The Men in the Passage

The Men in the Passage

The armies of the Golden Plain had marched three long weeks over their treasured wheat to lay siege to Burrate's famed black walls. For miles on end their ant lines trampled what was once gleaming gold into muddy black and brown. Their countless files' shadows stretched on farther, all the way back home to their little towns under the cloudless sky their crown of blue. The vanguard had halted before the city walls whilst the army's tail still marched. The ranks spread out to surround the mountain Burrate had built itself alongside like some encroaching dark weed. Not a yard remained unoccupied to allow escape or permit outside aid.

There they camped and built engines of war, sure the people behind the high walls of Burrate were starving and growing more desperate by the day. And they were right. After the third month of the siege, the Golden Plain sent an envoy to treat in the no man's land between gate and besieging army. He remarked that the city's envoy's breath stank of horse and dog. The Burrate official replied that the besiegers' man's rank of shit. And he was right. The negotiation yielded naught, and the envoys parted; one to sup on horseflesh and the other to eat beside latrine lines that ran almost as long as the furrows the armies had trod through the fields.

Burrate was slaughtering its mounts and pets, it was true, but as an innovative measure to survive the siege. The animals were still healthy and would be eaten before they could eat of the city's stores, thus allowing the palatable fare to last longer and correct drops in morale. The decision was also an offensive one, for the envoy of the Golden Plain believed the populous city's warehouses were already bare, having been caught off guard by the grand army of the plains. This would surely frustrate the generals of the armies later, after half a year more would pass before the city would truly begin to starve. Alas, the besiegers would still have the entirety of the plains to exhaust till their sons would be raised to take up the siege.

But the city had long been aware of the armies' march, as enormous as it was, and preparations were made so the people behind those great black walls need not meet that day of defeat.

The queen of that little queendom nestled against the mountain had ordered the mines and passages kings and queens of the past had used as dungeons, storehouses, refuges and escape tunnels all opened and scouted. Black and perilous, those tunnels stretched and sloped and spanned the interior of that mountain. Bones and secrets it's treasures, pits and dead-ends it's guardians. Men wore ropes around their waists and still nearly lost themselves exploring the shallow mouths of those passages at the queen's behest. None alive knew the extent of those tunnels, nor of any way to determine the way out of the mountain, if such a tunnel ever truly existed.

The queen's call was then put out, widely, but quietly, after strange towers were spied being constructed on the fringes of the besiegers' camp. Any man, of low or high station, willing to volunteer to form a five man team tasked with diving into those tunnels in search of the secret mountain exit would have whatever wish they desired granted; be it gold, glory, or even the queen's own hand.

The call went unanswered for a month. A fat man who felt guilty for the food he'd need to survive during the siege at the expense of others' bellies was the first to volunteer. The rest of the team soon followed. The captain of the queen's personal guard was the second, inspired by duty, shamed by the fat cobbler's sacrifice. The third was a poacher turned huntsman of the city who could not do any hunting, legal or otherwise penned behind the walls of Burrate. The fourth was an old man, sure he would die soon anyway. The fifth was a chimney-sweep strongly encouraged to join by his two wives that had never received coin adequate to make his home for him.

The queen received the men herself, and pardoned them of any past transgressions merely for their offering to join. She sent each off with a kiss and a promise to reward them richly should they return.

"In seven days, we shall flood the tunnels, lest the enemy discover them and mount their attack. Seek help once you are free of the mountain, but should you come out too late, save yourselves," she had told them before they went to be outfitted by the royal armorer for their dangerous journey into the dark of the mountain.

Mermin had not stopped squeaking about that kiss nor took his hand away from the cheek that received it scarcely to be donned in his armor. Starrow thought it queer that a man twice married would titter so from a kiss, queenly or not. But then he saw that the chimney-sweep's other cheek glowed a bright red. Starrow wondered who had married who after spying that. Mermin stopped his squeaking when they were brought to the onyx gate to the tunnels and saw how much blacker the bowels of the world were than the throat of a chimney. He still held his hand to the wrong cheek, though, the last comfort he would know for seven days. If he or any of them lived that long.

Cerridan did not seem to think so. The old man had stuffed his beard into his mouth and turned back only an hour into the dark. Starrow was glad to be rid of him and his ceaseless rambling about his long life and coming death as a hero he never expected to have. It seemed life wasn't long enough, and he wasn't truly a hero after all, Starrow had thought, noticing the man was finally quiet and turning to see him be devoured by the shadows.

"Still, he volunteered," the captain of the guard, Risel, had pronounced at their campfire when they could not walk any further that first day. "And he was the third to take up the call. He cannot be judged harshly."

"Aye," the fat man agreed.

Starrow said nothing. He was the third to volunteer, the old craven the fourth. If the captain's failing was forgetfulness, his own was apathy. The hunter had been mulling over joining all the while all the others were whispering about it in the taverns. He would have said he was sleeping on it, but the bells of seemingly every house of worship in the town made that nigh impossible. Like any other people hard pressed and on the cusp of ruin, Burrate's masses sought out spirits and powers above to get them through the siege unharmed. Traditions and ceremonies and even deities long forgotten were unearthed to convert more and more days into ones significant in this way or that. All required the tolling of bells at the break of dawn, and Starrow was never able to get that good sleeping-in that he had been looking forward to when he had returned to the city before the armies arrived and the walls closed him in and the besiegers out.

He couldn't decide if it made more sense to die soon in a tunnel noone would ever find him in, or to starve and be put to the sword with everyone else in months' time after nary a fulfilling night's rest had. Then Henor stepped forward. He thought it over some more over pints and then Risel remembered he was supposed to be noble. He gave it another few days of dawn-rising before he made his way to the gates of the queen's castle.

For the man who had spurred the rest to action, Henor seemed an odd one for initiative. He made no boasts or plans, and deferred leadership of the expedition to the captain. Worse, he was gentle, and had no experience with riding or arms, nor had he ever stepped foot outside the city before. He was the only true hero among them, Starrow was certain, but damn them if they treated him like one.

Captain Risel took the lead with his lantern and Henor the cobbler the rear, carrying all the lantern oil on his big pack on his big back. Starrow joked --from the center of the formation he and Mermin shared-- that Henor would return to Burrate thin and a hero. Henor had chuckled politely and adjusted the clinking jars of oil attached to his pack.

They had walked for the rest of that first day in the dark, short a man. Down tunnels that bore on impossibly long only to curve into a worming series of twists and turns they pressed on. Still emboldened by the queen's mission despite the abandonment of their fifth man, they were more curious than cautious. Until the first pit.

Mermin had kicked a stone and sent it tumbling down the passage, past the captain, to bounce against a wall with a click. The sound of the stone reaching the floor did not reach them until they were at the cliff's edge. The captain swept his arms up and warned the party to stay back while he crouched down to probe the precipice. Blackness blacker than black pooled below the broken edge of the path. Risel swore he saw the glint of sharp stone down there, though. The party was much more careful after that.

Care did not amount to diligence, however. The captain led them down tunnels that rounded back into themselves and in a circle they'd march until Starrow noticed their own tracks in the dirt. They marked the walls of the ways they delved after that. The captain would curse himself when they'd do it again anyway and Starrow would wonder if they'd be the last of Burrate to survive. Mermin would complain that he was hungry. Henor would agree.

They had no shortage of food, as they did time. The party camped down in the middle of yet another fork in the passages and made a fire from small logs they carried and lantern oil. The captain thought it best to stop, sure it was sleep that they needed to find the right passageways. Starrow agreed and Mermin and Henor plopped down happy to eat. They ate well, and urged Henor to eat well most of all, to honor his part in the mission and to make him blush. They slept that first night men of a world of sun and moon, but woke men of black earth.

None knew what time it was. No notion of the arrival of dawn was pretended. All the men were groggy and disoriented. Risel rose first and ordered the rest up, his soldierly discipline compensating for their common loss of the sense of time. It was the first day borne of the tunnel, and they had their mission.

It was the first of those days awoken in the tunnels that they heard the noises. Mostly they heard water, coursing through the rock above them. Some found its way through cracks to drip, drip, drip, down from the ceiling or run down the walls. Many a puddle splashed underfoot, and, some pits they encountered were swollen black pools though no less dangerous.

Such a noise was identifiable, thus it didn't threaten the men. Other noises, sounds never before heard by living human ear, invaded the party's minds. There was the distant snap, the too near barely heard whisper that couldn't be made out. In the dark silent mines of Burrate, such sounds reigned over the silences; the time just before the party fell to sleep. Sometimes the water beyond the rock drowned it out. Other times when the men talked to pass the time away following countless passageways, the sounds were only just caught, and it was uncertain if they were only imagined.

None of the men mentioned the noises. They all knew the others heard it, too, though. The captain forgot to bring it up each time he heard something again. Starrow thought it was nothing --a draft or rats. Mermin was too afraid of having the sounds confirmed as real by the others. Henor simply wasn't bothered.

"What time do you suppose it is?" asked Mermin, pulling on his pack.

"Dawn. Eight. Midnight," said Starrow, doing the same.

"No! Can't be midnight."

"There's no way to know, lads. It's certain there isn't time enough so let's be off," the captain declared, tuning the lantern to its brightest luminosity.

"Aye, captain," Henor acknowledged, adjusting his clanking baggage.

Their camp was stowed and the party was soon shuffling down the bleak tunnels. Clink, clink, clink, they trekked the black way. And drip, drip, drip, the never-swallowing throat of the mines welcomed them down.

It had only been a couple of hours, as well as Starrow could tell, when the noise of the team around him evaporated from hearing. The lantern was yards ahead now, pitch darkness between it and him. How could that be? The yellow glow was condensed down as tiny as a star down the tunnel now.

"Wait! Captain!"

The light went out.

"Captain!" Only the whispers responded. The wall trembled and water seeped over his boots. A snap echoed off of the walls behind him, bouncing from wall to floor to wall to ceiling a hundred times racing toward him. The whispers. The whispers.

Starrow covered his ears and planted himself where he was. "Mermin! Captain! Henor! Henor, Henor! Cerridan!"

An arm jolted him out of the dark into the dim glow of the lantern. "Starrow! What's wrong, man?"

Starrow blinked in his surroundings, the faces staring at him concerned, the lantern, its light just within reach. "I... don't know. I was left behind and I couldn't hear anything."

The captain's arm settled on his shoulder. "Noone will be left behind in this dark place. Cerridan walked back safe, but we walk on, together. With the light."

Starrow nodded and rubbed his eyes.

They continued on, albeit a little slower, for Starrow's sake, though he didn't ask for it. None of the others seemed to disappear around him, and the light stayed in the captain's hand in front of him. He made sure to keep the party talking, about anything, but he could still hear a snap somewhere behind him. He dared not look back.

Hours more passed of walking and idly chatting. Their luck had been good; their path encountered no pits or dead ends. Starrow was relieved by this and started to forget being spirited away, but forced himself to remember. It's a blessing it didn't happen to Risel, he thought. He has the lantern.

"Hold, lads," the captain ordered. He lowered his lantern and peered across the passage ahead. "A rock, Mermin." Mermin obliged a kick and sent a stone past the edge of the lantern's glow into the dark. It chuckled the song of stone on stone until it stopped, and clanked at the bottom of a pit. "No spikes." The captain waved the lantern toward the wall. "We could slide over the edge, if you're willing."

Starrow could not turn around, so he agreed. Mermin wouldn't either, and assented. Henor thought backtracking would lead to getting lost, so he said, "Aye."

"Let me scout the way and act as a sconce." The captain shuffled back against the wall and stared at his feet. One foot, then the other he slid over the narrow shelf of stone that remained of the passageway. The men could hear loose pebbles and dirt spill over the side. One foot, then the other. One foot, then the other, the captain sidled over to what he estimated to be the halfway point. "Alright, Henor, come over. We'll go over the rest of the way together."

Henor stepped up and found his feet in the dim light of the lantern Risel held toward him. He sidestepped along the wall carefully, foot by foot. Starrow tried to memorize how many steps it took to reach the captain and Mermin peered over the edge of the pit. Henor made his way to Risel and smiled back at Mermin and Starrow. "It's not that frightful, boys."

Starrow made himself smile and Mermin called back, "A chimney's much worse than this, Henor. You wouldn't even fit!"

"Come over Starrow, and then you, Mermin," the captain commanded.

Starrow obeyed, edging one foot onto the ledge and then the other. The rock was solid underfoot, so he wondered why the way itself had fallen through. He was near Henor by the time he was finished musing. His foot rolled over a stone sticking out of the edge, losing his footing. He felt himself go over, but Henor caught him under the shoulder and hauled him back up against the wall. Starrow cried out belatedly, already saved. Henor sighed his relief and eased his hand from its press against Starrow's chest. He choked out a laugh; he felt so light and couldn't count his heartbeats they were pounding so fast. Henor chuckled awkwardly but his eyes stayed wide.

"Are you alright, Starrow?" the captain finally asked, sure Starrow had his feet under him.

"Yes. Yes!" Starrow exclaimed, resting his head against the wall.

"Both of our feet must've missed it. Pass the lantern over to Starrow. Mermin, come over, but test each step."

I'm sure he just forgot to tell us about the stone, Starrow thought bitterly, taking up the lantern to light Mermin's way.

Mermin edged over cautiously, his little chimney-sweep feet allowing him more room than the others to stand. He made it to Starrow without issue, making sure to kick the offensive stone over the edge that had almost sent Starrow over.

Starrow passed the lantern back to the captain and he led them on. Step, next step. First foot, next foot. Left, then right, left, then right. Step by step he led them over the ledge. One foot's space before the passageway came up again, he toed a gap in the lip. He was about to warn the men behind him of it when the lantern guttered out.

"Captain! The light!"

"Hold, boys, hold! I've only a step left and Henor can hand me his pack," the captain said firmly, abiding no panic in the party. "Here, I'm over. Henor, take but two steps and ease your pack off, or free a jug of oil, whichever is easier for you."

"Aye, captain. I can reach a jug easy." One foot slid over stone in the dark. The other foot slid to meet it. Then the left foot moved once more... and the sound of tinkling jugs and spilling dirt and panted breath was replaced with a cacophony of glass and ceramic and flesh in leather impacting stone. A cry rang out above it all. Then a hiss, and a multitude more seethed over all of it.

Henor was crying out, "Captain! Lads, pull me up!" He was barely made out over the hissing.

Starrow remembered how many steps were left between him and the captain from the last glimpse he saw in the light. Too many, he thought desperately. With a shout he leapt over the small precipice that remained between him and the tunnel. The captain had heard him coming and moved to the other wall, but still Starrow crashed into him. "Stay there, mermin! Disturb the other side of the pit, perhaps some can be led away."

Mermin kicked dirt and pebbles over the edge right away but it only seemed to make the hissing more furious. The captain knelt with Starrow and got ahold of a hand. Starrow groped for the other in the dark but could hardly think, couldn't form words with so much noise. The din of shouting and hissing and raining silt and the snap reverberating off the distant walls of the way they came were in his head, pounding against his eardrums.

Henor was waving his other hand wildly but finally it collided with Starrow's and he clasped the fat man's hand in his. The pit wasn't deep; Henor's hands just grasped its rim but he was too heavy to haul himself up.

"Heave, now!" Risel commanded. Even then he managed to keep the fear from his voice at the price of unrestrained volume.

"Hurry!" Henor cried. "I can feel... Ah! They're wrapping themselves--" He shrieked, and the hissing scalded the very air. Starrow could hear the pit creatures strike out and Henor would scream so loud Starrow could hear nothing else. He was sure he would hear nothing else ever again.

But they hauled him over, somehow. Henor had gone limp, his legs especially. The men's hands scoured the fat cobbler's body and found the serpents still clinging onto where they had bit. They wrenched them off and hurled them back into the pit. The captain's hands moved to his pack and ripped a jug of oil free. Starrow could hear him fumbling with the lantern in the dark, see the sparks of the firestarter, forever, it felt like. The hissing had died away to a sound just quieter than the dripping of water from cracks above but as evil as the whispers at the edge of hearing.