by Tina Daniel
A throne set on a dais reigned over one end of the table, and on the throne lay a gigantic, muscular, yellow-brown ogre, his feet stretched across one armrest, thoroughly drunk and asleep. His mottled skin was covered with bumps and bruises. He was snoring with his snout open. A thick band of silver, decorated with green jewels, stretched tightly around his forehead, the only conspicuous sign of his stature.
“Arrast, the chief,” whispered Kirsig, pointing. “Don’t worry. He drank so much grog, he’ll be in a stupor till morning.”
As if he heard himself being discussed, Arrast stirred slightly and turned over on his side, his face set against the back of the throne. He lifted his head momentarily, gave a coarse bellow, then resumed his snoring.
Not entirely reassured, remembering what Kirsig had said earlier, Flint hurried past the sleeping chief of Ogrebond.
At the far end of the huge room, a square grating covered a deep, dark pit sunk into the floor. Although Flint peered down it, he could see nothing. Slithering and scratching sounds drifted up from far below. The fetid stench that wafted upward was enough to make the dwarf momentarily lose his balance.
“Games pit,” said Kirsig, grabbing him by the elbow.
“Black willows,” said Raistlin grimly.
Tanis nodded.
“Yes,” agreed Flint, although he didn’t have the slightest idea what “black willows” were, and as he hurried past the dark pit, he told himself he had no desire to find out.
Through a small archway and down narrow stone stairs to a lower level they descended. This was the dungeon, a fact made plain by the damp, rotting odor, the debris of bones and broken weaponry, and the piles of straw discolored by streaks of dried blood. The walls held flickering sconces that offered only dim light.
Kirsig pointed ahead. Tanis and Raistlin followed Kirsig closely, with Flint straggling behind. They entered a large musty room. Two dark corridors lined with cells branched off to the right and left. Even at this hour, faint moans and cries emitted from the recesses, the sleep of the occupants disturbed by who knows what manner of nightmares.
“I wish we could do something to help them, poor devils,” Tanis whispered to Raistlin.
“First we must rescue ourselves,” Raistlin replied.
“There!” pointed Kirsig, indicating a large vent in the far corner of the floor of the room.
They hurried over to it. Although Tanis and Flint easily loosened the grate covering the vent, they had difficulty lifting it aside. Kirsig and even Raistlin bent to help. At last its weight shifted, and they were able to slide it away.
When Kirsig straightened up, she found herself eye to eye with a hulking, dull-orange ogre guard. Opening its mouth, the creature barked something at them in a language that none of the three companions from Solace understood.
They only understood the word “Kirsig” and made a guess at the rest of the obviously hostile message.
Tanis lunged at the creature, swinging his sword, but the ogre guard was twice his height and, despite appearances, no slow-witted oaf. The ogre guard swung his arm up in the air and batted the sword away, knocking Tanis against a wall, stunning the half-elf. With his knife, Flint made a game stab at the guard, but the ogre’s reach was long, and worse, he held a thick, spiked club. The ogre brought his club up in an arc, then down, aiming at Flint’s head. The dwarf dodged aside, but the club caught him on the shoulder, smacking him to the ground.
Raistlin took a step backward, his face masklike. He began to chant in a low voice, anxiously feeling in one of his pouches for the components he needed to throw a spell.
The ogre noticed the young mage and advanced cautiously. His yellow eyes gleamed, and a spotted tongue darted in and out between jutting, blackened teeth. With taloned hands, he reached out for Raistlin.
Suddenly the ogre’s eyes went slack, and he crashed forward. Raistlin had all he could do to jump out of the way or be crushed. From the ogre’s back protruded a long, thin dagger, trickling black blood.
Raistlin stared. Flint and Tanis got up groggily and gazed at the unpredictable Kirsig.
“I keeps one handy,” said the female half-ogre, proud but shy. She put her foot on the ogre’s back and pulled out the dagger, wiped it clean, and stuck it back inside her leather skirt. “You would, too, if you worked at Ogrebond and had to mingle with ogres!”
Tanis congratulated her on her bravery.
It was hard to tell in the dim light, but Kirsig appeared to blush. “No time for that,” she said briskly. “Down we go!”
One by one, the three companions lowered themselves down the vent. Using the fallen ogre’s spear as a lever, Kirsig managed to replace the grating.
“Good luck!” Kirsig called after them.
Left alone, she dragged the body of the ogre guard over to a corner and hurriedly piled straw on top of it, concealing it as best she could.
The foul liquid they found themselves in shone in the dark with iridescent silver and purple streaks. Bubbling foam, spongy globules, and floating chunks of things that stank of disease and death eddied around them. Scavenger fish darted at the garbage, their scaly sides brushing against the companions’ churning legs. A giant snake lay belly up in the sewage, part of its awesome length submerged, two man-sized bulges in the portion of its white, swollen stomach that bobbed on the surface.
Weird, faraway cries rent the dark tunnel. Ancient corpses had beached on outcroppings along the walls, their dusty bones giving off a kind of eerie light. The companions could hear but not see the rats skittering along the thin, narrow ledge that ran along the tunnel sides.
Tanis kept a firm grip on Raistlin’s wrist. “Are you all right?” the half-elf asked both his friends.
Flint bobbed along on the other side of Raistlin. The sewage channel was only about six feet wide. Their feet could almost touch the irregular, debris-strewn bottom, but not quite, and Flint had to kick himself upward at intervals to keep his chin above the slimy water.
“I’m fine. Don’t worry about me,” said Raistlin tersely.
Flint grunted his reply. He was fine, too, if you call half drowning in a grimy, disgusting, ogre sewer tunnel fine.
The stream of garbage flowed around them, tugging them in an easterly direction which, as Kirsig had said, was toward the shore of the Blood Sea. The current pulled at them with surprising strength. They had all they could do to hold on to one another and stay afloat.
“Hang on,” warned Tanis, tightening his grip on Raistlin. “The channel must run down a slope. We’re going to be picking up speed.”
Flint had one hand clamped on Raistlin’s shoulder as the three of them began to be carried along with the current at a faster and faster pace. Nausea as much as terror gripped the companions. They whirled along, past all manner of garbage and dead things wedged in crevices or stuck on outthrust stones.
The cries they had heard earlier now picked up in intensity and became almost deafening. The tunnel angled and took a downward dip, so that Tanis, Flint, and Raistlin were pitched forward. The current accelerated still more, and they were tossed this way and that, struggling for control.
Floating bodies—some ogres, some too sodden to tell—bumped up against them in the horrible flow.
The fearsome cries rose to a din as the tunnel took a sharp curve. The current tossed Flint into a stone wall. The dwarf cried out in pain, clutching at his leg. Raistlin managed to stretch out and grab him by the collar.
Whirling downward, the trio spun by a horribly disfigured creature clinging to the ledge. It might have been human once. Now it was one of the undead. A long tongue flicked out at them, running over teeth that were sharp and supernaturally elongated. The nails on its hands had become razor-sharp claws. It clung to the ledge with one mottled, dessicated limb, and with the other leaned toward them, making a gesture with its clawed fist that was at once threatening and pathetic.
Tanis raised an arm, managing to ward off the creature, pushing aside the outstretched arm of the u
ndead thing. It opened its unclean maw and screamed futile gibberish at the three companions as they shot past it, eluding its grasp.
Choking on the stench and the sludge, they were borne by the torrent, hurtling down the dark, fetid tunnel as if riding a water chute. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Tanis, Flint, and Raistlin shot out into startlingly bright moonlight that illuminated a shallow cove lined with rocks and filthy debris.
Tanis helped Raistlin to his feet. With their arms around one another, they staggered along the shore of the cove to a sheltered area away from the sewage outlet. Flint was nowhere to be seen. After several minutes, Tanis began to wonder what had happened to Flint. He picked his way back and found the grizzled dwarf sitting on a rock, drenched, splattered with muck, furious, and in pain.
“What is it?” asked Tanis wearily.
“My leg,” gasped Flint. “I can’t put any weight on it. I think it’s broken.”
Tanis hurried to examine him. Sure enough, there was a fracture in the right limb, which had already swelled and was turning purple.
With Flint complaining all the way, Tanis flung the dwarf across his shoulders and carried him from the cove, setting him down gently next to Raistlin.
Although the young mage was plainly worn out, his face covered with grime and small cuts, he found a broken tree limb nearby, tore strips from his robe, and did the best he could to approximate a tight splint on Flint’s leg.
“Just my luck,” said Flint sulkily, wincing as Raistlin wound the bandaging.
“We should have left you to the lacedon,” said the young mage with uncharacteristic wry humor.
“The what?” asked the dwarf.
“The ghoul back there,” said Tanis. He was lying on the sand, covered with slime and dirt, but he was too exhausted to care. “Kirsig was right about there being undead creatures in the tunnel.”
“Of course, they’d like you better if you were dead. They feed on corpses, you know,” said Raistlin dryly, finishing with the splint. Unceremoniously he curled up against a rock and within minutes was asleep.
Flint grumbled something unintelligible.
Their little cove was sheltered by a horn of rocks. Beyond that, the dark and forbidding Blood Sea stretched to the horizon. Light from the two moons, Lunitari and Solinari, speckled the black water with silver. They could hear nothing but the crash of surf and the lapping of waves.
For hours, Tanis and Flint waited for Kirsig, shivering. At one point, thinking Flint hadn’t said anything in a long while, Tanis looked over and realized that the bone-weary dwarf had fallen asleep as well, sitting up against a rock with his broken leg stretched out in front of him. With a sigh, Tanis settled in for the night watch.
It was an hour or so before dawn when Tanis caught sight of a small craft wending its way across the cove. Kirsig was sitting on one of the forward seats, but someone else was pulling the oars. Tanis roused Flint and Raistlin.
As the boat pulled up next to them, Kirsig jumped out, followed by the other occupant of the boat, a tall, well-proportioned black-skinned man with a gleaming bald pate. He was bare-chested, wearing only a thick breech-cloth and high-strapped sandals. A fine bone necklace curved around his muscular neck, and a small jeweled knife hung from a loop on his waist.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” explained Kirsig hurriedly. “I had to go to town and hunt up Nugetre. Then I had to pack my things.…” Suddenly she stopped and stared, wide-eyed. “Garsh, what happened to the pretty dwarf!”
She rushed over to Flint, who remained sitting against the rock, and knelt down to examine his leg solicitously. The dwarf scowled.
The one called Nugetre was standing with his hands on his hips, staring at Tanis and Raistlin, grinning as he sized them up.
“Kirsig …” began Tanis.
“What do you mean, you had to pack your things?” Raistlin asked Kirsig pointedly.
The female half-ogre turned to Raistlin. “Well,” she huffed, “I had to kill one of the ogre guards. I couldn’t very well stay there, could I? So I’m coming with you!”
“But—but—” stammered Raistlin.
“A woman on such a voyage?” Tanis said.
“If you ask me—” began Flint.
Nugetre silenced them all with an outburst of loud, lusty laughter.
After a long pause, Tanis asked Kirsig, “What does he find so funny?”
“What I find funny, half-elf,” said Nugetre, eyeing the three of them scornfully, “is that more than half of my crew are female. And they meet the standards I set just as well as the men do.”
“I’ve known Nugetre for years,” said Kirsig hastily. “He used to buy food from my father to take on his crossings. He’s one of the best seamen around and is willing to take us across the Blood Sea.”
“For a fee,” reminded Nugetre, wagging a finger at the female half-ogre.
“Besides,” added Kirsig enthusiastically, “you’re going to need some help with this dwarf … medical help, I mean. I’ve picked up a few tricks over the years. They won’t cure the plague, but they should lessen the pain and speed the healing of that broken leg.”
Flint looked helplessly at Tanis and Raistlin. Tanis and Raistlin looked at each other.
“Okay,” Tanis said resignedly.
Kirsig and the three companions all squeezed into the boat, and the muscular Nugetre began to row with an easy rhythm. Within minutes, they were out of the cove and hundreds of yards from shore. They could barely glimpse the shadowy shape of Ogrebond atop the steep, rocky hill.
A pale rosy light had begun to show in the sky as they reached Nugetre’s ship.
CHAPTER 8
THE BROKEN MAN
———
SOMETHING GRABBED AT STURM. WEAKLY THE SOLAMNIC LOOKED UP, his vision blurry. He felt himself being lifted.
The next thing he knew, as if experiencing it through a haze, Sturm was lying in the bottom of a small wooden boat alongside Caramon. His friend’s clothes hung on him in tatters; encrusted sores and bruises covered his body. What skin remained intact had been baked a deep bronze-red by the sun. Sturm stared at the young warrior, whose eyes remained closed. With relief, the young knight noted that his companion breathed steadily. Then Sturm, too, passed out.
A gnarled old fisherman named Lazaril had scooped them out of the sea, cut their bonds, and dumped them into his boat.
Now the fisherman, bent and wiry, regarded them, his hand on his chin, thinking. Lazaril had been hoping to catch a stringer of eels this morning to sell later in the day at the open market in Atossa, a city on the north coast of Mithas. But if he worked it right, these two humans would fetch more than a dozen stringers of eels.
They looked terrible, though—possibly near death. He ought to clean them up as best he could. He took off his leather vest and put it on the smaller one, whose shirt had been torn off. And he made an effort to wash their faces and rinse their wounds. They had a good many of them, but Lazaril could fix them up. They were in no condition to resist. Perhaps their ship had sunk or been raided by pirates. That was unlucky for them, but a lucky break for Lazaril.
The two companions woke up briefly, choking when Lazaril poured some spring water down their gullets, then force-fed them some dried fish. The larger one, the first one he had fished out of the sea, looked up at him with questioning eyes, swallowing hungrily but dazedly before once again losing consciousness. The other one seemed in worse shape. Lazaril couldn’t get more than a few bites down his throat.
Working quickly, the fisherman did some hurried, makeshift mending of their clothes and daubed their skin with a folk balm to soothe the blistering. A little touch here, a little remedy there, and the two half-drowned humans looked almost normal. Well, not quite, but almost.
“You’re missing your true calling, Lazaril,” the old fisherman said to himself admiringly, chuckling. “You should have been a practitioner of the healing arts.”
The fisherman grabbed the oars and pulled strongly, ma
king headway against the slight wind, and within an hour, the boat came into view of the small harbor of Atossa.
Neither of the two companions had regained consciousness. That would be too much to expect. As they approached the harbor Lazaril pulled a tarpaulin over the two unconscious figures so that none of his competitors would spot his unusual cargo. On the main pier, the old fisherman spotted a ragamuffin and gave the boy a copper to run and find the minotaur who served as harbormaster.
The small harbor bustled with trade and activity. Human pirates and mercenary brigands rubbed shoulders with the hulking beast-men who ruled the island. Pitiful slaves—mostly human, but a smattering of other races as well—shouldered cargo, watched over by minotaurs who strode the docks imperiously and, when the slightest occasion warranted, wielded their whips viciously.
A strapping minotaur with fierce eyes and jutting horns came marching up the boardwalk, the ragamuffin behind him hurrying to keep up. Lazaril gave the boy his copper and shooed him away officiously. The minotaur folded his arms and waited, a stern, impatient look on his bestial visage. Lazaril gave him a sly, toothy grin.
Lazaril knew this one by sight, although until now he had always been anxious to give the harbormaster of Atossa wide berth. This was Vigila, appointed by the king himself. All fishermen, and any other harbor regulars, knew him for his brutality and iron command of the small harbor. It was he who dispensed justice on the docks, collected the king’s tithe—keeping a portion for himself—and maintained the necessary quota of slaves. It was with him that Lazaril must bargain.
With a modest flourish, the fisherman pulled aside the tarpaulin, revealing the two humans. He looked up at Vigila expectantly.
“What?” asked Vigila, sneering. “You have caught a couple of human carp, old fisherman. Of what interest are they to me?”
Lazaril swallowed and forced a toothy grin. “Your excellency,” he began, not sure how to address the harbormaster, “their wounds are quite superficial. I believe these are very strong humans who, if they were brought back to health, would make excellent slaves. They are weak now, but they just need food and water to regain their strength. Then they could be worked hard—worked hard until their deaths. That would be of some interest to you, would it not?”