Fires laughed quietly above the earthen chamber. Is it grave or prison cell tonight? Erron Black was not ready to find out, nor were his men.
They could feel the pulse of rawhide drums bang above ground and wooden flutes echo down the chamber through the earth and bones. Erron Black was bare of weapons save for a knife he produced from his left boot.
Each man had one, a gift to his men from Earthrealm. Switch blades, black and sleek, hidden in the boots or anywhere they please.
Still, armed to the teeth with just a small blade each, how to get out? The small ten foot slope to the entrance wasn't blocked inside, but the level ground above was covered by wood, and likely held in place by something equally heavy as he discovered when he gently knocked on the wood for a bare spot, and creased the cracks with his blade until stone creaked back.
In the covered darkness, with only cracks of fire light that peered in to ensure the prisoners remained beneath them, Erron Black produced from his waist belt in a locked container a small vial of green ichor.
Guns, knives, staves and bows, all the obvious had been taken from them, he'd like all of it back, but this tiny relic of the past was a welcome opportunity the captors missed out on.
They never would have known what they had anyway.
Ready to pop the cork of the thumb sized vial, he paused to the last beat of the drums that stalled even his heart.
The earth rattled and the worms themselves seemed to writhe up against the living as if they were the dead in search of holes for comfort, to hide from the nightmare that suddenly dragged across the chilling earth above.
Erron Black pushed his men back, what little space they had, to the bottom of the small slope. The light blocked for what seemed like minutes and the heat of the flames emboldened by that of a great massive body that moved across the prison door.
Slithered, even.
A low, deep hiss gathered moist air into the maw of what sounded like a massive beast above them.
BOOM!
The crunch of the earth beneath the weight of a powerful strike and the drums rumbled after it like a marching army fearful of its wrath.
"What the hell is going on?"
He tried to listen, he tried to breathe, they all tried to find some semblance of hope but not a single answer given save for the drums as they hastened and the great snake like beast above called the very earth itself to devour those within with fear be it bug, or man.
He regretted the moment they surrendered.
Erron believed it may have been a tribe loyal to Reiko and certainly as impotent as the former general, but now he wasn't sure what to think.
"We should risk it. Some of us will survive."
One man suggested.
Erron Black burned the flesh of his thumb on the crease of the vial's opening and thought long and hard on this one.
No answer mattered to them now.
They could hear the thunder rumble gentle beneath the roar of the drums.
"Prepare the sacrifices."
A duduk pierced the air and the roar of a great serpentine maw hissed as the celebration died in an instant.
Light shined through the darkness, and Erron could not understand it.
A Zaterran face stared back down at him when the door was freed and opened.
He sealed the vial and hid it on his person. The knives tucked with their hands at their sides or behind their backs.
Tonight, somehow, the dead did rise.