The Redemption of Desmeres

by Joseph R. Lallo

  “Come on, Dowser. Quiet now. We don’t need one of your howls.” She looked to Desmeres. “Honestly, from racket this beast can make, you’d think he was the size of an ox.”

  “Useful for a hunting dog. Helps guide his master even when out of sight.”

  “You being the sort who’s more liable to be hiding than seeking at the moment, that seems like a liability.”

  Desmeres reached down and gave Dowser rub.

  “Easy. That scent you’ve caught is probably what we’re looking for.”

  “How exactly would a puppy be able to smell this storehouse we’re heading for?”

  “Not the storehouse itself, just the field around it. This being our most valuable storehouse, I’ve taken more than the standard precautions against its accidental discovery. I have sentries in place.”

  “I take these aren’t the sort of sentries that can be bribed or intimidated?”

  “You know me too well already. Have you ever heard of an olo?”

  She squinted “Why do I know that word?”

  “No doubt at some point in your life you were quite wisely warned about them. Very rare, very curious creatures, the oloes. They’ve got six legs, and are prodigious burrowers. They are also completely blind and nearly deaf. They make do almost entirely with their peerless sense of smell. They gather into fields and devour anything foolish enough to venture too far within their territory.” He gestured. “This to our left is the largest olo field in the Northern Alliance.”

  “And your storehouse is at the center of it?”

  “Not precisely the center, no. But far enough to make its accidental discovery impossible and make any would-be thieves think twice.”

  “If these things are so dangerous, how exactly do you get to your storehouse?”

  “There are ways. Oloes are terrified of fire. Anything that smells strongly enough of smoke will encourage them to keep their distance for a time.”

  “For a time?”

  “Eventually their craving for fresh meat overcomes even the strongest scent of smoke. The trick is to reach the storehouse or the edge of the field before they get too curious.”

  “And I suppose you intend to have us wade into a field full of them?”

  “Of course not. My plan was to go alone. You’ll stay behind with Dowser. Considering how many times he nearly got himself hurt simply riding on a cart, it would be foolish to risk bringing him into an olo field.”

  She grimaced. “Must I spend all of my time tending to this animal?”

  “I imagine you thought the pursuit of destiny would be more exciting.”

  “I wasn’t in it for the excitement, but I would have expected more than wrapping my arms around a smelly, hairy animal.”

  “Excitement is what happens when things don’t go according to plan.”

  They continued onward. The night was well and truly upon them. As tended to be the case in the north, thick clouds hid the stars and left the moon little more than a vague pool of light above the clouds. Even staying on the road taxed Desmeres’s night vision terribly. Genara had her hands full, a bit more literally, with the task of steadying and silencing Dowser. The farther they traveled, the more agitated he became. Before long, she had to sit him in her lap and pat him constantly to keep him from fidgeting, and even then he whimpered and moaned.

  “This dog had better turn out to be awfully handy, and soon, because as it stands you may as well have brought a fussy infant with you for all the good it’s doing and trouble it’s causing,” she grumbled.

  She glanced to Desmeres, then leaned forward to look past him. Focused as he was upon the very important task of keeping out of the field before it was time, he had failed to notice a rather disturbing detail.

  “Desmeres, you say the field is to our left?”

  “Yes.”

  “Filled with oloes and not fit for man or beast?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why is there a fire in the distance there?” she asked, pointing out to the field.

  He slowed the horses and looked. Sure enough, to his left and slightly farther along the direction they’d been heading, the glow of flames danced in the distance. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose.

  “They are burning green pine,” he said.

  “For the smoke,” Genara said.

  “Blast it, they got here ahead of us.”

  “Is that so surprising? The Elite have the finest horses and don’t have to worry about turning heads by riding at full speed through towns.”

  “I suppose I’d expected them to drag their feet a little longer. And I wasn’t entirely certain I could trust your information. At least if they are still here it means they haven’t cleared it out.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “Now we head as quickly as we can to a floodplain near the south end of the olo field. If we hurry, we may be able to get inside before they do and clear it out.”

  He snapped the reins and sent them on their way.

  “There’s another way in?”

  “There may be. Assuming I can find it again.”

  “But what if they’ve already gotten inside?”

  “Unlikely.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if they’ve found the storehouse so quickly and easily, they probably also know about the traps at the entrance and the switch for disabling them.”

  “Wouldn’t that get them inside even faster?”

  “It would if I hadn’t moved that switch a few weeks ago.”

  A sharp crack followed by a low rumble rolled through the field, peppered here and there with barely audible shouts of dismay.

  “What was that?!” Genara yelped, clutching Dowser tight.

  “They tried the old switch.”

  #

  Near the center of the field, madness reigned. Anrack and a dozen of his Elites had arrived before sunset, but even with Epidime’s notes on where the storehouse was likely to be found, searching was a slow and dangerous prospect when surrounded by hordes of bloodthirsty rodents. Two whole trees had been felled and dragged along behind them to keep the creatures at bay as they searched. The setting sun had slowed them even further, but finally one of Anrack’s men spotted the arrangement of tree and root described in the notes. A bit more searching revealed a hatch, and from there it should have been simple. A low-ranking recent inductee to the Elite reached down and pulled the switch that should have rendered the defenses useless. At first it seemed to have worked. Darts fired, blades swept, and then there was silence.

  While they affixed ropes to the gnarled tree in order to climb down, a terrible odor and ominous hiss came from the mouth of the access shaft. Some horrible substance had been released along with the other defenses, and when it had done its treacherous work, the main supports of the shaft gave way. Great slabs of frozen earth slid forward and fell downward, collapsing into the shaft. The noise and motion startled the horses, scattering them into the surrounding fields. The four-horse team pulling their carriage and thus dragging the burning pine took off, taking their smoking safe haven with them.

  Most of the reassigned Undermine soldiers panicked. The proper Elites held firm, and Anrack coolly issued orders.

  “You and you, fetch those burning branches that have broken away from the burning trees. Bring them here to keep us safe around the shaft. You, follow them and take one of the branches, then use it to protect yourself as you chase down and fetch the carriage horses. When we have the branches gathered, we take any we can spare and use them to chase down the other horses before the oloes can get at them. Perhaps the smell of smoke clinging to them will buy us enough time to rescue them.”

  His voice was steady, dripping with an authority that snapped even the undisciplined members of his command to attention. They hurried to their tasks, leaving six of the twelve behind along with Anrack himself.

  “One must admire the foresight of this Desmeres character,” remarked one of the remaining men.
>
  “He is a scoundrel and an enemy of the Kingdom. Nothing he has done, save the creation of some remarkable weaponry, is to be admired,” Anrack growled.

  “What are your orders regarding the storehouse now?”

  “When the carriage is returned, we shall deploy our spades and dig our way inside.”

  His soldier glanced about. The others had accumulated what few smoldering branches were nearby. It filled the area with a heavy, choking smoke and offered some semblance of light, but neither was sufficient to satisfy their needs. In the dim glow, a vague brown ring of squirming forms crept steadily closer, rushing in and retreating like waves on the beach as the wind whipped the smoke. The look of concern did not go unnoticed by Anrack.

  “Steady, soldier. We are the Elite. We will not be intimidated by rodents.”

  “May I be frank, Commander?”

  “Speak.”

  “It isn’t the rodents that intimidate me, it is the scattered skeletons of wolves and elk that have been picked clean and gnawed to bits.”

  “The smoke will keep them at bay, and if not, we shall hack them to pieces.”

  “We may lose men.”

  “All battles carry that risk.”

  “But, Commander, if the smoke begins to fail, and the oloes become a legitimate threat, it may rightly be called an emergency.” The solder patted a leather pouch at his belt. “And I have some equipment which we’ve been told may be used under such circumstances…”

  Anrack stared evenly at the soldier. “Are you comfortable with the use of the D’Karon wand?”

  “Very. The record-keeper was quite clear in his instruction.”

  “Keep it at the ready, but use it only at my direction.”

  #

  Desmeres guided the cart unsteadily along a low, gravely stretch of wind-swept ground. He’d left the road minutes ago, and the lack of skittering, many-legged monsters suggested he was beyond the edge of the olo colony’s territory. The very beginnings of a dawn glow had begun to light up the eastern sky, but it would be hours yet before there was enough light to illuminate the field. As any use of a lantern would put them in danger of being spotted by the Elites, they were left at the mercy of the moon and Desmeres’s sharp vision. Genara held Dowser tightly, patting him on the chest to keep him from helpfully howling about whatever it was he was smelling now.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” she asked.

  “A fine question…” he said, leaning forward to get as good a look as possible at the ground ahead. “As you might imagine, digging out an underground storehouse in the middle of an olo field isn’t the simplest of projects. Doing so secretly is even more difficult.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Dwarfs. Fine folk. Always honor their business dealings, no one digs better, excellent builders, and for the right amount of gold, they’ll gleefully forget all about you when the job is done. Most of them couldn’t care less about the outside world anyway. This stretch of land here floods during the thaw. They used it, plus a few skiffs, to move the excavated soil down to the river and then off to who knows where. Then they dug along underground until they reached the site of the storehouse. Given the danger they faced digging the tunnel in the first place, I can’t imagine they took the time to fill it back in when they were through.”

  “So this carefully hidden and booby-trapped storehouse of yours has an undefended back door?” Genara said.

  “A back door is usually a wise thing to have, as this very event suggests. Normally I saw to it that they were completed and similarly booby-trapped, then told Lain all about them. Building this storehouse was already so difficult, and getting to it similarly difficult, I didn’t bother completing a hatch or telling Lain. Regardless, I wouldn’t call it undefended. Oloes are burrowing creatures. If the tunnel does still exist, it is probably overrun with them, and I installed a nasty surprise or two. But a few hundred oloes are a smaller concern than a squad of Elites at the moment. I’m quite sure this is where the tunnel let out. Those boulders there look familiar… There!”

  He coaxed the horses to a stop at a seemingly arbitrary stretch of field. It was at the bottom of a shallow bluff of sorts, a relatively steep section slope that lead down to the flood plain they’d been traversing. He hopped from the cart and crept along, crouching low and running his fingers through the snow.

  “What is it? What do you see?” she asked.

  “Here, you see? The snow here is a bit more red, or orange. Rust.”

  “Rust? From what?”

  Desmeres swept away a clump of snow to reveal a much darker red color and the jagged end of a metal spike. He grinned. It took a few more moments of searching and digging, but he eventually found a second one.

  “Here… this bit of ground looks right.” He drew a short sword from his belt. “Steady the horses. I don’t want them startled.”

  “I’ll try, but Dowser is already being a handful.”

  He set the tip of the sword against the slope and gently pressed. Its uncannily sharp tip pushed the earth, ice, and stone apart, piercing with the merest bit of effort. He continued to probe deeper until, without warning, the sword plunged to the hilt, all resistance gone.

  “Perfect,” he breathed.

  Desmeres pulled the sword free, raised it high, and brought it down in a mighty slice. It sparked against the stone and easily cleaved through, cutting a deep gouge into the field. The ground slumped downward and crumbled toward the slice even before he’d removed the sword. A few more slices carved a hole which dropped to reveal a tunnel with a low ceiling and rough sides.

  “I’m glad I never told Lain about this. He would have been furious if he knew how simple it was to find.”

  “Yes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wandered through forsaken, icy fields looking for rusty patches of snow…”

  Desmeres climbed to the back of the cart and pulled aside the canvas protecting the relatively meager cargo. He fetched a lantern and a few small brown sticks.

  “Wait here. If luck is with me, I’ll return with a load of books and weapons in short order.”

  “And what if luck isn’t with you? The sun is coming up. It won’t be long before we might be seen.”

  “Use your best judgment. If you are in danger, retreat. I can handle myself, and I can find you if I need to.”

  “My best judgment…” she muttered. “If I was using my best judgment, I wouldn’t be here. But go. Just be quick about it.”

  He dashed for the opening and stalked inside. Darkness, the raw, oppressive sort of darkness that one only found underground, descended upon him immediately. He took several long, careful strides along the crunching gravel before sparking the lantern to life.

  The flickering glow revealed the expert work of dwarven mining. Rather than the stout timbers that might support the roof of a human mine, cut stone fortified both ceiling and walls. The tunnel was probably stronger than the untouched ground of the field around it. The smooth floor sloped downward, and a set of rails that were just beginning to succumb to the ravages of corrosion and rust soon presented itself. Tool marks covered the walls. Here and there, icicles dangled from between the cracks.

  He pressed on, forced to move in a crouching run to avoid scraping his head on a ceiling sized for someone a third shorter than he. Nevertheless, the even ground made for swift travel, and did so until he’d reached the unmistakable evidence of his entry to the olo territory.

  Oloes were nothing if not persistent creatures. The only thing that had made it possible to keep a storehouse in their field without it quickly being ravaged and devoured was a semi-mystical treatment that made the wooden walls unpalatable to the beasts. As the stone of the tunnel had not been similarly treated, the sharp claws and chisel teeth of the oloes had been hard at work over the years. Perfectly round holes pocked the walls with increasing density, but so far he’d not encountered any of the beasts themselves. No doubt the potential feast of human and horse flesh on the surface h
ad them distracted. That didn’t mean their presence wasn’t felt. The air in the tunnel was warmer than it should have been. It hung with a heavy, pungent, earthy odor of the sort that could only come from a massive colony of living things. Droppings littered the floor as well, and every odd bit of debris bore the marks left by experimental nibbles from beasts not terribly choosy about what they ate. The most obvious example of this came in the first major obstacle in his path: the mining cart the dwarves had left behind.

  It was, like all of the other workmanship left behind by the dwarves, almost comically stout and sturdy. Thick planks of wood formed the sides, and each was reinforced and attached with straps of dark, oiled iron. The several generations of oloes had tested it to see if it was food, and thus the planks were much the worse for wear. Desmeres gave one good kick in hopes of getting the thing rolling, but the wheels were hopelessly seized. The axles offered only a long, painful screech before locking up entirely. He might have gotten it working properly with a bit of effort, but time wasn’t on his side, so he squeezed past.

  The din of attempting to move the cart, short though it was, enough to cause him problems. A blur of brown scurried from a hole in the ceiling and down along a wall, followed by three more. They were bizarre creatures, utterly unique in Desmeres’s experience. Three pairs of legs jutted lizard-like out the side of the skittering creatures. They had no eyes in their ratty heads, but shallow dimples existed where eyes should have been. Ruddy brown fur covered the long, thin body. Each creature moved with fluid, serpentine motions. Desmeres didn’t waste any time gawking. If there were a handful of them taking interest now, there would be a hundred in very short order. He set down the lantern fished in his cloak. In short order, he revealed an odd-smelling brown stick, one of several. He opened the lid of the lantern to dip the end of one stick. It fizzled to life and began to belch smoke that burned his eyes and seized his throat. The first wisp of it was enough to send the oloes scampering for their holes again.

  “Wonderful,” Desmeres croaked. “Now I just have to keep from suffocating. Smoke flares are poorly suited for enclosed spaces.”