Lilly the Knight (Chapter 10)

Written by Taylor Lee

Genre: Adventure, Drama, and Fantasy

Audience: Young Adult to Adult (12+)

Chapter 10: The Abandoned Kingdom

Upon the mossy ledge outside the mountain cleft, the great green frog did not wait for the enemy scouts to draw their blades.

The moment the Necrosian commander lowered his iron spear, the creature turned with unnatural swiftness and plunged into the darkened cracks. It did not merely leap; it moved like a streak of emerald light, skimming over jagged rocks and descending through the subterranean darkness. It raced downward through the winding tunnels of quartz and granite until the narrow passage opened into the boundless, crystal-lit vault of New Eldoria.

Below, the subterranean city was bathed in the gentle amber radiance of the high dome. Along the turquoise canals, citizens were quietly rebuilding their shattered lives. Lilly stood near the edge of a terraced garden, watching her father carve a cedar bench for an elderly neighbor whose hearth had burned upon the surface. The scent of damp earth and baking rye bread filled the cool air, offering a fragile illusion of safety.

A sharp, urgent croak shattered the tranquility.

Lilly turned as the emerald frog landed heavily upon the stone before her. It did not sit calmly as it had so many times before. Its throat sac swelled violently, and its golden-amber eyes blazed with unmistakable, frantic intelligence. The creature leaped onto Lilly’s arm, its webbed feet digging into the leather sleeve of her tunic, before hopping frantically out of sight. It paused, looked over its shoulder, and let out a piercing, rhythmic rattle that echoed against the cavern walls.

"What is it, little friend?" Lilly asked, her heart clenching with sudden dread. "What hast thou seen?"

The frog leaped forward three paces, stopped, and croaked again, gesturing with its head toward the shadows beneath the grand rock.

Before Lilly could take a step, a brass horn sounded from the high gallery of the cavern’s northern threshold.

The blast was sharp, harsh, and repeated three times—the universal signal of Eldorian sentinels under mortal threat.

Throughout the vast cavern, the quiet hum of labor vanished in an instant. Women dropped bundles of grain; craftsmen froze with hammers raised; children clung to their mothers’ skirts in terrified silence. Hundreds of faces turned toward the high marble bridge that spanned the northern entry tunnel.

A young scout, his breastplate scuffed with chalky dust, sprinted down the broad stairs of the grand tier, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

"The entrance!" the scout shouted, his voice cracking with exhaustion. "The cleft in the northern forest hath been found! Necrosian trackers have marked the entrance, and their riders are signaling the coalition camp!"

Panic rippled through the gathering like fire through dry grass. Cries of despair rose toward the crystal ceiling. Men shouted in anger, while mothers wept openly, believing that the doom they had barely escaped upon the surface had followed them into the earth.

"Silence!"

A new king’s voice carried through the rising hysteria.

King Aldric strode from the council pavilion, his simple silver circlet catching the amber light. Behind him marched Sir Brian and twenty veteran knights, their chainmail clinking in grim rhythm. Though the lines of grief and weariness were etched deeply into Aldric’s weathered face, his posture was that of a former great knight.

"Hear me, sons and daughters of New Eldoria!" Aldric commanded, his deep voice carrying across the marble plaza. "We knew this day might come. We knew the greed of six kings would not sleep easily while their pride was wounded. But we are not defenseless sheep upon an open plain! We dwell within the bones of the world, where an army cannot march ten abreast! We do not cower away from the enemy. That is not who an Eldorian shall be.”

He turned to Sir Brian, his orders crisp and immediate. "Take fifty soldiers to the upper bottleneck at once. Do your best to block the enemy. If they attempt to enter through that narrow crevice, make them bleed for every inch of stone!"

"Thy will shall be done, my liege," Sir Brian answered, striking his breastplate in salute before leading a contingent of armored men toward the northern ramparts.

Aldric stepped down among the gathered families, placing calm, steadying hands upon the shoulders of terrified craftsmen and weeping elders. "Return to thy dwellings. Keep the lanterns low and trust in thy defenders. I gave thee my word that no enemy would set foot within these halls without passing over my corpse, and by the heavens above, that oath shall stand."

The people drew strength from his iron resolve, dispersing in orderly haste to secure their homes and gather the children. Yet as Lilly watched her new King turn away from the crowd, she saw the terrible shadow that fell across his eyes. The weight of his vow was pressing down upon him with crushing force; he had promised them a sanctuary, but the surface world had found them before the dust of their old home had even settled.

A wet touch brushed against Lilly’s boot.

She looked down. The ancient frog was tugging at the lace of her leather shoe, its golden eyes fixed upon her with desperate insistence. When Lilly met its gaze, the creature did not hop toward the entrance cave where the soldiers prepared for a potential battle just outside.

Instead, it leaped toward an ancient, shadowed archway carved with the faded likeness of a weeping sun.

"Thou art not leading me to the other soldiers? I need to help!" Lilly whispered, kneeling beside the small creature. "Thou art showing me something else."

The frog croaked once—a low, solemn vibration that resonated in Lilly’s chest—and bounded into the gloom beneath the sunken foundations of the city.

Lilly adjusted the sword belt at her waist, checked the dagger sheathed at her side, and followed the creature into the deep dark.

The passage beneath the weeping sun was unlike any tunnel Lilly had walked before.

While the upper city of New Eldoria was fashioned from pale, elegant marble and warm limestone, this descending stair was cut from jagged, lightless basalt. The air grew rapidly colder, thick with the smell of stagnant moisture, ozone, and something ancient and mineral that tasted like copper upon her tongue.

The amber glow of the crystal dome faded behind her, replaced by absolute, swallowing blackness. Lilly reached into her pouch, withdrew a shard of luminous quartz she had collected during her first descent, and held it firmly. The pale blue light cast long, dancing shadows across the damp walls.

The frog hopped steadily downward, guiding her through a labyrinth of sunken corridors that sloped ever deeper into the roots of the mountain. At last, the stairway ended before a pair of colossal double doors fashioned from dark star-iron, green with the patina of forgotten millennia.

The doors were slightly ajar, broken open by some unimaginable force from the inside ages ago.

Lilly squeezed through the narrow gap, holding her glowing crystal high.

She gasped.

She stood within an enormous circular vault, far older and far more ominous than the gleaming city above. The vaulted ceiling was lost in shadows, supported by twelve colossal basalt pillars carved to resemble weeping giants. Yet it was not the architecture that seized her breath; it was the murals that covered every inch of the curved stone walls.

They were high-relief carvings with gold leaf, silver accents, and crushed deep blue minerals, depicting the history of the realm’s original builders.

Lilly stepped closer, her fingers tracing the cold, raised stone.

The first panels showed a proud, prosperous race of underground dwellers. They were master builders and artisans who lived in harmony beneath the earth, constructing the great terraces, channeling the pure turquoise springs, and cultivating the subterranean gardens. They were peaceful, much like the people of surface Eldoria had been.

The frog leaped onto a raised altar stone beneath the middle panels, letting out a mournful croak.

Lilly moved forward, her eyes scanning the area. The narrative changed dramatically.

The carvings depicted the ancient artisans digging deep beneath their foundations, driven by a desire to master the resonant power of the great crystals. Deep within the core of the mountain, their picks had pierced a vast, hollow abyss. From that abyssal rift, something terrible had emerged.

The carvings portrayed it not as a beast of flesh, but as a colossal, writhing terror of living stone, corrupted shadow, and jagged volcanic glass rock—an entity that slept in the molten depths of the world, awakened by the hubris of the miners.

The next panel showed devastation. The grand city was consumed by darkness; the crystals turned black and crimson; the people fell. The ancient civilization could not destroy the horror they had disturbed. In their final, desperate stand, their greatest sorcerers and architects had lured the nightmare back into the bottommost abyss, sealing the great rift with massive runic wards and locking the vault with three enormous star-iron chains.

Lilly read the ancient runes carved beneath the final mural, the archaic Eldorian script translating clearly in her mind:

“We who dwelt in the Light of the Stone have brought forth the Shadow of the Deep. We could not slay the Sleeper; we could only bar the Gate. Let these halls stand forever empty, lest the tread of living feet and the noise of the world above awaken that which hungers in the dark. Flee to the sun, and remember us no more.”

Lilly stepped back, her hand flying to her mouth.

The underground kingdom had never been abandoned because of war or famine. It was not a forgotten paradise built for mortal shelter; it was a magnificent tomb, a stone lid placed over an ancient, sleeping nightmare.

A sudden, deep vibration passed through the floor.

It was not the sharp shudder of a falling boulder from the upper gates. It was a slow, heavy pulse that traveled through the solid basalt beneath Lilly’s boots.

Thump.

A pause of several seconds followed, heavy and suffocating.

Thump.

Lilly lowered her glowing crystal toward the center of the vault floor. There, surrounded by the twelve weeping pillars, lay a massive circular hatch of black star-iron, sixty paces across, bound with thick iron bands and carved with glowing, intricate runes.

One of the great star-iron bands was snapped in two, its severed edges jagged and raw. A hairline fracture ran straight across the center of the seal, and through that tiny crack seeped a faint, sickly violet mist that smelled of burnt ash and brimstone. From deep within the bottomless shaft beneath the hatch came a low, rhythmic sound—like the slow, agonizing inhalation of an immense lung, accompanied by the faint, scraping groan of subterranean stone shifting in the abyss.

The truth struck Lilly with the force of a physical blow.

When King Aldwin had detonated the thousands of powder kegs to destroy the surface city of Eldoria, the cataclysmic shockwave had not merely crushed the invading armies. The tremendous force had shattered the foundational bedrock of the mountain, fracturing the ancient seals that kept the Sleeper imprisoned.

The ancient horror was stirring.

The frog looked up at Lilly, its golden eyes dark with ancient sorrow, and let out a single, trembling rattle.

Lilly’s breath came in ragged gasps. Her mind raced with terror. We brought thousands of people into the belly of a beast, she thought. We fled the fire above, only to make our beds upon the mouth of a waking grave.

Her first instinct was to keep the secret buried, to spare King Aldric and the frightened citizens a panic that would surely tear New Eldoria apart before the first enemy spear was even thrown. But as she looked down at the cracking seal and felt the deep, rhythmic heartbeat of the abyss shuddering through the stone, she knew that silence would be murder. King Aldwin had taught her that courage was not the absence of fear, but the willingness to face the truth.

"Come," Lilly whispered to the frog, scooping the creature into her leather tunic. "We must reach King Aldric before it is too late."

Lilly burst through the bronze doors of the upper council chamber, her hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.

King Aldric stood over a sprawling parchment map of the upper tunnels, surrounded by Elder Corwin, four watch captains, and Sir Brian, who had just returned from inspecting the upper barricades.

"Lilly?" Aldric looked up, his brow furrowed in surprise. "Where hast thou been? The enemy vanguard is massing at the forest cleft. We are preparing to defend the First Choke."

"Your Majesty," Lilly gasped, steadying herself against the edge of the oak council table. "Thou must hear me. We are in mortal peril, but not merely from above."

Elder Corwin frowned with mild irritation. "Lady Lilly, this is no time for woodland fancies. Six thousand enemy soldiers are gathering upon the surface with iron picks and battering rams. If the First Choke falleth, our people are butchered."

"If we remain blind to what lieth beneath our feet, Corwin, we shall all be devoured before the enemy ever reacheth the bridge!" Lilly cried, her voice ringing with such desperate conviction that every man in the room fell silent.

King Aldric raised a hand, silencing his counselors. He stepped toward Lilly, his dark eyes searching her pale, exhausted face. "Speak plainly, Lilly. What hast thou found?"

Lilly set the emerald frog upon the table and drew a steadying breath. With clear, unvarnished words, she recounted her descent into the sunken vault. She told them of the weeping sun, the ancient murals, the hubris of the first builders, and the primordial horror that had driven them to the surface. She spoke of the cracked star-iron seal, the sickly violet mist, and the slow, terrible heartbeat that was pulsing through the bedrock.

When she finished, a heavy, suffocating silence descended upon the council chamber.

Elder Corwin went pale as chalk, sinking into a wooden chair. "Merciful heavens... the events on the surface... the King's powder kegs broke the mountain's bones."

"We must evacuate!" a watch captain stammered, his hand trembling upon his sword hilt. "We must take the people and flee through the southern ventilation shafts! We cannot stay here!"

"And go whither?" King Aldric’s voice was cold, sharp, and commanding. He slammed his fist onto the council table, rattling the parchment maps. "Whither shall we lead four thousand women, children, and wounded men? Out into the open forest where six thousand bloodthirsty warriors and their kings wait with drawn steel? If we flee to the surface, we shall be cut down like sheep in the sun."

"Then what are we to do, Sire?" Sir Brian asked, his weathered face grim. "If the girl speaketh true, we are trapped between a hammer from above and an anvil from below."

King Aldric straightened his spine, lifting his chin as the silver circlet gleamed in the lantern light.

"We do what Eldorians have always done," Aldric declared, his voice steady with unyielding purpose. "We stand. We fight. We endure."

He looked at Sir Brian. "Double the guard at the First Choke. Bring up the heavy pitch pots and wall up the secondary archways with dressed stone. Let the coalition discover that entering New Eldoria is entering the mouth of a fortress."

He then turned to Lilly, placing a firm, heavy hand upon her armored shoulder. "Lilly, thou art the one who found this city, and thou art the one who hath uncovered its darkest truth. Take Sir Brian, three of our finest scholars, and thy little green guide. Return to that sunken vault. Examine the ancient runes, study the unbroken seals, and discover how the ancients bound that terror in the first age. If that gate is cracking, we must find a way to reinforce the star-iron before it breaketh entirely."

"I shall do it, my liege," Lilly answered solemnly, bowing her head. "By my life, I shall find a way."

Before another word could be spoken, the air within the council chamber warped.

From far above, echoing down the long northern tunnels, came the deafening, metallic crash of iron battering rams striking the outermost portcullis. War-horns wailed through the stone corridors, accompanied by the muffled, bloodthirsty roars of thousands of coalition soldiers breaching the forest cleft.

At that exact, terrible instant, the marble floor beneath their boots heaved.

A sickening, deep tremor surged up from the bowels of the mountain. Far below the city, behind the cracked star-iron seal in the sunken vault, came a sound that made the blood run cold—a low, grinding roar of scraping tectonic plates and a resonant hiss of ancient, waking malice that vibrated through every stone, every crystal, and every bone in New Eldoria.

Lilly gripped the edge of the table as dust rained down from the ceiling arches.

She looked toward the northern windows, where the war-torches of the invaders flickered in the upper dark, and then down toward the floor, where the deep heartbeat pulsed with growing, terrifying rhythm.

The people of Eldoria were trapped in the middle. The invaders were at the gate, the nightmare was waking beneath their feet, and the final battle for their survival had officially begun.

End of Chapter 10

Chapter 11 will be published on 9/21/26

©2026 TaylorLeeMedia LLC and its affiliates. All rights reserved.

This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental.