Cracked walls and old flooring. Vultures hung on the air alongside dust and ash. Nature wasn’t in a battle with stone to reclaim this land from the old fortress; nature had already won.
Rhys considered shooting one of the birds down, but he feared what diseases they might carry on their mottled feathers. Perhaps if things got desperate he would reconsider.
Cracked open crates revealed nothing but shards of glass and dirt–insects at worst. Unless he could find a way to make use of rust, there was little in the way of supplies.
But even with the famine of food or life; hollows prowled just beyond his earshot and sight. Rhys knew their presence by the footprints they left and the scrapes along the walkway walls. He had seen such all before, both in this lifetime and another.
Rhys took a daring move and let Brynne out of his eyesight so he could explore more. He found a small window that led out onto old wood scaffolding, but trusted it with his weight as much as he trusted a Volgonese politician with his taxes. Rhys was satisfied just looking out over the expansive courtyard and forest edge, instead.
A river ran through here once, perhaps from the mountains all the way out to the sea. Perhaps the other side of the fortress would offer a better seaside view–he could hear the waves and smell the salt. He at least wanted to see that, then they could leave if there was nothing else worth their time.
He went back inside the fort proper and together they went down the ladder down to the middle floors. The rungs seemed well put together and oddly fresh, as though newer than the other wood furnishings within the fort. Rhys noted it but said nothing.
At the bottom was open air balconies and thin stone bridges linking them. Their entrance was noted by an old knight who raised its halberd high. He moved awkwardly toward them, as though struggling with the weight of its own arms and armor. It more a sad sight than a frightful one.
Rhys readied his axe and stood between it and Brynne–braced to block.
She incinerated its breastplate and the flesh beneath before it even got close. It slumped onto one knee, then another before fully collapsing upon the ground. It takes a moment for the heart to stop beating, blood still spilling into small pools from the cracks in the iron as it lies face-down on the floor.
Rhys hooks his axe back into his belt. He took a moment to stare at the fallen fellow.
“…Is it always just like this?” he asks her. “Is it just like this here?”
“Most of the time they are completely harmless, too far gone to even move. It’s the ones who still believe they’re guarding a fortress from giants you need to worry about,” she explained, wiping the soot from her blade. “A lot of the hollows around here just want to protect the little they remember, I think.”
She rocked a stone back and forth with her foot before kicking it down into the depths below, the fiery pit she still couldn’t access. Of course the salamanders preferred to be left alone, but who knew just how much material was left untouched by those who feared the creatures guarding it. Brynne shook her head, grabbing the halberd from the fallen knight. Sturdy, but definitely wasn’t as good as her current weapon.
“I’m not surprised in the slightest. From my time here, it’s easy to get completely lost in the lands you travel to. You lose sense of time and distance, and then you forget mundane things. “Have I bathed today?” or “What did I have for breakfast this morning?” Then it becomes more common, you forget important information and then even your family’s names escape you. Eventually you forget your own.”
It was an incredibly cruel fate to endure. Sometimes she’d catch herself falling into that trap herself, forgetting basic details. But Brynne remembered the reason she came here, even if some allies she’d come across had long forgotten themselves. There was a lot to lose and time never seemed to be an issue.
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