Shepherd's Quest: The Broken Key #1 (15 page)

“Neither have I,” Bart admitted. Then he moved closer to the bier until he was almost touching it so he could examine the sword and shield on the wall better. “I don’t see how they managed to survive so well all this time.”

“Unless they’re magical,” suggested Riyan.

Bart turned to him and nodded. “That would explain it.”

“Uh,” began Chad, “I think it might be wise to leave this room alone. It’s bad enough we’re grave robbers, but to take anything from this room just seems wrong.”

“I get that feeling too,” agreed Riyan. Riyan gazed at the shield bearing the crown and the sword beside it. How he longed for such things, magical weapons and armor just like in the sagas. For the sword and shield had to be magical to have survived so well for so long. Sighing, he said, “Come on, we still have more of this level to check before we head down the stairs to the next.”

The others agreed with him and they returned back to the passage from whence they entered the diamond shaped chamber. Once there, they crossed the passage and entered the two-bier room and began the looting of the rest of this level.

Just as Riyan had predicted, the passage did form a square as it moved around the diamond shaped room. As they went along, they came across seven more of the two-bier rooms and collected another seventy two silver pieces and six small gems. Again, there were no coppers.

As they rounded the final corner of the square, they came across an entryway into a large room with fourteen biers. The dead lying upon them were different than the ones they had come across thus far. Instead of being arrayed in armor with a sword lying upon their chest, these were archers. Each held a quiver of arrows rather than a sword upon their chest. The arrows themselves didn’t look all that great, most of them were seriously warped. At the foot of each bier sat a chest.

While Bart worked to get the chests open, Chad commented to Riyan, “You know, this whole place may be some king’s final resting place. I heard that in some places, when a king dies he’s buried with soldiers, so that in the afterlife he’ll be protected.” Riyan nodded agreement. “I’ve heard that too.”

“Got it!” hollered Bart as he moved on to the second chest.

Chad glanced to Riyan and shrugged. Then they walked over to the chest Bart had just disarmed and resumed the looting process. Once all the chests were disarmed and searched, they garnered another twenty silver coins and three gems.

“Today’s been rather successful so far,” Riyan announced as they were leaving the room.

“Including what we left up on the top level, I’d say we’re pushing close to the equivalent of twenty six golds,” Bart told them. “And that’s not counting what the gems may bring.”

As they made their way down the passage to the diamond room and the stairs leading down, Riyan asked his friend Chad, “Do you think this will be enough to help your father?”

“I can’t take all of this for myself,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” replied Bart. “You need it more than us right now. Use what you have to and get the grinding wheels fixed, then we’ll split the rest.”

“I appreciate this,” Chad told them. “I really do.”

“Hey,” said Riyan as he placed a hand on his shoulder, “what are friends for?” Then they turned into the diamond room and made their way over to the head of the stairs. Riyan didn’t even hesitate as he stepped upon the top step and began his descent to the next level.

Unlike the two previous flights of steps they took as they descended from one level to the next, this one had forty steps before reaching the bottom. Where the steps ended a passage extended forward for twenty feet before reaching an entryway into another room.

For the first time since they’ve been down here, they came across a door.

The door sat opened and was swung within the hallway towards them. It was a rather sturdy wooden door with reinforced iron bindings. If the door had been shut, it would have taken quite a bit of force to get it open.

“Odd to find a door here,” Chad stated.

“Isn’t it though?” asked Bart.

Then they passed by the open door and into the room on the other side. Here they were taken aback as they entered a massive room. Thirty biers were spaced in six rows of five with three rows of three columns each dividing the room equally into thirds. One row of five biers, then a row of columns. Two rows of five biers, then another row of columns. Then two more rows of biers, a row of columns, and then one last row of five biers. Upon each of the biers were more of the armored individuals laid out just as all the others they came across had been since they entered The Crypt.

“This could take some time,” Bart said as he gauged the length of time it’s going to take him to search each of the thirty biers and disarm whatever traps they may have.

“We got time,” Chad replied. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go.”

“Yeah, but you guys aren’t the ones having to do all the work,” he admonished.

“We’ll lug the treasure for you if that will make you feel better,” offered Riyan.

Bart nodded and grinned. “It would, now that you mentioned it.” He then set his pack down and began removing the coins he’s been carrying. Once he transferred them to Riyan and Chad, he stood back up. “Better.”

“I bet,” said Riyan as he hefted his now much heavier pack.

Bart moved to the first bier and began to inspect it. Chad lit the wick of the second lantern they carried and said to Riyan, “Why don’t we explore a little while we’re waiting?”

“Sure,” agreed Riyan.

On the far side of the room across from the end of the center set of columns, was a pair of double doors. Both stood wide open into the room. When they reached them they found another passage moved directly away from the doors then turned to the right.

“You two be careful,” Bart hollered in warning.

“We promise not to touch anything,” Chad hollered back. Then he and Riyan passed through the doors and into the passage. They walked down to where it turned to the right and followed it around the corner. Stretching before them was a long passage, longer than what the lantern’s light could reveal.

As they began walking down it, Chad said to Riyan, “Just like one of those stories we would tell each other.”

Riyan grinned. “Better.” Then he held up his arm that was bandaged due to his impatience in opening the drawer. “Even this doesn’t dampen my enthusiasm for what we’re doing.”

Chad glanced at the bandage and asked, “Is it bothering you at all?” Shaking his head, Riyan replied, “Only a twinge now and then when I flex my arm.”

“I was worried about it,” he said.

“So was I at first,” admitted Riyan. “But since nothing has developed, I don’t give it much thought.”

Up ahead, they see another door standing open at the end of the hallway. Moving forward, they pass through the entryway and enter another room just like the one they had left Bart in. Thirty biers separated in six rows of five, which in turn are divided by three rows of three columns.

“Bart’s going to be busy,” grinned Chad.

“Maybe we should give him a larger share of the treasure,” suggested Riyan. “After all, he’s taking the most risk in disarming the traps.”

“That would be alright with me,” replied Chad. “So long as I am still able to give my father ample gold to cover the cost of the two new grinding stones.”

“Of course,” Riyan agreed.

Far to their right, another set of double doors stood open. After a brief inspection of the room, they made their way towards the double doors. Again on the other side of the doors was a passage moving directly away from them before turning sharply to the left.

They passed through the double doors and followed the passage until it turned left.

After that they continued to follow it quite a ways to where another door stood open at the end. On the other side was yet another bier filled room.

This room turned out to be larger by far than the two other previous rooms they had discovered on this level. A quick count revealed sixty biers with armored dead lying in neat rows from one wall to the other with only a two foot gap between them. Six massive columns stood in two rows of three down the center of the room.

“Man,” breathed Riyan. “I guess this king really felt the need for protection in the afterlife.”

“It looks like it,” Chad agreed. “It’s going to take Bart days to work his way through all these.”

“I know,” said Riyan. “Feel sorry for him. He’ll definitely deserve the dragon’s share after this.”

They walked between the biers and briefly gave the dead lying upon them a once over. The walls of this room bore the scenes of fighting as they had discovered in that one room up above. Soldiers fighting the bestial, demonic looking creatures. A shiver runs through Riyan as he paused to look at one particular nasty scene where it looked as if a group of creatures were eating the flesh from a fallen soldier.

“Let’s get out of here,” Chad said as he indicated another set of double doors at the far end of the room. “This place kind of gives me the creeps.”

“You know it,” agreed Riyan.

Moving out, they made their way through the biers until they reached the double doors. There they discovered a passage moving directly away before turning left.

“How many more of these are there?” Chad asked as they passed into the passage.

“I hope not too many more for Bart’s sake,” replied Riyan. “They seem to be getting bigger as we go along.” Chad chuckled at that.

After turning left, the passage continued to run twice as far as the others on this level before opening up onto a room.

When the light from the lantern hit the room, they could tell that here at last they had found something different. There were no biers within this room. What they saw caused them to come to an abrupt halt.

From the end of the passage, the walls of the room angled outward forty five degrees until ending at the far wall of the room. Just within the room, on either side of the entryway, were large, empty urns. From the soot coating the upper rim of each, Riyan deduced that they must have at one time been filled with oil and had burned.

But this was not what had made them stop, rather the wall across the room from them.

It was covered in sigils and writing unfamiliar to them. Two steps led up to a dais that stood beneath the sigils and writing. Lying on the steps was a skeleton dressed in ragged clothes. His upper body was upon the dais with one of his arms outstretched towards the pattern of sigils on the wall.

Riyan moved to approach the figure on the steps but Chad placed a restraining hand before him. “I think we should get Bart in here before we do anything,” he advised.

All set to argue, Riyan saw the look in his friend’s eye and gave in. “Very well,” he said. He glanced once more back to the skeletal figure and just as he turned back to return down the passage, a glint of something caught his eye. Turning back, he looked more closely and saw something golden in the figure’s hand.

“Look!” he said as he pointed to it. Again he tried to move forward, and again Chad stopped him.

“Let’s go get Bart first,” he insisted.

Sighing, Riyan nodded. Hurrying back down the passage, they returned to the room where Bart was working on the biers.

By this time Bart was feeling quite frustrated. He was in the middle of inspecting his fourth bier and so far hadn’t found any catches or releases to open secret drawers in any of them. He was beginning to wonder if these even had any.

He meticulously worked over this fourth bier with a growing feeling of annoyance.

Finally, he gave up and set the lantern on top of the bier by the deceased warrior’s feet.

With hands on his hips, he surveyed the twenty six other biers still within the room and shook his head. ”I’m not going to waste my time on any more of these,” he told himself.

Just as he grabbed the lantern and was about to leave the room through the doors Riyan and Chad had, they burst into the room at a run.

“We found something!”

“You’ve got to come and see!” Chad and Riyan blurted out simultaneously.

Bart could see something had them all excited. Holding up his hand, he said, “Calm down.” They came to a stop before him. When they looked like they were both about to speak again, he cut them off by holding his hand up. Then he turned to Riyan. “Riyan, what is it?”

“We found a room unlike any other down here,” he replied.

“What do you mean?” Bart asked.

“Come on,” urged Chad. “We’ve got to show you.”

Bart nodded. “Okay. I don’t think these biers in here are going to yield anything anyway.” He followed them out of the room and down the passage. When he got to the next room with thirty biers, he was stunned by so many.

“That’s nothing,” Chad said. “Wait until you see the big one.”

“Big one?” he asked.

Riyan grinned. “Yeah, big one.”

Chad and Riyan led him between the biers and left the room through the far door.

Chad and Riyan were hurrying Bart along down the passage to the larger room with sixty biers. They wanted to reach the final room at the end and see what Bart had to say about it.

When he followed the other two into the massive room containing rows and rows of biers, with an armored figure laid out upon each, he stopped in awe. He had never seen such a thing. “This is incredible,” he said.

“Pretty impressive isn’t it?” asked Chad.

All he could do was nod in reply.’

Riyan took the lead and moved between the biers to the door at the other side. Once there, he paused a moment then turned to Bart. “The next room is the one we were talking about,” he explained. “I think you should lead from here.” Bart nodded and passed Riyan as he moved into the passage. He turned the corner to the left and followed it down until the end of the passage began to open up onto the room with the sigils and writing.

When he reached where the walls began to widen to form the sides of the room, he stopped. The light from the two lanterns illuminated the entire room well enough for him to make out the room’s features. He saw the long dead figure lying on the steps leading up to the dais, then his eyes moved to the sigils and writing upon the wall across from him.