SWY 47

The snowstorm continued through to the next morning. Winter had arrived abruptly and violently. The fierce winds rattled the cabin, keeping the three of them from getting any real sleep. They woke before sunrise, their noses stinging from the cold air inside. Fortunately, none of them had caught a cold.

“This is all we have left.”

“Then we’ll eat that.”

All that remained was flour. They mixed it with snow melted by body heat to stave off hunger. The flour left their mouths dry, and the melted snow was so cold it made them shiver, but they had to eat something.

After forcing something into their stomachs, they changed the herbs on Sharhan’s wound. Not a drop of the cold lagun grass tea was left behind, it was all drunk, despite its chill making his teeth chatter.

“Stay. Just because you feel a little better doesn’t mean you can come out. Lock the door tight, just in case!”

After wrapping Sharhan snugly in two robes, Lestel warned him sternly, then took Derry and left. It seemed they were determined to find whatever food the village chief of Gagos might’ve hidden, starving to death wasn’t an option.

“When did he get so naggy?”

Left alone, Sharhan locked the door and lay down for a short nap before getting up again. He didn’t have the strength to be defiant and go against Lestel’s orders.

Thankfully, it seemed the herbs Derry had brought were working. Sharhan could feel himself recovering, though moving too much was still a strain.

‘We need to leave soon.’

They needed to hurry to Serman, but they were stuck here. The delay irritated him.

Sharhan, his stomach aching from hunger, sat up and started feeling along the wall. Maybe there was food hidden in this cabin too. Eating well would help his body recover faster, so the chief’s stash was vital.

‘James mentioned something about the wall…’

There had to be some kind of mechanism to open the hidden space the chief had spoken of. But no matter how much he searched, nothing stood out beneath his fingertips. With a sigh, he moved to the front of the room to try again calmly. He decided to start at the left side of the door.

‘Huh?’

Something about the door felt off.

‘What is it?’

He stared at it, squinting hard, and finally noticed a very slight difference in the color near eye level. The patch was only about the size of half a fingertip, a subtle detail that you’d never notice unless you were really concentrating.

Thinking it strange, Sharhan pressed down hard on the discolored area.

Click.

A twisting sound came from something delicately interlocked. Flinching, Sharhan looked down and saw the floor shift slightly. Curious, he approached. The floor had indeed lifted a bit.

“What the, these weren’t just logs?”

He’d assumed the floor was made by laying logs end to end, trimmed to fit the size of the cabin. But he was wrong. Half the floor lifted up. The logs had been cut and hollowed to form a cover. He never would’ve guessed. The craftsmanship was unbelievable, the ancient empire technology truly was something else.

“With something this clever, no wonder no one found it.”

And the key to opening the hidden space hadn’t been in the wall, but in the door. Maybe the chief had lied on purpose. It made sense that the villagers of Gagos hadn’t been able to find it, no matter how hard they looked.

Sharhan was impressed that Parel had discovered it. Heart pounding, he lifted the floor panel higher. Beneath was a deep underground chamber. Without hesitation, he jumped down.

“Holy shit.”

The underground air was cool, like stepping into an ice cave. His breath came out white in the cold. Jewels, gold coins, and food supplies were scattered everywhere. The lack of organization made it look like the chief had just tossed everything in there in a hurry.

“We won’t be starving anytime soon.”

The stash included grain flour and dried, salted meat. There were also several apples that looked like they’d been harvested in autumn, and a small amount of corn and potatoes. The cold air down there had likely kept them from rotting.

Sharhan gulped and reached for an apple with greedy hands, then paused. He thought of Lestel and Derry. Setting the apple back down, he climbed back up and closed the floor panel. The hidden chamber vanished as if it had never been there. Even knowing it existed, it was hard to tell.

‘I need to go get them.’

They would definitely be happy. Excited by the thought of finally eating their fill, Sharhan approached the door.

‘I’m going to brag that I found it.’

And maybe rub it in Lestel’s face a bit, just to show him up.

Full of pride and ready to boast, Sharhan opened the door. The snowstorm was still raging outside. It was hard to see anything. The wind made it difficult to even open his eyes.

He narrowed them and stepped outside, trying to peer through the swirling snow, and then froze.

Grrr

A predator’s growl, from deep in its throat. A moving corpse. It gnashed its teeth and snapped at the air, sniffing around. It must’ve heard the door, but hadn’t pinpointed the exact location, probably thanks to the snowstorm obscuring its vision. If not for that, Sharhan would have been caught the moment he stepped out.

It was that close. Maybe five steps away. The stench alone was enough to make his nose go numb.

Sharhan slowly turned his head, holding his breath. Through the flurry, corpses flickered in and out of view.

‘There’s more than one.’

Five of them. They had gathered close together. If he made a wrong move, they would all charge at once. Cold sweat ran down his back.

He tried to step back carefully, lifting one foot. At that moment, one of the corpses looked directly at him. Only the snowstorm stood between them now.

Sharhan couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even lower his foot. The cold made his body go numb, but the corpse kept staring, jaw clacking.

The others sensed something was off. All of them reached into the air, clawing at nothing. Their dried black fingers brushed right past his chest.

Grrrr

The corpses made predator-like sounds, desperate to find living prey. Finally, their attention shifted away. Sharhan slowly set his foot down.

Crunch

The sound of snow underfoot made them react violently. The gnashing of teeth grew louder.

‘Fuck.’

Sharhan froze again. Just one more step and he’d be inside the cabin. His sword was near the entrance.

If he could kick the closest one and rush inside to grab it, he might be able to take them all down. He mapped the movement in his head, calculated his timing, and clenched his fists.

Then a door from another cabin flung open. The corpses turned at the sound. Sharhan seized the chance, darting back into the cabin, grabbing his sword, and rushing out again.

‘Damn it! I can’t see a thing in this blizzard!’

Sharhan swung his sword toward the growling and shouted.

“Lestel, watch out! It’s the corpses!”

“Shan!”

Lestel screamed his name with all his strength, clearly trying to draw the corpses’ attention. Sharhan could sense the creatures moving toward the sound, crunching through the snow.

“You crazy bastard! I told you to be careful, why are you yelling?!”

“And what about you?! You’re shouting too! You’re not even fully recovered! Get back inside, now!”

“Don’t treat me like I’m sick! I can move just fine! You can’t see well in this blizzard, so focus on their sounds!”

“If you so much as scratch a finger–!”

Sharhan moved toward Lestel, swinging his sword wherever the sounds of the corpses came from. He felt it slice into rotting flesh, but the blows weren’t fatal. Without clear visibility, he couldn’t land a clean decapitation.

Sharhan forced his eyes open wider. Through a break in the storm, he spotted a corpse missing an arm lurching toward him. The thing flailed its remaining arm, trying to grab him.

Sharhan bent backward to avoid the hand, then swung his sword at its neck. The half-severed head fell back, and the body collapsed.

Sharhan trudged through the snow toward Lestel. He was using sound to fight them off too. Then, Sharhan saw one of the corpses lunging to grab Lestel’s shoulder.

His heart skipped a beat. Just as he was about to yell out a warning, a glowing red orb rose into the air. Derry’s fireball. He threw it as far as he could, and the corpses’ heads turned toward the flame.

Lestel used the opening to drive his sword deep into the neck of the one that had reached for him. Blackened blood spattered the snow.

“Are they all down?”

It seemed like they’d dealt with all of them, despite the terrible conditions. But just then, Sharhan caught a glimpse of another corpse, bared teeth gleaming, lunging at Lestel from behind.

“Lestel!”