Grump & Rose

by Aaron Burdett

  The Hunger rippled through his nerves on a wave of panic. Teacher raised a palm and shook her head. "Calm yourself. Nothing is wrong. Not...." she dipped her chin and smiled sadly. "Not yet. But Grump, this world, this place, it cannot last forever—no, it won't last forever. Not for you, not for me. The force that brought us together will pry us apart, and I fear it will happen sooner than later. I am old, Grump, and I am damned tired. You cannot know how tired."

  "You're dying, aren't you?" Grump's rippling Hunger transformed into vicious swells. "You can't die!"

  Teacher laughed and swatted the air. "Dying? Gods, I wish."

  "Then what? Why have you leaned more on your cane now than before? Why do you smoke your pipe from dusk until dawn? Why do you let weeds grow in your garden? You never had weeds. Tonight, I saw them for myself!"

  She stared at him with her intense hazel eyes, nearly hidden as they were behind the sloughing curtains of her eyelids. For a moment, he thought she wouldn't tell him.

  That moment passed, and she nodded. "Very well then," she murmured, looking to the cooking fire. "I feel something that I have not felt in a very long while, Grump. It weighs on me, drains me, but ... but it should not be. It cannot be. I sealed it away, but it stirs, it grows. As it gains in power, I fade. I...." Teacher swallowed and closed her eyes. "I fear my past will return, but I am too old, too tired to make the journey to stop it."

  "Your past cannot be that frightening, can it?"

  She opened her eyes, and they flashed like brilliant fireflies. "It very much can."

  Grump instinctively leaned back. "Teacher?"

  The momentary flash of power quivering through the air faded like an echo. Her chin dipped to her chest, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. "I've been making you a gardener, but I think now I might need a troll."

  Grump unwound and lurched to his feet. His heart dropped into his knees as he backed away. "No."

  "This is important, Grump. There is a place west of Farlain Forest, over the Grey Plains and beyond the realms of men."

  His eyes widened. "Where the trees grow as tall as the blackwoods and mountains rise so high the clouds swirl in their shadows?"

  Teacher's face paled. She slid from her seat and leaned against her staff. "You've seen the Russet Forest and Granite Ridge?"

  "They are real? But how?"

  Teacher's sharp eyes caught his, and fast as a horsewhip she latched onto his arm. "You have seen these places. Grump, you must go to them. The world cries out. It needs you."

  He ripped from her grasp and stumbled back. "No! I don't want to leave here. This is my home now. Not the swamp, not this Russet Forest. Here!"

  "Don't be such a spoilt child!" Her knuckles whitened on the staff as she struck the ground. "Grump Bulderbag, this is beyond you. You must go the Granite Ridge. The road to the West is controlled by men, but there is a secret path in the forest that has been forgotten. You could take it! Climb the Ridge's peaks and cross into the old kingdoms. There is something—someone—there you must find before—"

  "I said no!"

  Grump pivoted. The Hunger blasted through his blood, and he was back in the hamlet with his brothers and sisters, surrounded but utterly alone. He clenched his fists and stared into the embers of Teacher's cooking fire. A troll could never make such a journey, and forget bringing Bah. He would have to abandon everything. Again.

  His teeth ground together. After all his hard work, he wanted her to leave both his goat and his garden. How could Teacher ask such a thing? How could she be so cruel? They were his. His!

  Grump roared and slammed his fists into the fire. He pounded away at the hot coals. Ash and cinders exploded over his chest and singed his skin. He beat away at the burning pit, eyes stinging and tears coursing over his cheeks.

  When he stopped, not a single flame remained. Grump heaved a deep breath and shuddered, turning around.

  Teacher looked away and sighed. "I am sorry for asking, Grump. I just thought...." She ambled toward her cabin, pausing at the door. "I thought you were ready. Trolls are stubborn, and sometimes I forget this. It will take time ... time ... but while the stars may be many things, they are not liars."

  "No, wait. Teacher, I'm sorry. My Hunger—"

  She vanished inside. The door closed, its lock thunking in place behind her. Grump reached for the cabin, words on his lips, but no sound came. Instead, he turned and ran to the stream.

  His roar had quieted the toads and crickets. If fireflies still remained, they hid their lights for fear of the monster in the gorge.

  Grump reached the bank and stared into the waters. The troll staring back at him was blackened with soot and dripping sweat.

  "I hate you," he told the reflection. "You're an ugly monster. A freak. An abomination. She's done so much for you, and you are nothing but anger. Always anger!"

  He swiped the water, and the reflection rippled into nothing. Grump stormed into his cave, ripping off his overalls and throwing them aside. For the rest of the night, he stared at the back wall until dawn approached and a restless sleep overtook him.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Mine Master's Pet

  Numb. Dead. The two words summed up Boil's world and wrapped it in a bloody bow. His chains clinked, coiled as they were like a blind cavern snake at his feet. He wore the chains like a high clan warrior might wear armor or a shaman might wear finger bones.

  At night, Skar would fasten those chains to his bedpost, where Boil would stare at the floor until the black sea of his dreams drowned him.

  He shouldn't care about Ember. Diggers didn't care about anybody but themselves. He didn't even bat an eye when the collapse buried three generations of his family in a granite tomb. Yet, when he closed his eyes now, when he approached something like normalcy, when he thought life might get better, he saw her face. Those wide, terrified eyes blinking into dull orbs when Skar snapped her neck and tossed her like trash into the water.

  Unless plates of food crawled to the crippled greenskin and offered themselves up, either starvation or madness would take Urt any day if they hadn’t already. Boil was alone, eating his way through an endless mountain until Skar's boredom took control and snuffed out Boil's life like a withering flame ground against the wall on torch fall.

  A spider crawled along the tunnel floor. Boil watched it skitter over the stones, making its way to a web waiting in the corner where it would watch the under mountain with its lidless eyes.

  Skar and his mine master cohorts staggered through the gate, their laughs reverberating between the beds of the haves from the hovel of the have-nots. The gate screeched closed in a pathetic cry, a cry that reminded Boil of her. He tucked his legs against his chest and buried his nose between his knees. His hot breaths washed over his skin and filled his nostrils with the stink of salty sweat.

  "How you like my pet, boys?" Skar asked. Each word slipped from his tongue covered in ale-soaked grease.

  "He's right and obedient, a mine master snorted. Mine master Tode if Boil remembered. He didn't particularly care.

  "Yeah, he's a good lil digger, ain't he?" another asked.

  "Yeah, he's a good pet," Skar said. “My nice, obedient pet.”

  Boil pressed his brow harder against his knees. He closed his eyes and wished the world away.

  Skar's calloused fingers clasped his neck and lifted him to his feet. Boil kept his gaze on the floor and stood still as a tired stalagmite.

  The mine master patted Boil's shoulder. "How you feelin, 'digger?"

  "Fine," Boil murmured.

  Skar wheezed a laugh and clutched harder. "You sure? You stink something awful, doesn't he boys?"

  The others snickered agreement. "He does stink," one chimed.

  Boil sighed and dipped his chin until it rested on his chest. He hated the shimmering book. It more than anything else brought this calamity down on him. Because of that book, he learned the sky. Because of that book, he dreamt of the world beyond the mountain. Because of that, book, Ember
died, and now he would never see her again.

  I'm so sorry, Ember. You deserved better than a stupid digger. I hope you're eating with the emperor right now and never think of me again.

  "Hey, boys, why don't we clear this stink off my little digger pet?" Skar sucked in a snotty ball, his shadow engulfing Boil.

  Boil squatted, wrapping his arms around his knees. Of course he didn't stink. He never did. But this had become a sort of ritual for the mine masters, a sort of fellowship for them that came at his expense. And so he sucked in a mighty breath and waited.

  It came like a splash against his shoulder, warm and wet. It rolled down his back, soaking his shirt and saturating his pants. Another hot stream hit his chest and cascaded down his body, and then came another. Their piss didn't stink. It never did after so much ale. When a digger peed, now that carried a stench. But mine masters had their fill of booze and water and starved for nothing but hard work, and so the streams that came from them were mostly clear and scentless.

  "Good little digger!" Skar bellowed a laugh as he sprayed Boil's back. "We got all the stink off you, didn't we? You're so nice and clean now, aren't you?"

  He nodded.

  "'Scuse me? Didn't hear ya."

  "I'm clean," he murmured.

  "What was that?"

  "I'm clean, Mine Master Skar."

  The streams sputtered out. Boil still hadn't opened his eyes. They couldn't force him to do that at least. And so they chortled their amusement and spun into their creaky beds.

  Boil looked to the rusted chain at his feet locking him to Skar's bedpost. No digger could free himself from this. It just wasn't in a digger's mind or blood, and if Boil was anything, he was a digger.

  It didn't take long for Skar and his friends to find sleep. Heavy breathing cascaded into wet snoring. Skar's warty nose rose and fell with his breaths. His lips twitched with the broken words mumbled into the ceiling.

  Boil turned from the greenskin and pressed his back against the post. Their urine dripped from his elbows and stained his clothes. Skar would force him to the lake in the morning and make him clean himself, knowing that somewhere in that water Ember's body floated.

  "Are you so tired that you would stop your digging for the sky?" a woman asked.

  He blinked at the question. The woman's voice, it came in a harsh whisper like the wind a scarab's wings make when they beat.

  "You are no digger, young greenskin. Don't let these mine masters keep you from the world beyond the mountain. It's time. Dig up. Dig out."

  "No." Boil shuddered and wrapped his sopping arms around his legs, burying his face between his knees. "I can't dig up. I won't. They'll die if I do."

  "They'll die if you don't. They'll die if you do. They live and they die, and that's all they ever do. But you, Boil, no, you are meant for something greater. It's inside you, begging for freedom. Let it out."

  "I can't," he sniffed, pressing his brow harder against his knobby kneecaps. "Ember is dead because of my dreams. I'll never see her again. What's the point of the world beyond the mountain if she's not there with me?"

  "There is no point."

  That gave Boil pause. He loosened his grip around his legs. "Shouldn't there be a point? Everything has a point."

  "Nothing has a point. That's the point. Ironic, isn't it, my precious greenskin?"

  "If you're trying to help, it's not working."

  "Ah, but I think it is. You've always been one for the truth, Boil. That's why you read the book. That's why you dug yourself out of the east belly when most diggers would have closed their eyes until the long sleep took them. That's why you found the one greenskin girl in all the under mountain who shared your dreams. That's why you dig through the arch of black. The truth is waiting for you beyond that stone. You will find it because it is your nature, and even I cannot run from my nature.”

  Frustration needled his spine. He lifted his head, staring at the wall where the voice originated. "Are you the mountain?"

  "I'm no more a mountain than you are a digger. We both seem one at first, but take a closer look and there's something far greater about us."

  "But I am a digger. That's all I'll ever be."

  The wall exhaled despite the lack of a mouth. "He will die soon."

  "Who?"

  "Urt, the only one of you who truly ever was a digger. The scarabs gather. Not even the whispering bones will keep them at bay much longer."

  "He's still alive?"

  "For now, but he's in horrible pain. But that doesn’t matter since you hate him, don't you?"

  Boil clenched his teeth and looked away. "I guess."

  "You'd love to know he died."

  "Well...."

  "You'd love to know he cried into the dark as the scarabs came upon him. They'll feast upon his softest flesh first, and then they'll take the tougher meat. He will hold his scream as their pincers prod his lips, but the pain will eventually become too great. As he screeches into the black, they'll crawl into his throat and go for the juiciest bits inside him."

  "That's horrible!"

  "Oh yes, you must hate him indeed, to leave him there with the book you stole, the secret treasure you carried with you that carries the stain of so much death upon its cover. Yes, Boil, you truly are an evil greenskin. Skar would be proud, although I hate to think what Ember might say if she knew."

  "I just dug. The room—the book—the collapse wasn't my fault. I couldn't have known!"

  "Maybe not, but you do know Urt's fate because I have warned you. Will you save him, or will you let him die? A digger would stay chained, but Boil would pick the lock and show the under mountain who was truly meant to rule."

  Wind rustled past him and whistled through the tunnel leading into the under mountain. Boil stared at the empty passage, blinking. "What was that?"

  He didn't have to know mojo to recognize it, just like he didn't have to taste air to breathe it. The whispering woman's words haunted him. There was truth in those words, but he knew some motive other than compassion stirred them into being.

  Whoever she was, she knew Boil better than most. In all honesty, he despised Urt, that stupid, wrinkly bag of bitter bile, and he had no doubt Urt hated him.

  Boil wrinkled his nose and slapped the floor. "To the hells with Urt!"

  Ember saved that sorry bastard of a greenskin. If Boil let the scarabs take him, then he'd be no better than Urt—no, no better than a digger, and everything Ember did to save Urt would be for nothing.

  Ember's dulled eyes slashed across his thoughts, her head slumping when her neck broke. She died for Boil. She loved him. And here he was, letting a bunch of drunk mine masters piss all over him for it.

  A rusted circle hung the key to his chains from Skar's belt. He stared at the splotched iron and licked his lips. The beaten, brutalized voice inside him told him to sit and sleep, to let the fresh torch fall take him to a dreamless void.

  Slowly he slid to his side, pressing his palm on the cool ground. He gazed at his knuckles and flexed his fingers. Ember held this hand once, that night Urt went odd and babbled on about mojo and forgotten wars. His words frightened her, and she came to Boil for comfort. Now her body floated deep in the mountain.

  See the sun, she had whispered just before Skar took her life. See the sun.

  An odd thing happened then. A spark flared in Boil's heart and brought his hopes and dreams racing back. Ember was never meant for digging, and by the emperor neither was he. She wanted freedom. She dreamed for it. If he stayed in the under mountain wallowing in Skar's piss until the mine master ended his life, then the part of her in him would never see the sun.

  See the sun. Boil didn't care if he failed himself. See the sun. But for her, he would do anything.

  "For you, Ember," he murmured.

  Boil slipped his fingers beneath the dangling key. Like all others the mine master wore, one end had teeth meant for opening a lock, the other bore a sharpened fang meant for stabbing sneaky thieves trying to swipe their fr
eedom.

  He fumbled with the keychain. It clinked and clattered no thanks to Boil's trembling, sweaty hands, but he eventually slipped the key from its metal ring. He clutched the key against his chest and watched the mine master snore.

  Satisfied Skar wouldn't wake, he slipped the key into his shackle. The metal clicked as the key twisted, and the iron band dropped into his lap.

  Like a shadow he wafted from the bed to the tunnel leading to the under mountain. Not a sound disturbed the stillness save the mine masters' wet snores. He paused at the entrance, looking over his shoulder at the hovel with its broken gate and squirming mass of diggers packed together. Once he stepped beyond this room, he could never return. His escape would humiliate Skar and send the mine master on a rampage through the tunnels. But if luck favored Boil, he'd be through the black arch and into the world beyond the mountain before Skar could find him.

  Hopefully luck favored Boil.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Reunion

  Grump woke with the first chirping crickets of the night. In the distance, somewhere in the Farlain woods, owls called one another with soft hoots. He opened his eyes to a cave wall curtained by deep shadows—the wall he'd fallen asleep to the night before after he fought with Teacher.

  He sat up and exhaled, biting his lower lip. What a stupid child he proved himself to be. After everything she taught him, cooked for him, gifted him, he repaid her with a tantrum worthy of a toddler.

  "She has never needed you before. She needs you now. Stop being such a fool and help the one who's done nothing but show you the kindness no other has," he told himself, glaring at his fists.

  Bah waited in her pen as she always did, content to munch, bleat, and poop in the patchwork grass. Flies buzzed over the compost beside her, and every so often she nipped at one as it zipped by.

  His knees popped as he bent to her level. Grump shook off his grimace and scratched behind her ear. "You and I will part soon, my little Bah. Teacher has a mission for me, and I must complete it. Don't worry, she will take good care of you, keep you nice and fat and happy. Maybe I'll come back with a good billy, and you two can start a herd. How would that be?"