Pathway

The Lochal lifted her hand. Two scrolls floated down from a high shelf and settled in the air in front of her. To Chang Chang, they appeared to be mundane scrolls, but the spirit's warning rang loudly in her mind, so she assumed nothing. 

"An Eternal View of the Arcane and The Divine Touch." 

The Lochal recited and continued. 

"Which contains the most detailed account. I have also included an untitled collection of observations on various powerful artifacts, including records on the Seal of Horns and the Death Moon Orb. There is a passage discussing the Arcane Script Sphere written by an ancient ascendant. The other written word is protected under glass. When you have finished with these, I will show you how to read it."

"My thanks." 

Chang Chang said. Her fingers itched to snatch the scrolls out of the air, but she thought that would be impolite.

"Perhaps you'd like to read by the fire? If you require anything further, simply call for me." 

The Lochal made a sweeping gesture, and the scrolls sailed across the room and made a neat stack on a table by one of the wingback chairs. A blanket lay folded beside the chair. With that, she vanished as soundlessly as she'd appeared.

Chang Chang followed in the wake of the flying scrolls and sat down in the chair. The leather cushion was wide enough for her to tuck her legs up, and she draped the blanket over them. The blanket and the fire chased away the chill, and the flames provided ample, if wavering, light to read by. She picked up the first book and opened the cover. As soon as she did so, the whispers lingering at the edge of her hearing quieted. Perhaps they were trying to be polite while she gave her attention to one of their fellows. Chang Chang smiled slightly to herself at the thought.

Before she began, she risked a glance at Gallazza. He'd not moved from his own seat, but his tome lay discarded before the hearth. He stared into the fire, his face frozen in that same stony mask. She wondered what he could be thinking. For a moment, Chang Chang felt a swell of pity for him, but she quickly banished the feeling. He didn't want her pity, and it was dangerous to feel sorry for the yaomo. She would have to tread carefully around him.

For now, she had information in front of her, the opportunity to learn more than she ever had about the Arcane Script Sphere. Ju Feng would want her to take advantage of that, to do everything she could to get the sphere. Especially after the entity in her projected dreams had told her about the enormity of the weight on her shoulders. She had to be stronger. That was the simple truth. This was what she wanted, wasn't it?

Chang Chanf closed her eyes briefly as fresh doubt welled up inside her. She took another deep breath and waited for the ache to pass before she began reading.

***

Ruen fell on his knees, gasping and waited for the pain to recede. But it didn't. A second wave of dark energy slammed into him from behind. He rolled behind a rock, where a pair of dwarves and Garn had stacked stones on three sides to form a protective trench. Barbs of pain rippled along his skin, the most intense concentration focused on his left hand. Pain cramped his muscles. He clutched his hand, tried and failed to close it into a fist.

Abron saw his contorted features and knelt beside him. Streams of blood ran down the side of the runepriest's face, but the runes tattooed into his skin glowed with a faint, white light, shining thorough the blood. He looked like a phantom, an avenging spirit. Sitting in a strange position, Chang Chang had a strange view of the chamber's dominating feature. Carved dwarf faces—six of them—stared down at him from the far wall. Each carving was at least ten feet tall and five feet wide, the mouths in each face slightly open, as if they were great generals issuing commands to their troops. The Cavern of Lost Souls was named for the smiths these likenesses were based on, according to Abron. He'd been able to tell Ju Feng a bit of the place's history before the yaomo attacked.

"Dont use your inner energy. It enhances the attack." 

Ju Feng couldn't believe their was an attack like that but quickly did as he was told. Almost immediately, the pain ebbed, and it no longer hurt to draw breath. He sat up slowly, using the wall of the trench as a prop.

"What was it?" 

Ju Feng asked as he helped Abron and Krodorn lift an unconscious dwarf and carry him quickly across the chamber. A hail of crossbow quarrels followed them as they took cover behind one stone outcrop after another.

"We call it the Divine Lash. Mystical arts that turn all your own power into pain." 

Krodorn growled. He was a gray-bearded dwarf with scars crisscrossing the left side of his face. Not ten feet away, a dwarf pelted across the chamber, chased by a web of blue-black lightning. Ju Feng lifted a hand feebly, as if he could will the dwarf to run faster, but he couldn't. Deafening echoes, the sounds of close fighting, rang in the cavern. Yaogai, yaoling, and the yaomo commanding them swarmed the Cavern of Lost Souls.

The energy of their attack slammed into one of the dwarves, driving him to the ground. Ju Feng heard the warrior's skull crack when he hit, but he was dead before that. The black lightning crawled sickly along his skin, opening up small cracks in his flesh. The air sizzled and reeked. Blood and poisonous spiders poured forth from the wounds, dozens of the creatures covered in gore. He knew what it could only be.

Gu necronom.

"Heavens killing blasts!" 

Abron shouted. 

"Krodorn, we've got another one!"

One of the other dwarves in the trench turned and muttered a short prayer. Ju Feng recognized it and knew to put his head down as a hail of stones appeared from nowhere, showering the dead dwarf's mutilated body. The spiders ran from the hail of pellets, but they weren't fast enough. The rocks crushed them. After a moment, nothing recognizable remained of the soldier's body. The dwarves had been reduced to mutilating their own dead in order to drive back the spiders.

"Can you stand?" 

Abron shouted at Ju Feng. 

"We're falling back. We've got to draw more of the yaomo into the chamber."

Ju Feng could see no such end in sight. Dwarf and yaoling corpses tangled their feet as they fell back to a more fortified position beneath the carvings on the wall. Ju Feng tripped over a yaoguai corpse and scraped his knee against the ground. He had to push off the creature's body to lever himself to his feet.

His hands traced rough, scarred flesh. Ju Feng glanced down and saw a livid mark carved into the dead creature's flesh. He thought it might have been a slave's mark, indicating which clan the yaoguai belonged to, but the carving ran in intricate lines and whorls all across the creature's back. The yaomo would not be so elaborate in marking their property. He didn't have time to ponder it further, though. The yaomo were mustering for another assault. They gave the unconscious dwarf over to the clerics for healing and dived for cover.

Energy and mystical arts glows illuminated the stone faces in eerie white light. Ju Feng blinked, realizing that at least some of the energy dispensed and power cast in advance of the army were aimed at the carvings. A breath later, he understood why.

Spiders erupted from the mouth holes, the noses, and the eyes of the carved faces. Summoned from some dark, undisturbed hole by drow magic, Ju Feng thought, but then he remembered the rings, their ability to conjure illusory spiders. These must be similar spells, designed to create the illusion of a spider swarm and an impossible number of targets the dwarves couldn't hope to eradicate. All of it carefully calculated to destroy the defenders' morale.

"They're coming! Beat them back! They'll eat us alive!"

The scream came from a dwarf feebly crawling among the rocks on the battlefield. An axe slash had ripped open her thigh. She held the torn flesh together with one hand and dragged herself across the floor with the other. Ju Feng cursed as he passed the last bloodroot pill to the dwarf. In the quickness of their retreat, they hadn't been able to collect all the wounded. Dozens of dwarf and yaomo corpses littered the battlefield, and now the spiders swarmed among them, covering their bodies. It didn't matter whether they were real or not, not to the wounded and dying soldiers who imagined their flesh covered with swarms of hairy bodies.

The cavern they'd been fighting in was a mile long at this point but not so wide, with intermittent stalactites and stalagmites, many of which had been smashed by yaomo powerful magical energy or the sheer pressure of so many bodies fighting together in the restricted space. The yaomo gathered at the opposite end of the chamber, near the widest tunnel, but only fifty or so slaves and their masters were visible. There was no way to tell how much of an army waited behind those front lines. If they tried to go back for the wounded, they'd be fodder for crossbow and mystical arts quarrels.

"No, get them off!" 

The screams of the wounded filled the chamber, and on their heels came the sound of delighted yaoling squeals and the yaomo's smoky laughter.

"Keep your heads in the fight! They're shadows—nothing more!" 

Cried Abron. Ongara and Arjun had spread the word about the illusions, but the sight of hundreds of the eight-legged creatures scuttling across the surface of the carved stone faces was enough to send a shudder of revulsion through the dwarves. 

The Cavern of Lost Souls was not just a mining outpost. Abron had told him that the most famous dwarf smiths of Myria—all of them gone now—had their faces engraved in the stones, a reminder to the miners what their sweat and sacrifices had ultimately done for the people in giving them the best armor and the finest weapons to defend their homes and families. 

The miners, smiths, and warriors together were the soul of the people.