The Wealth of Kings

by Sam Ferguson

  Kirrik hefted his large, canvas backpack up and moved over to the boulder. The other four dwarves moved a safe distance back, taking cover behind a pile of smaller boulders. Kirrik first took out a tin can filled with lard. He set it on the ground and then pulled a small, wooden box containing fuses out of the bag and set it down as well. He then pulled three additional bags out from inside the large backpack. He opened the drawstring on each bag and then bent his head back to look at the large boulder. There were no obvious fissures, but a vein of quarts did split the rock on one side, running horizontally with the floor and connecting with the wall.

  Kirrik took the lard in hand and placed a copious amount in the thin space between the wall and the left side of the boulder. He then went to the backpack and pulled a large funnel out. He set the can of lard back into the backpack and picked up the first smaller bag. He pushed the end of the funnel as far as it would go into the space and then he poured a large amount of powdered charcoal into the funnel. A heavy, black dust flew up around his face, but Kirrik didn’t mind. He was more than used to it. Once all of the powder was situated on the lard, he repeated the step with the other two bags. The second bag contained saltpeter, and the last contained sulfur.

  He then put away the ingredients and took out a long, wooden spoon. He gripped it by the bowl and used the long handle to mix his powder together. Some of the explosives engineers chided him for not mixing his explosives before setting them, but there was something about mixing it in place that always pleased Kirrik.

  When he had satisfactorily mixed the black powder, Kirrik placed the fuse and then packed lard on top to hold it all in place. It was an oddly shaped explosive, but it was custom fit for this boulder. It was only an inch wide, not counting the lard shell, but it was nearly two feet deep and several inches tall. That was why he never mixed his powder first. Pre-made explosives never fit the way his custom mixes would.

  He took a moment to smile at it and then he carried the backpack, containing all of the ingredients, back to the barricade where his colleagues were waiting.

  “Anyone care to do the honors?” Kirrik asked.

  They all shook their heads.

  “Get on with it Kirrik,” Tareggh shouted. “I don’t want Jesep leading the next crew right behind us and finding something in the first few minutes just because we did all of the hard work.”

  Kirrik knew none of them would offer to light it. If he thought they would ever say ‘yes’ then he wouldn’t offer. For him, only half of the fun was making the bomb. The other half was setting it off.

  He nearly skipped back to the fuse. It was three feet long, dangling out from the bomb and running along the floor. Easily enough to ensure Kirrik got back in time.

  He lit the fuse and that old, familiar spark ignited with a soowish!

  He admired the leaping, golden sparks for just a moment before turning to hurry back around the barricade.

  He sat down and smiled at the others. He held up one hand with three fingers up. He dropped one, then two. As the third finger dropped, he rushed to cover his ears before a terrible explosion rocked the cavern. The blast wave was hot and smelled of burnt sulfur. Dust flew over and around the dwarves for a long time after the last bits of rock settled upon the floor.

  As things settled, Kirrik peered around the side of the barricade and saw that the boulder had split exactly the way he wanted. The bottom half had been separated along the quarts line, and the top half was now lying in five parts across the stone floor. Several of the smaller boulders that had been wedge in by the large one were now loose as well.

  Kirrik got up and went to inspect the blast mark.

  He didn’t need to. He had given the miners more than enough to work with, but that wasn’t the point. Each blast mark was different, and Kirrik liked them all.

  “The men in Drakei Glazei may paint or write sonnets, but I make magic,” Kirrik said quietly, more to himself than anyone else as he spied the telltale scorch marks and smiled. He approached them and breathed in deeply as he rubbed his hand across the boulder.

  That was when he felt a strange, cool breeze.

  At first he thought it came from behind the boulder. He moved next to the wall, trying to look deeper into the tunnel, but he couldn’t see anything. The breeze felt stronger on his cheek. Kirrik turned and saw a hole in the wall where the blast had gone off. This was not entirely unusual, of course. His explosions often created holes and craters. However, this hole was different. The wall was not solid as he had expected. The hole had blown through fifteen inches of rock and provided a window into a strange chamber. Kirrik placed his face close to the hole and wrapped his hands around his face to shield from the lanterns his colleagues were bringing closer.

  His dwarf eyes adjusted to the dark quickly and he saw a large, dark room. There appeared to be no way in or out of the chamber. The floor, curved walls, and ceiling appeared to be made of stone. Stalagmites, stalactites, and columns obscured the view, but otherwise the room appeared empty.

  Then he saw something else. A strange, pink sparkle. He wasn’t sure he saw it at first, but as he adjusted his position and a bit more light slipped into the chamber, he confirmed it. There was some sort of crystal formation growing on one of the columns.

  “You are going to want to see this,” Kirrik said.

  Tareggh was already most of the way to him, pickaxe and lantern in hand.

  Kirrik glanced back to the crystal, and then something moved in the shadows. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tareggh pulled him out of the way.

  “What is it?” he asked in a gruff voice. “Did you find gold?”

  “I…I’m not sure,” Kirrik said. “But I—”

  “Jumping horny-toad, he found crystals!” Tareggh shouted over Kirrik. The crew chief turned and started barking orders. “Forget the tunnel. Burrow through this wall. Sarep, Red, break out your picks and go berserk. If it’s anything we can sell, then we’ll be the heroes of Roegudok Hall!”

  The other dwarves hopped into place, nearly shoving Kirrik out of the way.

  Kirrik took a moment to regain his senses, and then he pulled Tareggh aside.

  “What is it?” Tareggh asked. “Want to blow the wall with some more of your powder?”

  Kirrik shook his head. “I think I saw something move in there,” he said.

  Tareggh’s green eyes narrowed on Kirrik and then the crew leader glanced over his shoulder at Sarep and Red, who were both already chopping away at the wall. “You saw what?”

  Kirrik shrugged. “Not sure, but I saw something.”

  Tareggh nodded and called for the others to halt their work.

  The crew leader moved to the hole and peered inside. Kirrik watched him for several moments. Flint, a muscular dwarf with a brown beard and no hair, moved up next to Kirrik.

  “What is it?” Flint asked.

  Kirrik shrugged. He wrestled with whether to tell Flint what he had seen. What if he was wrong? He didn’t want the others to think him afraid just because of some rumors and stories his grandfather had told him when he was young. Kirrik turned and lied. “The boss just wanted to reevaluate the chamber inside. Wants to make sure its stable before we go in.”

  Flint took the lie with a thoughtful nod and walked off closer to Sarep and Red.

  A minute later Tareggh came away from the hole and slapped Red on the shoulder. “Back to work, the chamber is good.”

  Fortunate choice of words. Kirrik thought.

  Tareggh marched over to Kirrik and poked him in the shoulder, hard. “I know what’s in yer head,” he said in a harsh whisper. “You keep it to yerself!”

  Kirrik frowned. “I wasn’t trying to spook anyone,” he said. “I swear I saw something.”

  “Bah!” Tareggh huffed. “You saw what your mind wanted you to see. You think I haven’t heard the stories? Any miner who has been down here for more than a century or two knows em all. That doesn’t mean they’re true.”

  “The shaft was sealed off,�
� Kirrik replied evenly.

  Tareggh shook his head and thunked Kirrik again. “Enough! There are no scary monsters down here in the shadows. Next, you’ll be telling me that the main drain has demons living at the bottom of it. Rubbish!”

  Kirrik nodded and kept his mouth closed. He had, in fact, heard the story about the main drain as well. It was Roegudok Hall’s strangest shaft. A hole dug straight down some two hundred yards behind a secret gate of stone and iron. Its true purpose was to drain the water if ever the entrance tunnel needed to be flooded in defense, but of course there were rumors that the hole was a shortcut to Hammenfein itself. Still, Kirrik knew that that particular story was a child’s fable. The rumors of what lurked below in the forgotten tunnels, he was not so sure of.

  With each strike of the pickaxes, Kirrik jumped. He watched the hole widen as chips and hunks of stone fell away from the wall. Tareggh watched while Sarep and Red hacked away and Flint cleared the rubble.

  A rush of cold air came out from the chamber that made all the tiny hairs on Kirrik’s neck stand on end. He didn’t rest easy until a passageway was made and Tareggh went through. He took a lantern, and the others eagerly followed him. Shouts of excitement and celebration filled the air.

  “Kirrik, you did it!” Tareggh shouted. “You did it!”

  Kirrik smiled. He grabbed his backpack and rushed off to the chamber, relieved that it had only been his imagination playing tricks on him rather than some creature hiding in the shadows for them. He passed through the passageway and could hardly contain his smile. There were several pockets of the same pink crystal he had seen, but there was much, much more than that. A rich vein of gold sparkled under the lantern light on the north end of the wall. Off to the right of that by four yards was a round, smooth shaft that Kirrik had not seen before.

  “Lava tube,” Tareggh said as he pointed to the smooth shaft. “It goes in for several yards and then looks like it curves to drop straight down. Come here, Kirrik.”

  Kirrik nearly stumbled as Tareggh stuck his lantern into the tube. The glimmer was unmistakable. There were diamonds embedded in the walls of the tube.

  “Diamonds and gold,” Kirrik said breathlessly. “Doesn’t get much better than that.”

  “Hey boss, what is this stuff?” Sarep called out from the southern side of the chamber. He had managed to loose a hunk of the pink crystal and he held it up in his palm.

  “It’s morganite,” Red called out.

  “No,” Tareggh said quickly. “Morganite is a peachy-pink crystal. This is different.” Tareggh and Kirrik moved over to take a closer look.

  “Rubellite Tourmaline then?” Red guessed.

  “No,” Flint answered. “This crystal is far too pink. Rubellite Tourmaline, is a much deeper red.”

  “Could be tugtupite,” Kirrik said as they came in close and inspected the deep pink crystals.

  “That sounds right,” Tareggh said as he took the hunk of crystal in his hand and held it up to the lantern light. The hunk of crystal was felt warm in his hand as he brought it up to inspect it. “It has the right color, the correct sheen on the outside.” Tareggh cocked his head to the side and twisted the crystals around. “Now that is different,” he said. “The translucency is wrong. Tugtupite is not like this at all. The color is right, but I can see into the center of these crystals with just the lantern light. If it was tugtupite, I wouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I found it, so I get to name it if it is new!” Sarep said as he yanked the crystal back from Tareggh and placed it into his satchel.

  Tareggh shrugged. “Fine, you take the pink rock. I’ll claim the diamonds and gold.”

  They all shared a laugh and then Tareggh ordered them to work. They were to fill their packs with as much as they could carry and take it back tonight as proof they had found a new, promising mine for Roegudok Hall.

  Kirrik pulled out his powder and other ingredients, setting them near the passageway leading out from the chamber. He ignored Tareggh’s joke about Kirrik blowing the mine shut and sealing them inside to keep the treasure for themselves and picked up tools to start helping.

  He moved to the north wall, but Tareggh was more than handling the gold vein while Flint crawled into the lava tube a ways and was gathering diamonds. Kirrik moved to one of the columns that had formed when a stalactite and stalagmite met, and started pulling the strange pink crystal out from it.

  A cool breeze howled up from the lava tube that Flint was in, circling around the chamber and chilling Kirrik.

  “Whew!” Flint said as he covered his nose. “Smells like sulfur!”

  “Just don’t go falling into the tube with my diamonds,” Tareggh called out.

  Flint laughed.

  Kirrik looked up to Flint to make a funny face, making fun of the boss, but as he did so, he caught a glimpse of something beyond Flint, like a strange shadow lurking just out of sight. He pointed to it and was about to say something when Flint folded in half, let out a gargled groan, and was pulled back into the tube.

  “FLINT!” Kirrik shouted.

  Tareggh turned a warning green eye on Kirrik, but Kirrik pointed to the tube with a trembling hand while he raised his pickaxe in the other.

  Tareggh moved toward the tube, but Red called out from the back of the chamber.

  “Tareggh, get away, something is there!” he shouted.

  Tareggh rolled away just as a two foot long, white claw struck out from the tube and stabbed into the wall next to where the crew leader had just been.

  “For Flint!” Tareggh shouted as he leapt up to his feet and swung his pickaxe. He hit the claw with perfect precision, but the metal tool ricocheted off and Tareggh staggered back. A hideous figure emerged from the tube.

  It walked upon four legs shielded by a black exoskeleton. The back was covered by thick, wavy black fur. Two long arms stuck out from the top of the body, each tipped with a single white claw. It arched its front portion up, exposing an underbelly covered in rectangular, black scales and displaying its grotesque face. Two massive, spider-like mandibles unfolded to reveal a gaping mouth filled with circular rows of sharp fangs.

  The beast snarled and stepped forward at an alarming speed, its claws and feet scratching the stone floor. Tareggh moved in and slammed his pickaxe into the monster’s chest. The force of the blow was barely enough to penetrate the thick scales. The pick went in a couple of inches, but it was obviously not enough to do any real damage.

  A split second later a white claw cut Tareggh in half at the waist.

  Kirrik ran back for his powder, hoping he could create a mixture that would either kill, or scare the beast away.

  Sarep and Red might have tried to run, but the beast went directly for them. A claw reached in, severing Sarep’s satchel and pulling the pink crystal out as it snarled ferociously. Red jumped in, swinging at the monster’s face, but the creature was too quick. It sidestepped Red and came up with a devastating kick to Red’s chest that sent him flying away.

  Sarep swung his pickaxe, but the creature leapt back, easily avoiding the attack. It then opened its mouth and spat a thick, sizzling gob of black ooze at Sarep. It hit the unlucky dwarf in the face and he cried out in pain as smoke rose from the goo and Sarep fell to his knees. The creature lunged in, thrusting the point of one claw through Sarep’s chest.

  Kirrik forced himself to concentrate as he mixed powder and prepared a short fuse. He finished one explosive just as the creature started to eat Sarep’s corpse with sick, smacking sounds as bones broke and sinew was chewed. Kirrik lit the fuse and threw the weapon.

  “Red, get down!” Kirrik shouted.

  The beast looked up just as the explosive reached it and went off. A blinding flash of light erupted and the chamber echoed with a deafening boom. The creature shrieked and fell to the ground.

  Kirrik smiled, but as the smoke cleared, he saw that the creature was not dead. There was a smoking hole in its side, and one of its four legs had been blown off, but
the creature seemed to ignore the wound as it stood back up and howled at Kirrik.

  It came speeding toward him.

  Kirrik fumbled with the powder.

  Red rushed in, yelling and jumping with a mighty swing that punctured deep into the creature’s back. It screamed and arched upward toward the ceiling. Then, it leapt up, clinging to the ceiling and shaking Red from its back.

  A thick mess of yellow gunk coated Red’s pickaxe, but now the creature was cautious, scurrying away and snarling at the two dwarves.

  “Hit is again!” Red yelled. “I’ll keep it busy.”

  Kirrik put his head down and focused. Soon he made two more bombs. He could hear Red shouting and cursing at the beast as it snarled and lunged at him. Kirrik stuck the fuses in and prepared to throw one. “Move!” Kirrik yelled.

  He stood to throw the bomb and saw Red’s last moments as the beast dropped from the ceiling and drove both claws through Red. Then the creature looked to Kirrik and made a noise that almost sounded like laughter. Kirrik lit the bomb and threw it.

  He didn’t wait to see if it hit its mark. He had to act fast if he was going to stop the monster from escaping this chamber. If it had been sealed in here by the stone wall, then odds were it couldn’t dig out. So, Kirrik did the only thing he could think of. He mixed all of his powder in the three containers and prepared one large bomb.

  The explosion rocked the chamber. Shards of stone flew around, bouncing dangerously off the walls, but Kirrik didn’t slow. He didn’t look up either. The screeching scrapes along the ground were enough to tell him the beast lived through the second bomb. Worse than that, it was coming for him.

  The snarling grew louder and the seconds slowed while Kirrik’s hands furiously worked the last bits of powder. He popped the fuse and lit it. He picked up the three containers, hugging them tightly to his chest. He didn’t have any special casing to hold the bomb in place this time.

  He was going to have to do that himself.

  Kirrik leapt up onto the large bottom half of the boulder he had blown apart, drawing the creature closer to himself. Then, a moment before the fuse reached the powder, he turned and leapt into the hole. He felt something sharp rip through his back as the creature caught him, and then there was a flash of light and a terrible, thunderous explosion that shook the entire mine shaft. Hunks of rock and great granite slabs fell into the cavern, sealing the chamber, and closing off the tunnel for fifty yards beyond.