Jamson nodded. “I will. I’d also like you to meet Kairm, the man who was an eye-witness to what we’re going to discover.” He turned to the inn-keeper. “Is he coming?”
The inn-keeper turned to yell back into his kitchen again, where the boy had gone. “Drip!”
The boy ran out and back up the stairs, taking them three at a time.
“It begins like this,” Jamson said, raising a hand in the air as if he were a Kerathi dramatic, performing for a street crowd. By his name and his hair, he was probably Corlian originally, Damicos thought. But his command of Kerathi was flawless.
“I came to these lands last year after many travels. I’ve been across the seas to the Whalehook Coast of Osfell, I’ve seen the Rose Cliffs of Terimya, and I’ve trekked overland from Kerath’s southern province to the white wilds of Frostfor. So you’ll excuse my hubris if I say that, in all my days, I haven’t seen anything to excite my mind quite like what awaits in the interior of Ostora.”
“What awaits?” Hundos broke in. The sergeant had little patience for eloquence, and in the humble surroundings of Garrim’s hostel he apparently felt that he could speak his mind and cut to the chase. “Have you actually seen it, and what’s it worth?”
Jamson studied the man, still smiling. “If it’s mere profit you seek, gentles, then you have no reason to be dissuaded so soon. There is wealth out there beyond what you have hitherto imagined—enough to make whatever pay your company has earned so far seem little better than the kitchen boy’s nightly coin. Enough even, perhaps, to raise you to the status of nobility, to make kings out of us all!”
He turned at the sound of more footsteps on the stairs, and then continued as Drip scampered down, pointed up the stairs, and went back to the kitchen. Someone else was coming down from his room. “But here, let’s meet Kairm Torrat, the man who started it all!”
He gestured dramatically to the figure now coming down the stairs, a heavily built man with long, bushy brown hair and eyes puffy from sleep. He was short and had a messy beard that reached to his chest. He wore a homespun shirt and wrinkled trousers. As he stood on the bottom stair he yawned, and Damicos swore he could smell the reek of liquor on the man’s breath from across the room.
“Kairm, come and meet the Tooth and Blade free company—Captain Damicos, and his sergeants. These men are here to provide the muscle for our venture into the forests and mountains. Their spears will guard our way and bring the whole thing off in safety.” He turned and winked at Hundos. “Well, relative safety—there’s always the element of risk, isn’t there?”
Kairm stumped over and shook Damicos’ hand. “’Meetcha.” He collapsed into a chair. “Been long in town?”
“Ah, no,” Damicos replied, “we arrived moments ago. Am I to understand that you are the fellow who made the initial discovery of this lost city in the interior?”
Kairm nodded. “I saw it. Saw what nobody else has seen in forty years’ trying. But sometimes I begin to think that Jamson here is the only man who’ll believe it.” He turned to the barkeep. “Yam, how about a drink? Somethin’ to wake me up gentle.”
Yam dutifully poured a cup of sweet mead and brought it over. Kairm drank deep, muffled slurping noises escaping the rim of his cup. Finally he sighed.
“Me, I’m a trapper,” he began. “Run a line all the way back to the mountains, along the Southwhite and its tributaries. I was pushing deep to establish a new line, trapping for pearl-pike.” He looked up at Damicos. “You ever wrestled a pearl-pike out of the water?”
Damicos and his sergeants shook their heads, trying to gauge if the word of this late-sleeping, disheveled man was reliable enough to base a dangerous campaign on. So far it wasn’t as promising as the captain had hoped.
“They git up to seven spans long in the Southwhite. Fangs as long as your finger. They’ll take a leg off if they catch you in the water.” Kairm took another gulp of mead. “As I said, I was putting in a new line of traps farther upriver than ever before, up a southern tributary. Saw a high cliff—five hundred cubits of bare rock, stretching up into the sky, like a whole half a mountain and just sheared off and fallen. Well, I camped at its base that night, and I heard a very unexpected sound echoing off the cliff face as I lay on my blanket roll.
“A man’s voice it was! I was on my feet in a second, thinkin’ raff, you know—but warn’t no raff. That voice yelled in plain Kerathi for someone else to follow him—half a league distant, mind you, up from the valley beyond that cliff. I just heard the faint echo.
“Other’n that, all was quiet. There was a breeze that carried the sound to me. Didn’t believe what I was hearing at first, but a moment later another man’s voice answered! And there was a couple of howls, like some wolves were answering too. Yillitha pass me by, I swear it!
“I doused me fire and didn’t sleep a wink that night. Next day I clumb around the back of the cliff to get a fix on the terrain, see what lay ahead in that valley. And you’ll be as surprised as I was when you hear what I seen.”
Hundos’ response was lightning quick. “A comely woman ten cubits tall, with a body of solid gold and legs that—”
Damicos shushed the man curtly, ignoring Kalabax’s muffled guffaw. “What did you see? Please tell us exactly what you saw, sir.”
Kairm glared at the sergeant for a moment, but Damicos was relieved to see him dismiss the incredulous mockery with a roll of bloodshot eyes.
“I saw the spires of a wooden city, Captain. Wood buildings—that told me it warn’t an ancient ruin. But they gleamed and sparkled in the sun the way only greenstone does. Will you believe that? A city—forty, fifty rooftops I saw among the trees in the valley—with so much greenstone at hand that they was using it to decorate their buildings!”
Jamson spoke up. “They do say that in the early days, you could walk into the forest and pick up an armload of greenstone, if you knew where to look. Down in certain gullies and dry river bottoms. And no doubt you’ve heard the legend of the Green Man.”
“No,” Damicos admitted.
“Well, it’s a nice tale for the campfire once we’re out on the trail. Suffice it to say that people have been finding quantities of greenstone in this land for long enough that it shouldn’t surprise us too greatly that there might be a whole city atop the largest deposit ever found. Maybe the source of all of it.”
Damicos turned back to Kairm. “So you saw this city. What did you learn of its inhabitants?”
The short, hairy fellow shifted uncomfortably on his chair and swirled a thick finger in his cup, stirring the dregs. “Well, I didn’t go too close, I can tell you. In fact, I left the cliff immediately and packed up my things. Traveled straight back here, stopping only to collect my traps.
“There was some movement in the town while I was atop that hill, but it was at such a distance that I couldn’t hardly tell much about them. One thing I did see, though. Men riding through the trees atop great beasts. Strange critters. Might have been them howlers the night before.”
Hundos sighed. “What of them? Were their horses covered in greenstone too? Or did they have great spears growing out of their—”
Damicos turned to his sergeant. “That is enough, please, Sergeant. We are here to learn.”
Hundos leaned back in his chair and nodded his acquiescence, but it was clear he wasn’t buying the trapper’s tale. He grinned sideways at Sergeant Kalabax as the others kept speaking.
“I said they was riding on great beasts,” Kairm said. “Not horses. Not mules. Something I’d never seen before.”
“This interests me greatly,” Damicos told the man. “I have heard somewhat of Leisha, the warrior-queen who led her people into the wilderness. You think this is her lost colony?”
“They spoke Kerathi,” Kairm grunted. “At least the voices I heard echoing sounded Kerathi—it sure wasn’t the barbarian tongue. And they’d built wood houses, some of them tall enough to see plainly over the trees! They’re about twenty-five or thirty leagues west-sou
thwest from the ruins of Cotra, Leisha’s old mining camp. You decide for yourself if that explains what I saw.”
Damicos nodded. “Could you show me on a map where you found all this?”
“No map exists of the region I speak of,” the trapper replied with a shake of his shaggy head. “Except maybe a big patch drawn by somebody who’s never been there. And I wouldn’t show you jest for the asking, anyway. You’re not the first to wish he had my secrets.” Kairm tapped his forehead and grinned lopsidedly at the infantry captain.
Jamson jumped back in. “So that brings us to the expedition. I’m a man of some means myself, having seen success in some of my past ventures and travels. The high king has recognized me for services rendered in cartography and merchant-brokering by giving me a small string of properties in Kerath and elsewhere. So when I met Kairm here and learned the truth of his tale, I said I’d pay up to half of the costs for an explorative trek to the site. And wouldn’t you know it, I was quickly taken up on the other half by a good friend, Tarsha Pac.
“You may know him from the merchant caravans he manages out of Priom? He’s a Borathian originally, as you can no doubt evince from the sound of his name. At any rate, he and his beautiful daughter Jivenna were nearly as entranced by this opportunity as myself, and have agreed to fund the other half of the costs. All we lacked was a guardian corps. I put out the word, but unfortunately four of the other Kerathi companies we had contacts with decided against helping us. Too far out, they said, too much danger and too little guarantee of pay.
“But then you arrived in Garrim, and I knew the moment that kitchen boy came to fetch me in my rooms that we were in business at last.”
Damicos let the man’s flow of words ripple around him, and retreated inward to study the matter in his mind. He was not oblivious to the rhetorical tactics Jamson was using to persuade him and draw him into the deal. He was aware of the precarious nature of the trapper’s account.
And yet something about the tale intrigued him beyond the mere promise of wealth and adventure. There was something that rang true, something naturally Ostoran that made him certain that something really was out there.
It might not have been exactly what Kairm said it was, nor all that Jamson hoped it was, but there was something. And Damicos was at a place in his career and in his personal ambition that made him want to find it for himself. To be the first there, to see the thing through and deal with the repercussions however they fell out. If it didn’t break the company, if it didn’t bankrupt them all, if it didn’t cost him his own life, then he wanted to pursue it.
Perhaps even in spite of those things.
Jamson was asking him something. “How many men have you?” the man repeated.
“Eighty spears are with me now here in Garrim, and some skirmishers,” Damicos replied.
“There, you see? More than enough to take on an enterprise such as this. Add perhaps another ten of us, counting servants and porters. A force like that could cut a path through even the thickest parts of the wilderness.”
“We’d need guarantee of pay,” Damicos said. “If my men know they won’t all come back, they’ll want to also know there’s real coin behind the venture.”
“Done,” Jamson said, with a wave of his hand. “We’ll have initial funds available within the week, sufficient to pay each man ten silver regardless of what we find out there.”
Hundos glanced at his captain warily. No doubt he’d read the desire to proceed on Damicos’ face, and he didn’t like it. Damicos responded with further questions.
“Can you give me any further assurance that what you’ve told us is true?” he asked the trapper. “I am intrigued beyond measure, but I cannot risk my men’s lives to the forest vastness if there is nothing to be found in the end. They’d be justified in hanging us if we betrayed them so.” The last part he added simply to impress the man with the urgency of his demand for verification.
“Show him the rock,” Kairm told Jamson. The tall man again flashed the piece of greenstone at the captain, smiling broadly.
“That,” said Kairm, “I recovered from the base of the cliff. In plain view on the ground. Anybody coulda picked it up. But nobody’d bothered—it warn’t big enough. To them, this was jest a crumb not worth bending over to grab.”
“A pretty piece, to be sure,” Damicos said. “But what of the city? I’d be more confident if I could be assured it wasn’t going to vanish into smoke the moment we drew near.”
Kairm looked uncomfortable, and glanced at Jamson. The older man’s smile faded slightly, but then snapped back into place, and he nodded at Kairm.
“Go and get it. We’ll show them.”
The trapper got up and silently went back up the stairs, which didn’t creak nearly as loudly this time. In fact, Damicos was impressed at the agility and careful movements of the stocky trapper now that the man was awake and purposeful.
“It’s proof you want, Captain?” Jamson asked. “You’re about to see it. We haven’t shown this to everyone, since it scared off the first two commanders we spoke with. But I believe you and your men are hardy enough that you won’t turn tail at the sight of something unpleasant. I suppose it’s a sort of test—if you back off after seeing this, then perhaps you weren’t cut out for the adventure in the first place.”
Behind him, Kalabax and Hundos bristled at the implied question of their bravery, but Damicos remained calm. He could see that Jamson was skilled in manipulation and was now trying a different angle to ensure commitment.
Kairm sauntered down the steps with something clutched in one hand. He walked over and raised it into the air for all three soldiers to see. Damicos rose from his chair, and the two behind him did likewise, moving closer to stare at it.
It was an ankle-high boot, made from soft leather tanned in a greenish-yellow color unfamiliar to Damicos. Even more unfamiliar were the decorations: there were two teeth from some animal, sewn to the toe of the boot, pointing forward as if to give it the look of an actual paw. In between them were four smaller teeth that might have belonged to a human.
There were small wooden beads and greenstone ones as well, though most of those had been broken off. The sole was worn through and torn, and the whole article was bedraggled: caked in mud, with water stains and other darker discolorations. And attached to the top was a short tuft of fine blonde hair, with a bit of skin still holding it together.
“Found this by the cliff as well, next to a bunch of tracks in the earth—human and beast tracks side by side. Looked like there had been a fight, maybe. This was all that was left besides the tracks, so I took it.”
Jamson studied the soldiers’ faces as they examined the object. “It’s like nothing I’d ever seen before. Any of you recognize its make?”
Damicos shook his head. “It looks… it’s not like what the barbarians wear. They go barefoot or wear crude sandals.”
“Right,” Hundos agreed. “The style isn’t too different from what some Ostorans used to wear, but those I’ve seen were all simpler. I’ve not seen this kind of leather before, nor such decorations.”
“And note the greenstones,” Jamson said.
“What’s that hair?” Kalabax asked.
Kairm fingered the blonde tuft. “Well, it ain’t from any animal I know of.”
The men let that suggestion settle in as they stared at the animal fangs and human-like teeth adorning the toe of the boot.
“How barbaric,” Damicos said.
“Yes. Whoever these people are,” Jamson replied with another of his wide grins, though this one wasn’t so pleasant, “they are not barbarian tribesmen, yet they are not quite civilized like the Ostorans here on the coast.
“Kairm and I believe… well, this is the kind of article that a people might fashion had they been living in the interior for many, many years. So long, perhaps, so far removed from the rule of the high king, that they formed their own grisly code of justice or honor. One that allows for the taking of human trophies.”
Kairm lowered the article, but refrained from setting it on the table’s eating surface. “Now you see why I didn’t stick around by that cliff, or approach the city.”
Jamson spread his hands. “Now you know everything we know, Captain Damicos. Are you still interested in the expedition, or will you turn and run away like the rest? Don’t forget all that greenstone waiting to be claimed by the man with the most soldiers at his back. Not to mention the glory of reclaiming an entire colony for His Majesty. That kind of achievement could go far in putting one in the king’s good graces.”
Damicos stared back at the man. He wasn’t sure if Jamson knew enough of the current political situation to understand how that suggestion might play with the men who had elected to stay behind in Ostora in the absence of their generals. But he knew that he couldn’t draw back now, not with such compelling evidence of things to be explored and reclaimed from their hiding place in the interior.
The captain looked at his two sergeants. They had each set their jaws and when they nodded at him, it was a signal that they were willing to follow his lead into anything.
“We’ll go to this cliff and valley you speak of,” Damicos told the gray-haired man. “We’ll fight off anything that would keep us from it. If there is nothing there, we will back out and take our money.
“But if we find the city you saw, we’ll move in and see where the adventure takes us—to glory and riches, divided evenly between us, or to the fight of our lives. The Tooth and Blade will not be cowed by opposition. It’s what we were bred for.”
Jamson shouted for joy and called to the inn-keeper. “A round of drinks, sir! We will sign a contract as soon as Tarsha and his daughter arrive! I’ll send a messenger their way at once.”
The Tooth and Blade men pitched tents on the outskirts of town as evening fell. Those with coin enough headed for the taverns and gambling dens; Damicos allowed the recreation since it would take a few days to gather supplies and pack animals for the inland trek. He sent a runner back toward Dura so that Pelekarr would have word of their decision to proceed into the wilderness.
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