Hegemon

Orders

“A catacomb, yes. Sorry if it disturbs you. Leaders have been inhabiting this place since it was being built.”

“Why? Who would chose to live here?” Leah said, sounding almost repulsed. Despite the fact that they worked with much, much worse things, these were human bones, they used to be living things. She was white as a sheet.

“The Leaders don’t chose their places of work for hominess, they choose it for practicality. Follow me,” Micah said, walking forward. He put the torch back onto the wall, casting flickering light onto a dark skull beneath it. Kira could have sworn she saw a spider crawling into its eye socket.

Micah led them down the narrow corridors, each of them lined with bones and mold and stringy bits of plants that they didn’t know even existed. Leah’s hand brushed against something furry and she shivered.

“Why do you work in a catacomb?” Kira asked, looking around. It was hard to hide repulsion when all the people surrounding her had once been human.

“The Leaders take refuge where they can. We don’t have much room to be picky about it. Despite that, these catacombs are secure and no one in their right mind would come down here on their own free will, or without being called by the Leaders,” Micah said, taking a right. There were less bones down this way, and the walls seemed to grow darker in shades of rock and cement. There were drips of water echoing around the walls, but they didn’t know where they came from.

“Where are we? Like, a general country?” Alex asked, looking behind them. The torches had been going out as they passed them, and he had the answer to his question before Micah had the words out of his mouth.

“That is not for you to know,” he said. “The Leaders like to keep their presence, or at least where they work, generally secretive. There are too many rogues nowadays for us to be any less cautious.” Alex nodded, having guessed it already. The torches went out behind them so they couldn’t find their way either out or back in if they wanted to.

There wasn’t any more conversation for a while. They made a few turns, but kept generally straight. The stoned darkened more as they walked, soon matching the blackened rocks and moss the floor was made of. Kira looked up at the high-reaching ceilings and saw nothing but darkness. She couldn’t see the top. The toe of her shoe caught on an upraised stone on the ground.

The floor had now become almost tiled, with octagonal, black slabs of rock laid out perfectly. She looked around; there were no longer distinguishable rocks in the walls, only smooth black stone, like marble or glass. She ran her hand along it and found that it was moist, almost dripping. Small pools of water gathered at the bases of the stones.

She only just realized how warm it was. It wasn’t humid, which was a surprise in the wet caverns, but there was a slight breeze blowing through the tunnels. They came to a doorway, made of dark wood with gold hinges and handle. Micah opened it.

The room was huge and circular, slight angles in the walls where dark burning torches were hung. Standing alone around the room were people in cloaks, each in between two torches. It felt strangely like something out of a movie, like it was staged. Which it probably was, thought Kira.

Micah closed the door behind them. Cecil stepped forward, looking around the room to all the shadowed faces. It wasn’t something he was expecting. “What is our purpose here?” he asked, sounding formal and assertive. It was almost like he was using a different voice. Kira was sure the others had heard it before.

“Your duties as Hunters are being called to change,” one of the cloaks said after a pause, a man by the sound of it. They couldn’t tell where his voice was coming from.