The tunnel which led out of the barrow was partially dirt and partially stone. Nessalir was no mason, and she could not tell, at a glance, whether it was natural or manmade. The rocks and dirt walls were jagged rather than smooth, but for all she knew the draugr could have dug it with their hands after awakening. But if that were the case, then where had all the excess dirt gone?

  She ducked beneath an outcropping of stone near the ceiling, and brushed stray roots from her hair which hung from the dirt all around her. The dirt in question was packed well and tight, and here and there mushrooms grew in small clumps along the ground or walls. Those, she thought, indicated a natural tunnel.

  Or perhaps it is simply that this tunnel was dug so long ago that mushrooms have since had time to grow, she considered. Is it possible that this tunnel already existed when the Vile King's barrow was dug? If so, then why? And where could it lead?

  The questions surged in her head, but no matter how intently Nessalir studied the stone and soil that surrounded her, she found no answers. She pressed on, and could see only that the tunnel was long and dark, and that it was at a downward slope, every step taking her deeper into the earth.

  Abruptly the torchlight revealed something new: a few paces ahead, the tunnel ended and opened up to a large underground chamber. Nessalir paused at the sight of it, and she squinted her eyes and searched for anything that might be visible in the murky gloom. Finding nothing, she stepped forward, sword at the ready, and exited the tunnel.

  What Nessalir found was a massive cavern. Rocks and stalagmites surrounded her, and stalactites hung from the stony ceiling. Where they met their grounded brethren they formed long solid pillars. She held her torch out, and saw that the rocks were gray and white, and that the cavern was almost certainly natural.

  Continuing forward, Nessalir soon beheld a great mass across the cave from the tunnel. As she approached it, the light of her torch revealed more and more of the shape, and it caught the light and shone in a way that the stone surrounding it did not.

  It was an intricately shaped wall that had been fashioned, it seemed, of bronze. All across the wall was a relief depicting bearded warriors, weapons at the ready, as though challenging any who would dare approach. In the center of the wall was a massive door of solid iron, rusted red and brown from centuries of neglect, black bands connecting it to its hinges in the bronze wall.

  This was an old ruin, far older than the barrow in which Durnethed had been laid to rest. This ancient place had been built by the duerifari, who were now called dwarves, that once-mighty race which had emerged from the very earth itself and held dominion over the mountains and the deep before wars with the jolatari and ailefari had ended the reign of their great city-states.

  Had Durnethed known of this place when he chose the location of his burial? The notion came as a cold shiver to Nessalir. Until now, she had assumed that the Vile King's return had been an accident, but now she wondered if the old tyrant had planned out his resurrection in the final years of his life.

  She drew nearer to the dwarven ruin, and she saw that the iron gates were open, just slightly. It was enough to allow one or two men to pass through at a time, and Nessalir's intuition told her that the draugr she sought could be found beyond this threshold.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Yet when she took a step forward to follow their presumed path, she heard something moving in the darkness beside her. Immediately Nessalir spun on her heel to face whatever it was, holding her torch up and her sword out, sliding her feet into position to spring either forward or back as circumstances would demand. But the thing she saw approaching her was not the undead warrior she expected.

  The creature was twice her height, and covered in a chitinous white shell. Clumps of black eyes grew bulbous from its head like tumors, and four mandibles clicked together hungrily where its mouth was. The monster was propelled forward on four spindly white legs, and on the end of its two arms were massive claws lined with saw-like teeth.

  It screeched when it realized she'd detected it, and its slow pace forward exploded into a mad dash. Nessalir rolled nimbly under a swing of its claws, and brought her sword up against its side. Her blade clattered uselessly on the monster's carapace, and she cursed whatever stars had brought her into the hunting path of this cavern-dwelling horror.

  Jumping away, Nessalir did her best to examine the creature in her meager torchlight. Surely there was some weakness in its armor. She thought she could see a break in its shell where its head met its neck, but with the shadows and its movement it was difficult to know for sure.

  Still, it was the best option she had. Nessalir attempted to thrust her sword into the supposed gap, but she underestimated the speed with which this monster could move. As she jabbed with the blade and felt soft flesh give way beneath it, she felt two jagged points biting into her shoulder as the creature grabbed her with its claw.

  It screeched again as she buried her sword deeper into its neck, a terrible, agonized cry, and violet blood spilled from its wound. The claw clamped down harder on her shoulder, and the monster thrashed about in pain as it tried to dislodge her from itself.

  Her sword was torn from her grip, and Nessalir was jerked to the side by the creature's claw. It let go of her, and her flesh and leather clothing alike tore on its teeth as she was tossed through the air. She collided with a pillar of rock and fell to the ground in a daze, groaning in pain.

  Nessalir blinked, and did her best to power through the pain and the darkness that swamped her vision. The cave monster was still thrashing about, trying to pull the sword from its body, but its arms were not built to accommodate such movements. It ran in a circle, vanished from the light, and the cavern grew silent.

  The torch lay on the rocky ground a few feet away from her, and with a grunt Nessalir climbed to her feet and retrieved it. Her left shoulder was in agony, and she could feel her own wet blood running down her arm to the draconic claws on her scaly red hand. She grimaced as that hand closed around the torch.

  Doing her best to ignore the pain, Nessalir walked to where the creature had vanished. There, crumpled against a stalagmite, she found the curled up carcass of the monster, her sword still embedded in it, violet blood spattered all about its shell and the surrounding stone. With her human hand, Nessalir grasped the hilt and, pressing her boot against the thing's body, she pulled her weapon from the corpse.

  She tested her arms and her movements. The pain was great, but manageable. It did not seem that the monster's claw had torn any muscles. Nessalir worried that the blood loss may pose a problem, but she had nothing with her with which to bind the wound.

  There was some cloth back in her satchel, hanging from Huunang, but she doubted the wisdom of returning to her horse now. If any draugr were near the door then surely they would have heard her battle with the cave monster. If Nessalir turned back now, they might relocate, and there was no telling how long it would take her to find them again.

  That is assuming they are in the dwarven ruin, she reminded herself. It was a risk either way. But her instincts told her to press on, and Nessalir had learned through many rough years of living to always trust her instincts.

  So she set aside the pain, approached the gate of the ruin, and entered.