Warrior Priest of Dmon-Li - Brian Pratt [78]
“Jiron!” James hollers out the opening.
They hear some movement coming toward them and are relieved when they see him move into the orb’s light.
“You both okay?”
“Physically we’re fine,” replies James as he nods over to Miko.
Nodding, Jiron understands when he sees the frightened look on his face. “What are we to do now?”
“I think we’re in a catacomb,” James tells him. “If so, it must lead somewhere. Maybe we could follow it and find the way out.”
Miko’s eyes widen when he hears that. “Are you crazy?” he asks. “We should leave, this is no place for the living.”
“If we go back up, as likely as not we’ll fall through again,” he explains. “Plus, they’ll never find us here unless they stumble upon the opening. Which, in the dark is unlikely.”
“How do you know there’s even a way out?” Miko asks.
“I don’t,” he replies. “But the dead had to be brought here somehow.”
“The two chambers we fell in were connected,” Jiron says. “Stands to reason there would be a way out.”
James moves closer to Miko and says soothingly, “Just stay close and we’ll make it out, okay?”
Miko nods his head.
James moves to the opening of the burial chamber and takes the lead. Before leaving, he glances over his shoulder and says, “Follow me and stay close.”
Jiron nods his head and Miko says, “Don’t worry about that.”
He turns back toward the opening and leaves the burial chamber.
Chapter Fourteen
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A small crude path extends from the burial chamber. James steps out and follows it as it passes by another chamber. They can see the hole in the roof where Jiron had fallen through and the rubble on the floor from the collapsed ceiling as they make their way past the opening.
“Wonder why they dug it so close to the surface?” Jiron muses.
“Probably wasn’t when this had been done,” James replies. “Over time, when the walls of the canyon had eroded away by wind and rain, the distance between the chambers and the surface gradually diminished. Now there’s only a thin layer remaining, which we broke through. No telling how long this has been here.”
They continue past more of the chambers, all feeling incredibly old, the air musty and stale. James is glad it’s still breathable. As they pass one chamber, Miko hollers out when he sees something shining within.
James backs up and lets the orb’s light shine into the room, and they see several gold coins lying on a bier next to a corpse. “You going to take them?” James asks him.
Shaking his head, Miko says, “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
“Why?” he asks.
“Robbing from the dead is wrong,” he says. Then he glances to James and says, “Everyone knows that.”
Giving him a slight smile, James nods his head as they continue down the dug out pathway, leaving the coins where they found them. They come to where the way splits to the right or left, James takes the right.
After passing three more chambers of the dead, the passage abruptly ends. “Looks like they just stopped digging here,” he guesses. Turning around, he leads them back to where the passage had split, this time following the left fork.
When they pass the next chamber, something else catches his eye. Stopping, he returns to it and finds a corpse lying there with a sword across his chest. The sword, which at one time had been finely crafted, has now been eaten away by rust. The man had been laid out in his armor, obviously a warrior of some sort.
Returning to the passage, they continue down past several more chambers when again, the passage diverges. Either straight, or to the right. Being methodical, James again turns right.
This passage extends quite a ways, winding to the right and left as it comes to different chambers. All of the chambers are in the same crude style, some of the occupants are wrapped in cloth, while some are laid out as if sleeping. All of them have the look of having been here an awfully long time.
The interesting thing about the dead here, is that some are fairly well preserved while others are almost rotted away to skeletons. Maybe different embalming