The Survivors

by Dan Willis

  “Son!” she called as their eyes met. “Please! Take me with you.”

  Bradok hesitated. It lasted only a second, but that was enough. A rock the size of a cart shook loose from the ceiling and landed on top of Sapphire, flattening her.

  “Good-bye, Mother,” he said softly, before he turned and ran.

  The hill dwarves and the believers raced ahead of him. Rose Steelspar’s blazing hair flew like a banner for him to follow. In the distance, he could see Perin busily helping a crowded file of dwarves up the narrow ramp and into the boat.

  He glanced back as he ran. There was Mayor Arbuckle and the guardsmen, not far behind, charging over the barricade with crazed eyes as the upper tunnel began to collapse behind them.

  “Look out, Bradok!” Kellik yelled.

  Bradok’s head snapped around just in time for him to avoid running headlong into a chunk of rock that had fallen from the ceiling.

  Kellik and Perin stood at the top of the ramp, helping Much into the boat.

  “Hurry up,” Kellik called over the roar of the trembling earth.

  A chunk of ceiling slammed down just to Bradok’s left, and he felt stinging pain as pieces of rock pierced his exposed face and arm. Blood ran into his eyes, and he could taste it in his mouth.

  He staggered, trying to wipe the blood from his eyes, but raced on. His boots hit the ramp, and he surged upward. The most violent tremor yet shook the entire cavern, and the ramp shook free of the boat, bouncing Bradok back to the floor of the cavern.

  “Throw him a rope!” Rose’s voice cried out as Bradok struggled to regain his feet and his breath.

  He looked over his shoulder as the ceiling over the barricade crumbled, crushing the barricade with the full weight of the mountain. Arbuckle, Bladehook, and the guardsmen were dodging and dashing about in a frenzy. Whether they were trying to escape the destruction or were still trying to reach him and the boat, he didn’t know.

  There was no time.

  Perin and Kellik had lost control of the ramp. Bradok looked around at what remained of the cooper’s shop. The forge and its chimney were the only remnants of the once-sturdy building left standing.

  Without thinking about it, Bradok rushed toward the forge. He stepped onto the lip of fire pit and jumped up onto the chimney. His fingers closed around the brickwork, and he scrambled up as fast as he could. When he’d reached the top, he was even with the top of the ship but still too far away to jump.

  Pain shot through Bradok’s foot as he kicked the chimney as hard as he could. Undaunted, he kicked again and again. He could hear the ruckus below as the first guardsmen reached the ship and started pounding on its side, begging to be let on board. Someone had seen Bradok and was following him up the chimney.

  He kicked again. That blow pushed a brick inward, leaving a hole where it had been. Bradok kicked again and felt the chimney shudder. He kicked again and scrambled around to the other side as the chimney began to topple.

  Weakened by the loss of bricks, it fell like a chopped tree. Bradok rode it down as it fell, and just as it came even with the side of the boat, he jumped forward, slamming into the upper edge of the vessel with such force that it knocked the wind out of him.

  “No you don’t, lad,” Much said, grabbing Bradok’s shirt as he began to slide over the side.

  More hands came to Much’s aid, and Bradok was pulled into the boat. About fifty dwarves were cowering in front of him as the ground continued to heave and those stuck outside pounded on its side. The boat itself had no cabins, nor any real deck; there was just a large open space. Bradok hoped it would be enough.

  “Bradok!” Bladehook’s fearful voice called from somewhere beyond the ship. “Bradok, you were right! We admit it! Let us in!”

  “Quickly!” Mayor Arbuckle was yelling to guardsmen Bradok couldn’t see. “Find some wood to use as a ramp!”

  “Get ready to repel boarders!” Perin called to the dwarves on the boat.

  What are you waiting for? Bradok thought. I don’t know if I believe in you, Reorx, he prayed silently. But if you are real, and if this is your plan, now is the time to reveal yourself.

  It was the first time he’d prayed since he was a child.

  Almost instantly, he felt something shake his leg. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the brass device Erus had given him. The purple stone on its lid was shining with a brilliant light, and the whole thing was vibrating so energetically Bradok could barely hold onto it.

  Not knowing how he knew what he was doing, Bradok touched the hidden catch, certain it would work. Indeed, the device’s lid snapped open, the purple light exploding from inside.

  When Bradok’s eyes cleared, he spied the figure of a dwarf, of Erus himself, standing there before him, suspended in the purple light of the device. Erus stared at Bradok then winked before picking up his enormous hammer. The image began to swell.

  Screams and cries of alarm rang out as the figure continued to grow and grow, looming above and larger even than the boat.

  “It’s Reorx!” Jon Bladehook screamed, his voice filled with terror.

  The purplish image of Reorx glanced down at Bladehook, as though amused, then turned to the back wall of the cavern. He hefted his massive hammer and swung it, slamming its metal head into the stone wall. A spiral fracture appeared where the hammer had struck, but before it could grow, Reorx swung again.

  A crack ran up the wall and across the ceiling. Bradok stared as the crack grew and grew and split in two, allowing the first huge chunk of ceiling to dislodge. It was as if the whole thing were happening in slow motion, Bradok thought. The chunk of ceiling ripped loose and plunged down, narrowly missing the boat but landing square on Jon Bladehook.

  A third blow from the hammer shattered the back wall, revealing a wide passage with a floor that sloped down and away from the Artisans’ Cavern. With that, the image of Reorx shouldered his hammer and turned to look straight at Bradok.

  “The rest is up to you,” the image of Reorx said. Then the light flared so brightly Bradok had to cover his eyes.

  When he could see again, the image was gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  Silas’s Legacy

  What now?” Much yelled over the rumbling and roiling earth. “What are we supposed to do? Push this thing down there?”

  “I don’t know,” Bradok yelled back.

  “You don’t know?” Much said, an astonished look on his face. “We’re in a ship, in a tunnel that’s falling down all over, surrounded by a bunch of armed and angry dwarves trying to join or kill us, and you don’t know? What was your plan?”

  “I mean I don’t know yet,” Bradok called. “But everything has been planned out pretty well up to now. I’m sure there will be some sign—”

  “Some sign!” Much muttered, rolling his eyes. “Well, unless you know how to levitate a boat, I don’t see how we’re going to go anywhere very fast,” Much continued. “It’s impossible.”

  A thunderous crack echoed through the tunnel, drawing all eyes toward the upper end. With a crash and a roar, the ceiling fell in. Somewhere above the Artisans’ Cavern, there must have been a mountain lake; when the ceiling came down, it brought with it a torrential flood of water.

  Channeled by the narrow cavern, the water rushed over the remains of the cooper’s shop and slammed into the ship. Bradok held on to the side as the ship pitched, turned, and, finding its balance, began to float. All around him he could hear the screams of the guardsmen as they were swept away by the rush of water.

  From below came a grinding noise as the ship’s bottom scraped over the huge rocks that littered the uneven floor. A moment later, however, the water had risen sharply and they floated free.

  “Hang on,” Rose’s voice came from the front of the boat, a note of horror in it.

  That was when Bradok remembered the steep-sloping passage. A second later, the ship lurched and pitched downward, picking up velocity. Inside the boat, people were screaming and grabbing for handholds.
Bradok had just succeeded in passing Much an anchor line when the passage curved sharply and the boat slammed into the wall, throwing him forward several yards. Freezing spray washed over him as the boat twisted, whipped around, and banked downward in the narrow passage.

  Bradok had only just managed to push himself to his feet when another sharp turn sent him lurching into nearby dwarves. Pushing himself up, he found he’d landed on top of the hill dwarf Rose.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  She pushed him off her and passed him an anchor line. “Tie off,” she said with a shy smile.

  Bradok tied the line around his waist and leaned back against the side.

  “Now lock arms and hang on,” Rose said.

  Bradok locked elbows with Rose on his right and Tal on his left. A moment later his stomach dropped and he knew the boat had reached the end of the tunnel. Screams erupted in the semidarkness as the ship shot out, unsupported, into the empty depths.

  They were falling.

  “Hold on!” he heard himself shout as much to himself as to anyone else.

  The eerie sensation of weightlessness seemed to go on forever. Bradok knew the suspense couldn’t have lasted more than a couple of seconds, but it seemed to be an eternity. Just when Bradok decided they would never stop falling, the ship slammed into water. The impact smashed him down into the bottom of the boat.

  Purple spots swam before Bradok’s eyes, and it seemed like a long time before his senses worked again. When he finally tried to move, he found himself in a tangle of arms and legs. He levered himself up, only to find he’d somehow landed on Rose again.

  Tal grabbed Bradok’s shoulder and hauled him to his feet then bent to help Rose. “Really, Bradok,” he said good-humoredly once Rose was back on her feet. “If you’re going to keep doing that, I’m going to have to ask what your intentions are regarding my sister.”

  “I, uh,” Bradok stammered, blushing to the roots of his beard.

  “If he does that again, he’d better send flowers first,” Rose said with a sarcastic grin.

  Both she and Tal laughed while Bradok tried to find his tongue.

  “Too bad, sis,” Tal said, his grin widening. “This one doesn’t seem to have a sense of humor.”

  “Bradok!” Chisul’s voice rang out. “Stop dillydallying. We need some help over here.”

  Bradok turned, surveying the ship in the bluish light of the lamps on either end. He could see the pregnant Lyra holding on to her daughter, Jade, who clung in desperate terror to her mother but seemed to be otherwise unharmed. Kellik’s younger son, however, was leaning against his father, his face a mask of pain. Even from such a distance, Bradok could see that the lad’s arm was bent at a funny angle where it should have been straight.

  “Did you say you have some healing skills?” Bradok asked Tal, pointing at Kellik’s son.

  Tal nodded, already pulling a small brown kit from his pack.

  The ship seemed to be slowing, and Bradok was able to stand with ease. Tal brushed past him, walking with a smooth grace that bespoke time spent at sea.

  “Who has bad injuries?” Bradok called out, picking his way along the long edge of the ship toward Kellik.

  “I’m bleeding,” an older dwarf with a long, white beard replied as he passed. “But ‘tain’t nothing.”

  There was a long, bloody scratch on the old-timer’s arm, clearly left by the nails of the dwarf girl who sat on his left. Without a word, a matronly dwarf on his right ripped a strip of cloth from the hem of her dress and bandaged the wound.

  When Bradok reached Kellik, the burly smith cradled his son in his lap. “It’s broken,” he said glumly in answer to Bradok’s unasked question.

  “Then we’ll need to set it,” said Tal, who had followed Bradok closely.

  The boy’s pale face went absolutely white. Tal put his hand on the lad’s shoulder and looked into his brown eyes.

  He unslung his heavy pack and dropped it at Bradok’s feet, pulling it open almost before it hit the boards of the barrel’s bottom. His hand emerged a moment later with a small, round case, painted blue with tarnished brass hardware. Tal opened the case, revealing a rare white glowstone that was held before a reflector in the device’s lid. The resulting light shone out in a bright beam and illuminated the contents of the backpack.

  “Now then,” he said easily, pulling out a bottle of red glass. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Hemmish,” the boy said.

  “My youngest,” Kellik said, still cradling the boy. “But he’s a brave one and strong as they come too.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Tal said with a genuine, reassuring smile. “Now you just rest easy, Hemmish, and we’ll get you taken care of.” He unstoppered the red bottle and pressed it to the boy’s lips. “Take a swig of this,” he said.

  As Hemmish drank, Tal turned to Bradok. “See if you can find me a splint. Any piece of wood will do, so long as it’s small and stout.”

  Bradok turned and retrieved a scrap piece of dowel, about an inch in diameter, which they had used to make pegs when building the ship.

  “Anyone got a hand axe?” he asked the group. Several hands went up, and a grizzled dwarf with an unkempt beard and a glass eye passed Bradok a short axe from his amply laden belt.

  Bradok stood the dowel on its end, and after a few taps, the metal blade bit into the dowel. Then he raised axe and dowel together and brought them down on the planks of the bottom of the boat. The axe bit right through the dowel, splitting it into two thin strips of wood about the length of Hemmish’s arm. Bradok passed both the strips to Tal.

  “Those will do fine,” he said, giving them a quick once-over.

  Hemmish had drunk from the red bottle, and the boy’s cheeks were rosy and his eyes were moving unsteadily in his head.

  “Papa,” he said in a dreamy voice. “Where’s Mama? Why isn’t she here with us?”

  A look of pain crossed Kellik’s face. It looked so out of place on the strong man that if Bradok hadn’t been looking right at the bulbous-nosed mountain of a dwarf, he’d have sworn an oath that such an expression never had darkened Kellik’s face before.

  “She’s gone, lad,” he said in a gentle voice. “Gone to a better place, I reckon. We’ll be with her again one day, but not for a long time.”

  “That’s too bad,” Hemmish said drowsily. “I miss her.”

  “Me too,” Kellik said in a voice too soft for Hemmish to hear.

  While Hemmish had been rambling, Tal laid out several strips of cloth and the splints Bradok had cut.

  “We’re going to set the bone. I’ll tie it up good and tight,” he said. “Hold him.”

  Kellik tightened his grip on Hemmish as Bradok grabbed the boy’s feet. Tal took hold of Hemmish’s arm and, after carefully aligning it, jerked it into place. Hemmish cried out in pain, but his face quickly resumed its happy, oblivious look. Tal swiftly and expertly tied up the arm and splinted it. Within minutes, the doctor had slipped the broken arm into a sling made from two handkerchiefs tied together.

  “That should do just fine,” he said, smiling at Kellik. “We’ll check it in a few days.”

  “That’s assuming we’re still alive in a few days,” Chisul’s voice sounded behind them, echoing through the semidarkness. Silas’s son stood, leaning against the rounded side of the ship.

  “Why wouldn’t we be alive?” Rose said from the far side with deliberate loud cheerfulness. “Reorx didn’t inspire your father to build this magnificent craft to be our coffin,” she added, rubbing her hand reverently along the wooden side of the ship.

  “You still don’t get it.” Chisul laughed. “Reorx had nothing to do with the design of this boat.” He waved his arm around. “This is a barrel without one side,” he said. “One-half of a barrel, just like hundreds of others that he made during his life. It’s just bigger. The biggest barrel that he ever made.”

  Bradok frowned.

  “You don’t think it’s just a tiny bit conveni
ent that we’re here in this ship, being swept away from Ironroot at the very moment it was destroyed?” returned Rose. “If that wasn’t Reorx who opened the passage in front of us, then who was it?”

  A murmur of assent ran through the barrel’s passengers.

  “I don’t know how we ended up here,” Chisul retorted. “And neither do you. What I do know is that we’re lost, cut off from civilization with precious few supplies, and with no idea where we’re going. Don’t you see,” he added. “This giant half-barrel boat isn’t saving us; it’s taking us further away from help every minute.”

  “What do you propose we do about that?” a squat, dull-faced dwarf in the front asked.

  “Yes,” Lyra said sulkily. “It’s not like we can get out and walk.”

  “That’s exactly what we should do,” Chisul said, moving to the side. “We need to beach this craft and get our bearings.”

  They all stared out over the water. The boat was floating along easily in some kind of current. Across the water on either side they couldn’t see much—misty shapes maybe, more water definitely.

  “That’s insane,” a barrel-chested hill dwarf who was peering over the side said. “We don’t know if there’s any land out there.”

  “Besides,” Rose pointed out, “how are we supposed to steer this boat?”

  Bradok might have got around to adding a rudder to Silas’s design, but there hadn’t been time. He suspected he knew why Silas had left off the rudder. He had trusted in Reorx. Without a rudder, there would be no way to take control of the ship. And it would have to go wherever it floated or drifted.

  “She’s got a point,” Much said, narrowing his eyes at Bradok as though it were all his fault.

  “Uh, guys,” Lyra said, pointing. “You might want to see this.”

  Bradok edged to the front of the ship, where the railings were short enough to look over the side. Chisul, Rose, and Kellik all clambered up next to him to see. Bradok jumped up, catching hold of the side rail and pulling himself up to where he could swing his leg over the rail and perch there. In the dim glow of the lantern, he could spy black water about six feet below him, which disappeared in the darkness beyond the light.