Lem and Edal exchanged puzzled glances.
“Then what are you?” the redhead asked.
Hm... Good question. Then what am I? A crippled boy who lost his father and mother? Forced out of his family home? Sold into peonage by a bank for a hundred gold? Abandoned to be eaten by subterranean monsters?
Hardly. That frightened boy is no more. He perished in the cave-in that gulper started. What emerged was a completely different person.
“I am a humble monster hunter,” my answer made the halflings trade glances.
With a chuckle, I took a step forward. Looks like I won’t have to wait for the screamer to wake up. Based on the looks on their faces, I could find the answers to all my questions from these halflings.
Chapter 28
“LISTEN,” I said, still smiling. “What if we try something else?”
“S-something e-else?” Lem asked, hiccupping.
Looks like has a habit of repeating questions.
“Yes,” I nodded. “Something else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Edal asked.
“I see that our presence has you all on edge.”
The halflings gave a simultaneous gulp and, without a word, turned their heads toward Gorgie. He was busy sampling the innards of one of the draks. The crunching of bones and noisy champing would have thrown anyone off.
Beyond that, to back up what I said, I heard the telltale sounds of vomiting halflings behind Edal and Lem.
“So I suggest,” I continued. “That you answer my questions yourselves.”
Just then, Gorgie just so happened to sharply raise his drak-blood-caked snout and glance right at the wee folk. They all shuddered in unison. Lem even gave a loud hiccup.
“What do you say?” I asked, smiling.
All the halflings nodded eagerly at once. To tell the truth, in the end, Edal did gather the courage to try and set one condition.
“Swear that neither you nor your beast will harm us!”
I shook my head and answered:
“I haven’t much cared for swearing oaths lately. But you need not worry. If you behave yourselves, no harm will come to you.”
“Swear it!” Edal repeated.
I chuckled.
“You’re gonna have to take me at my word.”
Gorgie gave a muffled snarl in confirmation.
“Edal!” Lem pleaded. “You’re gonna get us all killed! We have to give this strange mage what he’s asking for, then let him leave!”
“Listen to the voice of reason,” I smiled. “In the meantime, here’s something to think about. If I had any desire to harm you, I’d have done so already.”
“Ask your questions, stranger, and leave!” Edal relented.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” I chuckled and, squatting down on my haunches, started drawing the hunters’ mark in the soil with my pointer finger. “I’m looking for this symbol. Do you know it?”
“It’s the sign of the serpent,” Edal answered bleakly. “The symbol of the Queen of the draks.”
“Hm...” I rubbed my chin. “Are you sure? Maybe I didn’t draw it right...”
“Two interlaced hooks?” Lem asked.
“Yes,” I nodded, puzzled.
“You drew it right, then,” Lem said. “It’s the symbol of the Queen of the draks. I’ve seen it myself.”
“A curious twist,” I muttered pensively. “And where have you seen it?”
“Before entering the nest of the draks,” Lem answered.
“And you’ll swear to that?” I squinted, tilting my head to the side.
“I swear it!” the halfling answered quickly.
I scratched the back of my head in perplexity. I don’t understand one bit. What do the draks have to do with the order of hunters?
“We’re telling the truth,” Edal said. “Everyone knows it.”
“By the way, why didn’t the draks eat you all? What do they want so many prisoners for?”
The halflings looked morbid.
“We don’t know for certain,” Edal grumbled. “No one has ever come back.”
“So that wasn’t the first drak raid?”
“They do these raids two or three times a year in small numbers,” Lem answered angrily. “But we were always able to fend them off before. This time there were a lot of them...”
“I see,” I said. “And where are the prisoners being taken?”
“To their nest,” Lem answered. “They took my sister five years ago. We tracked them all the way to the nest, but we couldn’t get any further. There were too many of those creeps.”
“We tried going to war against them,” Edal said sadly. “We even assembled an army the likes of which we’d never assembled before. But when we got close to the nest, so many of them fell upon us that our whole grand host was reduced to a few battered dozens. We still haven’t recovered...”
“What about your mages?” I asked. “I saw one of them burning lizards.”
“They are few,” Lem sulked. “And now Boram has fallen. The draks try to kill our mages first of all.”
“Boram isn’t exactly one of us,” Edal clarified unexpectedly. “Sure, he is of our kind, but he lives... hm... he used to live somewhere in the mountains. Alone.”
“Well can I see his body?”
Lem and Edal shook their heads.
“Nope. The draks took it with them.”
I sighed in disappointment and decided to ask my final question.
“So, do explorers come around here often?”
The halflings traded glances. Their visages turned melancholy.
“No,” Edal answered shortly.
A-hem... Not much to go on. I wonder what the explorers ever did to them. Although, what difference does it make to me? It’s time to get going.
Without saying another word, I turned and headed toward the gates. Before I’d even made it ten steps though, Edal shouted out to me.
“Hey, hunter! We sent out messengers during the battle. Soon warriors will be coming here from every clan! And we’ll be moving on the drak nest to take back our families! We would certainly appreciate your help! Our Council of Clans will reward you generously!”
I stopped and turned. Edal was standing and grasping the fence. Head slightly raised in pride. Lower jaw jutting out.
“This is your war, halfling! And I am no mercenary!” I shook my head. “And beyond that... You wait in vain for reinforcements....”
Edal shuddered. His eyes widened. I could see his teeth clenching on his temples.
“Why?” he shouted. I could hear pain and mistrust in his voice.
“Because all your emissaries died. I witnessed the draks kill every last one of them.”
I turned around and kept going. Behind me I heard a moan of despair. I felt sorry for the warrior. He must have had some family members taken by the draks.
I stopped at the gates. A few steps from the stockade wall, I saw an overturned cart of small barrels and boxes. One of the boxes was broken open. My eyes lit up! Bread!
I walked a circle around the cart, got down on one knee and picked up an elongated, thick, gray flatbread off the ground. I thought about it, looked around and picked up another two. I call that decent compensation for the heads of ten draks.
* * *
It was the middle of day five since I’d left the halfling village and set out on the trail of the draks. At first it ran along the forest edge, but on day three it veered sharply to the northeast and we had to make across open terrain.
I tried to be sure the canopy of invisibility was never off us. That spell helped us avoid needless attention from the valley’s predators. Honestly, there were a few times that we had to pacify some especially persistent creatures.
Our mission was complicated by the fact that the draks’ trail was, in point of fact, littered with corpses. I started coming across the first halfling bodies, picked clean by scavengers, a few hours after we started our pursuit. They must have been lightly wounded during the
assault and, without sufficient care, died from their injuries.
The longer I followed the bloody trail of the lizards, the more I started to hate them. The unfortunate halflings had been marching all that time without breaks for sleep or food. But by the end of day five, I caught up to the dread caravan nevertheless.
The draks finally stopped on the shore of a small lake. The halflings, still tied to long poles, were lying motionless. Side by side, as a matter of fact. It was hard to look at the poor halflings. From afar they resembled fish on a stringer.
By the way, there were now a lot more draks than when they stormed the village. The main warband must have been joined by some smaller groups along the way. All told I counted up around two hundred lizards against seventy halflings.
I could see the prisoners were suffering but, alas, couldn’t do anything for them. At first, honestly, I did seriously consider one plan. Sneaking into the camp at night and setting all the prisoners free, then letting them decide how to make use of their freedom. Even if they didn’t manage to escape, at least they’d die fighting. But then I tallied up all the pros and cons and came to the conclusion that one of the draks would surely detect me, whether by smell or some other sense. And then I would die myself and put Gorgie in the grave for nothing. And then – Mee and Maya too. While I’m alive – those I care for also live. So, my main and solitary goal right now is to find a hunter marker and activate it...
Seven more days passed after the stop on the lakeshore. All that time I was trailing the drak caravan, trying to always keep a safe distance and, with Gorgie’s help, to always stay downwind of them.
Every day it got harder and harder to follow the draks because smaller bands kept joining the caravan like streams converging with a big river. By the time we reached their huge rock formation, the lizard pack was up to just under five hundred strong.
The whole surface of the cliff was pocked with openings, which made it look like a giant wheel of cheese from afar. But the closer I got, the more it reminded me of something else...
That’s it! Master Chi’s Hive! The unpleasant memories made a chill run down my spine. For a moment I thought: am I actually in the Wastes right now? I furiously rubbed my face and ears, which quickly brought me back to my senses.
The area around the cliff was different. There was less greenery, but more rocks. A few of them were positively massive. Gorgie and I were happy to see that. More places to hide.
There was a wide road leading to the foot of the cliff. At first I didn’t notice, but then it hit me. The road was paved! Due to the thick layer of sand and dirt, it wasn’t obvious everywhere, but it was a true road paved with large regularly shaped cobblestones.
It could hardly have been the work of the half-savage lizards. They must have built their nest here much later. The previous owners had either been eaten or had already long abandoned the area.
The road, smoothly curving around heaps of stone, dove down into a dark passage at the foot of the cliff. And the convoy of draks and their halfling prisoners disappeared right into its dark gaping maw.
I watched the halflings closely. In my soul I was hoping that one of them would attempt to rise up against their drivers. But not a single one of them made any moves. So does this mean they’ve made peace with their inevitable demise? Or are they hoping nobody will kill them? Or maybe they’re thinking, like Edal, that a nonexistent warband will come soon to rescue them at the behest of the council of clans?
When the road was clear, we decided to go closer to the cave entrance. As soon as we did that, I immediately saw the thing I made this whole difficult and dangerous trek to find.
It would have been hard to miss the symbol of the monster hunters.
“Heh! It really does look just like a snake from a distance!” I muttered to Gorgie, who was lying next to me.
The harn had no response. He was tensely keeping an eye on our surroundings. My brother really didn’t like it here. Every now and again, he would tell me the cliff was in fact teeming with lizards of various sizes and levels.
“Let’s activate the marker and see where it takes us,” I reassured him. “If things go awry, we’ll leave straight away.”
Renewing the canopy of invisibility, I took a few breaths in and out. A bit calmer, I headed for the marker. Gorgie stayed among the stones to wait for me.
With every footstep, my heartbeat grew stronger, threatening to pump out of my chest at any moment.
I stopped a step away from the wall and stared at the familiar design. It’s true, they really are snakes! Whichever craftsman made this design had rendered two scaled reptiles instead of the typical fishhooks. Right where the eyes of the hooks should have been there were snake heads, while the curved tails ended in a tooth. Beautiful! I actually had to admire the impeccable design. At the very least, now it was clear why the halflings called it that.
I extended my hand forward and felt the elongated groove with my fingers. But nothing happened. Was it really just a design?! That just could not be! The hunters didn’t just leave their markers any old place! Then I hit upon the overdue thought that, unlike the markers I’d seen before, for some reason this one was highly visible.
Feverishly picking through random musings, I patted down the symbol’s entire protruding surface. Either this is simply a pretty decoration marking the cave entrance, or the local monster hunters were so confident in their strength that they simply thought there was no point hiding.
When I was just about to spit angrily on the symbol, cliff and cave, my pointer finger felt a prick and a droplet of blood formed on the tip.
— Attention! Blood analysis: Positive.
— Mark activated. Would you like to continue route to next mark?
— Cost of service: 50 mana points.
Yes! It took some effort not to shout for joy! I finally found the starting point!
After I gave permission, my mana supply immediately drained by fifty points. A familiar glowing arrow appeared before my eyes. To my surprise, it was ignoring the main cave entrance, instead suggesting that I walk a circle around the rock formation. I even took a few steps toward the dark gaping entrance, but the arrow insisted that I walk around the cliff instead.
Let’s go then! To be frank, I had been postponing the thought that I’d have to enter the lizard-infested cave until the very last. Thankfully it was now leading me away from the front door.
It took us around an hour to walk around the rock formation. On the way, we often had to stop and wait until some danger only Gorgie could sense had passed. But in the end, we made it to our destination. Honestly though, we were not too happy about where we ended up – the arrow was pointing us straight into a rock face.
My initial theory that this was once an entrance to the cave fell away all on its own. The wall was a solid monolith. At first I was baffled but then I remembered how we got into Stonetown and started patting down the rough surface millimeter by millimeter. A few hours later, the fickle goddess Fortuna finally blessed me with her smile. My fingers felt deep inside one of the narrow cracks and discovered a familiar set of elevated lines.
A short poke. A notification about successful blood analysis and the little crack started radiating dim blue light. A moment later, the light stretched out in a thin line to another little crack, then another still, connecting into a fairly wide and semi-transparent arc.
Gorgie and I exchanged glances and, without a word, walked through the bluish gray haze.
As soon as we got inside the cliff, the dim blue glow dissipated, and the wall turned back into a monolith. While Gorgie looked and sniffed around, I decided to look for the “keyhole” so we wouldn’t have to waste time on our way back out.
I found the symbol fairly quickly and told Gorgie to memorize its location. Okay, now if we have to retreat, we have a back door.
The tunnel we found ourselves in was clearly not of natural origin. Gnomes again. The workmanship was very similar to what I saw at the entrance to Stonetown
. And it had the same glowing moss. A shiver ran down my spine. It was like I was back in the tunnels of the Crooked Mountains. I waved off the unpleasant memories and checked the arrow. Our “guide” was pointing us to the right.
Whereas I was a bit intimidated to be underground again, Gorgie was back in his element. His animal senses confirmed that nothing had walked these corridors for a long time.
Stepping carefully, we went forward.
It felt like the arrow was gradually leading us downward, into the very heart of the drak nest.
The Dark Continent (Underdog Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 27