The Rover

by Mel Odom

  The flute sounded clear and true, an elven instrument if the little librarian was any judge at all, but the goblin’s playing was clumsy and forced. Still, the strong notes reverberated around the cavern.

  At first, Wick thought that nothing would come of the impromptu presentation. Then a thunderous flapping filled the cavern. Wind whipped down over the underground lake, rippling the water and blowing hot, fetid air over the little librarian. He hastily raised his mud-caked cheesecloth over his mouth and nose to alleviate some of the sharp stench. He’d never smelled anything so foul in all his life, not even when he’d found moldy, month-old clutterbeans under his bed.

  The goblins drew back from the lake. Cries of fear rang out from the dwellers as they hunkered down onto the ground and covered their heads with their arms.

  The dragon exploded from the ceiling, dropping down in a manner that suggested the presence of a tunnel or fissure leading down into the cavern from above. The foul creature was a hundred feet long from nose to tail. The batlike wings spread at least half again that distance as they flared out in a gliding swoop that carried it to the wall on the other side of the lake. The powerful creature perched on a large outcrop of rock jutting from the wall. The dragon caught the outcropping with its large hind feet and settled itself, wrapping the batlike wings tightly around its body. The wind died away, but the fetid stench remained, stronger than ever.

  Its dinnerplate-sized scales glittered like jewels, flashing gold and green and black in the sunlight, picking up a smattering of blue highlights from the lake. Hoary white and pink growth sprouted from the dragon’s long, gleaming black muzzle, and four twisted ivory horns jutted from the top of its head. The forelegs were half the size of the hind legs.

  Without warning, the dragon opened its jaws in a wide snarl, then breathed flames that nearly reached across the lake. The dwellers bolted, crawling and rolling fearfully from the green and yellow flames. Although they tried to maintain their fierce demeanor, the goblinkin stepped back as well. The stink of singed hair and sulfur mixed with the fetid odor of the dragon.

  The dragon spoke, and its harsh words thundered and rolled inside even the great cavern. “I am Shengharck, Dragon King. You will fear me, vermin, and cower before me or you will die!”

  Immediately, the goblinkin prostrated themselves before the mighty dragon. They stretched their arms out before them and shoved their faces against the stone wall.

  “We hear you, O Mighty Shengharck,” the goblin chief cried in a loud voice that quavered, “and we fear you with all our hearts. But we would beg a boon of you before you destroy us.”

  The dragon gazed out over the cowering goblinkin and dwellers. The great creature fluttered its wings, and the batlike appendages sounded like swords parrying. It scratched its long chin with one of its forelegs and the rough sound echoed over the lake.

  Wick realized then that the dragon had chosen its spot carefully. Sound traveled faster, stronger, and surer over water, and the huge cavern served to magnify its voice like an orator’s stand in front of a Telludian speaking shell used to speak from ship to ship out on the ocean.

  “A boon?” The dragon laughed mirthlessly. “Well, I am feeling generous today. What boon is it that you would seek?”

  Slowly, Wick took his journal from his traveling cloak and fished out a bit of charcoal. He opened the book to a fresh page and began sketching the dragon. His sense of duty as a librarian, to capture information and bring it back so that others might learn from it, overcame his fear. He was amazed at how steadily he laid out the lines and shapes that made up the foul creature.

  “We would seek passage through your mountain, Dragon King,” the goblin chieftain said, “and in return we offer you a gold piece per head on every slave that we transport through your mountain.”

  “A gold piece?” Shengharck mused. “Are slaves not selling so well these days in Hanged Elf’s Point?”

  “Orpho Kadar buys all that we have captured, O Mighty Wyrm. But a gold piece a head is the price we have always agreed upon in the past.”

  “True, but I count only forty dwellers in your catch,” the dragon said. “The use of my mountain passages is surely worth more than a paltry forty gold coins. Perhaps you should consider sweetening the dish you set before me, Master Slaver.”

  Shengharck’s greedy, Wick realized as the charcoal flew. The knowledge was hardly surprising. Every story the little librarian had ever read that dealt with dragons always talked about their irrepressible greed. Dragons were forged in flames, the myths and educated guesses said, but their hearts were hammered out of purest larceny. What was surprising, though, was that the dragon was adding to its hoard through the slave trade in dwellers.

  “How could I do that, O Gracious Shengharck?” the goblin chieftain asked.

  “By not showing up with less than fifty or sixty dweller slaves the next time you come through. Use of the passageway through my mountain should never be worth less than fifty gold pieces.”

  Sonne cursed quietly beside Wick. “How many slave caravans pass through here?” the young girl asked in a whisper. “No wonder Shengharck isn’t known for pillaging and looting these days. At least not along the Shattered Coast. He’s making a fortune off Orpho Kadar and Hanged Elf’s Point.”

  Wick knew her statement was very probably true and it sickened him. Still, mercy was a trait that had never been found in a dragon.

  “O Magnificent and Wise Dragon,” the goblin chieftain replied after a moment of frenzied thinking, “I have the forty slaves now. Returning to Blackgate Cove to raid the dweller villages there would only delay payment of the forty gold coins I have for you now.” The goblin held up a leather pouch that clinked musically. “And keeping watch over forty slaves while attempting to capture ten more would be hard. Maybe harder than climbing over the mountain instead of walking through it.”

  The gentle tinkling rolled across the underground lake. The dragon’s head cocked and Shengharck’s blood-red eyes glowed with avaricious interest. “Are you trying to debate with me, foolish goblin?”

  “No, Dragon King. I would never do that.”

  Shengharck breathed flames that sent glimmering reflections streaking across the still, blue lake. “If you did, I would burn you down where you stand, then blow your ashes into the winds that your brutish kith and kin might know of your fate for generations to come.” The dragon growled and flicked its long tail irritably.

  The goblin chieftain is right, Wick thought as he watched the terrifying creature eye the pouch in the goblin’s hand. Shengharck wants the gold the goblin has now, not later.

  “I’ll let you pass,” Shengharck said, “with the slaves that you have now. But never again.”

  “Thank you, O Fierce and Mighty Dragon. Your generosity and wisdom—”

  Before the goblin could utter another word, the dragon breathed flames that coiled around him. He died screaming, running and trying to flee from the mystic fire that held fast to him while the other goblins and the enslaved dwellers fled before him. In the space of a drawn breath, the goblin chieftain collapsed to the ground. The flames burned brightly one last time, then winked out, leaving only the goblin’s blackened bones behind.

  “I will not be known for my generosity,” Shengharck roared. “Never my generosity. I am not generous. I am a dragon. I am sure and certain death on silent wings and ripping talons, with fiery breath and a cold heart.”

  All the goblinkin and the huddled dwellers quickly agreed with Shengharck.

  Wick’s nose wrinkled in disgust at the smell of cooked goblin flesh. He thought for a moment he was going to throw up, but quickly clapped a hand over his mouth and regained control of himself as Sonne glared at him wordlessly.

  “The price for the passage of forty slaves,” the huge dragon announced, “is the sum of forty gold pieces and the life of the goblin who foolishly thought to undermine my decision. As long as I rule these mountains, no one may make use of the passageway through without paying
tribute to me.”

  The goblinkin quickly agreed in loud, supportive voices. Then they all praised the dragon for its show of ferocity and cruel nature.

  Shengharck glared at the goblinkin. “I want the forty gold pieces and I want three fat sheep brought to me on your return to further appease my wrath.”

  The goblinkin readily agreed.

  “And have a care not to run the fat off the animals on the way back,” Shengharck continued. The dragon launched itself from its perch and swooped gracefully across the lake.

  For a moment, Wick thought the foul wyrm might flatten against the stone wall of the cavern. Instead, it swerved at the last minute but plucked the singed pouch of gold pieces with the talons of its hind leg. It beat its wings fiercely, stirring up waves on the lake surface again, then flew back up into the entrance in the cavern ceiling.

  The volcano rumbled almost immediately afterward. Debris and a few stalactites dropped from the ceiling into the lake, making a few scattered splashes. Thick dust marred the sunlight for a moment.

  “Let’s go,” Sonne whispered.

  “Wait,” Wick replied.

  “No waiting.” Sonne pulled at his arm. “We were lucky the dragon didn’t scent us then.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in dragons,” Wick said, “but now you believe they have all the powers you’ve heard about?” A dragon’s sense of smell was supposed to be second to none. Reports said they could sniff out prey ten miles away and more once they had the scent.

  “Dragons exist,” Sonne said. “So I’m not taking a chance on their powers.”

  Wick watched as the goblinkin gathered their wits and their courage again. “Just a moment longer.”

  “There are still nineteen goblinkin,” Sonne told him.

  “I want to see where they go.”

  The goblins immediately took out their frustration and fear on the chained dwellers. Many goblins flayed the slaves’ backs and arms with their cruel whips before one of their number finally got control of them.

  “Stop beating the halfers,” the goblin raged above the painful cries of the dwellers. The goblin walked through the ranks and slapped the heads of those who didn’t heed him quickly enough. “A dead slave isn’t worth anything in Hanged Elf’s Point, and the arena won’t buy slaves that have been beaten so badly that they’re no longer afraid to die. We’ve already paid for their passage, and there are plenty of other dangers waiting for us in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows.”

  Grumbling angrily, the goblinkin nevertheless saw the wisdom of their new leader’s words. They rounded the dwellers up and marched them past the tunnel where Wick and Sonne hid.

  For a moment the little librarian was afraid that he’d been wrong about the goblinkin using the passageway where they were. But the slaves and slavers kept walking. When he could no longer see them, Wick slipped away from Sonne before she could stop him and made his way to the front of the tunnel. He peered around the corner to the right and watched the goblins ascend a stone ladder cut into the side of the cavern wall where the large stream poured into the lake.

  At the top of the stone ladder, the goblins walked into the channel from which the stream flowed, and Wick saw that the stream was much larger than he’d thought. With no proper reference point in the cave, there’d been no way to properly guess. The stream was at least twenty feet across and spanned perhaps two-thirds of the passageway. It wasn’t the underground river he’d heard in several spots along the other passageway, but he guessed that the stream fed off the underground river.

  The little librarian glanced back at the lake, thinking about it now. There weren’t any demarcations on the wall that suggested it was ever higher than it was now. So where does all the water go?

  “Wick.” Sonne touched his shoulder.

  “A moment more,” the little librarian pleaded. The last of the goblins and dwellers had made it up the stone ladder and had disappeared. “We should take a look at that passageway, Sonne. Knowing where it goes might help.” He couldn’t believe he was saying that and was willing to risk the dragon’s fury. Running, now that would have been more help.

  “We’ve been gone overlong,” Sonne countered. “Brant is going to be worried, perhaps even thinking us dead.”

  “Brant will wait,” Wick said confidently, “or he will come to make certain something bad has happened to us. If Cobner has gotten impatient and broken through the rock slide blocking the mine shaft, then they’re already on their way out of the mountain and we’ll meet them on the way back.” He looked into her eyes, reasoning the best and simplest that he could, knowing himself how risky what he was suggesting was. “But if Cobner hasn’t gotten through that rock, then maybe taking the other tunnel back in Mine Shaft Number Six would be the thing to do.” He pointed at the passageway with the stream. “That is dwarven-made, Sonne. And that’s the passage the goblins take through the mountain.”

  Sonne hesitated, clearly not comfortable with the choice laid before her. “We need to look.”

  Wick nodded, feeling even more nervous because he knew that Sonne wouldn’t walk away now without looking. “The only thing that bothers me,” the little librarian said as he crept back out into the cavern containing the underground lake, “is what we’re going to do if Shengharck happens to return.”

  “We die,” Sonne said flatly.

  Wick swallowed hard, then screwed up his courage as best he could. I’m a Third Level Librarian at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. I can do this. He felt the weight of his journal against his chest. There is so much I have to return to the Library with, and this can be one more piece of the puzzle.

  Together, they crept across the cavern floor to the stone ladder cut into the wall. Sonne carried throwing knives in her hands.

  Trembling in fear, almost missing the stone ladder rungs twice because he kept glancing over his shoulder at the section of ceiling where the dragon had appeared, Wick slowly made his way to the passageway. He remained just below the level for a moment, listening intently. If I can hear goblins, then I can probably see goblins. And if I can see goblins, they can see me.

  “Now,” Sonne demanded, clinging to the ladder below him.

  Cautiously, heart hammering at the back of his throat, Wick peered over the top of the passageway lip. The rushing water spilled down the side of the cavern and into the lake less than five feet from him. But he couldn’t see anyone in the passageway.

  However, there were small boat docks on either side of the stream.

  Curious now, Wick pulled himself up to the ledge and studied the boat docks. Two wooden boats remained tied up at one of the docks on the other side of the stream. Both boats had shallow drafts and looked nearly flat-bottomed, designed solely for traversing shallow water. Hooks on both of the passageway walls held a dozen battered lanterns.

  “Boats?” Sonne glanced at the small vessels in puzzled fascination.

  Wick pointed to the coiled lines in the center of the boats that were made fast to the prow. “The goblins walk along the sides of the stream.” The ledges on either side of the water were six feet wide, plenty of room to march a group of slaves along. “They pull the boats with them, or may even have the slaves pull them. They probably tie them back up at the other end of the river, then take boats back down to this end of the passageway.”

  “The dwarves built this?”

  Wick lit one of the lanterns, adjusted the flame, then held it up to the wall just inside the passageway. Debris filled the carved lettering there as well. He flicked it out with the point of his long knife. Now that he had work to do with his hands, he wasn’t so worried about the dragon unexpectedly reappearing. And there was the chance that Shengharck would never see them in the passageway. “Yes,” he answered, “the dwarves built this. They probably used it as a supply ferry route. There are probably disbursement tunnels that feed off of this passageway. It looks remarkably efficient.” He blew the final bit of dust from the lettering.

  Mine Shaft Six, Tu
nnel Three Supply Route

  “I guess the goblinkin thought it was remarkably efficient, too,” Sonne remarked.

  Wick had no reply for that. Thinking about how many dwellers might have been marched through the passageway to the other end and on to Hanged Elf’s Point made him shudder. Very probably not all of those captured dwellers made it from one end of the passageway to the other. How many skeletons must lie at the bottom of the lake? he wondered.

  “Where does the water come from?” Sonne asked.

  Wick held the lantern over the stream. “See the straight sides of the channel?”

  “Yes.”

  “The dwarves carved that as well. This whole passageway was carefully designed and built.” Wick looked deeper into the passageway, but it quickly grew dark and there wasn’t much he could see. “We already know there’s an underground river that flows through the mountain. And the lake has to drain somewhere. The underground water that runs through the two valleys on either side of the mountain range probably feeds the lake. Maybe it even feeds the underground river.” He shrugged. “I can only guess.”

  They looked around a moment longer, having a hard time talking over the loud gurgle of the flowing stream. Neither of them was willing to talk too loudly for fear of being heard by the dragon. Sonne took one more lantern from the collection hanging on the walls.

  Tired and sore, but more intrigued and fearful than ever, Wick led the way back down the stone ladder and to the passageway where they’d left the rest of their party. Once they reached Brant and the others, maybe Cobner could find a way to break the big stone that blocked the passageway. If that was possible, it felt good knowing that escape was only an hour’s walk away.

  Provided we don’t run into the dragon on our way out, Wick fretted.

  “They’re gone!”

  Sonne’s startled announcement made Wick lift his head as he slithered through the narrow jaws of the two stones blocking the mine shaft. Sharp pain stuttered through his skull when he hit the stone above. “Who’s gone?”