Saigo moved in swift bursts, his shadow sliding along the uneven walls of the widening tunnel. Soon, he emerged onto a narrow ledge, and his breath caught for a moment.
Below yawned a monstrous chasm, an abyss that swallowed any light. At its bottom, far below, a small stone plateau gleamed dully. 'Just as the report described…' he noted inwardly.
His gaze, sharp as a blade, combed through the thick darkness beneath the ledge.
Nothing. Just damp gloom and a couple of rats scurrying in the cracks. 'But where is the clone?'
Logic suggested it had accelerated, missed the edge, and plunged down; magical clones could be dim-witted, and that was the most likely scenario.
'Too simple. This feels different.' Saigo closed his eyes, shutting off his vision, immersing himself in the stream of his own sensations – that very "instinct" he'd spoken of to the guards. His sixth sense picked up a trace, a residual magical energy. Faint, weak, but very fresh.
Assured of his theory about an attack, he submerged himself again… 'There.'
On the other side of the plateau, down below, under the rocks – a barely perceptible vibration was felt. A magical aura, thick as tar, saturated with silent malice and fatigue.
'Lying in wait. Thinks I didn't notice it? Let it…'
In a normal situation, he would have descended carefully, with reconnaissance. But the situation was far from normal. He needed speed, a real shock to make it reveal itself.
Saigo took two steps back into the tunnel, giving himself a running start – and leaped into the black maw of the abyss. The air howled in his ears. Mid-flight, his fingers worked feverishly as if he were a spider: mithril wire, thin and incredibly strong, looped in a dead knot around the hilt of a throwing knife.
The trajectory calculation happened – on an instinctual level. 'Now!'
THWIP!
The blade, thrown with catapult force and a master archer's precision, sank into the rock on the opposite wall of the chasm. Saigo jerked at the end of the wire like a marionette, stopping a centimeter from the plateau's stone floor. Silence. Only his own breathing and the distant ring of vibrating metal.
With a sharp tug, he recalled the blade – the steel whistled out of the rock, returning to his hand. 'Will be useful again… Ah, something changed.'
'Quieter, at least it's become much quieter.' The pressure of that malicious aura – had weakened. Shifted.
'Gone… So, not alone.' This thought flashed through his mind like a cold spark. 'Witnesses… Extra work. I'd rather not, but…' His lips pressed into a thin line. 'Will have to eliminate them.'
He landed soundlessly, like a ghost. With quick, honed movements – not running, but almost gliding – he crossed the plateau to the spot from which that first pulse of rage had emanated.
His attention was drawn to a patch of quartz sand at the foot of the cliff. He crouched, touching it with his fingers. The sand was still warm. From a body? From energy?
'Does it really want to play tag with me?' flashed through his mind, and a cold, predatory gleam ignited in Saigo's eyes. He took the cave's silence as agreement. 'So the game has begun.'
…
Damn it… The scrawny man in a magician's soiled robe ran, gasping for breath, ducking into one of the countless crevices on the plateau.
'How did he get down so fast? Who is that... Need to report, urgently!'
THUD!
His foot, at full speed, hit something incredibly hard – like a steel beam. His balance vanished as if by magic. He crashed face-first onto the stone, plowing a good meter across the rough floor with his forehead and nose. Pain shot through his skull and body.
"A-agh!.." a rasp escaped his twisted mouth. He tried to push himself up, to rise…
BAM!
Something heavy and relentless pressed his back into the stone. Ribs creaked under the weight. The air was knocked from his lungs. He wheezed, flailing helplessly, unable even to inhale. The cold blade of a knife pressed against his throat.
"I ask – you answer," a voice sounded right in his ear, icy, without intonation, quieter than a whisper, but with monstrous clarity. "Try to struggle – I'll slit your throat before you even twitch."
His knees trembled with a fine shiver. A sticky, chilling sweat broke out all over his back, temples, behind his ears – everywhere.
"Y-yes…" he hissed, rubbing his bloody lips into the stone.
"Who are you?"
"D-Damur… Academy apprentice…"
"Why here?"
"T-to kill… the dragon… came alo… AAAARGH!"
His arm, twisted behind his back, was wrenched with such force that the bones cracked and the tendons burned with white fire. The pain was inhuman, turning his consciousness inside out.
"And now, I want to hear the truth," Saigo's voice didn't change, remaining just as cold.
"Th-that's… what I'm… saying… AAAAAA!" a scream tore into an hysterical rasp as the joint threatened to tear apart.
"Last chance."
"COVER! COVER!" he exhaled, choking on tears and saliva. "FOR COVER! I'M PROVIDING COVER!"
The pressure on his back eased slightly, allowing him a gulp of the foul cave air.
"Continue."
"Th-there's… five of us… I… Kant – mercenary, swordsman… Lyn – dragon hunter… Shuma – elemental mage… The Baron… He… hired us… Swore, the sum would…"
"How did you get in?"
"Th-through the main entrance… One by one… The Baron… came last…"
"Your role?"
Saigo pulled the twisted arm again. He didn't have time to dawdle.
"AAH! I! AAH!... I-I was on watch… on the upper ledge… K-killing… newcomers! So they wouldn't interfere!"
"Where's your camp?"
"D-down below! Third level! Dead end… with a basilisk head on the wall! You can't miss it!"
"Clear. Thank you."
The grip on his back and arm vanished. For a split second, Damur felt relief, almost unbelievable. He convulsively lunged forward, into the darkness… but…
Strong fingers dug into his hair and chin. A sharp, practiced jerk – left-up.
CRUNCH.
A quiet, wet crunch of cervical vertebrae sounded louder than any scream in the tomb-like silence of the cave. The mage's body went limp like a rag doll, falling onto the stone without a sound. No moan, no last breath. Only a glassy, empty stare fixed on the darkness.
Saigo stood up, brushed off his palms. 'Neck-breaking never fails. Quick and clean.' He looked down, to where the third level should be.
'Sigh… Will have to take them all out.' The thought was annoying, but calm. 'If someone tugs my sleeve during the dance with the dragon… it'll be the last stupidity in my life.'
Saigo shoved the mage's lifeless body into a deep crevice between boulders, covering it with rubble. Assured of the makeshift grave's security, he headed down. He had no business on the first level.
…
The cave led him deeper, as if into the womb of an ancient giant. The tunnels sometimes constricted to a tight crack where he had to squeeze through sideways, then suddenly gaped into colossal halls whose vaults were lost in impenetrable darkness. The air grew heavier, damper, smelling of dampness and something… rotten.
And then, the first oddities appeared. Solitary mushrooms. Unusual ones. Their caps emitted a dull, bluish phosphorescent light, like that of rotting wood.
With every step, there were more of them. They grew right out of the bare rock, their mycelium clinging to the slightest crack. By the end of the descent, they covered everything: walls, floor, vaults turned into an eerie, blue-glowing tapestry.
Saigo walked on a carpet of cold bioluminescent moss, his steps rustling softly in the ringing silence.
Turning from another fork, he stepped into an open space.
The second level - a vast area, partially flooded with stagnant, black water. Traces of old workings were also noticeable – collapsed supports, rusted fragments of tools, piles of waste rock.
A barely perceptible but familiar taste hung in the air – copper, mined here long ago. His sharpened senses detected it through the smell of mold and water.
And something else… someone… The local fauna clearly wasn't limited to rats. In the black surface of one of the larger lakes, he distinctly felt a slow, powerful movement of a creature whose underwater contours seemed twice the size of a horse.
A cold, primitive mind, driven by immense hunger.
'So, no swimming.'
Quickly assessing the terrain – a wet sandy shore, rare islets of more-or-less stable rock amidst the water – Saigo chose his route. He moved swiftly, leaping lightly across the wet sand, balancing on wobbly stones like an acrobat on a tightrope. Speed was his shield.
Splash…
His instinct screamed a warning a fraction of a second before the attack. Saigo lunged forward instinctively. Where he had just stood, something shot out of the black water like a torpedo.
A long, serpentine body covered in slippery, dark scales. The head – flattened, with a wide mouth filled with needle-like teeth, was crowned by long, whisker-like fin-tentacles. - A lesser water dragon.
A creature deadly in its element but clumsy on land. Its webbed feet were poorly suited for solid ground.
Without breaking pace, Saigo drew his blade and, spinning mid-run, hurled a glob of acid at the monster's maw.
The massive ball hissed through the air, spraying droplets, but the main mass hit right in the eye socket and nostrils. The hissing became deafening, mixed with a shriek of agony – the sound of bursting tissues and melting flesh.
The dragon thrashed immediately, blinded by pain.
That moment was enough. Saigo rolled away from the chaotic tail strikes and, putting all his strength and momentum into the blow, with one lightning-fast swing of the saber, cleaved the head from the long, writhing neck. The strike was clean, almost surgical.
The corpse jerked convulsively and collapsed. Saigo, without unnecessary emotion, pushed it into the water. The black surface closed, staining dark crimson for just a moment. He carefully obscured the traces of blood and struggle with sand and dirt. 'Clean.'
He cast a glance downward, into the blackness leading further. 'The third level and that group's camp.' By his internal, years-honed clock, about two hours had passed, and he needed to hurry.