Rubble on the right. The old bones of my people on the left.

The light ahead is a lamp, sitting on a rock in the passageway. As I approach, I can see another dim spot of light beyond it. The passageway turns to the right a score or so paces ahead and another lamp is somewhere around the corner. Just before the turn, the inland wall and the ceiling of the tunnel become stone as well. I realize with a start that the tunnel has reached the main wall surrounding Elftown.

And here, like on the seawall, someone has removed the stones and tunneled into the center of the wall.

I look around the corner.

The tunnel is sloped upward. It has no ceiling on this side of the wall; it is an excavated ramp leading up to a larger chamber, inside the wall that has kept the elves in Elftown for as long as I've been alive. Lamplight filters down from above.

I listen carefully. Amongst the muted sounds of waves crashing against the seawall and the ever-present faint vibrations from the Footstomp tavern above, which somehow manage to penetrate all the way down here, I hear other noises. The soft sounds of movement. A slight sound of scraping.

I feel my oath of vengeance surging within me like a rising tide.

I creep up the ramp and look over the lip. A few paces away, his back to me, is an elf, sitting on the dirt floor of the chamber, a lamp resting on the floor at his side. Beyond him, the animated dead slowly work at scraping the mortar away around several of the large stones of the outer wall with jerky, unnatural movements. Scuttlers perch on their heads, directing them, wrapped in bright shards of indigo magic. The air smells of dead elf.

I slide my sickle back into my belt, pull myself up into the room, and sneak up behind the elf. Dropping to my knees behind him, I wrap my arm around his throat and pull him back against me. He struggles, feet kicking and hands grasping at my arm. I flash the blade of my cutting sword in front of his face. 

"Shhhhhhh," I whisper into his ear. "Don't move."

He stops moving.

"Good boy," I say. "Stay calm and I won't hurt you. I just have a couple questions. Understand?"

He nods. I loosen my arm around his throat a little so he can talk.

"Where did you get these corpses?" 

"I don't know." He sounds scared. I recognize his voice. His was the younger, more uncertain voice I heard behind the warehouse door last night.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I growl. I move my blade closer.

"They were in the city somewhere," he gasps. "By the harbor. We got word of them. We sent the scuttlers out and brought them back."

Now I'm getting somewhere.

"Who gave you word of them?"

"The outsider."

"Who is the outsider?" I tighten my grip again, just a little.

"I don't know," croaks the elf. "I've never met him. I don't know his name. All I know is that he helps us find dead bodies. He sends word where they are. We send the scuttlers and bring them back."

"We?" I sneer. "You don't look powerful enough to do it."

"Raichon brings them in," he says. "I can't hold the scuttlers that far yet." Raichon. The name is not familiar to me. But obviously it's the other necromancer I heard behind the door last night. The one in charge.

"So," I say casually, "Digging out of Elftown, eh? You must be very anxious to escape, if you are willing to murder children to do it." I wave my sword toward the little corpses of Ciana and Landor, still scraping away at the mortar.

"We didn't murder them," protests the elf. "We're not murderers. We find elves who are already dead. Then we use them."

"But some of these elves weren't dead. The two little ones, to be exact. They were alive. Your outsider killed them."

"That's a lie!" His denial is angry, insistent.

"Is it?" I hiss. "Then why am I here?"

"I- I don't know."

"I am here for vengeance. I am here because someone - your outsider - murdered a friend of mine. A child like these two. I left him alone for a little bit, with these other two, and your outsider crept in and killed them. When I returned, the children were dead and your scuttlers were there to take them away."

"It's you," the elf gasps. "You're the one who killed two of the scuttlers."

"That's right. And now I am going to kill the outsider. Where is he?"

"I don't know."

I squeeze his neck tighter.

"I think maybe you do."