Ermos' eyes lit up at the mention of gold, before they went dull again. "But that kind of thing is complicated. It isn't suited to someone like me."
"All done," Pash said, tying off his bandage.
"Shall we be getting going then?" Ermos said before Mane could reply to what he had just said.
Mane relented. "I suppose the time for idle chat is over. There are lives in need of saving." He rose to his feet and flexed the fist of his injured arm. It still stung, but for some reason, with just a thin bandage around it, the pain wasn't so bad.
They crunched across a floor full of brittle bones towards the only obvious exit in that wide hall.
Mane grasped the barred gate with his hand, thinking that it would be weak enough for him to blast through with his sword. But it was no iron gate as he had supposed, but some other metal, possibly a steel. Even if he swung at it, he would be the one getting repelled.
"And now… how do we get this open," he mumbled to himself, his finger going to his chin.
"I think I know," Pash spoke up, "but I think we had better stand a safe distance away before I try it. It could be a trap, after all."
Mane wasn't sure about the method he was referring to, but he gave the boy the benefit of the doubt anyway and marched his way back a few metres from the gate. Ermos was hovering somewhere off to the side, continually glancing back to the corpses of the slain Bishamons, greed in his eyes.
It was an inconspicuous looking chain that Pash approached, tentative in his manner. It hung down from the ceiling, most of its length cloaked in shadow.
The boy gave it a slight tug, and, to Mane's surprise, the chain moved freely down with him. Pash darted back after doing that, fearing the trap that he had mentioned, but none came, there was only the cranking of old gears, and then, the gate climbed open.
"Clever," Mane praised with a nod of his head. He was quite convinced that he could have spent a thousand years in that room and never would he have thought to try pulling on that chain. It helped to have an intelligent companion.
With the opening of the gate, several torches flickered to life on the walls inside that long tunnel, lighting the way forward for them. Cautiously, the party proceeded, expecting more of the undead to rise out of the walls at any moment.
The tunnel began with a flight of long steps, leading them deeper into the earth. Thick roots of trees ran through the paving stone of the ground, cracking it and taking the space back for themselves. By the light of the torches though, they were easily avoided.
Their footsteps echoed as they went. Ermos kept marvelling over his new sword, appreciating its glowing blue colour, acting as though it was the first time he had ever seen an enchanted weapon. Mane thought it childish, but he said nothing, for, despite the man's flaws, he was clearly strong.
At the bottom of the steps, the stone became slick beneath the foot, as weak flows of water puddled on the floor. He splashed through them, nervous that there would be any more enemies like those skeletal mages.
"Halt," Mane said as he spied red out of the corner of his eye. His heart sank to look at it. A far from good sign. He kneeled to check a fist-sized splash of blood. It had dried against the floor, hard and dark. "It's been here a week, at least," Mane announced grimly.
"That doesn't seem good—" Ermos began, but Mane cut him off.
"I will not stop until I have found their bodies or saved their lives," Mane said fiercely, knowing how bad it looked. If even he struggled against the enemies in the hall behind them, then how would a bunch of teenage swordsmen manage their way through unscathed? It was a question he couldn't answer.
They found more blood following that small patch. Each splash was bigger and closer together than the last. Mane began to walk more quickly, feeling that there was a body nearby.
Instead, they came upon the largest pool of blood yet. It vaguely resembled the shape of a human as it lay there, beneath a crumbling five-hundred-year-old pillar. There was no body, but there was a trail of red leading off from it, as though the person who'd been there had been dragged away.
"Damn," Mane cursed bitterly. Too late. They were far too late. "We're going to exterminate this mess," he said, feeling his rage boiling up, "every one of these bony bastards are going to be crunched underfoot. They'll pay for what they did to these children."
The trail of blood ran on for so long that it began to thin out. The body had run out of blood before the slayer had run out of motive. Barbaric and animalistic, it was exactly what one would expect from monsters.
They rounded a corner, and there, Mane found two skeletons, shattered to pieces, still clutching their weapons.
"They fought back," Pash said, a hint of admiration in his voice. He knew just how difficult it was to overcome one of those foes.
Mane examined the corpses. There were nicks from swords all over the bodies – in the arms and in the shins. The students had indeed fought, but their lack of experience had gotten the better of them. So many wasted strikes. He could taste their desperation as he looked upon that which they had defeated.
They still had yet to find a body that was not yet a skeleton though, and so Mane continued on, listening to the rhythmic sound of the dog's claws clicking against stone with each step that it took.
Another corner they rounded and the body they finally found, pressed right against the end of the tunnel. Just as the way in had been sealed by a portcullis-like gate, the way out had been sealed too. The corpse had been trapped before it had managed its way out. From the smell, it had been dead a few days at least.
Yet that was not what caused Mane's mouth to hang open. Right next to that one body of a butchered boy, he found four more. Only, these were alive, albeit it barely. Their faces were haggard and their eyes had grown hollow. They slowly looked at him in suspicion.
Two boys and two girls. Their clothes bloodied and torn from their combat. Their weapons lay next to them, ready to be used at a moment's notice, but none of them looked like they had the energy to wield them. Their supplies must have run out days ago. Mane could not imagine the torment they must have gone through, thinking that they would die trapped within the bowels of an ancient catacomb, watching as their friend's body decayed beside them.
"Yo," Ermos said, giving them a casual wave.
It shocked Mane that he could be so relaxed. A concoction of emotions dominated Mane's heart, forbidding him from speaking, a mix of relief and regret alike. But, it was lucky that Ermos had indeed spoken, for from the look in their eyes, it seemed those young warriors had mistaken them too for monsters.
"You're… alive?" One of the boys whimpered in a weak voice.
"You are too," Ermos said back with a grin.