff out of existence and raised my right hand, forming a kinetic shield that blocked the tunnel in front of me almost entirely.