by Mel Odom
Wick dove from the boat and joined the swimming effort. His mind raced, trying to remember everything he could about the black ship. Then he focused on swimming because, with the tide going out, getting to the beach was almost impossible.
Nearly an hour later, winded and worn, the dwarven party and Wick made a landing. The beach was inhospitable, craggy and rocky, but at least they wouldn’t drown there. They pulled the boat up on shore. Bulokk and two other dwarves tore out the arrows and examined the extent of the damage.
Wick sat by himself, as far away from Adranis as he could manage. Even in the moonslight he could see the dislike the dwarves held for him.
They think this is my fault, he thought. If I hadn’t arrived and gotten Bulokk interested in finding Master Oskarr’s lost axe, they wouldn’t be here now. He wanted to argue with them and point out the fact that he had nothing to do with the attack.
“The damage can be repaired,” Bulokk told the group after he returned from the longboat. He put the lantern he carried on the rocky shoal. They’d found it floating to shore and miraculously intact. The light played out over the semicircle of glum faces. “With the tools we have at hand.”
Wick knew the dwarves had packed for the eventuality they would have to work on the boat. Or, perhaps, another boat if they couldn’t repair this one.
“The food an’ fresh water remained on board, too,” Bulokk said. It had been strapped under the benches in waterproof containers. “So we have a choice about what we do.”
The impulse to tell the dwarves about One-Eyed Peggie thrummed inside Wick. When One-Eyed Peggie arrived, they would all be safe. But in the end he chose to tell them nothing about the Blood-Soaked Sea pirate ship. In case Craugh keeps them away too long.
“We can turn back,” Bulokk said, “an’ hope that our absence hasn’t been noted.”
“But if ’n we has been noticed missin’ an’ someone has told Taloston that the halfer wasn’t on that ship, he won’t be happy with us,” Adranis said.
“I know.” Bulokk scowled, striding across the rocky shoal where they’d landed.
“If Taloston grows vexed with us, we’ll be out on goblinkin patrol permanentlike. Ain’t gonna live any too long if ’n that’s the case.”
“I ain’t afeared of Taloston’s displeasure,” Bulokk said, “but I set out to find Master Oskarr’s axe.” He glanced around at his men. “That still ain’t been done, an’ I mean to see it finished.”
Slowly, then with increasing alacrity, the dwarven warriors echoed his sentiments.
“Then, in the mornin’,” Bulokk said, “what we’ll do is patch up the longboat as best as we can an’ continue with what we’re about.”
Sullenly, the dwarves agreed. Their leader chose to ignore their lack of enthusiasm.
“Until then,” Bulokk said, “get what sleep ye can. Ain’t none of it gonna be easy.”
“Wait,” Wick said, not knowing he’d spoken out loud until all the dwarves were looking at him.
“What?” Adranis growled.
For a moment Wick thought about telling them to never mind. But he knew he’d never sleep that night if his curiosity didn’t get assuaged. “Did anyone know that ship?” he asked. “The black ship that nearly ran us down?”
“’Tweren’t but one out there,” Adranis said unkindly.
“Does it make a difference if ’n someone’s seen it afore?” Bulokk countered.
Wick hesitated. “I don’t know. But generally, according to Dreizelf Mochanarter, the more that is known about a problem, the better able the solver is to deal with it.”
“So,” Drinnick said, clawing fingers through his thick beard, “mayhap the knowin’ will prove important?”
“Yes.”
“I never seen the ship meself,” Drinnick said, “but I heard she plied her trade in these waters.”
“What trade?”
“She has an alliance with the goblinkin.”
“What kind of alliance?”
“The ship’s captain is interested in things that the goblinkin find in their mines.”
“What things?” Bulokk stepped closer, taking over the questioning. “The ore?”
In that moment, Wick realized that the goblinkin were actually in competition with the Cinder Clouds dwarves, all of them ripping iron ore from the guts of the earth. He hadn’t even considered that before, just assumed that the goblinkin were there in hope of finding gold or silver mines. But with the islands vomited up by the sea-based volcanoes, chances of finding those kinds of mines would be unlikely. The goblinkin were there supplying other forges, ones the goblinkin ran themselves with dwarven slaves or had trade agreements with.
“Not just the ore,” Drinnick said. “I heard these humans—”
“They’re human?” Wick asked, picturing the image of the lean archers along the ship’s railing again in his mind. Those lean shapes could have been human or elven. They’d been too narrow and tall to be dwarves or dwellers.
Of course, the possibility existed that they were other kinds of creatures. Humans, dwarves, elves, dwellers, and goblinkin comprised most of the population of the world, but certainly not all of it.
“Aye,” Drinnick said. “They’re human.”
“How do ye know?” Bulokk said.
“I spied on ’em a time or three whilst I was on patrol.”
“Then surely others among you have seen it,” Wick said.
No one answered.
Drinnick scratched at his beard. “I sometimes go a mite closer than these here warriors.”
Bulokk took a deep breath, obviously not pleased about this revelation. “I told ye to stay away from the goblinkin.”
Narrowing his eyes, Drinnick nodded. “I will. Just as soon as I get me four more Nathull Tribe heads. I told ye I’d claim ten of their heads for them a-killin’ Broor the way they done. I swore me out an oath of vengeance. I means to live up to it.”
Bulokk cursed and told Drinnick that he was being a fool, but Wick knew from the calm way Drinnick listened to his leader that the assessment was falling on deaf ears. A dwarven oath of vengeance was a fearful thing.
“Where did they do their trading?” Wick asked.
“West of us.” Drinnick pointed in the general direction they’d been headed. “Not far from here.”
Bulokk glanced at Wick. “Do ye think this is important?”
Wick pondered the question, and all the questions his fertile mind had already raised. “How often do you hear about humans traveling to trade with goblinkin?”
Shaking his shaggy head, Bulokk said, “Never. Leastways, never afore this. It’s always them goblinkin what’s a-tryin’ to trade with humans. Ain’t no dwarf or elf gonna work with ’em. But humans, now, they got short memories.”
“Then it couldn’t hurt to keep our eyes peeled for this ship while we’re searching,” Wick said.
With years of long practice behind them, the dwarves chose up guard shifts and made themselves as comfortable as could be on the hard rock. Wick took his own bed beside a tall stand of rock, telling himself that sleeping up next to a rock wall wasn’t the same as sleeping out in the open. He didn’t really fool himself, but he was so fatigued that he quickly went to sleep.
10
“D’Ye See Anythin’, Halfer?”
Someone planted a toe in the middle of Wick’s back, kicking the little Librarian hard enough to get his attention but not hard enough to injure him. Still, the unaccustomed violence—at least, it was unaccustomed in the Vault of All Known Knowledge—filled Wick with fear and he threw his free arm over his head to protect it. His other arm had gone numb from pillowing his face from the hard rock and now flopped rather uselessly.
“Wake up, halfer,” a dwarf muttered. “Got no time fer beauty sleep. An’ it ain’t gonna help ye none anyway.”
Dwarves, Wick grimaced, relaxing a little. Groggily, he pushed himself into a sitting position, not wanting to get kicked again because he suspected it would only get
harder after the first effort. Dwarves weren’t ones to lollygag around. They were always ready to do something.
To the east, the sun was barely peeking above the horizon. Gulls cried low in the sky overhead, evidently hoping for some left-behind morsel. Gesa the Fair looked like an empty silver ring in the western sky.
Bulokk gathered the dwarves quickly, breaking them into two groups. One was responsible for repairing the longboat and the other was supposed to fish for breakfast. Adranis and Wick were assigned to gather coal.
In short order, three of the dwarves waded out into the water with fishing lines and Bulokk led the five remaining ones to the longboat, which they immediately dragged completely onto shore and flipped over so they could start working on the holes made by the arrows the night before.
Adranis crossed over to Wick and kicked his feet. “C’mon then, halfer. That coal ain’t gonna find itself.”
Reluctantly, Wick got up and went.
Finding coal wasn’t a simple affair, Wick discovered. Although all the upheavals caused by volcanoes in the past had revealed much of the bedrock and mineral underpinnings of the land comprising the islands and the sea floor, coal wasn’t readily found. Cooling lava formed most of the islands, but here and there throughout most of them, chunks of the ocean floor had been shoved up as well.
Wick trudged in Adranis’s wake along through the hills and valleys of the island. He’d seen coal before, of course. A few communities outside Greydawn Moors used coal as a primary source of fuel. Most of them preferred to use wood logs, but if they couldn’t get that, they burned coal.
Only a little while later, Adranis called a halt and dropped down into a shallow crevasse.
Alert to the danger around them, Wick found himself interested nonetheless. More than anything, though, his fingers itched to be at his journal. There was so much he needed to record. For a while last night, he’d been able to sneak his journal out and make a few quick notes, just to make certain he didn’t forget anything when he had a proper chance to catch up with his thoughts and experiences.
Adranis ran his hand across the jagged faces of the crevasse. An uneven black stripe showed on both sides. When the dwarf picked at it, pieces of black rock tumbled down.
He looked up at Wick. “What are ye a-doin?”
“Watching you,” Wick answered.
“Hmmph. Ain’t ye ever seen coal mined afore?”
“I have. It’s still interesting.” Wick felt a little embarrassed about his curiosity, but not so much that he quit watching.
Adranis scowled. “Ain’t near as interesting as minin’ gems or iron ore. An’ minin’ ain’t what I’m for anyways. I’d rather be at me anvil, a-workin’ on armor.” He reached into the pack he carried and drew out a pickaxe. He kept his battle-axe close to hand. Drawing back, he swung the pick. The point dug into the black vein and broke chunks free. “Get on down here an’ make yerself useful.”
Wick slid over the side and scooted down.
Working like an automaton, Adranis dug into the crevasse side. Coal chunks flew and dropped at his feet. “Pick up them pieces an’ fill that bag.”
Kneeling, Wick did so. “Did you know that you’re digging into history?”
“What do ye mean?”
“Do you know where coal comes from?”
Adranis scowled at Wick as though he were a buffoon. “From the earth, of course. Can’t ye see me a-excavatin’ it?”
“Yes, but do you know how the coal got in the earth?”
“I never give it any thought.” Adranis returned to his pick work.
Wick sorted through the coal chunks, picking up the smaller ones rather than the larger. The large pieces would have filled up the bag with too much wasted space, and a fire burned better with the smaller pieces close together.
“Finding coal here means that this land was above the sea once,” Wick said.
“It is now.”
“I know, but judging from all the metamorphic rock lying around, I think this section was once part of the ocean floor that got ripped up and pushed to the surface again.”
“So?”
“Thousands of years ago, though some say it was millions, forests grew here,” Wick said. “Trees grew to maturation and fell, covered over by more trees and organic growth. Eventually they rotted and were buried by more and more trees that kept growing on top of the old ones. Then, when enough time, heat, and pressure was applied to the organic rot, it became coal.”
Adranis paused and looked at Wick. “So coal was once trees?”
“Yes,” Wick replied. “Trees and plants. Everything that grew in the forest.”
“An’ this is true?”
Wick nodded.
“I have to admit, halfer, that’s mighty interestin’. But it don’t make no difference to me. Ain’t gonna change the way I do things.” Adranis shook his head. “Don’t know how come ye to fill yer head with such useless knowledge. At least it ain’t as bad as knowin’ how to cook dwarves.”
No, Wick agreed. At least that bit of knowledge about coal is only wasteful, not offensive.
Adranis put away his pick, then grabbed his battle-axe and laid the weapon across his broad shoulders. “I’m gonna warn ye about somethin’ else, too, halfer.”
A cold chill chased down Wick’s spine. He dropped the coal chunk he’d been fumbling with and glanced up at the dwarf’s hard expression.
“Bulokk seems taken with ye,” Adranis commented. “Even when we found ye with them goblinkin, was his hand what spared ye when ever’ other warrior there would have spilled yer tripes for ye on general principle on account of bein’ with them goblinkin.”
Wick hoped that wasn’t true because such an announcement was in nowise restful, but he suspected the statement was exactly what was on the dwarven warriors’ minds.
“Bulokk’s one to get to the truth of somethin’,” Adranis said. “Me an’ the others, we’ve mostly had hard lives an’ are set to keep on livin’ ’em.”
“But Bulokk wants more,” Wick said.
Narrowing his eyes, Adranis glared at Wick. “Ye seen that in him, did ye?” he demanded. “Plannin’ on takin’ advantage of it, are ye?”
“No. That’s what he said last night before we left the fort. The part about being tired of smithing the things you’ve been making out here.”
“It’s work with a hammer an’ anvil,” Adranis said. “Good work for a dwarf. I ain’t ashamed of it. An’ it’s what the Old Ones has give us to do. Fer now.” He took a deep breath. “What I’m a-doin’ here, halfer, is a-givin’ ye fair warnin’. I don’t even owe ye that. But I’m a-doin’ it to save Bulokk if ’n I can.”
“Save him from what?”
“From gettin’ his hopes up just to have ye bring ’em a-crashin’ down, is what!” The dwarf’s voice thundered in the stillness around them.
“How would I do that?”
“By a-leadin’ him on a wild goose chase around these islands. Mayhap it ain’t too late for us to go back to the fort. Taloston might be somewhat peeved, but he ain’t gonna banish us. Not if ’n we go back soon enough.”
Wick thought about the threat but didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, everything he remembered about the area and about Master Blacksmith Oskarr seemed jumbled in his mind. Even if it hadn’t been, the land where all those things had taken place was jumbled. By Lord Kharrion’s evil magic, by volcanic eruptions, and by time.
It’s not fair to hold me accountable for so much, Wick thought desperately. He met Adranis’s hard gaze with difficulty. “I can’t promise that we’ll find Master Oskarr’s axe. Or that we’ll even find his forge. For all I know, it may still be underwater. You can’t just—”
Snarling, Adranis lifted his battle-axe as if preparing to swing it.
Throwing up his arms to defend himself, Wick closed his eyes and ducked his head, certain he was about to be killed. This is all Craugh’s fault! He should be the one getting beheaded! Not me!
He waited. Then
he took another breath. And waited some more. Finally, he opened one eye and saw Adranis glaring at him.
“Ye do yer best then,” Adranis said. “An’ don’t ye take too long to get it done.”
Don’t take too long? Don’t take too long. Wick couldn’t believe it. Since he’d arrived on the island, everybody had been willing to kill him. Then, when he was simply trying to accomplish the impossible task Cap’n Farok and Craugh had left him to do, dwarven warriors wanted to take over. But not be responsible for the task. Oh no, never take on the responsibility. Just figure out whom to blame.
And kill. That was a very important part to remember.
Adranis climbed to the top of the crevasse and glared down. “Are ye a-gonna fill that there bag or do ye expect them chunks to up an’ jump in theirselves?”
“I’ll fill it,” Wick grumped.
“Then get ’er done.”
Wick felt a slither over his right shoulder. “If I was you,” the skink whispered to him, “I’d fill that coal bag. Adranis looks like he’d push you over the side of a cliff and tell Bulokk you slipped and fell.”
Silently, Wick agreed. “You know,” he said, “you might let the dwarves know you can talk.”
“Why?”
“Because we could convince them I have magical powers. Maybe they wouldn’t treat me so harshly then.”
“Why do you have to have magical powers?” Rohoh asked. “Why couldn’t I have magical powers?”
“Because,” Wick said, thinking furiously.
“Because why?”
“I need to be the important one. It’ll empower me.”
The skink slithered out onto Wick’s shoulder and sunned himself while the little Librarian worked. “You’re already empowered.”
“How?”
“They can’t find Master Oskarr’s forge without you.”
That, Wick knew, was true. However, I don’t know if I can find Master Oskarr’s forge.
The skink slithered back into his coat and became still. Wick concentrated on gathering the loosened coal.
When the bag was full, Wick passed it up to the dwarf, then clambered up. At the top, Adranis handed Wick the bag again, claiming that he had to have his hands free to defend them in case of attack. Wick sighed and shouldered the bag, following the dwarven warrior back to the campsite.