NOVEL FROG Runeknight: Under the Castle
As I walk through the city streets toward the mountain, I realize there’s a problem with my spear. I’ve named it Heartseeker, and it’s hungry.
My arm aches from the effort of holding it back. It’s like trying to restrain a snake, a ravenous snake. It rolls and bucks in my hand, trying to jab its black and silver snout into the juicy chests of those I pass.
At least you can sheath a sword, or tie an axe at your belt. A spear is never pacified.
I take to holding it in both my hands, at guard like I’m readying myself to receive a charge. This gets me some odd looks, but no one who isn’t a runeknight dares to look long. For the first time in my life, I feel respected.
The road up to the castle is a long one. It bends back and forth, steep uphill in most parts but sometimes it plunges into a crack or gully, which means plunging yourself into darkness. I guess putting torches in them was never considered—it’s one thing to never let the enemy know what you’re doing, and better yet not to let them know what they themselves are doing.
Guards are posted at regular intervals, most in teams around great spear-throwing contraptions aimed at the sky. Fortunately they are far enough from the path that Heartseeker sleeps.
The final approach to the castle is a flight of two hundred stairs, each step steeper than the last until I’m practically climbing up on my hands and knees, which would be difficult enough in plain clothes with my hands free. Two guards greet me at the top, if greet is the correct word here:
“What’s your business?” the first barks. His armor is a shimmering alloy I don’t recognize, and the axe at his belt thick with runes so small you would need a magnifying lens to read them.
“I’m here to apply.”
“Apply for what?” says the second. Her faceplate is clear crystal, and her face heavily pierced with rose-gold rings, lips, ears, nose and all.
“A military application.” I pause a second to catch my breath. “I want to join up. Join you guys.”
“Oh yeah?” says the woman. “You have what it takes, do you?”
Heartseeker shivers in my hand—it’s awake again. A thrill shoots through my hand and up to my brain.
“I do,” I say confidently. “Lead me inside?”
“Go on in yourself,” smirks the man. “I can tell you aren’t one of Broderick’s agents. Just my nose.”
“Oh yes,” laughs the woman. “Got to have a good nose to be a guard up here.”
I frown, not quite understanding the joke, nor why they're letting me in so easily, then shrug and walk past them toward the castle gates.
The design of Runethane Thanerzak’s castle says one thing and one thing alone: impregnable. There is no beauty here, not a single stone has been selected for aesthetics, the only reason each is polished to reflectivity is to make the walls impossible to ascend by climbing. It is, however, slightly smaller than it looks from down in the city, almost disappointingly so.
I walk through the raised portcullis into a plain entrance hall, in which the only concession to comfort is a single chair on which a solitary guard sits, partly shrouded by the gloom.
“Where are you going then?” he asks. His armor is tungsten like the head examiner’s was, but his face is uncovered to reveal an expression of intense indifference.
“I’m here to join up.”
“Join up what?”
“The military. The army, you guys. Didn't you do the same?”
“Oh yeah, sure.” He scratches his beard. “A long time ago.” He smirks slightly. “You’ll want to head on down then, right the way down.”
“Can you take me, then?”
“No, no. I have to stay up here. That’s my job, you know. I’m a guard, so I guard.”
“I’m allowed to just go on down by myself?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“You’re allowing me in? Aren’t guards supposed to keep people out?”
“Why would we keep out a fellow loyal servant of our honored Runethane?”
“I... I mean, what about spies?”
He smirks again. “Are you a spy?”
“Of course not!” I say hotly.
“Well, there’s no problem then, is there?”
“What if I get lost?”
“No problem there either, for me. Off you go now. First left, then keep going down.”
His chuckles echoing in my ears, I head down into the tunnel he indicates. It is low and arched, of stone blocks lined up with unerring regularity. The oil lamps along the walls are spaced widely, so that my journey is a slow fading of day to night and back again. These do not smell of oily smoke, but are perfumed with a slightly acrid, not unpleasant scent I do not recognize. Perhaps it’s the smell of something from the surface.
The tunnels branch down in spirals, the slope of each so shallow just descending a mere hundred yards is nearly a mile’s walk. Occasionally a door appears, unlabeled and unmarked. I am too apprehensive to knock on them, and besides, the guard said to go right down. He must have meant the very bottom—that’s where their barracks must be.
Now I understand just how wrong I was to think the castle small. Only the gatehouse was squat and small.
The mountain itself is the castle.
My belly rumbles. I ate lunch of course, though it was just a sandwich, but now I’m starving. It must be well past dinner, and maybe it’s even pitch black outside.
How far down do I have to go? Am I even heading in the right direction? The tunnels have branched several times thus far, and none of the branches have a sign indicating what they might lead to. Am I heading down a dead end? My dwarven sense of direction says no, but fortifications like this are designed to deceive, to lead the enemy to their mortal fates no matter how clever they think they are.
I have no choice but to continue. After an indeterminate length of time, I feel Heartseeker pull on my wrist. I hurry forward.
There's a guard here, leaning against the wall and yawning. He wears a tall helmet and carries a spear longer than Heartseeker and more heavily runed, although it has no halo of darkness or light. He stops his yawn halfway and looks at me oddly.
“What’s someone like you doing so far down here?”
“I’m looking for the barracks,” I answer. I can hear the fatigue in my voice.
“The barracks?”
“Yes, the barracks. I can sign up there, right?”
“Sign up for what, exactly?”
“The military. To join you guys.”
He nods knowingly. “Oh yes. The barracks. Just keep on going down and you’ll reach them eventually.”
Why can I tell he’s smirking underneath his helmet? I keep on going down, down and down, spiraling for what feels like the entire night and half a day too. Then, finally, I reach a door.
I’m too exhausted and hungry to hesitate; I knock.
It opens.
“Yes?” says a tungsten clad runeknight.
“I’m here to join.”
“Join what?”
“You! The military!”
“Oh. Us. You better come in, then.”
“Thank you.”
Breathing hard, I stumble through the door into a plain stone room, set with a carved wooden table and several chairs. There are plates with scraps of dry food still on them on the table, and some empty flagons of ale.
“Sit down and wait,” commands the runeknight, and I gladly do so.
He doesn’t keep me waiting long. The clink of armor heralds his return, along with a similarly clad figure.
“Oh!” I say, in surprise.
I cannot see the new runeknight’s face, but I recognize his mirrored mask. He nods at my spear.
“You’ve put in some good work.”
“Thank you. I have.”
“Now, you’re here to join us, is that right?”
“Yes, yes. That’s right.”
“I do believe you are of the tenth degree.”
“Of course.” I laugh a little, desperate not to let my tension show. “I haven’t been passing any exams behind your back, or anything.”
“Yes. That is unfortunate. As part of Runethane Thanerak’s policy of quality over quantity, we are not admitting any runeknights under the fifth degree.”
The journey back up to the surface is the longest and most depressing I have ever taken.