As the expedition team made their way back down the mountains to the Town of Frontier no one said a word. Lyra, Alric and Dagna all sat in the back of one of the remaining wagons along with a few of the wounded who couldn't be treated with healing magic do to all the mages being depleted of mana and having no potions to instantly restore their mana pools, Tharon walked along side the wagon leading Haru by a makeshift lead the dire wolf had made several attempts to return to the underground to find her bonded master which all assumed was dead along side Sha'lara after the earthquake and bridge collapse. As they left the gate fort a battalion of dwarven warriors were gearing up to move into the tunnels and spend the next week down their killing any blighted they found this was something that dwarfs all over the land did, these extermination battalions would go down into the tunnels of the underground highways and clear out nest of blighted as they were called though it never solved the problem as the curse that created the blighted would simply keep making more, but it was how the dwarves had managed to reclaim so much of their lost kingdom after the first blight sometimes entire battalions would go missing in the tunnels or they would mange to retake forge caverns but always at the cost of a few hundred warriors.
"Listen up lads, As I'm sure some of you have already heard that the town Grûmthol has fallen to those blasted blighted again, so I want y'all to buck up and start signing up for the extermination battalion all volunteers line up by the gate at sun up tomorrow we will decided who goes and then we will bring hellfire down on those bastards and burn them out of our tunnels." Thargrin lifted a heavy single edge dwarven battle axe into the air as he finished speaking, getting a loud cheer from all the dwarfs gathered for the announcement.
With that the dwarves began to prepare for their march into the tunnels to clean up the blighted and try to take back one of their forge caverns, hopefully with as little losses as possible for some may not return to the gate fort or to their loved ones after entering those tunnels.
The guggling sound of a blighted dwarf echoed through the tunnels as it fell back cut clean down the middle by Sha'lara's golden curved blade. After the corrupted dwarf fell to the ground, she took a few steps back holding her side yet again and breathing a little heavier than usual.
Another blighted dwarf rushed at Zarath who was sitting on a rock, before it could reach him the hard bone of Zarath's bow smacked hard against its face the sick snap of its neck could be heard all around as it dropped to the ground. He nocked a crude arrow clearly made by a blighted creature he had a small bundle of them that he and Sha'lara had found while in the tunnels. He drew back the string not able to get a full draw because of the wound on his side but still enough that when he loosed it struck its target dead.
"Ok that's the last of the bastards, didn't think we would run into so many small groups." Sha'lara moved over to sit on the rock next to Zarath still holding her side as she sat down.
"Yeah, at least with these crap arrows I can cover your rear rather than just sit around like the first time." Zarath put his bow down against the rock.
"Still, I can't wait to get some of my maple arrows back." Zarath sighed he knew maple was a dense wood and not often the most used for arrows but with his skill for the bow even a heavier wood like maple was easy to shoot and hit a target with, he also preferred maple because it had such a heavy impact and was durable enough to simply retrieve the arrow and repeatedly use it.
"I'm not much of an archer but isn't maple typically used for like furniture and like shields and stuff kind of like oak wood." Sha'lara asked like she had been wondering why he had always chosen to use such an uncommon wood for arrows.
"Well yeah, it's used for more crafts stuff than weapons or shields but in the grasslands, wood is hard to come by my first bow which I still have is a maple wood bow, but my grandfather gave me this wyvern bone once after me and Tharon became full Krella or warriors of our clan. But the arrows I had were also the same arrows from when I made my first bow, granted some of them broke over time or where lost but I still had that full bundle for years until we fell into that chasm." Zarath was clearly upset about losing those arrows he had crafted so long ago.
"But luckily last month I had my family send me some more of the grassland maple wood, you should see them when they bloom the red leaves against a clear blue sky are just breath taking, the taller ones look like little red clouds floating in the sky from a distance." Zarath let out a small chuckle as he remembered the first time, he saw a maple tree in the grasslands he was five years old and had no idea what a tree even was.
"Sounds lovely, all I can say of my homeland in the west is that its sand upon sand upon sand, though our cities are things of beauty so many bright colored clothes and body paints mixing together like a living rainbow." Sha'lara rubbed some of the smudged golden paint from around her eyes that had all but washed off from the underground river.
"My mother would take one look at me and be upset that I let myself even get like this, always look your best as a royal never smudge the golden paint, never show weakness. Or something like that is what she would say to me right now." Sha'lara sighed as she spoke about her mother, the desert queen of all the Felinar.
"Do you really hate your mother that much just for being queen or is it because she sent you here to join the wardens." Zarath asked out of concern for her mental state.
"I don't hate my mother, and she wasn't the one that sent me here, my father gave me to the wardens." Sha'lara got up and helped Zarath up and the two began to walk again with her supporting his weight.
"As the fourteenth in line to the throne and the daughter of a Rak'Thar (combat artist) or a gladiator if you will I have no right to the throne, but when my older sister all started forming their own factions to see who would take the throne after my mother dies, my father sent me here away from all the political bullshit, as well my brothers were sent away from the royal capital or married off to other noble families that supported my oldest sister the rightful heir to the throne." Sha'lara spoke as if none of this affected her but in truth it did even if she could only inherit the throne if all her older siblings died off, she was still upset about being sent away from the only home she had known.
"Well regardless I am glad that you're here even if you are just an annoying cat." Zarath gave her a soft smile
"Sh..shut up or I will leave you in these tunnels you stupid mutt." Sha'lara pouted as she helped him walk the two of them still following the old mine tracks that would lead them out of the tunnels hopefully.
The two of them continued down the tunnel getting into a few more small fights along the way luckily for them they didn't run into any blighted knights or intelligent blighted but that didn't mean they could let their guards down, even a freshly turned blighted was still dangerous in a feral sort of way and given that the blight could affect animals as well as people it meant that any blighted could easily be stronger than them, after months of training they had read reports of blighted grizzlies and even dire wolves of course there were even wyverns like the one that Zarath and Tharon fought that led them on this journey to begin with all those months ago.
"Hey out of curiosity do you have any idea what month it is now Sha'lara." Zarath asked as they stopped to rest.
"I don't know portably around the ninth or tenth month of the year given that the snow has started to fall the past couple of weeks why." Sha'lara asked as she dug through the makeshift bag for a few pieces of dried meat.
"Well, no reason if its close to the eleventh month then my birthday will be coming up soon is all, so I was just curious." Zarath took a piece of the meat as Sha'lara handed it to him.
"Seriously you're thinking about your birthday right now." Sha'lara rolled her eyes as she sank her fangs into the piece of meat in her hands and roughly tore it in half.
"Oh, come on your telling me you wouldn't be excited about your birthday, I mean yeah I won't celebrate with my clan or family like usual but still maybe I can request something better than the meals we get now for my birthday." Zarath gave Sha'lara a look that said he was clearly just trying to make her laugh.
A small sliver of a smile appeared on Sha'lara's face only for it to quickly disappear as she stood up again. Slapping herself on both cheeks.
"Look enough with the whole trying to be cute thing it really doesn't work for a dumb mutt like you." Sha'lara's tail flicked in annoyance behind her as she helped him back up onto his feet slowly.
"So, what I'm getting at is you think I'm cute." Zarath smiled as he slowly wagged his tail as his arm went around her shoulder.
"I will drop you and not look back." Sha'lara pouted as they walked slowly down the tunnel leaving behind the blighted corpses to rot in the dark.
The two of them made their way to a small section of the tunnel with a small crevice in a section of the wall a narrow enter that only one person could fit through at any given time, Sha'lara helped Zarath in first he made himself comfortable on the ground as best he could then Sha'lara moved in beside him, she took the torn canvas they had been using as a make shift blanket and covered the enter way.
"How much longer do you think it will take for us to reach the surface if we keep this pace up." Zarath slumped against one of the rock walls of the crevice, with the enter way covered they had a somewhat safe place to rest and hide for right now.
Sha'lara used a rock and rusted nail she found to make a cloth wall with the canvas and then placed the rock on the bottom to make the canvas taut enough to bounce a coin off it.
"I honestly don't know but if I have to carry you for much longer, I will just have to leave you here." Sha'lara slumped down next to Zarath and relaxed slightly.
"Well hopefully my leg heals up nicely over the night then, and I can carry you if that will make you happy princess." Zarath let out a yawn showing his fangs as he started to nod off.
"Yeah, you definitely owe me after this for… actual never mind lets just focus on getting out of here alive." Sha'lara stretched out as best she could and began to fall asleep herself.
Meanwhile higher up in the underground highway the scene was not as quiet as it was where Zarath and Sha'lara were at, closer to the gate that led back to the surface the dwarfs had begun extermination battalion had begun its bloody work of clearing the blighted out of the tunnels.
The dwarves fought differently from the way humans and other races fought. They used shield formations with iron tower shields with gaps built into them in which other dwarves would then position large metal barrels attached to tubes and larger barrels with pumps, in which two dwarves would use to launch burning oil at their enemies. They refer to this formation as the dragon tortoise very effective in clearing out tunnels like the underground highway. Though the real problems would be when they needed to clear out the smaller tunnels to the sides that opened up from the earthquake or when they got to what use to be residential areas like the town of Grûmthol though luckily with the collapse of the bridge the blighted would have to dig new tunnels or take the road on the other side of the town to reconnect with the main highway.
"Swapping barrels." A dwarf shouted as he quickly wrapped his gloved hand around the tube leading to one of the oil barrels quickly detaching it. As another dwarf rolled over another large barrel and stood it up for the feeding tube to be attached. The two dwarfs then began to pump the lever which caused the flame to shoot out again towards another group of blighted humans that screamed as the burning oil did its work.
"Commander we should have these section cleared out shortly but are we sure we have enough oil to clear out anymore." A dwarf soldier asked Thargrin.
"We aren't clearing out the entire underground boy we are just pushing these filthy blighted back away from the gates to the surface, still it's a shame what happened to our kin in Grûmthol is a shame along with the young wardens that died down here." Thargrin scratched his chin as he watched his fellow dwarfs working to clear the tunnels.
The ground shock slightly some small rocks falling from the ceiling above, Thargrin looked up to examine a large crack that had formed from the earthquake, these once great highways of the dwarven empire reduced to hollowed and crumbling tunnels that the blighted now hid in.
"I wonder what this place was like back before these cursed things existed." Thargrin spoke to himself as he grabbed his axe. Walking towards the shield wall that was slowly moving further and further down into the underground.
"Hey wake up." Sha'lara gently kicked Zarath on his foot to get him up, grabbing the one sword she still had after getting some sleep she was feeling a little better despite being battered and bruised as her and Zarath were.
"Raa srak (Leave me.)" Zarath spoke in his native tongue without thinking the words seemed foreign to him after not using them for so long. He rolled onto his side wincing when the pain in his broken leg shocked him awake, slowly he sat up.
"Look just because I told you a little bit of my past doesn't mean I understand your tongue grasslander." Sha'lara's tail flicked behind her in annoyance she understood wanting to sleep more ever inch of her body hurt just as much as Zarath's did but they both knew staying in these tunnels with little to no food and no medical supplies or a mender would mean death.
"Not calling me a mutt anymore princess." Zarath used the wall to slowly stand up and slowly apply pressure onto his bad leg, but something didn't feel right, his leg seemed to be doing better than it was the other day.
"Don't push it you're still a mutt just slightly better than the rest of the annoying mutts." Sha'lara moved over, putting his arm over her shoulder. Her fur stood on end for some reason she didn't understand.
The two of them pushed past the tarp they had used to cover the entrance of their hideout in the rocks, taking it with them after all it was still useful for keeping warm when they needed it though granted having bodies covered in fur also helped with that as well.
"Honestly do we even know where we are going?" Sha'lara stated in her usual annoyed tone though there wasn't as much of an edge to it this time around.
"I was thinking up, you know out of the tunnels and stuff." Zarath winced when Sha'lara punched him hard in the ribs. She was in no mood for jokes, especially after having no real sleep or food.
"Do we even know how long we've been down here it's hard to tell since we can't see the sky or anything." Sha'lara readjusted Zarath's arm over her shoulder as she noticed he wasn't leaning on her as much as earlier in their journey.
"Honestly, I want to say a day or maybe two I don't know how long we were unconscious at the bottom of that ravine and with as slow as were moving it had to of taken us a day to climb up that cliff side to get here." Zarath couldn't help but feel how heavy Sha'lara was breathing he had noticed it during the climb and when they first woke up, she was definitely lying about how bad her injuries were but saying anything would be pointless if they couldn't find access to a skilled surgeon or a mage with healing magic.
They made their way further along the old tunnel that they hoped was part of the highway system. Stopping every now and then to rest and snack on the few pieces of dried jerky they had managed to salvage from the ruined wagon. Despite not knowing how far down they had fallen or how long they had been left in the underground highway, they were determined to get back alive. Meanwhile somewhere up above unknown to Zarath and Sha'lara the dwarves were slowly working their way down though only to the town of Grûmthol, which the dwarves didn't know was overrun by blighted.
Zarath and Sha'lara came to a crossroads with some old dwarven mining equipment and some scaffolding that led up to the high rocky ceiling. Sha'lara helped Zarath sit down coughing slightly as she stood back up.
"Sha'lara, I think you should stop and rest for a minute." Zarath grabbed her arm before she could walk off. He didn't want her straining herself if she had broken ribs like he thought she did.
"We need to find away."
"Sha'lara sit down." Zarath cut her off before she could finish her sentence giving her arm a slight pull, making her sit down next to him. she let out a sigh as she was forced to sit down.