“You sound as if you have a plan,” Jute said.
“I think we must be prepared to fight. It is inevitable. I can feel them coming for us in my bones.”
They continued climbing for a long time in the darkness; the only sounds were the labored breathing and trudging steps of the dwarves behind them. Jute nearly fell over when they reached the top of the mine shaft. His mind had wandered to a friendlier place and in the darkness he hadn’t noticed they were finally free of what felt like the never-ending mine shaft.
“Careful,” Babaz said. “We can’t lose anyone at this point.”
“Keep moving,” Jute called down into the darkness. “You’ve almost made it.”
The morale of the dwarves seemed to lift as they finally spread out across the large chamber. Jute’s legs felt strange walking normally again, but he didn’t complain. The dwarves hurried into a large adjoining chamber that was filled with glowing minerals in the walls and ceiling. The light, though faint, brought tears to Jute’s eyes. The glowing rock seemed to pour hope into the group and they hurried after Jute.
Hunger gnawed at Jute’s stomach and his mouth felt like stone. He had to scrape his tongue along his teeth to work up enough saliva to swallow, and the meager amount of moisture only made his throat burn. It didn’t take long for his legs to feel so heavy he could barely lift his feet off the floor. The caverns were well crafted and the pathway was smooth, yet Jute could hear the shuffling of the dwarves who were spread out behind him. He knew that if the Groslings attacked from the rear there was no chance that the dwarves would be able to outrun the demons.
Hours passed and slowly hope began to kindle in Jute’s mind. Perhaps, he thought, they might escape without a fight. Perhaps Brianna had sealed the fire giant and his horrific minions in the underworld. When the dwarves finally collapsed Jute guessed they still had a full day’s walk to reach the escape tunnel, but if they pressed hard the next day they might actually escape the caverns.
“How much farther?” Hammert asked, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper.
“A full day’s march,” Jute said.
“We can make it,” Hammert croaked.
“We should push on,” Babaz said. “We can rest when we reach the surface.”
“You know that not everyone can do that,” Hammert said angrily. “If you’re so frightened of this place, go on. No one here is stopping you.”
“You know I am not afraid.”
“But you would sacrifice the weakest of us so that you could escape.”
“I would die for any dwarf here,” Babaz growled angrily. “But if the Groslings come, they will kill many more of our number than exhaustion.”
“We should stay together,” Jute argued. “We are stronger as a group, even with those who are injured.”
“So be it,” Babaz said.
The dwarves were exhausted and many dropped to the floor where they stood. They slept, all but a small number who stood watch. Hammert woke Jute after a few hours of rest and they traded places.
For most of the journey Jute had paid little attention to their surroundings, but once he was awake with nothing to do but keep watch in the darkness, he studied the cavern’s features. It was a section of the abandoned dwarf city that had a low roof. There were phosphorescent designs along the walls giving just enough light for a dwarf to see by. Under different circumstances Jute would have been right at home in the semidarkness, but he knew the Groslings could see even better than the dwarves in the low light. He knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until they were in the bright sunlight above ground again.
The long, narrow corridor where the dwarves rested sloped upward slightly. Jute guessed that the cavern had once been the path of an underground river. The water made smooth indentations in the stone and Jute could just make out the flowing marks along the walls and ceiling. The floor of the cavern was perfectly smooth, a fact which could only mean that the dwarves who had once dwelled under the Walheta Mountains had lived in the caverns for centuries. The uninspiring work of smoothing a cavern floor was always the final task of any dwarf, yet every part of the cavern had smooth floors. Even the natural indentations had been filled in and smoothed. The craftsmanship was beyond compare.
There were scenes etched into the walls, the glowing minerals were worked into the stone in such a way that the light not only illuminated the reliefs, but was actually part of each scene. Jute was enthralled by the workmanship around him when he heard the sound of approaching feet. His heart seemed to freeze in his chest and fear made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He stared into the darkness, hoping that he was mistaken and that the sounds of rushing footsteps were something, anything, other than a horde of the Groslings, but he knew in his heart that it wasn’t.
“Wake up!” Jute called. “Wake up, brothers. The enemy approaches. To arms! To arms!”
Chapter 8
The subterranean chamber was much cooler than the temperature on the surface. The air was almost damp and the stairs seemed ancient and worn. Roleena moved slowly. Stairs were difficult to maneuver with her wooden leg, but she didn’t mind taking her time. There was a strange, irrational fear growing in her mind. Logically she knew that there could be a large cache of books and scrolls in whatever rooms lay inside the foundation of the old tower, but her imagination wouldn’t stop conjuring up images of vile creatures waiting to devour her.
After a while the stairs opened into a large room with several doors leading to different chambers. The room was essentially a long rectangle with doors on either side and stairs at each end. Roleena walked slowly across the room opening the doors on one side. The first was empty, just a small, dark room. The next was filled with the stench of death. Roleena quickly closed the door and covered her mouth with her free hand. She hadn’t had the door open wide enough for the flickering light from her torch to reveal what lay inside, but Roleena had no doubt that it was dead.
She was leery about opening the next door, but she forced herself forward. The third room was an abandoned apartment. It looked almost like a prison cell. There was an unmade bed that was little more than a narrow cot. A small table and a stool filled one corner. A heap of trash filled the other. A thick coat of dust revealed that the chamber hadn’t been occupied in a long time.
The next chamber was different. When Roleena slowly opened the door she found a large room, not small cells like the others. The fourth room also had a depression in the floor, as if the ground beneath had settled several inches. There was no furniture in the room, just a table stacked high with thick books on the far end. Roleena stepped into the room and immediately her sense of foreboding grew stronger. She looked around, searching for the source of her fear, but there was nothing in the room that she could see. The light from her torch didn’t illuminate things well that weren’t close to her, and the room was easily twenty paces across. Roleena could see the shadowy table full of books, but there was plenty of gloom where danger could be lurking.
She moved forward cautiously and to her surprise found that a dark mist had settled into the depression in the center of the room. It was so dark she hadn’t seen it at first, but as she approached it wavered and swirled in the depression along the floor. Roleena was accustomed to fog at sea. It wasn’t unusual to wake up at dawn to find her ship shrouded in gray mist. Sometimes the mist would swirl around her as she moved and snake its way into her cabin, but the mist in the fourth room was different. It was a dark, almost black, fog and Roleena didn’t think that it was simply the poor light from her torch.
She moved to the edge of the room and made her way along the wall. Nothing in the room moved other than the swirling black mist, even though the dancing light from her torch made the shadows seem to sway. She wanted to run away, but the books she’d been sent to find were so close. Roleena was not the type of person to give up on a task she’d set her mind to, and especially not when she could see the treasures before her. The closer she moved to the table the more clearly
she could see the books. There were three tall stacks; each one had nearly a dozen thick books. Most were bound in stiff leather, some with words stamped into the spine. Roleena could see that they were books on magic, although many were in strange languages. She didn’t care what they were. All she wanted was to retrieve the books and get back out again.
She moved to the table and found a torch waiting in a sconce that hung from the wall. She lit the torch and then picked up one of the books. They were heavy and she realized she would have to make several trips, but her intuition told her she had found exactly what she needed. She stood at the table for several minutes, looking over the books. Her missing foot grew cold. She’d felt phantom pain before, but never cold. It was as if her foot had been suddenly thrust into a pile of snow. She looked down and to her surprise found that the dark mist was swirling around her feet.
Fear made her heart race, but she did her best to remain calm. She propped her torch against the wall and filled one arm with half a dozen books. Then she picked up her torch and hurried from the room. The dread she felt seemed to recede as she made her way back to the staircase and up toward the surface. It was fully night when she reemerged and her guard looked relieved when he saw her, but she merely handed him the books and went back down.
It took seven trips to collect all the books, and each time the mist seemed to grow. It was attracted to her wooden leg, which made no sense to Roleena. The leg was nothing more than a wooden stump. It was well carved and balanced, but there was nothing organic about it. In fact, Roleena surmised it was no different than the wood of the table. Yet it seemed to cling to her, and filled her with a cold sense of strange power, almost as if the mist were filling the space left by the missing limb.
Her last trip she only had two books to retrieve so after leaving the long room with the strange mist, she went to the downward staircase. Her torch cast a flickering light down the spiraling corridor and she heard something move. It was the distinct sound of a large, heavy body scraping against stone. Roleena had no desire to find out what had made the noise. Instead she checked the other rooms, but found them empty.
It was late when she returned to the surface and the pile of books was quite large. She felt completely exhausted, and slumped down next to the small fire the guard had kept burning while she explored the subterranean chamber beneath the ruined tower. The night air was cold and the warmth of the fire was supplemented by the wine she decided to finish drinking, but no matter what she did she couldn’t warm her missing leg. It bothered her all through the night.
The next morning it was obvious that they needed a cart of some type to haul the load of books. When she got to her feet, a stabbing pain shot into the stump of Roleena’s leg halfway down her thigh, where the wooden shaft was connected with a leather strap. She knew immediately she would have to adjust the straps, but to do so would require her to remove the leather pants she wore and she didn’t want to do that in front of her guard.
“Go find us a cart of some kind,” she ordered the man. “We need something to haul these books in.”
“Are you sure I should leave you here alone?” the man asked.
“Don’t question my orders,” she hissed.
“Aye, Captain.”
The guard hurried away and Roleena watched him go. Once she was convinced he was well away she unbuckled the thick belt that wrapped around her waist and pulled down the leather pants. Her leg had been amputated after being burned by the giant, black dragon that had attacked their ship when Zollin was aboard. She had never known such pain, and the ship’s doctor had cut off her leg just below the hip, about halfway down her upper thigh. The scarring was ghastly, but the wooden leg connected to her thigh with a padded boot that hid the stump from view. It had taken several weeks for Roleena to get used to the wooden leg. Her stump was incredibly sensitive at first, and the soreness had been intense, but it had eventually grown a thick callus and rarely hurt until that morning. She was surprised at just how painful the stump felt as she loosened the straps and pulled the leather boot away. Her stump was red and inflamed. She hoped that it wouldn’t hurt her too much as they made their way back to the river.
She massaged the stump and then carefully reattached the wooden leg, but the pain was constant. She was fully dressed when the guard returned, but Roleena was worried she wouldn’t be able to walk back to where the jolly boat waited for them. The guard looked pleased; he’d found a large hand cart and quickly loaded the books.
“We could be back at the river by midday if we’re lucky,” he said.
“No,” Roleena said. “I’m afraid that won’t happen.”
The guard looked worried but Roleena’s icy glare swept away his questions. He lifted the long handles of the cart and started forward slowly. Roleena limped along after him, cursing whatever strange malady had afflicted her missing leg. In the back of her mind she couldn’t help but wonder if the cause stemmed from the dark mist, but in the bright daylight that seemed almost ridiculous, almost as if she were clinging to a dream as the cause for her pain.
An hour later she couldn’t continue. Luckily, the cart was big enough that Roleena could sit perched on the edge while her guard rolled them slowly across the cobblestones. She encouraged him to stop and rest often, and they did their best to stay on the streets that were relatively clear of debris, but the journey was long just the same. They knew they needed to move west. Finding the river would not be difficult, but finding a clear way through the rubble-strewn streets of the Grand City with their cart was.
The unrelenting sun beat down on them and made Roleena feel sick. She eventually curled up in the cart and threw her cloak over her head for shade. It was late in the day when they finally reached the outskirts of the city. The camp her other guard had made, along with the two rowers Powl and Vernyr, was easy to find. Roleena spoke to no one, and spent the night in a feverish state.
The next morning they loaded the books into the jolly boat and rowed their way down stream. Roleena did nothing but lay in the boat, desperate for every breath of wind that could cool her feverish body. By late afternoon she felt a little stronger, and ate something. Her missing leg still ached and she silently cursed the wizard in Yelsia for sending her on a fool’s mission. Magic, in her opinion, was a curse.
They reached Hamsbury just as twilight set over the bay. Roleena had been away from her ships for six days exactly. The men rowed the jolly boat back to the Crest Dancer where she and the books she’d collected were hoisted aboard. The crew seemed listless, but they got quickly to their feet as she came on board.
“Send word that we sail with the tide tomorrow,” she ordered the sailors. “And take these men aboard.”
Powl and Vernyr looked shocked but she turned and handed them each two silver marks.
“There’s plenty more of that for sailors who work hard.”
“Yes, Captain,” the two men said in unison.
Roleena turned without another word and limped to her cabin. She did her best to walk in her normal fashion in front of her crew, but her stump was aching terribly and she guessed that she had reattached the wooden leg wrong. It felt too long and her balance felt off kilter as well. She needed sleep, but she also needed to be certain that they were ready for a long voyage back to Yelsia.
In her cabin she pulled off the wooden leg and massaged her stump, only to find the scars missing. She had a lantern but the light was poor. Normally she didn’t mind the dim light in the evenings, but for once she desperately needed to see. The end of her amputated leg had changed. She was both terrified and excited. It looked like there was new growth, even though she knew that was impossible. The ugly scars from the ship’s doctor hacking off her leg and stitching her back together with clumsy, shaking hands were gone. In their place was at least four inches of smooth skin. It was hot to the touch, feverish and pulsing with what she hoped was new blood flow.
She immediately put on a long skirt to cover the stump and called for her steward.
“Aye aye, Captain,” the old cook said.
“And send in whoever is on watch.”
The cook nodded and hurried out of the cabin. Roleena’s face was flushed as she waited impatiently. She pretended to be studying a map, but her mind was on her leg. She didn’t believe in miracles, and that left only magic. She knew something had attached itself to her missing leg, but she had no idea what it was. There was something in the mysterious dark mist of the subterranean room she’d gathered the books on magic from. It had caused her leg to start growing again, but she wasn’t sure what it was becoming. To think that it would just be a new leg was too much to hope for.
“Captain?” came a deep voice from her doorway. “You asked for me?”
Roleena looked up to see Bynes, a tall, thick-chested sailor who was one of the few men in Slice’s confidence. The savage pirates had supported Roleena’s rise to power when she took command of the Crest Dancer. In return she had made them all officers. Bynes was one of the more reliable of the men.
“Are we resupplied and ready to sail?” she asked.
“We have food and water, but a third of the crew is still ashore.”
“I want them rounded up at first light,” Roleena ordered. “We will sail with the early tide. If they make me wait they will regret it. Have the ship ready.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Bynes left the room quickly. If she hadn’t been so focused on what was happening to her leg she might have noticed the hardness in his eyes, or the defiant way he stood in her doorway. Instead she ate her dinner then went to sleep, never suspecting that her crew was poised on the edge of mutiny.
Chapter 9
Zollin couldn’t rest and as soon as the sun rose he sent out a silent call for Ferno. He dressed and made his way to the main hall of the castle. The head steward met him there with only one sealed letter for King Hausey.
Chaos Reigning: The Five Kingdoms Book 10 Page 6