A dozen grenadoes sailed through the broken temple door. Two heartbeats passed—then thunder cracked and flashes lit the hall, one after another. Next, the deep purple of necromantic control matrices played around the fingers of the necromancers as rank upon rank of skeletal pikemen advanced toward the torn metal of what had once been a door decorated with saintly scenes. Step by step the skeletons moved, the front rank periodically lowering pikes to deliver death blows to fallen thralls.

  At the colonnade’s flank, Adarin inspected the musketeers, checking their one-use abjurations one last time.

  “Go,” he ordered, after receiving nods of readiness from all the sergeants.

  The soldiers, the order's green-clad elites, advanced into the temple, and Adarin exchanged a look with Mage Captain Krislov. As the seconds dragged, he almost wished for the crack of gunfire to break the silence. But thirty seconds later, musketeer sergeants called out one by one:

  “Clear.”

  “Clear.”

  Adarin allowed himself a private sardonic smile, readied all his weapons, and entered the inner sanctum. Skeletons and musketeers had split into small units guarding the side entrances, and Adarin swallowed. The ground was strewn with the remnants of quicklime, white as the first snow of winter. Furthermore, it was decorated with bodies flayed by the caustic burns of the substance, eyeless and unmoving, bleeding a strangely pink blood.

  But towards the back, at the feet of the central statue, there was a small pyramid of human heads. Adarin swallowed hard. All this slaughter—just to stack thirty-two heads for their sadistic game?

  Behind it, a new entrance had been opened in the previous smooth stone wall. It was guarded by bristling skeletal pikes and prepared ranks of musketeers.

  Adarin advanced slowly under the cover of his own guard of pikes and guns, Mage Captain Krislov beside him.

  He turned his head to the mage captain as they walked across the sanctum’s hall. “How did we miss this?” His voice was cold, yet he kept the anger out of it.

  Mage Captain Krislov murmured supportive gestures of casting the analyze cantrip. “I think it was an illusion, sir. But that kind of magic—it’s one of my weaker ones.”

  Adarin turned around and reached out over the noospheric link. ‘Liora, get me the best illusionist you can find, quickly. We found something.’

  They walked past the pyramid of skulls and over the quicklime covered ground, leaving dark footsteps in the grey dust. He calculated the dimensions of the pyramid. Headcount: thirty-two. He froze, then a feral grin played over his avatar's face. Just as expected. He recognized some of the faces—those that had been grabbed from the breach.

  Adarin came to a stop behind the unit covering the stairs leading into the deeper darkness behind the temple. One of the sergeants cleared her throat, pointing upwards.

  “Sir, there’s a—” She swallowed. “Message for you.”

  He looked up. On the left corner above the door were two sentences.

  Not a secret door

  A secret door:

  The last sentence ended on colons, just in line with the upper edge of the hole of the secret entrance. Adarin merely shook his head. I’ll make them pay for every whisper—for every gruesome joke.

  He gestured to his honor guard to follow him and walked across the hall, examining the thralls. Idle curiosity overtook him, and he readied the diamonoid dagger, cutting one open. The organs were no longer human and embedded in a sticky syrup. He leaned closer, examining them. Fibrous exoskeletons had been grown over all of them. His diamondoid dagger went through with little resistance.

  He turned to the mage captain, gesturing at the corpse. “Give it a proper stab.”

  Krislov looked briefly at the corpse, then swallowed, drew his sword, and brought it down in a quick jab. Adarin observed how the organ armor flexed, then broke after the mage captain leaned into the blade. He hummed. So they are more resilient than normal humans, but not by much.

  One of his musketeers leaned on his musket and threw up, the splattering sound of vomit oddly loud in the desecrated temple. Adarin studied the faces. Most of them were slightly greenish, except for Krislov, but his own had been turned into even brown wood. No blushing and greening happening there anymore.

  Adarin paused. The silence—too oppressive. He raised his voice. “I believe those thralls might have been infected from childhood. Apparently the vampiric virus mutates their bodies to make them more suitable to serve their masters.”

  A few murmurs of agreement, too loud, too fast, could be heard all around. Then the illusionist, a middle-aged man wearing spectacles, approached. He took one step into the temple, noticed the fallen thralls in their caustic, flayed states, noticed the skull pyramid—and bent over to vomit.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Adarin rolled his eyes. This squeamishness. Being members of an order of necromancers, one might believe they were somewhat used to seeing death and destruction around them.

  It took five more minutes for the man to collect himself. Then he walked up to the gate and, very deliberately staying behind the safety of skeletal pikes, performed various spells.

  Soon Devon and Gavin also rushed into the temple at an enthusiastic jog, seemingly oblivious to their environment. As always, they ignored the scene entirely, dragging a gray-skinned, horned vampire into daylight to cut apart while loudly debating their findings. He considered stopping them, but then decided to let them do their thing. Maybe they'd find something useful. He reached out to them over the noospheric link as the ember of an idea struck him. ‘Devin, Gavin. Please find out how long those beasts can hold their breaths. And if their lungs work like ours.’

  Adarin stepped up to the illusion magus. “Why did we miss this?”

  He swallowed. “It’s… it’s old magic. Dwarven, I believe. Those runes—” He shook himself. “They might predate the arrival of humans on the continent, sir.”

  Adarin pressed his eyes shut. Amazing. Ancient ruins filled with vampires. Just what I needed to round this experience out.

  He looked down the tunnel, then turned to the magus, whose eyes were nervously flitting from side to side. “Throw a light spell down there.”

  The magus swallowed, began gesturing and murmuring several times. Flames began appearing, then winked out. Mage Captain Krislov put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay. Let me do it.” He calmly extended a hand and whispered something. A dozen small wooden fireflies, burning with bright golden light, emerged from his hand’s skin and fluttered down the tunnel.

  Wide, tall blocks of stone, uneven and at odd angles, displaced by the movements of the land and the ravages of time, laid down a broad stairwell leading into the darkness until it met a hall into which they could no longer see. The walls turned into an eerie landscape of shadows and golden light. The walls were carved with serpentine patterns and a flowing script—reminds me of Arabic.

  The magus rallied, his eyes widening. “Sir. Sir Special Envoy—this. The construction style is clearly dwarven, but the decorations—that is draconic.”

  Adarin blinked three times in the privacy of his mindspace. Fucking subject matter idiots.

  Then he slowly rotated one of his manipulators. “Meaning?” he drawled.

  The magus grew animated and began walking forward. “It is most extraordinary. I believe this is one of the few ruins from the transitionary period after the dragons conquered—”

  Krislov’s hand came down on the man’s shoulder before he could take one step onto the stairs. “You better not go down there,” the mage captain murmured with a low growl, throwing Adarin a look.

  Adarin nodded in agreement. “Yes. The vampires will very likely have trapped the obvious entry into their realm. And I believe this is the wrong time and place for a history lesson.”

  The magus’s eyes flitted around the gruesome carnage in the temple, and he swallowed hard. “Yes, yes, I’m inclined to agree, sir.”

  The thunder of a musket shot made everyone jump. The thrall that had appeared at the bottom of the stairs collapsed into a heap, and a young musketeer looked at Adarin with wide eyes.

  “Sir, I just saw them and I shot,” he stammered, his knuckles white on the musket.

  “And you did well,” said Adarin. “This is precisely the kind of situation where you shoot first and ask questions later.”

  He studied the naked body bleeding out at the bottom of the stairs. The twisted human tried to crawl back, but soon the wound in their torso bled out so much that they came to rest in a pool of their own vital fluids.

  A voice rang out from the depths, surprisingly boyish in tone and cadence.

  “Excuse me. Please don’t shoot.”

  Wearing what was clearly a torn and bloody, once-white undertunic, another thrall came around the corner.

  “Shoot them,” Adarin growled.

  The thunder of ten muskets rang out, and this thrall collapsed in an instant, falling like a tree.

  Ten seconds of silence followed. Then: “You… you can’t just shoot someone wearing a flag of parley.”

  Adarin responded, his voice tensed with barely restrained fury. “That wasn’t a flag of parley, you barbarians. That was the undershirt of one of my soldiers you killed.”

  Again several seconds of silence. Then the voice responded. “Very well. I… I think I shall simply speak from cover.”

  “That might be advisable for you,” murmured Captain Krislov, and Adarin heard his knuckles cracking.

  Adarin called down. “In that case, better speak fast before we figure out a way to kill you despite your cover.”

  Around the corner: a loud swallowing sound could be heard. “Our honorable Grand Master proclaims the conditions of a contest of strength, wit, and ingenuity.”

  Adarin felt the breath of the men around him quicken, felt them clenching weapons more tightly.

  “A contest? A fucking tournament?” growled Krislov, green veins popping onto his forehead.

  Adarin put a manipulator on his shoulder. “Let’s hear him out.”

  “Our glorious Master, in his gracious generosity, has agreed to abandon his nest, to cede this very township to you—should you come to reach his throne room alive. But beware. Many surprises lie in our labyrinth. To ensure compliance, motivation, and a fair pursuit of the tournament, we will continue our timed executions henceforth. May the better commander win."

  “Is that all?” Adarin called down the tunnel, and the voice from behind the corner swallowed again.

  “Yes, that is all,” the voice stammered, before rapid footsteps could be heard running off into the distance. Adarin stared down the stairwell, at the two dead vampiric thralls and the absurd challenge he had just been issued.

  Mage Captain Krislov stepped up to him. “Sir, shall I prepare expeditionary units to explore?”

  Adarin made a sharp cutting gesture and tightened his manipulator on his diamondoid dagger.

  “No. They want to play a fucking game with us. I am tired of games.”

  “What… what do you intend to do, sir?” asked Krislov, his eyes widening slightly.

  Adarin raised his voice, loud enough for everyone in the temple to hear him.

  “Nothing special,” Adarin said coldly. “I intend to kill them all.”