Feolin watched with horrified fascination as the gates caved in, finally tilting back to blast off their hinges and collapse with a dull roar. She hadn’t believed it would be possible, not really, to break into the castle. It seemed impenetrable, an unmoving mountain of stone that by all logic should collapse under its own weight. Yet, somehow...

    The Slayers gave a bloodthirsty cheer. Weapons raised into the air as they roared and screamed, each pushing to be the first through the gates. MacRielly would be in there somewhere, screaming bloody vengeance as he shoved others aside, trying to be the one to get to the Duke first.

    Nearby, Tyron Steelarm watched it all unfold from atop his strange platform, his face expressionless, but his eyes burning. As always, a contingent of his undead remained about him, but others continued to engage in the battle, firing arrows, flinging spells, exchanging fire with the defenders on the walls.

    Somehow, the appetite for violence amongst the Slayers still hadn’t abated. They didn’t even need to kill the Duke, for the Emperor surely would, but it didn’t seem to matter.

    For her part, Feolin had seen more death and suffering in the past ten days than she had seen in the decade before. The streets were choked with bodies, the noble quarter reeked of blood. She’d seen the Necromancer pick through it all like a crow, going from slaughterhouse to slaughterhouse with his army and dragging away the dead.

    It was grim work, but she understood the need for it. However, it was difficult to view the man sympathetically when every time she saw him, even from a distance, he looked as cold as a corpse himself.

    “Are you coming?” a voice asked.

    It took Feolin a moment to realise that someone was talking to her, and even longer to realise who it was. It was the Necromancer, speaking to her from atop his perch.

    She looked back to the gate. She could already hear the screaming and clash of blades, the flare of magick coming from within. No doubt the castle would soon become another charnel house.

    “I don’t have any desire to see it,” she replied.

    “See what? The worst of our impulses laid bare? The depths of cruelty your fellow Slayers will sink to when they’re no longer bound by the curse? Are you afraid that you will walk in there and start to believe that the Magisters were right all along?”

    He didn’t sound impassioned, or upset, he barely sounded curious. Feolin wondered why he was talking to her at all.

    “The Magisters are platinum ranked arseholes,” she told him, “but that doesn’t mean I need to see their guts spilling out with my own eyes. I find all of this...” she gestured vaguely toward the city, “... unnecessary.”

    “Freedom without vengeance,” Tyron nodded. “Thankfully for me, not many of your fellow gold rankers felt the same way.”

    She felt a flush of hot anger at those words.

    “Why? Because you couldn’t enact your vengeance without them?”

    “Exactly,” he nodded. “Without them, I would have no chance of getting inside the castle. Every noble in there is going to die, along with all the men and women who sided with the Duke against us. However, that’s not the only reason I want to get in there. I mean, aren’t you curious? You don’t want to know what is hidden within the bowels of the castle?”

    Feolin had a creeping suspicion that she very much didn’t want to know what might be down there.

    “Why?” she asked warily. “Do you have some idea?”

    “Oh, I know,” Tyron said, showing some hint of emotion at last: a quick flash of a smile. “I want someone like you to come with me, someone who isn’t...” he gestured toward the fighting at the gate, “... so enthusiastic. Who knows what they might do when they find what I’m looking for.”@@@@

    “You want a witness.”

    “That’s right. I want a witness.”

    The gold slayer thought about it for a long moment as the fighting continued to intensify in the distance.

    “Alright, fine,” she eventually agreed, hoping she wouldn’t regret it. She looked up at Tyron. “Why are you up there, anyway?”

    “I’m standing on a ritual circle,” he explained. “I need to maintain the flow of power. I’m not up here because I think I’m better than everyone.”

    She looked down at the skeletons carrying him around on their bony shoulders.

    “I can admit it doesn’t look good,” he said.

    “Fine. Pull me up and I’ll go with you,” she said, walking over and reaching up with one hand.

    Tyron looked a little surprised at first, then he reached out to clasp her hand and easily pulled her up onto the platform. Despite not being fighters, their gold ranked strength was enough to perform an act like this without a hint of strain. ra?????O?E?????

    Once she was up there, Feolin could see that indeed there was a potent ritual circle carved into the platform, which Tyron remained in contact with at all times, giving him control of the flow of power. It was an interesting spell, and as a mage, she found herself drawn to examining it, leaning in to study the sigils and connections.

    “It’s a ritual that empowers my horde,” Tyron explained. “Any undead connected to me can also draw power through the circle. In addition, it gives me an enhanced mental connection to each of them.”

    “So you can know what each undead under your control is doing?”

    “I could already do that, but in a vague way. This ritual gives me a much stronger bond. Are you alright if we start moving?”

    “Half right. You know that people who are Slayers tend to have children who are Slayers, right?”

    Feolin’s mouth tightened.

    “I know,” she said.

    “And you know why the brothels are positioned so close to the Golden District?”

    “I do.”

    “Then the rest is self-explanatory.”

    “I don’t see how...” a monstrous thought began to creep into her mind. “You aren’t saying...”

    “What I’m saying is that every year, dozens of Slayers were brought here, to the underground. The reason doesn’t really matter to me.”

    He threw open a door in front of them, and Feolin gasped at the sight that lay beyond.

    “What matters is that they all died here.”

    A stone lined pit in the centre of the room seemed to descend into perfect darkness, but even from the entrance, she could see the bones poking out.

    “The entire castle is sanctified ground, no need to worry about naturally forming undead,” Tyron noted, stepping forward to look into the pit. “A mass-grave of fallen Slayers. Are you sure you don’t want to look?”

    Feolin felt sick.

    “No... I’m fine.” She grimaced. “Is this what you came here for?”

    “Not quite.”

    He turned his back on the treasure trove of bones and led her out, closing the door behind him. Once again, they set off through the darkness, striding through the narrow corridors in their various twists, turns, rises and falls.

    It was hard to tell if they were moving closer to the surface or deeper down. It was hard to find any sense of direction at all, in the dark, but eventually the atmosphere began to change.

    Soon, she realised just where they were. The guards were long gone, fled or recruited to fight, but it was clear the dungeons beneath the castle had been abandoned. Except, not entirely.

    Moans, screams and pleas echoed from the damp stone walls as those still locked away, likely without food or water for days, cried out at the sound of footsteps. When they saw the undead, the prisoners fell silent, cringing back in their tiny cells, turning their faces away from the light of the skeletons’ eyes.

    Row after row of cells, Tyron marched past all of them, Feolin on his heels, until he came to one and stopped. For the first time, she felt she saw a hint of genuine emotion in his face as he gazed at the crumpled old man lying on the floor of the cell.

    “You know this man?” she asked.

    “That’s Master Willhem,” he replied softly.

    “No!” she gasped, turning back to the unfortunate prisoner. She could see some resemblance, but it was difficult to match the esteemed Arcanist she had seen only briefly with this wreck.

    “What happened? Why would they bring him here?” she muttered.

    “I happened,” Tyron said.

    She waited, but got no further response.

    “Is he...” she hesitated to continue.

    “He is hovering on the edge of life and death, but there isn’t anything anyone can do to save him now. This place has made his condition worse. Old-age can’t be healed.”

    “Is this why you wanted to come here?”

    “Yes.”

    Tyron knelt down and lifted his hands to grip the bars of the cell, profound emotion welling deep in his eyes.

    “I will witness your final moments, Master Willhem,” he whispered. “And then, you will come with me. You’re just like me now. You want to make them pay.”