Ascendance, p.10
Ascendance, page 10
The Dragoon nodded toward the surrounding woodlands. “Keep moving.”
Without a word, the SRU complied, the Canis drone trotting beside them like some faithful hound. It took more discipline for Mitchell to pry himself away from the obelisks and he found even when he tried, he couldn’t do so without first placing a hand against the cold stone.
A tribe of beings far greater than him had built them to revere their noble dead. Some part of him wanted to pay his respects to them and pray an iota of their power might grace him as a result. As if acknowledging his mindset or perhaps to obscure the obelisks till the next worthy visitor, a thin veil of fog drifted in through the trees as the group left the clearing, Mitchell staring back at the obsidian monuments longingly till they disappeared. He wasn’t the only one.
Whatever peace and beauty he felt from the pylons vanished the moment the forest melted away to reveal a structure that could only be the mill they sought. It was just as Mitchell pictured when Vargar described it those greener days ago. A dilapidated building that seemed out of place amidst the wilderness as though it were the sole survivor of some failed settlement attempt from ages long gone.
Nature was reclaiming the mill as well, vines and other flora growing along the surface like a green cancer. It did nothing to ingratiate the structure to him, and Mitchell watched the hollow windows that reminded him of gaping eye sockets in an old skull.
Shokri shrugged at the sight. “This it?”
“Expecting something more exciting?” Perkins teased.
“Maybe? I mean a little paint and a pair of shears, and you could make this look like a halfway decent holiday home.”
Temur scanned the decrepit mill with her rifle. “You’re welcome to it. After we’ve cleaned out the psycho witches, of course.”
“What you think, Mitchell?” Shokri laughed as he placed a mechanically enhanced arm over the red-haired officer’s shoulders. “Want in on this venture?”
Mitchell was fighting the urge to flee, to leave this cursed place behind forever, and try his luck at making it back to Grantham. Maybe the people there wouldn’t hold a grudge against him, and he could enjoy a bowl of noodles before heading further south.
“Doesn’t look that haunted to me,” he choked out, wishing his voice sounded more confident.
Perkins smirked. “Yeah, looks like your mom’s house.”
The Dragoon raised his fist. “Silence.”
It wasn’t said in anger, but all the officers clammed up like scolded pupils. Offering them each a shrouded glance, the Dragoon leveled a pair of fingers at the building. The unspoken order was clear—they were going in.
8
With barely a kick, the rotted door gave way, cascading daylight down into the gloomy depths of the mill.
For an hour, Kirkland had studied the exterior of the structure as he formulated the best entry for the team and then swept their chosen entrance for any sign of boobytraps. There was no telling what they were going to find in this place, especially given the insane ramblings Vargar passed on regarding it. Of course, that was if the vagabond had shared real information and not directed them into an elaborate ambush.
Carefully, they edged down into the mill, weapon lights piercing the shadows. It was not a remarkable looking interior, rather reminding Kirkland of the mill he would sometimes run to as a boy to meet his wild friend. Or had that been a shearing shed? Regardless, it was another decaying building of rustic construction and hours of his childhood were spent playing in its likely hazardous center.
A flight of stone stairs brought the team to a blockish room and Kirkland surveyed the area, making note of the ancient sacks of meal lying scattered about as they rotted into a putrid slime. The odor was rancid, even the filters on his helmet not strong enough to screen it all out.
“This isn’t right,” Kirkland informed the humans.
Mitchell instantly covered his nose with his hand. “You’re telling me. This smell should be illegal.”
Kirkland ignored him, turning his attention to the officers who could be of use.
“The dimensions of this chamber don’t match the footprint of the foundation.”
“And there’s no other visible doors,” Perkins said.
Temur moved toward the wall, rapping her knuckles against the brickwork as she walked the perimeter of the room. Unceremoniously, she stopped and turned back to the group.
“I’ve got a draft.”
With a squeal of servos, she drew back her fist before plowing it into the masonry. One punch was enough to crack the stone, sending a shower of grout to the floor. Two hits broke through and, taking hold of any persistent bricks, the SRU officer began ripping a hole in the wall until it was large enough for them all to pass through.
Beyond the brickwork lay a long dim corridor that seemed to stretch the length of the building and beyond, the end of it impossible to see with what little light was available.
Rifle at the ready as he pushed through the wall, Kirkland stared into the darkness, eyeing his motion tracker and acoustic sensors as he waited for some hint of an aggressor. Nothing stirred save for clouds of dust and cautiously he continued his advance.
As he expected, the SRU followed suit with professional etiquette while Mitchell toddled at the back like an annoying sibling who insisted they tag along. It was only a few meters into the hallway that Kirkland spotted the first cell.
Cell was the only word that came to mind, the carved outcropping barely large enough to be considered a room. A translucent gate sealed them off from accessing it, Kirkland only seeing a few sporadic rags when he peeked inside. He almost considered trying the door when his HUD highlighted the electronic keypad hidden in the wall nearby.
Shokri leaned forward to examine the keypad. “These are mag-locked. Not something I’d expect to see all the way out here.”
“That means we’re in the right place,” Kirkland replied as he turned away to examine another cell. This one was more interesting. Rust-colored handprints marked the walls as if to form some demented art exhibit. He made quick note of how small the handprints were.
“You like that?” Perkins announced from another nearby cell. “You should see this one.”
Suspended from the ceiling of the chamber was a skeleton, bits of cloth hanging from the bones as they slowly decomposed around the flesh they once clothed. The display of the body was deliberate, almost spiritual in feeling and position. Again, Kirkland could not help but notice the size of the corpse. It, like the handprints, clearly belonged to a child.
Eyes darting about in terror, Mitchell backed away from the cell’s transparent door.
“What the hell is this place?”
“The old man mentioned witches who fed upon pain,” Temur said as she gestured to another tiny room, this one housing a few piles of bones. Humanoid ones from a glance, all curiously missing their skulls.
Kirkland addressed all the humans, including Mitchell, who was visibly shaking as he retreated further into the gloom of the hallway.
“We’re dealing with a cult. Likely one that’s been operating in this area for decades given the state of these remains.”
Perkins raised an eyebrow in skepticism. “So you expect me to believe some crazed religious loons have been raiding our convoys? For what purpose?”
The sound of Mitchell trying not to vomit shifted everyone’s attention and Kirkland rushed over to him. Gagging, the officer was trying to distance himself from a crude shelf fashioned into the wall.
“Oh, god! What is that?” Mitchell choked.
Strange pendants hung from the different tiers of the shelf, eerie votive candles standing unlit beside them. Those candles that were not melted into saggy puddles were sculpted into the personification of death, a hooded skeleton holding a scale in one claw and a heart in the other. However, that was not what drove Mitchell into nearly retching. Rather, it was the human appendages intermixed with the jewelry and candles. Severed ears, fingers, scalps, and even the occasional phallus displayed with grizzly pride.
“Looks like they’re taking trophies,” Kirkland informed the group.
The SRU eyed the grotesque display with loathing, perhaps wondering if any of the disgusting prizes once belonged to their slain coworkers.
Perkins slapped one of the candles aside, the wax sculpture smashing on the floor. “What kind of sick bastards are we dealing with? They even human?”
No one spoke for a spell, even Kirkland was unsure of what to say. This assignment had begun as an obnoxious milk run, a demeaning waste of time that he would complete purely because it was in his nature. Now, it was becoming something darker and more sinister, a force at work here beyond anything he had faced in the field. This adversary was not only elusive but apparently relished in the savagery they wrought. It reminded him too much of the barbarism of mutants.
“We got stairs,” Shokri declared, snapping Kirkland out of his trance to observe the officer shining his light into a narrow alcove that contained a twisting stone staircase.
Temur popped beside, craning her neck to see up the stairwell. “Where do you think it goes?”
“Upper level of the mill,” Kirkland stated, making certain that his voice sounded more confident than he felt. Something about this place was starting to unnerve him. Such a realization was vexing, and he began to mouth his commandments.
Perkins was first to state the obvious.
“It’s going to take us forever to search this entire place. Especially if our hosts have other hidden passages.”
Confidence marginally restored, Kirkland nodded to the human officer. “Take your team and sweep upstairs. If you find something, you flush it out and keep it contained till I get there. Understood?”
For a moment he wondered if Perkins was going to protest, but mouth forming into a cruel grin, she signaled to the rest of her team. Because of the size of the passage, the SRU had to go up the staircase one at a time, Mitchell once more trudging behind. Kirkland waited till they were all out of sight before he continued pressing into the dim corridor, relieved to be free of human prattling and left alone to his thoughts. After all, he had an enemy to hunt.
Being upstairs did nothing to ease Mitchell’s nerves. As he followed Temur, glancing at every dark corner, he was convinced any unrecognized creak or groan was the sound of the cloaked assassin coming to butcher him. It didn’t help that the upper floor of the mill seemed to be made entirely of old wood and moaned creepily each time the heavy foot of the SRU took a step. It was taking a toll on his psyche and any moment now he was certain his body was going to lock up and refuse to move any further.
The second story was built in a triangular shape, the sloping of the roof giving the upper chamber a slight cathedral feel. Half-rotted support beams crisscrossed like a bizarre wooden rib cage and often Mitchell had to stoop to prevent hitting his head on the slats. As was far too typical, the SRU weaved through this wooden maze with relative ease, sweeping the level with rapid efficiency. They rarely needed to speak to each other, and simply had brief conversations with nothing other than hand signals. It might have comforted Mitchell if they’d ever let him in on the discussion.
“Room at three o’clock,” Perkins hissed inside his head. “Mitchell, go clear it.”
The door was no more than a few meters away from him, a heavy oaken entrance that stared back at him as if daring him to peek inside. He had zero interest in obliging its beckoning. Perkins, however, was not about to be ignored and she triggered the communications sync in his brain again.
“Go clear that room! Get in there!”
With boots feeling like they were made of lead, Mitchell crept toward the door, his heart starting to pound as he pressed against it to enter the space beyond. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting inside. Flayed bodies hanging from the rafters or perhaps a steaming pile of entrails arranged into ritualistic symbols? Of all these imagined findings, children’s toys were not one of them.
The space had the feeling of an improvised playroom: blocks, dolls, and other plush toys strewn haphazardly around. As Mitchell’s light shone over the area, he spotted various chalk drawings scratched onto the floor and walls, all of them culminating in a large sketch of a horse. There was a weirdness to the animal and peering closer at it, Mitchell realized it was not a drawing of a horse but rather its skeleton. At this point he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Leave it to this place to make even a child’s room unnerving.
Slowly he panned his rail light around the chamber and couldn’t help but shiver when the beam touched the massive thicket of spiderwebs hanging from the timbers. They were the beefiest webs he’d ever seen and what appeared to be a cocooned rat dangling down from them. Draining whatever lingering reservoir of courage he had left, Mitchell dipped below the cobwebs, making his way to the far side of the room where a soiled mattress lay.
There was an eerily religious quality to the bed, and he couldn’t help but stare down at it as thin bands of light streamed in from cracks in the walls to encircle the head like some twisted halo. The half-melted remains of a reaper-shaped votive candle rested beside the mattress along with various trinkets that one might expect a child to hug close to them at night.
Gingerly, Mitchell nudged what appeared to be a stuffed wolf, stitched out of sackcloth and rags. From the wear, it was clear whoever owned the toy loved it greatly, and with a bittersweet smile, he reverently placed it aside to investigate the other items. One appeared to be a faded sheet of parchment; the tattered paper folded into quarters.
For some unknown reason, it called out to him above all others, and Mitchell slung his weapon to handle the parchment with care. It opened with echoing crinkles, each flap forming another piece of an image.
The picture was simplistic and crude in the way only a child can draw, their emotions clear in the depth of the lines. Time had paled the colors, but he could still make out what appeared to be a small dark-haired girl holding the hand of a boxy red giant. He’d have considered it a pleasant image if not for the queasy feeling that sank into his stomach the longer he stared at the child’s scarlet caretaker. There was something uncanny about them.
Temur’s voice interrupted his concentration.
“Mitchell, what’s your status?”
Letting the paper fall to the mattress, he glanced back at the door, seeing the crisscrossing beams of his coworkers’ lights drawing nearer to the playroom. He opened his mouth to speak, to let them know there was nothing in here and they should move on. That was before he noticed the spiderwebs sway faintly, an unfelt wind reaching in to rustle the nests. A more experienced soldier might have recognized it right away, but for Mitchell it took too long for him to realize the truth. He wasn’t alone.
Pain exploded through his skull, the agony driving him down to the soiled sheets. It was as though an invisible spike had been driven into his brain and for a moment the communications sync in his wetware went wild with a thousand sounds all at once. An auditory onslaught that caused him to grind his teeth together to prevent himself from screaming. Then, as quickly as it came, it was over. Shaking with relief, Mitchell began uncurling his fingers from their death grip on the bed.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
The voice was unknown, a ghostly presence speaking within his brain. Whoever this phantom was, they had somehow hacked into his wetware and were now communicating directly with him. It shouldn’t be possible, all internal plugins proprietary property of Dye-Tech and heavily encrypted. Even some kind of wunderkind of electronic warfare would struggle with the ICE protecting it. Yet, within what seemed a few seconds, they had punched through and set up shop inside. Only the Dragoon had been able to access their coms so easily.
Shokri was the first through the door, likely sent to check on him and seeking answers for this intruder on their communications band. Years with the SRU had seasoned him into a jaded and calculated veteran, his rifle ready to neutralize whatever terror was lurking in this house of horrors. He never got the chance to fire.
A shrouded figure dropped silently from the rafters, the cobwebs parting to permit their unholy master to descend. With speed impossible for a mortal being, the assailant carved into Shokri, and Mitchell felt his bowels tighten at the sickening noise of a blade slicing human flesh. It was over in an instant, the officer’s mauled corpse toppling forward with a resounding crash. Through all of it, the killer had uttered no sound. No noise of exertion or cry of triumph. Just calculated and murderous quiet.
They turned to regard him, cloak billowing out as they moved and, in that moment, Mitchell knew death had caught up to him.
There was no mistaking the shape. It’d been seared into his memory since that night at the depot. It was surreal to be so close to the assassin and make out details that had gone missing during their first encounter. He’d always known their face had been covered, but now he could see the mask almost resembled a blackened mechanical skull. It was nowhere as ghoulish as those worn by the marauders who’d attacked them in the ravine, yet in this tortured place there was an even more chilling quality to it.
Panels of crimson armor lay secreted beneath their shroud, red pools of color barely visible against the inky darkness. Even from a glance, it was apparent the plate was not new, rust and other discoloration marring the metal like a disease. Despite this, Mitchell’s eyes still focused on the chipped wolf stencil on the assassin’s breastplate. There was an archaic feeling to the symbol, especially when he noticed the distinctive glyphs encircling the heraldry. He was certain he knew those runes.
